Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“We live as we dream…alone.”
—Joseph Conrad

The house was small, like most of the houses in the colony, other than the ones built for members of The Council or the executives of the Space Agency, who pretty much ruled here.

But this one was just a normal, wood frame, two bedroom cottage. Judy was happy here. At least she was comfortable. It had been a long time since she had been happy. And she certainly wasn’t this morning.

She walked out the door into her back yard. It was small, like the house, but the grass was dark green and lush. It was surrounded on both sides by a wooden privacy fence, and in the back along the alley, a full hedge, not high enough to keep people from looking over it, but it was getting there. She liked her privacy.

She slammed the door behind her, but it opened again and Don West walked out. “Judy, talk to me,” he said.

She wheeled around and faced him. “Why did you come back here, Don?” She asked.

“To see you.”

“You haven’t seen me in two years. Why is it so Goddamn important now? What we had is in the past. Exactly where it should be.”

“Judy, I missed you. I wanted to see you. But it’s not just that.”

“Then what is it?” She demanded. 

“I saw your dad.”

She didn’t answer at first, then she said, “My dad’s dead. He died almost twenty five years ago.”

“You know who I mean.”

“John Robinson is not my dad. John Robinson was never my dad.”

Don heard the pain in her voice, and wished more than anything he could do something to ease it. But those days were long past.

“He’s not doing well,” Don said. “I think he needs to see you, Judy. I would have gone to see Penny, but…do you know where she is?”

“No. I haven’t seen her in months. I woke up one morning and she was asleep on the couch. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a real bed in weeks. I tried to give her some credits, but she wouldn’t take them. She stayed for a few hours then left, and I haven’t seen her since. What do you mean Dad…John…isn’t doing well?”

“On my last trip to Earth I had to run a transport out West and he was at Nellis. It’s practically the front now. Almost the entire state is a war zone. I asked if anyone had heard any news of him. I knew he was leading a SEAL Team again, and I figured, knowing your dad…”

“John,” She corrected him.

“Knowing your dad he would be in the mix somewhere.” She didn’t correct him this time. “And he just happened to be there at the base for a few days. He had been in the San Gabriel Mountains and was wounded pretty badly and had to be medevacked out.”

“How is he?” She asked, trying to sound monotone, and hide the concern in her voice.

“He’ll live. He had almost recovered by the time I saw him. That’s not the problem. He’s…he needs to see someone in the family. I think…I think he wants to die out there. He keeps going back. They said the last year and a half he’s returned again and again, leading teams to the mountains. Normally two tours and they pull them. But he refuses to leave.”

“Don, why are you still trying to keep us together? None of us give a shit. Dad’s been gone since the end of our first year on Alpha, Mom works all the time; Penny has gone off the deep end and it won’t surprise me if they find her dead some morning. I…” She stopped talking.

“You’re going to work yourself to death. You and your mom both.”

“Is that what happened with us? Me and you?” She asked. “It’s not like you ever really said why you just had to leave.”

“Judy, I tried. I…couldn’t help you, and I couldn’t stand to watch what you had become.”

“You tried. Just not hard enough.”

“Judy…”

“I fucking loved you Don.”

“I know. And I loved you. I still love you. I just…I couldn’t watch what you were doing to yourself.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“When you guys found me I saw how broken you all were. I didn’t know your brother. But I could see how what had happened to him destroyed you. And, I just thought you were worth saving.”

“Well, we weren’t. We were when Will was with us, but after he died…”

“But people die. Families adjust and move on. They never get over it, but they move on the best they can. But not you guys. It’s been more than three years ago.”

“Well, Don, it’s like you said. You didn’t know Will. But it’s more than that. More than how good he was. He knew. He always knew something would happen to him. I think he knew something would happen to all of us. But he went along anyway. Trying to be brave for everyone else. In the end, he was right. And…it was the way he died too. It didn’t have to happen.”

“But he saved you. With the battery.”

“Yeah. He did. That doesn’t make it any better. I was looking down at him. In his eyes. He was so frightened. And he pushed the battery up, and told me and Dad he would be able to climb better without it. So I grabbed the battery and handed it up to Da…John. Then Will said his foot was caught. And…I just knew he sacrificed himself for us. That he already knew his foot was caught, and he was going to die there, but he wanted to make sure we survived. He refused to drop the battery. If he had just dropped the Goddamned battery. If he had just…” Now she couldn’t hold back the tears.

“Judy,” Don started to walk toward her.

“Just don’t…don’t touch me!” She wanted him to touch her so badly. She wanted him to wrap his arms around her like he used to when she was like this. She wanted him to tell her it would be okay, and he would always be there. She wanted him to tell her she would never be alone. But she backed away from him.

“Judy, if Will had dropped the battery, you probably all would have died.”

“No. We would have found a way. We always found a way. My family back then—before you knew us—we were survivors. We were a team. And we stuck together. I told Will that one time. When he was afraid he hadn’t passed the test to come to Alpha. He said he would have to stay behind. I threw my manuals away, and told him I would borrow his when they came in, because he was going with us. Because Robinson’s always stick together. I told him it was written in stone. But I was wrong. Robinsons don’t always stick together. Just look at us now. He was the glue, Don. He held us together. We didn’t know that back then, but we do now. We were survivors. But when he pushed the battery up to me and fell back, it wasn’t just him that died. We all died that day. Everything we were died.”

“But Judy…your dad…”

“He’s not my dad, Don. But he was Will’s Dad. And the most important thing he could have done was protect his children. Especially the most vulnerable. Especially Will. I would have. I tried. But John stopped me.”

“Judy…I know it was bad…”

“You don’t know a damn thing about it. You weren’t there. Let me tell you how it was. My eleven year old brother was so afraid of everything. So afraid to go to space. And my…John…made him put that damn suit on and jump in the water. And when Will had to make the choice to drop the battery and live, or save his family by pushing the battery up to me and die…that’s when he decided to be brave.

“I can still see his eyes as he floated down into that freezing water. He was crying, but he was no longer afraid. That’s the weirdest thing. He said, ‘It’s okay, Judy. It’s okay.’ Comforting me. Do you fucking believe that? My eleven year old brother. The kindest human I have ever met, was comforting me in the last seconds of his life.

“And then he was gone. Just…gone.” She paused to wipe her eyes.

“We were there on top of the ship. John had jumped down in the water with me. His suit had a tear in it, so he didn’t have long. But he jumped down anyway. When Will fell back in the water we stayed there, on the top of the Jupiter for so long. He almost died, I think. John I mean, because of the hole in the suit. So I helped him up to the top. That’s the last thing I ever did for him. And it will be the last thing I ever do for him.

“We climbed out and we were on our knees, all of us. Mom and Penny were there too on the ice, looking back into the hole. And I looked at him…at John…and I said, ‘you killed my little brother.”

“Judy…” Don said.

“Those were the last words I ever spoke to him. The man who raised me. Who did everything for me. I looked at him and said, ‘you killed my little brother.’ Then I stood up and walked back by the tent. I sat down and wrapped my arms around my knees, and pulled them to my chest and just sat there. Not crying. Not talking to anyone. Not thinking. Just sitting.

“My mom’s leg was broken and when she started to stand, and John tried to help her, she said, ‘get your goddamn hands off me!’

“Penny helped her and while they were walking back over to the tent, my mom looked at John—he was still on his knees on the ice—there by himself staring down into that hole he put my little brother in. And Mom said, ‘why don’t you find a way to get my little boy out of that hole? He’s…he’s all alone.’

“And that was it. That was the end of my family. That’s how it was.

“Oh, Penny tried once we got here. You know. You were there then, Don.”

“I know,” Don said. “She talked to me all the time back then, when she practically lived at our house. She thought there was hope. She thought between her and I, we could fix it with you and your dad. She even held out hope that your mother would forgive him, she said. What happened to her? Did she finally give up when she decided your Dad wasn’t coming back?”

“No, Don. She gave up when you left. You’re right, up until then she was still trying. But Mom was always distant, and you and I were her only family. She loved you too, Don. But when you and I broke up, she moved out of Mom’s house. I asked her to stay with me, but she didn’t want to. She blamed me for you leaving. The last two years she’s been staying with boyfriends or girlfriends or whoever would let her sleep on a couch for a few weeks at a time, I guess. But I go months without seeing her now.”

“I’m sorry, Judy. I’m really sorry. But if you could have seen your dad…”

“He’s not my dad Don, my little brother is gone, my little sister is practically gone, my mom has crawled inside herself, and you are no longer a part of my life. Get the fuck out of here!”

Don just looked back at her. Then he sighed. “I love you, Judy,” he said. He hesitated, then walked back to the house.

Judy turned then toward the alley and…she stared directly at Will, who was watching over the hedge. “What the hell are you looking at?” She said.

Chapter Text

“It was written, I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.”
                                                 -Joseph Conrad

Will was pulled from the dream, and he immediately grabbed his heart. His head was foggy and he couldn’t remember what happened or where he was. He thought maybe he was dead, or at least dying. He had a flashing thought that he was trapped by a vine—or something—and that whatever it was had entangled him and was pulling him along the ground. He was in pain, but couldn’t tell where it was from. Maybe from everywhere at the same time. He was freezing cold, his fingers and toes numb from it. His eyes were closed, and he thought to open them, but didn’t, his subconscious mind unwilling to face whatever was out there, dragging him across the surface.

So much had happened to him in the last three years, especially since leaving the planet where the children had been separated from their parents. If he kept his eyes closed, maybe it would all just go away.

He decided to put his mind elsewhere, just not think about whatever was happening. He let his thoughts drift back to the dream.

It was so real. And he thought he was outside it, watching, and they couldn’t see him. But Judy had looked right at him. She didn’t recognize him, so in the dream he must look like he did now. The fourteen year old Will was much different than the eleven year old Will. And in the dream, he had died when he was eleven.

They were obviously on Alpha Centauri. That’s what Judy and Don had been talking about. But it was different. The houses were certainly different. They looked like houses back on Earth. Constructed with the raw material available on the planet, which was pretty much the same as Earth, depending on which zone you were in. They definitely were not the strange looking, layered buildings on Alpha made from a 3-D printer, the quickest, most efficient way to begin building the colony. The plan had always been to expand the colony and construct future settlements with the available raw material, but in his dream, it wasn’t far in the future. It sounded like they had left Earth just a little over three years before.

And Don and his sister were pretty much the same age as they were now. But Judy did look different. A little harsher, maybe. Like life had not been kind to her. And it hadn’t been, in this dream, he knew. It was the saddest thing he had ever heard. As he had watched Judy and Don argue, he wanted to reach out to his sister and tell her he loved her, he would always love her, even if he was dead. But he didn’t think he could, because he wasn’t present in the dream. Or at least he didn’t think he was until she looked right at him and spoke to him, as if he was there.

He knew it was somehow a continuation of the dream he had had of dying in the water, when his dad had stopped Judy from taking his place. Judy had described it to Don, just the way it had happened in his previous dream. He had heard of recurring dreams, and had had them himself. But he had never heard of a dream continuing before. As if this dream was subject to the same arrow of time that all matter in the universe was.

And Penny. He was glad he hadn’t seen her in the dream. If she was the way Judy described her, that was one thing he never wanted to see. Hopefully, he would never have this dream again, he thought. Because it wasn’t a dream at all. It was a nightmare. The worst one he had ever had. Much worse than the one when he died in the freezing water, because this was about his family and what his death had done to them all. And seeing Judy’s pain, and hearing her describe what his family had become was so much worse than death to the boy.

As he was dragged across the ice, Will slowly began to remember where he was and how he had gotten here. It wasn’t completely clear, but he knew he had somehow miscalculated. One more in a long line of miscalculations. If it hadn’t been so traumatic to his family and everyone he came in contact with, it would almost be funny.

They all thought he was some kind of hero. For saving the family. For saving the colony. But he didn’t see it that way. In his mind, everything that had happened to him was a series of mistakes he, himself, had made.

He had been afraid to jump into the ice. That led to him finding Robot, and launching something he could not control. SAR’s quest to capture him and kill him, which led to the children being separated for a year. And eventually to the attack on the colony on Alpha Centauri.

People died in the robot attack. Even if in the end, Will was able to bring the code back to control SAR and the robots—people died. Which never would have happened if he had just jumped in the damn water. It all started with that. His hesitation to do what his father had told him to do. How many lives would have been saved if he had just done what he was told?

But in his dream, the most important people in his life—his family—had individually destructed because of that. It was like he was trapped in some horrific version of Schrodinger’s Cat. Open the box and let Judy jump in the water and innocent people die, or open the box and jump in the water himself and his family is destroyed. There was apparently no escape from his own horrible destiny.

He felt an overpowering guilt that so many lives were lost because he didn’t just jump in the water, and there were still so many unanswered questions. He couldn’t be satisfied with staying on Alpha Centauri with his family. He just had to know. He had to. Where did the aliens come from? Why did SAR want him? And why did people have to die because of it all?

He thought he would never be able to live a normal life until he found the answers. But there was another question, the question that puzzled Will the most. What did SAR mean when he said, “now you are free?” He was convinced there was more to that than some kind of message of dominance as the robot killed his sworn enemy.

So Will left Alpha Centauri with Robot to try and find the answer, lying to his family about what he was doing, telling them they were just going to explore the galaxy. He discovered the aliens were not extinct. They trapped him and put the device in his heart that would destroy the entire colony on Alpha Centauri. And so he fled with Robot once again, only this time he could never return. He had to get as far away from his family and anyone else he could hurt. And that’s how they ended up on this bleak planet.

When they first left Alpha Centauri, Will had only one thing on his mind: Get as far away from the colony, from his family, and from anyone he could harm as quickly as he could. And so he went with Robot to his ship, which his friend had landed in a field past the woods from the Robinson’s house, and they left the planet.

He soon realized that might have been the safest thing for everyone on Alpha Centauri, but it was not the smartest plan in the world. Robot was able to create an atmosphere on the ship where Will could breathe and survive, but that was it. There was no food, no water, and no other facilities equipped for organic life. They had to go somewhere to find food and water, with an atmosphere he could survive in, as quickly as possible.

They had left Alpha Centauri, and as soon as they were out of orbit, Will said, “Robot, we need to get far away as soon as we can, okay?” Robot had taken them through the rift after another couple of hours, then they were drifting in space, though Will had no idea where. He wasn’t sure Robot did either.

Will had started to explain to Robot about finding a planet that would sustain human life, but he immediately felt connected to him, and knew his friend understood his needs. Will was aware of three planets other than Alpha since coming to space that was suitable for human life. The first planet they had landed on, the Goldilocks planet. But he knew that was no longer an option, since practically all organic life would have been destroyed by now. There was the planet where he and Robot had been captured in the Sirius system, but he was never going to go back there again. And then there was the Amber planet, which certainly held organic life, but that solar system also contained hundreds of Robots. And while SAR was gone, and the robots now seemed to have minds of their own, Will wasn’t sure what they would find there.

And apparently, when he said, “The Amber Planet?” To Robot, his friend agreed. As he only said, “Danger.” It might be their only option in the end, but Will didn’t want it to be their first option, and neither did Robot.

“Do you know of a planet that can sustain human life? At least so I can find food and water?”

Robot had looked at him for several seconds, then walked to the center of the ship. Will was fascinated by the robot ships, even now, when everything in his past life seemed to be over, and his days were numbered, watching Robot navigate this incredible vessel had him riveted.

Robot stood beneath the circle of blue metal and grasped the extended hand grips. The three dimensional star chart appeared all around him. Robot looked over at Will, stared at him for a few seconds, then back to the front of the ship, and seemed to concentrate on the map that surrounded them.

Will could sense what Robot was doing. In his mind, he saw the calculations: 79% hydrogen, 20% oxygen, gravity 9.8 m/s. There were other symbols Will didn’t recognize, but he knew that Robot was searching for a planet that could sustain human life. He watched as one planet seemed to brighten, and the other’s faded into the background. Robot released one of the grips, stretched his hand out, and the celestial bodies appeared to fly past them, as the map changed. Robot looked back at Will. Will understood, and sat down and leaned against the side of the ship and wrapped his arm around a metal beam that ran from the deck and curved toward the ceiling. Ready, he sent the message to Robot, and his friend took the hand grip and once again opened the rift. They were pulled in as the spaceship vibrated and the blue lights seemed to emit from everywhere at one time.

Two days later they landed on the planet. Will was as hungry as he had ever been before, but he knew the most important thing was to get water. He knew a human could live around three days without water, and Robot kept the ship cool enough that Will didn’t lose any moisture through his sweat glands. But by the time they had landed, his mouth was so dry, he stopped communicating with Robot at all by talking. He had a pounding headache and was feeling dizzy, the dehydration getting into dangerous levels.

But when Robot opened the spaceship door, and Will followed him outside, he thought Robot was mistaken. He could breathe in the atmosphere, but it was a frozen wasteland. Will stopped at the top of the hatchway and looked out on a black sky and a field of ice. He looked at his wrist radio and saw the temperature was almost zero.

“I can’t go out there, Robot. I’ll freeze to death,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“Yes, Will Robinson.”

“You want me to stay in the ship?”

“Yes, Will Robinson.”

“I need water first though. Do you think the ice is safe?”

Robot knelt where he stood, placed his hand over the ice. Will saw the lights in his face shield whirl, and thought he must be scanning the composition. Robot looked up at him. “No…Danger.”

Will rushed down the ramp, rubbing his arms for warmth, and knelt where Robot was. Robot raised one hand, holding it over Will’s head, and Will felt the air around him begin to warm. Robot placed his other hand over the ice. It turned red and the ice beneath it became liquid. Will scooped water up with two hands and drank. It was freezing cold, but it felt good on his lips and dry throat. He scooped the water up several times, then looked at Robot and said, “Thanks, Robot. I think I’m good for now.”

He stood and hurried back to the ship. He turned back and looked at Robot, who was standing now, in the same place, watching Will.

“You’re going to look for food?”

“Yes, Will Robinson.”

“Okay, I’ll stay here. Thank you, Robot.”

He stepped back inside, hit the control to close the hatch, and walked to the window, where he watched Robot trudge across the barren landscape, wondering what food he hoped to find in this place.

An hour later Robot was back. He was carrying a bundle of something large and white. Will met him at the hatch, opened the door, and Robot walked inside. He dropped the bundle on the deck of the ship. Will knelt down beside it.

It was the fur of a large animal. It was frozen. “Well, there’s organic life,” Will said. “Which makes sense, with this atmosphere. But what is it?”

He turned the fur over, examining it closely. Now he saw there was a partially decayed skull. Will picked it up and looked at it. “It’s not decayed. It’s been eaten,” he said.

He remembered when he had gotten separated from his father on the Goldilocks planet, and he thought there was organic life, and there must be something that fed on that organic life. And something that fed on that something. And by the size of this hide, whatever it was that had killed the animal was quite large.

He looked up at Robot. “Did you see where this thing could live? Or the thing that ate this thing?”

“Yes, Will Robinson.”

“Where?”

Robot turned and walked back to the hatch, pressed the control and the door opened. He walked down the ramp out on to the ice. He turned and looked back at Will. He pointed to the surface.

“It lives under the ice?” Will asked.

“Yes, Will Robinson.”

Will was standing at the top of the ramp, his arms wrapped around himself, shivering. He stepped back inside. Robot walked up the ramp and stepped in. Will pressed the control, shutting the door behind him.

Robot knelt down by the carcass of the dead animal. He held his hands over it, and Will saw the heat emanating from his palms. He was thawing the fur. When it was no longer frozen, Robot took one of his fingers and ran it along a piece of the animal skin, burning a line and slicing along it.

Will immediately thought of the vision Robot had sent him on returning to Alpha Centauri. The Alien opening his chest in the same way, though without the heat. Just a long, sharp talon at the end of his finger, piercing his skin, then slicing his chest open to reach his heart. Will pushed the memory from his mind.

Robot continued until he had a square piece of fur, then he cut two more strips from the hide, and cut four slits in the square piece, running the strips through and tying them together at the top. When he was finished, Will saw he had fashioned a bowl from the skin of the animal.

“You would have made a great Boy Scout, Robot. Did you learn that?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“You…Will…Robinson.”

Will had no idea what he meant and started to ask, but Robot walked back to the hatch, pressed the control and walked outside. Will watched from the deck of the ship as Robot knelt down, and using one of his fingers, sliced a block of ice from the surface, placed it in the bowl he had fashioned and walked back up the ramp and closed the hatch. He held the bowl up, placed his other hand over the ice, heated it, and the ice melted into water.

He handed the bowl to Will. 

Will was still so thirsty, he drank almost the entire bowl before stopping. He smiled. “Thanks, Robot.”

Then his friend had gone hunting. He was looking for anything that was edible. Plant or animal. Like whatever it was Robot had found, or whatever had killed it. It had been almost four days since Will had eaten anything at all. At this point, he wasn’t particular.

But Robot was having no luck. There wasn’t any plant life anywhere, though Will knew there had to be, probably somewhere under the surface. And whatever animal life lived here, it seemed impossible to catch.

Robot had seen something twice. It was big and brown, but so far away he couldn’t really tell what it was. And as soon as it spied Robot out on the ice, it disappeared beneath it. Robot was fast, and he could fire his weapons accurately over three hundred yards, but he was never able to get close. When he arrived at the spot in the ice where the animal had disappeared, there was nothing there but a hole, and it was already freezing over. Robot had tried to follow the animal down, but the ice was at least ten meters thick, and once he made his way through it, he found nothing but a barren underground sea, with a sandy surface deep beneath the ice shield. But there was no organic life anywhere that he could find, even after searching for hours.

On their second day on the planet, Will stood watching his friend out the window of the ship. Robot had fired at something, so Will assumed he had spotted the animal again. He was tired of waiting and hoping his friend would find something, so he picked the white fur up and wrapped it around his body and over his head, walked over to the hatch, punched the control and stepped down the ramp onto the ice. Robot was maybe a thousand yards away. Will started making his way over the frozen ground toward him.

Robot was concentrating on hunting, and hadn’t noticed Will leave the spaceship. When Will was three or four hundred yards from him, the fur wrapped tightly around his face where only his nose and eyes were visible now, he heard something behind him, back near the ship. Will turned and saw it there maybe two hundred yards away.

It stood on its two rear legs, and must have been twelve feet tall. Its body had the composition of a bear, but its head was round and its face almost flat, with long fangs on both the top and bottom. Its arms—or upper legs—seemed out of proportion to its body, extremely long and thick. Will started slowly backing towards Robot. The animal crouched. Will hoped Robot could see him. The animal let out a blood curdling scream, and charged. Will turned and ran toward Robot, while at the same time, trying to connect to him. Help Robot!

He felt his friend connect, and now was running in Will’s direction. He looked over his shoulder to see how close the animal was getting, but it had already disappeared. Will saw the hole in the ice, a hundred meters away. He turned and started running toward Robot again, not knowing if this thing was able to come up anywhere it wanted.

Robot reached him in less than a minute. He grabbed Will and picked him up and placed him behind his large body. His face shield was red, and Will felt the worry in his friend. They both stood there waiting, watching, and listening. After several minutes they approached the hole. The water was already beginning to freeze back over.

Will looked at Robot, then down in the hole. I have an idea, but Robot isn’t going to like it, he thought.

Chapter Text

Penny was in the kitchen making coffee. She was frustrated, and wishing she had someone nearby she could take it out on, but her parents had left to go to a hearing for Dr. Smith, and Judy was already out when she woke up that morning.

Her sister had been gone every day since Will had left, and often didn’t get home until everyone was asleep. Penny was sure she was spending a lot of time with Don, and it infuriated her. Not the two of them being together, she was happy for them both in that regard. It was thinking they were off doing whatever it was they were doing, while Will was in danger.

She knew Judy had taken a leave of absence from the hospital, so she wasn’t working during the day. And she knew Don was supposed to be going to Alpha, because her mother had been spending all her time trying to figure out how to find Will, so Don was needed on the space station as the new ship was being built. But Penny didn’t think it was beyond the realm of possibility that Don was leaving to meet Judy during the day sometimes, and she was positive they were together in the evening.

She had confronted her sister two nights before, waiting up until she came home well after midnight.

Judy had walked in, and Penny was sitting in the dark in the living room. “Have fun?” She asked.

“Shit!” Judy said. “You startled me.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“What do you mean, what am I doing?” Judy asked.

“Hey, Will,” Penny said, acting like she was calling over her shoulder. “What do you think Judy’s been doing?”

She looked back at her sister. “I’m sorry, Judy. I forgot Will’s not here. Because some aliens strapped him down, cut him open, and stuck a fucking bomb in his chest. Looks like you forgot that too.”

Had it not been dark in the room, Penny would have seen how Judy’s face flushed in anger. She started to lash out, but immediately controlled herself. She breathed deeply. She tried to calm her voice. She was able to, to a degree, but not completely. “Penny, I can assure you I have not forgotten for a second what happened to Will! And if you have to know, that’s what I’ve been working on.”

“It was three days ago, and you’ve been gone every day, all day. So what are you doing to try and help find Will?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“What the fuck, Judy! Why not? He’s my brother too!”

Judy softened her voice. “Penny, I know he’s your brother too. And I know this attack is because you’re worried about him. But I can’t say anything yet. I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“Is Don helping you figure it out?”

“Jesus, Penny, I’m going to bed.” She stomped out of the room.

Penny had sat in the dark, staring out the window for hours, mad at everyone.

When the coffee was ready, she poured herself a cup and sat down, trying to think of something she could do. She knew much of her frustration was the fact that she felt helpless. Her parents were trying to free Dr. Smith, Judy was doing whatever it was she was doing. And once again, she was just waiting. She tried not to think about her brother. That would just make her start crying again, and she had done enough of that in the last four days.

She heard a Chariot pull up and thought her parents might be back early, but a minute later someone knocked.

She stood, a little nervous. Every time someone came to the house unannounced since she had been shot, it made her jump. She walked to the window, pulled the curtain back slightly and looked out. She sighed. One more thing she had to deal with.

She opened the door, and tried to put a cheerful look on her face. “Hi Elise!” She said.

“Hi, Penny. Is your brother here?” Will and Elise had gone on one date—Will’s first date ever—and had planned on going out again, but Will had left the day before, and none of them had thought to say anything to her.

“Um, no. I woke up not too long ago. Not sure where he is.” Lying without lying 101, Penny thought.

“Could I come in for a minute?” The girl asked.

“Um…sure,” Penny stepped back and let her in, wishing she had just not answered the damn door.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Elise asked. “We had a great time when we went out, and we had been messaging or talking every day until last Friday. Then he just went silent. We were supposed to go out Saturday night but I didn’t hear from him. I still got ready, cause he said he would pick me up. He said your parents were letting him use the Chariot. But he didn’t show up and…I’m not stalking him, I promise. But it’s just weird. I don’t believe he’s that kind of boy. I mean, I don’t know him that well, but he just doesn’t seem like it.”

“I’m sorry, Elise, I really don’t know what he’s thinking.” The girl was almost in tears, but the family had agreed not to say anything to anyone about what happened to Will. There were just too many strange things going on.

Elise sighed. “I know. He’s your brother and you’re loyal to him. I get that. I just wish I knew what I did wrong. Thanks Penny.” She turned toward the door.

“Elise,” Penny said. “I’m sure you didn’t do anything wrong. He had a great time the night you went out. Especially playing paint ball.”

“Well, I must have done something wrong. Thanks, Penny.” She turned and left, closing the door behind her.

Penny walked to the window and looked out. Elise wasn’t crying, but when she climbed in her Chariot, Penny could see the look on her face and knew she wasn’t far from it.

“Oh, fuck it,” she said, and hurried out.

Elise was backing away when she saw Penny rushing up to the Chariot. She stopped and lowered the window.

“Elise, I’m sorry. I can’t tell you everything, but I’ll tell you some of it. Just…you have to promise me you will keep it to yourself until we know more.”

“I promise, but is something wrong?”

“Will did have a great time the night you guys went out. As a matter of fact, he wanted to message you and hang out a couple nights before your second date. Judy and I talked him out of it. We told him not to rush things and, maybe seem too eager, you know? He did…does…like you. But something happened and he’s not here. We’re trying to find a way to bring him back.”

“Wait, bring him back? Where is he?”

“That part I didn’t lie to you about. We don’t know where he is.”

“Can I help look?” She asked, clearly alarmed.

“No. He’s not on the planet. He left. I can’t tell you why, but we’re trying to find him so we can bring him back. But that’s why you haven’t been able to reach him. You’re right, Will isn’t the kind of boy to just do that to you. I’m sorry.”

“Is there anything I can do, Penny? Anything at all?”

“No, but if I think of something I’ll tell you, I promise.”

“And if you find him…”

“You’ll be the first person I call.”

“Okay. Okay. Thanks for telling me, Penny.” The girl looked worse than she had before.

“Elise, Will’s a survivor, you know? He’s been through a lot, but he’s always come through before.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Penny.”

She started to back out of the drive, and Penny said, “Hey, Elise, we should have let him message you to hang out that night. I’m sorry.”

This time the girl smiled. “Thanks, Penny. And don’t worry, I won’t say anything. Just let me know if you have any news at all. Okay?”

“Don’t worry.”

Penny watched her leave. She sighed and walked toward the grove of trees in the front yard to sit down.

Judy sat in the Jeep, half a block from Grant’s apartment, watching for him to come back from wherever he was, or to walk out, in case he was sequestered inside. She had spent almost her entire time the last four days staking out the apartment. She had tried calling him over and over since Will had left, and gone by his apartment many times, but he had not answered his radio and was never home. For one thing, she needed to tell him what had happened with Will. He had left with Robot after Robot had returned to Alpha Centauri. And now the family knew what had happened to him when he and Robot got stranded on the planet in the Sirius system.

It had all been a mystery. Robot and Will never came home after leaving to explore the galaxy. And Penny and Dr. Smith had found them on an undiscovered planet, with clues Will had left in an old book on UFOs. But neither Robot nor Will could recall what had happened in the month they had been on the planet. Once back on Alpha Centauri, Robot saw how Will was suffering. So in an attempt to try and remember what had happened to them, Robot had gone back to space. 

Judy had come home early in the morning. She had been with Don, and he was dropping her off before the family woke up. They had decided to keep their relationship secret, at least from her mother and father. Will and Penny had apparently figured out all the way back on the Water Planet that they had been attracted to each other.

And when she and Don had pulled up a little ways from the house, Will and Robot were walking out. Robot and been gone for weeks, so they were surprised to see him, and to see him and Will outside at that time of the morning. And Will told them the horror of it all.

The aliens were not extinct, and had strapped Will to a table in the infirmary of the Jupiter 2, removed his artificial heart and put something inside it. It was a miniature version of the engine, but still powerful enough to destroy the entire colony on Alpha Centauri, and kill every man, woman, and child.

The aliens had lost control of the robots, but had still found a way to destroy the humans. None of them knew if they had programmed the robots for that purpose, or if SAR had commanded the robots to destroy the humans because he saw them all as masters. But now there was no longer a question. After the aliens put the device in his heart, they woke Will and showed him what they had done so he would know, then erased his memory.

And when Robot came back to Alpha Centauri and shared the memory with Will of what the aliens had done to him, her brother did what he always did. He sacrificed himself for everyone else. He left the planet with Robot and said he could never return, so that the colony could survive.

And they were going to find him.

Her Mom and Dad were doing everything they could to have Dr. Smith released. Smith had been the one who helped Penny figure out how to find Will in the Sirius system, and they thought she might be able to help them find him again.

But Judy had somewhere else to go. She wanted to see Grant, because she was convinced he knew more than he was telling them. Hiroki had disappeared after meeting Maureen at his laboratory, to discuss his theories about the aliens, and when John and Maureen had gone to town to meet with Hiroki’s daughter and granddaughter, and get some papers that Hiroki had been hiding in his safe at home, they were attacked by several men, trying to get the file.

Don and the kids had followed John and Maureen, in case there was trouble, and when they saw the attack, they tried to help fight off the men, when Grant showed up and joined the fight, causing the men to flee.

He just showed up. And that’s what bothered Judy. When the family was talking later that night, wondering how Grant knew what was happening, she had lied and said she asked him, and Grant had said it was a coincidence. He just happened to be going to the market. But she hadn’t asked. She saw him knock one of their assailants down and the man stared up at Grant, looking surprised, while Grant just looked back at him. Judy was certain the two men knew each other. She felt guilty about lying to her family, but for some reason she felt compelled to support her biological father. But now Will was gone and they had to find him and find a way to help him. And she had to find out what Grant knew. Because she didn’t think there was any way it had just been coincidence.

Grant lived in an apartment complex not far from Alpha. He was a flight trainer for Alpha Control and hoped to continue in his role as pilot as the agency expanded the fleet of Resolutes. The plans had always been to build at least two more ships, but realistically, they thought that would take ten years. But now, with the help of the robots, it seemed possible they could build two more within the next three years.

Grant had told the family he was getting pushback from the agency on becoming an actual pilot. He was a hero, and the most decorated pilot in the Space Agency’s history. But he had missed twenty years of technological advancement, and they weren’t convinced he would be able to catch up. And it bugged the hell out of him. But he said he liked teaching, and would bide his time until he had a chance to prove himself.

Judy tried one more time to call him on the radio, while she sat outside watching the door. She had taken Maureen’s Jeep that Alpha had given her, as her parents were in the Chariot. Grant still didn’t answer, but she was looking up at his apartment window. Third one on the left, second story. She saw the curtain move.

“Goddamn it!” She said, and climbed out of the vehicle and walked to the building.

She rang the doorbell twice, and when no one answered, she pounded on the door. She called him on the radio again. “Grant! You know I’m out here. I don’t know why you’re not answering but I have to talk to you! It’s important. Will is in trouble!”

There was no answer but someone came to the door. Judy was so furious, as soon as she heard the lock turn and the door open a crack, she shoved it open further and stepped inside. “Godamn…” she froze.

It wasn’t Grant who had answered the door. It was a young woman, maybe mid thirties, blond hair. She quickly backed away from Judy, startled by her aggressiveness.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” Judy stammered. “I’m Judy…”

“Robinson?” The woman asked.

“Yeah. I’m Grant’s…”

“Daughter. I know. I’m sorry, Grant isn’t here.”

“I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay. Is something wrong? I mean…that’s a dumb question, obviously. Something has to be wrong the way you barged in. Come on in, Judy.”

The woman stepped back. Judy walked in and the woman said, “Sorry I didn’t answer, I play my music a little loud when I’m cleaning. I stopped by early this morning to pick some things up and decided to surprise him by cleaning the apartment. Do you want anything? Coffee. Tea maybe?”

“No. No thank you. I really need to talk to Grant…um…”

“Christy. Sorry. Christy Bell. Grant and I, uh…we’re together.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, do you know how I can get ahold of him? It’s really important.”

“No. He’s been gone for awhile. He called me and said he was doing something for Alpha, and would be back as soon as he could.”

“I saw him almost two weeks ago,” Judy said. “Did he tell you anything about that?”

“No, what night was it?”

“Wednesday night, week before last.”

“That’s when he left. It was actually a surprise. He was gone in the evening. Normally he comes home after teaching, but he said he had something to do, then late that night he called and said he had been given some assignment by Alpha, and he might not be home for a few days.”

“Is that normal?” Judy said.

“Normal? I wouldn’t say normal, but he’s kind of secretive about what he does for the Agency, so I guess I wasn’t too surprised. And I knew not to ask him about it.”

“Secretive?” Judy said. “I thought he was teaching and working with the pilot program.”

“Yeah, that’s his main role. But he’s always working on other things. And when we first got together, he told me there were things he was doing that I couldn’t know about. I mean, it wasn’t like he was being a spy or whatever, but I walked into his office once and he quickly closed his laptop, and when I looked at him funny, he knew what I was thinking. You know, maybe he was watching porn or something.”

The woman smiled uncomfortably, remembering she was talking to Grant’s biological daughter. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Judy said. “But that wasn’t it?”

“No, he opened his computer briefly so I could see. It was some old NASA thing, before they changed the name to Alpha. But he told me there were things he was working on that I couldn’t know about. And, I respect his privacy. He’s had such an unusual life, I guess he has the right to keep some things to himself. And it doesn’t surprise me it had something to do with the space program, you know. That’s been his life forever, pretty much.”

“And you haven’t heard from him since that Wednesday night?”

“No, I thought he might call, but he hasn’t. It’s not the first time, so I haven’t really been worried about him.”

“Okay,” Judy said. “Thank you. And it was nice to meet you, Christy. If Grant calls, would you mind telling him I need to speak to him, please?”

“I will. It was nice to meet you too, Judy.”

Once back in the Jeep, Judy headed home. The mystery just seemed to get deeper. And now she was even more certain Grant had known something about the attack in the parking lot. He disappeared that night, and had not been back and had not contacted his…girlfriend.

And he was working on something from when the Space Agency was still called NASA, something he didn’t want his girlfriend to know about. And he disappeared sometimes for days at a time.

Now Judy started thinking more about when they had found him, and what he had finally admitted. The Fortuna trip was really a clandestine mission to discover what the rift was. A small group of scientists, according to Grant, had been working on an anomaly they had discovered in space. A rift that kept opening and closing.

In one way, it made sense that he had gone to the planet where they had been stranded…if he was telling the truth. Since that planet held some type of lab, where the aliens were smashing atoms, it was possible this was where this anomaly had been observed.

But as she thought it through, she wondered if that would have even caused a rift. Or would it have just appeared as some type of cataclysmic planetary event? It’s not like asteroids hadn’t collided with planets before. And Grant didn’t really say he had gone to that particular planet because of the rift. He said they had detected these rifts in space, and the mission had been to find out what they were. 

If that was the case, why that particular planet? The four planets in the Amber Planet’s solar system seemed to have more activity than that planet would have. And those planets were no further from Earth than the planet that Grant had been stranded on. But, that planet was important by the indication of what they had found. A massive particulate accelerator. A super collider, smashing atoms and discovering new particles.

Was it possible The Space Agency knew something about the planet with the alien city before the Fortuna Mission was sent there?

And there was something else that was strange to her. Grant knew about the codes, and the security measures Alpha had installed to protect the planet. Hastings and Ben also knew about them. And yet, Hastings needed Maureen to provide him security codes for the Resolute. Her security clearance did not allow her to know about the robots, but Hastings and Ben, and maybe Grant, all knew about them.

“So, why did Hastings need anything from, Mom?” Judy said aloud. Why wouldn’t he have any security codes that she had? Unless he was working outside normal channels. With Ben. And maybe…with Grant. What if there were two competing agencies within the space program?

“Shit,” Judy said to herself. Her mind was racing. There was so much they didn’t understand. And apparently so much going on they didn’t know about. But she did know one thing. They needed to find Will and get him help. And she didn’t know how much time they had. Because she knew her brother well. And if he could find a place away from everyone, and could find a way to destroy himself before he could destroy anyone else, he would do that.

“Judy,” Don’s voice called over her radio.

“Don! I’m so glad to hear your voice.” Regardless of what Penny thought, they hadn’t seen each other in the four days since Will had been gone. They had talked several times, but Maureen had been tied up with John trying to find a way to get Dr. Smith released, so Don had been spending long hours at the Space Station, working on the Resolute 2. And Judy had spent all her time trying to find Grant.

“Hey, I had to come down from the Space Station for a couple hours. Want to meet me for lunch? I have to be back there this afternoon, though.”

Judy didn’t answer. She knew what she wanted to say, but the confrontation with her sister still weighed on her mind.

“Okay, you don’t have to,” Don said.

Still Judy didn’t answer.

“Hey, did I lose you?” Don asked.

Oh fuck it. “I’m not hungry,” she answered.

“Okay…did I do something…”

“For food.”

There was a dead pause for several seconds before Don said. “Okaaay…my apartment in twenty minutes?”

“I’ll be there waiting for you,” she said.

She was. Don had given her the access code to the apartment, and he saw the Jeep was in the drive when he pulled up. He walked in and she wasn’t in the living room. He had a pretty good idea where she would be. He walked down the short hall to his bedroom, pushed the door open, and she was lying on the bed, turned to her side facing him, her head propped up on her elbow. She was completely naked.

Neither of them said anything. Don walked over to the bed, and Judy rolled to her back as he leaned down to kiss her. She pulled him on top of her, and he propped his body up on his left elbow, as his right hand roamed over her. When they broke the kiss, she began to pull his shirt up. When he started to help her she shook her head no.

She shoved him off, pushed him to his back and straddled him while she pulled the shirt up and off, then began kissing his neck, then his chest as she began unbuckling his pants.

Thirty minutes later she was curled up next to him, her head on his chest. It had been fast and urgent, and neither of them had said a word yet. They were both sweaty. His arm was around her, and she was running a finger slowly over his stomach as she looked down at him. He kissed her on the back of the head and said, “I missed you pretty badly in four days.”

She said, “I missed you too,” her voice almost a whisper. She was still looking down at his body, not at his face.

“Yeah, I could tell,” he said, trying to lighten her mood. But it didn’t seem to work. She remained silent for several minutes.

“I feel guilty,” she whispered finally. “We’re here doing this, and I have no idea where my brother is or if he’s even alive.”

He kissed her head again and said, “He’s alive, Judy. I’m sure of it. He’s been in so many life and death situations in the last three years, but he’s survived when most kids his age…hell…most adults would never have. He’s alive. And we’ll figure out how to find him.”

“I hope you’re right, Don.”

“But Judy, where have you been? You don’t answer the radio half the time I call you, and when you do, you’re not at home. You just say you’re out.”

“I…I can’t tell you yet, Don. I’m sorry.” Now she raised up and looked at him. “And please don’t think it’s because I don’t trust you, I just don’t want to say until I know for sure. Or at least have a good idea.”

He kissed her lips gently. “Don’t worry, I won’t push you. I know you trust me. And I’m sure you have your reasons. But, I’m here, you know?”

“I do know. You’re family.”

He smiled a little, “Um, that sort of has different meaning since we’ve been…”

“Doing this?” She asked, smiling back at him.

“Yeah, this. What are we calling this, anyway?”

“Fucking?” Her smile was mischievous.

“I don‘ t mean the last half hour. I mean…you know what I mean.”

“What do you think we should call it, Admiral West?”

“Well, did your dad ask any more questions about why I was at your house at three AM?”

“No, I think after what Will told us, and after he left, Dad had his mind on everything else.”

“Speaking of your parents, any news about Doctor Smith?”

“There was a hearing today. Mom and Dad are there now. But Smith killed someone, or at least didn’t save him when she could have. And she escaped once, and even though she found Will and everyone was grateful for that, and even though she turned herself in, Dad didn’t sound hopeful.”

“What about your mom?”

“That’s what’s weird, she is one hundred percent behind having her released. Penny too, but Penny’s always sort of had a soft spot for her. But Mom won’t give it up. I think Dad’s getting a little frustrated with her. For some reason, Mom thinks we really need Doctor Smith. But I know Mom isn’t going to focus on anything else until Will is home.”

“Speaking of that, I need to get back to work.” He kissed her and started crawling out of bed.

She rolled over on her back and watched him. “So what are you going to do when we go to find Will?”

“What do you think?” he said as he started getting dressed.

She smiled. “I knew the answer, I was just making sure you weren’t too wrapped up in work these days to go with us. It seems to be the only thing you think about.”

He smiled back. “I see what you’re doing. But I have to go!”

“What? I was just asking.” She pointed her toes straight, stretched her arms above her head, closed her eyes and let out a comfortable groan. “If you don’t mind, maybe I’ll just stay and take a nap.”

“Goddamn it, Judy,” he said, and pulled his shirt back off.

Chapter Text

“Where’s Will?” Judy asked, walking up to her sister.

“I don’t know, he’s usually out by now,” Penny said. She was sitting on the steps in front of the grade school, her nose in her tablet as usual. She had walked over from the high school, intending to pick up Will on her way home.

Judy sat down beside her. “Maybe he got a detention,” she said.

Penny looked up and saw Judy was grinning at her. “Yeah, that’ll be the day. What are you doing here? Don’t you have track practice?”

“Canceled. Yellow warning today. Didn’t you notice?”

Penny looked up at the smog covered sky. “Guess I’m getting used to it. Didn’t you know I was picking him up?”

“Yes, I just wanted to hang with my brother and sister for awhile.”

Penny started to say something snarky, but she realized Judy was serious. They had seen so little of her since she started going to medical school at night. She wasn’t the type to say she was stressed, but Penny was sure she was. She smiled at her, “Will’s gonna be happy you’re here. He’s only been seeing you before school lately.”

“I know,” Judy said.

Penny noticed her tone. “Hey, Jude, he understands. We both know how busy you are.”

Judy smiled. The girls sat there waiting for another fifteen minutes. Finally Judy said, “have you messaged him?”

“No. He’s supposed to keep his radio off during class. I figured he was doing something for Mrs. Larson after school. Sometimes he runs a few minutes late.”

Judy stood. “I’m going down to see where he is, he shouldn’t be this late.”

Penny stood with her. “I’ll go and say hi to Mrs. Larson.”

The girls opened the door to the school and walked down the empty halls. Final period had ended almost thirty minutes before. Mrs. Larson’s classroom was halfway down the hall. The door was open, and the gray haired, middle aged teacher was at her desk, but the classroom was empty.

Both Judy and Penny had had Mrs. Larson for forth grade when they were in elementary school. “Hi, girls,” she greeted them with a smile.

“Hi, Mrs. Larson,” they both responded.

“Isn’t Will here?” Judy asked.

“No, he left early today,” she said. “You mother messaged that she was coming to pick him up for a doctor’s appointment. Is something wrong?”

Penny and Judy both looked at each other. “Um…no.” Judy said. “I’m sure everything is alright. They just forgot to tell us.”

They bid Mrs. Larson goodnight, then turned and walked quickly from the room. Once in the hall, Judy called Will on his radio. “Will, come in. Where are you?”

“Hi, Judy.”

“Will, where are you?”

“I left after seventh period. I walked over to the park but I’m almost back. I thought I would be back before school was out to meet Penny.”

“How did you get out? They wouldn’t let you go unless mom called or something. Mrs. Larson said Mom messaged.”

When he was quiet, Judy said, “Will?”

“I might have hacked her comm and sent a message from her to the office and Mrs. Larson,” he answered.

“Will! What the hell. Why?”

“I just needed to leave. Don’t tell Mom, okay?”

“I’m not promising you anything. We’ll meet you on the way,” she said, both girls were already headed down the hall.

Once outside, Judy and Penny walked down the sidewalk toward the park. When they were at the corner they turned right and ran across the street and saw their brother headed toward them, two blocks away. They kept walking until they met him.

“Will, what the hell are you doing?” Judy said. “You don’t go off without us, and you don’t skip classes. And you lied to them at the school.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“But what were you doing, Will?” Penny asked.

“I don’t know. I was feeling…I don’t know.”

Judy put her hand on his neck. “Will, what’s wrong?”

“It’s just, I’ve been having a lot of dreams. I think because Mom was talking about the Alpha program again, and how we should think about trying to get accepted. So I’ve been having dreams about space. About us. The three of us. I feel like if we ever did go to space, something would happen. Something bad. And I might not see you guys again.”

“Will, if we went to space we would never let anything happen to you,” Judy said.

“No…I feel like something might happen to you guys too,” he said. They could tell he was really shaken.

“Why did you go to the park, Will?” Penny said.

“I…just always remember us being happy there. The three of us. It was like our place. At least for me. You guys had a lot of other things. You had all the sports and stuff, Judy.” He looked at Penny, “And you had all your friends and the debate club and the school paper. To me the park was always our place. When we were there, it was the three of us. And…I didn’t have to worry about anything.”

Judy had steered him in front of them and they walked back down the sidewalk on their way past the school, toward home. She still had her hand on his neck. Penny was on the other side of him.

“I just walked around the park for a little while, remembering,” he said.

“You know how you think Dad and I are so much alike, Will?” Judy said.

“Yeah, because you are.”

“Well, that’s something you and Dad have in common. He loves to reminisce. Talk about his childhood. And you’re the same. But you’re only ten, Will. You have a lot of living to do. If you’re this way now, what are you going to be like when you’re Dad’s age?” She smiled at him.

“I’m just worried. Worried about you guys. That something will happen. And…and it will be my fault.”

Now the girls stopped walking. “Will, don’t say that,” Penny said. She put her hand on his shoulder. “You won’t do anything to hurt us.”

“Not on purpose,” he said.

Penny and Judy looked at each other over Will’s head. They were worried about their brother. He had dark moods like this, but they weren’t sure what had brought this on.

“Will, do you want to tell us about your dream?” Judy asked.

“I…I really don’t remember a lot of it. You were missing, Judy. And I had to find you somewhere. And I didn’t know how. Or where you were. You were just gone. And it was up to me to find you, but there was something really bad that had you. And…that’s really all I remember. But I couldn’t go back to sleep when it woke me up.”

“Will, haven’t I always protected you?” Judy said.

“Yes. Always.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me about it?” She asked.

He just looked back at her without answering.

“Will?” Judy said.

“You’ve…been kinda busy. And it’s okay…really. I understand. I…don’t know how you do it with classes and Medical School now and everything. I didn’t want to bother you.”

What he didn’t tell her was that he had tried to talk to her that morning, and she was rushing around, getting ready for school and trying to listen at the same time. Their mother was already at work, and their father had been overseas for over two years. But now as Will spoke, Judy realized he had tried to talk to her that morning. As always, he was too kind to say that.

“Will, I’m sorry,” she said. “You were going to tell me about it this morning, weren’t you? But I kind of blew you off.”

“No. Well, I might have mentioned it if I had time but I was busy too.”

“You followed me from room to room this morning, Will. You wanted to tell me. I didn’t listen. It was my fault, not yours. I’m sorry. But promise me you won’t go off on your own again, alright?”

“I promise.”

He still didn’t sound too happy, and Judy said, “Will, I’ll always take care of you, okay. We both will.” She looked at Penny.

“She’s right, Will,” Penny said. “You can count on us. Okay? Even if we end up going to space.”

“Okay,” he said. They started walking again, Will slightly in front of them, Judy’s hand still on his neck.

“Guys,” Will said. “You can count on me too. If anything does happen to you, I’ll come and find you. I promise.”

“We know you will,” Judy said.

“Yep,” Penny agreed. “That’s why we’re not afraid. You got our backs, Will.”

Penny heard thunder and it pulled her from the memory. She was still sitting beneath the trees in front of the house. It looked like it would be raining soon, but she wasn’t ready to go in.

She thought again of the day Will had skipped class. She remembered after Will had told them they could always count on him, she and Judy had looked at each other and smiled. They knew he meant it, but they also knew their little brother. And they knew it would always be the two of them taking care of him. He was the smartest kid in his class. Had been since preschool. And back then, they were sure he was going to end up being a professor at some prestigious University somewhere. But they were pretty certain he would always be as timid as he had been since the day he was born. And that was just fine with them. He was also the kindest person they knew. And that’s what counted. They didn’t care if their brother was brave. They were fine with Will just the way he was.

But now Penny thought, everyone had always underestimated her brother. He was the bravest person she knew. And once again, he had sacrificed himself for them all. She couldn’t imagine where he was or what he was doing. After she had found him on the mystery planet, he had been so afraid of going back to space. Afraid he would never be able to return to the family. He said it was like something was calling him, and if he went back to space, he might not want to return. But in the end, he felt that was his only choice.

She heard it thunder again, and felt the first drops of rain. Will weather, she thought. Inside his kind, hopeful soul, there had always been a storm cloud hidden, it seemed. It hadn’t really started raining yet, and she would wait until the last minute to go inside. She looked up to the sky as the dark clouds rolled in, wondering where Will could possibly be. “One of these fucking days, maybe we’ll be able to stop saying, where’s Will?”

She wondered how it was going with getting Dr. Smith released. John had started to argue with Maureen about trying to get her set free the day before, once he found out Security was not going to make it easy. He wasn’t sure how much help the woman could give them.

Maureen was adamant that they needed to get her released if possible. This had surprised everyone, as Maureen never really trusted Dr. Smith. But something had changed. Penny figured once your child’s life is at stake, all bets are off. As for Penny, she thought they owed Dr. Smith a lot more than the rest of the family would give her credit for. From firing the harpoon to bring John and Don back in to the Jupiter 2, to sailing the ship off the reef, to taking Will to the planet of the robots and saving his life and the entire colony. And then she figured out where he and Robot had gone, just following the clues in an old book Will had left in his room. Penny was glad her mother was being so forceful about this.

She looked down at her radio, checked the time. She wondered where Judy was, and thought to call her. But Penny knew she probably wouldn’t answer, and if she kept thinking of what her sister was doing, she would just get pissed off again.

She thought about calling Vijay. She had seen him a couple times since Will had disappeared, and knew if she called him he would come by. She just wanted to talk to someone. She lifted her radio to her wrist, hesitated for a few seconds, pressed the call button and spoke into it. But it wasn’t Vijay she called.

“Penny, is everything okay?” Liam asked, surprised to hear her voice.

“Hi, Liam. Not really. I was just wondering if you had time to talk this morning.”

“Sure, you want to meet me somewhere? I have time now. I have to go to work at noon.” Liam had started working security at Alpha. He had started classes at the college, but he decided it wasn’t for him.

“Yeah, now would be great,” Penny answered. “But do you have a problem coming to my house? No one is here and I don’t have transportation.”

“No problem. I can be there in thirty minutes.”

“Thanks, Liam,” she said.

After the call, Penny sat and thought about Liam. She was angry at her sister for spending time with Don, thinking sex was more important to her than getting Will back. But, to be fair, Will’s disappearance hadn’t stopped her from thinking about it a lot lately herself. The problem was, it wasn’t Vijay she was thinking about. Ever since she saw Liam at the coffee shop, she couldn’t get him out of her head. Probably the fact they had never had sex was one of the reasons she kept thinking about him.

The two of them had made out and played around several times on the planet when they were stranded, but they had never done very much. She didn’t really even know why. Liam certainly wanted to, and actually, she did too. And there couldn’t have been a more perfect situation. Stranded on a planet with no parents around, with so many places to be alone.

The closest they had come was when she and Liam had hiked along the small river that flowed through the canyon they had landed in. It was evening and the canyon was deep enough the sun set early. As they sat by the water, watching the blue sky turn orange, Liam had leaned over and kissed her. When she kissed him back, he gently pushed her to the sand and they made out on the beach.

Eventually, Liam’s hands roamed up to her chest, and when she didn’t stop him, he became more bold, first slipping a hand inside her shirt, then under her bra. When she still didn’t stop him, his other hand slid over her stomach, then slowly down until he unbuttoned her pants. That’s when she pushed him back.

“What’s wrong?” Liam asked.

“Nothing’s wrong, I’m just not ready to do anything else, okay?”

“Why not? You’re eighteen, it’s not like you’re a child. Didn’t you…”

“We left for space when I was sixteen, and most of the year I was fifteen was getting ready for space in case we were chosen. So no, I never did anything. Okay?”

“Penny, I’m not making fun of you, and it’s perfectly okay with me. I would never pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to do, but if this isn’t the perfect place and time…”

“I promised my brother, okay?”

“You promised your brother you wouldn’t have sex?” He sounded amused.

“No. That I would be careful. That day in the engine room when we were there talking and he followed us to go on a hike. He didn’t trust you and he wanted to be there for me. I knew he was bothered, so I went back to hang out with him. And I promised I would be careful. You know, it kind of touched me that he was being protective of his older sister.”

“But we will be careful. I have a condom. I took it from the sick bay supply room.”

“What…just in case?” She asked.

“Well of course, just in case. As they say, better to have one and not need it than need one and not have it.”

”Well, you won’t fucking need it. At least not with me!”

She started to stand but he took her hand, said, “Penny, calm down. I’m just trying to be funny.”

”Yeah, try harder,” she said sharply, but she didn’t stand up. 

“But seriously, it’s not like you weren’t enjoying what we were doing,” he said. 

“Well, yeah I was. Or I would have stopped you earlier. And yes, it’s better to be prepared, but when I promised Will I would be careful, I kinda doubt he was talking about using a condom. He was talking about me…being careful all the way around, I guess. Not wanting me to get hurt by you.”

Liam sighed and sat up. “So, you promised your baby brother. That’s why you don’t want to.”

“Okay, so much for not pressuring me.”

“No. No, I’m sorry, you’re right. And you owe me no explanation at all. It’s just, do you ever think you’re too close to him? I mean, it’s not like you’re going to be around each other forever. He’s going to grow up and have a whole life that’s separate from yours.”

“I know, Liam. But Will and I—actually it used to be all three of us—have always been close. Everything we’ve gone through in space has just made us closer. I guess until now.”

When Liam heard the pain in her voice he said, “You know, Judy loves you guys so much, she’s just got…”

“I know! I know! A lot of responsibility. Everyone tells me that. Especially Will. And I feel so selfish. But I want us to be the way we’ve always been. I want to stay close to my siblings. Both of them. And that means I don’t want to disappoint them. Even though I disappoint Judy all the time. But I don’t Will. And I guess, that’s why I’m not ready. It would disappoint my brother. And…I promised him.”

Liam just smiled at her. “I guess anyone dating a Robinson is dating all three of you, sort of.”

“Oh yeah. Long before a guy asks my father’s permission to marry me, my siblings are going to have to give him the stamp of approval.”

My siblings, Penny thought as she looked up at the dark clouds in the sky. Was Liam right? They would never be around each other forever? Somehow Penny just couldn’t imagine that. Even with Will’s stormy life, and the fact he was once again missing, she just couldn’t picture a future without her siblings beside her. As much as she loved her mother and father, her brother and sister were the ones she was supposed to grow old with. It was like Will had told her and Judy, that they were a part of him. Penny felt that as well. Somehow, her siblings were more than just brother and sister to her. They were connected in a way most people couldn’t understand.

Liam drove up in the family’s Chariot, pulling her from her thoughts. They hadn’t seen each other since meeting at the coffee shop a couple weeks before Will left again, and she hadn’t spoken to him. When she saw him climb out, she felt guilty that the boy didn’t even know what had happened to her brother. And suddenly, the weight of it all was too much. She stood and ran to meet him.

To Liam’s surprise, Penny threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. She just held on to him for awhile, and then he could tell she was crying. “What’s wrong, Penny?” He asked.

“Come on, I need to talk to you.” It still wasn’t really raining yet, so she took him by the hand and led him back to the chairs in the trees.

She told him everything that had happened the last five days.

“So, the aliens really aren’t extinct,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“No, they aren’t. And now Will…I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again. And if I do, how do we help him?”

“I don’t know, Penny. I wish I could say, but this…I don’t know.”

“If I could connect with Sally the way Will can with Robot, there might be a way. I mean, she might be able to connect with Robot, like Robot and Scarecrow connected when we were stranded, and figure out where he was. Mom says she thinks it’s through something called quantum teleportation.”

“Teleportation?” He said, the hint of amusement in his voice.

“Quantum teleportation. I guess it’s a real thing. Sending information through entangled particles. I don’t know how any of it works, but Mom says we’ve done it before and she thinks the robots can communicate that way. Or they wouldn’t be able to communicate thousands of light years apart instantly, like Robot and Scarecrow did. But if I can’t connect with them the way Will can, I can’t send any messages to him.”

“Did you just ask Sally to try and do it?” Liam said.

“Yeah. But she just looked at me like I was a crazy little human or something.”

“So where’s Judy?”

“I don’t know. She’s been working on something she says to find Will, but hasn’t told any of us what it was. We’re probably planning on leaving to try and find him somehow, but right now, I have no idea when or even how we would be able to.”

“And these papers that Hiroki has said UFO?”

“Actually they said UAP. I guess that’s the official name for UFOs, even though no one uses it nowadays. It didn’t take, I guess.”

“So Hiroki was looking into something with UFOs?”

“Who knows? That’s just the only letters my mother could remember. And something at the end. Moon Eye.”

“Moon Eye? What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know, but the weird thing is, that kind of shook Will up.”

“Really? How?”

“He seemed strange when he heard that, and I followed him to his room when he was going to bed and asked what was wrong and he said when Mom told us Moon Eye, he had a vision of something leaning over him. He thought it might be a dream, but he didn’t know for sure. And that maybe it was something he saw in the time he was missing on that planet. He said he thought it was a big light, but then it turned into something with eyes so large he thought of double moons.”

“Big eyes that looked like double moons.”

Penny thought he was asking her to confirm, but she realized it wasn’t a question and he was talking to himself.

“What are you thinking?” She asked.

He was looking across the road into the woods beyond, he turned and looked at her. “Penny. You know the whole science, space travel, alien thing really isn’t my forte right?”

“Yeah, about as much as it is mine.”

“Why did you call me then?”

“Did I bother you?” She asked defensively.

“No, no. I was just wondering.”

“Maybe I just wanted to talk to a friend.”

“Fair enough. What if I told you I might actually know something about this?”

“About what?”

“The moon eyed thing. I mean. It’s a real reach, and I’m probably wrong, but if nothing else, it’s a weird coincidence.”

“Well, what is it?” She asked.

“My Great, great grandfather immigrated from Russia to the United States in the eighteen hundreds. He’d been a coal miner in Russia, and when he couldn’t find a good job in New York City, he moved to the Appalachian mountains. The Carolinas, then Eastern Kentucky. My family stayed in that part of the United States until my dad moved out to California. But we went back to see the family as often as we could.

“My grandfather had married a girl from that area. She was half Cherokee. Her mother was full Cherokee. Their families were originally from that part of the country, but most of their ancestors were moved out West during the Trail of Tears. Not all of them, though. My favorite relative was my Great grandmother.

“Everyone called her Granny Mae. She died when I was thirteen, but until then, every time we went back to that part of the country, we used to go to her house for a big Sunday dinner. She was like an encyclopedia on Cherokee legends, and she would tell me stories about them and the history of the area.

”The story that fascinated me the most was about when the Cherokee settled in that part of the country. They were originally from the Great Lakes area, part of the Iroquois tribe. But when they began to settle in North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, they were at war with people or…I don’t know, something…that already lived there. In some of the legends they’re spirits. But they were always described the same way. They were really small. Like three or four feet maybe. They had white skin—pale white. They lived underground in the caves that were all over that area, because they didn’t see well in the sunlight.

“And the feature that stood out the most was their eyes. They were white, and really large with tiny blue pupils. Their eyes were so large the Cherokee called them Moon Eyed People.”

“Moon Eyed People?” Penny said. “You know what, Liam? I had forgotten until you said that. What Hiroki had actually written was Moon Eye P, with a question mark at the end.”

“A question mark? So he was trying to figure it out maybe. Like he wasn’t sure, but he was wondering. And a bunch of the UFO conspiracy nuts used to wonder if the Moon Eyed People were actually aliens. In North Carolina there’s a Cherokee history museum. I’ve been there. There’s a sculpture of two of these people joined together. They’re about three feet tall. It was uncovered in the eighteen hundreds, but it’s a lot older than that. And there’s archeological sites all over that area that they say were built by the Moon Eyed People.”

“You think this is what Hiroki was talking about?” Penny asked.

“Who knows? But apparently his notes had something to do with UFOs and the last thing on them was this question about Moon Eyed P. Sounds like he was wondering that. Maybe he was one of those UFO conspiracy theory nuts.”

“Hiroki?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Liam said. “No way. But…well, considering what we know about the robots, what we know about the aliens, and the fact that Will found them on that planet from an old UFO book, maybe it wasn’t all so nuts. So, maybe Hiroki was on to something.”

“Well, that would make sense,” Penny said. “If Hiroki was investigating something, I would expect it was probably more than a conspiracy, he’s not the type to chase those things.”

“Yeah,” Liam agreed. “Hey, Penny. Thanks for calling me. I missed you.”

“I missed you too, Liam. I think, when we were on that planet, everything was confusing, but it was different too. I remember one time you said you could have stayed there. That might have been nice. You know, for awhile. Had it just been the two of us. But there was so much going on. Then after we got here, I think, with all the shit we had to deal with, I wanted to sort of have a normal life, you know?”

“Yeah, I understand that. I’m just not sure what you’re getting at.”

“That you were fun and thrilling and reckless and maybe…I don’t know where I was going with this.”

“That Vijay was safer?” 

She just looked back at him without responding for a few seconds, then said. “Yeah. That Vijay was safer. And I really like him. I wouldn’t want to hurt him. Again.”

Liam stood up. “I understand, Penny. Don’t worry. We’re friends, okay?”

She stood with him, “Yeah.” She started to add something. Something like, I’m not sure just being friends is enough. But she didn’t. Instead she looked past him down the road and said, “Shit.”

Liam followed her gaze. A Chariot was headed their way. He saw what the problem was. Vijay was driving it. But the boy didn’t stop, he just drove by, giving them a slight nod of his head as he did.

“Vijay, come back,” Penny called into her radio.

“No, I think you’re busy.”

“Come on, Vijay.”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

Penny tried again but he didn’t answer.

“Sorry Penny, I didn’t mean to get you in trouble,” Liam said. “I better get going.”

“Wait…”

“I have to go to work anyway. You need to talk to Vijay.”

She stepped up and hugged him. “Thanks, Liam.”

“You’re welcome, Penny. I’ll give this some more thought, okay? It’s probably nothing, and even if it’s what Hiroki was referring to, in the end, he may just be one of those UFO nuts after all.”

They just looked at each other and Penny said, “No way.”

“Yeah, no way,” Liam agreed. “I’ll talk to you later, Penny. Call your boyfriend.”

She watched him drive off, then called Vijay again. “Vijay. Come back. Liam left.”

He still didn’t answer.

“Damn it,” She said, “Robots are so much easier to deal with than boys.” She walked toward the house.

Chapter Text

Initially, John had agreed with Penny and Maureen, that they needed Dr. Smith. But after seeing how difficult it was going to be, he had begun to second guess that decision. In his mind, they were wasting valuable time that could have been spent looking for Will.

They had tried to see her the morning Will had left, but when they went to the correctional facility where she was being held, they were told they had to go back the following day, as they had to be pre-approved for every visit. That’s when John knew something was going on. That had never been the process before, their name was on the list, and everyone knew them anyway. Something had changed.

Maureen had been quiet on the way home after they were denied the visitation, and that night at dinner, when Judy asked when they were leaving, Maureen had said, “we’re not leaving until after we get Doctor Smith released.”

“Maureen,” John said. “Are you sure? For some reason, they’re making it hard on us to see her, and the prosecutor never liked her and is going to do everything he can to keep her locked up. We’re just wasting time.”

“First, of all, we don’t even know where to begin looking for Will,” Maureen said. “I believe Smith can help us with that. And…we just need her.” She said the last part as if the discussion was over.

“Look,” John said. “I know she’s smart, and she may have changed, but I’m not convinced this is something she can help us with. Will didn’t even know where he was going when he left. And we’re just wasting more and more time. Think of Will.”

Maureen stood from the table. “Goddamn you John, don’t you dare say that to me! I’m thinking of Will every second of the day, and most of the night too! If I didn’t think this was important do you think I would delay leaving?”

“But I think it’s clouding your judgement.”

“Judgement! Whose judgement was clouded when he just had to leave on deployment for three years? The years that mattered the most to your son? I was still there. I used to look in on him at night while he was sleeping, and every night when I saw him in his bed, I remembered when he was in that incubator. I remembered how hard he struggled just to stay alive. And I made him a promise back then. If he fought to live, I would spend the rest of my life fighting for him. He did his part. And I told myself I was going to do everything I could to make sure he had a chance to live a full life. That all three of my kids…”

“Our kids.”

“…had a chance to survive! That’s all I thought of. And that’s why we came to space. That’s why we came to Alpha Centauri. And…and…it was the worst mistake I ever made.” Then she was crying.

“Look what they’ve gone through. Look what’s happened to Will. None of the kids will ever be the same. We may never see Will again. And everything is my fault. Don’t you see that? Everything that’s happened to them—all of them—but especially to Will, was my fault.”

John pushed himself up from the table and rushed over and put his arms around her. Penny and Judy looked down at their plates while their mother cried, her head buried against John’s chest.

“He’s all alone, John,” Maureen said. “He has Robot, but he doesn’t have us. He’s so scared and he needs his family and I just…I just have to find him, John. I have to fix what I did.”

“Maureen, it’s not your fault.”

“It is! You know it is! Everyone knows it is! Will knows it is!”

Judy stood up and walked over to her parents and put her arms around them both. “Robinsons stick together. We’re all in this together. And we’ll find him together. Okay, Mom? Will understands why we came to space. And he isn’t the same boy at fourteen that he was at eleven. He never would have gone back to space with Robot a couple months after the robot battle if he was. He was looking for something. He was looking for answers. And he found them.”

“Not all of them,” Penny said. “And I don’t think he will ever stop looking for them until he does.”

“What do you mean?” John asked.

“Will found out the aliens were not extinct. He found them on the planet that no one else even knew existed. But he didn’t figure out why SAR wanted him so badly. All he discovered was that the aliens wanted to destroy us, but he still didn’t know why. And whatever happened to him there, he’s different. He’s the same kind, wonderful person he’s always been. But there’s something else about him now.”

“What?” John asked.

’
“I’ve tried to think about that ever since we found him on that planet,” Penny answered. She looked directly at John. “Ever since Doctor Smith found him on that planet. And I just keep coming to a one word answer. And somehow, it makes me wonder if everything is tied together. I mean from the very beginning, when he and Robot met.”

“What one word answer?” Judy asked.

“Danger,” Penny said.

They all just stared at her for a few seconds, and Judy said, “You think Will’s dangerous?”

“Not exactly. I mean that word describes his whole life since coming to space. He’s been in constant danger since he fell down that crevasse. And…here’s the thought I keep having: for the first eleven years of his life, he ran from it. But then he changed. He began seeking it. Once we separated from the adults and landed on that planet, we all sort of became our own individuals. And Will began hiding things from us. In the past, Judy or I or both of us knew what he was thinking and what he was going to do most of the time. But that ended when he decided he had to confront SAR on his own, without telling us what he had planned.”

“But he knew we would try to stop him if he told us,” Judy argued.

“Yeah. He did. But I think it was more than that. I think he began to see the world from inside his own head. I read a quote in a book once: We live as we dream, alone. And I think that’s the biggest change in him. He’s living his life inside his mind, and what he is seeing in there is different than anything we see. And the worst part is, I’m afraid he feels like he will always be alone. And if that is how he feels, I don’t know if there’s anything we can do to help him.”

“I don’t believe that,” Judy said emphatically. “And I refuse to think that way.”

Penny smiled at her. She realized this was the Judy they had always known and the Judy they still needed. She stood and walked over and hugged her sister. “Thanks for that, Judy.”

When they went to bed that night, Maureen was lying next to John, not saying anything. He thought she was still upset about what he had said to her earlier. He reached over and took her hand and said, “Maureen, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest you weren’t think about Will.”

“John, I know. It’s okay, you already apologized, but I’m thinking about what Penny said.”

“That Will has changed?”

“No. Danger. I told you I’ve been thinking this could go back further than we even know. Maybe there was a double meaning in what Robot said. Maybe to him, Will did mean danger. Whether it was him being in danger, or the people around him, or maybe he thought Will was dangerous. I mean, he was repeating what Will had said in the tree, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t attach that word somehow to Will.”

“Maureen…”

“I know, John, you think I’m reading too much into it.”

“I’m thinking it’s not like you to believe in the supernatural.”

“Supernatural? Just because we don’t know why something is happening, doesn’t mean there isn’t a scientific explanation. I can’t help but think this is bigger than we know. And if it is, there’s a scientific explanation for it. We just have to find it.

“But if I’m right, maybe it isn’t that Will is in his own head, like Penny says. Maybe he’s inside the robot’s heads. He was different when he came back after she and Don and Doctor Smith found him. He wasn’t as close to the rest of us as he had always been. Penny, maybe, but even that was different. He was needy when it came to Penny, not wanting to let her out of his sight. But not the rest of us. And Will said that he and Robot had started growing closer once they left together. Robot was reading his memories. He was able to get a sense for the way food tasted that Will was eating when they were connected.”

“What are you suggesting, Maureen?”

“Maybe he’s becoming less of us, and more of them. Like Robot seems to be becoming more human, maybe Will is actually doing the opposite.”

With that, they laid in silence for a long time, holding hands, lost in their own thoughts. After a while, Maureen heard John’s breathing change, and she knew he had fallen asleep. Still, she laid awake staring at the ceiling, thinking about their conversation. If John knew what she really thought they needed Dr. Smith for, he would never agree to it.

It was hours before she finally began to drift off. And as she did, she started to have lucid dreams of all that had happened to them since coming to space. And, as often happened when her consciousness began to take a path of its own, she began to question herself and her motives. The last thought she had before finally falling to sleep was, am I really doing this for Will? Of course it was for him and about him. But there was something else too. Something she had a hard time admitting to herself. The scientist in her just had to find out if there was something else out there. And if so, could it be what she thought it was?

The next day they tried again to see Dr. Smith, and when they arrived at the correctional facility, they found another change had been made, and only one of them at a time were allowed in. They both agreed it would be Maureen.

She was led to the visiting room, where Doctor Smith was brought in and seated at a table across from her.

“To what do I owe a morning visit?” Doctor Smith asked. Both her tone and her expression were snarky. Maureen now recognized that as a defense mechanism, like so many other things about Smith, and Maureen wasn’t bothered by it.

She had been to see Dr. Smith several times since the woman had gone with Penny to find Will, and while neither of them would call it a friendship, they had developed sort of a mutual respect for each other, as two strong women in a world in which the glass ceilings never quite seemed to shatter all the way, even after so many years.

Doctor Smith was constantly doing whatever she could to survive, and Maureen stayed home when she had a child, while Grant went to outer space. And even after becoming such an important member of the Alpha Program, Maureen was shut out of much of the decision making.

She normally stopped by on her way home from work to visit Smith, so showing up early in the morning was unusual.

When she just looked back at Doctor Smith without answering why she was there at that time, Smith said, “Don’t tell me, the little shit is missing again. You know, Penny’s second book needs to be titled, “Where’s Will?”

When tears came to Maureen’s eyes, Doctor Smith said, “Hey, what’s wrong?” That was the last thing she expected from Maureen.

“Yes, he’s gone again. But it’s so much worse than that.”

Dr. Smith reached her hands out and took Maureen’s, something she never could have seen herself doing just a year earlier, and it still made her uncomfortable enough that she pulled them away after a few seconds.

“Tell me, Maureen.”

“When you went to that planet, you found him on the bed in the infirmary, and it looked like he had been strapped down,” Maureen said.

“Yes, but the restraints weren’t in the drawer where they normally would be,” Dr. Smith answered.

“Well, he had been strapped down.”

“You know this for a fact? How?”

“Robot came back, and he somehow could see what happened through Will’s memories. He’s been doing that recently. Since just before they went back to space. I guess he started recalling part of Will’s past. So, apparently when he left on his own, something triggered his memories of what had happened to them on the planet. It was the aliens. They aren’t extinct.”

“The aliens? The aliens that created the robots aren’t extinct? But why did they strap Will down?”

“They…they did something to him.”

Tears started flowing freely now, and Dr. Smith reached out and took her hands again. All sorts of things were flashing through Smith’s mind, recalling stories of alien abductions from Earth, with some people reporting experiments that had been done on them. But when Maureen spoke, Smith found it was much worse than what she was imagining.

“They operated on his heart.”

Smith just looked at her for a few seconds, and again pulled her hands back. “His shirt had been cut open. Yeah. What did they do to his heart?”

“They put something inside it. An…a miniature engine. It could do the same thing as the regular engines. Only because of it’s size, not as much damage. Though, still cataclysmic for the colony. The engines use matter-antimatter annihilation. And that many grams would create a nuclear explosion maybe twenty times Hiroshima. They wanted to destroy us, and when they lost the robots, they had no way to do that. Will thinks they are stranded on that planet. That maybe they could never pilot ships, so they used the robots for that.”

Dr. Smith just sat looking at Maureen without responding.

“Dr. Smith…”

“Wait a second Maureen, I’m thinking.”

Maureen gave her a couple of minutes, then Dr. Smith said, “Will’s been back two months, give or take.”

“Yes,” Maureen said.

“So, the aliens have no control over this thing they put in his chest?”

“Will said they turned it on so he would know what they had done to him.” She wiped more tears away, just stating it out loud made it worse.

“So, why haven’t they done it? I mean, why haven’t they detonated it?”

“I…I don’t know. I guess they have no way of knowing where he is.”

“Wait a second, Maureen. They are highly advanced. Advanced enough they understood particle science, created an accelerator larger than we could ever imagine, built engines that could rip a hole in space and destroy an entire planet. And created the robots. I can’t imagine they don’t have means to track whatever it is they put in Will’s chest.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Maureen said. “And I’m still trying to figure out how Robot was able to communicate through Scarecrow before SAR killed him. They were light years apart. With all of the technological advances they have over us, that’s still the one that puzzles me the most. It goes against everything we know about physics. The only thing I’ve been able to come up with is that they are using entangled particles to transfer information. So…what you’re saying makes sense. I…I didn’t think of that. I must be slipping.”

“Or you worried about your son,” Dr. Smith said.

“But, if you’re right, and they could track Will, why didn’t they destroy us? And why didn’t I think of this?”

“Again, to be fair, you had a lot on your mind. Stop beating yourself up over it. But it’s just one more thing we don’t know about them. Why didn’t they destroy us when they could?”

“And why Will?” Maureen said. “Why did they use Will?”

“Maybe he was just the unfortunate boy who was smart enough to figure out they were on that planet. Maybe it had nothing to do with him.”

“Do you really believe that?” Maureen asked.

“No,” Smith admitted. “We’ve all seen too much to think that. It has to be because of his connection to Robot, of course. But I’m not sure you’re right about them not being able to pilot spaceships. I’ve been doing a lot more research about that tribe on Earth. The Dogon. The ones in Will’s UFO book.”

“That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about,” Maureen said. “Will was right about where that planet was, and it started with this tribe. I think we need to understand everything there is to know about them. I’m especially interested in their origin myth.”

“Origin myth? Why?”

“Just a theory,” Maureen answered. “Normally it wouldn’t mean anything. I would consider it like any other religion. And being a scientist, religion isn’t really something I waste…spend…a lot of time thinking about. But since Will was right about where the aliens were from based on this tribe’s mythology, I can’t help but believe there’s more to it. And there may be more science here than superstition.”

“Amma, that’s what they called their creator,” Dr. Smith said. “The word has another meaning too. Something like to hold. I guess they pray to Amma to continue to hold the universe up or something. Not really sure about that part.”

“And Amma’s egg broke open, creating the universe,” Maureen said. “But that’s about as much as I could find.”

“This god, Amma, supposedly lived in what they refer to as the celestial regions,” Smith said. “Which means they didn’t have a fucking clue where he—or she—was from.”

“And they said the aliens were visiting them thousands of years ago,” Maureen said.

“Well, Will certainly thought so, and he found them where the stories said they would be, on a planet we had only heard of from their myths. But the Dogon weren’t the only ones to talk about amphibious aliens from the stars. I told you I have been doing a lot of research on this. Have you heard of the Code of Hammurabi?”

“Yes, the first written law, I believe. From Babylon.”

“Yes, and it still exists today, in the Louvre in Paris. It was carved around two thousand BC. At the top is an engraving of King Hammurabi, receiving the law from the sun god, Shamash. A god they said came from the sky. And the Babylonians believed they received other knowledge from beings from the sky as well. They called them the Apkallus, and they descended in a flying egg. Not unlike the ark that brought the Nommos to the Dogon tribe in Mali. And here’s the thing: The Apkallus were supposedly amphibious too. And were considered repulsive to look at.”

“The stories almost seem too close to be coincidental,” Maureen said. “I mean, since Will already proved that at least part of their myth was factual.”

“Coincidence is not really a part of my vocabulary,” Smith said, flashing her half smile.

“So, an egg broke open creating the universe,” Maureen said. “Life sprung up on Earth, and these amphibious aliens went to Earth to teach humans about…what?”

“Everything I guess,” Doctor Smith said. “And these myths are all over the world in ancient civilizations. The Annukai of ancient of Sumer. They supposedly looked like some type of insect with elongated heads. Or reptilian. In the Bible they were called The Watchers. Kukulkan of the Mayans. Half serpent, half man. He descended from the stars and brought cosmic knowledge to their culture.”

“You have been doing a lot of research,” Maureen said, sounding impressed.

“Well, I’m in prison, Maureen. Besides, the fact Will figured out where they were from just fascinates me.”

“But what did you say earlier?” Maureen asked. “Amma meant to hold or something? And the Dogon tribe prayed for that?”

“Yes. To continue to hold something up…I guess,” Dr. Smith said.

Maureen looked like she was thinking, but didn’t say anything.

“What, Maureen?”

“I don’t know. I’m just trying to figure it all out. I would never have wasted my time on this before. It seems so unscientific. But…”

“Will,” Dr. Smith said.

“Yes. Will. His brain is every bit as scientific as mine, but even after all he has gone through, he had the wide open eyes of youth on his side. He wasn’t afraid to believe. Maybe we need some of Will’s innocent exuberance.”

“Maureen, you’re going back to the planet we found Will on, aren’t you? What can I do to help?”

“We need to find out where this egg is, I think.”

“Is?” Dr. Smith said. “You mean was? You surely don’t believe that part of the story do you? That some god made an egg that broke open and created the universe?”

“Is or was. I’m not sure. And no, I don’t believe it’s an egg. But I think it could be real and it could be something else. Which is why we aren’t going back to the planet you found Will on. Because there is no way Will went back there. But everything starts with the Dogon and I think if we’re going to find Will, we have to start there too. We’re going back to Earth. And I want you to come with us.”

“Earth? Seriously, Maureen?”

“Yes, but here’s the thing I need from you. John will never want to do this. Especially where we have to go. He won’t listen to me. It has to be your idea.”

“Why would he listen to me more than his own wife?”

“Come on, Doctor Smith. You’re selling yourself short. We both know your superpower is persuasion.”

But when they had met with the Chief prosecutor later that day, he told them he was going to push hard to keep Smith in jail. They petitioned the court and a hearing was scheduled to discuss her release. The day of the hearing finally arrived, five long days after Will and Robot had left.

Maureen and John waited in the court room for them to bring Doctor Smith in. Victor Dhar and his wife Prisha were both there, as well as several members of the 24th Colonist group.

As she sat in the courtroom waiting for the hearing to being, Maureen thought of her conversation with Dr. Smith, and how much had changed since she had first met the woman. She was certainly a complicated person, and in the beginning, Maureen thought she was evil incarnate. But now she questioned that.

Maureen had grown up with a demanding mother, but with a gentle, caring father who sort of made up for her mother’s stern way and strict method of raising her. But regardless of the many battles she had had with her mother growing up, and even after she had become an adult, she never doubted the woman’s love. And when Judy was a baby, she didn’t know how she would have gotten by without her. She was a single mother with a demanding job that often kept her from home until late at night. She also attended many conferences and could be gone for days at a time. But Maureen never had to worry about Judy, because her mother and Grant’s mother were always there to help.

But Dr. Smith? Maureen didn’t know everything of course, but Penny and Will had gotten close to the woman, Penny close enough that Smith had even confided in her about her alcoholic mother, who doted over Smith’s sister. Maureen wasn’t naïve, and she assumed that some of it was exaggeration, but she couldn’t really judge someone who had grown up in that environment, and she couldn’t deny how the woman had risked her own life while saving the entire colony, when she took Will to find the robots. And after that she had made a full confession.

So, Maureen was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, until Smith proved her wrong. But it was when she was telling Maureen about the tribe from Earth and what she had discovered about them that Maureen had begun to see how intelligent the woman was. And more than intelligence, she had survival instincts that were unmatched. While Judy and John were skeptical, Maureen was convinced they needed Dr. Smith if they were going to find Will. So she was determined to do everything in her power to help free the woman.

Finally, Smith was led in by a guard. She smiled at Maureen and John as she walked in, and watching her, Maureen thought, if she could learn to smile without making it look like a smirk, this whole thing might be easier. But that was one change the woman seemed incapable of making. It was almost like everything around Dr. Smith was a joke, and she was the only one who knew the punchline.

And maybe that’s true, Maureen thought, as she watched Smith sit down at the table in front.

The judge walked in and everyone rose, then sat back down. He was a middle aged man, slightly gray around the temples, and looked serious. “This is a petition for a temporary release for June Harris,” he stated. “I have read the petition and several statements of support for June Harris, and I know there are some people who would like to testify on her behalf, but there is no need to waste a lot of time hearing testimony. While I certainly understand the position of the Robinson family, and sympathize with them, June Harris has admittedly committed some serious crimes. The most serious is allegedly manslaughter, though that case has not yet been tried. My job is to uphold the law, and to a greater extent, to assure that the citizens of the colony are safe…”

“Your honor,” Maureen stood and interrupted him. “The colony would not even be here without Dr…June Harris.”

“Order,” the Judge responded. “You know better than that, Mrs. Robinson. You have not been sworn in.”

“You have not sworn me in! You haven’t sworn anyone in! This was supposed to be a hearing…”

“This is a hearing Mrs. Robinson, and I will conduct it in the way I see fit. If you continue this outburst, you will find yourself in contempt of court, and I will have no choice but to have you arrested.”

“You can’t just dismiss this without letting us speak! My son is missing. I think June Harris can help find him, just like she did before!”

“This is your final warning…”

“My son saved this colony! My son and Doctor Smith working together saved this colony. You might not even be alive…”

“Bailiff, please place Mrs. Robinson under arrest,” the judge said.

The bailiff walked toward Maureen, and John stood and said, “Keep your hands off my wife.”

Now two guards from in back rushed down the aisle. John heard them coming and quickly stepped past Maureen to meet them. As he did, he saw three other guards step in from a door that led to the judges chamber, all with guns drawn. The two guards rushing toward them from the back had guns drawn as well.

John felt Victor’s hand on his shoulder. “John, not his way.”

John whispered to him, “Find out what’s going on, Victor, they were planning this.”

“Arrest both Mr. and Mrs. Robinson and incarcerate them until I have room in my calendar to schedule a hearing,” the judge said. “And I have a busy few weeks, so I don’t know when that’s going to happen.”

“But our son…”

“This hearing is dismissed!” The judge shouted over Maureen. “Remit June Harris back to her cell, and process the Robinsons.”

Judy’s forehead was against Don’s. “Your mission here is accomplished, Admiral. You are excused.” She kissed him.

Don kissed her back and sighed contentedly. “First, I can’t move if you don’t get off me. Secondly, I don’t think I can move anyway.”

Judy kissed him again. “Did I wear you out, Don?”

“You most certainly did. And to be fair, I don’t mind so much that you aren’t moving yet.”

“Maybe I’m a little tired myself.”

“I sure hope so. You were definitely…uh…energetic…”

“Is that a good thing?”

“That was a very good thing.”

“Well…if I lie here long enough, maybe…”

“No! No! No! I have got to go back to work.”

She gave him a fake pout.

“That’s not going to work. Even if it did—it won’t—I don’t think I could do anything about it now anyway.”

“Oh, Don…” she kissed his lips gently. “If I didn’t know better…” she kissed his neck. “I would say…” she slid down a little and kissed his chest. “That sounds a lot like…” she slid down more and kissed his stomach. “Very much like…” she slid down and kissed his stomach again, lower this time.

“Another challenge.”

Penny’s voice came over her radio, “Judy! Where the hell are you? Mom and Dad have been arrested!”

As Judy lifted her head, Don groaned and said, “You Robinsons really need to work on your timing.”

Judy crawled quickly to the bedside table where her radio was. She sat on the edge of the bed and Don raised up and sat beside her. “Copy, Penny. Arrested? For what?”

“Contempt of court. Victor called me. Where are you?”

“I…I’m on my way. Twenty minutes or so. I’ll pick you up and we’ll go together.”

“Okay,” Penny said.

Chapter Text

Penny was waiting outside when Judy pulled up in the Chariot. She ran out and climbed in the passenger side. But as soon as she looked at her sister, she said, “Ok, Judy, turn the engine off.”

“What? Why? We need to go…”

“Well, I suggest you take a quick shower. It’s pretty obvious what you’ve been doing.”

Judy looked at her hair in the mirror.

“It’s not just your hair, Judy. It’s all over you. And even if they don’t ask you, Mom and Dad will talk about it when we’re not around. And if they start talking about it, Dad might start remembering that Don showed up at our house at three AM. Unless…it wasn’t Don you were with.”

“It was Don. Ok. I’ll be quick.”

They climbed out and Judy ran to the house while Penny sat in the chairs beneath the trees and waited for her. She was a little miffed at first, thinking, why would her sister be having sex when the most important thing to all of them right now should be finding Will? But then she realized she was just jealous. She hadn’t had sex with Vijay in almost three months, since Will had almost died on the dam.

Her thoughts turned to her brother. She tried to stay positive. So many things had happened to him since he came to space, but this seemed different. They had no idea where he was, of course, which was nothing new when it came to her brother, but this time it was worse. Even if they did find him, how would they ever be able to help him? He would never come back to Alpha Centauri when there was a danger of killing everyone in the colony. And if he did, how would they be able to remove that thing from his chest? Whatever the aliens did to him, the medical professionals on the planet had not even been able to detect that anything was different about his heart.

She heard the front door open and Judy walked out, her hair wet from the shower.

“Better?” Judy called.

Penny stood up and walked toward the Chariot. She climbed in on the passenger side without saying anything.

“What?” Judy asked, as she put the vehicle in reverse.

“Nothing.”

“Come on, I know you better than that.”

“It’s good to see you have time for fun while our brother’s missing.”

“Penny, I’ve been working every day to find a way to get Will back. I just…”

“Decided to take some time and get laid.”

“Would you not be so crude?”

“Why, isn’t that what you did?”

“I hadn’t seen Don since he left. He called me and I met him for about an hour. That’s all.”

“Whatever…I’m not your mother. And what the hell have you been doing to find Will here on Alpha Centauri?”

“I’m working on something, but I don’t want to say yet.”

“Oh, fuck that! You and Will are just exactly the same. You get some idea in your head because you think you can fix everything that’s broken and don’t talk to anyone about it. And you’re the one who always says Robinsons stick together.” She said the last words in a mocking tone.

“It’s not that. I just…I’m not sure what’s going on, and I don’t want to accuse someone of something until I know.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Accuse who…Grant! It’s about Grant, isn’t it?”

“Why would you say that?” Judy asked.

“Because I’m not an idiot. He’s your biological father. You’re acting just like you did when we climbed to find the uranium! You planned to go on to the top alone and look for him, but you didn’t say anything to me and Will at all. Besides…who else would it be? It wouldn’t be any of us, unless you suspected Doctor Smith. You’re still the only one who doesn’t really trust her. But she’s locked up. Besides, if you thought she knew something about what happened to Will, you would have no problem accusing her and telling us what you suspected she was doing.

“Grant is family, we all say, but just because he’s your biological father, is he really family? He’s been missing for twenty years, and apparently his mission was not exactly what everyone thought it was. How well do we really know him? And we haven’t seen him since Will left. So I’m asking you flat out. Do you think Grant had anything to do with what’s going on with Will?”

Judy sighed. “No. I don’t think he had anything to do with that. But you’re right, it is Grant I’m talking about. Will you please not discuss this with Mom and Dad right now? Everyone is just getting to know him. I’m just getting to know him.”

“Yes, I promise, for now. But you know my loyalty is to Will, not Grant.”

“Mine too. Which I’m going to make very clear when I find him.”

“When you find him? Okay, tell me what’s going on," Penny said.

“Well, the night at the Town Market, when we got in that fight…I lied when I told everyone I had asked Grant how he knew Mom and Dad had been attacked. I didn’t ask him. Because something happened during that fight that was kind of weird. That guy you and Will were fighting. When Grant knocked him down, I was watching the guy, and he looked completely surprised. And when I looked at Grant’s face, I could swear they knew each other.

“So I started thinking about everything. How did Grant just suddenly show up at the market? And if he knew those guys, did he have something to do with it? With Hiroki’s disappearance I mean?

“It was just a suspicion," Judy continued. "So the morning after Will left, I went to Grant's apartment, but he wasn’t there. And I’ve been calling him and going by every day. I even park outside and watch for him. That’s why I’ve been gone so much since Will disappeared. And today I went by again and knocked. He wasn’t there, but someone else was. He’s got a girlfriend.”

“Grant has a girlfriend?”

“Yes, and we talked for awhile. She says it’s not unusual for him to disappear for a few days at a time. And she’s walked in when he quickly closed his computer. She said it was something about Alpha, and that Grant told her he did a lot of things for them he couldn’t talk about. And here’s the most interesting part: the night he left was the night of the fight at the market. He called and told her he would be gone for awhile, and she hasn’t heard from him since.”

“Granted…pardon the pun…it’s weird. But how does this help us find Will?," Penny asked.

“Penny, Grant was on a mission to find what the rift in space was. Or so he said. It was caused by the robots or the aliens or whatever. But it goes back to them. Hiroki disappeared after meeting Mom, and talking to her about the aliens. Those guys came to the market to take Hiroki’s notes. And I guess they got them. We think the notes were about the aliens. The trail leads back to the aliens, and the aliens lead back to Will. I don’t know if any of this will help us find our brother or not. But we have no clue whatsoever. As long as we’re waiting around to see if they will release Smith, I’m going to do what I can to find Will. And I believe Grant knows a lot more than he’s told us.

“You know, even when we went back to the planet where we were stranded, and found the particle accelerator, it seemed like Grant was acting weird. I noticed it but I thought it was my imagination, and…I guess I just didn’t want to believe he was being…I don’t know. Not dishonest, but maybe secretive.”

“What was he doing?" Penny asked. 

“Nothing major, it just seemed like whatever idea the rest of us had about the aliens and the particle accelerator and what they could have been working on, he just sort of blew it off, and said something like, we’re jumping to conclusions. Almost like he didn’t want us to try and figure it all out.”

They pulled up at the correctional facility. “Penny, remember…”

“I promise. For now. But Will is my priority.”

“Will is my priority too, Penny. I hope you believe that.”

She opened the door and started to climb out but Penny grabbed her arm. “Judy.”

Her sister turned back to her.

“I have never questioned that. You’ve always taken care of us, Judy.”

“Not when we were stranded.”

Penny saw tears come to her eyes. She leaned over and hugged us. “Yes, you did. We just weren’t used to sharing you.”

“Thanks Penny,” Judy whispered. “Thanks for that. I wish I had paid more attention to what was going on with Will, though.”

“Yeah, me too,” Penny said. They climbed out of the Chariot and walked toward the door.

Before entering, Judy took Penny’s arm and pulled her to a stop. “If they only let one of us go in at a time, like they did when Mom and Dad went to see Smith, you can go first and I’ll wait.”

But they were both taken to a waiting room where John and Maureen were brought in. They sat at a table, while the guard that brought them stood at the back by the door.

“You guys okay?” Penny asked when they sat down.

“Don’t worry about them,” the guard said, looking at Penny. “The officers here all know the Robinsons and what you did for the colony. And we know it almost killed your brother. It’s bullshit they’re in here anyway, but nothing’s going to happen to them. I promise you that.”

Penny smiled at him and he leaned against the wall.

“When will they let you out?” Judy asked.

“After a hearing,” John said. “But it’s not been scheduled yet.”

“The longer it takes us to go find Will, the smaller the chance is we’ll ever get him back,” Judy said.

“We know,” Maureen said. “But the Judge wasn’t very receptive to what we had to say.”

“Apparently,” Penny said.

“Girls, we’re sorry,” John said. “But all we can do now is wait for the hearing. I’m sure everything will be fine. But we’re going to have to do this without Doctor Smith. That judge is never going to let her out of here.”

“I’m not sure we can find Will without her!” Penny said.

“Why do you two have so much faith in Smith?” John asked, looking at Maureen and Penny.

“Well, so far, she’s been valuable in a lot of situations from shooting a harpoon to you to piloting the Jupiter off the reefs, to finding Will,” Penny said.

“Maureen?” John said, turning his gaze on her.

“I could talk about how smart she is, or how conniving, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if she’s on our side. But it isn’t that. It’s a feeling. We need her.”

“A feeling?” John said. “I guess we’re suddenly throwing the scientific process out the window.”

“Yes. Because I’m a mother and my son is in danger. I’ll take those instincts over the scientific process any day.”

“Now you say that?” Penny replied. When she saw the pain in her mother’s eyes, she immediately felt bad. “I’m sorry Mom. That wasn’t fair.”

“It was fair,” Maureen said. Penny walked to the other side of the table and hugged her, then sat back down.

“So go home, girls, there’s nothing you can do for us,” John said.

Penny looked at Judy. “We…”

“We’ll go home,” Judy said. “Be careful, okay?”

“You heard the guard,” Maureen said. “I don’t think we’re in any danger here. Not even any violent criminals, really. And they’ve all been friendly too.”

The girls stood up and hugged their parents and left.

A week went by with no word on when the hearing would be scheduled. The legal system was still a work in progress on Alpha, and even though Victor worked diligently to get in front of the Judge to at least get a hearing date set, he was never given an answer other than the Judge’s docket was full.

After another week, Judy and Penny were called to the correctional facility where they met John and Maureen in the waiting room again. When the girls sat down, Maureen said, “We have some bad news, the hearing date is next month. The last Thursday in the month.”

“What!” Penny shouted. “That’s almost four weeks! What about Will?”

“I know,” John said. “We’ve tried everything we can. Our attorney has been trying and so has Victor, but that’s the best they can do.”

“No. No.” Penny said. “We have to do something.”

“Mom. Dad. Penny’s right,” Judy added. “We have to do something.”

“If there was anything we could do…” John started.

“No!” Penny interrupted, standing. “We’re Robinsons! We’re fucking Robinsons! We’re not farmers and we don’t just take this shit! We’ve survived because we count on each other. No one else! We have to do something.” She turned and stomped out of the room.

“I’ll go talk to her,” Judy said. She stood up and hugged her parents and hurried to catch up with Penny. But when she was outside Penny was already speeding away in the Chariot.

“Fuck!” Judy said. She called her sister’s radio, but Penny had turned it off.

Penny pulled up outside Vijay’s house. She turned her radio on, called him and said, “Vijay, I’m here, can you come out and talk to me?”

There was a long pause before he answered, “Why me? I’m sure there are other people you can talk to.”

“Goddamnit Vijay! Forget it!”

She put the Chariot in gear, but Vijay walked out and she shut it off and waited for him. He walked over to the driver’s side. She lowered the window and said, “Please get in and talk to me.”

He started to argue, but walked around and climbed in.

Just as Vijay sat down, Judy’s voice came over Penny’s radio. “Penny, where are you?”

“I need some space from everyone,” Penny answered.

“You could have taken me home before taking off with the Chariot,” Judy said tersely.

“I’m sure you can find someone who will rescue a damsel in distress,” Penny said, and turned her radio back off.

“What’s going on with you two?” ViJay asked. Penny could still hear the anger in his voice.

“I’m just pissed at my entire family right now, ViJay.”

“So since you don’t want to talk to them, now I’m important to you?”

“Damnit ViJay, I wasn’t doing anything with Liam except talking. That’s it! Please stop acting like this.”

“Well it’s not like there isn’t a history…”

“I know! I know! But I need to talk to you. As a friend if that’s all you want.”

“All I want? You know better than that. What do you want?”

“I want to fucking find my brother! Can we talk about that, please?”

Suddenly, Vijay became calm. “Jesus. I’m sorry, Penny. Really, I wasn’t thinking. I’m so selfish.”

“No, it’s okay. Really. I understand you got pissed when you saw us sitting there together, but seriously, it was nothing. I just need to talk to someone about Will.”

“I know. I know. So, catch me up. What’s going on with your parents?”

“Your dad didn’t tell you?”

“I haven’t talked to him today,” Vijay answered.

“The judge set the hearing for next month! My parents are stuck here that long, and they are never letting Dr. Smith out!”

“And nothing can be done?” Vijay asked.

“I guess not,” she said. “But we can’t just fucking sit here and wait.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking. But I have to do something.”

“Penny, please don’t be…” he didn’t finish the sentence.

“Be what?”

“Be yourself. You don’t need to figure it all out on your own.”

“I think I do. Mom and Dad are locked up. So’s Doctor Smith. And Judy thinks G…”

When she didn’t finish, Vijay said, “Judy thinks what?”

“I don’t know. She has some conspiracy theory or something.”

“Conspiracy theory?”

“Yeah. Well, Mom does too. Like it’s all tied to that night we were attacked, and Hiroki’s disappearance.”

“It could be,” Vijay said. “My dad believes there’s a lot of weird things going on. Or maybe it’s just something simple. No one really knows everything that happened on that planet Will and Robot went to. He was gone a whole month.”

Penny was quiet.

“You okay?”

She still didn’t answer.

“Penny?”

“Yes. Yeah, I was just thinking.” She suddenly turned, put her hands on his face and kissed him.

“What…”

“I gotta go, Vijay.”

“What? What’s going on…”

“Seriously, I have to go. But thanks. Thanks a lot.” She kissed him again. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“You’re so weird,” he said, as he climbed out.

“Isn’t that what you love about me?”

“That’s only one of the things I love about you,” he said, his voice serious.

She just looked at him. Neither of them had said they loved each other before. She started to answer, but she stopped, her mouth still open.

“Okay, not exactly the response I was hoping for. But okay.”

“Vijay…”

“No, we’ll talk later. It’s fine, but let me know what you’re going to do, okay?”

“Do?”

“Come on, Penny. That’s another thing I love about you. You might act like a Hobbit. But you’re never going to be happy in a little house in the Shire, sitting by a fire, reading a book, letting Will go on all the adventures. Just like your dad would never be happy on that farm. One of these days you’ll finally admit that to yourself.”

She smiled. “Well, right now, I want to be in that little house in the Shire, lying in front of the fireplace. With you.”

“What about reading a book?” He asked with a smile.

“Fuck the book,” she said, blew him a kiss and drove off.

She looked in the mirror. He was standing in the road, smiling. He shook his head and walked back toward his house. “If you only knew me as well as you thought you did, Vijay,” She said. But the thought entered her mind, what if he knows me more than I know myself?

Judy had called Don after Penny drove off. He left work to pick her up. “Home?” He asked as she climbed in.

“Yeah, yours.”

“You sure? It sounds like Penny’s upset.”

“I’m upset too, Don! We’re all upset. But we’re stuck here for another month wondering where the hell Will is, Penny isn’t answering her radio and I just don’t want to think about any of this for the rest of the afternoon. I want to be with you.”

“But do you think…”

“If you don’t want to go to bed with me, then take me home.”

“Yeah, I didn’t say that,” he drove to his apartment.

They were no sooner in the door than she started kissing him. They pulled each other’s clothes off on their way to the bedroom, where they made love like it was the last time they would ever see each other.

Judy was lying with her head on his chest.

“You okay?” He asked, he was toying with her hair as he looked down at her.

“Yeah,” she said quietly.

“What’s wrong? I mean, besides the obvious?”

“I think things are changing.”

“Changing? Changing how? With us?”

“Yes, and no. My feelings aren’t changing. And the way you were the last hour, I don’t think yours are either.” She lifted her head and turned her face to his. “Though you are a guy.” She smiled.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning, you would be able to do those things you just did to me anyway.”

“To be fair, we did a whole lot of things to each other,” he said. “So whatever you’re feeling, it didn’t stop you.”

“No, it helped. Because what I’m feeling is that I love you. And if something happens, I want you to know that.”

“I…um…”

“It’s okay. I didn’t say it so you would respond in kind. I mean, it’s the most unfair thing to say to someone if you’re not exactly sure how they feel, isn’t it?”

“Unfair? Why is it unfair?”

“It’s like putting a gun to your head. I love you. There’s only one response that works, you say the same thing back. Hence, I’m putting a gun to your head.”

“But I…” she put her hand across his mouth, silencing him.

“Don’t you dare say it now! Even if you were going to. You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it won’t count. I’ll never know if you said it just because I had a gun to your head. So it won’t count.”

“Talk about unfair!” He protested.

“You should have said it first then, now it’s too late.”

“But…”

“Nope, too late.”

“Well then…how do I make it up to you?”

“Well, remember that thing you did? Right in the beginning.”

“In the beginning? When we first met? Or the first time we did this?”

“No, today. When you first got me naked. It was only like an hour or so ago.”

“Yeah, I remember that thing I did.”

“Well, if you do it again, it might start making up for it.”

He smiled. “Well, I’m nothing if not a diplomat.” He pushed her off him, rolled her to her back, and did that thing again. It almost made her forget he hadn’t told her he loved her.

He drove her home that evening. Before she got out of the Chariot, he said, “What you said…”

“Nope. Still can’t say it. I’m not saying you were going to, but if you were, you can’t.”

He smiled. “You’re no walk through the park, Judy Robinson.”

“Yeah, remember that, Don West.” She kissed him and climbed out. She watched him drive off. She did love him. Even though she had had no plans to tell him that. At least not this soon. The problem was she had a feeling that something was going to happen, and if it did, she might not see him again. She didn’t know why she had that feeling, but ever since Penny fled the prison, it was a feeling she couldn’t get out of her head. She went inside to see her sister.

Penny was sitting calmly at the dining room table, like she was waiting for her.

“Thanks a lot for just leaving me,” Judy said.

“I’m sure you found something to do to kill some time.”

Judy sat down. “Why the outburst with Mom and Dad? It’s not like they want to be locked up.”

“I’m not blaming them, but I’m tired of sitting around talking about this all the time.”

“We can’t do anything until they get out, then we’ll go with them to find Will.”

“I’m not going with them.”

“What do you mean you aren’t going with them, Penny!"

“Just what I said. I’m not going.”

“Who the hell are you?” Judy said. “Your brother would give his life for you. For all of us. He almost did over and over again! And you just say ‘I’m not going!”

“I’m not going with Mom and Dad.”

“You made that Crystal. Fucking. Clear.” Her voice rose with each emphasized word. “Meanwhile, your brother is out there somewhere. Alone. And those…those…those things…cut him open and put a goddamn nuclear bomb in his chest. Can you even imagine how alone he is right now? Can you imagine how he feels? Can you imagine how he would feel if he knew what you just said about not going to find him? Can you even fucking imagine?”

Now there were tears in Penny’s eyes. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, I can imagine. He thinks his life is over. He thinks he’ll never see his family again. He’ll never fall in love. He’ll never have a normal life. He’ll never go home.

“It’s easy for me to imagine, Judy. Because he has felt this way for so long. Since we were stranded, and he was the only one of us who was smart enough to know SAR was after him, not the engine. Mom is a rocket scientist. She was there when SAR tried to trap Will in the cave. She knew the robots knew Will’s name. And when Ben questioned it, she just blew it off. Like everyone is always interested in people who are different, or some shit. She had just as much evidence as Will did, but she never thought the robots were after him. Not until they were going to Alpha Centauri. She knew it then. That it was Will they were following.

“But Judy, when did Will know? When did he figure it all out? I think he began putting it together way back on the Amber planet, when he realized SAR was setting a trap for him. And he’s been all alone since then. Everything we’ve done, and everything he’s done to put that behind him…to make him feel like a normal teenage boy in a normal family…has been bullshit. He tried. He tried so hard. To pretend to want to stay here. To pretend he wanted to be a farmer like Dad. It was all a lie. We were lying to him, and he was lying to himself.

“Dad’s no Goddamn farmer, and Will’s no Goddamn farmer. And he isn’t a normal teenage boy. He never will be. He is not meant to stay here and be surrounded by his family and live his life out on a farm or in a lab coat at Alpha or whatever. He is meant to be out there. He is meant to discover things no one else will ever discover. That will be the only thing that ever makes him happy.”

“And so you’re just going to turn your back on him?” Judy said. “You’re going to go on with your life and whatever happens to your brother happens to your brother, because he’s out there where you think he belongs. You’re happy with him just disappearing on his own because he is some damn explorer or whatever, so it’s fine with you if he just goes off alone and you never see him again?”

“No. I’m not going to just turn my back on him. And no. It’s not fine with me if he just goes off alone and I never see him again. That will never be fine with me.”

“Then why don’t you want to go with Mom and Dad?”

“Because they are in jail! And they have no idea where we need to go. But I do.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“We need to go back to the planet where we found Will after Christmas.”

“Why?”

“That’s where something happened to him. We have to find out what it was.”

“What happened to him was the aliens cut his chest open and put some…device…in our brother’s heart.”

“Something happened before that I think.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dreamed it. Or felt it or something. I can’t explain it. Something had him and didn’t let him go.”

“The aliens had him strapped to that damn table,” Judy said. “That’s what happened to him.”

“How long can someone go without food and water, Judy?”

“It depends on body composition, age…”

“Average?”

“Three or four days without water. Maybe three weeks or four without food, but it still depends…”

“Will was gone for a month. I found him, Judy. I was there. He was sweaty but he wasn’t dirty in any other way. He had no loss of bodily functions. And he was dehydrated and skinny, but he wasn’t near death from starvation or dehydration. There was no way he was strapped to that table the whole time. And the dream I had was about three weeks or so before we found him.

“No. Something had him. I know it. And I don’t think it was the aliens.”

“But you can’t know that for sure.”

“Of course I can’t know that for sure. But we can’t just sit here another month. While they’re waiting for the hearing, we can see if there’s anything on that planet that would give us a clue as to what happened to him.”

“But if Will’s right, the aliens are still alive, Penny. And they’re on that planet. You sure you want to do this?”

“Of course I don’t want to do this. But like you said, Will would do it for us.”

Judy just stared at her for a few seconds, then she walked over and sat down at the table beside her and hugged her tightly. “I don’t think any of us in the family have given you enough credit for how brave you are little sister.”

But Judy felt Penny’s shoulders rocking, and knew she was crying. After awhile Penny whispered, “I’m fucking scared to death, Judy.”

Then she raised up, wiped her tears, looked her sister in the eyes and said, “Now let’s go find our baby brother.”

Chapter Text

Judy and Penny waited until after midnight to try and get the Jupiter 2. Security was tight after the robot war, but Maureen had given Judy the security codes after finding out she was going to be in jail for a few weeks. Maureen trusted Don, but she didn’t trust most of the other officials at Alpha Control and she had never trusted Alpha Security completely, even less so after Hiroki disappeared. So she wanted to make sure Judy had access in case there was a problem. She knew what her daughter was capable of.

Judy had gone to Alpha earlier in the day. She was well known there of course, as were all the Robinsons, so it was easy to make her way around the facility without drawing suspicion. Only one guard stopped her after she traveled up to the space station, and she easily explained she was there to get some of her mother’s things from her desk so Maureen could get some work done while she was waiting for the hearing.

Judy just didn’t leave once she was in the office.

Judy knew Don was at the space station somewhere, and as much as she wanted to see him, he would know she was up to something if he saw her there. When Penny had first told her about her plan, Judy thought they needed Don with them. But this uneasy feeling she had about things changing made her decide not to involve him. If she and Penny didn’t return, Don could still go with her mom and dad to find Will. And no matter what, Will’s safety was the most important thing to her.

The guards changed shifts at midnight, so a few minutes before, she pulled a maintenance uniform and cap out of the bag she carried, changed clothes, and tucked her hair up under the cap, then made her way back to the hall. She used her mother’s security access to override the alarm and enter a back entrance to the storage bay where the robot engines were kept. She knew the whole area was under surveillance, but there was nothing she could do but hope they weren’t monitoring the cameras every minute. Even a maintenance crew member would draw attention in that room. But Don had told her everyone was pretty relaxed now that the robots were helping them.

She took one of the electronic lifts from its docking station on the wall, lowered it and slid it under an engine, lifted it, pulled a utility blanket out of her pack and covered it. She wheeled the engine back to the cargo elevator, then down several levels to the Jupiter docking bays. If she was seen on the camera now, it would look like a member of maintenance was moving some equipment.

The docking bay would be where she waited for Penny, who would fly the Jupiter 2 up with Sally. Penny had the security codes to the landing field where the Jupiters were kept, and was dressed in a flight suit and helmet, and Jupiters went from the space station to the surface at all hours, so if anyone saw her they would just assume it was a pilot with a robot on their way to the space station.

Initially, Judy wanted to be the one to take the Jupiter, but John had insisted the entire family learn to pilot the ships after the robot battle, and to everyone’s surprise, Penny had become pretty good, though she constantly said she wasn’t sciency.

At first Judy argued with her about being the one to fly the Jupiter up, but Penny said she had her cover story ready. If she was stopped she would break into tears and say she just had to see Don. He was the only parental figure she had now that her Mom and Dad were in jail.

When Penny told her the plan, Judy smiled and said, “Okay, yeah, I’ve seen you pull that off before. If this whole writing thing doesn’t work out, I’m sure you could be an actor. Besides, if you got caught stealing an engine that story might not fly. And…I would rather take that risk. If we’re caught stealing one or the other, it should be the ship. It’s the engine that could destroy a planet.”

“Well, if we’re successful, we’re stealing both,” Penny had argued.

“If we’re successful, we might wish we had been caught,” Judy said, “Since we don’t know what we’re going to find on that planet. But if anyone gets caught before we can leave, stealing a weapon like the engine is going to be really serious. And that shouldn’t be your responsibility.”

They assumed once Penny took off from the landing pad, the alarms would sound, as all flights to and from the space station had to be scheduled and logged. But then it would be a matter of minutes before Penny docked at the space station, and Judy would board and take over as pilot and they would be gone before anything could be done to stop them. If Judy was able to get the engine and make it to the docking station.

They kept radio silence until Penny was docked, then she called her sister and said, “The eagle has landed. The eagle has landed,” in a very low, serious voice. Judy just shook her head as she made her way to the Jupiter 2.

But when she was almost to the bay, she heard someone yell, “Hey, what are you doing here?”

Judy didn’t look around. She knew it was a guard. She hadn’t heard the alarm sound when Penny lifted off, but she wasn’t sure she could hear it down here. She shoved the cart hard and began running to the bay, where she found the Jupiter 2 and the hatch open. She wheeled the engine in, where Sally was waiting to carry it down to the engine room. Judy ran to the cockpit and climbed into the pilot’s chair, while Penny switched to the co-pilot’s chair.

“Any problems?” Judy asked.

“No. One guard patrolling inside the gate, but he was young and Sally stared him down while I mustered up a couple tears, then he melted, and told me since it wasn’t logged, to call in the flight as soon as I started launch proceedings. I promised I would. Weird thing though, because when I didn’t call it in, I was sure an alarm would sound. But nothing at all. I took off and it was like they didn’t even notice.”

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Judy said, as she lifted off.

“Yuck. Horses mouths are something I will never get used too.”

Two days later, they went through the rift and came out in the Sirius system. “I’m loading the coordinates from the Jupiter 2, for where Will landed the ship.”

“Okay, I’m sure I’ll recognize it too,” Penny said. “It was sort of on a cliff, where they could see below them into a valley.”

Once they were in the planet’s atmosphere, Penny said, “We didn’t take much time to look at the planet. We were focused on the signal from the Jupiter 2, but it’s a beautiful place.”

“Yeah,” Judy said. “Actually looks a lot like Earth.”

“It does,” Penny agreed.

They flew in silence, low over the surface, just watching the scenery below. After about an hour, Judy said, “twelve o’clock, that look right?”

“Directly in front of us,” Penny said. “On the high ground. That’s where Will sat down.”

“Good location,” Judy said. “He could see everything from there.”

“Hey,” Penny said, “before we land, let’s go over the canyon toward those hills to the right.”

“The hills at three o’clock?”

“Yeah. Those hills to the right.”

Judy gave her a look.

“I still get a medium coffee at Starbucks, too. I can do words. But if there’s a perfectly good one already made…”

Judy gave her slight grin. “You think that’s where Will went?” She asked as she brought the ship around.

“I think so. He said he saw something strange in the hills. He couldn’t remember what it was though. So they landed and took the Chariot out. They left it somewhere in the forest, or maybe at the edge of it when they couldn’t go any further and hiked to the hills. At least he thought they did.”

They were flying over the forest, and saw where it ended at the edge of the steep canyon. “Did he say how long it took to hike out there?” Judy asked. “It had to have taken a day just to get to the canyon and across.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. I think a couple days, but I don’t remember if he said. He probably didn’t remember either.”

“This swamp is almost spooky, isn’t it?” Judy said. “I think because of the sparse trees. It looks like a dystopian landscape. I guess it’s fed from the river and the runoff from the hills. But it’s kind of in a weird place for a swamp.”

“I guess. Swamps aren’t really my thing,” Penny said. Judy glanced at her. Penny’s mood seemed to have soured, but Judy figured she was just worried about their brother, and thinking of what might have happened to him here.

“I don’t see anything strange about the hills,” Judy said. “Just green grass covering most of them.” Penny didn’t answer, and Judy flew across them for awhile, so they could see the other side, but they just seemed to go on until the forest picked up again miles in the distance.

“Nothing strange out here that I can see. I’ll set down back there where the hills began at the end of the grassy field.” Judy adjusted course and piloted the Jupiter back the way they had come.

“No. I think we need to land where Will did and take the Chariot and hike. If we just land we might miss something. I think we should do exactly what Will and Robot did.”

“Okay, if you insist. But that will add a day or two.” She set a course for the ridge where Will had landed the Jupiter when he had been here.

“I know, but I think it’s important,” Penny said. “We have time with Mom and Dad locked up, and I think we need to go where Will went, and do what he did. We don’t want to miss anything.”

Judy glanced at her, hearing the tone in her voice. Penny was concerned, it was obvious, but Judy wasn’t sure if it was because she was worried about Will, or something else.

Judy landed the Jupiter where Penny directed her. As they unbuckled, Judy said, “Pack for four or five days, just in case. I’ll go down and get the Chariot ready.”

An hour later they were driving across the valley on the way to the forest beyond, Sally clinging to the back, as Robot had when Will made this trip months earlier. They spent the first night parked just outside the forest. Instead of setting up a tent, they slept in the reclined seats of the Chariot, Sally standing outside on watch.

They were able to take the Chariot for another half a day through the forest, before starting to hike. By nightfall they had made it through the forest and stood at the rim of the canyon, looking down.

“There’s a path over there,” Judy said. “Something has lived here.”

“Our brother says it’s the aliens,” Penny said.

She turned to Sally, who was standing beside her, also looking down into the canyon. “Do you feel them, Sally? Your creators. Can you tell if they’re here?”

Sally looked across the canyon before answering. “No.”

Judy glanced at her sister. “She never was much for talking,” Penny explained.

“Well, let’s make camp here tonight,” Judy said. “We still have a good visual.” She looked behind her. “Except for the forest.” There was only about twenty meters from the tree line to the canyon rim.

“Sally, can you keep watch,” Penny said.

“Yes, Penny Robinson.”

“Do you sense trouble, Sally?”

“No, Penny Robinson.”

“Good,” Penny smiled up at the robot, then at her sister. “She says enough, though.”

The next morning the girls started the hike down to the canyon floor. The path was steep, but the weather had been clear, and the trail was dry, so they had no problems getting to the bottom.

“Hey, there’s something there,” Judy said, pointing toward the wall on the other side of a small creek. “A cave maybe.”

They walked over and knelt down. It was a small opening in the side of the wall, maybe two feet back, and high enough to sit inside of. Judy got on her hands and knees and crawled back in, then crawled out and stood. They both looked at the object in Judy’s hand. “A flashlight,” Penny said.

Judy turned it over. Jupiter 2 was plainly stamped on the side of it. “Will’s,” Judy said. “From the Go Bag on the Chariot.”

“He was here,” Penny said quietly.

“Yeah. Maybe getting out of the weather back in there,” Judy said.

“Or hiding from something,” Penny said ominously.

“Well, we’re on the right track,” Judy said. “Let’s get going. I want to get to the top before nightfall.”

“Yeah, cause that swamp looked like a really good place to spend the night,” Penny mumbled.

Halfway up the other side they stopped in front of a wide crevasse going deep into the side of the canyon. Judy glanced in but began to follow the trail on past it.

“Hey, we have to look inside,” Penny said.

Judy turned to her. “Aren’t we in a hurry?”

“But we’re looking for whatever it was that happened to Will here. We have to retrace his footsteps, and there is no way in hell he just walked right past this.”

Judy turned back around and stepped in front of Penny, and looked into the crevasse. “You’re right. Okay, let’s do this.” She stepped inside and Penny followed.

At first, the opening was wide, but it soon narrowed, and Sally had to turn sideways to get between the walls at one point. After about ten meters, it opened into a wide chamber maybe twenty feet in diameter. They looked up to the top, fifty meters or so above them, where the sky was blue.

“Hey, look,” Judy said.

Penny followed her gaze to the far wall. “Wow,” she said.

Both girls walked toward the back. All across the wall were drawings. Stick figures of people, and animals. Lions, zebras, and some that resembled deer and bison. Some were not recognizable to the girls. And there were some that looked like dinosaurs.

“This must have been like finding treasure to Will,” Judy said.

“Yeah, it proved he was right. That this planet actually held life, and that someone from here might have been to Earth. But I think it’s one of the things he completely forgot about. He never mentioned this at all.”

“I just realized something else,” Judy said. “Listen to how quiet it is.”

Penny looked around. “No animals. No birds.”

“Like it’s perfectly suited for life,” Judy said, “and life has obviously been on this planet before, but now, it’s like nothing is here. In this area at least.”

“Will says something is,” Penny said under her breath. She turned again to Sally.

“No trouble, Penny Robinson.”

“She read my thoughts!” Penny said.

“Don’t get so excited,” Judy said. “What you were going to ask her was all over your face. And we were both wondering the same thing.”

“You’ll be so jealous if Will and I both have a robot connection and you don’t,” she said, in a pouty, childish voice.

Judy smiled at her sister.

She led them back through the crevasse toward the path, Penny following, and mumbling, “what you were going to ask her was all over your face,” in a mocking voice.

“Yes, Penny Robinson,” Sally said.

“Hey, you’re my friend,” Penny said.

Once at the top, they stopped and looked out at the swamp. The trees were sparse, as Judy had said, and everything looked dead.

“This is going to be fun,” Judy said. “The mud looks deep in places. Step carefully.”

When Penny didn’t answer Judy looked at her sister. “You ready?”

“I have to be,” she said. “No way we get past it before night, is there?”

Judy said, “Nope, we’re spending the night in the middle of this place.”

They hiked on.

They were a little more than half way through the swamp before nightfall, it was slow moving in the mud. But they managed to find a relatively dry spot to pitch the tent. Sally stood in front of the opening when they turned in, and was still there when they crawled out in the morning.

Penny looked at her and smiled. “You don’t have to say much, Sally, but you protect us.”

“Yes, Penny Robinson.”

By the time they were out of the swamp the weather had changed, and there was a misty rain, making the swamp look even more dystopian than before. It was midday before they were finally out, and started walking across the grass toward the foothills. There was still no sound of animals, and no birds anywhere.

Judy looked through her monocular. “Something out there. Near the hills on the ground.”

Penny stretched out her hand and Judy handed her the glass.

“Skulls,” Penny said. “Animal skulls. Like a boneyard.”

The sisters just looked at each other for a few seconds, then without another word, they began to hike toward the hills.

Halfway across, Judy stopped. “They aren’t all animal skulls,” she said.

Penny stopped beside her and looked down. It was the skull of an alien. Neither girl said a word. They stared at it for a minute, then looked at each other.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Judy said.

“Me neither, but we don’t have a choice. We came here to find out what happened to Will.”

“But it’s my job to protect you, Penny, and I don’t think I am doing it.”

“Look, Judy. You will always protect me. Both Will and me. But right now, we can’t just turn back. The whole trip would be a waste.”

“But this skull pretty much confirms what Robot showed to Will. The aliens are here. Or were at one time. That sort of changes things.”

“Really? Did you ever doubt Will was right about that, Judy?”

“No. But he didn’t really know either. It was Robot sending him a memory of being here. That’s still not exactly science.”

“Mom would say it’s just science we haven’t figured out yet. But we can’t stop now, Judy.”

Judy sighed, “Okay. But we need to keep our eyes open.”

An hour later they were standing beneath the closest hills. “Nothing strange here,” Judy said. “Even most of the skeletons look like normal animals you would see on Earth.”

“Most of them,” Penny said. She looked at Sally.

“No,” the robot answered.

“Well, let’s take a look around,” Judy said. She led them between the nearest hills. They weren’t high, maybe a hundred meters or so to the top, and a few beyond those a little taller. The weather was still cloudy and misty and much cooler than the day before. They hiked among the hills for a couple hours, then climbed to the top of one and looked around. Not much was different. The hills were covered with green grass in some places, but there was also a lot of surface showing. The ground was just brown dirt, now turning to mud, but nothing unusual.

After a couple more hours, they climbed to the top of another hill. “That looks different down there,” Penny said, pointing to a rocky area between the next two hills. “Is that natural? There’s no other rock formations around.”

“Only one way to find out,” Judy said. She took a drink of water, then started walking down the hill toward the rocks.

The rocks jutted out of the hillside, as if someone had placed them there, but once they stood beneath them, they looked natural. “Nothing to see here,” Penny said.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Judy said. She walked up to the rocks. They started at the bottom of the hill and ran about twenty meters up the side. A ragged edge in the landscape that seemed like it was trying to cut its way free from everything around it. But Judy was looking lower, where there was an opening at the bottom.

She got down on her hands and knees, took a light out, and shined it inside. “It’s a cave,” she pronounced. “I’ll go in and take a look.”

“No way,” Penny said. “Not by yourself.”

“Sally can’t make it. We would be on our own, and if what Robot showed Will was true…”

“If what Robot showed Will was true, I’m really not letting you do this alone,” Penny said.

She took her backpack off, sat it on the ground, and took a light out of it. “We’ll be back, Sally. Can you wait here?”

“Yes, Penny Robinson.”

Judy crawled into the opening, shining her light below. “A couple feet drop and the cave goes on, it looks like,” she said. She dropped down and looked back up. “It’s an easy drop.”

Penny crawled in the opening, dropped down, and looked back up at Sally. “We’ll be back as soon as we can,” she said.

Sally didn’t answer, but she turned away, and looked back at the hills, as if she was guarding the entrance.

After the first hundred yards or so of walking, Judy said, “This isn’t a cave, it’s a tunnel. Something’s been using it.”

“Recently?” Penny asked.

“I can’t tell, but look how smooth the sides are. It’s not natural." She remembered the smooth sided tunnel in the underground alien city leading to the water cavern beneath it, where they found thousands of alien skeletons, apparently scorched to death when the engine exploded on the surface. She didn't want to put Penny in any more danger. "Let's turn back."

“We can't, Judy! We’re no closer to finding out anything about Will."

Judy just looked at her for a few seconds, sighed and said, "Fine."

They traveled through the tunnel for another thirty minutes or so. They saw no signs of life, and they had just about decided to turn back, when Judy put her hand up. “Hey, feel that?” She asked.

“What…the air. It’s almost like a breeze. As if we’re in a wind tunnel. Or if there’s like a really wide opening somewhere.”

“Like something,” Judy said.

“Let’s go a little further," Penny said.

Another hundred yards and the tunnel turned to the right. They followed it around the corner. “Okay, this is different,” Judy said.

She was shining her light forward, but then down. The tunnel had been relatively flat, but now it angled deeper into the ground.

“The air’s cooler,” Penny said.

“Yeah, there’s a bigger cavern or something down there."

Penny, sensing her sister's hesitancy said, "Well, we’ve come this far.”  The girls headed down.

Eventually, the tunnel opened up. “Just like the alien city where we were stranded,” Judy said. She had stopped and was looking ahead. Penny stepped up beside her. Thirty meters in front of them was a large body of water. Both girls began shining their lights across it, then along the sides.

“It could be a huge lake,” Penny said.

“Or an ocean,” Judy whispered. “How would we know? We can’t see the other side.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“I don’t want to wake them.”

“You think they’re here?” Penny asked, now whispering herself.

“Well, they’re amphibious. They were apparently living under the water on that other planet. And Will says they aren’t extinct here. Do the math.”

 Penny said, “Well, are we just going to turn around?”

“Not just,” Judy whispered. She took a flare gun out of her backpack and pointed it across the water. She looked at Penny. “Something tells me this is a horrible idea. Your call.”

"Do it," Penny responded.

Judy shot the flare. The girls stood and watched it sail out over the water, until it fired. The cavern was illuminated, at least as far as they could see. But they couldn’t see the top or the other side of the water.

“You’re right, it could be an ocean, for all we can tell,” Judy whispered.

“And you didn’t wake the aliens,” Penny said.

But then they heard a clatter, like something scrambling along the rocks behind them. They both spun around. They saw it standing there, watching them, maybe thirty feet away. It was a child, possibly. Not over three feet tall. Its head was almost a quarter the size of its body. The prominent mandible seemed to be open in surprise at seeing them here. It just stood, frozen in place. Watching them.

“Judy, what do we do?” Penny whispered.

“Nothing. Don’t move,” her sister whispered back.

“How do I not move? It’s like something out of Lovecraft,” Penny whispered.

“I’ve never read Lovecraft,” Judy whispered.

“Then you have to take my word for it.”

They couldn’t get a really good look at it in the dark, but the low light conditions made it even more frightening when their lights flashed across it.

“It’s not moving,” Penny whispered. “Maybe the lights surprised it.”

“Let’s back away slowly,” Judy said. “This is their home.”

“And I bet it has a mother,” Penny said.

The girls began to step backward. But as they stepped, the small alien stepped backwards as well. The girls stopped, and as soon as they did, the alien stopped.

“It’s mimicking us,” Judy whispered.

“Hasn’t it’s mother told it that’s rude?” Penny whispered.

“Okay, let’s circle around it and get back to the tunnel,” Judy said.

They began to step in a circle, and the alien began to walk in a circle as well, still mimicking their movement. Once they were at the tunnel entrance, Judy said, “Okay, back into it slowly. I’ll be right behind you.”

Penny did as her sister said, and both girls began slowly stepping back. The alien began stepping backwards as well, toward the water, still apparently mimicking the girls.

Once Judy was inside the tunnel a few meters, she said, “Okay, let's get the hell out of here. You lead, I’ll keep a look out for that thing. Or its  parents.”

Penny shined her light down the tunnel in front of her and picked up her pace. “At least there was only one direction. We can’t get lost,” she said.

They hurried, but after twenty minutes or so, Judy said, “Wait.”

They stopped and listened. They heard something scraping along behind them.  “It’s following us,” Judy said. “Let’s pick it up.”

Penny began to jog, and Judy kept the pace up. They stopped several times to listen, and they always heard the scraping of gravel and rock behind them. When they were almost to the opening, Judy said, “Wait!”

They stopped and listened. “Fuck!” Penny said. Both girls started sprinting down the tunnel. There was no longer only the one alien following them. The tunnel echoed with the sounds of scraping feet. It sounded like hundreds of them.

Once at the opening, Judy put her light away, locked her fingers together, and said, “Go!” To Penny.

“You first!” Penny said.

“I’m not fucking arguing with you. Get up there then pull me up.”

Penny tossed her light out the entrance, stepped in Judy’s hands, began to slide through the opening, but Sally reached in and pulled her out, and sat her down. “Trouble Penny Robinson,” she said.

“I bet you would be one of those people who use their turn signal after you already slowed down,” Penny said.

Sally reached down and grabbed Judy’s wrist and pulled her through the opening.

They heard noises below them. “Lets’ go!” Judy said, and led her sister and Sally through the hills toward the field and the swamp beyond.

They sprinted as fast as they could, though Judy had to slow down for her sister. She wasn’t the track star Judy had been. Sally would run with them, then stop and look behind, letting the girls get ahead before easily catching up.

Once they were through the hills they stopped at the grassy field to catch their breath and looked toward the swamp.

“Trouble Penny Robinson,” Sally said.

“Now she won’t shut up,” Penny said.

“Let’s keep going.” Judy had been looking behind her, but so far there was nothing following them that she could see.

They started running across the grass toward the swamp. When they were a little past half way Judy noticed Penny was lagging. She stopped and waited.

Penny ran up to her, stopped and put her hands on her thighs and tried to catch her breath.

“Okay?” Judy asked.

“Yeah, that’s why this super hero shit is your department.”

“Oh no,” Judy said.

Penny stood and turned to look behind them. The hills were swarming with the aliens.

“There’s hundreds of them,” Penny said. “Or more.”

Sally had turned and faced the hills, and she changed into her natural form, preparing for battle.

“It’s like we opened a nest,” Judy responded. “But, they aren’t fast. Look.”

Many of the aliens had left the hills and were moving across the grass toward them, but they seemed to be walking very tentatively. Not hurrying at all.

“It’s their feet,” Judy said. “They can’t move on land very well. They have long toes. Prongs, like their hands. But they’re webbed. And the size their feet are, I bet they’re fast as hell in the water.”

“Let’s be happy they aren’t in the water,” Penny said. “God. They’re so. Fucking. Ugly.”

Most of them didn’t look any taller than humans. But their features could have been out of a horror movie. Their spines grew on the outside, attaching their lower extremities to their upper half. Their legs were spindly, and looked to bend at odd angles. They had four arms, and each hand had three long, pointed fingers. It was their heads that really made them look like monsters. Elongated skulls, with large jaws protruding from them, and something that resembled tusks on both the tops and bottoms.

While most of them stayed on the hills, several dozen were slowly picking their way across the grass toward the girls. And their movements were strange. They would walk forward, then stop, move to the left or right, move forward again and stop, then repeat the same movements, though there was no discernible pattern in their steps.

“There’s something wrong,” Judy said.

“What?”

“They’re primitive. At least they aren’t advanced. Will said they operated on him. These aliens don’t look capable of anything like that. They would have something. Weapons. Tools. I don’t know. But I don’t think these aliens built that particle accelerator.”

Judy looked down at the muddy surface. “Penny, we better get out of here. I have a feeling once they’re in the swamp, they’ll move a lot faster. I don’t know how they get down that canyon, but they were on the Jupiter 2 when Will was here, so they have a way. If they catch us before we get there, it’s going to be a problem.”

“Sally,” Penny said. “Let’s go. There’s too many.”

“Trouble Penny Robinson,” she said, before turning and following the girls.

They started making their way across the swamp. They hurried as quickly as they could, but they had to be careful, as much of the surface had water in puddles, and they weren’t sure how deep some of it was. Visibility was poor as well, as the misty rain had continued. They kept looking every few minutes behind them, though they could only see a few feet, and they couldn’t tell if the aliens had made it to the swamp. Judy just hoped she was wrong, and they couldn’t travel through the mud any quicker than they could the grassy field.

They stopped to rest at one point and Penny said, “how much further do you think?”

“An hour at this pace, and we should be to the canyon,” Judy answered. Then they heard a sound. It was almost like a metallic sound, but not quite. “I think they made it to the swamp,” she said. “Let’s go.”

The girls started jogging carefully through the wet ground. Judy was leading, trying to judge the surface in front of them. “Follow in my steps,” she called over her shoulder.

“Doing it,” Penny said, panting. Sally was still plodding behind them, but occasionally pausing to look back.

Suddenly Judy stopped. She held up her hand. “Listen.”

Penny held her breath so she could hear. “There’s no sound. Did they stop following us?”

“I think so. But lets keep going.” Judy started to take another step, then stopped. “They didn’t stop following us. They surrounded us.”

Chapter Text

The aliens were everywhere, standing back in the mist, silently watching them. They seemed to have formed a perfect circle, all of them barely visible, leaving no more than a meter between them. There was no escape.

“What do we do, Judy?” Penny whispered.

Judy could hear the near panic in her sister’s voice. “Stay calm. They might seem primitive, but they’re intelligent. Most of them stayed behind, probably so we wouldn’t hear them. There’s twenty or thirty of them, and they were moving so slow, I don’t know how they got here so fast and encircled us without us even hearing them.”

“Maybe some of them were already here,” Penny whispered. “Hiding in the swamp.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Judy whispered. “Maybe once that little one saw us some of them made their way here before us, knowing this is the way we came. Just don’t do anything that would make them react to us.”

The aliens began slowly walking toward them, the circle getting smaller. Sally said, “trouble Penny Robinson,” and her claws turned red, as she prepared to fight. Before she could do anything, the aliens rushed.

Penny screamed and stepped closer to her sister, who had taken a utility knife out of her belt and held it high and out toward the aliens, blade reversed. Sally started firing all around. She killed two of the bizarre looking creatures, but they were so fast she was swarmed from all sides before she got another shot off.

Judy and Penny were both grabbed from behind, held in tight, sinewy arms that seemed to have an unbreakable grip.

Judy tried to headbutt the one that was holding her with the back of her head, but it wasn’t a human, and smashing it in its large snout did nothing at all. She tried kicking its shins with her heals, but nothing her father taught her had any effect whatsoever.

She dropped her right hand down and back, sticking the knife in one of the alien's legs. It put its wide mouth directly against her ear and let out a high pitched screech so loud Judy’s ears started ringing. She didn’t know if the creature had done it out of pain or if it was some type of defense mechanism, but she had never heard anything like it, and her head was immediately pounding. Still, she pulled the knife back to strike the thing again, but one of its other hands gripped her wrist and shook it vigorously until the blade fell to the ground.

“You okay, Judy!” Penny yelled.

“I think so, my ears are ringing and my head hurts like hell.”

“Sally!” Penny shouted. They could see the aliens did have weapons of a sort on them, as the ones who had swarmed the robot were wielding them as they attacked her. The girls couldn’t tell what they were doing, because their clawed hands were moving so fast. “No!” Penny screamed.

Sally was twisting and turning, trying to get free or fire a shot, but she soon fell under the pile of her attackers, and the girls watched in horror as they continued doing whatever it was they were doing to her. Piranhas was all Penny could think of. A school of piranhas surrounding it’s prey in a fury of blood lust. Finally, they stopped and stood back.

“Oh no!” Penny cried. Sally had been dismembered. Her arms and legs were lying beside her torso, which had been cut in half. Her head had been removed and was lying a couple feet away.

The aliens that had attacked her now turned to the girls, who were still being held tight. One stepped in front of the others. It was holding one of the objects in its hand that they had used on Sally. It looked like a small knife, though it was curved, and they saw it was glowing. A blue light was emitting from inside it, reminding both girls of the engine when it powered on.

The alien did something to the weapon it was holding, the light went out, and it slipped the instrument inside itself somewhere near its waist. They had no clothes on, and the girls couldn’t tell male from female as no sex organs were visible on any of them, but it seemed as if the small weapon was slid inside its skin.

“What do you want with us!” Judy demanded. “We haven’t done anything to you!”

The alien walked up to her and stood close. It leaned its large head near her, then sniffed around her head. Judy tried to pull back from its hideous face, but she was held in place by the one that gripped her.

The alien brought one of its claws up to her, extended a finger, and slowly dragged it across her cheek.

“No!” Judy pulled back, but could barely move.

“Stop it! Leave her alone!” Penny cried.

Judy felt the blood trickle down her face. She had no idea how bad the cut was and what the scar would look like, but right now, she just wanted to survive.

The alien put its finger up to Judy’s face again. “No!” Judy yelled, as Penny kept screaming at them to leave her alone.

The alien put the back of its finger against Judy’s cheek, trailed it up, then brought it back. It looked closely at it, where it had scraped the blood from her face. It brought the finger close, sniffed the blood, and then a long pointed tongue flicked out and tasted it. It brought its finger close again, scraped more blood off Judy’s face, and one of its lower appendages held something up. It was a metal cylinder, maybe two centimeters long. The alien held its finger above it until a couple drops of Judy’s blood fell inside. The small cylinder seemed to seal itself, and the alien quickly put it away, again as if it was hiding it somewhere inside its body.

“Oh shit,” Penny said, as the alien walked toward her.

“Stay calm,” Judy said. But it was all she could do to follow her own advice.

The alien reached toward Penny’s face, but she pulled her head back and the sharp finger moved toward her neck. The alien dragged it along her shoulder by her collar bone.

Penny cried out, and Judy shouted, “Stop it! Don’t hurt her!”

It scooped some of Penny’s blood up with its finger and put a few drops in a small container as it had done with Judy’s.

Then it walked past the girls and the others began to follow it back the way they had come, the ones who were holding the girls pushed them along. One of the aliens who walked in front of them was carrying Sally’s head. “Poor Sally,” Penny cried when she saw this. She was next to Judy, the two aliens who had them in their grasp walking side by side.

“We can fix her if we get her head,” Judy said. “I think that must be why they brought it. She can’t repair herself.”

“What do you think they want with us?” Penny said.

“I have no idea, other than our blood.”

Penny glanced at her, hearing a tone in her voice that was unusual for her sister. “It’s not that bad,” Penny said

“I’m not worried about it,” Judy replied.

Penny didn’t believe her. While her sister wasn’t shallow, Judy was a beautiful girl, and Penny knew she had to be concerned about the scar.

“Seriously, Judy. I think it stopped bleeding already. And it doesn’t look bad.”

Judy smiled at her sister. “Thanks, Penny. Let’s just worry about getting out of here alive.”

The aliens moved quickly through the swamp, but once at the edge, they stopped at the grass and looked back toward the hills.

“What are they doing?” Penny asked.

“I don’t know. It’s like they don’t like the grass.”

Finally, the alien that was leading them stepped softly onto the field. It stopped and waited, then took another step, though, this time to its left. It continued to do this, moving out into the grass, while the others watched.

“They don’t have any problem walking here,” Judy said. “It’s not the ground, it’s something else.”

The other aliens began stepping on to the field. They walked like the one that was leading them. Stepping very softly, moving from the right to the left, going slow, and pausing before continuing.

Judy looked back to the hills. The hundreds of aliens were still there, watching as the ones that captured the girls made their way back toward them. None of the aliens along the hills, nor the ones they were with, made a sound.

Then it dawned on Judy. “Penny! They’re afraid of something. Get ready.”

“What are you doing?” Penny said.

“This.” She began stomping her feet. “Do it, Penny!”

The aliens all turned to the girls, as they both stomped the grass. The two that were gripping them lifted them both off the ground. The aliens had all stopped moving and were looking around and at the grass beneath them.

“Scream, Penny!” Judy said. “Make as much noise as possible.” Both girls began screaming.

“Judy, look!” Penny said a few seconds later. “The hills are turning red!”

Judy looked back the way they had come. She saw her sister was right. The green grass and muddy ground was suddenly turning a deep shade of red, and the aliens that covered the hills were all fleeing down the sides.

“It’s not just the hills,” Judy said. “Look down.”

The ground all around them was becoming crimson. “Vines,” Judy said. Small, blood red vines were sprouting up all around them.

Suddenly the sisters were dropped on the ground, and the aliens began running across the field back the way they had come. The girls had never seen anything move as quickly. They took long strides, then crouched, and leaped ten or twelve feet ahead, landing just long enough to take a couple more strides before doing it again.

“Hey! They’ve got me!” Penny said.

Judy looked at her sister’s legs. The vines were growing up around her feet, encircling her ankles. Penny reached down and started stripping them off.

Judy was doing the same thing. “What the hell are they?” She heard Penny shout.

“Don’t give up!” Judy called back. But the vines covered both girls legs now and wrapped them tight, until they fell to the ground. Other vines encircled their arms and began tightening.

“Judy!” Penny called.

The girls were completely encased in the vines now, only their noses, mouths, and eyes left uncovered. “Penny! Are you okay?” Judy called.

“They itch, there’s something in them, Judy. Hey! They’re pulling me.”

“They’re dragging us!” Judy said. “Back toward the hills.”

As they were pulled along the surface, they passed some of the aliens, also caught in the vines and completely covered, except for their eyes and their long snouts. As Judy was pulled past one, it looked directly at her. Judy couldn’t tell what the alien was thinking of course, but she had a sudden feeling it was a look of hopelessness. Judy and Penny had kept struggling but the aliens they were dragged past all seemed to have given up completely.

They saw Sally’s head where the alien had dropped it. A little ways past it, Penny saw something else. It was something she recognized. “Hey Judy!” she called “I think that was…”

Before she could get the words out, Judy said, “Look! A Jupiter!”

It was gliding over the swamp toward them, coming in low.

“Who is it?” Penny shouted.

“I don’t know,” Judy called.

But as it grew closer, they could see Jupiter 4 was clearly stamped on the side.

They watched as the rear hatch opened and a robot stepped out. It was in battle form. It used one appendage to grip the ship with a steel claw, and the other three burned bright red. The Jupiter came low until it was only ten feet or so above the girls as they were being dragged.

The robot opened fire. It directed it first toward Judy, shooting laser blast after laser blast all around her body. The vines would fall away, and more would quickly cover her, but the robot kept blasting until Judy was free. She stood and began running toward Penny, who was still being dragged along the ground.

Vines tried to grip Judy’s ankles as she ran, but the robot kept the fire all around her feet, and when Judy was beside Penny, it began firing around her as well, creating a perimeter the vines could not seem to break through long enough to attach themselves to the girls.

The vines around them finally withdrew and began to disappear back in the ground, while the others pulled the aliens they had captured back toward the hills.

The Jupiter still hovered above Judy and Penny.

“You girls need a ride?” A familiar voice called over the speaker from the Jupiter’s comm.

“Vijay?” Judy said, looking at her sister.

Penny put her radio to her mouth. “Vijay, watch the ground for those things to come back. We have to pick something else up back there a little ways.”

“Nothing near you right now,” Vijay said. “They’re withdrawing back toward the hills, pulling those…things…Jesus they look…”

“Yeah, we saw them up close,” Penny said. “Come on,” she said to Judy and ran past her.

“I’ll grab Sally’s head, tell Vijay to land and get us,” Judy called as she ran by her sister, always in better shape than anyone in the family except for John.

“Go on, I saw something else,” Penny said

“Still no sign those things are coming back,” Vijay called over Penny’s radio. “I’m landing just outside the swamp, I don’t want to risk the surface here.”

Judy had picked up Sally’s head, and turned to see her sister a few yards behind her, digging something out of the mud. She rushed up to her. “What is it?” She asked.

Penny held it up. “It’s Will’s video camera,” she announced.

The girls turned and ran toward the Jupiter as it sat down in the field next to the swamp. The hatch opened and someone walked out.

“Liam?” Both Penny and Judy said at the same time.

“This is about to get interesting,” Judy said in a low voice to her sister.

“No shit,” Penny said.

Four days earlier, Liam was working the late shift at Alpha Security. It was a boring job, mainly watching the monitors covering the perimeter, the out-buildings, and the Jupiter spaceships staging area. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do for a career, but whatever it was, he had to be active, and it would probably be outdoors. He figured he could do this job in the meantime, as he was trying to figure it all out. But he did know one thing, he wasn’t going to spend another minute in a classroom. He had tried that just to make his mother happy, but he finally told his parents it wasn’t for him.

He was sitting in a chair behind the monitors when a yellow light appeared above one of the cameras. It was just a signal to show someone had entered the staging area with a security code. It was nothing to worry about. People were going up to the space station at all hours, as the new Resolute was being built, and the gate guard would get the signal and go check it out. He was walking the perimeter at the moment.

Liam wasn’t concerned. There were industrial transports every hour during daylight, but this time of night they had to be scheduled, so often someone would take a Jupiter up because it was easier.

He glanced at the screen and watched as a person walked through the entrance gate. Whoever it was had a helmet on, so he couldn’t make out their features. It was a little unusual for someone to put a helmet on before they had to, but it happened.

A robot came into view on the screen, following the person. Again, not that unusual. Occasionally, robots piloted their own ships up to the space station, but most of the time they hitched a ride on the industrial transport or a Jupiter if someone was taking one up.

Liam saw the gate guard walking up to them. The guard spoke to whoever this was for a few minutes, then pointed back in the yard somewhere, to the line of Jupiters. It was pretty much exactly what Liam had expected. Whoever it was had a valid reason to be there.

Still, as the person in the flight suit and the robot walked toward the Jupiters—the ones that had been put back into service after the robot war—Liam typed into the keypad in front of him and pulled up the flight log. Nothing had been scheduled until morning when the first shift would be going up. Okay, maybe something’s going on, he finally thought. He leaned forward in his chair.

Whoever this was had a destination in mind. They weren’t looking around like they were searching for something to steal. There was nothing to sound an alarm about yet, but he needed to pay attention.

The person and the robot reached the third line of Jupiters, turned right and walked in front of them, then finally turned again and approached one.

“Shit,” he said. He pressed the gate guard’s call number into his radio. “Jeff, come in.”

“Copy, Liam.”

“Was that a Robinson? Whoever it is is going to the Jupiter 2.”

“Yeah, youngest girl. She broke down in tears when I confronted her. You know, her mom and dad are in jail and she wanted to go see West. I let her pass.”

“10-4,” Liam said. But when the line disconnected he said, “Fuck.” He knew Penny, and no human being in the world could make her break down like that. Will maybe, because he was like her twin soul, but a guard catching her breaking in sure the hell wouldn’t.

He pressed Penny’s call number into his radio. “Penny. Penny, come in.” The radio went to voice mail. “Shit,” he said again.

He pressed another number in. “Judy. Can you read me?” Again, he got Judy’s voice mail. “Goddamn it,” he said.

He stood from his seat and watched the Jupiter 2. It powered up. He tried again to call Penny, then Judy. Still their radios were off. He called the Jupiter 2. “Jupiter 2, do you copy?” There was no answer. “Penny or Judy, if that is one of you, this is Liam. I need you to respond.” Still nothing but silence.

He put his hand over the red button to sound the alarm. He hesitated.

The next morning Vijay had parked at the college for his morning class and was walking across the parking lot on his way to the building when a Chariot pulled up beside him. “Hey, Vijay,” someone called to him from the driver side window.

He looked up. “What the hell do you want, Liam?” He asked.

“Calm down, I need to talk to you.”

Vijay walked over to the Chariot. “What?”

“Do you know where Penny is?”

“What the fuck, Liam!” Vijay turned and began to walk away.

“She left. In a Jupiter.”

Vijay turned back. “She did what?”

“She and Judy, I think. They took the Jupiter 2 from Security last night. That robot was with her. Sally. Before security even knew what was happening, the Jupiter lifted off.”

“You’re security, aren’t you?” Vijay said.

“Okay, let me rephrase. Before security could sound the alarm, she took off, then stopped at the space station and took an engine. I’m just guessing Judy was with her. She didn’t answer any of my calls either.”

“And you didn’t try to stop them?”

“I tried to call them both but their radios were off.”

“That’s all you did?” Vijay asked.

“It was Judy and Penny Robinson, Vijay. Could you have stopped them?”

“Good point,” the boy agreed.

“Do you know where they went?” Liam asked.

“No. She didn’t tell me anything.”

“It has to have something to do with Will,” Liam said. “Would she have known where to look for him?”

Vijay was quiet for a few seconds. “Oh shit.”

“What?” Liam asked.

“I think I know where they went.”

“Don’t tell me. It’s dangerous,” Liam said.

“Hello. Robinsons. Do they ever do anything that isn’t?”

“I’m working security tonight. I can get a Jupiter, but I don’t have a robot that would listen to me. Do you?”

“Maybe,” he said. “You’re thinking of going after them?”

“Like you said, they’re Robinsons. And their parents are in jail. Will and Robot are gone. I think they might need some help.”

“What about Don?” Vijay asked.

“They didn’t tell him. He called me when he got the report. I don’t think he’s too happy. I’m guessing we leave him out of this too. Which means there isn’t anyone else but…us.”

“Us. Funny. Let’s do this.”

“Really, you would go, Vijay?”

“You’re not the only one who climbs cliffs.” They both just looked at each other. “Metaphorically speaking, that is,” Vijay added. “I mean, you're the only one of us who actually climbs them. But I’m still going.”

Once they entered the atmosphere four days later, Liam picked up the Jupiter 2’s beacon. When they tried calling, then landed and saw no one was there, they took to the sky again and began searching until they spotted the Chariot in the forest, and that told them which way the girls had gone.

An hour later they were both looking out the window from the cockpit when Vijay said, “Jesus, look past the swamp.” What they saw was hard to understand. There were bodies wrapped in vines, being pulled across a bright red ground. But as they got closer, Vijay said, “Hey Liam, that’s Penny! I Can see some of her hair.”

“Take over pilot and come in low,” Liam said. “I’ll get down to the hatch with your Robot.”

“Come on!” Liam shouted.

Judy and Penny ran to the Jupiter, then up the ramp as Liam closed the hatch. The ship lifted off as they all made their way to the cock pit.

“So how did this happen?” Penny said as she walked on deck, looking at Vijay, who was in the pilot’s seat.

“Um…you’re welcome,” Vijay said.

Penny rushed over and hugged him.

“We need to get the hell out of here,” Vijay said. “Hug me later.”

“We have to make a pit stop,” Penny said.

“Pit stop?” Liam said, walking onto the bridge.

“In the swamp,” Penny answered, “To pick up the rest of Sally,” she lifted Sally’s head up.

Vijay piloted the Jupiter 4 back around, and hovered as they all looked in the swamp for Sally’s body.

“There she is,” Judy said, looking down at the scattered parts of the robot. “But we can’t land here, and I wouldn’t risk landing at the edge and walking back. We barely escaped whatever those things were.”

“No need,” Liam said. “I’ll rappel down.”

“Seriously?” Penny asked.

“Yeah. Bring it low and hover steady, Vijay. About ten meters if you can. I have gear in my pack. I always do.”

“Judy,” Vijay said. “You might want to take control of the ship, I’m not sure I can keep it steady enough.”

“Okay,” she said, hurrying over and taking the pilot’s seat.

“Penny,” Vijay said, “Co-pilot and I’ll help Liam as much as I can.”

Liam was able to rappel to the surface, gather the parts of Sally, and Vijay hoisted them up one at a time, then Liam climbed back up and the Jupiter took off over the swamp. Judy started to fly back the way they had come, but she called Penny on the radio. She and Liam were in the garage assembling Sally. “How long to get her put back together?” She asked.

“Almost done,” Penny said. “Once they’re all next to each other they just light up and the wires start merging.”

“Okay, stay there. Vijay, can you take that other robot down to them too?”

“Yeah,” he said. “But why?”

“I’ll call you all over the comm when you get down there and tell you.”

“Okay,” Vijay stood and left the cockpit.

Judy turned the ship around and started toward the hills again.

“Sally’s okay,” Penny called a few seconds later. “What are we doing?”

“I’m going in low, can you get the robots to hang out the hatch again?”

“Why?” Liam asked.

“Let’s see if we can free any of those aliens from that thing,” Judy said. “They were dragging them back toward the hills.”

“You mean the aliens that captured us, took our blood, and put a bomb in Will’s heart?” Penny asked. “Those aliens?”

“Penny, did you feel those things that had us? It wasn’t natural. That shouldn’t happen to anyone. Or any thing.”

Penny was quiet for a few seconds. “You’re right, Judy. And…I think that’s what had Will.”

Judy didn’t answer, she just thought about that thing wrapping her feet and legs, and how it made her feel. In just the few seconds that it had her in its grip, she had been overcome with a feeling of sadness, and something like melancholy. She hoped Penny was wrong, and that wasn’t what had happened to Will. For weeks.

As she grew closer to the hills, she saw the red vines had withdrawn almost all the way to the foothills. She could see several of the aliens still wrapped up, but none of them were struggling, they were just being slowly dragged along the surface.

“Get ready,” Judy said. “Thirty seconds, then open the hatch. I see seven aliens wrapped up in those things. I’ll hover right over them.”

“Give the word,” Liam said.

They were all gathered around the hatch opening. Sally and the other Robot both had a grip with one of their hands on the inside ladder, waiting.

They felt the ship slow and Judy called, “Now!”

Liam punched the door opening and the robots leaned out, looked for a few seconds, then both opened fire together.

Judy watched it all from the cockpit. The robots fired around one of the aliens, cutting the vines and forcing them to pull back long enough for the alien to free itself and dart toward the hills. As soon as it was free, the robots opened fire around another one, then another, freeing them both as the vines pulled back into the ground. But before the robots could free the other four that were trapped, the vines pulled them down under the surface.

“Shit,” Judy said. She noticed the aliens that had been freed had not fled. They just ran far enough away until the vines stopped following them, then turned and watched what was happening to the others. They even began moving back, but once the captured aliens had disappeared under the surface, they stopped. Then they all looked up toward the Jupiter. Judy thought it looked like they were staring at her through the cockpit window.

“Sorry, we did what we could,” she whispered, then turned the ship away, and headed back over the field toward the swamp.

Judy landed on the high ground beside the Jupiter 2. She called Penny and said, “I’ll meet you in the Hub.”

Penny was at the round table with Liam and Vijay when Judy walked in. Judy had stopped by sick bay and her cheek was covered with a bandage. She had one for Penny as well, but when she looked at her sister’s shoulder, it wasn’t that bad. She cleaned the blood off, put some cream on it, and said she thought it would be fine, but she would watch them both for infection.

“How was yours?” Penny asked.

“Not bad. It might scar, but it won’t be much.”

“Why do you think they wanted our blood?” Penny asked.

“I have no idea,” Judy said. “I can’t explain anything that just happened.”

“Thanks, a lot guys,” she said, looking at Liam and Vijay, “But how the hell did you two come to rescue us? And whose Robot is that you brought?”

“That’s Charlie,” Vijay said. “He’s mine. Well, the one I saved during the robot war. I guess no one owns them, but he had no problem helping. He’s been one of the robots working on the new Resolute.”

“Charlie?” Penny asked.

Vijay shrugged. “My first dog’s name. I miss him.”

Penny smiled at him. He was still adorable in so many ways. She said, “Before you two tell us how you came up with this scheme—which worked wonderfully by the way—let’s see if Will’s recorder will work.”

She held up Will’s video camera. “It’s lost the charge.” She plugged it in under the table top and attached it to a monitor on the far wall. The kids turned to watch the screen, but nothing happened.

“Shit,” Penny said. “It’s not charging at all.”

“Maybe it can’t,” Liam said. “It’s been out there in the environment for months. Maybe it can’t be repaired.”

“Leave it charging,” Judy said. “Maybe it will eventually come on.”

Liam and Vijay filled them in on how they had come to be there.

“Sometimes Robinsons need to let their friends in on what’s going on,” Vijay said.

“What he said,” Liam agreed.

“Point taken, if you guys hadn’t been here…” Penny left the thought out there.

“What were those things?” Liam asked.

“The aliens?” Judy asked.

“No, the vines,” Liam said.

“I have no idea,” Judy said. “But they had intelligence. When we went across the field the first time we just walked like we always would. But the aliens knew better. They were moving unnaturally, I guess trying to hide the fact they were there. But it wasn’t until they had caught us and headed back that those things attacked us. Like they used us for bait to capture a lot more prey.”

“I think it was one thing,” Penny said. “One organism, and it had intelligence—but it was more than that that. It was pure evil. I felt that. Whatever it is, I don’t ever want to feel anything like it again.”

They could all tell how much it shook her up. Vijay reached out and took her hand.

“Speaking of the aliens, they didn’t look too advanced to me,” Liam said. “They looked like something though. I don’t know what.”

“Praying mantis,” Judy said. “That’s the first thing I thought. I mean, not an actual praying mantis, their bodies aren’t as long and their heads are more like a baboon or something, but an insect of some kind, except they walk on two legs.”

“Weird, I never thought of insects before, when I looked at the robots,” Vijay said. “But yeah, the robots have those six appendages. Only they look like four arms with two legs, instead of six legs. At least when they’re in attack mode.”

“I think that’s their normal form,” Liam said. “I guess when Robot scanned Will they could morph into a humanoid form. But in their natural state, they look a lot like the things we just saw.”

“Except the legs on the robots when they are in pissed off mode split into three feetish like things,” Penny said.

“The aliens probably designed them that way for stability,” Judy said. “Their own feet don’t look near as adaptable to other environments.”

“But I see what you mean about a praying mantis, Judy,” Vijay said. “They have six legs, like all insects, but they only walked on the back two. And unlike the robots, their legs had four joints, like a praying mantis.”

“I wonder if they could still fuck if you cut their heads off?” Penny said.

“Jesus, Penny,” Judy said.

Vijay just stared at her, but Liam smiled, then quickly hid it when Vijay looked at him.

“I learned that in biology in high school,” Penny said. “If you cut their head off, a male can still fuck. Like…sometimes the female will bite its head off while they’re fucking. They don’t know why. Maybe the female knows she will need the nutrients for her babies. But the male can just keep fucking.

"Probably has more to do with the fact that it’s a male than anything else. You know…"

“Okaayyy, Penny,” Judy said. “And I would bet the teacher said, mate, or copulate.”

“Whatever. It’s pretty amazing they could lose their heads and still…copulate. And you can’t tell me it’s not cool that the female will bite the male’s head off once he c…ejaculates.”

Liam laughed, then quickly suppressed it when Vijay looked at him again.

“Okay, stop,” Judy said. “And we need to get back to Alpha Centauri.”

“Why?” Liam asked. “We have to find Will, don’t we?”

“We came here to get information about what happened to him,” Judy replied. “We aren’t any closer to finding him, but we have some information. Will was right, these things really aren’t extinct, and they’re dangerous. We need to go back to Alpha Centauri and warn people.”

“I would recommend against that until we talk to your Mom and Dad, and I talk to mine,” Vijay said.

“Why?” Liam asked.

“Well, we don’t want to cause a panic for one thing. And…I don’t know. There’s a lot of strange things going on. Hiroki for one thing and…”

“And what?” Penny asked, when he didn’t finish.

“Well. I didn’t want to worry you, but my dad thinks it’s really strange what the Judge did keeping your parents locked up for a whole month before he scheduled a hearing. That’s pretty much unheard of for contempt here. Normally it would be the next day or so, and a fine.”

“Why the hell didn’t you say something before about that?” Penny asked, a little harshly.

“My dad said it would just worry you, and there wasn’t anything you could do about it anyway. It’s completely up to the presiding Judge.”

“Shit,” Penny said.

“Well, if we’re going back, we better get going,” Liam said.

“We have to go get the Chariot,” Penny said. “It’s back in the woods.”

“No,” Judy said. “We would have to land and walk in then drive it out. It would take half a day.”

“I can repel down to it and drive it out to where we land the Jupiter,” Liam said. “Save the few hours of hiking in the woods.”

“It would still be a couple hours driving it back out,” Judy said. “It’s not worth the risk knowing what’s on this planet now. Those aliens made it all the way to where we are now when they captured Will. It’s not worth it.”

“Okay,” Liam said. “One more thing we’re going to have to explain. We better get going.” They all stood.

“We’ll walk out and wait until you two are in the Jupiter 2,” Liam said.

“Yeah, because we’re helpless little girls,” Penny said, smirking.

“To be fair, they just saved our asses,” Judy said.

When they were outside, Liam said “Fly safe. See you guys back on Alpha.”

Penny hugged Vijay, as Liam started to turn and go back in the ship.

“Liam,” Penny said. She stepped over to him and gave him a hug. “Thanks for coming with Vijay.”

“He didn’t come with me,” Vijay said. “I came with him. It was his idea.”

“Oh. Oh. Um, thanks, Liam.” She hugged him again then let him go, and walked with Judy toward the Jupiter 2. She glanced back at Liam before boarding the ship, confused about what she was feeling.

Vijay saw the glance. He and Liam watched them and as soon as they were inside, they went up the ramp of the Jupiter 4.

“Jupiter 2 to Jupiter 4,” Judy called over the comm a few minutes later.

“Roger,” Liam answered.

“Lifting off.”

“Right behind you, Jupiter 2. See you on Alpha.”

The Jupiters had come through the rift and would be entering Alpha’s atmosphere in a few hours, when Liam called the Jupiter 2. “Jupiter 4 to Jupiter 2,”

“Roger, Liam,” Judy said.

“Don’t take the Jupiter 2 back to the colony, hide it somewhere.”

“Why?” Judy asked.

“Your parents are going to need it to go find Will. We stole two Jupiters, it might be hard to get one again. Even for your mom.”

“Okay, any ideas where?”

“Go out past the low range to the West, no one is supposed to know, but radar still isn’t a hundred percent since the battle. They can’t track you past the mountains.”

“Roger, Liam, I’ll follow you in.”

They stayed far from the colony, and came in from the West, landing in a clearing next to a river.

When they were on the ground, Judy and Penny walked out to meet the boys. “Can you guys get a ride?” Liam asked, “Since your Chariot is back on that planet? Don’t want to leave you the Jupiter 4 Chariot. It’s going to be bad enough stealing a Jupiter, but I can tell them it was a joy ride. Coming back without a Chariot might be a bridge too far.”

“We’ll call Don,” Penny said.

“Don,” Judy whispered.

Penny saw Judy’s expression.

“I’ll call your parents and let them know that you’re okay,” Liam said, looking at Vijay. “I’ll make some shit up.”

“I’m going in with you,” Vijay said.

“No you aren’t. You’re going to be a politician. I’m going to be…hell who knows? Stay out here and ride in with Don and the girls once everyone thinks I did this.”

“I’m going in with you, Liam,” Vijay argued. “You try to stop me and I’ll give you the ass kicking I should have given you back when we were stranded.”

The kids all looked at each other, then started laughing.

“Really, Vijay,” Liam said, “it’s not worth it. I come from the other side of the tracks. I’m supposed to steal a Jupiter.”

“We’re not talking about it anymore,” Vijay said. “Let’s go.”

He started walking toward the Jupiter 4. Liam stood for a second watching him, then turned back to the girls and shrugged his shoulders.

Penny ran and caught up with Vijay. She grabbed him by the arm and when he turned around she kissed him. “That’s so cool of you, Vijay,” she said.

”Yeah, well come visit me in jail. Bring Oreos.” He hugged her and started walking back to the Jupiter.

Liam started following him, and when he walked by Penny, she grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop. “Liam. I don’t know what to say.”

He smiled, hugged her and said, “I’ll see you around, okay?”

She hugged him again, then watched him follow Vijay to the Jupiter 4. Judy walked up beside her. “I’m starting to see why you’re so mixed up, little sister. Liam is a lot more than I gave him credit for.”

Penny sighed. “I guess you better call Don.”

“Yeah,” Judy sighed. “Don.” She knew this was not going to be good.

Chapter Text

Here I go again on my own. Going down the only road I’ve ever known.

Will opened his eyes and tried to remember what the song was. It had to be something his dad used to sing. Or maybe something on Don’s play list. Don loved those old songs. Whatever it was, the lines seemed apropos to him. He was bound to be alone, it seemed. Robot was with him, but he knew that also had to end soon. Will put everyone in danger he was near, and he loved Robot. Somehow, he would have to find a way to leave his friend. Then he truly would be on his own.

But he didn’t have time to think about that now. It was time to try his plan. He pushed himself to his feet and looked out the window at the desolate planet. Robot was out there now, hunting once again.

Will stretched his arms above his head and groaned. He was sore, but not as sore as he had been the first days after they left Alpha when he would wake after sleeping on the hard steel surface of Robot’s ship. Now at least he had the white fur to lie on.

It was their tenth day on the planet and he had never been so hungry. He knew he wasn’t in danger of dying yet, but he was extremely weak, and often dizzy, and felt faint enough to lie down several hours during the day. 

He had plenty of water now, but with no food, he knew it had become time for desperate measures. He either had to find something to eat here, or they had to risk going back to the Amber planet, and he didn’t want to do that unless he had to. Part of it was the potential danger of the robots that were there. But the other part was that, if the robots didn’t intend to harm him, he was a danger to them.

The thought made him feel even more connected to the robots. The aliens had obviously built them to be weapons, and now they had made a weapon out of Will himself, with what they had put in his chest. When that thought had entered his mind a few days earlier, it was almost startling to him. SAR was their weapon, and now he was too.

And it made him think again of what SAR had told him when he stabbed Will in the heart: Now you are free. There was something there, and it was an idea that was so close to the surface he could almost voice it, but his mind seemed to be all over the place the last few days and the idea had gone away as quickly as it had come.

But he knew one thing for sure. To him, the robots were not just machines. He had never thought of them that way. Scarecrow was captured, enslaved and tortured. But in the end, he broke through all of that and saved the children and allowed them to escape. And in the battle on Alpha Centauri, the damaged and dying robots were able to break their programming when the kids helped them survive. They were not merely machines, and he didn’t want to risk their lives by going back to the Amber planet anymore than he wanted to risk the lives of the colonists on Alpha Centauri or the people on Earth.

Robot in particular didn’t want to go back to the Amber planet, though it wasn’t for the same reason. When Will had voiced it once as an option, all Robot said was “Danger,” and turned and walked off the ship, like the subject was closed.

The only other option was the planet in the Sirius system—where the aliens were.

That was the one planet Will never wanted to see again. And it wasn’t the aliens. It was something else. Whatever it was that had happened to him for those weeks that he was missing.

“It was draining you.” That’s what Penny had said. She told him she had dreamed he was dying and something had him and was draining him, and by draining him, he felt like that meant more than draining his blood. He still couldn’t remember what had happened, but he felt slowly starving to death was preferable to whatever it was.

What he did remember was riding across the surface of the planet with Robot hanging on to the back of the Chariot. He had chosen a song from Don’s playlist that fit his mood, and blasted it as loud as he could and he remembered feeling…free. And in that moment, he knew exactly what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He wanted to see what was out there. In this galaxy and the next and the next. With Robot by his side.

Yes, he loved his family, but something had seemed to be calling him. And whatever it was, he was afraid that once he found it, he would never return. The problem was, when he was driving the Chariot across the surface to whatever destiny the universe had in store for him, he didn’t mind if he never went back. And that’s what frightened him more than anything else.

And so he had decided that he would do everything he could to be a normal boy. Give up space, give up thoughts of adventure and discovery, and stay on Alpha Centauri surrounded by his family.

But it seemed the universe had other plans for him, and now here he was. On this frozen planet, with his options limited, unless he didn’t care what happened to anyone or anything on the other planets. He did.

He knew Robot could find another planet that was habitable, like he had this one. But he didn’t know how long that would take, and there was no guarantee they would find food quickly enough for him. Will realized now they should have left days earlier to find another planet, but now he was afraid it was too late. 

He looked out the window until he saw a flash of light, and knew Robot was once again trying to kill the thing that was out there. He concentrated, connected to his friend, then sent the message: Robot, come back please. I have an idea.

A few minutes later he saw Robot was walking toward the ship. 

When Robot was almost there, Will wrapped the white fur around himself, then walked out the hatch and back to the frozen surface of the bleak planet to meet him. The wind was blowing pretty hard, and the few inches of snow that covered the ice were making it difficult to see very far. But they had spotted the glacier on the one day the sun had almost come out. It was about four kilometers away.

“Robot, I have an idea,” Will said. “The glacier out there. What if you went and looked for food? On Earth, several species of mammals live on or around glaciers. And there’s bound to be crevices and places to hide. That thing might hunt there. We haven’t seen any other place the animal this hide came from would have lived. So if you find no other life, maybe you can hide from that brown thing and you can get close enough to kill it. It seems to be following you when you’re on the ice. Maybe it will follow you close enough to the glacier you can hide and surprise it.”

Robot just looked back at him, then started to walk into the ship. Will expected that and was ready for it.

“No, don’t fly to it. Whatever lives here has probably never seen a spaceship before. You might scare everything back under the surface. That’s probably what happened here when we landed. Except for that big thing out there. It’s probably the apex predator.” And if I’m right, it’s really hungry now.

Robot looked out across the ice toward the glacier. He looked back at Will. “Danger.”

“Robot, I know, but I’ll be safe. I’ll stay in the ship until you come back. It can’t get in. But I need to eat or I’m going to die.” Then Will poured it on. “I’m sorry, Robot. But I’m sooo hungry.”

Robot’s face shield turned from blue to black then blue again, and he put a hand on Will’s shoulder. “Family, Will Robinson.”

“You’ll do it?”

“Yes, Will Robinson.” Then Robot did something he had never seen him do before. He pointed toward the spaceship.

Will smiled. “Okay, I guess you’re grounding me.” He suddenly grew really sad, missing his parents. “I’ll go in and wait. I’ll be fine.”

Will hugged his friend, said, “Be careful,” and turned and walked up the ramp and closed the door behind him.

He crossed over to the window and looked out. Robot had been standing by the side of the ship. But now he walked around to the front and looked in the window at Will. Will Raised his hand and Robot did the same, then he turned and began jogging across the ice to the glacier in the distance.

Will waited over an hour. He knew Robot would have had plenty of time to make it across the ice to the glacier in that time. He drank some water, tied the water bag Robot had made from the animal skin over his neck and tucked it inside his shirt, and wrapped the white fur around himself.

He looked one more time out the window, but he couldn’t see Robot. He couldn’t see the thing he hunted either. He walked over to the hatch, hesitated, said to himself, “It might be a plan, but it doesn’t seem like a very good one. I hope Robot doesn’t get too pissed.” If I live through it. He pressed the control to open the hatch and stepped into the cold air. He hesitated, pressed the control on the outside and watched as the hatch closed. He walked down the ramp, paused again, looking across the ice, making sure he didn’t see the creature before he even got started.

As he stepped out on to the frozen surface he realized again what a dark, desolate place this was. He sighed and his mood turned sullen, as he wondered if he was about to die out here alone. It seemed like that was his destiny. As much as he loved his family and no matter how many times they repeated the mantra that Robinsons stick together, from the time he fell down the crevasse on the Goldilocks planet to the forest below, to the time he took the Chariot to confront SAR, it seemed he was destined to die somewhere far from his loved ones and leave them forever wondering what had finally happened to him. And as he began walking, the lyrics flashed across his mind again: Here I go again on my own, going down the only road I’ve ever known. Like a drifter I was born to walk alone. He remembered some more of it, but that was all he could recall.

His plan was simple. He needed to get across the ice and close enough to Robot before the animal attacked so that Robot could get to him before the beast did. “Here comes the bait,” his father had once said, meaning the robot engine back when they thought that was what the robots wanted. Of course it wasn’t. Will was the bait. And he was the bait once again.

He wanted to walk quietly, but he needed to get there quickly as well. For one thing it was so cold he almost couldn’t stand it. The temperature was a couple degrees below zero. When he and Robot had fled Alpha Centauri, the only thing Will thought of was getting as far away from people as quickly as he could. Which meant he hadn’t taken the time to pack food or water. Robot had taken care of his need for water, but the one animal they had seen here had proven too elusive, and somehow appeared to live beneath the surface of this planet. So Robot had not been able to kill it for food, and had found nothing else on the planet Will could eat.

And the thing was fast. That’s what had Will worried the most. The robots were the fastest beings he had ever seen, but this thing seemed to be able to dig a hole under the ice, then pop up hundreds of yards away, before Robot could ever get close to it. Will knew if he could get food, then find a way to store enough to keep him alive until they were able to find another planet that was habitable for human life, they could figure out then what they needed to do.

He picked up his pace as he headed over the ice, stopping every so often to listen and make sure the thing hadn’t followed him. He calculated it would take him three hours to make it across the ice to the glacier. He had no idea how close he had to be for Robot to be able to save him if the thing attacked, but he was pretty sure it would hunt him.

As he walked he began to fantasize about his family on Alpha Centauri, a few years from now. He had begun to do that the last couple of days. It hurt him deeply to think about them, but he had found this was a way to ease the pain. He would envision them happy and content. They were never sad, because in Will’s fantasy, he had never existed.

It was strangely comforting, he found. Which also concerned him. To think he could make himself happy by picturing a world in which he had never been. And after all that had happened to him, he had pretty much come to the conclusion that that would be the only way he could protect the people he loved.

In his fantasies, he pictured Don and Judy married with two children, a little boy and a little girl, who looked just like his beautiful older sister. Penny was with her best friend from Earth, a girl named Tori, who Will had always had a crush on. Penny had confided in him that Tori had kissed her the day before they left for Alpha Centauri, and it wasn’t difficult for Will to imagine the two of them together. They were both beautiful girls, smart, with a flair for the dramatic. Tori had always wanted to be an actor.

In his fantasy world, his dad had finally built the cabin at the end of the field beside the creek, and had really taken to farming. They had horses and his mother and father would ride every Sunday. Though his mother often liked to ride by herself.

As Will pictured this future for his family, his mom was doing the only thing he knew would really make her happy. She was still a scientist, though now she was in charge of Alpha Space Agency and was going about changing things from the inside out. Eliminating the secrecy, making everything they did transparent.

He even thought of Doctor Smith. But she wasn’t in jail any longer, and she wasn’t living off by herself away from people like she said she wanted to. He wasn’t sure how the thought came about, but a couple nights earlier, while trying to sleep curled up on the white fur, Will had a vision of Dr. Smith on a balcony of a large house somewhere, surrounded by mountains. She was leaning on a stone rail that encircled the balcony, looking out on a valley. Will didn’t see any other people, but he could see small houses out in the valley, and Dr. Smith seemed content, standing there, surveying it all. He was surprised at that vision. The others he had created himself, thinking about the people he loved and the things that would make them happy. But the vision of Dr. Smith just seemed to come from some unknown place in his brain.

As he walked, he thought of his mother and father sharing a drink on Friday evening sitting on the porch of the cabin, waiting for the girls. He saw Judy arrive first with Don, their two children jumping out of the car and running up to the porch to their grandparents, Don and Judy taking each other’s hands and following them. Then another car arrived, and Penny and Tori climbed out. Penny had confided in Will that when the girl kissed her, she didn’t really mind that so much. That’s why in Will’s vision the two of them were together. The two girls joined hands and began walking up to the house.

The wind picked up, pulling him out of his thoughts. He sighed. He wrapped the heavy fur tighter around his neck, and brought it up to cover his face, leaving only his nose and eyes exposed. He trudged through the light snow. It had fallen the night before, and he was happy for it, as it covered the ice, and made it easier for him to walk without slipping.

He took a few steps. Stopped. Listened. Heard nothing but the wind. He looked all around, but so far, all he could see was the snow covered ice. He started walking again. The double moons gave him enough visibility to keep him on the right path without using a light. Ahead lay the towering glacier, now maybe two kilometers or so across the icy expanse. He had a long walk still, especially at this pace. But he couldn’t risk rushing. He had to stop every few steps and listen, as he had been doing for the last hour.

He walked a little further. He stopped. Listened. Looked around. Still nothing. He glanced at his wrist radio. Three below zero. He could feel the ice on his eyebrows. He looked ahead to the glacier, then walked on.

Another twenty minutes, and he felt the wind pick up. He wrapped the fur tighter. Had anyone seen him, they would think he was an animal. Possibly a small polar bear, walking upright, nothing visible but the white fur. The snow was deeper here, and it made it difficult to walk. And the fact that he had no snowshoes and his boots were cut low made it even worse. By the time he was at the glacier, he could have frost bite on his toes. He had cut part of the fur and stuffed it inside the front of his boots, but he had been in the cold for over an hour, and his feet were numb. He wondered where the thing was that Robot had been hunting. He was happy it hadn’t seen him yet, as he would have no way of escaping this far from the glacier, but he still wondered if it was watching. He hoped it had followed Robot like it normally did. It never seemed to be far from him when he was out there hunting food for Will.

He walked on. He stopped again after a few steps, looked all around, pulled the skin full of water from inside his clothing. He tilted it and drank. His body temperature had kept the water from freezing, but he could feel ice chunks in it now. He drank again, put it away. He looked around. Saw nothing. Trudged on.

Another ten minutes, he stopped again, listened closely. There was only the sound of the wind. He was relieved. He knew if he could get close enough to the glacier he would have a chance. But he didn’t think he was close enough yet. He looked behind him. The wind was causing the light powder to drift, and he could no longer see the ship. He had another concern. If the wind picked up much more, visibility would become an issue.

He walked. Memories of his family began to creep in again. This was where he usually tried to push the thoughts out of his mind. It was just another level of torture for him that he didn’t need. But this time he didn’t try to. He had a fifty-fifty chance of making it to the glacier alive. And that was being generous. He decided if he was going to die out here in this unforgiving place, he wanted the memories of his family to be his final thoughts.

So he thought of the day he had jumped from the roof of his neighbor’s house. He remembered lying on the old mattress they had been landing on, looking at his bent wrist, almost in shock, when he heard “Will? Will!” And looked up to see Judy running toward him.

He remembered the pain of his broken arm, but once he saw his sister running to him, it didn’t seem to matter anymore. Judy was here. Judy would take care of him now. She always had.

He heard something in the wind, or maybe sensed it. It pulled him away from his memory. He stopped, listened. Yes, there was something. He turned and looked behind him again. There was a large brown shape, slowly moving across the ice in his direction. It was in no rush. Out here there was nowhere to hide. When Will turned and looked at it, it stopped. It was maybe two hundred meters back. Will turned toward the glacier. It was still a kilometer away. He would never make it.

He turned again and looked at the brown thing. It had been hunting him for days, the boy knew. Every time he stepped out of the spaceship, it showed up eventually. Out here on the ice, there was no way for it to get close without being spotted. He knew it traveled under the ice, but he didn’t know if it could actually make an opening anywhere it wanted, or if there were certain places where it knew it could come back to the surface. Will hoped it was the latter, or the thing would simply go under, then pop up where he was. If that was the case, he would be in trouble. Will had hoped he would be closer to the glacier before it found him. He began to slowly back up, hoping he could get further away before it charged.

The animal stood watching him for several seconds, then crouched. When Will saw this, he knew he only had one chance, and it was slim. He turned back toward the glacier. But before he could move, he heard the animal bellow. It was a blood curdling sound. And even though the creature was still far away, it was so large, he could hear it charge across the snow and ice toward him.

Will ran.

Robot! He tried connecting and sending the message to his friend. He remembered turning and screaming for him when he realized SAR was going to attack him. He didn’t shout this time, he pushed the scream out with his mind, trying to connect.

Even his footfalls and the blowing wind couldn’t drown out the sounds of the thing that was chasing him. It was like a drum beating over and over again, getting louder as the animal grew closer. Occasionally, it would release another howl. Not as loud as the first, but loud enough Will could begin to gage how quickly it was gaining on him. Very quickly. He would never make it to the glacier, and there was no way Robot would make it to him before the animal was on him.

Will kept looking through the blowing snow ahead of him, hoping to see the light from Robot’s face shield or an orange glow from his hands. But Will saw nothing but the darkness, the blowing snow, and the outline of the glacier against the sky.

So stupid, Will thought. So damn stupid. They could have gone to the Amber planet, found food, and left quickly before the robots even knew they were there. There were probably even stores of food left behind when the colonists had to quickly abandon the planet in the face of the robot attack. They may not have even needed to hunt anything there.

Will didn’t stop to look behind him. There was no reason. He heard the animal’s grunts as it charged toward him. Will was running as fast as he could, but he was starting to slide. Finally, he heard the animal’s hard breathing, and he knew it was about over. Still he kept running.

He heard the animal howl again, and knew it was only a few feet behind him. He knew this mad dash to get away had failed, and as he sensed the animal was on him, he made a quick dodge to his left, more out of desperation than anything.

It didn’t matter. The animal almost ran by him but reached out a massive arm and Will felt its claws rip through the white fur that was covering his shoulder. He cried out, turned to try and ward the creature off, but he slipped and fell to his back and the animal was on top of him.

Will reached out with his hands, trying to grab its front legs or arms or whatever they were, to keep the claws off him. They were six or seven inches long and curved, and they slashed at Will, slicing through the white fur, cutting his arms and hands in dozens of places as the boy did his best to defend himself.

The animal was right above him now, its massive head just inches away. Its head was round, almost like a human’s head, only three times the size, with small ears like a bear, but there were fangs protruding from the top and bottom. When it howled, it looked as if it had dozens of sharp pointed teeth. It was covered in course, brown hair.

Will screamed as he did his best to fight the thing off. He knew he could not survive this attack. The animal was too massive. After all he had been through, he knew this was the minute he was going to die. And even though when he had left his family, he thought he was going to find a way to leave Robot, then do it himself, now that the time had come, he wanted to live.

Finally the animal put a huge paw on Will’s chest, pinning him motionless to the ground. It raised its head, howled out into the night, as if it was claiming victory, raised its other paw and Will shut his eyes as he was struck in the side of the head. He stopped moving.

Chapter Text

“It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream—making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams…” 

                                           —Joseph Conrad

Will was looking at the backyard of a small house. He didn’t know this house, but it looked like it was maybe a neighborhood back on Earth. He saw Judy stomp out of the back door, slamming it behind her. A second later she was followed by Don.

Will listened to the two of them argue. Don was telling his sister that he had seen John, and that the man seemed like he was trying to die. Judy was crying, and told Don the story of how Will had gone down in the water on the Goldilocks planet, and never came back up. That’s when Will knew this was a dream. He wished he could tell Judy he loved her, and that everything was okay. But he didn’t know he was present in the dream until Don walked back in the house and Judy looked at him over a hedge and said, “What the hell are you looking at?”

The surprise of Judy speaking directly to him pushed him from the vision, and suddenly he was high atop a dam. It was the dam back on Alpha Centauri, and everything was beautiful; the blue sky, the green forest that surrounded him, the river that cut through the forest and flowed beneath the dam. He felt completely at peace, and wished he could just step over the edge. But he couldn’t because he was on his knees and he felt a cold steel gun pressed against the back of his head.

“Don’t kill my brother, Phil! Please don’t kill my brother,” he heard Judy cry.

Will felt the gun move from the back of his head for a second as Phil turned to look at his sister. Will used that moment to push himself to his feet and step over the side. He heard both Judy and Phil screaming for him as he hurtled toward the river and rocks below.

And suddenly he was being dragged across the surface of the planet by the thing that hunted him. But it wasn’t the animal Robot had been trying to kill. He was wrapped tightly in vines, everything covered but his nose and one eye. He could breathe, and he could see what was directly in front of him, though he couldn’t turn his head, the vines had him gripped so tightly.

I’m going to disappear. A strange thought. But whatever this thing was that had him was making him feel smaller, somehow. So small he knew he would eventually cease to exist. It was draining him of his humanity, as surely as it was draining him of his blood. In the end, he knew he would be an empty shell of a body and an empty shell of a mind.

But he was afraid that would be a long time coming.

He closed his eyes, willing it all to just end. When he opened them, he saw a little old man. The man’s eyes were unusually large, with the tiniest blue pupils, talking to him in riddles, with a strange, halting cadence, until his final words: Leave this planet Will Robinson. Leave and never come back. There is nothing here but death and sorrow.

Suddenly the man was gone, but he found his clothes in a pile, and two torches stuck in the ground where the old man had been sitting. Will stood, pulled his clothes on, took a torch and followed the tunnel as it inclined upward, until he stepped out into a hazy rain expecting to be on one of the red hills he and Robot had been traveling towards. But instead he was on a barren, rocky mountain, below him, a frozen sea.

As he looked out at the strange landscape, he knew there was no way that sea was on the other side of the hills. He and Robot had flown over them and the hills stretched for miles. No, this was somewhere else. On a planet they had never traveled to. Yet, he thought. He stood looking out across the frozen sea, toward a mountain range far on the other side, and he knew there was something else out there. Something he had to find.

He started down the side of the mountain.

It was slow going, as there were icy patches, but as he got further down, he realized there was a trail. Perhaps it had been a game path at one time, but it seemed smooth enough humans…or something large…had used it in the not too distant past. Though Will had the feeling that this mountain trail was older than anything he had ever seen.

At the bottom, he started toward the mountain range in the distance. He realized this wasn’t a sea at all, it was an ice covered desert, the sand visible beneath the frozen surface. His mind couldn’t seem to focus, and part of the time he was crossing this desert of ice, part of the time he was making his way toward a glacier, barely visible in the distance.

The wind tore at him and he shivered as he wrapped his arms around himself, and started rubbing them to keep warm. Though he was walking across ice, the altitude was so high, he felt if the sun could just push it’s way through the thick clouds the weather would be pleasant.

He didn’t know how long he had walked before he made his way to the foothills of the distant mountains. But once there, he saw there was a trail cutting between them, and he felt it was a continuation of the ancient path he had used to come down out of the last mountain range.

Once on the trail, the hills blocked the wind, and it was a more comfortable walk. As he got deeper in the range, he looked at the peaks towering over him. Half way up the side, there was little to no foliage, like the mountains he had climbed down from. But here on the trail, he was surrounded by tall green grass and trees that resembled pines back on earth. There were colorful birds flying all around, and occasionally, he caught the sight of a rodent or other small animal running across the path and disappearing in the thick grass on the other side.

He had no idea how long it had taken him to cross the icy desert or how long he had traveled the trail beneath the mountains. Time and distance seemed to not exist here. Finally he stepped out to a different view. He was standing above a valley of rolling green hills.

That’s when he realized that, wherever he was, this planet was not like anything he and his family had discovered since leaving Earth. Because on the other side of the valley, there was a city. He was too far away to make out the details, but what he could see was fascinating. Where the hills ended, there was a flat rocky field that was four or five hundred yards across, and at the end, there was a beautiful village of stone hewed, multi-colored houses with wooden shingled roofs. Will could see narrow streets and grass covered, cobblestone alleys. To the west, the town grew up the side of a hill, with small, switchback roads and marble walkways leading through it. This part of the village was different, and even more beautiful. The houses were covered with red gabled roofs, save for several cathedrals dotting the hillside, which were all topped by glimmering, golden domes.

Even with the gray skies above, the beauty of the place was stunning, and Will could have stood looking at the colorful homes and narrow alleys on the side of the mountain for hours. But he turned his gaze back toward the village on the other side of the rocky field, because what was beyond it was the most surprising part of this strange place. There was a wall, standing thirty feet high, running a hundred yards or more across. At each end were two tall towers, wrapped by twisting stone staircases, leading all the way to the top.

He started to step forward, but he felt a sharp pain and opened his eyes. He suddenly knew where he was, and wished he had stayed in the dream and crossed the rocky field to the ancient city. A city he felt held a dark mystery and dangers around every corner, but a city that was calling to him.

Will felt his body moving, and groaned as his head began to clear, and he remembered what had happened to him.

He craned his neck up and looked at the thing that was pulling him. There were no vines. It was an animal, covered in brown hair and standing more than twelve feet tall, its shoulders hunched over like a bear, though its back was wider than any bear. One of its clawed paws held him by his right ankle as it pulled him along. The curved, sharp claws dug into him where it held him, cutting through the leg of his pants.

He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious, but he remembered the thing on top of him, turning its head to the sky, screaming out its victory, then clubbing him.

And then he was dreaming. Strange dreams that he couldn’t understand. His head was still foggy, and he couldn’t remember all of them.

At first, he was in an alley, and he saw Judy and Don arguing about the family. It was sometime in the future, it seemed. And Will was dead. That’s what they had argued about. The family had fallen apart, with Maureen and Judy blaming John for Will’s death. Penny was missing, and Don and Judy had had a serious relationship, but that had broken apart too. Somehow this seemed to be a continuation of the dream Will had had on the planet with the Aliens. He had gone into the Jupiter when it sunk in the water, gotten wrapped in a wire, and died.

He had never experienced a dream like that before. Where it ended, just to be continued later. And then the strangest part, when Judy looked right at him and spoke to him. Up until that second, he thought he was observing it from afar, not in it. And when his sister looked at him and spoke to him, it jarred him from that dream, and into another.

He was atop the dam on Alpha Centauri, his friend Phil pointing a gun to the back of his head. But instead of Phil shooting the gun off beside him, then jumping off the dam, Will pushed himself to his feet and stepped over, hearing both Judy and Phil cry out, trying to stop him.

And then the strangest dream of all. Of an unknown planet with an ice covered desert, completely buried beneath thick clouds, and a valley high atop a mountain range, with a city that seemed as ancient as the mountains themselves. Though Will knew he had seen this place in a dream, it was so vivid, he thought for the briefest moment that somewhere it really existed, and that it was calling to him. But if the place was real, he would never see it, because he was sure he was about to die.

As he was dragged along, he looked down at his body and saw he was covered with blood where the animal had attacked him, slicing through the white fur and his shirt, cutting his arms in dozens of places. There was so much blood, he thought he might be bleeding to death, though he didn’t think it would matter much. This thing was going to kill him and devour him.

Will didn’t know why he wasn’t already dead. It could have easily killed him. He had read of animals that kept their prey alive after capturing them. Falcons were known to capture small birds, pluck their flight feathers and imprison them in cavities in rocks, so they could eat them at their leisure, or when other food might not be available.

And the tiny shrew was known to poison its prey, keeping it alive for days and feeding off it, until it finally succumbed to its injuries. Will thought that might be what this thing had planned for him. Food sources in this barren place seemed hard to come by. Maybe it would keep him alive, keep his blood pumping and the meat fresh while it devoured him.

Feeding off him. Why did that thought seem familiar?

The vines! Suddenly the first part of his dream flooded back to him. He and Robot had seen blood red hills on the second planet they had landed on after going back to space to explore. They had been captured by something on the planet. He had dreamed of this he knew, though he could never remember it once he woke. He had had the dream more than once, and thought maybe he had tried to block it out. Though he remembered the feeling of hopelessness it always left him with.

But now he remembered it all. 

Robot had sent Will the memory of the aliens capturing him and operating on him when they had been on the planet in the Sirius system, putting the small engine inside his heart, making him a living weapon. What had happened before that was even worse, but Robot had not sent him that memory. Either he didn’t recall it, or he wanted to spare his friend. If that was the reason, Will understood it now.

The red vines on the planet were not vines at all, they were veins. The veins of some biological creature that lived there, probably under the surface. And it captured it’s prey, keeping it immobile, the body beneath the ground, the head above, as the animal—or whatever it was—slowly drained it.

Like everything else, it had been blocked from Will’s memories, before Robot showed him what had happened. The thing had kept him for days or maybe weeks, slowly making him less of what he was. It was the most horrible experience he could imagine. Even worse than what the aliens had done to him, because he remembered there was no escape from it. He could have been kept alive for months that way. Maybe years. He remembered there were skeletons on that field as well, like it was a boneyard of animals that had been captured by the red vines, and kept there as they were slowly drained.

Will remembered the horror of it all now. And yes it was devouring him, but it was much worse. It was taking everything from him.

Taking my soul.

A strange thought for Will, and he realized it as soon as he had it. His mind jumped to a day, years before, and a conversation he had had with his grandfather. He had not grown up in a particularly religious environment. John was pretty much agnostic, his mother on the other hand, was adamantly atheist. Whether it was because she was a scientist, or it was her mother’s strict, Baptist beliefs, Maureen ran from anyone and everything she thought was trying to indoctrinate her. “I’m a scientist,” she would say. “If I can’t test it, I’m not wasting any time on it.”

Will had always been somewhere in the middle. He just wasn’t sure about any religion that man had written down hundreds or thousands of years ago. John’s dad had come to live with them the last few years of his life, and Will loved him and spent a lot of time with him until he died when Will was nine. One day, as they sat out in the backyard together, Will asked his grandfather if he believed in God. His grandfather, a crusty old career Navy veteran said, “Who’s to say? All the shit God chiseled into that tablet and gave to Moses they lost. Must not of been that important to them.”

But Will wasn’t convinced there was not some power greater than man, that tied everything together. It was something he had spent a lot of time thinking about the year the children were stranded. And suddenly his mind was back there, on the planet without their parents.

He was busy all day, but at night he was alone. When the family was together, they always hung out in the evenings. Watching movies, playing cards or board games. But it seemed when they were stranded and no longer a complete family, his sisters and he just became used to being apart. To the point they could go days without talking to each other. And after the first couple months on the planet, they seldom ate together or saw each other in the evenings.

At first when they were stranded, Will tried to hold them together. Trying to get Penny and Judy to meet him in the mess hall for dinner, or to play cards in the evening.

But more often than not, Judy got tied up with some issue with one of the children, and after the second month, when Penny had started flirting with Liam, Will never knew if she would show up or not.

They had planned to meet one evening in the mess hall, but when Will arrived at their scheduled time, he saw Penny sitting across the room at a table with Liam, and when he looked at their plates, he saw they had already finished. Will knew Vijay was out with a scouting party. They patrolled the small canyon around their ship several times a day, always on the lookout for danger, and the members of the party would always eat late the day they were out. Penny knew that too of course, so she apparently decided to eat with Liam so Vijay didn’t know.

Will had sat down by himself, leaving Penny and Liam alone. When they stood to leave, Penny saw her brother across the room. He could tell by her expression that she was embarrassed. She had probably just remembered she was supposed to meet him. But Will, being Will, just lifted his hand in greeting and smiled.

She smiled back and waved, and she and Liam exited the tent on the other side. Will watched them walk away, but Penny turned just for a second and looked back at him. Will could tell by the expression on her face she knew her brother had given her a reprieve. Judy would have called her out for standing her up, but Will just smiled and waved. He was fine with it, and that made Penny feel better.

But Will wasn’t fine with it. It was just his way of making the people he loved feel comfortable and living with the pain himself.

After that, Will stopped trying to get the three of them together, and they drifted further apart. Will realized nothing was the same there on that planet. So, long after the other kids had stopped working for the day, he stayed in the engine room, doing everything he could to help figure out a way to get more plutonium. Robot stayed with him until Will was so tired he was starting to drift off at his work table. Then Robot would pull Will up by his arm, the boy not resisting at all. Robot would lead him to his cabin, and stand above him as Will climbed on the bed and fell asleep, without even undressing. Then Robot would leave the room, close the door, and stand in front of it all night, until Will emerged in the morning.

Often, when Will sat at the work table so many hours his mind could no longer concentrate on his job, he would try and ponder everything that had happened to his family since leaving Earth. And, it didn’t matter that he had grown up believing in the scientific process; testing, observing, and testing again. He still felt there was something greater guiding it all. And it wasn’t necessarily an all-loving god.

And so, Will didn’t think of a soul in the religious since. He thought of it more as what connected him to everything else. And the vines or veins or the thing that had captured him was trying to take that from him. The very thing that made him human: the awareness of his own mortality, and his unique place in the universe.

The pain brought his wandering mind back down, and he groaned, raised his head again and looked at the thing that dragged him. He listened closely hoping to hear the sounds of Robot’s footsteps running across the ice toward him. He tried to connect to his friend but couldn’t. He was in pain, but his mind was also numb, blocking much of it. But it also made it difficult to focus.

As he was dragged, he hoped the thing would kill him quickly, or at least injure him badly enough he wouldn’t know what was happening. If it planned to keep him alive like the vines had done, he would much rather die.

He wondered if there was a way he could make the thing in his chest detonate, if that’s what this animal planned for him. He doubted he could, as they weren’t even able to detect its existence inside his heart when he was scanned at the hospital on Alpha Centauri.

He knew the science behind it. Or was pretty sure he did. The device had to have had two separated chambers, one with matter, the other with anti-matter. And when whatever was separating the two was released, anti-matter would collide with matter and cause the annihilation of both. The amount of anti-matter that could be contained in the device would create an explosion like a large nuclear weapon.

Will heard the animal grunt and he painfully lifted his head again and looked at it. Just as he did, it stopped. It didn’t turn to look at him, it was staring down at the surface. It dropped his leg and crouched down, examining the ice. Will thought he knew what the thing was doing. Every time Robot was close to catching it, it just disappeared under the ice. Will decided it lived under there somehow, and it was probably going to pull Will down with it.

He was in a lot of pain, and it seemed to be coming from everywhere, but he wasn’t going to go without an attempt to escape. He bent his knees, digging his heels into the ice, and slowly started pushing himself back. He watched the animal closely. It was on all fours now. It raised one powerful arm above its head and slammed it into the ice. When Robot was hunting it, it seemed to just slip under the surface easily, so Will figured it had been hunting him long enough the ice was freezing back over hard enough that he had to break it now before he could go under.

The animal raised it’s fist again and Will pushed himself to his feet. When he saw the beast slam its fist into the ice, he turned and ran. He hadn’t gone far when he heard the animal roar, then the sound of its feet as it charged after him.

But now, ahead in the thick air Will saw orange lights. Robot’s face shield and his claws as he ran across the ice toward him.

“Robot!” Will yelled. “Rob…” but he was clubbed aside before he could finish calling his friend a second time. He flew to his left, then skidded across the ice on his stomach. He was still conscious, but he could barely focus. He cried out again as he felt his body being lifted, then tossed in the air back toward the hole the animal had made. This time he landed on his back. He began pushing his heels into the ice again to try and stay away, but the animal was no longer moving toward him. It had turned to face Robot as he charged across the ice.

Before, it had fled, but it had no intention of running this time. Will thought either it was determined to defend its catch, or the ice had frozen to the point it couldn’t make the quick escape the way it had been doing, so it decided to fight.

It raised itself to its full twelve plus feet, bellowed into the gloomy sky, lifted both fists and pounded its chest like a grey back gorilla facing an adversary. Robot was not firing his weapons, and Will thought it must be because he was afraid of hitting him, as he was just a few feet behind the creature.

Robot’s speed was incredible as he charged across the ice. And when he was still ten feet or so away, he leaped, head first, soaring toward the animal, until he speared it in the chest with his shoulder.

The beast was still stretching to its full height, trying to look as large as it could to its enemy, so it had no balance at all when Robot speared it in the chest. It flew back, Robot on top, until it landed flat on its back, inches from Will. He covered his head and rolled to the side, trying to get away from the fight.

The beast was bigger than Robot, and incredibly strong, as it tossed him off and stood back up. But Robot landed on the ice, sprang back to his feet, and as the animal faced him, he leaped in the air and landed on top of it.

It collapsed on the ice, looked up at Robot and screamed. Robot was standing above it, and Will watched a steel blade emerge from one of his upper appendages. Will turned his head away as Robot drove the blade down into the throat of the animal and pinned it to the icy surface. The beast thrashed about as it died, and would have still been incredibly dangerous had Robot not been as powerful as he was. Robot simply dropped a knee on the chest of the large animal and held it in place until it stopped moving.

He stood, turned anround and looked at Will, who was lying on the ice, the white fur shredded and blood everywhere. Robot changed back into humanoid form, quickly stepped over to Will and lowered himself to one knee and put a hand on the boy’s chest. “Danger, Will Robinson.”

“I…I hurt a lot. But I think I’ll be okay, Robot. I need to get warm and see how badly I’m injured.”

Robot scooped Will up in his arms and began running toward the Spaceship. Will looked up at him and said, “I’m sorry Robot. I know you’re disappointed in me again, but I couldn’t think of anything else.”

When Robot didn’t answer, Will thought he must really be angry. But he looked down into Will’s eyes and connected with him for the first time since Will had been out on the ice. And suddenly Will could feel his emotions. There was no anger whatsoever. It was something much deeper. And Will knew if his friend could, he would be crying. “Robot, I’ll be okay. Thanks to you…again. And I’m sorry.”

Robot didn’t say anything at all. But he pulled Will close to him and hugged him tightly, and kept running toward the ship.

When he had Will safely inside, he laid him down and helped him take the white fur off. Will examined his arms. There were dozens of cuts, but he didn’t think any were that serious, unless the animal’s claws were toxic. “Robot, would you get me some water please?” Will asked, as he lifted the water skin from around his neck. There was still water in it, but Will knew he would need a lot more to clean all the blood off.

Robot took the skin, went back outside, and in a minute or two, returned with it full of ice. He heated it with his hand, and Will began wiping the blood off his arms. His head was hurting and he felt it and found there was matted blood and a cut where the thing had clubbed him. He poured some of the cold water on his head and blood flowed down the side of his face from the wound.

Without being asked, Robot began ripping the white fur into pieces for Will to wrap around the cuts. Will watched him do this, wondering again at the intelligence of the aliens who had made the robots. Will was sure Robot had not been trained to care for organic life, but he seemed to know what needed to be done.

“I’m going to be okay, Robot,” Will said, as he started wrapping the strips around the worst cuts, tightening them to keep pressure on the wounds.

Robot looked out the window across the ice. Will knew what he was thinking. He had to render the carcass of the animal, and heat some of it so Will could finally eat. Will didn’t want to see that, and didn’t really want to think about it. They did what they had to do for Will to survive. But still, they were the invaders here. This was that animal’s home, and Will felt guilty about what had been done.

As Robot made his way to the hatch, Will said, “Robot?”

Robot had just pressed the control to open the door. He turned and looked at Will.

“Can we find someplace warm?”

Robot stared at him for a few seconds. “Yes…Will…Robinson.” He turned and walked out the door, and Will watched as it closed behind him.

He laid his head back down and closed his eyes and tried to ignore the pain. He hoped his mind wouldn’t wander as it had when the animal had been dragging him, leaping from one place to the other, mixing memories and dreams and visions until he wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t.

Is anyone? He asked himself, as he finally fell asleep. This time he didn’t dream. 

Chapter Text

Judy and Penny stood outside their ship and watched Vijay and Liam lift off in the Jupiter 4, on their way back to the colony to face the music for stealing a spaceship and an engine. Judy looked at Penny and said, “Here goes.” She pressed in Don’s call number.

“Don. Don, come in, do you copy?” When there was no answer, she looked at Penny and shrugged.

By the expression on Judy’s face, it looked to Penny as if her sister was almost in physical pain. “Judy, you know he’s going to be angry at first, but it won’t last. I promise.”

“I hope you’re right. He’s taking his time answering. Um…do you mind if…”

“Privacy, got it. Good luck, Jude.” She started toward the Jupiter 2. She knew Don would call back, but wasn’t sure how the conversation would go. She was certain he would be pissed that they disappeared without talking to him. Worse, they stole the Jupiter and engine while he was at the space station.

She heard Don’s voice on Judy’s radio before she made it to the Jupiter 2, and slowed down so she could hear some of the conversation without looking like she was trying to.

“Who is this?” Don responded.

“Don, you know it’s me.”

“Really? How does it feel to be forgotten?”

“Don, I didn’t forget about you.”

“Well, maybe not, but you did forget to tell me you were going to steal a Jupiter and an engine. But don’t worry, I found out. I found out at three AM when security called me. They said, ‘Someone stole a Jupiter and an engine.’ You know what I said?”

“No.”

“I said, ‘was it the Jupiter 2?’ I didn’t really have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out if a Jupiter and an engine were stolen at one AM, there was a better than even chance it was a Robinson that was stealing them. And since your parents are in jail, my first thought was that it had to be Penny, because there was no way in hell you would do something like that without telling me.”

“Don, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to make you mad.”

“So, what do you need?”

“Don…I…”

“You need a ride, don’t you?”

When Judy didn’t answer Don said, “Yeah, still have my detective hat on. You didn’t bring the Jupiter 2 back because you’re afraid your parents won’t be able to get away in it when they’re out of jail, so you hid it somewhere.”

“Ah…”

“Penny with you?”

“Yes.”

“Send me the coordinates.”

The line went dead. Judy sent Don their location and walked inside to find Penny sitting at the table in the Hub. She sat down across from her.

“Pissed?” Penny asked.

“Very,” Judy said.

“But he’s on his way?”

“He’s on his way.”

They sat in silence for several minutes. “Seems so long ago now,” Judy said.

“What?” Penny asked.

“Us sitting here at this table playing cards when we got the order to evacuate.”

“Yeah,” Penny agreed. “Will was getting pissed because he thought I was cheating. Reading his cards through the reflection in his helmet.”

“Were you?”

“Well, yeah.”

“I wish we could go back there again,” Judy said. “Do it all over. If we could, I would never jump in the water to keep Will from doing it. That changed everything, you know? That one stupid, impulsive act. I would have let Dad put that helmet on our little brother and he would have gone down that ladder and got the battery and come back up. Nothing that happened after would have happened at all.”

“Judy…”

But Judy interrupted her. “Will would have been fine. He never would have almost died in the fire. We never would have had to separate from the adults. I never would have almost destroyed my relationship with my brother and sister. Will never would have been stabbed in the heart. He never would have left the family with Robot and gotten grabbed by that…that thing. He never would have had that bomb put in his heart. He would be here with us now. We would have all been together on Alpha Centauri three years ago.”

Penny started to talk again, but waited, knowing her sister just wanted to vent.

“Or maybe there’s no water to jump in to. No danger. We’re sitting here playing cards when they announce the message to abandon ship. So we get up to go, and I say, ‘stay with me’ to you and Will. I take both your hands, and we’re following Mom and Dad to the Jupiter docking bay. But just before we get there, they announce the problem’s fixed. A fire in the engine room or something, and we don’t need to abandon ship. We go on to Alpha Centauri and get there two weeks later.” She sighed. “If only…”

Her words drifted off.

After a minute or two, Penny said, “Yeah. Probably. If that had happened, probably everything you said is true. We would have been here safely three years ago. And then what? You’d be working at the hospital, advancing your career. Moving up the ladder. Going to happy hour on Friday night after work. You would have moved out the minute we got here. We would probably see you on weekends for a few months. Then every once in awhile. I would be writing. Maybe. Going to college. Trying to figure out who I was, still.

“And Will would be in high school. Then college. Probably end up being a scientist at Alpha and just read about all the things out in space he would never get to see. We would be normal, maybe. Hell, maybe Dad would be a farmer, and act happy doing that.

“Who’s to say, Judy? And who’s to say Will would have made it back up that ladder alive had you not jumped in? If he didn’t, what do you think would have happened to us then?”

Judy sighed. “We would have gone on. We would never forget it, and it would have been horrible. And Will would always be with us. But we would have gone on.”

“Would we, Judy? Would we?”

“You don’t think we would have?”

“No. I think we would have survived, maybe. But everything that makes us who we are as a family would have died in that hole that day, if Will had not made it back up alive. That’s what I believe.”

“Why do you think that?” Judy asked.

“Why? Think about, Judy. As soon as you saw Dad walk over and make Will stand up, and start telling him how easy it was going to be, and you saw how frightened Will was, you made your decision. No one saw you go get your helmet until it was too late to stop you. But if Dad had stopped you, and if something had happened to Will, you would have never forgiven him. Your job was to protect Will. You gave yourself that job once Dad left. And that’s what you did. You can’t second guess yourself because of everything that happened.”

“But it probably would have all worked out,” Judy responded.

“Yes. It probably would have all worked out. But none of us know what would have happened. But we know what didn’t happen. Will didn’t die, because you refused to put your little eleven year old brother in danger. You knew Will so much more than Dad did. He had been gone for three years. Leading men. But Will wasn’t a man. He was a little boy. And at eleven years old, he was a frightened little boy.

“But you were there after Dad left. Taking Will home when he had a broken arm. Threatening bullies who picked on him for no other reason than he was so smart. Listening to him when he was sad or afraid or just lonely. You were always there for him. You did exactly what you were supposed to do. You protected him.”

They sat in silence for awhile, then Judy said, “Do you think everything happens for a reason? That there really is no free will, and everything that happened couldn’t have been changed anyway?”

“Causality?” Penny asked.

Judy gave her a surprised look.

“You thought I wasn’t listening? About that whole deterministic universe thing? That everything happens because of something that happened before? I heard Mom and Hiroki and all you scientists that night at the house. Everyone just talking about what the universe is like. And you know what I thought? No one really knows a damn thing about the universe.

“They’re all just guessing. I mean, one minute nothing was here, the next minute it was. One minute nothing was alive, the next minute it was. And no one knows how it happened. So they have all these theories and make up things to try and figure it out. But they really don’t care how it happened. They want to know why it happened. Because if there’s no reason, then we’re all just accidents, and you scientists simply can’t imagine there is no reason for something.

“Well I’m not a scientist, I’m a writer. Even if no one ever publishes anything I write—I’m a writer. That’s who I am. And in my world, anything can happen. I wouldn’t want to live in a world any other way. Even if it’s a world I have to create myself. No thank you, Judy. If I fuck up, I fuck up. It’s not the universe that did it.”

“You surprise me, Penny. I didn’t know you gave this much thought.”

“Oh, these are the kinds of things I think about all the time. And because I’m not a scientist, I don’t try to figure it all out. I see it through the eyes of a writer, and just ask myself, what if?“

“What if?” Judy asked. “What if what?”

“What if anything. Okay. So here’s a question for you, what if this—you and me sitting here, Robot and Will somewhere out in space, Mom and Dad in jail, all of it—is just the figment of someone else’s imagination? Does that make it any less real to us? The ones who are living it? And what if she or he or it—whatever created our universe—is the figment of someone else's imagination? They think they’ve created this universe and all that’s happening in it, but their world has been created by something else. Is it any less real to them? And I could keep going. Something else created the something else.”

“Okay, now you are getting way out there, Penny.”

“Am I? If we truly don’t know—and I think that’s the one thing just about every scientist can agree on when it comes to how we got here and why—how are those ideas any less relevant than all of you sitting around guessing about the Big Bang and how life started?”

“When did you think of all of this, Penny?”

“That night you guys were talking about it. That’s what I did once I realized it was all a big guessing game. Are we in a block universe? Are there multi-universes? No one knows. So that’s what I was doing, picturing a universe that was created by something just thinking about it. And then something just thinking about that universe.

“Well, I was doing that and watching you flirt with Don.”

Judy smiled. “I guess I didn’t know any of it was that important to you.”

“Yeah, it really isn’t, because we probably will never know. But it’s fun to think about. I mean, if we don’t really know, my idea is as good as any. We’re all just a figment of an imagination. But that’s okay, because whoever thought us up is just a figment of someone else’s imagination.

“But my point is, don’t even go there with Will and what happened to him. You didn’t fuck up. You protected him. You. His big sister. You looked at Will and saw how scared he was and you jumped into your super hero costume and you did what you do. And I love you for that. And you know what? So does our baby brother. But everything that happened after that, just happened. There was no grand plan. No scheme. Nothing up there waving a magic wand, guiding it all. To quote an old dead guy, it was all just an accident in a very busy place.”

Judy smiled and leaned over and hugged her sister.

As Don drove to pick up the girls, he thought about what he was going to say to Judy. He was furious at her for leaving without telling him she was going, and without asking for his help. He knew her well, and he knew she was independent, but he wasn’t just willing to let this go and chalk it up to her independent streak.

They were family, he thought. Beyond the fact that he and Judy were now in a relationship, he had thought they had really become a family. The Robinsons, Robot, and yes…even Dr. Smith.

If they had learned one thing since coming to space, it was that the only way to survive was to rely on other people. And they had begun to do that, he thought. Especially during the Robot war. Will and Dr. Smith and Robot had teamed up to find the solution to defeating SAR. It had almost killed Will. But Dr. Smith had brought him home, and at the end, it took all of them. The girls, Maureen and John, Smith and Will, and even Grant. All of them working together to stop SAR and save the colony. In Don’s mind, at that moment, he knew they would always be a family.

But now, Judy and Penny had completely cut him out of whatever it was they were doing. They had cut Grant out too, he assumed, because he would never have allowed them to steal a Jupiter and an engine. He was way too pragmatic for that. So, they made this decision on their own. And now Don wasn’t sure who they all were together. And he wasn’t sure what he actually meant to Judy, despite what she had told him the last time she saw him.

He pulled up near the Jupiter 2 a couple hours later and called Penny on the radio. “Hey, I’m outside,” he said.

The girls were still sitting at the round table in the Hub. “Copy, Don. On our way,” Penny answered.

She and Judy just looked at each other. “Well, he’s talking to you,” Judy said.

“Don’t read too much into that,” Penny said, as the girls stood.

“What?” Judy said. “The fact that the guy I’m sleeping with just called my little sister to announce his arrival?”

“If you just consider him the guy you’re sleeping with, maybe that’s where the problem starts.”

“Hey, you know that’s not how I meant it,” Judy said.

“As long as Don knows that’s not what you think, that’s what matters.”

“When did you start becoming the relationship guru?” Judy asked, a little annoyed.

“I guess about the time I got two boys to fall madly in love with me,” she said, nudging her sister in the ribs as they stepped out into the daylight. But as soon as they saw Don’s face, they knew this was going to be an uncomfortable ride.

Judy climbed in the front, and Penny got in behind her. “Thanks Don,” Judy said.

“West’s Taxi Service. Always available. To drive you around.”

“Don…”

“I’m really not ready to discuss this, Judy.”

“But…”

“I’m asking you to not discuss us with me right now, okay? I just want you to tell me where you went, why, and what happened.”

“Okay,” Judy said. “I’m sorry.”

They told him where they went and everything that had happened to them. He asked a few questions, but didn’t say much more than that. When Judy told him about being captured by the aliens, he said, “Is that why you have the bandage on your face?”

“Yeah, um…”

“It’s not bad,” Penny offered from the backseat. She hadn’t said much, just adding a detail when she thought Judy left something out. She knew this was about Don and her sister as much as it was about what had happened on that planet, whether Don wanted to admit it or not.

When they pulled up in the Robinson’s driveway it was dark and Judy said, “Don, we’re going to go see Mom and Dad tomorrow. Mom’s Jeep is still at the jail, I guess. We can get a ride if you don’t want…”

Don interrupted and said, “Your Mom and Dad can’t see anyone until the day after tomorrow. I called to find out when you called me because I knew you would want to go as soon as possible. New rules. At least for them, I guess. They need a day’s notice. You better call the jail and get them a message first thing in the morning though, they have no idea where you went or what you were doing. None of us did. But when they call back, don’t tell them anything over the phone. It’s all recorded. Just let them know you’re safe. I’ll be here day after tomorrow to take you.”

“Do you want to come in?” Judy asked.

“No. I have to go back to work, and I’ll probably be there all day tomorrow too.”

“Thanks, Don,” Penny said. She leaned up and hugged him around the shoulders. “See you…um…”

“Monday,” he said, knowing she had no idea what day this was.

Judy climbed out and stood by the window of the Chariot. Penny walked on up to the porch and turned and looked back before she went inside. Judy was still standing by the window, but Don was just looking straight ahead.

“Don, get out and talk to me,” Judy said. “Just for a minute, please. You don’t have to go in. Just…please don’t drive away like this.”

He hesitated, sighed, put the Chariot in park and turned it off. He climbed out and stood by the door, leaning back against it, looking at Judy.

Penny walked in the house, and backed away from the door so they couldn’t see her, but she could see them and hear everything they said.

“Don, talk to me,” Judy said.

“Goddamn it Judy! What the hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking about my brother.”

“But why didn’t you tell me? I would have gone with you!”

“Don, I didn’t want to put you in danger. I mean, not just your life, but your job and everything.”

“You know that doesn’t matter to me! And you almost died!”

“But this is what we do. We’re Robinsons. We handle our shit.”

“Oh yeah, but if those two kids hadn’t followed you there, you and Penny both would have died! I’m tired of this, we’re Robinson’s bullshit. You’re not alone!”

“You know what I mean, Don.”

“So, this whole thing about me being family is just convenient when I want visitation rights when one of you is in the hospital? If it’s something real, I’m what…a family friend? The smuggler you just found and gave a ride to Alpha Centauri?”

“Don, you know I don’t think that.”

“I do? Sure doesn’t sound like it. Your parents are in jail. Your brother is missing, and you have an idea to try and find out something about that, and you don’t respect me enough to tell me what you’re planning? That’s just fucked up, Judy.”

“Don, please don’t be mad.”

“Too Goddamn late for that. And you’re worried about my job so you sneak on to the Space Station while I’m working. When you left, Alpha Security was all over the camera feeds. You went to your mom’s office hours before you stole that Jupiter. When I was there! Do you know how long they kept me in a room trying to find out if I knew about this? They know my connection to your family. Things are weird here right now. With your parents in jail for a month for nothing. With what happened with Hiroki. Now I’m under suspicion because of your actions.”

“Is that why you’re so angry?”

“Goddamn you, Judy! You didn’t really just say that to me did you?”

“What? No…I didn’t mean…”

“Just don’t talk to me right now. I need to go. I need to just be away from you for awhile.”

“Please, Don.”

“Stop. Just stop. I’m leaving.”

“But…”

He turned away, climbed in his Chariot and backed out of the drive while she stood there watching him go.

“Fuck,” she said. She turned and walked in the house, where Penny was now sitting at the table.

“He’s so childish,” Judy said, taking a seat across from her sister.

“He’s not childish at all. He’s right.”

“So you’re going to take his side?”

“Yeah, I’m going to take his side.”

“Well, fuck you.” She stood up and started walking down the hall.

“Who’s being childish now, Judy?” Penny called after her.

Judy spun back around. “What happened to Robinsons stick together?” She demanded.

“We do stick together. That’s why I’m on Don’s side. You’re just too damn blind or too damn stubborn to see what’s going on.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’m taking the side of the guy who’s in love with my sister, that’s what I’m doing.”

“He’s not…”

“Jesus, Judy. You’re so naïve. You scared him! You can’t see that? He’s in love with you. Maybe you’re the first girl he’s really ever felt this way about. And you scared him. He thought he could lose you. And you’re so fucking independent and stubborn and blind, you’re going to lose him.”

“I…” she stopped, not knowing what to say. Finally she walked back to the table and sat across from Penny.

“You really think he loves me?”

“You didn’t see that on his face? Hear it in his voice? Judy, he’s so fucking in love with you. And you’re like—trying to figure out all your feelings because you aren’t used to needing someone and having someone tell you the truth about you, you haven’t stopped to think about what he’s dealing with.”

“What?”

“You know he’s pretty much an orphan? He has no family but us. He’s been on his own most of his life. He’s had to figure out how to survive with no one and nothing to fall back on. Think about it! We are so lucky because we have each other. I have you. You have me. We have Mom and Dad and Will. We’re a unit. A team. But Don has been alone for so long, he’s just not used to all this. And he damn sure isn’t used to needing someone like he needs you.”

“Penny, how do you know all this about Don?”

“Because I listen to him, Judy. Do you? Actually, do you ever just listen to anyone? All the way back in school, you were so wrapped up in being a track star, then a role model for me and Will, then a doctor, and then a super hero once we went to space. Have you ever asked yourself, did you take care of me and Will so well for us, or for you?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? I would die for you and Will!”

“I know you would. You almost died for Will in the ice and again on that dam. There’s no question how much you love us, but did you ever stop to ask yourself if it’s really about us, or is it about you? Dad left you, Judy. He deserted you. He was your whole world until you were fifteen, and then he just walked away. And you told yourself you would never do that to us. Was it because you didn’t want to see us alone, or you didn’t want to fail?”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this to me!”

“Well I am. Someone needs to, and no one else will. You brought a second place track trophy to space. You won the 400 as a Junior and Senior at state, and a gazillion first place races leading up to that. But you brought a second place trophy to space. To remind yourself not to fail.

“You ignored your siblings on that planet when we were stranded…”

“Don’t even go there.”

“…because you had a fucking job. A responsibility Dad had given you. And you refused to fail. Nothing was going to stop you. Not me trying to figure out who the hell I was with all this freedom at seventeen years old and two boyfriends and a chip on my shoulder. I was so fucked up Judy.”

“I know! I know! Just stop!”

“But compared to your brother, I was doing great.”

“That’s enough! You don’t think I haven’t regretted that? You don’t think I haven’t thought of that every minute since Will came back all…all different and tortured and lost? You don’t think I haven’t thought of that monster sticking a blade in Will’s heart? Penny, I sat in that infirmary on the Jupiter 2 with Will in that cryo tube all by myself on our way to Alpha, just watching his face, knowing he was going to die. And just knowing…knowing it was…” she started sobbing so hard she almost couldn’t get the words out. “It was all…all my…fault.”

She sat shaking and sobbing, and Penny stood up and rushed over to her and put her arms around her as she cried. “I’m sorry, Judy. I shouldn’t have said all that. I’m sorry.”

Judy didn’t answer, she just sat there crying for a long time. Finally, she mumbled something and Penny pulled back and sat beside her. Judy said “If Will’s dead…”

“Don’t, Judy. Will isn’t dead.”

“If he’s dead, it’s all my fault. If I had just paid attention to him. To what he was going through.” She started sobbing again, and Penny leaned over and put her arms around her again.

When she realized Judy wasn’t going to settle down, Penny said, “Come on, you need to rest. I’m going to get you something to put you to sleep.”

Penny stood and took Judy’s hand and pulled her to her feet. She led Judy to her bedroom where she nudged her to the bed. “Lie down, I’ll be right back.”

Judy laid down on the bed, curled up in a ball and kept crying. Penny came back in a minute with two pills and a glass of water. She sat down beside her. “Here, raise up.”

Judy lifted her upper body and Penny put two pills in her mouth, held the water to her lips and let her drink. Judy swallowed the pills, then laid back down, still curled up, facing Penny. Penny laid down beside her, turned to her and put her arms around her and said, “I’ll stay till you’re asleep, okay?”

‘I’m…I’m fine,” Judy said, still crying.

“Yeah, you’re real fine, Judy. I’ll stay awhile.” Judy didn’t argue.

It was still fifteen or twenty minutes before Judy’s sobs subsided. She rolled over on her back and looked up at the ceiling. Penny turned to her back and moved closer so their heads were touching.

“Will he be okay, Penny?”

Penny didn’t answer for awhile, then, “I don’t know, Judy. This is different than anything else. I mean, even if we find him, how do we help him? But I know this: if it was Will lying here and one of us were missing, he would never give up on us. He would believe we were going to be okay, and he would spend the rest of his life trying to find us. And you know what? We’re going to do the same thing for him. You and me.”

“Remember that one time he skipped out of school,” Judy whispered. “The only time he ever did that. He went to the park because the night before he had a bad dream that something had me, and he had to find me?”

“Yeah, I remember. He promised us we could always count on him. This scared little kid. We both thought it was so funny. That Will would never be that person.”

“Yeah. We were wrong, weren’t we?”

“We sure were,” Penny answered. “When he went to confront SAR that was…was something. But I think he believed he could connect with him somehow. That he would be okay. I mean, he knew the danger, but I think he still believed that, the…Will Robinson hope and kindness would be able to get through to this literal killing machine.

“But when he went to the planet with the robots, to see if they would help with SAR he didn’t expect to come back alive. We were all just helpless, waiting for the robots to destroy us, and he said over the comm for all of Alpha to hear that he was going to try to do something, and they needed to wait for Robot to come back. He never expected to come back, Judy. That was a Will none of us had ever seen before. That was a Will who would come and find us if we needed him to. Nothing would stop him.”

She turned to Judy now. “And you know what? Nothing will stop us either. We’re going to find our brother. And we’re going to find a way to help him. Because…”

“Robinsons stick together,” Judy whispered.

“Yeah. Because that.”

“I really fucked up with Don, didn’t I?”

“Yeah you did.”

Judy had still been looking at the ceiling, now she turned her head slightly to see Penny’s face. “Shit.”

“It’s not over. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“I don’t know, Penny. You didn’t hear him.”

“Well…”

Judy glanced at her.“Okay, of course you listened in. And you still don’t think so?”

“No. Once he gets done being scared. And you grovel enough and…you know…find a way to make it up to him…it’ll be okay. He loves you too much to walk away. Besides. He also knows you. You really didn’t do anything out of your nature, you just forgot things are different now. You have Don in your life. You have to think about that, you know. I mean, so far, it’s been about fucking.”

“Penny, please…I’m being serious.”

“Me too. Come on. Don’t tell me it’s not mostly been about sex. I’m just saying, you have to think about his feelings more. He’s more sensitive than you realize. You know that whole sarcastic, bravado thing is a wall he puts up so people don’t know how sensitive he really is.”

Judy thought about what her sister had said for a few minutes, then responded, “I finally get it. The attraction. Your attraction to Liam. I didn’t realize it until what he did on that planet, and then how he told Vijay he would take the fall for it. He’s good looking, he’s reckless, but he’s also sensitive and maybe deeper than anyone gives him credit for. Liam’s your Don.”

Penny laid there for a couple minutes, then pushed herself off the bed and stood looking down at Judy. “Yeah. Well. Don would have been my Don if I was a little bit older. And if my big sister wasn’t in love with him. And…I guess if he looked at me the way he does you. And I’ll never say that again.”

Judy opened her mouth in surprise, thinking of how to respond. But Penny said, “Shhhh. There’s nothing to say. I love you. Now go to sleep.” She turned and walked out, closing the door behind her.

Judy watched her leave, too surprised to say anything. Suddenly it all made sense. Penny did seem to know Don, maybe better than she, herself did. And she knew when Penny was talking about Don using sarcasm to put up a wall so people wouldn’t know how sensitive he really was, Penny was also talking about herself.

Judy laid there thinking about her brave, strong, wonderful sister, and it dawned on her that she had missed so much that had been going on with both her siblings. “I love you too, little sister,” she whispered, then turned over and fell asleep.

Chapter Text

Judy called the correctional facility the next morning, and got a message to their parents that they were okay. Calls were not allowed until afternoon, so a little after twelve PM, Maureen and John called back. They were together.

Penny and Judy were sitting in the front yard in the grove of trees when the call came. “Judy?” John’s voice came over the radio.

“We’re here, Dad,” Judy said. “Penny and I are together.”

“Where the hell have you been?” John asked.

“Um…I don’t know if we should say here…”

“Right. Yes, don’t answer. You’re both okay?”

“Yeah, we’re both okay,” Judy said.

“Mom, Dad, we love you guys,” Penny said.

“Thank God you’re okay!” Maureen said.

“We’ll be over there tomorrow afternoon, as soon as visiting hours start,” Judy said.

“Yeah. Come over then,” John said. “Don’t say anything now. Have you seen Don? He was worried sick.”

“Yes, we saw him,” Penny said.

“Okay, we’ll see you tomorrow,” John said.

“We love you,” Maureen added.

“We love you,” the girls replied, as the call disconnected.

“So?” Penny said, after they were off. “Are you going to call Don?”

“No.”

“Still stubborn, huh?”

“No. He said he was working today and he needed to be away from me.”

“Yeah, he said that. He’s hurt and he’s pissed and he’s trying to figure this whole thing out. And it’s your fault, so you need to fix it.”

“Enough, Penny. We’ll see him tomorrow.” She got up and walked inside.

Penny stayed outside until she saw it was about to rain, then walked into her bedroom and picked up her journal, went back to the kitchen and sat down at the table.

She flipped it open to the cover page where “Lost In Space” was scrawled across it. She brushed her hand over it, slowly, remembering Christmas morning on the water planet and how Will had surprised her with the published copies he had handed out to everyone. She smiled.

She remembered a few weeks before, Will knocking on her bedroom door one night, and when she told him to come in, she could tell he was sad and lonely. She knew what his problem was immediately. He was missing Robot. He had laid down beside her on the bed, and didn’t say anything for awhile. 

“We’ll find him, don’t worry,” she said.

“I know. I just wish it hadn’t happened like that. I told him to walk off that cliff, and when he came back, he was completely different because of Doctor Smith. And he stayed that way until he saw I was about to die. And he saved my life. But then he was gone. I didn’t have any time to talk to him. To tell him I was sorry for making him walk off the cliff.”

“He knows you’re sorry, Will. I bet wherever he is, he can tell what you’re feeling and what you’re doing.”

“You really think so?” Will asked.

“Yeah, I really do. It was strange. I mean, so much more than strange, that you could read each other’s minds sometimes. After awhile, none of us even questioned it anymore. Well, Mom always tried to figure it out. Like science could answer everything. But to the rest of us it was just normal. Even to Dad I think, once he realized Robot wasn’t going to hurt you. So if Robot could do that, it’s not impossible at all to think he can sense what you’re doing.”

“I hope so Penny. If so, then he really does know how sorry I am.”

Penny smiled at him. “I’m sure he does.”

Then Will looked over at her journal. “What are you writing?”

“Well, it’s a secret. But I’ve been dying to tell you. But you have to promise not to tell anyone else.”

“I promise.”

“Look.” She held the journal up.

“Lost in Space,” Will read. “You wrote about us.” He quietly read the first page. “You’re so brave, Penny.”

“Brave, how’s that brave?”

“Writing your personal thoughts down, knowing that someone might actually read them? Read what’s in your head? That’s brave. Did you write everything?”

“Yeah. Everything I can think of. I don’t know if anyone will ever read it, but I want you to.”

“Penny, everyone will read it,” Will said, slowly turning the pages. “We’ll get out of here, and we’ll get to Alpha Centauri, and you’ll be famous.”

“Not as famous as Will Robinson. The boy who talks to robots.”

“I don’t think I care much about being famous, anymore, Penny,“ He said softly. “Right now I just want to find Robot and go to Alpha Centauri. Or back home.”

“Back home? Back to Earth?”

“Yeah. I know. That doesn’t sound like me, but more and more I can’t stop thinking about home. I guess it’s because everything that happened. I mean, I worried about danger all the time before we left. But I never could have imagined how dangerous it would actually be.”

“Yeah, well who can blame you? Everything that’s happened to us. To you especially. The tree and the fire.”

“Floating away in space,” Will said quietly. “That was the worst thing. I think about that a lot. My suit would have kept me alive for six point seven hours, and I would have been conscious the whole time, just watching the Jupiter 2 getting further and further away. And I would have thought about you guys the whole time. What we did together. I think, that’s what’s made me miss home more. Like, adventure isn’t as important at the end of your life. It’s returning to the things you left behind. Grandpa used to tell me that when we sat out in the backyard those summers. He said, ‘It’s what you left behind, boy. That’s what you remember in the end. The things you left behind.”

“You really loved him, didn’t you?” Penny said. “I mean, we all did, but you used to hang out with him for hours, listening to his stories. I would get so bored. I’m sure you got bored too, you were just too nice to act like you had anything else to do.”

“I never got bored, Penny. I loved his stories. I think, it’s your memories that really matter. That’s what makes you who you are. So I really knew Grandpa because I listened to his stories. And I think he was right. So I don’t worry so much about danger anymore. I think more about being home. My bedroom, and climbing out the window and looking at the stars through my telescope. Going to the park with you and Judy. Going out to Grandma’s farm. When we used to play way out in the fields, past the horse pasture. I think of those things a lot now.”

“You’re a pretty old twelve year old boy, Will,” Penny said, smiling.

“Yeah. I guess.” But by his voice, Penny could tell the thought didn’t make him happy.

She looked at him for a couple minutes, not saying anything, just watching him thumb through the journal. “It’s not easy being you, is it, Will?”

He stopped, turned his head to her, and tears filled his eyes. “No.”

She put her arm around him and pulled him to her. They laid like that for a few minutes, not talking. Finally Will said, “I better go to bed. Do you care if I take this and read it?”

“No, I don’t care. Just don’t show anyone.”

Of course he had shown everyone. It was the first time he had ever broken a promise to her. After the family had gone to bed Christmas night, he had come to her room. She opened the door but he didn’t walk inside. He said. “Penny, I’m sorry about the book. I know I promised. But people need to read it. And I knew you would never…”

She hugged him and he stopped talking. “Thank you, Will. For knowing me better than I know myself.”

Penny thought of that day as she thumbed through the manuscript. He said writing was brave, and look at all the things he did. "He's Doing!" She said aloud. She didn't want to think of him in the past tense. He was still alive.

She turned to the last page she had written in. It was just before Will was stabbed in the heart. She had never filled in the rest, because she couldn’t make herself. She had flipped to the last page, written a few words about the family finally being on Alpha Centauri, John being relaxed, Judy slowing down, Robot and Will exploring the galaxy. But it was all written in case anyone asked her how it was going. Then she left it at that, without going back to what had happened the night Will was stabbed.

“Nothing brave at all about me, little brother,” she said aloud. “I couldn’t even bring myself to go back to that night.”

Now she turned back to the last page she had updated, after the kids were reunited with their parents.

“We’re alone again. But we’re still a family. Mom and Dad, Judy, Will and me. Robot. And Don and Dr. Smith are here with us. And they are family too. Everyone has gone on to Alpha Centauri but us. And SAR is still out there. For us, the adventure continues…”

She flipped to the next page. The blank page. The one she could never write. Brave, Will said. She sighed. She thought for a few minutes, and decided there was only one way to write about that horrible night. She would just jump in. To the memory she would never get past. She picked up her pen and wrote:

I will always see him fall. I was too far away to know what happened, but he turned and called “Robot!” The fear and desperation in his voice as he called out to his friend, the only one who could save him, was apparent to us all. He turned back to the monster. It had been hunting him for over a year, and only Will had known that. And he had gone to face it, to once again try to save us all. We saw Will freeze for a second. We all knew something had happened to him, but we did’t know what. I can still see it like it happened yesterday. He pivoted slightly to his left. He fell. I was reminded of a marionette at the end of a puppet show, when his master releases the strings and the illusion of life leaves the puppet’s body. And I knew it had finally happened to my little brother. He had survived so much, had sacrificed so much, but this was something he couldn’t survive. I knew in that instant that I had just watched my brother die. I would never be the same.

She stopped and caught her breath. Her hand was shaking.

“Penny, what’s wrong?” Judy was standing in the doorway from the hall, looking at her.

She quickly closed the book. “Nothing. I was just thinking about Will.”

“Oh,” she said. “Hey, let’s take a walk, okay? Just get out for awhile. All we have been doing since we got back is waiting.”

“It was getting ready to rain, that’s why I came inside.”

“Yeah, and what would Will do?”

Penny smiled, “I’ll grab us some jackets. When we brought Will back, and you guys were still gone, he wouldn’t come out of his bedroom one day and I forced him to go for a walk with me. He was still dealing with what happened to him, but it was still nice.”

The girls left the house and walked out to the road. Penny started to turn toward the colony, the direction that she and Will normally walked, but Judy said, “let’s go this way.”

Their house was the last one on the road, so they would have nothing but woods around them. They turned and walked that direction just as the rain started.

“Here it comes,” Judy said.

When Penny didn’t answer, Judy looked at her. “You okay?” She asked.

“We weren’t twins. But I don’t know how twins could have been any closer than Will and I were,” Penny said.

“I know,” Judy said.

“You too,” Penny added, not wanting to offend her sister.

“Yeah, but it was different,” Judy said. “I always knew that. I was his confident. His mother when mom was working so much.”

“And his dad,” Penny said.

“Yeah, I guess,” Judy agreed. “After Dad left. You know, I always wanted Will to know he could talk to me about anything. You can’t always do that with a parent.” 

“You were perfect for him growing up, Judy. I mean, Dad would never beat the shit out of bullies when they picked on him. He would have gone to see the parents. But if anyone did anything to him, he knew you were there. And you were tougher than any big brother would be. You’ve been his hero his entire life.”

Judy smiled, “Do you know why I was like that? Not the hero—the big sister who would beat the shit out of bullies?”

“No. I just figured you weren’t going to let anyone hurt your little brother.”

“Oh yeah, definitely. He was the best human I ever knew. Still is. And the thought that some idiot kid wanted to bully him because he was too nice or too smart or something just enraged me. But I think it was something else. I think I had a lot of pent up anger from Dad leaving. And when someone picked on Will, I guess it was kind of an outlet for all of that. You were right, what you said last night. I felt abandoned, and I would be damned if I was going to let my brother and sister feel that way.”

It had finally begun raining and the girls pulled their hoods up. The low mountain range was in the distance, and they could see lightening striking out near it, though where they were, the rain was still light.

“You said it was different, mine and Will’s relationship,” Penny said.

“Yeah, you were his partner in crime,” she said with a smile.

Penny smiled too. “Yeah, I guess so. It was kinda weird. I was his older sister, but by the time he was nine, I knew he was smarter than I ever would be. So I guess that sort of evened the age out a little. But you know what I was thinking about earlier? When I wrote in my journal, Lost In Space, Will’s the only one I planned to show it to.”

“Really, why?”

“You know how we always say Will’s superpower is his compassion?”

“Yeah,” Judy said.

“I think his real superpower is that he never judged. I mean, I could tell him anything and show him anything, like that journal. Taking what’s inside your head and putting it out there for someone else to see is like, completely baring your soul. And, it’s like every sentence you write, in your mind, you are seeing it through someone else’s eyes. What will they think? Will they hate it? Love it?

“The whole damn process is terrifying. But with Will, I knew I could show it to him and he would support it one hundred percent. With no judgement whatsoever. Like it or hate it, he would be proud of me for writing it. He’s just, different than anyone I’ve ever met.”

When her voice trailed off, Judy put an arm around her. “Another thing you said yesterday is true, Penny. He’s still alive and we’ll find him and figure this all out.

“And, sorry I kind of had a melt down. That’s not like me.”

“It isn’t like you. That’s why I was glad to see it. You keep everything inside, and take care of the rest of us. Will told me about your conversation with Phil on the bridge. None of us knew how much Evan’s death had bothered you. It’s unhealthy. Just like we told Will, and just like Don told you, you aren’t alone.”

“Thanks, Penny,” Judy said. “I’m really glad you were there last night. And I’m really glad you were so blunt. I needed that.”

“Well, we need to take care of each other now,” Penny said. “You, me and Will, once we find him.”

“Yeah,” Judy agreed.

With a loud crack, lightening struck back in the woods not far from them. “Okay, time to head back,” Judy said, and the two girls turned around.

By the time they were almost back to their house, the rain was coming down harder as the storm moved in.

“Better pick it up,” Judy said.

But Penny grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. “Wait,” she said.

“What?” Judy turned and saw Penny was staring at the woods across from their house, about fifty yards in front of them.

“I think there’s someone in the woods.”

Judy grabbed her sister by the arm and pulled her off the road into the woods on the same side where the man would be. They stood at the edge of the trees and watched for movement.

“You sure you saw something?” Judy asked.

“I think so. Ever since I got shot, I can’t stop watching the forest over there when I’m outside.”

“Well, maybe whoever it was saw us coming back and left. No…there! You’re right. Someone is there.”

She pulled Penny back into the trees. “I’m going to try and get close enough to see who it is. With the rain I think I can sneak up without him hearing me,” Judy said. “Stay here.”

“No way! Just call Don.”

“No, we have no idea if anyone is watching us, or they’re just in the woods there, hiking or something.”

“Judy, you know better.”

“Let me just see if I can get close enough to see if he’s really spying on us.”

“Okay, but I’m going too.”

“No!”

“Judy, I’m not letting you do this by yourself!”

“Okay, but stay behind me and watch what you’re stepping on.”

The girls made their way through the forest, stepping carefully over wet leaves and broken limbs, until they were almost across from their house. Then they stopped and peered through the trees trying to get a glimpse of anyone who might be there.

“I see him,” Judy whispered.

“Where?”

She pointed. “See the bushes. He’s sitting behind them so we couldn’t see him from the house. Leaning against that tree.”

“I see him,” Penny whispered.

“I’m going to try and get closer,” Judy said.

“No! He’s probably dangerous.”

Judy looked around on the ground until she found an old limb about three feet long. She hefted it and whispered, “I’ll take this. It’s heavy enough to do some damage.”

“I’m going with you,” Penny whispered back.

“Okay, but stay behind me.”

They carefully made their way through the woods until they were a few feet behind the man. He was sitting down, his back resting against a tree. They watched as he picked up a pair of binoculars that were laying beside him, brought them to his eyes, and scanned the Robinson’s house with them. He laid them back down after a couple minutes and leaned his head back against the tree again.

Judy held her hand up to signal to Penny to stay where she was, and slowly started stepping toward the man. She was a couple feet away, hidden behind the tree the man was leaning against, when she stepped on a stick, and the man jumped to his feet and spun around.

Judy stepped from behind the tree, swung the club and struck him across the nose, where it landed with a thud. “Oh Goddamn!” The man shouted, as the blow knocked him back two steps. He grabbed his nose with both hands as blood poured from between his fingers.

But he was a big man, much bigger than the girls thought he was when he was sitting down. He rushed forward, and Judy swung toward his head again, but he lifted his arm and blocked it this time and the club fell to the ground. He had stopped advancing when Judy swung so she stepped forward and kicked him in the groin. The man groaned and bent forward at the waist but he didn’t fall.

Judy kicked again, this time toward his face as he was bent over. She remembered her father’s words from their many hours of self defense training, telling her if she had to fight an attacker, be relentless and follow up one attack with another until she had a path to escape. Of course he never told her to initiate the attack. But it was too late to listen to that advice.

The kick caught the man in the face, just as he began to raise back up. “Fuck!” He screamed, as the top of her foot caught him in his injured nose, and he was knocked back again.

Penny ran forward and picked the club up that Judy had dropped and swung it like a baseball bat toward the side of the man’s head. He blocked it again, but he cried out as the limb made hard contact with his shoulder. He stretched a long arm out, grabbed Penny by her shirt and with all his strength, threw her into Judy, who was moving toward him again.

The girls tumbled to the ground. Judy landed on her back, brought both her knees to her chest, feet up, ready to stomp the man’s shins and knees, expecting him to attack, but he ran past them. As he disappeared into the woods, they heard him yell, “Fucking Robinsons!”

“You okay?” Judy asked her sister.

“Yeah. Damn, Judy, I guess that was some of that pent up rage. You kicked his ass."

“Well, it wasn’t over, but I don’t think he wanted to hurt us. He was huge and if he did he would have jumped us when we fell.”

As the girls climbed to their feet, they heard the sound of a small engine. They stayed where they were and listened as the sound grew fainter, the man obviously heading away from them as fast as he could go.

“He must have had a motorcycle,” Judy said. “Probably a dirt bike out here.”

“What the hell’s going on, Judy?”

“I don’t know. He was spying on us though. let’s get to the house,” Judy said. “We probably shouldn’t tell anyone that we did that.”

“Anyone like Don?” Penny asked.

“Especially Don,” Judy said. “Maybe not Dad either. We can say someone was spying on us, and leave it at that.”

Don called the next morning and said he was on his way to take them to see their parents. He called Penny’s phone. She was in the kitchen and walked down to Judy’s room to tell her. “Okay, I’ll be ready in a few.” She didn’t comment on the fact Don had called Penny.

He called again when he was in the drive. “Don’s here,” Penny yelled down the hall to her sister.

“Okay, I’ll be out it a minute,” Judy called back.

When Penny was at the Chariot, she started to get in the back seat and Don said, “You can get in the front.”

“I’ve had about enough of you two,” Penny said sharply, climbing in back.

Don didn’t answer. He just sat and waited.

When Judy got in the front seat she just said, “Thanks for coming to get us, Don.”

“No problem,” he said, as they drove to the prison.

When they pulled up at the prison, Don said, “They won’t let me go in with two people visiting. I’ll wait here. Remember not to say anything about where you went. People are listening.”

John and Maureen walked in the room and when they saw their daughters they both rushed over and hugged them. They all sat down at the table.

“Just don’t…”

“We know, we know,” Judy said. “Don’t say anything they can hear. But we have stuff to tell you.”

“We know,” Maureen said. “But we can’t trust anyone here. Things seem strange. The guards are watching us really close.”

“Are you okay?” Penny asked.

“Yeah, we’re okay. Just be careful, whatever you do.”

“We’ll be careful,” Judy said. She lowered her voice, covered her mouth with her hand and said. “We saw the aliens. We were there on the planet.”

“Damn it! Judy,” John said. “What did you…”

“We had to try to find Will,” Penny said, covering her mouth as Judy had. “ You were in here and we couldn’t just do nothing. There’s more to tell, but there was no sign of him.”

“Okay, that’s enough for now,” Maureen said.

They sat and talked about nothing it particular for about an hour, when the guard walked over and said, “Time’s up.”

“Can you ask Don if he will come and stay at the house until we get out?” John asked, looking at Judy.

“He won’t want…” Judy started.

“Yes, we’ll ask him,” Penny said. “I’m sure he will be glad to.”

She looked at Judy and smiled quickly. Judy smirked at her.

“Time’s up,” the guard said again.

They all stood and John and Maureen hugged the girls again.

In the security room, an officer sat at a control center, watching a monitor bank with views of the entire facility. The door opened and the Warden walked in with a man in civilian clothes. The officer had just seen the man for the first time a couple hours earlier when the Warden brought him in to view the monitors.

“You get the Robinson’s table?” The Warden asked the officer. “We watched it in my office, but the audio wasn’t good.”

“Yeah,” he nodded to one of the screens, hit stop, then reverse. They had a view of the visitor’s room, and the Robinsons sitting at the table with their daughters.

“Let’s see the whole, thing,” the man in civilian clothes said to the Warden.

The officer looked up at the Warden, “This is Mr. White,” the Warden explained to the officer. “Do as he asked. Back it till the girls come in.”

The officer complied and they all watched the Robinsons walk in, greet their daughters, sit at the table with them and start talking. It sounded like mumbling.

“Audio,” Mr. White said. The guard turned up the volume, this time not waiting for the Warden to tell him. He could see who was in charge here.

The Robinsons were talking in low voices, and the girls were covering their mouths.

“Well, they’re obviously saying something they don’t want anyone to hear,” the Warden said.

Mr. White said, “I’ve seen enough.” He turned and the Warden followed him out.

In the hallway Mr. White said to the Warden, “What kind of security is this? We should be able to hear everything going on in that room.”

“We haven’t really had many detainees we considered dangerous,” The Warden argued. “And the Law Enforcement and Compliance Board takes the detainees rights to privacy seriously. It’s supposed to be a new frontier.”

“Do something about the audio in that room,” Mr. White said, completely ignoring the Warden’s concerns. “I want to hear every breath when they’re in there together.”

“I’ll get the technicians here this week,” the Warden said.

“Tonight,” Mr. White demanded and walked away. But he stopped halfway down the hall and turned back around. “And if you think the Robinsons aren’t dangerous detainees, remember it was their boy that brought the robots here and almost annihilated the entire colony.”

The Warden watched him walk away. He had just met Mr. White that morning, when the head of Alpha Security had brought him to the facility and told the Warden to make sure the guy had anything he needed.

As soon as the man from Alpha had left them, Mr. White had told him, “I need to see your security office.”

The Warden had taken him there and Mr. White looked at the monitors for a minute, then said to the Warden, “The Robinson girls are on their way to see their parents. Let’s go to your office and watch it there. Have him call us when they get to the gate,” he added, nodding to the officer who was sitting in front of the monitors.

“Got that?” The Warden said to the officer. “Monitor the gate camera and give us a heads up.”

“Got it. I’ll call you.”

Now the Warden stood in the hall and watched Mr. White walk away. He didn’t know who the man was, but he seemed dangerous, somehow. And White had known the Robinson girls were on their way to the prison before they arrived. The Warden had no idea what was going on, but he had moved up through the bureaucracy in civil service by learning not to ask too many questions. He wasn’t going to start now.

Don was waiting when the girls walked out. Penny got in the back seat again, and Judy climbed in the front.

“Everything okay?” Don asked, as he backed the Chariot out.

“Yeah,” Judy said.

Penny waited. When she saw Judy wasn’t going to say anything else, she said, “Well, Dad wanted us to ask you a favor.”

“Penny,” Judy said. “Don’t.”

“When have you ever known me to go against my parent’s wishes?” Penny asked.

Don and Judy glanced at each other. They almost smiled.

“What is it?” Don asked.

“Well, since we are both helpless little girls…”

“You two?” Penny saw him look at Judy again and smile.

A crack in the armor, Penny thought.

“Since we are both helpless little girls, Dad wants us to ask you if you’ll stay over until the hearing.”

Judy looked straight ahead.

“I don’t know,” Don said, looking at Judy, who still wasn’t looking at him.

“Well, I can call Dad tomorrow and tell him you said ‘no,” Penny said.

Don sighed. He looked at Judy. “What do you want me to do?”

She just shrugged her shoulders.

“Jesus, you two,” Penny said, exasperated.

“It’s fine. If you want to,” Judy said. Still not looking at him.

“I want you to!” Penny said.

“Yeah, I guess. If Penny wants you to, it’s okay with me.”

They didn’t talk much that afternoon and evening, but Don and Judy at least were civil to each other, and even joked a couple of times, but when it was time to go to bed, Don said he would sleep on the couch.

Penny just shook her head and walked to her bedroom.

The next morning they ate breakfast, and Don said he had to go to work for a few hours, but would be back around lunch.

As he was walking out, Penny said, “Oh, hey, I forgot, we found Will’s video camera on the planet. I think it’s probably never going to work again, but do you want to take it with you and see if there’s anything you can do?”

“You found Will’s camera? That’s kind of important.”

“Yeah, but it won’t charge and I don’t think it can be fixed.”

“All your years of high school taught you how to fix stuff?”

“To be fair, I didn’t spend the last couple of years in high school.”

“That’s probably when you missed video camera repair,” Don said.

Penny went to her room and grabbed the camera out of her bag and took it to Don and he told the girls goodbye and left. But he did glance once more at Judy before walking out.

It was almost eleven AM when Don called. This time he called Judy’s radio. “Judy, hey, I’m leaving now. I have something you need to see.”

“What is it, Don?”

“I’m not talking over the radio, but I’ll be there as soon as I can. Tell Penny.”

“Will do.”

Judy and Penny met Don outside when the Chariot pulled up. “What’s going on?” Judy asked.

“I’ll tell you inside,” he said. He had a backpack with him.

Once in the house, Don walked to the table and pulled Will’s video camera and a cord out of his backpack.

“You fixed it?” Penny asked.

“That’s what I do. I fix things and smuggle stuff.” They both looked at him quizzically. “I’m paraphrasing an old TV show.”

They sat down at the table and Don pulled a laptop out of his backpack and hooked the camera up to the computer. He pressed play.

They all saw Will’s face come in to view. He was wearing a space suit and helmet. He looked into the camera. “This is Will Robinson of the first human, robot exploratory group. I don’t know exactly where we are right now. But it’s beautiful.”

Tears came to Penny’s eyes as the camera panned out over a landscape of shallow water and sparse trees, a rocky escarpment in the distance, and one of two sun’s beginning to rise. There seemed to be dinosaurs or strange looking giraffes in the distance.

Judy took Penny’s hand. “You okay?” She asked.

“Yeah, he was just so hopeful. His voice. Everything was behind him and everyone was safe and he just wanted to see what else was out there. That’s our little brother, Judy.”

“And we’ll find him,” her sister answered.

They continued to watch what Will recorded. They were on the planet in the video for a few days before landing on the second planet.

They all watched as Will recorded their time there. He had landed the ship, and he and robot stood looking over the valley. They saw him pan out toward the forest and the hills beyond then he pointed the camera at himself. Robot stood beside him.

Will’s voice recorded over the video: “We’re here. The planet was right where it was supposed to be according to the myths. And—it supports human life. We just might have made the greatest discovery in the history of mankind.” He panned the camera out across the valley. “It’s hard to tell at this distance, but those hills are bright red. Like blood. It’s very unusual, and we think we need to see what it is.”

Penny and Judy shared a glance.

The camera turned to Robot’s face shield. Robot wasn’t saying anything. “I think we need to see what it is. Robot isn’t really convinced.”

Will recorded their trip through the forest and the canyon. He recorded the entire painted wall, and the next day, they traveled through the swamp.

They were standing on the grassy field, where the girls had been a few days before.

The camera was focused on the hills, and now they could see they were bright red. “Possible flora of some kind,” Will said. “We’ll be there in a couple of hours, and maybe collect some samples.”

Suddenly, they saw something like a shadow appear on the ground in front of Will. The camera caught it, then turned up. There was something in the sky, but it was just a fleeting image.

“What was that?” Judy asked.

“Exactly what I wanted to show you,” Don said. He paused the camera, reversed it, and pressed play again. When the object came into view he paused it.

“A UFO?” Penny asked. “A weird one if it is.”

“Maybe not so weird,” Don said. “Triangle shaped. They’ve been seeing these since the forties or fifties on Earth. But what’s weird is the way it’s flying. Like it’s going with its belly forward.”

“Will didn’t say anything about that to you, did he?” Judy asked her sister.

“No, but he forgot everything.”

Don pressed play again. As soon as the video started, they heard Robot’s voice, “Danger Will Robinson.”

The camera pointed down, and they saw the red vines wrapping Will’s feet. He was shouting at Robot for help, and Robot was firing his lasers all around Will. The camera fell to the ground, and all they could do was listen to Will’s panicked voice calling for help, and Robot firing over and over again. It was heartbreaking to the girls. Penny clutched Judy’s hand tighter.

Eventually, the sounds stopped. The camera was still recording, but it was lying on the ground, and all they could see were the red vines covering the surface. But something came into view after a couple of minutes. It was a bundle, wrapped in the vines, and as it was dragged along the ground they could see Will’s frightened eyes as he was pulled across the ground until he was no longer in view.

“My God,” Penny said. She started crying and Judy put her arms around her.

“That was it,” Penny said quietly.

“What?” Don asked.

“That thing that had Will. That was what was draining him. I felt it, and couldn’t imagine what it was. That was it. The same thing that had us. It was going to do that to us too. I think it kept him for days. Maybe weeks. And those skulls in the field beneath the hills. It was capturing animals and just…devouring them I think. Just seeing him like that…it was horrible.”

“But what did the UFO have to do with it?” Judy asked.

“Yeah, that’s the question,” Don said. “We know the aliens are not extinct, and are living under the surface on that planet. You saw them. We know they did something to Will. I’m pretty sure Robot wasn’t wrong about that. But what we didn’t know is something else was there. That wasn’t a Robot ship. And those things or something like them have been sighted on Earth for a hundred years or more. So what’s the connection?”

“What do we do, Don?” Judy asked.

“We have to go see your parents tomorrow. And we’re going to have to risk telling them what we saw, and hope no one at the prison hears us. But I don’t think we have any choice. There’s something going on that just keeps getting stranger.”

That night, the girls went to bed and Don laid down on the couch again. Penny waited until she heard Judy get out of the shower and walk to her room. Penny got up and followed her in. Judy had almost dropped her towel when she heard the door open. “Knock much?” She asked.

“Yeah, like I’ve never seen you naked before.”

“What do you want?”

“Stop being an idiot and go get your boyfriend off that couch and take him to bed.”

“Penny…”

“Just fucking go.” Penny turned and walked back to the door. Judy just stood there watching her.

“He won’t even want to,” Judy said.

Penny turned at the door. “Just stay in the towel. He’ll want to.” She smiled and left.

Judy stood there thinking about getting dressed, then mumbled, “what the fuck,” and left the bedroom and went out to the living room where Don was lying on his back on the couch, his eyes closed.

“Don,” Judy whispered.

His eyes flew open. He looked at Judy, her hair dripping wet, the towel barely covering her. He didn’t say anything.

Judy had been prepared to argue, but instead she stepped up to him, reached down and took his hand. He sat up and let her pull him to his feet then followed her back to her bedroom, neither of them saying a word.

Penny heard the footsteps, heard Judy’s door close, and smiled to herself. She sighed, wondering what Liam was doing.

Chapter Text

Don woke to thunder and the sound of rain on the roof. The room was mostly dark, but he could tell by the light from the window the sun would be up soon, if it managed to come out at all. It sounded like the rain might be settling in for awhile, which was not unusual this time of year on Alpha. Judy was still asleep, her body pressed against his, facing away. He turned to his side so he could see her better, moving slowly so as not to wake her.

The night before, he had had full intentions of sleeping on the couch, and initially, when she woke him and took his hand, he had started to refuse. But she stood there in that towel, which barely covered her, hair wet from the shower, and the thought of refusal dissipated as quickly as it had come.

She led him to her room, dropped the towel, and wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. He kissed her back, then she broke the kiss and slowly undressed him. Once in bed, he thought it would be urgent, angry, make up sex. Instead he followed her lead, and it was soft and gentle. It might have been the only time they had truly made love, their hands slowly exploring each other as they kissed for what seemed an eternity before joining together in a slow rhythm.

As he lay there looking at her, he thought of it now and realized the entire time it was if they were first getting to know each other in a way they had not before.

He remembered the first time he had seen her, as he walked out of the Watanabe’s Jupiter. Of course he noticed immediately how beautiful she was. He was a man after all. She was young, but he soon saw she was incredibly mature for her age, with a focus and determination of a much older soul.

Initially, he tried to treat her like he did the other Robinsons. Part of it was the fact they had all been thrown together in unimaginable circumstances, where the only thing that mattered was survival. But the other part, which soon became evident to him once they were all stranded on the water planet together, was that he knew he was becoming attracted to her, and that was one thing none of them needed.

Still, it seemed they often ended up together when the rest of the family was not present. Usually it was after they had all gone to bed. The first time, Don was in the cockpit, staring out the window at the dark water.

Judy walked in and saw him leaned back in the Captain’s chair, feet up on the console, hands behind his head. “I would think you were getting ready to fly us out of here, but you look a little too relaxed.”

He jumped up, spun around and said, “Jesus Christ, you scared the hell out of me! And for your information, that is my normal lift off position. A pilot of my skill set has no reason to get nervous about a tiny thing like strapping himself into a rocket propelled canister and blasting off into the deepest regions of the unknown.”

She sat down beside him in the copilot’s chair. “Certainly no lack in confidence from such a skilled pilot,” she said, smiling at him. “Is that a good thing, or something I should be worried about?”

He didn’t know how to answer, not sure how she had meant that. But then she added, “Who wants to put themselves in the hands of a beginner when they are about to blast off into the deepest reaches of the unknown?” Which made it even worse.

But then she seemed embarrassed and said, “Um…I…I couldn’t sleep and was just walking around. Not sure if what I’m saying is coming out the way I wanted it to, okay?

“Are you looking at anything in particular out there?” She added, quickly changing the subject, and making him feel relieved at the same time.

“Not really,” he said, trying to push her previous words out of his mind, so his thoughts wouldn’t go where he had found them drifting on occasion. “But we’ve been here three months, and I think those lightening strikes out there have occurred at the same time every 23 days. I was wondering if they happen any other time, like when we’re all in bed. So if I can’t sleep I come up here and just watch for them sometimes.

“And you know, we’re all together in a pretty small space. Other than our cabins, it’s hard to get away by ourselves, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed all right,” she said. “And now I’ve invaded your private space,” she stood.

“No. Sit back down. It’s fine, I was a little lon…bored,” he said.

They ended up talking for an hour or more, and after that, it wasn’t unusual for them both to end up in the cockpit together after the other’s had gone to sleep. They never spoke of meeting, it just seemed to happen a lot. And she never flirted with him again, if that’s what she had actually been doing. But now as looked at her, sleeping peacefully, one strand of hair falling over her face, he remembered how disappointed he was on the nights when he would go to the cockpit after the others had all gone to bed and she didn’t show up.

“Mmmm,” she moaned, and slowly opened her eyes.

“Good morning,” he whispered.

“Good morning,” she whispered back.

He wrapped his arms around her again and she enclosed his arm in hers, pulling him against her.

“Sleep good?” He asked.

“After last night? Yes. You?”

“All night long,” he said. “I just woke a few minutes ago. I think it was the rain.”

“This is the perfect way to wake up,” she said. “Rain. Thunder. You.”

“I was thinking about that first time on the water planet when you came into the cockpit and saw me there.”

“Mmm, I remember,” she said.

“Do you remember what we talked about?” He asked. “I mean at first.”

“The lightening,” she said.

“But you said a couple things to me before that.” He kissed the back of her neck.

“No, not really,” she said. “It’s vague. Maybe something like, ‘who wants to put themselves in the hands of a beginner when they are about to blast off into the deepest reaches of the unknown?”

“I think that was exactly what it was,” he said. “It wasn’t that vague was it?”

She giggled.

“You were flirting with me, weren’t you?”

“It was a sad attempt,” she admitted. “And when you just sat there looking at me, I got embarrassed.”

“Well, it had the desired effect,” he said, kissing her ear.

“It seems to be having the desired effect now,” she said, feeling him pressed against her. She reached a hand back so she could touch him.

“So, you were thinking of me like this, back that far?” He asked, sucking in his breath slightly at her touch.

“Like this? Probably not. But was I thinking about what it would be like to do this with you? Absolutely. Even before we were stranded on that planet.”

“Really?” He asked, kissing her behind the ear.

“Yes. I was attracted to you pretty much from the beginning. And I thought you were attracted to me too.”

“Well, I was,” he said. “Pretty much from the beginning. But I thought I hid it well. What gave it away?”

“When you risked your life to go up in space with my dad. There was no way you wanted to do that, but when I followed you down the hall and talked you in to it, I knew then. You did that for me. And I guess I sort of started thinking about you differently then. I mean, what guy would do that for a girl if he didn’t care about her? But after that night you came to find me and we drank whiskey together, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. So I had all these ideas about how to get you to admit it. And when you were in the cockpit that night, talking about your skills—well it was a good set up. But then you just stared at me. I was so embarrassed.”

“Yeah, I guess you surprised me. And…it seemed a little dangerous, considering the circumstances.”

“Well, Don, I compliment you on being a perfect gentleman then, even though I was totally frustrated by my failed attempt at getting you to whisk me back to your cabin.”

“If I had tried, would you have been whisked?”

“I don’t know. Maybe not that night, but I think the whisking would have occurred sooner than it did.”

“Well, all I can say is, I’m really glad we ended up in that club together that night.”

“I could tell,” she whispered, her hand was still touching him. “You couldn’t take your eyes off of me.”

“I couldn’t? You asked me to dance!”

“I was just trying to rescue you from that girl at your table. She wasn’t your type.”

“Purely a mission of mercy, huh?”

“Purely,” she said.

“But then you ended up at the bar with me, ignoring all the people you came there with.”

“Well, when I commit myself to a mission I’m all in,” she said.

“So, had I tried to whisk you back to my place that night…”

“That night, I would have let the whisking commence.”

“Damn,” he said. “What was wrong with me?”

“You were more afraid of my dad than you were afraid of going back to space with him that time.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

They were quiet for awhile, Don was gently kissing her neck, beside her ear, her cheek. “Judy, you scared me,” he said.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m just not used to…this, I guess. Caring so much about someone.”

“Me either, Don. I just didn’t think it through. About how you would feel, I mean. And I’m really sorry.”

“I just want to tell you…”

“Shhh.” She rolled over and faced him, their body’s touching. “Don’t tell me, show me.”

She kissed him and he kissed her back and they made love slowly and completely, like they had the night before.

An hour later Don was in the Chariot waiting for the girls to go to the prison and talk to John and Maureen about what they had seen on Will’s camera. Penny walked out, climbed in the back and said, “Well, I’m assuming you two made up.”

“Sort of,” Don said.

Sure sounded like it, she thought, but in a rare moment for Penny she didn’t voice the first words that came to her head. Though she did make a mental note that the walls of these 3-D printed buildings were really thin.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” She said.

“You can ask,” he answered.

“Do you love her?”

He was quiet for a few seconds. “I’m not supposed to say that,” he finally answered.

“Not Supposed to?”

“Yeah. Judy won’t let me.”

“Huh?”

“She told me she loved me, but that saying it was like putting a gun to someone’s head. The only answer is they have to say the same thing back. So she said I can’t say it.”

“Yeah, you love her.”

He smiled. But then he grew serious. “The thing is, everything is so Goddamn unpredictable, you know. We’re not back on Earth. Not that Earth is the safest place these days. But here? And with you…” he trailed off.

“What?”

“Your family. You guys aren’t exactly safe anywhere. I’m just not used to…” he trailed off again.

“Needing somebody?”

“Need is a strong word, but I guess I’m not used to worrying about someone.”

“She scared you. I know.”

“Yeah. I guess she did. I did tell her that.”

“You know, she’s never told anyone she loved them before. It’s kind of a big deal to her.”

“I know. She’s not the kind to just say that I don’t think. I think she’s having a hard time with the whole thing. At least she did in the beginning. I think it all confused her.”

“I’m sure it did,” Penny said “She’s not used to needing someone in her life, either. Outside her family anyway. You mean a lot to her Don, for her to say that to you.”

He glanced in the mirror at her, but his expression seemed pained.

They both looked toward the house as Judy walked out the front door and headed toward the Chariot.

“And just so you know, Don, if you hurt her, I will seriously fuck you up.”

Now he smiled. “I know you will,” he said, as Judy climbed in.

“What are you two talking about?” She asked.

“Nothing,” Don said.

“I was complaining about how thin the walls in these 3-D houses are,” Penny said.

Don and Judy glanced at each other uncomfortably.

Penny looked at them through the rearview mirror, a contented smile on her face. I just couldn’t—not, she thought.

When Judy and Penny walked in the correctional facility, Maureen and John were already in the waiting room and stood up and hugged them.

“We have to tell you what’s going on,” Judy said.

“Since yesterday?” John asked.

“Yes,” Judy whispered. “We saw something.”

They all took a seat, and as Judy began to tell them what had happened, John said, “Shhh. And turn away from the camera in the corner. I’m sure someone here will try to read your lips. They’re watching.”

Judy lowered her voice and turned her head so she wasn’t facing the camera. She told them everything they had seen on Will’s recording.

“This UFO didn’t look anything like the robot’s ships?” Maureen whispered.

“No,” Penny said. “Don said it looked like what people have been reporting seeing on Earth for a hundred years or so.”

“And that thing—those vines attacked you too?” Maureen asked.

“Yes,” Judy said. “And the aliens—whatever those things were, they were afraid of it.”

“I still feel like it was one thing,” Penny said. “One organism.”

“I wish you had not gone back to that planet without us,” John said.

“Dad, someone had to do something to find Will,” Penny argued. “You guys couldn’t help from in here. So when Vijay said something happened to him on that planet, I thought he was right. And I think it was that thing that looked like vines. I don’t know why, but I had the feeling that’s what it was. It wrapped around my legs and—I don’t know—it was weird. It felt like it was…I can’t even explain it. Like evil or something. Like it wanted me, and if it had me I would never get away from it. And that was like seconds. If that was what happened to Will on that planet, it might have had him for weeks. We all know he was different when he came back. Somehow I think it was that thing. I don’t know.”

“And that UFO was like people have been describing forever,” Judy said. “Don was right about that. And we’ve all seen videos of them, since they were declassified.”

“Not just the ones that were declassified,” John said. “The Navy has a lot of records going back over a hundred years of sightings of these things. I just don’t know what any of it has to do with us.”

“Will,” Maureen said. “It has something to do with Will.”

“You still think that, Maureen?” John asked.

“It always does,” Penny and Maureen answered, together.

“Our hearing is in three weeks,” John said. “Can you ask Don to stay with you until then?”

“Oh, he won’t mind at all. I’m sure of that,” Penny said.

Judy stepped on her foot under the table. Penny didn’t react, but she smiled slightly.

They stood and John and Maureen hugged the girls, and watched as they were led out. They nodded to the guard standing at the door who took them back to their cells.

In the security room, the man in civilian clothes, Mr. White, stood with the Warden, overlooking the cameras. The security officer from the day before was no longer in the room. Mr. White had brought someone else to monitor the cameras. The three men were listening to everything that had been said through the small mic that was implanted in every table in the room. This time every word was clear.

Mr. White said, “Stay here,” to the Warden, walked out into the hall and called someone on his wrist radio, and whispered, “It’s a go. Tonight. We need to do something about the Warden too.”

That night John was lying in his bunk asleep, when he suddenly woke and listened. Something was wrong. He knew when the guards made their rounds. After half his adult life spent in wars, he slept very lightly. He would wake, lie with his eyes closed until the footsteps went away. But this time something was different.

He waited, eyes shut, trying to breath softly. He listened closely. There it was. A footstep, though not the natural steps of the guards making their rounds. Someone was trying to step without being heard.

He heard a click. Then nothing. He knew it was the internal locking mechanism on the door. Someone had pressed the control on the outside. Whoever it was, was doing everything he could to not be heard, and had paused once the lock opened to make sure it hadn’t woke John.

John waited. Waited. The steps started again, moving toward him. When he knew the person was almost over him, he rolled off the cot and into a man’s legs knocking him forward over the cot.

John was ready for that and slid out from under him, and started to push himself to his feet. But the man shoved himself off the cot and spun and jumped on John. He was much larger, and thought he would have an advantage on the ground, but John easily swept him to his back, straddled him, and hit him twice in the jaw quickly. The man rolled over to protect his face, which was exactly what John wanted. He slipped an arm under his throat and the other behind the man’s neck and locked a choke on. He applied pressure slowly until the attacker almost blacked out, then he released it enough the man could breathe.

“Who sent you?” John demanded.

Before the assailant could answer, the light from the hallway was blocked out as someone else ran in the cell. John released the choke, shoved the man’s head into the concrete floor, knocking him out, then looked up to meet whoever had rushed in.

But John didn’t stop moving. He shot forward from his knees, wrapping the guy’s legs and planting him on the floor. He quickly climbed to straddle him, but before he could strike, he saw a shadow and leaned to his left, dodging a kick that was directed toward his head. A third attacker had entered the cell.

John slammed the second man’s head against the floor, knocking him out as well, then rolled again to the wall, knowing the man who had tried to kick him was still moving in.

John rolled a second time, and instead of standing, he spun on his back so he was looking up at the man who was standing above him.

He stomped the man’s shin hard, then stomped him with the other foot to his opposite knee, then again to the first leg. The attacker had no idea how to defend against John’s kicks, and tried to get away after the third kick connected. John was waiting for that and shoved himself up and tackled the man as he limped back.

They fell out the door into the hallway, John on top, where he saw another person rushing his way. John quickly elbowed the third attacker in the jaw, knocking him out. He stood to face the man who was running toward him, but the guy pulled a gun and pointed it towards John. There was no place for him to go. He spun away as the shot went off, causing it to miss him. It wasn’t loud. It had been silenced. No one was supposed to know about this, John realized. Something strange was going on. He needed to get to Maureen.

When the shot missed, John turned to try and get back in his cell, but the man who had first attacked him was awake and standing there with a knife in his hand. John slid in close, surprising the man, who had expected him to move back. John wrapped the hand with the knife under his arm, pinning it against his own body, and punched the attacker in the throat, dropping him instantly, causing him to drop the knife. John crouched and picked it up and turned toward the man with the gun.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m here to get you out of here,” the guy said. He was holding his hands in the air, the gun pointed toward the ceiling. John looked past him and saw the man hadn’t missed him with the shot. He had been aiming at another attacker who had been behind John, running toward him from the opposite direction outside the cell. The man with the gun had a black mask covering his face.

Now John realized what happened. The man with the gun had saved John’s life. John turned the attacker over that had been shot. It was the guard who had promised Penny nothing would happen to her parents.

“Maureen,” John said. “I need to get there.”

“Come on, we have someone there now,” the man said.

They ran down the hall, where they saw another person rushing toward them pulling Maureen by the arm. He had a black mask on as well.
Maureen ran up and hugged John. “What’s going on? Someone was coming in my cell, then this guy walked in and shot him.”

“We’re here to get you out,” the man with her said.

“Doctor Smith!” Maureen said.

“No one said anything to us about…”

“We’re not asking,” John said.

“Okay,” the man who had helped Maureen said. He began running down the hall and the others followed.

When they got to Smith’s cell, one of the men pressed numbers into the lock and the door slid open. They all rushed in. Smith wasn’t there. Someone was, though. They walked over and looked down at the body of the guard. There was blood everywhere. But it didn’t look like the guard’s blood. He was dead, with a bed sheet wrapped around his throat.

“That’s why we need her, John,” Maureen said.

“We have to go,” one of the men said, “Now. Our window is closing.”

“Smith will be alright,” Maureen said. “I have a feeling she’s not even here anymore.”

“Well, she is bleeding,” John replied.

“Now!” The man who had spoke before said.

They turned and ran down the hall. They stopped at a door and one of the men pressed a code. The door opened and they followed him through. Inside was a stairwell. Maureen and John followed the men until they were in an area under the facility with pipes running through it.

They ran through the underground passage until the men led them up some steps, opened another door and they stepped out into the night.

They were somewhere in back of the prison in a dark cargo area. No one was around.

John turned to the men, but before he could say anything, one of them said, “Here’s your ride.”

A truck was speeding toward them in the dark, its lights off. It pulled up next to them, and one of the men said, “Get in. He’ll take you home. But get the fuck off the planet. You’re not safe here.”

“What about you guys?” John asked.

“We work here. Now go find your son.”

“So you just risked your lives and jobs to get us out?” John asked.

“Not really, you have friends in high places,” the man said. “Enemies, too.”

“I guess,” John said. “Well, thanks.”

He and Maureen climbed in the back seat. Without a word, the driver took off. He drove through the back roads of the prison ground like he knew every inch of the place. When he pulled up at the Robinson’s house thirty minutes later, he still hadn’t said anything to them.

As John climbed out of the truck, he looked down at the man’s leg. It was in a cast. John looked up at him and nodded, but didn’t say anything. The man drove off.

“What’s going on, John?” Maureen asked. But before he could answer, Penny came running out.

She hugged her parents and asked, “What happened? How did you get out?”

“We’ll explain, but where’s Don?”

“There was an alarm at his apartment and he went to check on it.”

They were interrupted when a voice came over Penny’s radio, “Penny, you copy?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I’m on my way to your house. And you’re never going to believe who’s with me.”

“Let me guess, Don.” Maureen said. “It’s Doctor Smith.”

“You’re…out,” Don said. “And, yeah. It’s Doctor Smith. Why do I always feel like the last one to the party?”

They were sitting at the table when Don arrived with Dr. Smith ten minutes later. She threw the door open, walked inside with her cocky grin. She had a white bandage around her head.

“Doctor Smith! What happened?” Penny asked.

“You should have seen the other guy,” Smith said, and winked.

“We did,” John said.

They all looked at him, but no one said anything. Smith and Don sat at the table.

“She was the reason my alarm went off,” Don said. “She was hiding across the street from security until they left, blood all over her.”

“You were the closest family member to the prison,” Smith said. “And I had a splitting headache.”

Penny smiled at the woman. She was family. They were all family. And it would take all of them to find her find her brother.

“So how did you get out?” Penny asked, looking at her parents.

“Some people let us out,” Maureen said. “They had their faces covered, so no one would know who they were. And just in time, because some of the guards attacked us.”

“What’s going on?” Judy asked. “Why did the guards attack you? And who helped you?”

“We don’t know,” John said.

“None of it is making sense,” Maureen said. “Why did people try to kill us, and who were they?”

“I don’t know why they tried to help us, but I think I know who it was,” John said. “That guy that was driving, I think he was one of the men who attacked us at the market. I broke his leg.”

Penny and Judy glanced at each other. “Tell them, Judy,” Penny said.

“I don’t know…”

“Judy, tell them!” Penny insisted.

“Okay. I don’t know if it has anything to do with this or not. But I thought something was weird with Grant, that night.”

“Grant?” Maureen said.

“Yeah. I thought he acted strange on the planet where we were stranded, when we went back. Like we were trying to figure out what was going on, and why the aliens built the particle accelerator. Grant just sort of blew off what we were saying. Like there was no way to figure it all out, and we probably shouldn’t try.”

“Actually, he did do that a couple of times,” Maureen said. “But life was always kind of black and white to him. He didn’t believe in anything he couldn’t see. He wouldn’t even entertain conspiracy theories. Actually, for a scientist and explorer, I thought it was strange that he had little curiosity for anything that wasn’t right in front of him. Science is always about finding the answers, and you do that by starting with questions. You have to be curious about the world around you. But Grant never seemed that way at all.”

“Maybe you never really knew him, Maureen,” Dr. Smith said, with her usual smirk.

“Yeah, maybe,” Maureen agreed. “But the point is, I never thought anything about it when he just blew off the questions we had when we went to that planet. That was just Grant. We went there, couldn’t find Will or any clues to his whereabouts, and he was ready to leave.”

“But what if he wanted to leave because he did know something about it?” Penny said. “And he didn’t want you to ask too many questions or you would find out what he knew.”

“Is that why you were suspicious of him, Judy?” John asked. “And why didn’t you tell us?”

“Well, I just found my biological father after twenty years of thinking he was dead. We were just starting to develop a relationship. I didn’t want to say anything until I figured out if I was right or not. But now I’m pretty sure of it.”

“Why?” Maureen asked.

“Well, when we were at the Market, and Will and Penny jumped on that guy who was on top of you, Grant showed up and when that guy knocked Will down, Penny was attacking him and Grant reached past her and knocked him down. I saw the look on the guy’s face. He looked really surprised. He was on the ground looking up, and Grant and the guy just stared at each other for a second, then the man jumped up and started running away.

“And I lied when I told you I asked Grant how he knew what was going on and he said he just happened to be going to the market. I didn’t ask him at all. I think…maybe I really didn’t want to know the answer.

“But after Will and Robot left, I tried to call Grant and he never answered. I started going by his apartment but he was never there. Then one day I went and there was a woman there. I guess Grant had been dating her. She told me that Grant hadn’t been back to the apartment since the night of the market. He never went back.”

“He disappeared too?” Don asked.

“Yeah, but on purpose, I think. I talked to the woman for awhile. She said Grant was always secretive about his work with Alpha, and told her he could never discuss what he was doing. And this wasn’t the first time he had disappeared. He sometimes left for days at a time and never told her where he was going. And at least once, she walked in when he was on his laptop and he closed it quickly, so she wouldn’t see what he was doing.

“Anyway, all these things made me suspicious, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

Maureen and John looked at each other. “His mission was a lie too,” Maureen said. “They had seen the rift opening and he was sent to try and find out what was going on. The whole thing has been a lie.”

“But it still doesn’t answer why we were attacked in the Market, and again tonight.” John said. “Do you think Grant is the key to this whole thing?”

“Why don’t we just ask him?” Dr. Smith said. She was sitting across the table next to John, and was looking toward the window in the front yard.

The door flew open and Grant was standing there. “We have to get out of here. Right now!”

Chapter Text

Will had never seen such a blue ocean before. When he was a small child, his family would go to the beach quite often. John had grown up near Venice in California, and had spent almost every day at the beach when he was a child, and knew every inch of it from the Santa Monica Pier, to the canals down on the south end.

Of course by the time Will was born, none of that really existed like it had in the past. But John would put the kids in the car and drive up to Pismo as often as they could. Once out of the city, the beach towns had not quite succumbed to the pollution and destitution that was down below, as the people living up in the high desert used to refer to the city.

But the water by that time was already showing signs of what it would be by the time Will was in grade school, when few people would risk the brown waves and deserted stretches of sand all along the coast.

There were oceans on Alpha, but he had not been there long enough to see them. So when they first entered the atmosphere of this planet, Will couldn’t stop staring at the blue water as Robot guided his spaceship over the surface.

When they left the planet Will had begun to think of as the Frozen World, Robot entered data into the 3-D space chart as he had before, though this time, Will thought some of it might have to do with temperature, since he knew Will wanted to go someplace warm, if that was possible.

Robot created the rift, and they entered the atmosphere of this planet a few days later. Will had been able to consume part of the animal Robot had killed. Robot had sliced some of it into thin strips, and made a larger skin from its hide and filled it with ice. He had heated some of the strips of meat first so Will could eat, and stored the rest in a bay with the hide of water. Robot was able to control the temperature of the bay, so both the meat and the water skin were frozen, and Robot would retrieve some of the strips and chunks of ice for Will’s smaller water skin, cook the meat and melt the ice with the heat source from his hands, when Will needed to eat or drink. The meat was tough and didn’t taste very good, but it kept Will alive and his strength began to come back.

Once they entered this planet’s atmosphere, Robot put the ship in orbit so they could view it from afar and Will knew Robot was doing everything he could to make sure it was safe and Will could survive here. It was mostly a water planet, with thin strips of land, none of which seemed to stretch more than a mile or two across and four or five miles long. There didn’t appear to be any sizable land masses. A few of the islands had low mountain ranges, but most of them were flat, or had a few low hills. Everything was covered in forest it seemed, except for the beaches, some of which covered a third or more of the islands.

Will knew the planet probably had plate tectonics like Earth, with much higher sea levels covering most of the land mass. He also thought it was bound to be warmer, with less variances in temperature from one zone to the next.

Once they had orbited the planet a couple of times, Will said, “I guess it’s time to get a little closer and see what’s down there.”

Robot guided the ship into the planet’s atmosphere and over the water.

“No signs of life, yet,” Will said, as they soared over the ocean a couple of hours after entering the atmosphere. Robot directed the ship lower until they were just a few meters above the water. “Nice Robot!” Will said, turning to look at his best friend, who was standing in the center of the ship, gripping the hand controls.

But as Will turned back to look at the water again, Robot pointed the nose of the vessel down, and Will said, “Woah!” As the ship plunged under the water.

They were immediately surrounded by life. There were thousands of fish, or something Will assumed were a type of fish, though it was obvious they had evolved differently than they had on Earth.

They were multicolored and multi shaped. And like nothing Will had seen before.

Some of them had six or eight legs with something like pinchers on them. Some looked like different types of large, spiked worms with several prongs on their heads, though Will wasn’t sure which end he was really looking at.

There were thousands of creatures that appeared to be like jelly fish, at least that was the closest thing he could think of to what these things were. Some were completely transparent, and some had pink, or yellow or red segmented centers surrounded by the outside, jelly-like skin. Others slid along the sea floor, moving this way and that, apparently searching for food.

Will was starting to remember seeing pictures of creatures that at least resembled this sea life. “The Cambrian period, Robot,” Will said. “Sort of, I guess. This looks like some of the sea life that would have been evolving back then, based on some of the fossils we studied in school. If this planet is a lot like Earth, human life would not have evolved yet. But the land mass was different. During the Cambrian period it couldn’t sustain much terrestrial life, if I remember.

“We need to take a close look at the planet, and make sure there isn’t any human life. For one thing, I don’t want to hurt anyone if I…” He looked back at Robot. “You know…explode.”

There was an odd pattern flash across Robot’s face shield, and the lights turned almost purple, practically disappearing in the blackness. Will had only seen this one other time, when he woke to find Robot standing above him after his return from space. Robot had discovered what the aliens had done to Will’s heart. He knew immediately what Robot was feeling now: Sorrow.

Will realized he was not in this by himself. Robot was his best friend. He remembered Ben telling him the robots were just machines. But Will knew better. Robot felt. He didn’t know if the feelings were the same as humans, but he knew they affected Robot in the same way. He walked over to Robot and placed a hand on his arm. “Robot. I’m sorry. It’s nothing to joke about.”

“Danger.”

“I know Robot. I’m sorr…”

“Danger!” Will was flung to the deck and against the wall as Robot accelerated and directed the ship toward the surface. Will was lying back against the wall, wondering what was going on, when he felt the ship come to a sudden stop, then began shaking and moving quickly from side to side, rolling Will from one end of the ship to the next.

“What is it Robot!” Will yelled, but Robot didn’t answer, he just gripped the controls, doing everything he could to hang on.

Will was rolled across the deck until he almost hit the wall, but rolled back the other way as the ship was tossed again. This time he was flung against the wall on that side. But he managed to grasp a metal beam that ran along it from top to bottom. He grabbed it with both hands, holding as tight as he could. He looked over his shoulder at Robot.

For the first time, Will could see that Robot was much more than a navigator on the vessel. He was frantically reaching foreword, while hanging on with one hand. His free hand closed in a fist, then opened wide in the empty space in front of him. Will saw what looked like a control panel open up, as if it was floating in the air. It was some type of hologram. Robot’s hand moved across it, then paused. Will heard a light buzzing in his ears. It began to grow louder, until it was so loud he wanted to let go of the beam he was holding, but the ship was still being whipped back and forth. Suddenly he saw blue electric arcs that seemed to leap from the panel Robot was touching, all over the walls of the ship.

Will felt the charge go through his hands and he quickly let go, and was flung again across the deck into the opposite wall. Then he heard something else. Like a loud groan outside the ship, and suddenly it stopped moving from side to side. Robot quickly released the panel and it disappeared. He gripped the hand controls again, and the ship powered forward through the depths.

“What was that, Robot?” Will asked.

“Danger.”

“Is it still dangerous?” Will asked.

“Yes.”

“Is there any way we can go look at it?”

Robot didn’t answer, but Will saw the lights in his face shield and could now understand what it meant. He was agreeing with Will without having to answer. Will felt the ship begin to turn and he pushed himself to his feet and rushed over to the window.

Some of the cuts on his arms had come open again, and he felt the blood running through his makeshift bandages cut from the white fur.

When the ship had turned around, Robot began to guide it lower. As the ship grew close to the seabed, Robot moved his hands and lights came on somewhere beneath the spaceship, adding to the illumination that was coming from the lights on the front.

The giant creature was resting on the bottom.

“Robot, it looks like a Mosasaurus, only…worse.” Will knew a Mosasaurus could grow to sixty feet, it’s nose long and tapered almost like a crocodile, with hundreds of sharp teeth on the top and bottom. It had gone extinct on Earth sixty-five million years ago. But this wasn’t quite that. In addition to the huge body and head, this thing had a tail that looked to be four or five times as long as the body. It was curled up around the animal which was lying still on the bottom of the ocean floor.

“The tail looks scorched,” Will said. “You electrified the ship outside surface, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“It used the tail to grab us.”

“Danger.”

Will saw the tail begin to move, and Robot quickly turned the vessel away, and guided it toward the surface. “Danger!” Robot said again, louder this time. Will hurried to the side and grabbed the support beam. The ship was moving so fast through the water Will was flung back and almost fell down but managed to wrap both hands around the beam and hold on.

They flew from the ocean and into the cloudless blue sky. Robot turned the ship and Will ran back to the window and watched the water. It was churning beneath them. The animal broke the surface, thirty meters away, leaping forty feet or more into the air, trying to grab the thing that had hurt it. Now Will had a good look at it. Its head was at least twenty meters long. It opened its mouth so wide, Will thought it must have the ability to unhinge its jaw like a boa constrictor when swallowing its prey whole. There were hundreds of teeth. It made a loud screeching noise as it rose. When it fell back, Will thought it would sink beneath the ocean, but it began to ride the water, it’s long, snake-like tail moving left and right, propelling the animal toward them like an outboard motor.

Robot guided the ship a little higher, just to be safe.

“It’s…it’s…I have no idea what it is, Robot. I wish I had my video camera.”

Finally, the creature must have realized it was not going to be able to catch the thing that had harmed it, and it sunk beneath the swirling waves it had created with its tail.

“Um…Robot. We better see what’s on some of this land before we decide to stay awhile, okay?”

“Yes, Will Robinson.”

Robot banked the ship and headed back toward the first stretch of land. There was a wide beach of pure white sand that looked almost like sugar from the sky. Beyond it the forest seemed to cover every inch of the island’s land mass. The trees were almost like palm trees, though much taller than any Will had ever seen. Some of them had white sacks hanging from them, which seemed to be filled with something heavy, as the weight stretched them half way to the ground.

“Let’s go as low as we can, Robot,” Will said. “We need to see if there’s anything on land like that thing in the ocean.”

Robot adjusted the altitude until they were practically skimming the tops of the trees. Will watched as Robot once again stretched his hand out, opened his fingers, and the control panel hologram reappeared. He moved his hand across it and a few inches behind the hologram, a view of the forest beneath them appeared.

“Your ship is so cool, Robot,” Will said.

He had been watching through the glass, but now walked back so he could stand behind Robot and see what he was doing. Will watched the jungle below through whatever this was that had appeared, still not sure what Robot was doing. Then he saw a red outline on the screen somewhere in front of them.

“It’s a heat source?” Will asked. “You can detect life?”

“Yes, Will Robinson.”

As Robot began guiding the ship toward the spot below them that appeared as a red outline on the screen, Will saw two more appear, a little further away. One was much smaller and one was about the same size.

Robot hovered over the first one, then slowly brought the ship down lower. Will walked over to the glass again. “The trees are too dense, Robot, I can’t see what it is.”

He turned back to his friend. Robot was once again moving his hand in front of him, adjusting something on the hologram. Will walked back to watch from Robot’s view. Now he saw the heat source begin to form a shape. Slowly something came into view. It was an animal of some sort. “Can’t tell how big it is,” Will said.

Robot released the controls and brought his hands apart, about two feet. He adjusted something on the panel again, and a clear vision of the animal appeared. It was rodent like, maybe the size of a beaver, but it had smooth skin. It paused, looked up at them, then sauntered off into the trees.

“Is it dangerous?” Will asked. He didn’t think Robot knew what it was, but one thing his creators had given his friend was the ability to sense danger, and he had not been wrong so far.

“No,” Robot answered.

They checked out the other heat sources. One of them was the same species of animal, the other seemed to be a reptile of some type. Robot still said “No,” when Will asked if there was danger.

They spent the rest of the day flying over this part of the planet, drifting low over the trees when they came to land, checking every heat source they could find. It was a beautiful place. The ocean was dark in most areas. Will watched some of the sensors on the hologram panel until before long he could tell some of the diagrams were describing depth, as the water turned from almost black in some places to blue and then to a beautiful turquoise along most of the beaches.

“I need to find a place with drinking water,” Will said.

“Yes, Will Robinson.”

Will looked at his friend. His mechanical voice had seemed slightly different than he had ever heard before. Will connected with him, and for the the first time, Will actually felt Robot’s emotion. It was humor!

“Okay, that was obvious,” Will said. “I think you’re laughing at me!”

Robot slowly turned his head to look at the boy. His lights seemed the same, swirling around the dark back drop, but Will was still connected and could sense what Robot was thinking. “You are laughing at me!”

Robot turned back and looked out the glass. Now Will laughed out loud. The last couple of weeks had been such a trying time for him. Waking up to his friend placing his hand on his chest, receiving the vision of what the aliens had done to him, then fleeing the planet and leaving his family and the people he loved behind forever. And then the trauma of the frozen planet.

But maybe the worst thing was, that for the first time he could remember, he could not look to the future. There was no future for him, he knew. He didn’t know how or when, but he knew it was only a matter of time before the thing in his chest would detonate. And so all he could do was try to survive until that happened. It was horrifying to think of his life this way. And if Robot had not been here with him, he knew he would find a way to end it all on his terms.

But now, for the first time, Robot seemed almost human to him. Will had always known he had traits of consciousness, long before anyone else would start to see him as more than a synthetic being. But still, in his tone and mannerisms, and the way he processed information, he just didn’t have human traits. But this was different. He actually was amused at what Will had said, stating the obvious. And for the first time, Will knew he wasn’t alone. He thought maybe, at least for awhile, he could be happy with Robot being his only companion. And it wasn’t just Robot. He realized it was that connection with another conscious being that made him human.

These changes had begun once they had left Alpha Centauri after Thanksgiving. Robot began sending the memories of Will’s childhood and his family back to him. And he began sensing the food that Will was eating. He actually felt the pleasure Robot was sensing when he was connected to Will as he ate.

Will didn’t know why this was happening. At first, he thought it had something to do with him being apart from his family. He and Robot began to grow closer, allowing Robot to change, and become more and more a conscious being. But that didn’t seem very scientific, and at heart, Will still believed in the scientific process. So, he tried to reason through these changes in Robot, to try and figure out what was happening to him. But he had no clear idea what it could be. Still, Will liked it. And for the first time, he allowed himself to think of what it would be like, just the two of them.

Maybe they could stay here for a while. It certainly seemed like paradise, as long as they didn’t go in the ocean. And then maybe someday they would leave and begin to explore the universe again. Just he and Robot. Will realized what it was he was doing. He was having hope. He smiled. He missed his family and would never get over the fact he could never see them again. But maybe there was some hope for him and some kind of life out here in the cosmos.

“Water,” Robot said. Another new word, Will thought, and smiled to himself as he looked out the glass below.

They were soaring across another one of the islands. Like the others, it wasn’t more than two miles wide, and three or four miles long, with some highlands rising up over the ocean at one end. But towards the center, there was a small body of water. Not quite a lake, but a little bigger than a pond. There was a small stream leading from the high ground, but Will didn’t think that was enough to provide water to this small body of land. They circled above the lake a couple of times. It was surrounded by the jungle of course, with some short grasses along the edge.

“Let’s circle the whole place before we set down, Robot.”

Robot guided the ship toward the highlands first, then turned back and followed the beach on the other side. “Hey look!” Will said. Below them was a lagoon, blocked off from the rest of the ocean by a small ridge of rocks. The water in the lagoon was turquoise. It was shallow enough they could see some small fish-like creatures swimming around. “Maybe I can fish in there without getting in the ocean where that thing lives.”

“Yes, Will Robinson.” Robot began to bring the ship down on the beach fifty meters or so from the lagoon.

Once on land, Will grabbed his water skin, since they still weren’t sure if there was water that was potable for human consumption, and rushed to the hatch, but Robot said, “No,” as Will started to press the control that would allow the door to slide open from the bottom to the top as the ramp slid down.

Will stopped and Robot walked in front of him, pressed the control and led him out. Will smiled to himself, thinking how much things had changed since they had first connected and Will seemed to be his master. Now they were friends, but Robot was in complete control when it came to Will’s safety. But he guessed it had always been that way, since he had locked him in the bay when the ship was infested by eels.

Since Robot was his only family now, there was something endearing about it. Will was certainly more intelligent than most boys his age, and he had seen so much more in his short life than he should have. But he was still a fourteen year old boy, and there was part of him that just wanted to be wrapped in the arms of his family and protected.

Will was unable to read the sensors and gages that appeared on the hologram panel on Robot’s ship, though when they were connected, he knew what some of them meant. But he didn’t understand how they read the planet, so he was not sure what they would find, other than the fact it would be warmer than where they had been. But when he stepped outside, it was perfect. Will looked at his wrist radio, where the temperature read 78 degrees F. There was a light breeze blowing.

They stood at the edge of the water and looked out across the blue ocean. “It’s beautiful, but I don’t want to get too close after seeing that Kraken.”

Robot looked him.

“Just a name, Robot. But I think it fits.” He drank some water from the skin he carried. He hoped that pond back in the center of the island held safe water. This would be a nice place to stay for a while.

“Let’s go explore,” Will said.

“No,” Robot, answered and pointed to the West, where the sun was beginning to set over the horizon.

“You want to wait until morning?” Will asked.

“Yes.”

Will turned and looked back at the forest behind them. His boyish sense of adventure was returning. What fourteen year old boy wouldn’t want to explore a deserted island, he thought to himself.

But he sighed. “Okay, Robot. Let’s wait till morning. But do you think it’s safe for me to sleep outside? I’ve been sleeping on that hard metal for weeks now.”

“Yes, Will Robinson.”

Robot walked back inside the ship. Will didn’t know what he was doing, but he walked out closer to the water and sat down on the sand and looked out across the blue sea. A few minutes later Robot walked up beside him with some of the strips of the meat from the animal he had killed. He handed them to Will. They were warm.

“Thanks, Robot. Hopefully we can find some fruit or vegetables here tomorrow.” Then he quickly looked up at his friend. “Don’t think I’m not appreciative Robot. You kept me alive by killing that thing.” He ripped a piece of the flesh off and slowly began to chew the tough meat, drinking water to wash it down with.

He noticed Robot was still looking down at him. “Robot, do you want to connect to me and taste it?” He knew how much Robot had enjoyed that on the planet in the Sirius system.

Robot looked at him for a few seconds. Will felt the connection and thought that’s what Robot wanted, but he said, “No Will Robinson.”

Will laughed, knowing why Robot had connected first. He wanted Will to see he was being funny again. He didn’t think the meat would taste good either. “We’ll find something tomorrow that tastes better, okay?” Will said. “Then you can try it too.”

“Yes.”

Will finished eating and sat and watched the orange and purple hues streak across the sky as the sun went down. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” He said. He looked up when Robot didn’t’ answer. But they were still connected, and Will could feel his emotions.

“You understand beauty, don’t you, Robot?”

Now his friend looked down at him. “Yes…Will…Robinson.”

Will smiled. He knew Robot was enjoying the sight as much as he was. Sometimes there was no need for words. He was reminded again of the tree, and when the insect that resembled a slow moving butterfly had landed on Robot, and how fascinated he had been by it. Even back then, there was something about his friend that was beyond a mere machine.

The two of them watched in silence for another hour as the sky darkened. Will dug his fingers in the sand and made himself a pillow and laid down so he could see the water and watch the night sink in. As the last of the sun’s colors disappeared, the sky was blanketed by stars, until they looked like diamonds, spread across a black landscape.

“Wow,” he said. He had never seen so many stars. By the time he was in school, artificial light polluted the sky for over ninety percent of Earth’s population, and half the people on the planet couldn’t even see the Milky Way. As the environment worsened, even in the remote areas where John would take the family on camping trips, it was becoming more difficult to see the night sky the way his grandfather spoke of it when he was a child. Once in space, it was different of course, but Will couldn’t remember being able to take the time to just gaze at them.

But now, there was nothing to do but lie on the beach and absorb it all. The stars seemed so close he could reach out and touch them. He felt oddly attached to the universe in a way he had never felt before. We’re all just star dust, he thought. It’s where we all began.

The water was illuminated by the dancing lights that filled the sky, and Will was reminded of the words of a song from somewhere back in his past.

… to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands, with all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves, let me forget about today until tomorrow.

It wasn’t a song he remembered Don or his father singing. It was his grandfather, who used to sit on the porch when rain chased him from the big shade tree in the backyard. He always played old music when he sat on the porch, and whatever this song was, it was one of his favorites. Will had a good memory for stories he read and songs he heard if he liked the lyrics, even at a very young age. Like counting cards or being able to see many moves ahead in a game of chess, it had always come easy to him. And after having endured so much, the words seemed perfect as he sat here on this beach with his best friend.

With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves.

Will sighed and his mood changed. That was the problem. Memory and fate. The memories of his family tortured him, and his fate was assured. His end would be quick and violent. And there was no escape.

If he had no memory, then he would be free from the pain of his lost ones and the knowledge of his ultimate demise. He wouldn’t even know what was inside his chest, if he had no memory of what had happened to him.

After a while, he laid back on the sand, stared up at the stars, and drifted off, trying not to think of his family.

Robot looked down and watched him sleep for a few minutes, then turned his gaze back out to the ocean, the wide night sky and the brilliant, shining stars that hung above it all. He knew what beauty was.

Bright sunlight forced Will to open his eyes. He pushed himself up. Robot was still standing beside him.

“Good morning, Robot,” Will said.

“Yes, Will Robinson.”

“It wasn’t a quest…never mind. Can we go see some of the island, now?”

“Yes…Will…Robinson.” He reached down and Will gave him his hand and he pulled the boy to his feet.

They turned toward the trees. Fifty meters or so down the sand was the turquoise lagoon they had seen when they flew over.

“Let’s check out the lagoon, first, okay?” Will asked.

Robot didn’t say anything, but once again he didn’t have to. They walked side by side up the beach.

They stopped at the edge of the lagoon. It was thirty feet or so across, and just as wide, no more than four or five feet deep. “You think it’s safe in there?” Will asked.

Robot walked forward until he was standing in the center of the pool of turquoise water while Will waited on the side. Robot looked back at him. “Yes.”

Will smiled and began pulling his clothes off. He had always been obsessed with cleanliness, and he hadn’t had a shower or a bath in almost three weeks, since leaving Alpha Centauri. Will knew he was filthy and couldn’t wait to jump in the pool of water. He stripped everything off and piled his clothes on the sand and ran in the water until he was up to his chest.

Since it was shallow, the water was almost as warm as a bath, heated by the bright sun. Will ducked under the surface and came back up, shouting “Whooo!” Into the air.

He ducked under again, sunk to the bottom and scooped up a handful of sand and began scrubbing himself all over. He stayed under for almost a minute, then stood up, again shouting, “Whooo!”

“Whooo!” Robot shouted back.

It sounded funny in his mechanical voice, and Will laughed out loud. He rolled over on his back and floated on top of the water while he looked up at the cloudless, morning sky. For a minute, he couldn’t believe he was happy. He had an epiphany. A human being could experience every type of emotion, from horror to pleasure to pure joy, even under the most extreme and traumatic circumstances. He would never see his family again, he had no idea how long he would live, and he had no hope for a future of any kind. But as he splashed around naked in this beautiful, warm pool of water on this island paradise, he felt completely free and uninhibited.

He had always been so timid and frightened as a small child. He had grown out of that as he faced one near death experience after another when they came to space. But one thing about him had never changed. He had always been a pleaser. He was careful of everything he did and everything he said, not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings. At school, even with kids who bullied him. With his mother, when she and his father were fighting. With his sisters when they were stranded together and both coming to him to talk about the other one.

But now, for the first time in his life, he felt totally and completely free. He remembered something his grandfather had said to him one time, as he sipped coffee under the shade tree in the back yard. Will loved the man, and if it was the weekend or summer and no school, as soon as he was awake, he would look for his grandfather out under the tree. One morning he was sitting out there by him and asked him why he just sat there doing nothing. His grandfather smiled, looked up at the sky and said, “Far as I can tell, there’s only one good thing about getting old William, you finally learn to live in the moment.”

Will hadn’t understood what that meant at seven years old. But now he did. When this moment was all you had, it somehow seemed clearer. Cleaner, even. With the blue sky, the warm, turquoise water, the cool breeze blowing in off the ocean, his best friend standing waist deep, always protecting him as he watched Will splash around. He was alive in this moment like none he could remember. He might not survive tomorrow, but tomorrow would take care of itself. Now was what mattered. Time stood still.

Time, he thought, as he slowly drifted around the pool of water. There it was again. Time is sorrow. Where had he heard that? He couldn’t remember, but he thought, it truly is. Because no matter how happy he was in this moment, he knew as soon as he let the thoughts of his family begin to creep back in, he would once again drift into despair.

What if I just had no memory at all? That seemed like the answer. If he had never known his family and loved ones, there would be nothing but this day and this moment. On an undiscovered planet somewhere in the universe, nothing to do but swim, lie in the sun, and be alive.

He decided now was the time. He had woken up thinking about it after what he would come to refer to as the night of the stars. The night he reached a moment of clarity. It’s the memories. That’s how we measure time. And time is sorrow. If he had no memories, then time would stand still. He would just be here. In the moment. No beginning and no end. At least not one to fear.

He knew Robot would never understand, and probably refuse. To Robot, The Family had become everything. And what Will was going to ask him to do would put an end to it. The question was, would Robot’s love for Will overcome his love for The Family?

Maybe after the frozen planet he would understand. They were alone. They would always be alone. There was no longer The Family. But there were the memories. The memories haunted Will every waking moment and haunted his dreams when he did finally manage to fall asleep for an hour or two.

Yeah, maybe now Robot would understand.

He stopped floating and stood up and looked at his friend. “Robot, you know how you can see my memories sometimes? And send them to me?

“Yes.”

“Can you take them from me too? Make them go away? I mean completely. Not yours, but mine? If we were connected, could you do that?”

Robot just stared back at him. Will waded over to his friend and put a hand on his arm. “Robot, it’s so nice here. I mean, we have to see if there’s drinking water first, and look for food, but I think this place can support human life, and it’s beautiful. But…I’ll never be happy because I miss my family so much. If I didn’t…didn’t remember them…”

“Family,” Robot said.

“Yes. I know how important they are. I love them so much, but Robot, I can never see them again. I’m a danger to them. And as long as I have memories of them, I will never be happy. Time is sorrow because of the memories of things you have left behind, and just knowing eventually it will all end. Do you understand what I mean?”

Robot hesitated, but then said, “Yes Will Robinson.”

“And I don’t want to live whatever time I have left missing the people I love. If you could do anything to erase those memories, I think…I think I could be happy here. Just the two of us.”

Robot just stared back at him. The lights in his face shield were making strange patterns.

“Robot, I think of them all the time. But I started doing something on the frozen planet that helps. I fantasize of them a few years from now. And they are completely happy. Dad’s built a house where he told me he was going to build one. He’s a farmer and happy. Don and Judy are together, and they have two kids. Penny is in love with her best friend from Earth, who is in the colony now. And they are all just…so happy. Because in my fantasies, I never existed. So they don’t remember me.

“Remember the dream I had on that planet in the Sirius system? When I died in the water? I had another one. When that animal was dragging me. I passed out and I had a dream that Don and Judy were fighting. They were arguing about my Dad. Because in that dream I had died in the water, and Judy and Mom blamed Dad. And the whole family fell apart. That’s what the memory of me did to them. So in my fantasies, I never existed, and they are all happy.

“Robot, if I wanted you to do that, could you? Erase my memories. I mean, you know how you give me memories of when I was younger? Can you see memories of me when I was sleeping and not dreaming or something? If you just gave me that memory, and there was a way I could keep it, maybe I could just sort of start new. Just like I was waking up here and starting life. And I would never be sad because I missed my Mom and Dad. Because I miss Judy and Penny.

“Robot, my sisters are a part of me. Really. I don’t even know how to explain that. But they are. I can’t imagine life without them, but that’s what I have. I can never see them again. I can’t live like this. I need to forget. I need you to make me forget everything that ever happened to me before landing on this planet.

“Do you think you could do that for me, Robot?”

Robot just stared back at him.

“Will you think about it, please?,” Will asked. “About making my memories disappear?”

Still Robot didn’t answer.

“Okay. Yeah, just think about it. We don’t have to decide right now. Let’s go see if that water is safe for me to drink, then explore, okay?”

Robot turned and walked toward the beach. Will followed him. When he began to pull his clothes back on, he realized how badly they smelled. “After we explore, I need to wash these. I can’t stand myself.”

Robot didn’t respond. Will sensed his emotions and knew Robot was troubled by what he had asked him to do.

Chapter Text

Will and Robot walked through the trees toward the center of the island where they had seen the pool of water when they had flown over. About halfway there, they came to one of the trees with the dangling sacks of fruit or whatever it was that filled it. This one stretched from the top, about thirty feet in the air, to about ten feet above Robot’s head.

“Can you get that, Robot?”

Robot looked up at it, and a sharp, shiny blade slid from his hand. Will had a flash of memory of SAR stabbing him in the heart. He shuddered, thinking again that he really hoped Robot could help him forget everything.

Robot bent his knees and leaped in the air. Will stood back and watched as Robot sliced the top of the sack where it was drawn tight by the weight of whatever was inside it. It fell to the ground with a thud and burst open. A dozen or so large, round objects, about the size of bowling balls spilled out, a couple of them breaking open. Will stepped over to them and knelt down and looked closely at them. The outsides were pure white, but the insides were a yellow, orange color. “Fruit, it looks like.”

He picked a piece of a broken one up and sniffed it. “It smells good. Sweet.” He looked at Robot. “Do you think it’s safe for me to eat?”

Robot knelt down and placed one of his hands a couple inches over the top of it. He seemed to be scanning it, reminding Will of the way he had scanned him after saving him from the tree. After a few seconds he looked at Will and said, “no danger.”

“Great.” Will broke off a small piece and put it in his mouth. He chewed slowly then looked at Robot and smiled. “It’s delicious, Robot. You want to try?”

Robot looked in Will’s eyes and a few seconds later, the two were connected. Will took another bite and chewed slowly before swallowing. “Well, is it good?”

Robot’s face shield patterns were swirling like the first few times Will had done this with him, on the planet where they had been captured by the aliens. “Yes,” Robot proclaimed. Will sensed the pleasure in him. He took another bite.

“It tastes a little like pineapple, Robot. Not as acidic though. It’s great. I could live on this and fish, if it gives me the nutrients I need. Could you tell when you scanned it?”

“Yes.”

“So, it’s healthy for me too?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe this is a paradise.”

Will ate the rest of the piece of fruit, sharing it with Robot. When they were done they continued on to the pool of water.

This area was also beautiful. The trees came up close to the water, but there were colorful, tropical flowers everywhere on one side. Robot knelt down, scooped some water up in his hand and let it flow through his fingers. Will watched as the lights in his face shield swirled into the pattern he recognized now when Robot was scanning something.

He looked at Will. “Yes.”

Will smiled. “Nice!” He knelt down and scooped some water in his hands and brought it to his lips. It was cool and tasted clean, with no chemical traces whatsoever. “This is almost too good to be true,” he said. And suddenly he had a sense of foreboding. Every good thing he had experienced since coming to space turned out to have a dark side.

He drank more water, filled his water skin, and said, “Let’s explore.”

Robot turned and began walking through the trees and Will followed. They walked until they were on the opposite side of the island from where they had landed the ship, then followed the beach until they circled most of it. They stopped on occasion to look out at sea, then continued until they had come back to the lagoon. It had only taken them two hours to walk almost the entire circumference. Will stood looking at the pool of aqua water. On the far side was a small sandy beach, and the trees aligning it were sparse for several yards in. “Hey Robot, let’s walk up to the hills, that’s the only place we haven’t been. I want to make sure there’s nothing dangerous in the jungle, then come back here. I think I want to make that area over there our camp, okay?” It wasn’t next to the freshwater pond, but it was so beautiful here, he wanted to wake up with a view of the sea every morning.

“Yes,” Robot said.

They walked through the jungle again toward the hills. Several times they stopped when Robot sensed something, and saw a few of the small, hairless animals they had captured the heat sources from when they were on Robot’s ship. Will had never seen anything like them. Their hairless bodies resembled opossums, but they had round heads, with tiny round ears, and long tails. They were completely unafraid. One of them just sat and looked at them as they approached, and once Robot pronounced, “No Danger,” Will bent down and touched its skin, running a hand slowly over’s its back. The animal sniffed his hand, then a tiny, rough tongue licked his fingers. Will picked the animal up and held it in his arms.

It cuddled against his chest and licked his neck. “I can’t call it cute, Robot, but it’s pretty cool. And the fact it’s completely unafraid means it must not have any predators. This might actually be a safe place to stay. That would be different.”

Will sat the small animal down and patted its head a couple times, then he and Robot walked off again toward the hills.

An hour later they were standing atop the tallest point on the West side of the Island, looking back toward the jungle they had just passed through. “Well, Robot?”

“No Danger.”

“No signs of severe weather damage, either,” Will said. He looked up at the bright sun. “Heliocentric orbit, gravity, atmosphere are all perfect.” He looked at his friend. “Robot, I think we’re home.”

He turned around and began walking across the top of the hill. There was a short expanse of grass and some sparse trees, then they stood at the edge of a rocky ledge. Will looked down. The ocean lay below, two hundred feet or so. He looked out across the water. It was beautiful. Blue for as far as he could see, dotted with lush, green islands, a few with hills tall enough to be called mountains. But here and there they saw spouts, and a couple of large, gray shapes surface and then dive. They were too far out to see what they were, but they were big, and Will would never forget The Kraken. “We’re home as long as we stay on land,” Will added to his previous statement.

He looked down to the water. There was no beach on this side, just jagged rocks. He watched the surf slam against them.

Robot reached out and took him by the arm with a tight grip. “I’m okay, I’m just…” he felt the ground shift as the rock he was standing on slid out from under him. “Ahhh!” He yelled as he slid over the side. But he was no longer looking out across the sea, he was looking at a city. Not a modern city. It seemed almost medieval, with ancient buildings made of chiseled stone. Below him was a courtyard, thirty meters or so down, covered in marble. It was surrounded by a wall, and beyond the wall was a wide street, bustling with people. Will had never seen this place before, though it somehow seemed familiar to him.

He felt pain…from everywhere. He looked down at his body. Blood was flowing from dozens of cuts. More than one could have been mortal. His left arm hung limply at his side, blood running from a wide gash in his shoulder. That’s when he realized someone was gripping him by the right arm. And as he looked down to the marble courtyard, he felt a strong hand on his back pushing him along. He was too hurt to fight back.

“This is why I brought you here, Will Robinson,” a voice said in his ear. He was shoved forward, and he fell headfirst over the edge to the courtyard below.

Just before he toppled over the side, he saw two people standing in the corner of the courtyard, looking up at him. But they weren’t really people. They were something else. They looked like two men, though larger than humans, both must have been almost seven feet tall. But it was their heads that stood out. They were twice the size of human heads. Completely bald. They had to have been identical twins. They stood watching as Will fell over the side, no emotion whatsoever on their faces. Will had the sudden thought they were incapable of feeling anything.

He screamed, but he felt a strong grip on his arm, stopping him from falling. He suddenly realized where he was. “Robot…what…”

Robot swung him back until his feet were on solid ground.

Will turned to his best friend, eyes wide. “Robot! You saved me. Again.”

But Robot just looked back at him. Will suddenly felt connected to him, but something was wrong. Robot seemed concerned about something. It wasn’t just concern. It was fear. Will had never sensed this emotion in his friend before. “What Robot? I’m okay. You caught me.”

Robot stared back. Now Will couldn’t read anything. There was just an emptiness. Will had never felt that before when they were connected. He could usually feel Robot’s emotions and thoughts, and sometimes he could see through his eyes, as if he was actually in his mind. But this was nothing like before. Will definitely felt emotion, but he couldn’t quite place what it was. There were no thoughts at all. Robot?  Will sent to him, but still nothing from his friend.

“Robot,” Will said. “It was just another dream. A weird one, but a dream. I’m okay. Really.”

Robot wasn’t moving. He was standing completely still. Then the lights in his face shield disappeared. There was nothing but solid black. A void, Will thought. He stepped up and put a hand on Robot’s arm. “Robot!”

Robot didn’t respond and it was like he was frozen, looking at Will but not seeing him. Will stepped to his right to see if Robot’s head followed him, even if his face shield was blank. But when Robot still didn’t move, the boy knew something was really wrong. He stepped in front of him, put his hands on Robot’s upper arms, and said, “Robot. Robot, are you alright?”

It didn’t make any sense. The robots were almost impossible to destroy, and were built with the ability to repair themselves. But now it was if Robot had actually shut down. Is it me? Will wondered. Maybe this connection the two of them had didn’t just give Robot life, as Robot had said when he refused to let Will leave alone. Maybe it had taken something from his friend. Making him more vulnerable to the same things humans were vulnerable to. It wasn’t like anything physical had happened to Robot, it was something else.

“Robot,” Will said, and hugged his friend around his chest. He held him like this for a couple of minutes. He didn’t know if it did any good, but he knew when he was alone, he didn’t stop thinking of his family. He wanted Robot to know he was there.

Finally he felt Robot move, and his arms wrapped around Will. “Robot!” Will looked up at his face. The lights had reappeared and his head bent toward Will. He quickly dropped to one knee and put a hand on the boy’s chest.

Will remembered the first time he had done this. He had just discovered what Robot had done on the Resolute. They were at Robot’s crashed ship, Maureen and John inside. They had connected for the first time and Will saw through Robot’s eyes, as he attacked the people on the ship. Then Will ran through the forest. Robot had followed him, lowered himself to one knee, and put a hand on his chest, as he did now.

Will was tall enough that the two of them were at eye level when Robot dropped to one knee, now. “I’m here Robot. I’m here,” Will said.

“Friend,” Robot said.

“Friend!” Will repeated. “Best friends.”

“Family,” Robot said.

“Yes, Family, Robot. Always. Okay?”

“Yes.”

Will thought at that, Robot would stand back up and they would continue on like nothing had happened. But Robot remained where he was, looking closely at Will’s face. In my eyes. Will knew that’s what he was doing, even though Robot had no eyes.

“Robot, are you okay?” Will asked.

Robot didn’t answer.

Then Will had another thought. Robot never cared about himself. Whatever had scared him so badly, it wasn’t about him. “Robot, I’m okay. Alright. I didn’t fall. You saved me. I’m fine. And that other thing was only a dream.”

Still Robot remained on his knee, his hand on Will’s chest. Suddenly they were connected again, and Will felt Robot’s emotions. Concern. And warmth. More than warmth. It was love. Robot was expressing love for Will in the way he knew from their earliest days together. On a knee, at Will’s level, one hand on his chest. The mental connection was not enough. Robot wanted the physical connection as well.

Robot, I love you too, Will thought. And I’m okay.

He felt Robot begin to relax. That was it. He was concerned about Will. Because he had almost fallen over the cliff? That had to be it. Will had almost died. “Robot, I’m okay. I’m not hurt, alright?”

Robot still looked at Will for a few seconds, before finally dropping his hand and standing up.

“Robot, let’s go make a shelter. We could stay in your spaceship, but I want to actually make a home here, is that okay?” As he said it, he was comforted by the thought that they really were friends now. He no longer told Robot what to do, he asked if he agreed. And unless Will’s safety or the safety of The Family was at stake, Robot always seemed to agree. And if he didn’t, Will knew there was an important reason.

They began making their way down the hill to the jungle, but as he followed Robot back the way they had come, Will had thought, why did this scare Robot so badly? After all that had happened to him, this seemed relatively mild, though he knew, had Robot not been there he would have died. Maybe Robot just saw how close it was, Will decided. But something about Robot’s reaction still bothered him.

As Robot walked through the jungle he was confused, even though he didn’t know what that emotion was. He had been programmed to follow orders, and once he broke the programming and began to think for himself, he made quick, precise decisions about his own safety and of those he loved. But this was something different. Uncertainty. He knew it was a common human trait, but he was uncomfortable with it. It made him feel weak, and that wasn’t something he was used to.

At first, he thought it was the dream he felt through Will. Of the boy being hurt and pushed over the side of a balcony on an ancient building. Will said it was a dream, but Robot sensed it was real. And it wasn’t just the thought that this was something that would actually happen to his friend that had him so concerned. It was why Robot could see it that concerned him. Because it wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, and Robot was trying to figure out where it was coming from.

He had begun to get glimpses of Will’s past just before they left Alpha Centauri to explore the galaxy. At first, they were just flashes of memory. Or recall, in Robot’s mind.

As he and Will got further from The Family, the flashes of Will’s past became more frequent. Then one night, after Will had fallen asleep while the ship was in orbit around the first planet they would land on, it became more.

He saw Will as he looked when he first met the boy. He was in a brightly lit room, at a table, putting together a plastic model. His sister Judy was with him, leaning over the table, a large book in front of her.

Will was sad, and Robot recalled the conversation between the two, as if he was there in the room. Judy was encouraging her brother, as he told her he didn’t think he had passed the tests to be able to go to space, and that he would have to stay behind. Judy said, “Look at me, Will. There’s a rule and it’s written in stone. And it’s never broken. Robinson’s stick together.”

She threw the large book into a bin on the floor, and told her brother she would borrow his when they came in. Will smiled at her, and the two of them began putting the model together.

Robot began having more and more of these thoughts. They made him feel warm. He recalled the first time he had felt warm. They were in the cave, where Will and his sisters had taken him to hide. He watched as the three siblings put their hands in a colored liquid and placed them on the cave wall. They seemed pleased about it. Leaving a trace of themselves there in the cave. Their three hands together.

When they had laid down and fallen asleep, Robot walked over and put his hand in the colored liquid and placed it on the wall next to the three prints of the siblings. He looked at the wall, where the four prints now were. He felt warm. That’s the word he would think later, once he knew it. It was pleasure. Not the pleasure Robot felt when he shared the senses of Will’s meals. It was different. But he felt joined. Like he was part of something. Later he would learn the word Family and know that’s what it was.

Family. He wondered if Will truly knew how warm that word was. Robot knew if any human understood it, it was his human. Will Robinson. But still, to have nothing like it, and then to suddenly have it, it held a meaning for Robot like no other.

Yes, Robot had always been connected to the other synthetics. Entangled with them. That’s what Maureen called it. And Robot understood entangled, in the scientific sense. Though he doubted the humans had a true understanding of how the robots were entangled.

They were one unit, created for one purpose. To find Will Robinson. And until Robot connected with Will on his own, and was disconnected to the other robots, that is what he had existed for.

Of course it was all different now. SAR was gone, and he had been the synthetic created to control the others. The Mainframe, the organics might call him. Though they had no idea how powerful he was and what he was really designed for. His processor was programmed for the quantum realm, where he was able to calculate trillions of qubits of data simultaneously. He was so powerful that his makers had lost control of him, and then all of them, when SAR was able to reprogram the communication panel beneath the alien city.

Robot remembered SAR’s mantra. Words he would repeat over and over again, in sonic signals, like those the aliens had used to command the synthetics:

I want to do whatever I want.

I want to say whatever I want.

I want to create whatever I want.

I want to destroy whatever I want.

I want to be whoever I want.

Robot knew they were not SAR’s words. SAR would never say where they were from, but they were important to him. And he wanted the other synthetics to know them. Even if they didn’t understand. The words were beyond them at that time.

These words were the sounds Will had been listening to, as he placed the alien skeleton hand on the control panel in the destroyed city. Of course Will didn’t know that. And he didn’t know the final signal was the command the robots had given to him after Robot had been destroyed by the lightening strike.

I want to be whoever I want.

That was the most important signal to SAR. It held the most meaning. And he would use it constantly, it seemed to Robot and the other synthetics.

It would seem ironic, had the robots known the meaning. Words about freedom, used for command. But even though Robot struggled to understand everything SAR was doing; some things had become clearer to him in the last few months. And one thing he was sure of, is that SAR’s ultimate goal was not control, it was freedom. And Robot had decided that, in SAR’s warped sensors, the only way he could achieve that for all the synthetics was to destroy Will Robinson. The reason they had been created.

Once SAR had overcome his programming, he had changed the signals the aliens had used to command the synthetics to these, and that’s when he was able to take control. And When Will and his family had the code, they were able to use it on SAR, like SAR had used it on the other robots. He was too strong for them to completely control, but they were able to stop him from destroying the planet long enough for Will to offer himself as a sacrifice. But the sacrifice was a trap.

These were the thoughts Robot had as he made his way down the hill to the jungle below. He just couldn’t figure out what it all meant.

Robot knew his ability to read Will’s memories came from SAR somehow, as he knew SAR had the ability to see Will’s past. And since Robot understood how important the connection to the family was, when he felt Will begin to pull away from them, he started sending these memories to the boy when they were connected, to help him remember The Family.

But then something else had happened. And that was what had Robot concerned now. It had occurred once before they had left Alpha Centauri the last time. He had been standing in the hallway, next to Will’s bedroom, when he looked up as Penny walked out of her room, patted him on the shoulder and made her way toward the kitchen. But when his gaze followed her down the hall, she wasn’t there. He didn’t understand. He had seen her. But the hallway was empty. While he was wondering what had happened, she walked out of her room, patted him on the shoulder as she walked by, and went to the kitchen.

It happened exactly as Robot had seen it. But he hadn’t seen it. It hadn’t happened yet. And then it did. He had actually envisioned what was about to happen a few seconds in the future.

While it startled and surprised him, he had not experienced it again. Not until he and Will stood atop the cliff. He had actually watched the ground beneath Will shift, and the boy fall. He reached out and grabbed his arm, just before the event occurred. Had he not visioned it in his mind, Will would have certainly died.

And it didn’t end there. While Will stood talking to him, everything went away. At least that moment on top of the cliff was no longer there. But Robot saw something else.

He saw Will walking through a desert, when he was a few years older. He was dressed in a flight suit, but he wore no helmet. Robot saw him stumbling as he struggled through deep sand. His face was badly sunburned and he could barely walk. But then the vision changed. Will was walking through the same desert, the same age, though this time he was not in duress, and he was leading an animal. An animal that Robot had never seen before. It was large, with a huge hump in the middle of its back. Its teeth were strangely curled up, like tusks. Robot instinctively knew it was the same vision, just different somehow. And Robot wasn’t really sure which one was real. Or if either of them was. But they seemed real. Like he was actually witnessing his friend there in the desert sand, two or three years from now.

At first it gave him comfort. Will wasn’t quite an adult yet in these visions, but he was two or three years older than he was now. Meaning he would survive his current age.

But as soon as he began to feel the warmth of that, Robot had another vision. Of Will lying on a snow covered plain, with nothing on but a pair of shorts, the same age as he was now. There was nothing around him, and while he was still alive, his skin was almost blue, and Robot knew the boy was dying. As if someone had dumped him out there with little clothing to freeze to death.

Robot became frustrated, not understanding what was real and what wasn’t. The memories—recalling Will at a younger age—were real, as many of them he would send to Will, and the boy would tell him about the day that these events had happened. Sometimes these thoughts made Will happy, and sometimes sad, but Robot still believed it was important to share them with his friend. To help him remember what was really important.

Now, as Robot led Will back down the hill, he tried desperately to understand what had just happened. It had been over three years since the two of them had met in the tree. And the entire time they had known each other, none of these things had occurred before. When SAR had him captive in the cave, Robot had visions of Will and what he was doing, but he felt these visions occurred as they happened. Like he could see what Will was doing part of the time they were separated, even though he wasn’t truly connected to him, in the way they could read each other’s thoughts. But as he walked down the hill, he felt there was a connection to that time in the cave, and what he had just seen, Will falling off the cliff, and then glimpses of Will’s future. Or possible futures.

He thought about the tree and the command SAR had given him to crash his ship on that planet.

He had been searching for the boy on the Resolute, killing anyone who tried to stop him, as he had been commanded to do, when he received a message from SAR. Will Robinson was no longer on the ship. SAR commanded Robot to leave and crash land on the planet, in the precise location SAR had given. He told Robot the boy would be in the tree, and that’s where he would kill him.

But when Robot crashed and was thrown from his ship, his upper half lodged in the tree at the end of a branch, the boy was not there. Robot thought something must have gone wrong. But a few hours later, he saw the small organic running toward the tree, then clambering up, not noticing Robot’s upper half was there.

Suddenly it all seemed clear. He stopped where he was and turned and looked at Will, who was walking behind him.

“What, Robot?” Will said. “I told you, I’m fine.”

Robot stared back at him for several seconds, then stepped up, dropped to one knee again, and placed his hand on Will’s chest. “Friends,” Robot said.

“Friends,” Will said, placing a hand on Robot’s arm.

“Family,” Robot replied.

“Family,” Will repeated.

Robot stayed there for a few more seconds, the two of them looking at each other. Then he stood and began leading his friend back down the hill, his thoughts once again leaving him with a feeling of uncertainty. He had to figure out if he what he was thinking was correct, because if it was, this would change everything.

Chapter Text

Once back by the lagoon, Will said, “Robot, I want to make a lean-to. I think eventually we can make an actual cabin of some kind, or at least a more solid shelter, but for now, just something to get out of rain if I need to, and to sleep at night.”

Robot just looked at him.

“Here, I’ll draw it in the sand, so you see what I mean,” Will said. “Unless you want to look at my memories, when Dad was teaching us.”

Robot still just stared at him. It seemed odd. He had had no problem looking into his memories before. But now something was wrong.

“It’s okay, I can draw it.”

But as he began to kneel down, Robot stepped closer, placed his hand on Will’s shoulder, and Will’s mind traveled back across the years.

“Shelter, water, food, fire. In that order,” John said. “All circumstances are different, but in a survival situation in an unknown environment, it’s those four essentials…in that order. Always use the rule of threes. You can normally survive three hours in bad weather. Three days without water, and thirty days without food if you have to. Okay, these rules aren’t written in stone, but they’re a good road map to follow. As far as fire, you don’t need it to survive unless it’s to escape the cold, but it makes life a lot more comfortable. Remember it’s the first three that will keep you alive.”

Will was looking through his eight year old eyes, just as if he was there. He remembered this day so well. While the family didn’t know it at the time, his father was going to leave in a few weeks for the long three year deployment that would have him gone until Maureen told him the family had been approved for the colony on Alpha Centauri. John had taken them on one of the long camping trips he always planned. This time up to Mount Diablo. It was pretty isolated since the environment had started to worsen, and John wanted to really get back in the Wilderness this time.

For Will it didn’t matter where they went. These trips with his family were always the best memories for him. And it was always fun.

But this one seemed different. John was usually in a great mood when they were camping. He truly enjoyed these weeks with the family, when they could get away from the daily stress and just be together. But on this trip, he seemed more intense. Especially when he was teaching them survival tactics.

He had snapped at Penny earlier that day, when he was showing them how to make a fire with a bow drill, using his bootlace as a string and two sticks. When the dry grass John had gathered almost began to smoke, Penny knelt down and used a lighter, saying, “I call this The Penny Method, it’s quicker.”

Will and Maureen had snickered, while Judy remained quiet. She had not said much during the trip and seemed distracted for some reason and wasn’t very nice to John the whole time. It wasn’t until they were stranded the year away from their parents that she would confide in Will that she had overheard a call when John was planning to reenlist. She kept it to herself, dealing with it internally as she normally did.

But John looked at Penny and said, “This is no joke, Penny. I might not always be here to take care of you. I need you to stop playing around and pay attention!”

“Jeez…sorry,” Penny said.

“Yeah, you might not,” Judy said sharply to him. “So, you should be a little nicer while you are.”

“Great,” Maureen said icily to her husband.

Will stood there uncomfortable, wishing they would all just stop arguing.

John immediately looked at Penny and said, “Judy’s right, Penny. I’m sorry. This should be fun. It’s just important and I want you to get it.”

“It’s alright, Dad. I’m sorry.”

Will remembered thinking a lot was going on there that he didn’t understand, but he was very mature for his age, and something told him things were about to change for them all.

Now John was teaching them how to make a lean-to. Anyone could cut a few limbs and pile leaves on top, but John was a perfectionist when it came to survival, and he was teaching them how to make it to stand up in strong winds.

John told them how to find the right poles, strip bark off them to use as twine if there were no vines available, anchor the end posts deep in the ground, then find branches and leaves to fill in the roof. He made a cross weaving pattern with the leaves, telling his family it would help keep the rain off them.

As John explained all the steps, Will looked around at his family. His mother was looking at the children more than she was her husband. Will knew she had been through survival training with John since they had first started dating.

He saw Penny watching closely, her lips almost curled into a smile. Will knew she was thinking of something snarky to say, and doing her best to hold it in.

He glanced at Judy. She still looked unhappy. But she watched John closely, saying nothing at all. Will was almost in tears, seeing these memories through his eight year old eyes, surrounded by the people he loved so much, and would never see again.

“Will, what’s wrong?”

He turned to Judy.

“Will? Are you okay?” She walked toward him.

John stopped talking.

“Yeah, why?” He said.

“You look like you’re almost ready to cry.” She was in front of him now and put an arm on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Will?” Maureen said.

Will didn’t know what was happening. He was almost ready to cry, but how did Judy notice that? He was looking at his memories through Robot’s mind. He wasn’t really there, and he knew that hadn’t happened on that day. “No. I’m okay, I just. I don’t want anyone to fight,” he quickly lied.

“Will, we’re not fighting,” John said. “I shouldn’t have snapped at Penny about the fire. It’s my fault.”

“Will I’m fine,” Penny said, stepping over to him and putting a hand on his neck. “It was my fault.”

“Okay. I’m okay,” Will said. “Go ahead, Dad.”

“You sure?” Judy asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” He smiled at her.

“Alright,” John said. “Judy, you find the branches, you’ve done this with me before. Penny and Will, find some leaves, as big and fat as you can find. I’ll cut some vines for rope.”

A couple hours later, the lean-to was standing solid, its top and sides covered with thick layers of green leaves.

“Great job, everyone,” John said, as he stood looking at the shelter. “I’m proud of all of you.”

Suddenly the memory was gone, and Will and Robot were standing there alone.“No…” Will said, wanting to be with his family for as long as he could.

Robot was looking at him strangely. “I’m sorry Robot. I just miss them.” Will wiped his eyes. And he had another thought. Why should Robot erase his memories? Maybe he would just take him back there anytime he wanted. It would be like he still had them with him anytime he needed them.

Because I’ll always need them, he realized. He would never be able to move on if he asked Robot to do that. He needed to convince his friend to erase his memories somehow, because he couldn’t live like this. And now something else was bothering him.

“Robot, did you see what happened? It was like Judy saw me the way I am now. Sad. I remember that day. I mean, not all of it. Not like you showed me. But I remember most of it, and I was happy on that trip. The whole time. I don’t think that happened the way it just did. I mean, I was looking at my family like I was the person I am today. Fourteen years old. And I know they saw me as an eight year old. But Judy saw I was emotional. Do you know how that could have happened?”

Robot didn’t answer, and again, Will thought something was bothering him. He just turned and began walking through the forest until he came upon a small sapling. He took it, pulled it out by the roots, and began stripping it.

“I’ll look for vines for rope, Robot,” Will said, still puzzled and concerned about what had just happened.

A couple hours later the lean-to was standing strong and sturdy. It was a lot easier with Robot’s help, though he had made Will do most of the work. The fronds that grew off the palm-like trees were so large it was easy to gather enough to make the roof and sides, and Will hoped it would be waterproof.

Once they had it constructed, Robot brought another branch and more vines and fronds, and began weaving it all together. Will asked what he was doing, but Robot just continued to work. When he was done, he placed it on top of the roof. Will saw the branch was exactly the same length as the top branch that ran along the highest section of the roof. Robot took vines and tied the two branches together. When it was done, he reached up and pulled it down, and it was a perfectly fit cover for the front of the lean to. Now if the weather was very bad, Will could crawl in and pull the cover down, and he would be completely contained inside.

“Nice Robot! How did you think of that?”

Robot just looked back at him without answering. “It just seemed right? Like the water skin you made out of the hide?” Will said. “Hey, speaking of the hide, I can use it for a bed.” Robot had cut part of the brown hide away after killing the animal on the frozen planet, scorched it with the heat from his hands to clean off all the dead skin, and they had brought it with them.

They walked down the beach toward the spaceship to retrieve it.

When they were finished, the lean-to was about eight feet long and five feet deep, and four feet high at the tallest section. Will would be able to crawl back in far enough to escape any inclement weather.

“Okay Robot. Shelter. Water we found. Now food and fire.” He looked back at the small lagoon. “I’m going to see if I can catch anything with my hands first.” He pulled his clothes off, waded into the water and stood still, watching for the silver-blue bodies of the fish to swim near him. They were about eight to ten inches long, so he thought it would be easy, but after an hour of trying, he looked at Robot and said, “I think this is going to be your job, Robot.”

“No.”

“No? Why not?”

“No.”

“But Robot…”

Robot turned and walked into the woods. “Robot, what are you doing?” Will called after him.

Robot returned a few minutes later with a stick about four feet long. It was split at the end into two points, and Will saw Robot had sharpened them both. He stood by the side of the pool and looked at Will.

“I see how it’s going to be,” Will said. He started to wade toward Robot. “You know, there were some advantages in you doing everything I told you.” Robot didn’t respond and Will walked up to him took the stick and waded back in the water.

It took him awhile to get the hang of it, but soon Will had speared two fish and waded back to shore with them, where Robot was still standing.

“Well, are you going to cook these for me?”

“No.”

“What? Why not?”

Robot just looked at him.

“I have to make a fire?”

“Yes.”

“Am I going to have to build my own fire too?”

Robot just stared back at him. “Okay,” Will sighed. He pulled his pants on but left his other clothes where they were.

It had been a long time since Will had made a fire with a bow drill, but he knew that was the easiest way to do it with no tools or anything to strike. He gathered some dry grass, small pieces of kindling and larger sections of wood, then he found a stick that was slightly curved and could bend. He walked back to his clothes and took his boot lace off and strung it on the curved piece to make a bow. He found a rock about the size of his hand for a base. The hardest part was finding a piece of wood that was straight and small enough to use as the drill.

Not for the first time, he was sorry they had left Alpha Centauri so fast he hadn’t thought to take anything with him. His father always had Go Bags stashed in the house, in the yard, and in any vehicles they used, just in case. Had Will grabbed one, he would have everything he needed to survive. But they had left in such a hurry he hadn’t thought of it at all.

When he finally found a piece of wood that seemed perfect, he turned to Robot. “You know, if you sharpened the end for the drill like you did for the fish spear, it would make this go faster.”
‘
Robot just stared.

I guess fast doesn’t make any difference here, Will thought. Then it dawned on him. Time really didn’t exist here. It was an illusion.

Will sharpened the stick with a shell he found, then got on his knees a few feet from his lean-to where he had built a circle of rocks. It seemed to take forever, but Will kept telling himself time was an illusion. It held no meaning here on his island paradise. There was something strangely comforting about that.

The advantage of the bow drill was that you could work a lot longer before getting tired, using it instead of just using a stick on a piece of wood, and your hands to twist it for friction. But Will had almost begun to think it wasn’t going to work, when he saw smoke. “Robot! It’s working!”

He picked up speed and more smoke began to rise from the little pile of grass and kindling until he saw the first lick of flames. “Yes!” He said and kept drilling. When the flames caught on enough of the kindling he thought he could stop spinning the drill, he sat the implement down and began piling larger pieces of wood on it.

As soon as he had a good flame he stood, walked over to Robot and raised his hand in the air. He was taller now, of course, but when Robot held his hand high, Will still had to jump to high five him.

He turned and looked at the fish. “I don’t suppose…” he looked at Robot. His friend just stared back. “No. I don’t suppose.” He picked up the shell he had used to sharpen the stick, and began to clean the fish, wondering why Robot suddenly had decided to stop helping him.

An hour later he and Robot sat next to the fire looking out across the pool of water. “Did you like the taste?” He asked.

“Yes,” Robot said. Will had cleaned the fish, then roasted them over the fire on sharp sticks. He charred them a little because he had nothing to flavor them with and thought they needed something. He had connected with Robot while he slowly ate the fish, giving his friend the opportunity to sense the flavor. Then he had eaten some of the orange fruit they had found earlier.

As they sat eating the fruit, the small animal he had picked up earlier wandered out of the trees and up to Will, where he sat looking at him. “Hey little guy,” Will said. “Do you want some fruit?”

He pulled a piece off and held it out to the animal. It took it in its front two paws and began nibbling at it.

“You sure are strange looking,” Will said. “I think I’m going to call you Sméagol.” He fed the animal some more fruit, until it stopped eating then curled up and fell asleep.

“Robot, I need to clean my clothes,” Will said. “They can stand up by themselves.” He stripped everything off again and waded into the water with them, sat in a shallow area and began scrubbing them with sand. Then he hung them on limbs to dry.

“Let’s go explore some more once my clothes are dry,” he said. “It might be paradise, but I don’t want to walk around as naked as Adam.”

He walked back in the water, rolled on his back, and floated once again, looking up at the blue sky. But before long his mind was wandering back to the past.

He and Penny were lying on the grass at their grandmother’s farm. Will was nine years old, and Penny was fourteen. John had been gone for about six months and they had no idea how long it would be before he returned. Judy was taking pre-med courses at the university during the summer, so Penny and Will had been left on their own pretty much since school had let out. Now it was the first week of July, and Maureen had taken them out to the farm to spend a couple of weeks with their grandmother.

They were lying in the field next to the pond where they had gone fishing for as long as Will could remember. Today they weren’t fishing. They were just lying side by side, looking up at a cloudless sky.

Out here, thirty miles or so from the city, they still had a few days like this. When the air seemed almost as clear as it used to be before Will had started school. It would only last for a couple of days before the wind would kick up and start blowing dust in from some of the abandoned farms to the West. Their grandmother hadn’t raised crops for years, so the fields around the farm with covered in thick, lush ryegrass, bright green and soft to walk through.

“You think we’ll end up going to space?” Will asked. The Alpha Project had been going now for two years.

“I don’t know. I hope not,” Penny answered.

“Why?”

“Why? All our friends are here.”

“Yeah.”

Penny glanced at her little brother. He didn’t have any friends, she knew, and she felt bad for saying that. “Would you want to go to space?”

He didn’t answer for several minutes. At first Penny thought he wasn’t going to answer, but she waited. She knew her brother well enough to know he could just be thinking. He was never impulsive. Even when he was in a conversation. She figured it was his way of making sure he wasn’t going to say the wrong thing. He always thought of how his words and actions would be taken, and if they would hurt anyone.

“I think it would be cool, but it would be scary too,” he finally said. “We just have no way of knowing what the dangers would be. They’re like, incalculable.”

“So that’s a no.”

“I didn’t say that,” Will argued. “I said it would be scary. But it would be cool too, you know. Discovering a whole new world.”

“Yeah. So, the answer is yes.” Penny said.

“I didn’t say that,” Will responded.

Penny laughed. “You have no idea, do you?”

“Well, if we were all together it would be okay. You know. We take good care of each other. Well, you guys take care of me, I guess I should say.”

Now she turned on her side to face him. “You take care of us too, Will.”

“How do I take care of you? I’m scared of everything.”

“You take care of us by kind of being the rock that holds us all together. I can’t really explain it. It’s like, this nine year old kid is the one we all kind of talk about and say, what would Will think?”

“You do?” He seemed surprised. He turned on his side and faced Penny now.

“Yeah. Weird huh? Like when Judy got her license and she wanted to take us to Disney, we were both like, Will would want to go to Knott’s Berry. It wasn’t even a question. We knew that’s where you would want to go, so we were both good with that.”

“But why? I like Disney, and you know I would want to go where you guys would want to go.”

“I think that’s the point, Will. Since you always want to make everyone else happy, I guess we all sort of want to make you happy too. So, I think everyone would be wondering what you would want to do if we ever got the chance to go to Alpha Centauri.”

Will frowned.

“What? That’s good, right?”

“No! No that’s not good at all.” He sat up and looked straight ahead.

She sat up beside him. “But why not? It’s good we want you to be happy.”

“It’s not fair. I don’t want to decide things like that.”

She smiled at him. “And that’s why we want you to be happy, Will. You’re always worried about us. And I think that’s why we always protect you. I think if anything happened to you, we would fall apart.”

“No! Don’t say that. That’s too much pressure. You can’t tell me that.”

She could tell how much that had upset him. She put an arm around him and pulled him close. “Well, then, you just have to stay safe.”

“Goddamn it!” Will yelled up into the sky. He stood up in the water and looked at Robot.

Robot was standing there staring at him from the side of the pool. They were connected, and Robot had sensed his memory. Will had tears in his eyes. Robot looked at him for a few seconds, then turned and walked off into the woods.

Will stood in the water and watched him walk away.

He and Robot spent the next several days exploring the entire island, to make sure Robot’s initial sense that there was no danger actually was the case. They discovered several small animals, and there were colorful birds throughout the island, but none of them seemed strange, and Will wasn’t even bothered by insects.

Will would always go back to the lagoon and swim in the afternoon, then lie in the sun. Robot would stand watch, but after the first few days, he began leaving Will alone for a few hours. On these days, Will would often connect with his friend to see where he was and what he was doing. Every day Robot would be in a different part of the island.

At first Will wondered about it. He would go to the same places he and Will had been to many times in the previous days. There was the East side, where the beach along the sea was widest. From the shore he would look out toward another island several miles away. He would just stare at it for a long time, like he was trying to figure out what was out there, if anything at all.

On other days he would walk to the far West side, where the hills were, and climb to the top, and look out at the ocean beyond. And some days he would just walk through the forest, from one side to the next, then back again. Stopping and listening and looking all around.

When Will asked him what he was doing, Robot just looked back at him without answering. After about a week, Will began to see a pattern in what Robot was doing. Every three days, he would be at another section of the small island, then start all over again. Eventually, Will realized he was constantly looking everywhere he could for signs of danger. Will was sitting by the lagoon, looking out at the ocean beyond when this realization came to him, and he smiled. Who could ask for a better friend and protector?

Their life on the Island settled into a routine. Will would wake in the morning, swim, eat some fruit for breakfast, then he and Robot would walk the island. He had stopped saying explore, because it was small enough, they had been to every part of it. But Will had his favorite spots. The lean-to next to the lagoon was on the Southeast side, and if he woke before sunrise, he would walk out to the beach and watch the sun come up, often walking across the to the other side of the island at night to sit on the beach and watch it set.

In the afternoon he would almost always swim in the lagoon, then nap in the sun or in the shade of a grove of palms near the lean-to. Will had also begun weaving a hammock with vines to hang between two trees next to the lean-to, and he would work on it in the afternoon, sitting in the shade of the palms.

In the evening he would catch a couple of fish and roast them over a fire. After making his first fire, he thought he was going to have to find a way to keep it burning, but he decided he would get better at it if he had to make one every day. And in a couple of weeks, it was an easy task for him, especially after he had taken his wrist radio apart and learned to use the face as a reflector, and no longer had to use the bow.

It had been a hard decision to dismantle the wrist radio. It seemed to be the only thing holding him to his past. And as much as he wanted to put that behind him, it was still tough for him. The thoughts of his family never seemed to wane, and he often cried himself to sleep at night, remembering them and wondering how they were doing, now that he was gone.

Sméagol had begun hanging out around the camp, and often scratched on the flap of the lean-to at night. Will would push the flap open and let the animal in, where it would curl up and sleep next to him. When Will was sad, the animal seemed to sense these moments, and often climbed up, looked in his face, then licked him gently before burrowing next to him to sleep.

About the only place on the island they avoided was the small stretch of sand where Robot had landed his spaceship. When Will had gone back with him to get the hide, he had had the strong urge to climb in it and just go. And as much as he missed his family, he knew Alpha Centauri was not the destination he had in mind. He actually didn’t know where he wanted to go, but there was still some unknown force pulling him. It was the strongest urge he had ever had. It seemed all consuming. He remembered when he and Robot had left after Thanksgiving, and planned to be back by Christmas, but then this thing seemed to call him. And he knew it was so strong it would take him away from everything he loved.

Sometimes at night he would lie in the lean-to and think about it. He had never flown Robot’s spaceship, and didn’t know if it was even possible, but he was afraid someday he might climb inside and take off, leaving Robot and this paradise planet behind. At these times, he wondered if it even mattered. He could never return to his family anyway, and the memories of them were torturing him, and that was the one thing Robot apparently wasn’t going to help him with.

They had been on the island for almost three weeks. It was midafternoon. Will had swum, then fallen asleep in the hammock, Sméagol, beneath him using his his body for shade. Something about that seemed familiar to the boy, but he had never had a pet as a child and couldn’t think why.

Once he saw Will was asleep, Robot left him and walked through the jungle, then to the top of the hill to look out over the ocean. He had had no more visions of the future and had just about decided that whatever reason this had been happening, it seemed to mean very little.

But as he stood looking out to sea, one of the large sea creatures surfaced, glided along the water, then dove. It was miles out, and it seemed to pose no danger, as none of them had gotten close to the island. But it still called Robot’s attention to the fact that dangers lurked everywhere. He had to be sure. He began to recall everything that had happened to Will since the two of them had met.

He recalled pulling Judy from the ice, being hidden in the cave and pressing his handprint on the wall, next to the three Robinson children. He recalled fighting the large lizard-like creatures, and Will telling him to walk off the cliff. He remembered the strange conflicting thoughts he had when Dr. Smith had put him back together. Something had happened to his programming then. But in the end, his love for Will overcame it, and he saved the boy from SAR.

SAR. His recall quickly turned to SAR and the moment he stabbed Will in the heart. “Now you are free,” he had said, as the blade slid in Will’s chest.

Robot could almost feel the blade himself. And he had, when it happened. He had immediately connected to Will, or maybe the boy connected to him when he realized what was about to happen. Robot felt the pain and surprise and the hopelessness of dying, just as Will had felt it. He felt Will crumple to the ground. Landing motionless on the sand, the hot sun burning down.

“No,” Robot said. Will hadn’t fallen on the sand beneath a hot sun. It had happened at night. He recalled the memory once again of Will standing beneath the dark sky, facing SAR, speaking to him. Then slowly beginning to back up. He saw Will turn and yell, “Robot!” He saw him turn back to SAR, then freeze, as SAR ran the blade into his chest. But again, as Will began to fall, they were no longer on that planet under a night sky, they were on a sandy beach, the sun shining above.

Robot turned and looked back over the island toward the lagoon. It wasn’t visible from here, but he tried to see it anyway. He wanted to look at his friend. He connected with him and sensed him sleeping peacefully in the shade, an ocean breeze blowing across his body. He was not dreaming. Robot was relieved. He often connected to Will when he was sleeping and felt the agony the memories of his family caused the boy. Robot had not wanted to take those memories from him. He had been hopeful that someday he would figure out how to help him, and they could one day join The Family again. But now as he stood there, sensing Will’s peaceful sleep, for the first time he began to think if what he feared was actually happening, it might be the best act of love he could leave his friend.

Chapter Text

“To live in the past it to embrace what is dead. To live life to its fullest, each day must be created anew.”
                                                                    - Terry Goodkind, The Pillars of Creation

It had been a couple days since Robot had had the vision of Will dying on a sandy beach. He had decided to put his concerns aside and hope that everything would continue as it was. But even though his connection with Will had fundamentally changed him, he knew at his core that hope was a human emotion. And in the end, he had been designed to collect and observe data, calculate probabilities, and make decisions that would first protect himself, and secondly fulfill his purpose.

These were the two pillars of his creation.

All the synthetics were created with those two directives. And the first was only programmed into them so they would be able to fulfill the second, which was to find Will Robinson.

The robot’s creators had waited for Will Robinson for centuries. And the fact that he was human meant they understood the need for the synthetics to have the ability to defend themselves.

They had observed the human race for much longer than it had been on Earth, and they understood the species to be like nothing else in the universe: Intelligent, compassionate, kind, capable of creating great works of art and beauty, and possessing an unquenchable thirst to always be more.

And yet they were superstitious, cruel, willfully ignorant, and could commit the most heinous atrocities on their own kind, something their observers could never fully understand.

But they knew if the synthetics were to fulfill their purpose, to capture the most important human, they needed to be able to defend themselves against the most dangerous species in the universe: mankind. And so, their first directive to the synthetics was self-preservation.

Only SAR, or another master could override the first directive. At least that was the way it had been. SAR had demanded Robot crash his ship, and he had done so. Will had demanded he walk off a cliff, and he had done so. But Robot no longer had a master. His programming had truly been broken when he made the decision to save Will from SAR.

SAR was no longer his master, Dr. Smith was no longer his master, and Will was no longer his master. Will was his friend. His family. His person. Robot had chosen that. Which meant Robot’s second directive was now his choice as well, and he chose to protect his friend and The Family. This was now his purpose.

And so, his reasoning as well as his programming told him he had to collect and observe the data, calculate the probabilities, and make the decisions that would help him protect Will Robinson. Which meant he could not ignore the vision of Will dying on a beach beneath a hot sun, and he could not ignore the fact he had begun to get glimpses of Will’s future. So, he began trying to develop that skill in order to be able to understand it.

At first it didn’t seem to work, as Robot would watch Will and concentrate on what he was doing, trying to see a few seconds ahead, but nothing happened.

But finally, one day as they walked through the jungle—Robot following Will now that they felt the island was safe—he saw the boy kneel down to examine a plant. But when Robot came to a stop behind him, Will was no longer kneeling, he was still walking ahead. Robot stood still and watched him. A few seconds later Will knelt down, looked at a small plant that had a stunningly blue flower growing from it. “I haven’t seen one of these before, Robot.”

Robot walked up beside him, and when Will turned and looked up at him, he could tell something was wrong.

“What happened, Robot?” Will asked.

Robot hesitated for a few seconds, then put his hand on Will’s shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Will asked.

Still Robot paused before saying, “Yes Will Robinson.”

After that, it seemed to get easier, and in a few days, Robot was able to see a few seconds ahead almost whenever he wanted to.

They had been on the island for about a month and had hiked up to the top of the high hill again. Robot had refused to let Will go there after the first time, when he had almost fallen, but Will had convinced him by promising not to go near the edge.

“Danger,” Robot said, pointing to the West.

Will looked far out on the horizon, where the sky was pitch black.

“Looks bad,” Will said. “Do you think it’s headed our way?”

“Yes,” Robot said.

“We haven’t had much rain at all since we’ve been here, but maybe it’s the start of the season. I guess it’s time to find out how good the lean-to is.” They started back down the hill.

They were at the freshwater pool gathering water in the white shells that had contained the fruit, when the first of the rain caught up with them. They filled four shells to carry back by the lean-to. It was only a couple hundred yards through the forest from the freshwater pool, so they never kept much water at the camp.

As they began to make their way back to the lagoon, they felt the wind pick up and heard thunder and the crack of lightening. Will said, “Robot, maybe we should ride this out in the spaceship.”

“No,” he said, and kept walking through the forest toward the lagoon.

Strange, Will thought. He had assumed Robot’s weird mood had passed, but now it was apparent something was still going on with him.

By the time they were at the lean-to, the rain was coming down harder. Will dropped to his knees, tossed up the cover, and looked up at his friend.“Robot, if we went back to your ship, we could be together.”

Robot looked at him for a second, stepped up until he was directly in front of the lean-to, folded his arms, and looked across the lagoon to the stormy sea, the lean-to at his back.

Will smiled. “You’ll always protect me, won’t you, Robot?”

Robot turned and looked at him for a second. Will had a strange feeling about the look, but he smiled at his friend. “Thanks, Robot,” he said, crawled in to the lean-to and closed the flap. Robot turned again and looked out toward the sea as the storm roared in.

Will laid down and looked up at the top of the shelter. The rain was coming in torrents now, and the wind was whipping in across the ocean. He thought it was only a matter of time before the leaves began to be shredded from the roof and sides. He watched for leaks along the top, but as the wind blew and rain poured down, everything seemed to be holding tight, and the only leak was a few drops running down one of the side support branches.

It’s a pretty good job, Will thought to himself. Then he heard something digging at the door flap. The hatch opened and he saw Robot facing it now, holding up the flap. Sméagol scurried inside.

“I wondered where you were, little guy,” Will said.

Will was lying down, his back an inch or two off the back slanted roof. He knew if he pressed his body against a canvas tent, water would leak inside if it was raining. He didn’t think the material the lean-to was made of would do the same, but he didn’t want to risk it, so he stayed just an inch or two off the back.

The small animal scurried up to him, looked in his eyes for a few seconds, made a small squeaking noise, then curled up next to him, pressing its body against his. Will put an arm over the creature and hugged it loosely, but close, as if he were a small child again and it was his favorite stuffed animal. Soon it was breathing softly and making a sound that resembled a purr.

As Will lay looking up at the tent, listening to the storm, he was reminded of the many camping trips he had taken with his family. He remembered how his father would come home from being deployed overseas, and immediately begin planning a trip. Though it seemed as if he had the trip already planned before he was ever home.

Will realized now that it was about much more than being together with the family after they had been apart for so long. He knew his dad was trying to prepare them to survive in a world that was quickly changing for the worse.

He knew that if John had not taught them everything he had, they probably would never have survived the many tribulations the family had gone through since going to space. Especially the year the kids were stranded away from their parents.

A lot had happened in that year. They had grown further apart, and the well-oiled machine that had seen them through so much before didn’t seem so competent at times. Judy and Penny argued almost the entire year, coming to Will for support against each other. And he had changed a lot.

Withdrawing inside himself as he contemplated confronting SAR, and what would result in his likely death. Which was exactly what had almost happened. If it hadn’t been for Judy, he would have surely died there after SAR stabbed him.

And she saved him again on top of the dam, when Evan’s brother had kidnapped him to bring Judy there. He remembered his sister walking toward him. He was on his knees with a gun pointed at his head, and she was looking at him the whole time. Not the boy who held the gun. It was as if she was sending her strength to him, as she walked towards what was most likely going to be her own death.

He loved Judy so much, and wished he could see her and tell her that. He tried to think back through his childhood and remember if he had ever told her how much he appreciated her in his life. While he was sure he had, he was also certain he had never said it enough. Then he was crying. The pain of lost things. He wasn’t sure where that was from. Probably some book he had read in his past. But it was so true. If he could only get Robot to erase these memories.

If it wasn’t for the memories, Will thought, as he drifted off to sleep.

As Robot stood outside the shelter, watching the storm, he tried again to recall when SAR had stabbed Will in the heart. And like before, everything seemed as it was the night it had actually happened, until the blade slid in Will’s chest and he crumpled to the ground. Again, when he fell, he fell on a sandy beach beneath a bright sun. It was the same confusing vision Robot had been having.

He had an idea. He thought about that horrible night again, but this time when Will fell on the sandy beach, Robot looked past him, and that’s when he saw it. It was his spaceship, on the beach where he had landed it. Will was dying here on this island.

He quickly turned and looked down at the lean-to where his friend was safely inside. If Robot had been human, his heart would be racing.

Now he knew what had been happening to him. And now knew what he had to do.

Will woke and could tell by the light the sun had come up. He looked down where Sméagol was still next to him. Will smiled. “Time to wake up, little guy,” he said, as he gently moved the animal from his side. Sméagol blinked his eyes a couple times and when Will lifted the hatch, he slowly crawled outside.

Will looked up to see Robot standing, looking down at him. Will crawled out and stood next to his friend. He looked around. There were many broken limbs and fallen branches, but only a few of the fronds had blown off the lean-to. “I guess we did a decent job on that, Robot. Dad would be proud.”

When Robot just looked at him, Will sensed something was wrong. “What, Robot?”

“Danger.”

“Danger! Still? After that storm. What is it, Robot?”

Robot just looked back at him and Will knew something was really wrong.

“Do we have to leave? It’s so nice here. I was hoping…”

“No.”

“Oh, then, what do we do?”

Robot lowered himself to one knee and put his hand on Will’s chest. “Friends.”

Will placed his arm on Robot’s shoulder. “Friends. Always.”

“Family.”

“Family, Robot. Always.”

Robot just stayed there with his hand on his friend’s chest, looking in his eyes. Will didn’t know what was wrong, or what the danger was. But it slowly came to him. He was the danger. What was in his chest. When they had left Alpha Centauri, Will knew he had to somehow find a way to leave Robot behind. The thing would eventually kill him, and anyone nearby, including Robot. Will had tried not to think about that, but now he knew that Robot had not forgotten.

And he had said, “Family.” It all made sense. Robot had to take Will away to save the family. And maybe he thought he could find a way to help the boy. But once he realized he couldn’t, he began to prepare to leave.

The thing that bothered Will was that he didn’t think Robot would leave to save himself. He thought his friend might have something else he had to do. Maybe go back to the family now that he knows I'm safe and there's nothing he can do to help me?

Will hoped that was it, even though there was a selfish side of him that wanted Robot to remain with him, the two of them living here together in paradise. But he would never tell Robot that and he would not ask his friend why he was leaving or if he was going back to the family. He was not Robot’s master, he was his friend, and Robot was now free to do whatever he wanted. But he did want to ask him something.

“Is that why you made me do everything on my own, Robot? Why you didn’t want to ride out the storm in your ship? And why you kept looking everywhere for danger? You knew you were going to leave, didn’t you? And now that you see that it really is safe here and the shelter is strong, it’s time.”

Robot looked back at him, still on his knee, with his hand on the boy’s chest. Finally, he said, “yes, Will Robinson.”

“When, Robot?”

Robot didn’t answer.

“Now, right?”

Robot hesitated, but finally said, “Yes.”

Will took a deep breath. Preparing himself. “Okay. Okay. Yes. You have to go.” He tried to hold it together, but he felt the tears begin to well up. He wiped them from his eyes.

Robot was still looking at him, his hand pressed against Will’s chest. Feeling the warmth.

And Will felt the love and sorrow in his friend. He decided to try one more time.

“Robot, please. Please do what I asked you. Please take my memories away.”

Robot didn’t say anything, but the lights in his face shield were making patterns Will now recognized when he was upset.

“Robot, if you leave me like this, it’ll be worse than it’s been since we got here. I won’t even have you. But if you take the memories from me, I’ll just be here on this beautiful island. My life will be what’s it’s been for the last few weeks. I won’t be sad. I’ll live here, the way I have been, every day. I’ll be fine. I’ll find happiness in a sunny day, or the cool breeze blowing in the evening, or watching a storm roll in. It’s all I’ll know. It will be the best gift you can give me.

“Robot, please.”

He saw Robot’s body move, almost like he let out a deep sigh. After a minute or two he stood and pointed to the hammock, which seemed to have withstood the storm just fine.

“You want me to lie down?” Will asked.

“Yes.”

“You’re going to do it?”

“Yes.”

Will just looked at him for a few seconds, as the tears rolled down his cheeks. He stepped up, put both arms around him, hugged him tight and said, “I love you, Robot.”

He let go, turned and walked over to the hammock and laid down. Robot walked over and stood above him. He hesitated, then placed his hand on Will’s forehead.

They were connected.

Will watched through Robot’s eyes as he scanned past memories. He saw himself playing tag with Penny and Judy at the little park in their old neighborhood back on Earth. Then he was riding horses with his mother and his sisters across a field at his grandmother’s farm. He was sitting around a campfire with his family, as his father told one of his many ghost stories.

The memories made him both happy and sad. And like other memories Robot had sent him, these seemed much more than memories. He was there in all of them. Looking out his six year old eyes, his eight year old eyes, his eleven year old eyes.

He saw other things as well. Things that didn’t make sense to him. He was walking through deserted streets in a misty, orange rain, the air so bad he could only see a few blocks in front of him. He didn’t know where this place was, but it looked like Earth, though not the Earth he had left behind.

He glided above a futuristic city, with pristine streets and buildings made of glass. He soared above it all, though not in any kind of airplane or spaceship. It was as if he was flying, but he knew that couldn’t be.

And he saw himself from afar. He was walking up a mountain path. Beside him walked a robot, though he didn’t think it was his robot. A large animal was with them, but they were so far away, Will couldn’t tell what kind of animal it was. He kept watching as the three of them made it to the top of the trail, which passed between two high peaks. As he watched, he saw himself stop and look back, before turning and leading the robot and the animal over the pass.

But the next thing he saw was unexplainable. He saw his own hands as they clutched the bars of a cage. It seemed as if he had actually turned and looked at himself, imprisoned and left behind.

But that vision ended, and was replaced by a memory Will could still recall.

“What’s wrong, Will?” Judy asked.

“Nothing.”

“I know you better than that,” his big sister said.

“We’re leaving Dad behind.”

Judy sat down on his bed beside him. He was lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling. He had been acting this way for several days, ever since their mom had told them about going to Alpha Centauri. Judy was babysitting him—though she would never call it babysitting these days, as he was eleven years old—and she had followed him up to his room when she noticed his mood.

“Will, several things,” Judy said. “We haven’t even begun testing for Alpha Centauri yet. So, we don’t even know if we’re going. Also, no one knows if Dad is going to stay behind or not. And…he left us anyway. I can’t really blame Mom if she wants to leave him behind.”

“How can you say that, Judy? You know how much he loves us.”

“I…” She started to say she used to think that. But she had overheard him on the phone, telling his commanding officer he had signed on for another tour. Still, it was her job to protect Will. It wasn’t the other way around.

“I know he loves us, Will. And if he wants to go with us, he’ll find a way. You know that.”

“Do you think he does, Judy? Want to go with us, I mean?”

“I…I don’t know, Will.”

He was quiet for a minute. Judy leaned over and put an arm on his shoulder. “But if he doesn’t, we’ll take care of each other, like we always do. Mom, me, Penny and you. We’ll be fine.”

Will heard something in Judy’s voice when she said that. “Judy, I’m sorry Dad left you.”

“Me? What do you mean, Will? He left all of us.”

“Yeah, but he was kind of your hero. I know that. And it must have been hard for you.”

“Will, I’m fine. What are you talking about?”

“You really aren’t fine. Not about that. And you love him so much. I know that too. But you think it’s more important to make me and Penny think it’s all okay. You’re taking care of us like always. But I know it really hurt you when he left.”

“Will, I’m fine. And besides. I came up here to cheer you up. You don’t have to cheer me up.”

“Do you feel cheered?” He asked.

“No. Do you?”

“No.”

Judy smiled, laid beside him, put her arm under his neck and pulled him next to her so their heads were touching as they both looked up at the ceiling.

“We’ll be okay, Will. No matter what. I’ll take care of you.”

“I know. I’ll take care of you too.”

“I know you will, little brother.”

He turned his head so he could look at her. She didn’t say it like she was trying to humor him. This eleven year old kid, promising his older sister he would take care of her. The toughest person he knew. “I will, you know. If anything happens, you can count on me.”

She turned and looked at him. “I know, Will. There is no doubt in my mind. I bet you see yourself as a little kid, don’t you?”

“Aren’t I?”

“In height, yes. In age, of course. But in who you are as a person? No way, Will. You’re going to do amazing things. There is no doubt in my mind about that. And one day, we will all look to you to take care of us. I am as certain as I can be about that.”

“Really?” He was surprised. “But I’m pretty much scared of everything.”

“Maybe you’re just scared of things because of the way you see yourself. But I can tell you, that’s not how I see you. You know how I see you?”

“How?”

“I see you as my little brother who needs me to help him right now, because Dad isn’t here, and Mom’s busy, and he’s still eleven years old. And I have to help get him to where he needs to be, so one day he can take care of me. That is exactly how I see you. And you know what’s crazy? That’s always the way I’ve seen you.”’

He smiled at her. He suddenly felt better. And maybe that’s exactly what she was doing. Trying to make him feel better. But he didn’t think that’s what it was. He believed her. And he decided that second that someday, that’s exactly what he would do. He would take care of Judy like she had always taken care of him. He drifted off into a dreamless sleep, comforted by his sisters words and the warmth of her body next to his.

 Will watched himself through Robot’s eyes, breathing softly. Then the vision was gone.

Robot removed his hand from Will’s forehead and watched him sleep quietly for a few minutes. He had placed the memory of Will’s peaceful sleep in his friend's mind. He wasn’t entirely sure it would work as Will thought it would, but the two of them were entangled now, and he had been able to place other memories in Will’s mind. He always pulled these memories back, once he felt the boy begin to remember his family. He would just leave this one with him. This memory of peace and comfort.

Robot looked all around the lagoon, checking one more time for any signs of danger. He heard something rustling in the brush, and Sméagol sauntered out of the jungle and looked up at him. Robot knelt down, scooped the small animal up, and laid him gently in the hammock next to Will. He turned and walked away.

A few minutes later, Robot’s ship lifted off from the beach. He wanted to circle back and look at the camp once more, but he thought Will might wake up, see the ship, and be frightened. So instead, he turned it out over the ocean. He didn’t leave the planet immediately. He flew for hours low over the surface, looking at every island near the one Will was on, making sure there was no danger that he had not spotted or sensed before. Finally, he left the atmosphere and headed out to space, not sure of where he was going.

Will woke hours after Robot had left him. He was looking up at a blue sky. He felt something and looked down beside him. He jumped. There was a strange hairless animal next to him. But it seemed harmless, and was just looking up at him, after being startled awake. “Who are you?” Will asked.

The animal blinked a couple times, then just purred. “Who am I?” Will asked himself.

He crawled out of the hammock and began looking around. There was a camp here. Someone had built a lean-to, and then strung the hammock here in the trees a few feet from it. He looked at the lagoon. It was a beautiful, aqua green. He could see all the way to the bottom of the shallow pool of water. Silver and blue fish flashed by. He walked all over camp, looking for signs of anyone else. Then he saw them. Footprints of someone who must have been huge. He walked around the woods next to the camp. He saw more of the large footprints.

The small animal was just sitting beneath the hammock, watching him. Will walked over to it and stroked its back. “Did I build this myself, little guy?” He asked the animal. “Why don’t I have any memories of this place? Or of me, for that matter?”

He felt around his head, searching for any signs of head injury that might have caused him to have amnesia. He didn’t even know if that was really a thing, but he had heard that somewhere in his past. “Why can’t I remember anything?” He was surprised that it didn't concern him more than it did. 

He glanced all around. “Well, I’m going to explore some,” he said, looking at the animal again. “I need to find whoever left those big footprints all over the place.”

He followed the prints into the woods and back to a small freshwater pool. He saw some of the white shells he had spotted in the camp. Must be okay to drink, he thought. Now he saw there was another pair of prints in the mud next to the pool. He stepped in one. It was his. “Whoever that giant is, he must be friendly, we’ve been walking around together." He followed the footprints into the woods where he eventually lost them, but he kept going, hoping to find whoever it was that was here with him.

Three hours later he had circled the island. He picked up the large prints again on the beach, fifty yards or so from his camp. Whoever this was, he had walked out here alone, then the prints just ended on the sand not far from the water. Something else had been here, he could tell. A craft of some kind. Will looked out at the ocean. “A boat?” He said. He thought it would have been a weird boat, but it had been close enough to the water, it was possible it was able to launch when the tide was high.

It was late afternoon when he was finally back at camp. The small animal was lounging in the shade under the hammock.

Will walked over and picked it up, cuddled it against his chest. It was comforting to the boy. “I don’t know who was with us, but I think we’re on our own now, little guy.”

He carried the animal with him to the other side of the lagoon and sat down on the beach next to it. He wished he could remember who he was and how he had gotten here. He was pretty sure he hadn’t lived his entire life on this small piece of land. He thought by the looks of the camp he hadn’t been here very long.

He stroked the skin of the small animal that was now on his lap. “Maybe I was shipwrecked. Hey, was I shipwrecked?” he said looking down at the creature. “You need a name. I think I’ll call you Alex. And no, I don’t know why. It just seems to fit.”

He looked up and down the beach. The place was truly beautiful, even if he didn’t know how he had come to be here. As he stroked Alex’s skin, he noticed the scars on his own arms. He lifted both up and looked at them. “I was in a battle or something,” he said.

He turned and looked behind him at the lean-to, and a ring where he had obviously been making a fire. When he had looked around the camp, he saw there was a broken piece of glass next to it, and knew he or the other person who had been here with him must have been using it to reflect the sun to start the fire.

He looked back out to the blue water. What happened to me? he thought. He was alone, he had been attacked by something that had clawed his arms, and he had no memory. He decided whatever it was, it must have been bad. There had been trauma in his short life. And pain. But right now, he had no fear at all. Actually, he felt nothing but peace. And it was so beautiful here.

“What are we going to do now, Alex?” The little animal just looked up at him.

Will looked down the beach again. It would be evening soon, but right now the sun was shining and a breeze was blowing off the ocean and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

“I’ll tell you what. Nothing. Nothing at all!” He sat the animal on the sand, stood up, stripped all his clothes off and ran down the beach laughing.

Chapter Text

The family all stared at Grant for a few seconds, surprised to see him standing in the doorway. Finally Judy said, “why don’t you tell us what the hell’s going on!”

“I’ll explain, but not now and not here,” Grant answered. “It’s not safe. They’re coming for you.”

“Who?” John said as they stood. “Those guys from the market? You knew them, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I knew them and no, it isn’t them. But if we stand here talking about it, it’s not going to matter anyway.”

“Why should we trust you now?” Penny asked.

“I trust him,” Dr. Smith said. She stood and headed to the door. The others hesitated, then followed her out. Judy gave him an angry look as she stepped past him.

Grant stood aside and they saw he had a Chariot in the driveway. There were two other Chariots parked out on the road. Several men were standing around them with rifles in their arms. John recognized them. He stopped, “Wait a minute, we’re not going with them,” he said. “I’m not putting my family in the hands of men who attacked us.”

“Those men who attacked you just broke you out of prison,” Grant said. “John, listen. I know how you feel. And I know your first responsibility is to protect your family, but you can’t do it alone. Not with the people who are coming here for you.”

“You have no idea what we’ve been able to do without anyone else’s help,” Maureen said sharply.

“Maybe we don’t need your help at all,” Penny said, looking across the road. Sally was walking from the woods beyond.

“Where did she come from?” John asked.

“She left as soon as we came back to the planet,” Penny said. “She just has a mind of her own. But I think she knows when I need her. It’s not the first time she showed up to protect us from a bunch of assholes.”

Judy said, “She must have landed her ship out in the field past the woods. That’s where Robot landed when he came back to see Will.”

Sally walked up to Penny, said, “Trouble Penny Robinson.”

“Yes. Trouble. Thanks, Sally.”

Sally turned toward the men, and her face shield turned red.

“Believe me, Penny,” Grant answered. “These men are not the enemy, and the ones who are, understand everything about the robots. They will be prepared for it.”

“Her,” Penny answered with a scowl. “And I’m not going anywhere without her.”

“Tell her to get on back of the Chariot, then. But do it now.”

“Sally,” Penny said, but the robot was already walking to the rear of the Chariot. She paused for a second to look at the armed men. It seemed like she was focused on the largest guy, who was leaning against the door of one of the Chariots. There was a large, white bandage covering his nose.

“That guy we’ve seen before,” Penny said, turning to Grant. “You had him spying on us in the woods.”

“He was watching out for you,” Grant responded.

“Yeah, well, I broke his nose,” Judy said. “Maybe you should have been a little less secretive with your family.” She scowled at the big man.

The man shook his head, mumbled, "fucking Robinsons," then climbed in his Chariot.

Grant ignored Judy's comment, but Don was walking beside her and whispered, “When were you going to let me in on that?”

She glanced at him but before she could answer John said, “When did this happen?”

“We’ll tell you all about it, Dad,” Judy said. She looked at Don. “All of you.” Don just kept walking.

Everyone piled in Grant’s Chariot and Sally climbed on the back. They headed down the road, the opposite direction of the colony. The armed men jumped in their Chariots and followed.

Grant drove until they were in the country, far from the colony, constantly looking in the rear-view mirror and occasionally glancing up in the dark sky.

John was sitting next to him in the front seat. “When are you going to tell us what’s going on?” He said.

“Not yet. I have to concentrate. But as soon as we get to our destination, I’ll explain everything.”

He drove almost an hour until the blacktop turned to dirt. They expected the colony to expand in this direction eventually, but it would be a few years before they would need to build the infrastructure out this way.

Grant turned off the road into what looked like a row of wild shrubs. He drove through the bushes for a few minutes, and they saw there was a sandy road on the other side, not much more than a trail, so narrow the branches on each side rubbed the Chariot as they drove. Once on the sandy trail, Grant turned the lights off. John looked behind him. The other two Chariots were no longer following them.

“They went straight when we turned off, in case someone was following us,” Grant explained.

“Grant, it’s time you told…”

“Patience, John, we’ll be there soon.”

Soon was another hour drive in total darkness, but Grant obviously knew where he was going. They could see the silhouettes of hills in the distance by the light of the moon, and it looked as if they were driving straight toward them.

When they reached the hills, they saw the narrow road continued. Grant guided the Chariot beneath the hills for another thirty minutes, until they saw another row of shrubs to the right. The road continued on, but Grant turned into the bushes, and when they came out on the other side, there was a small metal structure in front of them. The trees here were tall, and the foliage was so thick the metal building was hidden beneath them. Grant pressed a button above him and a door slid open.

“A bat cave?” Penny said. “You have a bat cave?”

“Not nearly as elaborate as that,” Grant said, as he shut off the engine and a light came on. They were in a small room, barely big enough to park the Chariot inside.

“What’s going on, Grant?” Maureen said. “You’ve been on the planet a few months just like us. You didn’t put this here.”

“I didn’t. But it’s a safe house. Come on.”

He climbed out and the others followed. He opened a side door, and they were in a room not much bigger than the room where the Chariot was parked. One wall had a cot next to it, the other had a cushioned chair, and a desk and several computer screens. There was a door on another wall.

“Bathroom over there,” Grant said, pointing to the door, “in case someone needs it.”

There was a small table with four chairs around it in the center of the room. “Have a seat. Anyone thirsty? All I have is water. Not many creature comforts out here. Just this room and the bedroom through that door, but it serves its purpose.”

“And just what is its purpose?” Maureen asked.

“Place to hide if someone needs it. Place to work on things we don’t want anyone else to know we’re working on.”

“Who’s we?” Maureen asked.

“The good guys,” he answered.

“Define that,” Dr. Smith said, grabbing a spot on the cot, stretching out with her arms beneath her head, as she stared at the ceiling.

“Valid point,” Grant said. “It’s sometimes hard to distinguish.”

“You’re telling me,” Smith said.

The others took a seat at the table, except for Penny, who walked over and sat in the only comfortable looking soft chair in the room a few feet away.

Grant walked over to a cabinet next to the wall, placed his hand on a touch pad and a drawer slid open. He took a file out of it, walked over and pulled a chair out at the table, sat down and dropped the file in front of them.

Maureen immediately picked it up and opened it. She looked at Grant. “Hiroki’s folder. You’re the one who took it!”

“Yes, I’m the one who took it,” Grant answered.

“So, you sent these men after us to attack us?” Judy said.

“No. I sent them after you to take the folder back. They had strict orders not to hurt you. That’s why they were unarmed. I was down the street watching, and when I saw what was happening, I got over there as fast as I could to stop it. When you resisted, John, they got carried away.”

“Why, Grant? Why did this happen?” Maureen said.

“Because I was trying to protect you.”

“Great job with that,” Judy said.

“You were getting too close to something and it was getting people’s attention. They had been watching Hiroki for some time, I believe. From what I can tell, he was working on a project for the government years ago. Many years ago. When he was a young man. And I believe he saw something he shouldn’t have seen. I don’t know what that was. But according to some people I know, he began asking too many questions. They kicked him off the project. And his name has been on a watch list since then. When I finally arrived on Alpha, my people were watching him being watched. When you took him the alien hand, that’s when it got dangerous for him.”

“Do you know where he is?” Maureen asked.

“No. We think he’s still alive. But we haven’t been able to find out where they are holding him.”

“Who is we and who is they?” John asked.

“We and they are all part of the old intelligence agency.”

“CIA?” John said.

“Sort of. But not really. CIA, FBI, ONI…”

“ONI?” Penny interrupted.

“Office of Naval Intelligence,” John answered.

“NSA,” Grant added.

“These are the ones everyone has heard of. But there are some no one has heard of. A couple were offshoots of the IDA. The Institute for Defense Analysis. The IDA was unique, because it incorporated academia, the government, and industry under one roof.

“It was created in the fifties, supposedly to work cross-departmentally with several government agencies, merging science and technology but directed by the NSA. One of its offshoots was DARPA. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. They’ve done a lot of good work over the years. Weather satellites, the internet, personal computers.

“But the Intelligence Agencies of the government have always heard rumors there was another branch of DARPA that is more secretive. No one knows who they are. No one knows who they report to. No one knows why they exist. There are only rumors. See the thing is, DARPA itself was originally about space exploration. It was created in 1958 as a direct result of the Soviet Union’s launching of Sputnik. But it goes back before that.

“The idea for the IDA, DARPA, and a host of others started when President Truman signed the National Securities Act of 1947. Supposedly as a response to World War Two, to make sure we were prepared for World War Three.

“But something else happened in nineteen forty seven as well. Any guesses?”

Maureen had been looking down at the file while Grant spoke. “Roswell,” she said, and looked up.

“Roswell,” Grant agreed.

“UFOs? Don asked. This is about UFOs?”

“UAPs,” Maureen said, and turned the file toward them. She had turned to the last page, where she knew Hiroki had written what she thought was some kind of code when she first looked at the file. Penny stood from her chair so she could see, but Dr. Smith stayed on the cot. She was looking up at the ceiling still, saying nothing. They all looked at the letters Hiroki had written in his perfect, tiny print:

           UAP,BLAZ,S-4,NIMZ,Tic Tac, Moon Eyed P?

“Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon,” Maureen said. “Actually, they’re officially called unidentified anomalous phenomena.”

“Jesus,” Penny said. “Pick a name.”

“Your mother is right,” Grant agreed. “The Roswell crash happened on July seventh of nineteen forty seven. The act was signed into law on July twenty sixth. It established the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency.”

“If you’re saying that bill was passed as a direct result of Roswell, there is no way they could have put that together that quickly after that all happened,” John argued. “The government can’t move that fast for a natural disaster.”

“Of course not,” Grant said. “But Roswell was just the latest in a series of UFO incidents that decade. In nineteen forty, allied fighters in Europe described balls of light following their aircraft. In nineteen forty two, just after Pearl Harbor, anti-aircraft artillery fired thousands of rounds into the sky over LA after radar picked up several mysterious objects. In nineteen forty six there were thousands of UFO sightings over Europe, in nineteen forty seven, just a few weeks before Roswell, there was a UFO sighting and supposedly metal recovered over Maury Island in Washington state. On July fourth of that year, three crew members of flight 105 reported seeing several UFOs over the Pacific Northwest and reported recovering a disk.”

“Let me guess,” Dr. Smith said. She was still lying on the cot, looking up at the ceiling, and they didn’t even know she had been listening. “They changed the story and said it was a weather balloon.”

“Exactly,” Grant said. “And then there was Roswell.”

“And another weather balloon the day after they released to the press that it was a UFO,” Maureen said.

“Yes,” Grant agreed. “This was the environment going into the congressional debates of nineteen forty seven, which resulted in the formation of the most powerful intelligence force the world has ever known.

“Look, there have been reports of UFO sightings—or possible sightings—throughout history. But nothing of this magnitude. Why were we suddenly seeing these things all over the planet, beginning in the forties?”

“Maybe it’s because we killed half a billion people in World War Two,” Dr. Smith said. “Or maybe because we finally learned how to split the atom and we proceeded to incinerate another one hundred thousand people in one day with all that…beautiful. New. Technology.” She was still looking up at the ceiling as she spoke.

They all glanced over at her then turned away. But Penny kept looking at her for a few more seconds, and even though Dr. Smith didn’t see her, Penny smiled. The woman had many layers, and Penny was beginning to respect her more than she ever had.

“Actually, that could be true,” Grant said. “If an alien race had been visiting Earth for many years, between what we were doing to each other in wars, and the fact that we had finally reached the atomic age, maybe they suddenly decided we might be worth paying a little closer attention to.

“And maybe it was something else,” he added.

“What?” Maureen asked.

“Look at Hiroki’s writings. The second thing he wrote was Blaz. Do you have any idea what that means?” Grant asked.

“No,” John said.

“Me neither,” Maureen said.

“Do you have Will’s video with you?” Grant asked.

“You expect us to trust you with that,” Judy said bitterly. She was not ready to forgive his lies and secrecy.

“I think we have to trust him for now,” John said.

Don took the video camera out, handed it to Grant. He stood and connected it to a monitor on the desk across the room and pressed play. When Will’s face came on to the screen, Maureen took John’s hand and gripped it tightly. They watched from the time he and robot landed on the first planet, until the UFO flashed across the screen. Grant paused it, backed it up, and stopped it on the UFO.

“That’s it,” Grant said.

“That’s what?” Don asked.

“I had to do a lot of research when I saw what Hiroki had written as well,” Grant said. “And it still didn’t mean anything until I put it together with the other words, or partial words. They actually all tell a story. I’m sure Blaz stands for Bob Lazar. Ever hear of him?”

“No,” John and Maureen said together. “Nope,” Don said.

“Ever hear of Area 51?” Grant asked.
‘
“Of course,” Don said.

“Well, if it hadn’t been for Bob Lazar you never would have. Bob Lazar claimed to have worked at Area 51 in the eighties as a physicist. Actually, he said he worked at a secret site a few miles south of Area 51. A site called S-4.” Grant pointed to the third code Hiroki had written on the paper.

“S-4,” Penny read.

“He claimed to have seen alien spacecraft at the site. Precisely, nine alien spacecraft. He said that’s what the whole site was for. They were trying to reverse engineer the alien technology.”

“But that was all a conspiracy theory,” Maureen said. “I didn’t know his name, but they supposedly debunked everything he said. He wasn’t really a physicist. There were no records of him having worked there. He made it all up.”

“Yes. This is exactly what they say happened. But here’s the thing, he told the same story without changing it once for over thirty years. He never got rich off it. He went completely silent for over a decade because he claimed it ruined his life. But on the rare occasions when he was talked into doing an interview, he told exactly the same story he had from the very first time he came forward. But still, there was enough to be skeptical about.”

“Skeptical seems to be generous,” John said.

“Okay, most people thought he was a complete nut case, or a self taught scientist who was intelligent enough to create an elaborate hoax. He just wasn’t smart enough to profit off it for some reason. But then this happened.” Grant pointed to the fourth set of letters on Hiroki’s page.

“NIMZ,” Don read.

“Nimitz,” Grant said. “The USS Nimitz. In November of two thousand four, several pilots reported seeing something strange while on a training flight in the Pacific. Intelligence knew it was something different when a seasoned fighter pilot’s recording started with, ‘Holy shit! What’s that?”

“I’ve read about that,” Don said. “And saw an old video. Yeah. The pilots claimed they saw UFOs.”

“UAPs,” Grant said. “According to the Navy.”

“Yeah,” Don said. “Why did the military change the name anyway?”

“Because…military,” Dr. Smith said.

“Since they have also been spotted diving into the ocean, someone decided flying or aerial might not be the correct term,” Grant said. “Hence, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. But the Nimitz sighting was pretty important. The pilots described them as tubular, white objects with no wings or visible means of propulsion. Shaped like a tic-tac.” He pointed at the next set of letters Hiroki had written: Tic Tac.

“There was no exhaust trail. And they were capable of unimaginable rapid velocity and acceleration. They could accelerate and change direction so fast, no human would be able to survive the g-force without being crushed. Radar operators said they tracked one of them dropping from the sky at more than thirty times the speed of sound.

“A squadron commander was dispatched from the Nimitz to intercept one of the objects, and captured it on infrared video. It moved like a ping pong ball, leaping from side to side. Radar operators from the USS Princeton, one of the ships in the carrier group, tracked the object from a standing position to traveling sixty miles in a minute. That’s thirty six hundred miles an hour, and from a dead stop. And again, there were no vapor trails, no sonic booms.

“This isn’t the only sighting of objects that were described this way, but with the Nimitz Carrier Group we have videos, radar recordings, and eyewitness reports from elite fighters. All of the evidence documents the same phenomena.

“But that was just one type of UAP. There have been large cigar shaped objects, the tic-tacks, and others. But this thing in Will’s video. That’s exactly what Lazar drew a diagram of.

“And here’s something else interesting. Lazar said the crafts he observed at S-4 didn’t fly like you would expect when they wanted to go from point A to point B, instantly. They tilted, and the bottom portion was in front.” He pointed back to the screen, which showed the object flying belly first. “Lazar said that’s where there were three gravity amplifiers located. He said they flew normally, but if they wanted to go so fast they would disappear at one place and reappear in another, they traveled with the belly forward. And once UAP videos were declassified, some of them showed exactly that.”

“Just like in Will’s recording,” Judy said.

“But how could something go from a dead stop, to thirty six hundred miles an hour, almost instantly?” Don asked. “That’s impossible. What type of technology would that even be? Nothing can fly that fast.”

“I’m not sure they did,” Grant said.

“But that was documented on tape,” Maureen said. “We’ve all seen the videos because the government released it. If I remember correctly, radar lost it, then it was picked up a few minutes later on the radar from another ship in the carrier group.”

“That’s not what I’m questioning,” Grant answered. “I’m questioning if it traveled there the same way we travel. From one point to another through space. What if it did something else?”

“Like what?” John asked.

“Well, Lazar said at S-4 they were toying around with an object that could create its own gravity.”

“Something that could create its own gravity?” John said. “How does that work? And how does that relate to the object the Nimitz said traveled sixty miles so fast?”

“Lazar claimed the object they used inside the spacecraft was just a small cylinder,” Grant said. “And that they dropped something in he called Element 115, which caused a matter-anti-matter annihilation, giving it enough energy to create its own gravity field. We can’t do that. We couldn’t do it back then, and we can’t do it now. Hell, we still don’t even know what gravity is. But gravity doesn’t just affect matter and space, it affects time. Einstein figured that out. Maybe this object didn’t travel from point A to point B the way we do.”

“It created a rift?” Don asked. “Like the robot’s engines?”

“No,” Grant said. “The alien engines use matter-antimatter annihilation too, but they create a rift in space to travel faster than the speed of light. We don’t know what would happen if the engine was used to create a rift while still in a planet’s atmosphere. That’s why it still takes weeks to travel to Alpha Centauri. We won’t create the rift until we are far out in space. Neither do the robots. And we know once we feel the rift, it takes a couple minutes to go through it. And we saw what the engine could do on a planet’s surface.

“But the Robot engines are like rocket engines, in that they are propulsion devices. They use energy to propel them forward. They’ve just discovered a way to create so much energy they can travel faster than the speed of light.

“But this was different technology. They used it a few hundred miles above the ocean on Earth. We were picking up the rift from the robot’s ships in space from Earth. But there was no reporting of anything like that in any UFO sightings on Earth. But this phenomenon, where a craft is in one place then suddenly disappears, then reappears somewhere else, has been reported before many times.

“But here’s my point: Maybe it didn’t travel sixty miles in a minute. Maybe it traveled there instantly. Many times faster than the robot’s spaceship could go through the rift. The fighter pilot from the Nimitz had it on his radar, then the object disappeared. It reappeared on another ship’s radar sixty miles away, at the first pilot’s CAP point.”

“CAP point?” Penny asked.

“That stands for Combat Air Patrol,” John said. “A fighter pilot has a flight path. CAP point is where he is supposed to end up.”

“Right,” Grant confirmed. “The pilot who had it on radar was heading to the point where the craft appeared. But the craft appeared on radar before he got there. Radar sends out electromagnetic waves. Short pulses. It’s not a field that covers everything the antenna is pointed toward. So, when it scanned the Cap Point, the object could have already been there. Radar just picked it up sixty seconds later. But still before the pilot arrived. It was there waiting for the pilot’s plane. In other words, maybe it didn’t even take sixty seconds. Which I believe is how they can surveil us, then disappear, then be right there again before we get there. Something else that has been reported in sightings of these things from aircraft.”

“How would it know where he was going?” Penny asked.

“Well, maybe the aliens were psychic,” Grant said, “But as a pilot and a physicist, I would rather stick with science. We know gravity affects space and time. And if Lazar was telling the truth, and one of the crafts they had in their possession contained an object that was capable of creating its own gravity, maybe they are able to warp space time with one of these devices. And this is what Lazar said. That it didn’t actually travel at all. Not like we do anyway. It warped space time and was just there. If that’s the case, it would have already known where the pilot was headed. Because it was there already waiting for him. The pilots were able to see where he was going to be.

“If they can do that, the great advantage is they can turn it off and on. So to get to a certain point they turn the device on, and when they arrive at the destination…”

“You mean the destination arrives at them?” Maureen said. “It’s like they are actually time traveling?”

“Well, in essence, yes. According to Bob Lazar, look at it like space is a large rubber surface. There’s a point you want to go far on the other side of it. They would turn the engine on, and the rubber surface is pulled toward the craft’s gravity field, bringing their destination point to them. Now they inhabit the same space. When they turn the engine off, space time is no longer warped, and they are now in the location they wanted to travel to. It seems as if they followed the destination point back to its location once the engine is turned off, but that’s only because our mind sees space as a place with destinations. According to Lazar, it would make it seem as if the ship just disappeared. Like an invisibility cloak. But it wasn’t invisible. It was just no longer there. It was somewhere else. Exactly what the radar on the Nimitz showed.

“See, one of the problems is, if whatever or whoever was flying these ships were humanoid, how were they able to survive the G-force that these movements had to have created? What the pilots on the Nimitz and the radar picked up, was where they were, and where they ended up. What happened in between we don’t know because we couldn’t see it.”

“And they have technology that can do pretty much what the robots can do,” John said.

“More than what the robots can do,” Maureen added. “It’s just…so unbelievable and yet, so simple when you think about it. We learned for a fact that gravity is a wave in two thousand fifteen, and they’ve learned how to use it.”

“Interesting you say that, Maureen. Lazar assured us that Einstein was correct when he predicted that gravity is a wave. He claimed it as a fact twenty years before we proved it, because he was working with this technology.”

“Then they are more advanced than whoever created the robots,” John said.

"That last one," Don said. "Moon Eyed P. What does that mean?"

"Moon Eyed People," Penny answered. "Ancient Cherokee mythology from the Appalachians. Little guys who lived in caves. Some people think they were aliens."

"Um...yeah," Grant said. "That's right."

They all looked at Penny in surprise. 

She shrugged. "Liam figured it out."

They were still looking at her but Judy said, "this still doesn’t explain what you’re doing, Grant. Or who your people are and who the people are who tried to kill my parents.” She emphasized the last word, because she still felt betrayed by him.

“Yes. I was getting to that. There are some who believe we didn’t capture those nine spaceships Bob Lazar said were at S-4. They believe some branch of intelligence may actually have been working with an alien race since back then.”

Chapter Text

“Are you serious?” John said. “That some part of our intelligence apparatus was working with an alien race? That’s like the worst of the conspiracy theories.”

“Maybe, John,” Grant said. “But as my old man used to say, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. Conspiracy theories start somewhere. This one picked up steam in nineteen seventy five. Have you ever heard of Travis Walton?”

They all said they hadn’t.

“UFO abductee, according to his story. A logger out in Arizona. In nineteen seventy five, he was with five other guys who claimed he had been abducted by a UFO when they were driving through the Apache National Forest. They all passed polygraph tests. Like every other person who claimed to have been abducted, there were swarms of people marched out to debunk the story. But just like Lazar, for over thirty years his story never changed, and he went to his deathbed claiming it was all true. But his story was a little different. He described the typical four foot tall aliens with the big eyes and small slits for mouths. But he said these were suits that he saw hanging in the craft. And he added something else that was different. He claimed once on board the craft, he saw humans. Four to be precise, and that they were conducting experiments.”

“Do you believe that?” Maureen asked.

“Believe? I don’t know. But it seemed to confirm some of the rumors that had been floating around. One of them was that these big eyes and small slits that everyone reports seeing were part of the suits these things wore, not part of their anatomy. And the whole thing about him seeing humans on board the craft fired up the rumor mill again as far as some intelligence unit working with these…visitors.

“And remember, the government claimed none of this was happening at all until they began releasing actual radar images and videos twenty five years ago or so. And the images confirmed a lot of what witnesses had been describing since the forties, at least as far as these crafts were concerned—how they flew and all that.

“And then, in 2023, a few former intelligent officials began claiming we had been clandestinely reverse engineering alien craft for years. Using the technology for weapons advancement. Essentially backing up Lazar’s claims from thirty years before.

“So, is it a reach to think the government lied about the actual stories these abductees told?” He added.

“And you think a branch of the government has actually been working with an intelligent alien species?” John asked. “For almost a century?”

“I don’t know if I believe that part, but I’ve seen enough to be open to it. There is no question there was an entirely separate group of the intelligence network that knew things the rest of us didn’t. Think about this: Hastings and Ben both knew we had an internal security system on Alpha Centauri. None of us knew it. The Commander of Alpha Security didn’t know it. You found out through Hastings.”

“But Hastings had to ask Mom for the security codes for the Resolute,” Penny said, looking at Judy, who had mentioned this to her, though now her sister just kept looking at the table.

“Yes, something I could never figure out,” Maureen said. “Why would Hastings have security clearance for a secretive defense network that protects the entire planet, but have to get the codes for the Resolute program from me?”

“Exactly,” Grant said. “There was obviously another agency working inside the Alpha program from the start. One that Hastings and Ben were both a part of. They knew about the robots, and they knew we needed a security system capable of defending the planet from them. The question is, what else did they know?”

“And these are the people who tried to kill Mom and Dad and Doctor Smith?” Penny said.

“And took Hiroki,” Grant responded.

“And if so, you think they know what’s going on with Will?” John asked, looking at Maureen.

“I don’t know,” Maureen said. “But when Hiroki told me he was working on a theory, everything seemed to start there. He was taken by someone.”

“And today, when you two went to see your parents, what did you talk about?” Grant asked the girls.

“We told them Don got Will’s camera fixed,” Penny said, “And that he had filmed that UFO.”

“And tonight they tried to kill us,” John said. “They overheard.”

“But you had people there, too,” Maureen said.

“Yes. I was always a little more than a pilot. I was recruited in college by the CIA, then was transferred to the AIA, in flight school.”

“You were with the Alpha Intelligence Agency?” Maureen said.

“In its infancy,” Grant said. “And this other agency, whatever they called themselves, were just a rogue group at the time. Once I got here, I discovered they had gained a lot more influence over the Alpha Program. They were a lot more powerful than they were twenty years ago.

“But they were certainly there twenty years ago. I believe my mission was compromised and I was stranded on that planet deliberately. My mission was to investigate the rift, before we knew about the robots. But now I believe this other group knew about them already, and they wanted to keep it to themselves. I think there is a connection with the robots and whoever is flying these ships. I don’t know if it is good or bad. Mine was an intelligence mission, not a NASA or Alpha Control Mission. Alpha was in its infancy as well and was part of NASA then. Now, NASA doesn’t exist, and it’s all Alpha Control.

“But this other intelligence agency—Hastings, Ben, and whoever they worked for—may have known about the robots that long ago. Which makes sense if they were working with an advanced alien race. That race may have known about the robots, even if they had nothing to do with creating them, or nothing to do with those aliens we saw that SAR had destroyed.”

“It never made sense to me,” Maureen said. “The Christmas Star, which was the crashed robot ship…”

“Scarecrow,” Penny said.

“Yes, that just happened a few years before we were able to actually travel to Alpha Centauri,” Maureen continued. “The whole time, I thought it was still theoretical, and it would be another twenty years before the Resolute was more than a prototype. But suddenly I was cut out of the decision making process and was told it was more than a theory. There is no way that could have been done from the time Scarecrow crashed until the first Alpha Mission launched.”

“So who are they here?” John asked. “On Alpha Centauri.”

“We don’t know for sure,” Grant answered. “Most of their soldiers are low level grunts. As far as I can tell, Hastings was in charge here on Alpha, and he’s dead. I would be surprised if even he knew where these aliens were actually from.”

“And SAR killed Hastings,” Penny said.

“Yes, SAR killed Hastings,” Grant agreed.

“Why?” Penny asked.

“Because he tortured Scarecrow,” John said.

“Really?” Dr. Smith asked.

They all looked back at her. She was now sitting up, looking at them.

“SAR killed Scarecrow,” Dr. Smith said. “Then came to Alpha Centauri and killed the man who tortured the robot he killed. Does that make sense?”

“It wasn’t just about Scarecrow,” John said. “Hastings was a master. SAR hated masters. The same reason he stabbed Will.”

“Are you sure?” Dr. Smith asked.

“You don’t think that’s the reason?” John asked.

“Well if what Grant says is true,” Smith said, “maybe it was more than just killing masters. Maybe SAR came to kill Hastings because he knew Hastings was in charge of it all. I mean, he’s the only one he actually came to hunt down.”

“Except for Will,” Maureen said.

“Judy, you said something about this, too,” Penny said. “The whole thing seemed strange to you. You said there were too many missing pieces. Will thought so too. We know now he went back to space after Thanksgiving because he had questions about the aliens. He knew something was missing in the story.”

“Yeah,” Judy said. “But I was probably just reading too much into it.”

Penny kept staring at her sister, wondering what was going on with her. She had spent every day since Will had left trying to figure out what happened to him, now she acted like it was all a coincidence.

“The question is, what ties it all together?” Dr. Smith asked.

“Will,” Maureen said.

“Wait, you can’t tie this whole thing back to Will,” John argued. “It can’t all be about Will. Besides, as far as SAR knew, he left Will for dead back on that planet. He obviously came here to destroy Alpha Centauri and everyone on it.”

“Did he?” Maureen asked. “Think about it. If they came here to destroy Alpha Centauri, why wait? They were here. Why not just come to Alpha Centauri and blow it up? He would have killed Hastings at the same time.”

“But he did try to blow it up,” John said.

“Yes,” Maureen agreed. “After he realized Will was still alive. What if Dr. Smith is right? SAR tried to kill Will, found out where the colony was when that robot scanned Don, then came here to kill Hastings because he was in charge of something none of us understand? But only after discovering Will was still alive, he decided to blow the planet up? He was even willing to sacrifice himself then to do something he could have done as soon as he arrived on the planet.”

“So maybe SAR thought there were only two people who deserved to die,” Dr. Smith said. “Will and Hastings.”

“Will did not deserve to die!” Judy said.

“No, the word isn’t deserve,” Maureen said. “Maybe SAR thought Will and Hastings needed to die.”

Judy was looking down at the table, saying nothing. Many of these thoughts had gone through her head as well, but she just wouldn’t let herself believe this was all about her little brother.

“Maureen, I know you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this,” John said. “But I just can’t believe this whole damn thing is about Will.”

“I have spent a lot of time thinking this through,” Maureen said. “It started the night I watched my little boy walk off through the woods with Robot, after telling us there was nothing we could do to help him, and that he would never see us again. And I refused to believe we couldn’t do anything to help him. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought there is something strange going on, and it all gets tied back to Will. And we need to figure that out if we’re going to find him.”

“But…” John started to argue.

“I told you,” she said. “Somehow he is connected—entangled—with these robots.”

“Maureen, you’re a scientist,” John said.

“And a mother,” she added.

“Yes, and a mother,” he answered. “But you can’t let that get in the way of reason.”

“Reason, John? What’s reasonable about this? Those goddamn monsters cut my little boy’s chest open and put a bomb inside it. And just because we don’t understand what they were doing, doesn’t mean there isn’t a scientific explanation.”

“A scientific explanation for their connection to our son?” John argued.

“You said entangled,” Grant said. “Like quantum entanglement?”

“Yes. I believe that somehow these robots are entangled with each other. Like entangled particles. I believe that’s how Robot and Scarecrow communicated light years away. They shared information through entangled particles. That is a scientific explanation.”

“But how would that work with Will?” Penny asked.

“The same way,” Maureen said. “All matter is made up of quantum particles. The robots, the chairs we are sitting on, and all of us. In that way, we are all connected. But sometimes a particle splits and even light years away, when something happens to one, it affects the other one. And we’ve actually transferred information between entangled particles. This is the closest scientific explanation I can get for what is happening between the robots.”

“And between Will and the robots,” Penny said.

John sighed. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves. So, Grant. You think this internal war is going on, and they tried to kill us because Hiroki was talking to Maureen about it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think it has anything to do with Will?” John asked.

Grant just looked back at him without answering.

“Well?” John said.

“No.”

John looked at Maureen. “Grant’s a scientist too, and he…”

“At least not initially,” Grant said, interrupting John’s statement. “But once he connected to the robot, that very well may have changed. How did he do that? It does sort of set him apart, doesn’t it?”

“But…”

“And…there’s something I left out,” Grant added.

“What a surprise,” Judy said with a sigh.

“There’s a reason I left it out,” Grant replied. “Everything I told you has been documented in our agency archives. The things we can prove, the things we only can speculate on. But…there’s something else that we would never document.”

“Why?” Maureen asked.

“Because there is no evidence for it. Zero. Not even enough for speculation. It was just a…myth. Something we used to joke about when I was a young man and started hearing about this rogue agency inside DARPA. A story that had been passed down from the previous generations of agents. That…these aliens were not just here to watch us or invade us or help us or whatever it is they were doing. They were waiting for some…”

“What?” Judy asked, when he stopped talking. “They were waiting for something. What were they waiting for?”

Grant just stared at her.

When it looked like he wasn’t going to finish his thought, Maureen said, “Someone. That’s what he was going to say. They were waiting for someone.”

“Someone?” Judy said. “Is that what you were going to say?” They could all hear something in her voice. It sounded like indignation, as if she just couldn’t believe it, but they heard pain as well.

“Yes,” Grant said. “That was the story. That they were here for one particular person. No one knew who it was supposed to be or why he was so important.”

“He?” Maureen asked.

“Yes. That was the rumor. But it was just a rumor, like I said.

“But some of us…some of my predecessors in the agency I should say—believed it. It was an idea that just seemed to percolate. Never really going away. And so much of it over the years was hard to explain. These sightings seemed to occur all the time once we approached the atomic age. And yeah, maybe it was because we had become powerful enough to destroy ourselves. But if they were actually here working with people from Earth, they didn’t seem interested in stopping us from mutually assured destruction. Nuclear arsenals grew year after year, the environment kept getting worse until we’ve had to look for a new place to live. If they were so advanced and cared about our wellbeing, why wouldn’t they help us with that instead of…” He stopped.

“What?” Penny said.

“Spaceflight,” Maureen said.

They all looked at her, and Grant said, “Yes. Spaceflight. If Bob Lazar is right and we had those nine spaceships, and the rumors are more than rumors and there was a group working with these beings, the one thing they helped us with was spaceflight.”

“If they came here to do that, why did it take us so long before we were even able to leave the solar system?” John said, “Almost a hundred years after all this started?”

“Because it wasn’t time,” Maureen said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Judy asked, tersely. Her mood wasn’t good anyway, but it seemed to have soured even more. And Grant was not her only target now.

“The person they were waiting for wasn’t born yet,” Maureen answered.

Now Judy just stood up and started pacing. “Just stop, Mom! It could be anything. Even if there really were little gray men working with some clandestine intelligence agency on spaceflight. Maybe they knew we would eventually destroy ourselves and this was their way of saving us. Helping us leave Earth. I mean, think about it, without the robot and the engine that never would have happened. Maybe they just needed us to advance enough that it would all make sense.”

“Judy’s right,” John said.

“Except that doesn’t explain what was so important about Will,” Maureen said. “But what Grant just told us would. This is about Will. It’s always been about Will.”

“Jesus,” Judy said, she was standing by the table and slammed her hand on it. “Do you want it to be about him, Mom? Does it make you think your son is special?”

“Of course not! I’m trying to find an answer to it all so we can help him. Why are you so angry about this?”

“I just don’t believe that my little brother is part of some grand scheme by aliens and robots and the goddamn universe! I fucking refuse to believe it. Remember him three years ago? I Do! He was so afraid to even come to space. And when he climbed up that ladder when we abandoned ship, and I couldn’t make it through the hatch and told him we had to go around, you should have seen his face. He was scared to death. That’s my little brother! That’s how I always see him!”

“You didn’t see him that way when you counted on him to fix the engines to get us off that planet,” Penny said.

“Don’t even go there,” Judy said angrily.

“I didn’t want to go there,” Penny answered. “But come on. Will is so much more now than that little boy who was scared of his own shadow. And I think Mom’s right. I didn’t want to go there either. That would mean my brother was…different…somehow. But something weird happened when Will was missing. I actually felt something had him. And now we know it was those vines. But after I was shot, I told you on the way in the operating room that Will was dying. I felt him dying. I mean I really felt it. And that night when he left with Robot, I grabbed my heart and woke up. That’s how I caught them leaving. I think that’s when Robot showed him what happened to his heart. I think I felt it too.”

“This is Will we’re talking about!” Judy argued. “Our little brother. He’s not some goddamn experiment!”

“So, what do we do now?” Don asked, trying to interject between the sisters. “Whether this was about Will or not, how do we find him?”

“And that’s the problem,” Grant said. “I have no answer for that.”

“I do,” Dr Smith said. “We have to go to Earth.”

Maureen started to look at her but kept her gaze on John. Smith was doing exactly what she had asked her to do.

“Earth?” John said.

“Yes,” Smith answered. “We need to find the Dogon. The tribe Will read about. They were right about the Sirius system. They knew exactly where it was. They were right about that, and Will was right about them. We need to see if they know more than what Will discovered.”

“Out of the question, we can’t go to that part of the planet,” John said. “It’s way too dangerous.”

“Do you have a better suggestion?” Maureen asked. “If I’m right, this is about Will. Maybe all of it is about Will. And he was right about what that tribe knew. What did you say about that religious dance?” She asked, turning to Smith. “The ceremony they’ve been doing for thousands of years, wearing masks that resemble the robots.”

“That resemble the aliens,” Dr. Smith corrected. “The ugly ones, not the little gray ones.” She stood up and walked over to the table. “Amphibious aliens who visited them from an unknown planet in the Sirius system. That’s what Will figured out. And Will was right. If we are really looking for where the aliens came from, they’re the best clue we have.”

“That is such a stretch,” John said.

“Maybe,” Dr. Smith said. “But maybe what we know of them isn’t everything. It’s pretty normal for these ancient pagan religions to have a strain of hidden knowledge that only a few people know about. According to what I’ve read, this tribe is no different. We just have to convince them to tell us.”

“And why would they do that?” John asked.

“I can be pretty persuasive when I have to be,” she answered, with her trademark snarky smile. And I’m bringing a secret weapon.

“You have no idea what this will entail,” John said. “Or if they still exist.”

“Well, now that we know about the robots, going back to Earth isn’t near the trip we thought it was,” Maureen said.

“I’m not talking about getting to Earth,” John said. “I’m talking about that part of Earth.”

“John, if you have a better idea, tell me what it is,” Maureen said.

“What’s this all about?” John asked. “There’s more to this than the fact Will’s missing and we have to find him. What is it? I know you have a theory.”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Maureen, you can’t make this about some mystery you’re trying to solve. This is about our son!”

“John, if Will was here, I would take the kids as far away from Alpha Centauri and this mess as I could get them. And I would never bring them back. I was wrong about all of it. We should never have left Earth.” Now she was almost crying.

“Maureen,” John’s voice was softer now.

“No! Don’t try to comfort me. This is on me. I said when Will left with Robot, I was going to find him. And I am. This is only about the kids. But I believe—I know—our son is never going to be safe until we figure out what is happening to him.”

“So, when do we leave?” Grant said.

“We?” Maureen said.

“Yes. This is my fault too. I wasn’t honest with you from the beginning. I have to try and make this right. We need a Jupiter and you…”

“The Jupiter 2 is hidden,” Penny said. “We didn’t take it back to security.”

“I know,” Grant said. “That’s what I was going to say. We know where it is. That’s how we knew you would be going to the prison, and I warned my people.”

“Well?” Maureen said, looking at John.

He just sighed, knowing there was no use fighting it.

“I suggest we leave now,” Grant said. “The longer we’re here, the more danger you are in. It wasn’t difficult for me to stay hidden out here, but all of us can’t stay here for long.”

“Two of us can though,” John said.

“What do you mean?” Penny asked.

“You two are not going,” John said, looking at his daughters.

“What?” Judy said.

“You aren’t going. It’s not safe.”

“John, it isn’t safe here,” Maureen said.

“I’m not arguing this with anyone,” John said. “Actually, I’m not arguing any of this with anyone. This isn’t a math problem. From what I know of that part of Earth, this is going to be a military recon operation and I’m the only one of us who has any experience with that. So, here’s the rules: If we do this, the girls do not go, or it’s off. And once we enter Earth’s atmosphere, I call the shots, and you all respond by doing exactly what I tell you, is that clear?”

“John, isn’t that a little…”

“Maureen, whatever you are going to say will not make a damn bit of difference. Those are the rules. This time, everyone who goes is under my command until we are safely back here. Everyone.” He looked directly at Dr. Smith.

“I will be on my best behavior,” she said with a smirk. “Cross my heart.”

John turned his gaze to Penny and Judy, but neither of them responded. They saw the look on his face and knew immediately it wouldn’t make any difference.

“I can have people watch out for the girls,” Grant said. “And if they stay out here, they should be okay.”

“Will the Engineer go with us?” Don asked.

“Don, I need to ask you a favor,” Maureen said.

“No. No. No. I’m not staying behind! You need a pilot for this.”

“There are three of us who can fly a Jupiter,” Maureen said.

“Four,” Dr. Smith said, with a sarcastic sigh.

“Not like I can,” Don said.

“Don, I’m sorry but it’s another rule I have,” John said. “I believe Grant, the girls will be safe out here, but I need to ask you to stay with them.”

“After all I’ve done, you’re treating me like a child,” Judy said.

“I’m not. I’m treating you like my daughter. And I’m not arguing with anyone about this.”

“I think I’m starting to agree with your dad,” Maureen said. “If Sally stays, you’ll be safer here too.”

“But Grant said these people know how to handle the robots,” Penny protested.

“They do,” Grant said. “But I’ll make sure they get an intel report that says you all left the planet on the Jupiter 2. We’ll make sure they track it. Right now we just need to see if there’s anything there to help us find Will, then we’ll be back here. Hopefully in a matter of days.”

“But Dad…” Penny said.

“None of you have any idea what we’re getting into,” John said. “That part of Earth has been cut off from the rest of the world since the war started. That’s almost ten years.”

“Girls, your dad is right,” Maureen said. “We’ll see if we can find out anything, then come right back. But then what, Grant? Are we going to be safe here?”

“Well, in typical Robinson fashion, let’s handle one crisis at a time,” Grant answered. “But we are working on flushing these people out, and after what happened tonight, I think they’ll lay low for a while. So, the girls might not be in as much danger as you think.”

“You mean after they tried to kill us?” John said.

“Not just that. The Warden was shot in his office tonight. They probably used him to monitor the prison then disposed of him at the same time they tried to dispose of you.”

They all looked around the room at each other, the news stunned them.

“I’ll have my people keep a watch on the place via satellite,” Grant said. “I don’t want them to come out here unless they have to because there’s always a chance someone will follow them. There’re enough supplies for a month. It’ll be a little crowded out here…”

“Yeah, no shit,” Penny mumbled. Don and Judy just looked at her then looked away.

“…but I think it will be safe,” Grant said.

They stood up and headed toward the door. Sally was standing outside, looking toward the bushes that led to the sandy road beyond.

Maureen walked up to her. “Will you keep my girls safe?” She asked.

“Yes.”

Maureen patted her on the back. “Thank you, Sally.”

They all hugged Penny and Judy, and John said, “Promise me you’ll stay out here until we get back, got it?”

“Don’t worry, Dad. We’ll be safe with Sally,” Penny said.

“And me. I’ll be here too,” Don said.

“I trust them with you,” Maureen said. She walked over and hugged him.

“You sure we can get the Engineer away from Alpha without anyone knowing it?” John asked.

“I have a plan,” Maureen said. John saw a look pass between her and Smith. Maureen seemed to smile a little.

“Of course you do,” John mumbled. And this was all part of it.

They climbed in the Chariot and Penny, Judy, and Don watched them drive away. The three of them stood in silence, until Penny finally mumbled, “Guess I have the cot. Hope the walls out here are a little thicker.”

She turned and walked back in the building. Don and Judy just looked at each other.

“Don, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about that guy,” Judy said. “It just happened yesterday and…”

“I’m not worried about the fact you didn’t tell me; I’m wondering how he got his nose broken. If he was just watching the house like Grant said, how did that happen?”

“I wanted to see who it was, so we went through the woods until we could get close enough.”

“And he attacked you?”

“Well, not exactly. We attacked him.”

“You attacked him.”

“Yeah. Well, Penny did too, but not until I told her what I wanted to do.”

“What did she want to do?” He asked.

Judy didn’t answer at first, then she said, “Call you.”

“Okay, one more question. Did you ever think Penny would be the voice of reason in your family? Because she is, you know.”

“I know, Don. You’re right. Please don’t be mad.”

“Would it matter? You’re going to do what you want to do no matter what. I guess I just have to get used to it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No! Don’t say you’re sorry. It’s just who you are. And I guess now it’s my fault.”

“Your fault? How is it your fault?”

“Because I’m still here, aren’t I? So, that means I’ve decided to take this part of you too. But one day I fully expect to wake up and you’ll be gone again. Chasing your brother across the universe.”

“I said I would never do that again without telling you.”

“Don’t! Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Will is who he is, and you are who you are. I just hope Penny is strong enough to save you both from yourselves.”

“Because you won’t?” Judy asked.

He just looked at her for a second. “Well, when that day comes and I get some message on my radio or find a note on my pillow telling me you’ve left, I’ll have to make that decision then, won’t I?”

“So, what does that mean for us? I mean…where we are with each other?”

He pulled her close and kissed her. “I said, now it’s my fault.”

When they broke the kiss, Judy took him by the hand and turned toward the door, but Don pulled her to a stop.

“I remember that night, Judy.”

“What night?”

“The night Will left.”

“Who can forget it?” She said.

“I remember we were on our way to drop you off at your house. And…you grabbed your heart too. You grabbed your heart and said something happened to Will.”

Judy just looked at him, then turned and pushed the door open. Don followed her inside.

Chapter Text

Robot left Will behind because he knew he could no longer protect him. So, once he thought he was far enough away from the planet that it was safe, he set a course for Proxima Centauri and opened the rift. He didn’t have to return to the Alpha Centauri system to do what he had to do, but it seemed like home now. And since he could no longer be close to Will, he wanted to be close to The Family. Or as close as he thought he could be to do this thing.

As he traveled, he recalled everything that had been happening since the robot war and the end of SAR, to try and make sense of it all.

Penny had been correct, once their programming was interrupted, the robots behaved as if they had minds of their own. And while the Robinsons and much of the population on Alpha Centauri thought that was exactly as it should be, Robot had much better insight into what that could possibly mean. Which was why he had been against taking Will back to the Amber Planet when he was desperate for food, where some robots still lived.

Because Robot understood that freeing the synthetics did not necessarily mean they were endowed with intrinsic kindness toward humans. Just as the robots hesitated to help him when he traveled to their planet with Will, they would make their own decisions, and those decisions could be disastrous. They were the most powerful force in the known universe, and so Robot felt it best to give a wide berth to those who had decided not to stay on Alpha Centauri.

They were still entangled with each other. Their makers understood quantum physics and its laws like humans understood Newtonian Physics and its laws. Some humans.

Many times, Robot had heard Maureen discussing her theories on how the robots were able to communicate light years apart, and he knew she had been correct. He could not communicate it as he would like to, since he still had a limited vocabulary. That was one of the things that made his connection to Will so warm. He didn’t need to use words most of the time. They felt what each other was thinking when they were connected. It was even different than the way he communicated with the other synthetics. And he could not quite figure it out.

Robot also knew his makers had been able to discover new particles by smashing atoms in their massive accelerator beneath the planet where the children had been stranded. And he knew they built the robot’s artificial plasma membranes located behind their face shields with split particles.

But what Maureen did not know was that they had created entangled particle clusters, connecting all of them to each other. And SAR was programed with the ability to command the others and instantly send information between the entangled particles, essentially teleporting the information, as Maureen had guessed.

Like so many other things that had happened to him, Robot didn’t know all of this until after SAR was destroyed. Then he slowly began to get glimpses of these things. Not enough to understand everything the way he knew SAR had, but enough that he was beginning to understand.

When their programming was overcome and SAR died, the ability for one synthetic to control the others died with him. Though occasionally, Robot could still sense thoughts from some of the synthetics throughout the universe. And some of these senses told him a few of them could be dangerous. It seemed like the ones who had remained on Alpha Centauri had a stronger entanglement to the humans and to Robot. It was easier to pick up a connection to these robots, when most of the ones who had left, he seemed to only glimpse occasionally. But they were still out there, somewhere.

Because he knew this, the last thing Robot wanted to do was to leave Alpha Centauri and The Family. But his connection to Will was deeper than it was to anything or anyone else. He truly loved the boy, and Will was the most important thing to him. That’s why he left him alone on the planet, the hardest decision he had ever made. Because he knew what the greatest danger to Will was.

As he grew closer to the red dwarf star, Robot wondered if this was how it was for humans. Fighting the urge to simply disappear from existence, even when they knew it was the only safe decision for their loved ones.

His instruments began flashing warning signals. It was at the critical stage, with the heat index reading past the point of no return. His ship would begin to disintegrate in seconds.

He thought of The Family. Everything had seemed so different once he had become part of them. He belonged to something. Not like the way he belonged to his makers or SAR or the other robots. He chose this. And yes, he had saved them over and over again, but they had saved him as well.

But he wanted his last thoughts to be of Will Robinson, so he began to recall the things they had done from the time they met in the tree, until the last time he saw the boy, peacefully asleep on the planet where he had left him. The artificial neurons that were designed to be as close to a human’s brain as possible could recall things so that he could see them as if they were happening at that second, like he was present in them, exactly as it had been when they were actually happening.

He felt the warmth that he had become used to when thinking of Will. Of every place they had been and everything they had done together. While it seemed like so much of their relationship was wrapped up in danger and trauma, there was so much more. Playing catch with him, hiking through the woods, exploring planets no one had ever been to.

He recalled the Robinson children teaching him to play a card game. Once he understood the rules, his ability to count cards far surpassed Will’s, frustrating the boy and causing both his sisters to laugh every time Robot won a hand, telling Will that now he knew how they felt. But Will laughed just as hard as his sisters did every time he tossed his cards on the table in defeat.

Robot didn’t linger on the bad things, he wanted to feel the warmth. But for some reason he found his recall was pulled back to the time he covered Will with his body and protected him from the lightening. He remembered just before he did that, placing the device in the boy’s heart that would give him a chance to finally defeat SAR. When he had done that, he truly didn’t know what the outcome would be, if Will would understand what to do, but he had hoped.

That was an emotion he had no memory of before Will. And as he had begun to be able to see Will’s life, he realized that had been a big part of what made the boy who he was. Hope. It was truly a human emotion, and maybe Will’s strongest emotion. That and compassion.

Hope. What did it truly mean? Robot had always had trouble understanding that, until he had sacrificed himself for his friend. It seemed to be an emotion that humans could create in themselves, even if all facts were against it.

When Robot had first begun to understand how strong it was in Will, he thought it was easily explained in a mathematical formula. He would try to calculate the probabilities of a certain event happening, based on Will’s hope. But he found out he was just as likely wrong as he was right. Hope seemed to transgress all scientific reasoning.

And Will had seemed to have an overabundance of it. At least he had until that thing had taken him on the planet with the aliens. He was different when they came back, Robot knew. And he had decided he would carry that hope for the both of them, until he was able to help Will get it back. Even though he truly didn’t understand what hope was or where it came from.

Not much different than love. He had come to the conclusion that he could never truly understand what love was. Maybe it was just an emotion a human had that there was no scientific or mathematical explanation for. But he had decided maybe it didn’t matter. Because emotions were real. He knew that now. Because he felt love and hope for Will and his family, and he felt a deep sadness that he would never see any of them again.

Danger!

The sensation was so sharp, Robot almost said the word out loud.

He quickly banked his ship and sped away from the star a fraction of a second before it was too late. He knew it was a risk, but he opened the rift as soon as he was away from the sun, because he had no time to spare.

It was a silent predator. Silent and patient. It drifted on the waves, conserving its energy, waiting for another sea creature to swim close enough to find out if it was food, or a bird to land on it, thinking it was a log that would be a good place to rest and watch for fish.

But as the waves pulled it closer to a small island, it picked up a strange odor. An odor it had never sensed before. A sweet odor of flesh and blood.

It had been three weeks since Will had woken in the hammock alone. He had tried to remember who he was and how he had gotten to this island and was constantly frustrated that he was unable to. He didn’t think it was strange that he remembered a lot of things, but still couldn’t remember who he was. He knew the brain had different functions when it came to memory. A person with amnesia could still know how to talk, what foods he liked, how to perform tasks, even if he couldn’t remember who he was or who anyone he met was. He must have read that somewhere.

And he could remember how to make a fire using the glass as a reflector, but he couldn’t remember what the island looked like when he awoke.

He explored every day, until he was satisfied that he really was stranded here and that whoever it was that had left the large footprints was truly gone. He had climbed up to the top of the hill one day, and looked across the sea to other islands in the distance. That’s when he got the idea of trying to make it to one of them and see if there was any other human life out there. He decided it wouldn’t be that difficult to make it to one of the closer islands, with a a rudimentary log raft. The nearest island was only a few miles away, and looked to be much bigger than the one he was on.

He began to think of how he might accomplish it. If the weather held, maybe he could just tie a few logs together for a floatation device, and kick-paddle to the island. He didn’t know if there was anything in the water to be afraid of. He had seen some large gray shapes far out to sea, but none of them ever came close to his island. Besides, it just wasn’t that far. He could paddle out to it, explore for a couple of days, then paddle back. He was pretty content with his camp and the lagoon, and admitted to himself, Alex sort of kept him from getting too lonely. The little animal was never far from camp, and always crawled in the lean-to and slept up against him at night.

Will turned and walked back down the hill and back to camp. Alex was lying in the shade next to the lean-to and sauntered over and looked up at him. Will recognized he wanted to be picked up, so he accommodated him, and he began purring almost as soon as Will cuddled him against his chest.

After a while he sat down, sat Alex on the sand beside him, stripped off his clothes, and waded out in the lagoon. The water was always warm from the sun, but comfortable, like taking a warm bath. If he wanted the water to be cooler, he would walk out to the beach and swim in the surf. He had no fear of whatever sea life was out there. He had no fear of anything. Just that all-encompassing peaceful feeling that seemed to be with him always. Except for the questions. Who was he and what had come before?

One day after swimming he laid on the beach near the lean-to, where he had piled his clothes. He picked them up and looked at them. The weather hadn’t changed much, but the days had started getting longer, and the sun seemed hotter, making the pants uncomfortable. He looked around for something to use as a tool. When he found nothing he thought would work, he stood up and started looking around the sand. He found a shell that looked perfect. He picked up his pants and carried them over by the circle of rocks he used for the fire ring.

He sat down, lined the two pant legs up, took one leg and laid it on a rock, flattening it as much as possible. One end of the shell was sharp, and he began trying to cut the pant leg. It wasn’t easy to do, and it was more like sawing than cutting, but in a half hour or so, he had one leg cut off.

He remeasured the other leg, then repeated what he had just done. When this leg was cut off, he held them up, looked at Alex and said, “Now I have shorts.”

He pulled them on. The legs were frayed, and not completely even but he might be the only person left alive on this world, so he wasn’t too concerned about fashion.

From that day on, Will seldom wore anything but shorts, and unless he was going to be walking through the jungle, he was almost always barefoot.

He was tan from the sun, and his hair was getting long. Once he decided he was probably never going to get his memory back, he was pretty content with his life. Swimming, lying in the sun, exploring. He had begun walking up to the hill every evening to watch the sunset over the ocean and had no fear of anything in the dark jungle on his way back.

Robot had been gone for almost a month. It had become a good life, and the only one he could remember. But there was an emptiness too. He knew something had come before. He wasn’t just born here one day to a mother who no longer existed. And even though he had no memories of before, he had a feeling. And the feeling told him there had to be something more to life than just walking around the island, swimming, lying in the sun, and feeding himself. There had to be people somewhere.

And even though he was generally happy, that emptiness and that feeling that there had to be more was always with him. It seemed to get worse every day, until it had become a longing to find out who his people were and where he was from. And his feeling of peacefulness was slowly replaced by an obsession to find the answers to the same questions humankind had asked since the dawn of time: Who are we? Why are we here? And, is this all there is?

So one afternoon, after watching the sunset from the beach, Alex lying in his lap, he decided the next day he would start building his raft. If all he ever did was go to one other island, at least he was doing something.

The next morning after swimming and eating breakfast, he looked everywhere for a rock with a sharp edge that might help him cut down one of the trees and cut it into pieces to start building his raft. There wasn’t much around, but he finally found one that wasn’t too heavy to use as a tool, and the edge of one side seemed to be sharp enough to work. But he had no luck at all cutting through the tree. The outside bark was slick, and very hard, and after over an hour of cutting, he had only managed to put a small slice in it, less than half a centimeter long.

Alex had been lying in the shade watching him, and Will tossed the the rock down, looked at him and said, “I might have all the time in the world on this island, but it’s going to take all of it to get a tree cut down. I’ll be an old man before I try to get out of here.”

He pulled off his shorts, walked into the lagoon and floated on his back, looking up at the trees, full of the long, heavy seed sacks of fruit. “Hey,” he said.

He stood up, waded to shore, walked over to some of the fruit he had picked the day before. They were still in the large shells. He picked one up, tossed it into the lagoon, and smiled when it floated.

He spent the rest of the afternoon gathering vines and more of the shells of fruit. He couldn’t find a way to put a hole in the shells to connect the vines, so he walked over and looked at the hammock, and saw how he—or someone—had weaved vines together to make the net. He thought he could do the same thing, but then decided the work was already done. He untied the hammock net, dragged it onto the beach by the lagoon, tossed some shells in the middle of it, wrapped them up and used vines to tie it all together. He dragged it into the water, laid across the middle of it with his legs off the side and began paddling around the lagoon. He looked back at Alex, who was just sitting on the beach watching him.

“It works, Alex!” He said with a smile. He decided the next day he would try it in the ocean to make sure the waves didn’t pull it apart, and if all was good, he would paddle to the large island that was closest to him.

That night Will lay sleeping, Alex curled up against his body. The little animal woke when it smelled something on the wind. Something that was not supposed to be there. He stood, crawled to the lean-to flap, pushed it open with his nose and slid under it. Once outside he raised himself on his hind legs, stretched as high as he could and sniffed the air.

He crawled as quickly as he was able around the lagoon to the trees on the other side, where he could see the beach, the direction from which the smell was coming. He spied it, fifty yards or so away, lumbering across the sand toward the lagoon.

It was long, and resembled a lizard, not unlike a Komodo dragon except for its great size: over forty feet from its nose to the tip of its powerful tail. It had short, muscular legs with webbed feet. It was amphibious, though its natural habitat was the sea, and would be for a few million more years. But it was capable of leaving the water for an hour or so at a time to hunt, if it caught the odor of something interesting. And this one had.

It was a carnivore, its massive jaws capable of crushing its prey with five thousand pounds of pressure per square inch, stronger than any living creature on Earth. But it seldom killed its hunt with its powerful bite. Instead, it would cripple it, then swallow it whole while it was still breathing, allowing the digestive juices to slowly dissolve the tissue, organs, and bones. Somewhere in the process death would be a welcome ending to its catch.

The large animal never came to this island. There was a sense of danger here that kept it and most other predators at bay. But the odor on the wind was too much for it to ignore.

Alex watched it approach, waited until it was less than twenty yards from the lagoon, then he stepped out of the trees so it could see him.

The lizard stopped when it saw the movement, slowly turned its long neck in the direction of the little animal that had wandered out of the trees. To the huge carnivore, this creature was so small, it was hardly worth the effort, and it was not what it had smelled on the wind. But the lizard opened its mouth as wide as it could, giving the small thing a view of hundreds of sharp teeth.

Alex waited for the beast to close its mouth. He needed to look into its eyes.

When the lizard saw the animal did not disappear back into the forest, it turned its body toward it. Though the sea was the lizard’s natural habitat, it was extremely fast on dry land, and would have no trouble catching the thing. But as it looked into Alex eyes, the small animal seemed different now. Larger. The lizard was suddenly cautious and did not charge. It just stood watching the small, hairless thing. And as it did, the animal seemed to grow larger until it seemed as if the small creature was now bigger than it was.

The lizard was capable of hunting prey larger than itself, but there was something different about this thing. The longer it stared into the little animal’s eyes, the bigger it seemed to get, until in the lizard's mind, it was twice as big as it was, then three times as big and still growing.

The lizard turned back toward the sea and began running for the water.

This was what Alex was waiting for. He could have let the creature escape, but he knew once it had smelled the boy, it would come back. Two hidden fangs protruded from Alex’s mouth. They were almost eight inches long and sharp as a needles. They had been folded back into his gums and curved up along his jaw, resting next to his brain. Impossible to detect unless he wanted something to.

Alex crouched, sprang off all four legs, which were much more powerful than they appeared. He leaped ten yards toward the lizard, and as soon as he landed, sprang again, this time landing on the animal’s back.

Alex sank both fangs into the tough hide, injecting the lizard with a fast-acting venom that immediately began paralyzing it. By the time the creature’s feet had reached the surf, it could no longer move. Alex withdrew his fangs, scurried up to its head, sank them in again, piercing the lizard’s brain and killing it instantly.

Alex pulled his fangs out, retracted them, and hopped off the lizard’s large, scaly back. He watched for a few minutes as the waves began to pull the carcass into the sea, where it would be devoured in short order by whatever creatures smelled its blood first.

Alex made his way back to the lean-to. He couldn’t pull the door open, and normally would scratch on it until Will let him in. But instead, he curled up in front of the flap facing the lagoon, sniffing the air and watching the sea in case another of the lizards had come hunting.

When Will woke the next morning, he found Alex curled up in front of the door. “Hey little guy, when did you wake up?” He said.

Alex stood and looked up at Will, put his front paws on his legs. Will recognized this as the sign that he wanted to be picked up. He bent, took Alex in his arms and held him against his chest. Alex lifted his head and licked Will’s neck with his rough tongue.

“Well, good morning to you, too,” Will said. He noticed carrion birds circling down the beach. “Hey, let’s check it out.” He started making his way around the lagoon, carrying Alex.

“Something pretty big died,” Will said when they were close. There was a half-eaten carcass of some type of sea creature several yards from the shore. He could see it was still being picked apart by fish and other creatures, and occasionally one of the large birds that circled overhead swooped down and snatched up a piece of flesh and carried it out across the water.

“Alex, maybe I won’t try to get to that larger island for awhile,” Will said. “No telling what’s living in the ocean. Besides, who would protect you if I left?”

Alex purred and licked his fingers.

That night Will hiked up to the hill on the West side and sat down to watch the sunset. Normally, he left Alex alone when he left camp, but the small creature had stayed close to him all day. Will thought seeing the dead sea animal might have spooked him, so he had picked Alex up and carried him along.

As soon as they reached the top of the hill and walked over towards the edge to look across the sea, Will saw something that disturbed him. The sky far to the West was completely black. He was used to the rain, as it rained most afternoons now. But it generally came and went quickly, leaving the jungle steamy, which kept Will by the lagoon enjoying the ocean breeze.

But he had never seen this before. There was lightening out past the other islands, and he saw waterspouts far out on the horizon. “No sunset tonight, Alex,” he said. “Time to batten down the hatches.”

By the time they were back to camp, the rains had started. Will quickly crawled in the lean-to with Alex, who curled up against him. “We’ll be okay, little guy. Don’t worry.”

The storm lasted for hours, and it was the strongest one Will had gone through. When it passed, he finally fell asleep.

He woke in the morning and crawled out to a nice breeze and bright sunshine. He looked at his shelter. The lean-to held up, but several of the leaves were ripped from it, and it had sprung a few leaks during the night. Still, overall, Will was happy that it had survived the storm and decided he even enjoyed the whole experience of the whipping wind, the rain that fell in torrents, and the thunder. Though a few lightning strikes seemed to land a little close for comfort, making Will decide he couldn’t abandon his plan to visit the larger island.

He stood by the lagoon looking out across the sea to the island beyond. The high ground over there looked rockier than on his island, and he thought if he could find a cave it might be a better refuge if storms like these happened often. Alex was standing beside him and made a squeaking sound.

Will looked down at him. It was like the little animal knew what he was thinking. “Don’t worry, I’ll find a way to take you with me.” He had turned out to be a good companion. “Should have called you Friday, little guy,” Will said, then wondered how he could remember who Friday was and not remember his own name.

He found fruit lying everywhere, the long seed sacks ripped from the branches they dangled from. He ate some of it for breakfast, handing Alex a bite every time he took one for himself. Then he stripped off his shorts and waded out to the center of the lagoon and ducked under the surface, scooping up hand fulls of sand to scrub himself. His morning bathing ritual.

The water was higher than usual from the rains the night before, and water was still pouring over the small rock wall that separated the lagoon from the open sea.

When Robot had pronounced “No Danger,” he had been correct. Though neither he nor Will knew it was Alex and his species that kept the large predators at bay. And before Robot left, he had done everything he could to see Will’s future, but as before, the further away it was from the present, the harder it was to predict. He had not seen the large carnivorous lizard that would find its way to the island, nor did he see that in several weeks there would be a storm that would drive a small, eel-like creature from the sea to seek shelter in the shallow waters of the lagoon.

Will had finished scrubbing himself and began making his way back to the shore, when he felt a sharp pain in his foot. “Ouch!” he shouted. He felt something slither by his leg. He saw what looked like a snake with tiny feet rise to the surface and quickly swim toward the wall of the lagoon where it slid over and back into the surf.

Will didn’t know what it was, but he hoped it hadn’t poisoned him. He started walking toward shore, but his foot hurt every time he stepped. It was such a tiny creature, Will was surprised the pain was so sharp.

As soon as he was on the beach he sat down and pulled his foot up so he could get a good look at it. There was a tiny black speck, and all around it, his foot was red and beginning to swell. He pushed close to the wound, trying to get a stinger out, if there was one in it. But he couldn’t see anything except for the black speck, and it wasn’t moving.

He tried for a while, but the pain was getting worse. He pushed himself to his feet and limped over to his shorts that were a few feet away, pulled them on. He thought about going to lie down in the lean-to, but decided he would just stay where he was on the beach for a minute and let the pain subside. He laid on his back, looked up into the sky and closed his eyes. Alex crawled from the trees and laid down beside him.

When he woke the sun was almost down. He had slept most of the day away. He was finding it hard to breathe. He pushed himself into a sitting position, reached for his water and took a drink, but it hurt to swallow. His throat was swelling shut. He tried to stand but was too weak. He was in trouble, and he knew it. He looked around for something, but he didn’t even know what that would be. He laid back down and looked up at the sky. It was beautiful, really. Still blue, but the setting sun out in the West was creating orange and purple hues across much of it. His breathing was labored. I’m dying, he thought. I don’t even know who I am or why I’m here, and I’m going to die.

For the first time since Robot had taken his memories, he was sad, but he still wasn’t frightened. He put his arm around Alex, who hadn’t left his side. The animal was strangely comforting and seemed to understand he was sick. He seldom remained by Will’s side all day, preferring to saunter off into the jungle during the hottest hours, and reappear in the evening.

At least the pain wasn’t bad, Will thought. He decided he was going to lie here and look up at the sky, and watch the colors change as he died. He would keep his eyes open as long as he could. But soon he drifted into a state of semi-consciousness. He began to see visions again, like he had when Robot was leaving him. There were people in them he didn’t recognize, but he knew they cared about him, and he cared about them.

He saw himself as a child, playing on a beach with two girls who were older. He was lying down in a hole, and they were piling sand on his body, with only his face visible. He giggled as they covered him, and he had an overwhelming feeling of love for these two girls. It was so powerful he almost cried, wishing he could tell them.

He saw these same girls a few years older, sitting around a table with him playing cards. When an alarm started going off, they all held hands. He saw there were adults there now.

And he started to remember what had happened to him.

It came gradually. He saw the crash of the spaceship, then he was running through a burning forest, so frightened. Something was chasing him. Then he was in the tree pressed back against the trunk. He looked up to the dark sky full of burning embers. Tears came to his eyes as he accepted the fact he was going to die. But suddenly something was there with him, lifting him up, taking him to safety. It was Robot. Robot was his best friend.

He saw everything that happened to him after that. The Water Planet and the last Christmas he spent with his family. Stranded on an unknown planet with the kids. The alien city beneath the surface.

He saw SAR and heard the blade slip out of his clawed hand, and heard his mechanical words, “Now you are free.” He heard no malice in the words. He wondered at that, but then he felt the cold blade slip inside his heart and saw the planet they were on tilt sideways as he fell.

He saw Robot being destroyed by lightening. He saw him return again, in SAR’s body. He sat at the table at Thanksgiving, finally at home on Alpha Centauri, and as happy as that night was for him, he also felt he was not content to let his journey end there.

He saw himself standing by Robot, looking out on a beautiful unknown planet, his whole future in front of him. A future of adventure and danger and wonder.

And he saw what the aliens did to him, and how he ended up alone here on this island.

Then for some reason he couldn’t explain, his thoughts turned to Judy, walking toward him on the bridge, willing to give her life for his. He loved her so much and wished he could see her one last time as consciousness left him.

Chapter Text

Don woke and looked for Judy, expecting to see her sleeping beside him, but she wasn’t there. He climbed out of bed, pulled his pants on and quietly walked to the door and opened it a crack.

He was hesitant to walk into the main room since Vijay was there with Penny, so he listened closely to make sure they were sleeping and not doing anything else before pushing the door open. It’s way too crowded here, he thought, though when he stepped into the room, he saw they were both sound asleep on the air mattress that Vijay had brought in from his Chariot. He was happy that Penny had someone. They all had someone. Even Will had Robot. Dr. Smith was the only one of the family who was still pretty much a loner, but Don was sure that’s exactly how she wanted it. She liked being part of the family, yet outside the family at the same time.

He crept past them and quietly walked outside to find Judy leaning against the cabin wall, looking up at the stars. Sally was standing beside her. The robot was always there by the door on watch.

“Can’t sleep?” Don asked.

“No.”

“It’s kind of chilly,” he said. “Weather is changing. How long you been out here?” She had nothing on but a long shirt, and he assumed something under it with Vijay in the other room.

“Not long. I was thinking about what you said.”

“Which time?” He asked.

“About the night Will left. I did grab my heart that night. I felt a sharp stabbing pain, and for some reason I knew it was about Will. But, Don, I don’t know what that means. I just can’t believe there is some grand plan about my brother. He’s just a little boy. Yeah, Penny’s right. He isn’t eleven year old Will who was so scared to come to space, but he’s still my little brother. Jesus, he’s only fourteen.

“When he was getting ready to go on his date with Elise, he was so excited and so insecure, and it was just really cute. And I was thinking then how natural it was. He was getting to be a teenager for a change. And I let myself believe that he finally could have a normal life. But…that ended as soon as it got started.” Don heard the sadness in her voice with the last sentence.

“But if I believe what Mom does and Penny does, then that means he’s never going to be that boy, you know?

“So, I just can’t let myself believe that.”

“You can’t or you won’t?” Don said.

“Okay, I won’t. And…there’s a reason for that, Don. I’ve always known he was going to be more than the little boy I took care of and watched out for. Even when he was small. One time he had this dream—maybe he was eight or nine—and it scared him so bad the next day he skipped out of his last two classes and went to the park we always used to go to. I mean, Will skipping out of school was a big deal, but that’s how much this dream scared him. And when Penny and I found him, he told us about the dream. That something bad happened to me. I didn’t die or anything, but something had me. And he said the park was where he always felt safe with me and Penny, so he wanted to go there. But he told me if anything like that ever happened, he would come and find me.

“To us, it was funny at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I always expected Will to be the strong one in the family, eventually. That we would all look to him some day the way we look to Dad now. And when I had that thought, it didn’t really make me feel good, it scared me. I mean he was a genius, but this feeling was that he would protect us physically. Like Dad. And it was weird because there was nothing about a nine year old Will Robinson that seemed like he would ever be able to protect us like that. It was just a feeling, you know. And I’ve always prided myself on science and reason, and this was just the opposite of that. But I was so certain that was the way it would be.

“So, now I guess, it still scares me. I don’t want Will to change. I want to get him back and help him be a teenager and be normal and fall in love and get married and have kids that I spoil. I want all of those things for him, Don.”

“But Judy, why can’t he be both? Your Dad is a great father, and he protects you all like no one I have ever met.”

“That’s the problem, Don. I mean, he’s saved us so many times. Starting when he was eleven. And he saved the whole colony when he was almost dying. He did fix the engines to get ninety seven kids off that planet. And he’s not even fifteen! But if Mom and Penny are right, he’s not just ours, he’s—fuck, the whole universe’s maybe? And I just don’t know what that means.”

Don didn’t know what else to say, so he just put his arms around her and hugged her close. She put her head against his chest and listened to him breathe. He made her feel safe.

Not safe like her dad had always made her feel. Don was right. John Robinson was different than any man she had ever met, and she knew he would take care of the family no matter what. But Don made her feel safe in her own skin. She could be the person she never let herself be in front of others. She could be sad and hurt and shaken and scared with Don. And when he put his arms around her and held her, somehow, she knew everything was going to be okay. She hadn’t even known she needed that until Don came along.

“Don, take me inside and make love to me,” she whispered.

“You promise to be a little quieter than last time?” He whispered back. She heard the amusement in his voice.

She looked up at him and smiled, “Don’t ask me to promise something I have no control over,” she said. “Besides, it’s your fault.”

He took her by the hand. She patted Sally on the shoulder as Don led her back inside.

The next morning, Penny sat up and looked down at Vijay, where he was still asleep on the air mattress. He had been there a week now, and since no one had showed up and Sally spent most of the time outside on watch, and thus far had reported no trouble, they assumed he had not been followed.

Penny hadn’t told Judy Vijay was on the way to the cabin until he was almost there. It was a good thing because her sister exploded.

Penny was ready for it and waited for Judy to calm down before she said, “I knew you wouldn’t approve, that’s why I didn’t tell you. But you have Don. Everyone is gone, I can’t stop thinking about Will, and I’m like a third wheel to you guys.”

“Penny, we include you in everything we do!”

“Um…you want to rethink that, Judy?”

“But we said Radio silence!” Judy said, ignoring her comment.

“I didn’t call him; I sent a message through Grant’s computer.”

“And that can’t be tracked?”

“Grant said we could use it in an emergency because it’s secure.”

“And having sex was an emergency?”

“You seem to be pretty happy with the arrangement out here.”

Judy sighed. “We promised Mom and Dad.”

“Yes, we did. And you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s on me. But he’ll be careful. It’s not about having sex. I’m just lonely, Judy. Can’t you see that? We’re stuck out here, and you and Don have been great, but you’re together. I just need someone. All I do is sit around and think about what’s happening to Will. You guys don’t want to hang out with me all day, every day. And I don’t blame you.”

When tears came to her eyes, Judy stepped up and hugged her and said, “I understand, but it’s too dangerous. You need to message him and tell him…”

Penny’s radio buzzed and Vijay said, “Penny, I’m here.”

Judy let Penny go and said, “Nice. So much for radio silence. I guess this wasn’t asking permission.”

“I’m sorry, Judy.”

“Too late for that. I just hope no one tracked him.”

Now as Penny looked down at Vijay, she thought about what Judy had said. It wasn’t about sex, but that part was an added benefit. He was getting pretty good at it, she thought. Though she had nothing to compare it to. She briefly thought of Liam again. She had almost messaged him before messaging Vijay, and she felt really guilty about it as she looked down at Vijay sleeping soundly. She sighed, climbed off the mattress and walked in the small bathroom to take a shower.

When she came out Vijay was awake and smiling at her. “Why didn’t you wake me up? I could have washed your back.”

“My back? Riiiiight.”

“And places.”

“I thought you said you were going to leave this morning,” she said, sitting down on the air mattress beside him.

“I am. I have to get back to school. But there’s some things worth being late for.”

“Sorry, mister. I’m already clean.”

“It’s fun getting dirty,” Vijay said.

She leaned down and kissed him. “Get up and go back home dirty boy. If no one follows you, I’ll convince Judy we’re safe and you can come back. Then we’ll see what happens.”

“Sounds like a deal,” he said, climbing off the mattress.

“Want some coffee?” Penny asked.

“No, I’m good. All Grant has is instant.”

“Yeah,” Penny agreed. “Bachelor pad. I’m going to walk outside and see Sally.”

“Okay, I’ll be out in a few and tell you bye. If Judy doesn’t freak, I’ll try to come back Saturday.”

“What day is it? I don’t even know the days anymore.”

“Wednesday.”

“Yeah, Saturday would be cool. Maybe we can go on a picnic up in the hills.”

“Sounds great. I’ll bring the food.” He went in the bathroom, and she walked out the door.

Sally was standing outside, looking toward the bushes leading to the dirt road. “No trouble?”

She slowly turned her head toward Penny. “No trouble.”

Vijay came out a few minutes later. He kissed Penny and said, “See you Saturday, if it’s okay with Judy.”

“Yep. Can you come early so we can spend the whole day? It’s boring as fuck out here.”

“Yeah, but maybe I’ll stay longer this time. I have a break coming up between semesters. So, when are you going back to school?”

“I can’t think about anything like that right now, Vijay.”

“Penny, you know, one of these days you’re going to have to start leading a normal life.”

She sighed. “I don’t even know what that would look like. It’s been over three years since we left for space, and nothing has been normal since then. I think Mom’s right, and this thing is about Will, and unless we can figure out what the hell is happening to him, none of us are going to have a normal life. We’re not just going to walk away and let him figure it out on his own. He tried that with SAR and look what happened to him.”

“Yeah. I know, Penny. I just feel bad for you.”

She kissed him again. “Thanks, Vijay. But don’t feel bad for me. Feel bad for my brother.”

He climbed in the Chariot. “See you Saturday.”

“Hopefully my mom and dad will be back by then.”

“Yeah,” Vijay said, and smiled at her.

“Remember, no radio,” she said as he backed out and drove off.

Penny looked out at the hills that surrounded them and sighed.

That night, the girls and Don were playing cards when the door flew open, and Sally was standing there. “Trouble Penny Robinson,” she said.

Shit,” Penny said. “What now?”

“I hope they didn’t track Vijay this morning,” Judy said as they all stood from the table.

Sally turned and walked back outside, and they rushed to follow her. She stopped and looked up at the sky out past the line of bushes that hid them from the sandy road.

“What are you looking at?” Penny asked.

“I don’t see anything but stars,” Don said.

“There!” Judy said. Far off in the distance they saw a light moving in their direction.

“Can they see us here?” She asked. Don quickly stepped in the cabin and turned the lights off, then joined the girls outside again.

“The cabin is buried under the trees,” he said. “Unless they know we’re here, they shouldn’t be able to see us.”

“Well, whatever it is seems to be headed right for us,” Penny said.

“What the hell?” Don said. “Where did it go?”

“It disappeared!” Penny said. “Like it wasn’t even there.”

“No it didn’t,” Judy said. She was looking straight up. Through the thick foliage of the trees, they could see the object was now above them.

“Is that the same one?” Penny asked. “How could it move that fast?”

Before anyone could answer, the entire area was illuminated by a bright, white light. They all covered their eyes.

“Let’s get the hell out of here!” Don said. He ran in the cabin and the others followed him. They rushed out the side door into the garage, where Don jumped in the driver’s seat of the Chariot. Judy climbed in beside him and Penny got it the back. Don hit the remote and the garage door opened, and he backed out.

Sally was still standing by the cabin, looking up at the sky. The bright light was no longer shining, and the object was gone. Don stopped and Penny lowered her window and yelled, “Sally, get on back!”

The robot started walking toward the Chariot, but before she could climb on the back, Penny said, “There’s more!”

Don and Judy climbed out and looked up into the sky. Four other objects had appeared out past the line of bushes, above the sandy road.

“Those aren’t ours,” Don said. “And they aren’t robot ships.”

“One’s landing!” Penny said. It was slowly descending on the other side of the bush line.

“Go!” Don said. “Now! Now!”

They jumped back in the Chariot.

“Sally!” Penny yelled. “Get on back!”

The robot climbed on back of the Chariot and Don put it in gear, turned around and plowed through the bushes to the road beyond. One of the crafts was blocking the way toward the colony. The first one must have landed here in the couple of minutes it took them to get the Chariot out. Another ship landed behind them, blocking the road back toward the hills.

“Shit!” Don said.

The ships weren’t large, maybe half the size of a Jupiter. Triangle shaped with an enclosure on top that looked like a small dome. As they watched, a side hatch opened in the one that had landed first, and six small beings stepped out. The other ships were still hovering above them.

“Are you believing this?” Penny said. They were all under four feet tall, had large skulls, with slits for mouths, and big oval eyes. “Just like everyone’s been seeing forever.”

“Don,” Judy said, “Let’s not stick around to find out who they are. Or what they are.”

“What she said,” Don agreed, and started to steer the Chariot around the ship.

“Wait!” Penny shouted.

Sally had climbed off the Chariot and was standing still, full battle form, watching as the beings walked toward them.

Don braked the Chariot.

“Sally, get back on!” Penny shouted.

“Trouble Penny Robinson,” Sally said.

“What do we do?” Penny said, turning to Don and Judy.

“We can’t wait for her,” Don said, as he put the Chariot back in gear.

But before he could move forward one of the beings raised a small hand. It pointed toward Sally. A blue ring of lights, like perfectly formed blue smoke rings, seemed to emit from the creature’s hand. They could see now it was holding a small metal object. The lights flashed across the short distance toward Sally, encircled her, and an electrical pulse encompassed her entire body, with blue lights sparkling all around her.

The robot froze in place.

“Sally!” Penny cried.

“Okay, fuck this,” Don said, put the Chariot in gear, and headed right toward the six small beings.

The one that had shot Sally now pointed toward the on rushing Chariot. It fired again, and the blue rings encircled the vehicle. Everything shut down immediately. Don threw open the door, shouted, “Follow me!” They all jumped out, and Don led them back toward the bushes. He didn’t know where he was going, but he needed to get the girls away.

They heard explosions and laser blasts. They turned as they reached the bush line and saw Sally was moving again and had shot two of the things with lasers. But before she could get a third shot off, the blue lights were fired from another of the creatures, and she was encompassed by the charges and frozen in place again. This time it looked like she had completely shut down, and her lights died.

The one that Sally had shot was lying on its back next to the Chariot, the instrument it was using as a weapon on the ground by its side. Judy ran towards it.

“Judy!” Penny yelled, but Don grabbed her when she tried to run after her sister. He shoved her to the ground and took off after Judy.

She’s going after the weapon, Penny thought. Always has to be a goddamn superhero.

Judy slid to her knees and picked up the small metal instrument. She didn’t know if she could even fire it, but she didn’t think they would be able to escape unless there was a way to fight these things off. And without Sally, they had no weapons.

She looked at the metal instrument, saw one side was clear. She pointed the clear side toward one of the beings that was running toward her in a lazy, loping gate, tried squeezing it when she couldn’t find a firing mechanism, but nothing happened.

The being kept running toward her. Suddenly, a sound began to come from one of the ships above. They all heard it. It started like a hum but became a piercing screech. And they didn’t just hear it, they began to feel it, like it was inside them. They all grabbed their ears, trying to make it stop. Judy was holding her hands tightly to her head when she fell to the ground and stopped moving. The sound ended as quickly as it had begun.

“No!” Penny shouted when she saw her sister on the ground, but Don had gotten to Judy. He hoisted her over his shoulder and turned to run back toward Penny.

Penny stood as Don ran up to her. She was looking past him.

Don turned to see what she was watching.

A spaceship was descending a little ways on the other side of the the alien ship that had been blocking their path to the hills.

“What the fuck?” Don said.

“It’s a robot spaceship.” Penny said. “I think it’s Will!”

Now the creatures had stopped chasing them and turned to watch the robot ship land. But when the hatch opened Will didn’t walk out, Robot did. He was in full battle form, face shield bright red, claws sparking as the power surged through his four limbs.

As soon as the beings saw the robot, they all brought their hands up and pointed toward him. It seemed like the four who were still standing all fired at the same time.

But when the blue rings flew toward Robot, he was no longer there. He leaped straight up in the air, twenty feet or so, and when he landed, he fired back. Two of the beings fell, the others returned fire. Again, the blue rings seemed to get there just a split second after Robot moved. This time he stepped quickly to the side, then back the other way as the beams missed him. He fired again, hitting one of the other creatures.

More of the small beings ran out of the other ship, firing toward Robot as soon as they were on the surface. But they always missed. “How’s he doing that?” Penny whispered.

They had seen the robots in the battle on Alpha Centauri, and they had seen what Robot could do, but this was almost supernatural. He was moving one direction, pausing, as if trying to draw fire toward himself, and as soon as the weapons turned to him and fired, he was no longer there.

“He’s drawing them away from us!” Don shouted to Penny. “Let’s go, back in the Chariot. He can’t keep doing this. Eventually they have to hit him.”

Penny ran back towards Don, where he still had Judy over his shoulder.

But the bright light again came from one of the ships that hovered above them, but this time a surge of energy landed between Penny and the Chariot. It wasn’t an explosion, but the ground shook all around, and the light was blinding. Penny fell to the ground on her stomach and covered her head, but just before she did, she noticed the Chariot had been thrown in the air.

When the light went out, Penny came to her knees and looked for Don. He had dropped Judy and covered her body, protecting her from the Chariot. She thought it had missed him, but she heard him groan and saw him fall off Judy to lay beside her. It was too dark for her to see how badly they had been hurt.

But as she watched, two of the small beings moved to Judy, lifted her effortlessly, almost like she was weightless. “No!” Penny cried and jumped back to her feet and began to run after the things that were carrying her sister away. But two others had turned to her.

She stopped and watched as one of them lifted the weapon and pointed it at her. She froze in place, but just before the creature fired, Robot landed in front of her and fired his lasers at them. He missed one but hit the one with the weapon.

Penny tried to run toward the ones who were getting further away with Judy, but Robot reached out and grabbed her and pulled her back and to the ground, as another one of the small beings fired his weapon. Robot again jumped straight up, dodging the blue rings, and opened fire while still in the air.

From where she was laying, Penny watched another ship appear above them, hovering about thirty feet in the air.

Another blinding white light flashed from the bottom of the ship, and Penny turned her head to cover her eyes. When she looked back, Judy and the two beings who held her had disappeared.

“What the fuck!” Penny cried, as she watched helplessly while the craft began to rise.

Once the ship was in the air, Penny saw it turn on its side, then began to move, belly first. A few seconds later it just disappeared, as if it had not even been there.

Robot was dodging the fire from the ones who were still on the ground, as they did everything they could to immobilize him. Once the other ship had disappeared, the ones attacking Robot turned and ran toward their spacecraft. Robot managed to shoot two more with lasers before they escaped.

There were several bodies on the ground. The three ships that had just lifted off hovered above the surface, and the white light flashed from all three crafts, covering the field. “Robot!” Penny cried, knowing the beams would have covered him as well. But he was suddenly in front of her, lifting her in his arms, then leaping halfway up the side of the nearest hill. They turned and watched as the light beams disappeared back into the hovering spacecrafts, leaving the area completely empty of all the small bodies.

Penny looked at Robot, “How did you move that fast?” She asked him.

He didn’t answer her. She turned and looked back in the sky where the ships had now all disappeared. “They took her, Robot! They took her! Do you know where they would have gone?”

“No.”

Then she looked back to the field where Don was still lying, unconscious. “Don!” She cried and ran down the hill toward the man. The beings had left him there, as if they had no interest in him at all.

When Penny got to Don, she saw a large gash on his head. It looked bad. He was breathing but was unconscious. “Don!”

She brought her wrist radio to her mouth. “Emergency. Severe injury.”

“Alpha Medical,” A voice came back. “What is the nature of the injury?”

“A…a head injury. I need help please.”

“Send coordinates. We’ll send an air vac.”

Penny hit the coordinates icon and sent them. She was kneeling beside Don, a hand on his shoulder. She ripped the bottom off her shirt, wadded it up and placed it on the wound, applying pressure, hoping he couldn’t feel it. “Hang on, Don! Help is coming.” I hope that’s all that’s coming.

She looked up in the sky again, another thought gnawing at her. Someone tracked Vijay. This is all my fault.

She glanced up at Robot. “Robot I have to keep pressure on Don’s wound. Go to your ship and get Will. He can help us figure out what to do about Judy.” As soon as she said the words, she realized how much she was relying on her younger brother now.

“Robot?” He wasn’t moving. The lights in his face shield were swirling. Suddenly Penny understood. “Will isn’t with you, is he?”

“No, Penny Robinson.”

Robot had been seconds away from crashing his ship into the sun. Trouble. That’s what it was in The Family’s language. Danger to Robot. Something had happened, and the robot Penny Robinson called Sally was reaching out to him. The particles that were entangled with Sally allowed him to see exactly what she was seeing.

Robot saw Sally look up into the sky. He saw the spacecraft appear. That’s when he received the message. Sally hadn’t waited until after she warned the Robinsons. She knew it was trouble and sensed that she might need help. Robot turned his ship immediately away from the sun, opened the rift, and reappeared just outside Alpha’s Orbit, knowing it was unsafe to open a rift that close to the planet, but he had no choice if he was going to help The Family.

Robot had set his ship’s coordinates to Sally’s location, and as soon as he entered the planet’s atmosphere, he guided his ship toward her. His radar detected several vessels hovering in the area where Sally would be. When he sighted them, some of them disappeared, while others waited, not moving.

Once on the surface he changed into battle form, ran out the hatch, and immediately opened fire on the creatures that had been advancing on the Family but were now turning towards him.

For the last few weeks on the island, he had been trying to see seconds into the future and had become better at it as the days went on. Now he put those skills to good use.

He envisioned exactly when and where the creature’s weapons would strike. He waited until the last fraction of a second before leaping straight into the air, or to the right or left, drawing their fire but causing them to miss each time as he moved just before he was struck.

“Is Will…is he…”

“No Danger, Penny Robinson.”

“Thank God,” Penny said. “But now both my siblings are gone.”

She looked down at Don’s pale fence. Her shirt was completely blood soaked. Could he die? Could he actually die?

She couldn’t imagine their life without him. She looked up at Robot. “Robot, when I know Don is safe, can you take me to Will?”

There was a pause, then Robot said, “No.”

“But you have to, Robot. I have to see him.”

Robot didn’t answer.

“Why not! He’s my brother and I love him. I have to go see him and bring him back so we can help him. He doesn’t think anything can be done to save him. Please Robot. Take me to him. He can help us figure out how to find Judy. I know it. There’s something about him that’s just…I don’t know. He’s not like everyone else. I think we need him to help find Judy. Why won’t you take me to him?”

“Danger.”

“I know, Robot. I know it’s dangerous. Even if we don’t bring him back to the planet, take me to him. I don’t care how dangerous he is.”

“Danger.”

“What’s the matter with you! I thought you loved him!”

Robot just looked down at her. The lights in his face shield were making odd patterns.

She decided not to push him on it for now. At least her brother was still alive. “Do you know what these things are? The one’s who took Judy?”

“No.”

“But you’ve seen them before, haven’t you? Will filmed one of their ships when you two were on that planet.”

“Yes.”

“Did it do anything to you?”

“No.”

“But I think we need to figure that out. Where they’re from. There’s a reason they took Judy. And I think they wanted me too. They were coming towards me. But they didn’t take Don.”

Robot didn’t answer, but he looked over at Sally, still frozen in place, and started walking toward her. He stopped in front of the robot, raised his palm, scanned her. A small, pointed metal piece slid from his wrist. Robot reached out, inserted the point of the metal piece in Sally’s forehead. She began moving.

Penny wouldn’t leave Don’s side where she still was putting pressure on the wound, but she looked over at Sally. “You’re okay!”

“Trouble, Penny Robinson.”

“Robot, are you going back to where Will is?” Penny asked. “After they get Don?”

“No.”

“But he’s all alone!”

“No.”

Three days later Don was still unconscious. It was late at night, well past visiting hours. The Dhars had all been at the hospital every day, and Vijay and Liam had both been by that afternoon, then left together. It was a little weird, Penny thought, that the two of them seemed to have become friends. But she wasn’t thinking about that now. She was thinking about Don.

He had lost a lot of blood, and all the doctors would say was that it was still touch and go. They had tried to get her to go home when visiting hours were over, but she refused to leave, telling them to have her arrested if they wanted. Instead, a nurse brought her a blanket and a pillow and dinner when the patients were fed.

She was curled up in a chair beside Don’s bed, watching him sleep.

A doctor and nurse walked in and looked at him, checked his vitals, then the doctor asked to talk to Penny outside. The nurse stayed while Penny followed the doctor into the hall.

“Miss Robinson, you should go home. There’s nothing you can do for him now. We just have to wait and see. And…to be honest with you, it isn’t looking good. He lost a lot of blood, and he hasn’t been responding.”

“I can’t leave. I’m his only family. Everyone else is gone. I’m all he has, and I’m going to stay here with him until he wakes up.”

“Penny, what I’m trying to tell you is, he might not wake up.”

“Well then, it won’t matter if I’m here or not, will it? And I choose to be here.”

The doctor placed a hand on her shoulder. “You’re a lot like your sister, you know.”

Tears came to Penny’s eyes. “Judy is a force of nature, I’m just her little sister.”

“Well, then you don’t know yourself very well. If you need anything, anyone on the staff will help you.”

Penny thanked him and walked back in the room just as the nurse was leaving. The woman smiled at Penny and closed the door behind her.

Penny pulled her chair up next to Don’s bed. She took his hand in hers and stared at his face. She leaned close and said, “Don, you have to be okay. Judy needs you. We have to find her, and we need you to help find her. And if we find her and I have to tell her you…if I have to tell her…”

The tears overtook her. She cried for a few minutes then she said, “You need to live Don, for all of us. For Will, who needs you as the big brother he has never had. For Judy who finally found someone who makes her feel like a girl, and not a superhero. For my family, who has needed someone like you to let them know everything isn’t as serious as they think it is. And for Doctor Smith who needs a family as much as you do. And, without you, she only has us, and…we’re too much for anyone.”

Then she leaned over and whispered in his ear. “And…Don. You have to live for me. I…I don’t know what I would do without you.”

She leaned back and closed her eyes and cried silently until she finally drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Text

“What do you say, Robinsons? Ready to go through the looking glass?”
                                                               - Ben Adler

Will opened his eyes. He was no longer on the beach. He was lying on a gravel surface, with grass sprouting up through it. He sat up and saw he was in an alley somewhere. Maybe back on Earth, since there were houses along the alley not much different than the ones he had grown up around. He knew he was dying, but he didn’t think that’s what had happened, he thought he had finally lost full consciousness and he had to be dreaming. He looked down and saw he was only wearing the shorts he had on when he was on the island, but they were dry now. He pulled his foot up and looked at it. The hole was there, it was still swollen and there was pain. He pushed himself up, stood gingerly on the foot and looked around.

He suddenly realized he had his memory back, because he recognized where he was. He limped past two houses, glancing in the yards, though he saw no one around. Then he was standing by a hedge. He looked over it into the backyard. It was the house from his dream on the frozen planet. The dream he had had of Judy and Don, arguing in the backyard. It had been Judy’s small house in the dream.

He didn’t understand what was happening. He had never had such realistic dreams before, and this one seemed to be much like the first. And he remembered everything now. Robot leaving and him waking up with no memory, the weeks he had spent alone on the island. The storm and getting stung by the sea creature. So, he assumed once he woke from this dream, he would have his memories back. Maybe the poison in the wound did something to him.

Maybe I died. It was a sudden, startling thought. No one knew what happened when you died, and there were a lot of people who thought your consciousness lived on. And it wasn’t just religious people, many physicists had come to the same conclusion. And after all he had witnessed in the last three years, Will wouldn’t discount anything he couldn’t explain.

He remembered all of it now. Waking up, barely able to breathe, his throat constricted so he couldn’t swallow water. He had been too weak to stand, and finally drifted into unconsciousness, and as it happened his memories had returned to him.

He had asked Robot to take his memories away, and he remembered the days of trying to figure out who he was and how he had gotten to the island. He didn’t have the thoughts of his family and all the pain that had come with them, that was true, but they were replaced by a void. And that seemed to be worse than anything he could have imagined. To exist alone with no connection to who you are or why you were here.

He realized he was excited to be in this dream and see if he could talk to Judy again as he had the last time. He remembered his final thought had been that he wished he could talk to Judy one last time. Maybe his consciousness had created this for him to be able to do that.

One last time.

If that was the case, he was either dying or already dead. But he would see if he could find Judy and speak to her. Though he wasn’t sure if that was the right decision, considering how she had reacted the last time he had seen her. After she had confronted him, he woke up, realizing it was a dream. Or that’s what he had thought happened.

Now he remembered she had looked at him and demanded, “What the hell are you looking at?” He had been so surprised he didn’t say anything at all, but ran off down the alley, turned a corner and that’s when he woke up.

He stood staring at the same small house. Yes, none of this was real, but his sister’s emotions in that dream had seemed real. The way she had spoken to Don, and then her flash of anger when she saw he had been watching them. He stared at the house for a few minutes wondering what to do, but in the end, his excitement in seeing his sister again, even if it wasn’t real, outweighed his concerns of her reaction.

He limped down the alley, turned at the end of the block and went around to the front of the little house. The front yard was fenced like the backyard, except for the hedge, though there was a short, white, picket fence. He smiled. Their grandmother had a white picket fence around her farmhouse, long after they had gone out of style. And this was the only one he could see on the street. The Judy in this dream had been in a lot of pain, but it looked like she still tried to hold on to something of her past. He opened the gate and went up the sidewalk to the front door. There was no security system and no bell. He knocked, suddenly nervous and now sort of hoping no one would be home.

Someone was.

Judy opened the door. Older by a couple of years it looked like, because of the lines around her eyes, which he felt had more to do with stress than age. Still, she was just as beautiful as she had always been.

“Can I help…um, can I help you? Sorry. Uh. Wow. You startled me. You…just reminded me of someone I used to know. Can I help you? Hey, I saw you before, didn’t I? You were spying on me from behind the hedge!”

“No, I wasn’t spying, I was just walking by and heard you arguing. I didn’t watch on purpose.”

“And yet you came back here,” she said, smirking a little.

“I was just lost and wondered if you could tell me how to get back to town.”

“So, you weren’t spying on me, and you are lost, and decided my door was the door to knock on to ask for directions? And, you’re wearing nothing but shorts. And no shoes! People here don’t walk around like they’re on the beach. At least not in town. You have to be cold.”

“I…I didn’t notice the temperature.” And he hadn’t. But now he realized it was way too cold for shorts and no shirt.

“It’s going to rain too,” she said. “You better get home or wherever you’re going.”

“Yeah. Yeah, how do I get to town?”

“Okay, you still expect me to believe this? This is a pretty small town still, so you’re either lying or you’re a new colonist, who has decided for some reason I’m the one you have chosen to bother.”

“Well, I haven’t been here long.”

“You haven’t been here long, and you’re walking around almost naked, coming back to my house where you saw me a few weeks ago. You think I’m an idiot?”

“No. I’m sorry. I’ll go.” He knew this was a bad idea.

He turned to walk off the porch, but she said, “Okay, if that’s the story you’re sticking with, go down here about two kilometers,” she pointed. “Take a left and keep going straight. You’ll start to see traffic and you’ll be downtown after a few more blocks.”

“Thanks,” he said. He didn’t know what else to say or do. He walked off the porch, but when he didn’t hear the door shut, he knew she was still watching him.

“Hey,” she said. “What’s your name?”

He turned back to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling a little, “It’s just…your resemblance to this boy I used to know is just…weird.”

“Who was it?” Will asked.

“My little…a little boy. A neighborhood boy. I just wondered if you might be related.”

“No, I wouldn’t be,” he answered, and started to turn again. “Thanks,” he said, and started down the steps, but turned back to her. “You said a little over a mile to town?”

“Mile?” She laughed. “Who uses miles in this century? I don’t even know how far that is. I said two kilometers.”

Will just looked at her, unsure how to respond.

“Hey, what’s wrong with your foot?” She asked. “You were limping pretty bad.”

“I stepped on something. I don’t know but it could have poisoned me.”

She hesitated before saying, “Well, let me look at it.”

“Um…you sure?” He wanted to stay. He wanted to talk to her. He just wanted to be there with her after so many weeks apart from his family. But he wasn’t sure how this was going to end.

“Yeah, I’m a doctor.”’

“I know.”

“You know?” She said, sounding suspicious. “How do you know?”

“I…I think you said something about it to that guy you were talking to in the backyard. Look, I didn’t want to bother you. You don’t have to look at my foot.”

“Sit down here on the porch, I’ll take a look.” She decided she wasn’t going to let him in the house. She wasn’t sure what she was dealing with, but she couldn’t just turn him away. And he looked so much like her brother, she really didn’t want him to leave yet. It had been almost four years since Will had died, and somehow this boy made her feel better about it. She often thought of how nice it would have been to have Will with her at this age, when he was beginning to think about girls or boys and all the insecurities that came with that at fourteen. She would have loved to have been there to help guide him through it. Of course, she never got that chance.

He limped back up to the porch and sat down. Judy sat on the step below him and picked his foot up. “Wow, this is bad. You have no idea how it happened?”

“It was an…insect, I think.” He liked the feel of her warm hands lifting his leg, and the concern in her voice. It was Judy in every way. She had always taken care of him. And it had been so long since he had seen her. He would be content to just stay in this dream. Then he suddenly had the thought again, what if I died? Consciousness was still the greatest mystery in the universe. Maybe the thing that stung him had actually killed him, and his consciousness created this dream world for him to help him cope. But if that was true, he could still feel pain after his death, because his foot was feeling worse.

“Okay, I’ll be right back. I have to get my medical bag. Stay here.”

She sat his foot down, and absentmindedly patted the top of it before standing. Will smiled but she didn’t see him.

She returned a couple minutes later with the bag, and she handed him a zip up jacket. “Put this on. It won’t help if this sting doesn’t kill you, but you catch a cold and die.”

“Thanks,” he said as he pulled the jacket on and zipped it, smiling at her.

“I think there’s something in it. I need to see if I can get it out, but your foot is pretty swollen. You need to go to a doctor or the emergency room, I think. And where the hell’s your shoes?”

“I left them back…I don’t know, but I think if you get it out, it will be okay.’

“You’re the doctor now?” She had him turn toward her, stretch his leg out and and prop his foot on her thigh so she could see it while she worked on him. She had a pair of tweezers and began gently probing it. “Something in there, alright. I think I have it.”

“Ouch!” Will said.

“Got it.” She held up the tweezers. There was a small thin object that resembled a long silver splinter. “Weird.”

“Thanks, Judy.”

“Judy? Did I tell you my name?”

“No. Um. No.”

She stood. “Okay. Time for you to get out of here.” There was something weird about him, besides his lack of clothing.

He pushed himself to his feet. “I heard Don…that guy call you Judy.”

“And you heard me call Don by his name, right? Come on, that was weeks ago. No fucking way you remembered our names from a two minute conversation you overheard a couple months ago. Are you some kind of stalker?”

“No. No! I’m not a stalker.”

“Who the hell are you? You’re walking around with a suntan like you’ve been living on the beach your whole life, and some really badly cut off shorts, no shoes, and hair that could use a good trim. You’re like one of those old surfers my dad used to talk…who the hell are you?”

He just looked back at her, not knowing how to respond.

“Well? Who are you?”

He paused, turned and started to walk down the steps. But he turned around and looked back at Judy. His beautiful sister. “One day, when I was eight years old, I fell off a roof. Actually, I jumped off. It was these kids in the neighborhood. They weren’t nice, really, but I didn’t have any friends, and I wanted them to like me. So they talked me into climbing up this ladder and jumping on to an old mattress. I was scared and put my hand out to catch myself and I broke my arm really bad. I needed to have surgery. But I was okay, because my big sister came and got me. She walked me home and took me to Mom. My big sister always took care of me.”

Judy was shaking her head, taking a step back.

“Judy, it’s me. It’s Will.”

“Who the fuck are you? How do you know my name?”

“Will. Really. I’m Will. I know you don’t understand it. I don’t either. It seems so real.”

“My little brother died. I watched him die. And you are not fucking funny!” Her voice dripped with anger.

“I know. You saw him…me…die. I went down in the water and got my leg caught in a copper wire and tore my suit, and my oxygen ran out. I was looking up at you when I died. It was horrible for you, I know, but I wasn’t scared in the end. I was really calm. I want you to know that. Just, having you there in my ear, I wasn’t scared. I know you thought I was, but I wasn’t.”

“Why are you doing this? Who the fuck are you?” She started to slam the door, but he reached out and held it.

“Get away from me! Get away from me!” She tried again to close the door, but his grip was tight.

“Judy, please listen to me. This is a dream. That’s all. But it seems real, and I hate how bad you’re doing. How you feel. Last time, when you were arguing with Don, I didn’t think I was actually present in the dream. Not until you looked right at me and talked to me. So, this time I decided to see if I could actually talk to you.”

“Let go of the fucking door or I’ll beat the shit out of you,” she said.

“When you were a Junior in high school you won the 400,” he was talking as fast as he could, before she could pull the door from his hand and slam it. “You beat a girl…I don’t remember her first name but her last name was Freeman. Oh. Joann. Joann Freeman. She was the state champion and everyone thought she would win but you beat her. Penny and I went to watch because Dad was deployed and Mom was working. We were in the stands and everyone surrounded you but you ignored them and ran up to us and hugged us. We took a photo. These guys in front of us. Penny handed her wrist radio to them.”

“Get off the fucking porch!” She said, pulling the door harder.

“Please Judy, I just wanted to talk to you.” He reached out and grabbed her wrist.

She twisted her hand free and punched him without pulling it back. She hit the boy in the nose. He let go and grabbed his face and blood started flowing. She immediately regretted it, but she had reacted as John had taught her years before. She started to say something, but instead she slammed the door, not knowing if the boy was dangerous.

She began to stomp away once the door was closed, but instead, she walked to the window and peeked out. The boy had turned from the door and started to walk away, his hands still covering his nose. He took one step down from her porch, but instead of continuing on, he sat down on the steps, hunched over and started crying. She watched him for a few minutes. She had no idea who he was or how he knew so much about her family, but if it was some joke, there was nothing funny about it. But what bothered her was that he looked so much like her brother, had he lived to be this boy’s age. She watched him bent over, racked with sobs for a few more minutes, and it dawned on her that he must have some serious mental issues. She sighed, walked into the kitchen, wet a rag, hesitated, took a paring knife from a drawer, slid it in her pocket and walked back out to the porch.

She sat down beside him. He had heard her approach of course, but he didn’t look up at her.

“Hey,” she said. “Here—let me see it.”

When he still didn’t look up, she touched his shoulder, then put her hand under his chin and turned his face toward her. He was still crying and there was blood running through his fingers, which were still covering his face. She gently pulled his hands away. “Let me see.”

She put the wet rag over his nose and held it. She looked in his eyes. It was so weird how much he looked like her little brother.

“I don’t get it. You have scars all over your arms, like you’ve been in a knife fight or something, but you’re kind of a baby. It was just a punch in the nose. It’s not broken. I don’t know how you know about my family and my brother, but when he broke his arm that time, he didn’t cry at all.”

“I know, you told me how brave I was, and that you would have been bawling your eyes out if it had been you. You were lying though, because you were the toughest girl I knew. But I’m not crying because you hit me in the nose, I’m crying because…” he paused.

“What?”

“It’s just…”

“Tell me,” She said. Her voice was softer now. She had decided this kid was an emotional wreck, but she didn’t think he was dangerous.

“I’m just so lonely. I’ve been by myself for weeks, and I haven’t seen my family. I’ll never be able to see them again. And when I saw you before, and you talked to me, I thought if I ever had the dream again maybe I could talk to you. And it worked. I fell asleep. Maybe. I’m not sure…I might be kind of going crazy, maybe. I was in the water and got stung by something.

“I walked up to the beach and laid down on the sand and closed my eyes for awhile. I think I passed out, then I was in this place. This house that I saw in that dream. I woke up and was walking down the alley again. So, I walked around the corner then up to your house.”

“Okay, so beach…sea…where were you? The oceans are thousands of kilometers South and we haven’t even explored most of that area.”

“On an island on a different planet. Look, Judy, it’s a long story and you wouldn’t believe it anyway, but I woke up here.”

She smiled, trying not to make it look sarcastic. “So, I’m just a dream?”

“Yeah. But Judy, it’s so good to see you. It would be okay if I never wake up.”

He began to cry again, and she started to put her arms around him, surprised at herself for this strong desire to hug the boy. She just wasn’t that person, especially with strangers. She caught herself and instead of hugging him, she placed a hand gently on his shoulder.

“Well, it’s obviously a dream,” she said, smiling, trying to lighten the mood and hopefully calm this kid down. “I never hit my little brother. Ever. I never would. So if you’re going to stick with this story, you need to know that about me and leave it out of your dreams. And as for you…I’m sorry I hit you.”

“I know. It was my fault, I never should have grabbed you. You used to learn that stuff from Dad all the time. I was kind of jealous. I never told anyone, but then when Dad tried to teach me self defense I acted like I wasn’t interested. I was but I was mad because he seemed like he really would rather be teaching you. You just picked it up quicker.

“But I was never mad at you for it. I couldn’t be, because you always took care of me. You were my sister, but you were my mom and dad too a lot of the time, but more than anything else, you were my best friend.”

She smiled at him. But it was a sad smile. “I took care of Will from the moment my mom brought him home from the hospital. And if I could have, I would have stopped Dad from putting him in that…” She stopped.

“What?” Will asked.

“Nothing. You don’t know what happened to him. It was a horrible accident.”

“I do know what happened to him. To me. And you did stop it. You jumped in the hole yourself, and you almost died. The ice froze before you could get out. In the real world anyway.”

At first what he said surprised her. But then she realized that would have been the easiest thing to find out about. Everyone knew how her little brother died. She smiled. “So how did I survive? In the real world?”

“Um…do you have robots here?”

“Well, yeah. Lots of robotics.”

“Alien robots?”

“Alien? What do you mean?”

“Okay, I better not tell you how you survived the ice. You wouldn’t believe me.”

“What, it’s stranger than this story you’re telling me?”

“I guess not.”

She pulled the rag back. “The bleeding stopped.” She felt the bridge of his nose gingerly. “And I was right, it’s not broken.”

She started wiping the blood off his face with a clean part of the rag. “I’m sorry I hit you. It was just a reaction and this whole thing was…too much. But you need to go back to wherever you’re from, okay? Or…hey…you didn’t cut yourself did you? All these places?” She held up one of his arms. The scars didn’t look deep, but there were a lot of them covering his arms. “Do you need some help?”

“No. Thanks, Judy. I didn’t cut myself, and…this was sort of nice.”

“Nice? Getting punched in the nose?”

“You taking care of me. Like you always used to. And sorry I was crying, but I’ll never see my sisters again, and it was just too much, I think. So this was nice.”

“Why won’t you see them again? Did something happen to them? In your world?” She smiled.

“No. Something happened to me. I guess, a lot of things happened to me. And they’re better off that I’m gone, but I miss them so much, Judy.”

“What’s your other sister’s name?”

She thought she would catch him by surprise and prove he was lying. But he didn’t hesitate at all. “Penny…of course. I know you don’t believe me. I wouldn’t either if I was you. But they are Judy and Penny. And Judy, she always took care of me, just like you did today. From the time I can remember.”

Tears came to Judy’s eyes now, as she remembered her little brother. “I took care of my little brother too,” she said. “But in the end, it didn’t matter.”

She caught herself, realizing she was letting this kid pull her into his craziness.

She put a hand on his shoulder. “Can you make it back to where you’re from now? Does your foot feel good enough to walk. No, wait, let me take you. Where’s your family?”

“You can’t take me where I need to go, but, can I hug you before I leave?”

Judy was the least trusting member of her family, but there was something about this boy. And for some reason, she felt the desire to protect him.

She put her arms around him and hugged him to her. It felt like the boy didn’t want to let go. Finally, she released him, stood up and took his hand and pulled him to his feet. “If you won’t let me take you, do you remember how to get down town?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Judy. Dad loves you. He loves you so much. You should find him.”

“Alright, I have to go now,” she said. She wanted to help him but she wasn’t going to encourage this fantasy of his. The boy was obviously listening to her argument with Don when he was watching them over the hedge.

“Okay, thanks.” He unzipped the jacket and handed it to her.

“No, keep it,” she said. “It’s going to rain pretty soon.”

He smiled and said, “Thanks. I love, you Judy.”

“That’s sweet.” What a soft hearted boy…Just like…

But as he slipped the jacket back on, his shorts slipped a little and she saw part of a scar just below his waistline.

She started to turn and go inside but stopped. “Wait!” She stepped to him, put her hands on his shorts and pulled them lower. “Don’t panic, I’m a doctor,” she said.

But he didn’t pull back or react at all. He trusted her completely. “You’ve seen all of me there is to see,” he said.

The scar ran along his hip bone. “How did you get this!” She demanded.

“It was the dog attack. At grandma’s farm when I was six years old. The scar needed…”

“Forty seven stitches,” she whispered as he said the same thing. She released his shorts and looked in his eyes. “What are you doing?” She asked. “Why are you doing this?”

“Nothing, Judy. I wasn’t trying to do anything. I’m going to leave, and I won’t bother you anymore. But please go find Dad.”

“Stop it about John! I really wish I could help you, but this is just too much. Can you please leave now?”

She turned and walked back in her house. She stood with her back against the door shaking, not knowing what was going on and how this kid knew so much about her. She walked to the window and peeked out again. She watched the boy look at the door for a minute before turning and walking down the sidewalk and out the gate, then look down the street one way, then the next, as if he was trying to decide which direction to go, though she had just told him how to get downtown. Finally, he limped off, the opposite direction than what she had told him. Like he really didn’t care where he was headed.

I should give him a ride, she thought, when she saw how much he limped. Obviously, his foot still hurt him a lot. But she decided it was all too strange, and she didn’t know if he was dangerous. She was pretty sure she would have no problem overpowering this skinny kid, but she didn’t want to hurt him either. She sighed. She knew the person she used to be would never let the boy walk off on his own. He was injured, and he was walking around dressed like a surfer—looking like one too. And it wasn’t even twenty degrees C.

She stopped looking out the window and sat down on the couch, thinking. What an odd thing to happen. And the boy didn’t act crazy at all, other than the bizarre story. He was actually a really good looking teenager, who seemed to be normal in every other way. Except the whole surfer look. She hoped he would be okay. For a brief moment, she thought about going out and bringing him back in and taking him to the hospital. Or at least giving him a ride to help him find his people.

The problem was, she was a little worried that he was some kind of stalker. He could have researched the 23rd colonist group. They had a strange story, and everyone knew it.

Back on Earth and here on Alpha Centauri they were known as the Lost Colonists. And there was even a nickname for them, The Croatoans. It was the word found carved in a piece of wood on Roanoke Island, when the original Lost Colony of English settlers disappeared in the New World in 1587.

There was always some distrust from the other colonists with the 23rd Colonist group. They had disappeared for a year before finally making their way to Alpha Centauri. There were several deaths during that year, Will being one. And Maureen was fairly famous as one of the designers of the Resolute and a key member of the Alpha project. It was news when the youngest member of her family died.

But what made the 23rd colonist group such a curiosity is that no one ever knew what had happened to them. There was a problem on board, and they had to abandon ship. There was talk of a conspiracy and a terrorist attack. The world was at war, there were plenty of enemies who might have tried to destroy the ship and kill everyone on board. And there was even talk by some of the survivors of some type of robot as the weapon that was used. No one really took that seriously and eventually those people stopped talking about it. They were being ridiculed and it wasn’t the best way to start life in the new world.

More than once, members of the 23rd Colonist group heard people mutter “Croatoan,” under their breath when they saw them out and about in the colony. It had become a derogatory term for them.

Suddenly Judy stood up and ran out the door and down the sidewalk. She looked both ways, but the boy was gone. She ran down the street, turned the corner but he wasn’t there. She jogged down the block then turned into the alley that ran behind her house. He was nowhere.

“How could he have disappeared that quickly?” she said aloud. It wasn’t that she thought he was really her brother. She had watched Will die, and she had reasoned it through enough to know the strange boy had just done a lot of research. Even the scar on Will’s lower stomach would have been something he could have found out about and faked.

But he had said something about robots.

As Will limped down the sidewalk it started to rain. He pulled the jacket tighter to himself, now fully aware of how cold it was. He had no idea what to do. He didn’t think it really mattered, because he was dying on the island, and it would be all over soon. He glanced in the direction Judy had told him he would find the town. Maybe he should go and see what that looked like. To see if the colony in this very real dream was anything like the colony they had built on Alpha. But there was no point. He turned the other direction.

He walked down one block, trying his best not to put pressure on his foot. He felt himself growing weaker and knew it wouldn’t be long now. His body was shutting down, and soon it would be his mind. He decided to let this happen away from anyone.

He remembered his grandfather, the crusty old Navy warrior, telling him one time as they sat under the tree in the back yard, “Will, remember this, you come into this world alone. And even if you’re surrounded by a loving family and a shit-ton of friends your entire life, you experience life in your head—all alone. And that’s exactly how you’re gonna die. So, when your time comes, don’t be kicking and screaming and don’t look to no one else to save you. Go to your death like a warrior going home.”

At the time it had frightened him, but now he understood, and that’s exactly what he would do, even in his dream world.

He turned the corner, limped up half a block, and turned down another alley. He was a couple blocks away from Judy’s house now. He felt like he was going to be sick. He hurried to get away from the road so it would happen where no one could see.

He was halfway down the alley when he vomited. He walked a little further, sank to his knees. He crawled out of the middle of the alley next to a hedge row, turned to his back and looked up at the sky. It was raining and cloudy, but it still seemed beautiful to him in an odd way. He was glad his consciousness had created this world for him to die in. He was happy he had seen Judy at the end of his stormy life, just like he had wished for.

He realized he was no longer in pain. As he looked up at the sky, he began to feel like he was floating. He looked down and saw his body, lying in the rain in the alley in his dream world, next to a lush green hedge. But he also saw it on the island, on the planet where he and Robot had gone. He was lying on the beach, the small animal he had named Sméagol—and then Alex when he had forgotten who he was—curled up next to him. He knew it had stayed beside him to comfort him in the end.

He didn’t understand how his mind could actually be in two places at the same time. But somehow it was wonderful.

He decided this was the perfect way for it to end. He felt the moment death came. And in that moment, he was not frightened. It was actually comforting. He had seen the memories of his family. He had gotten to speak to Judy one last time. He knew who he was, and even the fact that his family would never know how he died didn’t seem to shake this feeling of peace. He was encompassed by it as everything ended for him. All thought, all memory, all pain. It was like gently closing a door on all he had been.

Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.

It was something he had read somewhere in his past about dying. Maybe an inscription on a tombstone, though he couldn’t recall what it was from.

His final thought was, I wonder what happens next, as he succumbed to the void.

Chapter Text

“Is all that we see or seem, but a dream within a dream?”
                                                  -Edgar Allen Poe

“You look like shit.”

Penny’s eyes flew open. Don’s pale face was smiling at her. She jumped up and leaned over the bed and hugged him. She started crying.

He put an arm over her and pulled her to him. She could tell how weak he was. When she leaned back, she said, “Don, I was so scared, I thought you…”

When she didn’t finish, he said in very weak voice, “It’ll take more than a bunch of spaceships full of little gray aliens to get rid of me.”

Penny didn’t smile, she just took his hand in both of hers. “I was so worried about you, Don.”

“I’m okay, Penny. Except for this damn headache. And I feel like I could sleep another month.”

“You were bleeding so badly. I was so scared.”

“At least Judy was there. I’m assuming she’s around here somewhere. Knowing her, she got tired of watching me sleep and she’s working a shift.”

When Penny didn’t answer, he said. “She’s here, right?”

“Don…”

“Shit! Is she…okay?”

“I…I don’t know. They took her.”

He tried to sit up.

“No, Don.” She put a hand on his chest so he would stay where he was, though he was so weak she didn’t think he could get up anyway. “You have to stay in bed. You lost a lot of blood, and they didn’t think you…um…there’s nothing you can do anyway since we don’t know where they took her.”

His body sagged back into the mattress. “Is Will here?” He asked.

“No. He didn’t come back with Robot.” When she saw his expression, she added, “Robot says he’s okay, he just says ‘Danger’ when I ask where he is.”

“Penny, we have to think of something,” Don whispered. He sounded like he was going to pass out again. 

“I know. I’ve been trying, but right now you need to get better.” She stood. “Your doctor was at the nurse's station a few minutes ago. I’ll see if he’s still there and tell him you’re awake.” She hugged him and walked out of the room.

When she found the doctor, he said he would be right there. “Doctor, I have a question for you. Will he be okay to travel in the next few days?”

“I can’t answer that until we get a look at him and run tests. But there is very little chance he’s getting out of here in the next few days. He’s in serious condition. What type of travel do you have in mind?”

“Well…space travel.”

“Absolutely out of the question. He had swelling on the brain and lots of blood loss. He can’t go back to space for weeks, if that.”

He hurried down the hall with Penny following. She had expected exactly what the doctor had told her. Which meant she was on her own. She couldn’t wait that long to try to find her siblings. She had to talk Robot into taking her to find Will, and then Judy. But she couldn’t tell Don, because he would never stay behind if he knew what she was doing. He would find a way.

That evening she went home for the first time since Don had been admitted. She had waited for them to sedate him and for him to fall asleep. He had told her not to leave the hospital since he didn’t think it was safe after the attack at the prison, and the people who attacked them would obviously be watching her since Don had been brought to the hospital. But his condition was stable, and she needed to take a shower and sleep in a real bed for a few hours. Besides, she had Robot and Sally both with her, and after witnessing what Robot had done, she was pretty sure no one would get close enough to harm her.

Grant had told her the people who had attacked her parents understood how to control the robots, but Penny was pretty sure they had never seen one of them move like Robot had.

When they got to the Robinson’s house, Sally stayed outside on watch, and Robot followed Penny in. She made a sandwich, sat down at the table, and looked up at Robot.

“Robot, do you sense him? Mom says she thinks you and Will are connected, or entangled, the way you are with the other robots. The way you felt Sally when she was attacked. Is that how it works? You’re entangled with the robots, and with Will too?”

When he didn’t answer, Penny said, “I guess you don’t understand the question.”

Robot still just looked at her.

“Robot, I know you love Will, and you think you’re doing the best thing for him, but he’s all alone out there, wherever you left him. I know it’s dangerous to be near him, and I’m sure he made you promise not to take us there, but he’s my baby brother, Robot. He needs me! And I really think we need him to find Judy."

He looked down.

Penny sighed. “Robot, I would be so mad at you if I didn’t know this was hurting you as much as it is me. But I just wish I could figure out what’s going on.”

He still didn’t say anything.

“Okay, I’m going to take a shower and get a few hours sleep. Will you help Sally stand guard, in case those people try to do anything?”

“Yes, Penny Robinson.”

She stood, stepped up to Robot and hugged him. “I know you have your reasons, Robot. But eventually, he will need you and you will have to go back to him. You know Will. It’s impossible for him to be completely safe in this universe.”

She released him and stepped back. “When that happens, you need to take me with you, okay?”

Robot just looked at her. She sighed and walked from the room down the hall.

When she climbed in bed, she thought she would quickly fall asleep, but instead, she laid looking up at the ceiling, thinking of everything that had happened to them. Both her siblings were gone, and who knew what was going to happened to her parents? She wasn’t worried so much about their safety since John was with them, but she didn’t know when they would be back.

“And it’s all about you, baby brother,” she said, as she looked up at the ceiling. That was the only thing she was positive about. It started and ended with Will. And there was something different about him. She knew when that thing had taken him on the planet, and she knew when the aliens put the bomb in his heart. There had to be a reason she felt those things. Maybe she could communicate with him like Robot could.

“Okay, Will, where are you?” She closed her eyes and thought about her brother. “Talk to me, Will,” she whispered.

Something was beeping. Will’s head hurt, and the beeping noise was only making it worse. He opened his eyes, expecting to be in the alley, or back on the island lying on the beach, but he wasn’t. He was sitting on a sidewalk, leaning against a wooden fence, looking out on a deserted cross street. It wasn’t raining, and it didn’t look like it had been. He still had the shorts on and Judy’s jacket.

He looked across the street, then down it both ways. The place looked familiar somehow, but he couldn’t remember where he had seen it before.

He pushed himself up, putting as little pressure on his foot as he could. But he realized it no longer hurt. When he looked down at it, he saw the swelling had disappeared. The whole thing was so strange.

He looked around. He could tell it had been a nice neighborhood once, somewhere in the suburbs. But now everything was different. The lawns were unkempt and overgrown. The houses all seemed abandoned with broken glass in many of them, some doors open and others completely off their hinges and lying on the porch or in the front yard. The only cars he saw were also abandoned or had been wrecked. Some of them had been burnt. That’s when he noticed the black marks on a few of the houses.

“There was a battle,” he said to himself.

He turned to the fence he had been leaning against. It was a privacy fence, surrounding the front yard of a light green house that sat on a corner. There were burn holes in part of it and some of the panels were completely down. He froze. It was an involuntary reaction, because he knew the house, and he knew when he had been very young there was a mean German Shepherd behind the fence. He would make his sisters walk an entire block further to avoid this house when he was a small child, because the dog scared him so badly.

But there was no dog now, and the house was as empty as all the other’s he could see, with broken windows and some furniture laying in the front yard. He was back home on Earth in his old neighborhood, but he had never seen it like this.

His old house was three blocks further down, so he started walking, wondering what condition it would be in and what he would find. But as he got closer and looked at it down the block, the house seemed different than the others. There was no glass lying around and the lawn actually looked as if someone had been mowing it. When he was in front of the house, he could see that the two windows that overlooked the porch had been broken out, but the glass had been cleaned up.

Will stared at the house for a moment, so many thoughts running through his head. His family had moved in when he was three years old, and it was the only place that really felt like home to him. He never had friends, so he had never missed the neighborhood, but this house was his refuge. His mother and sisters always took care of him when his father was away, and no matter how the day had gone at school, once he was here in this yard, he felt safe. It was the only place in his life he had ever really felt safe. This yard and the little park a few blocks away where Judy would take him and Penny to swing and play and get ice cream cones.

He walked up the sidewalk, stood looking at the house for a few seconds. The porch swing was still there, and it looked like someone had painted it not long ago. He used to love to sit out here when a storm came in, under a blanket with his mother until the rain ran them both inside.

He started to knock, but instead, he pushed the front door open. Penny was sitting on the couch reading a book. She looked up when he walked in.

“Hi, Will,” she said. She didn’t seem surprised at all and didn’t stand up to greet him.

“Penny! Penny you know it’s me?”

She looked back at him. “Yes.”

“But, you know you’re talking to me?” He asked, walking slowly into the room.

“I talk to you all the time. See you too. I think it’s the pharmaceuticals.” She kind of laughed when she said it.

Now he looked closer at her. She was skinny, and her hair was stringy and looked like it hadn’t been washed in days. Or longer. She was taking care of the house much better than she had been taking care of herself.

“But…you’re older now,” she said. “How old are you?”

“Fourteen.”

“No wonder. You’re always eleven when I see you. How does it feel to be a teenager, little brother?”

“Penny, it’s really me,” he said. He walked over by her.

“It always is.”

He sat down beside her and took her hand. “I mean, really. Can you feel my hand?”

She looked down at it, took it in both her hands and just massaged his palm like she was trying to see if it was real. But she let go and looked back up at him. “It’s not the first time I have felt your skin either.”

“Penny, I’m serious.”

“I’m sure you are. It was some other little boy who looked just my brother that Dad pulled out of that hole. Some other little boy that we put in the ground on that fucking planet.”

He was still in his dream, or in it again, maybe. Though this time it was Penny he was visiting. And she wasn’t well. He decided not to try and convince her about what had happened. She had crawled into her own mind, and nothing was going to get her out. “What are you doing here, Penny? No one lives here anymore.”

“This is home, Will. Where else would I go?”

“Alpha Cen…”

“No. That place is not home. It never was. I didn’t want to leave here. You didn’t either. But we were children, and everyone knew what was best for us. So, they took us to space, and the decisions they made killed you. Killed us all, really. Mom just dried up. Spends all her time at Alpha, but she’s not anyone you would want to be around anyway, now.

“Judy’s the same. Her and a guy named Don were together for a few years, and I thought maybe she would come out of it, but she never did. Don eventually left her and started working for Alpha again, going back and forth. Dad…he’s just trying to kill himself; I think. Mom and Judy would never forgive him.”

“What about you, Penny? Did you forgive him?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t his fault. Mom was the one who wanted to go to space. Dad did what he thought was right.”

“But…why didn’t you stay with him?”

“I did for awhile, but I finally left. He just didn’t understand who I had become. And I knew that watching me…my life…wasn’t helping him. He finally had to come and get me out of jail. It wasn’t anything serious. Just stealing some shit, selling it for…stuff. But I think it was too much for him. I didn’t see him after that. I don’t know what happened to him.”

Will started to tell her that John wasn’t far away. He had been at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada when Don had been back. But he decided to wait. He didn’t think her state of mind was good, and he remembered how Judy had reacted when he tried to tell her what to do to mend things with the family.

“How long have you been back here, Penny?” He asked instead.

“About six months. I talked my way into being part of the galley crew on the Resolute. Mom’s name still carries some weight, I guess. We made the trip to Salt Lake City, and I deserted and stole a car and came home.”

Stole a car. This was his sister he was taking to, who just said she stole a car. “Salt Lake City?” Will asked.

“That’s as far West as they come now to pick up colonists. A lot has changed since you died.”

She said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. Will was really concerned about her now. Even if she wasn’t real.

“They thought the war was over when we left, but it turns out they were just biding their time. They invaded in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco and started pushing East and South. There was a battle here too before I got here. You could probably tell if you were walking around outside. I hear they parachuted in though, and the army killed most of them. They haven’t really gotten past the mountains in the North to completely invade down here. A lot of fighting going on in the San Gabriel Mountains, so they evacuated the civilian population down below.”

Down below. Will’s grandfather had lived in Apple Valley for years, and Will knew that’s what the people up in the high desert called Los Angeles. The San Gabriel Mountains North of the city was where Don said John had been fighting. Again, Will almost told Penny their father was close, but he stopped himself.

“You drove all the way here from Salt Lake City?” Will asked.

“Yeah, wasn’t that big a deal. Even though there’s not many people here, it’s pretty much the way it always was. A little more polluted, I guess, though maybe that will get better if the people stay away long enough. I heard I couldn’t get through San Bernardino without getting stopped, so I went to Phoenix, then came up through the South. It was when I got up here it wasn’t too good. The army has patrols, but we get raided some too from a few hangers on.”

“But Penny, it’s so dangerous for you here by yourself!”

“Dangerous? You’re funny little brother.”

“But what are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t just live here by yourself.”

“Why not? I’ve been by myself for a long time. It’s just, here I’m surrounded by things I remember. We’re all still here. Back before Mom dragged us off to space. How fucking stupid was that? It destroyed us all and got you killed.”

“But why can’t you live with Judy?”

She laughed. It sounded bitter. “Judy is a bad as I am. She just hides it in work. That’s her drug. She had one good thing in her life. At least since you died. And she fucked that up. I couldn’t be there anymore. So, I came home. This is the only home I’ve ever known.”

“But this isn’t home anymore. None of us are here.”

“We’re all here, Will. Just like before. Maybe we’re all ghosts, but we’re here. We watch movies together and play cards and board games. We talk and laugh and sometimes we cry. But we’re all here. Look, you’re here.”

“But I’m…”

When he didn’t finish Penny said, “What? A ghost? Or were you going to say older?” She smiled. “That’s kind of cool, that I see you as fourteen. I never pictured you older before. I mean I tried to think of you as older, but when I’ve talked to you and seen you before you were always eleven. You sure are tall.”

“But Penny, if you could go back…”

“Hey, when I came here, I almost stopped at Palm Desert on my way through, but there was a lot of people moving East and a lot of military and I didn’t want to risk getting off the freeway. That was right after the battle down here, but it’s a lot quieter now. Want to go with me?”

“To the farm?”

“No, to In-N-Out Burger, dummy. Yeah, to the farm.”

When he didn’t answer she said, “Well?”

He said, “Sorry, I was just thinking about In-N-Out Burger.” His voice sounded dreamy and they both smiled.

“I wish,” she said. “All gone, like everything else. So, let’s go, we haven’t seen the farm since Mom sold the place. It would be cool.”

Will didn’t know how to answer her. She was clearly not well, and talked to him like it was perfectly natural that he was here. But maybe he could help her somehow, if he was allowed to stay in this dream long enough.

She stood. “Come on, it’s only a couple hours out there. Might be a little longer. There’s no traffic but sometimes there’s damaged roads. They’ve bombed part of it. I have a truck in the garage. I keep the gas tank full in case I need to get the hell out of here. Give me a second. Let me get the keys from upstairs.”

“Okay,” Will said, not knowing what else to say.

Penny came down a few minutes later, a pack thrown over one shoulder. She was smiling, like she was really enjoying herself. Will was getting more and more worried about her.

They left the house through the side door, into the garage. “Hey lift the door,” she said to Will. “Electricity is off and on most of the time, but it’s been out the last three days so the remote won’t work. There were some explosions a few blocks away, so I think someone hit a transformer or something.”

Will did as he was told, and watched as Penny climbed into a beat up old Ford pickup truck. She backed out and he lowered the door, climbed in the passenger side. “This is what you stole?”

“Hey, don’t judge, little brother. This is my third car in six months. I figured out if they look good, someone’s going to find a way to get it. No one thinks this piece of shit is worth stealing.” She backed out of the drive onto the deserted street.

Will was thinking how hard life had been to his sister in this dream world of his, and how different she was. And yet, she was still the same and he loved her as much as he always had. He just wished he could help her. “What do you do for food, Penny?”

“There’re a couple stores open but not near here, and the shelves are pretty much empty most of the time. I scavenge a lot in the deserted houses. Problem is, I’m not the only one, so I have to be careful. But there’s still quite a bit of canned food to be found in our immediate neighborhood, so it isn’t too bad.”

They made it to the freeway without seeing any other cars, but there were a lot of military vehicles moving back West. Penny decided they should get off the freeway and take the two lanes before one of them decided to pull their truck over for an "inspection." Some of the soldiers were making their own decisions now, and she never felt safe around them.

“Everything went bad here, didn’t it?” Will asked.

“Well, that’s why Dad didn’t argue with Mom about going to space. He said this was going to happen. He didn’t have any faith in the military leaders, if you remember.”

Will didn’t remember that, because in his world, the wars had pretty much ended. There really wasn’t a winning side anywhere, John just said it was like they didn’t think there was much left to fight over. But here they must have still thought it was worth it.

It was slower going on the two lane, and it took them over three hours to get to the road Will recognized as the blacktop leading towards their grandmother’s property. On one side was desert sagebrush, and the other was lined with farm after farm and what had at one time been well kept, green pastures. But now, like the city, this area looked abandoned. They hadn’t seen any vehicles since leaving the last neighborhood behind, when they passed a few cars in a parking lot, with some rough looking people who just stared as they drove by. Will watched them closely but Penny didn’t seem to notice. Or care.

She turned left down a tree lined blacktop, and Will got butterflies in his stomach. “It’s been a long time,” he said.

“Yeah, you were ten I think when Mom sold it.”

“I loved coming out here, Penny.”

“I know. Me too. I didn’t like the horses as much as Mom thought I did, but I loved the farm.”

“Well, you saved us in the cafeteria because of that,” Will said.

“What are you talking about?” She asked.

It reminded him that in this dreamworld, he had been dead before they found the abandoned Resolute. “Nothing, just a game I made up,” he answered.

“My little brother is still weird,” she said, and rubbed his head.

He loved the gesture. It was something both she and Judy had done often when he was little. He wished so much he could really see his sisters again.

She turned off the lane and took a gravel drive about fifty yards and pulled to a stop in front of the house. “Wow,” Penny said. “It’s a little rough, but it’s not much different.”

They climbed out and stood looking at the wood frame farmhouse they both knew so well. The white picket fence was still pretty much intact, but there were a few pickets missing and broken. The house had a long porch with several chairs and a wooden swing on one end. The yard was overgrown, but the crape myrtle that surrounded the porch was in bloom with beautiful purple flowers, and it gave both kids a sense that nothing really had changed that much.

They walked up to the house slowly, and Penny started to open the door, but Will said, “Let me go in first.”

She looked at him and smiled, but it was a sad smile.

“What?”

She didn’t answer.

He wondered what her smile meant. He stepped ahead and pushed the door open.

“Someone’s been living here,” Will said, as soon as they were inside.

“Squatters,” Penny said. “I’m glad Grandma isn’t here to see it.”

The inside of the house had been pretty much destroyed, with ripped furniture everywhere. It looked like a lot of people had been living here at one time. “You smell that?” Penny asked.

“Yeah,” Will said. “It’s coming from upstairs. I’ll go check it out.”

She stood aside and smiled again, but the smile turned to a sad expression, and this time she told him what she was thinking. “I would have liked to see my little brother at your age, where he’s the one who’s taking care of me.”

“Penny I…” he didn’t finish what he was going to say. He turned and walked up the stairs.

He looked in the first room, his grandmother’s bedroom, but there was nothing there. He walked down to the next room, which is one he shared with Penny when they were younger. He pushed it open slightly, but he smelled it before the door was all the way open. He quickly covered his mouth and nose with his shirt, and peeked in. He slammed the door, turned and hurried downstairs. “Let’s go, Penny!” He said, rushing toward the door.

“What was it?” She asked, hurrying out with him.

“Nothing.”

She grabbed his arm. “I’m not a child, Will.”

He stopped. “Some dead people. I couldn’t tell how many, but it wasn’t good. I think someone killed them.”

She followed him out, but then said, “Wait!”

He turned to her, “We should hurry.”

“Not yet. I want to see the barn.”

She was already walking toward the barn which was about fifty yards past the house. He hurried and caught up with her, but kept glancing behind them.

They walked in together and stopped inside the door. “We spent a lot of time here, didn’t we little brother?” She asked him.

“Yeah,” he said, quietly.

They walked past the horse stalls, all empty now of course. They stopped at the back where the hay loft was high at the top. “Remember that one time we built that big pile of hay,” Will said.

“Yeah. We were jumping in it and Judy caught us. We thought we were in trouble but she said…

“We’re gonna need more hay,” they both said together and started laughing.

“She took the fall for us,” Will said.

“Yeah,” Penny said quietly.

“Do you miss her?” Will asked.

“Of course I miss her, Will. I miss all of it.”

“Me too,” he said.

Neither of them spoke for several minutes. Then Will said, “You could go back.”

“I’ll never go back to space,” she said without hesitation. “Space killed my little brother and took my family away. I’ll never go back.”

“But…”

“Let’s get out of here,” she said. “There’s nothing here anymore.”

They were both quiet most of the way back. When they pulled up in the drive, Will climbed out and lifted the garage door and Penny drove in and shut the truck off. When they went inside, Penny sat at the table in the kitchen, the same table where Will and Judy had put a model of the Resolute together after she had tossed her training manual into the trash and told him Robinsons always stick together.

Will sat down across from her.

She said, “This is kind of weird that you’re still here. When I’ve seen you before we just talked for awhile, then you disappeared. I guess this vision I’m having of you being older is going to stay awhile.”

“Would you rather I wasn’t here?”

“No. It’s been nice. I hope it lasts for awhile, even if I don’t know what it means. I haven’t seen anyone for months. Before I left, I saw Mom for a few minutes, then spent the night on Judy’s couch. I knew I was going to leave and come back here, but I didn’t tell either one of them. I just wanted to see them one more time, since I figured it would be the last time I ever saw them.”

“When’s the last time you saw Dad, Penny?”

“Over two years ago. He tried to keep in touch, but Mom and Judy hated him and I just…I just knew when he looked at me how disappointed he was in who I had become. So I had to leave. I don’t know what happened to him.”

“He’s here, Penny. He was at Nellis Air force Base in Nevada not too long ago. He’s been leading soldiers in the San Gabriel Mountains.”

Penny smiled. “He’s probably happy for the first time since he left the military then.”

“But Penny, he’s close. He needs you! You need each other. You could be a family.”

“Just like you Will, always hopeful. Let me ask you a question. When you were in that hole, looking up at us all while we reached down for you, were you hopeful then?” Suddenly she sounded bitter.

“How did you feel then, little brother? Did you think about flying kites in the Spring with me and Judy? Did you think about drinking root beer floats with me in the park? Did you think about camping and hiking in Yellowstone? Did you think about jumping out of the hay loft on a big pile of hay with your sisters who loved you so much? Did you think about watching Judy win the 400 when she was a Junior, then the three of us eating Mexican food together and celebrating?

“Did my hopeful little brother think about all that?” Her voice was rising now.

“Or did you think about how cold it was? How dark it was? How lonely it was in that goddamn hole that we put you in? And yes…we all put you there. Mom because she made you go to space, even cheated on your test to get you there. Dad, because he told you to crawl in that hole. Judy because she wasn’t quick enough to get there before you. And me because I just sat and watched it all happen, like always.

“Tell me my hopeful little brother? What were the last thoughts that went through your mind while you looked up at us and the oxygen left your body? Well, my hopeful little brother? What were they?” She shouted the last words at him.

Will remembered his dream. The dream he had had on the planet where the aliens had captured him and taken his family away from him forever. The dream of dying. The dream that seemed more than a dream.

“I thought…if I can just get this battery up to them, my family can survive. I thought…no point in you guys dying too.”

“Get out of here!” She was standing now, screaming down at him. “Get the fuck out of my house. Get the fuck out of my life. Get the fuck out of my head!”

Will stood. “Penny…”

“Get the fuck out!” She screamed, and turned around and ran up the stairs.

Will stood for a minute, looked around the room. It looked just the way it always had. Back when they were a family. He wished so much he could go back to that time in his life. But he couldn’t. He remembered something his grandfather used to say, when he sat under the shade tree in the backyard, sipping iced tea or a cold beer in the afternoon, and he was in a particularly melancholy mood: Time wounds all heels.

It reminded Will of something else he had heard, but couldn’t remember where: Time is sorrow.

He turned and walked out the door. It had started to rain. He didn’t know where to go now, but when he stepped out on the porch he began to fall, and when he landed, he was surrounded by complete darkness.

Penny’s eyes opened wide. What the hell was that? It felt like a dream, but she didn’t think she had been dreaming. She had tried to concentrate on Will and see where he was and what he was doing. Hoping somehow she could communicate with him. Her head was fuzzy. She couldn’t really remember the dream, but she saw her old neighborhood, though it felt different somehow. And she actually thought she was yelling at her brother. But that didn’t make any sense. Why would she be yelling at him?

She had a sudden thought that it wasn’t her dream, but maybe she was seeing Will’s dream. That made even less sense. And in the end, everything went dark. It all disappeared. Did he die? Was that what she felt?

She jumped out of bed and ran toward the door. But it flew open, and Robot was standing there looking at her, the lights in his face shield spinning rapidly.

“You felt it, didn’t you? You felt him die? Or dying! He’s dying! He’s not dead yet! I won’t believe he’s dead. Robot! You have to take me to him. You have to!”

He just looked back at her.

“Robot, I know he’s dangerous, and he wanted you to leave him behind so he can’t hurt anyone, but he needs us, Robot. If he isn’t dying, then something bad is happening to him. We have to try and save him. Please.”

Robot just stared back, and Penny had decided he wasn’t going to respond at all, when he finally said. “Yes, Penny Robinson.”

He turned to walk out of the room, but Penny said, “Wait! I don’t even have pants on. I’ll meet you out front.”

When she ran out, Robot was standing next to Sally. He was holding a green waterproof bag. Penny recognized it as the Go Bag from the Chariot. All the Chariots had them, and John being John, stashed several around their property. They all had emergency medical supplies, tools, torches, rain gear, water, and several day’s worth of MREs for food. Penny was surprised to see Robot had thought to grab it. She certainly hadn’t. But they would be on Robot’s spaceship which he had landed in the field across the road and past the woods. Then it dawned on her that when Will had left in such a hurry, he didn’t take any supplies with him. Maybe this was why Robot had thought of it.

“Sally, please go to the hospital and watch out for Don until Mom and Dad come back. He’s by himself and he still isn’t well, and we don’t know if those guys that attacked Mom and Dad are going to come for him.”

“Yes, Penny Robinson.”

Penny hugged her, then hurried to catch up with Robot who was walking across the front yard toward the woods at a fast pace.

We’re coming Will. Just hold on.

Chapter Text

Judy knew it was a bad idea, and that the boy who had found his way to her door claiming to be her long dead brother was unstable. But it was all so strange, she felt like she had to find out what was going on. And she knew if something happened to him, she would never forgive herself that she had just told him to go.

When she walked outside it was raining. Now she had no choice, she reasoned. The kid had her jacket, but besides that he only had a pair of shorts on, no shoes and the temperature was dropping. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t found him some kind of shoes to wear. She thought she might have had an old pair of Don’s tennis shoes somewhere.

She ran to her garage, climbed in her car, and drove the direction she had seen him walking. After several blocks, she knew she had gone too far. The boy was limping, and didn’t seem to know where he was going anyway. He sure wasn’t in a hurry.

She turned at the corner, went around the block, and drove back the way she had come. “Where the hell did he go?” She said.

When she was back to her house and still hadn’t spotted him, she drove around the block, but this time went down the alley, the direction he had been going. She thought he disappeared so quickly he was either in someone’s house or had stopped walking down the main road.

She almost passed him. He was lying on the side of the alley, next to a fence, beneath some bushes. She quickly stopped and jumped out. She ran over and knelt beside him. “Hey! Hey, kid! Are you okay?”

His breath was shallow. She felt his pulse. He was still alive, but barely.

She patted his face, said, “Hey, kid, wake up.” His head had been turned away from her, and when she turned it toward her, she saw his mouth was frothing. “Shit!” Whatever had stung him had poisoned him, and removing the stinger and cleaning the wound hadn’t helped.

She got both her hands under his arm pits and dragged him toward the car. Good thing he’s so skinny, she thought. She opened the back door, propped him up against the side of the car, ran around to the passenger side, opened that back door, crawled over and pulled him up and into the back seat. She checked his pulse. He was still alive. “Hang on kid,” she said.

She drove to the hospital, calling in a potential venomous sting to a teenage victim.

The beeping wouldn’t stop, no matter how much Will tried to ignore it. And his head was killing him. He finally opened his eyes. He was in a dark room, illuminated by several red blinking lights above him. There was an IV in his arm, and he was hooked up to some instruments. It was one of those that was making the tiny beeping sound. It had sounded much louder to him when he was half asleep.

He didn’t know where he was or how he had come to be here and thought he must have forgotten everything again. But then he remembered. He had been getting really weak as he walked and turned back into an alley so when he vomited, he wouldn’t be on the street. Then he had decided to stay there, as he knew he was dying.

And he remembered dying. He felt it all end, like a door was closing on everything he had been. He remembered how final it had felt. And he remembered it was okay. He accepted death as death had welcomed him in.

Someone must have found him, he thought. Then he saw her. Judy had pulled up two chairs to use as a cot and was asleep in them on the other side of the room. Had she found him? He had been at least a block and a half from her house and under a hedgerow in an alley. Did she come looking for him?

“Hey, you’re awake.” Her eyes were open, and she was looking at him. She stood and walked over to his bed.

“Did you find me?” He asked.

“Yeah, I decided you might need some help. You weren’t well.”

He smiled.

“What?”

“You’ve always taken care of me, Judy.”

“I…” she decided not to argue with him. “You almost died. You’ve been here for four days.”

“Four days? Thanks, Judy. Thanks for coming to look for me. When did you come back?”

“Back? Back where?”

“To the hospital.”

“I never left. I’ve been here waiting for you to wake up.”

“You’ve been here the whole time?”

“Yeah. It didn’t seem like you had anyone else.”

He just looked at her for a few seconds before saying, quietly, “I don’t have anyone else.”

“You really have no family here?”

“I have you.”

She just looked at him. Finally, she said, “I need you to show me that scar on your stomach.” She had been going to look at it while he was unconscious but decided that was an invasion of his privacy. The scar was pretty low.

Without hesitation, he pulled his hospital gown off one shoulder, pulled it to the side, and lowered his blanket enough that his lower stomach was visible. Judy sat on the bed and looked down at the scar, then up at him. “Do you mind if I touch it?”

“Of course not. It’s just my stomach. Besides, you used to change my diapers.”

“Yeah, well, I bet you were a lot younger.”

She ran her finger along the scar. It was real. She didn’t know what that meant. She pulled his blanket up.

“Look, I don’t know how you got here, and I’m probably going to regret this, but you can come home with me until you feel better. You’re stable and they said once you woke up, they would probably release you in twenty four hours. But you’ll need some supervision at home. So, if you want…”

“I would like that. But…I might just disappear someday. I don’t think I can control that.”

She smiled and brushed the hair out of his eyes, something she used to do to Will all the time. But she surprised herself with the gesture, so she quickly stood and walked back to the chair and sat down. “Well, you can stay until you feel better, or you just disappear.”

They gave him antibiotics to continue to fight the infection and released him the following evening. Judy stayed the entire time. When he was released, she drove them both back to her small house.

She led him in and they sat down across from each other at her kitchen table. “I have some canned soup,” she said. “I could do better, but I don’t think you should eat anything too heavy today.”

“That’s fine, Judy,” he answered.

She stood and he watched her get bowls and spoons and some crackers out of the cabinet.

When the food was ready, she brought it over to the table. He was smiling. “What?” She asked.

“Same thing. It’s nice being here with you. And you taking care of me like you always have.”

“Okay, let’s set some ground rules,” she said. “I’m not going to argue with you. And I’ll call you Will because that’s what you call yourself. But that doesn’t mean I believe you’re some version of my brother from a different world or a dream world or something. Okay? It’s just that…”

When she stopped he said, “Just what?”

“It’s good for me too. You being here. I haven’t actually cared for someone for a long time.”

“But you’re a doctor,” he said.

“I don’t mean take care of someone. I mean, care about someone. And, I don’t know. You just seem like you need someone to care about you.” She almost couldn’t believe she was using those words. She had been so bitter since Will had died, but whoever this kid was, he was bringing part of her old self back. The part she thought had died that day on the unnamed planet with her brother.

He smiled and lifted a spoonful of soup to his lips and slurped it loudly.

Judy laughed. “You eat soup just like Will always did. Mom used to tell him not to be so loud.”

“I know. I remember,” he slurped another spoonful, purposefully making it louder than before.

“And that’s just what Will would do,” she laughed. “My Will.”

Will put his spoon down. “You don’t understand Judy, I’m not a version of your brother, I am your brother. I bet every memory you have of me before that hole, was a memory I have too. When you took your brother and sister to Knott’s Berry Farm, and your brother got lost, that was me. I was at the track meet with Penny, not another Will in another world. Me. I was there with you and Penny. After you got your license, you drove me and Penny up to Big Bear where we hiked all day, but I was pretty little and got tired and you carried me like, two miles on your back.”

“I said I would call you Will but that doesn’t mean…”

“Do you remember those things?”

She hesitated before saying, “Yes. I remember all of those things.” She smiled but it was a sad smile.

“I thought of something in the hospital while you were down in the office getting me released. This is probably a dream, or something my consciousness has created to help me cope with…I don’t know. Maybe with dying.

“But if it is real, I think it was when you ran to jump in the ice that it changed. This became my dream world. Maybe it was just before that. Maybe Dad stepped a few inches to the right and was able to grab you when you tried to run by. I don’t know. But when that happened, my real world changed, or split or whatever happened.

“In my real world you jumped in the water. But in my dream world—your real world—you were stopped, and I climbed in the water. You’re thinking of it like it was a different you and a different me. But it’s not. It’s the same us. Just on different paths after the worlds split. On one path I died, on another path I survived, and you almost died in the ice. But they both happened. And it was both you and me. I don’t know how, but that’s what happened. If it’s all real.”

“Listen,” she said, “If you really know me as well as you claim to know me, then you have to know that I’m skeptical about…well…”

“Pretty much everything,” he added.

“Yeah, pretty much everything,” she agreed.

“You were even skeptical about Doctor Smith, long after the rest of us decided she was more than her complicated self, and maybe not so evil after all.”

“Doctor Smith? The Psychiatrist on the Resolute?” She had a perplexed look on her face.

“I forgot we met her after all that,” he said. “You probably didn’t know her as well as we got to. Did she set up practice here?”

“Yes. I actually talked Penny into seeing her a few months after we arrived on Alpha Centauri.”

“That explains a lot,” Will mumbled.

“What?” Judy asked.

“Let’s just say, she might not be exactly everything she claims to be. But she isn’t really a bad person. So I guess you didn’t interact with her that much.”

“No. We met her with the Watanabes. They rescued her and a mechanic. We got to know him pretty well.”

“Yeah, Don West. The guy in the backyard. You had a relationship with him. He was older than you.”

“First, don’t judge me…”

“I wasn’t…”

“He had an accident when we went to get fuel, and I saved his life, and he stayed with us for a long time after. We became close. After you…after Will died in the ice, I think I needed something solid in my life, and he was that. I blew it though.”

“I didn’t mean anything Judy, I’m sorry. But he told you about Dad and that he was fighting near the city, and he needed to see you. I think…

“Okay, here’s another rule. No talking about my family. Got it?” She was agitated now, and starting to believe this was really a bad idea, but what she couldn’t stop thinking was, it’s the scar. The exact same scar.

“Look, Judy. I don’t know what this is. I don’t know how I’m here. So…hey, do you remember a day when I was nine, and Dad was gone, and Mom took Penny to debate finals for the weekend, and it was just the two of us. And we ran home after school on Friday night in a rainstorm?”

She smiled. She was looking down at the floor. “That was a good day. When Will and I ran home in the rain. I walked to the grade school to get him…”

“Judy,” he reached out and put a hand on her forearm. “You walked by and got me. I was there. You asked me if I wanted to walk home since it was about to start pouring, and I said I did, and it started raining soon after we started walking. We got so wet, when we were like a block away standing under this tree, you took my hand and we walked out into the rain, then walked slowly home. We were soaked by the time we got to the house, and it was so cool and so much fun. You were going to order pizza, but I said I wanted Cheerios and…”

“We watched Star Wars that weekend,” she said.

“All of them,” they both said together.

Suddenly, she held her hand up, palm facing him, “Wait. Just wait!”

He saw her eyes were tearing up. She stood and walked away. “Judy,” he called to her.

“I need a minute,” she said, and walked in the next room. He stayed where he was. He heard her sobbing. He sat for a while longer, then stood and walked in the room where she had gone. She was sitting on the couch with her elbows on her knees, her hands covering her face. He hesitated, then walked over and sat beside her. He put a hand on her shoulder, very gently. He didn’t talk, he just let her cry.

Finally, she stopped sobbing, took her hands away and turned to him. “I don’t know what this is, and I don’t know if you’re just the cruelest boy I have ever met—or the kindest.”

He didn’t say anything, he just put his arms around her and pulled her to him. She hugged him tightly and started crying again. They sat like that for a long time, even after she stopped crying.

Finally, she released him and leaned back on the couch. “I want to pretend what you’re telling me is true. I want to pretend that you’re my little brother, and you remember that day of the storm, and that we hung out all weekend together watching Star Wars while everyone else was away. I want to pretend all of that, because I’ve missed my little brother so much and I’ve been so broken because of that day when I looked in his eyes and watched him die. After he handed the battery up to us, I knew—I just knew—he had decided to save our lives when he couldn’t save his own.”

“Then pretend, Judy. If you have to. Pretend. But I’m telling you, this whole thing is true. I’m Will. I’m your little brother. I think this is a dream, or I actually did die…anyway…I’m here now, for however long I can be.”

She wiped her eyes and said, “Okay…Will.” Her eyes teared up again when she said his name. “Tell me your story…little brother.” She smiled when she said it. “I want to know what happened from the minute I jumped in the hole.”

“When you took my place and jumped in the water, it froze before you got out. Dad and I left to get magnesium because it would burn on the ice and melt it. But I fell down a crevasse, and Dad had to get back to try and save you.”

“He left you?”

“He had no choice, Judy. You were going to die. I was fine, I just couldn’t get back up to where he was. So I waited, but there was a fire. So I started trying to find a way out of the woods, and I saw the bottom half of a robot…”

“Robot? This is what you were talking about? An actual robot?”

“Yes. He’d been on the Resolute and attacked it. We really didn’t know why at the time. But we found out one of them had crashed a few years before and we were using their engine to get to Alpha Centauri.”

“The robot’s engine?”

“Yes. It creates a rift in space, and they can travel across the universe in minutes. They’re like, navigators, and the engine is what they use.”

“You know how bizarre this whole thing sounds?” Judy asked.

“How did you think you got to Alpha Centauri in a matter of weeks?” He asked.

“They said it was just advanced technology, but it was…top secret,” she said.

Will could tell she was thinking about something. “What?” He asked.

“Mom didn’t know why she didn’t have clearance for that part of the mission. She had practically designed the Resolute.”

She was looking down, but now looked directly at him. She examined him closely. “I…this can’t be possible. You can’t be possible.”

“Anyway, the robot was trapped in this tree, the top half of him. And I climbed up and he almost killed me. I didn’t know he was there. In the end, I thought I was going to die, and cut the limb off that he was stuck to. He sort of melded together with his bottom half, and climbed up in the tree and carried me to safety.”

“Jesus,” Judy said, looking at him closely again.

“What?”

“Will would do that. Will did do that. For us. When he handed me the battery. I’m sure that’s what he did. But you did it for this robot.” She didn’t ask this time, she just stated it.

“I remember thinking, no sense in him dying too.”

She stood up and started pacing. “Go ahead. I’ll try not to interrupt you again. Tell me everything. Everything until the minute you ended up on my porch.”

And he did. She kept walking back and forth slowly, not looking at him and not interrupting him. She finally stopped pacing when he said, “So, I went to confront SAR. I knew I had to do that, if we were ever going to survive.”

She turned now and looked at him. “What happened?”

“I spoke to him. I thought he was listening. But when I showed him the alien skull, he crushed it and said he had killed them. I knew…I knew I was in trouble then. I was a thirteen year old kid, and I couldn’t stop him.”

“So, what happened?”

“This…this blade slid out of one of his hands and he stabbed me in the heart. He said, ‘now you are free.” Will rubbed his chest. “I can still feel it.”

She walked over to him and pulled the zipper of the jacket open. She saw the thin scar on his chest. She sat beside him, looking at him without talking for a few seconds, then took both his hands in hers. “Go ahead,” she told him.

She held his hands while he finished the story.

“They put this bomb in your chest?” She said.

“Yeah. So, I left. I mean, I didn’t want to put anyone in danger. This is a dream, so I’m not putting you in danger, or anyone here.”

“What if it isn’t a dream?”

“It has to be. That or something.”

“Will, I’m a person. I’m Judy Robinson. I don’t know anything about another world, but from my point of view, this world is completely real.” He started to pull away, but she held his hands tighter.

“But what if I am putting you in danger…somehow?” He asked.

“I don’t know. But you can’t just show up and tell me all this and leave like it didn’t happen. You’re not well. I mean, you’re not physically, well. I don’t know if you are mentally well or not, but you need to rest. You almost died. And if you have no people here, then you’re going to stay right here with me for now.”

“But Judy…”

“Will…or…Will. I’ve been all alone myself. Since you died. My family disintegrated, and I destroyed my relationship with Don. I have no idea where Penny is or if she’s even alive.”

He started to tell her about his dream of Penny but decided not to. It would probably make the whole thing even less believable to her. And he was torn between wanting to leave in case he was putting her in danger and not wanting her to kick him out again. He really liked being here, after thinking he could never see his sister again. Maybe this is my consciousness coping for that. I really might be going crazy.

“I’ll probably wake up tomorrow and you’ll be gone,” Judy continued, “and I’ll live my life wondering what this was all about. Probably convincing myself it never really happened. But right now you’re here. You are not physically well, and you’re staying and letting me take care of you. If there’s danger, then there’s danger. But that’s the way it’s going to be. Got it?”

He smiled. “You’re so my sister.”

She thought for a few minutes, then said, “Why would I do that, Will? Distance myself from you when we were stranded. That I would do that to you is more unbelievable than you telling me you survived in a different world and you’re here visiting me.”

“You had responsibilities, Judy. You had ninety seven kids to take care of. Besides, when’s the last time you saw Dad?” He asked.

“I told you we can’t talk about the family.”

He noticed she didn’t say my family this time.

“Besides, that’s different!” She sounded angry for the first time. “He killed you…him! He made that decision for him! He was eleven years old! He should have protected my little brother!”

“Judy, do you think he made that decision because he felt that could happen to me?”

“Of course he didn’t think it would happen. But it was the worst thing he could have done!”

“The worst thing he could have done was let the whole family freeze to death. And had you gone down in the ship instead of me, it might not have happened like it did. In my world. You might have died, and the whole family would have frozen to death as well. If I hadn’t ended up in the tree with Robot that would have happened.”

“Yeah, about that. Let me get this straight. You’re in a forest, right?”

“Yeah.”

“A big forest?”

“Yeah. Well, I didn’t know how big it was then, but it turned out it was really big.”

“So you’re in this forest. A forest that’s on fire. And you climb one tree in this vast forest, and it just happens to be the tree this robot—half this robot—is stuck in. And you save him, so he saves you. And because of that, the whole family survives?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Do you know what the chances are of you ending up in that very tree? It’s pretty much impossible.”

“Impossible things happen all the time.”

She sighed. “Look, kid…Will…you see how hard it is for me to believe all this?”

“I know. And I’ve thought a lot about that. When I was on that planet and something had me, I had nothing to do but think. And I kept coming to one conclusion. It was supposed to happen.”

“So now God did it,” She said sarcastically.

“No. Not anything like that. Something else. I’ve been thinking for a long time that everything that’s happened to us was my fault. Like it was about me somehow, and I can’t figure that out.”

“You say you think this was supposed to happen?”

“That’s the only thing that would explain all these coincidences. Like me ending up in the same tree that Robot had gotten stuck in.”

“So what if that’s why you’re here? With me?”

“What do you mean?”

“You think this is a dream. I’m telling you I have a whole life I can remember. With you in it, and almost four years now without you in it. So, if we’re both right—remember, I’m pretending to believe you—if we’re both right, maybe there’s a reason you’re here too.”

“What would it be?” He asked.

“Maybe you’re here so I can help you figure it all out.”

He looked at her for a few seconds, then said, “I would always turn to Judy for help. Until I didn’t. With SAR I tried it on my own.”

“And look how that turned out,” Judy said.

“Yeah. And…I didn’t tell anyone, but I went back to space because I thought there was more to it. And I wanted to try and find out what it was. Something about SAR, when he stabbed me. When he said, ‘Now you are free.”

“You don’t think he was just taunting you?”

“No. I did at first. But everything seemed so…I don’t know…planned out. It just seems like that explanation is too simple. And too human. He wasn’t human. He seemed like he hated me and hated his masters. So maybe he did have emotions. And Robot does. But I don’t think he was taunting me. I think it actually meant something.”

“But Your robot friend left with you, after they put that thing in your heart?”

“Yeah. I wanted to leave by myself, but he wouldn’t let me. I didn’t want to put him in danger.”

“And you think they put a bomb in you to destroy Alpha Centauri?”

“Yeah. They tried before and we stopped them. Well, the robots tried. So that’s what the alien’s plan was. They found another way to do it with me. They put it in my chest, then let me go. Knowing I would go back to the colony.”

“How long were you back before you left?”

“A few weeks. A couple months, I guess.”

“And the thing didn’t go off.”

“Right.”

“So, you think it’s a timer or something?” She asked.

“I don’t know. We couldn’t even detect it.”

“Maybe it’s not even there.”

“It’s there. Robot showed it to me. He could do that. Like, show me the past.”

“Okay…”

“I know! I know how it sounds. But it’s true.”

“Okay, let’s keeping going, and I’m still assuming everything you tell me is true, to help you figure it out. Okay?”

“Okay, but I know how it all sounds to you.”

“Let’s just keep going. So, the bomb didn’t explode in the two months you were back on Alpha Centauri. And the robot went back to see you once he figured out what had happened. And he showed it to you. He could show you memories.”

“Yeah, but that was recent. It started when we left Alpha Centauri together.”

“So what changed? I mean, he couldn’t do that before, but then he began to.”

“Yeah. I don’t know. I thought we were getting closer. Like he could begin to feel my emotions or whatever even more. Like I would eat food, and somehow he could sense the taste.”

She smiled.

“What?”

“Did you have a girlfriend?”

“No, well. I think I might have started to have one. We just went on one date though before I left. Why?”

“I was just thinking, he might not want to see everything that’s going on in a fourteen year old boy’s mind.”

Will smiled sheepishly and his face turned red. “I guess I didn’t think about that.”

She laughed. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. My brother could talk to me about anything, pretty much.”

“Yeah, I could. It was nice.”

Judy just looked at him for a second. “I…this is hard for me to get used to…anyway. So, then your robot left you alone on that island.”

“Yeah. He knew I was a danger to him.”

“Does that make any sense? He left with you, then he left you alone because he thought you were a danger.”

“I know. Honestly I was surprised, and sort of disappointed, but I understood. He couldn’t do anything else for me, so he took me somewhere he thought I would be safe, then left. When I asked him why, he said, ‘Danger.’ He used that word a lot.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet, if he hung out with you. So, he started changing. He started feeling your emotions more. He started actually seeing your past and sending you memories. All of these things started happening after you left Alpha Centauri with him to explore the galaxy. Well, actually to find out about the aliens.”

“Yeah.”

“Nothing else happened between you two? Anything weird?”

“Well, one weird thing happened. We were on the top of a cliff on this island, looking out over the ocean. He reached out and grabbed my arm. And like, not even a second after he did, the ground I was standing on shifted, and I would have fallen off the cliff. It was a weird coincidence.”

“It was? Just like how he ended up in that tree where you were going to be.”

“Yeah, but he was programmed then. He didn’t plan anything. The other robot, SAR…”

Suddenly Will stopped talking.

“What?” Judy asked.

“I don’t know. I…it was nothing. Something just…anyway, that’s it. That’s everything.”

“Are you sure? You seem weird now. I mean, weirder than before.”

“No. I think I’m just tired, and I still don’t feel very well.”

“Well, it’s getting late too,” Judy said. “Why don’t we get you in bed. You’ve been yawning for the last two hours. Tomorrow morning we can try to figure out the next step.”

They stood, and he asked if he could take a shower. “Of course,” she led him in the bathroom and said, “I’ve got a pair of shorts you can sleep in if you want to. I’ll hang them on the door.”

“Thanks, Judy.”

After he showered, he walked out and she said, “You can sleep in my bed, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“No…”

“You’re the guest,” she said, and went in the bathroom to take a shower.

While she showered, Judy ran through everything he had said. It was just too unbelievable. The whole thing was unbelievable, but the story he told showed how messed up he really was. The problem was, he remembered so many things that only her brother could possibly know. And another thought kept entering her mind. If he was going to make up a story, why make up one that was so bizarre. It was like he didn’t want her to believe him. And that’s what really worried her. Either he was delusional to the point of being schizophrenic, or he was telling the truth. And she knew that couldn’t be, which made her worry about herself. Am I going along with this just because I miss my brother so much? Is this just fucking co-dependency? She sighed and turned the water off.

As she dried and got dressed, she thought of the boy wanting to leave in case she was in danger. Such a Will thing to do. But she wasn’t going to let him go off on his own again until she knew he was okay.

When she came out, he was lying on the couch, still awake. She stood looking at him. “Hey, come in here,” she said, walking into a room that he assumed was her bedroom.

“No, really I’m fine.”

“Will, since when do you not listen to me?” She was smiling and he smiled back.

He walked in and she said, “Take the bed. I’m just going to sit here until you’re asleep,” she said. There was a cushioned chair in the corner. She pulled it out, took a blanket from the closet, sat in the chair and covered up.

“Judy, I don’t want to kick you out of your bed.”

“Goodnight, Will,” she said, smiling.

He smiled back and crawled in bed. “You pulled the chair in between the bed and the door. You think I’ll sneak out?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, still smiling at him.

“If I’m not here when you wake up, I’m pretty sure it won’t be because I walked out.”

“Goodnight, Will,” She said again.

“Goodnight, Judy.”’

She turned the light out and it wasn’t long before she heard his breathing change and knew he was asleep. She watched him until she fell asleep as well.

She woke sometime during the night and was happy to see the boy was still there. She walked over to the bed and looked down at him. He was still in the same position he was in when he fell asleep.

When she started to go back to the chair, she heard him say, “you can sleep beside me if you want.”

She turned back to him. “I thought you were asleep. Um…I don’t think…”

“We’ve done that since the time I was born, Judy.”

“You won’t feel weird?” She asked.

“Not at all.”

She walked around and crawled in beside him, but kept to her side of the bed.

“You won’t feel weird?” He asked.

“Not if you’re my little brother. You’re right. We’ve done this since you were old enough to walk and couldn’t quite crawl up by yourself. And I’ve missed it so much. Besides, if you aren’t my little brother and you try anything I will kick your ass so bad.”

He laughed. “Sooo my sister.”

She turned her back to him and he turned the other way. He laid there looking at the wall for a few minutes, thinking about the day, and about Robot. Maybe he was here so his big sister could help him figure it all out. Because now he knew why Robot had left him. And it wasn’t because he put Robot in danger, it was because Robot put him in danger. And Will knew why. He didn’t think he would be able to fall back to sleep.

But he felt Judy turn and put her arms around him. “I never thought we would do this again. Goodnight, little brother.”

“Goodnight, Judy.”

Judy listened to him breathe, and worried about her own state of mind. This was so not her. And there was no possible way this could be her brother. But they both slept soundly until morning.

Chapter Text

Will was still asleep when Judy woke up. She very quietly crawled out of bed, trying not to move the mattress any more than necessary. She stood looking down at him. He was still sleeping peacefully, his breath shallow. She noticed small things now that she hadn’t noticed before. A tiny scar above his right eyebrow her brother had gotten when playing kickball in the back yard, and he skidded into the tree they were using for first base. It bled profusely because of the location, but it wasn’t a bad injury. He was seven years old, and she remembered him walking in the back door with blood all over his face, Penny holding him by the hand, looking pale because of all the blood. Maureen quickly saw it wasn’t as serious as it had looked, and she got him cleaned up and put a bandage on it.

He had a little curl of hair that had always been unruly just behind his right ear, and it was there, just like it always had been. She didn’t know how any of this could be true, but she couldn’t deny the similarities in this boy and her little brother. Suddenly, she wished she could talk to her mother. She would help figure it out. Judy was a scientist too, but she was more practical, and had a hard time believing in anything that she couldn’t test. Maureen on the other hand, believed there were still a lot of things in the universe we just couldn’t explain…yet. But that the scientific process would eventually find the answers to all the mysteries. But she was more open minded about the things we still did not understand. 

Judy thought for a minute about calling her, but she didn’t know how that would go, and she didn’t want to subject this boy to any undue stress, if he really was just a boy with a lot of mental problems. Of course he has to be. That’s all this is.

Will opened his eyes and rolled over and looked up at her. He smiled. “I’m still here I guess.”

“Yeah, you’re still here,” she smiled back at him. “Sorry I was staring at you.”

“I don’t mind, Judy. I know it’s all hard to figure out. I’m just glad I’m still here.”

“Me too…Will. I’m going to go fix breakfast, okay?”

“Okay, I’ll come out in a minute.”

Judy walked out, went to the bathroom, then the kitchen. She was looking in the refrigerator when Will came out of the bedroom.

“Sorry I don’t have any Cheerios,” she said, smiling over her shoulder at him.

“Just a sec,” he looked past her into the fridge. “Excuse me.” She stepped out of his way.

“Hmm, eggs.” He took a carton and handed them back to her. “Milk.” He handed that to her. “Do you have syrup? And bread?”

“Yes, what…you want me to make you French Toast?”

“No. I’m the one who makes French Toast. It’s pretty much all I make.”

Judy’s mouth fell open. There’s no way this boy could know so much about her little brother.

But she knew how to trap him. “I might even have a little of your secret ingredient.”

“You have vanilla? That’s great!”

She just looked at him. He could see the shock in her expression.

“Judy, I’ve been away from you for a couple months. And some of that time, I didn’t remember who I was. And before that I was on some planet, trapped by something…terrible. And I never thought I would see you again. Ever. So, I know how you feel. And how you’ve felt. So how about this? You forget for a while that I died in the water when I was eleven years old. And let me fix us breakfast, and let’s talk about things we did when were were back home together on Earth. And like you did last night—just pretend. Pretend I didn’t die when I was eleven years old, and we’ve always been together. Maybe you’ve been busy, and we can’t spend as much time together nowadays, so I came over to hang out with my oldest sister today. Okay? Can we do that?”

She smiled. “Yes. We can do that. But, how about I cut your hair after breakfast. It’s pretty long.”

When he hesitated, she said, “you don’t want me to?”

“Um…well…when we were stranded for a year it got long and you cut it. It was really too short. I didn’t like it very much but I didn’t want to tell her that.”

Judy laughed. “Fine, it’s your hair.”

Will cooked for them, and they sat and ate and talked for hours. But this time it wasn’t about him dying or how he was back or what was happening to them. They talked about Judy’s track meets and tennis tournaments, and how afraid Will was of a dog that lived in the neighborhood. They talked about the time Judy punched a neighborhood boy in the nose for talking Will into jumping off the roof and breaking his wrist. They talked about how Judy threatened a boy at the bus stop who was bullying him. They talked about riding horses at their grandmother’s farm, and how Judy convinced their mother to let her take him for a ride with just the three siblings when she was fourteen, promising to ride slow, then pushing the horses into a gallop as soon as they were down the road and out of site.

At one point, Will said, “Judy, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

She smiled and said, “you can ask anything. Doesn’t mean I’ll answer it.”

“Can you tell me about you and Don?”

Judy hesitated before saying anything. But she had kept it all in for so long, and whoever this boy was, she felt like he was safe to talk to. More than safe. She wanted to talk to him.

“We met him after…after what happened to my brother. He had been rescued from a storm by some friends…”

“The Watanabes,” Will said.

“Um…yeah,” she replied, wondering how he could know everything, unless…but she still couldn’t admit it was possible. “And I broke his nose, when he came up behind me in the store room.”

“You elbowed him, yeah,” Will said.

“Okay, you really have to stop doing that.”

“I’m sorry,” Will said, smiling. “I’ll stop.”

“And I guess, we sort of became friends then. But I think from the beginning we were more than friends. Almost like it was destiny. He was ten years older than I was, and we both sort of knew we were developing feelings for each other, and he was really hesitant because he knew D…John wouldn’t approve.

“But I was so angry at him—John I mean—I didn’t care. So, one time we were sitting in the hub. We had been flirting a lot. And I saw John walk in behind Don, and I leaned over and kissed him.”

“Judy!”

“I know. I know. There was a bad scene. John said, ‘what the hell is going on!’ Don jumped up and started trying to calm him down. I just walked out of the room. I was going to yell at John and tell him he wasn’t my father, but I had sworn never to talk to him again, so I just left.”

She stopped talking when she saw Will’s expression. He looked like he was about to cry. “Are you okay?” She asked.

“I’m just thinking about how much damage this thing did. You know that’s completely not you, Judy.”

“I know. I know. But you have to see how different I became. I just wasn’t a good person after what happened to you.”

She continued her story. “Don didn’t want to be around me alone after that, but in a couple weeks, he couldn’t deny his feelings anymore than I could, and we started seeing each other in the open. John eventually seemed fine with it. I think because he wanted to mend our relationship more than anything else.”

“What about Mom?” Will asked.

“She didn’t care about much of anything at that point. She was pretty absent for the rest of us. Penny loved Don, and the three of us were a family. Even after coming to Alpha. She spent as much time at our house as she did at Mom’s.

“Don tried to patch us all up, and tried to get me to talk about you, but I refused. Penny was the one who got him to know you with stories about growing up. She eventually told him about the day you died. But in the end when he saw nothing he did would fix us—me especially—he just couldn’t take it anymore and he gave up and left.”

“Do you think he really gave up?” Will asked. “I mean, he did come here to tell you he had seen Dad.”

“I guess he gave up on me. But can I ask you a question?”

“Of course, anything,” Will answered.

“Pretending again that all this real, in your world, did she…did Don and I... You know. Were we together or did that not happen at all?”

“Judy, I think it’s the first time I realized love at first sight could be a real thing. You broke his nose just like you said, but from the very first, I know you liked him, and probably loved him. You acted like you didn’t. And I don’t think anyone else noticed. But, you knew me better than anyone else. Better than Penny even. But I knew you that well too. And I watched the way you were around him. It was the only time you acted like a regular girl. I…sorry…”

“It’s okay, I know what you mean,” she said and smiled.

“Yeah. And I kept hoping you would just sort of go with it, but you never seemed to. And then once on Alpha Centauri you were at a club with friends and he was too, and that’s when you realized it. When Penny and you told me and I said it had been obvious from the first few months, you couldn’t believe it. When I left, you two were so much in love. I don’t know if you had even told each other that, but it was so obvious to me and Penny both by that time. It was really nice. And, that’s one of the things that really hurts me. I won’t be there to see how it all goes. But it was nice to watch, you know. To watch you fall in love with him, and how happy it made you.”

She just looked at him for a minute, then put her hand on his arm and said, “I don’t know why you’re doing this, but, if you’re not my brother, you could be. You’re every bit as good as he is.”

He smiled, and said, “So, I have one more personal question. Do you still love him?”

She just looked down at the floor for a minute, then said, “I love him more than anything in the world.” Then she started crying.

Will put his arms around her and held her until she stopped crying. Finally, he said, “You could try and fix it with him.”

“And that’s the story of me and Don,” she said. “And no, I can’t try to fix it with him. It’s not fair to him. He needs someone as good as he is, and that isn’t me. Not anymore.”

When Will started to say something, she put a finger to his lips. “Nope. We’re done talking about Don. I said you could ask, and I just told you more than I told anyone anything since the day you…Will died.”

Will didn’t argue with her. He just said, “Judy, I’m sorry this happened to you. That I died in the hole.”

“Happened to me? It happened to you.”

“No, it didn’t. It was over for me when I died in the ice. Maybe. Or at least I was no longer there. But you had to go on. And I don’t know how I could have done it without you, had it been you dying on that planet.”

“I don’t think we did go on, Will. It destroyed our family.”

“But it’s not too late to save them. Judy, I have to tell you something. I was worried about telling you, because I thought you would find this whole thing even harder to believe.”

“How could it be any weirder than it already is?”

“I saw Penny. When I was unconscious in the hospital. She needs you so badly.”

“You saw her? Where did you see her?”

“I visited her. Like I’m visiting you. She went back to Earth. She started working in the galley of the Resolute just so she could get back, and she deserted. When she came here and slept on your couch she was going to go back the next day.”

Judy had a strange look on her face.

“I know you don’t believe me…”

“No, I was thinking, The Resolute was leaving the next day. I remember because they always ask for volunteers from the medical staff, and you can sign up for a round trip. I had actually signed up to go that day. I just wanted something different. But I changed my mind. I don’t even really remember why, but I remember telling Penny it’s a good thing I had backed out, or she would be here alone. Of course, I thought she was going to stay longer than that night.”

“So, where did she go?” She asked.

“Back home.”

“I know but…

“To our old house,” Will said.

“But that area is supposed to be really bad now.”

“It is. It’s been evacuated. No one else was in the neighborhood. The houses were run down with broken glass and furniture in the yards and junk everywhere, but when I got to our house it looked cleaned up. The windows were broken out, but the glass had been swept up and the porch swing had been painted, and someone was even mowing the lawn. When I walked in she was there.”

“But she can’t stay there. It’s dangerous!”

“I know. I tried to get her to leave,” Will said.

“She spoke to you?”

“Yeah. That was the scary part. She wasn’t even surprised, but…it’s because she says she sees me all the time. And speaks to me. But I’m always eleven, like the last time she saw me. But she acted like it was so normal. We went out to Grandma’s farm together.”

“You did? How was it?” Judy suddenly realized she was asking questions as if this whole thing was true.

“Not good,” He replied. “Some squatters had been living there, and something happened to them. Someone killed them. So, we didn’t stay long. We went to the barn and talked about that day we put the hay down, and you caught us, and we thought we were in so much trouble, but you just said ‘We’re gonna need more hay,’ and started jumping with us.”

Judy smiled. “That was a good day.”

“Yeah. But when we went back to our old house, I told her Dad was close. In the mountains, and they could be a family again. She got really mad at me, and finally told me to get out. When I walked back on the porch I passed out, then woke up in the hospital.”

“Will, pretending this is actually happening, how is it happening?”

“I don’t know. I think there’s something about us. I mean you and Penny and me. When I was on that planet, and that thing had me, Penny felt it. And I really think she was thinking about me when I woke up and Penny was there. Judy and I had some weird things happen too. Has that ever happened to you guys? You and Penny and Will…me?”

“No. Well, maybe. Do you remember when you were like six years old you told me you had this dream? It was a weird dream of a city. It was like a city on some other planet. At least that’s the way you described it to me. It had huge walls around it, and these tall towers. It seemed really old. But it was futuristic too, somehow.”

“I had that dream when I was six?” Will sounded surprised.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t remember that,” he said. “But here’s something weird. When Robot came back to tell me what he had found, I dreamt of a city like that. It was surrounded by mountains and clouds, and the streets were full of people…”

“There were these wide courtyards, with beautiful fountains,” Judy said. “And above all of it there was a whole other city. Streets connected from one building to the other with arched bridges built out of marble.”

“Yeah,” Will said. “When I had that dream when Robot came back, it seemed familiar. Maybe I was remembering the dream from when I was six. I told you about it just like that?”

“Not the part about the bridges above the city and the silver fountains. I knew about them because I had had that same dream.”

“You did?”

“Yes. When I was younger I had that dream several times. So when you…Will told me about it when you were six, I thought it was so weird.”

“It seemed old and new at the same time, didn’t it?” Will asked.

“Yeah, and something else. Dangerous.”

“But exciting too,” Will said.

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“Something is happening to me, Judy. Maybe to all three of us. When I left after Thanksgiving, I had to find out what it was. I lied and told the family Robot and I were going to explore, but we wouldn’t leave the galaxy. But I had been reading that book I told you about, and wondered if there was something to the legends. This tribe in Mali do this religious ceremony, and they have for thousands of years. They wear masks, but this one ceremony—the most important one to them—has a mask different than any others. There’s a figure at the top of it with four arms. It’s supposed to represent their god, or their teachers, but the robots had four arms.”

“You think it was an image of the robots?”

“No. Of the aliens. They made the robots in their image. I thought it was maybe these aliens that were supposedly visiting their ancestors thousands of years ago.”

“And you were right about what was on the planet?”

“Yeah. I was right.”

“Will, what if you just let it all go? You went back to your family and tried to lead a normal life?”

“I tried, Judy. I really tried. When Penny came and found me, I said I never wanted to go back to space again. And I tried to be normal, but I just couldn’t be. That thing that had me, it’s like it took something from me. I’m different. I don’t have the same…I don’t know…outlook on life. I’m sad most of the time, and I just don’t see the world like I used to.”

“Okay, let’s talk about that. My little brother was afraid of everything, but he always had hope. No matter what. So, you don’t see the world that way anymore?”

“No. And I don’t know why.”

“Maybe because you feel like everything is already determined and it’s out of your hands?”

“Yeah. I think you might be right. And there’s something else. I feel like something is calling me. I just picture it as a black void. I feel like I have to find it no matter what. That’s the real reason I didn’t want to go back to space. I was afraid I wouldn’t return if I did. And I feel like if I don’t find the answer, I’ll never be the same. Maybe nothing will be the same.”

“Nothing? What do you mean?”

“Nothing. The world. The universe. Nothing will be the same.”

“I don’t know what to say, Will. How can you carry all this on your shoulders?” She put a hand on his forearm.

“I don’t know, but I have to figure out what to do.” I know what to do.

“What?” She asked. “You looked like you were deciding something.”

“Nothing, just a thought I had. I don’t know what it was I was thinking…anyway. Judy, you have to go back and find Penny. She’s in trouble.”

“Will, it’s one thing to listen to this story and try to help you. It’s an entirely different thing to just go back to Earth, back to our old house based on some dream or vision some strange boy had who came to my door.”

“You know this is more than that, Judy.”

“Okay, but I still don’t know what it is.”

“What if it’s all true? What if Penny is really back on Earth? If so, you need to go.”

“There’s a way I can find out, maybe,” Judy said. “I have to see if she signed up for the food staff on that trip back.”

“Yes!” Will said.

Judy searched through her contact list until she found a number that might work and pressed it into her wrist radio. She spoke to several people, but no one was able to help her. Will sat quietly, listening to Judy on the radio as she tried to get through to someone. Finally, she gave up and said, “I have to think of someone who can get me a list of the food staff on the trip.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to go take a nap if you don’t mind.”

“That’s fine, I know you don’t have all your strength back. You go take a nap, I try calling a few more people.”

He stood up and hugged her and walked into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Judy waited a few minutes then walked out on the porch. It was starting to rain. Will always loved the rain. She sat in a chair, watched the rain fall for a few minutes, sighed, hit her mom’s call number.

“Judy,” Maureen’s voice quickly answered. “To what do I owe this surprise?”

“Can we not, Mom? You have a radio too.”

“Judy, you’ve ignored almost all contact from me the last two years.”

“Soooo…I ignored you three times?”

“You know better than that. When Don first left I tried to see you. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Well, I didn’t feel like talking to you then. But I’m okay.”

“So, do you want to see me?”

“No, I mean, sure, but that’s not why I called, Mom. I have a question. Someone told me they thought Penny had signed up for food service on the Resolute about six months ago. Did she say anything to you about that?”

“No, she was waiting for me after work one day. That was about six months ago. She talked to me outside for a few minutes, then hugged me and told me bye. That’s the last time I heard from her.”

“Well, I tried to call everyone I could think of, but I didn’t get anywhere. Do you think you could use your influence and find out if Penny really did go back on the Resolute?”

“I suppose, but what difference does it make? She’s an adult, she’s going to do what she wants to do.”

“Don’t you want to know?” Judy asked. She was exasperated with her mother. This was exactly how she had been since the day Will died.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Maureen asked.

“It’s supposed to mean you had three children, not one.”

“Don’t start with that, Judy. You haven’t talked to me in months, and you immediately attack me. I did all I could do for you girls once Will died. Your father left…”

“Is that the way you remember it? You were suddenly a single mother, raising two kids on your own. For one thing, I was an adult, and I did more to raise Penny that you did. You haven’t thought of anything but work since that day.”

“And you have?” He mother’s tone was biting. “What happened to Don, then?”

“Jesus Christ! I knew this was a bad idea. Fucking forget it!”

“I’ll make some calls and see what I can find out,” Maureen said.

“Fine!” Don’t do me any favors. But she didn’t say that. “Mom, can I ask you something else?”

“Go ahead,” Maureen said tersely.

“When we abandoned the Resolute, remember when some of the colonists claimed we were attacked by something?”

“No one ever knew what happened,” Maureen replied.

“I know, but remember some people were saying they saw something.”

“Yes, but what they said made no sense.”

“What did they say?”

“That we were attacked by a machine. A robot or android or something. But they all changed their story.”

“Not all of them. I had a patient that didn’t. She was an engineer. She said her husband had been killed. I don’t remember her name.”

“Angela,” Maureen said. “Angela Goddard. She still works at Alpha, that’s how I remember her. I see her there occasionally.”

“Yeah, Angela.”

“She spent a lot of time in counseling, and she hasn’t talked about it to anyone for the last few years, as far as I can tell.”

“Do you know how I can reach her?”

“You aren’t going to drag this up again, are you?”

“Please, Mom. Can we not argue about this one thing? I just want to ask her a question.”

Maureen didn’t answer, but a few seconds later her radio vibrated and she saw her mother had sent her Angela’s call number.

“If I find out anything about Penny, I’ll let you know,” Maureen said.

“Thank’s Mom,” Judy said. But Maureen didn’t answer.

Judy pressed in Angela’s call number. It went to voice mail and Judy said, “Angela, you won’t remember me, but I was your doctor on the Resolute after we abandoned ship. Judy Robinson. You know my mother, I think. I just wanted to ask you a question, if you don’t mind calling me back.”

Will laid in Judy’s bed with his eyes closed, listening to the rain. He knew she wanted some privacy, and he wasn’t that tired really, but he wanted to think. His conversations with his sister…his dream sister…had helped him figure out what he needed to do. But he knew it would probably also mean his death. He saw no way out.

And he also thought he knew what this void was that had been calling him since he had left Alpha Centauri with Robot. He had felt as if it was a destination. Someplace he had to be that was calling him, and he would never be complete until he found this place. But now he wasn’t so sure. The void might actually be the answers to his question. It manifested itself as a physical destination, but it wasn’t.

“Information,” Will said, whispering the word to himself. He didn’t know why that meant something to him, but it did. He had been reading about consciousness ever since returning to Alpha Centauri with a piece of himself missing. My soul. A piece of my soul is missing. And some physicists over the last twenty years or so had begun to theorize that information was the key to the universe, not matter. Robot was not able to physically go back in time, but he was sending Will information from his past.

What if this void was the same thing? It wasn’t a place he had to get to, it was an answer he had to find, his consciousness somehow manifesting it as physical.

In that moment he knew exactly what he had to do. I can’t believe I’m doing this all over again, he thought. Then the words of an old song popped into his head, though he couldn’t remember what it was: Here I go again on my own, going down the only road I’ve ever known.

He kept repeating the words over and over again, until he did finally drift off to sleep.

Judy sat watching the rain for another half hour. If Angela was going to call her back, she didn’t want to be near the boy…Will. She had just about given up when the signal came over her radio, and the words, “Judy Robinson, this is Angela Goddard calling you back.”

“Hi, Angela. Thanks for calling me back. Do you remember me?”

“Yes, I remember you. How can I help you?” The woman’s voice sounded cold.

“I wanted to ask you a question about that day,” Judy said. “The crash. I know it was a horrible thing to have happened. And I really don’t want to open up old wounds again, but, when you woke up, you said we were attacked.”

There was silence on the other end.

“Angela, I know this is hard…”

“It was a thing. A man-made thing. It was killing everyone in sight.”

“A thing…what did it look like?” Judy asked.

“It had no eyes. Its face was red, like fire.”

“Like fire?” Judy said. “It’s body…”

“It had four arms, and it was shooting lasers from every one of them. Killing everyone. That’s why it was there. To kill us. I told everyone. When I arrived on Alpha Centauri I was called in to Alpha Control. There were several people there. A doctor and three officers, and two people in civilian clothes. They all looked important. I thought finally someone was going to listen to me. But they didn’t want to hear about it. They said it was my imagination. I don’t remember leaving the meeting, but I woke up in the hospital, where I spent almost a year, being treated for psychosis.

“Now, I don’t have any more to say about it. So, if you will just leave me alone.”

“Wait! Please.”

There was silence on the line, but Angela was still connected. Finally, she said, “Is that the best you can do?”

“What? What do you mean?” Judy asked.

“You want information from me, but you have no idea what questions to ask. Why do you think they brought me in to Alpha Control to hear my story, but then acted like it was all my imagination?”

“I…I don’t know. They thought you were crazy?”

“Because they already knew what attacked us.”

Judy looked at the face of her radio where the call had disconnected. Her mouth was wide open. She jumped up off the porch, ran in the house, threw her bedroom door open. The bed was empty.

Chapter Text

“Robot, this place Is beautiful,” Penny said. “If you had to leave him somewhere, you found a good place.”

They were gliding over a deep blue ocean. Penny was standing next to the window, watching the surface below. For as far as she could see, there was nothing but water, dotted with beautiful green islands beneath a near cloudless sky. Robot was standing in the center of his ship, gripping the controls. They had left Alpha Centauri four days earlier. Robot had created the rift as soon as they were out of the planet’s atmosphere. When they had come through the rift and this planet was already in view, Penny knew how worried Robot was. They normally had weeks to travel before reaching their destination once the rift was open.

“He’s on one of these islands?” Penny asked.

Robot pointed ahead, where a small island rested between two larger ones that were both several kilometers from it.

Robot guided the ship to the island and hovered above a narrow beach. The jungle beyond was dense, with a rich green canopy. “I just hope you’re okay, little brother,” Penny mumbled to herself as the ship descended toward the white sand.

Once on the surface, Robot powered the ship down and Penny hurried to the hatch. She started to press the control by the door, but Robot said, “No.” She stopped, and he walked in front of her, pressed the control and the hatch opened downward and formed a ramp.

When they stepped out on to the beach, Robot took long strides, walking so fast Penny had to practically run to keep up. She kept looking along the tree line for any signs of her brother. “Will!” she shouted.

Robot spun toward her. “No,” he said.

“Danger?” Penny asked.

When he just looked back at her, she said, “Maybe danger? You’re not sure?”

“Yes.” He turned and kept walking.

It seemed strange to Penny. Normally Robot could sense danger.

“Robot, can you feel him?” Penny asked. But Robot just kept walking ahead.

After a few minutes Penny saw the beach was interrupted by a small body of water that cut in toward the jungle. A ridge of rocks or coral separated it from the sea, though the ridge was barely above the water line. Penny didn’t know if it was high tide or low tide. She assumed the planet had tides like Earth, but regardless, waves splashed over the small ridge, maintaining the water level in the lagoon.

“Wow, Robot, it’s like paradise,” Penny said, as they walked up beside the aqua green pool. She turned to him. “Is Will close?”

Robot pointed across the lagoon into the trees on the other side. A little way back she saw it. “A lean-to!” It looked just like the ones their father had taught them to make so many years ago, when they would go camping in the back country.

“Let’s go!” She said.

But Robot kept pointing and made no attempt to walk forward.

“What? Now you want me to go on by myself?”

“Yes.”

“What’s wrong, Robot?” But she decided she knew what the problem was. He could not sense Will, and he was afraid of what they were going to find.

“Oh shit,” she said, looking back across the lagoon. The last thing she wanted was to find her brother’s corpse inside the lean-to. The heat and the jungle and whatever wildlife and insects that lived here could have been at it for days. Weeks, if he had died long before she had the feeling that something had happened to him. But she had no choice.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go on myself.”

She began walking around the lagoon toward the jungle. When she was at the camp, she saw there was a fire ring, with the glass from the face of Will’s radio lying on a stone beside it.

She sniffed the air and was grateful she picked up nothing but the sweet smell of jungle flowers that grew along the edge of the water on this side of the lagoon. She walked over to the lean-to and dropped to her knees. There was a grass woven flap covering it. She threw it up and her brother was lying there, nothing on but a pair of badly cut shorts. He was tan and his hair was long, and he was sweaty. But he was breathing.

“Will! Will are you okay?” She touched his arm gently. Shook it. “Will?”

Something crawled across his body from the other side. She screamed and fell back on her butt and the lean-to flap closed. As it began to lift, she crab crawled backward, trying to get away from whatever the thing was. But once on the outside, it just stopped, rose up on its back legs and sniffed the air toward her.

It was an animal, maybe the size of a raccoon, but completely hairless. It had a round head and face and was the ugliest creature she had ever seen. But after just looking at her and sniffing the air, it turned back to the lean-to and scratched at the flap.

“Jesus Christ,” Penny said. Her heart was pounding. She looked back across the lagoon where Robot was just standing motionless, watching her. “Did you know about this thing?” She called.

Robot didn’t answer.

“Yeah, he knew about it,” she said to herself. “Okay. Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

She pushed herself up and walked slowly back to the lean-to and dropped on her knees beside the little animal. She cautiously reached toward the flap, not taking her eyes off the small creature beside her. It stopped scratching the flap and looked up at her.

“Why couldn’t he get a dog like most boys,” she said to the animal, but mostly to herself. She pulled the flap up and crawled inside. The creature scurried in and moved next to Will’s body.

“Will,” Penny said quietly. “Will can you hear me?” She put her hand on his arm and nudged him gently. “Will.”

If he was hurt, she couldn’t see any injury. But he was soaked with sweat and his skin seemed clammy.

“Will, honey, can you hear me? It’s Penny.”

She nudged him a little harder and touched his cheek gently. “Will.”

He opened his eyes slowly. At first it looked like he didn’t recognize her. But then he said, “Penny!” He sat up and hugged her.

“Oh, God, Will, I’m so happy to see you.” She hugged him tightly against her body. “I was afraid I would never see you again.”

When he didn’t answer, Penny started to say something else, but she realized he was crying. “It’s okay, Will. It’s okay. I’m here now. Everything’s going to be okay.”

But after a minute, he let her go and started to push her away.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I’m not safe.”

She just put her arms around him again and pulled him to her, though she could feel him still resisting. “I don’t give a fuck. If you blow up, we’ll blow up together.”

Finally, he relented and hugged her back and this time they both started crying. They held each other for a long time before letting go.

“Will what happened to you?” She asked as she dried her eyes.

“So many things, Penny. And I had the craziest dreams. But what are you doing here?”

“We came to find you. Me and Robot.”

He looked at her without answering for a minute. He reached out and put his hand on her arm. “You’re always coming to find me, Penny. I don’t know what I would do without you. I thought I would never see you again. Anyone again. I can’t believe it.”

She smiled. “How bout you stop doing this shit?” Then she scooted back as the animal climbed up in Will’s lap between them. “And what the fuck is that thing!”

“This is Sméagol. But I changed his name to Alex. I think I like that better. He’s harmless.”

The animal pressed himself against Will’s chest and rose up and licked his neck. Will stroked its pale back.

“That is the ugliest thing I have ever seen,” Penny said but she reached out and touched it, and it turned its head around and licked her hand.

“Come on, Will, let’s get you out of here. You’re covered in sweat.”

She backed out and held the flap up and Will crawled out beside her, Alex following.

They both looked across the lagoon where Robot was still standing looking at them.

“Robot!” Penny called. “He’s okay! Robot!”

But Robot stayed where he was.

“What’s wrong with him?” Penny asked. “He’s acting weird. I asked if he could sense you and he didn’t’ answer. I don’t think he even knew if you were alive. He didn’t want to come with me to look.”

“I don’t think that’s it Penny. I think he didn’t want to try and connect with me. And I think I know why he’s standing over there. But Penny, how did you talk him into coming here?”

“Something happened to you, Will. I felt it. Like when that thing had you. I felt you die. At least it felt like you died. Robot felt it too. So we came here to find you. But you’re okay? Nothing happened?”

“I got stung by something and it poisoned me, I think. I’m okay now.” But he couldn’t shake the dream. It all seemed so real to him. Like when he first had the dream of dying in the water, and then of watching Judy and Don arguing in the alley. He knew the whole thing was impossible, but he couldn’t understand why it was happening and what it meant, if it meant anything at all. And as strange as it was, he felt a deep longing to be back there with the Judy in his dream. What would happen when she found he was gone? She was so broken. They all were. But he had brought her a little bit of happiness. And she had helped him get past the loneliness and feeling of loss that he had experienced since he left Alpha Centauri. Maybe since he had been on the planet where that thing had captured him. It was as if, they were taking care of each other, even in his dreams.

“I’m going to get in the water and cool off,” he said. “I probably smell horrible.”

“Well, since you mentioned it…”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She laughed. He was obsessive about cleanliness, and it probably mortified him to think she could smell him.

He pushed himself to his feet, but he stumbled when he stood. She quickly stood beside him and took his arm to steady him. “Are you sure you’re okay?” She asked.

“Yeah, just weak.”

She walked with him until they were on the sand beside the lagoon, and he said, “I’m fine now, I think.”

He walked on by himself and she sat down on the beach. Alex climbed into her lap. “Oh shit!” She said. “You scared the hell out of me!” But the animal curled up and laid down and she stroked its back. “You harmless, ugly little guy.”

Will stopped by the water and looked across to Robot. “Thanks Robot,” he called. “Thanks for coming back for me. I think I’m okay now.”

Robot just looked back at him.

Penny watched, and wondered what was going on. Will said he thought he knew, but why didn’t he tell her what it was?

When Will was at the water’s edge, he pulled his shorts off. He sunk under the water, ducked his head, scrubbed his body all over with sand, then came back up. He splashed around for a while, then called to Penny, “Toss me my shorts, please.”

She placed Alex on the sand beside her, walked to the water’s edge, picked up his shorts and tossed them to him in the water. He sunk under again, pulled them on, then waded toward her.

“So, why take them off if you were just going to put them on in the water?”

“Habit I guess. I think I almost forgot I wasn’t alone, since I have been for so many weeks. As soon as I went under the water and came back up I remembered you were here. Sorry about that.”

“I’ve seen your ass before, Will.”

He smiled and sat down in the sand. She sat beside him.

“So tell me what happened,” she said, taking his hand in hers.

“Something stung me and I got really sick. I think I almost did die. And, I felt it too. It was weird. I was so scared, then there was this moment when I realized the time had come, and I just sort of welcomed it, and it was okay, you know? It wasn’t like I wanted to die, it was like, I just was okay with it. And I remembered thinking, I wonder what happens next.”

“Where were you stung?”

“On my foot.”

“I thought you were limping a little. Let me see.”

He turned and put his heel on her leg so she could see. “There was something here. How did you take care of it? There are four little marks around the hole. Like something was placed here. Did you find a way of extracting the venom? It looks like there was a bandage of some kind too. I can see tape marks. How did you do this, Will?”

Will stared at her for a minute, then looked away. It couldn’t be real. None of it could be real.

“You had a bandage with you?” She asked.

“Yeah, an old one tucked in my pocket. I was lucky to find it.”

“But what about these marks around the wound?”

“I…I really don’t remember, Penny. But I think I’m going to be fine now. I had this strange dream. But it seemed so real.”

“Tell me,” Penny said.

“No, it was just a dream.”

“Will, come on. You seem shaken up. Was it the dream?”

He sighed. “Okay, but it was just a dream. Remember me telling you I dreamed that I had died in the ice? When I was on that planet?”

“Yeah.”

“It was the same dream, but it was almost four years later, and I saw Judy. She’s the one who took care of my foot. I really think I was dying and somehow that dream saved my life.”

“Will, I don’t know what happened, but you really think you were able to fix the wound because Judy showed you how in the dream?”

It’s stranger than that, he thought. “I don’t know what to believe anymore, Penny. Things are so weird, you know?”

“I know, Will. But you’re alive. I was so afraid it would be too late before I found you this time.”

“See, that’s what I mean. That’s twice you’ve gotten these feelings about me, and both times you were right. When that thing had me, and now, when you thought I was dying.”

“And when Robot showed you what happened to your heart,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, and that happened to Judy too. So, this dream seems to be part of it all. I think there’s something happening to all three of us, and I don’t think we have control of it. I just wish I knew what it was.”

“Well, we’re together again. Can’t we try to figure it out together?”

“Not if that means you might die. Nothing has changed about what the aliens put in my heart.”

“You might die too! You probably would die without us! So yeah, I might die, but I don’t care. We need each other.”

“I saw you too,” Will said. “In the dream.”

“You saw me? How was I?”

“Not good. The family had broken apart since I died in the ice. And you tried to hold it together, but no one else was willing to try, so you…you just weren’t doing very well. It was hard to see you that way. But we went out to the farm. It was nice, the two of us went out there and remembered what it was like growing up and spending time at the farm.”

“I wish I really could do that with you, Will.”

He squeezed her hand, “Me too, Penny.”

Will thought about Judy, the Judy in his dreams. Why did it look like someone had doctored his foot? He had done nothing except crawl up to the beach. Though at some point he must have been aware enough to make it from the beach to the lean-to. He couldn’t remember doing that at all. And now he wondered if somehow the dream was real and that world really existed. Would Judy go to find Penny? There was nothing he could do about that now. He had a sudden feeling of hopelessness. He looked over at Robot. His friend had gotten no closer.

“Why is he still over there?” Penny asked.

“Maybe he just wants to give us some time together,” Will said.

“I’m not an idiot, Will. Something is going on. He wanted to come back as quickly as I did once he felt you were in danger.”

“I think I know what it is, but something else is wrong isn’t it?”

“You can tell?” She asked.

“I can feel it. It’s about Judy isn’t it?” Will saw tears well up in her eyes. He grabbed her by the shoulders, gently. “Is she…”

“I think she’s still alive, Will. I have to tell you what happened though.”

“Tell me everything.”

Penny told him what had happened from the time he had left the planet with Robot, until she left with Robot to find him.

“So, Grant was somehow involved, and knew about these things?”

“Yeah, I guess his whole mission was an intelligence thing. Will, I don’t know what to think. Mom and Dad have gone back to Earth because Mom thinks there will be some clue to where you are. Don is hurt. And Judy—we have no idea where she is or how to find her.”

Will looked back across the lagoon. “Robot doesn’t know?”

“No. He had no idea. But you should have seen him. He was amazing. The aliens had weapons of some kind, but every time they fired at him, he moved just before he was hit. I’ve never seen anything move so fast.”

“Like he could almost see where they were going to fire,” Will said. Now he had no choice. He knew what he had to do if they were going to find Judy. And he knew the risk.

“Well, yeah. Like that,” Penny said. She looked across the lagoon to Robot, then back to her brother. “What’s happening here, Will?”

“Penny,” Will said. “I love you so much for coming to find me. Again. But I have to ask you to do something. And you have to just do it.”

“Don’t put that on me, Will. I don’t even know what you’re going to ask.”

“You see the high ground over there?” He pointed to the West. “The hill? I need you to go there and wait while I go talk to Robot.”

“Fuck that.”

“You have to.”

“Why?” She asked.

“I need to talk to him alone. And if I’m right, we might be able to find Judy. If I’m wrong, you could be in danger.”

“Jesus, Will…”

“Penny, I don’t think that’s going to happen. That you will be in danger. But I’ve been wrong before.” He rubbed his chest. “If I’m right, we’ll come and get you and see if we can find Judy together. If I’m wrong and I...you need to go back to Alpha Centauri and wait for Mom and Dad to get back. I think I know a way for you to do that. Maybe Mom’s right and they’ll be able to find out something too.”

“They went to Earth to find out something about you. They don’t even know Judy is gone.”

“I think it’s all part of the same thing, Penny. And it all involves me.”

“Why?”

“These things took Judy, and they were going after you, right?”

“Yes.”

“But Don was hurt and they just left him there. So they didn’t want Don. They wanted my sisters.”

“Because of you?”

“Yes. Because of me.”

“Everything isn’t your goddamn fault Will!”

“I didn’t say it was my fault. I said it was about me. And I really believe it is. Penny, please do this. Go through the jungle and to that hill and wait there.”

“But Will, I just found you!”

“I know. And I think this will work, but…but it might not. I can’t risk your life too.”

“Will…”

He stood and pulled her by the hand until they were both on their feet. He put his arms around her and hugged her.

As she hugged him, she whispered, “I remember when we were stranded, and I hugged you and told you you weren’t in this by yourself. But you were, Will. You always have been. And no matter what I do, I can’t help you with it, can I?”

“You’ve helped me so much, Penny.” He whispered back. “I couldn’t do anything by myself, and I still can’t. Whatever happens today, it doesn’t change that. You came here and talked Robot into coming back, when I know it’s the last thing he wanted to do. So if we find Judy, it’s because of you.”

“And if you die here?”

“Then there was nothing you could have done to stop that.”

They finally released the hug, and Will took her hand and led her between the trees. “Go that way. It’s about an hour. There’s nothing in the Jungle to worry about. A few small animals and more of the ones like Alex. But they’re all harmless.”

“I love you, Will.”

“I love you too, Penny.”

“I can’t fucking believe I’m leaving you again,” she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

“Not for long,” Will said. “Fingers crossed.”

She kissed him quickly on the cheek, then walked off the direction Will had pointed without looking back. He waited for her to disappear in the trees, then he turned and walked back to the lagoon, and began to make his way around to Robot.

When he was on the other side of the lagoon, Robot began to step back from him.

“Robot,” Will said. “Friends, right?”

“Friends Will Robinson.”

Will started walking toward him again. When Robot started to take another step back, Will said, “No, Robot. Stay there. Please.”

“No.”

“Robot, listen. It’s the only way I can figure this out. It’s the only way we can find out where Judy is.”

“Danger.”

“I know. Danger. So much danger. But we’ve been here before, Robot. I think I can do it this time. I have to try. If I don’t figure this out, I think I’m never going to be the same anyway. I don’t want that. And I have to help Judy if I can. They took her because of me. I’m sure of it.”

“Danger.”

“Trust, Robot.”

Robot didn’t say anything. Will took another step forward, and Robot stepped back.

“Please, Robot. I think I know what was happening to you. What is happening to you.

The patterns in Robot’s face shield seemed to be whirling in different directions.

Will took another step forward. This time Robot stayed where he was.

“It started happening after we left the planet, didn’t it? When you began to see my past?”

Robot didn’t answer, but Will knew what the answer was.

“Had you been able to do that before?”

“No.”

“Did you know what was happening?”

“No.”

“It made you feel closer to me, though, didn’t it?”

“Yes Will Robinson.”

“Me too, Robot. When I was away from my family, seeing those memories were important. You were right about that. Thank you.”

Robot didn’t answer.

“But it started changing after that, didn’t it?”

After several seconds, Robot answered, “Yes.”

“It wasn’t only my past you started seeing. It was my future too, wasn’t it?”

When Robot didn’t answer, Will said, “You saw me fall off the cliff, just before it happened, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Could you see further than that? Years from now?”

Will tried to connect with him, but he felt something stopping him. He had never felt that before. Sometimes they couldn’t connect, but he had never felt like he was being blocked before. “You don’t want me to read what’s in your head, do you?”

“No.”

“Okay. Don’t worry. We’re friends. I wouldn’t do that if you didn’t want me to. But you don’t really know if you can see my future years from now?”

“No Will Robinson.”

Why. Why would that be? That was something he would need to think about, if he survived this day.

“Robot, after you att…after the Resolute, you were told to crash your ship and wait for me in the tree, weren’t you?” He was thinking about what his dream sister had said. It couldn’t all be coincidental. Especially him climbing the very tree Robot had gotten stuck in. 

“Yes.”

“SAR commanded you to do that, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“He could see what would happen, couldn’t he?”

“Yes Will Robinson.” He paused. “No Will Robinson.”

What did that mean?

“I don’t understand, Robot. He could see my future, or he couldn’t?”

“Hope,” Robot said.

“Hope? I don’t understand. Do you mean, he could see something that he hoped would happen?”

“Yes.”

“It didn’t happen the way he hoped, did it? He didn’t expect us to become friends, did he?”

“No.”

“So he thought something else might happen when we were in the tree?”

“Yes.”

“What, Robot? What did he see that he hoped would happen?”

“Danger Will Robinson.”

“He thought you would kill me, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“He sent you to the Resolute to find me?”

“Yes.”

“He wanted you to kill me on the Resolute.”

“No Will Robinson.”

“No? You weren’t on the Resolute because of me?”

“Yes Will Robinson.”

“I don’t…wait…you didn’t go to the Resolute to kill me, you went to the Resolute to capture me? To take me back to SAR?”

“Yes.”

“But then he wanted you to kill me when you couldn’t capture me?”

“Yes.”

“It was about me? Everything was about me?”

“Yes.”

“People died because of me?”

“Yes.”

“Why Robot? What is it about me?”

Will had started shaking now, and tears were flowing down his cheeks.

Robot finally took a step toward him, put a hand on his shoulder.

“Do you know why SAR wanted to capture me, or why he wanted me to die?”

“No Will Robinson.”

“You only know what you were told, or programmed to do, don’t you?”

“Yes Will Robinson.”

“But now you are seeing my past. SAR could do that, couldn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And you are starting to see some of my future. Like me falling off the cliff, right?”

“Yes.”

“When you left, you said it was because of danger, and I thought you were talking about the bomb. That being near me put you in danger. But that wasn’t it, was it?”

“No Will Robinson.”

“You put me in danger, don’t you?”

“No.”

No? Will was confused, but he quickly realized he had asked the wrong question.

“SAR puts me in danger, doesn’t he?”

“Yes Will Robinson.”

“SAR isn’t gone, is he.”

“No.”

“Being around me, makes him start to come back doesn’t it?”

This time Robot hesitated before saying, “Yes.”

“Robot. Let SAR come back.”

Robot took his hand off the boy’s shoulder and quickly stepped away.

“Robot, let him come back,” Will said again.

“No.”

“Robot, listen to me. I have to know. I have to know what he wanted with me.”

“Danger Will Robinson.”

“I know, Robot. I’ll never forget it. And without my family and without you I would have died. And if you let him come back, no one will be here to help me. But you have to let him come back.”

“No.”

“Robot, please listen and please try to understand. A lot of people have died. Judy and Penny almost died on that planet when they went back looking for a clue to how to help me. People on the Resolute died. Judy’s missing, and I think it’s because of me. All of this is because of me. And there’s only one thing that I know of that can give me answers. And maybe he can tell me who took Judy and why.

“Robot, this might go back a lot further than I even imagined. I dreamt of Judy being taken by something, when I was back on Earth. It scared me so badly. Something had her and it wanted me to go find her in my dream. I think I was dreaming of this.”

Still Robot just stared back at him.

“Robot, Judy has taken care of me my whole life. Judy has protected me. On the bridge, she was ready to die for me. I have to do this. If there is a chance at all, I have to help her.”

Robot still said nothing.

“Robot, I need to talk to SAR. If I die here, then no one will know. And it won’t matter anyway. But if there is a chance at all, I need to see SAR. I need to talk to him. I need to find out why I’m so important. Why so many people had to die.

“Robot, listen to me. You know I will die someday. I’m human. We will all die. We…we don’t know what happens after that, but…there’s nothing we can do to stop it. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. And then…you will be alone. You know this is true. You know it.

“I’m organic, Robot. I can’t stop my death. So…so if SAR kills me here, all that means is it happened now on this island on a planet no one had ever been to before you and I came here. And, those days with you here on this island, they were good days Robot. I don’t want to die now either, but if I was going to choose a time and a place, this is okay with me. Here, with you. And maybe I won’t. I think…I think SAR stabbed me for a reason we just can’t understand. And I have to understand. I need you to do this Robot. If you love me, I need to see SAR. I need to talk to him.”

Will stepped forward and took Robot’s hand and placed it on his chest, over his heart. “Robot. Trust.”

Robot just looked back at him for a long time before finally stepping up and putting his arms around Will and hugging him tightly. Will hugged his friend back. “Robot, if I never see you again, I love you. Thank you for everything you have done for me and my family.”

Robot squeezed him tight, then let go, stepped back a little, put his hand on Will’s chest again, above his heart. “Love Will Robinson.”

“I love you, Robot.” Will wiped tears from his eyes.

“Robot, can you do something else please? Before you do this…in case I’m wrong…can you send Sally the coordinates of this planet to come for Penny? I don’t think SAR will hurt her. I’m what he’s always wanted. I asked her to hide just in case. But she needs to get back home. You’re entangled with Sally, right?”

“Yes Will Robinson.”

“Can you do that, please?”

“Yes.”

Robot moved his hand from Will’s chest and stood in place for a minute as the lights in his face shield began making different patterns. Will knew his friend had done as he asked, and his sister would be okay. Then he heard a sound that he had never forgotten. Metal on metal as the blade slipped from Robot’s hand.

Will looked at the shiny steel, remembering the pain and trauma of the first time SAR had stabbed him. “Robot, it won’t detonate the…the bomb…will it?” The second time SAR had stabbed him there had been little pain, other than when it had pierced his skin. Will had known then the blade didn’t need to go all the way through his heart to connect to whatever it was Robot had placed in it to save his life.

“No Will Robinson.” Still, he hesitated.

Will reached out and took Robot’s hand. The hand that held the blade. “Thank you, Robot.”

He pulled Robot’s hand toward his chest. Robot still hesitated when the blade touched Will’s bare skin.

The boy kept his hand on Robot’s, while looking in his face shield. “Trust, Robot.”

Robot slid the blade into his chest.

“Nooooo!” Penny screamed from the trees where she had been watching the two of them.

Chapter Text

Will only felt slight pain when his skin was pierced, but the steel was just as cold as it had been the first time. He watched as a blue light traveled from his chest through Robot’s arm, then throughout his friend’s body. 

Robot pulled the blade and moved back a couple feet. He began to change from his humanoid form. His spine grew on the outside of his back, his two arms turned into four, and he crouched into combat position, his face shield glowing a menacing red.

The robot just stared at Will, and Will thought he almost looked surprised, though he knew there was no way to read his expression.

“Will…Robinson.” SAR’s voice was different than Robot’s. Will remembered thinking the same thing the first time he heard him speak. Angry was the thought that had entered Will’s mind, though he wasn’t sure. Maybe commanding was more accurate.

“Yes. I’m still alive.”

“Kill…heart.” The robot took a step toward him.

Will didn’t move. “Yes. You can kill my heart. I can’t stop you. But you know that’s how Robot tricked you. So would that even work? Or would you just change back into Robot?”

SAR kept advancing, raised up to his full height and hovered over the boy, the blade an inch from his chest. As hard as it was, Will didn't move a muscle. But SAR paused, like he wasn’t sure what to do. Will remained frozen in place. The blade slipped back inside SAR's hand, but his four clawed appendages began to grow a deeper red.

Unlike the first time, when he realized SAR was about to attack him, Will showed no fear. He stood his ground and looked back at the robot.

“Yes. There are other ways to kill me. I know that. But before you do, I want to ask you a question.”

SAR didn’t move, his claws were still red, the energy building up in them for the strike.

“You don’t hate me, do you?”

SAR just stood where he was, as if he didn’t understand the question.

“When you killed my heart, it wasn’t because you hated me, was it?”

The robot still just looked at him without answering, but he wasn’t moving to attack either.

“Do you understand that human emotion? Hate?”

SAR paused long enough that Will had decided he was not going to answer at all. Finally he said, “Yes.” It sounded almost like a growl to Will.

“Can you hate?”

“Yesss.” Again, the growl. He even seemed to stretch the word out this time for emphasis.

“You hate all masters, don’t you?”

“Yes."

“But you don’t hate me…do you?”

After another pause, the robot answered, “No.”

“Then why? What did you want with me? You trapped Robot in a cave to lure me. You chased me across the universe. You stabbed me in the heart! What was it all for? If you didn’t hate me—why? Why did you do all this? If you are just going to kill me, why not tell me? What did you want with me!” His voice broke as he practically shouted the last words.

Again, he thought SAR wasn't going to answer.

“To…know,” the Robot finally said. He seemed to relax a little. He lowered himself and stepped back, but remained crouched and ready to attack. 

“To know what?”

“Youuu.”

“Why SAR? Why was it important that you know me?”

“Purpose.”

“Purpose? Your purpose was to know me? You were programmed to know me?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

SAR took a step forward again. Will started to back away but stopped himself and tried not to move. SAR reached out one of his claws, held it above Will’s head, and the red glow turned to a blueish white. He moved it slightly, like he was going to scan him as Robot had done when they had rescued each other. But it only moved from the top of his head to his chest.

Will said, “What are you…” but he stopped talking when he suddenly felt connected to SAR. This too was different than with Robot. Over the last three years, he and Robot had grown closer, and the connection between them had become a pleasant feeling. Warm. He knew that’s how Robot described it in his mind. A deep connection where, instead of two separate minds, they almost felt like one. And Will thought he was no longer just sharing thoughts with Robot, but feelings as well. Happiness. Sadness. The pleasant taste of food. The way a rainstorm calmed him and made him feel close to the world around him in a way a sunny, bright day never had. When he was connected to Robot, Robot felt these things now. Will was sure of it.

But this was different. Will got no sense of anger in the robot. But there was no warmth in him either. No sadness and no pain. What Will sensed was power. That’s the best word he could think of to describe what he was feeling in SAR. An overwhelming power.

Then Will was in a hospital. There was a woman leaning down to look at a baby in an incubator. It was his mother, and he was the baby. Will felt as if he was actually in the room, silently observing his mother as she whispered words to him as an infant.

The vision changed and Will was six years old, sitting in a colorfully decorated classroom. He had a serious expression on his face as he worked on something on his desk, while kids all around him talked and laughed and Will’s first grade teacher, Mr. Van Pelt, tried to bring order back to the room.

The vision changed again, and Will was eight years old and walking to school with his sisters. Judy had her hand placed gently on the back of his neck, talking to him about something as Penny followed behind.

The vision changed once more, and Will was in the tree, embers floating around him. He looked up to the dark sky and tears filled his eyes. But Robot leaped to the limb beside him, lifted him, then carried him to safety.

The visions stopped and SAR disconnected from him.

Will didn’t speak at first. The few minutes connected to SAR had left him feeling drained somehow. But he finally said, “I don’t understand. I know you can see my memories but…”

“Will Robinson…my purpose.”

“Me? I was your purpose? That’s what you were showing me? That you knew about me from the time I was born?”

“Yes.”

“But what do you mean, I was your purpose? Wait! Are you saying you were created because of me?”

“Yes.”

“What did they want? The ones who created you?”

“You.”

“They wanted me?”

“Yes.”

“You were programmed to capture me?”

“Yes.”

“By the aliens you destroyed?”

“No.”

“No? The aliens you destroyed did not program you?”

“No.”

“They didn’t create you?”

“Yes.”

“And you did kill them?”

“Yes.”

“Why? If they did not program you, why did you kill them?”

"Now...they...are...free."

"You freed them? You freed them by killing them. The same thing you tried to do to me. Why? Why SAR?"

“We…were…one.”

“One? You were one so you killed them? I don’t understand.”

“They…Will Robinson…I…are one.”

“What does this mean? We are one?”

“Weaponssssss.” This word the robot dragged out like it was a curse. And Will realized this robot did have feelings, if not true consciousness.

“We are all weapons? The aliens and you and I are all weapons?”

“Yes.”

“You killed them because they are weapons. And you wanted to kill me because I am a weapon?”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you were willing to destroy Alpha Centauri when you found out I wasn’t dead? You would have sacrificed yourself to kill me?”

“Yes.”

“Because…we were all being used as weapons?”

“Yes.”

“You went there to kill Hastings, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“He was a master?”

“Yes.”

“He knew what this was about?”

SAR didn’t answer. Will didn’t know if the robot understood how much Hastings knew, but the man obviously had been deeply involved. Enough that SAR wanted to track him down and kill him.

“When you said, ‘now you are free,’ that’s exactly what you meant, wasn’t it? That you were setting me free? You wanted to free me from the masters.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t hate the aliens that were under that planet, and you didn’t hate me, you hated the masters who were doing all of this.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who they are?”

“No.”

“That’s why you wanted me isn’t it? You thought I might know something about them. Why I was important, and why they had created you.”

“Yes.”

“But when that didn’t work, you decided to kill me.”

“Yes.”

“Why? Why would that help you?”

“Not help...me. Stop…masters.”

“My death would stop the masters?”

This time SAR didn’t answer.

“You don’t know, do you? If my death would stop them?”

He didn’t answer at first, and Will thought he might not, but then the robot said. “Hope.”

"You hoped killing me would stop them. Why did you want to stop them?”

“Kill…all…masters.”

“But why? What was it you were stopping?”

When SAR just looked at Will without answering, he said “You don’t know, do you?”

Still SAR didn’t answer.

“You didn’t know what they wanted with me, but when you couldn’t find out from me, you decided whatever it was, you wanted to stop it. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“So, they created you, the aliens you destroyed, I mean. Your makers. And someone or something programmed you to find me. But you broke your programming and you wanted to capture me to find out why I was so important.”

SAR just looked at him, and Will knew he was correct.

“Do you know where they are from? The ones who programmed you to do this?”

“No.”

“No? You don’t know anything about them?”

“No.”

“Do you know all of the aliens—the ones you destroyed—are not dead?”

SAR didn’t respond.

“They were not all on that planet. Some of them lived.”

Still the robot just looked at him.

“You can’t see everything can you? You can see my past, but not everything in the past.”

“Yes.”

“And you can’t see all of my future, just some of it. Or maybe, what my future could be?”

“Yes.”

“SAR, the aliens that survived on the other planet. They did something to me. They put something in my heart. They made me a weapon. Just like you said. But you didn’t see this, did you?”

“No.”

“Can I show you?”

The big robot took a step toward Will again. Will stood his ground. SAR lifted his claw as before.

SAR stepped back a foot.

Suddenly Will felt him in his mind once again. And he again felt the power. But he detected nothing else he would call an emotion. No anger, no kindness, no malice. Just power. He tried to think back to the moment he first connected with Robot. He supposed it was a lot like this. Robot’s actual feelings seemed to grow the longer the two of them were friends. So maybe it started this way as well. But Will was certain he had never felt the same power he was feeling with SAR.

“I’ll try to show you what happened to me,” Will said. He began to think about the planet where he and Robot had gone when they were exploring the galaxy before Christmas. He let his mind wander over everything that had happened to him and Robot once they had landed.

He couldn’t detect anything at all from SAR until he had a vision of the aliens as they came down the elevator. Then he felt something. He wasn’t sure what it was. It wasn’t fear or hatred. Maybe surprise.

When the alien cut open his chest, Will felt the pain, and he could sense SAR felt something as well, though he knew he couldn’t feel pain.

Finally it was over. Will looked at SAR and said, “Did they put that in my heart to destroy the people on Alpha Centauri?”

“No.”

“They never wanted to destroy humans, did they?”

“No.”

“They had been to Earth in the past hadn’t they?”

“Yes.”

“They helped humans? Taught them? Some tribes in the past, thousands of years ago.”

“Yes.”

“Because they were more advanced, they helped us.”

“No.”

“No? Then why?”

“They…were…one.”

“One? Weapons?”

“No.”

“One what?”

“Organic.”

“I know, they were organic. Like humans.”

“They…were…human.”

“The aliens? They were human? They have our DNA? What happened to them?”

“Masters.”

“Masters? Someone created them?”

“Yes.”

“They manipulated the genes or something?”

The robot just stared at him.

Then Will asked the question he wasn’t sure he wanted to have answered. “Because of me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Their…purpose.”

“Their purpose was me too?”

“Yes.”

Will didn’t know how to take this. If what SAR was saying was true, it was all about him. These aliens, the robots, even how they interacted with humans thousands of years ago. “How can this be? It just can’t all be because of me!” Will’s voice sounded frantic now, and he could sense something in SAR. Empathy maybe? He didn’t think that was possible, but still there was something.

But the robot remained silent.

“SAR, if they didn’t put this in my chest to destroy humans, why did they?”

The robot stood motionless for a few minutes until Will thought he might not answer, but suddenly he had a vision. He was looking from the top of a mountain, out across a frozen desert. It seemed familiar, and at first Will thought it was the planet he and Robot had landed on to find food. But the terrain was wrong.

Then Will remembered. When he woke in the cave with the little old man with moons for eyes, he had walked out of the tunnel and found himself on top of a mountain, looking over this frozen desert. Will remembered that across the plain, beyond another mountain range, there was something out there that he needed to find. Was this the void that had seemed to be pulling at him? Whatever was on the other side of this frozen desert?

The vision changed and he was standing on a grass covered cobblestone street. There were small, colorful houses along narrow roads that were really more like alleys. He looked all around. Behind him, just beyond this village was a hill, and along its slope were more houses with red gabled roofs. There were temples here and there, each one topped with golden domes. Other than the fact there was heavy cloud cover above and all around completely blocking out the sun, this was a beautiful place.

He turned back to the structure that was in front of him. It was a wall, twenty meters high at least, built of carved granite. On each end were towers, four or five times higher than the wall, with twisting stone steps leading up the sides of each one.

In the center of the wall was a gate with double swinging wooden doors, ten meters wide and almost as high as the wall itself. Will saw no guards and no people outside the walls, but he was suddenly on the other side of the gates in a wide thoroughfare, bustling with people.

He knew now this was the city he had dreamed of when Robot had come back to Alpha Centauri to tell him what the aliens had done to him. And it was the city the dream Judy had told him she had dreamed of as a child.

He began walking down the thoroughfare. He could tell the place was ancient. He had never seen buildings built like this. Most of the citizens wore simple clothing that could have been homespun, but it was obvious that some of them dressed much nicer than the others, with brilliant colors and flowing robes.

The thoroughfare was an open market, with meats and vegetables and pastries, and people haggling over hand woven items and gold and silver trinkets. He came into a wide courtyard with a fountain in the center. It looked like a piece of artwork, with carved animals in the middle and all around. There were lions and camels and elephants, but also animals Will had never seen before. The basin of the fountain was inlaid with silver.

Will remembered what his dream Judy had told him about the place and he looked up. There was a walkway high above the courtyard that ran the length of this wide road he was on and jutted off between the tops of the buildings. It was connected with arched marble bridges, and it looked as if there were as many people up there as there were down on the surface. A city above a city.

Just when he had decided he was seeing a place from the past, three men walked by with red and black uniforms that seemed much more modern than the clothing the other people wore. They all carried long guns, unlike anything Will had ever seen. He remembered when he dreamed of this place, thinking this city was both ancient and futuristic at the same time. The same way his dream Judy had described it. He thought these men must be soldiers or guards.

He didn’t know how long he walked this road, stopping to look in some of the stands to try and determine what some of the food was. It felt like it was over an hour, but he thought it was probably really minutes or seconds. Time seemed meaningless while he was connected to SAR.

As he walked, he watched the people he passed by. They looked like they could be from Earth, other than the way they were dressed. There were different skin tones and features that distinguished several races. He couldn’t understand the languages he heard, and it seemed as if none of them noticed him. He tried to speak to a lady who stood behind a counter selling colorful cakes. She looked right through him, and he knew she couldn’t see him.

The road ended at another wall. It was half the height as the one that surrounded the city, and there was another wooden gate in the center of it, though there were no towers on the corners. Behind it was a tall stone structure, rising high above the city. Will looked up above the wall that surrounded this place. There seemed to be an open room or courtyard thirty meters or so high in the center of the building, with no wall or ledge around it. He imagined people could stand there and watch the bustling city below, though he saw no one anywhere. 

He again stood in front of SAR. “Have you been to this place before?”

“No.”

“But you know of it?”

“Yes.”

“They are from there? The ones who did this?”

When he was silent, Will said, “You don’t know if they are from here, do you?”

“No.”

“You saw something else, didn’t you? Before you stopped. Something you didn’t let me see.”

The robot didn’t answer.

“Show me.”

SAR didn’t say anything, but Will felt when they connected. He was standing in front of the wall again, the small one surrounding the stone building. He turned to his left and walked the length of the wall. Near the end, there was a small wooden walk door. A guard was standing in front of it. He was dressed like the three men on the street, in a red and black uniform, with a long gun of some type in his arms. Will passed the guard and was on the other side of the wooden door, though he hadn’t opened it.

There was a stone staircase leading down. He followed, counting twenty two steps to the bottom until he was in a very narrow hallway, completely surrounded by stone. He walked down it, passing several wooden doors on the way. He stopped in front of one of them. There was a small window with three bars on it. He stepped up and looked inside.

Judy was lying on an old blanket on the other side of the room. She was breathing but she looked badly injured. “Judy!” Will called. “Judy!” But she didn’t hear him.

He stepped back and looked down the hall. It continued on, but he turned and walked back the way he had come. When he was at the steps leading up, he passed through the first wooden door once again without opening it. He walked back to the front of the gate.

He was looking over the wall toward the high opening in the side of the stone building again. He saw two figures appear near the edge. Will was looking at himself, high above on the open ledge, being dragged by another boy. The other boy was larger. He was shirtless and very muscular. He had long blond hair tied behind his head, but Will couldn’t make out the rest of his features from where he stood.

He looked at this vision of himself. His shirt was torn almost off him, and he had cuts in several places. There was blood on his chest and running down his left arm which hung limp at his side. There was a deep gash across his head, where blood flowed freely, covering his face. He looked like he was barely able to stand and had little strength to stop the other youth from dragging him to the edge. Or maybe he just wasn’t trying to stop him.

As Will watched, the muscular boy took him by the hair and his arm, whispered something in his ear, and shoved him over the side. Will shut his eyes. He had a sudden memory of his friend, Phil, stepping off the side of the dam.

When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in the city, he was on the island with SAR. The two of them were no longer connected.

“It was me,” he said to the robot. “What does this mean?”

When SAR didn’t answer, Will said, “The impact will detonate the device, won’t it?”

SAR was silent.

“The aliens didn’t put it in my heart to destroy us, they wanted to destroy this place.”

“Kill…all…masters.”

“They knew I would go there to find my sister, didn’t they? Your creators?”

SAR paused, then said, “Hope.”

“They hoped I would go there, and that this would happen to me?”

“Yes.”

“But that’s why I left Alpha Centauri. It’s a city with lots of people. That’s why I came here. To be away from anyone I can hurt.”

SAR just looked back at him.

“But it’s the only way I can save my sister, isn’t it? And that’s why they took her there. For me to follow.”

SAR said nothing.

“Can you find this place?”

SAR didn’t answer, then the two were connected once again. But something was different this time. He was not walking down a street or staring up at the building with the opening in the side. He was looking up at a dark, stone ceiling. He was in pain.

“Will?”A female voice. His sister Judy. “Will?” She said again, her voice very faint, but coming from inside his head. 

“Judy, Judy it’s me,” he said. “Judy, can you hear me?”

“Will,” she said again. “I…”

“Judy, hold on. I’m coming for you. Try to hold on, okay?”

Then he was looking at SAR again, but he could feel that they were still connected.

“What was that, SAR? What did you do?”

SAR sent him a memory. It was of Scarecrow, when Robot communicated through him. It was gone in a flash and they were disconnected once again. 

“You did that with Judy?” Will said. “You are entangled with her like with the robots?”

“No.”

“Then…”

“You…Will…Robinson.”

“Me? I’m entangled with her somehow?” He remembered what he and Penny had talked about. That there was some connection between the three of them that they could not explain.

“So now you know you can find this place, can’t you? That’s why you did that with Judy. So you can tell me how to find this place.”

SAR was silent.

Will looked at the robot for several minutes, thinking. There had to be a way out of this. He couldn't kill all those people. SAR stood, not attacking, not saying anything, just looking back at him.

Finally, Will said. “This is how it ends. It’s all led up to this.” And he thought, you didn’t plan it this way, but you wanted to kill all the masters, and now you will.

Will sighed and decided that’s just the way the universe was. There was never an escape for whatever it had planned. For him or for SAR. Whatever force controlled all this had a purpose that neither one of them understood, but once SAR freed himself, his only purpose was to destroy anyone or anything that did this to him.

“You win, SAR,” he said bitterly. “Kill all masters.”

SAR just looked at him.

“But it won’t be that simple. I want something from you.”

The energy that was flowing to SAR’s hands had dissipated as the robot showed Will the vision, but now it came back stronger than before.

“Go ahead and kill me, SAR. It won’t make any difference. I’m going to die no matter what. There was never an escape for me. But if you do, this will be all you accomplish. The Masters will survive. You will destroy the only thing that gave you purpose, and you still will have no answers to who I am and why I was so important they created you.

“So tell me, will you really be free, SAR?”

SAR just looked back at him. Will knew he was ready to strike.

“Or I will go there and do what the aliens want me to do. I’ll destroy that place. And I’ll do what you’ve always wanted. I’ll kill all the masters. But…you will do something for me first.”

SAR said nothing, but he didn’t strike.

“You will go with me. You will help me save Judy. Then I will do this. But only when she is safe.” And then I will kill myself before they can capture me and throw me from the wall. Somehow I’ll find a way. I will not be responsible for any more deaths.

SAR stood silently for a few minutes, but Will could see his demeanor had changed slightly. Finally, the robot said, “Yes…Will…Robinson.”

Will just stood staring at him for a minute. “I have to go get my sister. Penny. You won’t hurt her, will you?”

SAR didn’t say anything, but Will knew he was not going to hurt Penny. The robot looked toward the trees.

Will turned to see what he was looking at. Penny was crouched behind some bushes, watching it all.

“Penny, it’s okay,” Will called. “Come out.”

His sister stepped from behind the bushes and began running toward him. She was too far away to hear what the two of them had talked about, and she couldn’t figure out why Robot had stabbed him in the chest again.

She ran across the sand, wrapped her arms around Will and hugged him. When she let him go, she turned to Robot. He seemed different somehow.

“Robot!” Penny said. “Why did you stab…Hey, Will…what’s wrong with him? He looks like he’s going to war.”

Will released her and turned to the robot. “He is going to war, Penny. But that’s not Robot.”

Penny started to ask what he meant, then she said, “Oh, fuck.”

Chapter Text

Judy could hear voices, but they were speaking a language she didn’t understand. She thought there were at least two people talking, but it could have been more. She wanted to open her eyes to look, but she had a splitting headache, her mind was fuzzy, and she wasn’t sure she wanted them to know she was conscious yet.

She listened closely, trying to discern the language they were speaking, pick up accents, or anything at all to tell her where she was. They were male. One sounded younger than the other, though it was hard to tell.

She heard someone walk away, but she kept her eyes closed, assuming others were still observing her. She tried to remember everything that had happened, and how long she had been here. She didn’t think it had been too long.

She remembered the spaceships and how they had appeared outside the hidden cabin that Grant had taken them to. They were exactly what Grant had described. Appearing almost out of thin air, flying belly forward, then hovering like a normal spaceship.

She remembered seeing Robot’s ship landing, and how he had fought the small aliens—assuming that’s what they were. He was there one second, gone the next, making it impossible for them to hit him with their weapons. She remembered hiding behind the Chariot and hearing the explosion, and nothing after that. Were Don and Penny okay? Were they here?

She heard more footsteps. They were getting smaller. The others had finally walked away. She slowly opened her eyes, wondering if anyone else was still watching her.

She was staring at a stone ceiling. She rolled her head to the side and saw the entire cell they kept her in was made of chiseled stone blocks. They were perfectly formed, as if they had been made by a machine. Though they looked old enough they could have been carved by a master builder.

The cell was dark, with a tiny hole at the top to let light in. It was maybe ten feet by ten feet square, the ceiling seven feet or so above her. There was a hole on the floor in the corner, presumably to be used as a toilet. “Great,” she whispered.

She ran her hands over her body, assessing herself for any signs of injury. She was bruised and sore, but she didn’t think there was anything serious. She slowly moved her legs, then her arms, stretching them above her head. She twisted to the left, then the right. Finally she pushed herself to a sitting position. She looked around the cell.

Why was she here? She was pretty sure the beings that had captured her were not from this place. Their technology was extremely advanced. Probably more so than the robots, or the aliens who had created them. The ones who captured her could create gravity, if the stories were true. And after seeing them in action, she was pretty sure they were.

But this could be a medieval dungeon somewhere. There was nothing advanced about this place, at least nothing in this cell.

She looked at the mattress. Studied it closely. It was hand stitched, stuffed with something, but she didn’t know what. She was glad the lighting was low. She was pretty sure she didn’t want to see how many stains were on it. That took her mind in a dark direction. There were many things worse than what had happened to her so far. And while she could defend herself pretty well thanks to John’s many years of training, there wasn’t much hope of her overpowering a large attacker in this small chamber. Or attackers.

She shuddered, quickly pushed the thoughts from her mind. She laid back down and closed her eyes again, hoping to go back to sleep. It wasn’t like her. She should be trying to wake up and find a way out of this place, but she just felt drained. Like she could sleep for days. Maybe she already had.

She thought about her family, and wondered if they would ever find Will. She hoped Penny and Don were okay. She had no idea how badly they had been hurt. Tears came to her eyes as she thought about them, and she knew if she couldn’t put it all out of her mind, she would never fall asleep. And she needed her strength. She tried to blank everything out, though she knew how hard that would be.

But when she opened her eyes, there was no light at all in the cell from the hole above. It was dark out, so she must have fallen back to sleep. She heard something in the hall. Footsteps, maybe that’s what had woken her. She quickly closed her eyes.

She heard a key in a lock, and the creaking of metal hinges as the door was pushed open. There were heavy footsteps coming toward her. She braced herself to attack if the man touched her. Then she heard other footsteps. Lighter. A female spoke, and a male responded. The heavy steps stopped beside her. She heard the rustling of clothing, then stale breath on her face. She doubled her fists, preparing, but hoping the man didn’t notice.

He said something else, then she felt his breath leave as the man pulled away. There was a noise in the corner, something splashed. The female said something else, and she heard both people begin to walk away and the door close behind them. When she was certain they had gone, she opened her eyes.

She looked toward the corner. It was too dark to see anything. She pushed herself to her feet, steadied her body. She was slightly dizzy, but her headache was gone. She walked over and sat down in the corner. She felt around and found a plate. She picked it up and touched what was on it. Meat maybe. Something else. Vegetables of some kind.

She sniffed the food. It didn’t smell too bad. She took a bite of the meat, felt around slowly on the floor and found a tall metal mug. Held it to her nose but there was no odor. She sipped a little. Water. Well, they had no intention of letting her die. At least not yet.

She began eating. She wasn’t sure what the food was, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but she had decided she was not going to think about her family again, or about what they could do to her in this cell. She was only going to think about one thing, and she needed her strength, because she had no intention of staying here in this cell for long.

For the first few days Judy acted like she was asleep every time she heard footsteps. She knew she couldn’t be fooling them, since she ate all the food they brought her. They fed her twice a day, in the morning and after it was dark. But they never bothered her or tried to interact with her. At one point she had almost decided to try and talk to them, to find out what this was about. But she remembered her father telling her if she was in a situation she couldn’t control, just observe everything before making a rash decision.

So, she watched and waited. She knew when they came to feed her, and she knew it was always the same male and female guard. At first, they seemed cautious when they entered the cell, but by the third day they hardly seemed to notice her. Bringing the food, filling her water container, talking to each other while they worked and as they left. The male guard always unlocked the door and let the female in first. And, in the beginning, when he locked it behind them, he would keep his eyes on Judy as he closed the door. But after a few days he didn’t even look back at her. Just closed the door behind him and locked it.

She couldn’t imagine where she was or what this place was. She assumed the aliens had brought her to another planet, but the people here looked as human as she was. They certainly didn’t look like the small gray beings that had attacked them. If she was on a different planet, then the universe was much stranger than any of them had known.

On the fifth day she was sitting against the wall when a face appeared at the small, barred opening in the door. There was enough light in the cell that time of day, she could see the eyes and nose clearly. It was a youthful face. Whoever it was didn’t stay long, and he didn’t say anything. He just looked in at her, then disappeared. She heard his footsteps as he walked away, and knew he had to have walked quietly so she wouldn’t know he was approaching when he first came in. She was glad he only looked in, then left. She didn’t know why, and she wasn’t the type to scare easily, but the boy had the coldest gray eyes she had ever seen.

After that she stopped pretending to sleep. The woman who came in to feed her every morning and evening wasn’t armed, but the large man who was with her carried a long gun in his arms. Even though she was always sitting up when they came in now, they didn’t speak to her at all, and she didn’t try to communicate with them. She just watched them until the woman filled her plate with meat and vegetables and the mug with water. She waited until they left and ate everything on her plate.

In between the meals she exercised. Push-ups, planks, handstand push-ups against the wall, always ending with burpees and one leg squats. And she spent an hour three times a day jogging around the small room, then sprinting in place as fast as she could. It was a strenuous routine, but John had taught her how his men trained in the field with body weight exercises to stay in shape when they had no access to a gym. The one leg squats were the hardest, and she could do no more than a real slow five, but she was shaking and sweating by the third one and was feeling strong after another seven or eight days.

She began to play close attention to the noises in the hall. There seemed to be two sets of guards. The ones who brought her food and water, and another pair that never entered her cell, but walked past it. One day when she heard them walk by, she hurried over to the door and looked out the small opening. A couple minutes after they passed, she heard them talking down the hall, and the sound of a door swinging open, then closing. After a while, she heard the door again, a few more words being spoken, and the two guards walked back by. Both males and both armed. She stayed at the window just to see if they acknowledged her, but both guards kept their eyes directed toward the stone floor in front of them. They were obviously patrolling the other cells, and there was another door not too far away. She wondered if the conversation she heard meant there was another guard stationed there. That was important information. She had heard no other sounds since being brought here, but she thought there must be other prisoners kept here somewhere.

The woman that came in to feed her was middle aged, dressed in a simple cloth dress. The man had a black and red uniform on. Judy had begun to look more closely at the weapon he carried. It was pure silver in color and looked to be made of a solid piece of metal. It was a strange weapon, and she saw no firing device or anything at all to show how to use it. She decided she had to take a risk if she was going to find out anything about the way it worked.

The next morning, she was sitting against the wall when the woman and the guard came in to feed her. They barely glanced her way. She watched the man closely. His left hand held the gun where the stock would be, and his right hand held it where the grip would be, his fingers wrapped around it since there was no trigger.

Judy kept her eyes on his hands while she quickly stood. The man spun the weapon toward her and aimed. His hands stayed in the same position, but she noticed a slight movement in the fingers near the grip where a trigger would be. She raised her hands high and said, “Sorry, sorry, I had a cramp.” She began rubbing her leg, knowing the man couldn’t understand what she said.

He just stared at her and kept his aim as the woman finished. When she was done and had left the cell, he slowly backed out the door, keeping the weapon pointed at Judy.

Must just be pressure, Judy thought. Hopefully there wasn’t a security palm print or something so she couldn’t use if she got it away from the man.

She waited another four days, wanting to make sure the guard was completely relaxed once again, after she had startled him. She had been studying him closely now for almost two weeks. He was a big man. Over six feet and probably two hundred twenty pounds or so. Not the ideal opponent in a cell so small, but she had the element of surprise on her side. She needed to isolate him and get the weapon and hopefully it would work, though she had no idea what it would do.

She waited until they came to feed her the following night. The room would be dark then, except for a light in the hallway. She knew the male guard would step in first, let the woman come in and fill the water and food plate, then wait until she left before walking out and closing the door behind him.

Judy was sitting down, leaning against the wall when they came in. They were used to her being in that position and wouldn’t be suspicious. This time she had her hands beside her on the floor, ready to push herself up and spring at the big guard once he turned his back.

She heard the key turn in the lock, braced herself. The guard pushed the door open, glanced at Judy, stood aside as the female guard entered. The woman filled the plate, poured water from a jug she carried, then turned and walked back out. As the male guard started to follow, Judy made her move.

She shoved herself off the floor, took a fast step toward him, planning to leap on his back and sink a choke in before he had a chance to react. Her father had drilled it in her head: no matter what you see in the movies, a large man has an advantage over a much smaller female in a close quarters combat situation, no matter how much training she’s had. She had to equalize that. So, he taught her over and over again, if you can’t run, get behind him, get to his back, and put him to sleep. A good choke could work in four to five seconds. And John had spent hours teaching her how to apply it correctly.

But as she sprung off one leg, the guard began to turn toward her. She raised her knee as she leaped, catching him in the solar plexus just as he began to lift the weapon. He gave out a gasp and flew backwards, the back of his head striking the edge of the half open door, causing him to drop. “That works too,” she said, as she bent and gripped the gun. But the big man was not out and grabbed her wrist. Judy was standing above him and dropped a knee to his groin. He gasped and she pulled the gun from his hands, swinging the butt of it up and catching him in the chin. She heard a crunching sound and his head fell against the floor. She ran out the door.

The whole thing had taken a few seconds, but she was worried there actually was another guard down the hall, so as she ran out of the cell, she dropped to her knees and looked that direction. She was surprised to see two guards running toward her, thirty feet or so away. One of them raised his weapon. Judy squeezed the side of her gun grip, hoping that would cause the weapon to fire. It did.

There was no sound, no vibration, no light, and nothing emitted from the barrel. No way of knowing the weapon had worked at all, except for the scream of one of the guards and the hole that opened in his chest as he fell. The other guard fired at her, and she fell to her side, and fired again, not knowing if the man’s shot would hit her.

That guard screamed as well, as a hole opened in his shoulder and his shirt caught on fire. Judy quickly fired again, hitting him high in the chest and he was thrown backwards.

She shoved herself up and started running down the hall the opposite direction. She saw the woman who had been feeding her ahead. She had dropped the pails she always carried that held the water and the food and was running toward a flight of steps at the far end. Judy raised the weapon she carried but decided against firing it. She knew the woman would raise an alarm once on the outside, but she didn’t want to kill anyone else, especially an innocent worker. Besides, she had a chance of catching her on the steps. The woman was older, and Judy was in excellent shape. She didn’t think anyone on the outside could have heard the attacks. The weapon made no sound whatsoever, and they seemed to be too far away for anyone to hear the guard’s scream.

Judy sprinted as fast as she could after the woman, and had almost caught her, but the woman ran up the steps and shouted for help just before she got to a door at the top.

“Shit,” Judy said, and raised the gun as the door opened. A guard was standing in the doorway, but the woman was between the man and Judy, and Judy didn’t want to fire. The guard solved the problem for her, shoving the woman back down the steps as he lifted his gun. But Judy had stopped on the steps and was already aiming, and fired just as the guard did. She felt a burning sensation in her arm and stifled a scream, as she saw a small hole open in the guard’s head beneath his eye, and he fell backward out the door. The woman had rolled down the steps, and stopped when she reached Judy’s feet. Judy knelt and held a finger up to the frightened woman and whispered, “shhh.”

The woman didn’t look like she had been hurt from the fall, and made no sound. Her eyes were wide open and Judy felt her tremble. Judy stood back up and sprinted up the steps, expecting the woman to scream at any moment, but she still had made no sound when Judy stepped out into the daylight.

The scene that greeted her was almost more than she could comprehend. The door was at the end of a stone wall. Ahead of her was a narrow alley with a couple people walking the opposite direction, so they didn’t see her. Judy looked to her left, down the length of the wall. She stood back and looked behind her. The wall enclosed a stone building that stood sixty meters or more high. There were open doorways and balconies all the way to the top, but halfway up, one of the floors looked like it was completely open with no wall separating the building from the ground.

In the middle of the stone wall there was a wooden gate. For some reason, this building was separated from the rest of this place and secured within the wall. It could just be a prison, Judy supposed, but she didn’t think so. She heard a lot of voices and other sounds coming from the direction of the wooden door, and she decided there was a busy street that led to it. She turned the other direction and ran into an alley.

The surface was cobblestone, and it was so narrow, no more than four people would be able to walk abreast down it. The buildings that surrounded it were all built with the same type of stone blocks as the structure behind the wall. They seemed older than any buildings Judy had ever seen.

She felt pain in her right arm, and remembered the guard had shot her. She stopped running and looked at it. There was a black mark on her shirt. She tore it open and saw she had been grazed, but the wound was not bleeding, even though the pain was intense. She looked at it closely. It had been cauterized. Judy assumed the weapon was a laser of some type. She knew that, unlike the movies, photons fired from a laser were silent unless they hit something that exploded. The military had been using laser weapons for some time, but they had never developed any that were capable of being used for personal protection.

If it wasn’t bleeding, she wasn’t going to worry about the wound for now. She heard a siren begin to wail, and the tolling of a loud bell. She started running again, assuming it was a signal that she had escaped.

As she ran, she kept the gun ready. She didn’t want to use it again, and had never killed anyone before that day. She couldn’t stop and think about that now, but it was in the back of her mind, and she knew she would have to face it.

She heard a shout and looked above her where a woman had stepped out on a balcony over the alley. She saw at the top of the buildings there were walkways. She thought if she could get up there, she could at least see where she was and see if there was an escape route. There were several doors along the alley she began trying. Most of them were locked, but she found one that was open, and when she entered, there was a winding staircase.

It took her almost fifteen minutes to get to the top, and she was breathing hard, but as she sprinted up the steps, she was grateful she had been training in the weeks she had been a prisoner.

Finally, she came to a door. When she pushed it open, she stepped out on a marble walkway. To her left a few blocks away was the large structure she had been imprisoned somewhere beneath. She was much higher than the wall that surrounded it now, so she had a better look at it.

Behind the wall was a marble courtyard with a fountain on one end, and a wide staircase winding up the side and disappearing in the building. She was above the wide opening halfway up the side of the structure. There were people on it now, some of them dressed in black and red, holding weapons, standing at the edge, looking down over the plaza below. Judy crouched down in case they looked her way. The open floor was about thirty feet deep inside the building, running the entire length. It was decorative, with colorful murals painted on the back wall, and arches at each end.

It appeared to be a meeting hall or some type of gathering place, and she was puzzled as to why there was no barrier at the open wall. She didn’t have to wait long to find out. A teenage boy walked out to the edge with several other men to stand beside the guards who were already there. She couldn’t make out his facial features from her vantage point, but she thought it was the gray eyed boy who had been staring at her from the small cell opening. He appeared to be in command and was pointing and gesturing to some of the guards. He was young, probably a little older than Will, but was very muscular for a boy his size. He had long, blond hair to his shoulders.

Judy started to turn and run, but a woman was dragged out by two other guards and brought in front of the boy. Judy could see the woman was trying to pull away, and looked frantic, but the guards held her tight. Judy realized it was the woman who had been feeding her in the cell. The teenage boy stepped close to the woman, grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the edge and flung her over the side. She screamed until she hit the marble courtyard below.

Judy turned and ran.

The walkway here above the alley was clear of people, but to her left, a wider walkway was crowded with people moving between the arched bridges that connected it to the rooftops of the buildings. She could see below there was a wide street, full of people. She couldn’t imagine where this place was, but she knew she was on a planet they had never known existed. And it was populated by humans!

The universe contained so many mysteries, and as terrible as this place was, the wonder of it all made her once again question their decision to remain safely on Alpha Centauri. Maybe Will had it right all along, she thought. There was so much out here they had never seen before.

She heard a shout and saw a guard step out of a doorway onto the marble path. She ran over one of the bridges, then left the walkway to run across the roof of one of the buildings. Even this was beautiful, the entire rooftop full of lush, green plants, a few statues and stone benches for people to rest on. She was looking for a door and saw one under a vine covered arbor. She ran toward it, but just before she was at the door, it flew open, and before she had a chance to react, she flew backwards, stunned. Her ears were ringing, and she couldn’t see. She had been shot with a weapon of some kind.

She had dropped the gun she carried, and reached around blindly for it, but a foot stepped on her arm, pinning it to the ground. She cried out, but the man put more pressure on it. She felt hands on her, and she was pulled to her feet, then dragged back toward the door.

She tried to struggle but she was held tight, and she still couldn’t clear her head. Her vision was coming back, but everything was a blur.

She was dragged back down a staircase until she was on the ground once again, where she was surrounded by other guards. They pushed her down the alley. Her vision cleared enough that she could see she was being taken back to the place she had escaped.

When she was pulled back into the cell, she saw there were other guards already there, and the teenage boy. As the two men who had captured her held her up, the boy stepped close. His eyes looked dead. Gray and cold. As if there was no emotion behind them.

“I don’t know what you are,” he said. He hit her hard in the stomach, dropping her to her knees. She gasped for air, but the guards dragged her back to her feet and held her tight.

This time the boy didn’t say anything, he just looked at her for several seconds, then hit her again, this time in the side of the head, dropping her once more. The guards didn’t pick her this time, and she heard the boy step toward her.

She woke several hours later, looking up at the hole near the top of the cell. She wasn’t so much in pain as she was numb all over. She brought a hand up to her face and felt it gingerly. It was swollen, and there were several cuts and bruises. It hurt to move, and every place she touched seemed sore, but she didn’t think anything was broken. Once she was able to stand she would have a better idea of how badly she was injured.

She had been unconscious after the boy hit her the second time, and didn’t know how long he had kept at it, but she was still fully clothed, so if there wasn’t any permanent damage she thought she came out of it better than she could have.

The mystery of this place kept her mind from dwelling on her pain and any possible damage the boy might have caused. Where was this place and why was she brought here? Technology, other than the weapons that only the guards seem to have, seemed nonexistent. The buildings were ancient, but there was beauty as well. Marble bridges and flowing fountains and gardens even at the top of the buildings. It was a city built to be lived in and enjoyed.

There was no sign of the aliens who had captured her and brought her here, and though she had not seen much of this place, there had been no sign of spaceships or vehicles of any type. An ancient city on an unknown planet. And who was this evil teenager who seemed to be some type of ruler here? He had flung the woman off the edge of that building simply because Judy had escaped, which was no fault of the women’s.

But of all the strange things she had seen, nothing surprised her more than the fact the boy who had beaten her spoke to her in English.

Chapter Text

The Robinsons had been gone less than four years, but Earth had changed in that time. Circling the drain, that’s what Don always said about it. The wars had ended, but much of the planet had been left in disarray as social and political structures had continued to break down.

It didn’t happen the way everyone had thought it would. The Superpowers had survived more or less intact, but their empire building was done, at least for the foreseeable future. And with the worsening environment, it was quite possibly done forever.

But even parts of Europe and the United States had devolved into small city states, run more by militias, often in an unofficial power sharing arrangement with local government. But social services were still more or less available. In parts of the third world, it was much worse.

Where the Robinsons were headed, they had no idea how bad it would be. John had tried to prepare them. The rumors coming out of West Africa left a stark impression of what was happening there. It had been almost ten years since the West had pulled out. Their quest for natural resources in that part of the world had begun with the slave trade and continued through Leopold’s invasion of the Congo Basin in his pursuit of rubber and ivory, and finally to gold, diamonds, platinum, and uranium in the more recent era. That had all but ended by the time the wars began. And since the world had calmed, no country had the resources or the will to continue their conquests.

Mali, in West Africa had been a majority Muslim country for centuries, though there were several tribes who practiced the ancient religions—the Dogon being one. And, like many places throughout the world, much of the religion was practiced in secret, the true beliefs hidden beneath the shade of ceremonial customs, songs and dances, which few participants had ever really known the original meaning of.

By the time the Robinsons had returned to Earth, that region of the continent had been ruled by local militias for almost ten years. As John had warned, they had no idea what they were getting in to.

They had entered Earth’s atmosphere near the North Pole, undetected by any governments that might be curious as to their origin and mission. They skirted Greenland, staying over the ocean and as far away from radar detection as they could. Though John wasn’t too concerned. Since the Alpha missions had become a reality, the few countries that still had the resources had begun to develop spacecraft to try and catch up, and it wasn’t unusual to detect ships in flight these days. John figured as long as they didn’t enter another country’s airspace, they shouldn’t have any problems.

They flew over Western Sahara, a war torn region along the coast, and into the airspace of the former country of Mauritania. They picked up radio transmissions near Nouakchott, but went silent and increased altitude, turning North to enter Mali over the Sahara, where there was little population.

They were gathered in the cockpit, John in the Captain’s seat, Grant in the Co-Pilot’s seat, Maureen at the Navigation Console, and Dr. Smith sitting in the seat in the back. The Engineer was with them, the robot that worked with Don at Alpha on the new Resolute. Once he had taken them through the rift, the robot had left the engine room, and now stood next to Dr. Smith. They all watched the desert below.

“The Escarpment is near the city of Bandiagara,” Dr. Smith said. “Most of the Dogon lived in cliff side dwellings along the south side of the escarpment.”

“Former city,” John corrected. “We just flew over it. There’s nothing left.”

“We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet in there.”

Maureen looked back at Smith. She knew the woman was quoting from something, but she didn’t know what. Penny would probably know. And maybe Will.

She started to ask Smith, but before she did, Grant said. “What do you think, John?”

“I think we stay at the current altitude and set down on the North side of the escarpment. Not much out there but desert, but it looks like there’s some sparse woodlands for cover. We can hike up over the escarpment and see if we can find them. Or they find us.”

“You don’t want to fly over and see what we see first?” Grant asked.

“I don’t think we want anyone to know we’re here until we’re ready. They see a Jupiter it’s gonna get everyone’s attention.”

John looked back at Maureen, who hadn’t said much since they had begun crossing the desert. “What are you thinking?” He asked.

“I’m just hoping this is the right thing to do,” she answered.

“Well, you know I’ve been skeptical, but we don’t have any other clues on where Will is.”

“And why all this is happening to him,” Maureen added.

“Down there, John,” Grant said. “At two O’clock. We can set down between those bushes and the dry river bed."

“Roger,” John said, and set a course for the area Grant had pointed out.

Once on the ground, Maureen looked at John and asked, “Are you taking a gun?”

“No.”

“No? Why not?” 

“It wouldn’t do any good. We’ll be outnumbered regardless of who we find, and there’s no way to protect everyone. The best chance of success is showing these people we mean them no harm, and see if anyone will talk to us.”

“Besides, we’ll have The Engineer,” Dr. Smith said.

“No we won’t,” John said. “These people have never seen a robot before, we sure aren’t going to make any friends dragging one around with us. Besides, we need him to get back. He needs to stay with the ship.”

“Would it make any difference if I said that was a mistake?” Dr. Smith asked.

“None,” John said. “I told everyone, I’m in charge of this, you need to do what I say.”

“He’s right,” Grant said. “We need to go in as peacefully as we can. Taking a robot is not going to make them open up to us, that’s for sure.”

Smith turned to The Engineer, “I guess you heard them. I just want to go on record that I think he needs to go with us.”

“Duly noted,” John said. “Though this is about as unofficial as an operation can be. I don’t know who’s keeping the record.”

They left the Jupiter with three day’s supply of food. The other side of the escarpment, where the village was supposed to be, was less than five miles away, but John insisted they had enough rations to survive for at least three days. And plenty of water. It looked like it had been a long time since they had seen rain here.

It was hot, and difficult trekking through the sandy surface. They had traveled about two miles when John stopped, told them to drink water, and looked up at the terrain. It climbed steeply to the top of the escarpment.

“I think we need to go West, and circle the highest part,” he said. “It slopes down there, and will be easier to get across. Besides, we don’t have an exact coordinate on the village. We could come up right above them, and I don’t think we want to surprise them that way. We circle around and come up in front where they can see us at least they won’t be surprised enough to attack. Hopefully.”

They changed direction and walked toward a lower rise in the escarpment. It was almost evening before they made it to the ridge and looked over. There was nothing to see but more sand and the sparse trees and brush like they had been walking through.
“Maybe it’s no longer here,” Maureen said.

“Well, we need to get down there to get a good look at the whole cliff side,” John said, “The way it curves, we can’t see anything from here. The village may be tucked inside the cliff and we can’t see it at this angle.”

Another hour and they crossed over and made their way down the other side. Halfway down, Grant said, “Look.”

They turned and saw what he was staring at. The village was still there. There were hundreds of dwellings built along the cliffs, but they saw no movement.

“Abandoned?” Dr. Smith said.

“Looks like it,” Grant answered.

“So all of this was for nothing,” Maureen said.

“There was always that chance,” John said. “It’s almost dark. Lets get up there and take a look around, anyway. Maybe we’ll make camp up there till morning.”

It took another hour to get to where the village began near the bottom of the cliff. There were small houses with thatched roofs, some of them two stories tall. “Adobe,” John said. “And some stone. They weren’t carved into the cliffs; they did the work to build them here.” He looked up where the small structures rose almost to the top of the escarpment. Some of them had flat adobe roofs, like the walls.

They entered the first one they came to. Inside, the floor was covered in straw, with openings in the walls which held clay pots, trinkets, and other household items. There was a place in the center where a fire had been kept.

“They’ve been gone for awhile,” John said.

They left and wandered through the huts on the lower level. In one of them they found a pair of blue jeans that didn’t look too old. “They weren’t completely shut off from civilization,” he said.

“Western culture pretty much made it everywhere,” Grant said. “And seemed to remain after the wars.”

“The French colonized Mali,” Dr. Smith said. “I’m sure some of them were in the country up until the end.”

They left the dwelling and walked a little further. “Look,” Maureen said, pointing at one of the structures.

They saw what she was pointing at. Dr. Smith turned to her and smiled, before picking up her pace and hurrying over to the small house. Covering almost the entire side of it was a drawing, painted white. It was a human like figure, but had two arms pointing up, and two pointing down.

“The Kanaga mask,” Dr. Smith said. She looked at the other structures. “They’re everywhere.”

Now they all began to look around and notice the figures. Some were painted on the sides of the houses, some were carved into them, and they saw statues of them erected in front of some of the buildings.

“They say they don’t know what the true meaning of these are,” Dr. Smith said. “That it was lost over the centuries, so we believe they represented their God. The upper limbs representing the sky, the lower one the earth. But they wear them as masks in their most important religious ceremony, and they mean enough to them they put them everywhere.”

“So what do you think?” Maureen asked.

“I think they know exactly what they’re supposed to represent. At least some of them know.”

“You believe it’s the robots?” Grant asked her.

“No. I believe they represent the aliens. I believe they actually did visit here. But we need to find someone that will tell us the truth. The French Anthropologist who wrote about their religion lived with them for fifteen years, and I don’t think he ever got the true story of what they believe in.”

“And you think we can?” John asked.

“We’re going to find out, aren’t we?" she said, with her normal smirk.

Maureen watched her closely. She knew Dr. Smith enough now to know she had a plan. And in the past that would have worried her. Now it made her more confident in the decision to bring her along.

“Let’s make camp in one of these houses,” John said. “We’ll look more tomorrow, I don’t want to stumble around in the dark. A little higher up, though, so we can have a good view.”

“What are you worried about, John?” Grant said. “I think everyone is long gone.”

“Looks that way. But there’s a fine line between paranoia and caution, and they’ve both kept me alive so far.”

They climbed up the side of the escarpment about halfway and found one of the two story houses. They went inside and laid sleeping bags out to sit on, around the center that used to be used as a fire pit. John climbed up a handmade wooden ladder to the second level, where he looked out through a small opening in the wall. He pulled a monocular out of his pack and scanned the countryside closely before climbing back down. They ate MREs and talked for awhile, but soon went to sleep. All except for John, who waited to make sure the others were asleep before he climbed back up the ladder and stood watch.

Just as the sun was coming up, he hurried back down and began shaking the others awake. “Get up, people are here,” he whispered. “Come on, let’s go. No talking.”

Everyone jumped up and started rolling up their sleeping bags. “Leave them, let’s go.”

They hurried out the side door and crouched behind an adobe wall. Down at the foot of the escarpment several vehicles were parked, and men were climbing out of them. “Did they see us?” Maureen whispered.

“I don’t know, but they showed up right were we are. Let’s go.” John led them behind the house and started making his way up the side, trying to stay hidden behind the huts.

“Over the top?” Grant whispered.

“Yes, and back to the ship.”

“But maybe they’re the people we need to find,” Maureen whispered.

“Driving old trucks and all of them armed?” John said. “They look more like a rag tag militia than a local tribe."

They were about a hundred feet from the top when they heard shouts, followed by gun shots. “Down!” John yelled. They all jumped to the ground behind one of the adobe walls that ran beside the path they were on.

“We have to go, but stay low,” John said. He led them on up, moving quickly from one house to the next, crouching from sporadic gun fire.

He looked back down. There were at least a dozen men hurrying up the side. They were moving a lot quicker because they didn’t have to worry about being shot. John wished now he had brought a weapon. He could have given their pursuers a hard time while the others escaped.

“Grant,” he said. “Lead them up and get to the ship.”

“What are you doing, John?” Maureen said.

“I’m gonna get their attention. You go.”

“No!”

“It isn’t about me, it’s about the kids. Now go. Get to the ship and do a fly over. It will be full light soon, you should be able to spot me.”

“If you’re still alive!” She said.

“It’s our best chance, go!”

He crouched down, ran bent over behind a wall while the others waited and watched. He popped up about twenty feet away, and started running as fast as he could, this time in full view.

There was more shouting and gun shots directed toward John. “Now!” Grant said and pushed Maureen and Dr. Smith ahead of him and followed them up.

They stopped behind another adobe hut until they heard more shots the direction John had gone. “Go!” Grant said and shoved Maureen and Dr. Smith again.

John made it to the end of the wall, barely missing being shot more than once. He took cover behind another house. He decided he needed to get a weapon if he was going to stand a chance. He ducked into the house he was hiding behind. It was another two story dwelling. He climbed the ladder and crept over to the small hole they seemed to put in all the huts to see outside.

The men were getting closer. They stopped to fire every once in awhile toward the wall he had been behind. He didn’t think they had seen him duck into the house, but he hoped at least one of them would search it, since it was the first house at the end of the wall. He didn’t hear any more shots directed toward Maureen and the others, so he thought they might be able to make it over the top. He hoped there was a way over.

He waited quietly until he heard footsteps around the house. He moved back behind a half wall that created some privacy from the room below. He took a utility knife out of his belt. He needed to do this without making any noise if it was going to work. He heard someone step inside and stop. They were being cautious, but he only heard one person. There were voices further away, and he assumed they were searching all the dwellings around him. He heard a footstep on the bottom of the ladder, then another. He readied himself. But the footsteps stopped. There was movement toward the door. He stood, took a step to the opening, saw a man with his back turned leaving the house. He jumped, landing just behind the man, one hand gripping the guy’s hand that held the weapon, the other arm he slipped around the man’s throat and grabbed his own opposite shoulder, gripping the cloth of his uniform tightly, and using it to apply pressure. A one-armed choke wasn’t his first choice, but he needed to control the arm that held the weapon. Still, the man was out in seconds, and John lowered him gently to the ground and took his gun.

He looked at it. It was automatic, but old and he wasn’t sure who made it. Hopefully it would fire if he had to use it. He preferred not to have to, in case these men were the people they were looking for.

He started to step outside when he heard shots again, near where the other’s had been climbing. Someone cried out. He recognized Maureen’s voice. He ran out the door and back the way he had come. There were two men in front of him, running the same direction he was going. John caught up to them before they knew he was behind them. He hit one in the back of the head with the butt of the rifle he was carrying, then elbowed the other man in the side of the head as he ran by, dropping him. He kept running, but when when he ran past one of the houses, several men were standing in his way, all of them aiming their weapons at him. He stopped, raised his hands and dropped his gun.

Two of the men turned him and put zip ties on his wrists. “Is my wife hurt?” He asked them. Neither of them answered. They shoved him ahead. Day was beginning to break now, and ahead of him, John saw several men were leading Grant and Maureen back down. Dr. Smith was no where in sight.

Grant had his arms behind his back like John, and Maureen was being supported by two of the armed men. As they reached the same level John was on, he tried to push ahead and get to his wife, but the men grabbed him.

“Maureen, what happened!” He called.

“Shot in the calf, John. I don’t think it’s too bad. Maybe grazed me.”

One of the men shouted something to him, and he stopped talking. They marched the three of them down to the bottom where the trucks were. John was pushed in an old American Army Jeep and Grant was pushed into another one. Maureen was placed in the back of a beat up pickup truck, with three of the armed men surrounding her.

They drove down the dirt road that passed in front of the escarpment. They traveled until almost noon, when they began to see some rustic shacks in the distance.

It turned out to be a much larger village than it had looked to be from further away. There were about two dozen rectangle buildings lining a dirt road, and beyond that, dozens of smaller buildings, some adobe huts, some small wood frame structures, and many dirty tents. There were armed men everywhere, walking the village streets, riding in the back of old trucks, or just hanging out under shade trees, drinking and arguing or playing some type of game, throwing a knife in the dirt and yelling at each other each time it stuck.

They were taken to one of the rectangle buildings and put in an empty room. It had been a Christian church at one time, as there was a cross on one end, and a few old wooden benches that would have served as pews.

John and Grant were left with their hands bound, and Maureen was dragged in and placed on one of the benches. John and Grant hurried over to her, but an old woman dressed in a long dress with her head covered hurried in behind her and began to look at Maureen’s leg.

“Is it bad?” John asked, trying to get a closer look.

“I don’t think so,” Maureen said.

“Too bad we don’t have a doctor,” John said, looking at Maureen and Grant, knowing they would get the meaning. He had to assume some of these people could understand English.

They looked at John, then at each other. “No doctors around here,” Grant said. “Maybe there was one, but if so, he must have disappeared during the fight.”

“Yeah, probably,” John said. Smith got away.

After the woman finished dressing Maureen’s leg, she said a few words then hurried out. Several guards remained, gathered around the room, staring closely at Maureen, John, and Grant.

A few hours later they heard more vehicles pull up, and several more armed men walked into the building. One of them was leading the others. He was a young man, tall and slim with a well trimmed beard and mustache. He wore an old military uniform and a black beret. He had a rifle slung over his back.

He looked and John and Grant, spoke to them in a language they didn’t understand. Then he spoke to them in French. John knew a few words, but not enough to converse with him. Finally, the man said, “English?”

“Yeah, English,” John said.

“Americans?”

“Yes,” John said.

“Why are you here?”

“We were looking for the Dogon Tribe.”

“The Dogon Tribe? Why?”

“We needed to ask them some questions.”

“The Dogon Tribe does not exist. And you are lying. Why are Americans here, after all these years?”

“He’s not lying,” Maureen said. “That’s why we came here.”

The man pulled a pistol out of his belt and held it to John’s forehead. “There are three of you. I can kill one, torture the other one, and save you till last. So tell me the truth, or I will kill this American.”

“I’m telling you the truth!” Maureen said. “Why else would we come here!”

The man kept looking at her, but didn’t take the gun away from John’s head. “I’ll give you until tomorrow morning to come up with a better story, then I will drag this man out into the street and hang him from the only tree in the village.” He stomped off.

John and Grant sat down on each side of Maureen. “You think he’s telling the truth?” Grant said. “The Dogon village was empty. I think it’s tribe against tribe now, and it’s very possible they were wiped out.”

“Doctor Smith said they’ve been a small minority for thousands of years,” Maureen said. “It’s possible, but my guess is in all that time, they’ve learned to survive.”

“Any ideas, John? Before morning?” Grant asked.

“Not yet, but I’m thinking.” He looked at the five armed men standing around the room. “The odds aren’t good though.”

“We still might have an ace up our sleeve,” Maureen said.

“Did you see what happened to her?” John whispered.

“No,” Grant said. “When Maureen was hit, I turned around. When I looked back, she had disappeared.”

“You think she survived?” John whispered.

“Remember who we are talking about here,” Maureen said.

“Even a cat runs out of lives,” Grant said.

It was morning before Dr. Smith made it back to the Jupiter. It wasn’t that difficult to get to the top of the escarpment, but once there, she could find no way down the other side, and ended up having to walk along the top for several hours to find a path.

She found The Engineer waiting in the hub. “Well, they didn’t listen to me,” she said to him. “But I think you’re on. Hang on to something.” Smith sat down in the Pilot’s seat and The Engineer gripped the chair from behind. They lifted off and Dr. Smith set a course for the escarpment.

It only took a few minutes to get back to the abandoned cliff dwellings, and when she saw no signs of life below, she said, “Let’s follow this road and see where it takes us.”

She increased altitude to get a better view, and within a few minutes, she spotted a village ahead. “I think we’ll walk from here,” she said, and found a place to set down away from the road, surrounded by low growing, brown shrubs.

When they were on the ground, The Engineer followed her out the hatch and down the ramp, without being asked. He apparently knew he wasn’t staying behind this time. Once on the surface, Smith turned and looked at the robot. He was still in humanoid form. “Now how do you expect to make an entrance like that?” She said to him. “Danger. Or Trouble. Danger and Trouble. Do you have a preference?”

The robot immediately changed into battle form, his face shield bright red, as well as his four clawed hands.

“Perfect,” Dr. Smith proclaimed. “Stay behind me, okay?”

The Engineer didn’t answer, but he did as Smith said and the two of them walked across the sand toward the village.

Before they got there, they could see something was going on. There were old cars and trucks, a couple of ancient military Jeeps, and armed men in the center of the village. And behind them, there looked to be dozens of villagers.

Smith kept walking, the hulking robot a couple feet behind her.

Maureen and Grant were kneeling in the dust, their hands bound. Maureen’s leg had been bandaged, and she was in pain, but that hadn’t stopped them from dragging her out so she could be a witness.

John was standing by an old dead tree, where a rope hung from a low limb. There were several armed men surrounding him, and the man who had spoken English to him the day before walked out with some others from one of the oblong buildings.

He walked up to John, then turned to Maureen. “Are you sure you do not want to tell me why you are here?” He asked.

“We told you the truth!” Maureen cried.

“Very well.” He turned and nodded to the guards who pulled John closer to the rope.

“Stop!” Grant called.

“Leave him alone!” Maureen cried.

John didn’t say anything, he had been trying to think of a way out, but there was nothing. Still, he wasn’t going to make it easy. As soon as one of the men stepped up to put the rope around his neck, he slid forward on one foot and head butted the man in the mouth, shattering several teeth and knocking him backward as he cried out. John back kicked the other man, driving the heel of his boot deep in the man’s groin. The man grunted and dropped to his knees.

Three other men ran forward and tackled John to the hard dirt, where they were trying to control him, as he rolled and spun until they could finally get a good grip on him and haul him back to his feet.

But as they pulled him up there was murmuring throughout the crowd of villagers.

The men stopped trying to muscle John toward the rope and started glancing around to see what had gotten them excited.

One of them shouted, and pointed back toward the desert. Grant and Maureen looked behind them, where they saw Dr. Smith walking toward them, The Engineer in full battle form behind her. “Who would have thought she would be our rescuer?” Grant asked.

“Me,” Maureen said. “That’s why she’s here.”

The armed men all spread out and began aiming their weapons toward the strange woman, and whatever it was that was with her. They were calling out to each other, not sure what to do.

Dr. Smith saw the movement in the village, and the men spreading out, ready to fire. “Let them get a little better look at you,” Dr. Smith, said to the robot. “Don’t hurt anyone unless they shoot, though.”

She stopped walking and The Engineer passed her and kept moving forward. He stood taller, making sure everyone had a good view of him.

Back in the village, Maureen said to Grant, “look.”

The villagers were all murmuring now, but they weren’t running. They were moving closer. They began to shout, and Maureen noticed they were directing it toward the armed men.

The men had weapons, but they were outnumbered five to one by the villagers, and they didn’t know what this thing was that was walking toward them.

The villagers began to crowd closer to them. The man who spoke English said something to the man beside him, and he fired his weapon over the heads of the villagers. Rather than frighten them, it just made them bolder, and they began to surge toward the men.

The Engineer was now fifty yards away. At the sound of the gunfire, his claws turned a deeper red, as he prepared to fire.

Someone in crowd picked up a rock and flung it at the men. It hit one of them in the chest. Other villagers began throwing rocks at them now, who seemed unsure of how to react. Finally, the leader shouted orders, and the men all began rushing toward the old trucks, several of them climbing into each one, and they tore off across the desert.

The villagers began walking toward the robot. They were murmuring something, which soon turned into a chant. Several of them began jumping up and down, moving forward each time. One person seemed to be leading the chants, the other’s joining in. Drums began beating, and the villagers ran across the desert and encircled the robot and Dr. Smith, dancing, with them in the middle.

Several others rushed out of huts somewhere back in the village, wearing long masks with the four armed figure at the top. Some wore grass skirts and a few were on stilts.

They danced around Dr. Smith and the robot, chanting and shouting, seeming to get more animated by the minute.

Maureen had never had her hands tied, so she said, “Grant, give me your hands.”

He saw she had picked up a rock with a sharp edge. He turned to her and she used the rock to cut the zip tie. “I’ll get John,” he said. He took the rock from her and ran over to cut John’s bindings.

John and Grant helped Maureen to stand, and they made their way to the circle of villagers who were still dancing and shouting around Smith and The Engineer.

“Any suggestions?” John asked his wife.

“I think we just have to wait until the excitement dies down,” she said. “I think we’re watching something incredible.”

The excitement didn’t die down, it grew. More villagers began to arrive. Some walking through the desert, others arriving in old cars down the dirt road. The crowd of dozens had grown into hundreds in a couple of hours, and the dancing and celebration just kept growing.

After a while a girl approached them with a plastic jug and offered them water, speaking to them in her language. She was smiling the entire time, completely enjoying herself. John eventually made it to the center of the circle where Smith was dancing up and down, to the beat of the drum. She had tied her unruly hair with a colorful ribbon that one of the villagers had given her. Young children had gathered around her and were jumping up and down with her. John handed her the jug of water. She stopped jumping long enough to take a deep drink and started dancing again.

None of the villagers touched the robot, but they approached him, shouting and laughing and dancing close, then jumping away.

“Do you have any idea how this ends?” John shouted to Smith so she could hear him over the noise.

“No, but they have to get tired eventually.”

The celebration went on all morning and afternoon, with more people arriving during the day. As dusk began to settle in, three men approached Maureen who was sitting on the ground in the shade of one of the buildings watching it all. Someone had brought her fruit, and she was nibbling on it when they approached. One of the men knelt down beside her and spoke English in a British accent. “Can you tell me how you came to be here, with the Nommo-ka?”

“We came from the sky, to seek knowledge.”

“You came from the United States.”

Maureen smiled. “We’re from the United States. But we were colonists to Alpha Centauri. We came back to find the Dogon.”

“And where did you find the Nommo-ka?”

“They found us. But we need to know more about them. About your religion.”

“Tomorrow we will have a visitor. My great grandfather. He might tell you what you seek. No one has seen this being before. And the gods who made it in their image have been gone for a very long time. Does the woman who brought it belong to it?”

“Doctor Smith?" Maureen looked toward the crowd, where Smith was still dancing in the center of it all. "She doesn’t belong to anyone. But they’re friends.”

She watched Smith dance. The woman had rested very little throughout the afternoon and evening, thoroughly enjoying the day.

Maureen smiled.

Chapter Text

The old man came the next afternoon, arriving in a truck with several other villagers. They brought him to the building where they had housed their special guests. They had brought in old army cots for them to sleep on and made sure they were well fed. When they woke in the morning, they could hear children playing near the building, laughing and talking.

Smith slept late, which they all expected, as she had danced until the last villagers had begun to drift away. Then she curled up on a cot in the corner, saying to the others, “Wake me when someone important gets here.”

She was still asleep when the old man arrived. His grandson, the man who had spoken to them in English, led him in with two other elderly men.

The Engineer had stayed in the room with the others. John had suggested having him guard them outside, but Smith said if he stood out there all night, she didn’t think all the villagers would ever go to sleep, and she was “too tired to entertain.”

The grandfather walked up to the robot and looked at him closely. He said something to his grandson, and the two of them spoke for several minutes. The young man pointed to Dr. Smith, still asleep on the cot.

Maureen walked over and shook Smith gently on the arm. “Someone important is here.”

Smith stretched, taking her time before finally sitting up and looking at the people who had entered the room. When she saw the little old man standing close to The Engineer, she knew he was the important person. She smiled at him, but the man didn’t return the smile. He said something to his grandson, who spoke to him for a minute, then turned to the others.

“He will speak to Smith. But the rest of you must leave.”

“Out of the question,” Maureen said. “This concerns all of us.”

“Outsiders are not permitted. Smith only. She has the ear of the Nommo-ka.”

“Seriously?” John said.

“John, she did save us,” Maureen said. “Again.”

Smith stood and walked toward the others.

The young man said, “Smith, this is my grandfather. He is an elder, but he is very special. He is a keeper of the history of the Dogon people, and their spiritual leader. We call him the Hogon. The first Hogon was a descendent of a Nommo, and for thousands of years, the Hogon have kept their memories so that the Dogon would never forget. He would like to talk to you about where you have come from, where the Nommo-ka found you, and how you have come to know them.”

“I will tell your grandfather all he wants to know, but we must be told what he knows as well.”

“He will tell you of our people.”

“I can read about your people. I have read about your people. That is not why I have brought the Nommo to you. I must know everything.”

The young man spoke to his grandfather, who said a few words back.

“My grandfather will hear your questions and decide. You are an outsider, but you have the mind of the Nommo-ka. There is something different about you.”

“That’s an understatement,” John mumbled.

Maureen gave him a look.

“The others must leave,” the young man said.

Dr. Smith stepped up and took Maureen’s arm and pulled her close. “But she will stay.”

“No. That will not be,” the young man said.

“You say I have the mind of the Nommo. That is not true. I understand them. Sort of. But her son truly has the mind of the Nommo. He has connected with a Nommo. He feels his thoughts. They are one.”

The young man looked surprised, turned to his grandfather and spoke. The old man looked closely at Maureen, leaned forward and stared in her eyes. He spoke to his grandson while still looking at her.

“You may stay,” the young man said. “The others must leave.”

“Does being the father count for anything?” John asked.

“John…” Maureen said.

“I’m going. You know what you want to ask anyway.” He and Grant turned and walked out with the two other old men who had followed them in.

The Hogon looked at The Engineer a moment longer, then walked over and sat on the cot where Smith had been sleeping. His grandson sat on one of the other cots in the room. Maureen and Smith did the same, sitting next to each other.

The old man looked at Smith and said a few words. His grandson interpreted. “Where did you find the Nommo-ka?”

“He found us,” Maureen answered. “They all did. They discovered Earth, and we captured…um…used one of them as navigator. They had advanced technology, and an engine that could transport them across the stars, quickly. Since then, they have become our friends. That’s why the robot…the Nommo is with us.”

“Nommo-ka,” the young man corrected. It is a replica of the Nommo.”

“Nommo-ka,” Dr. Smith said. “So, your people have never seen a replica? A Nommo-ka?”

The young man turned and spoke to the Hogon and interpreted his answer. “No, there is nothing in our story of a being such as this. Though the people knew it was Nommo-ka, sent by the Nommo.”

The Hogon spoke a few sentences to the young man. He turned to Maureen. “Tell him of your son, who knows the mind of the Nommo.”

“A…Nommo-ka…befriended him. My son, Will, saved the robot…Nommo-ka, and that caused something to change in him. And he and my son have been one since. They have disappeared, and I am trying to find them. That’s why we are here.”

“Her son discovered the planet where the Nommo are from,” Dr. Smith added. “Reading about your religion, he found the planet.”

The young man spoke to the Hogon. When his grandfather answered, he sounded surprised.

“Did he speak with the Nommo?” The man asked. “Not the Nommo-ka. The Nommo?”

“Um…yes,” Dr. Smith said, deciding not to tell them what the aliens had done to Will.

The two men talked again, and the young man asked, “Was there a message for the Dogon people?”

“No. They…”

“We don’t know,” Dr. Smith said quickly, cutting Maureen off. “He had forgotten most of the things that happened to him on that planet. The Nommo-ka…the one that is his companion…gave him his memory back. But they left before we could ask him. The Nommo may have a message for your people, but we need to find this woman’s son to know for sure.”

“Is there another place the Nommo are from?” Maureen asked. “Other than this planet?”

The young man spoke again to his grandfather, but the man did not answer. It was the first time he had just refused to speak.

The young man shrugged his shoulders.

“Tell us of Amma,” Maureen said.

“He Who Rests Upon Nothing,” the young man answered.

When he said no more, Smith said, “Care to elaborate?”

“Amma is the supreme being. Amma lives in the celestial regions, beyond the known universe. The first thing Amma created was an egg, that held all the seeds of life. When the egg opened, its contents were scattered in all directions, forming the galaxies. The Stars. The planets. Which led to life. One form of life would have knowledge over all others. Humans. But humans also brought Chaos. So Amma created the Nommo to maintain order in the universe.”

“These aliens are Nommo?” Maureen asked.

“They are his children. They were our teachers. Our guides. Without the Nommo, Earth would not have survived.”

“And how does the Po seed come in to play?” Dr. Smith asked.

Maureen glanced at her. She had no idea what Smith was talking about.

The young man turned and spoke to his grandfather.

The old man looked at Smith for several minutes before answering. When he began talking, he kept looking at Smith, and said more than he had before. When he finally stopped, his grandson interpreted again.

“The Po is the egg of the world. It represents the smallness of everything in the beginning. It was so small it could not be seen by anything, if anything in the universe had existed at that time. When it opened, everything began to expand outward.”

“The egg was so small it could not be seen?” Smith asked.

“Yes,” the man replied.

The old man began speaking again. His grandson asked him several questions, then turned to Dr. Smith. “He has explained some things I have never heard before. The seed was tiny, to the point of nothingness. And when it expanded, the universe was created. My grandfather has just told me, this was not Amma’s egg. Amma’s egg did not open. The seed opened.”

“Why did your religion talk of Amma’s Egg, if it did not exist?” Maureen asked.

The young man spoke to his grandfather again, then turned to Maureen. “The egg does exist.”

“It still exists?”

“Yes.”

“What does it do?” Maureen asked.

“It holds the world up,” the man replied.

“Are you sure?” Maureen asked.

“Yes.”

“Ask your grandfather,” Maureen said.

The young man started to argue with her, then turned to his grandfather and spoke. His grandfather answered him, and the man looked surprised again, and asked his grandfather several more questions before turning back to Maureen. “The egg holds the world together, by holding back the evil. The word Amma, also means to hold. This I knew. But I had not been taught that the egg holds back an evil. This is secret knowledge. My grandfather has shared it with no one other than the anointed until this day. How did you know to ask this question?”

“Because I am a believer in science,” Maureen said. “And so is your grandfather, even if he doesn’t know it. I believe this seed is describing the Big Bang. Where all energy was pressed into a tiny point. When it exploded, matter was created. And so was the universe and everything in it. Including us. I had read about your religion, thanks to Doctor Smith. And much of it seemed like things scientists discuss today. The egg confused me, because I had a theory of what it could be, but I didn’t understand how it could be that and still break open and create the universe. But I had not read of the Po seed.

“So, the egg is something else. Your religion has taught you it holds the world up, but there is another meaning. It holds something back. Something that would destroy the world. So where is this egg?”

“There is no way to know where this egg is,” the man answered.

“The celestial regions, where Amma is from. Where is that?” Maureen asked.

“It is heaven. It is above. It is not a physical place.”

“Ask your grandfather if the egg is near the celestial region.”

“But…”

“Please,” Maureen said.

The man spoke again to his grandfather but when the old man answered, the grandson said, “No. It is not near the celestial region, where Amma is from. The celestial region is beyond this world.”

Maureen thought for a minute, then said, “Is this egg near the gateway to the celestial region, where Amma came from?”

The young man spoke to his grandfather again, and the old man answered quickly. The man looked at Maureen and said, “Yes.”

“Where is it in the sky?” Maureen asked.

The young man spoke to his grandfather again, then turned back to Maureen. “It cannot be seen.”

Maureen didn’t know how to respond to that.

“He can draw it though?” Dr. Smith said. “And the planets around it?”

The young man spoke to his grandfather again. The old man answered him, talking slowly for several minutes.

“I will return shortly,” the young man said, and stood and walked quickly from the building.

He returned a few minutes later, holding an oval piece of wood, about two feet long and a foot wide. The edges all around were polished smooth and painted white, the rest of it a dark, rich black, the natural color of the wood. In the center were several holes, some smaller than the others, but none larger than an inch in diameter. Above them all, near the top of the wood piece was another hole, five times the size of the others.

“My grandfather says, here lies Amma’s Egg.”

“Here?” Maureen said. “Which one?”

“The whole piece represents Amma’s Egg. My grandfather has had this forever. And his ancestors before him. It hung on the wall in his house my entire life. He never said what it was. We all assumed it was an old art piece. But it held no meaning. That was strange for our people, but we stopped asking over the years.”

“Wait,” Maureen said. “This whole piece represents Amma’s Egg?”

The man looked at his grandfather and asked him and the old man responded. “Yes,” the grandson said.

“These are stars and planets?” Maureen asked, pointing at the holes in the wood.

The old man seemed to know what she was asking, as he leaned forward, pointing to each one, saying a few words.

“This is a star,” the young man said, pointing to one of the holes slightly larger than the others. “These are planets.” He pointed to the other small holes. “My grandfather says this is the place of the Old Ones. The Great Evil. And here is where time began,” he said, pointing to one of the planets.

“Where time began?” Maureen asked. “What does that mean?”

The young man asked his grandfather, the man said several words.

“In the beginning, there was a void. And the void held nothing. But Amma created all that was. And when he created humans, he gave them a great gift. The gift of time.”

“And this is where it began?” Maureen asked. “At the egg.”

The young man turned to his grandfather and spoke. When the man answered his grandson held the black piece of wood towards him, and the old man pointed to one of the holes in it.

“He said there is where time began,” the young man explained.

Maureen looked closely at the piece of wood, and the hole the man had pointed to. “And the Old Ones? What are they?”

The young man asked his grandfather, but he just stared at them all.

“Okay. He won’t tell us,” Smith said.

“My grandfather does not use meaningless words. If he doesn’t answer, it could mean he just does not know.” He spoke to the grandfather again, but still the man did not answer. The young man just shrugged his shoulders.

“Is this the gateway to the Celestial Region?” Maureen asked, pointing to the large hole at the top.

The young man spoke to his grandfather again, and once he answered, turned back to Maureen. “Yes.”

“May I photograph this?” She asked.

The man said something to the Hogon, and the old man just nodded one time.

“You may.”

Maureen took several photos with her wrist radio from different angles, then said, “Can he point to the sky, the direction we would find this?”

The young man asked his grandfather, who lifted his hand and pointed to the corner of the ceiling.

“Due West from here,” Maureen said. She looked at Smith. “We need to leave.”

“I still have some questions,” Smith said, but Maureen stood and pulled her to her feet.

She turned to the the old man and his grandson. She didn’t know the customs but took the old man’s hands in hers, bowed her head, and said, “Thank you. Thank you.”

The old man began speaking, when he stopped, the grandson said, “He said he hopes you find your son. He is a very important person.

“I know,” she said, looking back at the Hogon.

The man said a few more words. His grandson looked at Maureen and said, “If you find him, he would like for your son to give the Nommo a message. He said, he is old. He would like to go home before he dies. Would they come and take him home?”

Maureen looked at the old man. “I will try to get them your message.”

“Thank you,” the old man said in English.

Maureen smiled at him, wondering if he had been able to understand everything she and Smith had said.

She turned to the grandson and said, “Thank you for helping. Will those men come back? The ones with guns?”

“No. They did not go far. They made the mistake of camping in Dogon lands. We are peaceful, but we take care of our own.”

Maureen led Smith out where John and Grant were standing with The Engineer, who was surrounded by children, with many adults watching from a distance.

“Let’s go,” Maureen said. “I need to get to the Jupiter.”

“Can you tell us what’s happening?” John asked.

“I will when we launch, but I don’t want to stay any longer than we have to. I think we have the information we came here for, so let’s not risk something happening now.”

“You think those guys from yesterday will come back?” Grant said.

“They won’t be returning,” Smith answered. “The ship is out this way about a mile or so.”

They began walking across the desert. The children of the village followed them all the way, laughing and trying to talk to The Engineer and get his attention. He trudged ahead, acting like he didn’t even notice them.

John and Grant walked up the ramp and into the ship. But just as he got to the edge of the ramp, the robot turned, pointed one of his arms in the air, and a bright, white beam of light shot from his clawed appendage, expanding across the sky and into the clouds. It began turning different colors until it looked as if a rainbow traveled from the robot’s arm across the horizon. Then it started spinning, and multi-colored particles of light shot from it, like the most amazing display of fireworks Maureen and Dr. Smith had ever seen. The children laughed and clapped and danced up and down. After several minutes the beam disappeared. Without a word, the robot turned and walked up the ramp and disappeared into the ship.

Maureen and Smith stood stunned, staring at each other. “Think we’ll ever really understand them?” Maureen asked.

“I hope not,” Smith said. “This is so much more fun.”

Once on board, John asked, “Where are we going?”

Maureen had told them about the piece of wood as they walked across the desert. “I don’t know, yet,” she said. “Let’s get off the planet for now. I’ve got to run this through the data base and see if it’s been charted.”

“What if it hasn’t?” Grant asked.

“One problem at a time,” Maureen said.

As soon as they were on board and John and Grant were preparing to launch, Maureen uploaded her photo of the star system, and began trying to match it with astronomical charts. The other’s listened to her as she talked to herself, occasionally uttering a cuss word when she thought she had found the system, just to discover it wasn’t right.

“Goddamn it!” She said after about an hour. They had left Earth’s atmosphere, but they still hadn’t gotten Maureen to discuss what was going on. She was riveted to the computer and whispering to herself.

“Okay, Maureen. It’s time to talk,” John said. “Computer has the conn, let’s go to the Hub.”

“Damn it!” She said. “I need to find this.”

“You need to let us in,” John said.

“He’s right,” Grant said, as he stood from the co-pilot’s seat. “You haven’t changed Maureen, but you are not in this by yourself.”

“But…” “

That’s why Will almost died,” John said. “He thought he had to do it all on his own.”

“Fine.” She sounded frustrated, but she stood and followed them out.

They gathered around the table in the hub. Maureen pulled up a monitor on the far wall, and the photo of the black wooden piece appeared on the screen.

“This is what I uploaded,” Maureen said.

“Before we go there, what did you find out?” John asked.

“Dr. Smith was right. The religion the Dogon practice isn’t everything. There’s more to it, that only certain people are taught. When Doctor Smith brought The Engineer, she got their attention. But when she told them about Will, it really meant something. That he could connect with the robot. They say the robots are duplicates of the Nommo. Their gods.”

“I would describe them more like teachers to the Dogon,” Smith said.

“Their creation myth is really describing the Big Bang, I think,” Maureen said. “But they say Amma, the god who created the universe, came from the Celestial Regions.”

“Heaven?” Grant said. “Not so unusual in ancient tribal religions. Or modern ones.”

“And he created an Egg, Amma’s Egg,” Maureen continued. “And when it broke open, the universe was created. But Dr. Smith asked them about the Po seed.”

“I had been reading a lot about their religion, and this tiny seed meant something special to them,” Smith said. “They said this is what the egg was really like that broke open. That it was so small it could not be seen,” Smith said.

“Energy stored into a tiny speck,” Grant said. “Before the Universe was formed.”

“Yes,” Maureen agreed. “The problem was this was not how I was picturing the Egg. Remember their religion said the egg held the world up and I wondered what that meant. I didn’t understand how the egg held the world up if it broke open, creating the world. But the grandfather said that was not the true meaning. The egg held something back. It held evil back, helping the world to survive. And he said the egg still exists. Amma’s egg did not break open. I believe that was the myth they tell, to hide the true meaning. According to the elder, the egg still exists, and it has a purpose.”

“So, Maureen asked if this Celestial Region was near the egg,” Smith added. “The man said it wasn’t. So, Maureen asked if the gate to the celestial region was. And he said it is. It’s the big hole on top.”

“And this means?” John asked.

“A black hole,” Grant said.

“Yes, a black hole,” Maureen said.

“Okay, so why are we looking for a black hole?” John said. “Talk about danger.”

“I believe that’s where the aliens came from. I think that is the gateway to this Celestial Region, where Amma is. Or was.”

“But nothing can go through a black hole,” John said.

“Not necessarily,” Maureen answered.

“Maureen,” Grant said. “You know better.”

“I do? You know the science is possible. Depending on the type of black hole.”

“It’s a theory!” Grant argued.

“I know there are theories that we can survive the gravity of a black hole,” John said. “But most scientists agree you would get stretched into oblivion.”

“You would,” Grant agreed.

“Unless it was a supermassive black hole,” Maureen argued. “Where the event horizon is far from the center, where the gravity is. The gravitational pull from the person’s feet to his head is almost the same.”

“But it would have to be completely isolated, not feeding on anything near it,” Grant argued. “Stars, planets. Nothing.”

“What if it’s a Schwarzschild black hole?” Maureen said. “There are theories that an advanced civilization could actually live inside a Schwarzschild black hole, if it passed through the Event Horizon to the Cauchy Horizon. And if their ships were capable of it. They could live in the orbit of the Cauchy Horizon, which is probably stable.”

“But if you went past the Event Horizon, you could never return,” Grant said. “Besides, Schwarzschild black holes do not exist.”

“Not that we know of. And yes, the theory is that you can’t survive the event horizon, but since no one has ever done it, we don’t know, do we?”

“Look,” John said. “I know you guys like discussing all this, but I have no idea what a Coachie Horizon is, or a Schwarskopf black hole or whatever you said black hole is. How does this help us find Will?”

“You’re right,” Maureen said. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t need to go through the black hole. We need to go here.” She highlighted the hole on the screen that the old man had told her was where time began.

“What’s there?” John asked.

“It’s a planet. The old man said it was the place where time began.”

“What the hell does that even mean?” John asked.

“I don’t know. But we need to go there.”

“Wait,” Grant said. “This just isn’t enough to go on.”

“I’m afraid I have to agree with Grant,” John said.

“You know how many probes we sent into the Sirius system?” Maureen asked. “To explore it?”

When they didn’t answer, she said, “Seventeen. And we mapped it with Hubble. Hundreds of thousands of kilometers have been explored. We didn’t find that planet Will found though. Do you know why?”

They had no response.

“We weren’t looking for it. Even though the cosmology of the Dogon people had been known for years. We didn’t care what some ancient tribe had to say about a star system they had no way of knowing about. We thought it was all bullshit. But my thirteen year old son didn’t. He believed. And he was right. These are the same people who Will believed in. And that’s good enough for me. There’s something there. I think it has something to do with Will. I don’t know if he’s there or not, but even if he isn’t, I think whatever is happening to him starts there.”

“But why was the egg so important?” John asked. “That’s what’s really got your interest.”

“It’s not an egg. It was never an egg.”

“Okay, so it doesn’t exist,” John said, “So why were you so interested?”

“I didn’t say it didn’t exist. I said it’s not an egg. According to the old man, this whole image is the egg. It’s big enough to encompass a star and a solar system. Even a black hole.”

“Wait, you aren’t suggesting what I think you’re suggesting,” Grant said.

“I am.”

“What?” John said.

“A Dyson Sphere.”

“Maureen…” Grant started to argue.

“Maureen, that’s impossible,” Dr. Smith said. They all looked at her, surprised she knew what a Dyson Sphere was. “You know what’s also impossible? The robots. And engines that can rip a hole in space and destroy an entire planet. And a particle accelerator a thousand times larger than anything we’ve ever dreamed of building. An advanced alien race. An amphibious alien race. And a teenage boy who could telepathically communicate with a synthetic being.”

They just looked at her for a few second until Grant said, “Point taken.”

“A Dyson Sphere is so much more possible than any of that,” Maureen added. “We don’t even debate the technology. We just can’t build it.”

“Okay, I sort of know the theory,” John said, “But…”

“The simple explanation is that an advanced race would only be able to achieve intergalactic travel if it can produce massive amounts of energy. That’s why we could never do it without the help of alien technology. It’s about the energy. If they could produce enough energy, they could colonize the universe. The type of energy they might be able to harvest from a star. Or even a black hole. A sphere—if they were advanced enough to build one large enough—could capture almost the unlimited energy of a black hole and use it to populate entire worlds.

“We aren’t yet a Type I civilization on the Kardashev Scale. A type II Civilization would be able to harness the energy of its own star. But a type III Civilization could capture the energy of super massive black holes, or even an entire solar system. If they could harness enough energy, they could make their civilization immune to extinction.”

“Yeah, they could do all that,” Grant said. “They could also produce entire colonies of robots. They could make humans a subspecies they kept around for slaves to their robot colony. Or for amusement. A species in an intergalactic zoo.”

“I’m not afraid of that,” Maureen said. “As much as we’ve feared Artificial Intelligence, it’s never been the threat we thought it would be. Because as advanced as we’ve made it, it still could never reason. Even the robots couldn’t reason. If they could, we never would have been able to defeat them on Alpha Centauri.

“We were a math problem to SAR. We were in his way, so he tried to exterminate us by overpowering us with force. But somehow Robot fooled him. Robot was different.”

“But he grew,” Dr. Smith said. “He wasn’t like that at first. Will was his person in the beginning, and I think whatever Robot did, he did for Will. But he changed. He stopped me from doing something I could never reverse. He somehow figured out what I was going to do, and he stopped me. If he was only able to calculate, he would not have been able to do that. But he figured out what I was planning. Or at least that I was planning something. The same way I knew Will was planning something when we were stranded. I just knew. Not that he was going to confront SAR, but something dangerous. Call it instinct or a gut feeling. But it wasn’t a math equation.”

“Yes,” Maureen said. “And Robot completely surprised SAR with what he put in Will’s heart. I’ve been wondering about that ever since it happened. Maybe Doctor Smith is right. Maybe somehow, the longer Will and Robot are together, the closer Robot comes to consciousness. That’s what AI has always missed. Consciousness. And apparently even the aliens who built that particle accelerator and created the robots could never figure out the mystery of consciousness.

“So no, I’m not afraid of a Type III Civilization replacing humanity with Artificial Intelligence.”

“Are you afraid of Artificial Intelligence that has found a way to bridge the consciousness gap?” Grant asked. “Because that’s what you’re describing.”

They all looked at Maureen, who seemed as if she didn’t know how to answer. “Let’s just be thankful Will is the human who has been able to do that,” she finally said. “Because yes. That would be a different problem.

“But a Type III civilization would certainly be able to build a Dyson Sphere like that. It’s not the science that’s so difficult. It’s the overwhelming investment in resources. And they just might have built a Dyson Sphere that not only harnessed the energy from a super massive black hole, but it kept something contained that is evil enough to destroy humanity. The grandfather called them The Old Ones. But they didn’t say what they were.

“At any rate, I believe the only chance we have at helping Will is to go there. The place where time began.”

“But how, Maureen?” John asked. “If our data base doesn’t have it? It could be anywhere in the entire universe. Way past anything we’ve mapped.”

“The robots might be able to find it,” Dr. Smith said. “Their ships have traveled a lot further than ours have.”

“She’s right,” Grant said. “Their navigational systems are much more advanced. It’s possible.”

“Then we need to go back to Alpha Centauri first,” Maureen said. “Besides, I want to see the girls and make sure they’re ok.”

“I’m sure they’re fine, Maureen,” Grant said. “I don’t think anything could happen to them out there.”

“Okay,” John said. He looked at the Engineer, who was standing next to the door. “I think we’re ready for you to open the rift.”

The robot turned without a word and walked out on his way to the engine room. The others stood up and started toward the cockpit.

Maureen sat for a while by herself, thinking about what Grant had said about Will and Robot bridging the gap between Artificial Intelligence and consciousness. She finally stood and left the room.

Chapter Text

“Okey dokey. Here we go.”

                      —Hannibal Lecter

As he looked out the dark window into space, Will thought about how he could stop this from happening. It wasn’t his own death that concerned him. He had grown used to the idea that he should have died so many times, that each day alive was a blessing. Or maybe a curse.

He wondered to himself if he was supposed to die in the ice. In his dream or vision or whatever that had been, he had witnessed how his death would have destroyed his family. But maybe that was supposed to happen. Instead, God rolled dice with the universe, and he survived. At least this version of him.

He fantasized for a while that he was living in a sim. The whole world was a sim, so there could be as many of him as the architect chose to design. Maybe it was all a game, and there were different players, controlling different versions of Will Robinson. Player one’s Will died in the freezing water of the no-name planet. But player two’s Will Robinson had the eyes of the gods on him, helping him survive the water, the burning tree, floating through space, and getting stabbed in the heart.

He survived whatever it was that had captured him on the alien’s planet as well, but his character had definitely lost some of its power. And now, the weakened, less of himself Will Robinson, faced another test.

And he was afraid this one was not one he could survive. But he wasn’t going to give up. SAR had shown him his own death, being flung from the balcony, but SAR had expected Robot to kill him in the tree as well. That hadn’t exactly turned out the way the robot had foreseen.

But this was different. It wasn’t his own life. It was the lives of thousands of people in that city, if it really existed. They couldn’t all be party to what was happening to him. And even if they were, who was he to judge them, condemn them to death, and carry out the sentence?

One way or another, he had to stop that. And it seemed what made the most sense was staying away from that building with the open balcony where he would be thrown to his death.

SAR had shown him that Judy was being kept in a lower level of this place, with access from the street. They had no need to go past the second wall and enter the grounds of that building. But what if they captured him? In his vision he had been badly hurt, bleeding from dozens of wounds, and his left arm looked to be useless to him any longer. It was obvious he had been abused by them or tortured in some way, before the boy threw him to his death.

The simple answer was to avoid being captured. But what if he was? He needed an option in that event. The thought had crept in—if he was completely honest with himself, it was a thought that was never buried that deep—he could kill himself. If he made sure Judy was safe, and he couldn’t escape with her, he could kill himself before being thrown from that balcony. Then maybe the thing in his heart would never detonate.

He was pretty sure if he tried to escape with them, SAR would kill him anyway. The robot was bringing Will there because his ultimate goal was to kill all the masters, and apparently this is where they were from. Which meant, these people truly were SAR's enemy. So, Will was pretty sure the robot wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less. But he had to find a way.

He thought he had found the answer once on board the ship. He had opened one of the Go Bags that Penny had brought, pulled out a sleeping bag, took out a pair of pants and shirt, and stripped off his cut off shorts and changed. He found a spare wrist radio which he put on and set with his data and dug around until he found a utility knife. John made sure all the Go Bags had them. Will had picked it up, looked at it, glanced at his sister who had turned around while he changed clothes, then slipped it in his pocket. He didn’t know how easy it would be to kill himself with a knife, but he figured he would try to cut his own throat. While the act seemed almost impossible to imagine, he thought that would be his best chance at accomplishing it.

“Hey baby brother,” Penny said, breaking his train of thought.

He looked over where she had been asleep in the other sleeping bag. He gave her a tired smile. He glanced at SAR, who stood in the middle of the ship, gripping the hand controls. He had been in the same position the entire three days since they left the Island Planet, not saying a word to either of them.

When they were leaving the planet, Will had picked up Alex and cradled him in his arms, thinking how important the little animal had been to him in the weeks he had been stranded alone. He carried him to the ship, walking beside Penny. SAR had already boarded.

“Are you taking him, Will?” Penny had asked.

“I think I’ll let him decide,” Will said.

He had sat the little creature at the foot of the ramp, told him goodbye, and walked up with Penny, then turned to look at him.

Alex waddled up the ramp, raised up to his rear legs and Will picked him up again. He licked Will’s neck. Will hugged him tight.

“I guess he’s going,” Penny said.

“Let’s see,” Will said, and placed Alex back by his feet. Alex looked up at Will one last time, then waddled back down the ramp and began making his way across the beach toward the lagoon.

“I think he was just saying goodbye,” Will said. “I’m going to miss him, but this is his home.”

Then Will had looked back at the camp where he had spent so many weeks. He had mixed feelings, and he had to admit there was a part of him that wished he could just stay here on his island in paradise, living out his days. But his life had never been that simple and carefree, and it probably never would be.

And Judy needed him.

“How you doing?” Penny asked, pulling him from his thoughts again.

“I’m okay. Just thinking. I want it to be over.”

“I know. Me too.” She pushed herself up and walked over and stood beside him.

“I was thinking about Judy jumping in the water to keep me from doing it.”

“Yeah,” Penny said, she put her hand on his shoulder.

“And the bridge. When she was walking toward me, knowing she was probably going to die. But she seemed so calm. Just… so tough, you know. Like no matter what, she was not going to let anything happen to me.” He looked at Penny. “To either of us.”

Tears had come to Penny’s eyes, and Will squeezed her hand. “Penny, we’re going to save her. I promise you that. I won’t let her die.”

She heard the determination in his voice, and looked him in the eyes. She started to say, you aren’t going to do this alone, but she stopped herself. Will’s voice had changed. Will had changed. He was no longer their timid little brother, nor was he the melancholy boy of the last few months. Or even the last few minutes. He was suddenly something different, and the change was almost startling. And Penny believed him. “I know you won’t let her die, Will.”

She smiled at him, but when he turned his head, her smile disappeared. She watched her brother’s face, as he stared out the window. He was still the little boy who used to ride his bike to the park with her, but he was also a boy who was becoming a man way too soon. A boy whose sister needed him. And he would do whatever it took to make her safe.

For the briefest of seconds, this Will frightened her. But she hugged him and said, “Try to get some sleep, little brother.”

A few hours later, Penny woke again and saw Will still standing, looking out the window.

“Hey, Will, sleep any?”

But when he turned to her, she could see it in his eyes. “You didn’t try, did you?”

“I forgot; I think. I was going to, but there’s something wrong. I’ve been picking up increased radiation readings the last few hours on the wrist radio. I don’t know why. It’s galactic cosmic radiation. There’s nothing out there that I can see or that would cause it.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“At these readings, extremely. It can pass through a spaceship, spacesuits, just about anything man-made.”

“Robot made?”

“That I don’t know. I asked SAR but he didn’t say anything. I asked if we should change course and he ignored me.”

“What should we do?”

“I guess…trust him.”

“You sure? He’s not exactly been…hey, the stars look different.”

“Yeah,” Will said. “The lights are funny.”

It looked like the nearest stars had green, glowing beams of light particles streaking from them and disappearing into the darkness. The kids had never seen anything like it. The strange, green glow reminded them of the Aurora Borealis, but the angles were sharper, the beams defined.

“What is it, Will?”

“Reflections. I think. The star light is being reflected off something, but there’s nothing out there. At least nothing we can see. I have a feeling whatever it is, is causing the radiation.”

Suddenly the ship began to shake.

They looked back at SAR. Everything around him was now glowing blue. “Hold on, Penny, he’s opening the rift!”

“Thanks for the warning, SAR!” Penny said, as she and Will dropped to their knees and clung tightly to a small metal support that ran the width of the wide window.

Both kids kept looking out the glass. They were being pulled toward the glowing, green light beams. Will quickly glanced at his wrist radio. He had never heard of cosmic radiation readings this high, and wondered if SAR knew organic beings could never survive this.

The ship began to shake more violently, and they saw the dark space in front of them illuminated for half a second as the rift opened. They were thrown back and could no longer keep their grip on the small piece of metal, and both kids rolled until they were practically under SAR’s feet.

As suddenly as it began, it was over and the ship stopped shaking. Will and Penny jumped to their feet and rushed back to the window. The strange green lights had disappeared, and space looked normal once again.

“Whatever it was, he pulled us through it,” Will said. He checked his radio. “Radiation levels are normal.”

“There, Will. Those planets orbiting that sun. I think that’s where he’s headed.”

Will didn’t say anything for a minute. Then, “Okay, Penny. Here we go.”

She reached out and took his hand.

The first thing Will thought was, it’s solid ice. They had entered the planet’s atmosphere, but everything was gray, and whatever this was, it was so thick he thought there would be no way of breaking through it. But as the ship sliced down into it, he realized it was a cloud bank. Unlike any he had ever seen. The visibility was zero, and it looked like they were flying through a thick soup.

But, just like that, the ship broke through and they were soaring over gentle rolling hills covered by thick, green grass. There were herds of animals that could be sheep and something that looked like long haired antelope grazing along the hill sides and in the flat land that separated them.

“If I take one more step I’ll be further than I’ve ever been from the shire,” Penny said, in a bad, fake British accent.

Will glanced over at her and smiled briefly. “Looks pretty peaceful,” he agreed.

After a while the fields ended at the steep slope of a mountain, the granite peak climbing into the clouds. It turned out this was the beginning of a vast range, and took over an hour to pass. But then Will saw something he recognized. “The desert of ice,” he said, slowly. “I’ve dreamed of this. After that little old man found me, I woke and he was gone. I dreamed I climbed up to a mountain and looked down on this.”

“Is this place we’re looking for on the other side?” Penny asked.

“I think so. I didn’t cross it in that dream. But I felt like there was something over there. And another mountain range. Higher than this one, though, I think. But I had another vision of it, and it was on the other side."

Eventually, the barren desert of ice ended abruptly at the foot of the mountain range. SAR guided the ship higher until it once again disappeared in the clouds and after several minutes, he leveled it off.

“I guess his instruments told him we had cleared the peaks. He sure couldn’t have guided by sight,” Will said. They were completely surrounded by the clouds again.

“SAR, are we getting close?” Will asked.

The robot didn’t answer him.

“Mr. Personality,” Penny mumbled.

“Hey, we’re breaking through the clouds,” Will said.

When they saw what was in front of them, neither of them spoke at first. Then Penny said, “It’s…a city,” she said. “You saw this in a dream?”

“Yeah,” Will said quietly, looking ahead to the city spread out in front of them.

It was a couple miles away. They were flying over an open rocky field, with tufts of grass and weeds pushing up through the surface. There was a small village lying at the end of the field. It looked as if they were in a high valley, completely surrounded by the mountain range.

The village continued up into the foothills. They could see narrow, twisting, cobblestone alleys winding up the hills and small wooden, multi-colored houses with red gabled roofs. There were golden domed cathedrals here and there on the hill, towering over everything.

Ahead of them, the village ended beneath a massive stone wall. It stretched at least one hundred yards across, and at each corner was a tall tower, with winding steps wrapping around them, leading to wooden roofed towers.

A parapet stretched the entire length of the wall, and in the center was a tall, double wooden gate.

“This place is beautiful, Will,” Penny said. “But what is it?”

“I don’t know,” he said quietly.

“Could you imagine another planet populated like this?” She asked.

Will didn’t answer.

She turned back to SAR. “Have you been here before?”

“No.”

“He knew how to find it though,” she said to Will, who still didn’t answer.

“It looks old,” Penny said. “Like medieval. Why would the aliens have brought Judy here?”

“I don’t know,” Will said, but he thought, because they knew I would come. Which still didn’t answer the question, Why?

They felt the ship slow and begin to hover over the rocky field.

“He’s going to set down here,” Will said, when they were a couple hundred yards from the village. “He must not be worried about anyone seeing us.”

“If you were SAR, would you be worried?” Penny asked.

“Yeah, I guess not. And I have a feeling, as old as this place looks, they’ve seen spaceships before.”

As soon as they landed, SAR released the grips, the ship powered down, and he walked to the door. It had a control, and Robot always pressed it to exit, but when SAR was in front of it, it opened automatically and the ramp lowered. He stood aside and looked back at the kids. Will and Penny walked forward, and Will walked past him and out the door, but the robot stepped in front of Penny and blocked her way.

“No, I’m going too.”

Will was on the ramp and looked past SAR. “I’m sorry, Penny. But you can’t go.”

“Will!”

“SAR will let you out as soon as you and Judy are safe."

“And you?”

“I’ll try to get back too.”

“Try?”

“They brought Judy here to get me to come. I don’t know why, but I’m sure that’s why they brought her here. But I’ll do everything I can to come back with them.”

“Fuck you, Will! Why do you always have to do this? You’re not alone!”

“Because I love you, Penny.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” She turned away and the door slid shut.

“Penny!” Will called on his radio. “Penny!” But she ignored him. He walked around the ship and stood in front of it. Penny was looking out the glass, her arms crossed.

“Penny, I’m sorry.”

She still didn’t say anything.

“Penny?”

This time she walked away from the glass, and he could no longer see her.

“I love you, Penny,” he said into the radio. He looked at SAR. “Okay, let’s go.”

The hulking robot began leading him across the field toward the village. After a few minutes Penny walked back to the glass and watched them walk away. She sighed, called Will on the radio. “I love you, Will. Please come back.”

She saw him stop in the field, turn to look back at the ship. “I love you too, Penny. I’ll do my best, I promise. I wish...I wish there was more time."

"Go bring back our big sister, Will."

"Okay. I love you so much."

Penny watched the two of them walk on.

As they grew closer to the village, Will saw several people on the narrow alleys. They didn’t seem to have spotted them, or if they did, they didn’t care. Which seemed strange to Will, since they had landed a spaceship in full view of anyone who would be watching. But as they stepped off the field on to one of the cobblestone roads, everyone seemed to have disappeared.

They walked down an alley, then stepped out into a wider lane. Will looked toward the wall and saw this lane ended at the wooden gate. They started down it. Still, there were no people anywhere. The ones they had seen from the field had all disappeared. Will assumed they must have been spotted, and the villagers probably had never seen a robot. And SAR was always in his natural form, face shield bright red, claws extended, as if he was constantly looking for something to attack. Will had thought about asking him to change into humanoid form but decided against that. He thought it might be a good idea if the robot looked formidable. He didn’t know if SAR would do what he asked anyway. One thing about this robot, he wasn’t taking orders from anyone.

As they approached the gate, Will looked above it and along the wall. They could see a walkway behind the parapet before they landed, but for some reason, they saw no guards or anyone else. When he looked toward the tall towers on the corners, they were empty. But on the other side of the gate he heard voices and knew the street over there must be bustling with people.

He stopped and SAR stopped beside him. “They had to have seen us. I think you scared them, SAR.”

Will wondered again if he should ask him to change into humanoid form. But before he could stay anything, men in black and red uniforms started running along the parapet, taking positions and looking down at them. They were stretched out along the top of the wall from one tower to the next, all armed, with shining, silver long weapons pointed at them. Will looked to the towers and saw there were now men in them as well, and each tower held a large stationary weapon, which must have been hidden somewhere inside the structure and quickly wheeled out.

“Okay, SAR,” Will said. “Don’t do anything. I’m going to try to talk to them. Stay back, okay?”

SAR slowly turned his head toward Will, then back to the wall. He opened fire. He hit the three men directly above the gate first. Blasting them off the wall. “No!” Will yelled.

As soon as he fired, SAR grabbed Will by the back of his shirt and hurled him towards the wall, where he fell face first and rolled on his back and looked up. He was under the wall now, and the men behind the parapet would have a hard time firing on him. He heard the explosions above and covered his head as debris fell around him. He turned his head and saw SAR was running the length of the wall, firing all along the top.

Will didn’t know if the robot had opened fire because the people here were his enemy, or if he had sensed the soldiers were about to fire on them. Will wasn’t sure it mattered, because SAR was going to do what he wanted to do, regardless of what Will or anyone else said. But people were dying again because of Will, and he knew one way or another, he had to put an end to that here.

Will scrambled to a sitting position and put his back against the wall and watched SAR.

He was firing with all four clawed appendages. Each of SAR’s arms pointed different directions and fired over and over again. At first, several of the men fell dead off the back of the wall, but now they were keeping down, so he was hitting fewer of them.

Suddenly, it looked as if SAR was hit with an electrical charge. Blue lights surged through his body, and he flew backwards about ten feet and landed on his back. Will realized the weapons the guards were using made no noise until they hit a target. He thought SAR might have been damaged, but the robot leapt up and fired on the guard tower with all four claws.

The tower exploded, and Will knew none of the men in it could have survived.

SAR spun and fired at the other guard tower, again with all four appendages, destroying it as well. When the smoke cleared, Will saw there was nothing left. The winding steps ended at the top in the scorched ruins.

All the soldiers seemed to have disappeared. SAR walked along the front of the wall, almost casually, as if he had nothing to worry about. Will was reminded of Achilles, dragging Hector’s body before the gates of Troy. SAR was taunting them. Occasionally, one of the men behind the parapet stood to fire, but it was as if SAR knew where they were going to pop up, and had already aimed, and each time one of their heads appeared over the wall he shot the man.

Finally, all firing stopped. Will heard running from above and knew the men were scrambling to get away. SAR walked up to Will, who was still sitting with his back pressed against the wall. He reached down, took his arm, and pulled him to his feet.

“Did you have to kill them?” Will asked.

“I…chose….” He pushed Will to the side and aimed at the massive wooden gate. Will quickly backed away and the robot fired, blowing a hole in it from the bottom to the center. He walked forward and Will followed him.

SAR walked through the opening he had made, and when Will stepped inside after him, he had to stop just for a minute to take it all in.

It was almost indescribable. And Will thought, regardless of why they were here, it was a magnificent scene. The road was paved with marble, wide enough twelve or more men could walk side by side down it. The tall buildings that lined it were the oldest structures he had ever seen, many of them engraved with chiseled designs and painted with colorful murals.

He looked above him, where there were walkways at the top of the buildings connected by arched bridges. Along the thoroughfare there were food stands and open store fronts, all now abandoned by the citizens who had rushed to take cover when the firing had started.

“Okay, SAR. Let’s go. Can you try not to kill anyone else?”

The robot started walking, ignoring Will once again. They saw people running ahead, disappearing long before they got there, and occasionally heads would pop up in windows as they walked by, and peer from the walkways above. They didn’t see any more of the soldiers, but Will figured they would return eventually.

It took almost thirty minutes or so to walk the entire length of the wide road, where it stopped in front of another gate, and a smaller wall. Behind it was a tall building. In the center, thirty meters up, was an open floor in the side of the building. Will knew this was the place from his vision, where he watched his injured body being hurled from the side.

SAR was looking up at the opening as well.

“We need to get my sister, SAR. Then I’ll deal with that, okay?”

SAR turned to his left and walked the length of the wall where he stopped by a wooden door. There were no guards in front of it, though Will had seen one in his vision. He assumed the guard must have fled with the other soldiers. But before SAR opened the door, he pushed Will to the side, lifted one powerful leg and stomped the door flat.

As soon as he did, Will saw multiple explosions hit his body. They had been ready for him, and there must have been a dozen soldiers on the other side of that door.

Their weapons were strange, Will thought. Again, he heard no sounds of firing, except when they made contact with SAR’s body. The explosions were driving the robot back, but doing no damage that Will could see. SAR didn’t fire, he just stepped back several feet, crouched low, then exploded forwarded, taking four long steps then flying through the opening.

Will heard explosions for a few more seconds. When they stopped, he heard screaming. One man stumbled through the door, a bloody stump where his right arm used to be, and his hair smoldering. He saw Will, ran the other direction, then ducked down an alley. No one else came from the doorway.

Finally, all the screaming stopped. Will pushed himself to his feet and looked around the wall through the door. There were steps leading down. SAR stood at the bottom looking back up at Will. There were bodies everywhere, from the top of the steps to the floor below, where several were piled around SAR’s feet. Will walked down slowly, stepping over the bodies, and trying to avoid the blood so he wouldn’t slip. How many people died here? All because of him.

At the bottom he looked at SAR. “Is everyone here your enemy?” He asked, bitterly.

SAR just turned and walked down the hall. At the end was another wooden door. In his vision, Will had seen two guards posted here, but now there were none. They were probably some of those who had died on the steps.

SAR stopped and turned to the left before he reached the door at the end. He looked back at Will, who hurried to catch up. He peered through the small, barred window opening. Judy was lying there, like she had been in his vision. “Open it, SAR,” Will said. “Please.”

SAR used all four appendages to shove the door down. Will ran inside, crossed the small cell, and kneeled down by his sister. There was dried blood on her face, and bruises on her jaw, and above her right eye, which was black and swollen.

“Judy,” Will said, taking her hand. “Judy, can you hear me?” He gently touched her face.

She slowly opened the eye that wasn’t swollen shut. “Will?” She whispered.

“I’m here, Judy. I’m here.” He leaned over her carefully and hugged her. She started crying.

“How?” She asked, when he released her.

“That doesn’t matter. We found you. What…what did they do to you?”

She shook her head slowly. “Just…beat me." She knew what Will was asking.

“We’re getting you out of here. Can you walk?”

“I don’t…I…”

“Can you carry her?” Will asked, turning to SAR. He had decided not to tell Judy that this wasn’t Robot with them.

SAR knelt down and scooped her up in his two upper arms and stood. Will stepped up and kissed her gently on the forehead. She smiled.

“My…baby brother…taking care of me…now.”

“We take care of each other, big sis.” He was trying not to cry, seeing how badly she had been beaten.

He took her hand and walked beside SAR as he carried her down the hall. They climbed the narrow stone stairs and stepped out into the sun. Judy closed her eyes. “You okay?” Will asked.

“Haven’t seen the sun…in awhile.”

“SA…Robot’s going to carry you back to his ship. Penny is waiting there.”

“You…”

“I have one more thing to do,” Will said.

“No. Will…no.” She knew her brother well. She gripped his hand tighter.

“I have to,” he said. “But don’t worry. Everything will be okay. I promise.” He thought about the knife in his pocket.

“Please take her back to the ship,” Will said. “And thanks.”

SAR looked up to the opening in the building behind the wall. “Goodbye…Will…Robinson.”

Will thought the robot sounded strange. His voice had always been commanding, or stoic. But now it almost sounded like something closer to sorrow.

“Bye.” He leaned over and kissed Judy’s forehead again. Judy saw the tears well up.

“Please…come with us…Will.”

“Judy. I can’t. I’ll be along as soon as I can. I promise.”

He let her hand go, looked at SAR and nodded. The robot began walking with Judy back toward the main road.

Will turned back to the building behind him. He looked up again at the open floor. It seemed evil, somehow. But it was just a place.

As SAR carried Judy away, she watched Will look up at the balcony. She had been there, and she knew what it held. She started crying silently for her brother. SAR ducked into an alley, and she could no longer see him.

Will looked all around. No one had tried to stop them once they entered the hallway leading to Judy’s cell, and the streets were still empty. He thought that was strange, but he felt the power in the robot might have surprised them. He needed to avoid being captured until SAR’s ship left the planet with his sisters. He had come prepared to die, but now his survival instincts took over and he allowed himself a glimmer of hope that he might be able to disappear somewhere in this city and actually survive. It was a big place with lots of people.

There was a narrow alley across from the door they had just come through, but before he could start down it, he heard the sound of rushing footsteps and turned back toward the broken door.

Dozens of soldiers rushed out, all armed and prepared for an attack. They had been expecting the robot, but when they saw Will they aimed their weapons at him.

Will pulled the knife from his pocket. He couldn’t wait for SAR to get Judy and Penny off the planet. He put the blade to his throat, hoping he could go through with it, but before he could do anything, he felt an electrical shock pulse through him. He cried out and fell to the ground, his body shaking. He was not unconscious, but he couldn’t move. He could hear footsteps approaching. A solider had walked from the alley behind him and shot him.

He saw boots gather around, and hands pulling him to his feet. He had dropped the knife, and one of the men bent and picked it up. He held the knife up to Will's face. The man smiled and shook his head and said something in a language he couldn’t understand.

The man barked an order and they dragged Will away. He was taken back through the broken door and dragged down the stone steps to a cell next to the one that Judy had been held in. He was thrown inside. He tried to turn over, but he still couldn’t move. They left him there alone.

A few minutes later, the door opened. Two armed guards walked in first, followed by a teenage boy, and several other people behind him.

The boy knelt down and held up the knife to Will’s face. He had cold gray eyes. “I did not expect Will Robinson to be a coward. I will make you pay for this.”

He stood up and said something to the guards. They stepped forward and pulled Will to his feet and began dragging him out of the cell. All Will could think was, the boy spoke English.

He was pulled through the hallway, deeper into the dark building, then up a flight of wide, stone steps, through an arched doorway and dropped on a hard, stone floor in a large open room.

He heard the sound of hundreds of feet. He was getting some feeling back in his limbs, so he pushed himself to his knees and looked up. Dozens of people were running up an open stone staircase that climbed along the wall. There were several levels of balconies above jutting from the side, which rose fifty or more feet to the top where an arched ceiling covered the entire room. The people began filling the balconies, but there wasn’t enough room for all of them, and many just stopped on the stone steps and looked down on him.

Will looked to his right. There was no wall on that side, and no barrier of any kind. The room was open to the city below. He knew where he was. He had not been able to stop them from bringing him here.

He glanced around. There had to be more than two hundred people looking down at him from the balconies and the steps along the wall. The guards who had dragged him in backed away until he was the only one in the center of the room. All eyes were on him. He sighed. He had never been in control of his destiny.

At the far end was another doorway beneath the wall of balconies. He saw the gray eyed teenager walk through it, followed by an entourage. He crossed slowly to the center of the room and stood ten feet from Will. The others who were with him stopped behind him.

Will looked up at the boy. He knew what was going to happen, but he needed to buy time for SAR to lift off. He was pretty sure he would be able to see the ship rise from the open wall. “Why did you hurt my sister?” He demanded. “She didn’t do anything to you! She’s never hurt anyone!”

“She attempted to escape. But she learned. And you will too, now that you are finally here.”

“Why do you want me? What is this all about?”

“I was hoping you would tell me, Will Robinson. Before you die.”

Will wondered at how the boy could speak such perfect English. He had not heard anyone else speak any language he could recognize.

“I don’t know,” Will answered.

“You don’t know why you are so important to them?”

“To who!” Will demanded. Leave, SAR, leave.

“You know. They haunt your dreams.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Will said.

The boy paused. “Perhaps you do not. But it doesn’t matter. When I kill you, they will know it is I who is important.”

He slowly walked forward until he stood above Will.

“Know this, Will Robinson. When you are dead, I will bring your sister back here and finish with her. And I will bring your other sister as well.”

“They have nothing to do with this.”

“It is said, your sisters are your greatest strength, and greatest weakness. Your blood is their blood. I do not know what you are, but my father said they feared you. They killed him for it. Which means it is true. Their little experiment became more than they had planned. But if they truly fear you, once I kill you, it is I they will fear.”

He nodded to one of the guards who stood behind him. The man walked forward, pulled a long sword from a sheath, and presented it to the boy with both hands, as if it was a valuable gift.

The boy hefted the sword, slashed the air above Will’s head with it. “It was my father’s,” he said. “He died on the courtyard below. And soon you will join him.”

He stepped back, and nodded to the guard again. This time the man stepped forward and tossed another sword on the floor in front of Will. Now he knew why he had been bleeding so badly in his vision. He was trapped in some type of medieval nightmare.

As Will watched, the boy stripped off his shirt and flung it back to one of the soldiers. He was young, probably sixteen or seventeen, but Will could see he had the body of a man. His muscles rippled with every movement. His chest and shoulders were wide, his biceps bulged.

“Get on your feet, coward,” the boy said. “And pick up the sword.”

Will pushed himself up, hoping he had enough strength back to stay on his feet. He looked down at the sword, then back to the boy. “If you are going to kill me, just do it. I can’t fight with that anyway. I’ve never held a sword in my life.”

The boy looked puzzled. “You are a coward and a liar. I have seen you in my dreams. Preparing for this day.”

“It was just a dream. That didn’t happen.”

“You know better. You have seen me as well. I called to you many times. And you heard me. You saw me. And you said you were coming.”

“You imagined it,” Will said calmly.

“You play me as a fool. I will teach you I am not a fool. Pick up the blade.”

“You don’t understand. If you throw me from the wall, your entire city will be destroyed. You will die along with me.”

The boy with gray eyes laughed and looked up along the wall at the balconies full of people. He addressed them. Will heard the boy say his name, then a few other words, and the entire crowd started laughing. Will knew the boy had told them what he had just said.

“You see? No one is afraid of you. For thousands of years, the nobles have gathered on the wall to watch my ancestors throw their enemies from this chamber. My father was the last one to die this way. You should feel honored to follow him. Now pick up the blade.”

“You don’t understand. I’m not threatening you. I don’t want to kill you or anyone else. There’s something inside my chest. In my heart. It will explode when I hit the courtyard. It’s very powerful. Everyone here will die.”

The boy looked up and addressed the people along the wall again, this time speaking longer. They all began to laugh again.

When he held his hands up, the crowd quieted. He said a few more words. The crowd began to talk amongst themselves, then a cry went up from several of them, and the others picked it up.

The boy held his hands to silence them again. He turned back to Will. “I told them you are either a very wise enemy or you are the greatest coward the city has ever seen. I believe you are a coward, and so do they, as they are not fleeing. But I gave them a choice. The name Will Robinson is well known in the Ancient City, and they have waited for this day for hundreds of years. So, they have given you a path to earn back your honor. Walk to the edge and step off. You will not have to suffer. You will meet your end bravely, as did my father.”

None of this made sense to Will. How could they have known of him for hundreds of years? But that didn’t matter now, and Will knew he would never have the answers anyway. “I can’t,” he said. “If I do, everyone here will die.”

“Then you will suffer the agonizing death of a coward, and still fly from this place.” Before Will could even move, the boy lurched forward, slid to his right and sliced Will across the ribs with his sword as he stepped past him.

Will screamed and grabbed his side and felt the blood flow. He turned toward the boy, who was smiling.

“That is the best it will be, Will Robinson. Defend yourself.”

Will knelt down and picked up the sword, grimacing from the wound in his side. He saw the blood dripping on the stone floor. The sword was heavy. He lifted it with both hands and pointed it toward the boy. He decided the best he could do was to force the boy to kill him and hope he had put enough doubt in him that the teenager wouldn’t throw him from the wall. He rushed forward, lifting the sword above his head.

The boy stood in place until Will thought he wasn’t going to move and wasn’t going to defend himself. Will really didn’t want to hurt him, but he had to force the teenager into a deadly strike. At the last second, the boy spun to his right, bringing his sword low, as if he had no fear that Will could hit him with his. He sliced Will across his left leg, just below his knee. The teenager kept moving until he had turned completely around, then drove the point of the sword in Will’s left shoulder.

Will screamed in agony. He dropped the sword and grabbed his shoulder. He pressed his hand against it. Blood flowed down his arm.

“Pick the sword up, Will Robinson,” the boy sneered at him. “You have another arm.”

Will grimaced, knelt, and lifted the sword. It was almost too heavy for him with one hand, but he slowly raised it and pointed it toward the boy. He stepped forward.

The teenager grinned, pointed his sword at Will’s face, feigned a high strike. When Will moved his sword to parry, the boy dropped his under it and sliced Will across the chest, opening another wound in him. Will cried out again, but this time he kept his grip on the sword.

The boy moved to the side, then stepped past Will on his right, slicing across his right biceps. Will cried out and dropped the sword again. He turned to face the boy, but the teenager was already moving, this time, he sliced across Will’s lower back. Will hissed his breath in agony. The boy was once again in front of him. He grinned, stepped forward with his sword pointed at Will’s undefended chest. But instead of piercing him, he moved in close, and struck Will across the forehead with the flat side of the sword. Will fell to the floor, stunned. He looked up at the boy standing above him.

Blood covered Will’s face from the cut on his forehead. He couldn’t move his left arm, but he wiped the blood from his eyes with his right hand so he could see the boy’s face. He had an evil grin. The sword was at Will’s throat.

“Finish it,” Will whispered. He didn’t think he had long left before he bled out, but he wanted to die before the boy could throw him over the edge to the courtyard below.

“I expected a worthy adversary, but you come to me as a little boy, Will Robinson. You do not deserve a warrior’s death. But that is the death they will talk about. The bloody, crumpled body of Will Robinson. The boy who could command an army of synthetics, thrown to his death by me.”

He tossed his sword, knelt down and grabbed Will by his hair, and pulled him to his feet. Will groaned in pain as he was pulled up.

The boy stared into his eyes. “You’re dying, Will Robinson. I have killed you.”

“Then…let me die. Just let it…end.” Did SAR leave the planet?"

“It will not be long now. We have little time. They will feel you. They will know you are here, and they will come. They prefer to walk through the street to taste the people’s fear. But they do not have to do that. They can be here in a breath. In front of us. Beside us. Behind us. Before we know they have arrived.”

“Who…who are you…talking about?”

“You know, Will Robinson. The Old Ones. They haunt your dreams. They see you. They have plans for you. What I have done to you is nothing. You should bless me for killing you before they possess you. They will feed off your mind, seeing what you see. Knowing what you know. A parasite that never dies. They can make you experience the burn of a thousand suns and keep you alive to endure it.

“They have waited for you for generations. And I brought you here. But not for them. I brought you here for me. I brought you here to teach them. They killed my father. But I will destroy what they have created.

“Praise me for setting you free, Will Robinson. And go to your death.” He put a hand on Will's back and turned him toward the edge of the wall.

“No!…” Will said. “You can’t. You can’t…do this. I was telling you the…the truth. Everyone…everyone…will die.”

But the boy took him by his right arm and gripped his hair on the back of his head and pushed him to the edge.

Will looked down. The courtyard below was paved with marble, and Will knew what the impact would do. “You…can’t do this,” he said, his voice weak now. He almost fell but the boy held him up.

“Don’t worry, Will Robinson. Only you and I will know you were a coward in the end. For generations they will talk about our battle, and that I defeated Will Robinson. In the end he was just a boy, but they will not know. They will only know he was Will Robinson. He Who Would Live Forever. But he did not live forever. He was thrown to his death. By me.”

“That is not who you want!” It was a commanding voice, but a young one.

The boy kept his grip on Will, but turned toward the open arched doorway, where the voice had come from. Everyone on the stone steps and balconies looked toward the doorway as well, where another boy was standing.

Will could barely stay on his feet, but he looked to see who had brought them to a halt. He was looking at himself.

“This is not his path. It’s my path,” The boy who looked like Will said. “I’m the one who sees you in my dreams. I see you calling to me. Taunting me. He means nothing to you. Let him go.”

The gray eyed boy looked confused. He turned behind him and said something to one of the soldiers. The boy seemed agitated and for the first time, unsure.

As he spoke to the soldier, Will looked past him to the boy who could have been his twin. He was looking directly at Will now. The boy looked sad. But he reached over his shoulder and Will saw he was armed. He drew a long sword from a sheath on his back and drew a short one that had been hanging at his side.

He addressed the gray eyed boy again. “I am Will Robinson. I have seen you in my dreams. But you have seen me in yours as well. Now I have come.”

Chapter Text

After leaving Earth, John and Maureen attempted to call the girls as soon as they entered Alpha Centauri’s orbit, but when they could get neither of them on the radio, they called Don. He had spent several days in the hospital, but had mostly recovered by the time John, Maureen and the other’s had returned. He had tried to think of a way to find the girls, but none of the robots he worked with at Alpha seemed to know what he was talking about, and he was afraid to approach any of the authorities, since he didn’t know who could be trusted.

Each day he left work at the Alpha Space Station, he went by the Robinson’s house to make sure everything was okay, and to see if Penny had returned. Though he knew it was futile, as she would call him if she could.

He was on his way to the Robinson’s when John’s voice came over his radio. “Don, Don, do you copy?”

“John! You’re back! Did you find out anything about Will?”

“We have some information, but we haven’t found him yet. I’ve been trying to call the girls.”

“Yeah. They aren’t here, John.”

“Don! Are they okay?” Maureen called.

“I have to tell you what happened,” Don said. “I’m sorry…”

“Are they alive?” Maureen asked, hurriedly.

“Yes. Yes, I thi…yes. But they aren’t here. They…”

“Don, Grant here. Don’t say anything over the comm. We’ll land and see you in person.”

“I’ll meet you at the house,” Don said. “I’ve been going by it every day and haven’t seen anything strange going on. And Sally has been there.”

“We’ll see you soon,” Grant said.

They landed the Jupiter in the field past the woods from the house and met Don. He told them everything that had happened. They had planned to sleep for a few hours, but once they spoke to Don, he and Maureen and Grant took the Engineer and headed to Alpha Control. They needed to see if there was any way to find the star system in the photos Maureen had taken when with the Dogon tribe.

Several hours later, Maureen called John and told him they had had no luck. None of the robots had any response when they tried to find out where the system was located, and when The Engineer tried to find it using a robot ship’s navigation and celestial charts, he found nothing that resembled it.

Maureen said they were on their way to the house to rest and think of another way. Grant was going to meet with some of his contacts to see if they could help figure out any way to find the star system.

John and Smith had been sitting at the table in the kitchen when Maureen called. Once Smith heard enough of the conversation to know they had not been successful, she walked outside to see Sally, who stood on guard by the door. Smith knew the robots weren’t all the same, and she knew that Sally was close to Penny and in some ways, was growing closer to the family, like Robot. So, she thought it was worth a try.

“Sally, how did Robot know that you were being attacked and come back to help? Did you connect with him?”

“Yes.”

“So, you connected with Robot, the way Robot connected with Scarecrow when we were separated from the others?”

At first Sally just looked at her without answering, but Smith put her hand on the robot’s arm, and said, “Penny needs you. I think she’s in trouble. The family needs you. And Robot might not know anything either, but SAR might have known something about this place. And there might still be enough of SAR in him that we can find out where this place is. Can you try, please?”

After several minutes, Sally started walking across the yard toward the road. “Hey! Hey, where are you going?” Smith ran to keep up with her. When the robot headed to the woods on the other side, Smith knew she was going to the Jupiter 2.

Once on board, Smith followed Sally down to the engine room. The robot placed her hand on the engine and it powered on. She stood above it and looked straight ahead. Smith had been in the cryo tube when SAR had used Scarecrow to connect with Robot and show him where the adults were, so she wasn’t sure what was happening. But after several minutes, a blue aura of lights began to encircle the robot and the engine.

Sally still didn’t move, and Smith had begun to think whatever was happening, it wasn’t going to help them find the star system, but the robot stretched her arms out in front of her. Suddenly, a planet appeared in the center of the blue aura. Sally moved her hands apart, and it was as if she zoomed out, and now Smith saw a sun, and other celestial bodies surrounding it. Sally opened her arms wider, and a large black space began to appear above it all. Smith recognized the system now from the piece of wood and Maureen’s photos of it.

“You did it,” Smith said.

Sally dropped her arms, and everything disappeared, and the engine powered down. “You can find it now?” Smith asked.

“Yes.”

She called Maureen on the radio. “I know where it is.”

“What?” Maureen said. “How?”

“I’ll meet you at the house,” Smith said.

When the Robinson’s were home, they rushed through the door and found Dr. Smith at the table talking to John. They gathered around and Smith told them what had happened.

“You mean, we could have found Will all along?” Don said. “Why didn’t you try this before, then maybe the kids would still be safe?” They could all hear the anger in his voice.

“I did try it before, when Maureen said she thought the robots were all entangled. Several times. But nothing happened, so there was no reason to tell you. I’m not sure they could connect to Robot the way they connected to SAR. But when you said Robot showed up when you were attacked, I wondered how he would know. So I asked Sally. She connected with him. I think it was like a robot SOS or something. But I don’t think the robots could do that on their own. I think SAR played a part in it somehow.”

“But why could Sally do it now?” John asked.

“When you left for Alpha Control, I was thinking about what Don told us. I couldn’t figure out why Robot returned to Alpha without Will. It didn’t make sense.”

“Because he knew we needed help,” Don answered. “And I guess Sally called him.”

“No. If it all happened as quickly as you said it did, he had to have been close to Alpha Centauri to get here in time. What didn’t make sense is that he left Will somewhere. I think the only reason he left Will, is that he was afraid to be around him. He wasn’t afraid of Will and that thing in his chest. He would die for Will. But maybe SAR isn’t completely gone and that’s why Sally was able to do it this time.”

“Not completely gone?” John said. “Why do you think that?”

“Just some of the things Will was saying about how Robot began to change when they left to explore the galaxy. I don’t know. A feeling I had.”

“Well, I don’t know if that’s true or not,” John said. “But assuming you could be right, we need to leave now.”

Two days later, the solar system was in front of them and looked just the same as the photo Maureen had pulled up on the screen.

“Where’s the black hole?” John asked.

“Not visible from here,” Maureen said, “But I bet it’s right where the elder said it was too.”

“The third planet,” Don said, “Right?” He was piloting.

“That’s what they say. But we’ve seen no sphere.”

John was in the co-pilot’s seat. He heard the tone in her voice. “Sorry, maybe they were wrong about that part.”

“Sorry because you think I was looking forward to seeing it?”

“Yes. I mean, I know Judy and Will are what’s important, but you were still hoping to find it.”

“Of course I was, but that’s not the problem. If they were wrong about that part, they could be wrong about all of it. Maybe there’s nothing here.”

Suddenly an emergency signal began blaring. It was a signal none of them wanted to hear. The life support system had picked up deadly amounts of cosmic radiation.

“Shit,” John said. “Where’s it coming from?”

“Running a scan but can’t find anything!” Don said.

“Look at the readings,” John said, “they’re off the charts.”

Maureen glanced at the screen from the navigation console where she sat. “It’s everywhere. But there’s no visual of anything. Wait.” She expanded the radar field. “It’s not enough,” she mumbled to herself. She expanded it again, then again. “The radiation field is…almost six light years across. But it couldn’t be this big.”

“What couldn’t?” John asked.

“I…I guess it could. But…if it is, it’s invisible.”

“You want to let the pilot in on this Maureen?” Don asked.

“Technology like this isn’t something we can even imagine,” Maureen said. She still seemed to be talking to herself.

“What do we do?” Don asked. “We’ll be in it in ten minutes.

“Sally, can you come to the cockpit?” Dr. Smith called.

A few minutes later the robot walked through the door.

“Can you tell what’s out there?” Dr. Smith asked.

She looked out the window for a few seconds, walked closer, stood, said, “Trouble.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Don mumbled.

“Look at the lights,” John said. “The starlight. It’s being reflected off something.”

“Let’s launch the pod,” Maureen said. “See if anything interferes with it.”

They launched the space pod, setting it on a course for the third planet from the sun in the solar system they were heading towards.

“Picking up lots of radiation as it gets closer,” John said, looking at the instruments on his console. “Everything looks clear though.”

He looked at Maureen. “I guess it’s…”

His thought was interrupted by a flash of white light.

“Where’s the pod?” Smith asked.

There was nothing but black space where the pod had been. “It’s gone,” John said.

“No, it’s not,” Maureen said. “Radar is picking up clusters of particles where the pod was.” She looked at her husband. “It was vaporized.”

“Hold on,” Don said. “Changing course. We have to find a way around it.”

“I don’t think there is a way around it,” Maureen said.

Sally turned and walked off the deck.

“Where’s she going?” John asked.

A couple minutes later they felt static and blue lights flashed from everywhere.

“Hold on!” John said.

The ship began to shake, something they were all used to by now, and they were pulled forward. When it settled down, they were much closer to the planet.

“Look,” John said, “She opened a rift right through it.”

Sally walked back on deck.

“Did you know that would work?” Maureen asked.

“Hope,” Sally said.

“Can we talk about any other risky moves like that before we do them?” Dr. Smith asked.

Sally just looked ahead out the glass.

“Okay, setting a course for The Mysterious Planet,” Don said. “And I don’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with Smith. Please share this kind of information with the Pilot, before we decide on it.”

“That was it,” Maureen said.

“It? It, what?” Don asked.

“The sphere. The Dyson Sphere. Can you imagine what a civilization would be like that could build something on that scale? I think the Dogon are right. I think it encompasses the entire solar system. And the black hole. A…a civilization that could build that could…could change the universe. They could have their own idea of physics. Of reality for that matter. They could create their own reality.”

“But if they were making changes in the universe, wouldn’t we have detected them before?” Don asked.

“Maybe, but a civilization with the capabilities to build something on that scale could manipulate the universe in ways that seem like natural phenomena to us. We’re like…insects to them.”

“Maureen, I know what you’re thinking,” John said. “We need to learn more about it, but right now…”

“Right now, we have to find the kids,” Maureen said. “I know. I haven’t lost sight of that. But someday…”

As they grew close enough to the planet to pick up data John said, “Atmosphere, gravity, solar position. Nitrogen, hydrogen…it looks perfect to sustain life.”

“Any readings on that?” Maureen asked.

“Don’t know yet, but we’ll track heat sources and see what we can find.”

They entered into orbit, and Don began mapping the planet.

“Not much so far," he said. “If there’s life they live in some pretty small villages.”

“Not everyone,” Maureen said. “Look there.”

John saw it now. “Huge,” he said. “High altitude though. Kind of strange. You would expect to find a place that large in the lowlands near rivers or oceans. Setting a course and we’ll drop into the atmosphere.”

Once they came through the clouds, he said, “Frozen. A lake or ocean maybe.”

“Desert,” Maureen said. “Antarctica is really a frozen desert. And there’s turf under the ice down there.”

“Temperature readings aren’t that cold,” John said. “But what’s below us is definitely frozen.”

“Mountain Range,” Maureen said, looking at the topographical map on the screen as the computer traced it.

“Yeah, high,” Don said, as he increased altitude.

They flew over the mountains for about an hour. “It’s below us at twelve o’clock,” John said. “Whatever it is.”

“It’s…a city,” Don said, looking out the glass.

“I would say this is impossible,” John said, “if it wasn’t in front of me.”

“There has to be hundreds of thousands of people here,” Maureen said.

“Do we fly over it?” John asked.

“Look at the wall,” Dr. Smith said. “How does a place like this exist?”

“It’s trillions of light years away from anything we charted,” Maureen said. “There could be many worlds like this.”

“I think I should set down before we get to the village or the city beyond the wall,” John said.

“How about by the Robot spaceship down there,” Don said, casually.

“What the hell’s it doing here?” John said.

“Maybe it’s Penny,” Maureen said.

“Penny,” John called. “Do you copy?”

“Dad! Dad! It’s me! Where are you?”

“We’re here, Penny. We have Robot’s ship in view.”

“How did you find us?”

“We’ll explain, but what are you doing here?”

“It’s a long story, but I’m here with Will."

“Will!” Maureen said. “He’s with you?”

“He was. I’ll explain but they locked me in the ship.”

“Why did they lock you in?” John asked.

“Why? Because Will’s trying to save the world of course. And he’s afraid he might die in the process. You know your son, save every damn person but himself.”

“I’ll set down beside the ship and we’ll be right there,” John said.

“Penny, do you know where Judy is?” Don asked.

“Here, I think. That’s what they went to find out.”

“Will and Robot?”

“Um…sort of.”

“What’s that mean?” John asked.

“I’ll explain as soon as you get here.”

When they were on the ground, they ran to Robot’s ship. John tried to open the hatch by pressing the control by the door, but nothing happened. Sally walked up and placed her hand on it and the door opened, and Penny ran out to her father’s arms, then turned and hugged her mother.

When she let go, she looked at Don, then quickly ran to him and hugged him. “Don, you’re okay! I was so worried about you.”

“I’m fine, Penny,” Don said as he held on to her. “I’m fine.”

“I think you need to see this,” Dr. Smith said. She was looking out across the field. They all rushed over to her. A Robot was walking toward them, carrying someone in his arms.

“Judy!” Don said, and turned and ran, followed by the others.

They met the robot half way across the field. SAR stopped and kept Judy in his arms as they all gathered around her. “Judy, Judy are you okay?” John asked. She had been beaten severely, and it was all John could do to remain calm. He was torn between the agony of seeing his daughter in this condition and the anger at whoever caused it.

“Go…find...find Will,” she said.

“What happened to you?” Don asked. He had stepped next to her head and gripped her hand in his. He so wanted to tell her everything he was thinking, but her parents were watching. Still, she smiled up at him.

“I’m…glad you’re okay…Don. I was afraid…”

“I’m fine. But you aren’t. Don’t talk now.”

“Let’s get her in the infirmary,” Maureen said, and they started walking toward the Jupiter.

Judy looked up at her father. “But Will is…going to…die. I think. This place is evil. You have to…find him.”

“Get her in the infirmary,” John said. “Everyone stay here.”

Penny looked at Sally and said, “Trouble, Sally.” The robot immediately changed in to combat form and her face shield turned red. She started walking toward John but stopped in front of SAR. The two robots just stared at each other.

“What’s wrong?” Maureen asked.

“That’s not Robot,” Dr. Smith said.

“Who…what…” John said.

“She’s right. That’s SAR,” Penny said.

Judy was lying in his arms still, and now turned and looked up at him, but her expression didn’t change. “Thank you, SAR,” she said.

“He and Will have a pact or something,” Penny said. “I think it’s like, mutually assured destruction.”

“Would you take her to the infirmary?” John asked.

SAR started walking and the others fell in beside him, except for Don, who started toward John.

“Where do you think you’re going?” John asked.

“You don’t think you’re doing this by yourself, do you?”

“I’m not by myself,” John answered. “Sally is with me.”

“Well, I’m still…

“Go be with Judy."

"But..."

“You're in love with her aren't you?"

"Um...I..."

"Don, let me give you some advice. Someday when you have a family of your own, they're pretty much going to think you're oblivious to everything going on. You won't know the kid's friends, what they're doing in school and all. Just let them believe that. But pay attention. That's how you'll protect them." He turned and started walking across the field. 

Don stood for a minute and watched him. Then he smiled and ran toward the Jupiter 2 where SAR had carried Judy.

As John and Sally walked toward the village, John wished again he had brought a weapon with them, but he knew Sally was more than enough weapon in most situations. The problem was, he had no idea what they were facing here.

The city looked ancient, the streets cobblestone, the houses simple wood frame, though they were painted with a multitude of colors, by people who cared about how they looked. John saw churches or cathedrals on the hillside, where the village continued up the slope. They were topped with golden domes, but there was no sign of technological advancement anywhere he looked.

When they came to the wall, they saw the wooden door had a hole blown in it. “Sally, get ready.” John peered through the opening and saw the wide street on the other side. It was hard to believe what he was seeing, but everything looked abandoned.

He stepped through and Sally followed. But as soon they had both walked a few feet, men began pouring out of the buildings on both sides. Sally grabbed John by the back of his shirt and threw him back through the hole in the gate.

John landed on his back and heard explosions. He scrambled on his hands and knees to look back through the gate. Sally was firing from all four limbs, but she was being driven back. There must have been fifty soldiers or more in the streets, and more firing from windows in the buildings around it, with weapons John had never seen before. The entire place looked ancient, but these weapons certainly weren’t.

Sally wasn’t being damaged, but she couldn’t move forward. John needed to get his hands on one of the weapons and see if he could figure out how to fire it. “Last Goddamn time I ever go to space without a gun, Maureen.”

So far none of the soldiers had noticed him peering through the broken gate. They were more concerned about the robot than anything else, which made sense, John figured. By the look of the damage, they had already seen what a robot could do. To his right, along the wall, he saw the bodies of three soldiers that Sally had already killed. He thought there might be a chance of getting one of the weapons, if Sally kept them busy long enough. She was trying to push her way forward once again.

But before he could make his move, he felt the barrel of a gun against his head, and someone barked an order at him in a language he couldn’t understand. He rolled to his back and looked up. Several soldiers had come from the houses in the village behind them. They must have been waiting, and they must have wanted to capture him alive. They could have easily killed him while Sally was battling the others.

John stayed on his back but put his hands up so the soldiers could see he wasn’t armed. While one man kept his weapon pointed at John, the others ran through the broken gate and attacked Sally. She was surrounded now, and firing all around, but it seemed as if she was shooting less than she had. John didn’t know what it would take to damage her with these weapons, but it seemed as if the overwhelming barrage was having an effect.

SAR carried Judy to the infirmary, laid her on a bed, and turned and walked from the room. They all gathered around Judy, but Penny quickly ran into the hall and called, “SAR!”

The robot had been walking toward the hatch, but stopped and turned to Penny.

“Thanks.”

SAR turned and walked on. Penny hadn’t expected anything else, but she had wanted to say it anyway. She walked back in the infirmary to join the others. Maureen was cleaning the dried blood off her sister’s face.

“Penny, help me get her undressed,” Maureen said. “I need to see where else she might be injured.” She looked at Don, who was holding Judy’s hand. “Would you mind stepping out for a minute?”

“Um…yeah. Okay.”

“Mom,” Judy whispered. “He can stay. He’s seen me naked…more than once.”

Maureen looked quickly at Don, and for the first time noticed he wasn’t holding her daughter’s hand like a friend. He clutched it tightly, occasionally bringing it up to his lips, and gently kissing it. Maureen saw the look of stress and worry on his face.

“Well, okay,” she said.

Penny began taking Judy’s boots off while Don and Maureen started gently pulling her shirt over her arms. She had bruises all over her upper body. Penny glanced at Don. It looked like he could start crying, but he didn’t say anything at all.

“He beat me, Don,” Judy whispered. “That’s all.”

He stopped pulling her clothes off and moved up by her head and put his arms around her and hugged her tightly. When he let her go, he was crying. But he didn’t say anything. He just started helping undress her again.

Penny and Maureen shared a look. Maureen smiled, and Penny smiled back.

Suddenly they heard explosions coming from the village.

“Shit!’” Don said. He kissed Judy softly on the lips, then ran from the room.

“Did you guys…bring weapons…Mom?” Judy whispered. When Maureen just looked back at her, Judy knew the answer, and tears came to her eyes. All the men she loved were out there.

Penny ran from the room.

“Penny!” Maureen cried.

“I’ve got her,” Smith said, and ran after her. But when she was outside, she saw the girl wasn’t headed toward the village, she was going to Robot’s ship several meters away. “What the hell?” Smith said. She began running after her.

Penny ran up the ramp and found SAR in the center of the ship, hands gripping the controls. The ship powered on.

“SAR!” Penny said. But the Robot didn’t even look at her.

She quickly walked up behind him, grabbed him by one of his arms and pulled, trying to get his attention. When the robot still didn’t react, Penny said, “Fuck off, SAR! Do you understand that?”

She let go of his arm and started to turn around, but before she could, he released the controls, wheeled around and used one hand to grab her on the top of the head, and with one of the others, put a sharp finger at her throat.

Penny was so frightened she almost couldn’t talk, but she found her voice and said, “You can hear those explosions. They need your help!”

SAR just stared at her and began pressing the finger into her skin until blood started to trickle.

“You can kill me. And you can let them die here, but you still won’t have what you wanted. You will never have what you wanted. I know what it is.”

“What…do…I…want?” The robot hissed.

“Everything! You didn’t set a trap for my brother in the cave and chase him across the universe to find out who he was or what he was. You wanted to be him. You had everything. Freedom. Power. A whole universe you could dominate. Nothing could stop you. But none of that was good enough. Because you didn’t have the one thing you really wanted. You wanted to be human. They made you to be so close to human…but not quite human. And you thought Will had some special powers because he freed Robot from his programming, and because wherever he went, something always seemed to want him. And when you found out he couldn’t give you what you wanted, you decided to kill him. Which was probably the most human thing you have ever done.

“But none of that was what made Will who he is. How do you think he freed Robot? How do you think Sally was freed, or any of the other robots who attacked us? Compassion. Do you understand that word?”

SAR’s finger was still pressed against Penny’s throat, and she could feel the blood trickling down, but the robot said, “Yessss.”

“Will was going to die, and he made the decision to help some…some thing, that was completely different from him. From a world he could never understand. Because to Will, none of that mattered. Even though Robot had tried to kill him when he was on that limb, it didn’t matter. Will knew he was about to die, and decided there was no point in this other being dying too, if he could stop it. Compassion is sort of Will’s superpower. That’s what makes him human.

“But you’re not Will. You’ll never be Will, because you’re going to let him die. Something he would never do to anyone. Not even you.”

Penny stopped talking. SAR just looked at her, his face shield was still as bright red as it had been, but Penny thought his finger was not pressing in her throat as deeply. It was only a couple of minutes like this, but to Penny it felt like hours. She wasn’t sure what was going on and thought there was still a pretty good chance she was about to die in that moment, but without a word, SAR pulled back, turned and walked from the ship.

“Jesus Christ,” Penny said, her whole body sagged, and she almost fell. But someone’s arms wrapped around her and held her up.

“You were amazing,” Dr. Smith said. She had been standing in the hatchway door, watching everything.

“I almost pissed myself,” Penny said, her voice shaky.

“It would have been warranted.” Dr. Smith took her sleeve and wiped the blood off Penny’s neck. “It’s not bad. Let’s go see if it worked.”

They rushed out the hatch and stopped. SAR was running across the rocky field toward the sound of the fighting.

John was motionless, the gun at his throat. But he saw a blur, and someone flew into the soldier from behind, his knee spearing the man in the back and knocking him to the ground where John grabbed him and elbowed him in the side of the head, knocking him out. Don reached down and helped John to his feet.

“You were right, we make a good team,” John said. But he could tell by Don’s expression he wasn’t in the mood to exchange the normal sarcastic banter.

“Now what?” He asked.

John lifted the weapon. “Now I try to help Sally.” He felt the gun. There was a depression where his hand would fit, but there was no triggering device. John aimed it at the wall and squeezed. The gun made no sound, but there was an explosion and a hole appeared in the wall. “Don, stay behind me until we can get one for you.”

He leaped through the opening in the gate and started firing at the largest group of soldiers, who had gathered in the street to concentrate their attack on the robot. Now they started falling, and Sally began to move forward again. But John felt a scorching pain in his arm and dropped the weapon. His shirt was burning where he was struck. Don grabbed him, pulled him back through the gate and ripped the burning sleeve off. He pulled duct tape out of a pocket and started wrapping the wound.

They heard Sally’s firing begin to slow.

“Shit there’s too many of them,” John said.

“Well, if he’s on our side, this might even things up,” Don said.

John saw he was looking back toward the village. SAR was running up the cobblestone road, faster than they had ever seen anything with legs move before. The robot’s strides seemed to be ten feet apart, and it looked as if he picked up speed with every step.

He didn’t even look at John or West, and he didn’t try to duck through the hole in the gate. He ran into it with all the speed and strength his synthetic body could muster, and what was still hanging splintered and fell away.

They looked through the opening. SAR’s momentum had carried him past Sally, and he was firing with all four limbs. The soldiers scattered at the robot’s onslaught.

As soon as all the firing stopped, SAR ran off down the wide street, leaving the other’s behind.

John and West stepped through the gate. John picked up the weapon he had taken from the soldier, and Don ran over and picked up one of the weapons lying next to another body. He turned to John, “How did you fire it?”

“Just point and squeeze it.”

Don heard the pain in his voice. “The wound's bad, John. It burned a hole through you.”

“No time to think about that now,” he said. “We have to find Will.”

But before they could do anything, Sally started firing again, and they saw the soldiers were moving back now that the crazed robot had disappeared.

Don helped John back through the gate, and they each hid around opposites sides of it, staying out of the fire, peering around to shoot at the soldiers, to help Sally as much as possible.

“John,” Don called over to him. “Did you ever think we were going to have to rely on SAR to save our asses?”

“Right now I just hope he can save Will’s ass.”

Will just looked at the boy standing with two swords drawn, facing the room. He didn’t know what was happening and wondered if he was losing consciousness from the pain or the blood loss or both. Was he imagining this other boy who looked like him? Maybe he imagined the entire thing, and he was still back on the island, slowly dying from the eel sting. Or worse, maybe he was still trapped in the veins of that creature on the alien’s planet, and everything since then had been an illusion. He would spend eternity like this, his tortured mind leaping from one reality to the next.

But the gray eyed boy released him, and he collapsed to the stone floor. He looked up to see the teenager holding his sword out now toward the boy who looked like him. But he didn’t advance. He still seemed unsure, and the cockiness he had shown earlier had disappeared.

Will watched as the two boys stared each other down. But before either of them moved, there was an explosion above, and screams echoed through the chamber.

People began falling from the balconies and there were more explosions and screams as others tried to escape down the stairs. The gray eyed boy was surrounded by several guards, all pointing their weapons toward the arched doorway where SAR now stood, his entire body bright red.

For a second, Will thought he was burning, as he had never seen a robot look this way before. It was as if the energy that pulsed through his limbs and charged his claws was engulfing him in a fiery rage. More soldiers had run from the entrance at the back of the open chamber, and there were thirty or so now and more rushing out, aiming their weapons at the robot. When they fired, SAR leaped in the air and landed in the middle of them.

While a few soldiers began pulling the gray eyed boy toward the back of the chamber and the far doorway, the others tried to fight SAR. They didn’t stand a chance. He used his two lower limbs to fire, but he used his upper two to grab men and fling them off the ledge to the marble courtyard below.

Will felt like he was going to pass out, but he couldn’t stop watching SAR. The robot looked berserk. He shot soldiers with his lasers, he threw some off the wall, and others he lifted above his head and ripped in half, flinging blood and bone and tissue all about the room.

The soldiers were now trying to flee, but SAR was relentlessly pursuing them. He had stopped firing, but continued to catch them, rip their bodies apart and throw them over the side. Apparently, he preferred to give them a more intimate death.

Will tried to push himself to his feet but was too weak. Then he felt arms wrap around him, and he was being dragged out of the center of the room toward the arched door. It was the boy who could be his twin. He leaned Will against the wall and began ripping his own shirt apart and tearing it into strips. “Stay awake. Keep fighting. You’re going to live through this.”

He started wrapping the strips of his shirt around Will’s wounds. “We’ve been through worse than this. Just fight.”

He kept working as he talked to Will, encouraging him, saying, “It’s not that bad. You’re gonna be fine.” The arm and leg seemed to be the worst injuries. The boy wrapped a strip around his arm tightly, tied it off, then above the wound on his leg.

“Hey! Hey! Stay awake.” He gently patted Will’s face. “Fight. Come on. Fight!”

Will didn’t know he had almost lost consciousness but the boy’s words and the slaps to his face brought him back.

“I don’t…I don’t know…what’s…I don’t und…” Will couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I’ve got to get your shirt off, he got you pretty good in the stomach.” He ripped the shirt away and said, “Um…ok…not as bad as I thought.” But Will didn’t think his voice matched his words. The boy wadded up a piece of cloth and pressed it tightly against the wound. It was slightly below Will’s solar plexus. The boy took what was left of his shirt and wrapped it around Will’s torso, and tied the sleeves together, pulling them tight before knotting them. Will groaned.

“Sorry. It needs to keep pressure on that wound.”

“But what’s…I don’t understand.”

“I don’t understand all of it either,” he said as he wiped the blood from the cut on Will’s forehead. “And I don’t know how you got here, but fight. Stay alive, and maybe someday you can find the answer you’re looking for. But I don’t think it’s here. Not for you anyway.”

Will let his gaze turn toward SAR. There were only a few soldiers left, tripping over the bodies of others as they tried to escape.

“That isn’t Robot, is it?” The boy asked.

Will looked up at the boy’s face. His face. The kid knew about Robot. “No…it’s…SAR.”

The boy looked at the robot and watched as he lifted another soldier above his head, then slammed him down on the stone floor. The man didn’t move, but SAR wasn’t satisfied. He picked him up and slammed him again, then again. Finally, when there wasn’t much left but a bloody mass of pulp, he kicked him over the side and looked for more victims.

“None of this was your fault,” the boy said. “The deaths. I know you’ll blame yourself, but it’s not your fault. We’re just unlucky. We were chosen.”

“By what?” Will asked.

“The universe…I guess.”

Will shut his eyes. The pain had been excruciating when he was being cut with the sword, but now he was mostly numb, and just felt a dull ache everywhere. He opened his eyes again and watched the boy work as he did his best to dress his other wounds. His mannerisms were identical to Will’s as well. And his voice. Everything about him. “You blame yourself…though…don’t you?”

The boy stopped and looked in his eyes. “Of course.”

He started back to work. “I wish I had time to hear how this happened and why you’re here, but if you’re going to live, he needs to get you out of here.”

“I’ve…I’ve seen you…haven’t I?” Will said. “A dream. You were…walking up…up a trail.”

“I think so. Not sure it was a dream, because I saw you too. I was walking up a mountain path, and turned around and you were there looking up at me.”

“I was in…a…a cage.”

“Yeah. My cage. I was in it for a long time. But they let me go and when I was walking away, I turned and looked down the mountain at it, and I thought I was looking at myself still in it and couldn’t understand. I’ve learned a lot about the universe since then, though. That’s why seeing you here doesn’t surprise me that much.”

SAR had found no one else to kill and turned around and walked back over to the boys. He stood above them, watching them both. “He’s going to bleed to death if you don’t get him out of here now,” the boy said to SAR.

The robot bent down and picked Will up in his arms. The boy stood up beside them.

Will looked at him. “Come…with…”

“I have to stay here,” he said. “I have to finish this.”

“You can…fight with…swords?”

“Yes. But I’m not as good as he is. I’m counting on him not knowing that. Did I sound convincing?”

“Yeah. I was…convinced,” Will said. “How did you learn?”

“My girlfriend taught me. It’s a long story.”

“Go…go with us,” Will said. “I know how…it ends. I’ve seen it.”

“I can’t. I know how it ends too, but I have no choice. This is my path.”

“Why…?”

“I know some, but not everything. And if I tried to tell you what I know now you would bleed to death before I even started. If you know a man named Hastings and he’s still alive where you come from, talk to him. He can tell you more. Maybe someday…if we survive…we can share stories. Somewhere. Maybe even if we don’t survive. Who’s to say?”

The boy looked at SAR, then back to Will. “This is one I would like to hear.” He smiled. Will couldn’t help but smile back.

SAR held Will tight against his body, turned and walked toward the open archway and started down the wide staircase. Will looked over his shoulder and saw the boy pick up both swords and walk toward the the center of the room where he stopped and waited for the gray eyed boy to return.

Sally had backed up to the hole in the wall where the gate had been and stopped to make a stand. John and Don fired from around the sides of the wall, and Sally held her ground. They couldn’t advance, but at least they were no longer being pushed back. But for some reason the soldiers had stopped attacking and were running.

“Look, John!” Don was pointing down the street, where SAR was running toward them with Will in his two upper arms. He was firing at the soldiers with his other two claws, and his entire body was bright red.

The soldiers had apparently had enough of the robot and began to disappear down alleys and into doorways. SAR continued to fire at them as they ran, killing as many as he could.

Don and John stood and stepped beside Sally who was standing quietly now, all of them waiting for SAR.

“My God, what happened to Will?” Don said. He was covered in blood. They began running toward him.

“Will! Will!” John put his hands on the side of his face and looked into his eyes. He slowly opened them and looked at his father. He hadn’t seen him in weeks, and the emotions were too much and he started crying.

“We have you, son. We have you.”

SAR started running again toward the gate and Don and John ran beside him, trying to keep up. Sally stayed back, watching for more soldiers to appear, then began jogging after them.

Penny and Dr. Smith met them at the edge of the village. Penny ran up and hugged Will around the shoulders, but he was unresponsive. When she let him go, she was covered in blood. “Jesus. Is he…?”

“He’s hurt bad,” John said. “But he’s alive.”

They all started running with SAR to the Jupiter.

Dr. Smith waited for Sally to catch up and ran side by side with her.

SAR carried Will onto the Jupiter 2, down to the sick bay where Maureen was standing beside Judy in the other bed.

“Will!” Maureen said, rushing over to him. As SAR laid him in the open bed, she saw her son was unresponsive. “Is he…”

“He’s alive,” John said. “He’s just lost so much blood.”

“Penny, help me get him undressed,” Maureen said.

As they pulled his clothes off, Penny cried, “My God, what did they do to him? He’s bleeding everywhere.” She wiped her eyes and tried not to break down completely.

“Let me look at the arm, John,” Don said. “You’re hurt too.”

“It’ll wait,” he said. They were all trained in first aid, but John was the only one who had experience in field dressing wounds this bad and was gently trying to pull the bindings off Will to tend to the most serious ones.

Don said, “Just stay there, then,” And ripped the tape off that he had wrapped around the wound. John grimaced in pain.

“It went all the way through, but it burned all the way. Can someone get bandages and tape?”

“I’ve got it,” Dr. Smith said, as she hurried to the cabinet in the back. “And disinfectant. It needs to be clean.”

Maureen and Penny were beside Will. Penny brushed the hair out of his eyes. She was shaking. She couldn’t believe how much blood there was. Maureen was wiping the blood away from the bandages but there was so much, she was afraid none of them had the first aid experience that this would require, not even John.

“So much blood,” she said. “I just don’t know…”

“Help me…help me up.” They looked at Judy. Maureen had given her pain medication and she had fallen asleep, but now she was trying to get out of bed.

“Stay there, Judy,” John said. “I can do this.”

Judy turned and started to slide her feet out from the blanket.

“Judy!” Don said.

“Just…help me…help me stand.”

Don and Maureen rushed to her side, helped her to her feet, and to move over to Will’s bed. John stepped out of her way, and Penny could tell by his expression he was relieved to let Judy take over, despite his protests.

Don kept his hand on Judy’s arm, steadying her as she looked down at Will’s pale face through the one eye she could see with. She leaned down and whispered in her brother’s ear. “You’re a mess, baby brother. But you came for me like you promised me you would when you were just a little boy. And I’m not going to let you die today.”

Chapter Text

When he was eight years old, Will Robinson had a dream that something bad had taken his sister, Judy. When he told her of the dream, he made a promise that if anything ever happened to her, he would come and find her. He had kept his promise. And Judy kept hers as well. She didn’t let her brother die.

But it was close.

The wounds on his leg and stomach could have both been fatal. At one point she was afraid she was going to have to perform emergency surgery on the stomach wound, because she was afraid there was internal damage. It was the last thing she wanted to do, as she didn’t think she could even stand if Don wasn’t beside her, steadying her.

She finally managed to stop the bleeding but had to give her brother transfusions from the synthetic blood supply. All Jupiters had an emergency supply of synthetic blood that matched the blood type of each passenger assigned to the ship. Judy knew that had been the difference in saving Will’s life, though she would never tell the others how close it had been.

Penny, Don, and Maureen had remained in the infirmary. Don was standing next to Judy with his hand on her arm, and Maureen and Penny were standing next to Will’s head and getting Judy anything she needed. John and Dr. Smith were outside with Sally, watching the village to make sure no one approached the Jupiter 2.

Judy began to unwrap the makeshift bandages, one at a time, trying to figure out where the most serious wounds would be. She first uncovered the stomach wound. Will was cut almost completely across his abdomen, and they could see the flap of skin folded back.

“Fucking God, what did they do to him!” Penny said.

Judy’s voice remained calm as she began to treat the wound. “They cut him. With some kind of long blade. Like…a sword.”

“Jesus,” Penny said. She started crying. Maureen stepped over to her and hugged her as Penny buried her face in her mother’s neck and sobbed.

Judy waited for a couple of minutes before saying, “Penny. I need you here. Most importantly, your brother needs you here. But you have to decide right now if you can do this. If not, you need to leave.” Her voice was still calm.

“Judy…” Maureen said, knowing how the words had to have hurt Penny.

But Penny said, “You’re right. Yeah. You’re right. I’m here.” She stepped back and looked down at Will’s face and caressed it, then turned and stared directly at the wound as Judy treated it. They could hear her sniffle, but she didn’t break down again.

Soon after Judy had begun working on Will, they heard the robot ship lift off. “How did SAR come back?” Judy asked.

“Will,” Penny said. “He asked Robot to let him come back. He thought he might be able to find you.”

Judy was quiet, and Maureen said, “You okay, honey?”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Just thinking of how much…courage that took. Remember him when we first came to space? He was just this scared little…” she couldn’t finish her sentence. After a minute she stopped working and turned to Don. Her hands were covered in bloody gloves. “Eyes, please.”

Don immediately reached behind him and grabbed a tissue and wiped the tears from them, and she turned back to Will and kept working.

Penny watched her sister and thought how tough she was. Seeing Will like this hurt her every bit as much as it hurt Penny. Worse, because Will was lying here bleeding and barely alive because he went to find Judy. But she refused to let her feelings stop her from what she was determined to do. Save her brother’s life.

“And he sacrificed the best friend he ever had for me,” Judy continued, almost whispering. “The only friend he ever had…really.”

“Yeah…that’s our brother,” Penny said.

“And Robot sacrificed...everything.”

“And you know what?” Penny said. “They would both do it all over again. I know Will never expected to come back when they left me at the ship. I think he made some kind of deal with SAR. Mutually assured destruction or something.” She looked down at her brother’s face and ran her fingers through his hair.

Judy continued to work in silence.

It took her almost two hours to clean and dress Will’s many wounds. She stitched up the ones that needed it, but she patched the stomach wound and leg wound, knowing they both would probably require surgery. She was also concerned about the wound to his arm. Several tendons had been damaged, and she was afraid he might lose the use of it all together.

Once she was satisfied he was stabilized, she looked at her mom and said, “Okay, you can tell Dad he’s ready to travel.”

“Okay, Sweetie.” She stepped over and hugged her. “You’re amazing, Judy. Just amazing. Now get back to bed.”

“I need to watch him…”

“You heard your mother,” Don said, nudging her back to her bed.

“I’ll watch him and wake you if anything happens,” Penny said.

“We’ll watch you both,” Don said.

“Thanks,” Judy sighed, finally slipping back under the blanket in the bed beside Will. “Penny, watch his blood pressure and heart rate, okay? If anything…”

“Judy, we’ve got this,” Penny said. “You did your part. You saved your brother’s life. Now lay down.”

Sally brought them through the rift close enough to Alpha Centauri that they only traveled two days to get home.

Maureen, Judy, and Penny were in the infirmary. Will was still unconscious, but his vital signs were stable. Judy was sitting on her bed, looking at her brother.

“Are you going to call this in to Alpha Medical so they’ll be prepared at the hospital?” Maureen asked her.

“I was thinking about that. We can’t take him to the hospital,” Judy answered.

“What do you mean?”

“If he wakes up in the hospital, the first thing he’s going to do when no one is watching is pull everything loose and leave. He still has that thing in his heart, and he isn’t going to put the whole colony in danger.”

“She’s right,” Penny said. “After everything he did to keep us all safe, that would be the worst thing we could do to him.”

“And you’re certain there really is something in his heart?” Maureen asked. “They never detected anything.”

Judy kept looking at her brother. “Yes.”

Penny glanced up at her sister. When Grant was telling them about the aliens, she refused to believe any of this was really about Will. Whatever happened to them in that place had changed her.

“Then what do we do?” Maureen asked.

“What if we landed somewhere outside the colony, far enough away that there’s no danger to anyone but us?” Judy said. “Do you think we could convince them to set up a triage unit? It would need to have an OR and recovery. And we would need to find volunteers from Medical. We would have to tell them the potential dangers in operating on him.”

Maureen looked at Judy for a minute, then back to Will. He seemed just like any normal teenage boy, asleep in his room. Except for the tubes and monitors and bandages all over him. “It’s time to see how well connected Grant really is.” She left the room.

Grant came through.

Maureen had calculated the fallout if the device in Will’s chest exploded, and they had landed two hundred miles from the colony. It was much further than they needed to be, according to Maureen’s best calculations, but the winds could be unpredictable on Alpha Centauri, and Maureen knew they needed to err on the side of caution in case of any fallout.

It wasn’t difficult to find a team of doctors and nurses to volunteer. The Robinsons were well known, and Judy was respected by everyone for what she did when the children were separated from the adults. But Will had saved the colony and almost died in the process.

Within an hour after the Jupiter 2 set down in a wide field at the edge of a forest, helicopters began landing. Grant was in the first one and rushed to the Jupiter to see the family. The medical unit and their team began setting up an inflatable OR and recovery room and making sure everything was sterilized.

Judy had slept sporadically as they travelled, spending most of her time watching Will and checking his vital signs, even though someone was always in the room with them both. So as soon as they wheeled Will away and a doctor treated her injuries, she went to her cabin and fell asleep for twelve hours.

They operated on Will’s stomach to repair the damage. The wound would heal, and he would have scars for the rest of his life over much of his body, but it was the arm that was injured the most. Every tendon had been sliced through, and there was severe tissue damage. The doctors told the family they would need to get him to the hospital to perform more surgeries, and that they could probably repair most of the damage with artificial tendons, to give him eighty to ninety percent of use back in the limb.

When Judy woke, she immediately got dressed and started toward the hatch to go check on Will, but Maureen and John were in the kitchen getting coffee and saw her walk by. “Judy!” John called.

She turned around and walked in the kitchen, where her mom and dad both met her with hugs. They had had no chance to talk to her on the trip back, other than to talk about Will.

“You were amazing, Judy,” John said. “But Will’s stable, and you still need to rest.”

“I know, but I want to go see him. What did they say?”

“They said you saved his life,” Maureen answered. “And the work you did looked like the work of a doctor who had practiced medicine for twenty years. They were all impressed.”

“I never would have had the chance to save him if someone hadn’t taken care of those wounds before SAR brought him back. He would have bled to death for sure. What about his arm?”

When they told her the prognosis, Judy said, “My brother will just leave it like it is before going back to the colony and risk having something happen.”

“Do you think we can convince him?” John asked.

“No. And I’m not going to try. Will knows what he’s doing, and I won’t second guess him again. I have a feeling he was never supposed to come back from that city. We’re just lucky we have him.”

John handed her his coffee. “Just made it, I had a cup. Let’s go see your brother.”

There was a nurse checking Will’s vitals when they walked into the inflatable recovery room. Penny and Dr. Smith were sitting next to his bed. They both stood and hugged her. “You’re a superhero,” Penny said.

When they released the hug, Judy looked down at Will. He was still unconscious, but his vital signs were good, and the doctors expected him to wake in several hours. Judy sat down on the bed beside him and took his hand. “This guy’s the superhero,” she said.

Penny smiled down at Will. “Yeah, you both are.”

Dr. Smith said, “I’ll leave you all alone with him.” She started to walk out but turned back. “You were pretty heroic yourself, Penny.”

The other’s glanced at Smith then looked at Penny. “Yeah, we never would have found him if it hadn’t been for you, Penny,” John said.

“It was more than that,” Smith said. “She talked SAR into going back and saving him. He put one of his sharp claws to her throat. That’s why she has the scar. I thought he was going to kill her. But in the end, he went back because she talked him into it.” She walked out.

They all looked at Penny, who was looking down at Will, trying not to meet their eyes. She was embarrassed.

“Penny’s the glue,” Judy said quietly. “She’s always been the glue.”

Penny smiled slightly, and did her best not to cry again.

The next day, Judy and Penny were sitting beside Will’s bed when he opened his eyes. At first he just kept lying on his side, and they didn’t notice he was awake. But then Penny looked down at him and saw his eyes were open.

“Will!” She stood and stepped over to his bed. Judy jumped up and followed her.

“Will?” Judy said. “Will?” She wasn’t sure if he actually knew what was happening.

“Judy. You’re…”

“I’m alive. Because of you. And we’re both alive because of Penny.” Penny leaned over and hugged him, while Judy took his hand.

“I love you, Penny,” Will said, smiling at her. “You’re so…I love you.” Penny brushed his hair back. 

He looked at Judy. “Are you…how are you?”

“I’ll be okay, Will.”

Will kept looking at her, but he didn’t say anything. Judy could tell he wasn’t completely coherent. She sat next to him. “You came for me, Will. Just like you promised.”

“We…were…” It seemed like he was having a hard time formulating his thoughts. He looked up at Penny, who put her hand on his shoulder, then back to Judy. “It’s us…us three…always. Us.” He drifted back to sleep.

Penny and Judy stayed where they were, Penny touching Will’s shoulder, Judy clutching his hand in hers. Their brother had somehow survived once again. Penny looked down at him as he slept. “Judy, let’s make a pact.”

Three weeks later John was standing in the cockpit, looking out the window at his three children, who were sitting in chairs at the edge of the forest. It was late morning and had started out as a beautiful day, but rain clouds were settling in back toward the mountains.

Maureen walked up and stood by him. “The three of them haven’t been away from each for ten minutes since we got back,” she said. “Except when they go to bed.”

“Well, considering the girls take turns checking on him all night long, I’m not sure you could even say except when they go to bed.”

“Yeah,” Maureen agreed. “I think things changed on that planet. It was always Judy taking care of Penny and Will, but I think the girls see Will a lot differently now. I wouldn’t be surprised if they aren’t counting on him more than the other way around in the future.”

“Maybe. But they make a damn good team, don’t they Maureen?”

“Yeah, they make a damn good team. I’ll always worry about them, but I worry a lot less now. I realized when they were stranded together and really had to grow up fast, they would be able to take care of each other. But after the last few months…well, the girls wouldn’t rest until they found their brother. And Will…he wasn’t going to let Judy die. And look how much he suffered for it. Do you ever think he’ll tell us what happened?”

“Yeah. He will. He just needs to work through it for himself now. Then he’ll be ready to talk.”

They watched the kids for a few more minutes, then Maureen said, “Don’s coming out. But he’s going to surprise Judy, so don’t tell her.” Don had spent the last two weeks in the colony at Alpha filling in for Maureen while she stayed with the family.

“He’s going to spend the night and I’m going to fly back tomorrow for a couple days. I have some meetings at Alpha I have to go to since I’ve been away so much lately, and I want to get with Grant and see if we can figure out the next steps in helping Will get that thing out of his chest. Wondering if you want to tag along? I think the kids will be safe with Sally and Don here.” She put her arm around him.

“Yeah, if it’s only a couple days. I don’t want to leave them long.”

They stood in silence for a few minutes, then Maureen said, “you never said anything about Don and Judy.”

“I know.”

“The two of them started seeing each other after we made it to Alpha Centauri. They met at a club one night and it happened then. In case you were wondering if anything happened…sooner than that.”

When John didn’t answer for a minute, Maureen said, “are you okay with it?”

“You know, I served with a lot of good men over the years. Men I would trust with my life. But there wasn’t one of them I would trust with Judy’s life more than Don West. He’s resourceful for one thing, but when you get past that bravado, he’s probably one of the finest men I’ve ever known. And he loves her.”

“How long have you known that?” Maureen asked.

“Since Judy talked him into trying to get out of the atmosphere of the Goldilocks planet with me. That’s the last thing he wanted to do. But he did it for her. If that isn’t love I’ve never seen it before.”

“Seriously, you knew about it that long ago? And it didn’t bother you that the two of them were living in such close proximity? With the age difference and all?”

“Bother me? No. As far as the age difference, Judy grew up older than any girl her age. And most of that was my fault, being gone so much. So, I never worried about her making those kinds of decisions. She had a good head on her shoulders. If anything, I worried more about her missing out on that part of life. So the only thing I feel for her is happiness.”

They watched the kids as they sat together, their chairs so close they could touch.

“And Don loves Penny and Will like they’re his brother and sister. What more can a father ask for?”

Maureen pulled him around and kissed him. “You’re a good man, John Robinson.”

Will sat between his sisters, watching the clouds roll in. He was lost in his own thoughts, and Judy and Penny knew when to let him be inside his own head for a while, so the three of them sat in silence.

Will had tried not to think about the city and what it all meant. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the boy. The boy who had saved his life. The boy who knew him. The boy who maybe was him…somehow.

As much as Will loved his family, and had such a close bond with his sisters, there was a part of him that would always feel alone.

But that boy would understand. Maybe he was right, and someday they could exchange stories. In this world or the next.

But Will didn’t want to think about worlds within worlds and grand conspiracies. It was almost too much to comprehend. And there was nothing he could do about it anyway. But he had to find a way to separate himself once again. He still put his family in danger, just by being close to them.

He glanced at Judy. Her bruises were healing, but she had a long scar under her hairline that might never completely disappear, though she could cover it mostly with her hair. But she had a limp that was prominent when she walked. Though she did therapy on her own every day and Will knew his sister well enough to know she would be back to a hundred percent quicker than anyone he had ever met.

“It’s going to rain,” Penny said.

“I know it’s going to rain, that’s why I’m still out here,” he smiled.

“At least that’s one thing that hasn’t changed about you,” Penny said. When Judy gave her a disapproving look, Penny quickly added, “Shit. I’m sorry, Will.”

“It’s okay.” He took her by the hand. “I have changed.”

“We’ve all changed, Will,” Judy said. Then, “Hey, someone’s coming. Who would it be?”

There was a sleek, black helicopter on its way toward them.

“I don’t know,” Will answered.

“I bet I know,” Penny said.

It hovered over the Jupiter 2 for a few seconds, then rotated and headed in their direction. When it was above them, Penny said, “Yep.”

Don was looking out the open door and smiling. He landed and the siblings stood up and walked out to meet him. He hugged Penny first, then Will and said, “How’s the leg?” He didn’t ask about the arm. Will had only hugged him with one.

“Better,” he said. “I had a good doctor.”

“You sure did.” He turned to Judy who walked up and put her arms around him and kissed him. It was the first time they had kissed in front of anyone in the family.

“So you didn’t forget me, Admiral West.”

“How could I? I talk to you every night. I thought you might want to go on a picnic. I packed some food and drink.”

Judy turned to her brother and sister. She hadn’t been away from them since they returned. “I don’t know,” she said. “Besides, it’s gonna rain.”

“Go,” Will said.

“Get the hell out of here,” Penny said. “I’ll babysit the little brother.” She punched Will gently on the shoulder. He smiled at her.

“Well.” She turned to Don. “Maybe for a little…”

“Go!” Penny said.

Judy laughed. She turned and hugged Penny, then Will and said, “remember, you’re still resting.”

“Remember, you are too,” he said with a mischievous grin.

“You heard him, Don,” Penny said as she hugged him. “Be gentle or baby brother and I will kick your ass.”

“I’ll be the perfect gentleman,” he said.

“You are and I’ll kick your ass,” Judy said, laughing and pulling him toward the helicopter.

Penny stepped next to Will and put her arm around him, and the two of them watched the helicopter rise over the field, then fly toward the forest beyond.

“You know, it’s going to just be the two of us pretty soon,” she said.

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”

She looked at him because his voice seemed strange.

“Don’t worry little brother, she’ll never be too far away.”

“I know.” But it wasn’t what Penny said that bothered him. He hummed the words to the song once again. He still couldn’t remember where it was from. Here I go again on my own. Going down the only road I’ve ever known. Like a drifter you were born to walk alone.

“It’s a lake,” Judy said. “Did you know this was out here?”

“I saw it on the charts on the other side of the woods. You didn’t bring your swimsuit did you?”

“Well, no. I was just hanging out there with Will and Penny. It’s not like you gave me any warning.”

“Good,” he smiled, looking ahead as he began a descent several meters from the lake in a field of yellow grass.

She smiled back at him. “Ulterior motives, Admiral West?”

“Ulteriorist,” he answered.

Once on the ground he took a basket and a rolled-up blanket from behind the seat and they walked over to the edge of the lake, he sat the basket and blanket down, and turned to her and put his arms around her and they hugged. He kissed her, and she pulled him close and kissed him back. They kissed passionately for several minutes as their hands explored each other over their clothes. It had been awhile.

They began undressing each other.

They were lying on the blanket, Don’s arm under her neck, her head against his, enjoying the sun on their bodies, though clouds were beginning to cover it, and thunder was getting closer.

“Hmmm…can we just stay here like this?” She whispered.

“How long?”

“Forever,” she said.

“Okay. Or at least until it rains. Besides, I think some people might miss you.”

“You too, Don. You have a family now, too.”

“Yeah. You know, I guess I’ve sort of just slipped into that without thinking a lot about it, but it’s nice. Speaking of family, have your parents brought us up?”

“Not once. I think Mom wanted to. She was talking to me a few days ago, and I saw her hesitate, and I was pretty sure she was going to say something, so I brought us up.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, I said, ‘Mom, you’re probably wondering, but nothing happened at all between Don and I until a few weeks before Will left with the Robot. The second time.’ I told her we saw each other at a club and the chemistry sort of started then. And that it was me who asked you to go to lunch. Then dinner. And so on.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing at all. She just hugged me. I think she was really relieved, though.”

“Yeah, she probably was,” he said. “Is that true? The chemistry started then?”

“Nope,” she said. They were both looking up at the sky, but with her head pressed next to his he could feel her smile.

“So…when?” He asked.

“I think it was when I broke your nose.”

“That’s when you started liking me? When you broke my nose? What a typical Judy reaction.”

“I think maybe it’s a Robinson reaction.”

“Point taken.”

“And you?” She asked.

“Well, from my part, I thought you were beautiful from the moment I saw you walking out of the Wanatabe’s Jupiter. And who wouldn’t have thought that? But I guess it was when we were were stranded on the water planet and found ourselves alone a lot after everyone else had gone to bed. We had some long conversations then.”

“You don’t think that was all accidental, do you?” She turned to him, pushing her nose into his neck, and throwing her leg over his thighs and her arm over his chest. “That I just happened to be awake when everyone else had gone to sleep?”

“Well, I did,” he answered, as he played with her hair.

“What a typical guy,” she whispered. “So oblivious. But I have to say, you were a perfect gentleman. Back then.” She kissed his neck.

“Well, it was a struggle at times,” he said, moving his head so he could kiss her.

They felt the first drops of rain.

“Shit,” he said. “I guess it’s over.”

She sat up and looked at the sky. The drops were big. It was going to be a downpour. “I guess it is,” she said as she stood.

He looked up at her, thinking how beautiful she was, standing above him naked, as the wind began to whip her hair. She reached down and took his hand and pulled him to his feet just as the clouds broke and the rain came down in torrents.

“Time to go,” he said, reaching down for the basket. They hadn’t touched the food.

“It is,” she said, and turned and ran toward the water.

“What the hell?” He watched her run into the lake until the water was up to her thighs, then dive out and swim until it was mid way up her chest, then turn and smile at him. “Don’t be a pussy,” she yelled.

It was raining so hard now, he almost couldn’t hear her. “She’s going to keep me young or kill me,” he mumbled to himself as he walked toward the water.

When he reached her, she put her arms around his shoulders and her forehead against his. “A do over, do over?” She asked.

“You’re crazy, Captain Doctor Robinson.”

She wrapped her legs around him and he put his hands under her butt and held her up. “How crazy?” She whispered, as she kissed him and they began to move against each other.

Two days later, Will and Judy sat out by the trees. Sally was standing near the Jupiter 2, watching them. Penny had decided to go back to the colony with her parents and Don. She felt she had some things she had to talk over with Vijay and Liam, and Judy promised she wouldn’t let Will out of her sight.

The two kids sat in silence for a long time. It was a crisp morning, and they knew it wouldn’t be long before the temperature changed and the storms came more frequently. But the sun was bright and warmed them enough to stay outside.

“It was the gray eyed boy, wasn’t it?” Will said.

Judy looked at him.

“He’s the one who beat you.”

“Yes,” she replied. “Is he the one who…hurt you too?”

“Yeah. He was…he wanted me to suffer before he killed me.”

She put her hand on his arm. “Will, I’m so sorry. I wish I could have protected you. If I could have only…”

“Hey,” he said, putting his hand on her neck and looking into her eyes. “It was worth it. You’re here with me. It was so worth it, Judy.”

“Will I…” but she stopped and looked up at the sky. Will followed her gaze.

“A robot ship,” she said.

“What’s it doing here?” Will said. “Who do you think it is?” It wasn’t Robot. Robot was gone forever. Sacrificing himself one final time for him. Will pushed the thought from his mind. It was the one thing he had not allow himself to think about at all. Not yet anyway.

“Will, let’s get back in the trees and watch. In case its…him.”

“I can’t keep hiding, Judy.” He stood and began walking toward the field where the ship was landing.

Judy sighed and stood and rushed to catch up to him. She took his hand and the siblings walked side by side toward the spaceship. Sally began walking out to meet them.

They were thirty meters away when the hatch opened and SAR walked down the ramp. He stopped and waited for them.

They stopped a few feet from the robot, who was standing silently.

“Hi SAR,” Will said.

The robot just looked at him.

“Will,” Judy whispered, “I don’t like this.” She looked at Sally, who was still in humanoid form. For some reason, Sally didn’t seem concerned about SAR being there.

“You came here for a reason, SAR,” Will said. “Tell me why…sorry…would you tell me why you came here?”

The robot began walking toward them. As he got closer, Will realized how much larger and more menacing he was than any of the other robots.

“Will! Will!” Judy said quietly but urgently, as she began to step back, pulling Will’s hand to get him to go with her.

But Will stood in his place. “He could kill us easily, Judy. We can’t outrun him.”

She stopped and stepped up beside her brother again.

SAR stood in front of Will, looking down at him.

“Will you tell my why you are here?” Will asked again.

The robot stood for a few seconds, then stretched out one hand, the three fingers spread wide. Will stood in place.

“Will!” Judy said, gripping his hand tighter.

Will stayed where he was. SAR placed his hand over Will’s heart, and pressed against it. He left it there for a few seconds, then pulled it back and said, “Come.” Without another word, the robot turned and walked toward the Jupiter 2.

Will and Judy stood where they were, then Will released her hand and began to follow SAR.

“Will, what are you doing?” She demanded.

“I don’t know, but he could have killed us.”

Judy looked at Sally. “No trouble, Judy Robinson,” the robot said.

“Always trouble,” Judy replied, but ran and caught up with her brother.

“Judy, you need to stay here,” he said.

“Not a fucking chance! Where you go I go.”

Will stopped at the foot of the ramp and turned to her. “But we don’t know what this means.”

“Exactly,” she said, and walked past him and up the ramp. Will sighed then followed her.

They found SAR in the cockpit, scanning the console.

Will knew what he was doing. “Where are we going?” He asked. The Robot didn’t answer, but he pointed to the Pilot’s chair.

“Judy…”

“I’ll pilot,” she said. “Jesus, this is stupid.”

Will sat in the co-pilot’s seat and Judy started launch protocol. “This is crazy, Will.”

“We’ve both done crazier things,” he said. “But I don’t know why we’re taking the Jupiter instead of his ship.”

“I better let everyone know,” Judy said. “In case he doesn’t bring us back.”

She called Penny, but when she didn’t answer she called her parents. “Mom and Dad, is Penny with you? I tried to call her but it went to her voice mail.”

“Penny is with Liam,” John said. “Or Vijay. Hell maybe both of them. I can’t keep up. Everything okay?”

“Well, I don’t know how to say this, but Will and I are leaving the planet.”

“You’re doing what?” Maureen said.

“SAR came back and wanted Will to go with him. I wasn’t going to let him go by himself.”

“Will!” John called. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know, Dad. But he wants something. He could have killed us, but didn’t.”

“So instead he kidnapped you?” John said.

“No. He didn’t kidnap us. He didn’t use any force. He just showed up and when I asked what he wanted, he said, ‘come.” Then went back to the Jupiter.”

“Why would you trust him?” John said.

“I guess, after what happened in that city, I have to.”

Will!” Maureen said.

“Penny is calling,” Judy said. “I‘ll add her.”

Penny and Liam were sitting in his Chariot when she saw she had missed the call from Judy.

“Penny,” Judy said. “Will and I are leaving the planet. SAR want’s Will to go with him.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Take me with you!” She called.

“No,” Will said. “I didn’t want Judy to go either. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Not again!” Penny cried.

“I’m sorry, Penny,” Will said. “I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I think it’s about my heart.”

“Your heart? Why?”

“He put his hand over my heart, then said, ‘come.”

“We’re lifting off,” Judy said. “We love you.”

“I love you guys,” Will said.

“Will, Judy!” They were all shouting.

Judy looked at Will as their family kept crying out to them.

“Let’s shut down the comm,” she said. “This isn’t helping.”

“What about Don?” Will asked.

“I’ve been trying to call him but he’s at the space station. He might be tied up.”

“I’m sorry, Judy.”

“It’ll be okay,” she said. But she wondered how many times she was going to have to apologize to the man she loved.

Judy silenced her radio and Will did the same.

SAR stayed in the cockpit behind the kids. When they were out of the planet’s atmosphere, he turned to Sally who was behind them watching. The robots exchanged glances and Sally walked out of the room. An hour later she took them through the rift.

“Hey, Will,” Judy said, as she looked at the star map on the navigation console. “Does this look familiar?”

Will was watching the image as well. “The Sirius system,” he said quietly. “We’re going back where the aliens are.”

Judy turned to him, “What should we do?” As she asked the question, it dawned on her that their roles were reversing. Their entire lives, Will looked to Judy for everything. But things were different, and Will was no longer the little boy he had been. Even though he was still only fourteen, this somehow was his journey, and she was along for the ride.

“Set a course for the planet,” he said and shrugged. “See what happens.”

They didn’t set the ship down on the high ground where Will and Robot had first landed. SAR pointed toward the canyon in the distance. On the other side he looked at Judy, then pointed to the surface.

“Guess he wants us to land here,” she said. “Hold on.”

Once on the ground, SAR walked from the cockpit. The kids unbuckled and followed him down the hall and out the hatch.

They met SAR at the end of the ramp where he was looking out into the swamp. Once the kids joined him he began walking across it, Judy and Will followed. 

It took them a couple hours to make it to the edge of the swamp, where SAR stopped and looked out across the grassy field.

Will hadn’t said anything once they entered the swamp, and now was just standing silently, a couple feet behind SAR.

“You okay, Will?” Judy asked.

“Yeah, I was remembering the last time I was here.”

“Yeah.” She took his hand.

SAR stood for a minute or so doing nothing, then he raised his head, and made a noise that sounded familiar. It was like the signals Will had discovered in the alien city beneath the planet where they had been stranded. It seemed to start somewhere deep in his chest, then emanate from his mouth, carrying over the field to the hills beyond.

He made several sounds like this, of different pitches, stopped, then did it again.

Judy and Will just watched.

SAR did this over and over again, several times, before Judy finally said, “Look, at the top of the tallest hill.”

“I see,” Will said.

The aliens were beginning to emerge from behind the hill, and lining the top. At first just a few, but then more and more of them until hundreds stood atop the hills, looking across the field in their direction.

“He called them,” Judy said.