As promised, Quentin awoke just past dawn, and told Revis of their change of plans, too anxious to postpone the subterfuge any longer… but on the other end of the line, the Reverend cut him off.

“Ah, this is a bit tricky: they thought they´d save you the trip!” he confessed, in his now-customary whisper. “Mieke had another fit last night, after the reception… hacking up snots, wheezing… the whole lot! So seeing as she can´t move so fast, Pieter chose to get a head start and they´ve already left, I´m afraid. Should actually be arriving at your place pretty soon, if my estimations are correct!”

Ripped from his somnolence by Revis´ admission, Quentin suffered a burst of anxiety that he unwittingly let seep into his response.

“Shit…”

“What was that?” Revis said, mistakenly assuming that he had misheard.

“Nothing, Nothing… uh, all good,” Quentin shot back distractedly, fumbling the radio in his haste to hang up and alert his crew of the news.

The man then ran off, frantically moving from room to room and rousing his companions, with a warning to get their stories straight.

“Who?” Sander grumbled, needing a moment to ground himself as he sat up slowly.

“Mieke! The pregnant one… just- don´t say a word about the bunker, or 2112… or anything! OK? That´s the rule,” Quentin insisted, catching a drowzy Russian on his way to the bathroom. “Ah, Matvey! We got a problem: Revis pulled a fast one on us…”

Lori dropped her head back to the pillow, exasperated by the unrelenting state of emergency that seemed to incessantly reign on the ship… but even had they wanted to, it would have been impossible to sleep off their rude awakening, considering the hubbub that their cloned guest had soon generated.

“God damn it…Why do they always travel in packs?” Quentin whined, checking the Firmament´s radar and counting four little dots nearby.

“You really think it would be a problem if they find out about 2112?” Barney asked, trying to picture the scenario as he pulled on a shirt.

“I´m not sure how I feel about all this… so I definitely don’t trust a guy like Revis to handle it too well. Or Lood… ”

Edging his large head out of the infirmary, the little gray man looked around to see what the commotion was about… and they realized that he has a point.

“Honestly… If they weren´t so close, I´d tell him to hoof it back to his outpost…” Quentin said, turning away from 2112 to watch Evelyn and her children join them beside the dock. “But then they´d just see an alien running away.”

“Then he have to hide,” Pavel tendered. “Where you want?”

“Uh… ah fuck, just put him in the undercarriage,” their captain cursed, pointing to 2112 after a brief hesitation. “And you: don´t touch anything!”

Lori went over to the clone´s side and took advantage of her parents´ uncoordinated efforts at lifting the pantry´s floor-hatch, to explain what was going on.

“Uh, there are some people coming that might… not like you,” Lori began, though 2112 didn´t seem particularly stressed. “So we´re going to hide you downstairs for a bit. If it, um… gets cold or you have a problem, just come back up OK? No matter what they say.”

But she didn´t have time to give him any more advice, as Quentin came over and ushered him below deck.

“Sorry about this… it´s temporary, I promise,” he said, closing the lid on their dwarfish friend and turning to Sander pensively. “Wait, he doesn´t need to like… eat or drink, right?”

His question would remain unanswered however, with the dock´s lowering platform unexpectedly announcing the arrival of Mieke and Pieter, to a curious gaggle of onlookers.

“Oh, You´re all…” Mieke began, blushing. “I hope we didn´t wake y-”

“No! No, we... we get up early here, it´s all good!” babbled Barney, distracting the pair while everyone moved away from the trapdoor.

Surprisingly accompanied by Bobby, Sherry was the next to arrive, carrying a bag of candied fruit that they offered in gratitude for his kindness… and the woman came in for a quickly-abandoned hug, due to the size of her borrowed, Russian suit.

“Quentin, I can´t thank you enough!” Sherry said, backing away from the aborted embrace. “She can´t seem to beat this thing in her chest, and it´s terrible to hear her cough all night.”

They turned to Mieke, who looked rather pale, and Evelyn instinctively went over to help remove the clunky clothing.

“Oh honey! Come on, let´s take this stuff off…” she cooed. “Can I get you something?”

“Sorry, for barging in like that… we tried calling!” Pieter mentioned, as his wife got ferried off to lay down in the medical bay that 2112 had secretly vacated only minutes ago. “I think your radio is busted.”

“What? That can´t be…” Quentin frowned, walking back to the flight deck and seeing that in his haste to dissimulate 2112, he´d accidentally muted the ship´s microphone. “Oh, my bad!”

Silence enveloped the Firmament´s crew, with nobody quite knowing what to say next… until a bump beneath their feet elicited a concert of wide eyes and stifled reactions. But luckily, neither Bobby nor his guardian seemed to have noticed.

“You know, I just had to take him…” Sherry chuckled, shaking her head as she watched a giggling Bobby crouch down and start playing with the suction holes in the floor. “Peepah´s death has been hard on him. He´s always been a kind soul, liked to care for critters back home as well… and fancied himself something of a protector for the old fella. But ever since his passing, Bobby just won´t stop crying! And truth be told, I think he´s a little depressed… So this morning, I thought a change of scenery might…”

“OK, cool…” interrupted Pavel, with a typically Russian lack of tact. “So… is finish, da? We tell when she get healthy. You can go.”

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Slightly taken aback, the woman blinked a few times to regain her composure.

“Yeah, let me just use your bathroom and say bye…” Pieter nodded, unclasping his air-tank for a second.

“Look at me just gabbing away…” she grinned, as her son left the room. “Oh, Quentin, before I forget, I feel terrible to ask so much of you, but there is one other thing… do you think, when the moment comes, that Mieke might be able to deliver on the Firmament ship? I really think it would be better for the baby.”

Put on the spot, the captain cocked an eyebrow and withheld his definitive answer.

“Um, I- we´ll see…” he muttered, displeased at the constant requests. “Right now, I need some caffeine.”

“Of course, of course… it wouldn´t be for another month at least, and I know it would mean the world to Mieke…”

“Yeah but, what… are you going to sprint down from New Nazareth when the contractions start?” Quentin remarked, curbing her ambitions. “I can´t move her -or anyone- here indefinitely. We´re full… and that wasn´t the deal.”

Pieter came back from the lavatories to hook his suit back up… and, fearing that they´d perhaps overstayed their welcome, his mother decided against pursuing the issue any further.

“No, I know, I- I´m embarrassed to even bring it up,” Sherry admitted, closing her helmet with an earnest simper. “Only something to consider, with a newborn… But really, no pressure at all. It would just be a cherry on top of all your other gifts… Let´s go, boys.”

Collecting Bobby on their way towards the dock, the Copland trio gave a little wave and exited the ship, to a general sigh of relief.

“Three down, one to go…” Barney commented, off to the infirmary in search of his wife.

“Da… Quentin, when exactly we done with babysitting, you said?” Sergei jested, going back to his bunk.

It turned out that a quick cycle of antibiotics, coupled with the Firmament´s ventilation system, was enough to drastically improve Mieke´s condition in the following days… and besides a close call or two, where she´d overheard a coded conversation that the twins were indiscreetly having near her room, her stay passed almost without incident.

Soon, the moment had come to send her home (although Lori and Evelyn would have gladly kept the woman around for another week, quite glad to have an extra female presence onboard) and they rang New Nazareth, to inform them of Mieke´s return.

Yet upon lifting the receiver and tuning into New Nazareth´s channel, a familiar, booming voice flooded the room.

“-lcome back to Love Spirit Ministries, and I do apologize again for the hiatus… these last few days have been absolutely insane! But here we are, my brothers and sisters. Here we are… on the moon: Live, from our lunar studios. It´s… I still can´t fully believe it. It´s beyond description, the freedom… the energy… You know, this is what manifests when you walk the path,” Revis intoned, having abandoned meek whispers in favor of his original, deafening voice. “We are the living proof. So you´re not going to want to miss our next hour, we have some really special stuff where I´ll get into all of it: The flight, the landing, Vannevar… yes, we met up, we saw him! But first, heartbreaking news… I´m heartbroken to share with you the recent passing of my fathe-”

Muting the radio, Quentin stared at Mieke in shock.

“No…” the man moaned, the color draining from his face “No-no-no-no…”

Evelyn, slid the cockpit door open behind them, while the man tapped furiously on a little LED screen.

“Am I dreaming, or was that-” she froze on the spot, her question answering itself as Revis came back on air.

“-for the first ever broadcast from on high, straight to your ea-”

Quentin finished typing a string of numbers, to try and override the signal… but regretted his attempt almost instantly, for as soon as the Revis saw the Firmament´s frequency, he began talking about it.

“Ah… Oh! My, my… ” the radio mewled. “You´ll never guess who´s shown up on my interface here! Maybe, maybe… I can connect him… hang on. Quentin Vannevar? You there my f-”

Before Revis could put him on, a mortified Quentin hit the power switch and dropped the mic.

“Fucking- Does he have any idea what he´s doing?” he shouted. “He´s going to get us all killed!”

The man pushed past Evelyn to reach under the pilot´s seat, and retrieved a long, thin monitor.

“I- I don´t understand… said Mieke, retreating frightfully from the confusing outburst. “What´s so terrible about our show-”

“I´ve been doing everything I can to keep us as invisible as possible up here… and the moment we come and help out, your idiot father-in-law exposes us all!”

As Sergei came to ask why Revis´ program was intruding on their helmet´s bandwidth, Evelyn shrugged playfully.

“Maybe he´ll say good stuff about you! Honestly, your image could use some rehabilitation…”

“That´s not the point! Drawing constant attention to ourselves isn´t a winning strategy: there´s a big difference between breaking the law and running away, and rubbing everyone´s face in it…” The machine beeped back some data, and Quentin took a quick pause from his rant to check it, before resuming, “I knew it… Look at that! No scramblers, no encryption… lit up like a fucking Christmas tree!”

He gesticulated wildly to the emission signal´s coordinates, failing to find a solution.

“This takes the fucking cake… For all my flaws, I was always able to tread the line between offering an escape, and keeping things low-key… This fool is going to get us killed! Mark my words!”

“Hey. Keep calm, for baby…” Sergei reminded him, seeing the affect his anger was having on the woman. “You know Quentin, spaceship from Hollywood is not very low-key, as you say. This does not seem like such big problem…”

“Well it is, buddy! I know them… One of the reasons I patched into all my devices when I left, was to control the narrative… or else, they could have just used my rocket as an excuse to start World War Three! Everything is so screwed up down there…” he pointed violently to the floor, spittle flying, “Because the people running it all are mentally sick! The famines, the poverty… Look at what 2112 said!”

“Wha- who?” Mieke asked, completely lost…

“They hate humanity, they hate you… and now they get a reminder every God damn night, that we´re up here, free from their slavery… chilling for the entire globe to see!”

Drawn to the yells, Pavel and the twins came over… but didn´t even need to cross the central chamber to figure out what was going on, as Quentin bellowed the last few words of his sentence.

“It can´t be that bad…” Evelyn interjected, putting a hand on his shoulder as the man pounded his armrest. “Relax, you´re making yourself sick.”

“To think I almost flipped the ship to help that bastard…” Quentin groaned, as he sank even deeper into the chair and buried his face in his hands. “And now this? What am I doing wrong? Is- Am I the problem? Should I-”

“Just tell him to stop,” Pavel advised, trying to bring his temper down a tone.

“I just fucking tried! You know I´ve tried…”

They all turned to Mieke, who reflexively took a step back.

“I think if you explain it to him in person, the way you´re explaining it to us, he´ll reconsider…” she said meekly. “Can I go home?”

“Oh, we´re taking you home alright… and if Revis won´t cut the broadcast, I´m going to..”

But they´d never get to hear the end of Quentin´s threat, for 2112 had just walked into the common area, right between Sander and Lori.

Mieke gawked at the undersized man just long enough to emit an incredulous little laugh and fainted, collapsing in a heap.

“I was called?”

It took a moment for the crew to switch from their shock at the unnerving apparition, to consternation for Mieke… but fortunately, the Russians had attenuated her fall and, after seating her in a secure position against the wall, rounded on the clone.

“What is you doing? Look what happen!”

“I heard my designation,” 2112 claimed, blankly staring from one emotional face to the next. “Is she alright?”

Removing her from the hall, Sergei and Pavel carried Mieke back towards the infirmary, to let the woman recover from her shock.

“Jesus Chri- Shut up!” snapped Quentin. “Haven´t you done enough? Someone get him back below deck…”

Lori volunteered, steering 2112 away from all the aggression, and went to help him lift the maintenance hatch back up, her brother not far behind.

“I heard your name too… it´s not your fault,” she comforted him. “Quentin´s usually a little crazy. Maybe after this all blows over, we´ll-”

Her pep-talk fizzled out however, when the Russians jogged back with dripping hands.

“We have complications, Quentin! Come!”

A storm of footsteps brought the crew to the medical bay where a puddle had formed in the bed around Mieke´s inert body, that left no doubt as to what was happening…

“Is that…”

“Her water broke!” Eveyln announced, dumbfounded. “Oh my God!”