Paths of Life

by Chaim Mattis Keller

Chapter 3:
Whatever Happened to Michael:
The Secret Origin of ???

"It's good to see you again, Ilda," I said as I carefully slid into the passenger seat of our vehicle. "It's been too long."

"Likewise, Star," my former robot secretary told me. "You can't imagine how excited I was about the thought of working on a case with you again after all this time. My circuits are positively humming!"

"Robotic nostalgia, eh?" I remarked with a smile. I knew that Ilda was programmed with the entire range of human emotions. On more than one occasion, she'd had insights that had helped me in cases where a soulless machine wouldn't have been able to calculate a solution. And, of course, the human touch is important when dealing with clients, as when she was my secretary. "Don't expect too much excitement. This is a missing-persons investigation that I'm going into with my mind alone. My punch no longer bears force, and my eyes aren't good enough to aim a ray gun properly. If by some odd chance there is rough stuff, you'll be handling it alone."

"I understand. But I'm excited just the same, both out of nostalgia and out of concern for you, Star," she said. "It's been fifteen years since your wife died, but you really haven't allowed yourself to experience life since then. Visiting your children and grandchildren is wonderful, but if you were ever going to move on, it was going to have to be by moving out."

"You're right, of course," I told her. I'd forgotten how well she knows me. "I think I felt as though I had to stay inside myself in order to keep Stella's memory in my mind. Now I've accepted that adding new memories won't make the old ones disappear."

"And that, I think, leads to what we're doing right now, doesn't it? You've found a lady that you're somewhat fond of."

I smiled again, this time thinking of Marie. "Yes. Her only son was kidnapped in the Sirian raids of 2130, and I'd like to try my hand at finding him for her."

"Star Hawkins, Private Eye, is back in action!" Ilda responded with energy. "So, where do we begin, Star?"

She was asking out of politeness; having run our old detective agency and the academy for training robot detectives since my retirement, she was surely capable of proceeding on her own. Nonetheless, I wanted it to be my effort that brought happiness back into Marie's life, and played along with her assumed subservience. "We begin with history," I said. "Let's review what we know of the events of 2130."

"The Sirian raids," Ilda stated, mechanically reciting from a database that she had just plugged herself into. "In the late 2120's, after Earth made contacts with inhabitants of the star system Sirius, the canine Sirians came to Earth and were aghast at the way Earthlings treated dogs as pets rather than as equals. Sirius was quick to break off diplomatic ties and demand that dogs be treated as equals under the law with human beings. The Sirian government refused to accept Earth's claim that Earth canines are not thinking creatures like the Sirians, and claimed that a human-dominated society and a lack of opposable thumbs have kept Earth canines subservient and ignorant. After several years of futility, the Sirians began to try to demonstrate their point by raiding Earth cities and kidnapping young children, who they said would be kept as pets. When the Sirians persisted in the attacks despite repeated pleas for understanding from Earth, Earth declared war against Sirius, which lasted for over ten years."

"So Michael became some Sirian's pet," I mumbled under my breath.

Ilda continued. "In 2142, a peace agreement was reached, whereby several thousand Earth canines of various breeds would be sent to Sirius for a trial period during which the canine Earthlings' ability to be integrated into Sirian society, including several dozen French Poodles earmarked for the Sirian Emperor's harem. The human pets would be released and sent back to Earth. While many of the older pets were returned to their families, there remain hundreds who remain unidentified by relatives or whose whereabouts are completely unknown."

"All right," I said, stopping Ilda's narration of history. "Michael is amongst the missing. What we need to do first is find out whether he returned to Earth at all, or if he somehow remained on Sirius. Ilda, place a call to the Sirian consulate."

She did so, and soon I was speaking with a Sirian diplomat with a name that sounded like "Woof Woof." "I'm trying to track down a former pet human whose family was unable to find him after the peace accords," I told him. "He was kidnapped in 2130. Is there any way he can be traced?"

"Not easily," the diplomat barked. "We did not formally track the pets in any way. We did have pet licenses, and those records might be useful to you, but they won't be a positive identification. I can give you my government's guarantee, Mr. Hawkins, that not a single pet human remains against his or her will on Sirius."

"Some are still there willingly?" I asked with astonishment.

"Many pets become extremely attached to their owners," Woof pointed out. "You Earthlings have completely failed to grasp the consequences of mass forced domestication on a previously intelligent population."

"Does that mean you've succeeded in proving that Earth dogs are intelligent?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Not yet," he growled. "This is going to be a long-term project, as I'm sure you can understand. That is, if we can put up with their mess in the streets for a long enough period of time."

Sensing some hostility regarding the subject, I quickly switched back to the human aspect. "In any case, those humans who decided to remain might have family on Earth who have no idea as to their status or whereabouts," I pointed out. "Surely you can't keep them away from their families any longer, now that the war has ended."

"We've been very cooperative about those," replied Woof. "As part of the peace accords, there is a massive effort being made to submit DNA-scans of all current pet humans for identification purposes. The data should be available from our planetary government. However, we didn't acquire the technology to do that until after we made peace with your planet."

I thanked him and hung up. It was obvious that we'd have to make a trip to Sirius if we intended to find Michael. "Ilda, are you equipped for human-Sirian translation?" The phone translated automatically, but now we'd be dealing with the Sirians in person.

"Not yet, Star, but I can buy a chip for that."

"Fine. Do that, and let's head for Sirius. We're going to need to do some old-fashioned investigating."

Ilda got the chip, and, with Marie's consent, I obtained a copy of Michael's medical records. Within the day, we were on our way. We landed at the spaceport and went straight to the Sirian government offices, where we found the pet registration department. We dealt with a bureaucrat named Woof Woof, who allowed us to have Ilda plug herself into their data connections.

"Do you have a relative who works at the Earth consulate?" I asked the bureaucrat.

"Not that I know of," Woof responded. "Why?"

"Well, there's someone there with the same name as you, and I thought it was an odd coincidence."

"That would be odd. My name, Woof Woof, is an unusual one. I'd certainly be interested in meeting someone else with that name. Thank you."

I was puzzled by the exchange, but Ilda ignored it and got straight to work. "I'm connected, Star. What are we looking for?"

"Can we search on the name?" I asked.

"Afraid not, Star. Pets are given new names by their buyers, and registered that way."

"Well, let's see if any pets are registered who were born in 2122."

"There are four thousand, six hundred and fifty-two, Star."

"Height: one hundred thirty-nine centimeters. Weight: thirty-six kilograms. Allow for 2% variations."

"Two hundred ninety."

"Brown eyes, brown hair."

"One hundred one."

I sighed, unsure of how to reduce the number any further. "All right, Ilda, can you book us a hotel room? We'll have to contact all these people and send them the picture that Marie gave me, to see if any of them recognize Michael."

Ilda found us a nice hotel with accommodations approaching reasonable for human beings. We compiled a message to all one hundred and one of Michael's possible owners, including copies of the photo, and transmitted them. Three days later, we finally got a response from a Mister Woof Woof.

"This Earthling was my pet," he told me when we met him in the flesh. "We called him 'Mechanic.' Ah, you bring back memories. He was a joy to have around, and I quite miss him."

"So does his mother," I said angrily. "I'm trying to find out whatever happened to him, and the more you could tell me about Mic – er, Mechanic, the better."

"Well, I'd like to know whatever happened to him as well," said Woof. "My family and I were very fond of him and we were sad we had to let him go, but that's war for you. But if you find him, tell him to visit us. We miss him."

"I appreciate that," I told him. "Any information you can tell me will help me in this."

"We named him Mechanic because he loved vehicles," Woof told me. "When we first bought him, he was constantly chasing cars. We worried about this, since one of them could very well have run him down, but apparently he knew what he was doing. Eventually, we managed to curb these tendencies by letting him work on the cars' interiors. From that day on, he could almost always be found tinkering with vehicles of various sorts. It was so much fun to watch him play with an engine," Woof sighed, "and he was good at it too."

"Ilda, note that the subject has an aptitude for mechanics," I told her. "Maybe he became one and we can track him through a mechanic's license."

Woof continued. "He was also a very well-behaved pet. Extremely polite and courteous. Didn't need much training at all."

"Do you have any pictures of him?" I asked.

He went to look. "Here's the most recent picture I have," he told me, handing me the photo in question. "It was taken shortly before his release."

"What date was he released?"

"March 30, 2146," Woof told me.

"By the way, are you perhaps related to a Woof Woof who works at the Earth consulate, or at the pet license bureau?" I asked.

"Not that I know of. Why do you ask?"

"Well, you all have the same name, so I couldn't help wondering..."

"Not at all!" he said. "My name is Woof Woof. The people you just asked me about are named Woof Woof and Woof Woof."

Ilda quickly said, "A misunderstanding, Mister Woof. We must get going now. Thank you very much for your cooperation." She grabbed me and instructed me to keep quiet as we left.

With the release date in hand, I went to the government offices and was able to find a listing of all flights to Earth carrying former pets around that date. As Ilda and I prepared to return to Earth, I looked at the photo of Michael at twenty-four years old. Even after spending sixteen years as a human pet, his eyes had that joyous spark of life in them that his mother's did. I was sure that I'd be able to recognize him if I ever saw him in person.

When we got into out space car, I asked Ilda, "Why did you hustle me out like that?"

Ilda said, "You were about to greatly insult our Sirian hosts, Star."

"What?"

"Did it strike you as odd that every person we encountered was named Woof Woof?"

"Of course it did! That's why I was asking..."

She gave an electronic sigh. "Star, to human ears, all their names...and all their words, for that matter, but proper names can't be automatically translated...sound like Woof Woof. To them, the sounds are significantly different. You were implying to them that all Sirians seem the same to humans."

My face reddened, but I didn't say anything.

The flight back to Earth would last through the night, so I slept. When I awoke, we were in orbit around Earth and Ilda was awaiting further instructions.

"Land in Washington," I told her. "That's where the four flights from Sirius that might have included Michael landed. Hopefully, we'll get some more information there."

At the spaceport in Washington, we picked up the trail. "All former Sirian pets would have come through the immigration desk," the spaceport official told us. We went to the immigration desk, where the secretary accessed the records for us. No one matching Michael's description was listed as having arrived that day.

We'd hit a dead end, it seemed. I posed the obvious question to Ilda. "This is a spaceport. Anyone arriving from a foreign planet has to go through immigration to prove his citizenship or get a visa. The spaceport is structured so that no one can leave it without doing one of those two. Could he be hiding here for the last nine years?"

"Unlikely," she replied, which I knew was true. "More likely he got on another ship by mistake."

My face brightened. "Ilda, you're a genius!" I exclaimed. We quickly went to the spaceport's records office to check that angle.

"The only other flight your man could have gotten on would have been a military carrier headed for the front," we were told. "The date of arrival you describe was right at the beginning of the Bored Wars of 2146, and Washington was the central recruiting station. Only military and diplomatic flights were coming in or out of Washington spaceport at that time, which includes your Sirian flight, but few others. If I were you, I'd look at army records."

Eureka! I shouted...almost. The army's records should almost certainly make him easy to find if that's where he ended up. The problem was now that his participation in the Bored Wars meant there was a good chance he was no longer alive. I was very much hoping I could give Marie a happy reunion, but I suppose I always knew that there was the possibility that I'd find out something bad. Nonetheless, it had to be better than the total uncertainty that Marie was suffering from now.

To access military information, we needed security clearance that we didn't yet have. Fortunately, as both Ilda and I have been of assistance to the National Science Center (now the Earth branch of the recently formed Interplanetary Police) on numerous occasions, we were able to get their cooperation. The NSC chief, who knew Ilda quite well (and who recognized my name only because the detective agency still kept it...ah, how time passes us all by), got the agency's military liaison, a woman named Sheila, to use her security clearance on our behalf. Soon, working with the DNA information I had from Michael's doctor, she came up with a match. "Your man went by the name of 'Mechanic,'" she told us.

"That's him," we responded. "What's his status?"

"Missing in action," she replied. "He was never accounted for after the Battle of Tranquility."

"Battle of what?!?"

"Sounds odd, doesn't it? It refers to the Sea of Tranquility on the moon. Apparently, that was one of the major engagements during the war."

"Are there any survivors of that battle that we can talk to?"

"His commanding officer is still alive. I can give you his address."

"Excellent," I said.

Ilda and I called the man and made an appointment to see him. The following day, we visited him at his house in Lagos, Western Africa.

"So, you want to know about ol' Mechanic, do you?" he said as soon as he heard the name. "Well, you came to the right place. Mechanic showed up with a bunch of other recruits one day. He wasn't on the list of people we had been expecting, but he seemed to have nowhere else to go, and he was an incredible mechanic, as his name implied, so we did the paperwork necessary to keep him. He was probably the most valuable man in my squadron. He wasn't just a mechanic. Oh no, it turned out that he was an expert at driving the machines as well. He had a...what do you call it...an aptitude for vehicles. Put him behind the wheel, and he was incredible! He could get more speed and maneuverability out of a SpaceHawk 362 than the rest of my men combined!"

"What happened during the Battle of Tranquility?" we asked.

His enthusiasm suddenly vanished. He took a deep long breath and said in a quiet tone, "Okay, you want to know about the battle of Tranquility? I'll tell you about the Battle of Tranquility."

It was a morning like any other aboard the space station where my platoon and several others were camped. The front was quiet, and the enemy troops had last been seen way out beyond the orbit of Uranus, and had lost its last three major engagements. It seemed absurd to think that they would be attacking the inner solar system directly again.

Our sentry on watch spotted what appeared to be an odd motion in the orbit of Mars's moon, Phobos. Out of concern that a few enemy troops might have managed to make it through our defensive network somehow, I sent three men to investigate it, expecting them to report back within the hour.

Four hours passed, and we heard nothing. The tension began to mount, and I had their ships traced. Sure enough, the ships had completely disappeared from view near Phobos. I could only assume that the enemy had somehow managed to establish a base there and that they'd been shot down. I reported the situation to the base commander, and he came to the same conclusion I did. We couldn't let this infiltration turn into a large-scale invasion; we had to attack first. We filled a transport ship with men and vehicles and headed for Phobos, expecting to be able to overcome the enemy by sheer weight of numbers.

When we got to Phobos, we found the ruins of our three men's ships and a single enemy gunman running a base underground. Suddenly, we realized we'd been tricked. The base was too large and too well equipped for any one person to have run it alone. There must be a larger nest of enemy soldiers elsewhere, and they were expecting us to come to Phobos.

Within minutes, our worst fears were realized. The enemy had somehow slipped into the solar system and established a large base on Earth's moon, in the area called the Sea of Tranquility. From that base, they ambushed the men on our space station while so many of us were at Phobos and killed most of them before they could even react.

What followed was perhaps the bloodiest battle of the Bored Wars. Our remaining men rallied and tried battling the enemy ships one by one, but for every one of theirs we shot down, it seemed that we lost one as well. Due to the initial attack, we couldn't afford to trade them one for one. If we couldn't even the odds, the enemy would have a valuable foothold in the inner solar system and might even be able to manage a takeover of Earth itself.

That's when I thought of Mechanic, with his fancy maneuvers and tricks. It was a long shot, but if he could run interference for us for a long enough period of time, a group of our guys could conceivably break away and attack them on the moon, destroying their base. Even if we lost this battle, that would win us the war, if we could prevent the enemy from having their lunar base.

And boy, did Mechanic ever come through! Flying his SpaceHawk 362, he seemed to be everywhere at once. He drove circles around the enemy ships, even shooting down a large number, until five of our men broke from the crowd and attacked the enemy's lunar base. Those five shot their way into the enemy's hidden hangar and managed to destroy the base all by themselves, only then fighting for their lives. Not all of them made it, but not many of the enemy did, either.

"What about Mechanic?" I asked the officer, who had apparently lost sight of the purpose of our visit.

"Ah, yes, Mechanic..." he said.

Mechanic shot down many enemy fliers during that battle, but eventually the odds caught up with him. His ship got tagged by a blast, and he could see that he was going to have to bail out. But before he did that, he decided he was going to go one more round with them. In an almost suicidal move, he maneuvered his dying vehicle in such a way that he got behind the enemy's lines. With their guns pointed straight at him, we all managed to get away. On the space-radar behind me, I could see him jettisoning his seat from his spacecraft. Soon, his spacecraft was adrift, and the blip representing him merged with one of those representing an enemy ship.

"Although at that distance, the merger of the two radar blips could have covered an area of more than three hundred cubic meters, I always thought that ol' Mechanic caught onto an enemy ship from the outside and hitched onto it to follow them to their base. I know it sounds like wishful thinking, but it's just the sort of heroic thing he might have done."

It warmed my heart to think that Michael was a hero; it was certainly better than telling Marie that her son was a much-beloved pet. I thanked the officer for his time and asked him if he had any photos that included Mechanic. He gave me a photo of his entire unit. Michael didn't look very different in it than in the picture obtained from Woof Woof, but he looked much better in a uniform than he did in the clothes that the apparently color-blind Sirians made him wear.

As we left, I asked Ilda, "So what do you think?"

"About the likelihood of Michael's survival?" she asked.

"Right. And about the officer's speculative scenario."

"It's unlikely," she told me, "Even he admitted it. But on the other hand, no remains that could be identified as Michael's have ever been found."

"My thoughts exactly," I told her. "So let's work on the assumption that he managed to hook onto an enemy ship and stay with it until it arrived at its base. What would happen then?"

"Only two possibilities," she said. "Either he heroically destroys their base or takes it over, or they capture him as a spy and either execute him or imprison him."

"Right," I agreed. "If he managed to take over the base, the army would have had records of it, and we'd know what happened to him after the Battle of Tranquility. If he were executed, the corpse would have been sent back..."

"Unless there would be political consequences," Ilda pointed out.

"Always a possibility," I admitted, "but unlikely. Once the war was over, they probably would have sent it back for burial in any case. I'd wager that if he survived the Battle of Tranquility, he became a prisoner of war."

"But then why wouldn't he have been released after the war?" Ilda asked.

"Just because no one's heard from him doesn't mean he wasn't released," I said. "But first, we'd need to confirm that he was a prisoner in the first place. Can you check the media database and tell me if there are any POW camp survivors from the Bored Wars?"

"Certainly, but why the media database? Why not ask Sheila again?"

"We will, if there's nothing in the media," I replied, "but I want to see if any have been willing to talk about their experiences. Prison is not pleasant, and I don't want to cause pain to anyone who doesn't wish to relive his or her past, if I can avoid it."

Ilda searched the database. "I found one," she reported. "He lives out on a remote asteroid in Saturnian orbit. However, the report he gave doesn't say much about what happened there, only about how he was captured."

"We'll try him. Set a course for Saturn."

The next day, we arrived at the man's asteroid home. At first, he wasn't very cooperative. "Go away," he told us.

"We'd like to ask you some questions about your time in the POW camp," I implored.

"No," he insisted. "Now leave me alone."

"One question? Please?" I begged.

He sighed. "Fine. One question, and then go away."

I showed him Michael's picture. "Did you ever meet this man?"

Minutes passed. The door opened, and a haggard-looking man emerged. "If not for that man, I probably wouldn't be here today," he said. "If your questions are to benefit him in any way, I'll answer as many as you want."

"We're trying to find out what happened to him," I told the man. "Anything you can tell us about him will be helpful."

"'Some questions', eh?" the man said, bemused. He indicated a couch, and we sat on it, eagerly waiting to hear what he had to say. He sat down in a beat-up reclining chair and began.

If you've never been a prisoner of war, consider yourself lucky. I managed to survive the experience, but it's certainly not on my recommended list. Every day, your captors test you to see what's stronger: your loyalty to your army or your primitive survival instinct.

I was held for several months before your boy came in. Totally alone, in a small underground cell. No human contact at all. The only hint of time's passage was a small, barred window near the ceiling of my cell; it offered light and ventilation, but no protection from the elements. Almost every day, my captors would take me and try to torture me into revealing what I knew of our army's base locations, strategies, abilities...you name it. They used psychological torture, physical torture, promises of better treatment...anything to get information about us. I refused to crack. I'd say nothing but my name, rank, and serial number, and grit my teeth and bear the punishment, wondering how much worse it was going to get and what my true threshold was.

I had assumed that there were other prisoners with me, but until your man came in, I had no proof of it. Then there was, for once, a period of several weeks in which our captors didn't take me out for the usual maltreatment. Only the fact that I continued to receive food and water assured me that our captors hadn't fled the premises and left us behind to die. Soon, though, I noticed a change in the scenery outside my window. A thin wire seemed to be snaking its way across the ground. Over the next few days, it moved more and more into view, until I decided to grab hold of it. I took it and pulled, and it was definitely held by someone or something on the other end. Examining it closely, I could feel it vibrating, and I began to wonder if I could hear more clearly what the vibrations represented. I attached my water cup to the end and held it up to my ear, and I was astounded. For the first time since I was taken prisoner, I was hearing the voices of people other than my captors.

The voices were extremely distorted, but easily recognizable as being human. They spoke of pain and loneliness, of the agony of defeat and of despair. But amongst them there was one that spoke of optimism and triumph. That was the person who was responsible for the improvement in our situations, and for this wire, this primitive lifeline. Over the long nights of talking, during which our spirits gradually improved, he told us his story.

He had been taken captive following a fight he called the Battle of Tranquility. We called him "Space Pilot" due to the exploits he described having had. As with us, they interrogated him, but unlike us, he didn't clam up. Instead, he talked. He didn't give away secrets; he just talked. He had what you call the gift of gab. He talked to them for hours on end in a stream-of-consciousness way that amused them. Although they were at first frustrated over the lack of useful information from him, eventually, their sadistic minds appreciated the potential for humiliation in the situation. They treated him like he was a fool and laughed as he would spout long strings of speech on a wide-ranging variety of topics, many of which he knew nothing about. He would make up things as he went along, and if he made statements that were incorrect, well, it amused them all the more. Their appetite for watching him embarrass himself gave us respite from the daily torment of their interrogations.

Space Pilot knew that there must be other imprisoned humans present, and realized that without any interpersonal contact, we were likely to despair or perhaps go insane. He affected an idiosyncrasy of chewing on wire, something that our captors also found amusing. They eagerly supplied him with scrap wire to chew on, and when he was sent back to his cell at night, he would unroll the wire bit by bit and stretch it out his window in the hope that other prisoners would be able to see it. Eventually, someone did, and the two managed to initiate communication like I had that night. As time went on, the wire grew longer and more of us, including me, were able to join the group. The secret communication helped us keep our sanity, his cheerfulness helped lift our spirits, and his opinionated statements sparked debates, which kept our intellects from growing dull. Although he had spent hours on end talking to our captors, he didn't feel he needed to rest from it, instead, he offered constant chatter to help us out. Through it all, he intentionally offered himself for humiliation and scorn at the hands of our captors in order to spare us the ravages of the torture we would have suffered had he not distracted them.

The man's eyes grew misty. "In the end, our side won the war, and we were freed. For the first time ever, we prisoners saw one another's faces, and each of us embraced Space Pilot, who was our savior. He was a true hero, sacrificing his dignity for our sakes. Even then, as we were leaving, he couldn't stop talking to us. It was almost like his mind was now incapable of being without companionship and conversation for long periods of time." He sighed. "But I'll never forget Space Pilot. If you ever do find out what happened to him, please let me know, and relay to him my undying gratitude."

Ilda and I had been paying rapt attention to the man's story, and we had to shake ourselves out of the trance we were in when he stopped. "So you don't know what became of him?" I asked.

"Afraid not," he said. "We all went our separate ways after that. I never did have any further contact with my former prison-mates."

We thanked the man and left. Ilda started the spacecraft and took off, and I thought about what our next step should be. We knew quite a bit about Michael, but at the moment, we had no clues to where he might be right now. On the other hand, we had a personality profile that might lead us in the right direction. Cheerful. Polite. Heroic. Excellent mechanic. Ace driver. Extremely talkative.

Suddenly, my reverie was disturbed as I was thrown violently from side to side. "Ilda, what the hell is going on?" I asked in a panic.

"Meteor storm," she informed me. "This asteroid zone is full of flying rocks, and they're extremely unpredictable. My robotic computer mind gives me excellent reaction time, but I don't know how well I can dodge them." Sure enough, a meteor hit our ship and we were forced to make an emergency landing on a deserted asteroid.

I waited around while Ilda tried to fix our ship and busied myself with the puzzle of Michael's present whereabouts. I was making no headway, and after a few minutes, it became apparent that Ilda wasn't either. "The vehicle is useless, Star," she told me. "I've taken the liberty of using my internal radio to call us a"

"Taxi," I said, completing her sentence, my eyes wide open. As I contemplated the sudden burst of inspiration, I looked in the sky and watched the approach of the summoned vehicle with the words "9 Planet Taxi" emblazoned on its side. As it drew close, I could hardly believe my eyes. Through the taxi's front viewscreen I could tell that its driver was the man I was looking for. I looked at the three pictures of him that I had. He was almost ten years older than the last picture I had of him, but there couldn't be a mistake. He had his mother's eyes.

He got out of his vehicle and opened the passenger door for us. "Space Cabby at your service," he said with a smile. "Where to?"

"New City, North America, Earth," I told him. As I passed him on my way into the cab, I stared at him for a few seconds, and his cheerful expression diminished slightly with obvious discomfort. I sat down next to Ilda, who had preceded me into the cab.

As the space cabby walked around to his seat, Ilda looked at me with disbelief. "Do you really think it's him?" she asked. "The coincidence..."

"Any good detective solves half of his cases through pure luck," I whispered to her, "as you certainly know. Sure, his appearance here is against astronomical odds, but everything fits."

As the taxi took off, the cabby began talking. "So, tried to navigate your way through the meteor storm, eh? Bad idea. Most vehicles don't have the kind of maneuverability that my souped-up little space cab has. And, of course, most robots...I'm assuming, sir, that it was the lady who was doing the driving...aren't programmed with just the right way to get around these things."

"And what would that be?" asked the curious Ilda.

"Don't try heading straight into them while dodging. If you're not going to turn tail and run away from them...which is the best idea, even if you lose some time...your best bet is to fly perpendicular to the path of the meteors, which is what I'm doing. Little trick I learned way back when."

After a while of talking to Ilda, my silence and staring became conspicuous. The cabby asked me, "Excuse me, sir, do we know each other? I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't recognize you."

"Maybe. Were you ever in the military?"

"Yes, but I don't think you would have known me from there. No offense, but you look too old for us to have served together."

"No, I don't think we did. You look like you might have served relatively recently...in the Bored Wars, perhaps?"

He was visibly uncomfortable. "I did, but the experience was rather painful for me, and I'd prefer not to discuss it, if you don't mind. Is there something else you'd like to ask?"

"Cabby, I'm curious...what's your name?"

"Space Cabby," he said.

"No, I mean your real name."

"It is my real name." He pointed to his hack license, which did indeed identify him as "Space Cabby."

"I'm sure you had a different name at some time in the past."

"A few, but this one identifies me better than the others would now."

"What were you named at birth? By your parents?"

"I don't really know," he admitted. "I haven't seen my parents since I was very young, and my memory of those times isn't too clear. I think I might have been orphaned or something. I have a few images from my youth kicking around in my head, but nothing clear that I could actually put into words."

"So you're comfortable with being defined by what you do for a living?" I asked.

"Oh, it's a fine living. I go interesting places, I meet interesting people...I've even gotten a little famous. I've gotten commendation from the Ippys (* - slang for Interplanetary Police) for catching a crook or two. Sure there are plenty of space cabbies out there," he said with obvious pride, "but when someone speaks of the Space Cabby, that's me. Nothing quite like the satisfaction of a job well done."

I couldn't agree more. "I've caught a crook or two myself, back in my younger days. Me and the lady robot here. Of course, I was a private detective; that was the nature of my job."

"It is odd," replied Space Cabby. "I seem to have some sort of affinity for unexpected adventure, even though I'm really just a cabby. I never seem to know what will happen each time I pick up a fare. But that's how life stays interesting. That's part of why I love this job."

The irony in his blithe statement didn't escape me, especially since we had by now entered Earth's atmosphere and were only minutes away from Marie's residence, the address of which I soon gave him. When we landed, I made a show out of looking in my wallet. "I'm sorry," I told the Space Cabby, "I don't seem to have brought enough money for the fare and tip; we weren't really expecting to need a cab." Ilda, who was about to point out to me that she was capable of paying him through an electronic money transfer, earned a quick elbow in her midsection from me, which hurt my elbow greatly, as she was made of metal. "The lady at this address will be happy to give you what I owe, if you'll accompany me to the door."

Space Cabby agreed, and I rung Marie's bell. I stepped aside just as she was about to open the door, and the first person she saw was...

"Michael?" she said with astonishment. "Is it really you?"

Space Cabby's eyes popped open widely with sudden recognition. "M...Momma?"

The two hugged and cried, and the emotion was infectious. In the last twenty-five years, Michael had experienced the affection of a pet owner, the camaraderie of his fellow soldiers and the admiration of his fellow prisoners of war and of the police. But, as I knew from growing up with Johnny, there truly something about that unconditional parental love, that love that comes not because of what you do, not because of the kind of person you are, but merely because you exist at all, that evokes a special warmth in the heart.

After the initial elation, we all went inside, and I told Marie, "From what I've heard, you have good reason to be proud of your son. He's had a hard life since he was kidnapped, but if ever there was a man who's overcome adversity, it's him."

"I'm sure I'll hear all about it," she said, and the Cabby, shocked speechless for probably the first time since 2146, nodded in agreement. "We have so much to talk about, so much time to make up. Star, how can I ever thank you?" she said, hugging me tightly.

I smiled. "I'd like to spend a lot more time with you," I said. "I'm sure that in the next few weeks you're going to want to spend a lot of time getting acquainted with your son, but if I could borrow you back for a dance or two down at the Senior Center..."

"Why certainly, Mister Hawkins," she said, and I knew that my years were going to be golden again.

SECRETS BEHIND THE ORIGINS

MANHUNTER 2070

Starker, Bounty Hunter had a three-issue run in Showcase # 91-93 (June-Sept. 1970). He was billed as Manhunter 2070 on the cover of the issues and in next-issue blurbs, but was not called by that name anywhere in the stories. A western-style bounty hunter that operated in outer space, his origin story, up until his capturing of the pirates, was revealed in issue # 92 and has been faithfully recounted here. Issue # 93 ended with a cliffhanger, but he was obviously not destined for greatness, for not only did no one demand to see him again, his story ended the fifteen-year existence of the Showcase title (until its revival in 1977). The additional elements of his origin are a homage to his next appearance (other than a one-panel cameo in Showcase # 100 (May 1978)), the not-in-continuity Twilight miniseries (Dec. 1990 - Feb. 1991), which revealed him to be Star Hawkins's brother and for the first time actually connected the name Manhunter 2070 with the character on-panel.

Until the Twilight miniseries, Manhunter 2070 was not connected to mainstream DC continuity at all, and the Twilight miniseries itself was outside of continuity, but considering the long history of Manhunters in the DC Universe, it didn't seem like a stretch to place him in continuity and connect him with that legacy, dubious though it may be. Readers who have either read Legion of Super-Heroes (1984 series) # 42-43 or the Millennium series (Jan.-Feb. 1988) will recognize the Manhunter in this story as the one who came to be known as Laurel Kent, at least before the reboot of the thirtieth century. What will happen to that Manhunter in the new thirtieth century is anyone's guess, but since her/its existence in the past/present seems to still be in continuity, the character fit well here. Readers of Millennium will also recognize the history presented as the Manhunter perspective, and not necessarily an objective retelling of events.

Star Hawkins

Star Hawkins, a private detective of the future, and his robot secretary Ilda, first appeared in Strange Adventures # 114 (Mar. 1960). Their somewhat humorous adventures appeared for some six years in that title, along with other silver age DC sci-fi favorites such as Space Museum and Atomic Knights. After that, they remained forgotten until, like many forgotten characters, they appeared in a back-up series in DC Comics Presents called "Whatever Happened To...?" Star's turn, in issue # 33 of that title (May 1981), ended his private-eye career and married Ilda to Automan, a robot character who had appeared in Tales of the Unexpected, and ambiguously matched Star with Automan's human, Stella Sterling. We decided to make that a little less ambiguous and to check in on what Star might have been doing after he retired. Star was mentioned in 1986's History of the DC Universe (Oct. 1986), and was a featured player in the above-mentioned non-continuity Twilight miniseries which, amongst other things, called him "Axel Starker" (a name which we've integrated here) and made him Manhunter 2070's brother.

The beginning of his career was never chronicled, so this original story offers an explanation of that.

Space Cabby

Letters Editor Chaim Mattis Keller, aka Legion-Reference-File Lad, is a computer programmer who lives in New York City with his wife and four children.

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