FOREVER ALPHA



					 CHAPTER ONE





     "Damn you, Nicholas!"
     He heard the voice, as he had, over and over again, day after
day, dream after dream, for the last few years, since it had
happened. Each time, it was the same. His Master, standing over him,
spike raised, pointing directly down at his heart. He, prone over the
dying body of his beloved, mind and soul resigned to the inevitable.
Body tensed, he waited, ready. Ready for the killing blow, the blow
that...
     That never came. As in each and every dream, identical to all
the others, he heard only the clatter of the twisted wooden stake,
and the whoosh of his Master's departure. And, always, echoing in his
mind, that voice...
     "Damn you, Nicholas!"
     He snapped awake, as always momentarily disoriented, at a
noise. As his mind cleared, he heard it again, and sat up. The bloody
sweat on his forehead dripped off, some of it dripping onto the phone
as he leaned over it .
     "Kni...Barber, here."
     "Hey, Nick," said the voice on the other end, crackly with
distance and shifts of media. "Vincent here."
     "Ben, What's up?"
     "Hey, are you awake at all?"
     "Yeah. What is it?"
     "You've been accepted, Nick. Simmonds passed on your
application. Signed, sealed, and approved." 
     "That's great," said Nick, fully awake, now. "When?"
     "You leave for Alpha in three days, Nick."
     "Great," said Nick, putting his feet over the edge of the bed.
He felt better now, that his dream was fading. "I...well, I just
can't believe it."
     "Well, believe it. You must have some resume', guy. It takes an
awful lot to impress Simmonds, you know. Not to mention Doctor
Russell."
     "I do my best," said Nick. "See you in three days."
     Nick hung up, and went for the shower, cleansing away the last
vestiges of his nightmare. Done, dried, and dressed, he headed for
the kitchen. Opening the fridge, he reached for a bottle, and pulled
the cork with his teeth. Slowly, he downed the red fluid, letting it
course over his tongue, and down his throat. Within moments, he could
feel the energy begin to move through him, suffusing his limbs. He
leaned his head back, wiped the small traces of blood from his mouth,
and sighed, closing his eyes. 
     Nicholas Barber, aka Nicholas de Brabant, dumped the empty in
the trash, and closed the refrigerator door. Feeling better, he
opened the blinds of his apartment, and looked out over New York
City, then up at the Moon, approaching full. Soon, he'd be up there,
on Moonbase Alpha. Away from all the bitter memories, away from
others of his kind, away from the Enforcers
     And, he smiled, away from his Master, and endless tormentor,
Lucien LaCroix.

     Nick thought that the Eagle Shuttle was the most beautiful
flying machine he'd ever seen. Its lines somehow brought to mind a
fine, well-bred warhorse, such as he had once ridden into battle, as
a mortal man. He smiled, at the memory, and stood on the pad,
watching the techs finish their checkouts, and listened to the sounds
of the night. Here, near London, one could still hear the crickets,
and other sounds of the nocturnal world. For a moment, he felt the
urge to leap out into the darkness, seeking prey, to revel once more
in being a vampire.
     But no. He fought down the impulse, and with a deep breath
turned back to the Eagle. He hefted his bag, and headed for the ship,
with a spring in his step, but anticipation, too. Once up on Alpha,
he'd see her again. They would be reunited. He, and his...
     "Excuse me, sir," said a security man at the hatch, motioning
for him to stop. "I have to check your bag, Dr. Barber." He reached
for Nick's satchel. "Security regulations, you understand."
     "You already have," said Nick, looking into the guard's eyes,
and pushing a thought. "Remember? You looked."
     "Yes. Yes, of course I looked," replied the guard. "Of course.
I knew that, sir."
     "And you've signed off on it," added the handsome vampire.
     "Yeah. That's right. Signed off," said the slack-faced guard.
     "Good," said Nick, and passed on in.
     The interior of the Eagle's passenger compartment was
surprisingly spacious, and Nick took his seat. Once comfy, he dared a
quick dive into his bag, and pulled out a bottle. He downed a long
gulp, and thrust it back in, as the stewardess came out.
     "All settled in, Doctor?
     "Yes, thank you," replied Nick.
     "Would you care for something to eat?"
     "No, thanks. I've already had something this evening."
     "Very well. We'll be lifting off in fifteen minutes, Dr. Barber."
     "Is there a delay?" Nick looked at his watch.
     "We'll be transporting several students up to Alpha as well,
Doctor. A summer study program."
     Ah, I see. When can I communicate with Alpha?"
     "Once we're up beyond the atmosphere, sir. Right now, a relay
satellite is off-line. It won't be... ah, here they are."
     The stewardess left him, to greet the new arrivals, and Nick
settled back into the comfy seat. He'd rarely flown before, at least
not this way, and never beyond the atmosphere. Now, he was going to
be the first vampire in space.
     Well, he smiled, not the first.
     All in, he heard the launch call, and listened to the Eagle's
engines begin to whine. Then, there was a sharp thump as the
thrusters fired, and the VTOL craft lifted off its pad, and began to
climb. After a few minutes, he felt the ship's artificial gravity
take over, and then drifted off to sleep.

     "Life is a gift," he heard his Master say, once more. As
always, he was in his old loft, in Toronto, Natalie on the floor,
LaCroix over him, wavering and insubstantial.
     "I've taken too much," he said, hearing the words come from his
other self, as he watched this dream yet again. In third person, yet
also very much part of it.
     "You must either bring her across," said LaCroix, "or let her
die."
     "No."
     "You must."
     "Nat..."
     "I'm not afraid..."
     "Nick..."
     "I have faith..."
     "Damn you, Nicholas!"
     "Nicholas, you must not go."
     "I..."
     "Nicholas," said a voice, and he awoke. Across the cabin from
him, standing in the hatchway to the flight deck, was a woman. In a
flowing white dress and long brunette hair, she was entirely out of
place, here. 
     "Erica!" said Nick, as he recognized her. A friend. An old
friend. Erica, a fellow traveler in the darkness. Once his lover and
fellow thespian, she had at last grown weary of the world, and put an
end to herself. Sitting on a park bench, she'd waited for sunrise,
staring unafraid into the fire. She'd burned up, leaving only her
clothes, dust, and a mystery behind. Since then, her ghost had
visited Nick a few times, always with the same plea.
     To join her.
     "Nicholas, you must not go," said the apparition.
     "Erica? What the...what are you talking about?"
     "Alpha, Nicholas. You must not go there, Nicholas. There is
danger there, for you."
     "Erica, what do you mean? It's perfectly..."
     "Come," she said, opening her arms to him, "join me, Nicholas."
She drew closer. "Is it not time, My Love? I..."
     "Doctor Barber? Doctor Barber?" said another voice. At once,
Erica vanished, replaced by the stewardess, looking down at him.
     "Hhmm? Oh, yes. What is it?" He briefly glanced at the hatch.
No one. Had he...?
     "There is a message for you, Doctor. From Alpha, on Channel One."
     "Uh, yes," said Nick, at last coming fully awake, and shaking
off his dream. "Uh..." he began, but the stewardess anticipated him.
     "Phones, sir," she said, handing him some. Nick plugged them
in, and activated the screen.
     "Nick," said the voice in his ears. Nick smiled, as only
Natalie's voice could make him smile.
     "Nat, you have no idea how good it is to hear your voice."
     "Same here, but it's only been a week, Nick." She got that
minxish smile of hers. "Miss me already?"
     "I miss you after seven minutes, Nat. How are you settling in?" 
     "Well, the decor up here is egregious. Whoever designed the
place must have had a major plastic fetish. No, more like a plastic
psychosis. And the uniforms." She rolled her eyes.
     "I know," he replied, rolling his, too. "Maybe I should have
worn my old Coat of Arms, and chain mail."
     "Well, that and your sword sure would beat this 70's Mod
revival up here, Nick. These duds look like something Rudi Gernreich
would have come up with." Natalie shuddered in mock horror. "How
long?"
     "Uh..." He consulted his watch. "Another two hours, Nat."
     "Wish that flying crayon was faster. Doctor Russell is anxious
to meet you. So is Doctor Vincent, again."
     "Those the only reasons?" he grinned, the boyish grin he always
used on her. It worked. She blushed.
     "Hell no. I'm also horny," she replied, trying not to giggle.
She lost the fight.
     "Well, I'll just have to see what I can do about that," he
smiled back at her. "How goes the project?"
     "Shaping up just great. It won't be much longer." He waited a
beat, listening to the hiss of the phones. "Nat, is everything okay
up there?"
     "Sure. What makes you ask?" Silence. "Nick?"
     "Oh..." He turned, and saw the students nattering amongst
themselves. "I'll talk to you when I get there, Nat."
     "Okay," she said, face a little puzzled. He terminated the
connection, and the screen went back to its annoying test pattern. He
hit another control, and got an image of his destination directly
ahead. The Moon. Almost as soon as he had done so, there was another
message for him.
     From Earth.
     He switched over, and was greeted by the calm, yet angrily
glaring face of the one person he really did not want to see, just
now. Or ever, for that matter. Someone he had known for a long, long
time. A man he, illogically, both loved, and despised.
     His Master. Lucien LaCroix.
     "Nicholas."


                              CHAPTER TWO

                              

     Nick was impressed by the sight of the Meta Probe launch
complex, in high lunar orbit, as they drew close. He also felt a
slight glow of pride, at the secret knowledge that it was he, or at
least the de Brabant Foundation, that had helped fund much of Alpha's
construction, and was also involved in the upcoming Meta Probe. One
did not repay society for one's sins solely by being a cop, and
catching bad guys. Already, new medicines and therapies were coming
out of Alpha's medical research labs, and the spin-off technologies,
not to mention the patent royalties, were piling up.
     He watched the base slide underneath them, as they came over
the lip of Plato Crater, then the automatic guidance took over,
settling them onto pad four. Once the cowl was was secure and the
hatch opened, he let the students go first, giving the cabin a last
once-over with his preternatural senses. He felt no further hint of
Erica's presence.
     "Doctor Barber?" said the stewardess.
     "Oh, yes. Coming," said Nick, and he left the Eagle.

     "Any trouble?" asked Natalie, once he had settled in to their
quarters.
     "No. We all had to check in with Security of course, but that
was no problem, Nat."
     "Thank God Verdeschi isn't a resister," said Nat, kneeling
behind him on  the bed, rubbing his neck. "He is kind of cute,
though."
     "Nat."
     "Ah, jealousy," she sighed. "Yes, all I need to do is look into
his eyes, and he's mine. Do you hear me? Mine!"
     "He tries it, and he's lunch, Nat."
     "Yeah, I know," she sighed. "Spoilsport. You meet Gorski yet?"
     "No. Verdeschi said they were all in some kind of conference."
     "Bureaucracy is everywhere, Nick. It was the same in the
Coroner's Office. It was the same in the Department for you. You get
to the moon, and what do you find?"
     "It was like that, even in my day, Nat."
     "Oh, and which one of your days are we talking about, hhmmmm?"
she teased, pinching him.
     "All of them, Natalie. Man's greatest bane, I am certain, was
the invention of writing."
     "Funny, my mother always said it was television."
     "Grrrrr!" he replied. He straightened his back, and stood up.
"Be thankful you didn't have to write your autopsy reports on vellum,
with a quill pen. In Latin."
     "Oh yes, just love those declensions! Or how about with a
stylus, on clay tablets," she laughed, getting up as well. "Hhmm?"
     "Natalie Barber, aka deBrabant," he scowled, arms akimbo, "I
never wrote on clay tablets." The scowl dissolved into a grin, then a
laugh. He then fell silent, and Nat could sense that something wasn't
right.
     "What is it, Nick?" No answer. "Nick, you asked on the way up
if everything was okay." She waited another beat. "Is it the dreams,
again?"
     "Yes," he knodded, then added: "Well, not exactly."
     "Not exactly?" she asked, moving closer. "And just how not
exactly is not exactly?"
     "It's the same, Nat. That...night, in my loft. Only this time
there was a difference."
     "How?"
     "Erica was there."
     "Erica?" asked Nat, obviously taken by surprise. "What did she
say?"
     "She told me that I shouldn't come here. That there was danger
here, for me."
     "And you believe her, Nick?"
     "Of course not," said Nick. "She's only..."
     "Only a figment of your dreams, Nicholas of Castle de Brabant,"
said Nat, voice going into "scientist" mode. "Ghosts, My Big
Superstitious 13th Century Crusader Hunk, do not exist."
     "Nat, I..."
     "Nick," she said, hands on hips, glaring at him. "Ghosts..."
     "There was a time, Nat, when you would have said that vampires
don't exist, either," he reminded her.
     "The changes to our blood and tissues can be observed under a
microscope, Nick. The tools of science. Erica cannot. She's..."
     "Doctor Barber," said a voice. On the commpost in their
quarters, the little black-and-white screen now displayed a face.
"Ben Vincent here."
     "Yes?" said Nat, touching the button.
     "The meeting is breaking up," said the man on the screen.
"Doctor Russell would like to meet you both, in Medical Center."
     "We're on our way," said Nat. She signed off, then turned back
to Nick. "Ready?"
     "Ready," he replied, then reached into his bag. He pulled out a
bottle, and poured them both a glass of sustenance. They drank,
looking into one another's eyes, then left the room.

     Nicholas just hated Alpha's "decor" he decided, as he and
Natalie made their way to Medical Center. He'd studied up on the
base, of course, while preparing for this new existence, but pictures
hadn't prepared him for the reality of it. Nat had been quite right.
A real fetish for plastic. Of course, one would hardly expect a lunar
science facility to sport plush carpet, redwood paneling, or planter
boxes in the corridors.
     The place put him, somehow, in mind of his ancestral home,
Castle de Brabant. Claustrophobic and with uninspiring decor, it had
nonetheless been functional. Serving its intended purpose.
     "Nick." No answer. "Nick!"
     "Huh? Oh, sorry, Nat."
     "You flash back somewhere, again?"
     "Yeah, kind of. Sorry."
     Nat pulled her commlock, and they entered the Medical Center.
Make that Centre he thought, upon seeing the sign. The first thing
Nick noticed was not the high-tech gear, not the ubiquitous
electronics, but the "click-clack" of a manual typewriter. Puzzled at
hearing such a sound in this place, he followed it...
     To one of the absolute loveliest women he'd ever seen, sitting
at a table, typing on an old-fashioned Olivetti.
     "Doctor Russell?" said Nat, and the blonde woman turned,
looking up at her.
     "Natalie," she smiled, and stood. " I'm sorry I wasn't there to
greet your husband, but Commander Gorski had us in that bloody
meeting for practically ever." She stood up, and Natalie introduced
them. She took Nick's hand, and at once he could see that she noticed
it. The cooler flesh.
     "I'm Helena Russell, CMO of Moonbase Alpha." She noticed Nick's
gaze, and understood the reason for it. Most men did that, upon first
meeting Helena. Her perfection of face and form had been known to
silence conversations, upon her entering a room. Not slow to trade
upon it, she'd even done some modeling to work her way through
college.
     "Nicholas Barber," said Nick, snapping out of it. "Glad to meet
you, Doctor Russell. Nat's told me so much about you."
     "Well, your wife's reputation has preceded her, Doctor."
     "Nick, please. I hate titles. Makes me sound like the Lord of
the Manor, or something." He studiously ignored Nat's stifled laugh.
     "As long as you call me Helen then," smiled the CMO. "Your
wife's quite a find, Doc...Nick. For me."
     "You? How so?"
     "Well, her work for the Coroner's Office in Toronto, is well
known in certain circles."
     Yes, thought Nick. Certain circles.
     "Hopefully, there won't be any bodies to dissect up here," said
Nat, with a grimace.
     "No, but your paper last year on hematology was brilliant. And
the work you've been doing the last couple of years, on
bioengineering blood replacements, has extremely important
implications for future space missions."
     "Well all I'm doing", said Nat, looking from Helena to Nick,
"is trying to make people well."
     "Both of you are," said Helena, turning to Nick. "Your work on
the new synthesizer technology promises to be as revolutionary for
modern medicine, Nick, as X-rays or anethstesia were for the 19th
Century, or cold fusion was for spacecraft propulsion systems, in our
own era." She went to the typewriter, slid the dust cover over it,
and motioned them to follow her. She noticed Nick's gaze. "I know. It
is out of place, isn't it?"
     "Kind of," said Nick.
     "My mother gave it to me, when I went off to medical school.
I'm just too old-fashioned to get rid of it."
     "I know how you feel," said Nick. "I collect antiques, myself."
Nat almost succeeded in stifling another laugh.
     "I'd love to have a look, sometime," said Helena, and led them
to their new lab.

     "I didn't realize that you knew her," said Nick later, in the
lab.
     "Yes. I met her several years back at a medical convention.
Remember, I told you?"
     "I'd forgotten, Nat," he replied, and they got down to work.
     Natalie had been working on a blood substitute, free of the
side-effects of earlier varieties, ever since meeting Nick, that
night in her autopsy room, and coming to understand his condition.
Now, applying recent advances in bio-engineering technology to the
problem, she was closer than ever before to perfecting it.
     For his part, Nick was putting his own not-inconsiderable
skills, accrued over centuries, to work, as well. The new synthesizer
technology, properly applied, promised a virtually unlimited supply
of the sustenance he required.
     And Natalie too, now.
     As he worked, Nick kept thinking back, to that night in
Toronto. Of Nat's entreaties, of his own reluctance, of the scent of
her blood, of her fear, as he pressed his fangs to her neck.
     Then, he saw her again. Erica. Her image on one of his computer
screens.
     "Nicholas. Nicholas," she said, voice thin and wavering. "You
must leave. Leave Alpha."
     "Nick."
     "Huh?" he said, snapping out of it. He looked back down. Erica
was gone, the screen filled only with scrolling data. "Oh. Doctor,"
he said, turning towards the door.
     "It's Helena. Remember? Commander Gorski would like you and
your wife to join him, in his quarters, for dinner."
     "What time?" asked Nat.
     "1800 hours, on the dot."
     "Uh..." Nick began.
     "We'll be there," said Nat. Helena left, and Nick turned to
face her.
     "Do you know if he's a resister?"
     "No. But we'll just... have to tell him the truth."




                               CHAPTER THREE




     Anton Gorski, the eighth commander of Moonbase Alpha, was a man
entirely void of charm. That is not to say that he did not try. He
was extremely courteous towards his guests, especially Natalie. But
the easiness with which Helena, or even Captain Reese of the Toronto
PD interacted with others, was noticeably lacking in Gorski. Nick,
who, though it was the 13th Century, had been raised with the courtly
graces, felt a little sorry for the man. Here was someone very
likeable, who could be a friend in other circumstances, yet
essentially nothing more than an administrator. A CEO. A mechanic.
     Gorski both noted, and commented on, their failure to eat. Of
course, he soon forgot all about that, remembering only how such
pleasant company they had been, how heartily they had partaken, and
both Barber's unfortunate "food allergies". What he did remember was
their intense interest in space travel, and the science involved
therewith. Nat's new blood substitute, and the synthesizer
technology, had revolutionary implications for long space missions,
and Gorski was of a mood to discuss this with them, in detail.
     Basically, would it be available, by the time the Meta Probe
was to be launched, tentatively scheduled for October 1st?  Neither
were certain, but promised Gorski that they would spare no effort.

     "Ah, a full moon, tonight," said the sibilantly silky voice,
over the radio. A voice that Nicholas knew, all too well. At barely a
quarter-million miles from Earth, he could pick up almost any
station, and while Natalie was in the shower he tuned, as much out of
habit as of curiosity, to CERK, in Toronto. As usual, Lucien LaCroix
was regaling listeners with his gloomy, and sometimes ghoulish,
ramblings.
     "Don't you just love a full moon, My Children? Don't you? I
know I do. Do you not love it's light, the silvery radiance it sends
washing over us all, good and bad alike?"
     "Especially bad," said Nick.
     "On a night like this," continued LaCroix, "how wonderful it
would be, to go out into that silver-filled night, and run. Run with
the beasts, naked and free. Ah, yes. Would you like that, boys and
girls?" 
     "I've done you one better," muttered Nick, who could just see
his Master's smile.
     "Or, perhaps," the old vampire went on, "you've done better."
Nick started, at his Master's choice of words, for one fearful moment
wondering if LaCroix could read his mind. There had, through the
centuries, been times...
     "Perhaps you are there," said LaCroix, "on that silver orb,
even now." He waited a beat. "Alpha," he said, the soft flow of air
from his lips seeming to almost caress the microphone. "That place,
that beachhead in the sky, from which the silver light descends. What
is it like, there, eh? Do you feel powerful, as though you were
directing that radiance? What, I ask, is this castle of knowledge,
this bastion of science, from which you think to solve the problems
of the world? Or, perhaps, your own? Hhmm? Is it not, for all its
grandiose and highflown promise, a fool's errand?"
     Yes, thought Nick. LaCroix knew he was listening.
     "What," asked LaCroix, "do you think to achieve, there? Solving
the problems of mankind? Fixing the world?" Then Nick noticed a
subtil change in LaCroix's voice, so subtil only another vampire
might have been able to perceive it.
     "What," probed LaCroix, "do you think to cure? Some things,
Gentle Listeners, are immutable, beyond cure. Some things cannot be
changed, bathe ourselves in the moonbeams of science as we will. Oh,
when will some of us learn..."
     Click.
     Nick looked up, to see Natalie, hair still wet, wrapped in a
robe, standing over the radio, finger on the "off" button.
     "I wish you'd stop listening to that," said Nat, nose crinkled
in disgust. "You know perfectly well it's aimed at you, Nick."
     "Yeah," was Nick's limp reply.
     "'Yeah'" replied Nat, a certain mocking in her voice. "Great
conversationalist. He's just trying to get you down, Nick. You know
that."
     "Yes, but..."
     "But zilch, Nick. We are close, and he knows it. He's getting
desperate, because he knows we're close." She doffed the robe, and
began to dress. "What did he have to say? On the way up?"
     "Oh, just the usual," said Nick, rising. "How cruel I am, to
torment him this way. How foolish, how ungrateful. The usual."
     "And?"
     Sigh.
     "And...how unfair to you."
     "Me?" she said, turning around to lance him with a gaze.
     "Yes. He told me I was cruel, trying to deny you the
fulfillment of your new nature."
     "My new...what a total crock. He knows full well I hate..." She
stopped, settling down. "I'm sorry, Nick," she said, more gently,
taking hold of his hand. "I didn't mean it, that way."
     "I know, Nat."
     "It's just as my fault as yours, love," she said, looking up.
"I pushed you, and you..."
     "Yeah, I did what I could, Nat. What I had to."
     Nick stared at the mirror, and flashed back to the loft. One of
the few clear things, from the days following his encounter with
Divia, was of he, standing over Nat, trying desperately to save her.
He transfused the Type ONeg from her bag into her, tried to get
saline solution into her, tried to force water into her, the lot.
But, by dawn, he realized that it was hopeless. Natalie Lambert was
slipping away, brain and other vital organs shutting down. She was
dying.
     And there was only one way that he could save her.
     "Nick," she said, weakly, looking up at him from the bed.
     "Nick," she said again, more strongly, and he felt her squeeze
his hand. "Nicholas!"
     "Huh? Oh, sorry."
     "You zapped out on me again, love," she said, eye to eye.
     "Yeah."
     "Well, stay clear." She looked at the clock. "Almost time."
     "For?"
     "Poker. We're invited to a game, in the Zoref's quarters."
     "Oh, right. I'd forgotten."
     "Uh huh," she shook her head. "Sheesh! My hero. Anyway, it'll
be Anton and Eva, Dave Kano, Ouma, maybe, and Verdeschi, from
Security."
     "Then let's get going, Nat."
     "Oh, and," she added, rising, "Professor Bergman might drop in,
he said."
     "Sounds like a full house, already, then," quipped Nick, and
after a little extra sustenance he led the way out.

     Nick had played far too many games of chance, over the
centuries, to be taken in by anyone's deceptions, and could maintain
a "poker face" like no one else. As they played, he studied his
fellow "Alphans".
     David Kano, a big Jamaican, lived, ate slept, and breathed
computers. There seemed to be nothing about the machines that he did
not know. From the earliest attempts before World War II, to the
latest in microprocessors, he had an encyclopedic knowledge of his
subject. Or, rather, his craft, for David Kano absolutely,
unquestionably, unreservedly loved tinkering with the base's
mainframe. Always finding ways to get more speed out of it, to put
more memory into it, whatever. Obviously, Kano and his people would
be invaluable in developing the synthesizer technology.
     Anton Zoref was a specialist in the base's power systems,
working in one of Alpha's nuclear generating stations. As thoroughly
versed in his stuff as Kano was in his, he did, however, have the
ability to talk about something beyond control rods, fuel bundles,
and reactor containment vessels. A fairly quiet man, Nick at once
found himself liking Zoref, along with his wife, whose hostessing
gave these quarters a graciousness mostly lacking on the base.
     Antonio Verdeschi, head of Alpha Security, was lean, dark-
haired, good-looking, and talkative. No, make that verbose. By the
end of the first hour, Nick and Nat knew the names of his parents,
his brother, his schools, the street in Florence he'd lived on, the
original owner of the house, the number of the house, his first
girlfriend, his second girlfriend, his hobbies, ad infinitum. Nick
noted his almost total lack of an Italian accent, explained by
several years at English Universities.
     "Your Italian is very good," said Verdeschi, after Nick had
addressed him in that language. "Where did you pick it up?"
     "Oh, I've spent a little time in Italy. The Po Valley can be so
pleasant in summer. Don't you agree?" he asked, sparing a glance at
Natalie. He'd noticed that Verdeschi had been giving Nat far too much
attention, during the evening. Of course, he could hardly blame the
fellow, being totally besotted by Nat himself. But, he did feel more
than a little jealous, and decided he would have to keep an eye on
Verdeschi.
     Besides, there was something in the way Verdeschi spoke to him,
that made him uneasy. Could he, perhaps...
     Knock it off, Nick, he told himself. He's a cop. Remember what
it's like? 
     "...so weird," said Zoref, as Nick returned to the game.
     "Who?" asked Kano.
     "That fellow on the radio," replied Zoref. "From Canada. Calls
himself the Nightcrawler. Ever listen to him?" 
     "I've...heard him, once or twice," said Nick. "Weird bird."
     "I'll say," Zoref went on. "Tonight he was ripping on us, up
here."
     "Really?" asked Nat, deadpan.
     "Yes," said Eva. "I've heard him before. He's terribly morbid,
that one."
     "But tonight, he was slamming Alpha," said Anton. "And he was
talking almost as though he knew someone, here." Zoref turned to
Verdeschi. "Did you hear?"
     "Me? I don't go in for the Rush Limbaugh stuff. No, I only
listen to music," replied Verdeschi. "The news and talk stuff is way
too depressing."
     "The people who call in to his show are as weird as he is,"
said Eva, when there was a beep. It was Professor Bergman, on the
commpost. He was admitted, and introduced.
     "Oh, yes," said the old Academic. "I have heard him, once or
twice." He smiled, shaking his head. "Once, there was a man who
claimed his friend was a vampire." Nick and Nat shared a look, but
did not laugh. Nick had not known that any of that conversation had
actually gone out, over the air. And, right now, he did not want to
dredge up memories of his old partner, Donald Schanke. Not...
     "And how goes the Meta Probe, Professor?" asked Natalie.
     Good save, thought Nick.
     "Oh, splendidly," said Bergman, and from there on it was
spacecraft, physics, et al. All the while, though, something was
bothering Nick. Bergman. He was...familiar? How? Perhaps...
     Merde! he swore to himself.

     "What is it, Nick?" asked Nat, later, as they settled down.
     "Bergman," he replied.
     "The Professor? You've met him before, then."
     "Yeah. Back in...'61."
     "When you were Forrester?"
     "Yes. He gave a lecture, on space propulsion. I was curious,
and sat in. He was only 21, Nat, but he was brilliant. Absolutely."
     "And you spoke with him?"
     "I did. For over two hours. I can still remember how impressed
I was, by his keen mind. His complete, utter grasp of the concepts,
Nat. It's no wonder he was practically abducted by NASA, for the
Gemini and Apollo programs."
     "You think perhaps he remembers you?"
     "I'm not sure. He did look at me, quite a few times."
     "Why didn't you consider him, when planning this life?"
     "I...there are still a few things that are fuzzy, Nat, after
that bullet in the head. I still run across gaps, now and then. I
guess he was one of them."
     "Well, I hear he's scheduled to be rotated off Alpha, soon,"
said Nat. "So let's hope he won't be a problem."
     "Amen to that, Nat," said Nick, and put a hand on her shoulder.
She responded, turning burning eyes to him, and pulling him to her.

     On the Dark Side, just beyond the area always visible from
Earth, another Eagle was putting down, at Nuclear Waste Disposal Area
Two. The crew began to unload their deadly cargo, as they had many a
time already. Only this time...
     This time the pilot, Praeger, didn't feel so good. Damned
headache...




                             CHAPTER FOUR



     Nick spent the next couple of days avoiding Bergman. Being
buried in the lab, working with Natalie, it was fairly easy. As he
chewed through some computations, Nat was deep into yet another
chemical experiment. In fact he was so engrossed that he did not
notice when Doctor Mathais entered, and began discussing some
analyses with Nat.
     Nick liked Robert Mathias, the base's other black physician.
Like all the medical staff here he was hyper competent, but he had a
bedside manner almost the equal of Helena Russell's, and was cool
under pressure.
     "Nicholas," said a voice. He froze as the screen before him,
filled with computations moments before, now showed only Erica. She
was looking straight at him.
     "Er..."
     "Nicholas, please," said she, "you must leave. Alpha is not
safe, beloved Nicholas. You must leave soon."
     "Erica, what are you talking about?" Even as he spoke, Nick
felt the temperature drop around him. "What danger?"
     For a moment, Erica, the lab, and everything else disappeared,
and Nick saw only light. Blinding white light, so strong it hurt even
his eyes.
     "Nick?" came a voice. "Nick?" again, and he was back in the
lab, at his station. He looked up, and saw Mathias for the first
time. "Are you alright, Doctor Barber?"
     "Nick, you zoned out there, for a minute," said Nat, coming
over. "You okay?" she mouthed, out of view of Mathias. He nodded,
ever so perceptibly. Already, the chill had gone. Had the others felt
it, too?
     "Just a headache, Nat. Staring at that screen for too long." He
noted her raised eyebrow, and understood it. She had felt it. And,
asked a question. He nodded again. "I'm alright," he said, looking at
Mathias. "I..."
     He was interrupted by a loud crash, in the next ward, then a
blaring security alarm. As one, the three ran for the next room, to
find a fight in full swing. Doctor Vincent was struggling with
another man, his back bent over a chair, the attacker's hands around
his throat.
     "Out!" he was snarling, as he tried to choke the life out of
the other man. "Have to get out!"
     Without thinking, Nick leapt into action, with a vampire's
speed. He pulled the other man off Vincent, hurling him into the far
wall. As Nat and Mathias moved to the aid of their fellow doctor,
Nick kept his attention on the attacker.
     "Mon Dieu!" he swore, as he saw the man's face. He'd not only
gotten back up quickly, far too quickly considering, but his face...!
     Particularly his eyes. His right eye was clouded over, almost
opaque, as if he had cataracts. The flesh around it was livid, like
raw, open burn tissue, and he was sweating. His expression was one of
pure, mindless desperation.
     "Out," he rasped, moving towards a window. "Must get out." He
began to claw at the window, madly trying to get through it. Nick lay
hands on him, only to find himself thrown off with a strength that
surprised him, from a mortal. Then, the attacker leapt upon him,
trying to strangle him as well. "Out! Have to get out of here!"
     Faced with such a threat, Nick's nature came out. Eyes blazing,
he hurled the attacker away. He sailed across the ward, into the
opening door through which security was was just entering. His head
struck the edge of the door with a sickening crack, and he sprawled
out, into the corridor, twitched a moment, then lay still.
     There was a round of "you alright?"s, then one of the security
men turned the corpse over.
     "My God," said Verdeschi, as he saw the ravaged face. "It's
Praeger!"

     "It was totally justifiable," said Verdeschi, in the
Commander's office. The report on Praeger was on Gorski's desk. The
Commander, as usual cheerless, was still reading.
     "Do we know why he suddenly went berserk?" asked Gorski.
"Prager's record is exemplary, Tony."
     "No. Doctor Russell is doing a post-mortem right now, Commander."
     "Doctor Vincent?" asked Gorski. "Anything?"
     "No, sir," replied Vincent. "Praeger had his annual physical
the first of this month. He checked out a hundred percent. Psych
profile, too."
     "Why was he in Medical, today?"
     "He was complaining of headaches, Commander. When I looked at
him, he was beginning to sweat, then he suddenly attacked me. If
Doctor Barber hadn't intervened..."
     "We must all thank Doctor Barber," said Gorski, returning to
Verdeschi's report. "Have you anything to add, Doctor?" he asked Nick.
     "Nothing, Commander. I only met Praeger once, a week or so ago.
He came to the Zoref's weekly poker game."
     "I see," said Gorski, leaning back in his chair. He reached
out, and hit one of the buttons on his console. "Medical."
     "Doctor Mathais here."
     "Anything yet, Robert?"
     "No, Commander. Doctors Russell and Barber are still in the
autopsy."
     "Very well." He clicked off.
     "Commander," said Verdeschi, rising. "I have to go and file
this report."
     "Wait," said Gorski, holding out a hand.
     "Sir?" asked Verdeschi, half-risen.
     "Hold off, till we have the results of the post-mortem."
     "But, sir..."
     "Hold off," said the Commander.

     "Radiation?" asked Gorski, later, in the autopsy room.
     "It looks like it," said Helena. On the table, Praeger was laid
out, open and unappealing. "Here," she indicated, pointing to an
angry red mass, in Praeger's brain. Gorski turned away for a moment,
from the dismantled body.
     "What is it?"
     "Some sort of malignancy," said Nat, getting the nod from
Helena. "The cells show a pattern of damage similar to that caused by
radiation, but that's all we've got, so far."
     "What about drugs, or some kind of infection?" asked Gorski.
     "The tox screen was negative," said Natalie. "No signs of viral
or bacterial infection, yet."
     "And there was nothing in Praeger's history to indicate this,"
Helena added. "No history of drugs, or illness. Nothing in his
family." She shook her head. "Nothing."
     "Till now," said Gorski. He went to the commpost. "Professor
Bergman."
     "Commander?"
     "I want a team from your section to check out Area Two, bow to
stern. Any signs of radiation, Professor. Any at all."
     "Right away, Commander."

     "I don't understand it, Nick," said Nat, in their quarters. "It
looked like a malignant brain tumor. But how something like that
could erupt so suddenly..." she shrugged.
     "You'll figure it out, Nat," replied Nick. "You always do."
     "Well, I have very little experience with radiation, Nick.
Doctor Russell is the expert, there."
     "Then you'll figure it out, together." He fell silent, and Nat
stared at him.
     "What?"
     "Huh?"
     "Don't you 'huh' me, Nicholas de Brabant. You...you're thinking
about it, aren't you?"
     "What?"
     "Erica, and her visitations, and don't tell me you aren't."
     "Well, yeah. Some."
     "Some," sighed Nat. "Nick, it is almost the 21st Century! The
age of science. That sort of supersti...""
     "She was right, Nat. Danger up here."
     "We are on the moon, Nick. Space. Space travel is inherently
dangerous. You just..."
     "I did not imagine it, Nat. Imagine her. I know you don't
believe in ghosts..." He noticed her expression, a dark memory. Nat
had tried, many a time, to rationalize away the "visitation" of her
grandmother's shade. She was still trying.
     "Well", she said, deftly shifting the subject, "the inquest is
tomorrow. Can't be avoided, Nick."
     "Well, Nat, I killed someone. It has to be done."
     "And, saved a life, too, don't forget. Maybe more than one.
That counts for something, Nick. And Verdeschi's security report
looks good for you. We'll come through."
     "You saw his report, Nat? It's..."
     "Yeah, well," she shrugged, all innocence. "When you've got it,
you've got it, Nick."
     "Nat, you didn't."
     Natalie only smiled.

     I came here, Nick told himself, to get away from trouble. So
what do I do? I get involved with a death. I cause a death, and now
I'm sitting in an inquest. Great job, de Brabant. First rate all
around.
     Not that this was exactly Terra Obscura for Nick. As Lord of
Castle de Brabant, he'd had the duty of administering justice in his
demesne, and had presided over inquests and trials, passing sentence
on others. As a cop in both Chicago and Toronto, he'd testified in
court. However, being on the receiving end was definitely not to his
liking.
     It tended to draw too much attention to himself.
     Verdeschi's report was straightforward. Praeger had gone
berserk, and tried to kill Doctor Vincent. Nick had come to the
Doctor's defense, and Praeger had, unfortunately, died in
consequence. Of a cranial fracture, resulting from his impact with
the edge of the door. Nick's apparently superhuman strength was
explained by a "surge of adrenaline", in time of stress. The cause of
Praeger's outburst remained unknown.
     The verdict was as expected. Justifiable homicide on Nick's
part, period. No action to be taken against him. All Doctor Russell
could say was that the cause of Praeger's outburst remained unknown.
The search would continue.
     All through it, however, Nick was aware of Verdeschi's eyes on
him. Vincent's, too. Verdeschi looked suspicious, like a cop.
Vincent's look was more...puzzled. Had he seen something, in the
struggle?
     Obviously, he and Nat would have to keep an eye on both of them.

     Next day, the report came back from Bergman's team. No
radiation leakage from Area Two. Not so much as a neutron out of
place. Where then, wondered everyone, had the radiation come from, to
cause Praeger's illness? His Eagle was checked out, too. Clean. So
were Alpha's generating stations. Where, then?
     But there were no answers forthcoming, and life on Alpha
returned, sort of, to normal. Nick and Nat got back to working on
their projects, and everything seemed to be just fine.
     "They say the moon causes madness," came LaCroix's voice, over
Nick's radio. "Perhaps, My Children. Perhaps this is true. Perhaps
that silvery radiance does bend men's minds. Warps them in ways that
confound us."
     "Do you think..." began Nat, listening.
     "After all, haven't we all heard how crime increases, with the
waxing of the moon? Theft. Rape. Even murder. Do we not, have we not,
from time immemorial, Gentle Listeners, called it lunacy?" 
     Nick could practically see the smile on his Master's face, as
he spoke. LaCroix knew, yes. But how? By order of Commander Gorski,
the report on Praeger had yet to be sent to LSRO headquarters. Even
the man's family knew only that he had died in an accident. Nothing
more.
     How, then...
     "Perhaps, My Children," continued the ancient vampire, "she is
jealous?
     "Oh, God," groaned Natalie.
     "Jealous of those who have violated her sanctuary, who have
probed her secrets." He sighed. "But, what do we, mere Earthbound
mortals, know of such things, eh? Tell me, you out there. Tell me
what you think, what you know. I'm ready, for I am...the
Nightcrawler."
     "He knows, Nick," said Nat. "He knows about Praeger. But how?
Gorski's put a lid on it, for the moment."
     "You're right, Nat. I don't know how, but you're right."

     During Alpha's "middle of the night", few were about. That, and
Nick's unnatural speed, made getting to the main security office
easy. The man on duty asked what he wanted, then quickly forgot that
anyone had wanted anything at all.
     Verdschi's desk was a snap, and so was his terminal. All those
lessons, Nick decided, from Aristotle and Larry Merlin, had paid off.

     "Accessed?" asked Nat, later. "Someone hacked in?"
     "Yeah. Someone got in, got a look, and sent the information
off, privately."
     "Who?"
     "The guy on duty doesn't know, hon. He was bribed to be away
from his post for an hour, last night."
     "By whom?"
     "He doesn't know, but he took the deal. I used the computer to
do some checking, back home. A large deposit was made to his account,
day before yesterday, Nat."
     "You think LaCroix bribed him?" she asked. "Why?"
     "Like always, Nat. He'll do anything to stop me from leaving
him, for good. From becoming Human, again. You said it yourself, he's
desperate. Somehow, he's gotten his claws into someone here, to keep
tabs on me, for anything he might be able to use."
     "To set you up, like he did in Toronto?"
     "Very possibly. Damn it!"
     "I wish he'd stayed dead when you staked him, Nick. That...man
annoys the hell out of me."
     "Me too, Nat."
     "I'd love nothing better than to do his autopsy," she grinned,
evilly. "So, what are you going to do? About the guard?"
     "Nothing I can do, Nat. I expose him, I expose myself. But," he
smiled, "I...might induce him to change jobs."
     "Huh?"

     Everyone was surprised when Security Officer Arlen Edison up
and requested transfer, the next day. More concerned with the Meta
Probe, and the recent death, than with mundane personnel matters,
Commander Gorski gave it immediate approval. Verdeschi was surprised,
but could do nothing.
     From time to time, base personnel could request time in Alpha's
commsuite, to send or receive personal messages. Nick availed himself
of such, at last connecting with LaCroix.
     "Nicholas? I'm flattered you..."
     "Stop it, LaCroix," said Nick, using the archaic French of his
childhood. "I know all about the bribed guard, and the information
that was sent you." Not true. Nick had not been able to learn where
the file had been transmitted. The logs had been wiped. But the money
transfer had been from a Canadian bank.
     "Nicholas, I assure you that I have done no such things. My
word, Nicholas," said the old vampire.
     "Why don't I believe you, LaCroix?"
     "Really, Nicholas. You must overcome this cynicism of yours,"
said LaCroix, with the hint of a smile. A mocking smile. "Every time
you have a problem, you blame me. A child cannot blame a parent
forever, my boy. You really need to grow up, Nicholas."
     Nick heard no more, for he cut the connection with a grunt of
disgust. The lying old reprobate! Can't tell the truth for five
minutes straight. Maybe he'd needed that, on the floor of the Roman
Senate, or in the Palace of Vespasian, but not between them. Father
and Son. Teacher and Pupil. Maker and Creation.
     Master and Slave!
     Liar!
     Nick tried to shake off his irritation at LaCroix, and returned
to his lab. He was having trouble, getting the emitter diodes to stay
in phase. On his off-time, Zoref lent aid, and soon the two were deep
into it. So much so that Nick didn't hear Dr. Vincent calling to him.
     "Sorry?"
     Ben Vincent had invited he and Nat to dinner in his quarters,
with Alibe, his current significant other. Nick wanted to say no, but
Vincent wished to show his appreciation, and Nick could hardly
"boozle" him in front of witnesses.
     "See you tomorrow, Nick," said Zoref, heading towards the door.
"I'll get these computations to Professor Bergman's lab." He waved a
sheaf of papers.
     "Right, Anton. I think we've nearly licked it." He turned back
to the medico, as Zoref left. "Okay. I'll tell Natalie. Twenty-
hundred?"
     "Right."

     At that moment, down in the hangar bay, one of the Eagle pilots
had a serious fall, breaking both legs, and receiving a hairline
fracture of the skull. Sent home to Earth the next afternoon, he was
immediately replaced by one Alan Carter, late of the Royal Australian
Air Force.

     Doctor Vincent knew of Nick's dietary limitations. Well, most
of them. The sight of normal food, even after years of trying, could
still make his stomach heave, but he hid it manfully. Natalie, still
new to this, often experimented with various foods, though never in
front of mortals.
     A rare pleasure on Alpha was meat, and dairy products. Most of
the base's food was produced in the hydroponics section. Cereal
grains and a wide variety of vegetables, with an average of three new
ones added each month, aside from what was grown in the protein
tanks. Meat was shipped up, on a regular basis, though never in large
quantities. There were plans, on paper at least, to turn one of the
projected new sections into a sort of lunar stockyard, and raise
livestock here, on the moon. However, nothing had been done about the
proposal as yet, and with Simmonds putting the pressure on, over the
Meta Probe, it would likely be a long time before anyone did.
     But, tonight, Dr. Vincent was Chef Vinson', and he treated
Alibe Kurand, a lovely black lady from Technical, to a rare feast.
Out of politeness (and a well-honed sense of self-preservation), Nick
and Nat both partook of wine (red, of course), and even managed to
make it look as if they were actually enjoying the soup.
     All through it, however, Nick was aware of Vincent's reticence.
He wanted to talk about...something. Though the death of Praeger was
still on everyone's lips, it was clear that the medico was concerned
with another matter. Then, when Alibe excused herself...
     "I...saw your eyes," said Vincent, under Nick's hypnotic power.
"How can this..."
     "No. You saw nothing out of the ordinary," said Nat, staring
into his. "A trick of the light. That was all it..."
     She broke off, as Alibe returned. Vincent blinked, and rubbed
his eyes.
     "Hi", said the eternally ebullient Alibe. "Everyone miss me?"
     "Of course," said Nat, then fell to telling her about her work
on blood replacement technology. After a moment or two, Vincent
seemed himself again, and joined in as if nothing untoward had
happened.



                             CHAPTER FIVE




     It had been a long time, since Nick had been a teacher, but he
found himself falling back into that roll, easily. The students that
had transported up to Alpha with him were still here, all High School
achievers, headed for careers in the sciences. Nick, suddenly missing
his days as a college prof, fell easily into explaining the ins and
out of his project, as they toured the medical labs. The give and
take with the kids felt good, it made him feel good. Clean. Better.
     I was never a vampire in my heart, he said to himself. Not
really. Not truly. He looked up at one student, a girl about 16 or
so, and...
     "Don't be such a fool, Nicholas," said LaCroix, lips stained
red, looking up from the victim he had just feasted upon. "You are.
And you always were."
     "No, LaCroix," said Nick, face wrinkled in disgust. "I will go
hungry, before I stain myself with such dishonor." He turned his back
on his Master.
     "Pot calling the kettle black, Nicholas," smiled LaCroix,
rolling the corpse off into an overgrown ditch. "You cast away your
so-called honor long ago, if you will remember. When you accepted my
offer."
     "She helped me, LaCroix," spat Nick, furious. "She found me,
and gave me aid. At her own risk. And she asked for nothing." His
last word was cut off by an explosion.
     "You are immortal, Nicholas. You require no mortal aid. You
would have reviv..."
     "That does not change the facts, LaCroix. Her heart was filled
with goodness and charity, and I promised her my help, in return for
hers."
     "She was filled with blood, Nicholas," replied LaCroix, "and
promises are like pie crusts. Made to be broken." There was the
whistle of a projectile, and a deafening burst of flame not ten yards
away. "And speaking of broken, Nicholas, we had best be going, before
Napoleon's artillery breaks us." With that, the elder vampire took to
the air. Nicholas lingered a moment, casting a last glance to where
the nameless refugee who had come to the aid of a stranger lay dead.
     "Never in my heart," he whispered. "I swear it." He cursed
LaCroix, then another blast and the approach of horses decided him,
and he followed his Master skywards.
     "Nicholas," said a voice, and he snapped back to the here and
now. He turned, blinking, and saw Nat, next to one of the students.
     "Doctor Barber?" said one of them.
     "Oh. Ah, yes?"
     "Are you alright?" asked the girl, named Sally Martin, from her
badge.
     "Oh, yes. Fine. Just mulling through a problem with...the
memory buffer on the unit, is all." Natalie caught his use of the
word, and realized its meaning.

     "And she reminds you of this girl, Nick?" asked Nat, later, as
they walked back to their quarters.
     "Yes. She...she found me, shot through, several times, by the
side of the road."
     "When?"
     "Italy,1796. Castiglione, during Napoleon's campaign. She
didn't know what I was till I revived. I blanked her mind. But she
brought me water. She risked herself, to help another refugee. No
questions."
     "Guess you should have ducked," grinned Nat. "How'd they nail
you, by the way?"
     "I found some soldiers, one of Napoleon's advance foraging
parties, raping and murdering at a farmstead. I took them all. Or, I
thought I had. I couldn't help the victims they'd killed, but I could
punish their murderers, Nat."
     "Once again, My Hero," said Nat, with a snort. "Always..."
     "Hey, it's...part of the process, Nat. Anyway, I staggered into
the woods, with at least three shots through me. She found me, and
helped me, and I promised her that I'd help her to escape."
     "Then Sir Sweetness and Light turned up."
     "Hungry," nodded Nick. "How'd you know?"
     "He always does, at the wrong moment." They arrived, and Nat
pulled her commlock, and opened the door. She turned, and looked at
the commpost outside. "Yeah."
     "What?" asked Nick.
     "I am putting a planter box around that thing. This base's
decor is ugly enough, without having any houseplants." She turned,
and they went on inside.
     "She just reminded me of that girl is all, Nat. And I'm sure
LaCroix is lying." He plopped into a chair, and exhaled loudly.
"Another week, Nat. Another week, and the synthesizer will be ready.
I'm certain of it."
     "Well, a tad more bioengineering, and the synthetic blood will
be el-perfecto, Nick. In fact," she said, and pulled a flask from her
bag, "here's some from the current batch."
     "You sure?"
     "Try it. Chateau B127-F. Yummy for the vampiric tummy." They
opened the flask, and he sipped. It sure tasted close to the real
thing. After a few moments, Nick could feel the energy from it, begin
to spread through him.
     "Close, Nat. Really close. I can feel it."
     "Can Natalie cook, or what, huh? The Lambert touch shows
through, every time." She sipped some herself. "Hhmm. Needs iron."
     "Well, no rusty nails, okay?" he grinned. She laughed, and they
fell into each other's arms, devoured by a quite different energy,
oblivious to all but each other. Barely had the crucial moment
passed, when Nat's commlock bleeped. It was Helena.
     "Oh, I'm sorry, Doctor. I..."
     "Don't worry about it, Helena. What's up?"
     "We've had another one."

     "Faber?" asked Nat.
     "Yes. He went berserk, down in the Eagle bay, not half an hour
ago," said Helena.
     "The same symptoms as before?" asked Gorski.
     "Yes. One of the other pilots had to stun him. We got him in
here, but he died, just after I called you, Commander."
     "I see." Gorski turned to Verdeschi. "Get me Faber's file.
Doctor Russell, I want an immediate autopsy. The fullest possible
range of tests. Bring me the results, regardless of the hour."
     "Right away." Helena looked at Nat. "Shall we?"
     Beep.
     "Yes?" said Gorski, activating his commlock.
     "Commissioner Simmonds on the line for you, Commander Gorski,"
said Sandra Benes, from Main Mission.
     "Very well," sighed Gorski. "I'll take it in my office."

     Like Praeger's, Faber's autopsy showed only the mysterious
eruption in the brain. No drugs, no history of illness, nothing. The
slides and sections of the malignancy were compared to the earlier
samples. The same.
     "Well?" Nick asked, once Nat returned from the post-mortem. 
     "The same Nick, and still no clues. We're no closer to figuring
out why, than we were before."
     "Doctor Russell said something about radiation?"
     "Yeah, but there isn't any. True, the malignant cells show a
pattern similar to heavily radiated tissue, but the rest of his
tissues were healthy, Nick. Liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys. The lot.
Absolutely A-One."
     "No connections, at all?"
     "Well, aside from the fact that both were shuttle pilots, no.
Praeger was born in Germany, Faber was from Oklahoma. They'd never
even met, till they were assigned to Alpha."
     Nick nodded, then sat back, thinking. Was this the danger Erica
had spoken of? If some bizarre disease was on the loose, could it
affect them? Once, vampires had thought themselves impervious to any
and all maladies. Screed's gruesome death, from an experimental virus
escaped from the lab, had shaken that assumption. What if...?
     Beep.
     "Barber," said Nick, activating his commlock.
     "Doctor Barber, Gorski, here. Could you come and see me?"

     Nick did not like it, but there was a new directive from HQ.
All Alpha personnel, regardless of duty, were to undergo basic flight
training, and familiarization with Eagle systems. He'd have to at
least pass the basics, on flying one of them.
     He could, of course, "whammy" Gorski, but not all of Alpha, the
computer, or the folks back home. He would have to, for now at least,
go along with it.
     Damn.
     The reason, said Gorski, was simple. Last year, while scanning
the southern pole for water ice, an Eagle had been hit by a
meteorite. The pilot had been badly hurt, the co-pilot killed. The
geologist, computer tech, and the doctor aboard, had all lacked even
basic familiarity with the ship's systems, and the Eagle, it had
turned out, had still been flyable, barely, on auxiliary power. By
the time all was said and done, the pilot and one passenger were dead
as well. 
     So, flight training, and basic systems instruction, for all
personnel. It was an annoying delay, in Nick's grander scheme, but
he'd been through enough identities to know that you did what you had
to do, to fit in.
     Then, of course, it got complicated.
     Alan Carter, newly assigned to Alpha, was put in charge of the
program. He met his students, in the hangar bay, and went over an
Eagle, stem to stern. Cockpit, passenger module, engines, landing
gear, the lot. He also kept looking at Nick, while he talked. This
time, for Nick, there was no doubt, no fuzziness, no uncertainties of
memory. Everything was quite brutally clear.
     He knew Alan Carter.
     Shit.
     Carter was a born instructor, and had the patience needed to
teach those not inclined by nature to be pilots. Nick was soon versed
in the throttles, attitude controls, navigational interface, and
ejection seats. Then, it was his turn to go up with Carter.
     He watched the launch pad, and then the base, drop away beneath
them as Eagle 9 lifted off pad four. Soon, under Carter's expert
tutelage, he was flying her himself.
     "Nick," said Carter, as they flew over the Mare Crisium.
     "Yeah?"
     "What are you doing here? On Alpha?"
     "What do you mean? I'm a doctor..."
     "Now you are, but...No, three degrees left," said Carter, and
Nick followed his direction. He banked, and her nose swung directly
into the...
     Sun.


                             CHAPTER SIX



     Carter heard the pained intake of breath, followed by a long
cry of pain, and the ship banked suddenly. Nick had violently jerked
away, as a shaft of raw sunlight lanced through the forward window,
striking him in the face.
     "Nick, what the..." began Carter, grasping the sticks, and
regaining control of the Eagle. He pulled up, regaining altitude, and
looked over at his student. "Oh my God!"
     Nick's face was red, raw, with skin and subcutaneous tissues
peeling off, from hairline to chin, on the left side. His eye was red
and swollen nearly shut, blood running from the socket, and his teeth
were clenched in pain, as thick vapor rose from his seared flesh. He
turned away from Carter, clutching his face with white knuckles.
     "Nick? What the hell is..."
     "I...reaction to sun....."
     "Reaction, hell! Your face is falling off, Nick." He checked
the instruments, and put the Eagle on autopilot. He was about to
reach for the commlink, but a powerful hand grasped his wrist.
     "No," said Nick.
     "Hey, I..."
     "No." Nick turned to face Carter. He looked at him, and pressed
a thought. "No call. You did not see this," said Nick, hypnotic
powers to the full, focusing his good eye on him. Even as he spoke,
his left eye socket slowly stopped bleeding, and his raw flesh
started to close.
     "I..."
     "Nothing happened," said Nick, but Carter blinked.
     "Like hell, Doctor. If that's your real name. Last time I saw
you, it wasn't Barber. It was Knight. Detective Nicholas Knight of
the Toronto PD"
     Damnation, thought Nick. A resister.
     "I haven't forgotten what you did for me, Detective."

     Nat met them at the hatch of travel tube 4, and slid in before
Carter could exit. She took a look at Nick, and swore.
     "The sun came through the cockpit window," said Carter. He
watched as Nick drank from the flask Nat handed him. At once, the
healing of his flesh accelerated noticeably, and Carter swore. 
     "It's a special medication, for his condition," said Nat, voice
sounding lame in her ears. "He's highly phototropic."
     "Yeah," said Carter. He watched, fascinated, as Nick's skin
healed over at a rate he would never have thought possible, and his
eye regained its natural color. "Some medicine," said Carter,
sniffing the air. He cast knowing glances at the two vampires.
     "Captain Carter, it..."
     "Yeah, right," he said, and exited the travel tube, leaving
them alone.
     "He knows. Nick, he knows. Ah, bloody hell!"
     "Yeah."

     After a few minutes, Nick was healed enough to move through the
corridors, and they headed for their quarters. As they moved, sight
slowly began to return to his savaged eye. No sooner were they there,
then the door beeped. They both tensed, ready...
     It was Carter.
     Like it or not.
     "Captain, you must..." began Nat.
     "I haven't told anyone," said Carter. "I just logged off, and
came here." He sat, and looked at them. Especially Nicholas, who had
a cool cloth over his left eye. Nick looked at Nat, and resumed his
story.
     "It was right after the Jerry Show murders," he told her.
"Tracy and I were assigned to security at an airshow."
     "Oh yeah," said Nat. "I remember. Didn't terrorists try and
take it over, or something?"
     "They did," said Carter. "Islamic Fundamentalists, the
Hezbollah I believe they were, planned to steal as many planes as
possible, and crash them, kamikaze style, into all the major
buildings in Washington D.C. They tried to steal mine."
     "I recall, yes," said Nat. "They took hostages, and shot up one
of the buildings at the airport."
     "I took a round," said Carter, "and Nick here saved my life. I
don't know how he did it, but he took out the two who were guarding
me, got me to a medic, and got back in time to keep the terrorists
from carrying out their plan."
     Indeed he had. One of the terrorists had succeeded in getting
airborne, but so had a certain vampire. Clinging to the screaming
aircraft, Nick had punched through the canopy, and yanked the
terrified fellow out. He had drained the would-be killer while still
airborne, and dropped the corpse into Lake Ontario, moments after the
F-15 plowed into the water, blowing itself to bits. Of course, all
the world knew was that the plane had gone down, and the decomposing
corpse had washed up a week later. End of story.
     "Don't give me too much credit," said Nick, pulling the cloth
away, and blinking. "You were the one who smelled something wrong
with the guy near the utility closet, and sounded the alarm. If you
hadn't, well, it would have been alot different."
     "So, what are you doing here, on Alpha?" asked Carter. "A
Doctor?"
     "I...had to go into the witness protection program," said Nick.
"I testifi..."
     "Don't give me that. That's alot of bull." Carter looked at
him. "I know what you are," he said quietly. For several seconds,
there was utter silence. 
     "Then you should know to stay away," was Nick's reply.
     "You never eat. You can't endure the sun. And that
medication..." He stressed the word. "I know the smell of blood.
Believe you me." Carter waited several beats. "You're a vampire."
     More silence.
     "Nick, I..."
     "I tried, Nat. He's a resister."
     "You can't make me forget," said Carter. "And on Alpha, there's
no place to hide."
     "What do you intend to do?" asked Nat. If hypnotism were of no
use, then perhaps...
     "Nothing," said Carter. "Nick saved my life, Doctor. I don't
ever forget that. Maybe it's his own fault, what he is. Maybe not.
But whichever, no one's going to hear it from Alan Carter."
     "My thanks," said Nick, now totally healed. He reached for a
bottle, and poured a glass. "I won't ask you to join me, Captain."
     "Where..."Carter indicated the red liquid.
     "Brought with us, from Earth," said Nat. "In fact, it's cow's
blood. No one on Alpha is in any danger from us, Captain.
     "Us? Ah, I see. And that's the real reason you're working on
this blood substitute research, right? So you won't have to...hunt."
     "Yes. I...I hate what I am, Captain. My greatest desire for
centuries has been to become Human, once again."
     "Is that even possible?" asked Carter. "Reversing it?"
     "We think so," said Nat. "We've identified what it is that
makes Nick...makes us, what we are. We've come close a few times.
We're getting closer."
     "I see. And in man's most advanced research facilities..." He
nodded, then stood. "I have to go check on something, Doctors. We'll
talk again."
     "Fine," said Nick, "but..."
     "I want to hear more." 
     "Captain."
     "You tell me your vampire story, Detective, and I'll tell you
mine." He gave them both a meaningful look, then left them alone. The
two vampires just sat, looking at each other.
     "Can we trust him, Nick?"
     "I think so, yes," said Nick, after a long pause. "I remember
Carter from the airshow. He struck me as a straight sort, Nat."
     "His being a resister kind of makes it a moot point, anyway."
     "Yeah, but think, Nat. Someone is keeping tabs on us, for
LaCroix. We could use an ally up here, Nat. Maybe this was a blessing
in disguise."

     Across the base, in the Security Office, Tony Verdeschi was
searching through a number of databases, looking further into the
backgrounds of certain base personnel.



                           CHAPTER SEVEN



     Something about Alan Carter put Nicholas at his ease. Much to
his own surprise, he found this to be one mortal to whom he could
open up. It felt good, suddenly, to speak about his past without
fear, or the urge to hide.
     "I was a Knight of the Cross", said Nick.
     "A Crusader?" asked Carter.
     "Yes," nodded Nick. "Returning home in the Year Of Our Lord
1228. I stopped in Paris..." For the next few hours he continued,
unfolding the sad and melancholy tale of 800 years. Carter listened,
with both fascination and with horror, as the deeds, and the
misdeeds, of Nick's death were laid before him.
     Nat found herself surprised, as she listened. Some of the
events she had never heard, or gathered only bits and pieces of. And
she had learned early on, vampires do not indulge in true
confessions. Those mortals who learned the truth, however it had
happened, usually had only two options set before them. They were
either "invited" to join the Night Shift, or they could contract a
rapidly progressing form of anemia.
     But here was Nicholas de Brabant, vampire, letting it all hang
out, as if he were merely chatting over tea with his favorite auntie.
Had Nick just had enough of his endless, furtive skulking, Nat
wondered, or did he have a deeper design?
     "So two years ago, I resigned from the Toronto PD," Nick
finished up, "and began to work on a new identity. This one."
     "What made you think of Alpha, though?" asked Carter. "Quite a
shift."
     "It was a break," said Nick, "A totally fresh start. Someplace
that could provide us with all we needed for our quest, while
allowing us to do good for mankind at the same time." Carter was
quiet, and Nick stood up. "I have to pay society back, Captain. I
have done a great deal of wrong, a great deal of evil, since I made
that terrible decision, so long ago. This is another installment.
What Nat and I are doing here. And on Alpha, I'm free."
     "From what?"
     "The Enforcers," said Nat. Nick turned to her, obviously taken
aback at her mention of them. "Might as well, Nick. Vampires do not
advertise, Captain. Secrecy is necessary to...our survival. Those,
both inside and outside of the Community who endanger that secrecy
are summarily dealt with."
     "By other vampires."
     "Yes. A sort of vampire police, if you will, Captain. They deal
with those who endanger the Community."
     "And some in the Community take a dim view of what we are
doing, Captain," said Nick. "They would take the ultimate step, to
put a stop to us. Here on Alpha, we are away from all that. Free to
pursue our researches, unmolested."
     "I see. They can't touch you, here." He nodded. "Quite clever."
     "Thank-you," said Nat. "Now."
     "Now?"
     "Your story, Captain. You did say you had one?"
     "Yes," said the pilot, and he let out a deep breath. "Doctor, I
realized what your husband was, almost at once. You see, I've met
your kind before."
     "Where?" asked Nick, after a long silence.
     "Australia. I'm from New South Wales, as if you couldn't tell.
It was back in '80, and I was on a church camp outing, near Ayers
Rock."
     "I've been there," said Nat. "It's beautiful."
     "That's what I used to think," said Carter, "before. Now, I
can't even stand to look at a picture of the place. One evening my
girlfriend and I, we...well, we slipped away, after supper. Out of
sight of our chaperone." He was quiet a moment, remembering.
     "And it was then that he struck," said Nick.
     "Her," corrected Carter. "Tina and I, well, we heard these
noises coming from camp. Shouts and screams. We ran back, and that's
when we saw her." Carter's eyes went almost blank, as he drifted back
to that night. "She had Benny Frank by the neck, then dropped him.
There were at least four bodies that we could see. Then we heard a
shot, and she turned. She moved with incredible speed, and the
bullets didn't do a damned thing. We heard more screaming, but we
didn't dare move from where we were hidden, behind some trees and
brush. We were both scared to death, I can tell you."
     "And she didn't see you?" asked Nat.
     "Oh she saw us. I don't understand how. It was pitch black,
with no moon, but she did."
     "How did you escape?" she asked.
     "I had pocketed a pistol, when we went off, Tina and me.
Sometimes you run into Dingoes, or other wild animals. I wasn't
supposed to, but..." He shrugged. "Anyway, she dropped this one body,
I can still see the blood running down her chin, and turned to look
our way. She smiled, and it was like a leer straight from hell, let
me tell you. She came towards us, and laughed."
     "You fired," said Nick.
     "Yeah. I fired. Right into her chest. It didn't seem to do a
thing. I fired again, and again it only slowed her down. She laughed,
calling me 'silly boy'. I saw her teeth. Fangs. And her eyes. Glowing
yellow-white. Then, I fired into her face."
     "Ouch," said Nat, recalling the head wound that had nearly
spelled exposure for Nick.
     "This time she fell," said Carter, "screaming in pain. I put
another shot into her eye, and kept on firing, till I was out of
shells. Her head was a mess, blood and flesh everywhere. I could see
her brain."
     "And you thought she was dead?" questioned Nick.
     "Well, yeah. Part of her skull was blown off. It was a .357
Magnum, after all."
     "Then?" asked Natalie.
     "Tina was screaming, and it took a long time to quiet her down.
When I had, we went back into camp." Carter squeezed his eyes shut,
remembering. "They were dead. All of them, including Freddy Mascall,
our chaperone. All but Sally. She was alive, still. Barely." Carter
looked down at the floor, silent a moment.
     "And Sally was?" asked Nat, though she already suspected the
answer.
     "My sister, Doctor," replied Carter, looking back up slowly,
his eyes flinty. "She tried to talk. I gave her some water,
but...what could I do?"
     "I am sorry, Captain," said Nick. "Honestly."
     "I found the radio," Carter continued, "and sent out a Mayday
call, but it was a while before we raised anyone. Someone had ripped
the mic cord out. It took me a while to fix it." He was quiet again,
and Nick guessed why. "Then, we saw her again. Standing there, like
she'd never been hurt at all." He looked at Nick, no doubt recalling
the speed with which he had regenerated.
     "What did she do?" asked Nick, though he was certain of the
answer.
     "We saw her, then she was right in front of us. I've never seen
anyone move with that kind of speed. I reached for the rifle, but she
was way too fast."
     "What saved you?" asked Nat.
     "She was grinning, her eyes glowing. She had us backed up
against a tree, and reached out, grabbing me. Then she turned like
she'd heard something. After a moment, we heard it, too. A chopper.
She seemed to hesitate, and she looked from me, to the direction the
sound was coming from. She tried to make me forget, Nick, just like
you did. But it didn't work. We could begin to see the horizon, too.
It was just beginning to grow light, by this time."
     "She must have taken quite a while to regenerate," said Nat.
"How long?"
     "Oh, it must have been a least four hours, from the time I shot
her, till we saw her again."
     "Sorry," said Nat. "Doctor's curiosity. Go on."
     "Well, she let me go, and her face was angry. She was in a
rage, we could see. She looked at me, and said, 'Lucky boy. Another
time', and then she flew off." He watched their faces. "Yeah. Flew.
She lifted off the ground, and went up, into the air. Fast, too. I
never saw anything move that fast, Human or bird. A few minutes
later, the chopper got there, and it was light enough to see by."
     "What did you tell the police?" asked Nick.
     "What could we? A vampire? We just said we'd heard screams, and
rushed back to find them all like that."
     "They must have seen the bite marks," Nick went on.
     "Oh sure, but who is going to believe in vampires? In fact they
held Tina and me, for a while, but had to let us go. In the end, they
put it all down to a wild animal attack, and closed it."
     "It must have been horrible," said Nat, "watching all your
friends being slaughtered."
     "It was worse," said Carter. "Sally survived." He watched two
pairs of eyebrows go up. "Yeah. She lived, but she was never the
same."
     "What did she say?" asked Nick. "To the police?"
     "She told what she'd seen. She said it was a vampire, but no
one believed her. Slowly, she spiraled down into madness. Today,
she's in the Belconnen Psychiatric Hospital, in Canberra. A mental
home. She doesn't speak, doesn't recognize me, or Mom and Dad. She's
even afraid of the sunlight. It might have been better if she had
died. More merciful."
     "Can you describe this vampire?" asked Nick. 
     "Yeah. She was tall, with long blonde hair. Kind of honey-
colored. She was built like a centerfold model and  moved like an
athlete. But it's her eyes that I remember the most, Doctor. Yellow,
then red, shining, with the blood running down her chin." Carter
shook his head. "I still have dreams about it Nick, even today. But
why me? Why should I be the one to survive, when so many others
didn't?"
     "You were spared for a purpose, Captain. Who can say why?"
     "Well, I do know one thing," said Carter. "If I ever find her
again, I'll kill her Nick. I'll make her pay for what she did to my
sister and friends."
     "Easier said than done, with a vampire," said Natalie.
     "Then I die trying," said Carter, with heat. "remember, she's
already made two mistakes." He rose, and drew his commlock.
     "Oh?" asked Nat.
     "Yeah. One, she picked on the wrong bunch of people. And
second, she left me alive."
     "I'm glad you don't blame all of us, Captain," said Nick.
     "Why should I? She's the one who was responsible, not you.
Besides, you saved my life, remember?" He keyed open the door. "Oh
one more thing, Nick."
     "Yes?"
     "That Eagle we flew? Well, guess what?"

     "Damn you, Nicholas!" said LaCroix again, in Nick's nightmare.
Again his Master stood, stake raised to kill, blood on his lips, eyes
ablaze. He tensed...
     And speared the window with the weapon, instead. The sun blazed
through the shattered glass and caught Nick, still prone over
Natalie. His skin began to burn, then his hair and eyes.
Indescribable pain ripped through him, and he screamed...
     Nearly falling out of bed.
     "Nick? Nick, what in Heaven's..."
     "Dream," he said, still dazed, bloody sweat on his forehead.
"Merde!"
     "LaCroix again, Nick?"
     "Yeah. Yeah, it was him, Nat" He flopped back onto the pillow,
and was silent, letting his pulse and breathing return to vampire
normal. Then, with a deep breath, he began to tell her his dream. "I
still don't know, Nat. Was it me that took your blood, or was it
LaCroix? It's all so damned muddled."
     "You still can't remember?"
     "Not clearly. For weeks after Divia attacked me, things were
unclear, Nat. Even my memories of Tracy were a confused jumble. I
really thought she'd died, Nat."
     "At least she's okay, Nick. Happy and very much alive. The
bullet only did minor damage."
     "Yeah."
     "And?"
     "LaCroix, letting the sun into my loft. Someone pulled the
radiation screens off the Eagle's cockpit windows. Someone who knew I
would be the one in that Eagle with Carter."
     "Aren't they changed periodically, as part of regular
maintenance?"
     "Yes. All the rest scheduled for replacement were done, except
for Eagle 9."
     "And the training roster was posted, too. Anyone could have
seen it," added Natalie. Nick nodded, but said nothing. According to
Carter, the maintenance logs for that Eagle were missing. Nowhere to
be found.
     Who?
     "LaCroix must be behind it," he said at last.
     "But he wants you back, Nick. Exposing you to the sun, and more
intense sunlight than you'd ever get on Earth, is more likely to kill
you than return you to the fold. He may be a complete sicko, but dumb
he is not."
     "But who else could it be, Nat? Who else?"

     Nicholas wasn't the only Alphan unable to sleep that "night".
Commander Gorski lay awake, deep in worry. Simmonds and the Lunar
Commission, Alpha's governing body, had made it clear. Painfully so.
Getting the Meta Probe off and running was Priority Number One.
Nothing was to be permitted to interfere. At all. Period.
     And now this weird illness, that had claimed the lives of two.
Would it interfere? The Meta Probe astronauts, both main and backup
crews, had arrived on Alpha, and begun the final leg of their
training. What about them? Would they be affected, as well?
     For a moment, he let his wandering gaze rest on one of the old
icons, that had been in his family for generations, a Rubliev in
fact, resting on a shelf near the bed. Silently, hoping the Saints
were listening, he uttered a prayer for wisdom.
     Damn Simmonds! Gorski pounded the mattress. He would dearly
love to take that goateed weasel, and apply some pressure of his own!
Meta Probe? For a moment, Gorski fantasized about putting Simmonds on
a ship, alone, and shooting him into deep space!
     Fat chance.
     Down the corridor, Tony Verdeschi was also finding sleep
elusive. Only this time, it had less to do with his sleeping alone,
than with something that just wouldn't stop bothering him. One of, as
his father had liked to put it, "those things".
     Doctor Nicholas Barber.
     He had checked out, of course. All his references. Birthplace.
Schools. Yet, there was something that just refused to go away.
Something...
     Unable to shake it off, he got up, and headed for his security
office. Calling up the files on both Barbers, he began yet another
security review. Linking up with several databases on Earth, he set
the machine to do an exhaustive search.
     Exhaustive.

     "Got it!" cheered Nat, holding up the beaker. It caught the
light, shimmering like a ruby. "At last."
     "Are you sure?" asked Vincent.
     "Batch B-127H," laughed Nat, barely able to contain herself.
She was ecstatic. "It's perfect."
     She gave the flask to Vincent, who at once began an exhaustive
analysis. He and Nat went over it, again and again, in minute detail.
Nat's enthusiasm was infectious, and Vincent was growing more excited
by the minute.
     "Nick! Nick!" she cried. A moment later Nick came out of his
lab, hands dirty. She showed him the preliminary test results, and he
grabbed her by the arms, lifting her off of the floor and twirling
her around.
     "Enfin!" he shouted, as excited as she. They laughed, grabbing
each other, exclaiming with excitement, till at last Nick kissed her.
Vincent laughed softly, shaking his head.
     "How's the synthesizer?" Nat asked at last, settling down. For
an answer, he took her by the hand, and drew her into his lab.
"Nearly there, Nat. We're still having a problem with the memory
buffer initialization, but it's only a matter of time."
     They moved to the workbench, where a handsome black man was
working. Natalie recognized him as Kano's second, Ouma, as in love
with computers as was his chief. In fact, the two were so alike, they
were unofficially known as "The Twins".
     "Where's Kano?" asked Nat. "I haven't seen him today, Ouma."
     "He is in his lab," smiled Ouma. "A new shipment of parts and
equipment for the Master Computer came up on this morning's Eagle. He
just had to oversee it himself."
     "The new voice synthesizer system?" asked Natalie.
     "Yes. The X-5 will now have a real voice," said Ouma, then went
back to his testing, probe touching one point on a circuit board
after another.
     "Nat, this is wonderful," said Nick, whispering and drawing her
aside. Not that he really needed to. Nothing short of the Last Trump
would have distracted Ouma, just now. "Finally, we've made it."
     "And that isn't all," Nat went on. "Remember dear old
Litoveuterine B?"
     "Like I could forget," grimaced Nick. "Damn nearly did me in,
Nat. Why?"
     "Well, I've been working on it again, Nick. Alpha's labs have
made huge advances in bioengineering technology the last couple of
years, and I'm up to Litoveuterine D. I've been trying it on my own
cells, Nick. I was finally able to culture...vampire cells."
     "And?"
     "It bonded with the vampire virus, like B did, and shut it
down, but it didn't effect the cell's metabolism the way B did. Fewer
side effects, Nick," she exclaimed.
     "Then it could...it could work, Nat," said Nick, thinking back
to that experiment gone wrong. A synthetic hormone designed to, of
all things, boost beef production had had the unexpected side-affect
of suppressing Nick's vampirism. He could endure the sun, eat real
food, the works. Only it had turned out to be hideously addictive,
making Nick antsy, suspicious, and then finally downright paranoid.
Never again had they gotten as close. 
     Until Moonbase Alpha.
     "Anytime now," said Nick, motioning towards the synthesizer.
"All the food we'll ever need, Nat. And if your other work pans
out...we can go home, Natalie. We can be Human, again."
     "And have a real life, Nick," she whispered, leaning close. "A
family, Nick. Babies. A..." She forgot words and kissed him. Nicholas
responded, forgetting...
     "Got it!" exclaimed Ouma, nearly loud enough to blow the
windows out, to one and all. They let go of each other, and turned
back to face him.
     "For sure?" asked Nick.
     "Yes. It was a corrupted initialization file in the BIOS, Nick.
That's why it would not come up, but it's clear now. We can begin the
data transfer immediately!"
     "Doctor Barber?" came Vincent's voice, over the commlock.
     "Yes?" answered both vampires. "Come on in, Ben," said Nat.
     "You were absolutely right, Natalie," said Vincent. "The
creatinine and myoglobuline analysis confirms. It's perfect."

     Barely an hour later the synthesizer was ready for it's first
test run. Ouma did the honors, and within minutes out flowed a small
amount of the precious red fluid. At once subjected to analysis, it
passed every test.
     They had done it.
     "Please," said Helena. "Keep it down to a dull roar, okay?"
     "But this is something to celebrate," said Mathias. "It's
perfect, Helena. Red cells, plasma, creatinine..."
     "Except," said Nat.
     "Except?" said Mathias. "What's left out?"
     "Cholesterol," smirked Nat impishly, then burst out laughing.
"It's fat free!" They all joined her, dissolving in raucous
jocularity.

     "Very interesting," said Tony Verdeschi, in his office. "Very."



                           CHAPTER EIGHT



     That evening, Nick and Nat celebrated in their quarters, nearly
glutting themselves on the fruit of their labors. Nick could feel the
energy pulse and surge through his frame, the raw flailing power his
kind took from the hunt. 
     "Perfect," he said, the memory of a thousand past hunts coming
back to him as he savored the red fluid. He held it on his tongue,
eyes closed, losing himself to the ebb and flow of the ecstasy
pounding through him. He looked deeply into Nat's eyes, and drank
again.

     "And typeless," replied Nat. "Universal donor. Tomorrow, Gorski
wants us to start restocking Alpha's blood supplies."
     "Think you can fudge the numbers a bit, in Medical?"
     "Ooooh, just watch. 'Hacker from Hell Lambert' they call me,"
Nat grinned, then took another draught and moved to Nick, drawing her
lips...
     She never got there.
     All at once, the security alarm was blaring, and she
instinctively knew what it was.

     "He went berserk in the main cafeteria," said the security man,
in Medical. "One minute Stewart was fine, having lunch with his
girlfriend, the next he was grabbing his head and screaming, as if he
were in pain."
     "Just like Praeger and Faber," said Helena. 
     "After that he went wild," the security guy went on. "He tried
to get out through the windows, and injured two people before he was
subdued."
     "Same symptoms?" asked Gorski of Helena.
     "Exactly, Commander. Examination shows his brain has an
identical malignancy to those suffered by the other men."
     "And the prognosis, Doctor?"
     "Right now, we're holding out little hope, Commander. Right
after we got him in here, Stewart suffered cardiac failure. Right now
he's going on life support, only." 
     "Stewart," said Gorski over the IC into the isolation ward.
"Stewart, it's me. Stewart?"
     Stewart didn't move. His face had a blank, empty expression,
his eyes clouded over. As Gorski watched there was a slight twitch,
but the astronaut made no response.
     "What was his duty assignment?" asked Gorski.
     "Shuttle pilot," said Verdeschi. "He ferried atomic waste from
here to be dumped in Area Two."
     "And you are certain there is no radiation whatsoever, Doctor?"
asked Gorski. 
     "None," replied Helena. "The biopsy results aren't back yet,
but I expect to find the same as the other men, Com..." She was cut
off by an alarm. 
     "It's Stewart," cried a nurse. "CVA"

     Helena called it. Astronaut Tilden Stewart died of a massive
stroke, brought on by the unexplained growth in his skull, at 22:49
Lunar Time. As before, Helena and Nat performed the autopsy. As
before, the results were the same. A perfectly healthy man had died
from the eruption of a malignancy in the brain that defied medical
explanation. The aberrant cells showed a pattern similar to radiation
poisoning...
     Only there was no radiation.
     Nor was there was to be any rest, either. The next morning
another pilot, Luke Park, was attacked the same way, on the way back
from the Far Side. He'd gone nuts, and so had his piloting, as his co-
pilot struggled with him in the cockpit. The Eagle weaved all over,
at last belly-flopping into the Alpine Valley. When the rescue ship
got there, Park was exactly like the other men. Eyes clouded over,
face a canker, unresponsive. Fredericks the co-pilot had retreated to
the passenger module, the Eagle's only liveable area, to wait as the
ship's life-support failed.
     Like the rest, Park lingered a few days, never recovering. In
desperation Helena and Mathias tried a variety of anti-cancer drugs
on the growth in Park's brain, but none evinced any effect.
     Helena was frustrated. Four men, all her responsibility,
stricken with an unknown illness. Now three were dead, a fourth lay
dying, and she could find no cause. Grasping at straws, she
investigated everything, regardless of how odd or unlikely.  Finding
that both Faber and Park had suffered a severe flu before coming to
Alpha, she probed whether a virus might have mutated somehow,
perhaps...
     It turned out to be an unfortunate line of research. Gorski,
needing something with which to placate Simmonds, related the "virus"
angle, while suppressing much of the rest of Helena's findings. The
"astronaut virus infection" soon became the official story.
     Anton Gorski absolutely hated Gerald Simmonds. The man was
refined, witty, urbane, cultured, and a snake. Simmonds had the moral
restraint of a hungry shark, Gorski had decided. He was a man who had
bullied, sullied, cheated, blackmailed, and outright lied to get
where he was now. A Ph.D. in political science, he'd put his
education to good use, doing what he "had to", to achieve his desired
ends.
     Having insatiable political ambitions, Simmonds saw, Gorski was
certain, the Meta Probe as a personal springboard to higher office.
If anything, ANYTHING, went wrong with the project, the Commissioner
would see to it that heads rolled.
     Starting with Gorski's.
     And Anton Gorski was not at all amenable to being ground under
heel by the ambitions of a glorified political hack. Simmonds might
have gotten himself appointed Space Commissioner, but he knew about
as much about space and space travel as did the average plumber about
characterizing non-linear dynamics by using wavelet analysis! He was
a...
     Well, he was. But Gorski had no desire to end his career on a
sour note. So, he'd thrown Simmonds a bone, hoping to hold the
predatory Commissioner off until an answer was found, or the Meta
Probe was on its way. 
     And that, Saints be praised, would be soon. The Meta Probe
astronauts were well into the final leg of their training, and the
probe ship's engines were nearly complete. The engineers were
expecting to test-fire them any day now, and then the ship would be
moved to the launch platform in lunar orbit, for final preparations
and fitting out.
     If they could just manage to keep Simmonds at bay, until then.

     In the Cascade Mountains of Washington State, John Robert
Koenig, and his brother Walter, were enjoying a rare holiday
together. Both men enjoyed the outdoors, the unspoiled immensity that
was the natural world. Hiking, fishing, camping. Ah, this was the
life. As they sat around the fire, John looked up, spying the moon.
     For a moment, old sour memories surfaced. His time there, on
Alpha. The Ultra Probe disaster. The...
     No. He would not let the past spoil his time with Walter. It
was too important. 
     Thank God, he thought, I'm here, and not on Alpha. They'll
never get me back there again.

     The results of Verdeschi's search were both illuminating, and
frustrating. Doctor Nicholas Barber's past was well documented and
complete. Complete, except for...
     Doctor Brooks, Nick's anatomy instructor at his "medical school
of record." The only one who had not as yet retired, he had never
heard of Nicholas Barber. Oh, the computer records were there, as
well as all the usual paper files, but Brooks did not recognize the
handsome Alphan. Even the official class picture lacked one certain
person.
     From there, Verdeschi moved on to Nick's photos, and was
surprised when a match came up, from of all places, the Toronto
Police Department. He was even more surprised to turn up a picture
from the Chicago Department, and totally floored to dig out a
driver's license shot dated 1960, from New York. The license snap was
with glasses and a goatee, but the computer took care of that.
     Yeah. The same guy. New York, Chicago, Toronto.
     But how? Given Barber's appearance in the license shot, he
looked around thirty or so. Assuming that to be the case, that would
make him at least seventy years old. The man he had met and played
poker with was certainly no oldster. No one at the New York DMV, or
the Chicago PD, would still be there from that time.
     But Toronto was another matter. Another matter entirely.
     He did some more checking. The Toronto Police files rendered up
three people still living who had worked with "Detective Nick
Knight". One, a Captain Joseph Stonetree, had retired last year.
Detective Tracy Vetter was still active, however, as was Captain Joe
Reese.
     Verdeschi put through calls to them both.

     Nick awoke next morning, to find Nat hurriedly dressing. It
wasn't hard to figure the reason.
     "Another one?"
     "Yeah," said Nat, clipping the commlink to her belt. "Another
Eagle pilot."
     Astronaut Mario Fouchet had succumbed to the same symptoms as
the other men. He lay next to Park in the Medical Center as ravaged,
and as blank, as the rest.
     "It happened on the way to Area Two," said Paul Morrow, Main
Mission Controller, and Gorski's second. He'd been on the radio with
Fouchet's Eagle when the pilot had fallen ill. 
     "What about the co-pilot, Collins?" asked Gorski.
     "He checks out," said Doctor Vincent. "No signs of the illness,
Commander.
     Beep.
     "Yes?"
     "Commissioner Simmonds for you, sir," said Sandra Benes. Gorski
frowned, and retreated to his office. As usual, Simmonds was his
oily, overly nice self.
     "Anton," he said, stroking his beard. "What's the word?"
     "We've had another one, Commissioner," replied Gorski. "This
morning, at Area Two."
     "Same as the rest?"
     "Yes."
     "Does Doctor Russell have any clues as to the source of the
virus?" asked Simmonds. 
     "None so far, Commissioner," replied Gorski. "She and her staff
are working around the clock to try and un..."
     "Yes, of course, Commander. Now, the Meta Probe astronauts."
Simmonds waited a beat, letting his expression speak for him. "They
are well?"
     Oh that face! thought Gorski. If only I...
     "They are, Commissioner. Warren and Sparkman are in perfect
health. The back-up crew, Bennett and Wyn Davies, are as well. At the
moment, they are out on a training flight."
     "Excellent." Simmonds leaned towards the vid pickup. "I hardly
think I need remind you Commander, of the seriousness of this
situation. The Meta Probe is our paramount concern. We cannot allow
anything whatsoever to interfere."
     You mean that you cannot let the political opportunity of a
lifetime blow up in your face, you pig! thought Gorski. The anti-
space movement causing you problems again?
     "I understand," he said, forcing his face to remain pleasant.
Oh to reach through that screen, across all the miles between them,
and grab that scrawny neck...
     "I trust so," said Simmonds, in his best abusive parent tone.
"Now, there are two other small matters I need to cover with you,
Anton."
     "And they are?"
     "Professor Bergman. I want him to stay on there, for now. I
know he's scheduled to rotate off Alpha, the end of this month, but
I'd like him to remain until the Probe ship is on her way."
     "He won't like that," said Gorski. "And Doctor Linden..."
     "That's not my concern, Commander. Or yours. The decision
stands."
     "Very well. And the other matter, Commissioner?"
     "How much do you know about Doctor Barber, Anton? Nicholas
Barber."

     Nick was ecstatic. Both Nat's bioengineering, and his work on
the synthesizer, had paid off. Big. They now had achieved their first
goal: a virtually unlimited supply of the sustenance they needed, on
demand. Now, now!! they could concentrate upon the second. 
     Forever eradicating the vampire within!
     As Nat set to on that one, Nick worked with the folks in
technical section, putting his new synthesizer through one rigorous
test after another. Soon, another was being built, bound for the Meta
Probe. Nicholas felt a tiny surge of pride. His and Nat's work, going
out into space. Should the astronauts have need and their blood
stocks suffer damage or prove insufficient, they would have something
to fall back on. 
     And it was put to the test almost at once. Tony Verdeschi,
Chief of Security, was wheeled into Medical with an ugly wound along
his left arm, bleeding profusely. Another worker from Area Two Moses
Ozaba, had gone berserk upon returning, attacking both Tony and the
pilot. The pilot, Link, was fine, but Tony had taken a bad one.
     "What the hell did he hit you with?" asked Nat, who happened to
be the one on duty.
     "A geologists pick," he said through clenched teeth as Nat
irrigated the wound. "Must have grabbed it from the equipment locker,
I guess." He lay back, weak from blood loss, and felt the painkillers
begin to kick in. "He barreled out of there, totally crazy, Natalie.
Just like the others."
     Nat looked at the blood still oozing from the wound, and felt
the urge rise up. Unable to resist, she put a bloody fingertip to her
lips and tasted. She could feel the almost erotic jolt as it covered
her tongue, and the nature...
     "Santa Maria!" swore Tony on seeing her eyes. Quickly Nat
squeezed them shut and took a deep breath, snapping out of it.
Opening them again, she returned to her patient. "I...I saw...what
the..." He tried to rise.
     "Quiet, Mr. Verdeschi," she said, putting out a restraining
hand. "You're weak, Tony. Weak from shock and loss of blood." She put
another hypo to him, and he passed out quickly. Then, thanks to
Nick's creation, she replaced the nearly two pints of blood he'd
lost, patched him up, and left him to recover.
     "Close, Nat," she muttered to herself. "You nearly gave the
game away." The sight of all that blood had excited her vampiric
nature, bringing her close to losing control. Control, Nick had
taught her, came only with time. Given enough, she would be better
able to reign herself in. Fortunately, Verdeschi was no resister, and
could be made to forget this regrettable incident. She washed up, and
left him to sleep.
     Unaware that she had been seen.

     There was a small party of sorts later, in Medical, to
celebrate the success of Doctors Barber and Barber. Not only was the
new technology working, it had already saved its first life. All in
all, not bad. 
     Still, the celebration was muted, everyone aware of the recent
tragedies that had visited Moonbase Alpha. A fifth man had been
stricken with an illness no one understood, the others dead or dying. 
     Deciding she hadn't the moral right to ignore it, Nat set aside
her own research for a while, and applied herself to Alpha's malady.
For two days, she studied slides of the diseased tissue, trying to
culture it, scanning it with the tunneling electron microscope.
     All of which told her very little, aside from the fact that the
genetic material inside the altered cells was scrambled. No surprise
there. Curious, she exposed some of the cell cultures to her own
blood, and waited. She watched expectantly, hoping...
     And then it happened. Slowly, the cells began to change,
gradually losing their malignant pathology. Within less than four
minutes, she had culture dishes full of normal Human brain cells. The
cells were, in effect, "cured".
     "Even this, Nat?" asked Nick later, in their quarters.
     "Uh huh. I was able to culture cells from two of the men.
Praeger and Ozaba. Both returned to normal, Nick. The vampire element
caused a total repair of the cells. Both the outer membrane and
internally, Nick."
     "But at what cost, Nat? Turning them both into vampires?"
     "I'm not asking you to do that, Nick. And I'm not exactly eager
to do it myself, either. I haven't forgotten what happened with
Richard." 
     "And Alpha's hardly the best place to bring someone across,
either," agreed Nick, recalling the bringing across of her brother.
"First Feeding and all."
     "Messy, yes," nodded Nat, recalling her own First Feeding.
     "What did you do with the cultures, Nat?"
     "Destroyed them, of course." She yawned. "Oh man. Natalie is
beat." She stretched and ruffled her luxuriant hair. "I have to
crash, Nick."
     "Me too, Nat," said Nick, and moved to the windows. He lifted
the shutters into place, blacking them out completely. Outside, Plato
Crater was bathed in sunlight, and soon the moon's movement would
bring that deadly radiance right through them. Though these windows
were fully shielded against solar radiation, neither vampire wished
to put them to the acid test.

     "What the hell?" muttered Helena Russell, eyes glued to her
instruments. Under them, one of Nat's cell cultures held the CMO
spellbound. Helena's medical mind wanted to know. What had happened
to these cells? They were Human, and from the ID number on the dish,
taken from the latest victim, Ozaba. 
     But they weren't the same. Not only was there no trace of the
malignancy that had killed the man, but the cells had been subtily
altered somehow. Probing further, Helena could see strange new
nucleotide sequences, in both the DNA, and the transfer RNA.
Sequences she had never seen, nor heard of. She set the computer to
searching Alpha's vast medical database for anything remotely like
them, and reflected once more on  Dr. Natalie Barber.
     She knew what she had seen, and while she considered it morally
repugnant to spy upon her own staff like some paranoid Nazi, she felt
that she was justified here. At least, she told herself more than
once, she had managed to jam up the disposal chute in time to catch
one of the culture dishes.

     The next morning, at 09:48 Lunar Time, Astronaut Luke Park was
pronounced dead by Doctor Vincent. He was followed an hour and a half
later, by Mario Fouchet. Astronaut Ozaba continued to linger, though
nothing succeeded in halting the progression of the disease. No drug,
no radiological therapy, nothing. It slowly continued to eat up his
nervous system, heedless of anything and everything.
     Natalie was beginning to feel as if she were back home in
Toronto, and that Moonbase Alpha had turned into a charnel house.
Since it's completion, Alpha had seen only one death. Now, the
mortality rate had gone through the roof.
     "And how are we today?" she asked Verdeschi, checking on her
patient.
     "I think I'll live, Doc," he said brightly, then looked at his
bandaged arm. "At least you won't have to autopsy me, anytime soon."
     "Let us hope not, Mr. Verdeschi. I have had quite enough of
that. Enough to last me a lifetime, as a matter of fact."
     "So, how does Alpha stack up against Toronto, eh?"
     "Well, the death rate is, overall, lower, but I do miss it. I
mean it is home, Tony. The lake, the open air, the smell of growing
things."
     "Yeah, I kind of miss home too, Doc. The parks, the old
neighborhood, the bridge over the Arno." He was quiet a moment. "So,
why'd you choose Alpha? Quite a career switch, wasn't it? Toronto, to
the moon?"
     "Not really. Medicine is medicine, and I decided that I wanted
to help people before the end up in the meat wagon. The research
being done here, in the medical field, is so very important. I just
had to be a part of it." She looked at his chart. "Besides, the macho
hunk on the recruiting poster was just too cute to pass up."
     Why is he asking these questions? Nat wondered.
     "Same here," said Verdeschi, as she changed the dressing, and
updated his chart. "Except for the poster. Had to be a part of it."
     "Cops in Space?"
     "Well, my marks as a pilot sucked, but there was an opening in
Security, so..." He shrugged. "Must be nice, you and your hub. Both
being doctors."
     "Well, it simplifies mealtime conversation," said Nat. "There,
your arm is doing nicely, Mr. Verdeschi. Nothing broken, no signs of
infection. You can go."
     "Thanks, Doc," he said, getting to his feet. "I like the
company, but the décor is lousy in here."
     "Uh" was Nat's noncommittal reply.
     "Did you and your husband attend the same medical school?"
Verdeschi asked as he eased back into his uniform.
     "No", said Nat, who knew that Verdeschi already knew damned
good and well they hadn't.
     "You know, I would never have taken him for a doctor. He
doesn't look like a doctor."
     "And," said Nat, turning away from Verdeschi to update his file
in the computer, "just what does a doctor look like, hhmm?" She
waited a beat. "There are no doctor genes that give us that Marcus
Welby look."
     "Well, I don't know, but he just doesn't. He looks more
like...well, an actor?" He paused a moment. "Or a cop."
     Natalie tensed a moment, still too new a vampire to control her
reactions quickly. Verdeschi spotted it at once.
     "Or maybe a soldier," Tony went on, quickly. "He's got that man
of action look about him, Doc." He waited another moment or two. "I
guess it shows how wrong first impressions can be, eh?"
     "Yeah," said Nat, turning around. Verdeschi was on to
something, of that she was sure. Could she, dare she...
     Beep.
     "Tony?" chirped his commlock.
     "Yeah?"
     "Jobe here. We've got a fight in the Solarium."
     "Oh God, not another one!"
     "No, not that. Just a squabble. Carolyn Powell, again."
     "On my way." He keyed off, swearing softly, and clipped the
commlock to his belt. "Well, gotta go, Doc. Munus me vocat." 
     "Well, here," she said, tossing him a bottle of pills. "Take
these for pain. One per dose as needed, not to exceed six per day. If
the pain persists, come and see one of us."
     "Right, Doc." 

     "You're sure?" asked Nick, later.
     "Oh yeah, Nick. Verdeschi knows. His hints were way too close
to be just coincidence."
     "But how, Nat? I worked for two years, building this identity.
I cleared up my past, big time."
     "Well, something got missed, my big burly Crusader. Either
that, or..."
     "Yes. LaCroix."

     For the next two weeks, Alpha was reasonably quiet. Much to
Nat's relief, the fracas in the mess was merely a lover's spat. One
of the techs in Medical was breaking up with her boyfriend in
Security, and it had spilled over. Nothing more. 
     Helena was growing more and more angry with Commander Gorski.
He steadfastly refused to forward to allow her to forward any of her
findings. The "virus infection" was still the official story, and
would remain so. Period.
     This is ridiculous, Helena told herself, as she reviewed all of
the data so far. Simmonds and the Commission needed to know what was
going on up here. They needed to get as many minds as possible
working on this problem. No answers, certainly no cure, would come
from putting their heads in the sand. Why the hell was Gorski doing
this? It was madness!!
     No, she told herself. Politics. Not that there was much
difference betwixt one and the other, yea and nay. But she had become
a physician in order to help people, cure illness, heal the sick. Not
to just sit back on her hands, and do nothing. She couldn't.
     She got up, and went to her old-fashioned Olivetti. With brisk
movements, she typed up her resignation. One copy for Gorski, the
other for that...that bastard Simmonds. No longer would Helena
Russell stand by, and watch people die. 
     But...but any new CMO would have to deal with the same
problems. Whether they promoted one of her staff, or sent up someone
new, they would have to navigate the same bloody minefield. No, she
thought, shaking her head.
     Not yet. She took the envelopes, and put them in her desk.
     Just in case.


                        CHAPTER NINE
                                                           


     It had been three weeks since Nick's nature had been revealed
to Carter. As good as his word, the pilot had spoken of it to no one,
even shifting the topic of conversation at one of the poker games
away from the realm of the "supernatural", vampires of course, to
something a bit less close to home for the Doctors Barber.
     He also had some news for them. A thorough search had turned up
no clues as to the identity of the person who had left the radiation
shields off the eagle's cockpit windows. The maintenance logs were
clean, the Eagle's windows suspiciously clear of fingerprints.
     Curious.
     "What's this stuff?" asked Carter, watching Nat's latest
experiment swirl and bubble. 
     "Litoveuterine, Captain,' she answered.
     "What's that?"
     "Originally, it was a synthetic hormone, intended to enhance
beef production."
     She could almost hear his eyebrows crinkle.
     "And why would you be playing with that?"
     Nat explained the attempted use of Litoveuterine B a few years
back, and it's disastrous consequences for Nick. Carter totally
missed the technobabble, but readily grasped the potential import of
the research.
     "And this will cure you?" he asked, picking up a bottle of the
liquid. "You and Nick?"
     "We hope so, Captain. We really hope so."
     "Alan, please. Call me Alan." 
     "Okay, Alan. Yes, we hope so."
     "What causes it? Being a ..." He dropped his voice, looking
about. "A vampire, I mean."
     "It's some sort of bizarre infection, Cap...Alan. A virus-like
organism that alters portions of the host creature's nucleic acid
sequences. Sorry," said, seeing his expression. "The DNA and Transfer
RNA in our cells are changed, but we haven't yet figured out how it
works."
     "How do you, well...catch it? This virus?"
     "You have to be directly infected by blood containing the
virus, Alan. Usually, you're so weakened by loss of blood that the
virus begins to work immediately. The weaker you are, the faster it
takes hold."
     "Then it doesn't just happen."
     "No. Someone has to be intentionally brought across. Someone
drained by being fed upon can't live very long, even if the vampire
doesn't finish them off."
     "Where did this...bug come from? Originally?"
     "God knows, Alan. We have no clue. Vampires go so far back, no
one can remember ou...their beginnings. Vampires have existed since
before the pyramids. It's a complete mystery."
     "How did you, well..."
     "Complicated story, Alan," she sighed, "and I'm not even...sure
we'll be there," she said loudly, shifting gears. "I love poker.
Helena."
     "Nat. Alan," said the CMO, entering quietly. "Nat, are those
cell cultures ready?"
     "Ready and at attention, Helena." She indicated the waiting
culture dishes.
     Then the alarms went off again.

     "Anatoly Gorbushin," said Mathias. "Wild paranoia, the clouded
eyes, the weird scarring on the face. Same as the rest." They watched
Gorbushin, on life support, next to fellow pilot Ozaba. Neither man
was responsive to any stimuli. Both Helena and Vincent were making
tests, while Nat treated the minor injuries of Gorbushin's co-pilot,
Collins. As with all the other men, no solid leads. None at all. 
     Helena, again grasping at straws, proposed excising the growth
from the brain. Since the men's families would have to give
permission, she'd have to contact Earth, and speak to them.
     "No", said Gorski.
     It was a moot point, anyway. Ozaba died, before she could have
begun. In a fury, Helena stormed into Gorski's office and everyone
steered clear, pretending not to hear the loud, acrimonious voices
rattling through the bulkhead. Later, Helena stormed back to Medical
Center, to find Nat ready with Ozaba's autopsy. 
     "So, what happened?" Nat asked, as they set to.
     "Autopsy of Moses Ozaba," droned Helena into the mic. "Male,
aged 34."
     "So," said Nat, as they made the first incision. "You don't
want to talk about it."
     "I hate politicians," said Helena, peeling back the first flap
of skin. "Gorski is an astrophysicist. He should be acting like a
scientist, instead of some...some damned White House Press Secretary!
You'd think Bill Clinton was on the loose up here!" 
     "It was no different in Toronto, Helena. Sometimes it made it
difficult to do the job."
     "Difficult? It's damn near impossible," replied Helena. "We
have a problem up here, and I can't report even the meager findings I
do have."
     "We'll find it," said Nat, removing Ozaba's liver for weighing.
"We'll figure this out."

     While the two doctors were at it with their knives and bottles,
Verdeschi sat in his office, mulling. He should report his findings.
But, Doctor Barber had saved his life. Treated his injury. And
Nicholas...well, he had saved Ben Vincent.
     For one of the few times in his life, Tony Verdeschi found
himself in a moral quandary. He honestly did not know what he should
do.
     And, on the Dark Side, deep within the now disused Disposal
Area One, the temperature began, very very slowly, to rise.

     Even for a vampire, Natalie was bushed when she got back to
their quarters. Nick had dropped off, in the big ugly white plastic
chair, and she let him sleep.
     Only Nick was not sleeping peacefully. He was twitching,
obviously dreaming, and a thin film of red sweat was breaking out on
his forehead. For a few minutes she watched him, then headed for the
shower. When she returned, he was still at it.
     "Nick," she said. No response. She called louder, then reached
out, touching his arm. "Hey, N..." She leapt back as he snapped
awake, fangs bared, eyes blazing. "Nick! Nick wake up!" she cried,
catching him as he leapt out of the chair. "Nick, you..."
     "Yeah," he exhaled, plopping back down. He wiped his forehead,
and took a deep breath. "Dream, Nat. Bad one."
     "I gathered. Erica, again?" She managed to keep the skepticism
out of her voice.
     "Yes," he nodded. "And...Alyssa."
     "Alyssa?" Nat sat down, waiting as Nick returned to normal.
"And?"
     "The same as Erica. I must leave Alpha, she said. There's
danger here for me, Nat." He looked at her a long moment. "You still
don't believe it, do you?"
     "I'm a scientist, Nick," she sighed, taking the chair opposite
him. Maybe, if I had been raised back in...aw hell, I don't know."
     "But it's true, Nat. There is danger up here. All these deaths.
A disease no one can understand. Erica was right, Nat." Nat merely
shrugged. The scientist in her firmly believed that ghosts were crap.
Dead people were dead. They didn't drop by for a chat. Especially
when their mortal remains were over a quarter of a million miles away
on another world, and several years, or centuries, in the past.
     But, she could not help but remember, she had seen one. Her own
grandmother had paid her a visit, of sorts. Natalie had tried to
rationalize it away as nerves, exhaustion, delusions, whatever. Yet,
her scientist's mind could find no other explanation but the simple
reality of it.
     "So. You think we should go?" she asked him, at last.
     "I...I don't know, Nat. We're so close. So close to finding the
way back that I hate the idea. But I'm sure they're right." He waited
a moment, listening to the silence. "Anything new?"
     "On the litroveuterine? Well," she sighed, shifting in her
chair, "the latest batch is swirling in its beaker. I'll know more by
noon."
     "The disease?"
     "Dr. Vincent is doing enzymatic analyses of the malignant cells
from the affected men. The results should be in, late tomorrow
afternoon. For all the bloody good it'll do."
     "You don't expect much, then?"
     "No. Not really, Nick. Whatever this thing is, it's outside the
usual confines of medical science. Cells do not go from perfectly
healthy to terminally malignant in a few minutes, under any
circumstances I understand. It just does not happen, Nick."
     "Yet it has."
     "Yeah," she sighed, tiredly. "It has."
     "Do you think that we could be affected?"
     "No. I exposed some of the altered cells I cultured to the
vampire virus from my blood. After a few minutes, they returned to
normal. Well, vampire normal. The effects of this disease were
completely reversed."
     "Then what danger could Erica and Alyssa be talking about, Nat?
If we're immune, like we are to everything else."
     "I don't know, Nick," she sighed again. Personally, she
suspected it was all in Nick's head, these visitations. Only he had
seen them, after all. And even if they were, somehow, real, what
danger? Discovery? Well, someone was playing games with them, but
ultimately they knew who was responsible, and in time would discover
who, on Alpha, was doing his bidding. 
     Nat mulled it over and over, but could come up with no answers.
As she wool-gathered, she wandered back, to that night in Nick's
loft. Back to her biggest unanswered question. 
     Who, in truth, had taken her blood?
     Her memories of that period were muddled. Hardly surprising
really, given the events of those days. The resurrection of the
demonic Divia, her horrific swath of slaughter through the vampire
Community, the suicide of Natalie's friend, the near-death of Tracy
Vetter. 
     She'd gone to Nick's loft, deciding that it was time. She loved
Nick, despite the chasm between them, and tonight she would leap that
chasm. She would be brought across. Become what Nick was. Share his
burden. She had entered his loft, waited for him in her negligee,
fortified herself with a drink or two, and after that it was all a
jumble. A Dadaist collage of images and sounds, but nothing concrete.
Until she had awakened, near dawn the next morning, changed. Altered.
Transformed. Dead.
     A vampire.
     She had awakened to Nick, looking down at her, both relief and
sadness on his face. The one thing he most of all wished to avoid
had, in his despite, come about. And, of course, LaCroix...
     LaCroix had been there, she knew, no doubt purposing to torment
Nick yet again in yet another unholy fashion. She remembered
fragments, bits of words. But when she tried to make sense of it all,
draw a complete picture, it was chiefly LaCroix's eyes she
remembered, glaring hatefully down at her. His hands upon her flesh,
his...
     Had he? Had LaCroix, with his usual sick perspective on
"teaching" his errant son, drained her to the point of death in order
to force Nicholas to make a choice? It would have suited his ends, as
well as stroked his vast twisted ego, to turn Natalie, the one
seeking a cure for vampirism, into a vampire herself.
     Either way, it was a done deal, and she was now one of the
Undead. One of the very creatures she had once disbelieved, then
striven to cure. Oh yes, most definitely. That would have given him a
laugh.
     But the stake? Nat was sure, was sure, amongst all the other
myriad muddled images, that Nicholas had indeed given LaCroix the
wooden spike, prepared to die, to really die, rather than turn Nat
into what he was. From the floor, in a brief conscious moment, she
saw the ancient vampire, eyes glaring, a look of utter fury on his
face. Why? His joke not going over the way he'd hoped? Nicholas not
playing the pliantly obedient clientus to his mighty, megalomaniacal
patronus? 
     She had seen no more, only heard his furious "Damn you,
Nicholas!", then blackness. But she could readily understand, better
than Nick seemed to, why he had not plunged the weapon into them both.
     Pride. To do so, to kill Nicholas, was to lose. In setting Nick
eternally free of his curse, LaCroix would have been, in effect,
surrendering to him, losing the argument of 800 years. With his mania
for control, the old Roman had, had, to keep Nicholas alive and well,
for him to dominate. It was as if keeping, rescuing, tormenting, and
punishing Nicholas had become the sum total of LaCroix's life.
     But however it was, he had left, stake unused, and only his
curse remained behind with them. Nick, forced to it, had saved her,
and here they were. Both vampires. Both hating what they were, both
questing for a cure.
     No wonder LaCroix hated her so much.

     The next day, it happened again. Kazuo Horiushi, another pilot,
was hauled out on a gurney after his Eagle returned from the Dark
Side. He'd gone off, while on the way back to Alpha. Exactly like the
other men, he had gone berserk, desperately seeking escape. He had
tried to smash his way out of the cockpit through the windows,
sending the Eagle careening out of control. His co-pilot, Weyland,
had managed to stun him, set the ship down, and get out of the
cockpit before the port blew. Once he was immobilized, Weyland was
able to fly back to Alpha without incident.
     By that time, Horiushi was like all the rest. Vacant and
unresponsive to stimuli. His eyelids twitched now and then, but
beyond that, nothing. Ignoring Gorski's orders, Helena contacted his
family, who gave permission for her radical surgical proposal.
     "Hope and pray, people," she said, as they began. The
malignancy in Horiushi's brain was slightly smaller than the others,
and nearer to the cortex. Exercising caution, and extreme skill,
Helena was able to remove it, all in one piece. She sent it off to
biopsy, and then it was time to hope.
     She looked out the windows of the ward to see an angry Gorski
glaring at her, but she didn't give a damn. Her job, her calling, was
to save lives, to hell with rules. If Gorski, or better yet that
buffalo breath Simmonds didn't like it, well, screw them!!!!!  She'd
take her lumps. Right now, her sole concern was with her patient.
     And her patient seemed to be improving, ever so slightly. With
the pressure off of his brain stem, his vitals began to firm up, and
he was breathing on his own. There was even, albeit very slightly,
some degree of renewed cortical activity.
     For her part, Natalie closed ranks with her chief, as did the
rest of the medical staff. Every man and woman. Faced with such
formidable foes arrayed against him, Gorski could do nothing, and
rather than jump all over Helena, spent the rest of the day in
conference with Professors Bergman and Linden.

 
     "Turning into an bloody assembly line," quipped Nat, as
Horiushi was placed back in the ward, next to Gorbushin. He didn't
have company for long. Anatoly Gorbushin died at 17:36 Lunar Time,
that afternoon. As before, nothing helpful turned up in the autopsy,
and neither Vincent's enzymatic tests nor Mathias' cerebro-spinal
fluid analyses yielded any useful results.
     Nat came back from the post-mortem to check on her experiment.
Only there was no experiment! The beaker was empty, the computer
entries gone, the whole lot cleaned out. For a moment, she felt pure
rage boiling up inside of her. Weeks of work, gone!! Who? Who the
hell had...?
     She roared in fury, shattering the chair she had been gripping
and slicing her hand on the plastic. She swore loudly, hurling a
piece of it across the room. Damn them! Damn that bastard LaCroix,
and his...
     "Natalie?" asked a voice, and she turned. It was Helena, sheaf
of reports in hand. "are you alright?" She looked at Nat's hand.
     "Oh, uh yeah, Helena. The chair back just shattered when I
grabbed hold of it, is all." She quickly went to a cabinet, and began
to dress the cut. As she worked, she could feel the tissue beginning
to heal, and moved faster. "Helena?"
     "Yes?"
     "Who's been in here, do you know?"
     "Excuse me?"
     "My experiment. When I came in here, after washing up, it was
gone."
     "Gone?" Helena looked at the bench. "What was it?"
     "I...had some ideas about gene therapy, in the damaged cells of
the sick men. Just some preliminary research, but it's all gone."
Done with the cut, she picked up the damaged chair.
     "I don't know, Nat. I'll look into it." She watched Natalie put
the shards into the disposal chute, and noted how angry she obviously
still was. "Hey, Nat. Join me for coffee later?"
     "Uh...sure, Helena. Cafeteria?"
     "Right." She watched as Nat reset the experiment, then
retreated to her own lab. A little later, she returned, and looked
around. She was certain it was...ah.
     She also looked over Nat's experiment. Funny, this didn't look
much like gene replacement work, to her. She lifted a sample, and
took it back into her own lab, along with the tiny plastic shard that
Natalie had missed.
     With blood on it. 

     At that very moment, in a specially modified Eagle, astronauts
Frank Warren and Eric Sparkman were approaching Navigation Beacon
Delta, on the Dark Side, on yet another Meta Probe training run.

     "Litoveuterine?" said Helena, scowling at the computer readout.
As she had suspected, this had nothing whatsoever to do with gene
replacement therapy. But...a hormone to boost meat production? And
one rejected as lethal at that?
     "Computer, is this analysis verified?"
     "Affirmative," replied the X-5, with "her" new voice.
"Substance is a variation of Litoveuterine B synthetic hormone."
     "And the blood sample?"
     "Unknown substance in blood sample confirmed. No analogue to
this substance in medical database."
     "And the rest?" asked Helena, slowly.
     "Anomalous nucleotide sequences in DNA and Transfer RNA
confirmed. No analogue to these sequences in medi..."
     "Cancel." She leaned back in her chair, pondering. A rejected
synthetic hormone, and a lethal one at that. A blood sample with
something in it that shouldn't be there, and altered genetic material.
     What the hell was going on with Natalie Barber?

     Nat went to Security, make that stormed, and Verdeschi's
deputy, Sanchez, promised to investigate. Later, she met Helena as
agreed in the cafeteria. As would be expected, the two physicians
spoke of Alpha's current crisis, running up and shooting down a
variety of theories. Then, Helena shifted gears radically.
     "When did you contract phototropia?" she asked, as Nat gingerly
sipped her coffee. God, but she missed this stuff. In her new state,
she could tolerate it, but only in small dollops.
     "Ah..." she began, hiding behind her cup and thinking fast.
"Well, it wasn't till I was past 30, Helena. It was slight at first,
and since I worked the night shift already, it was a while before it
really became noticeable."
     "Have you taken therapy, at all?" asked Helena, rattling off
the names of a few drugs.
     "Nothing's worked so far, Helena."
     "It's an interesting situation," said the CMO. "Both you and
Nicholas having the same condition."
     "Well, it simplifies who will be home when," Nat replied. "In
fact, we met at the doctor's." She tried to keep a straight face.
     It was true, after a fashion.
     "Well, I have some ideas about the condition," Helena went on.
"If you'd like, I could run some tests on both you and Nicholas."
     Uh oh.
     "Maybe, when we've gotten answers to this illness of the
astronauts," said Nat. "No sense splitting our concentration and
resources just now. It's too critical, finding answers to this
plague."
     "Okay," said Helena, and let it drop. It was, after all, the
answer she had been expecting. Natalie certainly had something to
hide, and no doubt Nicholas as well. She had a few things to check
on, and then she would go to...
     No. Not Gorski. He'd only...
     Tony. Yes. She'd go to Tony, and let the Security chief know
what she had learned and suspected.
     She did not like what she suspected.

     Natalie, and all Alpha, held their collective breath for two
days. But, on August 17th, they exhaled. Astronaut Kazuo Horiushi
died at 13:21 Lunar Time. This latest victim, despite his temporary
rally, died from post-operative complications. Specifically bleeding
in the brain, bleeding they just could not stop, despite heroic
efforts. As had become the grim lunar ritual, he was autopsied,
scanned, analyzed, sectioned, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. As had also
become part of the Alphan Sacred Mysteries, nothing substantive was
found. No clues at all, except for death. 
     "Eight," said Eva Zoref, at that evening's poker game. "Eight
men are dead, and we still don't know why?"
     "Not yet," said Nat, scrutinizing her hand. "The enzyme and
fluid analyses give results similar to radiation poisoning, but there
is no radiation, Eva. None at all."
     "Well, the power station was checked again this afternoon,"
said Anton, tossing another chip into the pot. "Not a thing. Not so
much as an alpha particle where it shouldn't be." Kano and Verdeschi
tried not to grimace at the awful joke. Ouma stifled a smile. Nick
rolled his eyes, and thought of Don Schanke's notoriously awful
humor. 
     And awful it was becoming. One person here had been heard to
refer to it as "Deadbase Alpha", and was severely chewed out by
Gorski for it. The Medical staff had been expressly forbidden to
discuss it outside of work (didn't that go over well!), but the
rumors were spreading irregardless. The shuttle back to Earth had
been dubbed "The Meat Wagon", and those assigned to fly missions
carrying waste over to the Far Side were now known as "The Graveyard
Shift".
     Gorski clearly let it be known that he was not amused.
     Duh.
     Another thing that was clear, to Nick anyway, was that he and
Nat were being stalked. Eight-Hundred plus years of living as he had
had taught him to know when he was being shadowed. Whoever it was was
not a vampire, of course. That would have been obvious, if not
counterproductive. But shadowed he was, and it wasn't long before he
found the first bug, in their quarters. Under the box that held Joan
of Arc's cross. An hour or so later, he'd pulled one each out of he
and Nat's commlocks. Furious, he'd nearly gone to Gorski, but Nat had
calmed him down. They'd be subtil, she said. Deftly, she crunched two
of them, putting the third into Nick's silver pill box.
     "Very tiny," observed Nick. The bugs were half the size of an
average aspirin tablet. 
     "Only the best for Alpha," Nat replied, and laid out her plan
to Nick, scribbled on paper. She yanked a strand of hair, wet it, and
stretched it across the box with the cross.
     Now, during the poker game, Nick pulled out the pill box, and
withdrew a capsule, popping it into his mouth.
     "Medication, Nick?" asked David Kano. "You okay?"
     "Vitamin supplements," he answered, downing it with a shot from
his hip flask. "My co