Synopsis: The first astronauts on Callisto have a close encounter of the fourth kind - without knowing it. Now the crew is starting to experience some very unusual events in the ship. They have to unravel the mystery to see if the encounter is a threat to the rest of them - and to humanity.

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Ben Young sighed to himself as the sweat beaded on his brow. It threatened to run into his eyes, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. The transparent visor of his suit, while protecting him from the cold vacuum of space, also made it impossible to wipe the sweat from his forehead. "I'd like to kill the son-of-a-bitch who over-insulated my suit," he muttered instead.

"What's that?" The voice of his partner, Rich Klack, echoed in his earphones.

Ben swore under his breath. "Nothing," he answered quickly.

"Yeah, right," Rich laughed back. "Suit overheating again?" He knew the drill just like Ben. Their space suits, bulky and heavy, were really miniature spaceships that contained everything needed to keep the astronauts alive - pressure to keep their lungs intact, air to breath, water to drink, insulation from the heat and cold of space, radiation protection against the fickle Jovian planetary radiation belt, even food and waste disposal.

"Damn thermostat is acting up again," Ben cursed. "I turned it up a few minutes ago, but now it won't turn down. I feel like I'm in a sauna."

Rich frowned, an action unseen to his partner beneath the tinted visor. Despite being so far from the sun, the surface of Callisto was bright. Sunlight incident from so far away, unattenuated by any atmosphere, and more sunlight reflected from Jupiter, combined to make the moon surprisingly well illuminated. It didn't help that the surface itself had rays of ice that acted like mirrors, and that the exploration crews were precisely at the ice fields. "Do you want to abort the EVA?" Rich asked after a moment's consideration.

Ben thought for a moment. If they aborted the EVA, they'd have to go out again to finish their mission objectives. After all, exploration of Callisto was one of the primary reasons for the mission. On the other hand, they were going to be at the landing site for another week before they lifted off to rendezvous with the Goddard. "Yeah, let's abort," Ben decided. "If we can get the thermostat fixed or replaced, maybe we can try again today."

Rich nodded, his bulky helmet bobbing up and down. "Okay. But there's no rush." He turned and began to descend the steep rocky hill they'd been climbing.

Nearly two kilometers distant, the astronaut's home-away-from-home was easily visible as a foreign body on this airless rock and ice world. The gold-tinted reflective foil shone like a beacon, and if that wasn't enough to make it stand out, a bright red strobe flashed periodically. Even if it were hidden, the lander emitted a homing signal, so that any crewmember would be able to easily locate it.

Ben started to turn, but then he paused. He glanced at the distant lander, then back. Slowly, his head turned back to where he'd faced moments before, then he repeated his turn.

Rich saw the movement. "What's up?" he asked as he neared his
partner.

Ben shook his head. "I'm not sure. I thought I saw something." He continued to scan, and then he froze. "Over there," he said, pointing. "You see it?"

"What?" Rich started to ask, then he halted. "What is it?" he asked slowly.

Ben took a few steps along the hill, then he bent over carefully. After a few moments, he pulled a sample bag from his suit. "It looks like some kind of crystal," he said hesitantly. "Kind of blue in color, with natural crystalline structure." He held up the sample. "About two and a half centimeters in length, maybe one centimeter across. It looks relatively symmetrical, and free of impurities." He thought for a moment. "Corundum, maybe?"

Rich listened with one ear. His mind was racing, considering the possibilities. Having been raised on a diet of science fiction movies, he appreciated the oddball dangers which lurked in every unknown in space. At the same time, as a trained geologist, his analytical brain discounted the fantastic to consider the probable. As he ambled to his partner, he was already weighing the facts. "Is it a free crystal? Is it regular in shape, or jagged?"

Ben looked at the sample in the bag. "It's pretty regular in shape. Symmetrical. And it looks like it's embedded in what appears to be basalt."

Rich nodded. "You're learning, rookie," he grinned. It had been his responsibility, as chief geologist on the crew, to train the other astronauts in field geology. He took the sample bag and examined the crystal through the transparent plastic. "Yeah, it looks like a blue corundum crystal. But is it fused onto the basalt? It wouldn't have just grown there!" He held the bag out to Ben. "Congratulations. You've discovered sapphire," he said with a mocking tone.

Ben frowned. "Hey," he snapped, "I don't recall any other teams finding any crystalline structures - especially this sized!" He turned back to the lander. "We've got a ways to go, and I'm still hot. Let's head back."

Rich nodded. "Okay." He turned back down the hill. Just as the two neared their rover vehicle - the 'golf cart' as the crews affectionately called them - Rich paused, then he bent over. He picked up something and stared at it. "Hmm," he muttered to himself.

Ben was panting, his vision nearly obscured by the sweat running down his brow and the fog inside his helmet. "What?" he gasped as he climbed into the passenger seat.

Rich pocketed the sample. "Just another crystal," he answered. "Probably common around here. Most likely they crystallized from the crater ejecta." He climbed into the drivers' seat and promptly forgot about it. He heard the strain in Ben's voice, and he knew his partner was in serious trouble. They _had_ to get back to the lander, and quickly.

**********

"Done," Ben said weakly but triumphantly as he leaned back from his spacesuit. "The diagnostic checks are good." He took a big sip from a water bottle. "We still got time to suit up and get the traverse done today." Out of the suit which made everyone look bulky, Ben's true appearance became evident. He was of slender build, at five ten and just under one forty pounds. Even though he was 35, he looked younger; his unkempt mop of sandy blonde hair and boyish face made him look barely twenty-five.

Ben's counterpart, Rich, was a contrast in appearance. While a couple of inches shorter than Ben, Rich was stocky and muscular. His one seventy-five pounds had almost no fat. With his angular face and short crew-cut black hair, Rich looked like a Marine rather than a geologist.

Rich turned his seat from the workbench. Despite the impression of size externally, the 'living quarters' were very modest. The 'pressure hull' of the lander was roughly cylindrical, about three meters in diameter by five and a half meters in length. One end was taken entirely by the air lock, decontamination, and suit maintenance bay. The other end was consumed by the combination head / galley / food storage. Beneath the floor, all the electronics and communications gear was housed. That left a little over two meters in the center of the tube for their control stations, their hammocks, a workbench, and a primitive field lab. With the control panels stowed it gave the pair enough room to live and work - barely.

The hull perched atop the landing legs, which gave room for the twin rocket engines and the bulky fuel and oxidizer tanks below. A long lightweight ladder spanned the distance from the crew compartment to the surface. Even though it appeared bulky, the lander, and indeed everything in it, was incredibly lightweight, a necessity for single-stage rocket powered descent and ascent even on Callisto weak gravity.

Beside the lander, automated machinery squatted, looking like some strange parasite connected to the lander's side. Prior to the mission, automatic fuel factories had been dispatched, landing on Callisto at strategic points, there to mine the ice and convert it into fuel for the coming rockets. The lander not only carried the crew to the surface, but it was also a fuel transport to haul the precious fuel back to orbit. The lander itself would never have sufficed for the trip to or from Earth. Instead, a large 'mother ship', _Goddard_, circled the moon, dispatching landers now and then to study the different features of Callisto, and receiving loads of fuel from the returning landers.

Rich glanced at the clock on an overhead instrument panel, and looked back into the microscope, studying Ben's crystalline sample, still sealed in its sample container. "I think we'll have to wait until tomorrow to go out." In reality, he was less concerned about the time than he was about Ben's physical stress level. An overheated spacesuit was a dangerous place to be. Heat stroke could easily result.

Ben glanced at his watch. "Yeah, I guess you're right," he replied. "That took a bit longer than I expected."

"You going to do the report, or should I?" Rich asked, still peering into the microscope.

Ben glanced at the communications gear and sighed. "I'll do the logs and report, I guess - which means you've got dinner."

Rich laughed. "I'll take dinner ...." He stiffened, suddenly alert. "Huh?"

Ben spun. "What?" He knew his partner well - just like every member of the Goddard's crew knew everyone else. The success of the mission, and their very lives, depended on it.

Rich was busily manipulating the sample, and then he leaned back, shaking his head. "I don't know. I ... thought I saw something."

"Don't get weird on me," Ben warned sharply, his voice stern, almost angry. "Don't pull any of that alien shit on me, man!"

Rich glanced back in the microscope, and sat back. "I just ...." He shook his head. "I dunno. I just thought I saw something. Like a miniature piece of machinery or something."

Ben glanced over his shoulder. "Like some kind of alien bug?" he demanded. "Look, man," he said bluntly, "you know I don't like that shit! So knock it off!"

Rich glanced into the eyepiece again, and shook his head. "I guess I was imagining things," he said as he slid the sample out of the microscope. "Besides," he added, "this thing is sealed in a bag. Even if there _were_ something in it, everything is sealed." He permitted himself a weak smile. "It's been a long day. We did a long traverse this morning, and we had a busy afternoon. I guess I'm just tired."

**********

"So, am I going to live?" Ben asked facetiously as the medical officer scribbled on the data pad.

The medical assistant - Jack Bossert, an engineer with emergency medical technician training - snorted. "There's nothing wrong with you that some rest won't cure." He clipped the pen to the pad. "It looks like you got a good case of heat exhaustion on your EVAs, but I'll let Dr. Chang confirm that when he gets back." He shook his head, frowning in disgust. "You _know_ you're supposed to abort an EVA if the suit isn't working right! Then you go out and overdo it on the next EVA to try to make up lost time!"

"Hey, what's all the noise about?" Captain Tim Loggins slid slowly down a ladder from a higher deck. He landed on the deck with a soft thud and would have rebounded if he hadn't been holding onto the ladder.

Jack shook his head. "I hope you hadn't scheduled Ben for the next round of landings, because I'm giving him a downcheck for a couple of weeks."

Captain Loggins frowned. "That bad?"

"Nah," Ben protested sitting up from the examining bed. "He's exaggerating."

Jack gave him a nasty glare, and turned back to the captain. "My best professional estimate is that he was only a few minutes from heat stroke." He glanced at the chart. "He's lost a few pounds, probably from overheating, and he's got a little residual fever. Again, probably indicative of how near heat stroke he came." He frowned. "I'm also willing to bet that Dr. Chang will confirm my diagnosis." Jack, at six feet, was one of the taller crewmembers. With average brown hair and an average build and an average face, he looked like the non-descript engineer he was - at least, when he wasn't being assistant medic. He had a quiet competent air to him that made the captain take him seriously.

Loggins' frown deepened. "I read the report. You didn't make it sound that serious." He sighed. "Staff meeting in the galley in five minutes." With a small jump and a few deft handholds, he scrambled back up to the higher deck.

Ben watched the captain climb the ladder. "He looks unhappy."

Jack nodded as he stowed the data pad, clipping it to a table. "Yeah. If you'd nearly lost a crewmember, you'd be pissed, too." He followed his captain up the ladder.

Ben shook his head. "It's more than that," he said to the medic above him. "Something's up."

**********

Most of the crew of twelve - eleven men and the Captain - squeezed into _Goddard's_ small wardroom. _Goddard_ was, comparatively, a large ship, but the interior was still tight. It was, as the designers had elaborated, no more cramped than a submarine - which was no comfort given the reputation of submarines as being cramped. The wardroom served as a dining room, a game room, and anything else. Being closer to the spin axis, the wardroom had slightly weaker 'gravity' than the outer deck.

_Goddard_ had been designed for very lengthy outer planet exploration missions. Her central core connected a stubby emergency entry capsule - and the ship's main bridge - to the engines nearly forty meters rearward. The first ten meters were occupied by the crew area - a strange arrangement of two pie-shaped wedges attached to the core. The innermost 'decks' of the first wedge were the crew living quarters, followed by the wardroom / galley, with the medical bay outboard of that, and the final deck contained the hydroponics garden, which served multiple purposes. Besides providing food and recycling the atmosphere, the plants purified the water, and the water itself provided radiation shielding to the crew. The second wedge on the opposite side contained supplies, science labs, and another garden. The two connected structures rotated slowly about the core, giving just over one tenth gravity at the outermost deck. It was enough force to give plants a gravity orientation and keep the crew's bone and muscle loss to a minimum, while at the same time not causing any disorienting coriolis acceleration.

Aft of the crew quarters were the four massive fuel tanks of the ship, arranged in pairs with gaps between the pairs. The landers docked to the central core between the tanks and could be securely latched in those positions. Further to the rear were mounted the enormous rocket engines that gave _Goddard_ her push.

Ben Young, sat nearest the corridor, being the last one to the table. Going around the table, Jack Bossert, the medical officer and assistant engineer, sat beside him. Next was Rich Klack, the senior geologist and lander pilot. Al Martin sat beside Rich; he was a few inches taller than Rich, with average build. His features, however, seemed more fitted to the outdoor life than confinement in a spaceship, and when he spoke in full Texas drawl, the contrast was almost amusing. Al served as ship's pilot and assistant communications engineer. Beside him was Boris Butovchenko, the quiet Russian geologist and data systems engineer. At five seven and one hundred sixty five pounds, he looked like a wrestler. Only his thinning dark hair didn't fit the stereotype.

On the other side of the table sat Leonard 'Lenny' Hall, ships pilot and engineer. Five eight, one hundred forty, slender build, he somehow maintained his tan even after months of confinement in the ship. He was the youngest crewmember at only 24 years, and with his longer blond hair, he looked like a genuine California surfer dude. One would never guess that he hailed from the upper Midwest or that he was a mathematical genius. Peter 'Pete' Smythe, data systems engineer and lander pilot sat beside Lenny. The tallest in the crew at six two, he was also quite slender. With his thick upper-crust British accent, he seemed more aloof at first blush. In reality, Pete was the most gregarious of the crew, and given to practical jokes to liven things up. Miguel Hernandez came next. With darker skin and straight black hair characteristic of his Hispanic origin, Miguel had a movie-star appearance, and his thick black moustache gave him a mysterious air. Rounding out the group was Yuri Raspopov, the older Russian executive officer and navigator. At fifty-seven, he was the oldest in the crew, with gray unkempt hair and usually a day's worth of stubble on his face. Stocky like Boris, he looked like he worked out most of his day to keep fit.

Two crewmembers were missing, still on a landing expedition. The ship's doctor, Chang Li Chao, affectionately known as 'grandfather' because of his aging facial features and graying hair, was on the surface with Heinrich Mahler. Dr. Chang was short, five six, and slender, in fitting with the image of a Chinese doctor. Formal, even curt at times, he was nonetheless a respected member of the crew, and his second job was piloting the landing craft. Heinrich, Hans to the crew, seemed to be the most distant, fitting in with the others the least. His English, the official language of the mission, was the least polished. With his strong build, blond hair, and blue eyes, he seemed the ideal Teutonic knight; it was his appearance that seemed to make people think he was unapproachable. His expertise in chemistry was crucial to understanding the samples returned from Callisto, and he also piloted the landing craft.

The cross-training which was considered a vital element of the mission actually extended such that every person in the crew could actually do three or four different jobs, but formally, each crew member had two primary responsibilities - except for the Captain. He had one job, which was to carry the burden of the entire mission. And right now, that burden was visible.

Captain Loggins stood at the end of the table. Tall, slim but fit, he cast an impressive figure even though he looked average. It was the experience etched in his face, the confidence which gleamed from his eyes. His jaw, strong but easy set, seemed to have a firmness that came from being used to commanding. Most of the time, his fifty years seemed like forty; days like today, however, he looked every minute of fifty, and then some. "We've got a little problem," he said simply.

There was no buzz of speculation. The crew knew and trusted their captain, and they knew he was going to level with them - just like he always had. "Only one?" Ben asked semi-seriously.

Captain Loggins dropped his head a tiny fraction, a wry smile on his face in acknowledgement of Ben's question. "Okay, we've got more than one problem. But one big one." He sighed. "We've lost telemetry from two of the ISFPs." The acronym was short for in-situ fuel plant, the robotic manufacturing probes which converted the ice into fuel for the landers and the _Goddard_.

Most of the men winced; Lenny Hall leaned back and looked thoughtful, even contemplative.

Captain Loggins nodded. "Yeah, it's bad. We need two more loads to make the TEI," shorthand for trans-Earth injection — the long burn of _Goddard's_ rocket engines that would start their trip home.

"Back to the other sites?" Rich asked the question on everyone's mind.

Ben shook his head. "Nope. It takes two to three months to make enough fuel just to get the lander back. It'll take another two months at the Gipul Catena crater chain before we have enough fuel to make the round trip worthwhile. The three Valhalla sites will take more time." He glanced up at the captain. "Which fuel sites did we lose?"

"Burr and Asgaard 1. We've still got Asgaard 2."

The crew collectively seemed to deflate. "If we miss the TEI window?" Pete asked the question that was on everyone's mind.

Yuri glanced at the captain before he spoke. "We lose the Ganymede gravity loop." He concentrated as if staring at invisible data. "It'll be another sixteen months to get a favorable alignment."

Lenny lowed his gaze from high on the wall and turned to the Captain. "I'll have to check the data, but we might be able to do a loop with Europa, then do a velocity dump looping around Mars."

Yuri frowned. "No alignment with Earth," he announced as he shook his head. "It'll take sixteen months before we can do the maneuver."

Lenny shook his head. "Not if we dump enough to go inbound to Venus, which _should_ be in alignment, do a velocity dump there, and then make Earth." He seemed to stare at nothing for a moment. "I'll have to check the alignments, but I think it's doable."

Captain Loggins stared at Lenny. His pilot was the most mathematically inclined person he'd ever met, and if Lenny thought there might be another solution, he was probably right. "Lenny, you and Yuri check out the options." He shook his head, a wry smile on his face. "I'm sure we'll be getting new burn targets from Control in the next day or two."

Jack Bossert piped up. "How much fuel was at Burr and Asgaard 1?" He saw the perplexed look on the Captain's face. "If they had processed enough fuel before we lost the telemetry, we might still be able to recover a decent load."

Rich nodded. "We'll win a lot of brownie points with home if we can still visit the sites."

Loggins thought for a moment. "We'll have to check the data. They should be close to full." He sighed. "We all knew that this was going to be a long trip when we signed on. It looks like we might get a slight extension." He turned to Smythe. "Pete, see if you can come up with a plan. Let's assume we'll take Lander A, and hold B in reserve." He saw the look on his men's faces. "If the plant is down, we'll use B to evacuate."

Pete nodded somberly. If they did have to use Lander B to effect a rescue, they'd have to abandon Lander A, and B would have to land heavy with a full fuel load in order to have enough fuel to re-rendezvous with _Goddard_. Doing _that_ would dip into the _Goddard's_ fuel supply, lengthening their stay, it would lose a lander, and it would increase the time they were stuck in orbit around Callisto. It would also mean at least four trips to do nothing but refuel the _Goddard_. "Yes, sir," Pete answered, his mind already starting to assemble the data he'd need to create a plan.

"Okay, that's all." Captain Loggins stepped back from the table, signifying the end of the meeting.

Ben stood to leave the table, and instantly, his face contorted in pain. He doubled over, his hands clutching his abdomen, and he collapsed, bouncing off the table and falling slowly to the floor.

***************

Yuri dropped down the last few steps to the deck in the medical bay. "Captain wants to know how Ben's doing," he said simply.

Dr. Chang Li looked up from his computer. "I'm not sure," he answered simply. "Jack is in the lab doing the blood and urine tests. I sent the x-rays and scans back Earthside a few hours ago."`

"Okay."

Li glanced up. "I think it's just cramping from the head exposure."

Yuri nodded. "Hans and Boris just reported from Asgaard 2. They've started the fuel transfer, and they'll be doing their first EVA in the morning."

Li nodded, then he stiffened. "Report is coming in," he said. He glanced at Ben, sleeping in the infirmary bed, surrounded by monitors. "He started to read, then he stiffened. "Jack!" he called sharply toward the lab. "Jack!"

Jack came quickly at Li's call. "What?" he asked, his voice echoing his frustration at being interrupted, but at the same time concerned that Li would have found it necessary to call him.

"Report just came in."

Jack walked behind Li and started reading over his shoulder. "Oh, oh!" he said, frowning.

"What?" Yuri asked.

Li winced and bit his lower lip. "Ben has a growth in his abdomen."

Yuri's eyes widened. "Tumor?" he asked, glancing at the sleeping engineer.

Li nodded. "We'll get him started on the cancer drugs right away." He glanced at Ben. "Tell the captain that he's relieved of duty until further notice."

**********

Li, Jack, and Captain Loggins crowded around the monitor in the medical bay. Ben sat upright on his bed, an IV tube in his arm and various wires leading from his body to a wide variety of monitors.

"Give me the full rundown," Loggins said simply. He was visibly fatigued, stressed by the fuel situation.

Li pointed to the monitor. "The cancer drugs aren't working. The growth is definitely not slowing." He pulled up another chart. "What's worse, something seems to be interfering with the drugs. I _know_ they're in his IV, but every blood test, and urine test, is coming back negative. It's like the drugs are ... vanishing."

"The testicular discomfort is increasing as well," Jack reported. "It is not a fungal infection, but we cannot find an explanation."

"And the docs back home?"

"We've sent all the data we've got," Jack answered. "And they're as puzzled as we are. Maybe more."

Captain Loggins felt the mantle of command grow heavier. "Let's go to the wardroom," he said softly. The trio left Ben lying on his bed resting as they climbed upstairs.

Seeing the three somber men entering the wardroom, Miguel and Boris scrambled from the table. They knew when something was up, and when they should leave to allow a private conversation. This was one of those times. The captain sealed the door. "Okay, I need to know if you guys think we're dealing with a contamination event."

Li glanced at Jack, his face worried. "I don't think so, Captain," he reported after a brief pause. "No other crewmembers have any symptoms. If it was a contamination, we'd all be sick - or dead."

The captain nodded. "It's been five weeks since his last EVA." He thought for a moment. "Klack was on that mission with him. Have you checked him out?"

Li shook his head. "No. I ... we ... didn't see any reason to. He didn't complain of anything."

"Do it."

**********

Rich leaned against the wall of the medical bay. The captain, exec, and both medics were crowded around the computer. He had a look of resigned disgust on his face. "You guys through yet?" he said bitterly. "I've got a ton of samples to get back to."

Yuri glanced up. "You're bored."

Rich snorted. "Damned right! All you guys have done is scan me, stick me, poke and prod me. I feel like a damned lab rat!"

Li glanced up to the captain. "That's it. All the data is negative."

Rich nodded. "I _told_ you!" he snapped.

The captain shrugged. "I guess you can go." He returned his attention to Jack and Li. "What's the latest on Ben?"

Jack shook his head. "No response to the cancer drugs. But the growth rate appears to have slowed." He touched the display, causing it to scan through the charts. "Somewhere ..." He stopped, a deep frown on his face. "What the hell?" He hit the keyboard and scanned back, then shook his head. "Did you see that?" he asked Li.

Li shook his head. "I wasn't watching the display."

Jack hit the key a few more times. "There," he said, pointing to the screen. He focused tightly on the display, then shook his head. "What the _hell_ is that?"

Li leaned closer. "It looks ... " He frowned. "What is the image?"

"Blood sample, two days ago."

"It looks like ... some kind of machine?" the captain said, staring at the mysterious little slide.

Rich felt a chill run down his spine. He stiffened, straightening up from leaning on the wall. "Did you say ... machine?"

Jack nodded. His brow furrowed. "Why?"

"Let me see." Rich crowded to the display, and as he stared, the color drained from his face. "That's .... It can't be!"

"What?" Captain Loggins demanded.

Rich sank back against the wall, feeling weak. "When Ben and I ... the day he overheated, he found a crystal."

Yuri nodded. "I remember the report. And I saw the sample."

Rich nodded. "When I was examining it in the lander, I thought I saw something. Like _that_."

The captain frowned. "You didn't report anything."

Rich felt confused. "I didn't think... Ben and I had been talking about ETs, and then he overheated. I thought it was just my imagination."

Yuri looked thoughtful. "But the sample is sealed. You followed the decontamination protocols."

Rich nodded. "We sealed his sample in the bag. Then we drove back to the lander. And ..." His eyes widened. "Oh, shit!"

"What?" The captain's question sounded like an angry demand.

"I ... I found one of those crystals, too. I ... I thought I put it in a sample bag. But I was trying to help Ben, and ..." He paled. "I may have put it in my suit pocket."

The two medics, the captain, and the executive officer of the _Goddard_ paled as they realized exactly _what_ Rich had done.

**********

Captain Loggins sat in the medical bay with Dr. Chang Li. Ben sat in his bed, finally strong enough to sit up after being nearly comatose for two weeks. "Can you go over that again?" he asked softly. He was pale and thin, having visibly lost weight through his 'illness'.

Li glanced at the captain. "We've run the tests and sent them Earthside. They got back the same answer that Jack and I had come to."

"Which is?"

Li swallowed. "Your blood chemistry is pretty normal. T3, T4 hormones, white blood count, red blood count."

"But?"

Li swallowed again. "Your hormone levels are all wrong." He saw Ben winding up to ask what he meant, so he continued to save Ben the effort. "For all intents and purposes, you have no testosterone."

Ben frowned. "Male hormone, right?"

"Yup." Li glanced at the computer monitor. "But the strange thing is your hormone levels are within the normal ranges." He saw Ben's frown deepen. "For a female."

Ben's eyes widened. "What?" he demanded sharply. "Are you saying I've got ... female hormones?"

Dr. Chang nodded. "There's more. Your hormone levels are consistent with those of an adult female - in the early stages of pregnancy." Li saw the captain's eyes widen. Ben looked like he was going to go into shock.

"But ... that's impossible!" the captain said finally.

Li nodded. He punched a key on the computer, then turned the display. "This is an MRI scan we did two days ago. This," he pointed to a colored mass of tissue, "appears to medical experts to be female reproductive organs." He sighed. "That's why they asked us to rerun the tests five times."

"What are you saying?" Ben nearly screamed. He was shrill, even near panic. "Are you telling me I'm turning into a ... a woman?"

Li nodded somberly. "You are ... somehow ... growing female internal organs," he answered softly.

The captain shook his head. "That's not possible." He glanced at
Ben, then at Li. "How?"

The doctor shook his head. "I wish I knew." Then he frowned. "Unless those micromachines in his blood...."

Ben bolted upright, then he glanced nervously down at his crotch. "And the itching ... in my nuts?"

Li shook his head. "Your testicles are effectively gone. They're not producing any testosterone, and it appears they are being ... broken down ... or absorbed."

Ben closed his eyes, then he sighed. "So that means the itching on my chest ... is boobs growing?" He sounded deceptively calm.

Li nodded. "That's the normal human response to estrogen. Even males, when exposed to estrogen, will grow breast tissue."

Captain Loggins frowned. "So what do we do?" he asked simply.

Li lowered his head, shaking it softly. "I ... don't know what we can do. Not here, any way."

Ben leaned back, staring at the ceiling for a moment or two. "Now what?" he asked. He drew his knees up to his chest, then rested his chin on them. "Shit," he cursed. "This is just like those damned alien movies Rich was teasing me with." He looked like he was about to cry.

**********

This time, there was a lot of talk around the table as the men sat. They were waiting for the captain, and there was a lot of speculation, fueled by Rich's story of the crystal and the nanobot. The crew wasn't comfortable.

Captain Loggins dropped down from the control deck, landing softly, then he padded into the wardroom. "Men," he said in a simple, yet surprisingly formal, greeting.

"Are we all contaminated?" Al blurted as the captain pulled up a chair.

The captain stared at him, deliberately taking his time in sitting. Finally, he sighed. "I don't know."

"Is it ...?" Pete broke off, obviously trying to find words. "What's happening to Ben?" he asked.

Captain Loggins sighed again. "Ben asked if he could tell you himself." He glanced around the room, his eyes steely in their resolve. "This is hard on Ben. He's ... undergoing some severe stress."

"That's not the half of it," Ben added softly from behind the captain.

Captain Loggins spun, startled. "I didn't hear you come in."

Ben nodded. He was wrapped in a bulky robe, but even through the baggy garment, it was easy to see that he was different. His chest bulged - a little. The sash tying around his waist showed that he'd lost some weight. He was pale, but his skin seemed softer somehow. "I got ... infected ... by something."

The men started to whisper among themselves. This was their nightmare scenario - finding something dangerous that could jeopardize their very return to Earth. In one sense, they were expendable if that was required to protect their home planet. They'd known that coming in to this mission. Only, none of them had realistically believed it could happen. It _wouldn't_ happen. That sort of thing was only bad science fiction.

Ben continued, breaking their buzz. "Something is changing my body."

Pete tried to force some humor. "You don't look like an alien," he added. The joke fell flat.

Ben nodded, trying to smile. "It's not that bad. Or maybe worse." He watched the guys, and bit his lip as he tried to figure out how to say what he needed to say. "The doc thinks I'm changing into," he looked down, embarrassed, "a woman." He felt the stares of astonishment focused on him, on the small but visible bumps on his robe. "So do the medics back home," he added softly.

"But ... that's impossible!" "No way!" "How?" "Can't be!"

Ben waited another moment, then in answer, he looked up, staring right at the guys, and opened his robe.

Beneath the robe, Ben was wearing a t-shirt. It clung to his body, and showed off the small but very foreign bumps on his chest. It highlighted off his slightly narrower waist. "It's true."

"Damn," Miguel swore. "You really _are_ changing!" His eyes widened. "All the way?"

"You're very calm for someone changing like this," Boris observed dryly.

Li nodded. "Wait until his 'happy pills' wear off."

Captain Loggins spoke up. "Subject to medical approval, Ben is back on light duty." He stood and walked abruptly from the wardroom, followed closely by Ben and Li. The men were left behind, their conversation grim and hushed.

**********

"We're now in total communications blockage," Miguel Hernandez reported as he scanned his instruments. "Two weeks and no contact with Earth." He sat at the communications station on the small bridge of _Goddard_, jutting forward from the axis like an inverted cone.

"The planetary geologists seemed a little _too_ happy that we have to stay an extra eight months," Captain Loggins said with a resigned sigh.

Yuri snorted. "And get their precious eight more landing sites? They aren't the ones out in deep space," he observed acidly.

"Yeah, I noticed." Loggins turned to Miguel. "Has Ben figured out what's up with the number two coolant loop?"

Miguel stiffened at the mention of Ben's name. "No, sir," he reported, crisply and formally. His voice carried a hard edge, almost angry in tone. Ben's changes were affecting the crew.

The captain noticed Miguel's attitude. "Put me on intercom," he said. He could have easily done it himself, but he felt the need to demonstrate that he was in command. "And patch me down to the A crew." He waited until Hernandez nodded. "We just got orders from Earth. We are directed not, repeat _not_, to exercise the contingency return plan we proposed." From the corner of his eye, he saw Ben float into the bridge and grab a chair. He ignored it - for the moment. "As a result, we will be in orbit for another eight months before the next departure opportunity." He paused and glanced around the bridge. Only he, Miguel, Yuri, and Ben were in the control room; the others were attending to their duties, or like Rich and Hans, were on the surface of Callisto. "We'll have a meeting when the landing crew returns." He nodded to Hernandez, who cut off the intercom.

"Okay, Ben," the captain changed focus abruptly, "how's it going on the coolant loop?"

Ben pulled himself into one of the acceleration chairs. He was wearing a t-shirt, which didn't do anything to hide his changes. If anything, they emphasized his slowly growing breasts and reduced muscle mass. "The pump motor is okay. It looks like the control circuit." He anticipated the captain's question. "I rigged up a bypass circuit. We're going to have to tend that one manually from here on out." His voice was soft, unobtrusive, even shy, as if talking aloud and making himself heard would invite the wrath of the other crewmembers.

Captain Loggins noted Ben's expression, and the sideways glances he was getting from Miguel. "In the core," he directed Ben.

The two pulled themselves along the zero-G central core, away from the control room. When they passed the access ports to the spinning outer sections, Ben grasped a handhold and turned. "What?"

Captain Loggins smiled to himself. "Direct, aren't you?" In answer, Ben shrugged, not easy to do in zero-G. "How are you doing? Really. Not the false-bravado bullshit you're trying to show all the guys."

Ben frowned - the first frown the captain had seen coming from him in weeks. "Are you the ship's counselor, too?" he asked sarcastically.

Captain Loggins face clouded. "You're my crewmember. I'm responsible for you. And you're under a lot of stress. So stop the macho bullshit with me, okay?" His tone was firm, commanding. He knew he had to cut through Ben's facade if he was going to get any answers.

Ben's features softened from his angry frown. "Sorry," he said quickly. "It's just ... hell, captain, I don't know what to do any more." He shook his head. "I mean, I don't even know what I am! I'm a guy, right? But every morning, I have to look at these," he glanced down at his small breasts. "And when I pee...." He trailed off on that one.

Captain Loggins nodded. He'd read Li's reports. Ben's male organs were practically gone. He had only a tiny stub of a penis, an empty scrotal sac, and the female sexual genitalia were slowly starting to form.

Ben shook his head and wiped at a tear. "The guys ... hell, I could just as well be a mutant brain-sucking space alien for all the difference it would make. I mean, they act like I'm ...." His voice trailed off sadly.

"Like you're carrying some kind of disease that they'll catch? Like you're a threat to them?"

"Yeah," Ben nodded. "When I'm not on the anti-depressants and stuff, I feel like I ... can't take any more."

Loggins nodded, trying to sound sympathetic. "I know you can handle this. You're a good crewman."

"Woman," Ben corrected. "Crew _woman_." He wiped at another tear as his forced humor failed. After a moment, he looked at the captain. "Dammit," he said, frustration boiling through his words and tone. "These fuckin' hormones are making me feel like I can't control my emotions any more! Doc says it's normal in ... pregnant women." He shook his head, wiping at his tears and he fought the urge to start crying. "I _hate_ this!" he cried out. "Why me? Why did this have to happen to me?" He turned from the captain, embarrassed by the show of 'soft' emotions more associated with women than with macho men. "What's going to happen to me? When we get home, I mean?"

The captain shook his head sadly, his neutral expression failing to hold and giving way to uncertainty. "I don't know," he answered honestly.

"They'll quarantine me, won't they," Ben answered his own question. "Maybe all of us. That's why the guys are afraid of me. They're afraid they'll catch it. Or that they'll get quarantined because of me."

"And?"

Ben laughed softly. "If it were me, I'd quarantine. What if I'm a threat to Earth? What if this is really contagious?" He shook his head. "You know they won't take a chance. And since the rest of the guys are on the ship with me, we'll probably all spend the rest of our lives sealed in some quarantine lab being studied like mice."

Captain Loggins nodded somberly at Ben's words. He wanted desperately to give Ben some reassuring words, but the words weren't there. In his heart, he knew Ben was right. Ben's condition had doomed them all. It was very unlikely that any of them would ever walk the soil of Earth again.

**********

Ben climbed slowly from the medical bay, his new home. Being with the guys was too uncomfortable, both for him and for them. Being in the medical bay gave him a sense of isolation that seemed to help put the guys minds at ease - a tiny bit. He crossed to the galley and poured himself a cup of coffee.

Behind him, obscured around the corner, two guys were talking in the wardroom. He was going to ignore them and go back to his 'quarters' when he heard a bit more of their conversation. Frowning, he eased over to the bulkhead.

"...want to be stuck? I most certainly don't." The voice belonged to Hans.

"No. But what can we do?" It was Miguel. "And I sure as shit don't want to catch it!"

Hans laughed. "Perhaps if you did, you would be cuter Fraulein than Ben, and maybe more friendly!"

"Not likely," Miguel retorted angrily. "Maybe you'll be the one to change? And maybe we'll all get to learn if German girls really do have big tits!"

"Fuck off!" Hans snapped. "I think we all should talk to the Kapitan again. If he puts Ben in isolation..."

"Yeah," Miguel replied. "If we don't catch it by the time we get home, we will have proven that we're safe. That Ben's the only one infected."

"You know what is worst part?" Hans asked softly.

"What?"

Hans laughed. "When I see Ben's breasts, I am reminded of how long since I have had a good screw. "

"That's sick!" Miguel replied quickly. "He's ... he's Ben!"

Hans laughed again. "No. _She_ was Ben. Now she's a Fraulein." He chuckled. "And maybe you protest so much because you think of sex often also?"

Ben fought to keep his emotions in check. Lately, that fight seemed to be getting harder and harder. It seemed as if his emotions were getting stronger. Quickly, softly, Ben retreated to the ladder and descended to the medical bay. He fled into the supply room, converted to his private quarters, and closed the door behind him. As he sank to his cot, tears streaming from his eyes, his coffee cup slipped from his hands. He barely noticed the drops of hot coffee splashing on his legs as he twisted and flopped until he was face down in his pillow. Even then, his changes mocked him. He rolled back upright, staring down at the bumps on his chest, growing every so slowly, that had so cruelly reminded him of what was happening to him.

**********

"How is my favorite patient doing today?" Jack asked as he glanced into Ben's room.

"Your only patient," Ben corrected him. He sat in his cot, leaning against the wall, his feet under the blanket. "Or squatter, depending on how you look at it."

Jack laughed lightly. "The docs on Earth want another ultrasound."

Ben snorted. "Figures. That's about three a week?" He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, then levered himself up.

The changes in Ben had been so gradual that Jack hadn't noticed. Ben had given up on cutting his hair - looking like a woman with breasts and a swelling pregnant belly still scared the other men, and him having a crew cut didn't diminish his growing femininity. It was simply not possible to hide a six-month pregnant belly and what Jack estimated to be not-quite-C-cup breasts. Having given up on trying to maintain a masculine appearance, Ben simply tied his hair back in a plain ponytail.

The extra-large t-shirt that Ben wore all the time accommodated his round swollen belly and swollen breasts, but the downside was the tight fabric called attention to those features, rather than hiding them. It also clung to what remained of his muscles; the lack of testosterone and light gravity had quickly robbed Ben of muscle mass. Except for his face, he appeared completely female. And even that had changed. His skin tone seemed softer, less harsh. And his facial hair had quit growing, much to the surprise of Dr. Chang. Not that Ben cared any more.

"You doing okay?" Jack asked as Ben waddled to the exam table.

Ben shrugged. "Same as yesterday. And the day before."

Jack laughed. "Had to ask."

"It sucks. Being turned into a woman sucks. Having big saggy boobs sucks. Being pregnant sucks. Having a kid that kicks my bladder like a soccer ball sucks." He laid back and glared at Jack. "Everyone else looks at me like I'm Typhoid Mary. Is that better?"

Jack laughed. "You never did mince words." He pulled the shirt up, exposing the round bulge of Ben's pregnant belly. He then squirted some lubricating jelly, causing Ben to flinch.

"Dammit, that's cold! How many times to I have to remind you to warm up that shit?" Ben snapped.

Jack winced. "Sorry. I'm not a real OB." He turned on the sonogram machine, then he touched the scanner head to the goop on Ben's belly. In a few moments, he had a clear picture on the display. One after another, he got the ultrasound images and copied them into the computer memory. Finally, he sat back and wiped off the scanner head. "You know, by yourself you've used up our entire supply of this stuff."

"Send the bill to my boss," Ben said sarcastically.

"The images are in the computer, so they should be on Earth in a few hours. Then we'll see what the real doctors think." He held out a hand to help Ben sit up. "But if you ask me, it looks like a healthy normal baby girl."

Ben sighed. "Yeah. At least it's not a three-headed reptilian space alien." Exactly _what_ the baby was had been the subject of much worry, both on the _Goddard_ and at home. Even the professionals watched science-fiction movies. He sat up and pulled the t-shirt back over his belly. "At least I don't have to suffer through another pelvic today!" he said, half with relief and half with anger.

Jack shrugged. "Dr. Chang is the only one trained to do a pelvic exam. And he thinks it's better for you if he's the only one who sees your ... um ...."

"Pussy?" Ben asked angrily.

Jack blushed. "Uh, yeah." He turned away, wiping off the ultrasound scanner again. "Anyway, since you've finished changing ... down there ... the docs back Earthside aren't pressing for more data."

Yuri dropped softly to the deck. "Done with the daily checkup?" he asked simply. "How is little mother doing?"

"I don't give a damn if that _is_ a Russian term of endearment, I find it offensive as hell!" Ben snapped.

Yuri glanced at Jack. "Ben's a bit moody this morning," Jack reported simply.

"You try losing your dick, growing tits, and getting pregnant, and then not get moody!" Ben snapped back.

Yuri ignored Ben's outburst. "Captain wants to know when you're coming back on duty." He glanced at Jack. "We've got a few systems acting up, and your expertise is sorely needed."

Ben snorted. "You've got Jack and Lenny. They know the systems as well as I do." He saw the impassive stare on Yuri's face. "Okay, I'll see what I can do." He glanced at Jack. "Assuming that my doctor will let me."

Jack shrugged. "No heavy lifting. No excessive exertion. Diagnose to your heart's content, but leave the heavy work to someone else."

Ben shrugged. "Whatever." He pushed aside his drawing tablet, one of his latest hobbies to help pass the time, and reached for a robe. The drawing tablet landed on the floor open to his latest sketch.

"What is that?" Yuri asked, glancing at the sketch pad and frowning.

Ben glanced down. "I don't know," he answered. "I've just been wasting time doing some drawing to pass time. Just drawing ... stuff." He picked up the tablet, then he saw the expression on Yuri's face. "Why?"

Yuri shook his head. "I don't know. It looks like the area around Asgaard 1." He took the sketch pad and scurried quickly up the ladder.

**********

Captain Loggins shook his head for the umpteenth time. "This just doesn't make sense," he said. He looked at the sketch, then at the monitor.

Yuri nodded. "Very puzzling. How is it that Ben is drawing the landscape?"

The captain shook his head. "There's enough strange stuff that's happened that I'm not surprised. Not any more." He punched a couple of button on the computer. "What do these numbers look like to you?"

Yuri leaned closer, focusing on the display, and stared for several moments. "Coordinates, maybe?"

The captain nodded somberly. "Look at what happens when I pull up an image centered on the coordinates." He punched one last button, then he frowned. "I thought Pete fixed the damned computers."

Yuri's frown echoed is captain's concern. "He reported that he couldn't find anything wrong with them."

The captain sighed. "So why is it that the damned things periodically lock up? They're supposed to be the best, most trouble-free computers in the solar system! They were tested six ways from Sunday!" He punched the button again. This time, the display changed. "It seems like Pete and Boris have been chasing phantoms through the system for weeks."

Yuri gasped. He stared at the display, then turned to the sketch in the captain's hands. "It's ..."

Captain Loggins nodded. "It's the same place." He punched the intercom button. "Ben, get up to the control room. Pronto."

A few moments later, Ben floated into the control room. "What's up?" He saw the drawing, then the image on the screen.

"Can you tell me how you decided to draw this scene?" the captain asked simply.

Ben shrugged and shook his head. "I ... don't know. It just came to me." He frowned. "Why?"

Captain Loggins punched up the numerical display. "These numbers are all over in the computer memory. Neither Boris nor Pete have any idea how they got there, or what they mean."

Ben's frown deepened. "And?" His eyes widened. "Coordinates?" he asked uncertainly. "And they're the coordinates I've been drawing?"

The captain and Yuri simply nodded. Ben felt a chill run down his spine.

**********

"We've got our orders. We'll carry them out." The captain glared around the wardroom to silence the discussion.

"Sir," Lenny protested weakly.

"Yes?" the captain asked sharply, indicating that he had little patience for dissent.

Lenny glanced around. He saw the tiny nods of support from Hans, Miguel, and Pete. "With all due respect, Control isn't here. We are. Right now, we have enough fuel for TEI. If we land, we won't. That site isn't near the fuel station." He glanced around again. "Our mission has already been extended by nearly a year. Control doesn't have the right to ask us to jeopardize it again." He glanced nervously at Ben, standing behind the captain near the ladders.

The captain noticed the visual signals among his crew. "Fair statement," he acknowledge after forcing himself to calm down. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel the same way. I already protested to Control. You know what they said? They reminded me that this expedition is costing nearly thirty-billion dollars, they paid the bill, and they expect us to follow orders to complete our mission." He shook his head. "They think there's some connection here. They want to find out what happened." He omitted the phrase 'to Ben'; everyone knew instantly what he was talking about. "This might be our clue. So we're going down. Lenny, I want you and Miguel to prepare Lander A. Rich, you and Boris will take B. We're going to have to make a couple of fuel trips down. You'll go for Valhalla 1 and Valhalla 3. Those two fuel plants are nearly full."

Rich nodded somberly. "You want us to do a full traverse while we're there?"

The captain thought for a moment. "Your discretion. You've got seventy-two hours for the fuel transfer, so if you do an EVA or two, it would probably make the geologists happy." He glanced around. "Remember - we've completed our primary mission. We have only one more task to complete, so let's not take any chances. Remember, we burn for home in forty-two days." He saw nods of assent around the wardroom. "Let's not blow it."

**********

Captain Loggins sat in his chair in the control room, waiting anxiously. "Two-hundred meters," the loudspeaker called. "Auto systems are in the groove."

This was the worst part, he decided. Waiting with this whale of a ship, huge and slow and oh-so-vulnerable, while a smaller ship approached. The three recorded cases where a smaller ship had rammed the larger space vessel didn't comfort the captain. One had been bad; the other two had been fatal. But there was nothing he could do at this moment.

"One fifty," came the call after what seemed an eternity. The captain glanced at the display, then back out the viewport. He trusted his own eyes more than the display. Another long pause. "One hundred." The clock ticked with agonizing slowness. "Fifty. Secondary target acquired." Captain Loggins knew that his crew was highly trained and very skilled, and they'd done dozens of rendezvous simulations and actual dockings. There should be nothing to worry about. But he couldn't help it.

At that moment, the lights flickered and the computer displays blanked. "What the hell?" Captain Loggins shouted. "Pete, get me the computers back up!" A few long seconds later, the displays began to update again. "Ten meters."

The captain snorted his disgust. "Who the hell decided to tie everything in the ship to the central computer?"

Al glanced at Pete. "Guess they never saw '2001, A Space Odyssey,'" he said softly.

Pete nodded. "Or any one of a hundred other movies. Probably didn't read much, either." He shook his head as he watched the computer systems monitors. "There are a ton of books where a central computer malfunction is the main theme."

"Two meters."

Captain Loggins glanced out the viewport, not trusting the computer monitors. The lander was closing at a rate of a fraction of a meter each second. It took over ten seconds to move the final two meters. As it touched, a metallic 'clank' sounded through the ship. The captain let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"As soon as they're secure, start the fuel transfer. Get a team checking Lander B. I want to get depart for the surface within twenty-four hours." He started to pull himself from his chair, but he saw Yuri staring at him.

"I assume you intend to lead the mission?" Yuri said simply.

Loggins nodded. "Yup."

Yuri frowned. "You're not supposed to. You're not the most qualified pilot. Your job is on the ship."

Loggins shook his head. "Nope. This one is an extra. I don't need to know anything about geology. Rich or Pete can back me up on piloting. I'm going." He shook his head. "Everyone else has done at least three landings, while I've been stuck up here. I didn't come all this way _not_ to step on Callisto."

"And that's final?"

The captain nodded. "I've already laid out the mission plan."

**********

"All systems check out. Let's open the hatch." Clad in his spacesuit, standing with Pete in the depressurized lander airlock, the captain felt butterflies in his stomach. He forced himself to take a few deep breaths to calm himself. This wasn't quite like being the first person to step on a new planet; his men had been here many times before. This time, however, it was him. It was just different enough that his nerves were acting up.

There was also the fact that something strange, alien, had transformed one of his men into a pregnant woman. That something had come from Callisto. And his current mission was to find out what it was.

Pete unlatched the hatch and swung it in. It was easier structurally to have the pressure working to keep the hatch closed, which meant it opened inward. The downside was that the men had to work around the hatch to exit, or to close it when they re-entered the lander's airlock.

Captain Loggins squatted and crawled through the hatch on his knees, out onto the 'porch', a small landing at the top of the ladder. He glanced sunward, and was surprised at how bright it seemed. Then he swung around and got his feet on the ladder. Clumsily, he stepped down to the surface. In moments, and far more gracefully in his motion, Pete joined him.

"Showing off?" the captain asked through the suit radio.

Pete smiled unseen through the helmet visor. "I've done it a few times. It's only proper that I'm a little better at it."

"Let's get the rover deployed."

Pete was already moving to the rover's stored location. In a few moments, the vehicle was on the ground and ready. "Batteries check full. All the rover systems check out," Pete reported after scrutinizing the instrument panel.

Captain Loggins crawled behind the steering yoke. Pete glanced at him, then he shrugged and walked around to the passenger side. "You sure you want to drive, captain?" he asked as he climbed into the seat.

"Been driving since I was twelve," the captain replied dryly. "I think I can handle this little dune buggy."

"Take it easy until you get used to it. The steering is awfully sensitive."

Loggins frowned. "I had the training," he said in a clipped tone. "I remember how to drive the damned thing." He grasped the yoke and pressed the 'go' button. The craft lurched forward, gathering speed and leaving a rooster-tail of dust behind it. "Damned hot-shot kids think they know everything!" he muttered to himself, forgetting that his suit microphone was permanently on.

Pete decided to ignore the comment, reminding himself that this was the captain's first landing. He was entitled to a little self-indulgence. Pete glanced at the computer display on his suit's left wrist. "According to the coordinates, we have about four kilometers to go." He tapped a button. "Heading one four zero."

The buggy scooted across the surface at nearly ten kilometers per hour. Faster would have been foolish; the surface dust and rock wasn't all that solid, and occasionally, ice lay beneath a seemingly solid rock bed. Skidding and slipping in the rover wasn't exactly fun.

After nearly ten minutes, Pete looked at his wrist display again. "We should be close." He let his arm fall. "Assuming we didn't have any error in the lander's inertial nav system."

The captain didn't take his eyes off the landscape. "You should know - you were responsible for calibrating it before we left _Goddard_."

Pete shook his head. "What, exactly, are we looking for?"

"Don't know," the captain answered simply. "I guess we'll find it when we find it."

Pete snorted. "With that crater, it's probably going to be hard to find." He was staring at the rim of a crater, growing larger as they drew nearer. "If we can even traverse there."

"How far off would you say the crater is?"

Pete shook his head. "Hard to tell. It's really hard to judge distances on this rock." He spoke from experience. All the landing crews had found judging distances difficult at best. What appeared to be a hill a few hundred meters away could really be a mountain a few kilometers away. There simply weren't any good references for depth perception on this pockmarked landscape.

The rover drove on, directly toward the crater rim. As they neared, the captain slowed, until the rover was creeping along up the slope of the rim. The captain stopped the rover. "What do you think? Can we push the rover up the slope?"

Pete glanced to both sides, trying to judge the slope. "Probably. At least another few hundred yards." The little vehicle climbed slowly up the increasingly steep slope until it would go no further.
"Looks like this is where we get out."

The captain nodded. He flipped off the main power switch, and then pressed a button. "Beacon is on. Are you reading it?"

Pete nodded. "It's strong and clear."

"Good. Now I don't have to remember where we parked."

The two astronauts trudged slowly up the hill. The slope passed thirty-five degrees, and the two struggled, even in the lower gravity. After a few minutes, Pete called out. "Can we take a rest for a minute?"

The captain took smug satisfaction in watching his crewmember falling behind. It made him feel a bit better about himself, even though he'd missed most of the landings. "I think I see the top of the rim. Just another dozen meters." He resumed his ascent up the steep rocky slope.

Pete sighed and set out after the captain, puffing heavily. He wondered briefly how the captain managed to stay in such good shape that he could out-hike Pete, even after nearly two and a half years in space. He knew the answer, though. The captain worked out religiously. While they'd been on the surface, he worked out. That was why he managed to stay so fit. He was so lost in thought, looking down to make sure of his footing, that Pete bumped into the captain who stood still on the crater rim.

Pete glanced out, and he gasped. The crater looked perfect. Though it was hard to judge, it looked to be about a kilometer across, and sixty to seventy meters deep. The sides and bottom were smooth, devoid of impacts, and as he turned to scan the crater, Pete saw tiny blue glints around the crater. "How the _hell_ did we miss this?"

The captain shook his head. "I don't know," he answered. "Just lost it in all the other craters, maybe?"

Pete checked his wrist display. "Our target is about a half kilometer," he pointed directly toward the crater center, "over there."

"No shit," Loggins said sarcastically. "This perfect of a crater, and the coordinates _aren't_ in the center?" With Pete at his side, he began to descend into the crater.

The descent was tougher than he expected, given the steepness of the slope. As the terrain leveled out, he paused to glance behind him. "Wow! That looks a lot steeper from this side." A sudden thought gripped him. "You think we'll have any problems getting out?"

Pete glanced up the slope. "I wouldn't think so. We've done a lot steeper ascents on the EVAs." He looked back around then he bent over. "Captain," he said as he straightened, an object in his fingers.

Captain Loggins turned, and he saw the blue crystal in Pete's hand. "Is that like the samples Ben and Rich found?"

Pete nodded. "It sure looks like them." He shuddered involuntarily as he recalled the events which had started when the two had returned a crystal to _Goddard_. He dropped it.

"Put it in a sample bag," the captain ordered.

As Pete bent down to retrieve the sample, he paused. "Here's another one."

Captain Loggins felt a shudder. "I see a couple more. Looks like this place is a jackpot for those things." He picked one up and studied the perfect crystal geometry. After a moment, he forced himself to focus back on the mission. He put the crystal in a sample bag and dropped it in his pocket. "Let's go."

As they walked, the pair saw more and more of the crystals. Both men felt increasingly uneasy. This was too much of a coincidence. Within a hundred yards, they spotted something on the crater floor, something that jutted up a short distance. "What is that?" Pete asked, beating his captain to the question.

The captain felt an icy chill. "I think that's the answer we're looking for." He stepped over the crystals and continued his trek.

As the duo neared the crater center, the object became clearer. It appeared as a stalactite jutting up from the crater. As they neared, it looked more regular, more even. "That's not natural," Pete said as they closed to within fifty meters.

"I kind of figured that out a long time ago," the captain whispered. His hushed voice was unnecessary; Callisto had no atmosphere to speak of, and his voice couldn't be heard outside his suit.

The two continued to walk, more slowly. "It looks like some a tetrahedron."

"Is that ... carving on it?" Pete's voice seemed full of awe.

Both men paused about a meter away from the object. It was indeed tetrahedral in shape, about half a meter tall and a quarter meter on the base edges. The object stood on a cylinder of rock, about half a meter off the crater floor. Intricate carving adorned the one side the men could see, and a blue crystal, like those they'd seen scattered around the crater but much larger, was embedded in the top.

"Goddard, do you copy this?" the captain spoke into his mic. After a few seconds, he tried again. "Goddard, do you read?"

Pete pointed at the crater rim. "We don't have a line of sight to the rover, so I doubt they can hear us."

The captain nodded. Slowly, he worked his way around the object. "Same type of carving on the other sides."

"What ... what do we do?" There was a tinge of fear in Pete's voice as he asked the question.

The captain shook his head. "I don't know. We didn't cover alien artifacts in the mission training." He grimaced, then stepped to the object. Nervously, he reached out to touch it.

Nothing happened. "Well, that was rather anti-climactic," Pete said sardonically.

"What were you expecting? Alien rays or something?" The captain bent at the knees, wrapped his arms around the object, and prepared to heave. It lifted surprisingly easily. "This thing is a lot lighter than it looks."

Pete swallowed. This wasn't what he'd signed up for. Still, it was exciting. They'd found some type of alien artifact. "Now what? I suppose we take it back to the ship?"

The captain nodded. "Yeah. That's the general idea. Unless you've got a better plan."

"Fresh out of plans."

Captain Loggins hefted the device, adjusting his grip until it was more comfortable to hold. "Why don't you pick up a bunch of the crystals around here. They look the same, but they might be different somehow." In moments, Pete had gathered up a few dozen crystals. They were very common, peppering the ground around the artifact. "Okay, let's go. And pick up a few of those things on your way out. The scientists back home will want to see if there's any variation in them as we get further away from the center."

**********

"You'll all get a chance to look at it," Captain Loggins said to the crowded mass of crewmen jammed in the access core. Lander B had just docked moments ago, and everyone was naturally anxious to see what they'd discovered. "Now clear out. We're taking it straight to the lab."

Behind him, Pete was glancing through the hatch that connected the lander to the core. As the men slowly dispersed, Pete swam through the hatch. He turned, reached back in, and pulled out a large object. It was encased in plastic, and beneath the plastic, a white coating of some kind. But it was still recognizable as the tetrahedron they'd found on the surface.

"Let's get it to the lab before we get mobbed again," the captain urged.

Pete needed no further encouragement. With one arm wrapped around the artifact, he pulled himself down the core using the handholds. At the hatch, he turned and began to lower himself. Slowly, he felt the pseudo-gravity return as he descended the ladder.

Two levels down, Pete and the captain stopped. With crewmen watching from all sides, they gingerly placed the object in a large glove box, then they shut the box. While everyone waited anxiously, Rich took a strange tool and began to work on the glove box. It became evident that he was fusing the door to the main body of the glove box. When he finished, he nodded to the captain.

"Who does the honors?" Yuri asked as nearly all the crewmembers stood around the glove box, peering at the encased object but not willing to make the first move.

Captain Loggins shrugged. "I don't know." He glanced at Rich. "Go ahead. Unwrap it."

Rich inserted his arms into the gloves, then he carefully began to unseal and unwrap the object. As the object emerged from its plastic casing, the murmurs around the room faded. Soon, all ten men were pressed against the glass case, staring at the dull surface of the object as Rich finished unwrapping it.

Rich frowned, then he picked up a brush with one glove. Carefully, he began to brush the surface. After a few moments, he attacked the object with a little more energy. Slowly, almost magically, the dusty dirty orange-brown object began to yield to the brush. The symbols became clearer as the shiny bluish-gray metal emerged from its encasement of dust. The room was deathly silent.

Finally, the captain spoke. "Rich, get the camera and get as many pictures as you can. Hans - can we get a chemical analysis through the glove box? Let's get as much data on this thing as we can."

Dr. Chang stared at the object, his brow furrowed. Then he scrambled up the ladder. In their fascination with the object, no one noticed, even when he returned with Ben in tow. "Captain," he said firmly, interrupting the reverie.

Captain Loggins turned. He saw Ben and Dr. Chang. "What?"

In answer, Dr. Chang held up a sketch, one of Ben's many drawings and doodles.

Captain Loggins felt his blood turn to ice. He glanced at the artifact sealed in the glove box, then back at the sketch. The two matched almost perfectly.

**********

The captain poked his head into the medical bay. "How's Ben doing?"

Dr. Chang didn't turn. "What do you expect? He's been in labor for almost ten hours."

The captain frowned. "That's the last thing I expected on my ship - a pregnant woman delivering a baby."

"I'm not to damned happy about it either!" Ben screamed through gritted teeth. "This isn't exactly fun for me!"

"Glad you waited a day. I don't think we could have done the TEI burn if you'd have been in labor then."

Ben grimaced, then he panted a bit. His face showed that the contraction had eased. "Did you ever think that the damned burn was what induced this?" he asked, still gasping for breath. His brow was sweaty from the not-too-pleasant experience. His lower body was covered with a sheet, and his legs were raised and spread in a pair of improvised stirrups.

Dr. Chang examined Ben. "Almost fully dilated," he announced. "I think you can push on the next contraction." Given the exhausted look of Ben, the sweat on his brow, it was evident that he no longer cared about the intrusive examination.

After a few moments, Ben gritted his teeth again. He began to pant, trying to control his breathing and the contraction in his stomach.

"Okay, now bear down," Dr. Chang encouraged. "Push!"

"I am pushing, dammit!" Ben gasped through gritted teeth. His face showed the strain of his effort.

After a minute or so that seemed an eternity to Ben, the contraction eased. His head fell back onto the table, and he gasped for breath. In only a few moments, it started all over again. "Damn!" he screamed as the pain wracked his body. "Dammit! Dammit, Dammit! Why me?" He gasped for breath, and bore down again, sweat beading on his brow.

"Okay, I see the head," Dr. Chang announced from between Ben's legs. "Push. Push!"

"Shove it!" Ben screamed. "I _am_ pushing!" He gasped again, and once more pushed.

In an instant, the pain and pressure vanished. Ben sank back on the table. He saw Dr. Chang examining something in his arms, with Jack looking on closely. Dr. Chang glanced at Jack. "Take care of Ben."

"Is it ...?" Ben was afraid to ask.

"It's a girl," Jack answered, but his voice betrayed his nervousness.

"What is it?" Ben asked, raising his head. "What is it?" he asked again, more insistently this time as he sat up on the table.

Dr. Chang winced. "It's a little girl," he said, forcing an even tone to his voice. "But it's ..." He winced again. Then he held out the baby for Ben and the captain to see.

The baby looked like a healthy baby girl - except for a couple of minor details.

Her skin had a blue tint to it. And her hair was blue - somewhere between royal blue and dark navy blue. The captain gasped. "Is it ... ?"

Dr. Chang shook his head. "This is _way_ outside my area of expertise," he declared. He took the baby to a monitor, and after a moment, he shook his head. "The oxygen saturation is normal. It looks like the skin tone is ... natural!"

The baby cried out. Ben looked at it, and then he inexplicably reached out. Some instinct, natural or induced by the same force that had changed him, caused him to reach out for his baby.

Dr. Chang glanced at the captain, then he uneasily held the baby out to Ben, who took the baby and cradled it in his arms. As the baby settled in Ben's arms, it calmed down. Then, again without knowing how or why, Ben lifted his shirt, exposing his large swollen breasts, and he guided the baby's mouth to one nipple. In moments, the baby latched on and began to suckle. Ben held the baby close, cradling it as if to protect his baby from any harm as he fed it and hummed softly to it.

**********

The captain sighed as he sat back in the chair. In the next room, Ben's room and now the ship's nursery, Ben was still cuddling with the baby. He'd finished feeding it, and now the baby was sleeping. The captain stared at Dr. Chang. "What the _hell_ is going on here?" he asked rhetorically. "My chief engineer turns into a woman, then gets pregnant, then we find an alien artifact that Ben drew pictures of, at coordinates that appeared in our malfunctioning computers. Then, as if that's not enough, Ben gives birth to a blue little girl."

Dr. Chang shook his head. "The baby appears to be perfectly healthy. But it's not human. Not completely, anyway."

"Yeah, as if I couldn't figure that out."

Dr. Chang ignored the sarcastic interjection. "The baby's limbs are longer than standard for a human. Her skin tone appears natural, as evidenced by the blue color of her hair. And she has six fingers and six toes." He shook his head again. "Anatomically, she scans to nearly perfectly human. Heart, two lungs, digestive tract, even reproductive organs. They all very closely match human standards."

The captain shook his head in disbelief. But the nightmare wouldn't go away. "Is the baby some type of hybrid? Part human, part alien?"

Dr. Chang shrugged, feeling helpless. "If we were on Earth, we could check the baby's DNA. Here?" He shook his head. After a long silent pause, Dr. Chang continued. "So now what?"

The captain shook his head. "I don't know. The last status I got from Earth was classified."

Dr. Chang smiled. "Which means you're going to brief the crew soon."

The captain laughed, but it was forced and humorless. "Yeah. They're working on reactivating the station."

Dr. Chang's face went white.

The captain nodded. "Ben will probably never set foot on Earth again - and I'm afraid that goes for the rest of us. We're going to be quarantined and studied until we ..." He broke off, shaking his head at the thought.

Dr. Chang sighed. "You'd better not tell the men." He saw the captain's eyebrows raise in surprise. "The men ... their attitude toward Ben. It's not good. If they find out Earth intends to quarantine the entire ship..." He shook his head. "It could get pretty ugly."

"So what the hell am I supposed to do?"

Dr. Chang smiled his warm grandfatherly smile. "You've got another eleven months to figure it out."

**********

The flashing light and buzzer pierced Captain Loggin's dream. Like flipping a switch on, his brain activated. He glanced around the room even as he unzipped himself from his sleeping bag.

Like most of the other crewmen, he preferred the comfort of weightless sleep. Consequently, the core was a maze of sleeping bags, tied to two opposite walls, wafting like balloons in the tiny airflow, and each holding a crewman like a warm cocoon.

As the buzzer stirred more of the men, the captain began to pull himself down the core toward the control room. Quickly, he scooted into his chair, then he called up a computer display. Instantly, he located the source of the alarm. In another moment, he was scrambling back out of the control room.

For a brief moment, there was a tangle of bodies in the core. Six crewmen who'd been awakened by the alarm were scrambling to the control room to see what was going on just as Captain Loggins came out. Then the captain scrambled down into the lab side. Barely touching the steps of the ladders, he lowered himself down two decks.

As he turned, his jaw dropped. Ben was standing beside the lab workbench staring at the artifact. The end of the glove box appeared to have been sawed off. Without glancing, the captain slapped the alarm button beside the ladder. The blaring of the klaxon added to the sense of urgency.

"Ben," the captain yelled, "what the hell are you doing?"

Ben turned, a dazed look on his face. "What?" he asked, sounding half-asleep.

The crystal atop the artifact began to glow. Then an intricate pattern of blue beams shot out, intersecting one wall. Slowly, the beams began to rotate, as if they were scanning the room. The captain froze, a horror-stricken expression on his face, even as some of the men scrambled down the ladder into the room.

One by one, the beams paused on each of the crewmen, the blue light dancing intricately over their bodies before moving on. Even the captain was scanned. Then the lights moved to Ben. For a long time, the lights scanned Ben. It was clear that the object was interested in Ben as it continued the scan for several minutes.

Rich started toward the object, but the captain reached out a hand and stopped him. "Wait," he said softly.

The beams vanished. Ben still stood, looking dazed, as the artifact's crystal continued to glow. Then it shot out a beam directly toward the computer console.

The lights snapped off, and the fans circulating the air went silent. All the computer terminals went black, and the hum of the coolant pumps vanished. Except for the eerie blue glow of the beam, the ship was dark and still.

Captain Loggins' training and experience kicked in. "Lenny, get the manual controls active. Cut off the computer control circuits to environmental." He turned to where he thought Jack was standing. "Jack, get the backup lighting on - manual! Boris, Pete - get that console isolated and get the computers back on line!"

There was a brief scramble up the ladder before the crewmen sorted it out. Moving around the darkened ship would be a problem. Then the captain thought of something else. "Jack," he called out loudly, facing the ladder, "get power to the rotational motors before the ship starts to tumble!"

He turned back and cautiously walked toward Ben. "Ben!" he yelled again. "What did you do?"

Ben stood still, mesmerized by the glowing beam. He seemed incapable of answering the captain's question.

A beam of light stabbed through the darkness; Yuri had grabbed the emergency lamps and had activated one. With better illumination, he moved to the captain and handed him a light. "I'll get these distributed."

"Captain!" The voice belonged to Al. Loggins swung the light to him, briefly blinding Al as the beam struck his face. "The display!"

Captain Loggins spun toward the computer terminal. The beam of blue light was still there, perhaps dimmed a bit. But the display was active. "What the hell?" the captain asked needlessly. As the men watched, figures danced crazily across the display. Some of them the captain recognized. A circle, with the radius and circumference and the symbol pi. Numbers. Letters. Mathematical symbols. He thought he saw the symbols for the elements. Faster and faster the images flashed until they were an incomprehensible blur. Then the images slowed. Once more, symbols began to appear, this time unfamiliar, alien-looking characters and symbols.

"Captain, I think it's trying to decipher our math," Miguel said softly.

The captain nodded, barely visible in the dim light. "Maybe. Can you tell if Boris and Pete got this terminal isolated?"

Miguel shook his head. "I don't think so. Normally, you'd pull the cable or the power. But with the main power out, that terminal is drawing power from something else. Maybe that?" He pointed to the artifact and the blue beam of light.

The lights flickered on, and the captain turned off his flashlight. Still, the symbols streamed across the screen. A few moments later, the air circulating equipment came back to life, followed by the cooling pumps.

After several more moments, the beam stopped. There was no sound, no warning. One minute, the beam was touching the terminal, and the next, it wasn't. The captain glanced around the room at the anxious faces. "Okay, it looks like it's done with the computer. Now what?"

"How about we get out of here?" Miguel suggested.

The captain nodded. "Wardroom. We need to figure out how bad that thing damaged us and what we're going to do next." With no disagreement, the men quickly climbed the ladder out of the room. Even Ben, still semi-dazed, stumbled along, with Rich guiding his arm. With one eye on the artifact, the captain cautiously climbed the stairs out of the lab.

***********

Captain Loggins shook his head. "It's been four days, dammit!" he swore, frustration dripping from his words. "And you still can't get the damned computers on line?"

Pete shook his head. "It's not that simple. There's something in the core."

"Like a virus," Boris added.

Pete nodded. "It's taking a lot of resources. When we reboot one computer and wipe the memory, it just spreads back from the other units."

The captain sighed. "Can't you take them all offline at once?"

Pete shook his head. "We tried." He sighed. "We dropped all the computers. Even the isolated backup flight system computer. Then we brought them up in diagnostic mode and reloaded memory from the safe disks." He shook his head. "No dice."

Boris nodded his agreement. "That's some kind of nasty virus. We can't find it. But it's there."

The captain nodded. "At least we've got a few months to figure this out. But when we need to maneuver, we _have_ to have clean computers."

"Or we have Lenny compute the burn targets manually."

"I hope it doesn't come to that." He turned to Jack. "How are the rest of the systems?"

Jack shrugged. "No damage. We've checked everything from top to bottom. Apart from the normal wear and tear from this long a mission, everything is ship-shape."

The captain frowned. "You don't look happy."

Jack snorted. "You got that right. Without the auto controls, it's a twenty-man job to run the ship. And with the automated systems acting up, we don't dare turn it over. Remember what happened the last time we tried?" A couple of days earlier, he had switched the environmental controls from manual to auto. It worked for a few hours. Then the computer started acting up again, and the control logic failed because of mistiming in the program execution. If someone hadn't been watching, the air pressure would have quickly bled to a level too low to support life.

"Captain, it's weird. There's nothing malicious happening in the computers," Jack reported, shaking his head in frustration. "It's just like there's a rogue program that's stealing computer cycles." He shook his head. "And it's hitting our database pretty hard."

The captain perked up, a surprised and concerned look on his face. "Our database?" he asked slowly. "Then ... it's learning ... about us?"

Yuri frowned. "If this thing is dangerous, then we are screwed."

The captain shook his head. "So far, there's nothing dangerous. Except for Ben, it's all pretty benign." He sighed. "I'm having a hard time believing ..." An alarm interrupted him. "What now?" he asked.

Yuri was scrambling out of his seat. "It's the lab alarm again."

The captain frowned as he turned to the ladder. "I thought you sealed it!"

Yuri nodded, a few rungs higher on the ladder than the captain. "I did."

The hatch to the lab - and the alien artifact - was wide open. But the artifact was missing. "What the fuck?" the captain cursed loudly. "This shit is getting too weird, and too old!"

Yuri frowned. "Ben," he said simply.

The captain nodded, then he climbed back up the ladder. It took only moments to cross the central core and descend to the medical bay.

Ben _had_ been confined in the storage room, locked to ensure he didn't' do any more stunts with the artifact. But when they came into the medical bay, the storage room door was open. That wasn't what caught their eyes, however. The artifact was sitting on the examining table. "Ben?" the captain called.

Almost trancelike, Ben walked out of the storage room. In his arms, he held the little girl. But he ignored the captain. Instead, he walked to the artifact.

"Ben, stop!" Yuri called insistently. "Don't make us stop you!"

Ben ignored the warning. He held the baby in one arm and touched a few symbols on the artifact even as Yuri stepped menacingly toward him.

The blue lines began to sweep the room again. This time, they passed by Ben. Instead, they stopped on the little girl.

"It ... seems to recognize her," the captain said softly to Yuri.

Yuri nodded silently. Still the scan continued. Then it stopped. Just as abruptly as the scan stopped, a beam shot out toward the computer terminal in the medical bay. This time, however, nothing happened on the ship. Instead, the display began to fill with data.

The baby cried, and Ben absently pulled his shirt up and positioned the baby to nurse. He seemed oblivious to the others in the room.

The captain and Yuri, however, moved to the terminal. As the captain started reading, his eyes widened. "Holy shit!" he exclaimed under his breath as he read more and more of the message.

**********

"Well, Captain?" Miguel asked simply.

The captain and Yuri had been sequestered in the medical bay for
almost a full day. When they emerged, they were tight-lipped
about what they'd found. Equally puzzling, the computer
anomalies stopped - just vanished. The ship seemed to be
operating normally again.

After they'd emerged, the two had spent time locked in the control room. No one was permitted inside, not even the communications experts. The officers had, however, taken the keys from the cryptography vault with them. Everyone knew that something very big was happening. So this meeting had a strong sense of urgency.

Captain Loggins glanced around the room. Everyone was here. And with the exception of Ben, who was rocking his baby, everyone was waiting anxiously to find out what was going on. "We've made documented contact with an alien race," the captain began.

"No shit," Rich spat. "As if we didn't already know that."

Yuri stared at him, then he shook his head and sighed. "The contact is far more significant than you realize."

The captain nodded. "Ben's baby is the progeny of a race that call themselves the Lakari." He paused to allow the men's murmurs to die down. "They are extinct, and have been for several millennia. About four thousand years ago, if we read the data correctly, their sun went nova. The Lakari constructed hundreds of arks to carry their species away from the danger."

Hans frowned. "So why didn't we find a moon full of little blue people?"

Yuri shook his head. "The arks carried only the stored knowledge and culture of the Lakari, and the means to propagate their species."

Ben looked up. "You mean, like me?" he asked simply.

The captain nodded. "Their arks were loaded with nanobots programmed to find compatible life forms, adapt them if necessary, and to adjust the DNA of an embryo to that of Lakari."

Ben's eyes widened. "So I was picked to be, what, the mother of their resurrected race?"

The captain nodded. "In a word, yes. The Lakari are amazingly like us. Bipedal, dual sexed, even very humanoid in appearance. It took very little to adjust a female womb to carry a Lakari child."

Ben nodded and lowered his eyes. "But we didn't have any female crewmembers, so they made one?"

The captain nodded. "Their probes thought it was necessary. So too, apparently, were the other phenomenon we encountered." He glanced at Ben. "Besides your physical changes, the nanobots did a few minor alterations in your brain." He saw the jaws drop around the table. "Your 'instincts' have been modified to match those of a Lakari woman - so you'd take to nursing and caring for the baby."

Yuri nodded his agreement with the captain's assessment. "The nanobots have some type of quantum computers in them. Each of those microscopic machines has more computer power than the combined systems aboard _Goddard_."

Lenny looked thoughtful for a moment. "So the nanobots are probably dedicated to propagation, and any modifications necessary to accomplish that? Otherwise, they wouldn't need that ... artifact."

The captain nodded. "Each of those ... crystals ... is really a carrier for the nanobots. They are unique structures that wouldn't be naturally occurring, and thus would lead the curious to pick them up."

"Bait," Miguel observed.

"Exactly. And we took the bait." The captain sighed. "Ben was a test." He saw the men glance quickly at Ben, then back at him. "By accepting the changes, by permitting Ben to change and then to give birth, we demonstrated that we aren't a primitive barbaric society."

"I don't get it," Hans said simply. "Why not just communicate with us? Why the test?"

The captain opened his mouth to speak, but Pete beat him to the punch. "Based on the nanobots, they have a very advanced technology. If we got the technology, perhaps by deceiving them, we could be very dangerous. As they say, actions speak louder than words."

"Exactly," Yuri agreed. "The records we saw showed that the Lakari are ... were ... a very peaceful people. I would imagine that the thought of their technology falling into the hands of a warlike race would be abhorrent."

Rich sighed. "So now what? Do we just waltz back to Earth and drop off the crystals to 'repopulate the species'?"

The captain glanced at Yuri, then he looked down, his eyes closing momentarily. "It's not that easy." He shook his head. "Based on what we saw, and it was only the tiniest glimpse of the knowledge that the 'ark' holds, this could be the biggest boon to mankind ever. Cure virtually all diseases, extend lifetime, clean safe unlimited power, sophisticated chemical processing." He shook his head. "It's a treasure trove. The mother lode of everything scientists have dreamed of for hundreds of years."

"But?" Any of the men could have asked the obvious question.

"We're a threat. We're ... contaminated." He looked solemnly around the table. "We have been ordered to return to lunar orbit, and we will be disembarked to the old Luna 1 base, there to be quarantined until we are determined to no longer be a threat to Earth."

Miguel sighed heavily. "I knew it," he said softly. "We're ... expendable."

Dr. Chang shook his head. "It's worse. They want the knowledge - for themselves." He lowered his gaze. "Perhaps we are as dangerous as the aliens feared. Perhaps we are not to be trusted with such technology." He glanced around the table. "Any peaceful technology could be adapted to war. And such, I fear, is the intent of the powers who know of the artifact."

Yuri nodded solemnly. "Dr. Chang is correct. If we are quarantined on the moon, we are lost. No one will know of our secret except those who gain the technology. We could be disposed of if necessary to keep the secret."

Hans sighed and closed his eyes, lowering his head as he shook it slowly. "The people of Germany are better than that. They truly love peace - unlike some of the leaders."

Rich looked defeated. "Would some of our leaders sacrifice all this technology, and us, to keep their power?" He knew the answer even as he asked the question.

"What do we do, captain?" Jack asked softly.

"We have our orders," the captain answered simply. "It's not our place to decide what's best for Earth."

**********

"So this is why all the computer cycles were used. It was learning our language!" Boris exclaimed as he examined the artifact and it's blue beam interface to the computers.

Lenny nodded. "So it _was_ a virus. But so sophisticated that we couldn't stop it."

"Exactly." The captain touched some symbols on the artifact, but nothing happened. "I think it only keys on a Lakari." He nodded to Ben.

Ben walked softly to the artifact, carrying his baby. "Here," he said softly to the baby as he held the little girl out to the artifact. "Touch the pretty toy."

The baby seemed fascinated by the glowing blue crystal. She reached out and touched it, then she patted her small hand against the shiny metal.

In response, the artifact's blue scanning beams shone forth and focused on the baby, scanning up and down and across her tiny form. Then they stopped.

The captain smiled. "The Lakari are smart, I'll give them that. Making access to the artifact dependent on an actual Lakari. Great safeguard against misuse."

Hans frowned. "So what are we seeking? Why are we here?"

The captain took a deep, slow breath. "Archive," he said in a wavering, uncertain voice.

The light pattern from the crystal changed, moving vertical until it coalesced into a solid image. The man's head was light blue, with a rim of dark blue hair around his bald head. He looked old, and sad. His mouth opened, and a melodious sound came from the artifact. He was speaking to the men - and they did not understand the almost lyrical Lakari tongue.

The _Goddard's_ computers, however, had been used to instruct the Archive in human language, and more specifically, English. In a moment, the words changed. "How may I be of service?" the Archive asked.

The captain glanced around the room, then he cleared his throat. "We need to know how we can help continue your race," he said simply.

The Archive smiled sadly. "I have interpreted the communications with your home world. Your leaders fear us, but they yearn for our technology. Your history and literature shows that your people crave peace and harmony. Such was once the history of the Lakari. We outgrew those primitive tendencies, as you will."

Yuri stepped forward. "We need the help of the Lakari to show us how," he stated.

The Archive nodded slowly, his expression finally changing to display a little hope. "Your race has much promise. You must peacefully overcome the stubbornness of your leaders. There is a way."

"How?" the captain and the men asked nearly simultaneously.

"One Lakari child will be a curiosity. Many would be more difficult for the leaders to control."

"You ... are asking for us to change? Like Ben? To bear Lakari children?" The astonishment in Miguel's voice was plain.

The Archive nodded slowly. "Only if you voluntarily permit the change." The face turned slowly to look at Ben. "We truly regret that it was necessary to change you against your will. In exchange, we have made modifications to enhance your lifespan and to enhance your mental capacity. You will not suffer from disease through your life." The sad expression returned. "We are sorry, but that is all we can offer in exchange for what we have done to you."

"Can't you change me back?" Ben asked hopefully.

The Archive shook it's head. "Unfortunately, we cannot. Your body has undergone some irrevocable changes as part of bearing a child."

"Damn," Ben swore softly, even as he guided his baby to his breast for her to nurse. "Too bad if I'm stuck as a woman, I'm not at least a cute one!" he added sarcastically.

The Archive looked a bit surprised. "This form is not attractive?" it asked simply. For a moment, there was silence, then the ship's computers seemed to halt. "Your records indicate various forms of what you consider beauty. We can program the MicroHelpers to reconfigure your female body to be more pleasing. This will be only a cosmetic change, however."

Ben glanced at the captain. "Uh, I don't think so," he answered uneasily. "This is enough change for me."

The captain cleared his throat again. "How do we ... change?" he asked simply, with an embarrassed tone in his voice.

The Archive stared at the captain for several uneasy moments. "Each of the crystals contains a programmed MicroHelper, with a unique Lakari genetic code. If you extract the MicroHelper and inject it into your body, it will begin the change cycle. When the change is sufficiently advanced, it will modify one of your egg follicles, fertilize it with one of your modified sperm, and implant the embryo into your uterus. You will become pregnant with a Lakari baby while the MicroHelpers reconfigure the rest of your body."

The captain nodded. He glanced at Dr. Chang and nodded again. Dr. Chang picked up one of the crystals, then examined it under the lab microscope. After a few moments, he washed something off the crystal, collected the drop into a syringe, checked the syringe content, and then turned back to Captain Loggins. "It is ready."

The captain nodded. "Archive, I volunteer myself to help preserve your race. You have much that we need to learn. Both your race and mine will benefit greatly." He broke off abruptly, then turned to Dr. Chang and nodded.

In answer, the doctor injected the contents of the syringe into the captain's arm.

The captain clutched at the spot on his arm, looking a bit uneasy. "I guess that's it, then." He sounded nervous.

Ben smiled. "It won't be that bad, Captain," he said. "If I can do it, anyone can."

The captain looked around the room, at the other ten men. He said nothing, but the question was obvious.

Chang Li looked at the Archive, then he went back to the microscope. He quickly repeated the wash process to obtain the nanobot, or MicroHelper as the Archive called it, and injected his own arm. "I am honored to be of service to our races," he said simply.

The men looked down at the floor plates, uncertainty and nervousness echoing in their listless shuffle and low muttering. Finally, Miguel stepped forward. "If you change me, can you alter me to look like a lovely young senorita?" he asked the Archive.

The Archive nodded slowly. "Your form can be altered within constraints to be pleasing to you. Reducing apparent age is easily accomplished."

One by one, the men volunteered - except for Hans. When all the men had been injected with the MicroHelpers, the captain looked at Hans. "I can't order you to change. But if you did, voluntarily, it would make it easier for all of us."

Hans shook his head sadly. "I ... cannot," he answered.

The captain cocked his head toward the ladder in a sign to the men. Slowly, the filtered out, leaving the captain, Dr. Chang, and Hans. Hans looked nervous.

The captain sighed. "Hans, you don't have to pretend with us. We both know your psych profile."

Hans jaw dropped, then it clenched and his eyes narrowed. "I don't know what you are talking of," he answered.

Dr. Chang shook his head. "You shouldn't deny what is a part of you. Your uncertainty about your sexuality is very evident in your medical records."

The captain nodded. "Everyone knows your macho attitude about women, your bragging about your exploits." He clasped his hand on Hans' shoulder. "You're a great chemist, and a damn good crewman. Why should anything else matter?"

Hans jaw trembled as it clenched and relaxed, and his eyes looked steeled. Then a tiny spec of moisture appeared in the corner of his eye. "I ... I ... " He lowered his eyes. "My family would never understand. My friends would say that I am queer."

Dr. Chang smiled thinly. "Every man on this crew has to face that. But there are some things that are worth more than your feelings. This is one of them."

The captain nodded. "And you'll have all of us. We're not only your shipmates, but I hope we're your friends. You won't be going through this alone."

Hans nodded. Finally, he looked up. "I must think for a while."

"I understand," Dr. Chang and the captain said, almost in harmony.

**********

The captain brushed her hair back behind her shoulders. "Damn," she muttered softly. "I forgot about zero G."

Yuliya Raspopov, once the stocky Yuri and now a delicate dark-haired young woman, floated to the captain's chair and held out something. It was a fabric strip wrapped around an elastic band. "This should help." Yuliya was as shapely as Yuri had been stocky. The MicroHelpers had refashioned her body and her face into a pretty young lady.

Captain Tina Loggins smiled. "Thanks. I guess I still have a lot to learn about this female stuff." As Yuri floated back to his chair, the captain pulled her hair into a ponytail, corralling the errant long hair. She glanced at the doctor. "How are the babies?" she asked, concern evident in his voice.

Dr. Chang Lei Juan, as she called herself, glanced over the improvised tiny acceleration couches, each occupied by an infant. "I think Katira is hungry," he observed. Of all the crew, Dr. Lei looked the most changed. Gone were the fine lines of age and experience, gone was the gray hair. Her hair was dark and long and silky, in a long braided ponytail, and her face was smooth and soft. She appeared to be not more than twenty.

Tina laughed. "Figures it's mine that's going to fuss." She shook her head. "She's going to have to wait." She glanced down. "Damn! I should have put in pads!" The front of the captain's shirt was staining as her nipples leaked milk in a letdown reflex. She sighed heavily, and glanced over her shoulder. "Al?"

Alana Martin, the tall slender woman at the pilot position, glanced over her shoulder. Unlike most of the others, she wore her brown hair short, in a low maintenance style. "We're in the groove. Should hit the interface in," she glanced at the chronometer on her display, where numbers were counting down, "fifty-five seconds."

"Peg? Data systems check?"

Peggy Smythe and Kayta Butovchenko scanned their displays quickly. "Systems check okay," Peg answered after a moment. Peg was still the tallest in the crew, and at 6 feet, she cut a handsome figure of a woman. Kayta was a pleasantly plump woman, having decided to not change too much. Boris' bald spot was grown with lush dark hair, one of the major advantages that Boris found in the change.

"Captain," Manuela Hernandez called, "we're getting a request from the ground to confirm our burn targets." She looked puzzled. "How should I respond?"

Captain Loggins glanced at Peggy Smythe. "Peg?"

Peggy shook her head, making her brown hair swirl to her frustration. "As soon as we enter the burn target, they'll read it on the telemetry."

The captain looked at Manuela. 'Damn if she isn't pretty,' she thought to herself, and as quickly found herself shocked that it felt like a twinge of jealousy. "Can you cut communications so it looks like a malfunction?"

Manuela winced. "I'll try." She turned back to her station and began to work her controls.

"Belinda? Final check on the aerobrake."

Belinda Young, the former Ben whose change had started all this, glanced at the readout. After all the months of denying reality, she accepted the change when the others joined her. Now, she seemed almost proud to have been the first. "Aerobrake deployed normally. All systems check."

"Annie? Are the pods ready?"

Joanne 'Annie' Bossert nodded. "We start deploying at interface minus twenty seconds. Landing distribution should be as predicted, concentrated in population centers."

Captain Loggins nodded to herself. "Okay, Leah, punch in the burn target. Let's get this over with." She looked around the control room. "It's time to come home."

**********

General (Ret.) Fred Talmedge saw the red indicator on his console even before the guidance engineer spoke on his headset. "Sir," the engineer reported, "it looks like we've got a burn error."

General Talmedge stiffened. "Trajectory error?" he demanded. At the same time, he gestured to General Yevchenko and General Wei, who quickly wheeled their chairs closer to his position.

It took the engineer a few moments to find an answer. "Sir, they've lost enough velocity that they will no longer slingshot to the moon."

"Damn!" the general swore. He huddled with the two foreign generals who were 'observers' in the Mission Control room. "Well?" he asked simply.

Yevchenko shook his head in the negative. So did Wei. General Talmedge nodded. "I concur. Dammit!" he swore again. "I _knew_ Loggins would try something like this!"

"They intend to come home," Wei said with certainty.

Talmedge nodded. He punched a button on his console. "Comm, have we still got contact?"

The communications engineer nodded. "Yes, sir."

The general deftly keyed some strokes into his computer, then he paused, his finger over a button. He took one last glance at Wei and Yevchenko.

"It is our duty," Yevchenko said without emotion. "Humanity is at stake."

Talmedge nodded, then his finger stabbed the button.

Deep in the bowels of the control center, a computer received a high-priority signal. Quickly, it activated the required code module, which in turn ran through a complicated authentication routine. Having confirmed the authenticity of the person pushing the button through the button's built-in fingerprint scanner, the computer proceeded to execute the code. A complicated cipher scheme encoded a stream of bits, which the computer spit forth. Another computer on the network picked up the stream, validated its authenticity, and then encapsulated the stream into a hidden format. Once that step was done, the stream was sent out the network, ultimately to the massive dish antenna that was tracking the _Goddard_.

So well hidden were the code sequences that, in the years of preparation for the mission and the mission itself, no one had noticed the special command sequence. It was there just in case, as an emergency backup. Now, it had been called on to perform its one task.

The ground station received the command, and obediently forwarded it through the communications gear and to the antenna. A beam of energy spat forth, carrying the complicated commands.

In space, an antenna picked up the signal. The data stream was relayed to the computer, which verified the command sequence. It began to decrypt the message, and upon finding the special encryption, it proceeded to search the files for the correct cipher key. In microseconds, it decrypted the data, then it relayed the data to the command processing software.

Under the direction of the complex software, the computer directed relays to begin closing in a complex sequence. Finally, the last relay closed, sending energy into the device. So well hidden was the device that not a single member of the crew had been trusted with knowledge of its presence.

Activated after a long dormancy, the device, validated itself one last time, then it fired an electrical trigger. Vast energy poured into the triggering mechanism. Operating as designed, the trigger fired the carefully shaped explosives, which in turn put enormous heat and compressive energy on the ball of plutonium at its core.

The nuclear fireball filled the heavens, glowing briefly brighter than the sun.

**********

Epilogue

Jason Moore sat in the coffee shop, staring across the table. From the rapt attention he was paying to his companion, and from the gentle smile and stricken expression, it was clear that he was smitten with love. Even though he appeared to be around twenty-five, his gaze was that of a love-struck teenager with a huge crush on someone.

"When is your term ending?" Talamira Loggins asked, her delicate blue hands cradling her coffee cup. She avoided Jason's love-struck gaze - at least for the moment. Better that he should worry a bit.

Jason reached out and touched Talamira's hands. The contrast of his pinkish hands on her sky-blue skin was remarkable. Surprised, she looked up, directly into his eyes. "You have the most lovely azure eyes," he said softly. "They sparkle like a starry evening sky."

Talamira blushed, her cheeks turning purplish. She looked down again. "You didn't tell me when the term is over."

Jason smiled. "Not soon enough," he said, his voice crooning. "My classes keep me away from you."

Talamira felt her cheeks burning again. "Really, Jason," she chided, staring directly at him, "you must control these fits of emotion."

Jason stared for a moment, then he shook his head. "I don't care," he said defiantly. "I don't' care if the whole world knows. I love you, Tala."

"Jason!" Talamira chided softly. "You're making a scene!" She glanced around nervously, her deep blue ponytail bobbing as she swung her head. "People are staring!"

Her assessment was correct. Around them, dozens of patrons were watching, their eyes a wide variety of emotions, including amusement, delight, and shock.

"I don't care!" Jason announced again. "I love you! I want to be with you always!" He slid from his seat, dropped to one knee, and held her hands. "Will you marry me?"

Talamira lifted one hand to cover her open mouth. "I ... I knew ..." She stopped, confused. "What do I say?" she mumbled. His surprise had been total.

In answer, Jason smiled and pulled a jewelry box from his pocket.
He handed it to Talamira, who opened it. "Oh, my!" she said softly. "They're ... they're beautiful!" She stared at the gold ring with the central diamond and sapphires on each side, and at the delicate sapphire crystal pendant. "But ..." Her eyes were starting to tear up from her emotion.

Jason held her hands. "Will you marry me?" he asked again.

Talamira looked in his eyes, then she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him. "Oh, yes!" she cried softly. "Yes, I'll marry you!" Then she sat back. "You _did_ follow the customs, didn't you?" She looked a little concerned.

Jason smiled. "Of _course_ I followed your customs," he answered. "I asked your family for their blessing. I gave your mother and grandmother the traditional joining crystals. And I visited the temple and had the Crystal of Intent blessed." He took the ring from the box. With one hand, he held her left hand, while he slid the ring on her finger with the other. "Just like your customs say - the crystals of Lakari with the customary Earth diamond of eternal promise, symbolizing our unity." He took the crystal pendant, and brushing her long deep blue hair aside, fastened it around her neck. "I give you the crystal of my heart, to hold and cherish forever," he said solemnly in the formal proposition of old Lakari custom.

Talamira wiped her tears, then she wrapped her arms around Jason again. Around them, some of the human patrons started to clap and cheer, and a few Lakarians spontaneously burst into song, a song of congratulations in the beautiful lyrical Lakarian tongue.

Jason walked with Talamira from the coffee shop, his arm around her shoulder. "We have to go show my parents," she said. "It is the custom to announce to my parents first."

Jason nodded, smiling. "I know the customs. We announce it to your parents, and then we publicly announce our engagement a the temple." He chuckled. "Then the cantors sing a blessing and wishes for long happy life, and we stand through all fifty-seven verses."

Talamira drew back and playfully slapped him. "Jason Moore," she said, feigning hurt, "if I didn't know you better, I'd say you were making fun of my religion!"

Jason laughed. He stepped to the curb and keyed his remote, unlocking his car. He graciously opened the door, and held his arm so Talamira could climb in. He quickly circled the car and eased himself into his seat, pulling the gull-wing door down behind him. He tapped a few buttons on the control panel, and the car lifted to hover a few inches off the street. "I'm glad the bishops and cardinals decided that our religions are compatible," Jason said as he grasped the joystick. The car lifted vertically until it was over a hundred meters above the sidewalk. "My mom always wanted see her son married in a full wedding mass."

Talamira smiled. "My grandmother knew that our people would grow together. I'm so glad she risked everything to bring us together." Then her face clouded, and she turned back to stare out the windshield.

"What's wrong?" Jason asked softly. Talamira shook her head, but Jason knew better. "No, something is bothering you. Please tell me."

Talamira turned, and Jason could see a tear in her eye. "It's just .." She shook her head. "You know how things work. If we have any children, they will be Lakari. It is the way it must be."

With his free hand, Jason reached out and held Talamira's. He glanced at her, then continued to focus on the necessity of piloting. "I remember high school biology," he said firmly. "I know that if we have children, they will be _our_ children. Lakari or human, they will be mine. I _know_ that your MicroHelpers will alter my . genetic contribution . to match Lakari DNA." He smiled. "That's okay. A good fraction of it is _still_ pure DNA from me."

Talamira wiped a tear. "Sometimes, it doesn't seem fair."

"What?"

Talamira shook her head. "That children with mixed parents born to a Lakari woman are pure Lakari, while those born to a human woman are pure human." She sighed. "It just seems to accentuate our differences."

Jason smiled. "Remember, the 'Archive' said that we are biologically compatible, and that in another generation, when the Lakari population is large enough, the MicroHelpers will no longer need to do the genetic alterations."

Talamira smiled again. "The 'Archive'," she laughed. "The wonderful source of knowledge that helped convince Earth to accept us."

Jason nodded. He'd heard the stories many times through his life. How the _Goddard_ had discovered the Lakari 'Archive' on Callisto, how one crewmember, and then all, had changed into the progenitors of the entire Lakarian race. Talamira spoke almost with reverence of her grandmother, Tina Loggins, every time she recounted the tale.

Without the 'Archive', none of the crew would have survived. The hidden nuclear bomb would have destroyed the _Goddard_ and all her crew. But the 'Archive' sensed it and the secret commands in the computers. The engineers of _Goddard_ had rigged a 'false system' from spares, and had connected it to a receiving antenna. The 'false' computer system thought it was the real ship, even sending telemetry as if it were real, and it reacted accordingly when it received the hidden self-destruct code sequence. But the real _Goddard_ was hundreds of miles away, safe from the blast and the radiation burst, having jettisoned the device without the ground controllers realizing it.

Their plan had been even more devious. As predicted, the crew was almost immediately detained and quarantined on landing, while politicians, bureaucrats, and generals all over the world debated their fate. Then the first reports came, a trickle at first, then a stream, then a torrent. Women worldwide had found blue crystals that seemed to have fallen from the sky. One after another, they became pregnant. At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Then the babies were born. All blue, all pure Lakarian, all created from Lakarian genetic code in the MicroHelpers. For as they had performed their tricky aerobraking maneuver, the _Goddard_ released a torrent of tiny capsules, miniature heat shields each protecting a blue Lakarian crystal. Once they landed, it was only a matter of time.

Faced with a flood of Lakarian babies, and unable to unlock the secrets of the 'Archive' without the help of the _Goddard_ crew, the authorities finally gave up fighting that which they could not fight. In the first wave of children, nearly three thousand Lakarian babies were born, and more followed as stray crystals were found or women, taken by the sad tale of the Lakarian race and the horrible attempt on the lives of the _Goddard_ crew, volunteered to bear Lakarian babies.

The racial antagonism, which the 'Archive' had feared, flared up in a few minor spots, but for the most part, the notion of racial inequality and discrimination had been flushed from humanity. The Lakarians flourished, especially as people realized the benefits of the technological gifts they brought.

As Jason piloted his anti-grav car into the main traffic lane past the soaring delicate-looking spires that bespoke Lakarian architecture, he flipped on the autopilot. That done, he reached out and took Talamira's hand. "Isn't the sunset beautiful?" he asked softly as he gazed on the slender slice of the sun visible on the horizon. Overhead, the sky was turning deep blue, and the stars were starting to twinkle. Jason glanced up through the roof. "And look - the sky is twinkling - just like your eyes!"

FIN