CHAPTER ONE

     Kei and Yuri had been fighting the dragon for hours now
and were having the time of their lives.  The huge, green-
scaled beast was beginning to get quite frustrated at its
astounding inability to kill the two girls, neither one of
whom was much larger than one of its toes.  By all rights,
they both should have been squashed to paste by now;
certainly the dragon had never had problems dealing with
humans before.  But the stupid things wouldn't stand still!
Despite the fact that they stood on a ledge, rock to one
side, four-hundred meter drop to the other, the humans danced
and dodged, forcing the dragon to slowly follow them up the
incline.
     Of course, the girls' weapons were a factor in the
beast's frustration as well.  Kei, looking resplendent in a
armor bikini and fur boots, brandished a sword she'd picked
up the previous day.  If held with both hands, it could
release powerful bolts of lightning.  Yuri, for her part, was
dressed in the traditional robes of her sorcerer's trade, and
had been keeping the dragon off-balance with a bag of
mystical dust.  When thrown, the dust created winds that
swirled about its head, snuffing out its flame before it
could be blown.
     The dragon was a gift from their enemy, the dark
sorcerer Mordak.  Having sensed his foes were close to
gaining the tools to destroy him, he had instilled one of the
beasts from his private collection with an unquenchable
hatred of the "Lovely Angels", as the girls called
themselves.  The dragon would fight until it either killed
them or died itself.
     The Angels had realized almost immediately that they did
not have enough power to kill the beast.  Then Kei hit upon a
brilliant idea.  (Brilliant in Kei's opinion, not Yuri's.
Most of Kei's "brilliant" ideas had landed them in worse
trouble than they had been in before.)  The idea was this: if
they could get the dragon to follow them up the side of the
cliff, they just might be able to temporarily knock it
unconscious and push it over the edge.
     Fortunately, the spell that had driven the dragon into
such a rage had also made it stupid.  If the dragon had
possessed one-tenth of its natural intelligence, it would
have used its wings and attacked from the air.  As it was,
the beast plodded slowly forward, trying to crush them
underfoot or fry them with its breath.
     Kei stood in front of Yuri, dodging the occasional
flame-burst and holding her mystic sword at the ready, in
order to take advantage of even the slightest opening allowed
by the dragon.  Having been stung by several of the sword's
electric bolts, the dragon was now wary of getting too close
to the redhead.  What the dragon didn't know was that the
sword had only one charge left in it.
     "KEI!!"  Kei turned around to find Yuri waving madly for
her attention.  The expression on her face reminded Kei of a
first-grader trying to tell her teacher that she has to go to
the bathroom.  She was pointing behind her.  "We're running
out of room!!"
     Kei cursed loudly as she saw what Yuri was referring to.
Kei had been certain this ledge ran all the way to the top of
the cliff.  She had been very wrong.  About seven meters
behind Yuri, the ledge abruptly ended in a drop just as sheer
as the one to their right.
     Kei sheathed her sword, fumbled in a pouch attached to
her armor and pulled out a small, clear vial filled with what
appeared to be wine.  "I'd been hoping to save you for
Mordak," she said, "but it looks I need you now."  She pulled
the cork and quickly and sloppily downed the liquid.  "Mm!
Not bad!"  She wiped her chin and threw the vial away.  "Get
ready, Yuri!  It's showtime!"
     "Got it," Yuri replied.  She put away the dust bag,
closed her eyes and began concentrating.
     Sensing that the windstorm buffeting its head was about
to end, the dragon drew its long neck into the air and took a
huge breath.  Its eyes gleamed as it prepared to finish the
affair with one good blast.
     Kei screamed and doubled over as the potion took effect.
A stabbing pain began in her chest and rapidly spread to her
limbs.  Something in her stomach began to expand.  She raised
her head and let out a tremendous belch.  Smoke poured out of
her mouth and nose, and the pain died.  She got to her feet.
"ALRIGHT, YOU SCALY SHITBAG!!  LET'S PARTY!!"
     The dragon looked down and blew, releasing a river of
orange-white flame at the redhead.  Kei jumped at the last
instant, launching herself 20 meters into the air.  As she
looked down, she worried that she had jumped too far, that
she would overshoot the dragon and land on the other side, or
perhaps fall off the ledge to her death.  But as she came
down she was sure she would hit the mark, and she did:  right
on the dragon's back.  She landed, legs spread, with a thump
that made her glad she wasn't a man, and began to climb up
the dragon's neck.
     Yuri continued to concentrate and gather her energies
for the upcoming spell, at the same time staying ready to
cast a quick shield if the dragon should come at her again.
She relaxed as she heard Kei hit her mark; in a moment the
dragon would be too distracted to worry about the sorceress.
     Distracted the dragon was indeed.  It threw its head
this way and that in a vain attempt to throw the girl off.
But the strength potion had done its job, and Kei held on
fast, continuing her climb and finally reaching the head.
She swung her legs down and clamped on with a strength that
would have made her last lover wince, and unsheathed her
sword.  "Yuri!  I'm gonna need that spell real soon!"
     Yuri nodded and put her hands in position.  If what Kei
was planning worked, she would have a matter of seconds to
cast the spell.
     Kei placed the tip of the sword at the base of the
dragons skull and pushed with all her enhanced strength,
shoving it in to the hilt.  The dragon screamed, launching a
blast of flame skyward, and tried even harder to throw Kei
off, to no avail.  The effort did cause a spurt of blood to
shoot out, however, and it splattered the side of Kei's chest
armor.  Within seconds, the corrosive substance had eaten
through the chain and it fell free.  Kei yelped and tried to
hold it together with one hand.
     Yuri opened her eyes, ready to cast the spell, and saw
that Kei did not have the necessary two hands on the sword.
"What are you doing?!"
     "My top's coming off!"
     "Well, let it!  There's no guys here!"
     Kei had to admit that her friend had a point.  She
slipped out of the top and threw it away.  Too far; it flew
over the edge of the cliff and disappeared.  As she watched
it fall, Kei hoped Yuri wouldn't mind parting with some of
her robe.
     "C'mon, Kei!" Yuri shouted.  "Do it, already!"
     Kei grasped the sword with both hands and shouted, "BLUE
FIRE!!"  The sword discharged its last bolt directly into the
dragon's brain.  The creature's body spasmed violently, and
it suddenly accomplished what it had been unable to do
before, as Kei's feet slipped free of their boots and the
girl went flying.  Kei made a frantic grab as she fell and
managed to hook one hand onto the ledge.  As she slammed into
the cliffside, she remembered another reason not to have
thrown away her chest armor.  The pain almost made her let
go.
     Yuri screamed Kei's name and rushed over to help her.
Kei could barely see her through the shooting stars.  "Yuri,
cast the spell..."
     "Let me help you up, dammit!"
     "No...no time.  Dragon's already waking up."
     Kei had hoped that the dragon's spasms would throw it
off the cliff, making the spell unnecessary, but there was no
such luck.  The fifty-ton beast was still very much on the
ledge and was starting to stir.  "Cast the spell, Yuri.
Throw the son-of-a-bitch off."
     Yuri nodded and began to make hand motions.  "Oh,
spirits of the earth!  Heed me!  I--  Kei, do I really have
to say the words?"
     "Of course you have to say the words!"
     "Can't I just do the hand motions?"
     "It doesn't *work* if you just do hand motions!  Hurry
up, Yuri!  I'm slipping off!"
     Yuri started again.  "Oh, spirits of the-- Oh, this is
*stupid*!" she said...

                    *          *          *

     ...and threw down the book.  "Do you have to be so damn
*picky*, Kei?  It's just a game!"
     "It is *not* just a game!  It's the best RPG in the
galaxy!  And it's no fun if you don't do it right!"
     "Well, it's no fun with you as game-master anyway.  You
give yourself all the best parts."
     "Hey, there's some great stuff in it for you!  Weren't
you just about to save our lives?"
     "Maybe tomorrow."  Yuri stood up and stretched.  "I'm
through for the day."
     "What about Mordak?" Kei pouted.
     "What about him?  He's not going anywhere.  Me, I'm
gonna get a little something to eat and then jog around the
lower decks.  All that sitting has me cramped."
     Kei moped for a few seconds and then began to pick up
the game.  Behind her, Mughi snored.  Before he'd fallen
asleep, he'd been playing a passable game himself, especially
since Yuri had taught him how to throw the dice.  Kei got up,
worked the crick out of her own back and followed Yuri into
the Lovely Angel's small galley.
     "How long until we reach Elenore?" Kei asked Yuri, who
was making a sandwich.
     Yuri checked her watch.  "About three hours."
     "Another three?  Man, I can't wait to get off the ship."
     Yuri nodded in agreement and took a bite.

     In the last fifty years, space-warp technology had
greatly shortened the time it took to travel between stars.
However, there remained the nasty little fact of not being
able to warp into a gravity well, the space surrounding a
large body of mass.  This meant that you could never warp as
close to a planet as you liked, and that you had to travel
the rest of the way at sublight.  The length of time that
took depended upon the system; it ranged from two hours to
two weeks.  For the Elenore system, the entry time was about
a day and a half.  When you were cooped up in a spaceship,
even one as relatively roomy as the Lovely Angel, this became
an awful lot of time to kill.  The Angels had watched some
videos, played handball, took naps, and finally played the
role-playing game.  Now they had about run out of ideas and,
with no case to review, boredom figured to drive the girls
nuts, especially Kei.  So it was with some relief that they
heard an alarm go off on the bridge.
     Kei and Yuri burst onto the bridge and checked the
consoles.  Yuri found the problem.  "It's a proximity alert,"
she said.  "A ship's been detected nearby.  It didn't respond
to the automatic hail."
     Kei's eyes widened with anticipation.  "Ooh!  Is it an
enemy?!  I could use some action right now!"
     Yuri checked some indicators.  "No such luck, I'm
afraid.  The ship isn't under thrust and I'm not reading any
energy signs.  Whatever it was, it's dead."
     "Aww."
     "Still, might as well check it out, huh?  Better than
sitting around on our butts for the next three hours."
     "Not much better," Kei sighed.  "Let's go home."
     "Yeah, you're probably right.  Though, if we did check
it out, it would belong to us.  Salvage laws, you know."
     "What would we want with a junked ship?"
     "Oh, nothing.  You're right, it's probably not worth the
effort."  Yuri got up to leave the bridge.
     Kei put a hand on Yuri's shoulder, stopping her in her
tracks.  "Hooold the phone, here!  What about what's *inside*
the ship?  There could be antiques, precious metals, stuff
like that!"
     "I doubt it.  More likely it's full of obsolete
equipment."
     "But it might be, right?"  When Yuri didn't reply, Kei
shouted, "RIGHT?!"
     "I can see you're going to be impossible unless we check
out that ship."
     "You're damn right!"
     Yuri got into the pilots seat and worked the controls.
She started to giggle.  "You're such a pushover, Kei."  Kei
fumed.

     Within twenty minutes, Yuri had the Lovely Angel on a
course alongside the wreck.
     "Whew," Kei said.  "It's huge."
     "Yeah," agreed Yuri.  "And from the looks of it, most of
it's engine."
     "No kidding?  Must pack one heluva lot of thrust!"
     "Not really.  It's an old ship."
     The age of the ship was obvious from its appearance.
Although impressive in size, it was decidedly unimpressive in
looks.  The ship had a roughly circular cross-section,
tapering from the aft down to a point at the other end.  The
tapering was not graceful, however, coming at irregular
intervals and at right angles.  The overall effect was that
of an immense, spacegoing sparkplug.  Technological advances
had since allowed designers to build ships that were
beautiful as well as functional, but this ship had been built
by people whose limited resources didn't allow such luxuries.
     "You know," said Yuri, "that ship looks kinda familiar."
     "I know what you mean, but you know what's funny?  I
sort of remember it, but the memory's two-dimensional."
     "That's it!  I saw it in a history lesson once!  Let me
see if I can get a closer look at the name."
     The hull of the ship was badly scorched, but with the
help of a zoom camera, the Angels were able to make out the
lettering on the side.  Yuri sounded it out:  LEWIS AND
CLARK, then gasped.  "Holy cow, Kei, do you know what we just
found?"
     Kei closed her eyes and thought as hard as she could.
She was not as good at remembering facts as Yuri, but didn't
like to be shown up.  "Umm, umm, Lewis and Clark.  Umm, an
exploration ship.  Found planets during the UG's early
expansion.  Disappeared in, umm, in--"
     "Disappeared in 2065, all hands presumed lost.  Two
years later, Captain Nora MacPherson was found floating in a
cryogenic escape pod, with no memory of how she had gotten
there.  She gave up exploring and founded MacPherson
Spacecraft--"
     "And now her granddaughter is the richest person in the
whole damn galaxy, blah, blah, okay, you win." 
     "But don't you understand what this means, Kei?!  We're
about to solve one of the greatest mysteries of all time!" 
     Kei thought about it.  "It *would* be nice to be famous
for something good for a change.  Think we could make any
money out of it?"
     Yuri rolled her eyes.  "I guess we could sell it to a
museum."
     "Hey!!  Why don't we sell it to MacPherson?!  I hear she
collects old ships!  I'll bet you she'd pay lots for this
baby!  I mean, it *did* belong to her grandmother, right?"
     "Maybe.  Let's explore it first and think about that
later."  Yuri stared at the ship and rubbed her chin.  "Hmm.
Know what?  We can't dock with this thing.  Our airlocks
aren't compatible with eighty-year-old ships.  We'll have to
go outside."
     Kei cheered.  "Oboy!!  I *love* OVA's!"
     "That's EVA's, Kei."
     "Whatever!  I'm gonna go get the suits ready!"  Kei ran
off the bridge.
In the airlock, Kei helped Yuri into her suit.  "You've
gotten a little bigger since the last time you wore this."
     "I have not!  The darn thing shrank because you didn't
know how to wash it, remember?"  Yuri snapped her visor shut
and sealed it.  "Did you check the propulsion units?"
     "Yeah, yeah!  I checked it, everything's fine, let's
go!"
     Yuri pressed a panel on the wall and the airlock began
to vibrate as powerful suction devices depressurized the
chamber.  After a few minutes, the noise stopped, and a
flashing red light indicated the process complete.  The
airlock door slid open, and the Angels stepped into space.
     Once outside the Lovely Angel's artificial gravity
field, it was easy to become disoriented, so the girls took a
moment to get their bearing.  Once they had sorted out "up"
and "down" in their minds, they gave their thruster packs a
quick burst and drifted toward the wreck.
     "So, Yuri," asked Kei over the radio, "where is the
airlock on this thing, anyway?"
     "How should I know?  I've never been aboard one of these
ships.  It's gotta be near the front, that's all.  The rest
is all engine."
     "So we'll have to search, huh?  Figures."
     The Angels reached the craft and locked onto the hull
with their magnetic boots.  They split up and began looking
for the airlock.
     Nearly thirty minutes later, neither girl had found a
thing.  Kei wandered across the scorched hull, looking this
way and that for any sign of something resembling a portal.
The hull was blackened almost to the color of the surrounding
space in some areas, and twice Kei had nearly drifted loose
when the carbonized hull coating under her boot had crumbled
and come free.  The scorched "landscape" made her feel as if
she'd wandered onto the set of a dystopic SF movie.  "Kei,
last of the great lady gunlords, struggles across the blasted
wastelands in search of civilization..."
     "What was that?" came Yuri's voice.
     "Oh, nothing.  Just being silly.  Any luck?"
     "Nope.  I wonder what this ship ran into?"
     "Whatever it was, I hope it never comes back--WAAH!" Kei
yelled as her right boot failed to find something to step
on.  She tumbled forward, her momentum pulling her left boot
free of the hull.  Quickly twisting, she managed to grab a
hold of the ledge she had just inadvertently stepped off,
before she drifted away from the ship.
     "Kei!  Kei, are you alright?"
     "Yeah, I'm fine!  I just stepped into a well. The damn
hull's so black here that I didn't see it."  Kei peered into
the "well".  It wasn't very wide, maybe ten meters across.
Along one side was what appeared to be a small monorail
track.  Kei thought she recognized it and grinned.  "Hey,
Yuri!  I think this is an escape pod ejection chute!"
     "Great!" cheered Yuri.  "Don't move, I'll be right
over!"
     At the bottom of the well was the airlock they had hoped
for.  Yuri studied it for a moment.  "Kei, help me with the
seal."  Together, the girls operated the wheel which sealed
the door shut.  They gave a pull in the direction the door
appeared to slide, but it wouldn't budge.  "Darn, I think it
needs to be lubricated," said Yuri.  "Maybe if you push and I
pull..."
     "Got it," said Kei.  She floated up, placed her shoulder
against the wheel, and locked her boots on the wall of the
well.  As Yuri pulled, Kei pushed off with her leg muscles.
There was a creaking sound as the door gave way.
     As the door opened, Kei, now stretched across the
opening, could feel a short gust as the atmosphere inside the
chamber escaped.  Something glittering flashed by, and
suddenly someone was shoving needles into Kei's left arm.
Kei didn't even have to look to know what had happened.  She
acted reflexively, whipping an adhesive patch from a pack on
her belt and slapping it over the tear.  The danger past, she
allowed herself the luxury of a good curse.
     "Kei, are you alright?" asked Yuri.
     "Yeah, my left arm's gonna be numb for awhile, but I'll
be okay.  What was that?"
     "Just some debris.  Whoever left didn't depressurize the
chamber after they got into the pod." Once inside, they found
     that, working together, they could pull the large door
closed again with relative ease.  Unfortunately, with
Elenore's sun on the other side, the chamber was now pitch
black.  Yuri turned on a handlight, which helped, but not
much.  "One more door to go and then we're in."
     Together, they got the inner door open.  This time, Kei
pulled with her one arm and Yuri pushed.  There was a creak,
followed by a rush as the chamber filled with air.  Unseen
objects in the air brushed against Yuri's suit and clattered
against her helmet.  Yuri shined the light around, and found
it reflected back at her in dozens of twinkling points.
"Kei, the air is full of glass shards.  One must've cut you
when we opened the outer door."
     "Glass?"
     "Yeah, it's all over the place.  We better be careful
when we go in."  Yuri peered through the door with the help
of her light and was momentarily dizzy.  Since they had come
in through a "well", her mind still thought of "down" as
being towards the door.  Looking through gave the impression
of vast height.  Yuri swallowed, did a mental exercise, and
shifted her directions ninety degrees.  Now the "shaft"
looked like what it was, a corridor.  Only, now there was
another problem.  "Gee, it...it sure is dark in there."
     "Oh, c'mon, Yuri, don't start that."
     "Start *what*?  I...I was just making a point, that's
all."
     Kei and Yuri drifted down the dark, silent, corridor.
Their handlights helped them see, but did little to improve
the mood of the place.  The ship seemed to be as ugly and
functional inside as it was out.  Everything in sight was a
metallic gray.  The color seemed to ignore the light that
fell upon it, as if it wasn't worth the bother to reflect it
back.
     "God, this place is depressing," Kei said.  "And the
explorers would spend *years* in places like this?  I'll bet
they went nuts.  Maybe that would explain what happened.
What do you think, Yuri?"  Yuri didn't reply.  "Yuri?"
     Yuri started.  "Oh!  Uh, yeah, maybe."  Yuri had been
distracted by the shadows cast by her light.  They leapt out
from behind every door and object that they passed and hid
when the light was turned in their direction.  It was like
the ship was full of goblins.  A signal went off in Yuri's
helmet.  She found it a welcome distraction.  "Kei, do you
read that?"
     "Yeah.  Looks like there's a system still active on this
ship.  Reading's so faint, the Lovely Angel must not have
picked it up.  Wanna go check it out?  It should just be a
couple of decks down from here."
     No, Yuri thought.  I wanna turn around and get out of
this place as fast as I can.  "Uh, s-sure.  Let's go see.
It's probably nothing."
     They found an access ladder and floated "down" to what
they guessed from the strength of the reading was the correct
level.  If anything, this level was even gloomier than the
one on which they had entered.  Plenty of glass still covered
the floor, and the girls had to brush it out of the way when
Kei inadvertently kicked it up.
     The shadows were still giving Yuri the willies.  The
fact that the ship wasn't dead after all, that there was
still something running on it, somehow made it worse.  She
found herself wishing that her grandfather were here.  He had
always known how to make the booga-monster under her bed go
away.
     Yuri stopped.  Her heart leapt into her throat.  Out of
the corner of her eye she could see it, waiting.  Its eyes
shimmered, looking unalive but by no means dead.  Its mouth
was a mass of razor-sharp, irregular fangs.  It lay in wait,
mouth gaping, waiting for Yuri to make the fatal move that
would alert it to her presence.  Then that mouth would whip
forward, sinking its fangs into her flesh, ripping, tearing,
cutting...
     Yuri whimpered, but Kei didn't hear.  She turned her
head as slowly as she could.
     It was a blown-out CRT monitor, with a couple of metal
buttons above it.  Yuri started to giggle, then laugh.
     "Hey," started Kei, tapping Yuri on the back.
"YAAAAHH!!" she continued, as Yuri screamed and flung her
friend down the corridor.
     "Kei!  Oh, Kei!  I'm sorry!"  Yuri leaped after Kei, who
was bouncing off the walls and letting off a different curse
with each hit.
     "Shit, Yuri, you ditzy, stupid, hyperactive twit!!"
finished Kei as she came to a rest.  "Where am I?"  She
gathered in her handlight from the short tether that
connected it to her belt, shone it ahead of herself, and
found herself face-to-face with a corpse.
     It was Kei's turn to scream.  She pushed away from the
transparent coffin and floated backward into Yuri, who had
just caught up with her.  Together they ricocheted off the
opposite wall and ended up in a tangled mess, wedged behind a
console.
     "Who's a twit, Kei?" said Yuri as she tried to work
Kei's boot free of her face.
     "D-dead body!  Over there!"
     Once they had extracted themselves and gathered their
wits, they checked out the "coffin".  Readings from their
helmet sensors confirmed it was the active system they had
been looking for.  Yuri brushed away some dust to reveal
lighted indicators on the cryo-chamber.
     "This guy's alive?" asked Kei.
     "According to this, yes."
     "But it's been almost *eighty years*!"
     "Cryo-chambers were built with independent power.
Nuclear cells.  They could operate for two hundred years if
they had to."
     Kei took a look at the young red-haired man in the cryo.
"Hmm.  Y'know, except for that scar on his cheek, he's kinda
cute, in a Beaver Cleaver, take-him-home-to-meet-Mom kind of
way.  Your kinda guy, Yuri."
     "Oh, shut up."
     "So, what do we do with him?"
     "That's a good question.  We don't know what will happen
when we start to tow this ship.  It might have been weakened
by whatever happened to it.  Whole decks could collapse.  It
isn't safe to leave him here."
     Kei looked back toward the sleeping crewman.  "Well, we
can't let him out.  He'd freeze to death before we could get
him into a suit."
     "I guess we'll have to take the whole thing back to the
Lovely Angel."
     Kei stared at Yuri.  "What, you don't mean carry it?"
     "Why not?  There's no gravity to deal with.  The problem
won't be carrying it but steering it."
     Kei looked back at the cryo once more, then shrugged.
The girls got to work.
It took them almost two hours to get the cryo from the one
ship to the other.  First, Yuri went back to the Lovely Angel
to get the tools necessary to undo the bolts fastening the
cryo to the floor.  After it was free, they began the hard
task of coaxing the thing into drifting in the direction they
wanted.  There were a few slip-ups, such as when Kei stepped
her magnetic boot onto a pile of glass, tripped and sent the
cryo out of control down the hallway, forcing Yuri to use her
thruster pack to stop it.  There was also the difficulty of
getting the thing up the ladder wells between the levels.
But they at last reached the airlock, and maneuvered the cryo
into and through it.
     Once outside, they used a method of transportation
learned at the 3WA academy.  Yuri rode belly-down on top of
the cryo, facing the Lovely Angel, while Kei rode the bottom,
facing the opposite direction.  Thus, Yuri acted as forward
thrust while Kei provided the brakes.
     Finally, the Angels entered their ship's airlock.  Kei
let go, and the cryo and Yuri glided into the lock and made a
light landing.  Kei followed, closed the door, and
pressurized the chamber.
     Kei slumped against the cryo, following Yuri's example,
and took off her helmet.  "Boy, am I winded.  He better not
be dead, or I'll kill him."
     Yuri touched her earring to activate her communicator.
She didn't quite feel up to standing to reach the intercom.
"Mughi, bring a stretcher to the starboard airlock, okay?
We've got a visitor." She leaned back and let out a breath.
"Oh, well.  No time like the present.  Shall we open him up?"
     The Angels groaned and got to their feet.  "You do the
honors," said Kei.  "You're better at figuring these things
out."
     Yuri examined the small console set into the lid of the
cryo, crossed her fingers and pressed a button.  For a moment
nothing happened, and Yuri smiled nervously at a glaring Kei.
Then the seal broke with a "PISH!" and cold air blew out of
the cryo, condensing the water vapor in the airlock in a
white cloud.  The pod opened automatically.  Kei and Yuri
stared nervously as they waited to see whether they had
brought aboard a frozen person or a frozen corpse.
     The red-haired man stirred slightly and groaned.  "Kei,
he's alive!" shouted Yuri.  "Didn't I tell you?"  She walked
closer and leaned over the man.  "Sir?  Can you hear me?"
     The man's eyes opened, slowly, and he strained to focus.
Yuri continued to talk to him.  "Try to relax, sir.  It will
take awhile for you to fully adjust."
     "Yeah," Kei said.  "Especially since you've been a
popsicle for the last eighty years."  Yuri glared at Kei for
her lack of tact.
     Then the man did something neither one of them expected.
He smiled, a big, warm, happy smile.  "Well, how about that.
You found me."
     Yuri looked puzzled for an instant, then returned the
smile, as best she could.  "That's right, sir.  You were in
space for a long time, but we found you.  You're safe now."
     The red-haired laughed softly.  "When I ponder all the
problems I've had in past times trying to find *you*, it
presents quite a pleasant change to have you find me first.
And now, Efera, Jiliora.  If you'll but help me out of this
device, the three of us have a task to perform."

END CHAPTER ONE