"Look at my fingers, Major." Smith wiggled his fingers but two of them refused to budge during a night out searching for supplies. "They are scaly."

"Keep your hands away from me!" West said.

"If you never took me aboard that disaster of a ship," Smith lowered his hand. "I would have HUMAN SKIN! Human skin! Human skin, major! Had you left me in my cell then I would only have to worry about growing old in space!"

His fingers slipped into a fist as he shook it.

"Look at these hands!" he flexed his fingers out revealing them all. "What they do in the foreseeable future will not be my fault. What happens next will be all your fault not mine! You should have kept me in the cell! It was your best idea!"

West punched down Smith then had his arms folded.

"Stop being a whiny baby and shut up."

"No." Smith propped himself up with a shake of his head. "Because you are required hear this before it goes on any further. And I only pity you for the future that you, alone, have created." Smith paused playing with his fingers, then sighed, saddened by a thought that crossed his mind then looked up toward West. "I admit, your future is worse than the one I was paid to make."

"Entertain me." West rolled his eyes.

"My mind won't be the same." Smith said, quietly, yet sadly. "Nothing will be the same. . ." he closed his eyes, briefly, then opened them. "And I won't be Doctor Smith."

West snorted, amused.

"Uh, then who will you be?" West asked. "Spider Smith?"

He only got a sinister yet bittersweet smile in return and it sent shivers down his spine.

"Yes." Smith got up to his feet using a rock then turned his back to him. "Because that is who I will be."

"And what does this make you right now?" West asked.

"Dying." Smith looked aside. "I would describe it that way. Even if you get to Alpha Prime A in the Jupiter 2's current lifetime. . . I won't be there."

"Yes, you will-"

"I will not!" Smith raised his voice turning toward the major standing toe to toe with him. "It will be a shell of me and you know that! There is no denying it!" he turned away from the major folding his arms then shook his head. "If we don't find a treatment in the next year!" he grunted at the prospect. "And we haven't."

Smith marched on ahead of West.

"Where do you think that you are going?" West asked.

"Back to my cell!" Smith said. "You think I have it rough? Well, my dear major, you shall have it rough once I start to fall apart!"

///////////////////////////////////////

Judy stared at Smith's hand on the counter.

He tapped his fingers on the counter during the medical exam and they refused to budge.

"Do you feel your fingers?"

Smith met her gaze.

"No."

"Let's try some finger therapy."

"I have tried that."

"Then what is the problem?"

Smith grasped a hold on to his fingers then yanked them off then put them on the counter with little blood, gore, or horror. He did the same with his other hand then retreated his hands into his lap with a visible tremble as she stared it down. Smith had two holes on each part of his hand in which his fingers once belonged. He rubbed the empty holes with a lowered head. Compared to the rest of his fingers, the last two fingers were the last parts that bore human resemblance.

"Does it hurt?" Judy asked.

"No." Smith said.

"Are you lying?" Judy asked, narrowing her eyes toward Smith.

"I feel no pain, Doctor Robinson." Smith hissed.

The normally polite yet agonized man was slipping away before her eyes painfully slow and there was nothing that she could do about it.

"When did you lose feeling in your fingers?" Judy asked.

"Two weeks ago." Smith asked. "May I go now?"

Judy's eyes scanned him.

"Yes."

Smith slid off the table then slowly made his way down the passageway as Judy stared down the discarded fingers.

////////////////////////////////

"MOM, DOCTOR SMITH IS DAMAGING THE WALL AGAIN!" Penny hollered out the doorway.

Maureen came down the hall along with John then found Smith sliding his fingers down letting out a sigh of relief. He stood a complete inch taller than he had before their eyes. Will stared at the balding man alongside Robot. Smith turned his head away from the wall then grinned with a lack of pain in his eyes but life and happiness. A dark kind of it.

"Sweet havana."

John slid Will behind himself as Robot was left speechless.

"Judy." Maureen said, her eyes fixated on the woman across from Smith.

Smith collapsed once the hypospray was put into his neck and he was out like a feather.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

"Doctor Smith stretched again, dad." Will said.

John and Don turned away from the holographic astronavigator.

"How tall is he now, Will?" John asked.

Will looked toward John and Don.

"Six foot five." Will said.

"And his legs?" John asked.

"Still look human." Will asked. "Haven't moved in the way that you say they did."

///////////////////////////////////////////////

"William. . ." Smith started as he came to a stop in his tracks with a sigh.

Smith sat down on a rock overlooking hills, saddened, grimacing, very unhappy.

"Yes?" Will seated himself down beside the older man who's shoulders popped out more. "Is something the matter?"

Smith had a short lived nod then looked down toward the boy.

"Before it's too late. . ." Smith started, softly, yet gently trying then looked on toward the sun. "When the opportunity arises. Let me go."

"What do you mean?" Will asked.

Smith was silent looking toward the boy then began to have a bittersweet smile.

"You will understand one day." Smith said.

"Just not today." Will said.

"One day in the future." Smith reiterated. "When I am gone and the creature we both saw is born."

Will was silenced by the reply at first.

"Let's watch the sun set," Will said. "Just for a little while."

"Just for a little while." Smith agreed with a nod.

Robot was behind them, keeping his guard out, Smith's hands were in his lap as he lowered his gaze with a certain heaviness in the air around him. Will reached his hand out then put his hand on the older man's arm. Smith looked up toward the boy then patted on his smaller hand appreciatively, his long strange fingers wrapped around his hand, then slunk his hand back once seeing them with a grimace. Smith turned his attention on the distant sun ahead.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Soon after, the door to Smith's cell was replaced by bars.

A reminder that he was a prisoner, a animal, a monster in the making.

Not a human who had been forced to become a passenger to their voyage.

That way they could check in on him occasionally and see what was going on in his stateroom.

Robot was considered the jailer and given the duty, a duty that Robot hated, despised, among the trouble that Smith brought to the Jupiter 2.

////////////////////////////////////

Smith was slowly dying before his newly installed mind wave equipment.

Becoming someone more horrifying as the days waned on with empty promises by their guests and the cure dangled before his eyes time after time only for it to be destroyed before he could take it. It was beyond comprehension. He was becoming a person that Robot knew fully well. He was becoming a old monstrous alien with a tragic fate ahead of him. And Smith lost his hope of ever getting cured quickly accepting that he was destined to become a monster.

By each month that he grew taller and his body mass changed. Up until the doctor's unexpected growth spurt came to a halt. Robot screamed into a cavern, alone, on a rampage. All the while John forced Will and Smith to go rock hunting, releasing all the pain and agony. He caused the rocks to fall and the ceiling above where he had once stood to give out as he departed the area. He did this often with these moments to himself that were given to him by the professor. And a hate for the major only brewed as the dust settled.

//////////////////////////////

Smith had gone quickly after the installation of the bars. It wasn't apparent to the eyes of the Robinsons but it was to certain sensors of Robot. It was only his reaction to the bars, afterwards, that it raised certain alarms. Instead of over reacting, shrinking in the corner of the bathroom, and weeping: he was laughing. The being only laughed at how he was becoming his true self.

Someone that he liked better over his powerless self.

"Are you okay, Doctor Smith?" Will asked.

"I am feeling the awesome power of LIFE!" Smith replied, stretching his fingers out.

His laughter echoed through the ship as Will watched on beginning to grow concerned about his friend. Concern that was only growing too late. And Robot watched, from a distance, behind the edge of a corridor wall retreated, knowingly, turning away from the duo. He was watching someone better slip into familiar persona. The person acted and talked like him, but his processor informed him that it was a split personality.

/////////////////////////////////////

"Major, why in the heavens are you staring at me?" Smith asked, irked, in the middle of solving a problem featuring strange aliens brought up by the children.

"You've gone bald." West said.

"That I have." Smith said then watched as the major grinned.

"That looks perfect for a monster." West said.

"Don!" Judy said.

"Makes you look like what you really are." West said. "A ugly monster."

"West. . ." John said. "I like you to apologize."

"No," West said. "This comes from the heart. Not the head."

Smith stood up from the planning table, then walked away, a rare departure from his sneering reply quite silent.

"Major West," Robot said. "You're doing the infection's work breaking him down saying everything that he is thinking." West's brows furrowed. "Out loud." Robot's voice strained in his emphasis. "Words that he does not need to hear and shouldn't hear!"

Robot wheeled away.

"He doesn't have hope." John admitted, finally. "We need to start planning for a entirely redesigned Jupiter 2."

"That isn't made of edible metal." Maureen admitted.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The monthly check up started as it had many times. Except, Smith was in a long garment that best resembled a dress on him. He wasn't in pants and a shirt with a jacket to go with it but now, it had changed. He lacked ears. He had small holes on each side of the head that stood out under the dimming lighting of med lab. Smith looked truly alien to her gaze. He looked more vulnerable than the way that he had entered the lab a month earlier.

"Has your hand healed?" Judy asked.

Smith placed his fingers on the counter.

"They're stumps, my dear doctor." Smith said.

Judy observed the flat healed over surfaces.

"Anymore pain?" Judy looked up toward him.

Smith nodded, painfully.

"Yes."

"Where?"

"My legs, my butt, my neck," Smith said. "My bones are in the worst shape."

"It's going to be okay." Judy assured.

Smith shook his head.

"It isn't. It isn't. Three years and a half. How have you not learned?" Smith shook his head then put a box on the table and she looked up. "If you like to do research, here is my buttox."

"Doctor Smith . . ." Judy started, startled. "your butt fell off?"

"Shamefully." Smith said.

"That is a little odd."

He patted on the lid then began to to have a broken grin and put it on the table beside him.

"This be the only part of me to out last me in the name of science. Out last the new me for the least."

Judy looked up, momentarily recoiling, looking toward him taken back then scanned him with her eyes and gazed back up in alarm.

"What if you are embracing something who isn't you, Doctor Smith?" Judy asked.

"It is who I am becoming," Smith said. "To be better than the man who got trapped aboard this hell."

////////////////////////////////////////

Smith's garments were torn when his bust widened one night and it became quickly apparent that he needed near material. Don stood, shocked, as he watched a creature - not a man - come out of the Jupiter 2 in the same outfit that he had first seen the counterpart. The way that he had entered their lives three years ago by picking up his counterpart, "No need to fear, Smith is here!" He watched a monster come into his life as a shadow that loomed over the figure of the human replacing them with a sinister figure.

His goatee was no longer there. It had only been replaced by skin that outlined the shape of a goatee surrounded by metal. He watched a monster over three years outline the shape of what had been a man known by traitor, terrorist, and murderer. His threat levels increased significantly to the major. His eyes were full of acceptance, calmness, and a certain embracing that were frightening with a veiled threat in his eyes.

"Do not attack," Robot warned. "I will destroy you, Spider Smith."

"I have that under deep consideration," Replied the creature. "Pardon me. I need a nap. Somewhere cold and preferably dark to rest for several hours."

West stepped aside.

"Did he just use the space suits to make himself a new garment?" West asked.

"Affirmative," Robot grasped West by the shoulder stopping him from going after Spider. "Do not go after him. He is not worth fighting. He is stronger than you."

West watched him walk away.

"He frightens me." West said.

Robot twirled toward him.

"Then maybe you shouldn't have been dehumanizing him for the last three years!" Robot cracked. "Maybe, just maybe. It would be the OTHER WAY around!"

"Robot, like to go rock hunting?" Will asked.

"No," Robot said. "It is imperative that I go screaming in a different cave."

Robot wheeled on past Will and West.

"I didn't know he screamed in caves," West said.

Will looked on toward his friend.

"I have known that for a long time." Will said. "He will be better in a hour. And I'll walk Blarp."

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The name, Spider Smith, stuck like glue.

What once started as a joke slowly turned into a name.

A name that the creature wore with pride and glee unlike how he had reacted time and time before.

That should have been West's first hint that his mind was falling apart.

But West denied it.

"Spider Smith, please undress yourself." Judy instructed.

The creature stared at Judy and Maureen with Robot beside him.

"We have to check your mutation." Maureen said. "And determine if your fabric needs more length. It's starting to look small on you."

The robes were discarded on the flood and the true horror of his body was exposed-his legs were sticking out from the side and he was hunched over to keep himself into their level as was his neck. He was having difficulty, if not pain, trying to keep himself appearing human to them. It was the smallest piece of the man that had became trapped aboard the Jupiter 2 which was remaining as of far.

And they blinked when they stepped back, terrified, horrified, and scared of him. Another large crack formed in his mind as Spider smiled, broadly. It was done in such a way that it was so Smith like but in another aspect it was sinister. And a large piece of his humanity was chipped away as he stood up to full height.

"Do not be afraid," Robot cautioned. "He does not have a egg sac."

Maureen noticed that his legs had split into two on each side and he was shoe less.

And in the most painful way possible, Maureen noticed that he had a appendage sticking out from his rear; a spider's abdomen.

/////////////////////////////////////////

It was only months later when Will, Penny, Blarp the lizard monkey, Spider Smith, and Robot went out to go on a picnic at one of the most unlikely places. Smith had fully retreated into his shell that was of a cloak. The Robinsons trying to mend the damage that Robot had pointed out painstakeningly to the Robinsons after Smith had already left, according to Robot, everything they were going to do were going to be too late. And it wasn't going to comfort him. It would mean nothing to the creature they had aboard.

It was by a waterfall. The children overlooked it, admiring, grinning, while the older member of the group had his back to them rubbing his hands together contemplating a devious plan. His mind was fracturing in the struggle to remain coherent. A part of him was hanging on by a thread as a new personality was developed out of the fractured mind with little attention span to the good around him as they watched fish fly out of the waves into the pool below.

"I'm hungry." Spider announced, suddenly.

Will and Penny turned toward the spider.

"We're all out of snacks," Penny said.

The dulled blue eyes caught on a moving figure then crashed forward with a 'Ah ha!'

"Oh, snacks!" He picked up a rat. "After all."

Will watched in horror as the beast ate the rat in less than five bites.

"Doctor. . . Smith, um, uh, are you full now?" Will asked.

"Exquisite." The creature picked at his teeth with his fine long fingernails. "Could have done with some pepper."

And Will's heart sank as he sensed that he was losing a fight to make him feel human: He had gone too far. He was going far ahead of in a path that Will couldn't follow him down and yank him back. He fought back the horror keeping it down as the creature turned their attention away from the teenager then walked on ahead of him toward the edge of the waterfall then tossed the small piece of fingernail that he had finely chipped off. Spider dusted his hands off then began to walk away.

"When the opportunity arises." Smith's words echoed in Will's mind. "Let me go."

And the teenager watched him go then Will tried to follow after him.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

"Spider Smith, we have decided to move your quarters." John asked.

"Out of sight, out of mind." Spider said, bitterly.

"No, we just think it would be safer down there." John said.

"Engineering is twice as dangerous!" Spider protested. "One leak and I am very dead!"

"There are no windows." The professor reminded. "You get more room space. . ."

"And you get a protector of your prized fuel, is that right, in the event of someone sneaking in?"

"No." John said.

"A tasty snack in the form of a unwanted guest." Spider looked aside, licking his lips, touched by the idea. "I can accept that as payment for moving down." his gaze returned on to the younger man. "And I can do with more space. My old living quarters were too tiny and prison like." Spider shuddered. "At least . . . " the spider began to smile. "I can practice more on making spider hammocks. I will move my belongings into engineering."

John sighed as Spider turned around then walked on ahead of him and Maureen approached John.

"How did it go?" Maureen asked.

"Better than how I thought it would." John released a breathe that he hadn't released. "A lot better. I have already started the prison plan."

"Means we can start removing those bars." Maureen said.

John turned his attention toward Maureen then nodded.

///////////////////////////////////////////

Will came down the middle of the night to check on the older man with a candle. He came to the engine room then flicked a switch but the lights refused to budge. He stepped foot into the room then jumped back once a figure crashed in front of him to the floor then he raised the candle up once staggering up to his feet. The fully mutated form of Spider Smith stood out terrifyingly against the darkness as he looked on with contempt toward the newcomer. His long toe nails clacked against the floor in a way that sent Will's heart racing.

"Boo."

With a shriek, Will staggered back and began to crawl back dropping the candle.

"Oh, it is just you." Spider said. "William." He gently slid the candle and its support up on the base. "You shouldn't approach me on my night hours."

Will's back met the wall then clenched on to his shirt bracing himself.

"I was--I--I--I---I was just checking on you."

The mutated man frowned, irked.

"You don't have the habit of checking me when I am sleeping."

Will thought it over, carefully, before replying.

"Sometimes." Will admitted.

"It ends here." Spider said.

"I agree." Will said as the taller being handed him the candle.

"Go back to bed," Spider said. "Spend some time with your decent friend on the upper decks as you usually do plotting a course into a star."

"You've really lost it," Will said. "Really been space raptured."

The spider turned toward Will.

"I have only come to my senses, my dear boy." Smith said. It was for a single moment that he sounded himself, sane, hurt, agonized by every day, and haunted by the future even scared. "That is the only place we're going and you, all, are too stupid to realize the course isn't a planet. It's not a place. It's a state of being and tranquility. Much like all the other harmless planets we have been to."

"Hardly harmless!" Will replied.

"All those planets are like Earth before it was sent to its demise." Smith replied.

"Those were living death planets, Doctor Smith." Will said.

"A star isn't just the basis of survival but it is one that brings hope," Smith replied. "your hope is going to kill you BECAUSE THEEEEERREEEEEEEEE ISSSSSS NNNNOOOOO AAAALALLLLPPPPPPHHHHAAAA PRIME A!" And then he didn't sound himself.

Will slowly walked back to the doorway of the engineering bay then Spider shoved him out and the door closed before his eyes.

Spider had shut him out of his life.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The Jupiter 2 crashed on a planet in a rage of fury during one fine evening being chased by aliens.

The aliens stopped chasing them once they crashed through the atmosphere of the planet.

The family were in their seats partially out, partially awake, groaning, in a world of darkness.

"My delicate back!" Was the first noise, the first sound, that brought the Robinsons to with aching joints, cuts, bruises, and scrapes from the running.

The ship was severely damaged, the engines had exploded and destroyed most of the residential half, the Robinsons had fled into the bridge, and the door refused to budge from the explosion. West's reports were grim. But, they had everyone accounted for including the gorillas, Spider Smith, Robot, and the humans. With the members account for, each of them slouched in the chair, John stopped in the middle of his comment looking on toward the view screen.

They looked on ahead to spot that they were right outside of civilization that amassed to cities. Tears came on the edges of their eyes while Spider only studied the cities with his head downcast. The cities seemed to be made out of crystal that shined against the morning sun and reflected off nicely. The buildings were ones to admire and cherish. Yet, Spider only had a very bad feeling about this place. Something wasn't right. And he didn't know why as his eyes searched the sky spotting birds. Organic life flourished so he relaxed.

The Robinsons stared in awe at its advancement compared to Earth and life that flourished from end to end.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

"We need some help with our ship." John asked, later, at a important first contact meeting after a series of misunderstandings.

The alien government (who were hosting the Robinsons) stared at the professor who was looking toward them.

"What kind of help?"

"We need material for every part of the ship. One that can't be eaten through. And a cell for a animal with a stasis mode." John said. "If you could tell us how to extract it and make it to repair any damaged. . ."

"We can provide that help." the president smiled.

"And Spider Smith's housing for the time being?" John asked.

"Leave the creature to us. " The president assured. "He has a score to settle with us. He will be unharmed."

"I am not concerned about him," John said. "I am more concerned for you."

"It will be alright," the president assured.

"When do we expect for the reconstruction to be be done?" John asked.

"In three years. We will need help in most of the reconstruction. Every little piece needs to be replaced."

"My family will help you." John said. I won't leave them out of it, this time.

///////////////////////////

Three years came and went.

Robot was the only piece of technology that was left untouched.

And when they came across their familiar older monster; Smith was acting unlike himself.

Growls -there were little words to say - and hissing as the Robinsons cowered from behind the generated force-field.

///////////////////////////////////////////

"Robot, we are not leaving until you teach Spider Smith how to talk." John said.

"Send in the other model." Robot said.

"Robot, there is no other model!" West exclaimed.

"I do not want to be eaten alive." Robot said.

"What makes you think that Spider Smith is gonna eat you?" Will asked.

Robot was silent for the longest moment in front of the Robinsons as he shifted to and from.

"I cannot detect Doctor Smith's brain waves in that animal." Robot said, bitterly. "He left a long time ago."

"Then we will need to send a piece of equipment that he can't eat," Maureen said.

"Affirmative." Robot said.

"That is going to take a month to do," Maureen whistled. "And another month to retrain him to speak."

"Not long." John said. "We do need to test their stasis pods. Trial period is eight weeks."

"You want to leave me out there with him?" Robot asked.

"No," John said. "Will will supervise your transfer from digital to glass for their data transfer and oversee your construction for this short stint. You will be transferred back to digital."

"Gladly," Robot said. "I wouldn't want to get comfortable with that tech." Robot shuddered. "It wouldn't fit with the level of tech that the galaxies based on the technology that we have commonly found."

"The rest of this voyage; you will be the captain of a empty Jupiter 2." John said. "And we hold you to the greatest responsibility there is."

"Protecting us," West said. "This time."

"I am honored." Robot said. "I need a handkerchief."

Will handed out the handkerchief and the rambler crane model wept into it.

"I'll do it." Robot said. "Under one condition."

"State it." West said.

"That when we get to Alpha Prime A, eject Spider Smith's cell." Robot said.

The Robinsons were silent as they lowered their gaze down heaving a sigh at once.

"We will stipulate that modification to the government," John said. "We owe them a deal."

"Just for allowing them to study and put the shell of the Jupiter 2 at the aviation museum." Maureen said. "When we get to Alpha Prime A; we will be Gods."

The family burst into laughter.

/////////////////////

"Spider Smith, this way!"

"Slow down, child." Were words he anticipated of hearing. "I can only go so fast with this aching back."

But none of that came from the being.

/////////////////////////////////////

The spider tagged along the teenager paying little attention to his surroundings. Will noticed the change in his demeanor, little wariness now, and it broke his heart. There were little signs of the person that had became friends with over three years on the man. It was a monster. A creature. The Jupiter 2 was reconstructed out of new material that made it shine against the sun. The spider looked up in awe at the craft noticing the secondary theme was a bright orange.

It won't be long now. Will thought to himself. The monster stalked the boy following him into the bridge and winced inwardly of the brightness in the bridge. He turned around noticing the creature held his hands together in his lap. A familiar position. A hang over of the person that it was born from. Or, as Will wanted to believe, a tiny piece of hope that a shred of Smith was still there. The make of the material decorating the walls bore resemblance to crystal material rather than a ship. Maureen and West were using spray cans coating the crystals in dark gray format along the monitors.

Smith was directed by Will down into the ship, "We need him out of sight, out of mind, son." His father's words echoed back at him. Words that any teenager wouldn't want to hear about leading someone they cared about down a path that was dark and foreboding. And horrible. The spider paused, studying the boy, at the doorway, his eyes glancing from the new cell then toward the boy and squinted.

"You got a new room." Will said. "And it's better than your old one. You got a bed, finally. A decent one."

Will turned toward the older man.

"It's too late to have a bedroom. Far too late. And you know that as I do, my dear boy." were words he still anticipated of hearing. "The path that I have been guided down to. I can't walk back from it."

There was none of that coming from the creature that stared in.

"Those would make a wonderful cloak." Were words that came instead.

"Doctor Smith," Will said, for once. "Where did you stay for the last three years?"

The taller creature looked down frowning upon the seventeen year old.

"None of your business, Robinson boy."

Not, "I fear you wouldn't like hearing it, my dear boy."

Spider strolled inside then Will pressed on a series of buttons and a forcefield stirred up behind him. For a single moment, the spider turned toward him and narrowed his eyes in such a way that for a split second, he saw Smith stare at him, heartbroken, all young, unharmed, and untouched by the wrath of the infection and their mistakes on him. Mistakes that had gone into numbers keeping their distance away from him as he mutated further. And he couldn't make up for it or apologize to him.

The heartbreak melting away as Will slid his fingers up toward the stasis mode as the dull blue eyes followed him. Perhaps, Will was projecting as he watched the man nod, as if knowing, knowing what he was going to do.

"Do it, please." were words that were being exchanged wordlessly. "This is the opportunity that I told you about! Your only one!"

The image was replaced by a scowl as the spider began to lunge forward with visible rage then Will slid in the crystal with a single press. In a flash, the creature was frozen in suspended time. Will lowered his fingers from the panel with a tremble.

"Thank you, William." Will turned in the source of Smith's voice and found no one there as he was fighting back tears.

"Robot? Robot? Robot?" Will asked, his voice beginning to crack. "Robot!"

What he was really calling for, what he really wanted, was to see a certain someone: human, alive and well.

Will made a run for the upper section of the ship then into the arms of his parents and wept.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

West was setting in the course as the Jupiter 2 prepared to launch into space surrounded by people kept a safe distance by the security teams.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself, Major West?" Robot asked. "For your part in killing a man?"

"That man is a traitor." Was all West said. "He had it coming."

"He deserved being kept to his cell," Robot replied, darkly. "Not being taken out to the Proteus."

West's shoulders lowered.

"Yeah. . ." West said, lowering his gaze, as it sunk in. "It could have happened differently. A lot differently."

"We share a common agreement." Robot said.

West turned toward Robot as the family began to slide into the old fashioned freezing tubes. "On the bright side. We got a monster that can eat intruders."

Robot went to the center of the bridge then pulled a leveler.

"I do not like you and I do not believe I ever will." Robot said.

Robot sank down before West's eyes.

"See you on the other side?" West asked, looking toward Judy.

Judy laughed.

"And more." Judy said then walked into the pod.

////////////////////////////////

The three Blarps were put into their specifically designed stasis pods.

A entire room devoted that was devoted to them.

They weren't quite pods, technically, in terms of design.

But, they were the same in their function and purpose.