"In that case Tris, you call me John, Ok?"

The two left the cla.s.sroom and school building.

"Tris, I was very impressed with your glider design, so much so that I'm going to build it."

Tris blushed, but grinned widely with excitement.

"There are a couple of things we need to go through on the design, so I've asked special permission to take you out of school for a while to help me with the work. Happy?"

"Very much so, Mr. Erm, John, I'd be delighted to help."

"Thought you might be, now lets get over to engineering and get started."

On entering John's place of work, Tris was fitted out with his work clothes: a white coat and a hard hat. As soon as he put them on he changed, and ceased to be a kid. The rest of the team greeted him warmly, it was recognised that his design was a major contribution to the Earth mission, which had been named, 'The Return.' Everyone accepted him as part of the team straight-away, and his age never became part of the equation. On this first morning, John took Tris aside to his office to talk to him about his stress calculations.

"You didn't quite get the point here Tris," he said, "but the aerodynamics are nothing short of brilliant. We will have to make some modifications to the glider's internal bracing, and I want you to see just why this is necessary. Once you've grasped this princ.i.p.al there should be no stopping you."

Tris appreciated the effort John was putting into teaching him and paid attention closely.

In no time at all it was lunchtime, and the two new friends emerged from the office smiling and chatting freely. Lisa had been right all along, this project had brought Tris out of himself, and into the real world.

As they walked through the main engineering area they could already see the glider's blown up blue-prints on the wall, and they had also been scanned into the main computer. John explained that the computer will cut the Kerasite into the various panels before it is dipped in water and hardened. Then the water will be carefully stored for later use as fuel for the ship. Tris took it all in, missing no detail.

Sam was full of beans this morning as he set off to meet up with Martha and Betty. He had a spring in his step and a song playing repeatedly in his head. 'To think, it had taken all these years to find a mate,' he thought, to himself, and now at last, it has happened. "What a life!" he said, as he banged on the door, hurting his knuckles in doing so.

Betty let him in with a cheery, "Good morning Sam, how's Kay?"

Sam was a little surprised and said, "Well that didn't take long to get around."

Martha joined the conversation with, "Well, if you want to keep something a secret, don't go jumping into lakes fully clothed!"

The smiles turned into belly laughs, "Oh the impetuosity of youth," he laughed, "that water was rather cold though, and did kind of cool things down a bit."

They settled down to the business of the day, medicine, and the trip to Earth. Sam went to great lengths to explain to them what they may come across down there. "The berries may well 'fix' everything," he said, "but your supply will be limited...We don't know how they'll travel for instance, they may erm, 'go off.' They may not work in Earth's atmosphere. The problem is, we just don't know, so it makes sense to be prepared for these eventualities. I'll equip you with the best med-kits I can put together, I've also found some medical books you can use as reference material."

He gave them the books.

"Study them well, they'll be there with you and I won't."

They got down to some basics. "This is a syringe..."

Back at engineering, Roland had walked in with some plans of his own. "These are lining plates for the Trion drive John," he explained. "They will protect the ship from radiation, which means we can use the Trion drive more freely, even in the atmosphere if needed. An explosion from Jimmy's fuel could be used to focus the Trion instead of the small nuclear device used on the outward bound trip."

'Jimmy's juice', as it became known, was at least as powerful as a small nuke but clean. The more pressure it was under, the bigger the bang. When not under pressure, it was quite safe...Well, almost!

If you liked action, engineering was the place to be. Kerasite was smelted, cut, shaped, and dipped. The dipping process was always the exciting part. It even fascinated the engineering staff how you could put a soft pliable and very dull metal into plain water, and see it come out hard and as shiny as gla.s.s. Once hardened in this way, it was virtually indestructible. It wasn't even possible to dull the shine.

Panels were made and transported to the launch-pad to be installed in the main ship. The work went quickly and all modifications to the main ship were finished in a couple of days.

"That just leaves the glider to work on," John announced. "Let's get to it team."

All the stops were now pulled out to build the glider, which was going to take a lot longer than a couple of days.

As the craft began to take shape, it was decided that the pa.s.sengers would sit one behind the other, and not in two rows side- by-side. This solved an unforeseen weight distribution problem, and allowed a little more s.p.a.ce for the extendible wings. The c.o.c.kpit would be made from Bycrilic, and a double skin of Kerasite with a vacuum gap was formed at the front to act as a heat shield. It was felt that nothing could get through two skins of Kerasite. Only the simplest of controls were added, using internal wires to move external fins. As a precaution, parachutes were installed to help break their fall should something unforeseen happen.

The weight problem they had come across was due to water. Although the trip to earth would only last a couple of hours, it was felt that contaminated water might be a problem, so quite late on, a tank had been installed to carry safe drinking water. Clean soil was also stowed on board to cultivate the berries. No one knew if they would grow on Earth, and there was only one way to find out. They didn't want to risk putting them in contaminated soil.

Some days later, Bill called Earth to apprise them of how things were progressing.

"Eden to Southgate, come in please."

Nothing happened, there was only static. Bill tried again, "Eden to Southgate, come in please."

Static. Bill was about to give up when a response arrived.

"Eden this is Southgate, sorry for the delay, but we're all sick here. I'm the only one still mobile, I think we've had it unless you can get to us very soon. Our food is about finished and the water has to be boiled, if I get much worse there'll be no one left to do it. All the others are in a bad way..."

The voice trailed off.

"Southgate, this is Eden, we're almost ready to make the journey, can you give us any clue as to where you are? Over."

Moments pa.s.sed and the voice that came back was weak.

"We're by a lake and a mountain range that has snow on it. Oh, and there's forest all around us...Sorry Eden, that's the best I can do. Over."

"Okay Dave, we'll get there as fast as we can, just hang on buddy. Over."

Bill went to tell Steve about the situation. "It sounds desperate Steve, we need to go now."

"I agree," Steve said, "we'll forego the testing and launch tomorrow."

This last statement threw the whole place into a panic.

"Everyone," John shouted to his team, "we'll be working all night tonight for a launch tomorrow."

He a.s.sured Steve they'd be ready before running off to help out with the added workload.

The morning came, and everyone gathered at the launch pad to see them off.

"We had planned a big send off," Steve told the volunteers, "but circ.u.mstance has dictated that we move much faster than we intended, so this is it."

He shook hands with all four and wished them well. They boarded the ship and closed the hatch. When everyone had retired to a safe distance, Phil and Roy fired up the engines.

The radio crackled into life, "G.o.d speed my friends, our prayers go with you."

"Roger that Steve," came the reply, "here we go."

There was an almighty roar from the engines as Jimmy's juice did its job. The huge ship lifted off the pad and soared skywards, accelerating rapidly as it went. Phil opened the throttle and with a huge bang the ship was gone. They achieved orbit in a matter of seconds.

"Wow," Phil said, to Roy, "that was some take off."

Roy was still stunned from the G force but managed to say, "Go easy on the throttle next time will you, my stomach is still on the Moon."

Back in the ships pa.s.senger cabin the intercom came alive. "Erm, sorry about that folks, but we had no way of knowing just how well Jimmy's juice would perform. I think we can safely say it pa.s.sed the test."

Those who could chuckled. Those who couldn't just moaned.

"Sorry to do this to you, but we're going to Trion in ten-seconds. You might want to hold on tight."

The intercom went dead and the G force hit again. After several minutes, Jake turned to Zeek and said, "Now I know why I hate s.p.a.ce travel."

"Yeah," Zeek replied meekly, "the food's lousy!"

The four just smiled and tried to sleep, it'd been a long night for them as well.

The Trion drive kicked in and worked very efficiently through the new Kerasite plating. Speed was up, around 250,000 mph and Phil didn't have the throttle fully open. "One day, we must see just how fast this baby will go Roy."

"Why not on the return trip?" Roy said back, looking at Phil.

"Better make a call to base, they'll be wondering how we are."

Roy picked up the mic, "Hi Eden this is Roy. Everything is fine here, tell Jimmy his juice is a little too potent for my taste, but perhaps I'll get a taste for it when my stomach catches up with me...If it ever does! Trion is engaged, our current speed is approx. 250,000 mph."

"Roger that Roy, I'll keep an eye out for your stomach! Keep us appraised, over and out."

In just over an hour they were in orbit around the Earth.

"Right," Phil said, "now let's play hide and seek."

Roy picked up the mic and called Southgate.

"Eden to Southgate, come in Southgate."

A very weak voice replied, "This is Dave, please say you're not far away."

"Dave, I want you to keep transmitting, we are going to try to lock onto your radio signal, can you do that for me?"

"I'll sure try, but if I fall asleep can you lock onto my snoring?"

"That'll be even better Dave, I'll open the window and follow the noise."

Dave was as good as his word. He kept the transmitter permanently open. It took several orbits to triangulate the signal, but at last Roy managed to pinpoint where they were.

"He was right," Roy said, turning to Phil and pointing to their position on the map, "They are in Canada, now let's start working out the drop zone."

Roy left the c.o.c.kpit and floated through the hatch into the pa.s.senger cabin. He found the four volunteers alert and talking about their mission.

"Hi guys," he said, taking them by surprise, "it sure is easy to sneak up on folks in s.p.a.ce," he said, pulling himself down into a seat. He began to show them where to aim for on the map. "The circle I've drawn is about 5 miles wide, sorry I can't get it any closer than that. Maybe you'll be able to see where they are as you fly overhead."

"Time to get ready guys," Phil called, over the intercom.

"This is it then," Roy said, looking at them in turn. "I'll miss you guys, keep safe."

With that he helped them through the hatch that led to the cargo hold, and then into the glider. He made sure the hatch was secure, and set off back to the c.o.c.kpit.

Once back, he picked up the mic and said, "Okay folks, one more orbit and we'll be in the right place to drop you off, mind the first step, it's a big one!"

The four volunteers chuckled, "Yeah, we'll miss you too Roy, count us down will you."

The ship ate the last orbit and Roy opened the cargo bay doors, "Here you go guys, ten, nine...two, one." Jake pulled the lever and they were catapulted out of the ship. They were in a low orbit, which began to decay almost immediately. "Here we go folks," Jake said, "hold on tight."

The tiny ship descended, gathering speed as it did so, suddenly, the earth looked awfully big.

"And we've got to hit a spot five by five from here!" Zeek said, looking at Jake. "Good luck buddy."

The glider started to glow as it entered Earth's atmosphere, but no heat could be felt on the inside at all. The glow was quite tame compared with how Jake and Zeek remembered other re-entries.

"The old s.p.a.ce shuttles used to burn up each time they did this," Zeek explained.

Jake added, "Yeah, they used special tiles to absorb the heat by burning off, we've got lovely shiny Kerasite out there reflecting the heat away from us, so there's nothing to burn."

The trip through the upper atmosphere was a little rough, but as the air thickened, Tristran's design started to come into its own.

"Get ready to deploy the wings on my mark," Jake said.

Zeek turned to the girls and said excitedly, "It's just like the movies isn't it."

"Mark!" Jake shouted, and Zeek half jumped out of his skin. He pulled the lever and the wings extended outwards. Instantly, the ride became much smoother. "That's more like it bro," Zeek quipped to Jake, "you're getting the hang of it now."

Jake just laughed, he was flying by the seat of his pants. There hadn't been time for lessons before their departure, but he hadn't told the others that, he hadn't wanted to scare them.

The first part of the glide was quite easy; North America is a big target! It became ever more difficult though as their alt.i.tude decreased. "I want all eyes looking for our landing site," Jake ordered, and this time he got their full attention. The glider flew really well, considering a novice with almost no flying experience was piloting it. Jake had flown a few hours in a trainer when he was in the armed forces, but that was a long time ago now, and this hi- tech glider was nothing remotely like that old trainer. He found it easy to manoeuvre, and descended in ever decreasing circles, hoping to zone in on the landing site. The initial launch point from the ship had been good, so the general area was below them, now it just required a modic.u.m of luck.

They dropped below the clouds for the first time and could see Terra-Firma far below. The mountains were immediately apparent, so that left the lake. It took a while and a good deal of lost height, but eventually they spotted the lake with the forest on all sides. "Now we just need the street address and we've cracked it," Zeek said.

A lot more height was lost and individual trees started to come into focus.

"We don't have too much more time guys," Jake said, a little panicky, "the ground is coming up awful fast!"

"There!" shouted Martha, "there's a cabin just inside the tree line, that must be it."