Frankenstein: SEVENTH MILLENNIUM A.D.
A BATTLESTAR GALACTICA/FRANKENSTEIN X-OVER 
By Paul Robison 
March 1, 2005

Based on Battlestar Galactica, 1978 Universal Television Studios, and the
novel by Mary W. Shelly.
Spoilers: Battlestar Galactica's Gun on Ice Planet Zero, 1978,  and Mary
Shelly's Frankenstein TriStar Pictures and American Zoetrope, 1993  
Both Frankenstein and Battlestar Galactica are used without permission.


THE STORY THUS FAR:

     Adama suspected that the recent Cylon attacks on the Colonial fleet
had been meant to lure them to the "safe passage" they'd just now
reached.  Lt. Starbuck's viper patrol investigated an ice planet within
the system, only to be ambushed by a powerful Cylon pulsar cannon on the
surface of the planet.  Two ships were destroyed, and a third, manned by
the young Cadet Cree, was captured.  Adama realized that a single shot
from the pulsar would destroy his ship, the Battlestar Galactica.  His
decision: send a team down to the surface to destroy the weapon.  Apollo,
Boomer, and the prison barge convicts, Croft, Thane, Wolfe and Leda were
selected for the mission.  Starbuck, feeling guilty over Cree's capture,
secretly programmed the proper credentials into his computer file, and
thus he was also picked.  Boxey, eager to fulfil the wish of his robotic
daggit, Muffit, to see snow, secretly stowed away in the shuttle.  
     Now, this same shuttle carrying the team is en route to the planet,
escorted by two vipers. 
     Unknown to the Cylons and Colonials, however, two small spacecraft,
each carrying some very unusual characters,  have managed to evade the
Cylon sensors and come in for a landing on the ice planet.  This is the
story of what happens when the Galactica team comes into contact with one
of those characters...

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

     To Apollo the dense cloud of the planet below them looked spectral. 
Gray and smooth-surfaced, it seemed to conceal eerie mysteries.  Its
appearance only increased his natural caution.  Looking over his
shoulder, he crisply gave orders to Boomer:
     "Get a navigational fix before we penetrate the cloud cover.  We
don't know what to expect on the surface.  It could be pitch black, as it
was when you and Starbuck went after Cree.  No telling what the ground
surface is like.  Snow, powder, pack ice, perhaps more di-ethene clouds
than----"
     Starbuck, in the copilot seat, interrupted:
     "Cylons low on the starboard quarter!"
     Apollo ordered a quick scan.  There was a Cylon patrol formation
just in back of another ship which the scanner indicated as unpiloted. 
The ship also lacked most of the familiar features of the normal Cylon
fighter.
     "What is it, do you think?" Apollo asked Boomer.
     But the odd hollow sound of Thane's voice answered: 
     "It's not really a ship at all."
     "Thane!  How'd you get there?"
     "I got tired of being harnessed back in that cabin.  Thought I'd
visit."
     "You know you're not allowed-"
     "This isn't the time to quote your stupid regulations to me,
Captain.  That ship out there, what your inefficient scanner describes as
a ship, is actually a weapon.  A guided device whose nose contains a
solenite warhead, with sufficient power to blow this shuttle to bits. 
Tiny bits disintegrating to nothing.  I would assume that its guidance
system is set on a course for us."
     Thane spoke so calmly, so dispassionately, that Apollo was not sure
whether or not to believe him.  He was describing their deaths, and he
did not seem at all to care about the fact that he would die too.
     "Employ evasion maneuver," Apollo ordered Starbuck, who immediately
reset the shuttle's course.
     "You can't evade that weapon," Thane said.  "It's one of the Cylon's
best technological achievements.  I respect it.  You can't evade it no
matter how sophisticated you evasion procedures are."
     "What do you suggest?"
     "Destroy it before it destroys you."
     Apollo wanted to ask Thane how he proposed to destroy a strange new
weapon, but the man had disappeared as oddly as he materialized.


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

     Killian, alerted by Starbuck to the sudden attack, arced his viper
into a long curve, heading into a line toward the trio of Cylon fighters
that flew just behind the ghost ship with the lethal warhead.  One of the
Cylon ships peeled away from the tight formation and headed for Killian.
     "Starbuck!' Killian shouted into his commline mike.  "Dive for the
cloud cover!"
     "Won't work.  They'll outrun us."
     "Don't worry.  I'll block for you."
     Even as he said that, Kilian pressed his firing button and placed a
dozen quick laser shots that first ripped off the rear section of the
Cylon raider that had suddenly appeared to give chase to the shuttle,
thereby transforming it into a blazing fireball.  In reaction to the loss
of a ship, another Cylon fighter swerved toward Killian's fighter.

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

     Everybody in the shuttle was hurled backward in their seats as
Starbuck accelerated.  The sound of the engines was, to Apollo, like a
shriek of fright.
     "Starbuck!"  he yelled.  "This isn't a fighter!  You'll overrun the
turbines!"
     "Tell that to the Cylons," Starbuck yelled back.
     The shuttle plunged into the cloud cover.  The only light in the
cockpit came from the scanner which displayed Killian's battle in the
skies above them.  They saw the second Cylon fighter shatter under
Killian's cool and accurate firing.  The last fighter and the warhead
ship had altered course to pursue the shuttle.  Starbuck tried to find
more power in the shuttle's engines, but all that he could discover was a
louder shriek.

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

     Killian zeroed in on the last fighter but it evaded his fire and
came in under his viper.  His ship rocked as the Cylon's shot him
amidship.  He checked his scanner for damage report.  The lousy Cylon had
destroyed the lowside engine.  Before Killian could pull out of the spin
he was now in, the Cylon fired again and knocked a big chunk out of
Killian's ship.  Employing all the piloting instinct he had at his
command, Killian pulled his viper out of the spin.  Damage report showed
a fuel line had been severed.  The viper would blow up at any moment.
     The Cylon fighter was streaking toward him.  Killian tried to shoot
at it, but his laser did not respond to the touch of the firing button. 
So that was out, too; it had been hit. Veering his ship to the right, he
escaped the next burst of Cylon shots.  But he knew that he could not
evade for much longer.  This time he had, after all, drawn his number.
     Starbuck's voice came over the comline: "I can't get this wreck
going any faster.  There's no way I can maneuver out of that warhead's
way.  There's no-"
     "Shut up, Starbuck," Killian cried.  "That thing's my job."
     Evading the Cylon fighter one more time, Killian aimed his ship at
the warhead-equipped shell.  Engaging the turbos at full thrust of the
remaining engines, he aimed his viper directly at the warhead ship.  He
shouted a curse that had a long standing tradition aboard the Galactica. 
Killian's viper and the warhead ship collided just above the cloud cover
of the ice planet.  The explosion that resulted from the crash spread
across the sky in a massive fireball that rushed toward the remaining
Cylon fighter.  The Cylon ship tried to curve away from it, but before it
could complete the arc, it was sucked into and enveloped by the widening
flame.

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

     The shuttle lurched violently and Starbuck's gloved hand came off
the throttle as if the device had suddenly turned red-hot.
     "What is it?" Apollo screamed.
     "Either we got hit by a stray shot or this speed's too much for the
shuttle.  I don't-"
     "Captain Apollo!" Leda cried from the entranceway to the passenger
compartment.  "Everything's flying around back here.  The wind's
terrific!  Something's split in the side of the ship, I think.  Can't
identify where in all the debris, but----"
     "Try to hold control, Starbuck," Apollo cried.  "I'll check this
out."
     "I'll try, but the ship's maneuvering like a balloon that's come
untied."
     Apollo rushed back to the passenger cabin.  He spotted the dark
split along the ship's side immediately.
     "The skin's ruptured!  Grab your breathing gear!"
     Everyone clamped on their breathers in quick motions----except for
Croft, whose moves were methodical, and Thane, who attached his breather
to his face slowly, looking as if he didn't care whether he wore it or
not.  Starbuck's voice came over the intercom:
     "The ship won't respond.  We're dropping down into a blizzard! 
Visibility zero.  Surface coming up on all instruments.  Counting down! 
Three!  Two!  One!  Zero!  Heads down!"
     A loud rumble went through the ship, sounding like a warning that
the shuttle was about to shatter into a thousand pieces.  Buffeted by the
violent winds, the shuttle went into a spin that made its passengers
grasp at the air, looking for something solid to cling to.  Suddenly,
Starbuck pulled the nose of the ship upward just before it made ground
contact and skidded across the surface.  Whirling snow created a fierce
small blizzard inside the vehicle.  The ship's sudden stop was
thunderously loud, had all the bone-breaking power of a three-G force,
and felt to the shuttle passengers like death.  No one saw the shuttle
crash...except for a tall, hooded, fur-clad figure standing on a rocky
outcropping just a few maxims away.  "Strangers," he muttered.

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

     The bridge crew of the Battlestar Galactica fell silent as the
monitoring screens blanked out suddenly.  Adama, alerted by the silence,
looked away from the reports of Cylon pursuit and into Colonel Tigh's
intense eyes.
     "I'm sorry, Commander," Tigh said.  "We've just lost signal from
both ships." 
     Adama, recalling his conversation with Apollo about expendability,
felt cold pain at the pit of his stomach.  
     "Any reception at all?" he asked.
     "The viper channel is dead.  No lights.  Telemetry indicates total
destruct."
     "Who was it?"
     "Killian."
     Adama remembered the mustachioed officer vividly.  His experience
and combat instincts would be missed.
     "And the shuttle?" he asked Tigh.
     Tigh paused before answering: "The emergency channel kicked in.  All
reds.  Telemetry indicates heavy structural damage.  We could reach for
them on high band."
     "No.  Maintain silence."
     "But----"
     "I want to try to reach them as much as you do, Tigh.  But we can't. 
We can't reveal our position."
     If he could have talked to his son now, he would have told him that
expendability or non-expendability had nothing to do with the fact that
Apollo had been programmed out of the mission computer search.  It had
more to do with the fear of having to deal with the exhausted emptiness
of this moment.
   
****************************************

     During the disoriented moment after the crash, Croft saw stars and
fire.  That's dreadfully wrong, he told himself.  It didn't jibe with the
cold in his bones.  He felt like a statue of ice, but a statue to what? 
To his own stupidity at leaving his rotten-smelling, claustrophobic,
painful-but warm, always warm-cell aboard the prison ship?  He'd felt
cold before, even cold as intense as now.  He'd been on mountains whose
violent cold winds nearly blew him away.  Been inside a snow pile from an
avalanche that took him centons to dig out of.  Experienced wet cold that
caused cracks in his clothing, made ropes split unexpectedly, left
corpses whose eyes still expressed a live disbelief in their own
mortality.
     When he came to, all he could see first was snow whipping around the
passenger cabin.  The temperature had dropped so fast he couldn't work
the breather right.  His eyes adjusted and some of the snow subsided. 
Everyone was entangled.  Supplies had tumbled upon them, they'd tumbled
upon each other.  Light.  Apollo had a working lantern in his hand.  The
lamp shone on a gaping rent in the fuselage of the ship.  Outside, a
dense blizzard was howling around them.  Croft didn't want to go out
there.  He wanted to freeze to death in the shuttle, that was his choice.
     Starbuck crawled out of the front end of the ship, a thin trickle of
blood seeping from a wound on his scalp.  
     "Just the kind of landing you dreamed of," he said.  "No
instruments, no engines, no field-"
     Boomer, crawling out behind him and immediately standing up, said:
"Grab a light."
     Starbuck staggered to his feet, grabbed a light and muttered: "You
did a great job, Starbuck, mastering an out-of-control shuttle, keeping
us from crashing head-on.  You're one fine pilot-"
     "When you're through feeling unappreciated here," Apollo
interrupted, "help check the wounded.  We lost half the ship back there."
     "Aye-aye, sir."
     Apollo became tough, taking charge.  Croft wasn't sure how much of
him taking charge he was going to be able to stand.
     Boomer clapped a hand on Starbuck's shoulder and said: "Don't feel
too bad.  Anyone would have lost it all."
     "Don't worry, I-" Starbuck said as he shot an angry glance at his
captain.  He didn't always see eye-to-eye with Apollo.  "I'll be all
right, Boomer."
     Pushing a couple of heavy cartons aside, Croft made his way toward
the rear of the shuttle, where he saw what a real wreck looked like. 
Metal that used to be separated by intervening material was now securely
interlocked.  The material itself was unrecognizably crushed.  Wolfe
leaned over Voight.  Apollo moved toward them.
     "How is he?" he asked Wolfe.
     Wolfe looked for a moment like it was an imposition for him to
answer any question, then he said: "Just a rap on the head.  He'll come
around in half a centon."
     "Apollo," Leda said from the other side of the passenger cabin.  She
was crouched over Vickers.  "I can help them if you can find my case."
     Apollo moved off, his eyes scanning the wreckage.  Croft was about
to join in the search, but he noticed an odd body movement from Wolfe. 
He leaned just slightly toward Voight's body, his hand grabbing at
something which he secreted in his parka, then he swaggered away.  He
decided to check Voight.  The flap of his laser holster was unsnapped,
the weapon was missing.  Wolfe would have the pistol, then.  Maybe not,
but Croft felt it was a darn good guess.  He couldn't take it away from
him.  With Wolfe's volatile temper, he couldn't tell anybody he's got it
either.  If he had it, it would undoubtedly be out and firing at any of
them he happened to get mad at.  Croft decided he'd just have to sit
tight on the information, see what he could do about Wolfe later.
     Apollo helped Leda.  He snatched the medical case from beneath a
pile of debris.
     "What's it look like?" he asked her.
     "Broken arm and a couple of ribs."  Her voice was cool and
businesslike now.  That's what Croft liked about Leda, one of the things
he loved once, perhaps loved still.  No matter what she felt about any of
them, she could still be trusted to do her job well.  "Possible internal
injuries."  She looked around at the rest of them.  "Anyone else hurt?"
     "I am," Thane said softly.
     She moved quickly to Thane's side.
     "What's your problem?" she said, looking into her case.
     Thane grinned maliciously, edging his lean body toward her,
whispering just loudly enough so the rest of the group could hear: "I'm
lonely."
     That's Thane for you, Croft thought.  Even his little jokes come out
with icicles hanging all over them.  Leda, clearly furious with him,
grabbed her case and moved off, saying: "Stay out of my way.  I have work
to do."
     She settled down beside Vickers again.
     "Don't waste your time on him," Thane said.  "We'll have to leave
him behind to die anyway."
     Thane's blatant lack of humanity aroused the ire of Apollo, who
shouted: "We're not leaving anyone behind!"
     Thane looked coldly at Apollo.  Croft was concerned: it was the look
Thane always got just before he pounced.
     "We'll see, Captain.  We'll see."
     Apollo, busy seeing to Voight, didn't hear Thane.  Croft was wishing
he hadn't.  Thane was all coiled up inside.  If that tension ever got
released...
     Boomer, directing his light toward another gash in the side of the
shuttle, reported to Apollo: "It isn't good.  She'll never fly again."
     "Worse," Apollo commented, "she can't sustain life inside.  All of
her systems are purged."
     "Looking on the brighter side," Boomer said, "I think the snow ram's
operable."
     "Let's get her out fast, then so we can move the wounded into her."
     Apollo took a step toward the gash.  Outside, the sound of a far-off
aircraft became louder quickly.  Apollo tried to look out the opening. 
The roar grew to a deafening scream as a Cylon fighter flew over them.
     "He'll be back!" Apollo cried.  "We better get everyone out of the
shuttle.  Boomer, Croft, help me get the snow ram."
     The three of them crawled into the hold containing the snow ram
vehicle.  Apollo climbs into it, and starts throwing switches.  As Croft
climbed into the other side, he was startled out of his wits by a low
growl.  Apollo whirled in his seat and shone the light toward the rear of
the snow ram.  An seven-yahren-old child and a furry robot animal
crouched there, huddled into a corner, obviously on the verge of becoming
one youthful and one furry icicle.
     "Boxey!" Apollo shouted, amazed.  The child, Apollo's son since his
parents were killed during the Final Destruction, crawled forward,
attempted a smile that turned out to be painfully weak.
     "Muffit wanted to see snow," he said.  Muffit sidled to the boy's
side. Muffit was Boxey's brown, furry pet robot, fashioned after a
daggit.  He'd been built by a medical team of bio-engineers under the
direction of Dr. Wilker as a mechanical replica of the little daggit
Boxey lost back on Caprica.  Muffit was covered with brown furry
material, and had a silver mussel, metal joints and yellow glass
eyeballs.  Croft found Muffit to be an astonishing sight: he hadn't seen
a daggit since Sagan knew when.
     Apollo was ready to bawl his son out, but he reacted instead to the
obvious fact that the child was terribly cold and scared.
     "Come here, son," Apollo said softly and affectionately.
     Boxey hugged Apollo and Apollo hugged back.
     "I'm sorry," the child said.
     "It's all right," Apollo said soothingly.  "It's all right."
     Maybe it's all right with you, but what about the rest of us?  Croft
thought.  As if able to read the convict's thoughts, Muffit looked
Croft's way and growled at him.
     Croft didn't like this setup and he didn't like the way it was
going.  Wolfe might have a gun.  Thane was ready to cut throats. 
Leda-who knew what ever went on in Leda's head?  Apollo was trying to
assert command over a bunch to whom command is a threat.  They had no
shuttle to return to the Galactica in.  That Cylon fighter plane could
return at any moment.  The captain's son was a stowaway.  He had to put
up with his mechanical pet growling meanly at him.  There was snow
everywhere and it was colder than a Scorpion slumlord.  They were
expected to climb a mountain that might not even have a rock one could
cling to without sliding off, knock off a weapon that could destroy a
whole fleet or die trying.  Nope, I don't like this setup one bit, and it
looks like it's going to have to be me who makes it function at all.

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

     Nothing was so bad it couldn't get worse if a little human ingenuity
was applied to the situation.  They could hear the Cylon fighter in the
distance, swooping up to ground level, then accelerating upward.  There
was a phantomlike quality to the sound.  The fighter could locate them at
any time, and all of them were too cold or injured to move out of its way
with any speed.
     Boomer tried to get things hopping: "Okay, everybody out!  Now!"
     Wolfe scrambled for the hole leading outside.  Thane strolled to it. 
Sorting through the smashed containers, Croft managed to liberate a
number of ice axes, some of the molecular-binding pitons, other odds and
ends of climbing equipment.  They wouldn't be enough, perhaps, but they
had to salvage as much as possible.  Near the gaping hold, while still
scrounging for materiel, he stumbled across a large figure huddled in the
dark.  A face, angry, came into the dim light.  Leda.
     "I might have expected you to trample me on your way out," she says.
     "I wasn't on my way out.  I was-never mind.  I didn't see you there
in the dark."
     "You never did."
     She glares at me, but in her eyes is some delight at scoring her
point.  Let her have her little triumph.  Nothing gained by alienating
her any further.  If this operation is successful, maybe they could get
back together, maybe----but then, it did no good to fret over futile
wishes.
     Boomer rushed past them, not seeing Croft or Leda.
     "I'll take Vickers," he says.  "Starbuck!"  Starbuck poked his head
through the entranceway to the forward cabin.  "Give me a hand."
     "I'm trying to remove the communicator," Starbuck protested.  "We're
going to need it."
     "Sorry, you don't have the time.  Captain Apollo thinks they've
spotted us.  That Cylon ship'll be back for another pass quick as a
flash.  Give me a hand with Vickers."
     Starbuck came into the passenger compartment and reached for
Vickers' feet while Boomer cradled the gunner's head and shoulders. 
Croft hustled toward the exit, immediately feeling the harsh sting of
fiercely blowing snow against that part of his face that wasn't covered
by the breather.  In spite of the snow and the darkness, the gray shape
of the Cylon fighter was immediately visible hurtling towards them.
     "Here he comes," shouted Croft.
     The fighter dipped into a strafing run.  The fire from its lasers
hissed and crackled across the ice field.  Croft dove to the ground,
feeling the sharp smack of firm ice against his whole body.  Behind him,
he could hear the other members of the team scrambling out of the
shuttle.  Looking up, he was just in time to watch the forward section of
the shuttle burst into a bright yellow flame.
     As the Cylon fighter slipped upward in a loop designed to end in
another strafing run, a deep rumbled sounded from within the shuttle. 
The snow ram kicked into life.  With a loud roar, the vehicle smashed
through the side of the shuttle, creating still another large hole.  Its
sleek black surface streaked by the glow of flames from the burning
shuttle, the snow ram swerved furiously into defensive artillery
position.  Apollo stuck his head out the snow ram's portside window,
hollered: "Starbuck!  Get up here!"
     "Always in demand," Starbuck yelled as he jumped on the turret of
the vehicle.
     The Cylon ship, not expecting to encounter resistance, appeared
again and initiated its run.  Starbuck extended the long barrel of the
snow-ram gun, and spun it around, taking aim on the enemy ship as it
approached.  The Cylon fighter's guns, with their longer range, scored a
pair of hits on the snow ram.  The cover flew off the vehicle's external
battery.  Starbuck didn't seem to notice.  Holding back until the
properly timed moment, he stared upward, sighting along the narrow barrel
of the gun to the enlarging shadowy form of the advancing ship.  Just as
Croft was about to yell at him to fire, he did.  With an ear-splitting
howl, he unloaded at the swooping Cylon plane.  The shots fly straight to
their mark.  The ship exploded like a meteor cracking apart.  They all
shielded their eyes from the incandescent glare.
     Turning the vehicle around, Apollo aligned it alongside the shuttle,
whose fire had now dimmed.  In the dying light they assembled, at least
those of the team still conscious did.  The snow-ram engine coughed and
shook.  Something was obviously wrong with it.
     Suddenly, Boxey stuck his head out the highside hatchway of the
snow-ram and cried out:  "Great shooting, Starbuck!"
     Apollo was slightly embarrassed, having forgotten to inform Boom and
Starbuck of Boxey's presence.  When they heard Muffit inside start to
bark, they all jumped, startled by the abrupt sound.
     Apollo, cutting off any queries about the presence of Boxey and his
mechanical pet, told everyone to crowd around the snow vehicle.  As they
did, he lit a lamp.  Croft became more aware of the ferocity of the wind
as the fire in the shuttle finally flickered out.
     "Light the other snow lamp," Apollo ordered.  "Keep them shielded."
     Starbuck took care of the other lamp.
     "Crowd as many as possible inside," Apollo said.  "We'll rotate
riding on top.  Haals and Wolfe go first."
     Neither Haals nor Wolfe looked like they appreciated the privilege
of being first.  The wind was increasing in velocity, while the snow as
back to mere blizzard level.  Starbuck handed him his light and everybody
started boarding the snow ram.  When the job was just about done, Croft
became conscious of Thane and Wolfe standing behind him.  He turned and
faced them, after checking that everybody else was still busy with the
loading.
     "What is it?" he said quietly and guardedly as he could across the
roar of the blizzard.
     "You're not going to guide them across to the mountain?" Thane said. 
Somehow his quiet voice managed to carry no matter what noise was raging
around him.
     "We can make it," he said.
     "It's our chance to make a break."
     Exactly what he suspected.  They'd been cooped up for too long.
Their desire for escape had overcome their common sense, and they weren't
going to listen to him for long before attempting to flee from the core
group.
     "A break, eh?  To where?  We're stuck on this ball of ice."
     Thane's obviously been thinking this all out.  His answers are
ready.
     "We can hunt.  Build shelter.  We've been in a lot worse."
     Wolfe moves in closer and whispers in his raspy voice: "Maybe we can
hijack a Cylon transport and make a run for a sun system."
     "Yeah, and maybe we can clip off all the hair on your body, Wolfe,
and get rich selling it as animal pelts."  Wolfe looked like he'd rather
clip Croft.  "We're not going to run anywhere.  We signed on to blow up
that pulsar-type cannon or whatever it is."
     Thane's eyes narrowed, as much a show of emotion as Croft had ever
seen him manage at one time.
     "You sayin' you'd rather crawl up that mountain to get your rank
back?"
     Croft wanted to take that scrawny neck of his in his hands and
squeeze it until life came back into his eyes.
     "It's low-blow time, that right, Thane?"
     "Low blows are for people who can fight back.  They broke you,
Croft.  You used to bite, but now you're toothless.  Okay, you stay and
war their choke chain.  We're cutting loose the first chance we get!"
     Croft remembered when these guys didn't used to be so stupid.  Thane
said they broke him.  He wasn't sure who they broke.  Maybe he was right. 
Maybe he'd lost his sense of loyalty, that feeling of companionship
they'd all experienced before the platinum raid.  But was it disloyal to
rank a selfish desire for escape and personal freedom over their duty to
save the fleet from certain disaster?  It didn't seem so to Croft and he
was about to tell Thane and Wolfe that, but out of the corner of his eye,
he could see Apollo walking up to them, the snow crunching under his
heavy boots.
     "Soon as you're finished loading, we'll go," Apollo said.
     Croft glanced up at Thane and Wolfe.  He was pretty sure both of
them had given up on him.  Maybe he could convince them later.
     "We're through," Croft said to Apollo and walked off next to the
captain, feeling the two pairs of eyes of his former cohorts staring deep
craters into his back.
     Next to the shuttle wreck, Leda was working furiously on the injured
Vickers and Voight.  Haals came out of the shuttle, his arms sliding into
the harnesses of a backpack.
     "How are they?" Apollo said, crouching by Leda.  The look she gave
him reminded Croft of a look she once reserved only for him.  Since she
wanted so badly to escape, the look was probably phony.  Maybe it was
always phony.
     "They'll survive," Leda says, "if we can get them to shelter."
     "Put them inside the ram.  There'll be enough room, with Wolfe and
Haals riding on top."
     Wolfe now hovered over all of them, growling:
     "I'm not freezing, just so-"
     "I said you ride on top," Apollo said standing.  "That's an order."
     "I'm not letting any punk of a----"
     Wolfe stopped suddenly, shooting a dirty look in Croft's direction. 
He tried to convince him with a shrug that he was staying out of it.  He
spun on his heels and strode off.  Croft felt he should warn Apollo, if
he hadn't realized it already, that Wolfe, when in a belligerent mood is
extremely dangerous.  But then he'd have to inform on Wolfe about the
stolen gun, and what good would telling Apollo anything do?  The smug
young captain would just mutter he could take care of it, like he always
did.  Croft hoped he'd someday come up against something he couldn't take
care of.  Soon.
     The two injured men were loaded aboard the snow ram, and Apollo went
for the controls.  Croft climbed into the interior of the vehicle.  The
voices of Wolfe and Haals could be heard as they scrambled into position
up top.
     Get over!"  Wolfe bellowed.
     "It's frozen on that side," Haals complained.
     "That's your problem."
     Let Wolf be Haal's problem, Croft thought.  "I'm getting into the
ram and huddling against somebody for warmth, preferably my beloved Leda.

     Leda, however, had positioned herself between Starbuck and Boomer.  

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

     The snow ram went some distance in silence.  Even the garrulous
Starbuck was staring off into space without talking.  Once in a while 
Boxey whispered to Muffit, but that was about all the conversation that
anyone could work up.  Everyone was tense.  If everything was this bad so
far, what lay up ahead?----in one way or another, that's what they all
were thinking, whether their goal was the mountain that housed the deadly
Cylon mega-laser that was the mission's objective, or escape, or a warm
place for Muffit, who probably had no sensors for cold weather anyway.
     Suddenly, there was the noise of a scuffle on the roof , then a
thump followed by a loud, sharp crackling noise.  Without even a cough or
sputter, the snow-ram engine conked out, and the vehicle skidded
powerless across a stretch of ice field.
     Apollo exploded out of driver's seat and was outside as soon as the
vehicle came to a stop.  Croft came out right after him, Leda just
behind.
     A short distance behind the snow-ram, Haals was lying in the snow,
his arms outflung.  Wolfe leapt off the top, stumbled, and rolled in the
snow.  Leda ran to Haal's prone body, checking him out.
     "He's in bad shape," she cried back.  "Very bad.  He might die,
looks like."
     "What happened?" Apollo roared at Wolfe.
     "Wolfe took a deep breath before snarling his answer:
     "He was bawling me out.  I told him to get off my back, pushed him a
little.  He tried to fight back.  His feet went out from under him and he
slipped.  His torch made contact with that thing there"----Wolfe pointed
to the coverless external battery-"then there were sparks all over the
place and he fell off the vehicle as it stopped.  Your clumsy warrior
shorted out the power cells, I guess."
     Starbuck, emerging from the snow-ram interior, seemed about to leap
on Wolf.
     "I'll bet he did!"
     Apollo held Starbuck back.
     "Stop it!  We've got enough problems."
     Searching the terrain ahead of him, Croft saw just what he was
afraid to see.  He whirled on Apollo, saying, "We're going to have more
problems if we don't adjust our breathers to full protective power, and
right away.  There's a di-ethene wave building up in this storm."
     "The ram's powerless without these batteries," Apollo says.  "Do we
have time to hide it?"
     Finally, he's learning something, showing enough sense to ask for my
opinion," thought Croft.
     "Do we have a choice?" he said.  "Of course we hide it."
     Croft and Apollo began to dig into the snow to throw up a wall
around the ram to hide it from Cylon eyes.  Starbuck and Boomer helped
Leda carry Haals back to the vehicle.  Wolfe sulks for a moment, then
joined the digging. Even Thane came out of his hiding place aboard the
snow ram to make adjustment checks on the breathing gear.  For a moment,
at least, they were all working together, making like a team.  For
whatever that was worth.
     After the snow wall was constructed, they all huddled together
inside the snow ram for warmth.  For now, there was no other course of
action.  Apollo held Boxey in his arms.  The breather mask the child was
wearing looked too big for him, though Thane rigged a couple of extra
straps to make it fit better.  But it didn't look like it was working so
good.  At least when the brat keels over we'll get an indication of how
long the rest of us'll last, Wolfe callously thought.  Apollo wasn't
exactly comfortable huddled among these grid barge rats.  These were the
type who'd let someone, child or adult, die for their own selfish
advantage.  
     Muffit was huddled against the boy, giving warmth instead of taking
it.  It was lucky.  It didn't even have to wear a breather mask. When
they died, what would the daggit do?  Probably scamper among the bodies.
     "How do you feel, Boxey?" Apollo asked.
     "Just a little cold."
     Apollo pulled his son closer to him.  It wasn't bad seeing a little
human affection, even briefly, when one considered the composition of
this team.  Croft looked over at Leda, who was deep in some private
thoughts of her own.  He remembered seeing her this way, while she was
resting in the saddle of a mountain ridge.  He didn't remember where,
didn't even remember what took place before or after.  He just remembered
her sitting like that and that he remembered how much he loved her at
that moment.  He wanted to reach over and touch her arm, ask her
thoughts, have her nestle close to him----but he knew that one move in
her direction and she'd smash her fist into his face and break his jaw.
     Starbuck crawled over to him and asked, "What are our chances?"
     Croft was surprised.  This must have been only the second invocation
of his expertise from a Galactica officer.  He was sure gaining stature
around here.  Too bad it was probably too late.
     "Depends on how long this storm lasts," he said, "and if the
atmosphere, under the influence of the di-ethene starts descending to the
critical point of the gases composing it.  That's the point when, well,
when you can't really see much distinction on the critical-temperature
curve between the gaseous and liquid phases.  For our purposes, the air
outside turns to liquid.  Some call it deathpoint, though the name's
never made much sense to me, since normally you're pretty dead long
before the critical point.  That satisfy you?"
     "Not much.  But thanks anyway."
     "Anytime."
     He crawled away very slowly.  The cold was beginning to affect his
muscles.  It was affecting all of them that way.  Croft had to force
himself to keep exercising what muscles he could in this cramped sitting
position.
     Waaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!
     Everyone who had been drowsy suddenly snapped into a high state of
alertness at the sound of the chilling cry  they'd just now heard.
     "Daddy?" Boxey whimpered, clearly frightened. 
     "What the Frak was that?" Starbuck cried.
     "I-I don't know," Apollo said.  "There's definitely something out
there, though.  Some kind of animal from the sound of it."
     "That was no animal," Leda said.  "That was a human being, a male. 
I can tell from the voice inflection."
     "And it sounded pretty close by, like, maybe, just outside the ram,"
Wolfe added.
     Muffit suddenly sprang to life away from Boxey's side.  His furry
ears pointed upward.  He'd clearly heard the sound, too.  Apparently, his
internal sensors had located the source of the weird noise.  He began to
bark furiously at the unseen thing in the distance  Boxey told him: Shut
up, daggit. Then he broke for the door, forced it open and bounded out.
     Starbuck went for the door in hot pursuit...
     ...and would soon find himself staring straight into a face of
ungodly horror!
     
****************************

     Muffit crouched on the ground, barking widly, clearly prepared to
attack the dark figure standing before him.  Starbuck approached the
daggit, one hand on his laser pistol.  "Muffit, c'mere boy, c'mere," he
said.  Starbuck fell silent when he saw  the huge dark figure the daggit
had been barking at.
     It was a man...or at least something resembling a man.  He was
bundled up against the cold in thick furs.  There was a hood on his
makeshift coat, but for some reason, he didn't cover his head with it. 
He damn well should have.  The horrible body  was covered with brutal
looking surgical scars.  The face seemed to be a collage of other faces,
somehow sewn together in a gruesomely crude fashion.  There were wrinkles
beneath the eyes, puckers on the cheeks,  laugh lines around the mouth,
and bony protrusions around the forehead that suggested some Borellian
Nomen lay somewhere in the "man's" ancestral makeup. His skin was a
terrible gray in color. The massive hands of the creature were even worse
because they were rippling with harsh ligament scars.  Sinewy veins
marred his wrists.
     He...or it towered over Muffit, waving his arms in a menacing
manner, as if preparing to retaliate if the daggit attacked him.  His
height was an unbelievable 7 metrons tall.
     The creature turned its attention away from the daggit, focusing it
instead on Starbuck, affording the colonial warrior a even better look at
its bizarre face.  If Starbuck could've thrown up then, he would've. 
Gods, thought Starbuck, this man wasn't born...he was manufactured!
     "Get outta here!" Starbuck yelled at the creature.  He drew his
laser pistol and fired repeatedly over its head.  He prepared for the
bizarre being to retaliate.  But...it didn't happen.  The Creature
studied Starbuck for a minute.  Its expression, or whatever passed for
it, was more one of sadness than anger.  Don't hurt me, it seemed to
plead.  Then, it turned and ran away, the daggit hot on its trail. 
Starbuck tried to run after the both of them, but his legs fell victim to
the numbing cold.
     Defeated, he turned back to the snow ram and climbed through the
door.
     "You okay, Starbuck?" Apollo asked.  "I heard your gun go off."
     "Apollo," Starbuck began.  "Leda was right.  There's definitely
somebody out there."
     "A Cylon?" Croft asked.
     "I wish," panted Starbuck.  "He's human.  And I use that term
loosely.  His face...it was horrible!"
     "Never mind that," Apollo admonished.  "Is he armed?"
     "No, but that didn't matter to Muffit.  He's still chasing the
bugger."
     "Frak!" Wolfe yelled.  "They'll both get us killed, the daggit and
that hermit or whatever he is.  They're liable to lead a Cylon patrol
right back to us.  I say we go after them."
     "Negative!" Apollo yelled.  "No one leaves the ram until the storm
is over."
     "Muffit," Boxey whined weakly.  "Muffit!  Somebody go get Muffit!"
     Apollo pulled the child even closer to him, saying, "It's all right,
son.  Muffit isn't like us.  He can survive di-ethene."
     "Well, that's certainly a point in his favor," Croft quipped.
     "Will he be back?" Boxey said.
     "He'll be back."
     "That...man?"
     "Don't worry about him.  He probably saw that we were in trouble and
thought he could help."
     Apollo stared into the storm's frozen void, wondering if maybe Wolfe
had a point.  Was that man somehow working for the Cylons?  Would
he...and Muffit...actually bring a Cylon patrol back with them?
     
*******************************
         
     Yap! Yaaaap!
     Boxey came awake at the noise.  He at first wondered if he'd been
dreaming.
     Thump!  Thump!
     Boxey scooted sideways on the lap of the sleeping Captain Apollo,
wiping away the ice coating from the ram's door's window.  His face was
aglow with joy.
     "Muffit!  You came back!"
     Apollo, now awake, put his arm around the kid and said, "Boxey..."
     The child smiled up at Apollo.
     "Dad!  It's alright!  Muffey's back!"
     Croft woke up too.  "What's going on?"
     Apollo smiled, weakly.  "Muffit's back."
     He and the child looked out the window, trying to see as much as
they could before it iced over again.  
     It was the daggit all right, standing outside the ram's door.  But
Muffit didn't come back alone.  It was a man, but not like the strange
apparition Starbuck frightened away earlier.  He was dressed in a
complete Colonial-style parka.  It didn't really do him any good against
the di-ethene, however, as he lay unconscious in the drifted snow.
     Despite Croft's protestations, Apollo popped the door and ran to
where the unconscious man lay.  Croft followed, apparently wanting to
have a look at the newcomer himself.
     "Dead?" Croft asked.
     Apollo cautiously eased his hand into the darkness of the furred
hood to search the neck for a pulse...and the figure scared the poggies
out of him.  With a convulsive shudder and a gasping intake of  breath,
the hood rose up, revealing a haggard face tortured white with a
combination of frost and di-ethene exposure.  His beard was frozen solid,
his eyes blazed with an intelligence backed by alertness.  Apollo found
himself making eye contact with...whoever he was.  "Okay, fella, let's
get you into the ram before the di-ethene wave hits," the colonial
warrior said.  And all four filed back into the snow ram, Muffit first,
Croft second, Apollo and the stranger last.

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

     Night decended on the ice planet.  A howling wind picked up, pelting
the snow ram with sleet and di-ethene.  The only light was a small snow
light.  It was currently illuminating the faces of all the people inside,
the newcomer included.
     Everyone inside, Apollo especially, was taken aback.  He heard the
stranger's groaning as he came out of a deep sleep.  The others followed
his look.  He was awake and gazing into the faces around him.  
     "Well," said Wolfe mockingly.  "Our corpse just came back to life."
     "Not for long, I'm afraid," the newcomer panted, his voice hoarse
and faltering.  "I'm...dying."
     The man drew his hand out from under one of the folds of his parka
and held it before his face.  His fingers were skeletal and black.
     "Di-ethene exposure, frostbite and gangrene.  A simple diagnosis."
     "You talk like you're some kind of physician," Starbuck said.
     The newcomer managed a faint smile.  "How do you come to be on this
planet?"
     Apollo tried briefly to explain his presence on this planet to the
newcomer.  About the Twelve Colonies of Mankind and how they were all but
wiped out by the Cylon Empire.  All that was left of their nation was one
battlestar and a rag-tag human fleet of survivors.  All was well until
several Viper patrols were wiped out by blasts from a tremendous pulsar
cannon based on this icy world.  A crack team of convicts and Galactica
personnel were organized to seek out this weapon and disable it with
solonite bombs.
     "Oh, I forgot to introduce myself," the warrior apologized.  "I'm
Captain Apollo, Strike Commander, Battlestar Galactica."
     "I've heard about these battlestars and their warrior crews, but I
never thought I actually meet such a person.  Ah, did you say you were a
captain?"
     "Yes, but I don't feel like one now," he said, looking at Boxey and
Muffit.  "I'm plagued with my share of difficulties just at the moment."
     "Obviously," the newcomer said, looking at Wolfe and Leda with
disdain.
     Apollo sighed. "Our vehicle's power has been knocked out.  We're
stuck on this ice planet.  And, to make matters worse, some kind
of...alien being just harassed us."
     The stranger's eyes lit up suddenly.  "Alien being? Humanoid?"
     Apollo was stunned.  "You know about it?"
     The stranger nodded.  "Do I know about it?   I'm responsible for
it!"
     Apollo's eyes narrowed.  "Then I think you owe us an explanation, my
friend.  Like I said, there's a big battlestar leading 220 ships full of
innocent people up there," Apollo pointed to the sky,  indicating outer
space, "and a merciless, robotic enemy down here with a super weapon
pointed right at that fleet.  We've got a limited number of centons in
which to neutralize that weapon.  Whatever you can tell me about that
thing could save the mission."
     "You'd sacrifice your life for your mission's success?  And the
lives of your team as well?
     "We're considered expendable.  Warriors like myself must be willing
to sacrifice their lives so that others may live.  Our victory will live
on...even if our bodies are dead."
     The newcomer reached out with his blackened claw of a hand, pulling
him closer.  Impassioned and intense.  "This fleet, where is it going? 
What is the purpose of its voyage?"
     "We are-," Apollo began, "that is, my father, Commander Adama, is 
going in search of our long lost brothers on the mythical planet Earth."
     "Does he share my madness?"
     Apollo was aghast.  "Madness?"
     "Your Commander Adama and I seem to be kindred.  Men in search of an
important goal, of ambition.  Let me share with  you all that I have lost
in such pursuits.  I pray my story will come to mean for you all that is
capricious and evil in man.
     Apollo was angry now, and terribly frightened.  "Who in Hades are
you?  Where do you come from?"
     "My name is Frankenstein, late of the distant human colony of
Hanover."
     
****************************

     As Frankenstein began to spin his yarn, he felt as though his spirit
were rising above the roof of the stranded snow-ram.  Rising into the
sky, then into orbit.  Drifting further and further away from this
iceball planet that had suddenly become an innocent pawn in a war between
the human refugees from the Twelve Colonies and the murderous Cylon
Empire.  Drifting not only deeper into space, but into the past as well,
the yahrens rolling back, back, back.
     Back...to the Helios System.  Helios: a G2V star.  Young, stable, no
irregularities other than normal flare activity.
     Planet #1:  Gehenna, a scorched and lifeless rockball, largely
uninhabited except for the miners who come there to siphon up the liquid 
metal-filled puddles in their armored mining crawlers.
     Planet #2: Verdant: a lush world, hot and wet with a carbide
atmosphere and several domed human settlements with a total population of
about 8,000,000 people.
     Planet #4: The great gas giant Skye, with 18 moonlets, 20 small
moons, 8 medium moons and four giant moons.
     Planet #5: Axul, a small gas giant with a faint ring system and the
usual accompaniment of moons.
     Planet #6: Coatlique, the planet where clouds of deadly hydrochloric
acid dance across the surface, whipped by high winds.
     Planets #7 & #8: Peter and Paul, the twin gas giants, doomed to
circle each other until the end of time.
     But the most important planet of them all was the fourth planet,
Hanover, the lush planet of seas, mountains and forests.  The planet was
basically primitive, its only contact with the known galaxy being the
spaceships that occasionally landed there when their captains wanted to
engage in trade with the locals.
     Frankenstein's story began in the largest house on the entire
planet, a massive structure of arch-topped windows and towers, surrounded
by three-metron-high spiked walls.  Set into the wall were two massive,
embossed fanmetal gates, topped by short spikes.  This was the luxurious
mansion called by its buritician owner Nerys Manor.
     The ticking of a metronome was coming from the mansion's grand
ballroom.  It was presently occupied by a woman and a small child seated
before a musical instrument.  "Failure has no pride, Frankenstein," the
woman said.  "Please try again"
     Frankenstein, a very serious little boy of  7 yahrens, sat at the
big instrument in his little gentleman's suit and stiff starched collar. 
He smiled up weakly at his instructor and said, "Yes, Ma'am."
     The lad was understandably nervous, this being his first attempt to
play the twicara, a flat, square, musical instrument about the size of a
piano, one of thousands the early space pioneers brought with them when
they came to Hanover from the Twelve Colonies of Mankind.  The twicara
had multiple keypads, each with a different function.  Tones, chords,
choral accompaniment selection from many cultures, musical eras and
musical families.  There were options for loudness, resonance, different
focal points and speed of notes.
     The twicara was as elegant as the ballroom it rested in:  a huge,
magnificent room with vaulted ceilings thirty feet high with
floor-to-ceiling windows.  Exotic tapestries, the labors of the artists
of a thousand planets, hung from the walls.
     The conductor of the lesson was Madam Moritz, head of the
housekeeping staff.  Her daughter Justine, of four yahrens, sat with her
doll in a huge wingback chair, making it dance to the music as she
listened ... but her eyes were on Frankenstein. Understandable, since she
absolutely adored him.
     An enormous door swung open. Frankenstein stopped playing. His
parents entered, ushering in a somber yet beautiful girl,  six yahrens
old, across the vast expanse of floor.  Frankenstein slid off the bench
to face them.
     "Madam  Moritz, would you and your daughter excuse us?" Father
asked.
     Madam Moritz replied,  "Of course, Sire, Siress. Come along,
Justine.  Bring your dolly."
     Madame took Justine's hand. Justine gazed back at Frankenstein and
Elizabeth as her mother whisked her off.
     Mother walked over to the child. "Frankenstein, meet Elizabeth.
She's coming to live with us."
     "She has lost both of her parents to the crimson rot," Father
explained.  " She is an orphan."
     "I urge you to think of her as your own sister," Mother said.  "You
must look after her. And be kind to her."
     Frankenstein stared at Elizabeth.  She returned the gaze evenly,  so
self-possessed and dignified for one so young.

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

     Frankenstein paused, feeling a tear roll down from his left eye. 
Apollo and the rest of the team just looked at him for a moment, saying
nothing.  Outside the snow ram, the wind was becoming louder, rattling
the stalled vehicle occasionally.  "I loved her from the moment that I
first saw her," he said.
     Wolfe was visibly annoyed.  "Well isn't this just great.  It's not
bad enough to have Cylons after us and a di-ethene wave coming, we also
have a ravenous lunatic stalking around out there----and all this fool
can do is talk about his first love!"
     Thane jumped in, his temper rising to the boiling point.  "Someone
tell him to come to the point right now---- before I punch his damn teeth
out!"
     Boomer straightened up and then scooted over to where Frankenstein
was seated.  "Does that go for my teeth as well?" he yelled.
     "And mine?"  Starbuck said, clearly prepared, as Boomer was, to use
physical force to defend their bewildered and sick guest.
     "Stop it!  All of you!"  Apollo thundered.  He turned to Thane. 
"He'll come to the point when he's ready and not before!"  He then turned
to Frankenstein.  "Continue, please."

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

     A massive bolt of lightning hammered from the sky, reducing a
centuries-old plaque-bark tree to a smoldering ruin.
     In Nerys Manor's downstairs parlor, Frankenstein gazed at the storm,
his face pressed against a window, astonished at the sight.  Lightning
threw seething shadows of the rain on his face.  His fascination was
broken by the sound of a little girl's weeping and the voice of Mother.
"Frankenstein, Elizabeth is frightened by the storm," she commanded. 
"Please go comfort her."
     The sound of Elizabeth sobbing prompted Frankenstein to race up the
grand staircase from below as the lightning sent wild banister shadows to
litter the wall.  He caromed down the hall toward the room of his adopted
sister, entering it.
     Elizabeth's tiny figure was huddled in the adult-size bed, gazing up
with a tear-streaked face at the huge skylights in the mansion's vaulted
ceiling, dreading the next scary boom and flash.  He approached and
whispered, "Don't cry, Elizabeth."
     "I'm frightened," Elizabeth said.  "Aren't you?"
     Ka-Boom!  A lightning bolt ripped overhead, rattling the panes of
glass.  Frankenstein found it scary, yet exhilarating.  Suddenly, he got
an idea.  "We'll build a fort. So the lightning can't get us."
     He raced about the room, grabbing every pillow he could find and
hurled them to her.  Big decorative pillows from the chaise, bed pillows
from the armoire, they all came flying her way.  She giggled as a big one
knocked her flat.  Frankenstein scampered onto the bed with her.  They
piled the pillows around and above, concealing themselves in a bulging
heap of cushions.
     Inside the pillow-fort, Frankenstein poked his hand up, widening a
space so they could still see.  Lightning glistened in their upturned
eyes.
     "Are you sure it can't hurt us?" Elizabeth asked.
     "Nothing can," Frankenstein assured her.  "Not ever."
     She sought his hand.  Their fingers clasped for comfort and
strength.  Rain drummed steadily against the glass of the skylight.

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

     The stormy night finally gave way to a beautiful day.  The rays of
Helios shone brightly through the windows of  Nerys Manor's grand
ballroom.  Frankenstein and Elizabeth were there now, learning to waltz,
their movements stiff, awkward and childlike.  Madame Moritz was at the
twicara.  Justine sat with her dolly, watching.
     Madame Moritz stopped playing for a moment in order that she could
give instruction to the two children.  "You must lead, Victor. The lady
will always look to you for guidance, so your steps must be sure and
strong."
     "Yes, Madame Moritz," Frankenstein replied.
     Madame Moritz placed her hands back on two of the instrument's
multiple keypads.  "...aaaaaand, one-two-three, one-two-three,
twirl-two-three..."
     Justine became interested in the dance lesson.  "Mama, can I dance
with Frankenstein?"
     "Nonsense, Justine," Madame Moritz replied, her playing continuing
unabated.  "Hush.  And now a sweeping arc about the room!  One-two-three,
twirl-two-three."
     Frankenstein and Elizabeth gamely worked their way across the vast
room, tripping on each other's toes.

**************************************
 
TEN YAHRENS LATER...

     Frankenstein, at 17 yahrens, was intense and handsome, as a lad
should be when approaching manhood.  Elizabeth, now 16 yahrens, was a
blossoming and graceful beauty.
     Some things never changed, though.  Neither wrinkles nor graying
hair could stop Madame Moritz from conducting the dancing lessons,
although it was Justine who provided the music now.
     "...one-two-three, twirl-two-three...Excellent!  You'll be the envy
of all the young ladies and gentlemen!"
     They were certainly the envy of Justine, who gazed at Frankenstein
as he swept Elizabeth around the room in his arms.  Her concentration
slipped for a moment, and she fumbled at one of the keypads.  Her mother
threw her a look of reproval.  "Justine, surely you can maintain better
time than that."
     "Yes, mama."
     Flustered, she put her attention back on the keypads as Frankenstein
and Elizabeth kept dancing, swirling fluidly about the room, their
attention only on each other.
     
**********************************

     Once again, as so often happened on Hanover, a storm raged.  The
rain was drumming the glass of the skylight in the upstairs hallway. 
Suddenly, screaming broke out in the house.  Frankenstein was perched at
the edge of a settee, seething with tension, waiting.  Elizabeth was with
him.  She squeezed his arm, trying to reassure him.
     "She'll be all right," Elizabeth said.
     Another scream ripped down the hallway.  Justine came scurrying up
the stairs, about to enter his parent's master bedroom with a fresh load
of sheets.  Frankenstein lunged to his feet and intercepted her, trying
to push past her, but found the doorway implacably blocked by Madame
Moritz.
     "You can do nothing here.  Wait downstairs," she said.
     He could see his mother in the dim light of the glowglobe, writhing
and screaming on the bed, her belly swollen and distended.  His father, a
doctor as well as a buritician, had his sleeves rolled up, working
feverishly to save her.
     "Mother?" Frankenstein asked, alarm evident in his voice.
     Father became angry.  He didn't need a distraction right now, not
even from his son.  "Frankenstein, do as you're told!"
     Justine glanced at Frankenstein, longing to comfort him.  She
squeezed past him into the room.  The door slammed in his face.  He
turned to Elizabeth, his eyes brimming with terror.
     
***********************************

     Mother fell back on the sweat-soaked sheets, blowing air like a
bellows, trying to give birth, while her screams mingled with the howling
of the wind.  The stump of the long dead plaque-bark tree poked from the
earth in the foreground like a gravestone, lashed by the rain.
     
************************************

     Frankenstein stared out the window at the raging storm.  Elizabeth
appeared at his side.  He didn't look at her.  "As a boy, I stood at this
window and watched the gods destroy our tree."
     Suddenly, his mother's screaming stopped.  Frankenstein and
Elizabeth turned, gazing up the grand staircase.  The sudden silence was
frightening.  The faint cry of a newborn infant drifted down.
     The bedroom door opened, throwing a spill of light into the
corridor.  Frankenstein's father appeared in silhouette, coming down the
stairs toward them.  He paused halfway down, unable to continue.
     "Father?"
     A flash of lightning flooded the room, revealing Frankenstein's
father on the staircase.  His face was haggard, his eyes were hollow. 
Blood was everywhere on his person.  His hands glistened with the crimson
fluid of life, his clothes were spattered with it as well.
     Elizabeth gasped in horror.  "Oh Sagan!  The blood!"
     Father sat down shakily on a step.  Frankenstein and Elizabeth raced
up the stairs and paused before him.  " I did everything I could!" he
cried.
     Frankenstein let out a sob of anguish.  Elizabeth began to cry as
well.  Father gathered the both of them into his arms.
     
***********************************

     A baby carriage stood amidst the leaning, ornate death stones of the
family cemetery of Nerys Manor, a chill breeze billowing its lace.
     There were two funerary rituals in Hanoverian society.  The
buriticians were embalmed, mummified and entombed with all their worldly
possessions; the poor or middle classes were simply buried.  Fortunately,
Mother's social status entitled her to the former.
     A shirtless priest, his lower extremities covered only  by a white
linen loin cloth, a golden skull cap covering his obviously bald head,
stood over Mother's sarcophagus and recited the traditional  burial mass,
urging the dozens of mourners gathered here to remember that death is
simply a temporary interruption of life, a transition to a higher state
of being.
     After the mass ended and the mourners departed,  the priest's
assistants proceeded to seal Mother's tomb, a small pyramidal structure
of stone and mortar, modeled after the great pyramids of Kobol where the
nine lords rested.
     The trees around the tomb were windswept and bare, branches stark
against a steely gray sky. Frankenstein and Elizabeth stood staring at
Mother's final resting place.
     " Father was a doctor and a buritician," Frankenstein said softly. 
"How-how could all his knowledge and skill fail to save her?"
     Elizabeth put a comforting hand on Frankenstein's arm.  "We're only
the humans in this universe.  It's not for us to decide.  All that lives
must someday die.  It's the will of the gods."
     Frankenstein raised a grim look at the capstone of the small
pyramid.  "What kind of gods are they to will this?   Why did the Lords
of Kobol agree with them?"
     "She was a mother to me as well. But ours is the job of the living.
It's up to us now to hold this family together. We've got to think of
Father, to be strong for him.  I can't do that alone."
     "The gods took her from us."
     Elizabeth pointed to the baby carriage.  "They left a beautiful gift
in her place. A baby boy. To cherish and love as our very own. Your
brother."
     Frankenstein glanced at the baby carriage as his hand sought
Elizabeth's hand. "Our brother."
     Their fingers clasped.  Comfort and strength began to flow between
them.
     The baby began crying as the priestly partly, its task completed,
departed.  Its thin voice carried on the wind.

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

     The next day was gorgeous, the great sun Helios dappling it.  The
tall grass waved on the breeze.  Gossamerwings, considered the most
beautiful winged insects on the whole planet, were skittering about the
air.  William, now 11 centaurs old,  toddled right into their flight
paths.  He didn't get very far though: PLOP!  Down he went, right on his
astrum.  His face scrunched up in surprise and he burst into tears.
     Elizabeth hurried over and scooped him up, cradling and comforting
him. Frankenstein rose from the picnic blanket to join them. Justine, now
William's nanny looked up from her task of laying out the silverware and
food.
     "Poor William! What indignant tears!" she said.
     Elizabeth comforted the baby.  " There, there ... shhh ..".
     Suddenly Frankenstein took the baby and swooped him high in the air. 
The child shrieked and wailed, held aloft.
     Elizabeth was awash in shock.  " Frankenstein, be careful! You'll
make him dizzy!"
     "Why not?  Our planet is a dizzying place."
     She tried to reclaim the baby.  Frankenstein feinted, keeping Willie
out of reach. Elizabeth grew crosser.
     "Give him to me, right now!  He needs to be comforted and held!"
     "He needs to take his frustrations out on the skies!"  Holding the
child's face up to the cobalt-blue sky, Frankenstein said, "  Make the
world hear you, Willie!  Learning to walk isn't easy.  If it were easy,
well, it just wouldn't be worth doing."
     And the baby began to laugh, much to  Elizabeth's  exasperation. 
She glared at both of them. Men!
     

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

     "That's the nature of all progress, William. Don't let your brother
sway you otherwise," Elizabeth said.
     Justine supported her.  "Quite right!"
     Victor cradled Willie as if  shielding his delicate ears. He peered
at Elizabeth with mock-grave suspicion and spoke to the baby sotto-voce,
in deepest confidence, man-to-man:
     "Don't listen, Willie. Progress is a feast to be consumed. Women
would have you believe you must walk before you can run. Or run before
you can dance!"
     Elizabeth laughed.  "Give me that child before you fill his head
with felgercarb!"
     Victor waltzed the baby in circles. Elizabeth stalked them.
     "Mephistopheles take walking, ladies! My brother shall learn to
dance like a true aristocrat!"
     He grabbed her by the waist, pulling her into the waltz-like dance. 
There was no use resisting. She succumbed and they danced with the baby
between them. Justine gasped with laughter.  "Elizabeth, really! He's
quite mad!"
     "Scandalous! What would your dear mother say?"
     Justine thought a beat.  One-two-three, one-two-three, twirl-two
three.
     Laughing, Victor and Elizabeth waltzed little William around in a
sweeping arc. 

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

6 YAHRENS LATER

     The grand ballroom was ablaze with candlelight and spectacle as a
hundred dancers swirled about the floor in a breathtaking waltz to the
music of a full string ensemble.  Frankenstein and Elizabeth danced
magnificently, the room spinning about them in a blur,.  Now 24 yahrens
old, he was in the prime of his manhood.  Elizabeth, 23 yahrens old, had
become a drop-dead beauty who radiated poise and intelligence.  They were
so right for each other, so beautiful together, one could suffer a
heartbreak simply from looking at them.
     Justine, now 21 yahrens, had blossomed into a beauty herself.  She
stood at the sidelines, wearing a lovely gown, wishing someone would ask
her to dance.  William, now 7 yahrens old, scampered to her side.  She
stooped to straighten his collar and smooth back his hair.  Dancing
couples swirled past them. 
     "Auntie Justine, Father said I could have a mushie."
     "Certainly.  But not before dinner."
     The music ended amidst applause.  The men bowed to the ladies, the
ladies curtsied in return.  Frankenstein escorted Elizabeth off the dance
floor.  She fanned herself, all flushed and happy.
     "You dance so beautifully together," Justine observed.
     "And you look so lovely," was Elizabeth's reply.
     They shared a sisterly hug and a radiant smile.  The orchestra
recommenced.  The music was lush.  Justine looked hopefully to
Frankenstein, speaking to him, her tone of voice soft and light.
     "Frankenstein?  Spare me one dance?"
     Elizabeth caught Frankenstein's eye.  "Go on, ask her. Please. I'm
quite out of breath,"
     Frankenstein gallantly offered his arm.  Justine took it, lighting
up as he escorted her onto the dance floor and they began to dance.  She
glowed.  This was a big moment for her.  But they'd hardly begun when...
     ...ting-ting-ting.  Frankenstein's father tapped an ambrosa glass
with a knife.  The dancers stopped then the orchestra fell silent. 
Justine hid her disappointment as servitors passed among the guests with
glasses of ambrosa.
     "My friends, fatherly pride won't allow this occasion to pass
without my raising a toast."
     Shouts of assent filled the air.  Frankenstein was grabbed by his
friends and dragged forward, a glass of ambrosa shoved into his hands.
     "To Frankenstein.  My son, who'd  read every medical book in my
library by age thirteen ... and then re-read them, which seemed excessive
even to me."  At that, the guests roared with laughter.  "Drape yourself
in glory, my boy.  Learn your chosen trade well.  When you return, it
will be as a physician.  On that day, it will give me great pleasure to
call you my colleague."
     "Your colleague, perhaps.  But I can never be your equal."
     "No.  But I'm sure you'll surpass me."  
     The ballroom was awash in applause and roars of approval.  The
drinks were tossed back.  Frankenstein was  jostled with backslaps and
handshakes.

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

     Outside of the mansion, Galan, the great cratered moon of Hanover,
hung high in the starlit sky.  Music and warm light spilled from the
mansion's windows.  A couple eased through one of the double-doors and
came racing across the lawn, giggling and hushing each other.  They took
refuge under a tree, the bright moonlight revealing their faces:
Frankenstein and Elizabeth.  She leaned against a tree trunk to catch her
breath.  
     "Smell the air.  It's splendid."
     "And Galan, shining bright, brighter than I've ever seen in yahrens. 
It's quite a send-off, isn't it?"
     "Father's so proud."
     "And you?"
     "Prouder still. Why, you'll be the handsomest student there."
     "I'll have to do better than that."
     Elizabeth said while searching his eyes, "You will.  What do you
want, Frankenstein?"
     "To bring hope to the hopeless.  To delve into the wonders of the
old medical technology, revive it, and push our knowledge beyond its
primitive level... to eradicate disease and pestilence like our Colonial
ancestors did ... to purge this colony of ignorance and fear ..."
     She couldn't help but laugh at his dead seriousness.
     "I'm not insane."
     She smiled, smoothing  a lock of hair gently off his forehead.
     "Of course not.  Just very earnest and very dear."
     This conversation turned into an extended moment. Unspoken words
flowed like water between them.  Frankenstein leaned forward and kissed
her.  Her eyes widened slightly, as did his.  They shared excitement,
gentle and sexy beyond belief.  They paused, drew back, searching each
other's eyes.  He whispered:  
     "I've loved you all my life."
     "I've known that all my life."
     They kissed again. There was a breath, a shiver.
     "This feels ... incestuous."
     "Ooooh...is that what makes it so delicious?"
     She brushed her lips against his. Gentle as a sigh.
     "Brother and sister still?"
     "No.  I wish to be your husband."
     "And I wish to be your wife."
     "Then come with me to Helium.  Marry me now."
     "I can't.  One of us has to stay here.  Father's not strong and
Willie's just a child.  Who'll look after them while you're away?  Who's
going to run the estate?"
     "I can't think of anyone more suited to the job than you."  
     "Don't worry, then.  I'll be here when you return."
     Another kiss, this one turning lustful and steamy. They melted into
each other, sinking down, bodies pressing and minds aflame.  Those two
were hot for each other.  Just then, they stopped, stunned at the
intensity.  He lay his head upon her breast.  Their fingers clasped.  She
whispered her secret:  
     "My head is spinning. I want to give myself to you."
     He raised his head. She met his gaze evenly. 
     "If we're to be sealed, must we wait?"
     He touched her face.  His fingertips traced downward, gently and
with reverence, brushing the contours of her bosom at the edge of her
bodice.  She shivered, closed her eyes, then lay her hand over his to
guide his touch.
     Frankenstein said, "You make me weak."
     "You're not as weak as I feel now."
     She raised his hand to her mouth, brushing his fingertips with her
lips, wrestling with desire.  Their eyes met.
     "Our decision. Together."
     "Your decision. For us."
     Elizabeth hesitated.  
     "I pledge my soul to you .."
     Frankenstein nodded.  "Very well...until our wedding night.  When
our bodies will join."
     "Frankenstein. I love you."
     "Elizabeth.  My more than sister."
     They kissed again. Gently ...

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

     The dawn was misty gray.  Frankenstein was sitting in front of
Mother's tomb observing a moment of silence.  His saddled equine was
tethered nearby.  Softly, he said to Mother: "I'll make death obsolete,
mother.  I promise you this.  You'll be so proud of me."  He rose, then
walked toward his equine.  

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

     The morning of Frankenstein's departure was overcast and chilly.  An
open carriage stood loaded.  The family and the household servitors have
turned out.  Frankenstein stood ready to go.  Father pulled him into a
back-slapping embrace.  "Write to us often," he said.
     Frankenstein moved on to Justine, took her hand.  "We never finished
our dance."  She smiled at him.  "Someday we shall."
     Next was William.  The little boy stood stiffly, tears on his face,
trying to be brave.  Frankenstein kneeled and whispered, "The others will
look to you while I'm gone, Willie. Be strong."
     The boy nods miserably, throwing his arms around Frankenstein's
neck.  Last came Elizabeth.  She and Frankenstein regarded each other,
sharing the secret of last night.  A faint smile played at the corners of
her mouth.  He kissed her cheek.  "Elizabeth."
     He mounted the carriage.  Shrevvy, one of the family servitors, 
snapped the reins and the carriage lurched away, speeding Frankenstein
off to his future.  Frankenstein turned back for a final look at the home
and family he loved so much.  William ran after him until he vanished
from sight.  

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

     High white clouds floated in the blazing blue sky over Helium, the
largest city on Hanover.  Rooftops spread out far and wide.  It was
beautiful.  
     The boarding house of Lady Brach was located in the Marsh Gate
district of Helium.  At this very moment, she was trudging heavily up a
long, steep, narrow flight of stairs with Frankenstein teetering uneasily
behind her. "There are no real rooms left.  All we've got is attic space. 
No one ever wants the attic space," Lady Brach said.
     She led him into an immensely long space running a twisted path the
entire length of the building; various levels and areas were unhindered
by wall separation, massive vaulted beams crisscrossed to form the
understructure of  the roof. Daylight filtered dimly through dozens of
dormer windows and skylights that, unfortunately, were coated with grime.
Nooks and crannies abounded up here.  Frankenstein loved it.  "This will
do nicely," he said.

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

     The great University of Helium School of the Healing Arts, located
on Silver Street was a monolithic structure of brick, a bell tower
dominating the center courtyard.  It was tolling now, even as dead leaves
scurried across the front lawn.  
 
**************************

     Professor Krempe, a squat litte man, paced before the packed
galleries of eager young students in the lecture hall.  Their enthusiasm
impressed him, true, but the lack of disciplinary restraint in that
enthusiasm disgusted him.  Ah, well, he thought, the sooner I set them
straight the better.
     "In science, the letter of fact is the letter of  law," he began his
lecture.  " Our pursuit is as dogmatic as any religious precept. I want
you to think of yourselves as disciples of a  strict and hallowed sect.
Someday you may be priests ... but only if you learn every chapter and
verse of the Book of the Word by heart."  The student gallery erupted in
laughter. "Any questions?"
     Frankenstein's had shot up.  "But surely, Professor, you don't
intend we disregard the more...ancient works?"
     Krempe was puzzled.  "Ancient?"
     "I refer to the ancient manuals which our ancestors imported to this
planet from the Twelve Colonies of Mankind.  The ancient books of surgery
as well as those of immunology, for instance."
     This reference was lost on all but a few.  At the faculty table,
Professor Waldman peered up at Frankenstein, adjusting the spectacles on
his nose.  One of the students leaned out and shot an amused look in
Frankenstein's direction.  Another caught the look and rolled his eyes.
     Frankenstein continued.  "Our ancestors knew how to restore sight to
the blind, to re-attach severed limbs, even.  I could sit here all day
and I wouldn't even begin to describe their miracles."
     "Could I have your name, please?"
     "Frankenstein, sir...from Nerys Manor."
     "From Nerys Manor, eh?  Tell me, Frankenstein from Nerys Manor.  Do
you wish to study medicine?  Or archaeology?"
     Titters swept the room. Krempe remained staunchly unamused.  "Those
of you unfamiliar with Mr. Frankenstein's recommended reading
material...thankfully, that would be the majority of you...are hereby
admonished to avoid it.  Here in Helium, we concern ourselves with
present-day medicine..." he directed his next statement specifically to
Frankenstein, "...not whatever our forebears did or did not do while
crossing the stars in their little metal ships.  Understood?"
     Frankenstein was flushed and humiliated.  Oh how he would've liked
to say more, but his common sense triumphed over his anger and all he
could do at that point was nod in feigned agreement.
     Krempe cleared his throat.  "I am relieved.  Are there any relevant
questions?"  There were none.  "Very well, then.  Class adjourned."

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

     To say that Frankenstein was angry would have been understating the
matter.  He exited the building, wearing his distinctive black greatcoat,
fuming over the exchange with Krempe.  He strode across the lawn, his
eyes, smoldering with rage, were fixed straight ahead.
     A man, one of the students from the lecture hall, raced up behind
him and fell casually in step.  He nodded pleasantly, as if he'd been
there all along.  Frankenstein responded with a curt nod and resumed his
straight-ahead demeanor. They walked in silence, just two men heading in
the same direction.
     The other student snickered loudly to himself.  Frankenstein shot
him a sharp look.  His smirk vanished, to be replace with blank
innocence.  Me?  Snicker?  Frak no!
     The stranger spoke up.  "There's no need to be hostile.  I was
merely clearing my throat."
     Frankenstein said flatly, "You may consider yourself forgiven,
then."
     They continued walking.  The silence between them was as thick as
begaroot soup.
     "You know, you're quite mad."
     Frankenstein stopped, turned.  He said in a low, measured voice. 
"Mind your grammar, sir.  Only daggits get mad."
     The unfamiliar man responded, matching Frankenstein's tone.  "But of
course you're mad.  Mad as a march hare."
     His expression betrayed nothing.  But perhaps there was a trace of
amusement in his eyes.
     "Are you having me on?"
     "Why, yes.  It pays to humor the insane."
     Frankenstein smiled.  The strange student grinned and offered his
hand.  Not wishing to be impolite, Frankenstein took it.
     "Clerval."
     "Frankenstein."
     "I know.  You have a way of making an impression."

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

     They met where all students met at dusk, The Black Lupus, the
favorite tavern of most  Heliumites.  Tonight, it was packed with the
usual students and noise.  Ale and food were served at a frantic pace. 
Clerval and Frankenstein sat a small table, tearing into sausages and
cheese.
     "Do you really think I'm mad?"
     "Come now.  The ancient medical journals of the Twelve Colonies of
Mankind?  Next thing you know, you'll be teaching crawlons to speak."
     Another student Frankenstein recognized from the lecture hall
entered the tavern with his friends.  They paused at Frankenstein's
table.
     "Well, if it isn't the wizard.  Have you found yourself an
apprentice?" he said.
     "I'm afraid I rejected his application.  He's merely a dabbler."
     Clerval added.  "Dilettantes need not apply.  What about you? 
Schiller, isn't it?"
     "Schiller it is.  I'm interested in real medicine.  Treating the
sick."
     "Really?  I personally find sick people rather revolting.  I'm here
to secure my degree with a minimum of fuss and hard work that I might
settle into a life of privilege treating rich old buriticians with gout
and dallying with their daughters."
     Schiller scowled.  "You two disgust me."  And with that, Schiller
and his friends stalked off.

*******************************
 
     Frankenstein, clad in his greatcoat, walked with his new friend
along a twisty cobblestone street under a drizzly sky.
     "You just want to restrict your practice, if you get one, to rich
old ladies and their daughters?"  Frankenstein asked, a hint of dismay in
his voice.
     "Absolutely.  They would pay generously for my services.  Profit. 
Is there no better reason to be in this profession than for glorious
profit?"
     You damn mercenary!  Frankenstein thought.  He didn't vocalize his
thoughts because it would not only be impolite but also make an enemy out
of the first friend he'd made in this city.  "I can think of quite a
few," he said.
     "Do me a favor then," Clerval said, clasping Frankenstein's
shoulder, "...keep them to yourself."
     Frankenstein suddenly burst into laughter.  This modocker would be a
very good friend.
 
*******************************
 
     Waldman, in his usual smock, addressed his students from across the
morgue slab.  He threw a sheet back, revealing a corpse dissected to
reveal the vital organs.  The others crowded for a closer look. 
Frankenstein glanced to Clerval, who leaned back and rolled his eyes in
utter disgust.

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

     In his garret, Frankenstein sat at one of the tall dormer windows,
writing a letter with quill and ink.  It was raining outside. 
Fortunately, the garret was tidied.

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

     In the rye fields around Nerys Manor, workers harvested for microns
around.  Elizabeth and  Scaedu, the foreman,  examined the sheaves that
had been placed on a wagon.  He smiled and nodded.  "It's turning out to
be a good yahren."
     Elizabeth agreed.  "Let's run a tenth of the crop to the tenants. 
They had a hard winter."
     Scaedu was shocked.  "Not even your father would be that generous."
     "Then there's no need to tell him, is there?"
     Scaedu grinned and motioned to his men.  They resumed loading the
sheaves as a stableboy rode up shouting:  "Miss! The mail arrived!
There's an epistle from Master Frankenstein!"

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

     As night settled over Nerys Manor, the family gathered around the
fireplace as Elizabeth read Frankenstein's epistle aloud:
     "'...and not a day goes by that I do not cherish your faces in my
mind's eye or ache to see you all again.  Be assured that I am with you
in spirit, and you are never far from my thoughts.  I remain, as always,
your loving and devoted Frankenstein.  P.S...'"
     She paused, reading ahead, silently this time:  "Elizabeth ... I am
holding our vow precious  in my heart."  She glanced up at their
expectant faces.  "What does it say?" Willie asked.
     "It says: 'Give Willie an extra big hug for me.'" Elizabeth lied.
     William was beaming now.  "Read it again?"
     She smiled, rearranging the pages.
     
************************************
 
     The university's main hallway was governed by its usual silence,
until the sound of a furious shout, from Frankenstein, unfortunately,
emanated from a closed classroom door.
     "That's no excuse for being a pompous astrum!"
     Frankenstein stormed out with Krempe at his heels.  Krempe paused in
the doorway, red-faced, bellowing after him, "I'll see you expelled from
this university! I'll go to the dean himself! Take me at my word,
Frankenstein! The dean himself!
     Classroom doors flew open, faces peering out of them, among them
Waldman's.  Frankenstein kept going without looking back.
     
****************************
 
     Frankenstein and Clerval slouched at their regular table at The
Black Lupus that evening.  Frankenstein was writing in his thick,
well-worn leather journal.
     "The entire school heard it," Clerval said.  "It wasn't something
one could easily miss."
     "You're a comfort to me, Clerval."
     "What now?" Clerval asked.  "Writing about it in your journal won't
help."
     Frankenstein calmed down a little bit.  "Oh?  This?  It's just a
letter to my father."
     Clerval fell silent.  Frankenstein closed the journal, then wound it
secure with its leather thong, jamming it deep in the outer pocket of his
greatcoat, brooding.  Just then, the bell above the door jingled.  A gust
of wind swept in from the tavern's main entrance, dissipating as the door
fell shut.  Both men glanced up.  The new arrival was Professor Waldman,
dapper and soft-spoken and impeccably courteous.  He murmured a
pleasantry to the innkeeper and drifted over to Frankenstein's table.
     "Ah, Professor Waldman," Frankenstein greeted his favorite teacher. 
"Do sit down."
     Waldman did so.  "Victor, explain yourself."
     "Krempe has a way of provoking my temper," Frankenstein said,
grateful for the chance to unburden himself.
     "And you have a way of provoking his.  I've been watching you.  You
seem impatient with your studies."
     "To that I will plead guilty. I came here to expand my mind, but
honest inquiry seems strangled at every turn.  All we do is cling to the
old knowledge instead of seeking new knowledge."
     "You disdain accepted wisdom?"
     "Absolutely not.  I embrace it as something to be used or discarded
as we advance the boundaries of what is known."
     Clerval muttered to Waldman, "Now you've got him started."
     Frankenstein said, "These are exciting times, Clerval.  We're
entering an era of amazing breakthroughs.  Look at that man, Jenner,
wasn't it?  He wasn't content to bleed people with heomslitherers, he
pioneered a new frontier of thought!"
     Clerval took notice at the anecdote.  "Yes, and thanks to him,
variolia has been virtually eliminated. I've heard this speech before."
     "But have you truly listened?" Frankenstein queried.  "Never in
history has so much seemed possible.  We're on the verge of answers
undreamt of, but only if we have the courage to ask the questions."
     Waldman finished off his tankard of ambrosa and sighed.  "I
understand your frustration.  I was young once myself.  Walk me home. 
There's something I'd like to show you."

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

     The gaslights came up with a soft hiss.  The first thing
Frankenstein and Clerval noticed was an artist's nook situated adjacent
to big windows where the light would've been best during the day.  Easels
were lined with in-progress work on a variety of subjects, everything
from landscapes to anatomical studies, all of them quite excellent.
     The rest of the place was a laboratory crammed floor-to-rafter with
arcane equipment.  Taking off his coat and rolling up his sleeves,
Waldman led Frankenstein and Clerval down rows of tables crammed with
experiments and clutter.
     "Did you know that the scientists on Kobol, our sacred mother
planet, discovered that the human body is a chemical engine run by
electricity?  They said we all contain streams of energy which flow
through us like currents in the ocean, or rivers in the earth."
     They arrived at a table.  Waldman rooted through a tray of
knickknacks, and held up a long, silvery needle.
     "Occasionally, their doctors would treat patients by inserting
needles like these into the flesh at various key points to manipulate
these electric streams."
     He then directed their attention to an ancient tapestry on the wall. 
It depicted the human body from front and side angles.  The puncture
points were clearly marked, in ancient Kobolian hieroglyphics, of course.
     Frankenstein scowled.  "Felgercarb!"
     "Oh, nothing of the sort, my boy," Waldman responded.  "I am a
direct descendant of Sihotep, whom, according to the Book of the Word,
was the personal physician of the Third Lord of Kobol.  Whenever a member
of the Third Lord's household fell ill, his treatments were nothing short
of miraculous.  My father, my grandfather and my great-grandfather, have
kept this practice alive through the generations."
     "It reeks of magic," Clerval said.
     "But magic that works!"  Waldman slid  forth a steel pan and
uncovered it to reveal an enormous dead siryn toad in dissection.  Copper
mounting pins trailed wires to a small panel of switches.  The switches,
in turn, were connected to a series of galvanic batteries.
     Waldman proceeded to throw the switches.  Frankenstein and Clerval
jumped as the siryn toad convulsed with motion.  They watched, stunned,
as Waldman put the siryn toad through its paces: legs kicked, feet
flexed, lungs breathed, the mouth opened and closed and it the notorious
trilling song that was its natural defense mechanism against the
predators of its native forest.  As this song was known to put the
unprepared to sleep, Frankenstein and Clerval covered their ears with
their hands to defend themselves against the noise.
     Waldman shouted over the siryn toad's wailing: "Seems alive, doesn't
it?"
     Not wishing to see the two students fall asleep on him, Waldman shut
the apparatus down, stripped off his gloves, his arm at the array of
wires and batteries.
     "I believe this was called...electricity," Waldman said.
     Frankenstein's face lit up.  "Electricity?  Yes..I've heard of it. 
Electricity: the force which powered our ancestor's machines.  This is
the sort of thing I'm talking about!  We need to harness this power, like
they did!"
     Waldman was dumbfounded.  "Why in Hades should we do that?  Can you
imagine the problems that would cause?  The first Hanoverians, my boy,
came to this planet as refugees from the horrors of technology: all those
weapons, surveillance devices and out of control robots.  Electricity 
would never be cheap because the engineering and production costs would
be so great.  And that's saying nothing of the waste from the generating
plants that could contaminate our world for thousands of yahrens, causing
serious illnesses among our people."
     Frankenstein was wearing his heart on his sleeve now.  "Forgive me,
professor, but where you see dangers, I see a world of endless
possibilities.  Especially if we combine the knowledge we have now with
ancient knowledge.  Our fundamental views would be forever changed!"
     "You speak of possibilities?  I've told you the possibilities!" 
Waldman grew somber.  "I'm sorry, but majority opinion is that the risks
of electricity and technology simply outweigh the rewards.  They have no
proven value.  What you've just seen here is nothing more than a ghoulish
parlor trick, inappropriate for the classroom."  He draped the siryn
toad.  "What I do on my own time is my own business.  And that goes for
you.  You want to expand your mind?  Good luck to you.  You're welcome to
join me here, if that's what you wish.  But, please don't do so at the
expense of your normal studies."
     "I doubt that decision is still mine to make."
     Waldman waved him off.  "I'm afraid you have no choice.  Tonight,
you will draft an apology to Professor Krempe..."
     Frankenstein started to object, but Waldman overrode him with a
stern gesture of silence.
     "...a sincere and heartfelt apology which you will then read aloud
to him before the assembled student body and faculty."
     "Why?"
     "Waldman drew closer.  "Our profession needs talent like yours. 
Would you destroy your career over an issue of pride?  What a waste!"
     Waldman handed him the medicinal needle.  A gift. Frankenstein
studied it, fascinated."
     "Go home, Frankenstein.  Write the letter."

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

     Frankenstein felt his dignity drift away as he stood before the
students and faculty, reading his apology.
     " ... and I further wish to extend my sincerest regrets to Professor
Krempe for my display. My behavior toward him was both rash and
inexcusable."
     Up in the gallery, Krempe nodded grudgingly to himself.

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

     Exquisite silverware went clinking softly onto the polished wood in
the estate's dining room as Elizabeth said, laughing: "I knew he'd get
himself in trouble."
     The dinner table was being set for guests.  Servitors were to-ing
and fro-ing.  Elizabeth split her attention between supervising and
reading Frankenstein's letter, while Justine busied herself with a flower
arrangement.  Willie got underfoot.  Father just sat.
     Justine said, "It must've been a terrible row."
     "It was.  He was almost expelled for calling one of his professors a
'pompous..." she stopped in mid-sentence, glancing to Willie,
"...'fellow.'
     Father jumped in.  "He always was opinionated."
     Elizabeth read on, laughing.  "He set things right with a proper
apology, and now they've put him in charge of their dissection lab!"
     "What's 'dissection?'" Willie asked.
     "That's where they cut dead things open and peer about inside,"
Father explained.
     "Things?  What sort of things?"
     Father was about to press on with the gory details, but Elizabeth
froze him with a glance. "It's far too ghoulish for young ears."
     The old man threw Willie a look. "We'll talk later."
     Elizabeth concluded.  "The point is, your brother is a brilliant
student who is well on his way to becoming the finest and most
compassionate doctor ever."

**************************
 
     A dissected daggit convulsed through its electronically-induced
paces in Waldman's workshop.  Kicking, twitching, tasting the air with
its long-dead tongue.  Frankenstein was at the switch.  Waldman leaned
close to observe.
     "Should we reconfigure the leads?" Waldman asked.
     "Yes," Frankenstein replied.  "Put gamma and theta directly into the
nervous system?"
     Waldman nodded.  "It's worth a try."

*******************************
 
     With Waldman at his side and Clerval providing the tools as needed,
Victor instructed a freshman class in the internal workings of a
dissected corpse. Professor Krempe observed from a distance.
     "... and the medulla oblongata is the transition between the spinal
cord and the two parts I've already named...cerebrum and cerebellum.  Any
freshmen feeling queasy yet?"  He glanced around, smiling.  "All of you,
from the look of it.  We'll resume your torture tomorrow."
     He waved them dismissed.  They laughed and exited, relieved. 
Waldman squeezed Frankenstein's elbow, a gesture that meant well done. 
Frankenstein stiffened at Krempke's approach.
     "You seem to be adapting well to the approved curriculum," he said.
     "Despite the lack of challenge."
     Krempke reddened, but said nothing.  He gave Waldman a curt nod and
walked off. 

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

     Waldman looked at Frankenstein, concerned.  "Frankenstein.  He was
trying to be gracious."
     "I noticed the strain on his face."
     Clerval jumped in.  "Come now, you must take some satisfaction. 
You've risen to the top of your class.  A position of prominence and
regard."
     Frankenstein weighed this, glancing at the both of them, then
smiled.
     "What keeps me going are my friends."
     He threw his arm around Clerval's neck, pulling him into an
affectionate headlock.  Clerval struggled and laughed shouting: "Leave
off!"

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

     Within the guts of Helium's largest jeweler's shop, Frankenstein
gazed with reverence at a gorgeous oval locket that the smiling
salesperson was dangling before him.  He glanced at Clerval for an
opinion.
     "Your Elizabeth must be quite a treasure, Frankenstein..." he was
saying, pointedly to the jeweler, "...to justify these prices."
     The salesperson's smile went frosty all of a sudden.

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

     The next day found the locket lying open against a canvas in
Waldman's workshop, dangling from the easel's frame.  A magnificent
miniature oil portrait of Frankenstein was in progress, no more than
three inches high within its penciled oval.
     Waldman painted with an extraordinarily delicate touch, the
jeweler's glasses riding low on his nose, the magnifying lenses making
his eyes seem unnaturally large.  Frankenstein sat patiently for the
portrait, the worshop suffused with daylight.
     Clerval leaned in over Waldman's shoulder, studying the portrait. 
Waldman stiffened a bit, aware of his presence.  He clearly hated people
looking over his shoulder.
     "Shouldn't the nose be above the mouth?" Clerval asked in a deadpan
voice.
     Waldman heaved a long-suffering sigh.  He abruptly jabbed his brush
at Clerval's nose, daubing it with paint.  Dignity upheld, he resumed his
careful work as Frankenstein laughed.

************************************
 
     The supper at Waldeman's house was a feast fit for a king.  Canapes,
Stuffed Cardaway leaves, Broiled Karada legs and Talavian Chocolate
Mousse for dessert.  Frankenstein, Waldman and Clerval gathered around
the meal's remains, laughing uproariously, enjoying one another's
company.  Fumarellos were lit, ambrosa was flowing, and conversation was
passionate.
     "I'm quite serious," Waldeman said.  " Look at all the charity and
clinic work we do. Up until thirty yahrens ago, the concept of vaccine
was unheard of."
     "Then...one day all disease will be eradicated?" Clerval wondered.
     "Absolutely.  Not by treating symptoms, but by divining nature's
most jealously-guarded secrets."
     Clerval turned serious.  "Do you foresee this happening in our
lifetimes?"
     "No. But someday."
     "Thank goodness.  We'd be out of work."
     There was a howl of outrage and laughter as Frankenstein flung his
napkin into Clerval's face.  "Only you would think of that!" he said.
     Henry's laughter was turning hysterical.  "Well, somebody has to!"
     Frankenstein raised his ambrosa glass.  The others joined in.  A
toast.  "I tell you what we need, my friends. Forget the symptoms and
diseases. What we need is a vaccine for death itself."
     Waldman was laughing now.  "Now that's going too far, Frankenstein. 
Only the gods decide who lives or dies."
     Clerval raised his glass.  "And here's to the gods.  Everything in
moderation, Frankenstein."
     Frankenstein grinned.  "Nothing in moderation, Clerval."

*********************************************
 
     The old warehouse on the outskirts of Helium, which now served as a
community clinic, was a hard and gritty place, a "display case" of the
reality of life on Montessor.  The building was crammed with society's
dregs: the poor, the uneducated, wailing babies, stampeding children.  It
was absolutely jangling with noise and confusion...loud and stifling. 
People from all over the city were getting eye, ear, nose and throat
examinations and being vaccinated.
     The "doctors" in attendance were all Helium students performing
community service, none of whom looked like they were enjoying it. 
Schiller looked particularly harried.
     Frankenstein and Clerval were busy giving out vaccinations.  They
kept glancing over their shoulders at Waldman as he got further embroiled
in a no-win argument with an offworlder, a Borellian Nomen in fact,
terrified about getting his vaccination.
     The bony  ridges around the man's eyes, a typical characteristic of
his race, quivered in rage.  "I don't trust your "vaccination" method,
alien.  Your needle isn't sanitary.  It might protect me from crimson rot
but infect we with something else."
     An ignorant fat woman within the crowed piped up.  "They----they're
poisoning us?  They givin' us crimson rot 'stead a' protectin' us from
it?"
     Ripples of panic spread. Waldman was as tense and clipped as
Frankenstein had ever seen him, valiantly trying to control his temper
amidst the surrounding cacophony and especially around this Nomen, since
they were known for their unbelievable violence against any that sin
against them.
     Waldman decided to appeal to the man's racial pride.  "You Nomen
live to survive, don't you?  If so, then I admonish you to have faith in
me, trust me not to infect you with a deadly disease.  Now please, take
your vaccine.  It is the law."
     The fat woman again: "Vaca-what?"
     Waldman felt his patience going.  "It is pronounced vaccine, from
the Gemonese word vacca, meaning cow..."
     The Nomen's face darkened.  "Maybe you're not understanding me," he
began.  "Firstly, I am not a resident of this planet.  I'm a trader.  I
deal in keevis and trivium and this vaccination  of yours is keeping me
from doing business.  Secondly, I'm a Nomen.  The only law I obey is The
Code-which gives me the right to kill you if you  stick that filthy 
needle into my arm!
     Waldman refused to be intimidated.  "Watch this."  He immersed
needle in a bucket of water to his right, presumably rinsing the blood
off of the point.  Seconds later, he took it out of the water and wiped
it with a rag.  "There.  You see?  All nice and clean.  The worst you
will get now is a minute quantity of crimson rot.  There might be some
side effects in the short term but you'll get a natural immunity to the
disease, which is the point of this whole bloody exercise!"
     Frankenstein and Clerval paused work out of concern for their
mentor.  They drifted closer.  The Nomen was losing control of himself.
     "By the Mega Sun!  My father was right about alien doctors,
especially Colonial doctors!  You're all a bunch of rotten killers!  I
don't care what you say... you will not stick that needle into me!"
     "I most assuredly will!  It prevents disease and, I'm sorry to
inform you, offworlder or not, you are subject to the law and the law
says you must be vaccinated.  Why am I explaining myself?  Somebody
restrain this damn fool!"
     It happened so fast.  There was an innocuous blur of motion as the
Nomen seemed to tap Waldman lightly in the stomach, then he darted away,
slamming past Frankenstein and Clerval.  Frankenstein looked after him
running away, hearing something clatter to the floor.  He glanced down. 
It was a Borellian-style dagger, its blade coated with fresh blood. 
Frankenstein looked to Waldman.  Puzzled.  What in the name of the Lords
of Kobol was going on?
     Waldman turned to them, his face drained of color.  His hand was
pressed to his sternum.  He looked more annoyed than anything else.  He
exhaled slowly.
     Clerval wailed, "Professor?"
     Waldman said softly, "Help me!"
     Blood started pumping through his fingers.  They caught him as he
collapsed, cradling him as he sprawled to the floor.  People pushed and
crowded to see the grisly spectacle.  The more callous among them
actually began to cheer for the fleeing Nomen.

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

     Life went on as usual outside of the warehouse turned clinic.  A
carriage clattered across the cobblestoned street.  A delivery wagon was
carrying a centaur's harvest to market.  Vendors sold their goods. 
Pedestrians crossed the street.
     Suddenly, the doors of the warehouse exploded open, releasing a
frenzy into the street.  Frankenstein and Clerval were carrying their
beloved Waldman by his arms and legs, all the students running alongside,
some of them weeping with panic.  The crowd was at their heels still
trying to catch a glimpse.  Pedestrians scattered.  The students dwindled
up the long winding street, bearing their professor toward the school,
shouting for help.

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

     The sky over the university worship center was gray,  an appropriate
color for any day on which a funeral is held.  Krempe delivered the
eulogy for the slain Waldman before the open casket.  The worship center
was full, with Frankenstein seated near the back, dazed.  Clerval came up
the aisle and slid in next to him.  Frankenstein didn't even glance over. 
"They caught the Nomen who did it," Clerval whispered.
     Even though he whispered, the disgust was evident in Frankenstein's
voice.  "They make pitiful liars, these Nomen.  A Nomen trader? 
Felgercarb!  They're all warriors.  And they usually don't mingle with
other humans unless they're on a blood hunt."  Frankenstein's face began
to turn white, white with rage.  "Why was he here?  It's obvious.  He was
here to kill someone who'd committed an affront to him.  His people live
by a code of violence, murder, racial bigotry  and destruction.  If it
were up to me, every Nomen male would be castrated so as not to plague
the galaxy with another generation of their wretched race."
     "Don't worry, they'll hang him."
     "Good.  It'll be a pleasure to hear his loathsome neck snap."
     People were glancing back. Clerval laid his hand on Frankenstein's
elbow.
     "Lower your voice.  That's no way for a doctor to be talking."
     "It was wrong, Clerval!  It shouldn't have happened.  The medakka
mong deserves to die."
     Frankenstein was causing ripples of attention throughout the worship
center.  Even Krempe faltered briefly in his eulogy.  Clerval pulled
Frankenstein from the pew , dragged him up the aisle and into the
confession booth where they launched at each other in harsh whispers.
     
************************************
 
     The dialogue that followed once the pair was inside the confession
booth was intense.
     Clerval was outraged.  "You're making a spectacle of yourself!"
     "Why Waldman?  He of all people should have cheated death!"
     "How do you cheat what the gods ordain?"
     "I resent their monopoly."
     "That's blasphemy!"
     "Blasphemy be damned.  Waldman spent his life trying to help
people!"
     "All the more reason for us to continue his work with the sick and
injured of our planet!"
     Frankenstein lowered his voice yet another octave.  "No.  He had
more important work."
     "There are sick people who need our help. Here and now. Not in some
future time. Consider that."
     The conversation finally ended, Clerval exited the booth. 
Frankenstein tried to compose himself, clasping his hands together as if
in prayer...or quiet rage.  He gazed up.  There on the wall hung a
religious icon depicting the Fifth Lord of Kobol.
     "The Fifth Lord of Kobol, known for the poetry he wrote about life
and death.  Why should he or any other god have the final say?"
     Frankenstein drifted closer to the icon.  He studied the figure of
the Fifth Lord before him, in his kingly vestments flanked by the winged
Angel of Life to his left, and the skeletal Angel of Death to his right.

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

     The next day.  Waldman's workshop seemed destined to be forever
deserted.  That is, until,  the door sung open and a servitor let himself
in.  He saw the finished locket lying open on a table, picked it up and
studied the beautiful miniature portrait it contained, snapped it shut
when he finished.  He looked up, eyes falling upon one of the prints
hanging on the wall: A cutaway diagram of the human body.  He stared
intensely at it.
     At night, the servitor returned, but not alone.  Frankenstein came
with him.  All the professor's things were in the process of being sorted
and boxed.  But Frankenstein was poring over a massive pile of volumes. 
Some of them, the ancient Colonial medical textbooks he was familiar
with, other were notebooks of Waldman's notes.
     Frankenstein read aloud: " 'To understand the causes of life, we
must first have recourse to death...and examine the process in minutest
detail... '" Just then, he paused, noticing a silver box to his right. 
The box had no detail on it at all: it just seemed to be a utilitarian
container.  But it was shiny, glowing with a sheen unlike anything he'd
ever seen before.  There was a button in the center of the case, where
its two halves met to form the seal.  He pressed it, and the box popped
open.
     The papers contained therein were like Frankenstein's best dream
come true.  They weren't just more medical texts: the box contained
starship schematics, diagrams of weaponry, the very secrets of Colonial
technology.  "This is it!" he said aloud.  "From these papers-and
Waldman's notes-I will learn how to arrest death!"

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

     Another gray day broke over Montessor's surface.  The Nomen who
murdered Waldman stood on the scaffold, his face disciplined and devoid
of any emotion, clearly prepared to accept his fate.  He listened as the
magistrate read the sentence:
     "... his body to be left on public display for a twenty-four centon
period, thereafter to be consigned to an unmarked grave. It is so
ordered."
     The executioner drew the hood over the Nomen's head, cinching the
noose tight.  Yet he remained stoic, none of the blubbering and pleading
that a human would do in a similar situation.
     Frankenstein stood in the crowd.  Watching.  Waiting.  THUMP!  The
body dropped.  CRACK!  The neck snapped.

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

     It was dark as Hades that night.  Rain pissed down from the sky,
accompanied by a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder.  The dead
Nomen was still hanging from the scaffold, his body swaying to and fro in
the wind.
     Frankenstein loomed from the storm, rain cascading down to the
ground from the center of his tricornered hat,  hands jammed in the
pocket of his greatcoat.  He pulled out a glittering dagger.  The very
same dagger which took Waldman's life, in fact.  He gazed up at the dead
Nomen, at the rope from which he dangled. 

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

     The dead Nomen lay pale and naked on a slab in Frankenstein's loft. 
His beard, long hair and bushy eyebrows were shaved off.  Frankenstein
leaned close, rain still dripping from his clothes, studying the
near-human face closely.  A flash of lightning threw wild littering
shadows through the dormer windows and skylights.  Yet the only thing
Frankenstein had to say was, "...no longer aggressive and dangerous."

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

     The dead Nomen, now dissected and wired, jerked bolt upright,
flopping and convulsing, eyes opening and closing, mouth gaping open and
shut.  He fell back limply as Frankenstein shut the power off, making
careful notations in his journal.

***************************
 
     The Nomen's body was soon in an advanced stage of decay, flies
buzzing softly around it.  Frankenstein stood over the corpse, gaunt and
hollow-eyed, exhausted and obsessed.  He was wearing a butcher's apron. 
He stared down at one of the dead Nomen's forearms, watching as maggots
swarmed in the flesh.  He abruptly raised a cleaver and whacked it off at
the elbow.  
 
****************************
 
     Frankenstein gazed intently at the Nomen's forearm, which he'd
placed in a steel pan.  He was performing an intense chemical analysis. 
Dead tissues broke apart in solvents, distilled over a slowly burning
flame.  He smeared a glass slide and placed it under a microscope.

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

     Frankenstein was hunched over his notebook, pale and unhealthy,
scribbling notations next to a rendering of the human form.  Clerval was
across from him.
     "You've got to stop this, Frankenstein," he said as  Frankenstein
glanced up.  "Nobody's seen you in centaurs. You haven't attended a
single class."
     "I've been preoccupied."
     "We all know how hard you took Waldman's death.  Even Krempe is
sympathetic.  But it's time to move on.  It is time to concern yourself
with life."
     Frankenstein said with a faint smile: "That is my concern.  I'm
involved in something just now.  I wish to finish it in Waldman's
memory."
     "How much longer?"
     "A few centaurs, perhaps.  I'm gathering the raw materials even
now."

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

     The wrought-iron doors of a crypt had been forced open in the Helium
Municipal Necropolis.  Frankenstein stood over a stone sarcophagus with a
pry bar in his hands.  He was nervous, working up his courage. 
"Materials.  That's all they are.  Tissue to be re-used," he said, a
slight stutter in his voice.
     He pried off the stone lid.  It thumped heavily to the floor,
cracking in half.  He opened the sarcophagus, reached in, raised the pale
arm of the deceased to inspect it. 
     
*************************** 

     Another night, another necropolis.  This one located about 50
microns  outside Helium's city limits.  Death stones were everywhere.  A
night flyer hooted off in the distance.  The trees were bare and the
ground was covered with ivy.  Frankenstein was shoulder-deep in one of
the graves, shoveling.  His oil lamp burned low, just barely illuminating
the pitch-black night.
     He hit a coffin, swung open the lid, dust and soil cascading.  He
peered down, holding the oil lamp high.

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

     The sights within Frankenstein's loft were not for the faint of
heart.  His shelves were crammed now with formaldehyde jars of feet, and
hands, brains and kidneys, the occasional head staring through the glass
and dead felines.
     He worked into the wee hours of the night.  Hunched over his
specimens, the candle's flame flickering low.  He was constantly
referring back to Waldman's notes then making notations in such ancient
books as "Cloning Technology Almanac: 5532," and "Principles of
Resuscitation, From Ancient Kobol to the Modern Colonies."   

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

     Elizabeth and Justine stood with a magnificent backdrop of mountains
against a cloudless blue sky.  Nerys Manor stood in the distance.  A
steady breeze rippled the fields as Elizabeth regarded a stack of mail.
     Elizabeth sighed.  "Nothing.  Still nothing."
     Justine said, "It's been months.  It's not like him."
     "Something's wrong.  I know it.  I've heard rumors of hemmoragia
spreading south from Ozzel."
     Justine nodded.  "So have I."
     "I should go.  I should leave today.
     "Elizabeth, if it's true, the authorities will likely ban travel
into the north central regions.  You'd never get near Helium.  Besides,
they're only rumors."
     Elizabeth nodded.  "And not a word of them to Father.  He's agitated
enough not hearing from Frankenstein."
     "Read him one of the old letters and rephrase it.  We'll say it came
today.  It'll set his mind at ease."
     Elizabeth gave her a hug. They walked toward the mansion
 
***************************

     Frankenstein began to peruse the literature that had previously been
contained in that shiny silver box he'd found in Waldman's workshop.  The
first hundred pages were technical schematics for huge spacegoing vessel
called a "battlestar," which was a combination aircraft carrier,
battleship and mobile base of operation for the Colonial military.  Sleek
fighters called, "vipers" were launched from the pontoon-like structures
on the port and starboard sides of the vessel.  "What in Sagan's name
would they have used a ship like that for?" Frankenstein wondered out
loud.  " Were they at war?  Who were they fighting?"
     He continued his perusal of the text and diagrams.  "Main Bridge,
missile launchers, main sensor array..." he read the headings aloud.  He
was at it for centons, his annoyance growing by leaps and bounds.  Then,
he came to the section called "Life Station," and his enthusiasm
returned.
     He spread the papers on the table to better study them, setting the
rest of the documents in the case aside.  He learned about the
decontamination units that quickly and efficiently destroyed alien
viruses and germs and the bone setters that could repair and fuse broken
bones within minutes- making them stronger than before.  Then, he came to
the section that discussed the "life-pods," a type of bed capable of
lowering the temperature of the body to allow it to use less resources,
oxygen and the like, stabilizing it for further treatment.  As he delved
deeper and deeper into the information, he learned about the finite
lasers and their surgical applications.  His quest for knowledge ended
when he discovered the very tool he needed: an electrically-powered
resuscitation instrument called a "cardio-stimulator."
     Frankenstein rushed to another table and hastily drew up plans for
what he wanted.  He then rushed to a blacksmith shop somewhere in the
heart of the city. 

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

     It was murky and dark in there.  Bellows were pumping while showers
of sparks cascaded.  The blacksmith and his assistant were pounding a
metallic sledgehammer litany, beating a huge copper sheet into shape. 
Frankenstein entered.  The blacksmith directed his attention to one of
the completed copper pieces leaning against the wall.  He liked it.

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

     Frankenstein ran into a problem when he learned about a special
fluid that Colonial doctors used in maternity cases.  If the pregnancy
endangered the life of the woman, they would often recommend that the
mother and father place their sperm and ova in a tank of bacta fluid, a
nutrient broth capable of assisting in the nourishment and development of
the fetus, and then allow the fetus to grow inside the tank. 
Unfortunately, none of the basic ingredients of the miraculous red fluid
existed on Hanover.  After some more painstaking centaurs of study,
Frankenstein came to the conclusion that the closest  he would come to
bacta on Hanover was a synthesized version of amniotic fluid.

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

     The woman lay on the table of the maternity ward at Star of Hope
Charity Hospital in downtown Helium, screaming as she went into labor. 
Her water broke, cascading into a steel bucket.  One of the nurses
snatched it up, then scurried around the corner.  Frankenstein was
waiting in the shadows.  He deposited a large number of cubits into the
nurse's hand.
     Frankenstein promptly returned to his garret and examined the
amniotic fluid.  He boiled it off, then worked feverishly to synthesize
it.

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

     Frankenstein poured the final drum of fluid into the big,
human-shaped copper vat that the blacksmith had made especially for him. 
He'd dubbed it "the life-pod," after that amazing Colonial medical unit
that could sustain the life of a critically ill patient.  He dipped his
hand in, examining the fluid's consistency and smell.  
     
*********************************** 

     Frankenstein examined three corpses on the back of a wagon, checking
the nostrils and teeth with gloved hands.  A pair of men lurked in the
shadows, waiting for him to finish his strange task.
     "I'll take that one."
     The corpse was lifted off the wagon.  Frankenstein dropped a large
number of cubits into the man's hands.  "With this hemmoragia come to
town, we'll have plenty more for you," he said. 

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

     His arms clad in elbow-length gloves, Frankenstein hacked furiously
away at a corpse with a bone saw.  He had no interest in the scraps, so
he merely tossed them aside.
 
*********************************** 

     Before he could even think of animating a fully constructed body,
Frankenstein knew he had to test neural reactions and he did so by wiring
one of the severed arms.  It reacted well to the electrical stimulus.
     Next came the tissue test.  He scraped off a small shred of flesh
from the arm, dropped it in a solution-filled flask and watched it break
apart.  It didn't look good.  He glanced feverishly at the clock.  He
made a fast decision and scribbled it in his journal.
     Not optimal.  Must use it.  I've no time to seek a replacement.  The
body simply can't wait. 

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

     Frankenstein stitched a torso with one of the big, awful curved
needles, yanking up hard to draw the catgut tight.  How he wished he'd
found a way to recreate one of those fabulous surgical  instruments he'd
read about, the finite microlaser.  One could perform an incredibly
delicate operation with a finite microlaser and never leave a scar on the
patient's skin.  


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

     Frankenstein pulled on a chain, hoisting the body off the slab via a
block-and-tackled mounted on a ceiling track.  The body rose limply into
the air, spinning slowly, its arms and legs dangling, the long black hair
of its Nomen quarter covering the face.  

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

     Even as Frankenestein's story continued, a major crisis was ensuing
in space.  Although the Galactica bridge might have seemed still and
inactive to an outside observer, there was an abundance of human movement
going on.  Crewmember's hands were testing dials and gauges whose
information had remained stable for some time.  Communications officers
kept pressing their earpieces harder against their ears, trying to
discover some encouraging sounds.  Colonel Tigh sat at his post, rippling
the corners of printouts he'd stopped examining centons earlier. 
Athena's eyes searched every horizontal scan line of her monitoring
screen, and kept punching new combinations of the same data into her
computer setup.  Adama's large knobby hands gripped and ungripped the
railing that ran along the starfield walkway.
     Suddenly, one of the bridge officers grumbled a curse and called to
Colonel Tigh.  Tigh rushed tot he woman, Adama close behind him.  She
pointed to her long-range scanner.  Tigh turned to Adama saying: "That
scanner's picked up a Cylon fighter squadron."
     "How many?" Adama asked.
     "Looks like an attack phalanx.  They're beginning to press."
     Adama nodded.
     "Order Blue Squadron to patrol the rear."
     "Aye-aye, sir."  Tigh flipped the nearest communication switch as
activity around him on the bridge multiplied.  "Scramble Blue Squadron!
Patrol rear sectors Sigma through Omega!"
     The claxons roared through the Galactica, and the bridge crew could
almost physically detect the rush of pilots toward launching bays.  On
various screens, pilots could be swinging into action, flight crews
readying the vipers and the reverberations of the fighter ships
themselves.
     The squadron launched and achieved formation long before a visual
contact with the Cylon attack phalanx was made.  Positioned well to the
rear of the fleet itself, the vipers were more than ready for the
not-so-sneak attack of their enemy.
     Aboard the Galactica the bridge crew stood and sat at battle
stations, their active eyes watching information screens and equipment. 
Adama ordered the picture being transmitted from Blue Leader One
transferred to the main screen.  Tensely, they all watched the distant
points grow into bolts and then take form as flat-looking but
multileveled Cylon fighters.  The first blast from a Cylon weapon was
directed at Blue Leader One, and everyone on the bridge flinched and
startled backward when the shot seemed to come right at them.  Then the
skies were filled with laser fire and the sudden bursting flames of
direct hits.  A pair of Cylon fighters broke through the Blue Squadron's
line of defense and headed for the fleet.
     "Protect the freighters!" Adama ordered.
     "Galactica to Blue Leader," transmitted a bridge officer.  "Engage!"
     A Blue Squadron viper peeled away from the squadron and in one long
beautiful sweep fired at both of the attackers and transformed them into
two masses of fire whose flames reached out toward each other, combined,
fell together, and exploded further in a burst of bright light that, for
a brief moment, illuminated the entire wide triangle of ships that was
the present fleet formation.
     "My God!" Athena gasped.
     "Good shooting?" Adama standing behind her, asked.
     "Not only that.  That double kill was accomplished by one of the
cadets."
     "As I said, good shooting."
     Adama walked away from her, his face apparently expressionless, but
Athena recognized a flicker of pleasure in his reaction to the heroism of
a graduate of his makeshift flight academy.
     The Cylon ships, quickly routed by the dizzying maneuvers of the
Blue Squadron vipers, retreated into the distance, became points again. 
A flight officer approached Adama and reported:
     "Blue Squadron returning to base.  Four Cylons destroyed, the rest
are running."
     "They'll be back," Adama commented.  "In packs, like wolves.  What
do your reports show, Tigh?"
     The colonel was scowling at a set of printouts that he gripped
tightly in his hands.  Something clearly disturbed him.
     "We got ships again, but not Cylon personnel.  The Cylons in the
rearguard ships guided the others, as before.  We lost one viper and a
good pilot.  They just lost the vehicles, if vehicles is the proper word.
They're wearing us down with these empty ships.  It's eerie."
     "That may be what they want us to feel.  If they come at us again,
go for the rearguard ships.  Station a few warriors on the slower
freighters with heavy artillery to blast any of the pilotless aircraft
that might get through next time."
     "Aye-aye, sir."
     Meanwhile, on the ice planet, Starbuck was shocked, his mind already
light yahrens ahead of his ears, predicting what the strangers's
narrative was leading up to.  Everyone else in the stranded ram was also
shocked.  Even Boxey seemed just a little bit nervous.  "You see,
Lieutenant Starbuck, what you encountered out there was a man that  I
stitched together with my own hands, a living thing of my own devising." 
 

*********************************** 
 
     Frankenstein reached up with one hand to stop the body spinning.  He
pushed it down the length of the lab, rolling it along its ceiling track
like a side of beef in a meat locker.
     The Creature lay on an improvised bier of crates, surrounded by
shadows and clutter, draped and sprawled.  Breakers bubbled and dripped. 
Intravenous lines seeped and secreted.  A misty chemical haze hung in the
air.  Frankenstein watched his patchwork man, glowering, waiting.

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

     "It took nutrients like a baby  receiving mother's milk, blushed
like a young girl with the blood I forced  through its veins, all in
preparation for..." The sound of a child's sobbing interrupted him. 
Frankenstein looked at Boxey.  "Child, what I have I said that upsets you
so?"
     Boxey sank deeper and deeper into tears.  Muffit inched his muzzle
over to the boy's cheek to comfort him.  "You're-You're a-----baggerman!"
he wailed.
     Frankenstein was puzzled.  "Baggerman?  I don't believe I know that
term."
     Leda, who had been silent throughout the first two centons of the
man's story, suddenly burst out in anger.  "I'll tell you what it means!"
she cried.  "'Baggerman' is a slang term we use to describe a ghoul,
grave robber, or body snatcher.  Characters like that figure very
prominently in fables told to correct misbehaving children."
     Apollo nodded.  "I'm sure your intentions were good when you did
what you did, Dr. Frankenstein.  But I'm afraid if my father were here
listening to your story, he'd probably consider you little better than
the space-roving scum who looted Kobol's tombs after that planet had
died."
     "Worse," Starbuck added.  "You've done what no human being has a
right to do-you've artificially created a living being."
     "You'll think differently about me when you hear my personal account
of the experiment's results, Starbuck."

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

     A flash of lightning ripped through the skylights of Frankenstein's
garret, bathing the macabre scene within an eerie purple white.  He lit a
candle, and read aloud one of the Colonial medical manuals, this one
discussing cardio-vascular stimulation devices.  "Cardio-stimulators are
devices that are used to apply a strong electrical shock to the heart.
The shock changes ventricular fibrillation to an organized ventricular
rhythm or changes a very rapid and ineffective cardiac rhythm to a
slower, more effective rhythm.  This device helps treat cardiac disorders
which include ventricular fibrillation, ventricular tachycardia, atrial
fibrillation, and atrial flutter."
     Frankenstein stopped reading for a moment, comparing this
information with Professor Waldman's electrical neural stimulation trick. 
"Of course," he said aloud.  "If sufficient voltage were applied to a
stopped heart, it would start beating again.  Not only would there be
movement, but...life itself!"  
 
*********************************** 

     All the research and toil finally caught up with Frankenstein and he
passed out in his chair.  His creation was still taking fluids.  Gray
daylight streamed through the windows.
     It was not an ordinary day in the life of Helium, however.  There
was commotion in the street outside.  People were shouting, equine's
hooves clattered on the cobblestone streets, and, occasionally, someone
would scream or wail.  But Frankenstein didn't stir.  He was dead to the
world.
     Just then, there was a demented pounding at the door.  Frankenstein
roused, taking a moment to remember where he was.  He lurched from the
chair, grabbed a canvas tarp and threw it over his "patchwork man." 

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

     Clerval pounded furiously on the door.  Finally, the latch was drawn
and the door swung open a crack.  Frankenstein peered out, gaunt and
furtive.  Clerval was stunned at his dissipated appearance.
     "Sagan's sake, what is that stench?" he asked, peering past him. 
Frankenstein shifted to block his view.
     "This is a bad time, Clerval.  I'm busy right now.  What do you
want?"
     "Things have gotten worse with this hemmoragia outbreak.  There are
a thousand cases a day now.  Classes have been suspended and the
University's shut down."
     "Yes?  And?"
     Clerval was frantic.  "Listen to what I'm saying.  A phalanx of
constables are arriving to quarantine the city.  Most of us are getting
out while we still can."
     "You'll be leaving then?  Oh, it's just as well.  You were never cut
out for this, Clerval.  Goodbye."
     And with that, Frankenstein slammed the door shut and threw the
bolt.  Clerval pounded. "Frankenstein!  Open the door!  Listen to
reason!" he cried.
     But silence answered him.  Stunned and hurt, Clerval turned from the
door and headed back down the stairs.

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

     Clerval exited into a nightmare.  Refugees were streaming from the
city.  Most were in equines and wagons but there were also people on foot
who were carrying their possessions.  Clerval stepped into the street and
was nearly run down by a carriage. "Out of the way!" its owner shouted.
     Clerval glanced up to see who the carriage's owner was.  It was
Schiller who was at the reigns.  He was struggling to control the animals
as the carriage eased past.
     "Why are you leaving Schiller?  Where's your lofty load of
felgercarb  about treating the sick?"
     Schiller became icy.  "To hades with them...and to hades with you!"
     He snapped the reins, not caring who he ran down.  The carriage
lurched away, scattering refugees before it.
     Clerval kept walking, despite his repeated jostling by the huge
crowd.  He looked around, dazed.  Corpses were stacked along the street
like plaquewood, waiting for the arrival of the  death carts.  But
Clerval continued to stumble along through utter despair and devastation,
stunned at the human suffering around him.
 
*********************************** 

     Frankenstein glanced at the clock on the wall.  He scribbled in his
journal: Time is running out.  The rate of decay is accelerating.  I must
strike now or else start again from scratch. 
     He gazed down at his creation, lying once again on the slab before
him.  But now the Creature lay on a full body-length steel grate.  Steel
chains with hooks dangled from the ceiling above along with long coils of
thick copper wire which were tipped with glittering needles big enough
for a seamstress to knit with.
     Frankenstein glanced up at the ancient Kobolian tapestry.  Key
acupuncture points were daubed with red pain.  He dipped a huge cotton
swab in a bowl of clausine, then started dabbing identical marks on the
body lying supine before him.  
     His marking completed, he proceeded to ram the huge wire-fed needles
into these strategic spots, brutally working them around in the flesh in
order to get good contact.  First the forearms, then the neck, the rib
cage third, and so forth.
     Frankenstein attached the steel chain-hooks to the four corners of
the steel grate and then pulled on the rope, straining to hoist the whole
rig into the air, high above his gloriously low-tech and arcane
laboratory.  It lifted slowly from its frame, body, needles, wires and
all.
     The Creature dangled from the ceiling hoist, lying full length and
horizontal on its steel grate, spinning slowly, thick copper wires
trailing from its arms and legs, rib cage and neck, armpits and groin. 
The copper cables trailed upward, coiling along the ceiling like a garden
hose to provide the necessary slack, then meandering down the wall to
culminate in a splendiferous array of galvanic batteries, steam engines
and energizers.  
     Frankenstein reached slowly up, fingertips straining toward the
ceiling as if worshiping the creation revolving endlessly above his head
in a perfect circle.  And he grabbed the lever on the platform and pulled
to start it spinning.  With a mighty heave, he set the whole thing
gliding in motion.  He rolled it along the ceiling track through the lab,
passing table after table of desiccated leftovers and discarded scraps. 
Lightning blazed like meteor fire through the windows, marking his way
with wild and sinister shadows, and he yanked the platform to a stop over
the copper life-pod.  Amniotic fluid was steamy and murky within it.  He
positioned the platform, untied the rope, lowering the Creature down and
down, lower and lower, sinking into the vat, the steel grate a perfect
fit in size and shape.  
     Frankenstein's pace was faster now.  He was moving like a wild
demon, reaching into the murk and unhooking the chains then arraying the
copper wire through airtight guide holes.  Spinning on his heels and
reaching up he grabbed hold of the upper shell of the life pod that was
also suspended from the ceiling, a stunningly heavy thing that gleamed
with reflections and secrets.  He swung the upper shell into position
then lowered it into place with a thud-clank of metal upon metal.  His
hands flew to the wing nuts on the life-pod's bolts, spinning them
frantically, tightening them down, sealing it airtight. Faster now. 
Faster.
     The frenzy within the little universe that was Frankenstein's
laboratory was building.  He turned up the heat on the burners, cooking
the copper from below.  
     Three mili-centons later:  Frankenstein was gazing through the thick
portholes of the life-pod, checking on his creation drifting lazily in
the depths of the murk.  
     Two mili-centons later: Frankenstein whipped up the galvanic
batteries, supercharging them with the steam-powered energizers.  He
watched as they sent thousands of voltons humming and throbbing through
the copper cables along the ceiling beams, building up a charge.  
     Gazing at his gleaming handiwork, lightning painting his features
into a demonic mask, Frankenstein put his hand on the switch, ready to
rev it up and throw the throttle.
     Over it went.  Then the room erupted in a sudden, rapid and intense
variation in brightness, so bright, in fact, that Frankenstein was forced
to shield his eyes against it.  It was just like one of those solar
flares that periodically erupted on Helios, the air practically coming
alive with magnetic energy.  He could feel the electrons, and protons
dance around his head.  Frankenstein's long hair, tied into a pony tail
on the back of his neck, suddenly exploded out of style and stood
straight up on his head, like the quills of a porcupus on the attack.
     The body convulsed violently in its copper womb as the first voltons
of electricity hit it.  Thunk-thunk-thunk!  The life-pod was blazing with
energy and arcane light.  Fingers of light throbbed through the
portholes, sparkling, glittering, seeking their target.
     Frankenstein raced to the life-pod, lowering a long glass tube, two
metrons in diameter and ribbed with steel, on a boom and ramming it into
a hole, spinning the collate tight, wrenching out the inner dam like a
photographic plate.
     He reached up and grabbed hold of a pull-chain, his fingers going
knuckle-white on the wooden handle.  It took one hard yank and a
dump-tank was released.  Murky water cascaded down the glass tube.  
     The operation now settled into its final stage.  The life-pod was,
in reality, like the womb of an expectant mother, with the giant glass
tube serving as a massive gleaming phallus from down which came pouring
dozens of laser eels.  Wriggling and streaming like huge black-green
sperm they rocketed down the tube, slithering and squirming, faster and
faster, racing into the life-pod, seeking out the creation in the murky
womb-fluid, lashing at the helpless gray flesh, zapping it frequently and
repeatedly with their high intensity bio-electric lasers.  The Creature
convulsed, thrashed and jerked from side to side, raising its head
against the top, its mouth gaping open and shut, the jaws snapping with
electrical surges.  
     Frankenstein's face appeared at the porthole, peering inside,
watching as his dark seed fertilized his unholy child.  "Live, you
bastard!" he screamed, his voice sounding muffled through the glass.  
     A huge bony hand slapped against the porthole, its fingers clawing
and spasming against the glass.  Frankenstein jerked his head back,
stunned.  The fingers were scratching, all by themselves.  He turned and
ran to the electrical rig, shutting everything down.  It cycled off,
whining into silence and the body inside the life-pod relaxed, shutting
down with it, going limp and lifeless in the murk, the spasms trailing
off.  
     Realizing his creation had stopped moving, Frankenstein stared at
the life-pod.  There was nothing happening now.  He sagged to his knees,
utterly devastated at the loss of his dream.  Nothing!  It was all for
nothing!
     Suddenly, The Creature opened its dim yellow eyes.  It was aware of
everything around it, including itself.  Its mouth widened, the teeth
bared in a silent scream as it tried to breathe and found nothing in its
lungs but fluid.
     Frankenstein, wrapped in his despair, cradled his face in his hands. 
Tap-Tap-Tap.  He glanced over his fingers.  Did I imagine it?  Tap.  No. 
Tap-Tap.  
     Sheer joy and stunned exultation could be clearly seen in
Frankenstein's eyes.  He felt triumph and wonder unbelievably sublime. 
"It's alive.  It's alive," he barely whispered.
     And then all hades broke loose.  Massive convulsions wracked the
life-pod, nearly shaking it off its cradle.  Thump-Thump-Thump!  Pounding
came from within it, the pounding of its head ramming against the inner
lid.  Frankenstein frantically raced over, fumbling his fingers on the
wing-nuts, spinning them loose, trying to free the drowning "man" within. 
He unscrewed the final bolt and reached for the rope to hoist the lid
away. 
     Without warning, the lid launched itself across the room, propelled
from below with turbo-booster force.  The massive copper shell went
hurtling, spinning, cartwheeling across the lab, demolishing the amazing
array of equipment in its path, to end its flight in a thunderous
explosion of masonry and  splintering coat rack.  Frankenstein's
greatcoat went flying.  
     Silence.  Frankenstein was frozen in shock.  He stared at the
roiling surface of the amniotic fluid as it settled.  An eternity passed
in the space of a heartbeat.  
     The Creature erupted from the life-pod like Mephistopheles ascending
from Hades, thrashing and gagging, murky fluid cascading in all
directions.  The Creature seized Frankenstein by the shirtfront, trying
to pull itself from the life-pod, slipping and sliding like a man who'd
drunk too much baharri trying to navigate through a bathtub full of oil,
nearly dragging Frankenstein in.  All around them the eels leaped and
frothed, their biolasers firing wildly, hitting no target in particular. 
Frankenstein screamed, realizing that he'd die instantly if the lasers
hit him.  He pulled away, trying to break the Creature's unbelievably
strong grip.  
     And the whole thing tipped over.  Frankenstein reeled back, falling
as the life-pod slammed to the ground, cascading its murky contents,
washing The Creature limply across the floor like a body tossed from the
sea, laser eels flipping and flopping, firing their biolasers into the
air.  Frankenstein scrambled back, slipping and sliding on the amniotic
muck, desperately jerking his legs away.  He finally found his traction
and scrambled to his feet.  
     The Creature grasped and crawled toward him.  Flopping and jerking,
gripped by seizures and convulsions.  He vomited murky liquid as his
lungs heaved grotesquely to dispel the fluid.  He swiped the air with
palsied hands.  The Creature was abysmally dysfunctional.  
     Frankenstein stood dripping fluid and goo, his chest heaving,
staring down at The Creature.  He wasn't quite able to believe he was
midwife to this ghastly birth.  "What in the name of the Lords of Kobol
have I done?" he said softly.
     The Creature lunged to its knees, grasping him, clutching his
clothes, pawing him.  "Noooo!  Don't touch me!" he yelled.  "Let go of
me!"
     But he couldn't break free.  A tidal wave of panic swept over him. 
He snatched a hammer from a nearby table and brought it down on The
Creature's head.  Thud!  Again and again he beat the thing down, pounding
it into submission.  The Creature finally collapsed, sliding down
Frankenstein's legs, curling up like a fetus, twitching and jerking in
its own afterbirth.  And then...silence.
     It was a ghastly tableau.  Frankenstein stood in the middle of his
ruined lab with his creation moaning and twitching at his feet in a dying
heap.  A flash of lightning silently bathed the room, jerking wild
shadows across the walls.  
     Frankenstein stepped over The Creature.  Dazed, he dropped the
hammer, sending it clattering to the floor.  He stopped to jot a final
entry:  
     There are massive birth defects in my creation.  As a result, he is
dysfunctional and vile.  I have, with deep regrets, chosen to abort. 
     He walked stiffly away, disappearing into the bedroom.
   
*********************************** 

     Frankenstein staggered to the canopied bed, his feelings way beyond
exhaustion, collapsing face-down into oblivion, weeping.  His sleep
period dragged on into the wee centons.  Rain pattered desolately on the
roof. He found himself  wrestling with troubled dreams about his failed
experiment. 
     Slowly, the bedroom door creaked open, throwing a twisted spill of
light into the room.  A shadow appeared.  Entering, shambling and gliding
across the floor in a silent and furtive manner.  It crept toward the
bed, toward the sleeping Frankenstein, who seemed  blissfully unaware of
the shadow falling across his face.
     But he wasn't unaware.  His eyes flew open, followed by an intake of
breath.  Fright paralyzed him.  He sensed the presence and felt the
shadow.  He worked himself up to...something.  Perhaps a scream.  He
couldn't stand it any longer.  He thrust out his arm, jerking the
curtains of the bed aside...
     ...to find The Creature standing before him, looming like a specter
of death, naked and beseeching.  His dull yellow eyes struggled to
understand the world he'd been brought into.  Frankenstein lurched from
the bed, sending a nightstand and vase crashing to the floor.  The
Creature circled, seeking him out, threatening to cut off his path to the
door.  "Stay away!" he yelled.
     He darted past the thing, careening out into the lab. The Creature
whipped around, unsteady for a moment, then he followed him with
surprising speed.

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

     Frankenstein raced through the lab with The Creature hobbling behind
him, trying to catch up.  He hurtled lab equipment, tipping shelves in
its path, anything to slow it down.
     He ripped the door open and lunged through, slamming it in The
Creature's face.  The Creature pressed against the wood with pathetic
little moans, begging not to be left alone.
     The Creature sank to the floor.  Abandoned, shivering with cold.  He
saw Frankenstein's greatcoat where it fell, grabbed it, dragged it over
and then shrouded his naked body with it.

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

     Frankenstein raced into the downpour, soaked to the skin in seconds,
his mind racing.  He needed a plan.  He pressed on.

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

     Frankenstein appeared at the window of an abandoned cutlery shop
somewhere in town.  There was an array of gleaming swords lying in their
velvety display.  He hurled a brick through the glass, then snatched up
one of the swords.

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

     Frankenstein careened in from the storm, drenched, racing up the
stairs, sword glittering in his grasp.  He reached the top of the stairs,
only to discover the door had been torn off its hinges.  He entered the
garret, stunned.  The thing was gone!

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

     Frankenstein raced back into the storm, searching, slogging grimly
on.  Lashed by the wind and rain, mocked by the lightning, he vowed he
would never give up.  Not until he found the unholy thing and took back
the life he so foolishly gave it.  He dwindled from view, vanishing into
the gale.
 

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

     Dawn, gray and drizzly, broke over an alleyway  in one of Helium's
wards.  There were heaps of wet garbage there, rats crawling all over it. 
There was shifting, heaving motion in the refuse heap.  The vermin
scattered as the waking Creature peered at the world from beneath the
greatcoat like a frightened child peering from under a blanket.  He was
lost and confused.  
     He scrabbled through the garbage for something to eat.  Finding a
rotten mushie, he chewed it anxiously, ravenously.  
     Two feral daggits appeared.  These grizzled denizens of the city's
gutters and back-alleys peered at him with insolent eyes, watching him
eat while they assessed his potential as a threat.  
     The Creature stares ingenuously back at them not knowing he was
supposed to be afraid.  
     The lead daggit curled his lips back with a guttural snarl.  The
Creature drew back sharply with a fearful moan.  That was a mistake.  It
set the daggits on him, snarling, snapping and tearing the food from his
hands.  The daggits darted away, growling and fighting over the rotten
mushie.  
     The Creature was left whimpering and shaken.  He pushed to his feet
and hurried in the opposite direction, his legs bare and pale beneath the
swirling greatcoat.  He clutched his collar against the cold.  
     Clang!  Clang!  "Bring out your deeeead!" 
     The clanging and the voice aroused The Creature's curiosity so he
went to investigate.
     "Bring out your deeeeaad!"
     It was the voice of a death cart driver, pushing his corpse-laden
cart slowly past the mouth of the alley, ringing his bell all the while. 
It made no sense to the Creature, but at least it was a sign of human
life.  He pressed on.

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

     The hulking figure of The Creature emerged into Helium's main square
where a fair amount of activity was going on.  People were still leaving
the city, although the earlier flood had thinned. Some citizens were
still trying to go about their normal lives.  Vendors, for example, were
calling out, selling food. 
     The Creature moved through the square, unnoticed, just another
figure mingling with the flow.  People were trudging along, their eyes
downcast, their miseries too great for them to pay much attention to what
was taking place around them.  
     He paused, sniffing the air.  An aroma drew him to a vendor's stand
where loaves of bread were laid out.  He hunched down to smell one then
picked it up and bit off a chunk.  Chewing.  Mmmmmm! Delicious!  He took
a bigger bite, then snatched up more bread.
     His ecstasy was interrupted by a shrill woman's voice: "Hey you! 
What do you think you're doing?"
     The Creature glanced up.  The vendor's wife was within arm's reach,
the breath catching in her throat at the sight of him.  Her mouth gaped. 
She was just too stunned to scream.
     Terrified that the woman was going to take them away, The Creature
cradled the loaves to his chest.  Remembering his recent experience with
the dogs, he decided to try out the lesson he'd learned back in the
alley.  Curling his lips back, he snarled at her.
     He was rewarded with a piercing shriek.  The Creature jumped back,
startled.  It wasn't the effect he desired.  The woman went on screaming
like she'd do so for the rest of her life.  He turned to run away...
     ...and plowed right into a stream of refugees.  The collision sent
him sprawling, scraping his knees bloody.  Fortunately, he was still
clutching his loaves.  
     Confusion reigned.  People converged angrily.  A rough-looking man
grabbed his hair and jerked him upright, yelling: "Stupid bastard!"
     And The Creature staggered to his feet before them, whimpering to
protect his food, showing his face to all around him.  Screams and panic
erupted around him.  The Creature whipped around, seeing horrified faces
all around him.
     "He's the hemmoragia!" a woman yelled.  "It's him what's been
spreadin' the bloody plague!"
     The faces degenerated into an angry mob, all of their eyes now
reeking of sheer hatred.  Someone hit him in the face with a heavy stick,
spinning him to the ground, his precious loaves of bread scattering. 
They surrounded him, hitting, flailing, throwing stones.  He tried to
crawl, whimpering for them to stop.
     The vendor's wife was yelling: "Burn him!  Burn him!"
     The Creature found himself hoisted into the air, falling back onto a
sea of hands, kicking and screaming as the mob swept him across the
square like some pagan sacrifice.  He was tossed onto the hard
cobblestone in a thrashing heap, scrambling to his knees as the crowd
surrounded him. He wailed with terror, long inhuman howls of fear.  Men
started flinging lamp oil, spattering and blinding him with it.  Someone
lit a torch and swung it at him.  He felt the vile caress of the heat as
it passed.
     The Creature lunged to his feet, panic and terror ruling him.  He
bulldozed through the crowd to get away from the torch, bowling people
over, scattering them in all directions.  He broke free, hobbling wildly
across the square, his greatcoat billowing.  The mob streamed after him,
thirsty for his blood, hurling rocks and sticks.

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

     The Creature wept as he ran.  Blood ran like water from his many
cuts and bruises.  He turned a corner, collapsing against a wall to catch
his breath.  He could hear them coming, shouting.  They'd be here any
micron now.
     There was a death cart next to him, heaped with bodies.  Salvation
at last!  He hurled himself up on the cart to conceal himself among the
putrefying corpses.  The crowd streamed past the mouth of the alley.  The
death cart workers appeared, heaving yet another corpse onto the cart,
gaping fearfully at the confusion.  They scrambled into their seats and
snapped the reins.  The cart rattles off, its one living passenger safely
hidden away among the grisly pile.
 
*********************************** 

     Death carts and devastation were a common sight just about
everywhere in Helium.  This part of town had been hit especially hard. 
Bodies were either heaped in gutters or stacked along the walls.  Those
fortunate enough to still be alive were huddled in doorways, quaking with
sickness and pestilence.  The cart workers moved among them, their faces
shrouded with kerchiefs and valcron masks.  
     Worker #1 moved down a row of the sick and dead, shaking them to see
which is which, his face hidden behind heavy valcron.  He paused.  There
was someone lying unconscious lying against the wall.  The sleeping man
was pale and covered with filth, shaking with fever.  The worker's eyes
widened.  Stunned, he called over his shoulder: "Over here!" 
     Worker #2 hurried over.  He stared down at the pitiful figure, his
eyes also widening. "Oh, Lords of Kobol!" he wailed in obvious
recognition of the identity of the feverish man.
     Worker #1 ripped his mask away, revealing himself to be none other
than Clerval.  He leaned down and grabbed Frankenstein, trying to rouse
him.
     "Frankenstein!  Wake up!"
     Worker #2 also swept his mask aside.  He was Professor Krempe. 
"Don't dawdle, lad!" he commanded.  "Let's get him to the sick cart! 
Lift on three!  One...two...three!"
     They hoisted Frankenstein off the ground by his arms and legs and
carried him into the street. Frankenstein roused, feeling himself being
carried.  He saw the death cart looming ahead, stacked with heaps of
reeking dead.  Their sightless eyes stared at him.  They seemed to say,
"We're waiting for you."
     Frankenstein became delirious, struggling violently against those
who sought to help him.  "No...no...I'm not dead...please...Don't put me
on the cart!  I'm not dead!  I'm not dead!  I'm...not...dead!"
     They carried him, kicking and screaming past the death cart and on
across the square.

*********************************** 
 
     A death cart rattled past the mass funeral pyre outside Helium's
city walls.  The dead were about to be burned en masse.  Fires were
already burning, sending smoke drifting by.  Those clouds were so thick
they obscured the sky.  Soot drifted like black snow.  Bodies were dumped
into a slit-trench, rolling and tumbling in heaps.  Barrels were kicked
over.  Streams of oil came pouring down, splashing and soaking every
corpse they touched.  
     One of the corpses moved, heaving the others aside.  The Creature
gazed around, terrified once again at the smell of oil.  He knew what it
meant.  He pushed free, clambering over bodies, desperately trying to
scramble from the trench, loose soil crumbling under his fingertips even
as the workers prepared to light the blaze.


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

     A man turned toward the trench with a burning torch.  Suddenly, The
Creature erupted from the trench of dead bodies right before his eyes. 
He screamed.  The Creature screamed even louder, cowering back.  The man
hurled the torch.  The Creature ducked as it went spinning over his head
into the trench.
     Wa-Booom!  A massive wall of flame punched skyward.  The Creature
whirled, stunned at the searing heat, throwing his arms up in horror.  He
fled, scattering the workers as he went, running from this ghastly place
of flames and death.
 
*********************************** 

     The Creature came blundering into the great plaque-bark forest
located almost 45 microns outside of Helium.  He was on the move but he
knew not where.  All he knew was that he was away from that angry mob of
people.  
     He arrived at a pond.  Water!  In an effort to quench his thirst, he
scrambled to the water's edge, lapping it up with his hands.  He paused,
noticing his broken reflection.  The water settled and his face came
cleanly into view.  He threw up his hands and shrieked, terrified at his
own reflection...until he realized it was him down there.  He stirred the
water with his fingertips just to make sure, then reached up, touching
his face, becoming utterly horrified at the sight of it...
     ... and then utterly heartbroken.  He dropped his face into his hand
and wept helplessly. 
     In the distance, daggits were barking.  The Creature looked up,
thinking they were after him.  He moaned in grief, then pushed to his
feet.
     Faster and faster he ran through the plaque-bark trees, taking
flight from the world he'd been born into.  Crashing through branches. 
Gasping for breath but not daring to stop and take one.
     As the barking drew closer, he hurled himself into a thicket,
scrambling to hide himself, covering himself with dead leaves.  
     Panic.  Exhaustion.  Mortal terror.
     He flinched as something came crashing through the nearby brush. 
The furry legs of a leaper came into his view.  The animal was staggering
and falling.  Thrashing down into a cushion of dead leaves.  Two arrows
protruded from her heaving side.
     A tiny leaper fawn stumbled afterward on ungainly legs, its
triangular, three-lipped mouth open,  frothing with exhaustion and
terror.  It was waiting for its mother to rise, but instead her thrashing
grew weaker.  She was dying.
     The Creature moaned at the sight. The fawn turned, all three of its
eyes meeting his gaze. Feeling a rush of empathy, The Creature reached
out.  The fawn took a few hesitant steps toward him. The barking drew
closer.  There were hunters shouting.  The Creature's fingertips made
contact with the fawn-then, suddenly, he was forced to withdraw them.
     A pack of the biggest, nastiest heavy-furred daggits ever seen on
Hanover threw themselves onto the leaper, savaging her like whirling
dervishes.  The Creature let out a shriek, snatching up the fawn as he
lunged to his feet, crashing through the foilage with the fawn cradled to
his chest.  The daggits took off after him.
     He ran full-tilt, shrieking in terror all the way, desperate to save
the fawn, while trying to save himself.  The daggits were snapping at his
heels, trying to sever his hamstrings and bring him down.  He heard
rushing water ahead, then crashed headlong through a thicket.

*********************************** 
  
     The Creature sailed screaming into empty space, twisting and
spinning as he fell, plummeting head-first into the rapids.  Fortunately,
the daggits were left behind.
     He got swept along, gasping and chocking, caroming off huge
boulders, the fawn still clutched protectively to his chest.
     Finally the water started to settle.  He managed to lash out and
secure a handhold. He pulled himself up, clambering over the rocks and
staggering onto firm soil. He collapsed to his knees, dripping water and
heaving for breath.  He lowered the fawn away from his chest, joyous at
their escape ... only to realize the small animal was limp and lifeless
in his hands. He'd crushed it to death trying to save it. He laid it
down, moaning, trying to understand. 

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

     Dusk.  Galan rose high in the sky, shining down on a solitary figure
in a greatcoat trudging across the sodden countryside under the darkening
sky.  Cold.  Hungry.  Wet.  Tired.
     The Creature paused, hearing faint music drifting on the breeze: the
hauntingly eerie sound of panpipes.  He slogged to the crest of a ridge.
There was a small house in the valley below, a peasant dwelling.  Smoke
drifted from the chimney.  This very house was the source of that lovely
music.
     He proceeded down the ridge, drawn by the music and the promise of
warmth.

*********************************** 
 
     At daybreak, The Creature approached cautiously, furtively.  He
eased to a window and caught a glimpse inside, drawing himself  back to
listen.  The tune ended abruptly, to be replaced by the pleasant murmur
of voices.  Footsteps came clumping across the floor.  The Creature
reeled back and dove around the side of the house as the door unlatched
and swung open, a man exiting.  He managed to catch the name of the man:
Helix, a poor man who was trying to scratch an honest living from the
soil.  He headed in the same direction as The Creature, walking around
the corner of the house just as The Creature scrambled from view behind
the clucklebird coops.  The Creature watched through the wire and wood as
Helix approached and stopped, only his legs visible.  Feed was scattered
through the wire.  Fearing discovery, The creature fled the clucklebird
coops, only to find himself in the company of two-headed warguses.  The
animals shrieked and squealed in alarm.
     He could hear Helix's voice from outside the wargus-sty.  "Yes, yes. 
I'm coming."
     The Creature scurried further back into the shadows as Helix's feet
stopped  just outside. A pail was upended. Gloobstob, the favorite meal
of warguses, poured into the trough.  Helix walked away.  The warguses
scurried to eat. The Creature leaned forward intently.  Was this food?
     He crawled to the trough and squeezed in among the warguses.  They
jostled, but he jostled right back, wanting his fair share. He lapped up
the gloobstob with his fingers, dribbling it down his chin.  No, it
wasn't much on taste, but at least it was edible.
     He stopped, hearing the panpipe music again then turned in the
direction of the sound.  He followed it, crawling back into the darkest
recesses where the sty adjoined the main wall of the house.  He placed
his eye to a chink between the logs, where he could see the head of the
household, Grandfather, playing the panpipes near a fireplace of glowing
embers.  He shifted for another view, watching the family prepare the
table for dinner.  Helix and his wife, Boiotia, were helped by their
children, Hyllos ,age 6 yahrens,  and Hecuba, age 8 yahrens.
     "Bring Grandfather to the table," Boiotia commanded.
     The old man ceased his playing as the children scurried over.  As
Boiotia helped him to his feet, Hyllos tossed another log on the fire,
blazing all the fire and sparks up.  In the wargus-sty, The Creature drew
back with a fearful moan.

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

     Nobody could hear the weird moan but Grandfather.  He paused to gaze
blindly toward the wall, his eyes milky with cataracts, wondering what it
might have been.  Ah, well.  It was probably nothing, he thought.  He let
the children lead him toward the dinner table where the meal was being
brought from the stove and ladled out.
     The Creature eased back to the chink in the wall, smelling the meal
from there.  A string of drool spilled from his mouth.  It was humble
fare, not very appetizing, but it looked like a feast compared to
gloobstob.
 
*********************************** 
 
     Frankenstein lay sleeping in his bedroom, wrestling with troubled
dreams as usual.  In an eerie echo of before, the door creaked open in a
spill of light.  A shadow entered, crept to the bed, fell across his
face.  Frankenstein's eyes flew open.  He tried to leap out of bed,
choking on a scream...and Clerval wrestled him back to the pillow to feel
his clammy forehead.
     "Thank the gods your fever broke," he said offering him water. 
"Slowly, now.  Just a sip." Frankenstein took a sip of the refreshing
liquid, falling back into the bed.  "I've been worried we might lose you. 
It's been touch-and-go for a secton."
     Frankenstein was shocked.  "A...secton?"
     Clerval nodded.  "We feared hemmoragia.  It turned out to be
Pnuemobacteriosa, brought on by nervous exhaustion and some idiot running
around in a storm."
     "Is that your official diagnosis?" asked Frankenstein.
     "Mine and Professor Krempe's.  We've been trading off nursing you in
shifts.  The rest of time we're out working with the hemmoragia victims. 
It's his turn for that just now."
     "You've been going round-the-clock?
     "We catch a few centons sleep where can.  Usually here at your
bedside."
     Frankenstein was deeply moved.  "Everything in moderation, Clerval."
     "Nothing in moderation, Frankenstein."  
     Frankenstein took Clerval's hand and squeezed it.  "It's the
down-and-outs I pity most," he continued.  "Those who can't fend for
themselves.  They'll be dead by the thousands before this is done.  They
don't stand a chance out there."
     Frankenstein thought about his creation for a half-micron. 
Down-and-out?  Unable to fend for themselves?  The Creature certainly did
meet that criterion.  "No.  They don't," he said.
     Clerval looked around, astonishment evident in his face. 
"Frankenstein, this place looked like a charnel house.  What went on
here?"
     Frankenstein paused, too emotional to respond to the question. 
Instead, he said softly:  "I want to go home."
     Clerval accepted this, though he didn't like it.  "It'll be sectons
before you're well enough.  In the meantime, I'm sure your family must be
frantic not hearing from you."   He grabbed a stack of letters from the
nightstand.  "I found these.  Some of the postmarks go back nine
sectars." He slapped them on the bed.  "Why don't you open them? And when
you've the strength, have the decency to ease their minds with a reply.
Soon as the city ends quarantine, I'll even mail it for you. Along with
this."  He raised the locked in front of Frankenstein's face.  "It's a
beautiful gift but it does her no good lying here."
     Clerval left him alone to wrestle with his guilt.  Frankenstein
found himself swept away with emotion and remorse.  He closed his eyes
and softly said, "It can't survive."

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

     The Creature and the warguses were sleeping in a heap.  He roused a
centon later, scattering them while he crawled to the slats of the sty. 
Helix was returning wearily from the fields with a large basket on his
back.  The Creature moved to his chink in the wall to see him enter the
house and dump the basket out for Boiotia.  It was a pathetic array of
green-skinned patatas and little red rapanikis.
     "It's not much to look at and even less to eat." Helix sighed.  "I
don't know how we're going to get through the winter with a yield as
pitiful as this."
     "I do.  We'll sell another wargus at market," Boiotia said.
     "Unfortunately, that's one less for us."
     "We'll make do.  We always have."
     Helix sank into a chair, worry weighing heavily on him.  She moved
to comfort him, cradling his head to her breast.  He returned her
embrace, using it as a source of strength.  It was a tender, gentle
moment for the two of them.  The Creature watched, puzzled and empathic,
deeply moved by her sympathy.  Helix gathered himself, wiping his eyes. 
"I'll see if I can scratch a few more out of the ground," he said.
     He hoisted the basket and exited.  The Creature turned to watch
Helix trudge back toward the fields.

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

     Helix began digging for patatas, tilling the soil as he went.  This
was back-breaking work, even with Hyllos providing what help he could. 
Some distance away, Hecuba and Grandfather were tending the bovine.  All
the while, The Creature observed their activities from the safety of some
brambles.
 
*********************************** 

     Night fell, and The Creature was back in the wargus-sty, watching as
the family ate their supper of patatas and rapanikis.  Suddenly, there
was a glimmer of understanding in his eyes.

*********************************** 
     A long shadow loomed toward the dwelling, circling the house, then
approaching the shed, source of the family's baskets and tools.  
 
*********************************** 

     As the great moon Galan provided his light, The Creature worked
feverishly, hacking away at the soil and tilling the earth.

*********************************** 
 
     At dawn, The Creature stirred, hearing movement within the house. He
scurried to the slats of the sty and peered out.  All the baskets from
the tool shed were stacked to overflowing before the door.
     The door opened.  Helix stepped out and tripped on a basket,
sprawling to the ground in a torrent of patatas and rapanikis.  "Great
Lords of Kobol, what is this?" he muttered as he sat up, gazing in
wonder.

*********************************** 
 
     A sliver of warm light spilled through the chink in the wall.  The
Creature's eyes, unseen by the family, filled the chink.  He watched
them, busily munching a raw patata.  
     A wargus came to his elbow, one of its heads snuffling, lusting
after the patata.  He shoved the head away.  Go find your own.  
     Inside, the family was enjoying a much more generous meal than the
last one. 
     "I wish we could thank our benefactor," said Grandfather.
     "I'm sorry but I don't share your joy," Helix said.  "There are too
many unanswered questions here: Who?  Why? How many  cubits will he
charge us for his services?  That is, if he ever shows himself."
     Hecuba's face came aglow with youthful enthusiasm.  "It's the Good
Spirit of the forest."
     Helix became indignant.  "What kind of felgercarb is that?"
     "Never mind son.  It does no harm," Grandfather admonished.
     Helix peered at him.  "Oh, I see."
     "Is it, Papa?" Hyllos asked.  " Is it the Good Spirit?"
     Helix and Boiotia exchanged a look.  He wasn't as amused as she was,
but he let it go.  She smiled at the children.  "Of course it is.  Now
finish your food before it gets cold."
 
*********************************** 

     Grandfather sat in front of the pond playing his panpipes.  The
family bovine was grazing some distance away.  The Creature crept into
view, listening to the music. Grandfather sensed his presence and turned.
     "Who's there?  Helix?  Children?"  
     No response.  He turned back, unsettled.  He resumed his playing,
hoping it would calm his aged nerves.
 
*********************************** 

     From his little spot in the sty, The Creature watched Boiotia
instruct the children in their letters.  A half dozen words were written
in chalk on a slate board.  Hecuba was trying to puzzle one out.
     "...ff...reh...nn...d.  Friend?  Friend."
     Boiotia beamed with delight.  "Good!  And now the next."
     The Creature mimicked the effort.  "...freh...nnn...nd.  Freehhnnd." 
Success!  What a delight it was for him to say his first word.

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

     Helix chopped lengths of plaque-wood.  The task left him extremely
dulled.  The children helped him by stacking the plaque-wood on the
litter.  
     At dusk, Helix and the children walked home, the family bovine
following behind them, dragging the litter of wood.
     Upon arrival at the house, Helix stacked the last pile of wood under
the eaves.  Boiotia met him at the door and took his hands.  
     "Your hands are bleeding again.  Come in.  I'll rub liniment on
them."
     They went inside, Boiotia closing the door after them.  Eyes peered
out of the wargus-sty, taking in the whole scene. 

*********************************** 
 
     The Creature walked along in the woods, popping a rapaniki into his
mouth, axe slung over his shoulder muttering:
"...brread...motherrr...frriend..." He stopped and gazed up: "Treeeeee."
 
*********************************** 

     The next day, the walls around the house were stacked impossibly
high with cords of plaque-wood.  Helix and Boiotia  gazed out the door,
stunned.  "What is going on here?" he cried.

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

     Snow was drifting outside the tall dormer window.  Frankenstein was
at his desk, reading a letter:  
     "... but it's been so long since I've heard from you. Remember the
vow we took the night you left? 'You must be honest with me if your
feelings have changed. Answer for the sake of our friendship, and both
our future happiness.'" Frankenstein paused.  
     Clerval had been listening.  "She wrote that four sectars ago.  A
woman like that is far too rare to be taken lightly.
     Frankenstein pondered the letter.  He laid it next to the locket,
pulled out a sheet of paper and quill and began to write.

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

     The Creature observed another lesson from his wargus-sty.  Six more
words were chalked on the board.  Hyllos was struggling with the first:
Aa...vvv...vi...vion.  Avion."
     The Creature repeated him: "Aa...vvvvi...on."
     "Good," said Boiotia.  "And the next?"
     Hyllos: "Fl...oww
     The Creature: "Floww..."
     And then, amazingly, he finished the word before Hyllos did:
"...wwer.  Flower."
     Hyllos: "..wer.  Flower?"
     "Very good!  Now Hecuba, you try the next one."
     But the Creature beat Hecuba to the punch: "Bowwww...kay.  Boquet."
     Hyllos looked toward the window, his face abeam with delight. 
"Boiotia! Look!  It's snowing!"
     The children crowded to the window. The Creature turned to peer
through the slats.  White flakes drifted magically down.  The door flew
open and the children poured out.  The adults appeared in the doorway.
     Boiotia yelled after them.  "Hecuba!  Hyllos!  You'll catch your
death!"
     Grandfather held up his hand to silence Boiotia.  "Let them play. 
There's plenty of plaque-wood for the fire."
     Helix shot her a look.  "You can say that again."
     Before she could react, he grabbed her by the waist and dragged her
shrieking out into the snow.  Soon, the whole family was embroiled in a
wild snowball fight, with screams and laughter abounding.
     The Creature watched his adopted family cavorting in the snow,
having the time of their lives.  His face softly lit up with a smile. 
"It's snnnowwwing," he said.

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

     The bright rays of Helios sparkled off a fresh carpet of snow. 
Helix and the children were heading out the door, their spirits high. 
Helix had his axe and a coil of rope slung over his shoulder.
     All the way to the woods, Helix and the children were laughing and
joking, the kids playful and giggling.  The Creature shadowed them,
looming and darting among the trees, along for the excursion, himself as
happy as a child.
     Hyllos and Hecuba hurled themselves to the ground, thrashing their
arms and legs in the snow.  They jumped to their feet and hurried to
catch up with Helix.  The Creature peered out, amazed to see two
snow-angels in the powder at his feet.  Up ahead, Hecuba pointed to a
6-metron tall fur-fuzz tree.  "That one!" she cried out in joy.  "It's
the most beautiful tree I've ever seen!"  With that, Helix shrugged off
his coil of rope and began chopping.

*********************************** 
 
     The Creature gazed through his usual chink in the wall, his face lit
up with childlike wonder at the tree, which by now had become a dazzling
vision of ornaments and light.  Because of this tree, the house was
filled with joy and laughter.  Grandfather played his panpipes by a
roaring fire.  "Most beautiful...tree..." The Creature said.
     The kids went dashing across the room.  The Creature shifted to the
slats as the door opened, throwing out a spill of warm light.  The
children set something out in the snow.  Hecuba called out into the
darkness: "Happy Life Day!"
     The door closed.  The Creature crept from his sty, scurrying closer
to investigate.  He found a covered plate topped with a glittering silver
flower as a decoration.  The slate board is jammed in the snow.  On it
was chalked a child's rendering of a glowing angel and a message that The
Creature read out loud: "We...giiive...this giiift...to honnnnorrr...
the...Goood Spirrit...of the... Forrrrest."
     He snatched up the plate, scurried around the side of the house, and
hunkered down near the tool shed with his prize.  He plucked the silver
flower, enchanted by it, then tucked it gingerly into an inner coat
pocket. He uncovered the plate to reveal a wonderful array of Life Day 
cookies, pastry treats  and mushies.  Of course, he didn't really know
what they were, but they didn't smell half bad.  He picked one up and bit
into it, then paused, stunned, eyes going wide as saucers.  A whine built
up in his throat.  He started huffing air as he chewed, mouth gaping, his
mind off on a whirlwind tour of the universe.  Patatas and Rapanikis? 
Forget them!
     The next morning, the children raced out the door to find the plate
empty...and a big-snow angel waiting for them in the yard.

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

     The Creature watched the family clustered around the fire.  It was
the children's instructional period, but one of a different sort.  A
stellar geography  lesson, apparently.  
     "Hecuba, can you name the planets of the Twelve Colonies of Mankind
for me?"asked Boiotia.
     Hecuba did so eagerly: "Aeries, Aquaria, Cancera, Caprica, Gemini,
Leo, Libra, Piscon, Sagitara, Scorpia, Taura and Virgon."
     "Very good!" said Boiotia.  "Now, are there any questions?"
     Hecuba: "Aren't there any more planets with humans living on them?"
     "Certainly.  There are thousands of planets like this one with 
little colonies of humans living on them.  They're so far away from each
other that it takes visits from big vehicles called spaceships to help
them keep in touch."
     It was Hyllos's turn to be curious now.  "You said there are twelve
colonies.  Isn't there a thirteenth?"
     "As a matter of fact, there is," Boiotia replied.  "It's name is
Earth."
     "Earth?  Where's that?" Hecuba asked.
     Boiotia wrestled with this question for a mili-centon.  "Well...no
one really knows for sure, Hecuba.  For one thing, no one has ever seen
it.  And there are some people who say it's only a legend."
     Hyllos: "Is anybody trying to find it?"
     The lesson at this point was starting to become too much for
Boiotia.  "I-I don't know.  Maybe."  She paused, reached over to a nearby
bookcase and withdrew a little book from one of the shelves.  It was a
hardbound volume with words stenciled in gold on the cover: The Book of
the Word. "Tell you what," she said.  "This is the book of our faith. 
Read it.  It'll tell you all about Earth." 
     Earth?  Twelve Colonies?  Planets? Spaceships?  The Creature had
trouble grasping these concepts.  A more difficult concept for him to
grasp, however, was that of a book.  He leaned back into the shadows and
reached into the pocket of the greatcoat and pulled out what had been
there all along: Frankenstein's journal.  So that's what a book is.  He
unwound the thong and riffled the pages.  He picked one up by the corner,
turning his head this way and that, slowly reading aloud:  
     " 'Myyyy Darrllinng Frrrraaaan...ken...stein...Willeee haaad hisss
burrrth-dayyy.  I wishhh...yoooo cuuud huvv beeeen...heeere...to sharrre
ut...withh...usssss.'"

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

     Grandfather sat playing his panpipes.  Once again, The Creature
approached to listen.  Grandfather stopped and turned.
     "I know you're there," he said, waiting for a response.  "Won't you
speak to me?"
     The Creature studied Grandfather for a time. The old man waited a
few microns then finally started to play again.  The Creature found a
spot to listen.  He opened Frankenstein's journal and puzzled over it.

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

     "'... of sscience ... and to c-create ... a beinng ... in the image
of man ... assembled ffrrom ...the...dead bodieess I have ... gatherrred
..."
     He turned the page and discovered his own rough likeness:
Frankenstein's sketch of his patchwork man.  The rendering included
suture marks where the pieces were joined. 
     The Creature gazed for a long time.  His finger traced the penciled
suture-line where one of the arms joined the torso.  His eyes widened as
revelation slowly dawned.  No!  It can't be!  It's too horrible to
conceive!
     And he dropped the journal, clawing at his coat in a surge of panic,
wrenching it away to reveal his arm.  Yes, it had massive suture scars
joining his shoulder to his torso-just like in the drawing!  He threw his
head back in an animalistic primal scream, his face twisted in a mask of
utter horror.

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

     The Creature's scream echoed across the countryside, startling
Helix, forcing him to turn from chopping wood.  His family gathered, eyes
wide, listening to the sound trail off.  "Gods in heaven!" he muttered.
 
*********************************** 

     His massive hand ripped the page from the journal and raised it in a
clenched fist.  The Creature huddled in a corner of the wargus-sty,
dropping his head into his arms to hide his face. Sunlight threw streaks
of light and shadow through the slats.  He sobbed, wracked with despair. 

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

     As the house faded into the distance, Helix and his family headed
out across the fields, now sparse with snow, herding the bovine.  Only
Grandfather was staying home.
     The gentle sounds of his panpipe music drifted up from the house. 
The Creature hunkered on a hill, watching.  Waiting.  The figures of the
family dwindled in the distance.

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

     For the first time, The Creature was able to see the inside of the
house from a perspective other than through the chink in the wall.  There
was Grandfather by the fire, playing his recorder.
     The Creature's face appeared at a window, peering in.  He ducked
from view, then appeared at another window.  He wanted to make sure the
house was otherwise empty.  
     Again he vanished.  The door swung silently open, his figure filling
the doorway.  Grandfather's playing ceased, thereby plunging the room
into silence.  
     "Welcome to my home, friend.  Would you like to sit by the fire?"
     The Creature entered and sat down.  He held his hands toward the
embers, drinking in their warmth.  "Nice," he said.
     "The music?  Or the Fire?"  
    Grandfather offered him the panpipes. The Creature hesitated, took
it, ignorant of the angelic delicacy needed for a thing like music.  He
put it up to his misshapen lips and blew a few hollow tones.  He gave it
back, huffing air, delighted.
     "I'm glad you finally came to the door," Grandfather said.  "A man
shouldn't have to scurry in the shadows."
     The Creature's smile faded.  "Better that way...for me."
     "Why?"
     "I'm...very, very ugly.  People are afraid.  Except you."
     Grandfather smiled.  "Oh, there, there.  It can't be as bad as
that."
     "Worse."
     The old man reached for his face. The Creature drew back.  "I can
see you with my hands," Grandfather said.  "I only require that you trust
me."
     The Creature decided to trust him.  He eased forward. Grandfather
ran his fingers over his features.  "You're an outcast," he concluded.
     "Yes.  I have been seeking my friends."
     "Friends?  Do they live around here?"
     "Yes.  Very close."
     "Why do you not go to them?"
     The Creature felt his emotions swirling.  There was a pause in his
speech due to a growing reluctance to unburden himself to Grandfather. 
"I have been...afraid.  Afraid...they will hate me...because I am so very
ugly...and they are so very beautiful."
     "You might be surprised at how kind people can be."
     "I am afraid."
     Grandfather reached out and took The Creature's hands.  "Perhaps I
can help. Tell me who your friends are."
     The Creature began  huffing air, the breath hitching in his chest
like a panicking child. His monstrous eyes welled up with tears.  It was
a struggle for him merely to get the words out.  "I love them...so very
much.  I want...I want...them to be my ff-family.  I II- I love them
ss-so very mm-mm-mmuch." The Creature paused, trying to get the words
out. 
     Just then, the door burst open.  The Creature whipped his head
around.  There stood Boiotia, here eyes going wide.  The breath caught in
her throat and she let out an ear-splitting shriek!  The Creature threw
himself on the old man's lap.  "Don't let them hate me!" he pleaded.
     Helix burst in, shoving Boiotia aside, all hades breaking loose in
screaming, hollering chaos.  Boiotia tried to get the children out of the
way.  Helix threw himself on The Creature to rip him off the old man. 
The Creature sprawled to the floor as the old man shouted.  The children
shrieked.  Helix snatched up the fireplace poker and swung it down, again
and again, trying to kill the strange man-thing.
     "Stop it!" Grandfather yelled in The Creature's defense.  "He means
us no harm!  Stop it, I say!"
     The Creature screamed.  The blows sent him writhing across the floor
in agony, the children scattering from his pleading hands.  Unable to
stand it anymore, The Creature rolled from under the brutal beating and
sailed out the door.
     He ran, bleeding and sobbing, a specter sailing among the trees with
his greatcoat billowing like huge dark wing, running from the horrified
screams of rejection still echoing in his mind.  
     At length, he came to a dead stop amid a snowscape surrounded by
stark trees.  A figure in a greatcoat, head bowed with misery, leaning
against a tree.  He tried to catch his breath but he couldn't; he was
crying to hard.  He sank to his knees, hands clutched bitterly to his
heaving chest, wishing the anguish would stop his heart in mid-beat.
     Suddenly-a realization.  He pulled the little silver flower from the
inside pocket.  It lay glittering in his huge, misshapen palm like gentle
magic.  Or hope.  Yes.
 
***********************************  
 
     The sky was brewing now.  The Creature ran across the courtyard
toward the house, breathless, holding his palm out.  See?  Here's the
flower you gave me.  Don't you understand?
     "It's me! It's mmmmeeeeee!"
     Nothing.  He glanced around. The warguses were gone.  The
clucklebirds as well.  The Creature's eyes went wide.  He dashed to the
house and burst inside-only to find it empty.  Items were scattered and
left behind.  Books, clothes, even the old man's panpipes.  They'd left
in a hurry.
     "...no."
     Rage consumed him.  Furniture crashed, glass shattered, his
misshapen hands ripped shelves from the walls.  
     Microns later, a faint glow kicked up.  Flames exploded into life,
growing, rising, until they were consuming the house that Helix and his
family once called home.  The Creature exited the burning structure with
a flaming torch, spinning back to watch.  The one good thing to come of
this was the new possessions The Creature had gained: an armload of books
jammed in a satchel, some extra clothes on his body and the old man's
panpipes jammed in his belt.
     A howling wind whipped up, billowing his coat and hair, fanning the
flames even higher.  He raised his torch, howling like a lupus along with
the wind.  The reflected fire seethed in his eyes, exulting as the house
was consumed.

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

     It was daytime on Hanover's most famous mountain, Mount Coronet. 
Massive pale gray feet walked through the snow, a lone, windswept figure
traversing the glacier with a walking staff, struggling toward the crest
of a ridge, his greatcoat billowing in a freezing wind.
     The Creature rose from below the crest and gazed down, glowering
with triumph at achieving his goal--- the valley and lake of Nerys Manor,
the home of his creator.
 
***********************************  

     The rays of the springtime sun streamed through the dormer window of
Frankenstein's garret.  Birds twittered on the ledge outside.  The
plaque-bark trees were in full bloom.  Frankenstein stood dressed and
ready to go, taking one last pensive look around the now-empty garret. 
Clerval came in to inform him that their carriage had arrived.

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

     The city gates of Helium were bustling with activity.  A traffic
snarl was jammed up in both directions due to the people, carriages,
wagons, and  goods that were waiting to get in and out of the city. 
Professor Krempe and his wife were saying their farewells to Frankenstein
and Clerval.  
     "It was such a terrible winter," Krempe's wife said watching the
gates.  "If the blessings of the Lords of Kobol are with us, those gates
will soon be open again."
     "I'll have your things sent on," Krempe said.  "They should arrive
soon after.  Frankenstein nodded in acknowledgement.  "It's been a rough
time, lad.  For us all.  But if you'd like to come back and finish out
your final term once our university re-opens..."
     A roar went up from the crowd.  The gates were finally opening as
the blue-coated constables swung them aside.  The traffic started to
flow.  Frankenstein turned back to Krempe, nodding gratefully.  "Thank
you, Professor.  For everything."  Krempe was flustered as Frankenstein
gave him an awkward hug.  "Please send us an epistle to let us know
you've arrived safely."
     Frankenstein broke the embrace and clambered into the carriage
alongside Clerval.  "Take me home, my friend," he said.
     Clerval signaled the driver.  The reins snapped and the carriage
lurched away, easing into the flow of traffic.

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

     William, now 10 yahrens old, came charging up the steps of Nerys
Manor with a small package under his arm, nearly bowling over Madame
Moritz as he sailed past her hollering his head off.  "He's coming home!"
     William careened into the parlor, where Elizabeth and Justine were
entertaining friends. "Elizabeth!  Justine!"
     Father entered, trailed by the household servitors.  "What's all the
fuss?  Why are you shouting?"
     William shouted out with glee.  "He's coming home!  Tonight!"
     Elizabeth wondered.  "Who?  Frankenstein?"
     "That's what I'm telling you!"
     Elizabeth was swept with relief.  "Thank the gods!"
     Willie thrust the package into her hands, but she hesitated.
     "Well, go on.  Open it," Father urged.
     Willie scrambled to bring her the letter opener.  Elizabeth laid the
package down and slit it open.  Willie peered in.  Elizabeth pulled to
locket out to the admiration of all.  She pressed the catch.  The locket
popped open to reveal Waldman's miniature oil painting.
     William was impressed.  "Wow!  That's Frankenstein!"
     Justine cooed in admiration.  "It's beautiful!  May I?" Elizabeth
handed her the locket.  "He looks so handsome."
     Elizabeth pulled out the letter with apprehension and hope.  She
began to read.  The others watched her, waiting.  Her face lit up,
blinking back tears.  She remembered to breathe.
     "What does it say?" Father asked.
     " 'Let this locket be a token of the vow we took the night I left.' 
He's coming home to marry me!"
     There was instant pandemonium and joy-except from Justine, whose
heart silently broke.  Father and the others roared with approval. 
"Married? The two of you?" Willie jumped and shouted.
     Father was pleased.  "Brilliant!  I knew it!  Ever since you were
children!"
     "That's wonderful," said Justine.  She handed the locket back. 
Unnoticed by the others she slipped quietly from the room and hurried
down the hall, fighting back tears. 
     Back in the parlor, Elizabeth was swept up in congratulatory
conversation.  Willie grabbed the locket, admiring it.  "Elizabeth?  Can
I take this to show Zoor?"
     "Willie, it's not a toy for your friends," Elizabeth admonished.
     "I'll take extra special care, I promise!  Zoor's never seen what
Frankenstein looks like!  He'll admire it enormously!"  Willie's was so
solemn and earnest that Elizabeth had to smile.
     "Very well.  But don't dawdle.  It'll be dark in a few hours."
     The boy took off like a shot. Father threw his arm around Elizabeth,
announcing to all:
     "Join us for ambrosa! My son is coming home!"

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

     Snowgulls scattered as Willie came racing across the grounds.  He
clambered over a low fence, heading into the hectars of wooded acreage
behind the house.  This was his favorite shorcut.

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

     Willie dawdled along as children are known to do, the precious
locket clutched in his hands, admiring it.  He just couldn't get over the
fact that his brother was finally coming home.
     He paused, hearing faint tones carried on the breeze, eerie and
haunting.  A panpipe. Curious, he followed the sound further and further
into the woods, eventually coming into view of the pond.  
     There was a figure sitting half-concealed among the tall reeds,
gazing off across the water and playing the delicate panpipes with
oddly-pleasing dissonance.  
     Willie drew closer, curious.  He didn't want to intrude, but he was
listening to the music.  Yet the figure in the reeds still hadn't taken
notice of him.
     And then his head abruptly whipped around.  He looked like an ogre
right out of a storybook.  Willie's eyes went wide and the locket dropped
from his fingers into the dust.  The boy turned and ran as the monster in
the reeds lunged to its feet.  "Wait!  Don't be afraid!" he pleaded.
     But the boy kept on running.  The Creature came after him, shambling
up from the pond, still calling after him.  He picked up the dropped
object.  As he rose, he found himself staring at the locket.  At the
small painting it contained, the portrait of Frankenstein.  He raised his
gaze after the fleeing boy.  Perhaps Willie was wise to run away from him
after all.
     The Creature started after him with the locket clenched in his fist. 
His teeth were grinding in grater and greater rage.  He now had the wild
eyes of a psychopath.
     Their feet went pounding through the brambles and brush, the
terrified boy and the pursuing monster.  Faster and faster.

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

     The kitchen was awhirl with activity that evening.  It couldn't have
been otherwise with Madame Moritz supervising the kitchen servitors. 
Justine turned with a platter and collided with one of the servitors. 
Lepusescas, the most favored vegetable of the family, went flying
everywhere!
     "Justine!  Pay attention!" Madame Moritz screamed.
     Justine's throat was tight.  "Yes, Mother."
     Elizabeth pulled her aside.  "Are you all right?"
     Justine's throat became even tighter.  "I'm fine."  She rephrased
herself, seeing the genuine concern in Justine's eyes.  "I'll be all
right. Really."
     Father entered the kitchen area with one of the servitors, a
dark-skinned man named Crassus.  Both men were worried.  "Have you seen
Willie?" he asked.
     Elizabeth was suddenly alarmed.  "Is he not back yet?"
     Father nodded no.  "Crassus rode over there to see if he'd lost
track of time.  They say he never arrived."
     "It's far too late for him to still be out."

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

     Elizabeth exited the mansion with the others.  Crassus spoke to
father in a reassuring tone.  "Don't worry, Sire, will find him."
     He rushed to gather the men.  Elizabeth gazed off.  The wind was
kicking up as night fell. It was almost too dark to see anything. 

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

     It was the biggest search for a missing person that had ever taken
place in the countryside.  Everyone who was normally responsible for the
upkeep of Nerys Manor was instead scouring the fields on equine and on
foot, shouting Willie's name.  Elizabeth, also in the fields with them,
cried out her brother's name as well.  "WILLIE!  WILLIE!"
     The search would not be able to continue for too many more centons,
however.  Lightning danced on the horizon, signaling the approach of a
thunderstorm.
     The stark black silhouettes of the tree trunks loomed larger than
life before Justine as she approached them from the fields, her lantern
held high.
     "WILLIE!"
     And one of the "tree trunks" turned out not to be such.  It darted
into the oppressive darkness of the woods with a billow of flapping
greatcoat flapping after it.  Justine entered the woods just as a flash
of lightning sent shadows skittering among the trees.

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

     The storm turned into a raging downpour.  A lone coach clattered
through the driving rain on its way to Nerys Manor.  Frankenstein peered
out the window flap.  
     "There!  Look!"
     Clerval craned his head to look.  A lightning flash stuttered the
mansion briefly to life a few hundred yards down the road.  "Quite a
place."
     "Thank you, Clerval."
     "In Kobol's name, what for?"
     "For this.  My home.  My family.  If not for you, I'd be dead in a
burial pit somewhere."
     Clerval smiled and squeezed his shoulder.  The carriage lurched
violently, tossing them forward.

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

     Frankenstein jumped from the coach as the driver wrestled his
rearing horses under control and pointed.  Frankenstein turned to see
what he was indicating.
     It was Elizabeth.  She was standing in the downpour like a ghost,
drenched to the bones.
     She was weeping from the depths of her soul.  Frankenstein couldn't
understand why.
     Another look at Elizabeth and the reasons became clear to him almost
immediately.  She was holding a boy's body in her arms.  Willie!  His
arms hung limp, his head dangling back.  Frankenstein started forward,
stunned, running faster and faster.  Please, not William, O gods!  Don't
take William!
     "Elizabeth?"
     Others began converging on the scene, dark screaming figures in the
storm.  Frankenstein reached her first as the others crowded around in a
state of panic and confusion, crushing and jostling as she collapsed into
Frankenstein's arms, all of them cradling Willie's lifeless corpse.
     Then, Father was there, shoving his way through, seeing his dead son
and collapsing in the muck with a loud scream that served no purpose
except to trigger more scrambling and screaming.  Suddenly, Clerval
joined in the chaos, shouting for the men to lift him.
 
***********************************  

     All was quiet in Father's bedroom.  Nothing was stirring save for
the soft ticking of a clock.  Clerval tenderly ministered to Father, who
lay gravely ill.

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

     The mood in the parlor should have been one of mirth and merriment
in celebration of Frankenstein's homecoming.  It was not.  There were no
dancers and ambrosa-sippers there, just Elizabeth.  She was sitting with
her elbows crossed, fighting to hold herself together.  Her normally
lovely face was ashen, dazed.  The shock of last night still hadn't worn
off.
     Madame Moritz was nearby, looking much the same, except that her
eyes were swimming with tears.  Truly did misery love company. "Sir, I'm
terrified for my girl."
     Frankenstein fought even more aggressively to hold himself together. 
He had to, especially since he had a pretty good idea of the murderer's
identity.  "We'll organize another search now that it's light enough. 
We'll find her, Madame Moritz, I promise."
     Clerval came downstairs.  He and Frankenstein conferred in whispers,
then approached Elizabeth.  Frankenstein crouched before her.  "What is
Father's outlook?" she asked.
     It was Clerval who answered.  "I am cautiously hopeful.  With quiet
and proper care, he may eventually regain some or most of his strength."
     Frankenstein squeezed her hand for comfort and strength.  "Thank
you, Clerval," she said.
     There was a knocking at the front door.
     Frankenstein opened it.  There were constables, one plainclothesed,
the others wearing the distinctive midnight-blue uniforms of their
service, hovering grim-faced outside.
     "You are Frankenstein?" the plainclothesman asked.
     "I am he."
     "Then, I'm pleased to inform you that we've apprehended the
murderer.  Not five maxims from here, hiding in a barn."
     He wanted it so desperately to be The Creature.  "Who is it?"
     All three constables traded uneasy glances.  
     "It's very unsettling, sir," the second constable said, his black
top hat bobbing atop his head as he spoke.  " And quite strange.  Perhaps
you'd better come with us."

*********************************** 
 
     Frankenstein was led into the constabulary headquarters by the
constables.  The jailer unlocked the cell.  He entered as the men in
uniform departed.  They left him alone, staring at a figure huddled in
the corner, pooled in shadow.  The Creature?  It had to be!  The long,
dangling hair was a dead giveaway.  The figure stirred.
     He thought long and hard about what he would say to The Creature. 
Should he apologize to it for giving it life?  Should he condemn it for
killing William and tell it how much he would look forward to seeing the
horrid thing pay for its crime?  His chain of thought was finally broken
by a female voice.  "Frankenstein."
     His jaw dropped almost all the way to the ground as the figure
leaned into the light.  It was Justine!  Pale, dazed and scared. 
"Frankenstein! It's you! Thank the Lords of Kobol!"
     She rushed to him, throwing herself into his arms.  He reacted
stiffly, not at all sure he wanted her touching him.  "Is it true? What
they say about Willie? Is it true?"
     "Yes." Frankenstein said flatly.
     She dissolved into tears, barely able to breathe.  "Willie.  My poor
little angel."  She looked into his eyes.  "Frankenstein! They think I
did it!"
     "Did you?"
     Justine paused, stunned, her eyes on his.  Here was the deepest
betrayal she'd ever experienced.  She felt her heart turn to ash inside
her chest.  "I don't believe...I am in need of your comfort...anymore."
     Frankenstein lowered his voice to a whisper.  "I'm not going to ask
you again.  Did you do it, Justine?"
     She hauled off and slapped him hard enough to rock his head around. 
Then she slapped him again, harder this time.  "Get out of my sight, you
filthy daggit!"

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

     The tribunal began, opening to a packed courthouse.  Justine sat
accused of William's murder.  An older kitchen servitor was on the stand,
giving testimony.
     "I found her sobbing her eyes out.  'Poor thing,' I said, 'What's
all this?' And she spilled her heart to me about Master Frankenstein. 
How she'd always loved him, and now he was coming home to marry Mistress
Elizabeth."
     A murmur swept the courtroom.  Frankenstein and Elizabeth shared a
stunned glance as the servitor continued.
     "She cried and cried about the beautiful locket he'd sent.  How she
wished it was hers.  She swore me never to tell a soul," she peered at
Justine, "that was before the boy went missin', a'course."
     Frankenstein took the stand next.  "I always viewed her with
brotherly affection.  I had no idea of her feelings for me."
     The opposer went into his legal theatrics.  "Rejection can be a
powerful wound.  People have been known to do uncanny things."
     Frankenstein stood firm in the face of the opposer's arrogance.  "I
cannot accept that she would commit so ghastly and terrible a crime
against a child she loved."  He paused, gnawed by some vague intuition. 
He looked to Justine.  She gazed back, her feelings hidden.  "No! I will
not accept it!"
     Elizabeth was the third person that day to take the stand.  "Justine
and I grew up as sisters.  I know her better than anybody.
     "Then you don't think it possible she committed this crime?" the
protector asked.
     "William was as much her child as mine. We were both mother to him.
I believe she would sooner have strangled the life from her own body."  
     "Then you consider the charge without merit?"
     "I consider the charge imbecilic."
     It was now Justine's turn to take the stand.  "Yes.  I took refuge
in the barn.  Wouldn't you?  Lost in the storm?  Freezing and wet?  I was
exhausted and could search no longer."
     The opposer's lip curled into a vicious sneer.  "And is it true,
Miss Justine, that you love Frankenstein?  That your heart was broken?" 
There was a micron of silence.  "Answer the question!" he yelled. 
"Do...you...love...Frankenstein?"
     Her gaze wandered to Frankenstein, eyes locking on his.  He stared
back, trapped.
     "I have always loved him."
     Again the opposer went on the attack.  "Is it also not true that you
murdered his brother William in a misdirected crime of passion?"
     "Murder Willie?  In my heart, he was our child.  Frankenstein's and
mine.  Such a thing could never have entered my mind."
     "So you have claimed.  Yet you have no explanation for this."  The
opposer held up the locket for everyone in the courtroom to see.  "The
locket last seen in the hands of the poor murdered child was found hidden
in your dress the morning following the murder.  The locket you so
coveted."  He leaned close, so close in fact, that he almost touched
noses with Justine.  "How did it come to be in your possession?" He
snarled the question more than asked it.
     "I have no knowledge of that."

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

     A pair of feet dropped heavily.  Thump-crack!  A shoe flew off.  The
crowd gasped.  Madame Moritz collapsed wailing to the ground.  Elizabeth
dropped to her side to comfort her.  All Frankenstein could do was
stare-stare at the body of Justine dangling from the hangman's noose,
neck broken, hands bound and feet still twitching.

***********************************
 
     Justine's body dangled from the scaffold, lashed by the storm's wind
and rain.  Frankenstein loomed from the darkness, staring at it.
     And then a massive white hand thrust out of nowhere and grabbed his
shoulder.  Frankenstein whirled and found himself staring up into the
last face he ever expected to see again, the hideous necrotic features
bathed in a purplish white glare of lightning.  He screamed as The
Creature lashed out, grabbing him by the coat, drawing him breathlessly
closer, mili-metron by mili-metron, eyeball-to-eyeball, grinning his
awful rictus grin.  "Frankenstein," he said.
     Gods of Kobol, he can talk!  Frankenstein was left speechless with
horror.  The Creature raised his arm, pointing with an impossibly long
and bony finger.  "Look there!" Frankenstein did.  Lightning danced in
the sky, illuminating Mount Coronet with a crackling halo of electricity.
     As quickly as he'd come, The Creature departed, vanishing like a
shadow in the darkness.  Frankenstein fell down gasping.  He suspected
The Creature of William's murder all along, but never thought he would be
so callous as to force an innocent girl to take the fall for it.  He
rose, gazing at the scaffold, horrified.  
     "It's my fault! It's alllllll mmmmyyyyyyyyyyyyy fauuuuuuuult!"
     He rushed to the scaffold, throwing his arms around the innocent
girl dangling there, sliding down, sinking to his knees, weeping
helplessly.  "Justine.  Oh Justine.  I gave life to that murdering fiend. 
I wouldn't have even considered bringing this being into the world had I
but known he could commit such a heinous crime as this.  Oh Gods,
Justine.  Forgive what I've done, please."

***********************************
 
     In his study, Frankenstein pulled a carved box from a shelf, then
opened it.  Lying inside their velvet cradle were a gorgeous pair of
E4-Model pneumatic pistols.  Some people called them "numos." Word had it
that they were capable of killing a lupus within 10 metrons if you hit it
just right.  Was it true?  He would certainly put that to the test when
he lobbed a few of the projectiles into The Creature's foul hide.

***********************************
  
     Frankenstein bundled himself in a rough coat, packing final supplies
on an equine held by Scaedu, the field leader.  Elizabeth was at his
heels.  
     "I wasn't hallucinating, Elizabeth.  He was there in the storm,
gloating over his crimes, challenging me to come."
     "But why risk yourself?  Hasn't this family suffered enough?"
     "I've no choice."	
     "If what you say is true, it's a matter for the constabulary!"
     "They've done a fine job.  Hanging an innocent for the crime of a
fiend."  He rammed the pneumatic rifle into its scabbard and then turned
to her.
     "Do you know this man?  Is there something between you two?"
     "All I know is that he's a killer.  And I shall bring back his
carcass."
     Frankenstein heaved himself into the saddle and rode off to the
snow-shrouded mountain, where The Creature was waiting.
 
***********************************

     A lone equine and its rider appeared on Mount Coronet that day.  It
was Frankenstein.  He ascended the mountain, his desire for revenge
blinding him to the mountain's brutal and unforgiving environment.  He
soon dismounted, leading his horse onto the glacier.  A bitter wind was
blowing, but they plodded on, searching.  Magnificent rugged mountain
vistas unfolded before his eyes, reminding him of what Hanover was before
the humans came.  Primeval and vast this planet must have once been.
     The equine suddenly spooked. Frankenstein calmed him.  Staring. Was
that a figure down there?  He shaded his eyes against the cutting sleet. 
Yes, there was somebody in the distance down there on the snow field.  A
tiny speck.  Watching him.
     The figure began running, leaping across the ice with great bounds.
Right toward Frankenstein, prompting him to wrench the carved box from
the saddle bag.  The equine bolted.  Frankenstein dropped to the snow,
threw open the box and frantically snatched up the pair of numos.
     He glanced up. The figure was gone, vanished in the drifts of white. 
Frankenstein rose with a numo in each hand, turning slowly around, gazing
at the rocks and crags.  Searching.
     "Where are you?"
     But he heard nothing but his own voice echoing back-and then-feet,
origin unknown, were crunching through the snow.  He turned.  The
Creature was running toward him across the glacier with inhuman speed,
greatcoat billowing like huge dark wings.
     Frankenstein raised the first numo, but he hesitated.  As frightened
and angry as he was, a small part of him paused to admire the achievement
of actually having created a life.  
     He pulled the trigger.  Pffffffffft!  A strong puff of air from the
gun was all it took to send a deadly projectile whizzing toward the
monster.  But The Creature dodged the shot and kept coming.  
     Frankenstein raised the other gun.  Pfffffffffft!  Another
projectile was launched.  Still, The Creature came.
     Frankenstein became frantic.  He loaded projectile after projectile
into the numos, aiming, firing.  Pfffffffffft! A miss.  Pffffffffft!
Another missed.  Loading.  Aiming.  Firing.  Pfffffft!  Pffffffttt! 
Loading.  Aiming.  
     And the Creature was on him, slapping the numos clean out of his
hands. The pistols sailed through the air, spinning off across the ice.
Frankenstein panicked, turned to run, and slipped over the edge of the
precipice.  He fell screaming, arms and legs windmilling through a
30-maxim drop, slamming bodily into a snowdrift.  He looked up.  The
Creature was peering down at him.  He then leaped over the edge to
follow, sailing through the air to land before Frankenstein in a
felus-like crouch.  He pulled Frankenstein from the snow and sent him
sliding across the ice with a mighty heave right into the mouth of an ice
cave.  Frankenstein came tumbling and sliding down the entrance, spinning
and careening to sprawl heavily to the cave floor.
     Winded, battered and just barely able to move, Frankenstein glanced
up to see the cave filled with possessions.  Books.  Provisions.  Extra
clothing.  The embers of a fire were burning low.  He couldn't help but
notice that The Creature had made a rough attempt at furnishings in the
form of a few crates.
     A huge shadow filled the cave entrance. The Creature was just like a
storybook ogre coming home to his cave, his breath huffing like a steam
engine. Frankenstein scrambled back, terrified, pressing into a corner as
The Creature entered.  
     But The Creature merely crossed to the fire and hunkered down.  He
tossed a few more sticks to the fire.  Silence thereafter.  
     The Creature gestured to Frankenstein.  "Come warm yourself if you
like."
     "Can you do more than just talk?"
     "Yes.  I can read.  And think...and know the ways of Man.  I've been
waiting for you.  Two sectons now.
     "How did you find me?"
     The Creature grabbed Frankenstein's journal off the "shelf."  He
undid the thong, and the epistles spilled out.
     "I found you through the epistles in your journal.  That and a book
of this planet's geography."  He picked up an epistle.  "Your Elizabeth
sounds lovely."
     "If you're going to kill me, do so and be done with it."
     The Creature smiled.  "Kill you?  Hardly that."
     "Then why am I here?  What did you want with me?"
     "More to the point, why am I here?  What did you want with me?  What
does one say to one's creator, having finally met him face to face?  The
Lords of Kobol gave it voice.
     He grabbed The Book of the Word and thumbed to a certain page. 
     "' Did I request thee, O God of Life, from the dust to mold me into
Man?  Did I solicit thee from Darkness to promote me?'"
     "Fine words from a child killer.  You who murdered my brother."
     "Your crime...as well as mine."
     "How dare you!  You're disgusting and evil."
     "Evil?"  The Creature scurried closer.  "Do you believe in evil?"
     "I see it before me."
     "I'm not sure I believe.  But then, I had no one to instruct me.  I
had no mother...and my father abandoned me at birth."
     He drew closer still.  Intimate.  Turning his head this way and
that.  Puzzling at Frankenstein's face.  "Were the dying cries of your
brother music in my ears?"  
     He raised his hands before Frankenstein's eyes, bony fingers curling
to clutch and invisible throat.  Frankenstein was petrified.  "I took him
by the throat with one hand, lifted him off the ground and slowly crushed
his neck."  Emotions stirred within The Creature's breast.  "That poor,
innocent child died in my grip, because all I could see was your face,
and all I could feel was my rage.  And when I let him go, he fluttered to
the grass like a dead nightbird.

***********************************
  
     The Creature gazed down at Willie's body.  He stared at the hand
that committed the crime as if waking from a dream.  Tears welled in his
eyes.  He was overcome with shame and horror.
     He fell to his knees in the middle of the vast field, his wail
echoing across the countryside as he wept over the boy.
 
***********************************
 
     Frankenstein stared in horror as The Creature related his story with
tears shining in his monstrous eyes.
     "Later, when they were searching, I followed the pretty lady who got
lost in the woods.

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

     Justine lay asleep in the hay.  She was haggard, wet and exhausted. 
The Creature loomed over her, a monstrous shape backlit by the lightning
gazing on her beauty.  His hand reached down, hovering reverently,
wishing to caress the swell of her breasts at the neckline of her bodice.
     She was so lovely.  He longed to touch her, to seek her sympathy.  
     The locket dropped from his hand to dangle in his fingers.  He
lowered it, tucking it gently away in her pocket.  All he did, really,
was to simply return the object which had triggered his crime, hoping in
some small way to atone for it.

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

     Frankenstein soon found tears shining in his eyes as well.  
     "You gave me these emotions, but you didn't tell me how to use them.
Now two people are dead.  Because of us."
     Frankenstein was crushed by remorse.  A sob escaped him.
     "Why, Frankenstein? Why? What were you thinking?"
     "Because...there was something at work in my soul which I do not
understand."
     "What of my soul?  Do I have one?  Or was that a part you left out?" 
The Creature spread his hands.  "Who were these people of which I am
composed?  Good people?  Bad people?  I think one of them is not of this
planet."
     "Materials.  Nothing more."
     "You're wrong.  Do you know I knew how to play this?"  The Creature
grabbed up the panpipes and played a brief snatch of melody. "And I also
know about a code the alien part of me lived by.  A code which gives me
the right to hunt down and kill any who sin against me.  In which part of
me does the knowledge of these things reside?  In these hands?  In this
mind?  In this heart?   And reading and speaking.  Not things learned so
much as things remembered."
     Frankenstein found himself at a loss to explain, but did his best. 
"Trace memories in the brain tissues I used to build your mind, I
suppose."
     "No.  Stolen memories.  Stolen and hazy.  They taunt me in my
dreams.  I've seen a beautiful woman lying back and beckoning for me to
love her. Whose woman was this?  I've seen boys playing, splashing about
in a stream.  Whose childhood friends were these?  Who am I? 
     Frankenstein's voice was hollow.  "I don't know."
     "Then perhaps I believe in evil after all."  The Creature moved off. 
Frankenstein was emotionally exhausted.
     "What can I do?"
     "There is something I want.  A friend."
     "I don't understand."
     "A friend.  A companion.  A female.  Like me, so she won't hate me." 

     "Like you?  Lords of Kobol, you don't know what you're asking."
     "I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make
peace with all.  I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely
imagine.  And rage the likes of which you would not believe.  If I cannot
satisfy the one, I will demonically indulge the other.  That choice is
yours.  You're the one who set this in motion, Frankenstein."
     "And if I consent?"
     "I found the alien's spaceship in a field not too far away from this
mountain.  I still have his knowledge of how to fly it.  We'd leave this
planet, my bride and I.  We'd go to another star system, perhaps to an
uninhabited world where man has yet to set foot.  There we would live out
our lives.  Together.  No human eye would ever see us again.  This I
vow." 
     Frankenstein considered it, but gave no answer.

 *********************************** 
 
     Frankenstein calmed his skittish equine as The Creature loomed into
view.  He turned.  The Creature tossed him his journal.  Frankenstein
hesitated, then finally jammed it into his saddlebag. 
     "Soon?"
     "Yes.  I want this over and done with."
     "I'll be waiting.  And watching."
     And with that, The Creature turned and scrambled back down the
nearly-vertical cliff face, leaping from crags and boulders with
superhuman agility.  Frankenstein watched him vanish from sight as he
descended the mountain, heading back to civilization. 
 
*********************************** 
 
     Frankenstein walked his equine toward the house.  Elizabeth rushed
out to meet him with Clerval and Scaedu.  He handed off the reins to the
stableboy and embraced Elizabeth tightly.  "I thought I'd never see you
again!" she gushed.
     "I'm all right.  I'm safe."
     "What happened up there?" Clerval asked.
     "I didn't find what I was looking for."
     "What did you find?"
     Frankenstein glanced over.  Scaedu had opened the carrying case of
the numos.  He'd been checking the ammo clips and projectile supply when
he'd noticed a few discrepancies.  "There's a large number of projectiles
missing," he said.  "That can only mean these numos have been fired."
     "I did fire them, but at shadows.  My nerves got the better of me."
     Frankenstein walked on toward the house with Elizabeth.

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

     The fountain in the family garden was certainly a refreshing change
from the unpleasant crags and snowdrifts of Mount Coronet, Frankenstein
thought.  It was there that he sat in discussion with Elizabeth.
     "What sort of task?"
     "It's not something I can explain now.  Perhaps someday."
     "What of our marriage?  Frankenstein, we've had so much tragedy.  I
want this family to live again."
     "So do I."
     "We need each other now.  I need your comfort and strength, not
separation and solitude."
     "A sectar at most.  That's all I ask."  He drew closer.  "Elizabeth,
please.  Things have not yet resolved.  I must take steps to see that
they do.  For our family's sake.  For our sake."  He caressed her face. 
"You are life itself.  We will be sealed the moment I am done."  He
leaned forward to kiss her, then suddenly drew back, hearing the distant
music of a recorder echoing from the hills.

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

     Frankenstein sat at Father's bedside, holding his hand.  The old man
was now a weak and frail shadow of his former self.  
     "You must regain your strength to preside at our wedding and spoil
your grandchildren later on.  These are duties you cannot shirk. "
     Father smiled faintly.  Frankenstein squeezed his hand and
whispered: "We're all safe now. I promise."

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

     It was murky and dark in the great attic of Nerys Manor. 
Frankenstein entered it, yanking a dusty curtain off a window to let in
some daylight.  He picked up a prybar, approaching a stack of crates as
if he were facing an old adversary.  He went over to the largest of the
crates and rammed the bar into the wood, prying it open.  A dull gleam of
copper lurked within the packing straw.  This was the accursed life-pod. 
"May the gods forgive me," he said.
     And so, Frankenstein assembled his equipment, recreating the lab
he'd had in Helium.  He bolted together the life-pod, now resting in its
cradle, hanged the glass tube, adjusting the boom.  He installed the
ceiling tracks and hoist mechanism and then played out the copper wire
along the ceiling beams.  Next, the galvanic batters were hooked up to
the steam energizers.  To be sure everything worked, he tested the
electrical circuit with goggles and thick gloves, getting a huge cascade
of sparks.
     "I prayed never to see these again-whatever they are."
     Frankenstein turned, shocked to see Clerval standing in the doorway. 
Clerval entered, running his hand over the gleaming surface of the
life-pod, circling toward Frankenstein.  "I won't bother asking what or
why.  You wouldn't tell me anyway.  I just hope you know what you're
doing----because if this is a repeat of Helium, I won't be around to pick
up the pieces."  Clerval turned his head to the Kobolian tapestry on the
wall, the contact points still daubed with red.

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

     Someone was hunched in an open grave in the small necropolis on the
grounds of Nerys Manor.  He dug madly, dirt flying, until his shovel hit
wood with a Thunk.  
     It was The Creature's turn to play grave robber.  Frankenstein had
said he considered human corpses to be nothing more than "materials to be
reused," hadn't he?  
 
***********************************  

     The Creature nimbly climbed the spiked walls of Nerys Manor, his
fingers grasping the grillwork, a dark shape slung over his shoulder.  He
paused as a pair of stablehands passed far below.  He pulled himself onto
the roof, crossing the gables and pushed open an arch-topped window. 
Frankenstein waited in eager anticipation as it swung open.  The creature
entered with his prize.  The mottled corpse of Justine flopped onto the
table in front of Frankenstein.
     "I want her," The Creature said.
     Frankenstein stared down in utter horror.  A cold, dead face stared
back.  The blue lips of the corpse were already beginning to shrivel. 
Its eyes were purple and sunken.  He knew she had loved him.  He knew it
was his fault that she was dead.  He could barely get the words out. 
"Why...her?"
     "Her body pleases me."
     That was it for Frankenstein.  He turned away, his stomach heaving. 
It was all he could do to keep from throwing up.
     "Materials, remember?  Nothing more.  Your words."
     Frankenstein hesitated, pulling himself together.  "My words."
     He turned back, forcing himself to examine the body, trying not to
view it as someone he knows. He cradled the head, probing the back of the
neck with his fingers.
     "The brain stem was destroyed by the hanging.  We'll have to replace
it.  The body itself is basically in good condition, although some of the
extremities are too decayed.  They'll have to be replaced.  The fresher,
the better."

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

     The town of Exom was a randy place, not for the prudish.  Any kind
of vice could be had for the right price here.  One of those vices was a
socialator named Calliopie.  At this very moment, she was outside the
back door of a rowdy gambling chancery, servicing a handsome,
blue-skinned Orion businessman, her skirt hiked all the way up.  Oh, how
she loved the Orions.  They always had money, traveled the galaxy in
elegant spacecraft, and she especially liked the way the sleek, silky
clothing they wore stood out in contrast to the tricornered hats and
petticoats the ladies and gentlemen of planet Hanover wore.  
     It didn't take him long to finish the tryst.  Off he went,
staggering back into the chancery.  She arranged her skirt, tucking away
the little bag of Orion Cheques he'd paid her with, then paused, noticing
a tall figure in the shadows, staring at her.  She approached him with
her best saucy smile.
     "Want some yourself? Or do you just like to watch?" She drew closer. 
"What do you say, lover?  I can make it good for you."
     The Creature leaned into the gaslight and clamped a massive hand to
her mouth.  He wrapped his other arm around her waist, pulling her off
the ground.  She gazed up, eyes wide, screams muffled in his palm.  "I
know you can," he said.  And he wrenched his arm, snapping her spine.

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

     The dead socialator lay staring up, dried blood staining her mouth. 
Frankenstein gazed down in horror.  
     "What is this?"
     "It's what you wanted.  A brain.  Extremities."
     "Don't you understand?  This woman didn't just die-she was murdered. 
By you."
     "What does it matter?  She'll live again.  You'll make her."
     "No.  I draw the line."
     The Creature lashed out and dragged Frankenstein across the
table."You will honor your promise to me!"
     "I will not!" Frankenstein said through gritted teeth.  "Kill me
now!"
     "That is mild compared to what will come.  If you deny me my wedding
night, I'll be with you on yours." 
     The Creature vanished out the window into the night.  Frankenstein
is left gasping for air, staring at the dead socialator.  The full horror
sank in.

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

     Frankenstein slammed the attic door, securing it with a massive
padlock.  He hurried down the steps to the grand ballroom.
     Elizabeth was waiting for him.  The intensity between them was
flying high.  
     "No.  Not tomorrow, not next secton.  Marry me today!"
     "Why the change?" she asked.  "What about your work?"
     "It was misguided and pointless.  Is your answer yes?"
     "It is."
     "We'll leave this afternoon, right after the ceremony.  Pack only
what you need."
     "Does this have something to do with that man you saw?"
     Frankenstein hesitated.  He didn't want to panic Elizabeth, but he
nevertheless owed her an explanation.  "Yes.  We're in danger here. 
Every moment we stay."
     "Frankenstein, tell me why!  Trust me!"
     "I do.  But you must trust me for now."


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

     A small ceremony was hurriedly organized at Father's beside.  The
old man held Elizabeth's hand.  "This is not...the grand wedding...I had
hoped to give you."  He released her hand, giving the bride away.  She
took her place at Frankenstein's side.  Clerval stood as best man.  They
held hands, and the priest took of his medallion, that of the sacred Star
of Kobol, and wrapped it around their clasped hands. 
     "Frankenstein and Elizabeth, under the eyes of the Gods and by the
power they've vested in me as their priest, I declare the two of you
sealed.  Not for now, but for the rest of your lives-and beyond."

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

     Elizabeth got in the coach.  Scaedu clambered up to the driver's
seat, armed with a pneumatic rifle, ready to pull out.  Eight men on
horseback provided armed escort.  Frankenstein addressed the servitors,
all of whom were also armed with numos.  "Be especially on your guard. 
Stay cautious to a fault."
     "Who is this man, sir?" asked the stablehand.  "How shall we know
him."
     "He's huge, deformed, with a complexion that's as pale as an Orion
moon...and quite insane."
     "Take no chances with this one, lads!  He killed Master William and
sent Justine to the noose!  Shoot the bastard on sight!"
     Cries of assent rose up from the armed group.
     Frankenstein pulled Clerval aside.  "Are you sure you'll be all
right?"
     "Yes, don't worry.  I'll look after your father.  You look after
her."
     Frankenstein nodded.  "I'll be back as soon as I've got her far away
and safe.  We'll hunt this fiend down together."
     "I have but one condition: that you'll tell me who he is."
     Frankenstein hesitated.  Had he given his creation a name?  No. 
He'd forgotten that one small detail.  Perhaps the trip would help him
decide on one.  "I owe you that.  Done."
     The two friends quickly embraced one another.  Frankenstein leaped
into the coach.

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

     The coach clattered up the road, trailed by the eight horsemen. 
Those who stayed behind scattered across the courtyard.  Clerval turned
and walked back toward the house.  None of this went unnoticed; The
Creature watched it all transpire from Father's bedroom window.  
     In the bed behind him, the old man stirred, opening his eyes. 
"Frankenstein?"
     The Creature turned toward him.  Father's eyes went wide with fear
as his final stroke was triggered.  His life ended with a prolonged death
rattle...and a soft exhale.  The Creature reached down, closing his eyes. 
It was the least he could do for the old man.
     "Gasp!"  
     There, in the bedroom doorway, stood the priest, dropping his tea to
the floor.  The Creature swept across the room, pressing him against the
wall.  
     "You're Mephistopheles himself!" the priest said, breathless with
horror.
     "Yes, and I've come to snatch your soul..."  He leaned in closer to
the priest's face.  "...unless you tell me where they've gone."

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

     Lake Naberrie at dusk was a splendid sight.  A magnificent sunset
bathed the mountains behind it as storm clouds rolled in.  A gondola was
crossing the lake, moving away from the shore, rippling the water.
     Scaedu trotted to the window of the coach.  "I'm sorry but that was
the last gondola.  There's nothing else till morning."
     "Frak!" Frankenstein cursed loudly.
     "We'll ride on ahead and secure you lodging for the night," Scaedu
said.


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

     Fortunately for Frankenstein and his wife, there was a small
luxurious bungalow nestled in the woods by the lake.  The storm was in
full swing, now.  Scaedu and his men were positioned at the entrances.
     "Make sure you keep your numos loaded," Frankenstein commanded.
     Guard # 2 said, "They'll be loaded.  If any malfunction, we've
others.  And if they malfunction..." he drew a wicked-looking saber
halfway out of his breeches, "...we can always gut the bastard."
     Scaedu came over to his master's side.  "Relax, sir.  You're well
guarded.  Now, why don't you go upstairs to your wife?  It's not often a
man has his wedding night."

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

     Frankenstein entered the bridal suite, to find the room aglow with
dozens of candles.  Elizabeth turned from the fireplace, her body
silhouetted through the sheer white nightgown. 
     "You're soaking."
     She approached to help him peel off his coat.  Frankenstein stared
at her, awe-struck.  She saw the look in his eyes and crossed her arms
demurely, then laughed at her own modesty.
     "Brother and sister no more."
     "Now husband and wife."
     He stroked her bare shoulders with his fingertips.  "I remember the
first time I ever saw you.  Crossing the floor of the grand ballroom with
my parents at your side.  You were so beautiful, even then."
     "I have been waiting for this ever since," Elizabeth whispered.  She
leaned up and gave him a kiss that would have melted glass, triggering
the sexiest seduction imaginable.  Kissing, caressing.  Frankenstein
stripped off his wet shirt.  
     And now onto the bed.  The magnificent and canopied bed.  They knelt
together, their bodies touching, hands seeking, mouths joining.
     Elizabeth lay back on the bed, beckoning for him to love her. 
Frankenstein sank down, running his hands up her thighs, peeling up the
nightgown, making her shudder with desire.
     Ssssssssssst!  It was the sound of a numo, one that had been just
recently fired.  Frankenstein jerked up.  He could hear shouting.  He
rolled off the bed, snatching both pistols lying fully loaded and ready
on the nightstand.
     "Frankenstein!" Elizabeth shouted.
     "Open this door for no one!" Frankenstein commanded.

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

     Frankenstein sailed past the guard at the entrance, brandishing his
pistols.  The men converged, shouting in the rain.
     "I saw him in a flash of lightning!" Guard #2 shouted.  "He vanished
toward the lake!"
     "Get after him!" Scaedu commanded.
     Several men raced  off in pursuit.  A flash of lightning revealed
The Creature clinging in the branches above their heads with a malevolent
smile.  He scurried silently up, further and further into the tree,
closer and closer to the balcony.

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

     Elizabeth was tense and waiting.  A shadow loomed across the
balcony, spilling through the double doors, onto the floor.  A bony hand
reached for the latch.  
     The doors burst open on a crust of wind and rain.  Elizabeth spun
around as candles blew out all over the room.  The Creature entered,
massive and unseen, gliding in shadow.  
     "It will do you no good to scream," he said.

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

     The men came running back from the lake stopping before Frankenstein
and Scaedu.
     "Frak!" Guard #3 swore.  "We lost him."
     Guard # 4's eyes drifted upwards to the bungalow's second story. 
"Why are those open?"
     Frankenstein spun around, gazing up.  The breath was catching in his
throat.  The double doors were swaying in the wind.
     "Lords of Kobol!  Elizabeth!"

 ***********************************
 
     Elizabeth watched, transfixed, as the huge shadow moved inexorably
toward her. Her eyes darted toward the door.  She made a break for it. 
He caught her halfway across the room, spin-ning her around by the arm. 
Her face was lit by the light of the fireplace.
     The Creature paused, stunned at her beauty. A moment passed between
them. She sensed the softening in his heart. She peered at him, trying to
understand. "You don't want to hurt me," she pleaded.
     He averted his gazed, shamed by her beauty.  "You're more lovely
than I could ever have imagined."
     Footsteps came pounding up the stairs, followed by the heavy crash
of men throwing their shoulders at the door.  Frankenstein was one of
those men.  "ELIZABETH!"
     Instantly, the tenderness drained out of The Creature.  He snarled. 
She tried to wrench away, but he spun her around so he wouldn't have to
look at her in the light, casting her face in shadow.  He cocked his arm
back and plunged his fist toward her chest with pile-driver force,
cutting her scream short.
     Outside the room, the men gave one last mighty rush at the
door...and they burst in just in time to see Elizabeth cascade back onto
the bed, her chest a massive red stain.  The Creature whipped toward
them, his fist glistening with blood.
     "Unlike you, Frankenstein, I keep my promises," he said.
     The Creature raced across the room as the men opened fire, shredding
the walls to splinters with an explosive fusillade of shots.  But The
Creature was too fast.  He hit the leaded window head-on with the force
of an anvil and went sailing out into empty space in a hurricane of
shattering glass.  He dropped 40 metrons to the grass below and vanished
like the breeze, greatcoat whipping into darkness.
     Frankenstein rushed to the bed and let loose the most primal scream
of all.  He swept his limp, murdered bride into his arms, cradling her to
his breast, the screams trailing off into wracking moans and sobs of
despair.  "Oh Gods!  He took her heart...he took her heart from me!"

 
***********************************
     The men made way as Frankenstein carried his dead wife through the
downpour. He put  her in the coach, feeling dazed.

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

     The coach came racing through the storm, the equines in a frenzy,
faster and faster.

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

     Frankenstein whipped the equines, signaling them to veer the coach
to a stop just outside Nerys Manor.  He jumped down, gathering the body,
and mounted the steps.  Clerval appeared, rushing out of the rain. 
Frankenstein went right past him and carried Elizabeth through the silent
halls. 
 
***********************************

     The attic door swung in.  Frankenstein stood dripping, holding the
dead Elizabeth.  He gazed at the gleam of the copper life-pod.  There's a
chance I can save her.  I know it. 
 
***********************************

     And so began another attempt to create life from the dead. 
Frankenstein hacked and chopped at the corpses he'd previously collected
to make The Creature a companion, among them the body of the dead
socialator.  He discarded the pieces he didn't need.  Then came the
sewing and the hard yanking of the sutures into tightness.  That done, he
rammed the acupuncture needles deep into the flesh.  The body was hoisted
into the air, and then into the life-pod.  Frankenstein slammed the
life-pods lid, tightening the bolts.  
     Gods, let this work, I pray to you!  Frankenstein thought as he
powered up the galvanic circuit then throwing the switch.  The lightning
of the gods flashed and the body convulsed.  Wind and rain swept through
the lab, battering a window open and shut.  
     Frankenstein lowered the glass tube, ramming the phallus into the
womb.  Down came the laser ells through the tube, huge black sperm
squirming and writhing toward the spasming egg-the body.  It convulsed,
lashed and screamed in the copper womb, its hair whipping in the fluid. 
     Frankenstein shut down the machinery.  He opened the life-pod and
reached into the fluid with his thick rubber gloves.  He pulled out his
creation, cradling the head and neck as one would cradle a newborn
infant's, wiping the muck away with his gloves to reveal Elizabeth's
face.  Massive suture marks bisected her once-beautiful neck and
collarbone where pieces were joined.  "Live," he whispered.
     Her eyes flew open as consciousness hit, her mouth gaping to draw
air but finding fluid in her lungs. She erupted, thrashing in the vat. He
clutched her tight, pounding her back to start her breathing, trying to
calm the convulsing Creaturess with soft murmured words of tenderness and
love as her lungs heaved violently to dispel the fluid.
     He lifted her gently out, wiping the off the muck, cleansing her
face while she shivered and shook, the spasms at length easing off.  She
clasped her hand in his, finding comfort and strength.
     He helped her to her feet.  Her movements were jerky and unsure so
he tried to coax her into leaning on him.  He replaced the sheer
nightgown on her scarred and naked body, draping it, and finally,
exhaustingly, tilting her chin up with his fingers to gaze into her eyes. 
"Say my name," he whispered.
     But The Creaturess's face was blank, dazed and stunned.  Not a
flicker of recognition.
     "Elizabeth," Frankenstein pleaded.  "Say my name.  Say  you
remember.  Say my name."
     Nothing.  He leaned forward, and kissed her dead lips, gentle as a
sigh.  Wait!  Did I see a flicker in those eyes?  "You must!  You must!" 
Maybe my imagination?  "Say my name! Say you remember!
     Slowly, ever so slowly,  she raised her bony white hand before her
eyes, staring at it, trying to puzzle out its meaning.  Perhaps there was
indeed the vaguest shred of recognition, and the hand continued to rise,
creeping slowly toward his shoulder, coming to rest there.  He smiled,
blinking back tears. 
     "Yes.  I'll help you remember."
     And he took her other hand in his.  At first it was imperceptible,
just the slightest motion, perhaps nothing, perhaps just a shift of
balance, and then it grew into the vaguest sway.  Tears were glistening
in Frankenstein's eyes as she began to move.  Lurching.  Faltering. 
Unsure.
     You must lead, Frankenstein.  The lady will always look to you for
guidance, so your steps must be sure and strong.
     Trace memories.
     A waltz.
     It was a scene that was sweepingly romantic and, at the same time,
incredibly demented.  Frankenstein danced with his dead bride, showing
her the way, begging her to remember, please remember.  And they were
waltzing, waltzing to lush and deranged music, dissonant and echoing
through Frankenstein's head, music only he could hear. 
     "...one-two-three, twirl-two-three."
     And the worst part?  The very worst thing of all?  There on the
shelf in a large formaldehyde jar was Justine's severed head, watching
them through the glass with dead, sightless eyes.  Watching them dance. 
Was she still a wallflower?  No.  She was finally finishing her dance
with Frankenstein...most of her, anyway.  Under her unique circumstances
it would have to do.
     The waltz went on, madder and madder, sweeping in glorious circles
as a dazzling array of lightning bathed them in its wild, jittering
spotlight, shadows careening across the walls, the insane music swelled
louder and louder in Frankenstein's head, climbing higher and higher,
reaching toward its crescendo with jagged glass jaws...
     ...and it all screeched to a stop as the door burst in.  The music
in Frankenstein's mind echoed abruptly away into silence.  There was
nothing now but rain and distant thunder.  The Creature stood in the
doorway.  "She's beautiful," he said.
     "She's not for you."
     "I'm sure the lady knows her own mind.  Doesn't she?  Let her decide
the proper suitor."
     The Creature raised his hand, beckoning her.  She took a faltering
step.  Somehow, she found herself strangely drawn to him.
     "Elizabeth, no!" Frankenstein screamed hysterically.  She turned
around, puzzled.  "Say my name."
     Her face reflected horror and shame, like a brain-damaged child
who's wet the bed. She knew she was supposed to remember ... but couldn't
remember what remembering meant.     They both motioned to her.
Murmuring. Begging. She was caught between them, pulled like a diaphanous
rope in a tug of war.  Please ... come with me. Please ... remember. She
finally tilted toward The Creature, gazing into his eyes, studying his
face, fingertips tracing his massively scarred flesh.  A frown.  A
puzzlement.  This isn't right.  People don't look like this.  They're not
stitched together out of pieces of flesh like a patchwork quilt.
     She looked at her own hands. Dead and white. Not even hers. One
belonged to Justine. Another to a socialator named Calliopie, suture
scars marring the wrist. She looked down at herself, at the dead, sagging
breasts, at the body that wasn't hers either.  Realization crept into her
eyes, realization and horror.  She turned to Frankenstein.  Why do I look
like this?  What's happened to me?  Gods, what's happened to me?
"Frank...en...stein?"
     "...no...," wailed The Creature.
     She let out a shriek, a wail from the deepest pits of Hades,
screaming at them both, screaming at herself.  She went berserk, trying
to claw her flesh away, trying to find the real Elizabeth underneath the
horror, trying to peel it away, clawing at her face, trying to claw out
her own eyes.
     Frankenstein lunged to restrain her, screaming himself, veering
toward utter madness like strings snapping on a Sagittaran splingtwang. 
The Creature grabbed him, hurled him aside.  "Get away from her!  She's
mine!"
     Frankenstein responded in the same tone of voice.  "She'll never be
yours!  She said my name!  She remembers!"
     Yes. She remembered. Not much, but enough. She broke away from them
as they grappled, still shrieking as she sailed across the room, tipping
over furniture, equipment flying, straight over to the glowglobe,
snatching it up before they could stop her.
     "No!" Frankenstein cried.  He knew what would happen when the
flammable liquid inside the glowglobe made contact with the air.
     She spun to face them, holding them breathlessly at bay with the
threat of the glowglobe, twitching from one to the other.  But it wasn't
just the lamp, it was the look of sheer loathing in her eyes.  Loathing
at them for what they did to her, loathing for herself for what she
became.  It turned out the lady did know here own mind.  She wanted no
part of it, or them.  Her mind was made up.  She crushed the glowglobe in
her bare hands, drenching herself in a cascade of the volatile fuel. 
Whoooooosh!  She went up like a blazing matchstick and darted past them,
still shrieking, still trying to claw the dead flesh away, pulling off
giant flaming pieces of herself as she careened out the door and down the
steps, Frankenstein and The Creature in hot pursuit.  She sailed down the
hallway, setting fire to everything she passed, screaming for the final
torment to end.  She hurled herself over the railing, the drapes catching
ablaze as she plummeted to the floor far below.  A pillar of flame leapt
up on impact.
     Frankenstein and The Creature faced each other as flames swept the
walls, combusting the upper hallway into a raging tunnel in Hades.
     "You killed her!  You killed her!" Frankenstein wailed.
     He hurled himself at The Creature, who backhanded him, spinning down
the hallway, sprawling to the floor. The Creature gazed down at his maker
one last time.  "We killed her." And then he vanished through the smoke
and flames.

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

     The once-magnificent  Nerys Manor was now a smoldering ruin beneath
the merciless gray sky. Charred beams and drifting smoke were all that
remained to mark the passing of a noble family.
     Frankenstein stood gazing at the house, a windswept hollow man,
bundled in a rough coat, pneumatic rifle dangling at his side.  Clerval
moved up to stand by his side.
     Henry moves into frame some distance behind. 
     "Frankenstein?"
     No reaction.  For a long moment, it seemed Frankenstein hadn't even
heard him.  He roused as if from a trance, turned and walked to his pack
equine. The animal stood saddled and ready.
     He began to mount up, but Clerval intercepted him with a restraining
hand.  Frankenstein snapped a look as if seeing a stranger and then his
features softened.
     "All that I once loved lies in a shallow grave.  By my hand."
     "Let it go."
     Frankenstein paused, emotions swirling inside him.  He wished he
could grab the dangling thread of sanity Clerval had offered, but he knew
the thread was a bittersweet illusion.  "You should have been my father's
son.  He would have been so proud."
     Frankenstein abruptly heaved himself into the saddle and spurred his
equine.  Clerval ran after him, shouting:   "Frankenstein!  Come Back!"
     But Frankenstein kept on riding without so much as a backward
glance.  The past was dead.  Clerval watched Frankenstein until he
vanished from sight, as Willie did so long ago.  

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

     The solitary rider and his mount traversed the windswept glacier,
until he finally arrived at The Creature's cave.  
     Frankenstein  slid  down the entrance, his rifle cradled. The cave
was now deserted, all  possessions gone, a scorched black spot where the
campfire had been

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

     A panorama of snow spread out before Frankenstein. Pristine, save
for the long trail of footprints stretching off before him.  He gazed
first at the craggy horizon, then up at the sky, his breath punching the
air with billows of vapor.  He slogged onward, following the tracks,
leading his equine by the reins, his figure dwindling from sight across
the frozen landscape.
 
*********************************** 

     With his story now coming to an end, Frankenstein's mind now drifted
away from Hanover, back, back to the ice planet, back to the stranded
snow ram, back to Captain Apollo, Starbuck, Boomer, Boxey, Muffit and
everyone else who had been listening to him.  
     "It wasn't long before I learned he'd made his way off-planet.  That
Nomen's spaceship-he said he knew how to fly it.  So, I took what was
left of my family fortune and left Hanover, first booking passage on an
Orion starliner that had made a stopover on my home colony, then, I put
down even more cubits and bought a spaceship of my own, after being
instructed in their operation, of course .  I've followed his trail
deeper...always deeper into the wilderness of space.  Always one parsec
behind, never stopping, driven by my fires of rage-and revenge."
     Frankenstein's condition had taken a turn for the worse since he'd
started talking.  He was sallow as a corpse, barely able to speak,
drained now of everything.
     "I don't know how long I've been following him.  A yahren.  Perhaps
more.  Only to arrive at this planet.  Tired.  So very tired.  I never
did find..." he choked and gagged, "...whatever it was...," more choking
and gagging, "...I was looking for, Apollo, and neither will your
father,.  Please, take this message back with you to Commander Adama:
Value life above ambition, or else those glittering prizes you seek will
crumble to dust in your fingers, as they have in mine."  He reached out
feverishly to Apollo.  "Go young man, complete your mission.  See your
loved ones again.  I cannot."
     Apollo took Frankenstein's hand, laying it gently back to his chest. 
"Rest now."
     Frankenstein fell silent, his breathing shallow.  Everyone just sat
and waited.

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

     Frankenstein's eyes fluttered open as if he were staring at
something unseen.  Perhaps the faces of those he loved.  The eyes were
glazed.  The eccentric doctor had died a peaceful death.  .

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

     The severe darkness of the ice planet's night had given way,
temporarily, at least, to gray twilight.  Apollo and the others were
standing outside the snow ram, breathers on their faces.  Apollo was
talking to a group of new arrivals, humans, thank the Gods, apparently
from a small settlement located somewhere on this planet.  But something
about them was different.  Starbuck was the first to notice that they
were all identical to one another which meant...
     "...they're clones!"
     "Actually, we prefer the name Theta Class life forms," said one of
the females of the hunting party.  She was some impressive vision of a
woman!  Her lovely face slightly resembled the faces of the cloned men-at
least she had the blue eyes and blond hair.  Her snow parka and leather
leggings, together with her arsenal of weapons (including a laser rifle
slung over her shoulder) did not in any way conceal the superbly formed
body underneath all the junk she wore.  Starbuck couldn't stop staring at
her.  If Frankenstein's "man" were a nightmare, this "woman" was
certainly a dream.
     The first hunter introduced himself as Ser 5-9, and the woman as
Tenna 1.  The others had similar names.  Ser 5-9 distributed food and
water, which the team fell on like a pack of ravaging monsters of prey. 
Ser 5-9 and Tenna watched with interest their devouring of the rations. 
Ser 5-9 asked how they came to be on their planet.  Before Croft could
suggest to Apollo that he use a little caution, he gave them a quick
briefing on their mission.  He apparently bought their act, lock stock
and barrel.  Croft wished he could be so sure.  Interrupting Apollo's
statements, Ser 5-9 said:  
     "You've come to destroy the Ravashol pulsaric laser communication
wave unit?"
     "Ravashol?" Apollo asked.
     "Dr. Ravashol," Tenna says.  "He is human."
     Starbuck, irritated, glanced over toward Tenna and said:
     "Human, you said?  A human created that big monster cannon for the
use of Cylons?"
     Tenna, though clearly on the defensive, shot back:  
     "If it were not for Ravashol, we would not exist."
     "He is the father-creator," Ser 5-9 said reverently.
     "Ohhhh! Frak!" Starbuck moaned.  "Another one on this planet like
Frankenstein: a self-styled 'creator.'"
     "No, not like him," Boomer pointed out.  "For all his faults, I
don't think that Frank-enstein would have helped the Cylons.  This
Ravashol's more like Baltar, I'd say."
     Ser 5-9 and Tenna 1 looked first at each other, then at the group. 
"Your words confuse us.  You speak of another father-creator."
     "That is impossible," said Tenna 1.  "There can only be one father
creator."
     Apollo told Ser 5-9 all about Frankenstein.  "He claimed to have
built a man out of corpses and brought him to life.  Frankly, we don't
know if he was telling the truth or not."
     The male Theta behind Ser 5-9 whispered something to him.  Ser 5-9
nodded in agreement.
     "Where is-Frankenstein?  May I speak to him?"
     "I'm afraid that's impossible.  He died just a few centons before
you came."
     "Nevertheless, I would like to at least see what the man looked
like."
     Thane interjected, "Let the fool have his way.  They must know
something about him or they wouldn't be interested."
     Apollo sighed, "Very well, if you insist.  The body's in the snow
ram.  I don't know what in Hades you think you'll find out, but..."
     He turned to the snow ram, popped the driver's side hatch,
entered...and then froze at the sound of soft weeping.  He couldn't see
very clearly into the darkened interior of the ram.  Could it be the dead
man?  He switched on his emergency light.  It illuminated a set of wet
footprints that led across the floor.  
     He eased the light forward. The corpse came slowly into view. A dark
figure was hunched and weeping beside it, holding its hand. Apollo was
stunned.
     "Who are you?" 
     The figure swiveled its head, revealing its face to the dim yellow
light. "He never gave me a name."
     Apollo hissed a terrified intake of breath.  Clearly, Starbuck
hadn't been exaggerating about the monster's inhuman ugliness. 
Frankenstein was telling the truth about his creation.
     He drew out his laser pistol and pointed it at the creature,
wondering if he should shoot it.  The Creature made no move, however, and
if he was worried it never showed on his face.  
     Just then Ser 5-9 slapped down his hand down hard on Apollo's gun
hand, indicating that he should put his weapon away.  "I would not do him
any harm, Captain Apollo. He's saved all your lives."
     "Is he a friend of yours?"
     "No, but he found our hunting party and led us to you.  You see, we
call this place Deathpoint Plateau because anyone who gets stranded up
here will eventually die from exposure to liquified di-ethene.  The wave
that just passed you must have been a lightweight one, other-wise all of
you would be dead by now.  The one coming now is much heavier, deadlier. 
And that is why we must leave this place soon."
     The Creature smiled weakly at Apollo.  "All of you were with him at
the end?"
     Apollo found his voice.  "Yes."
     "I was standing outside this vehicle, listening to him tell you
about how he created me."  Apollo was not happy to find that out.
     The Creature returned his gaze to Frankenstein's body.  "I longed to
be with him.  But I wanted his final moments to have peace.  I could see
you people were trying to help him."
     "What's that to you, evil as you are?" Apollo asked.  
     The Creature swivelled his gaze.  "I am as he made me.  In his own
image."
     "You drove him to his torment."
     "And he drove me to mine."
     "Then why are you mourning for him?"
     "How would you feel?  He was my father and mother.  We fell from
grace, he from his gods, I from my one true god-him!"  The Creature
gently stroked Frankenstein's cheek.  He reached up with two fingers,
closing the staring eyes.  "Could we ever have forgiven?"	
     The question went unanswered.  The Creature rose, gliding toward the
open driver's side hatch.  
     "I've never been shown a kindness.  Show me one now."
     "What?"
     "Build for him a pyre.  Light up the sky with his passing."
     And The Creature leaped out of the snow ram, vanishing smoothly into
the stark wilderness of the ice planet.

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

     Boomer, Starbuck, Apollo, Croft and the Thetas were in the
snowfield.  Certain that the snow ram would never work again, Apollo had
ordered the group to take everything, seats, instrument boards, all
unnecessary equipment and dump it all into a pile.
 
*********************************** 

     The body of  Frankenstein now lay on an impressive bier of stacked
plastic, cushion foam, and metal, all lashed together with cable wires. 
His body was wrapped in a silver survival blanket, his face as dead and
white as the ice.
     Apollo and the group stood facing the bier.  Everyone, even Boxey,
Thane, Wolfe, Croft and Leda, joined in a silent prayer for the dead
scientist.  Mili-centons later, amens were muttered.  Apollo glanced to
Starbuck and Boomer and they all nodded.  All three warriors drew their
laser pistols at the bier, preparing to fire at it.
     Muffit, Boxey at his side, started yapping.  Everybody paused,
gazing across the ice, some of them feeling dread seep into their bones. 
There was a huge and humanlike figure approaching, loping slowly over the
ice.  
     Wolfe spoke up.  "Frak!" He punctuated his curse by yanking out the
laser pistol he'd been concealing in his parka, set it to kill, and aimed
it at the approaching phantom.  Suddenly, he found himself staring down
the muzzle of a laser rifle, Ser 5-9's to be exact.  
     "He has a right to bear witness."
     Wolfe hesitated, and nodded, knowing that his laser pistol was no
match for Ser 5-9's laser rifle.  "If you say so," he said.  All the
Galacticans, with the exception of Apollo, grew more unsettled as The
Creature drew nearer.  Boxey shook with fear as well, hugging Muffit
closer to him for protection.  
     "Stand fast!  All of you!"  Apollo commanded.
     And they stood fast.  The Creature stopped some thirty maxims out. 
There was a silent tableau on the ice, the Galactican team and the Thetas
facing The Creature, Apollo, Boomer and Starbuck pointing their weapons
at the pyre.
     Just then, Croft felt a little drop of liquid fall on him, and the
temperature plummet even lower.  Liquid? With the temperature dropping
below freezing?   Then another droplet pelted him, and another,
delivering a burning sting to his adam's apple.  Soon, a fine mist seemed
to be forming in the air, while as the cold worsened.  "Captain Apollo,"
he yelled, "The di-ethene wave is coming.  Just like I said often
happens, the atmosphere is dropping to critical point.  The di-ethene is
going from gas to liquid."
     Tenna 1 nodded in agreement.  "It won't be long until Deathpoint."
     "Let's get this over with, Apollo," Starbuck urged.
     "All right," Apollo said.  "On three-one----two------THREE!"
     But they didn't fire.  They were disrupted by a horrible wail from
one of the Thetas, a man named Ser 5-11.  He choked, gagged and dropped
like a fly to the ground, hideous burns covering the lower half of his
face.  
     "Everyone out of here!" Apollo yelled.
     Nobody had to be told twice.  The entire group quit the area as fast
as they could, the Theta's leading the way.  The "mist" soon turned into
an purplish-white "rain shower," turning the snow for hectars around the
same color.  Apollo gagged, his breather unable to protect him from the
descending di-ethene.  Starbuck helped him to his feet.  He'd dropped his
laser pistol, and it lay not ten mili-maxims away from him.  Apollo felt
his heart react to his hesitation, wondering if he should snatch up the
laser pistol, put his life on the line to grant The Creature's request. 
But Starbuck was pulling wildly on his sleeve.
     "Leave it!  It's not that important!"
     Starbuck and Apollo fell back to join the retreat, stumbling after
the others, pursued by increasingly heavy "rainfall" of di-ethene.
     The Creature watched as his last wish for Frankenstein was snatched
away by the whim of the Gods and falling liquid di-ethene.
     No!
     He started forward.  Drops of liquid di-ethene were burning the top
of his head and he started choking, but he pressed on, ignoring these
threats to his life.
     The wave of fleeing humans reached a small grotto that, according to
Ser 5-9, was just on the way to their underground hideaway.  
     Apollo and Starbuck stumbled along, closing distance to the grotto. 
Apollo glanced back amazed to see The Creature racing across the snow and
ice, braving the di-ethene, making for the laser pistol, his teeth set in
a wide grimace of effort.  Exposure to the deadly substance threatened to
stop him in his tracks.  Suddenly, things went from bad to worse.
     The wind picked up, gusting to hurricane force.  The Creature was
blown into the sky, cartwheeling helplessly through the air to plunge
headfirst into the snow.
     Apollo and Starbuck were knocked flat by the strong winds, leaving
the strike commander dazed.  Starbuck struggled through the howling,
demonic winds to reach Apollo.  He grabbed the back of Apollo's parka and
tried to drag him off-only to have the parka snatched from his fingers as
another gust of wind blew Apollo's body  into a complete flip-flop,
landing him almost an entire maxim from the grotto's lip.
     "Apollo!"
     Apollo stood up, righting himself, swaying ponderously as he was
able to find honest, di-ethene-free snow underneath the heels of his
boots.  Some of the Thetas were climbing out of the grotto, hurtling
themselves into the driving snow to walk the imperiled warrior to safety. 
Ser 5-9 and the others stood waiting for Apollo on the grotto's floor. 
Boxey was afraid for his father, wanting desperately to see him again.
     Frankenstein's bier, amazingly enough, seemed have been spared the
combination di-ethene/snow/hurricane-force wind assault.  The
laser-pistol still lay in the snow where Apollo had dropped it
mili-centons earlier.
     Starbuck and a posse of four Thetas were busy helping the dazed
Apollo negotiate the  gently sloping, but rocky path to the bottom of the
grotto.  "Steady Apollo," Starbuck encouraged.  "Take it one step at a
time."
     They made it.  Boxey and Croft ran over to greet Apollo, who stood
gasping and strangling for breath, his face already turning blue, his
parka and all the other protective-gear he was wearing weighing down on
his person like a heavy stone.  
     Apollo stopped walking, just standing still now.  His gasping,
fortunately, had ceased.  He shook his head wildly, fighting hard to
bring himself out of his daze.  Everyone else down there seemed relieved
that he'd survived, but just then, Apollo shouted: "Wait a minute!  We
can't just leave him at the mercy of that storm!"
     "Wait!  Apollo!  Don't go back up there!" Croft cried.  "The
di-ethene'll kill you!"  Boomer added.
     But Apollo didn't hear either of them.  He ran up the rocky slope,
back into the storm, which had now degenerated into a terrible display of
nature's fury.  He stopped, looking both ways, peering through the snow
and di-ethene rain to look for The Creature, but the visibility proved
too poor for Apollo to make out even his gloved hands.
     A fist, like a slab of iron, clamped down on Apollo's right arm.  It
pulled him closer and closer.  All the way to the hideous face that had
now begun to materialize out of the mist and weather of the storm.  The
face of a nightmare.  
     The Creature lunged hugely, hurling Apollo through the air, right
into the arms of Starbuck, who'd been following him close behind.  The
impact sent both men sprawling.  Starbuck scrambled to his knees, making
eye contact with The Creature.  
     The monster was exhausted, his skin burning and blistering  from the
di-ethene.  He was near his limit.  Starbuck thrust out his arm, fingers
grasping to help.
     "Come with us," Starbuck pleaded.
     The Creature swiveled his gaze.  The handle of the laser pistol was
sticking out of the snow.  He looked grimly back to Starbuck and Apollo,
the two of them both beckoning to him.  Save yourself.  Come with us.
     The Creature walked away, charging through the snow and rain after
the laser pistol.  Starbuck turned, dragged Apollo gasping to his feet,
helping him walk back toward the grotto across the deepening snow.  
     The Creature  struggled through the snow, as well, his flesh black
with chemical burns, the tips of his black hair coated with ice.  The
di-ethene was reaching Deathpoint.  He didn't have much longer to live.
     Starbuck and Apollo slogged grimly on across the knee-deep snow, at
times, feeling like they would sink up to their necks in it.  When they
finally reached shallower snow, they took a running start and leaped into
the grotto, landing on their feet, knees slightly bent.  They were the
last ones out of the storm.
     The laser pistol had almost vanished from sight, into the building
powder.  The bony fingers of a straining hand grabbed its handle.  The
Creature's eyes were bleary with exhaustion, pain, and cold.  He gripped
the gun, and ran on, pistol first.
     Down in the grotto, everyone covered their mouths and noses with
heavy scarves.  Apollo shivered despite the thickness of the parka, but
that didn't stop him from climbing the rocks to the grotto's lip, looking
over it.  Not again, Apollo!  Croft thought.

     The Creature charged on, relentlessly determined. Apollo, watching
The Creature's progress, had never seen a more grueling effort.
     The Creature gasped and stumbled through the storm, until he finally
reached Frankenstein's  funerary bier.  He was moving now in a
slow-motion litany of exhaustion, climbing the pyre, scaling the plastic,
foam and metal, seeking the top, never giving up.
     He now joined his creator atop the bier, straddling the metal bits,
pointing the laser pistol downward at the serenely lying Frankenstein. 
Apparently, he'd decided to join his creator on his voyage to eternity.  
     The Creature turned his face to the sky, gulping the poisoned air,
shouting a triumphant shout into the storm.  He felt the wind and snow on
his burned and pitted skin, the di-ethene-laden rain and sleet on his
face, the grim joy in his heart.  Cold. So very cold.
     His finger tightened on the laser pistol's trigger.  He looked down. 
At Frankenstein.  The silver-metallic fabric of the survival blanket. 
The plastics, metals and cable lashes.  Yes.  All is in readiness.  He
scooped Frankenstein up with his free arm and cradled him to his breast,
as tender as a mother comforting a baby.  
     Apollo gazed in horror, realization dawning.  "Don't do it," he said
softly, then he screamed: "For Sagan's sake!  Don't do it!"
     The Creature turned his gaze one last time toward the heavens,
eyelids fluttering in near-religious ecstasy.  He found in these last
moments the sympathy he'd so long sought.  
     "For Sagan's sake," he whispered, "I will."
     And he fired the laser pistol into the pyre beneath him.  The
ignition was white hot.  This was the ultimate redemption.  Whump!  A
massive ball of flame engulfed the bier, pushing a huge fiery fist into
the sky, blossoming, roiling.
     Apollo gazed on in wonder and horror as The Creature embraced the
burning pyre, a shrieking revenant wrapped in a caul of fire, screaming
in the flames.  His hair went up at a sizzling flashpoint.  His cheeks
billowed out, peeling back in the blast-furnace heat, flesh cleansing
from bone, teeth charring and turning black.  But he was still cradling
Frankenstein, still screaming, still waiting for the final torment to
end.  Perhaps it never would. 
     Frankenstein's pyre vanished into the gathering darkness of the
di-ethene storm, the oily smoke blending in with the black clouds. 
Inhuman screams echoed endlessly, lost in the darkness.
     Apollo descended back into the safety of the grotto, all the humans
down there waiting in a huddle for him.  Croft walked up to him slowly. 
A milli-centon of silence passed, then:  	
     "Your orders...Captain?"
     "Proceed with the mission as planned."

THE END