Sequel to my story "Bloodlines." This story is set at Christmas time. It's the Christmas-in-July story for which I asked help - makes bow to Vita and Jackie and everyone else who contributed. It loosely follows a famous Victorian Christmas story. Free plot bunnies to anyone who can guess which one. (Inspiration came to me at midnight at Chicago's O'Hare Airport - may have something to do with choice.)

There are probably a lot of glaring historical/social errors in this. Would love you to comment on that. This thing got gosh awful long. I'm going to post chapters for a week or so - just to give you a chance to keep up with the reading. Including the NC-17 chapter, it's about 40 word processing pages long.

Bouquets of thanks to my tireless beta readers, Ginny Powell and A Tattered Rose. It's work to beta such a long story, and they read it through three times, right in the middle of returning to school and employment. They did an outstanding job!

Moneypenny belongs to the James Bonds franchise, Rebecca Fogg, Chatsworth, etc., all belong to Talisman Crest or whatever their name is, but Jules Verne and his characters belong to everyone (sorry but that copyright MUST have run out by now). Everyone else belongs to me and I freely give them to you. Enjoy.

"My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail; and my nativity was under ursa major; so that it follows, I am rough and lecherous." -- Edmund, bastard son to the Earl of Gloucester, in William Shakespeare's King Lear

I expect no one's ever asked BB7 to document search his Nineteenth Century dead storage room, Miss Moneypenny thought. The wizened old blighter was certainly eying her suspiciously. Last week W's brainstorm had required him to delve in said room. That would have been just a grab operation - nab a few containers at random and impartially distribute them to headquarter secretaries for computer entry. W intended to empty the dead storage floor and convert it to an executive gymnasium. Moneypenny wondered if BB7 realized he was working himself out of a job. Probably not.

She knew for a fact BB7 had only delivered a figurative handful of the 19th Century containers. There were hundreds more back there and Moneypenny meant to acquire every one of them labeled "Phileas and Rebecca Fogg." BB7 said to her, a resentful whine colouring his high-pitched voice, "You do understand, MP3, that these reports are 140 years old?" MP3 was Miss Moneypenny's official British Secret Service code designation. She hated it. Come to think of it, she hated BB7 as well. Officious little man, he wouldn't allow her behind his counter so she could sort through the containers herself.

"Yes, of course, BB7. I know it's a terrible imposition, but M has asked me particularly to trace the Fogg family's activities for an historical summary she's to present at Parliament. The containers are labeled, aren't they?" M's report didn't exist, of course. Headquarters secretaries were only to enter the old files into the Service's all-inclusive database in preparation for their eventual dumping. However, Moneypenny's long association with Double-Oh-Seven had loosened her sense of truth and falsehood. And James, when he finally reported in from the field, would be happy to come down here to emphasize her request for the Fogg containers. BB7 knew it, and one did not argue with a man who held a licence to kill.

"Hmmph, well. All of them, eh? No matter the count? This may take some time, MP3."

"Of course, BB7. Take all the time you need. Will tomorrow noon be enough?" The little clerk had turned away and did not seem to hear her half sarcastic question. Clearly Moneypenny would have to wait a few days if not longer for the precious containers. She resisted a desire to drum her fingers on BB7's counter.

Just yesterday morning BB7 had delivered an oak box to Miss Moneypenny's desk. It had contained a 19th Century Secret Service case detailing the complicity of a French family, the Bonanders, with a group called the League of Darkness, a sort of early SPECTRE. The tale enthralled her and she stayed until midnight to complete the entry, vowing after she finished to snag the remaining Fogg report containers.

When she arrived this morning, a quick email check with her fellow Secret Service secretaries turned up two Fogg containers among those already distributed. Thankfully, both were still unopened and their custodians only too delighted to relinquish them, even promising to deliver them to her desk ASAP.

After her set-to with BB7, Miss Moneypenny returned to her office in a foul mood. It didn't help that the air conditioning had chosen today for its annual hiccup of malfunction. Without the A.C., even in cool London a July day rapidly heated a large office building, and of course none of headquarters' windows opened; security precaution, you know. The thermostat in the corridor outside Moneypenny's office showed an unpleasant 26 degrees Celsius, and the Big Ben recording had only just struck ten o'clock. Today would not repeat yesterday's cool and fog.

Moneypenny saw resting on her desk two containers, a time-dulled tin and an oak box similar to the one that held the Bonander case. Minor discomforts were forgotten as she tenderly ran her fingers over them. Which one first? Which? Finally she decided on the tin. Hmm, seemed to be an older case, before the Bonanders, something involving spiders and Egyptian artifacts. An odd combination, she'd always associated scarab beetles with Egypt.

Miss Moneypenny, however, had hoped for a particular report. She replaced the tin's lid and opened the oak box. On top rested another of evil Doctor Leo Garridan's League of Darkness journals. She quickly scanned through. Yes, there it was! Garridan's report on the birth of Baroness Cynara Bonander and Phileas Fogg's love child. Moneypenny had indeed lucked out. Moneypenny cocked her head back, closed her eyes and allowed herself a smile of triumph.

Well, she thought, it wouldn't do to enter this story out of order. The birth record wasn't dated until December, almost on Christmas day. There were several entries to be made before then, the earliest a rather disgusting one in the Garridan journal. Excited and smiling, Moneypenny opened a new database file.

From Doctor Leo Garridan's private journals.

Nine months ago the Count demanded a special two-way stud so he might experience the gestation and birth of the Fogg bastard. I am convinced that through it Baroness Bonander contaminates him with the emotionality of a breeding woman. He has not roared in days and his mind dwells on sentimental recollections. Cruel efficiency degenerates to pettiness and when Walmond and Stanwood bungled the Serbian capture, he but had them horsewhipped, saying, "Good help is hard to find."

This fed back emotionality weakens his hold on our enstudded slaves and poisons their captive minds. Already among the freemen, pretenders to the throne yap treason behind closed doors. I know, as they have offered the crown to me, but I have no interest in mundane matters of administration. Count Gregory in his customary state provides excellent control.

Yesterday I performed his regular maintenance, polishing his ancient armour and the power buses of his chair, then washing his pieces and trimming excess flesh. As I worked, he began a maudlin account of his early years. Fortunately I alone heard this sadly self-indulgent story.

"You had a father, did you not, Leo? Of course, you did. Probably a cold, efficient bastard such as yourself. I've a fancy to tell you of my own. I haven't spoken of him for five hundred years."

"As you desire, sir. I am your servant."

"You are my slave, Garridan, a mind I have temporarily left its freedom. Don't forget who holds your leash."

As I scraped and cut, he began. "My greedy, conniving father sought finance to war upon a neighbor, hoping to enlarge his estates - for his sons, he said. Not for me, as the youngest of three brothers I had no hope of succession and was cursed with pious humility besides. In those long ago days I wasted my wonderful inventiveness on edifices that praised God with every line and curve. Father, Chesne and Calvinus offered my building skills to the Knights Templar, and my contemplative life with wife and child evaporated into clouds of endless war. I took up sword and Templar orders, and my father received his gold."

"I had revenge, and a private joke. In the few remaining years I breathed, I saw more riches than my voracious family could ever apprehend. The Grand Master first sent me to Jerusalem and I helped De Payen dig up Solomon's treasure from the Temple Mount, a half million pieces of the purest gold. We brought that back to France and began a cathedral at Chartres, not a hundred miles from my wife and infant son. The Order would not let me tarry near my heart's desire and sent me away to build yet more cathedrals. I built well. Many of them still stand today. Cursed prayers in stone. I blow them up when e'er I can." He paused and his head turned to where I worked a few feet away. "My father lost his war, you know. All these centuries, and he lost that bloody war."

Familial relations bring no joy. My experiences agree with that. Of my own father I recall only the hard hands and sour breath that woke me every night in the smallest hours. He'd push a shovel and pick into my hands and bid me to "look lively there, you ugly hunch-backed twit." One morning he failed to return from a fee collection. Mother and I never learned if constabulary overtook him or he'd left for an easier life.

I am told grave robbing no longer profits. 'Tis a shame. Mother and I did right well and when she passed I sold her cadaver for 50 pence. I might have got more for her but she died a messy, coughing death from some unnamed fever. Although nearly every doctor in London patronized our services, most preferred perfect specimens. For example Doctor Meredith paid double for infant carcasses and half again more if cause of death was known. My anonymously expired Mother fetched little. I offered her to three clients before I found a young practitioner desperate for fresh cutting material.

Enough of this. The Count's sorry state begins to infect even me. If Cynara is not soon delivered of the Fogg bastard, it could ruin the League.

Whenever Miss Moneypenny typed from Doctor Garridan's journals, she felt in need of a bath. One could almost feel the slime on the page.

A bit tired from the lateness of last night's data entry, Miss Moneypenny paused to sort through the box's contents. It was much the same as the Bonander box, another Jules Verne journal with a fancifully decorated "J.V." monogram on its cover, and other journals and correspondence primarily in the now familiar copperplate of Phileas and Rebecca Fogg, as well as a few sheets in an unfamiliar block-lettered hand.

Yesterday's box had contained tintypes of the hunchbacked Doctor Garridan and a scornful-eyed Phileas Fogg. At the bottom of this one rested an object shaped rather like an inflated pancake, perhaps 28 centimeters in diameter. Whether manufactured of metal or a synthetic Moneypenny could not tell. Two different shades of bronze entwined its surface and it felt faintly warm in her hand. Strange, very strange. QR5 in Scientific Analysis had a not-so-secret crush on her. At luncheon she would recruit his help.

But that was two hours away. Miss Moneypenny took a sip of tepid water from her bottle. Really, this heat!

She decided to spend some time selecting and organizing passages for entry before proceeding. With a packet of Post-Its and a red pen she carefully flipped through each old journal, reading headings and skimming the various reports. With the Post-Its she marked a suggested order of entry. Some accounts over-lapped. Moneypenny was OK with that. She picked those that best described events (or that she most enjoyed!).

It didn't take long for Moneypenny to realize the very personal nature of this box's contents, even more private than yesterday's. Both boxes had been logged into the archives together, she thought, perhaps long after these events. The Garridan journal had been captured years later when the League of Darkness fell. And as far as she could tell, no other transcription had been made. Perhaps the Fogg personal journals had been placed in Service archives for a particular purpose, for example, to protect Fogg family history from the prying public eye. Moneypenny shrugged. She didn't need to reason why, only give complete transcription. And Service honchos were notorious sticklers for every detail, right down to the brand of toilet paper. Why, she remembered countless times when Double-Oh-Seven's official reports described . . . well, best not to think of that.

What to type next? She'd marked an entry from Rebecca Fogg's private journal. Miss Moneypenny really began to wish for a likeness of this bold Victorian woman.

From Rebecca Fogg's private journal, dated a week before Christmas.

Damn. It's three in the morning. I lie in bed with eyes wide open and my hands tightly clasping sweat damp sheets . . . or did so until I lit a candle and resolved to write away my disturbance.

It's Phileas again. Sometimes I wish I could hate him. I would suffer less. It doesn't help that he sleeps here at Shillingworth Magna tonight. He's only three doors down the hall, in the room he has had since childhood as he refuses to take the master's suite.

Too close. I could be knocking on his door in half a minute. And then what? Would I say, "Phileas, I just dreamed of you between my legs, your mouth on mine. I'd like to try the reality"? He'd be scandalized -- revolted. In his heart I am his sister.

I wish it were still so with me, but since I saw him pleasuring with Baroness Bonander last spring I'm visited by midnight phantasies, most especially after our recent foray in Serbia, when, my contact compromised, Phileas and I fled cross-country, a squad of Prussians nipping at our heels, our lives dependent on each other's courage and fighting instincts. For three nights we slept together in chill barns and hidey-holes, his arms tightly wrapping me to share our bodies' heat. Of mornings I woke with his warm breath blowing in my ear. I almost regretted our rescue by Passepartout and the Aurora. I've never been so happy, so at peace with life.

This obsession with my cousin is ridiculous. It poisons my life. I can no more find my pleasure with Lieutenant Price. He will not attend my bed as he swears I've called him "Phileas" in my passion. And Phileas and I, we've disputed constantly since our return from Serbia, primarily about the Tenants' Christmas Ball, which we hold next week. Even if it would restore peace between us, I cannot yield on this. It's been three years since a Fogg celebrated the Noël feast at Shillingworth Magna. We mourned Erasmus the first year and Sir Boniface the second. Last Christmas Phileas still could not bring himself to return home and properly celebrate an English holiday. He fled to Italy and the sun.

I allow Shillingworth holds too many ghosts for him to rejoice in ownership. However, this year he resided here but three weeks and that only because his father's body disappeared, an incident that greatly upset the countryside hereabout. He's seen too little in this county, and older folk vividly remember his wild and troubled youth. I've told him he must make a bow to his stewardship responsibilities and demonstrate to his tenants that all fares well with Foggs. He must acknowledge himself Shillingworth's master.

He will not listen. Phileas fancies himself the carefree bachelor with no ties to land or people, but such linen won't wash clean. We had a particularly vehement scrap of an evening about three weeks ago when he briefly stopped here to announce a departure for warmer climes. He told me, "I never expected to play Lord of the Manor. I always thought you and Erasmus would marry and do that. It always seemed so to me. Why don't you host a party, Rebecca? You love it here. I don't." He tugged at his lapels as he spoke, stretched his neck, wagged his head back and forth, and indeed performed all his nervous twitches, without once looking directly at me.

How pitiless of him to allude to his brother and that long ago failed romance. He can be so cruel. "Erasmus is gone, Phileas. And I'm just a woman and not the heir. Your tenants have heard how you won the Aurora. They're afraid you'll gamble Shillingworth away. Reassurance must come from you."

"What matters who owns the land? I'd never permit an eviction."

"And how would you prevent it if you forfeit title?" I had his eye now, and it full of raging temper. He did not much favor this revelation of the truth. "Phileas, they care a great deal about the Foggs. People -- servants, neighbors - they all ask me when you'll marry and establish your heir. They're frightened, love. They like their lives to be stable, unchanging!"

His ears stayed closed. We exchanged some rather acrimonious epithets, then Phileas departed Shillingworth Magna in a storm, quite literally as a tempest blew that night, and he refused to wait 'til morning. Within a week he brought Aurora back unannounced, delivering the crates of Spanish lemons I had requested for Christmas punch. Tomorrow he leaves to gather Christmas Day fireworks from France and, we hope, to fetch Jules Verne.

Apparently I have triumphed on this Christmas issue. Still he admits it not and we have no peace. I burn to hold him in my arms and feel his taunt body take mine. Instead we circle each other, stiff and snarling like two wolves.

It's safer that way.

I know just how she feels, Miss Moneypenny thought. Phileas Fogg had captured Moneypenny's heart the previous day.

Flipping through her Post-It markers, she found the next to be an entry from the Verne journal. With a tissue she wiped the sweat from her fingers and began.

From Jules Verne's private journal.

Fogg has the oratorical gift, especially when he wants something. In this case, my attendance at Shillingworth Christmas festivities. A day ago he went toe-to-toe with my father and won a debate over the callousness of my youthful heart. My father declared, "Monsieur Fogg, I only listen to you for one reason: the help you provided Jules last spring when those idiots at La Sorbonne would have expelled him."

"It was nothing, Monsieur Verne," Fogg replied in his impeccable French. He even managed a Breton inflection. "I understand how close a family such as yours can be, but my cousin and I would be truly devastated if Jules could not attend our Christmas feast. We've become quite fond of him."

Of course, Fogg merely persuaded père and mère that my presence at the Christmas table would be superfluous and père is not an unreasonable man. Paul scolded me for neglecting family traditions, so I assured my favorite brother I would be back next year to decorate our crèche with flowers, attend dawn mass, see Baby Jésus with the little ones and offer our alms for the wise men's search. Paul quite envies my amis élégants. I dare not tell him of our adventures or he would demand to go along.

We fly to Shillingworth Magna now, surrounded by the soft flakes of the first winter storm. It shall be a grand Christmas in the English style. I can hardly wait.

Even considering Moneypenny had chosen this box because of the next entry, she felt uneasy about reading it. Despite the ever-increasing heat of the day, she shivered. She worked up her courage and began.

From Doctor Leo Garridan's League of Darkness medical journal.

Why do babies pick such outrageous times to enter the world? While I cannot speak for all of them, I believe the Fogg bastard chose three o'clock this morning through sheer perversity of will.

I wonder what sort of creature this infant is. I have birthed many for Count Gregory's eugenics project, some of which fit the label of monster right well. This child disturbs me as no other. It appears healthy and normal in all respects, albeit developmentally advanced. I swear it watches me as I write these lines as a baby hours old ought not do. It even seems aware of its mother's suffering as its head often turns toward her bed and it tries to roll in that direction.

About noon yesterday, Cynara's bags of water broke. She and her doula secluded for the rest of the day as her contractions gradually quickened. At nine in the evening I looked in. She screamed at me, "Contorted animal! You brought me to this, birthing Fogg's child and I shall never see him again! I hate him! I hate you! You are as great a monster as Count Gregory! I can feel his mind and he cares nothing for me! I die! I die!"

Women in labor often shriek these outrageous epithets, however Cynara forgot that her special cortical stud shares her thoughts with the Count, who was not pleased to be named monster. Neither am I fond of the label "contorted." I did not choose to be a hunchback; nature and my mother presented me that indignity unasked.

When by midnight the baby had failed to crown, I had Cynara removed to an operating theatre and used a speculum to look at the situation. The Baroness screamed and struggled until I told her that she could harm the child. She instantly quieted. With some difficulty I finally discovered that the baby had made a face presentation. Its head lay just inside the womb and cocked back. I could see open eyes looking down the birth canal at me through a rent in the caul. He seemed self-aware.

Count Gregory watched from his chair a few feet away. He intends to adopt Fogg's bastard and personally supervises every detail of this experimental breeding. "We must perform a Caesarean section on Baroness Bonander," I told him, "or the babe will soon smother."

As I expected, the Count nodded his assent. A moment later his eyes rolled back in his head as another of Cynara's unproductive contractions filtered through the cortical stud. I kept a close watch on him as I prepared diethyl ether to render Cynara quiescent. Her heavy panting under the ether mask sped intake and she went quickly under.

The cortical link broken, the Count's head jerked up. He declared, "The Baroness is of no consequence. Save my son. And be quick about it! Any harm he suffers shall you also!" I am fortunate that the Count does not care if Cynara survives, as she seems unlikely to recover. Her bleeding continues even now. The Count coveted the experience of her death throes until I pointed out he could follow. He ordered her stud disconnected, proving he values that shattered existence he calls life. Although she'll die in a day or two, her will carries her far and even now she awakes and demands the babe to suckle and bless with a mother's kisses.

This child shall receive my exclusive attention in the coming years. The Count suspended the eugenics experiment pending the outcome of the Fogg breeding. If it succeeds, we will copy it by the thousands. A pity we failed to acquire the Verne specimen as well. I shall work with what I have and am investigating growth enhancements.

For a few days, the Count's "son" remains unnamed. He follows some medieval superstition, the forename to be spoken first at the baptismal ceremony for which I am to kidnap a Catholic priest. All these little chores.

There, it's done! Miss Moneypenny thought. I hope this Garridan character gets his soon. I don't know how much more of his trash I can enter.

She hit the "save" key and reached for her water bottle. It had definitely become hotter. She went to the thermostat in the hall. Tweaking it still had no effect, and the temperature had risen to 28 degrees. Moneypenny turned as Elaine (EM15) walked down the hall toward her. "We're closing up," Elaine said. "Half the computers have crashed from the heat, so we've got B's permission to holiday. Better that than data loss."

A devastated Miss Moneypenny nodded understanding and returned to her desk to shut down. As the computer clicked through its closing screens, she hesitated. Regulations forbade removing Service documents from the building. But records 140 years old! If she took them home, she could keep entering on her laptop.

QR5 from Scientific Analysis chose this moment to poke his dark head in her door. "MP3!" he said, "I mean, Moneypenny! How about lunch today? I've brought some really luscious peaches."

Moneypenny shook her head forlornly. Now was not a good time for her to deal with unrequited crushes. She scolded herself. She didn't even know QR5's first name. "What's your name, QR5? I mean the one your friends use."

As this was the first time Moneypenny had asked QR5 an even remotely personal question, he blushed brightly. "It's Quillan." Quillan's long limbs didn't quite know where to be and flailed a bit. Slim fingers ran through a short brush of black hair then fiddled with gold-rimmed glasses and pinched an aquiline nose, all in quick succession.

Moneypenny held out her hand. Having Double-Oh-Seven as a co-worker quite blinded one to other men. She'd been rather manipulative of this perfectly harmless man. Time to make amends. "Everyone calls me Moneypenny, Quillan. Even I can't remember my first name. I suspect it's something I don't like." They laughed together.

To escape the unpleasantly warm main building, Quillan suggested eating in the scientific analysis facilities, located in the basement and always cool. "And I have a private lab of my own," Quillan said, obviously very proud of the prestige that signified in the Service's technology hierarchy.

Besides the fresh peaches, so perfectly ripe they dripped juice with every bite, Quillan had also packed some rather nice ham salad, sodas and chocolate cakes, all in a self-chilling bag. As they ate Moneypenny chatted of her work on the historical documents. QR5's clearance easily covered that level (and several more besides).

"Really?" Quillan said, his interested definitely sparked. "Phileas and Rebecca Fogg? I had no idea we had records other than the official histories." He leaned forward, obviously anxious to learn more.

"I think there may be as many as a hundred missions down there, but BB7 won't let me behind his counter," Moneypenny replied enthusiastically. Now almost embarrassed to impose upon the man's adoration, Moneypenny asked if Quillan had time to test her strange quasi-metal object. He went into what Moneypenny called "techno-wizard mode," asking questions and begging descriptions until she finally said, "Wait here," and ran back up to her office for her box.

"There!" she said, placing the box on the laboratory table and fishing out the object. "This is it. I'm sure some of these documents discuss it. But I haven't reached them yet, and with the LAN shut down . . ."

"Oh, the LAN's not down. The servers are here in the basement. I say, why don't you enter your documents on my terminal while I run preliminary tests? It would be fun to have some company and I know you've got the clearance." Moneypenny could have kissed him. She nodded eagerly and sorted through the papers (she'd fetched them all) while Quillan rebooted for her logon. And oh God, Phileas Fogg's journal came next with an entry dated Christmas Eve. With a much lighter heart (and cooler brow!), Moneypenny sat down at the keyboard and re-opened her database file.

From Phileas Fogg's private journal.

Rebecca discards me, of that I'm sure. My profligate, self-serving ways have at last breached our ties of blood and kin. She brings me sharply to task for gambling with my Shillingworth inheritance and demands I act a proper steward. If it's what she desires, I shall try, although I must say she's done a fine job thus far. But some other ill wind blows between us and every day brings me a new chill. She no longer greets me with a kiss. She flinches away when I touch her. She barred me from her last Service mission and so I cannot even share her danger.

She gusts so cold. Rebecca has always blown as warm and strong as a North African sirocco.

We had an especial closeness on the run in Serbia. It has vanished in this wind. Holding her, sleeping next her, my body burned much of those three days. Although I did my best not to disgust nor step beyond brotherly bounds, I wonder if she sensed my fire and there lies the source of her distance.

Passepartout tells me that she's broken with Lieutenant Price. If only . . . but it cannot be. She made that plain to both Erasmus and me long ago. "Always brothers, never lovers," I believe were the exact words Raz repeated. I'd always hoped she'd relent and accept my brother's suit. He loved her so. And as for me, in her eyes I am only another brother. I dare not sue for more when it could mean loss of all.

Since Eugene Price no longer attends her, tonight Bran Everley will have another chance to steal her heart. I know he'll try. That upstart horse purveyor seeks to rise above his station and has always wanted Rebecca's favors. I rather fancy he knows not what he's in for. Rebecca only dabbles in country life between her missions, and the begetting of children would not set well with her. Ministries rather than nurseries are where her interests lie.

I am Rebecca's eldest male relative and thus by all British law and custom her guardian. (And how ironic, how utterly mordant, that all she has and is belongs to me when I so thoroughly belong to her!) I could forbid Everley's attentions; however, such an edict would be pointless as not even Father could prevent Rebecca from pursuing a course on which she set her heart. Witness this career as Secret Agent. If she wants Everley, I shall not stand in her way.

I cannot think of it. I shall not. If we few Foggs are to stay a family, retreat is my only possible answer. I will leave the field of battle and thus win my private war. Tonight I shall perform as Shillingworth's master and tomorrow night take my leave after the fireworks display. Passepartout and I will return Jules to Paris and then on as far as the Aurora shall fly, perhaps even a world circumnavigation as Jean has begged to do.

From time to time I entertain myself that Rebecca truly needs me. In truth I need her far more. She is Chatsworth's best agent whether or not he admits it. She should survive the game, even without me there to guard her back. My bleak days will multiply without her sweet light, but somehow I will survive.

Here comes Passepartout with my evening clothes. Likley he will joke of his below-stairs romance with Molly, the parlor maid. I will try hard to frown. His simple, adoring heart sweetens my life. Strange how necessary he's become after only a year or two of service. God help me if he ever leaves.

Jean Passepartout? Ah, yes, the valet, Miss Moneypenny thought.

And it looked as though her next document, pages in the unfamiliar block-lettered hand, had been written by said person. Also dated Christmas Eve, they apparently recounted a strange event. Miss Moneypenny glanced over to where Quillan was laying out tools for hardness tests. She smiled. It felt cozy here. Her duties as M's secretary seemed a million miles away and Double-Oh-Seven's impending return a high improbability. Who cared about such old fish anyway? Moneypenny began to type.

In Jules Verne's handwriting at the top of the first page - "Passepartout's account."

I've done all Master ask. I think we ready for anything tomorrow. He tell me to sleep when I finish, but I'm too chittery. My eyes popping open every time storm rattles windows. I think I write down story of first trip like Jules ask. He will glean it for scientific clues about our strange goings on. He promise only he read it so I not be afraid to write about my master.

Two days ago we tie Aurora down a dozen yards from Shillingworth's front entry. Last night we hung her with lanterns so she shine in snow like gold beacon for the farmers sledding to Miss Rebecca's party. My Greek wind, she a beautiful, smart lady. There is no other airship like her. I would not trade her for a dozen mistresses. Well, maybe a dozen, but no less, and they all must be pretty as Miss Rebecca.

Shillingworth's cook one chienne jalouse, as the English say. Miss Rebecca apologize but I cannot help with Tenants' Feast, so after dressing Master I went out to my workshop on my favorite mistress lady and play some with Master Jules' star man objet. It do nothing, just lie there shiny and diamond hard. Finally I give up and toss her on salon table and mix up currant biscuits just for fun, thinking I bake tomorrow when I can fire oven up nice and hot.

Mr. Fogg, he left the Tenants' Feast about midnight and come to Aurora. Snow slippery and icy, but his gardeners dug path this afternoon and his shoes stay dry. Just him come, no ladies, no friends, not even Miss Rebecca or Jules. His grand debut as Shillingworth master not go well, I thinking. Usually he look a young man, maybe thirty-five, and even younger if he let me dye the silver in his hair. Last night he look older than his father's gray-hair pictures, and sad, so sad.

I think he watch me from galley hatchway for a bit until I see him.

"Master, something wrong?" He did not stagger or smell of brandy, but his eyes look blurred and soft around the edges, a little red.

"No, Passepartout. If you please, some coffee," he say. "No one makes it quite like you."

He walk around cabin while I brew, looking so fine and black-on-white in evening clothes. Straight as an arrow, he nocked and pulled tight, ready for a shooting. He take a saber from wall rack and swish it back and forth like wishing for something there to cut. Being Mr. Fogg, I know his heart pricks him. He unhappy at Shillingworth Magna. Only here because Miss Rebecca ask, and they fight all time. We go soon, I think, and that sad too. He only happy when she around or arriving in next to no time. Even though Master not want to leave, it hurt too much to stay.

When I put coffee service on table and pour his cup, all black and hot just the way he like, I ask, "What happened, Master? Miss Rebecca's party not go well?"

He not answer. "Bring yourself a cup, Jean. Sit with me a while."

"Certainly, Master." I sat down. Waiting for words Mr. Fogg not want to talk, I play again with the star man's disk, spinning it like the top. It make nice top too, well balanced.

"What was your father like, Jean?" he finally ask me.

"I don't know, Master. I never meet him. Aunt Louisa say he pirate, but he never come see me."

"I could envy you. I can't seem to get away from mine, even though he's dead."

"Shillingworth ghosts very lively."

That drew his little so-sad smile and a gentle snort. "Yes, although they don't walk about anymore as they did last summer." He take up sword again and test blade with his thumb. "My father was a hero, Passepartout. And I'm a degenerate. No one in there let me forget it." Most particularly Miss Rebecca, I thinking. "They're all afraid I'm going to gamble Shillingworth away."

"Master?" Not wanting to remind him how he'd won his beautiful Aurora from my Baron.

"I just wish . . . sometimes I wish I knew why Father decided to marry. Families are such inconvenient things for heroes."

"Maybe he love . . ." I started to say, but things happen really fast to Mr. Fogg and Passepartout. The star man's objet I'm spinning on the table, it spin on its own faster and faster. Everything shimmer, like water or outside of Phoenix when she trip through time. "Passepartout! What did you do now?" Master yell at me. He and I jump up and try to step through watery stuff. We can't. We're trapped so tight. He slash with saber and nothing happen. It just swishy up the air.

Then kerthump! we standing on the wet cobbles street, no Aurora cabin, no table. It smell coal smoky, more like London than English country and it's halfish daylight, maybe morning, maybe evening. Just us two there and we look at each other. A yelling down the street and bunches of Leagues men in their toy soldier uniforms chase two peoples straight at us. Guns and swords everywhere. Scary, scary, I think I scream.

Mr. Fogg, he so brave, so thinking with his feet. He shrug off all the weirdness, not even say his usual, "What the devil?" He see Leagues men and he at them in a flash, charging like fol homme, waving his saber, screaming, shouting, you think an army follow him. He scare them Leagues men so bad they not even think to draw their guns. They stop and attack my master with their swords. I count four Leagues men attack him. The two peoples they chasing, a man and woman, they stops next to me. In English, man tells his lady to stay in safety. To me he says, "Come on! Your friend needs help!" He and I run at them. I have no weapon, so I wave my arms and shout. I run up behind a Leagues man and knock him down. When he try to get up, I kick him in the head and grab his sword. My new friend he fire a gun. Down fall one Leagues man and the other two they decide to run.

When Mr. Fogg would've followed, stranger caught his arm. "No, sir! An you value your life, don't pursue!"

I looked at this stranger man in the dimmish light. He about twenty-five or thirty, my height, and narrow in his build. And his clothes! I know clothes, and his should have been packed in a trunk forty years ago.

Master stare at stranger so hard I thought his green eyes would break. Master knew him, Master knew him right away, but didn't want to think it.

Stranger's lady she there and cry, "Bonny? Bonny, I thought I'd lost you." Stranger Bonny wrapped lady with his arms.

"Phyllis, my love. Can you forgive me for these dangers? I shall take you back to your father and end our engagement. This life I've chosen, it's not fit for a family man."

"I love you, Boniface. There is nothing to forgive. Try to keep me away, and I will be everywhere you turn. Whatever you've chosen, I choose too."

"Our children, Phyllis . . ."

". . . will grow strong, my love."

Bonny, his eyes drink his lady up. He say, "Then, by God, I'll never let you go," and kiss his lady hard, hard, hard.

It pretty dramatic moment, let me tell you. These stranger peoples forget all about Mr. Fogg and me. Just as Master stretch out hand to touch the lady (he tell me later she Dame Phyllis, his sainted mother), watery air come back and we snatched away, straight back to Aurora and our snowy Christmas Eve. As things clear up we seeing watery air flow into star man objet. Pretty obvious what sent us back, just not how or why.

Mr. Fogg so angry, he macerate air with saber. He spin around and round, looking for Bonny and his lady. He hit coffee service and star man thingy with his sword and knock it all a-flying. Finally he stab my lovely parquet deck with sword point and sag to knees, head bowed over saber hilt, panting hard and shaky like a big steam engine fired up real high. He look praying, but trying not to cry, I think. I not mind. Master just lose his mère and père again. I crying lots.

After while Master get up. He look at me and ask, "Were we even there, Passepartout? Was it real or just a dream?" I say nothing, just hold up Leagues man sword I still have in hand. Looking at it, he take deep breath and say, "Passepartout, fetch your jacket. We're returning to the party." He gingery pick up star man objet from coffee mess on deck. Flip it over, hold up to lamp. It no different. Still pretty, shiny, with secrets all hidden up.

"Yes, Master. Perhaps changing shirt, sir?" Mr. Fogg say no, so I just fresh him up a bit, snug white tie, smooth jacket shoulders, tug down tails. He hate fussy, but like to look nice, so he stand quiet. I towel up coffee mess so it not melt deck wax and turn off gaslights, then we go. When we walk to house, path much slicker because it begin to snow again. Master scoop up handful from snow bank and rub on face. I do same. We both look fresh and ruddy when footman open manor door for us, and sweet music and laughter pour out on snow like eggnog.

Much more happen after, and we have very hard night. Master Jules say don't write down rest. I'm glad to stop. Writing his job, not poor Passepartout's. I think I sleep now. Tomorrow coming really soon.

"Quillan!" Miss Moneypenny exclaimed. "I think this might be a reference to it!" Quillan leaned over her shoulder to read the screen. She looked up at his dark face. "Uh, why don't I print this one out for you?" She had forgotten how it felt to have an attractive available man stand so close. It disturbed her equilibrium.

"Certainly, Moneypenny. Let me know if you find more."

She nodded. Her eyes followed him as he walked to the printer. Why had she ignored QR5 for so long? She shook her head at herself and returned to the job at hand. Jules Verne had the next entry, dated in the small hours of Christmas morning. It was by far the longest today. Moneypenny recalled Verne's tremendous memory for detail. This entry would take the rest of the afternoon.

From the Jules Verne journal.

Peaceful and Fogg, two words that never seem to belong in the same sentence. This holiday continues that pattern as this night's Christmas Eve Feast segued into a rescue and even more. The night went on so long and eventfully, if I do not write now I shall forget the details, so I set aside fatigue.

The evening started happily. Both Fogg and Rebecca dressed in their finest and provided me with well-fit evening clothes as well, don't ask me how. Rebecca was particularly stunning in iridescent scarlet and gold, her fiery hair in ringlets and bound atop her head. Fogg toasted her with his eyes as she descended the stair to join us and I told her of her radiance fulsomely in French, the only language fit to describe such exquisite beauty. Fogg handed me a jewelry case and asked that I adorn his cousin with the contents, a heavy gold chain supporting a huge red star sapphire pendant. It must have cost him five thousand pounds if not more - if he hadn't won it at the gaming tables. "An early Christmas present, cousin," he said, that soft fond look in his eyes. Though no stranger to magnificent gifts, Rebecca gasped in wonder, but turned her face away to avoid Fogg's eye and did not seal her brief, cool "thank you" with a kiss. Indeed the cousins had not touched each other since I arrived two days ago. It's not like them to be so remote or Rebecca to act ungrateful. I wondered what new spat lay between them.

As for the party, Fogg's estate manager, George MacIver, installed the new holiday conceit Prince Albert has imported from Germany -- a candle-decorated tree. It bravely lit one end of the ballroom, evoking no few "oohs" and "aahs" and scented the atmosphere with the sharp summer fragrance of an evergreen forest. At the other end of the ballroom, a feast of roast turkey, puddings and other traditional English dishes occupied two long tables. In the middle those few who dared could dance. I did my best to contribute to the holiday delight of the gaily-dressed country maidens, promenading with nearly all.

Fogg does not fancy being master of Shillingworth Magna, that much has been plain since our summer visit. Last night he made brave show, greeting each fermier by his forename, shaking hands, clapping shoulders, until a rather handsome, strapping fellow walked up to us with Rebecca on his arm. "Jules, I want you to meet an old friend of mine," she exclaimed. "Bran Everley, may I introduce the greatest writer of the next generation, Jules Verne. Jules, Bran has supplied Shillingworth with fine horses for many years." Everley bowed first to me, then to Fogg, whom he greeted curtly with his surname, "Fogg."

A year's association with Fogg has taught me his danger signs. His answering bow to Everley barely twitched his shoulders and his body's focused lines bespoke tension and scarce-checked rage. I swear with minimal provocation he would have killed this Everley. Unfortunately, that man proceeded to supply it, saying, "Rebecca tells me you seek a hunter for next summer, sir. Are you planning to hold on to Shillingworth Magna? We've heard so many rumors here in the county." Fogg flushed dark red and rocked forward on the balls of his feet. Everley dropped Rebecca's arm and tensed for a set-to. Rebecca recognized the signs of impending combat as well as I. She intervened. "Of course, we shall. There will always be Foggs at Shillingworth Magna. Am I not right, Phileas?"

"Always," Fogg choked out, "until there are no more Foggs." Rebecca continued, taking her cousin's arm, "Phileas, if I might have a word with you?" Oblivious to the insult he'd just proffered Everley, Fogg followed Rebecca from the ballroom. She rejoined us a moment later, alone, her lips pressed so tightly together they appeared blue. She did not look at Everley again and only spoke gaily of local gossip. Shortly she excused herself to greet a new arrival and left us standing there awkwardly regarding one another.

Around one in the morning, Rebecca sought me out as I left the dance floor to enlist my assistance in her search for Fogg. He had not yet reappeared; and guests, keeping country hours, were beginning to leave. The host should be there to wish the departing safe journey and to distribute baskets of holiday benevolence, fruit and baked goods.

As it turned out, Fogg found us. His face, open and smiling when he walked in the manor door, subsided into its earlier frown when Rebecca reminded him of his hosting obligations. He did not cavil, saying only, "Certainly, sweet cousin." He tossed an object to Jean. "Wait for us in the library will you, Passepartout? And prepare a tray with brandy, if you please. I'll be there shortly."

The manor's servants also departed for their Christmas holiday, and thus shortly evolved into another hour. When at last we assembled in the library, Jean reclined in a chair fast asleep and came awake with a rather groggy eye. Fogg only gently tapped his arm and twitched a sharp chin toward the fireplace to indicate the blaze needed a fresh stoking. Jean added two of the especial Yule logs set out for the Christmas celebration and came to stand with me at the table. In this part of England such logs are decorated with small, carved figures and pomanders that burn quite fragrantly. The scent quickly blessed our noses.

"I hope the party met your expectations, Rebecca," Fogg said as he poured brandies all around, even one for Passepartout.

"A magnificent effort, I'll concede, cousin. Definitely worthy of a successor in another year." Rebecca settled on the divan, and leaned back with a tired sigh. She'd spent much time dancing and moving about among her guests.

For a moment Fogg regarded his sparkling cut crystal goblet then downed his brandy with a single gulp and immediately poured himself another. "If so you say, my love. Father held it every year, n'est pas?" He turned away from her, as if closing a door on a distressing scene.

To Jean he continued, "The item, if you please, Passepartout." On the table Jean placed the star man's strange gift from last summer. I'd left it with him after we'd spent a fruitless week on tests. Jean told me yesterday he'd thought of a few more to assay.

"Passepartout and I had an adventure about an hour ago," Fogg said looking at me, "and your souvenir seems the origin."

"An adventure?" Rebecca asked behind him.

Fogg looked conflicted for a moment. Finally he turned to her. "Uh, we saved my father and mother from a posse of League creatures."

Rebecca's eyebrows disappeared into the red curls that fringed her forehead. She pointed out the obvious. "Your parents are both dead, Phileas." She stood to look her cousin in the eye, or nearly so considering the great difference in their heights, the depth of her caring painted on her features.

Fogg still rankled from his earlier conflict with Rebecca. He sneered down at her up-turned face. "Forty years ago they weren't. I watched them while they assured each other we Fogg children would survive a hell on earth. You should have been there, cousin, the sweetest love story I've seen outside a novel. It made me wish I'd never been born." He gulped down his second shot of brandy, and as he does when drinking strong spirits sucked his teeth and smacked his lips, savoring its bouquet to the fullest.

In the meantime, Passepartout showed me the artifact's twirling spin. It spun steadily and quite fast. Jean gasped when Fogg said his final words and glanced anxiously around. He relaxed when nothing happened.

Rebecca couldn't let Fogg's words pass unanswered. "And I wish you had a son of your own to raise, so you might know how hard fatherhood can be." With her words something did happen. From what Fogg and Passepartout tell us, exactly what happened earlier. A shimmering fall of liquid air, much reminiscent of the Phoenix aura, a pressing of the lungs and the four of us stood elsewhere in a broad, high-ceilinged corridor that seemed an enhancement of a natural grotto. Intermittently down its length stalactites and stalagmites decorated the walls and from frequent openings entered what little light we had. In one direction the grotto continued straight for about twenty feet then bent sharply. In the other it continued until fading into darkness.

"Damn," Fogg said, looking both ways. "Not even a sword this time. Do you have anything on you, cousin?"

"Just a small dagger in my hair," Rebecca said. "Where the hell are we? Is this a continuation of your adventure, Phileas?" We had no more time for further consultation as we heard a party approaching behind the bend.

Conversation drifted toward us. "She still lives? That's a pity. Expedite her passing. I want to hold my son." My blood chilled as I recognized Count Gregory's booming voice, unnaturally amplified and enhanced by the tunnel's shape.

"In there!" Fogg hissed, gesturing at the nearest opening, an unoccupied medical operating theatre, as it turned out. We ranged along its interior wall, Rebecca forced to move far back due to her billowing crinoline. Although I'm sure it infuriated him to hide, even Fogg knows better than to encounter Count Gregory unarmed.

In the corridor the whirl and clatter of Count Gregory's chair and multiple footsteps approached. We'd missed the reply to the Count's order, but not his next words. "Unnatural? The boy's unnatural? You assured me our Fogg-bred bloodline would be completely normal. I will adopt no monster for a son!"

A naggingly familiar and oily voice answered, "The breeding worked out well, Count Gregory. I believe the Fogg baby to be enhanced. You've perfected Cynara's bloodline for centuries; and I must say, you've created the consummate baby by matching that lineage with Fogg's. A brilliant move, sir." I glanced at Fogg on the other side of the opening, wondering at his reaction to this. His lips formed the same word over and over, "Damn, damn, damn." His fisted hands threatened the air.

The oily voice continued as sounds of passing dwindled down the corridor. "It may be best to leave him by his mother until she dies. He seems aware of her condition and we don't want to . . ." We lost the rest in distance.

Fogg quieted. His head leant back against the rock wall. "Well, Rebecca," he whispered, "you wished me a son. Verne's souvenir seems to have found one for me."

"Phileas, if wishes were babies, the begetting of children would be a good deal less complicated. How can that thing find a son for you? It doesn't make sense."

Jean broke in, "Passepartout know. Same as last trip we go. Mr. Fogg wish to know why father had family and he find out."

Fogg's eyes found Rebecca's and his face relaxed into a half smile. "My mother talked him into it," he admitted.

While they conversed I prowled the room. It had been meagerly scrubbed after the last, and apparently recent, operation. The rough stone floor still retained traces of blood and other less identifiable remnants. Light came from a strange globe hanging from the overhead rock. Two wrapped wires fed it and I surmised it to be electrical in nature. A bare steel table on wheels occupied the center of the room, and various shiny medical implements both large and small lay in trays or hung on the far wall. Piles of folded linen and operating robes completed the room's furnishings.

By this time Rebecca and Fogg had joined me and Passepartout watched the door. Gathering up some of the largest operating tools -- a wicked looking ax likely used for amputations and two very large knives -- I thrust them in their hands, saying, "I've got an idea."

Rebecca answered. "Sorry, Jules. No ideas until I strip for action. May I have that scalpel, if you please?" With Fogg's help, she cut off her heavy outer skirt, untied and dropped her crinoline, and pulled off the gloves that covered her forearms up to the elbow. "Now," she said as Fogg unhooked her gold and sapphire necklace, "let's hear it, and please tell me it includes finding Phileas' son." Fogg stood behind her, chain in hand, a bemused expression on his face. I could almost hear his thought, "Rebecca rides to the rescue."

And ride she did. Rebecca protested the passive role my plot assigned her; however, operating robes could not adequately disguise her half-clad feminine state. She finally consented to lying with our appropriated weapons on the rolling steel table, a sheet cast over all, whilst Fogg, Passepartout and I followed behind costumed in robes. All in all we hoped to pass for local habitué. League men are an incurious lot, and as it happened we encountered only one small party of enstudded slaves. They passed us by after a single glance.

Passepartout had had the fewest League encounters so to him fell the duty of thrusting his head into each doorway. It took five, and all except the last of those doors opened on empty rooms, before Jean found Cynara Bonander and her son.

"Here be your lady, Master!" he whispered in excited accents. Passepartout had not cared much for Baroness Bonander; but if she had borne Fogg a son, he was prepared to change his mind. We quickly entered the indicated room. Passepartout helped Rebecca dismount the cart and together they took up stations on either side of the entry in readiness to dispatch intruders, Rebecca armed with the ax and Passepartout with the longest knife.

A veritable kaleidoscope of emotion crossed Fogg's face as he bent over the unconscious woman and tiny babe. He touched the child's cheek with one finger and whispered, "Cynara," to the mother. Considering that when he last saw her, she'd planned to shoot him, he treated her with uncommon tenderness. The memory of that day led me to another recollection and another after that, until finally I connected the oily voice that a few moments ago had spoke to Count Gregory. It belonged to the hunchback that shot my love, my only sweet Clarice, in Paris last spring. The bastard hid in this pile of rock!

Cynara's eyes flickered open. "Phileas, thank God," she sighed. "Our son, you must save him." Weakly her hands moved to offer her child. "Quickly, Gregory will know your presence. Spying machines watch this room!"

"Master!" Passepartout cried at the door, "I think Gregory thing come back!" Indeed, we could already hear the rattling clatter of the returning chair. It seemed to be moving at high speed.

"Verne!" Fogg cried, "take the babe!" Even as I bent and picked up the tiny bundle, it was already too late! Count Gregory and two enstudded slaves carrying firearms of mysterious design blocked our door. Fogg raised his hands in surrender. Rebecca and Passepartout stayed hidden just inside the entry.

"Oh, how very convenient! Both of my prize studs in one room!"

Both? Had Clarice been part of his evil plan? No, I would not credit it! Fogg glanced at me. I shook my head in answer. One thing I still own is a cursed virginity. We need seek no child of mine.

Fogg made answer. "Well, thank you, Count, but we prefer to do our own procuring. A matter of taste, you know."

"If you think such hubris impressive, Fogg, let me point out I've won again. I have your woman Cynara and shall raise your son as my own."

The check Fogg held on his rage began to slip. "Not while I still walk this earth!"

Gregory laughed, a joyless rasping sound, and addressed someone who stood behind his chair. "Doctor Garridan, please summon more guards." That hunch-backed bastard, Clarice's murderer, now entered, on his way to a speaking tube, I suppose. In my helpless anger I squeezed the child I held. It began to cry in vehement yowls. Her hidden position about to be compromised by the Doctor's entrance, Rebecca chose that moment to attack. She hit Garridan with the flat of her ax. Passepartout kicked his feet out from under him.

The slaves immediately began firing their weapons. I ran to one side carrying the babe. Fogg tried to push Cynara's wheeled bed to safety, but she heaved up and fell off to the floor. She cried out to Fogg, "Run! Save our son!" and crawled in the direction of the door. Blocked from helping her and under fire, Fogg ran to join the babe and me.

Although many, many bullets flew, the slaves aimed from outside the entry. Their narrow field of fire prevented direct hits. Ricochets, however, went everywhere. One even providentially burst the electric globe light in the ceiling. The resultant shower of sparks gave me yet another idea. We had to act quickly. Count Gregory would soon note we failed to return his fire.

"Fogg!" I yelled. "The gold chain, throw it at the metal rails of Gregory's chair! Wrap it across as many as you can!" My friends have a disturbing faith in my wild ideas, risking their very lives on my say so. Fogg didn't even glance at me in question. He pulled the gold chain from his pocket. Running into the line of fire, he threw it high and hard. It hit its intended target, Count Gregory's chair that still franticly maneuvered in the entry a dozen feet away. After Fogg ran to Cynara and laid his body over hers.

As I'd hoped, Count Gregory's chair uses electricity for propulsion and even perhaps to feed his hideous flesh. It certainly has something to do with his fusion power process. The gold chain, an excellent conductor of electric power, wrapped two posts and touched another. It arced the fittings of the chair and wild currents ran throughout the entire assemblage. Sparks showered and great gouts of lightning. Gregory's enstudded slaves dropped their weapons and writhed on the floor. Their flesh ignited in horrid fire as some shorted circuit fed through them. As for the Count, his monstrous body twitched and jumped, each piece of him finding its own direction. His chair spun, much resembling a rudderless boat in a whirlpool, and under specious power sped down the hall.

The burning slaves provided us a faint, albeit malodorous light. Passepartout helped Fogg arise. Rebecca felt Cynara's neck for a pulse. She looked up to meet Fogg's eyes and shook her head. The tiny babe had already lost his mother. In my arms he cried most piteously.

Rebecca said to me, "We must flee. Jules, do you have any more brilliant insights? We could use another just now."

I negated.

Fogg, ignoring all worry of escape, reached out for the babe, saying, "Give me my son."

Two miracles followed - first, in Fogg's arms the child stopped his cries, almost gasping his cessation. The second followed hard, the return of the shimmering air and the breathless, liquid transition the star man's gift imparted.

We stood back in the Shillingworth manor library, by all appearances only minutes after we left. Night still darkened the windows. In the fireplace Passepartout's two fresh Yule logs, the decorations still visible, had just begun to burn. The time we spent elsewhere had not passed here.

We've made a bold stroke against the League tonight, but there shall be a price to pay, and soon. The League has the technology to strike quickly and forcefully almost anywhere. Fogg insisted we all arm ourselves with loaded pistols. He gave me one as long as my forearm for the bedside table. "We'll shoot it off in the morning, if nothing else," he says. Apparently the English discharge weapons on Christmas Day. . . or perhaps he means a League arrival.

Fogg and Rebecca guard his son in the nursery and catch what sleep they can. Passepartout warms milk in the kitchen and I suspect prepares weapons and supplies for the morning. I've taken a room next the nursery and leave my door ajar, just in case.

I am skeptical the Count suffered any serious damage. He resurfaces again and again, buoyant as refuse in fetid water. And I regret I had no opportunity to ascertain Garridan's death, as Rebecca doubts she delivered a mortal stroke. If Gregory values him, he may well return.

Jean promises to write an account of their first trip for my perusal. We must know how this came to pass and if, God forbid, it shall happen again. In the meantime the star man's gift lays next my candle, bound in my shirt to prevent a spin. When that ethereal creature tendered it to me, I thought it filled with information or possibly a communications device. Passepartout and I tried every energy and chemical test imaginable with no results. Now a simple wish has activated it and we regard it with unholy fear. Would I have refused this legacy if I'd known of tonight's events? Could I have resisted knowing where it would lead? I question myself even now. Although the star man looked an angel, could it have been a devil in disguise?

Oh, it definitely looked to Moneypenny like she would be up late tonight! Oh my! Fogg rescued his son and Cynara died! She stood up and walked around a minute to calm down. This all happened way more than a century in the past. She really must not let herself become too involved. There, that's better. Returning to the computer, Moneypenny hit the save button, then sent her latest entry to the printer.

Quillan, sitting on a stool about ten feet away and bent over the artifact, didn't notice her approach until she put a hand on his shoulder. "Here's some more about it," she said and offered him the printout.

He looked up, his eyes shining. "Moneypenny! I can't believe your find! It's amazing! I think it's a time and space gateway, with multiple nexuses in both normal and parallel space . . . Incredible!. . . The emphasic scans show . . ."

Moneypenny interrupted him, "I can't believe you've learned so much so fast, Quillan; but words of one syllable, please. I have no technical background."

Quillan smiled apologetically and reached out to brush Moneypenny's hair from her forehead. She didn't pull away. "Well, it's a kind of Aladdin's lamp. You make a wish and it takes you where and when you want to go."

"Would that be just one wish to a customer?" Moneypenny said, thinking of Jules Verne's words.

"Really? Did you find that in the Fogg account?" he asked and took the printout from her hand.

"It's Jules Verne's and he implies something like that. I think I need to finish up the remaining entries to be sure."

The wall clock stood at eighteen hundred hours, but neither of them suggested stopping for the night. They talked about the practicalities of continuing data entry and investigation. Quillan, when in the midst of an analysis, often stayed in the lab all night. The guard just locked him in. That left food the only problem.

"How about some frozen pizza?" he asked. "You won't believe it's not delivery." They laughed.

While he rigged a Bunsen burner for baking, Moneypenny chose a pizza from the stack in Quillan's bio. sample locker. "Yum, pineapple and Canadian bacon, my favorite," he said. Moneypenny had rather suspected it, as half his boxes contained the same. She stepped into Quillan's water closet to wash up, and a few minutes later they sat down to their second meal of the day together.

"You must let me treat you to a proper dinner sometime soon, Quillan. You've been such a tremendous help."

"Actually, Moneypenny, I have a rather personal interest in this. No thanks necessary, none at all."

When Quillan didn't provide more details, Moneypenny decided to let the matter drop. Not quite comfortable with being worshipped, she assumed that's what he meant.

Miss Moneypenny settled down again at the keyboard, feeling revived. She hoped to be done by midnight, and tomorrow she'd definitely call in ill. Service loyalty only went so far.

Rebecca Fogg's diary had held the next entry, on several large folded sheets that had fallen out when Moneypenny first picked it up. The sheets looked more like drawing paper than stationery and the writing instrument appeared to be a child's large pencil. The woman had seemed to gain some insight into her own heart. Moneypenny sighed in envy.

Sheets found in Rebecca Fogg's private journal.

Christmas day, the holiest day on the Christian calendar, a day of birth, renewal, and contemplation. I contemplate this wonder before me, a new relation. When you have so few, each one means much.

He has Phileas' long limbs, a look about the face that says "Fogg," and something of a Bonander nose. Or perhaps I'm imagining resemblances. He is only the tiniest babe.

The elder Fogg reclines in the nursery's comfortable upholstered chair, his head lolled to one side, his mouth slightly open. He snores. He has endured what no man ought and deserves more sleep than he is like to get. And although the babe seems to prefer Phileas' touch, he quiets for me almost as well. We shall make do while my cousin sleeps. The call to action may come at any moment. I would our strongest warrior be fresh and ready for a fight.

I have all I need to tend the babe. For the party I freshly equipped the nursery with children's things, as entire families enjoyed last night's hospitality. When Phil and I entered, my heart lurched with memory. It looked so freshly occupied! Erasmus' carved blocks lay tumbled on the floor and my hated dolls were off their shelves and sitting about in the child-sized chairs.

I should scold the tweeny assigned here last night, but Phileas gave all the servants a Christmas holiday. They return after our fireworks display. Passepartout has a day of freedom also. He chose to stay with us instead. He knows few here in the county; and with the passing of his Aunt Louisa, I suspect Phileas now comprises much of Jean's kith and kin.

My cousin knows more about babies than I would credit. What he lacks I make up, especially with the feeding and such like, which charitable visits to our tenants' cottages have taught me how to perform. I watched my elegant, beautiful cousin, still dressed in evening jacket, change the babe's napkin and couldn't resist commenting, "I can't believe you actually know how to do that."

He replied, and I avow untruthfully, "I've changed yours many a time, sweet Rebecca."

Passepartout delivered a bottle of warm milk and lit a fire. I fed the babe, and he and Phileas went to gather weapons from the study. Phileas returned to the nursery alone, garbed in rougher clothes.

He handed me a loaded Thompson before subsiding into the same chair where he now sleeps, close by the baby's cradle. "Passepartout says the Aurora can depart on a moment's notice. I have him putting some things together as it might be wise to leave soon," he whispered.

"We're exhausted, Phileas. There's a storm outside. And if the Prometheus should attack us in the air, you know what would happen." By which I meant we would likely all die in a crash.

"Perhaps you're right." Phileas yielding so easily to another's opinion? A rare and wonderful thing. No doubt his new role as father affects him already.

His hand touched his sleeping son's back as if to say, I'm here. "I wish I could provide him with a better life. The boy's childhood shall make mine look simple by comparison." Phileas' mouth and eyes turned down at the corners. His fire burned low. This endless Christmas Eve robs him of his spirit.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly. Phileas glanced a question.

"Sorry Cynara died," I provided as answer.

"Yes, sad he's lost his mother. Now I'm all he has."

"He has me, and I suspect Passepartout and Jules and every inhabitant here about," I replied and breathed a little easier. Phileas bore no deep wound from Cynara's loss. I'd thought . . . he'd seemed so desperate to save her.

Phileas shook his head. "It's no secret where I live. My son's not safe at either Shillingworth Magna or Saville Row. I can't think what else to do but run far and fast." His hand left the babe and took mine. "We'll only draw death to your door. I have to leave you."

Strange how I know Phileas so well that I can almost read his mind. Leave, not to return, he meant. Shaken, I lay my other hand on his. "No, you don't. The League's minions are everywhere. Better he be where the Service can protect."

Phileas snorted gently so as not to wake the babe. "The Service! Do you really think Jonathan would put a priority on my needs?"

"On Sir Boniface's grandson, yes." His brow acknowledged the truth of that. He seemed to think of something else.

"And you, Rebecca, do you still want me about? I thought perhaps you needed me at a distance so as to begin a new romance."

He referred to Everley, of course, and properly shamed me. Last night I paraded Everley past Phileas purposefully to spark an irritation. I had not anticipated the intensity of my cousin's answering flare. It had been a foolish, selfish move. I felt blood warm my face. "Phileas, I do not love Bran, nor am I like to. As it happens, I'm in love with someone else already." And at last knew that for the truth.

"Oh, anyone I know?"

"Yes, I think so, distantly," I answered. Not ready to declare myself on this eventful night, I said no more and ignored the question in his eyes.

"Well, let me know your wishes if he's to come and ask me for your hand."

As Phileas seldom indulges in conversing with himself, such a meeting seemed unlikely, but I said, "Certainly, cousin." Pleased his thoughts had turned from leaving, I gave him a chaste and gentle kiss.

It will take time and education for Phileas to regard me as other than a sister. He believes no female can love him and survive, as has been proven several times, Cynara being only the most recent example. I love him and between us we can break that curse. Sometime soon, when the only question that remains will be whose bed to occupy, I'll tell him so and suggest a marriage.

I am to wake Phileas at five o'clock. We are taking watches, turn and turn about. I think I'll fetch Jean instead and have him guard the sleeping Foggs whilst I go change into more serviceable wear. My beautiful Christmas ball gown would not now make even a decent polishing cloth. And I should conceal this remembrance in my diary as it would not do for Phileas discover it unaware.

It is not yet light, and already miracles fill this Christmas Day. I discover myself in love, and a newborn Fogg lies in our nursery cradle. Who would have thought it? Who would have thought it, indeed?

Sometime in the last hour the guard had walked by and locked Quillan and Moneypenny into the laboratory. Neither had looked up from their work at the sound of the key clicking in the lock.

Moneypenny looked again at the remaining documents in her box. There were only two possible entries left, one from Phileas Fogg's diary and one in the Jules Verne journal. Unfortunately, she discovered that after only two pages the Fogg narrative ended in mid-sentence. A frill of paper showed where some pages had been torn out.

What a disappointment! Moneypenny had only used one of his elegantly worded entries today. "Bloody hell!" Moneypenny cursed aloud, got up and kicked the empty pizza box lying on the floor. Her companion looked up from his workbench in concern. "Sorry, Quillan. Usually have better control of my temper. Fogg diary's incomplete. Some pages have been torn out."

Quillan took up the old and fragile book and examined the ripped edges. "Well, this is an official Service archive. Maybe the entry was too personal."

Moneypenny thought for a moment. "The whole diary is very personal. When he wrote it he didn't know it would end up in the archives. No, I rather think he recorded his son's hiding place and then ripped it out later for safety's sake."

Quillan nodded in agreement. "That sounds reasonable. Are you going to be OK now?"

Moneypenny nodded and smiled ruefully. "I'm fine. I think I'll use the Verne journal. He has the most detail. It's just that Fogg's so . . . so sexy!"

Unexpectedly Quillan blushed. He asked, holding up the diary in his hands, "Yes, well, uh, I'd like to run a few tests on this. Do you mind?" Moneypenny shook her head and returning to Quillan's computer, spread the Verne journal out again. He'd made an entry on New Year's Eve about the events a week before. The account finished out the book and ended the year.

From Jules Verne's private journal, New Year's Eve.

Whenever I believe I understand Fogg, he surprises me with a new and different face. Passionate, yes, that first comes to mind. Impatient, violent, and suspicious, all those I expect he learned whilst spying. Did spying also teach him to congeal his heart?

He suffers. I know he suffers. And not just from the bruises inflicted on his body. His soul has been bruised far more. To Fogg, the axiom, "Family is everything," echoes more of holy writ. Rebecca has been the cathedral where he worships; and his son within a few short hours became his god. But Fogg left him in the future and will not say with whom the babe hides or why he himself returned. Fogg tells us nothing at all. His eyes spend much time on Rebecca; and of evenings, he drinks in quiet, steady concentration. None of that is new.

It is New Year's Eve. The Foggs are returning me to Paris and the Aurora flies through a grim and wintry night. Rebecca and Fogg split the day watch and retired early to their cabins. No grand party tonight, I fear. Passepartout has the helm and I will relieve him at midnight to greet the renewing year.

Poor Jean, he blames himself for the babe's loss. This morning he sought to escape his expiring contract and tendered Fogg a written resignation. His master frowned over its self-accusatory wording, wadded it up and threw it out the porthole. He ordered a fresh pot of coffee as he turned back to his Times. "Such drivel doesn't deserve a reply, Passepartout. Your wages increase five percent tomorrow and do get yourself a new uniform with household funds. I begin to tire of that gold-striped thing."

I may be wrong about the party, at least for Fogg. Rebecca just rattled his door with the bottle of champagne I gifted them for Christmas. She winked at me when I peeked out into the passageway. Of us all, Rebecca seems the happiest. Her cousin's return from the future has canceled her every other concern. Even the loss of the babe palls against that joy. Tonight she clearly intends to share with him a New Year's celebration. He appeared at his door clad in dressing gown and slippers, and granted her entry to his privacy.

I hope she lightens this gloom that has descended upon him. He confides to me plans for an extended trip, to draw Count Gregory's attention away from Rebecca and myself, he says. He worries a great deal about this new League ability to strike remotely and with any material at hand.

The League assaulted us on Christmas morn, as we'd anticipated, but in a way we'd never before seen. Through a debasement of scientific principles the League's scientists transmuted the nursery into something alive and as voracious as quicksand, and hungry for Foggs alone.

At first light, perhaps half past seven, I heard a terrible rattling and Jean's frantic shouts from next-door. There I found a horrible scene! The room's floor had come alive. It no longer lay in flat and normal planes. It grew unnatural tendrils, ropes and strands. Some waved about as if seeking something. Others bound Fogg tightly to his chair. Passepartout held the baby in his arms and sobbed helplessly, "Master, I sorry. I change baby! I not see!"

"Get the baby out of here!" Fogg shouted. Jean tried to run to the nursery door. The floor heaved and threw him. Passepartout landed derrière first on its vile, shifting surface. I ran to help him arise. Blind tendrils snatched at the babe but missed. On I ran to Fogg as he struggled fruitlessly against his bonds. Despite their fluid movement, the horrid growths had the strength of iron.

Rebecca, who'd left the nursery to don her fighting outfit, heard our struggle far down the hall. She appeared at the nursery door, a pistol in her hand. The floor rippled up in anticipation of her presence, rattling chairs, dolls and blocks together in horrid piles of debris.

"Stay back, Miss Rebecca!" Passepartout yelled as he struggled to keep his feet. He held the babe up high. The monstrous vines stretched to his shoulder and collapsed, unable to attenuate that far. "It catching only Foggs!" Jean continued. Indeed no tendrils entrapped me at all. The growths that attacked Passepartout reached only for the babe. Without eyes or olfactory organs, some hellish sense directed them to the Foggs.

Fogg's desperate movements became more restricted as vine after vine wrapped him tight. "Seem to rather fancy me, don't they?" Fogg bantered. Fear made his eyes white and round. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the vines almost topple Jean to the floor again, "Bloody hell! Passepartout, get my son out of here!" Jean struggled to comply but could not move. The vines that sought the baby had multiplied into dozens and hemmed him in.

Rebecca seemed safe enough outside the doorway. The unnatural tendrils formed only to the sill. There they waved about much as hounds that sniff a quarry without discerning its direction. Rebecca cannot tolerate helplessness. Unable to join our efforts inside the nursery, she fired her pistol into the floorboards. It spit back out the bits of lead.

Count Gregory's foul image formed from the planking. We heard him speak in a coarse, hollow approximation of human voice. "I will have my son back, Fogg! And you will die! I tire of trifling with you. Prepare yourself to meet your God." The chimera disappeared.

Fogg's situation became dire. Despite all my efforts, a thick tendril wrapped his neck and began slowly to wring away his life. His face colored to dusky red, followed by a bluish tint. His eyes rolled back.

"Release him, you bastard!" Rebecca screamed. No answer came. Gregory could not hear us.

Passepartout shouted to me, "Where star man thing? Where you hide?"

I turned to the female Fogg outside the nursery door. She looked near to desperation and had put a foot inside the door. Tendrils raced and almost grabbed her ankle before she stepped out again. "Rebecca, it's on my night table!"

She returned within seconds. Even in her brief absence yet more horrible events transpired. Whilst his master's plight distracted Passepartout, tendrils dropped from a new source, the ceiling. They snatched the child from his arms. This ghastly, unnatural nursemaid carried the crying infant toward a gaping orifice that shimmered beneath the frosted window.

"Spin l'objet! Spin now!" Passepartout shouted to Rebecca in the hall. To me, "Master Jules, make wish for Mr. Fogg and bébé! Wish them safe! Wish them far away!"

Fast! I must act fast! Fogg would die in seconds and the baby return to Count Gregory! I spewed out the first words that came to mind, "I wish Fogg could take his son to safety in the future." The future, why had I specified the future? Did I speak my own heart's wish?

For the third time on that extraordinary Christmas holiday, thick and viscous air whirled from the star man's gift spinning at Rebecca's feet. In fear she took a quick step back, but only Fogg and the baby disappeared. And with their fading, the nursery's every plane and surface subsided to its flat and normal state.

Deathly quiet descended on the winter morn. Last night's snowstorm had blown itself away and a bright beam of light pierced the atmosphere, sparkling the jack frost on the window and the dust hanging in the air.

"They're gone," Passepartout said.

Rebecca stepped experimentally onto the nursery floor, ready if need be to hop out again. Nothing unnatural showed, and emboldened she walked in further. "How soon will they be back, Jules?" she asked whilst checking corners to assure no remaining evil lurked.

My miserable face must have answered her question.

"Jules! Tell me that's not true! Bring them back!" She turned to Jean, "Passepartout, you can do it, can't you?" He looked away.

I gave what little comfort I had. "I wished him safety for the baby. Whatever else they are, they're safe. They're somewhere in the future, Rebecca."

"How far? Tomorrow? A hundred years?"

With no other answer to give, I offered her my arms.

She shook her head and her face flushed in anger. "No!" she shouted again and again, furious to find no ready answer. "No, no, no!" I thought it best to take her gun.

Passepartout, who looked even more miserable than Rebecca, picked up our Pandora's box from the hall floor. He laid a comforting hand on Rebecca's back. "He come back. I know he will. He come back if he can."

"If he can, Passepartout, if he can," I whispered.

"Moneypenny?" Quillan touched her arm. She jumped a half-meter into the air. "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you!"

Moneypenny laughed ruefully. "Oh, you're forgiven, Quillan. My fault really. Just reached the exciting part, you know. Phileas Fogg and the baby have disappeared into the future."

"Well, then I expect you'll want this," Quillan said and held out four sheets of folded paper. "The missing pages from Fogg's diary. He hid them in the binding."

"Really? Hid them how?"

Quillan handed her the book. The inside of the back cover had been split open. "You were right. He wrote about where he took the baby."

"Marvelous! It's just the time to put it in!"

Quillan's forehead crinkled. He chewed his lower lip. He'd obviously read the entry. "Moneypenny, it's not what you're expecting. I think you should break for a bit. Would you like a cup of tea and biscuits? Another pizza? It's nearly twenty-three hundred hours, you know." Moneypenny almost declined, until she saw the look in Quillan's eyes.

"Certainly. Tea would be lovely."

The laboratory seemed to have all the comforts, or at least meals, of home. Soon Quillan was pouring each of them a steaming cup. Although Moneypenny tried to conduct a decent conversation, her eyes kept wandering back to Quillan's computer. Just a few more pages, she thought. I wonder where in time he went.

"Double-Oh-Seven's quite the agent, isn't he?" Quillan asked and Moneypenny realized he'd repeated the question. She'd been staring off in space and hadn't answered on the first go round.

"Yes, I suppose so. Horrid flirt and never seems to age a bit. Do you work with him much?"

"Occasionally. He's always over-taxing his equipment, and I usually get the repair assignments." Quillan's eyes follow the direction of her gaze. "I wonder, Moneypenny, would you mind printing out the entire account for me? Not if it's confidential, of course, but I would really like to read it."

Moneypenny was very pleased to do so. Now she'd have someone with whom to share this exciting story! She printed out both the Bonander account from yesterday and what she'd entered so far today. Quillan stood for a moment, the sheaf of papers in his hand. "Well, I'm going to set up a test to run through the night then settle down to read this. I've got a bedroll in the cupboard that'll do for me. You take the divan, OK?"

Moneypenny nodded agreement and fairly ran back to the terminal. She gently flattened out the precious pages, found the place where the Verne account had left off and with eager fingers began to type. Quillan watched her excitement from his workbench, a thoughtful look on his quiet face. He turned back to his extraterrestrial prize and started setting up an experiment with the centrifuge.

Pages found in the binding of Phileas Fogg's private journal.

Rebecca wished me to know the trials of fatherhood. On Christmas Day I emphatically realized those hasty words. I saw my features on that miniature face, and felt his tiny hand in mine! I had not apprehended how painfully a child seizes one's heart! I won my most recent battle with the League by placing my son beyond Count Gregory's reach. In the winning, did I lose more?

When I recovered from the strangling of the League's monstrosity, unnatural light surrounded, and I thought I'd passed beyond the vale until forceful pain assured me of my corporality. I realized what Jules and Passepartout had done. In a desperate rescue, they'd initiated another journey through space and time.

My bonds had released me. Instead of a malevolent rope of unnatural substance, a strand of carpeting wrapped my throat. It fell away and pieces of wood showered about. With the horrific transformation ended, all returned to the natural state.

I heard my son sobbing at my feet and scooped him up. "Shh, shh. Little one. I'm here. I love you. You will survive, I promise."

We were nowhere. Without a breeze the air felt sweet and cool. I stood but found no floor. I was lit but saw no light. What surrounded was neither black nor white nor any color. It had no substance. Thus I stood for only moments until Verne's glowing star man flew toward us in graceful spirals. A handsome creature indeed . . . if it didn't put one so in mind of ghosts.

We spoke no sounds, yet held silent conversation as it explained to me its purpose. Passepartout and Verne's wish sent the babe and I to an un-built future. The future, unlike the past, exists in many avenues, each based on some choice, event or happenstance. I grasped it perfectly then. Now it's merely words on paper. Although Verne would understand, I cannot tell him and expose him still more to Count Gregory's predations. No one can know where I went.

The star man required me to specify a future. What features must it have other than safety? A particular person, a place? Did I desire to stay there also?

Rebecca. I knew that it must include Rebecca. I recalled her bending over the nursery cradle and kissing the babe good night. If we could only rejoin Rebecca and live the quiet life at Shillingworth Magna! That would be as near to heaven as I am like to get.

The star man paused a moment, considering. It silently informed that no such possibility existed. Every safe future holding Rebecca Fogg required me to return to my natural years. Count Gregory's defeat necessitates my participation.

Did I so wish it? The babe in the future, and I to return?

I am here. I write this diary. The choice I made is plain. Many think me cold. I'm sure its true and that is the resemblance to my father so often marked. For God's sake, I left behind my son! I can only cling to my parting vision of the future: sweet Rebecca holding him in her loving arms.

As always, Rebecca saves me. She the first thing I saw when I returned to this present day, a half-wild creature flying into my empty, hungry arms. And she my daily surety of reunion, for the Rebecca I saw in the future looked just as she does today. Same hair, same eyes, same smile. That tomorrow must be only around the corner. Not long, surely not long.

Moneypenny stopped typing. Her hands shook a little, whether from tension or fatigue, she wasn't sure. Without the click-click of the keys, she could hear the centrifuge humming on the workbench. Quillan sat on the divan, a lamp behind his shoulder illuminating the papers in his hands. A small pile of discarded sheets already lay on the floor.

She went over, plopped down next to him and impulsively rested her head on his shoulder. She was just so frustrated! She needed comforting! That had been the last possible entry in the box. Verne's account stopped in the same place as Fogg's. There were so many questions still unanswered. What happened in Fogg's cabin? Did he leave Rebecca in Paris and take off around the world as he'd planned before Christmas? Did Count Gregory come after him? And the biggest question of all, did he see his son again?

Looking up from his reading, Quillan obligingly slipped an arm around Moneypenny's shoulders. "Disappointed?" he asked.

"No! Well, maybe a little. There's so much I don't know, and it's not just the baby! Have you reached Verne's account of the third trip? No, of course you haven't. You're still reading about the Bonanders, aren't you? Well, after that last trip, Rebecca takes a bottle of champagne to Fogg's cabin on the Aurora. It's New Year's Eve, and it's not at all clear whether he's going to stay around. He thinks Rebecca doesn't need him, but she does! She has to tell him or she's going to lose him!"

Quillan gave her a hug and she smiled at him. "I just wish I knew what happened in Fogg's cabin. If I just knew that, I'd be happy." She sighed. Ought to wish for the moon instead. At least it was possible to get there.

"They married, you know," Quillan said. "Married, had children, did great things to preserve world peace, and lived to be quite old, if I remember correctly. It's all written down in the Service history books."

Quillan's hand played through Moneypenny's hair as he spoke, letting it curl around his fingers. His other hand caressed her cheekbone. He was so incredibly close, so warm. He'd taken his glasses off. Moneypenny saw something familiar in his lean face and the dark-lashed brown eyes intensely absorbed in examining her lips. "You are the most beautiful woman at headquarters," he whispered.

He'd mesmerized her. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe. She waited for what she knew would come, what at the moment she wanted more than anything. His lips were cool, smooth and hungry and she let them claim her.

Quite some time passed before either spoke again.

"Moneypenny?" Quillan said. She looked up from where she curled within the protective circle of his arms and "hmmed?" a reply.

"What's your first name? Really?"

She wrinkled her nose up. "Exposing all our secrets, eh? I suppose someone has to know. It's Huberta. My proper name is Huberta Laveda Moneypenny. I never forgave my parents, but there it is, Huberta. Now your turn. Tell me your deepest, most secret name."

"You're going to be very unhappy with me, Moneypenny." She smiled her appreciation that he'd chosen to call her "Moneypenny" still, and waited for him to continue. She thought she knew some of what he would say. The familiarity of his face had resolved into recognition, and she was not at all unhappy.

Quillan looked across the room at his workbench where the star man's gift spun on the centrifuge as it had for the last hour or so. Quillan obviously hunted for both words and the courage to say them. "I should have told you this before, but it just got so complicated so fast. My deepest, most secret name is, well, it's Fogg. My full name is Quillan Randolph Fogg. Phileas Fogg was my great, great grandfather."

[If the gentle reader would like to know what became of Moneypenny's wish to know the goings-on in Phileas Fogg's cabin, they are directed to the next separately rated (and basically superfluous) NC 17 chapter.]

[If the gentle reader wishes answers to Miss Moneypenny's other questions, gentle writer asks gentle reader to email suggestions to lonaj@nwlink.com. Gentle writer doesn't have a clue what became of the dear little baby. Gentle writer is also a sucker for compliments and takes suggestions for improvement quite well.]

Feedback to: lonaj@nwlink.com.