Judy Robinson thumbed the switch on her recorder, looking out through the chariot’s window, gazing at the passing rocks, the sparse vegetation. She nodded, pleased with the rugged view. She began: “Don, Father and I are taking the chariot to a site about an hour’s ride from camp. The lure? A source of unusual-” She thumbed the switch; thought about her choice of words, started again, “-the source of increasing electro plasmic readings in sector J-12.”

            Major Donald West interrupted from the seat in front of her’s, correcting, “J-14.”

            scqueemskritch. Judy rewound, then continued, voice brittle, “sector J-14. Do the readings represent a source of fuel? A source of mystery, most definitely.” She clicked off the recorder and scolded, 
“Would you mind not interrupting my recordings while I’m making them?”

            Don half turned, “So, I should wait until you’re not making them?” He hadn’t quite meant it as a suggestion. But that’s how it came out.

            John Robinson rolled his eyes as they continued their argument, Don by turns exasperated and teasing in the seat beside his; Judy behind that seat, fuming at Don, “Nobody asked you to read it in the first place.”

            Don tried another tact. “I know. Look. I’m sorry. I’ve said it fifty times. But it was open and -”

            She sassed, tilting her head back and forth, “And some mysterious force compelled you to read it.”

            “Well, yes. I mean no. I mean in a way,  you could say that. Curiosity? That’s a kind of force. Isn’t it?” He appealed to John but John was making a point of keeping his eyes on the non-existent road. Don sighed deeply. ‘No help there.’ He continued, “Look, Will’s the one who found it.”

            She narrowed her eyes dangerously.

            He forged ahead at great peril. “And when you found out we’d read it you asked me what I thought.” He nodded preemptively and turned back round again, scanning the escarpment they lumbered toward, thinking its rock face had a funny, glossy quality to it. He checked the scope, absently adding, “You asked for my opinion.”

            And that was the sore point of course. He’d given an honest assessment. Judy had been hand copying her voice recordings into a journal, enjoying the exercise, ‘the art of it’, and he’d gone and criticized her entries for being too ‘picturesque’, wordy but without all the right words, too many words but not enough details, not accurate ones anyway. Worse, he’d conceded that was understandable because she’d written so many of her accounts second hand.

            That’s when she blew up at him. Him, her parents, the whole misbegotten mission and the universe in general, proclaiming that no more would she be tied to the ship with mundane chores like laundry duty and hydroponics tending. From this point on she would accompany all their explorations, starting with this one. “Chronicler of Mysterious Readings.” She’d worn her father down, convincing both of them actually, that it might be a good idea to have a duel, humane interpretation of their encounters with this planet’s mysteries, rather than leaving only the robot’s records for posterity. “Think of it as data fusion,” she’d reasoned and by that argument won her dad over. Now she sat eagerly behind them, recorder in hand.

            Don leaned closer to the central scope, peering at it and announcing, “John, e.p. readings fluctuating, now increasing - concentrated there.” He pointed as he said it, toward a fortification of chunky boulders and stone spires.

            John parked, thankfully cutting short their rolling argument. They set out to investigate, Judy unwilling to wait in the chariot, Don insisting she should for now. She called him an overprotective hypocrite, a twit in truth, and pushed ahead of him. John held off his pilot’s entreaty with disavowing hands. Don blew a sigh and trudged after Judy, fingers nervously touching the laser at his belt, eyes intent on the scanner in his other hand.

            John touched his fingers to a highly polished rock face. “Sculpted? Burnished? By what?” He took a step back, peering critically at the uneven ridge, some sections as tall as the chariot, others rising to formidable heights.

            “Looks like a castle,” sighed Judy.

            Don could just imagine her next entry. He bridled but kept his mouth firmly shut as she clambered past him, recorder in hand, climbing gracefully up the side of one particularly poetic looking outcrop.

            She surveyed the scene from there, looking down on the tops of their heads, talking quietly into her device, watching them poke around the -“beautiful, fairy tale landscape. What do these readings represent? The glossy rocks, highly polished... Their jeweled colors run together, garnet, tourmaline, brimstone burnished - by natural wonder or alien fury?” She laughed generously at herself and switched her commentary to the activities below, the studious investigations of the two men, utterly absorbed in their work, her dad and Don - “adorable, but sometimes a Major pain in the...”

            He couldn’t possibly have heard it, but Don chose that moment to turn around and look up at her. She smiled mischievously, wrinkling her nose and waving back down at him.

            He caught his breath at the sight of her, smiling down at him from the shining rocks. He could see them as a turret, fairy tale clouds boiling high in the perfect blue sky, the sun momentarily back lighting her, whisking her hair into a golden halo.

            John, his back to the outcrop, caught Don’s dreamy smile and shook his head, grinning to himself, grinning until he saw the young man’s expression changing from unguarded amour to frank puzzlement, yielding to wide eyed amazement, building toward a warning!

            “Judy!”

            John whipped around, looking up, seeing not another rolling cloud but a cloud descending, a black cloud rushing down, taking shape, screaming toward his daughter, all wings and tail and talons, plunging straight down open mouthed...

            Four heartbeats. One allowed time to register their expressions. Another to feel the air displacement. A third to look up at it and then straight down at them, clear eyed, certain of her fate. A fourth to smile sadly - and vanish within billowing flames, curling smoke, a choking superheated torrent of horror.

            First John and then Don had drawn their lasers, seeking to shoot it out of the sky before it reached her. But it was over so quickly. They’d been hurled backwards by the concussive eruption, twenty feet at least. Clothes scorched. Hair singed. Hands and faces red as though sun burned, they struggled to their feet, nearly blinded by sulfurous air,  hollering incoherently, grasping for and retrieving their dropped lasers, losing the scanner under a bush.

            They swayed, squinting, choking, seeing no sign of Judy, just the dragon perched on the utterly charred outcrop. It was watching them, as big as three lions, as black as night with eyes like chips of moonlight. It yawned, lazy  like a cat, revealing molten churning, smoke churling at the back of its cavernous throat, roiling, rolling into a fireball. They drew a bead with their lasers, but it pulled its head back like a driver, then drove it forward again, mouth opening wide with its scream, shooting the fireball at them.

            John dove at Don, push-rolling them both behind a shield of rock. Fire licked round its edges. Don grappled on hands and knees, quickly found his feet and coiled to charge round their shelter, laser flailing. “JUDY!”

            John snagged him, hauling him back behind the shield, shouting in his face, “Don!” But the major struggled half away, fighting him, making progress, dragging them beyond their rock and straining toward the beast, the beast standing tall and beating its leathery wings in triumph.

            “Judy! Judy!” Don was crying, pulling away, laser forgotten, bare hands reaching toward it. For its part, the dragon curled its hideous, forked tail over its back and began preening its armament of prongs and spikes. Then it was looking at them again, opening its fanged mouth, preparing another blast.

            “Don!!” John swung the major around, off-balance, and slugged him right across the chin, hard enough to knock him out cold. The dragon shut its jaws with a snap. Extinguishing its fire. Satisfied? It looked John straight in the eye, John standing over the prone major, now glaring up at the thing that had just devoured his beautiful child, his first born.

            Fists clenched, enraged, John took a firm step toward it. He would swear, later on, in the dead of that first terrible night, that the thing had actually smiled at him.

            It beat its great bat wings, lurching skyward, leaving such a wake of wind and debris that John staggered backwards, shielding his eyes, watching the black thing climb toward the sun, tail whipping. He watched it spiral ever higher, his eyes streaming, following it until it became a cloud, soon a dot, receding out of sight.

            He stood there for a long time. Breathing hard. Then he looked down at Don. He gathered him up and Don, barely conscious, fought him still, still calling her name.

            John half carried half dragged the major to the chariot, settled him lolling in the navigator’s seat. He thought twice then strapped him in before tossing both their lasers out of reach in the back. He climbed in and briefly touched the radio. “Can’t tell her this way.” He looked once more to the outcrop, disbelieving, and realized he’d sat there for another very long time.

            Don roused half way home. His eyes slitted, only seeing they were in motion. He struggled in his seat, found the straps and undid them. He started for the door, but John caught his shoulder even as he hit the brakes. His throat was tight, making his voice rough. “Stop it.” He jerked Don back down into his seat. “Stop making this harder than it is!”

            Don continued struggling, determined but with fading strength. “She’s calling me.”

            “No. She’s gone.” John had said it out loud but that didn’t make it any more real. He said it more softly, now more gently. “Judy’s gone.”

            Don sank further into the seat, sank into himself. “I hear her.”

            He wasn’t struggling anymore. John gradually released his shoulder. He threw the chariot into gear and rumbled off again, glancing occasionally at Don, warily so as the young major continued to stare, glassy eyed, empty souled. Emptied. His spirit was outside, running along side the chariot now, turning away and sprinting back down the road, toward her voice, calling still.

            Maureen stood on the ramp of the Jupiter II, scanning the horizon for the chariot. Fast moving clouds chased their shadows across the camp. Slid over the saucer’s shell. Ushering a chill wind. Penny and Will emerged behind their mother, Penny sorely missing her sister and shouting, “They’re back!” Doctor Smith angled in from somewhere, the Robot, too, trundling toward the family.

            Maureen watched with a feeling of dislocation as the chariot lurched to a stop. She could see Don, very still. John’s face turned toward the ship, seeking hers through the windshield. Something was wrong. She read it in his movements. His stiffness. “No,” she whispered, feeling  the word die in her throat. She didn’t want to walk toward them, didn’t want anything to move beyond this step of not knowing. Her feet betrayed her. They were running her toward the chariot and as she reached it she watched its door swing open. Watched John climb down, slump, exhausted, in grief, against the tread.             “Mom?” quivered Penny, poised at the end of the ramp. Will watched his parents, forehead crinkling.

            John caught Maureen’s shoulders, “Darling,” and hugged her close. He pressed his face to hers and she felt its wetness. Smelled and tasted their mingling salty tears. She was searching past his shoulder, staring into the cab, trying to see - “Where is she?”

            Penny and Will joined them, Penny very pale. “Dad?” Will touched the tread, still hot. He stood looking at his parents, started bouncing on his tiptoes, peering into the cab. He saw Don’s face, and he knew.

            Smith caught up to them, opening his mouth to demand an explanation for such a ponderous display. Catching sight of the parents’ faces, he thought better of it. His forehead also crinkled, eyes narrowing; and then softening. “And she was such a lovely child.”

            “John what happened?” Maureen peered intently at his grey face, searching for any sign of hope.

            He shook his head, unable to speak, unable to tell it. She stepped back from him, noticing his clothing; smoky, charred. “An explosion?”

            Penny stood still, shell shocked, mouth working wordlessly. Will’s eyes were red, darting, his face pinched. “Was it a plasma geyser, Dad?” He thought of the mysterious readings, his mind working furiously, the work protecting him.

            Smith briefly placed his hand on Maureen’s shoulder, then clumsily mounted the tread, curiously peering in at the major, sitting deathly still, staring at nothing. He actually felt sorry for the poor boy. “Major West?”

            John jerked round at Smith’s voice. “Help me get him inside.”

            They hauled him out of the chariot, unprotesting, walking stiffly and without direction. They settled him in his bunk, Smith playing doctor, proclaiming, “Shock.” The Robot confirmed the diagnosis, insulting Smith, who resented his one true role second guessed. Penny could be heard softly crying on the floor. Will stood by, puffy eyed. John leaned up against a wall, not speaking.

            Maureen, white as a sheet, trembling with adrenaline, stroked the major’s forehead. “Don?” He simply lay there, staring blankly toward the ceiling. She looked to Smith, swallowing, “Will he be all right?” To lose both of them was unthinkable.

            Smith pursed his lips and shook his head. “Standard treatment for shock. That’s all we can do for now.”

            Maureen asked again, insisted this time, “John, what happened?”

            He told her, recounting the tale, the incredible appearance of the dragon, Judy’s envelopment in flame.

            Penny wiped her tears and pushed her bangs out of her eyes.

            Maureen’s brows drew together. “But we’ve never encountered creatures like that.”

            Will agreed, then added, “Least not until those funny readings showed up.”  Penny stifled a shuddering sigh, “But look at their clothing. It does look like they stood too close to a fire.”

            Smith was studying the major’s spark-pocked uniform, a distasteful look crossing his face as he sniffed delicately, wriggling his nose like a rabbit. “Sulfur?”

            “Fire and brimstone,” nodded Penny.

            Maureen didn’t look convinced. She smelled their clothing, too. Looked to Smith hopefully. “Could there have been psychoactive gasses? Released by an explosion?”

            John thought about that, “Hallucinogenic?” He looked angry. “Dreamed the whole thing up is that it?” Even as he resented their doubts, his mind grabbed at that possibility. There had been gas, stinging air. But then his eyes dropped to Don, laid low in his charred clothes, an ugly bruise rising on his jaw, face still sooty, tear tracks running through the grime. And he saw it all again.

            Will frowned suddenly. “We could check your field scanner?”

            John’s mind flashed on a memory, an image of the device flying out of Don’s hand during the attack.

            Will offered to retrieve it, to check the readings, to see if there was a trace of gasses, any indication leading to an outcome other than his father had described.

            Maureen rounded on him, “Absolutely not!” John was coming round to the idea, considering it had merit. But he would go, alone with the Robot, back to the site. He left to clean up. Maureen finally collapsed into a chair, weeping softly for Judy. Smith recruited Penny to scavenge another blanket for Don. Will stomped off.

            The next morning, John was still investigating the escarpment with the Robot. No sign of Don’s scanner and not a trace of unusual gasses. There was nothing to show for the dragon, save newly polished rocks; certainly no indication of anything that would alter the tragedy. He looked to the sky and bellowed a challenge. The Robot watched silently. They returned to the ship where John discovered the only improvement in the major’s condition was a clean face and fresh clothes. Feeling dreadful, he guiltily admitted to Maureen, “I hit him pretty hard.”

            “No, it’s Catatonic Shock” dismissed Smith, rather bossily. “Cataplexus Amort Amorous to be precise.”

            Penny gave him a questioning look. To which the doctor insisted, “There’s nothing to be done about it but wait. And see.”

            John abruptly left them for the privacy of his own cabin. Smith left  them for the galley.

            Maureen muttered about Smith’s questionable diagnostics and battery of Latin and continued dabbing Don’s face with a cool washcloth. She spoke soothingly, entreating him to respond. Penny wondered off to search their data base for information on  ‘catanonia’ or ‘cataplexia whatever’. She came back a short while later, clutching a printout, reading it and then looking surprised as she looked from the page to Don. “Mom! Look at his face. Look at his eyes! They’re moving.” And so they were, rapidly darting.

            “That looks like REM but -” Maureen shook her head slightly. “His eyes are open.”

            Penny, holding the page, bent over, assessing, “Maybe he sleeps that way? With his eyes open. Maybe he’s dreaming. And if he’s dreaming, well then that isn’t catatonia or cataplexia, not according to these symptoms,” and she waved the printout in an authoritative way.

            Maureen watched Don’s face, his eyes eerily tracking left to right. “Then - what is it?”

            Penny shook her head and drew the printout closer to her own eyes. “I’m still reading.”

            Meanwhile, Will grimly analyzed the Robot’s data for anything his father might have missed. Checking him once, John quietly left him to it. He looked in on Maureen and Penny’s ineffective administrations. Had he hit Don too hard? Albeit to save his life. What if he’d hit his head when he fell back? No. Looking at him he knew the cause. One life stolen; two lives derailed. He looked at his friend helplessly. Asked him to come back to them.

            Don heard John, but didn’t answer. He stood, etched in white heat, aglow on Judy’s outcrop. His form looked over his shoulder, hearing his friend beseeching, but listening to Judy’s voice instead, calling, unseen, somewhere above. He looked up at the boiling black cloud, smiling, open faced, unafraid. It plummeted, crackling with lightening - which consumed him, parallel to a thunder clap.

            Thunder rocked the ship, startling the Robinsons, who looked to Don, unaffected on his bunk. Maureen’s hand moved to his shoulder, squeezed it-

            -as Judy’s hand caught his shoulder, turning him toward her. His face came alive and he pulled her into him, embracing her, both of them laughing. Then he looked round the blank white room and in all seriousness asked, “Are we dead?”

            Judy’s eyes widened. She stepped back from him, chiding, “Noooo.” She told him the brimstone was cover for a transportation device. She told him everything she knew, which was little: about the unseen force which  had brought her here. Whatever or whoever had brought her had left her alone since installing her in this room. Had left her to her thoughts, worrying about her family and what they’d made of her fate,  thinking of him especially, desperately recalling his face, the last time she’d seen it ... and then suddenly he was here, too!

            He looked confused, uncertainly patting his chest, his clothing unburnt and intact. “Well, wherever I am, let’s get out.”

            “If it were that easy don’t you think I would have found my way home by now?”

            He searched the utterly spare room, analyzing, looking for options.

            She followed him about, nattering on, relating no further sign of the dragon, just this infuriatingly blank room. They puzzled it out, sometimes arguing, other times despairing, relating all that had happened to each of them at the escarpment, all they’d witnessed and felt. Neither grew hungry, tired, nor thirsty, just timeless and within that time began filling the room...

            “Word by word,” breathed Judy. She looked all about them. “Color by texture by sound by scent...” Don picked up, “by terror by loss by-” He looked to her and she to him, “together, by Us?” They turned in a circle, watching everything they’d described fill out the room until it was a brimstone smelted castle, rising above a rocky landscape; its ceiling a perfect blue sky, complete with a dragon circling overhead.

            Don gaped in wonder, trying to work his e.p. readings into her vivid prose. “We’ve provided someone with a story all right-” he took it all in, all the usual fairy tale elements, “-provided everything,” he chewed his lip, thinking about it, “by the book.” And then it dawned on him, “Everything but what this story really needs!”

            Judy, lips parting in excitement, nodded understanding.

            “That’s it!” crowed Don, grabbing her by the arms. “Can you write a happy ending?”

            Will, who had been studying the Robot’s readouts, found something that peaked his interest. He stoutly headed out, creeping down the ramp, Robot in loyal tow. Smith caught them as they rounded the hydroponics, pinching peas no doubt. He contemplated turning Will in.

            Will thought up a fast one. “Dragon’s lair? Hidden treasure?”

            Smith looked interested, then affronted. “Poppy cock and poison gas.”

            Will shrugged. “It was worth a try.”  Another idea occurred. Smith watched, fascinated, as it blossomed across the boy’s face. He looked at the child questioningly.

            Will played the line, voice dropping speculatively, “Plasma geysers? Rocks under pressure. Polished rocks? Or rare gems under soot?”

            Smith’s brows canted. “Treasure trove after all?” He looked quickly to the spacecraft, bouncing his fingertips together, tilting his head and quietly affirming, “But I can’t leave my patient.” His sparkling blue eyes clearly asked Will to give him reason to break his already badly fractured Hippocratic Oath.

            Will snorted. He wasn’t too concerned about ‘the patient’ at the moment, or his dad for that matter, as he blamed both for not rescuing Judy. Actually, he knew that was outrageously unfair, yet took comfort in wreaking some unfairness of his own. “Hey!” He stumbled at Smith’s urgent push against his back.

            Smith was ushering the boy forward, at the same time throwing his voice over his shoulder, quietly, protesting, “Yet I can’t let you wander away on your own.” He gave him another push. “Oh my, you’re going off despite my protestations to the contrary. Oh look, and now I’m following after. Will. Will?”

            Will took the hint and ran with it. “Will come back,” Smith whispered toward the ship. Then he patted the Robot’s barrel chest, purring, “After the bounty, Booby.” And off they scooted.

            John and Maureen failed in convincing Nurse Penny to take a lunch break. They checked on Will instead, and damn, he’d done it again! Furious, desperately worried, they left Penny to care for Don and set out in the chariot.

            Will and Smith had hitched a ride on the Robot’s tread casing, riding him the whole bumpy, laborious way to the outcrop. Now the boy sat cross-legged among charred vegetation and glossy rocks, sitting with his back to a fire scoured turret. He was pouring over the major’s scanner, found under a ruined bush. “I’m culling data from it,” he offered, “and running a correlation with the Robot’s current readings.”

            Smith inspected the tops of his nails, looking  immeasurably bored. He suspected the boy was not looking for glimmerings among the data, not the sort he was interested in. He glared about the ruined landscape, growing more certain with every infernal minute that a dragon’s booty could not possibly be hidden in such a downtrodden and dismal place as this. He sniffed sulfer, disgusted, tired and hungry and about to insist on their immediate departure from this woebegone wasteland when the boy nearly stopped his heart with a shriek! “I knew it!”

            Smith fanned his face, recovering from the shock of such an inconsiderate exclamation. His eyes widened speculatively as he stepped closer, fluttering, “What have you found?”

            Will jumped to his feet, triumphantly brandishing Don’s scanner. “It just looks like e.p. clutter; but if you confine the field to the e.m. range,”. and he twisted a knob with a flourish, looking up again, “you can see --”

            His freckles lost their color. His little face drained of life, communicating horror. Smith swallowed stiffly, but forced himself to slowly turn round.

            “Ah, the parents.” The doctor breathed a sigh of relief, nearly sending out his strength with the release. Will did not sigh with relief. He continued to look horrified and now mortified as his furious parents stove into him, both shouting at the same time, red faced, gesticulating at the charred rocks, the abetting Robot, the tisk tisking doctor.

            “But, Dad!” Will complained, “if you’ll only look!” He waved the scanner, trying to show them the recorded images, not of a dragon, but of three hazy figures, outlined with gold and white light, suddenly appearing beside Judy, peering over her shoulder unseen, raptly following her recordings, nodding then disappearing with her in a blinding flash of light.             You’ve got to look! MOM!” He turned helplessly to Smith for backup, but it was Smith’s turn to look petrified, white with fear and staring transfixed at the outcrop behind them. It was a look John recognized.

            John threw Maureen and Will toward Smith, sending all three stumbling. The Robot was instantly at his side, arms flailing: “Warning! Warning! Electro plasmic readings rising!”

            The dragon only momentarily reappeared, hovering in midair,  spewing frosty smoke and shards of yellow crystal.

            “Electro plasmic readings leveling off!” boomed the Robot.

            The smoke cleared, revealing Judy standing whole and unharmed and on Don’s arm, smiling together on the outcrop. Maureen screamed and stumbled backwards into Smith, both falling in a heap.

            Will jumped to his father’s side. The Robot whirled in a confusion of  contradictory data. Judy turned to Don but he stepped out of range, ducking his face, winking, “Story isn’t over.” The white-gold outline over took his figure, flared. He dissolved away.

            “Look!” cried Will, pointing up at neither black cloud nor dragon but a vast, boxy white craft. It was much bigger than their own spaceship, hovering silently above them and then abruptly ascending, shooting past the sun.

            “Electro plasmic readings dissipated!” announced the Robot.

            Judy clambered down the rock as her parents met her half way up, Maureen and John crying, laughing, incredulous...

            “Don!”

            They hurried back to the Jupiter, the Robot collecting Smith, who’d been gleefully snatching up fistfuls of crystal. He groaned to see them melt like dragon’s tears, dribbling out of his hand.

            Penny screamed as they ran in, flinging herself at Judy who hugged her fiercely but set her aside to kneel quickly by Don. She bent over his still form and kissed him firmly on the mouth. His eyes fluttered shut as she pulled back, and then they reopened, clear and full of life. He winked up at her, looking unaccountably unsurprised.

            Not so the others, noisy again, clamoring for explanations...

            Except Judy, who grinned playfully down at the major, resting her chin on her hand, elbow propped on the side of his bunk. “Good ending, huh?”

            He considered, for too long, then laughed as he saw storm clouds sparking behind her eyes. He smiled abruptly, came up on his elbows, took her face in his hands and corrected, “A good beginning.” And then he kissed her heartily.

            Will curled his lip then flinched as first Smith and then the Robot covered his eyes with hand and claw. “Hey!”

            Penny looked to her gaping parents, seeking answers, then smacked her hand against her forehead, “Of course!” They all looked at her. “The only cure for ‘cataplexus amour amorous’, she smiled brightly, “True love’s kiss.”

ENDS