Last One Out of Eden

"I admit the prototype doesn't have nearly the engine capacity, it will take you almost twice as long to get there, so there are more things that could potentially go wrong, but then again she's a smaller ship and less complicated. I wouldn't be doing this if I thought there was no chance at all. The one thing I know for sure is if you stay here, you will die."

"How can you ask me to leave you behind, Jeffery? I couldn't live with knowing I left you behind to die..."

Carrie began to cry, tears flooding down her face.

"Carrie...Please...Don't worry about wants going to happen to me. I was ready to accept my death before you arrived at least now it can have real meaning."

"Dying with you would have meaning, and if you don't understand that you don't get what's been happening between us at all!"

She pulled away and ran out the door, leaving a confused and angry Jeffery behind her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he yelled after her waking Chuck from his slumber and promptly having to listen to the sounds of an irate Rhesus which just compounded his frustration.

Jeffery returned to the dormitory only to find that Carrie had locked herself in his quarters and refused to answer his knocks at the door. He tried to talk her into opening it, but his every argument fell on deaf ears, and he finally retreated to the main sleeping area randomly choosing a bunk. Sleep eventually claimed him his exhausted mind still reeling from the events of the past twenty-four hours. The morning didn't bring him any immediate relief from his problems, Carrie still wouldn't answer the door, and he gave up to eat a quick breakfast. Afterward, he went through the procedures to bring the main launch complex building back online and started the flight pre-checks letting the computers handle most of the work. He left to double-check the external systems and structures working up a sweat in the hot sun, and deciding to grab a shower upon his return.

He was standing in the communal bath area, letting the warm jets spray across his body when he heard a voice behind him.

"Is there room in there for me?"

Jeffery turned slowly around to find a naked Carrie standing behind him. She walked toward him across the cold tile floor coming to stand at the edge of his spray. He watched with growing interest as the water droplets beaded up on her bare skin. Her nipples stiffened as the water covered them just enough to chill the flesh without the added warmth of standing directly beneath the jets.

"Are you going to hog all the hot water?" she said, smiling.

Jeffery still couldn't bring himself to speak, but he took a step back, allowing her to join him. She leaned back to let her hair dangle under the running water slicking it back on her head with both hands.

"You know what the best thing is about getting in a fight with your lover?"

"No..." said Jeffery cocking his head to one side.

"The makeup sex."

Carrie slid her arms around his neck and pulled him to her, covering his mouth with a long, deeply passionate kiss. Their wet bodies pressed together, Carrie's soft mounds rubbing delightfully all over Jeffery's hairy chest, and any residual anger he might have been feeling melted away quickly with her gentle touch. They started to kiss with more heat, tongues coming together in a lust-filled dance. He lifted her from the ground, placing her back to the tiled wall while she wrapped her legs around him. The skin of her breasts was slick under his tongue, and he sucked hungrily at her stiff nipples as she clung to him and moaned softly into the damp air.

"Oh...Yes...Jeffery! I love the way you suck my tits! It makes me so wet for you!"

He lowered her down letting his now fully erect cock rub at the entrance to her vagina, feeling her slick labia teasing the head of his penis before he pushed up into her impaling her tiny body on his thick cock. Carrie let out a loud breath when he entered spreading her open.

"Yes! Oh, God! You're so deep inside me!" moaned Carrie.

Jeffery grasped her ass in his strong hands and started to move her body up and down, driving himself further into her and adding his cries to hers. The fire between them grew hotter than the steamy waters of the shower as he moved her faster on his hard shaft. They flooded each other's mouths with frantic French kisses and need-filled groans their bodies trembling with the barely suppressed need to come.

"Harder! Harder, Jeffery! Make me feel it! I need to feel it! Harder!" screamed Carrie suddenly digging her nails into his back.

Water splashed off them with the quickening movements of their bodies, sending streams off in odd directions. They grunted like rough beasts and shook as one when their orgasms arrived at the same time the shower filling with their cries.

"Oh! Carrie! Ah! Fuck! I'm cumming!"

"Cum for me! Cum for me, Jeffery! Ah! Fuck! I feel it so good! Ah! YES! Jeffery!" yelled Carrie in reply to her own body climaxing all over his jerking cock.

They clung tightly to each other, and she leaned her head onto his shoulder, whispering in his ear.

"I can't leave you, Jeffery, because I love you..."

He couldn't bring himself to answer at first, but he held her even tighter rubbing at her long hair. Then carefully lowering her to the ground to gaze into her beautiful blue eyes.

"I love you too," he said at last.

"Good...Then you won't mind making me something to eat while I finish."

Jeffery laughed and gave her one last kiss before leaving her to clean up, "Your word is my command."

By the time Carrie finished her shower and got dressed, Jeffery had her food prepared, a piping hot stack of pancakes.

"I hope you don't mind. I didn't want to waste the batter, and I still had quite a bit leftover from the batch I made for breakfast this morning," he explained.

"It's fine. I love pancakes, and there is nothing wrong with breakfast for lunch."

They sat across from each other, and he watched her eagerly dig in relishing every bite.

"I think this afternoon you should give me a rematch. I want my shot at being the table tennis champ of the base."

Jeffery nodded, "If you want to get thrashed again, I can arrange it."

"Ooooh! Don't get overconfident. The only way you're thrashing me is if I let you bring one of the paddles to bed later."

He looked away, blushing, and Carrie laughed loudly, "Look at you getting all embarrassed."

"I think I led a sheltered existence next to yours."

"Don't worry, I can show you all kinds of things," she promised with a wicked smile.

The last bite of pancake vanished, and Carrie stood up to carry her plate to the sink yawning on her way back.

"You know...We might have to postpone the rematch just a little while. I think you kept me up too late last night. I might need a little nap first."

"It's fine. I can find plenty to do around here."

She started toward the bedroom, but stopped, swaying slightly and putting a hand on the wall.

"Carrie?" asked Jeffery worriedly.

"Wow...I'm more tired than I thought I guess...I really need to lay..."

Her legs buckled and she headed for the floor, but Jeffery was right there to catch her before she hit cradling her body to his chest.

"Have a good sleep, Carrie. When you wake up, it will be in a better place than this, and I hope you can forgive me for what I'm about to do," he whispered to her as her eyes fluttered shut.

Jeffery carried her limp body to the closest bed and then went to his room to pick up a few things dropping off the bottle he had taken from the infirmary back in its place. The drug would keep Carrie out for hours, long enough for him to take care of business.

It reminded him of the first night they had spent together only this time he was stripping her not to fix a sunburn, but to put her in a special suit that would help to regulate her body temperature during the long sleep she was about to take. The sun was already slipping low by the time he finished prepping her, and the last of the automatic checks had returned green lights on the prototype.

The boosters were throwing off streams of vapor, making an artificial mist in the air when he arrived with Carrie at the foot of TPRT-11 and rode the elevator up to the main deck. The life-preserving chamber inside was fully powered up, and he laid her in the cushion interior buckling her small body into place. Her long hair spilled across her face, and he brushed it back, taking just a moment to touch her warm cheek. It occurred to him that she looked like a sleeping princess from some fairy tale, and he just resisted the urge to try and wake her with a kiss instead placing his lips on her forehead.

"Sleep tight, Carrie. Be safe..."

He shut the top cover pressurizing the chamber and watching as the gas he had transferred from the lab poured in obscuring her body in a yellowish haze. The computer sensed her presence and automatically began to lower the temperature making the plexiglass dome frost over. Jeffery lingered then realized he was only making things harder for himself and he left the ship sealing the hatch behind him.

The main launch building was lit up with the glow of dozens of computer displays, and he ran from one to the next trying to make sure that everything looked right even though he was relying on the computer to do most of the work for him. The gantry lights poured over the exterior of the ship and combined with the vapor and the dying sunlight to make it look almost ethereally beautiful. It took on an even more awesome beauty when the computer fired the main booster, and the ship began to rise into the air carried by the powerful rockets beneath it. Jeffery craned his neck to follow the fire of its engines as it climbed higher and higher into the sky. With all the satellites gone he had no way of tracking its telemetry once it left the range of his ground-based radar, but at least he could take solace in the fact that its course was right on the money to that point.

He went around, shutting down the systems one by one, bringing silence back to the room for the last time.

In the end, Jeffery decided not to bother returning to his quarters and instead went to the kitchen and crawled under one of the cabinets where he pulled out the bottle of whiskey he had been saving for the last toast when Nomad got close. He took it with him to the communication building where he poured himself a glass and took a sip of the potent liquid, feeling it burn his throat on the way down. The small vial was still in his pocket, and he took it in his hand, sitting it on the desk in front of the communications array looking at the white pill inside.

"I guess I was just waiting for the right time and this feels like it," said Jeffery to the empty office.

He unscrewed the cap and poured out the vial's contents into his hand. According to government sources, the effect was supposed to be quick and painless.

The smoke from Carrie's liftoff was still vanishing into the moonlit sky, and he took one more look out the window wishing he could see the contrail, but it had long since passed out of sight.

"Goodbye, Carrie, at least I saved the best for last," he said, sitting back down.

The glass felt surprisingly heavy in his hand, but he didn't hesitate to swallow the pill along with a good bit of whiskey. He sat back to wait watching a meteor streak by outside the window, then another both leaving long fiery trails across the sky.

"Going to be a show tonight," he said.

It seemed like a good idea to have another drink, but the bottle slipped from his suddenly shaking hand crashing onto the floor and shattering.

"They weren't kidding about quick I guess," he slurred.

The room was quiet except for the occasional call of some wild animal out in the desert. Jeffery's eyes wandered up to the wall above the desk where one of his fellow officers had scrawled what he had referred to as a parting message to the planet in black marker back in the early days when they had first arrived. Jeffery had thought it a bit morbid and tried to ignore it more often than not, but tonight he read it out loud to himself.

"Will the last one out of Eden please turn off the lights."

He laughed and coughed feeling his chest getting tight, then with trembling fingers he reached up and turned off the single lamp on the desk plunging the room into darkness.

The sounds of his breathing slowed while outside the window fire began to fall from the sky.

THE LONG SLEEP -

The window showed her a spectacular view, and one Carrie was not sure she would ever get used too. The world outside was about as foreign to her as it was possible to be with a sky lit up red instead of blue the sun here a much dimmer bulb hanging just above the horizon. The ground outside looked rocky and a bit like the desert she had inhabited seemingly just a short while ago. The thin ribbon of a small river wound its way off into the distance with strange vegetation lining the shoreline. The small trees she could see from her vantage point possessed leaves that looked almost black in the perpetual twilight.

The door behind her slid open, and a man entered. He was short, with dark hair and pale skin looking as if he hadn't spent much time out of doors, or perhaps on this planet that wouldn't have helped anyway. His name was Dr. Feynman, and he had been taking care of her for two weeks now.

"How are we feeling today, Ms. Morton?"

"Tired of being poked and prodded by anyone in a white coat," she replied, having a hard time keeping the anger out of her voice.

"Please try to understand we are just cautious. No one ever spent as much time in the long sleep as you, almost four-hundred years, so we are just trying to make sure we don't release you prematurely and have you end up right back here sick."

"I would think with all the tests you've done on me you could guarantee that by now."

Dr. Feynman smiled, trying not to appear condescending and failing miserably.

"Well...I can tell you that all the results we've seen look good so far, but I want to make sure you're strong enough to face the days ahead. Your muscles have atrophied just a bit, and we need to ease you back onto a normal diet."

Carrie turned away from the window and tried to take a step toward the table, but swayed off balance for a second having to catch herself on the edge. The Doctor jumped up from his seat to steady her.

"Easy, Ms. Morton. The gravity here is only eighty percent what you're used to so it's going to leave you feeling a bit awkward for a while."

"So the nurses keep telling me," replied Carrie sitting down.

"Honestly, I don't think we will be keeping you here too much longer. The media is chomping at the bit to get at you, and it has been everything we can do to hold them off."

"Media?" said Carrie.

"Yes. I mean you're quite the celebrity, Ms. Morton. A ship arrives from Earth two-hundred years after planetfall with a single woman inside? I'm sure you can appreciate what a stir that would cause among the populace. They all want to talk to you. I fear you may spend a lot of time with a microphone in your face soon. The scientific community is going just as crazy over your ship. I'm guessing when they're done it will be given a prize place in our Earth history museum."

"Jeffery would have liked that..." she said quietly.

"Jeffery?" said Dr. Feynman, looking up questioningly from where he was making notes on her chart.

"Nothing, never mind," she replied while clutching tighter to the piece of paper in her pocket.

They had found the note sealed in plastic in the pocket of her uniform and given it back to her later in the hospital. She had taken it out constantly since, reading it over and over until the words were burned into her brain yet somehow not able to be without it. The handwriting had been in Jeffery's tight script, and like most engineers, he used an economy of words but managed to convey a great deal of emotion.

She thought back over it again as the Doctor continued to scribble away.

"Dear Carrie,

If you're reading this, I hope it's by the light of a red sun, and you are safe on your new home. I also hope that with roughly four-hundred years to sleep on it you've managed to find it in your heart to forgive me, but I understand if you're still a little pissed. As a soldier, I was always prepared to accept my death, but I could never have accepted yours if there was a way for me to prevent it. In time, maybe you can see your way to not hating me for caring too much about you. I know we only were together for a short while, but in those few days, I was happier than I had ever been in my life, and I will face my end without regret.

Know that my last thoughts will be of you. The way your hair shined in the sunlight. The way your blue eyes got so wide when I made that impossible shot in table tennis. The way you looked at me when we made love.

When I draw my last breath, I will go out of this world as you saw me, a good man at peace with the things he had to do. I can't imagine anyone needing more than that.

I love you, Carrie.

Always yours,

Jeffery."

Carrie clenched her fists under the table and fought back the tears as she had been doing for days wondering if she would ever be able to think of him and not want to cry for all the time she wished they had enjoyed together.

"Is everything alright, Ms. Morton?" asked Dr. Feynman, noticing her distress.

"Fine," she lied.

He looked her over showing honest sympathy on his face for the first time for this poor girl thrown through time to a strange new world.

"I know for you it seems like no time has passed and you're waking up into this weird new reality with no anchor, but if you give it a chance, I believe you will find life here can be quite rewarding. We've bounced back wonderfully since the arrival. When the first settlers came, they were only sixty-five-hundred strong having lost almost a third due to mishaps along the journey. Now, we are a thriving colony of close to a quarter-million human beings and growing."

"Thank you, Doctor. It's good to know that we are still in the game after what happened to the Earth," she replied, trying to force a smile on her face.

"Indeed. So, the last of your blood test came back clear, and you will be happy to know that you've only aged approximately ten weeks, not bad given the length of your journey. Even better, your baby is doing fine right along with you. I have to say they didn't allow anyone pregnant to enter the long sleep back in the day so I'm glad there were no complications there."

Carrie's smile fell, and she looked at Dr. Feynman with a shocked expression, "My...Baby?"

"Yes...Uh...You did know you were pregnant?"

"Yeah, of course...Sorry...I guess I'm just still very addled after the trip."

"Of course. Well, I'm going to send the nurse in with your lunch. Try to hang in there just a bit longer, and I promise you'll be out of here."

Dr. Feynman gave her a last nod of his head and vanished back out the door he had come through.

Carrie stood back up and padded back over to the window taking in the landscape outside in a new, more hopeful light as she put a hand on her stomach. A baby was growing inside her, Jeffery's child.

"I wish you were here to see this, but at least a part of you made the journey. Your baby is going to grow up safe thanks to you. I know he is going to grow up into a good man just like his dad and someday I will tell him the story of the man I loved who saved us both."