Children of the Molecule (DW XO CC, Teen) 28/28 Aug 7 2011

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Chrisken
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Re: Children of the Molecule (DW XO CC, Teen) Pt. 20 Oct 21 2010

Post by Chrisken »

Chapter Twenty-one

"Hello, who is it?" Ava called as the three men filed out a narrow palace door and into the moonlit Proper Gardens. Max rather thought that the Antarian girl could have identified them easily if she'd only turned around, but instead she remained facing away from them, as if she were staring fixedly at a couple of fruit trees in bloom - which were impressively colored tonight, he had to admit.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Michael, Max, and the Doctor," he called out softly, leading the way towards Ava at a measured pace.

Now Ava turned halfway around, reacted with a small smile when she saw them, and waved them along. "Sorry, but I always wanted to play out that little scene, I'm not really sure why, except that I've seen it on so many of the holo shows. I'd have continued it for longer, except I couldn't think of any variations that had the heroine being confronted by three such handsome men at once."

"You'll have to write one," Michael suggested jokingly.

"Perhaps. That's not really one of my talents," Ava decided. "Thank you for coming to pay me a visit, though. The garden is beautiful, but such beauty is never best when it's contemplated all alone - and none of you exactly detract from the scenery." She laughed playfully.

"You're in a flirty mood tonight," Max told her as they got close, hoping that was all that it was. "I hope that His Highness isn't the jealous type."

That made Ava laugh. "Not about joking around like this."

"I'm glad to hear that," Michael agreed. "So - is your big surprise for Zan tomorrow all ready?"

"Yes, I think so, and thank you," she said. "For all of your help with this. Did you come and search me out just to ask that?"

"Not really," the Doctor told her. "One first thing - we're going to have to be leaving tomorrow, soon after the naming day party is done. I wanted to make sure that you knew that."

"Yes, I'd already heard that, my Lord," Ava answered, looking up and up to him, moonlight shining prettily off her eye. (Ava was definitely petite, Max realized, probably even shorter than Tess was, and the Doctor was taller than he was.) "Is there some emergency back home that you have to deal with in time?"

Michael snickered. "By the way, Isabel just told us about how much you really know. Where we came from, that sort of thing."

"Ahh - where you come from, everybody in the Royal Court knows by now," Ava corrected. "When you come from, not so much. Thanks for letting me know that you know that I know. I didn't want to be the first one to give away my own secrets vouchsafed from the Lady Isabel. She seemed to be worried that you would be upset when you found out, Max."

"I wasn't wild about hearing it," Max admitted with a little smile. "But maybe things are better this way. So, no, there's no pressing emergency back home - and even if there were, the chances that we would arrive 'in time' to deal with it have nothing to do with how long we spend here at Brok Bay - and depend much more on the Doctor's skill in piloting the TARDIS." He shot the Doctor a look, and the Doctor rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Now that the cause of the psychic events has been stopped, though, it seems better for us to be leaving soon. We definitely don't want to change our own pasts."

"Right," Ava said. "Of course, there are a few loose ends to the case of the psychic events that His Majesty will be sorry to not have your assistance in tying up - like who planted the trap resonance in Rath's car key-stick in the first place, and why Isabel just happened to be close enough to the Princess Vilandra's psychic signature to trigger the trap one time."

"I'm sure that he would," the Doctor said as neutrally as he could. "And I wish that I could stay longer, but it is not to be."

"And where are you headed next?" Ava asked wonderingly. "Into Antar's future, or its present from your perspective, two hundred years from now?" Nobody answered, and she sighed. "I wish that I could come with you, and see what you're going to see."

"I can imagine, but that won't be possible," Max told her softly. "That may seem unfair to you, since we get to travel with the Doctor, but..."

"But I'm destined to be too important a person, for my planet," Ava said. "I never really realized that before, but somehow, the way you look at me and talk to me, I can guess. Queen Ava, that's what the history books will call me, isn't it? And I'll have children with Zan, and one of them will be a King in his turn, and the others princes and princesses." She sighed contentedly. "It actually sounds like that might be fun. But that's why you can't show me the future of the planet, isn't it? Because if I say the wrong thing to the wrong person, I could change that future, and change your past."

Max and Michael stared at each other, not sure what to say. "That's more or less it," the Doctor agreed. "I'm sure that you can understand if I don't want to confirm specific details."

Max immediately made an attempt to change the subject completely, before Ava could get them back into dangerous territory. "The trees are beautiful, especially in the moonlight," he said. "Do you know what species or variety they are?"

Before answering about the trees, Ava paused to look over her shoulder at the moon, which wasn't far above the horizon, but beautifully full, despite the fact that it looked noticeably smaller than the Earth's moon. "Umm, the trees? I think that they're called coughwood, actually, which never struck me as a very pretty name for such a pretty plant. What do you think?" She stepped closer to one of the trees, reaching out for the green-yellow petals of one flower but not actually touching them. "The flowers only open up at night."

"Very pretty flowers, very silly name," Michael agreed. "By the way, I was meaning to ask about the moon - or moons, I suppose. I know that I've seen more than one at night, though there only seems to be the - relatively big one out."

"Oh, you don't even know about the moons of the Antarian sky?" Ava told him, smiling. "There are four, and I think that two are in the sky at the moment, though the other one is really small and far away, so it's hard to spot. Hmm..." She looked around above her for a long time, and pointed to a constellation nearly overhead, more or less to the right of the moon that they'd already spotted. "Do you see the six stars, nearly evenly spaced?"

"Yes, definitely," Max said. The stars making up that grouping weren't all equally bright, but they did seem to mark out the corners of a regular hexagon quite well.

"And there's another 'star' that's inside the formation, but off-center?"

Max nodded, then realized that Ava wasn't looking at him and couldn't see the gesture. "I do," the Doctor replied, also gazing up into the sky intently.

"That's our furthest proper moon, not the smallest but it looks too small to really make out as more than a point, on account of the distance," Ava told them. "Evabes. And of course, we can all see constant Nunyes, keeping her course in the slow journey around our sky."

"That's Nunyes?" Max exclaimed, caught by surprise. Of course, he knew that the place that Tess had taken over in the future was one of the moons of Antar, but somehow he hadn't ever expected to actually see it in Antar's sky.

"Yes," Ava agreed. "I'm not surprised if you've heard something about it, even if you couldn't recognize it. Easily the most beautiful of all our moons, and as it happens it's just far enough away, and circling around our planet, that it nearly keeps pace with a particular spot on the surface as Antar spins around. Which means that Nunyes only rises and sets once every eighteen and a half days." She considered it. "It must have risen about two days ago, around the time that you arrived here more or less. I almost wish that it were higher in the sky for tomorrow - when I have my big moment with Zan. "'The moon's noon' is supposedly a very romantic time for our people. Perhaps when Zan and I wed, it'll be a night-time ceremony at the moon's noon."

"I'm sure it will be, and I hope that it's worth it," Max told her, and Ava giggled in reply to the way he phrased it. "So, if Nunyes takes days and days to rise and set, does that mean that it goes through phases over the course of a single night? If we stayed up until nearly sunrise and looked at Nunyes again, it would be close to the same spot in the sky, but because Antar had turned so much, it would be a crescent?"

"Yes, that sounds right," Ava agreed. "Do you want to hear about the other moons, even if we can't see them at the moment?"

"Sure," Max agreed, though deep down he was thinking about Tess taking over 'the romantic moon,' the loveliest one. What did that tell him about her hangups and what she would be like to deal with when he got there?

"Well, if we wait long enough, we'll probably see Carves going by." Like all the other moon names, Ava pronounced it with a hissing 'ess' syllable at the end. "That's the lowest one, and the smallest, it looks about half the size of Nunyes, or maybe a little - slightly reddish all the time because of the metallic rock it's made out of, and lumpy. It zips around Antar at least four times a day, so you'll see it nearly every night, if the weather isn't too cloudy, and it doesn't go too far north or south to be made out from wherever you are. And Dimaras is much further out, like Evabes, but big enough that you can just make it out as a tiny but perfect circle in the sky. I don't think it'll rise into our sky until nearly morning, though."

"So, four moons?" Michael clarified.

"Traditionally, yes," Ava said. "Those are the ones that Antarians spotted before they had made spaceships, or even discovered the optical principles to invent viewing instruments and magnify the sky. Since then, we've discovered a number of other natural satellites orbiting us, including a few that are just slightly bigger than little Carves, but those are so far out that you can't spot them without binoculars or something like that."

"Interesting," Max said. "And how many of them have been settled, now that you have space flight?"

"All of them, I think," Ava said. "Mostly Nunyes and Dimaras, each of them has underground or domed cities with, umm, I don't know, millions of settlers, I guess. Carves has a permanently manned observation platform, but that's probably only twenty or so staff on board at any one time, and Evabes - I'm not sure, I think that there's a space telescope built there, and a mine, but I really can't remember how many people work there."

"That's alright, I won't tell anybody that you forgot one lesson," Michael teased her. "That does give us an idea." He took a deep breath. "Do you mind if I ask you a bit more about your life, from before you and Zan met?"

"Sure, I guess," Ava said. "Any particular questions, or would you just like me to ramble about my background as best I can? I'm getting pretty good at telling people the story of my life at Royal parties."

"Maybe we'll start with a few questions," Max said. "Any brothers or sisters?"

"Two sisters," she replied. "One older half-brother."

"Oh," Michael faked disappointment for an instant and then seized on that line of questioning. "So, did your half-brother's other parent - I mean, did one of his parents die, or did they split up, or..."

Ava laughed and shook her head. "They were - they were very young when they had Froush, and hadn't contracted a permanent bond or anything. It was an ugly Zhorva situation, actually."

"An ugly what kind of situation?" Max asked, looking around in something that might have been alarm but didn't really get that far. "I'm sorry, the TARDIS didn't translate the word."

"Something that doesn't pertain in English," the Doctor said, "and that you don't have enough experience to relate to."

"Did you get it, Doctor?" Michael asked.

"Partly - the Gallifreyan word was an awkward contraction, but I got some of the sense of it - all about young love gone wrong, and difficult partings, and psychic abilities in a situation that doesn't make them gifts, but rather the reverse." He looked over at Ava. "Is that on the right track?"

"Yes, rather," Ava said, nodding. "I suppose, come to think of it, that you're lucky that you didn't get Zhorva by accident, growing up on a place like Earth without anybody to teach you that much about the more trying aspects of your powers. It could have ruined your lives, actually, getting stuck in it without knowing how to break free. But both of you seem very happy with your lady friends, and so do Isabel and Alex. Maybe that was good luck, or maybe growing up in Earth society helped you to avoid it, I don't know." She took a deep breath. "But - well, have either of you experienced the sort of intense emotional bond that your powers can create when you're very deeply in love and close to your partner? It's partly a question of self-reinforcing empathic feedback, they say - if you each feel how much the other person cares for you, that tends to increase and deepen your own feelings, assuming that no ugly little subconscious secrets come out to break the cycle."

"Max and Liz have," Michael put in, chuckling. "Maria and I have only felt a little bit of that, I think, and Isabel and Alex have reached a bit more. But the first time it happened to our dream couple - watch out!"

"Yes, I can imagine," Ava said, smiling. "But - well, Zhorva is something that happens when a couple has a certain amount of time when things are good, to reinforce the closeness of their connection, and then less positive emotions start to cycle through the feedback link - resentment, bitter jealousy, or dysfunctional relationship habits, say." Now the smile was gone, as she shook her head somberly. "In a true Zhorva situation, the connection itself becomes dysfunctional, actually - the lovers cannot be happy together, and cannot break free of each other's lives. The connection helds them tight, trapping them in the nightmare of a perfect love gone wrong."

"Oooh," Max went as Ava finished, as if he had been kicked in the gut. "I - I think that might have happened to Liz and I. We went through some bad times, after--"

"After Tess got pregnant?" Ava filled in.

"Yes, and after she left Earth," Max agreed. "We'd been through a lot, and weren't quite sure how to get back to just being in love together without all of the melodrama, and I was a little obsessed with finding out what Tess had done with my daughter, and when Liz went through the hard parts of adapting to her own Antarian powers, being close to me was hard on her." He sighed. "I'm glad that we were able to work through all of that without getting into this Zhorva stuff."

"You could have had it with Tess too, maybe," Michael guessed. "If you really opened yourself up to her, and we didn't figure out what a sneaky and manipulative bitch she truly was."

"I do think that as fascinating as all this is, we're getting somewhat wide of the point," the Doctor suggested. "So - Ava, was it your father and his old girlfriend, or your mother and a beau from long ago?"

"My mother," Ava filled in. "Yeah - I think that they'd realized that it was Zhorva and that they were no good for each other by the time Mom realized that she was pregnant, but she still wanted to keep the baby, and raised him with her family's help for a few years until she met Dad. There - there are special procedures that specialists can use to seperate Zhorva couples, to safely break the links of their mental and emotional connections, and having a baby together actually complicates them. They had to rush ahead with the procedure, and I think that part of it - well, Froush never really seemed to care at all about his natural father, Carrin. I think that was because when they were cutting the bonds linking Mom and Carrin, there was some kind of link connecting Froush and Carrin that had to get seperated as well, but I'm not sure if that's real or I just made it up." She took a deep breath. "Next question?"

"Are your family political at all?" Max blurted out. He hadn't meant to put it this way, but it was one of the things he really did want to know about, and maybe after such an awkward conversational turn, Ava would appreciate the direct segue.

"Well, they never seemed to be, until I met Zan," Ava put in and giggled. "Now they act like the biggest patriots around for the Liaret royal family, but I do have my own doubts about how sincere that is."

"But you don't think that they'd ever work with someone one else against Zan and his family?" Michael put in. "Sorry, I shouldn't even have said that, it was a stupid thing to bring up, try to ignore..."

"I'm not sure if I can entirely erase it," Ava said. "But no, I don't think so - Dad may skim from his taxes every year, but there's a long way between that and revolutionism."

"Indeed there is," Max agreed. "Okay, umm, what else? Maybe you should start with some of your usual canned spiel."

"Actually, I think we've heard most of that, right?" Michael put in, turning to the Doctor. "Our little dinner party, the first night, right? You were downstairs, Max."

"Okay, okay, then you ask a question about something that she didn't cover," Max suggested.

"Hmm." Michael took a long time thinking about that. "How did you first meet Zan? I don't think that that came up."

Max shot Michael a dirty look, but he just shrugged that off, and Ava didn't seem to notice. "Oh - *that* story. Yeah, Zan gets a bit embarassed when I tell that story around him, so I guess we just skipped over it - or maybe neither of us realized that you hadn't heard. Let's see, my side of it, well, it was a weekend back a year ago or so, and a few casual friends from school invited me to come along with them for a trip to the seaside, a few hundred kilometers away from Capital city. It was kind of fun, we went on a hoverboat tour of the glades, had lunch at a grill stand on the beach. After lunch, I had to 'wash my face' at the Personal, and after I came out and was looking for the school friends, I bumped into a handsome young man who was on his way toward's the males door."

"Ahh," the Doctor said, smiling slightly. "And that young man was Prince Zan?"

"No," Ava told him. "It was Larek, actually. I excused myself for not watching where I was going, and he was very charming, and we introduced ourselves - and he continued along to take care of his own business."

"Right," Max said. "So where did Zan figure into it? I guess that the two of them were down at the seashore together."

"Oh, I remember, Zan did mention something about Larek introducing the two of you," Michael put in. "And you kept talking about refugees."

"Yes," Ava agreed. "But I didn't even know that the two of them had come together, when I met Larek, and he didn't say anything to me about anybody else. I just went and found my friends, and we ended up sunbathing together on Dimaras rock for most of the afternoon."

"Dimaras rock, as in, like the moon Dimaras?" the Doctor inquired, sharply interested.

"Yes," Ava confirmed. "The rock on the seashore originally fell from space, we know that for certain now. Local legend has it that it was a part of Dimaras that was knocked away by an asteroid impact or something else of the sort, but nobody's ever confirmed that particular idea. Still, everybody calls it that."

"Wouldn't a chunk of meteorite that was big enough to, you know, have a bunch of friends lie down on it at least, also have blown out a pretty big crater?" Max asked.

"I think that originally it did, but the weather reshaped the land in that area," Ava said. "Anyway, can I get on with the story?"

"Certainly," Michael said. "You were sunbathing with your friends all afternoon - and as a guy I do have to ask, were they all as cute as you are?"

Ava shook her head and didn't even take the bait that time. "A few suitable came by as the afternoon was getting late; Kraulissa and Babnee ended up accepting an invitation to go to dinner with them, the rest of us went to a different eatery, across the lane, and when we met up afterward Babnee said that we were all invited to this party at the vaction house of the Breoll ambassador. I didn't really want to go, because from what I've heard about Breollyn, they didn't really seem like fun people to me, but the girls talked me into going - and then somehow, five minutes after we got there, they'd contrived to leave me behind and I couldn't track any of them down."

She sighed, her eyes almost closed. "Then I heard somebody calling my name, and turned around, and it was Larek, and he was standing next to an even cuter guy my age - THAT would be Zan. Larek waved me over and said how glad he was that I'd come to the party, he'd been looking for me to extend an invitation, but hadn't been able to find me. And then he just said that he thought I'd like to meet his friend, that we might hit it off."

"Just like that?" Max said. "Larek's got some nerve, if he 'introduced' you to the Crown Prince without actually mentioning his name."

"Yeah, but - well, it was probably the best way to handle it," Ava admitted. "So soon, the two of us are sitting together on a small couch in a quiet corner. He had a glass of Rynec and I asked for Geelee milk. And Zan was really very shy and even stammered a little, but he told me how he and Larek had been in the water that afternoon, and he saw me up on the rock, and mentioned to Larek that he thought I was lovely. And Larek had told him that he recognized me, and that he could go back up and talk to me, but Zan had told him not to because he'd feel silly and not know what to say."

"I do know how he feels," Max agreed. "And then?"

"Well, and then I started to ramble on about the refugees," Ava replied.

-------------

"So, well, umm..." Rose said, as she stepped across the bedroom door and considered the sleeping chamber that up until this evening she had been sharing with the Doctor - and Kyle, who was standing up against the hallway door in his sleeping underthings. "I guess there's some questions that we'll have to settle about the sleeping arrangements."

"Yeah, I guess so," Kyle agreed. At the Doctor and Rose's request, they'd been settled into a room that had the equivalent of twin beds, each one placed against a different wall. "Okay, I'm going to put this out there. I'm in favor of pushing the beds together. I'm not going to push you about - about making love or anything, as much as I'd like to do that with you, it still is a bit early. But - but we slept in each other's arms last night, for a few hours at least, and yes, I liked it. Even if that's all we do, I'd still love to go to bed next to you, and sleep all night."

"Oh, sure," Rose giggled. "Isn't that the oldest trick in the book? 'Yeah, of course darling, I won't try any funny stuff, just let me get into bed.'"

Kyle shot her an amazed look. "Are English guys actually such huge creeps? I thought American football players were bad, but I can't think of many who'd slide over the line into date-rape quite that casually."

"Umm - no, not really," Rose said. "Sorry, I was trying to make a joke. Guess it got lost in translation." She sighed. "Next objection, somewhat more serious - isn't that sort of thing... more bother than it's worth, for guys?" She shifted restlessly. "I know it sometimes can be for me."

Kyle chuckled at the line that he couldn't resist delivering. "Depends on just how much the girl is worth," he whispered to Rose, stepping close to her and indulging in a sweet kiss. "But seriously, up to you, whatever."

Rose giggled. "Push away, young Mister Valenti. I guess we'll take things as they come when we're under the covers together."

He had to think about that for a moment, and then decided that he liked it. "Okay, just a moment." The Antarian beds weren't solidly fastened to the floor or the walls, (or for that matter, the ceiling,) but they were solidly constructed, with heavy metal legs, and Kyle was panting and somewhat sweaty when he had finally gotten one pushed over next to the other. "Just a moment, umm." He considered going back into the bathroom for a towel, then remembered that they didn't have any, and Antarian sponges didn't seem to be good for this kind of thing. So he poked into his small suitcase and came up with an already-used t-shirt that wouldn't be too badly affected by a little further soiling.

"Don't wipe yourself too dry," Rose told him, rolling over onto the far side of the newly arranged 'double bed.' "I do like my guys a little on the sweaty side."

"Alright," Kyle said, rolling his eyes as he crossed over to the bed and sat down. Rose just stared at him silently, so after a moment he brought up his legs and tucked the light blanket over most of his body.

"Good enough," Rose laughed, rolling back so that her lithe body was resting on top of him. "Now here it comes."

And she kissed him passionately like there was no tomorrow, her hands starting to wander over his skin.

-------------

Isabel woke up to the sound of spirited conversation outside on the balcony, and groaned. "What the hell time is it?" she muttered to herself.

"The local time is zero zero five eight," a synthesized, artifical voice said from somewhere in the bedroom.

Alex stirred immediately. "I didn't know that we had anything in here that would do that!"

"Neither did I," Isabel grumbled. "Maybe the request has to be phrased in a very particular way." Alex chuckled in reply. "More to the point, that's very early for people to be making so much noise, isn't it?"

"Maybe," Alex allowed. "But it's a big day - maybe somebody wanted to get an early start." She shot him a nasty look, but it didn't last long because her eyes hadn't really gotten used to being open yet. "Do you want me to help you out with that super-earplug routine you use sometimes?"

"Umm... no, whatever. Let's face this stupid day," she said, swinging her feet down from the bed. "That is, if you're up for it too."

"Sure, okay," Alex said, getting up from his own side of the bed. "Umm, honey, you might want to, well..."

She didn't realize what he was getting at until she'd already gotten to the balcony door - and then it occured to her just how brief the clothes that she'd been using to sleep in during the warm night were, and how she didn't really want to be seen by anybody else but Alex like that, really. Fortunately it was easy enough to step away from the door for a moment, and bring a dressing gown flying to her hand with a casual exercise of her powers. As an afterthought, she also provided a robe for Alex to use.

The crowd that had gathered outside on the balcony turned out to consist of Jim Valenti, Amy DeLuca, Lord Rath, Prince Zan, and Larek - so far. "Oh, good morning Isabel," Amy said with a wave. "How are you doing?"

"I... I'd have been doing better if somebody had given me peace and quiet to sleep later," she blurted out before really thinking about it.

"Oh - whoops," Jim muttered, as Amy blushed and looked around at the other doors, as if expecting a whole crowd of annoyed teenagers, (and one twenty-something English girl,) to come charging out complaining about their lost beauty sleep.

"I apologize," Zan said, nudging Rath with an elbow. "That was probably our fault, forgetting to restrain our high spirits out of consideration to you and such. Most walls in the palace are very good at insulating sound, but though these balcony doors have many things to recommend them, such insulation is not on their list of good qualities."

"Yeah, really sorry," Rath mumbled.

"It's alright," Alex said. "Looks like you guys have got quite a good spread going. Could you pass over some of those Hallaf cakes, and do you have plum syrup without the hot herbs in it?"

"What the heck?" Rath asked as he passed the flat cakes over. "How can you possibly have it without hot herbs?"

"Here, Alex," Jim said, passing over a small glass of syrup. "Lord Rath, I suppose you could say that's a quirk of the Earthling palate. Individual tolerances differe, but most of us don't particularly like the enormously spicy stuff like those of Antarian extraction."

"Hmm, interesting," Zan said, looking intently over at Isabel, who nearly dropped one of the cakes she was transferring over to a clean plate for herself.

"Can you, umm, can you let me use that syrup when you're done, sweetie?" she asked Alex.

"Well - are you sure?" Alex replied. "Come on, you don't need to be nervous about liking the hot stuff just because it's come up in conversation. We've all seen how much 'insanity casserole' you can put away."

"Yeah, I - umm, I guess that you're right," Isabel said, reaching out for the gravy boat-like dish of spiced syrup and pouring it over her cakes.

"So, what's the plan for the two of you?" Alex asked Zan and Rath, wondering if this would get the conversation back onto safer ground.

"Well, I've got a clear pass to stay entirely out of the way while the girls are setting up for the party," Zan said with a big smile. "And my parents, and the servants, and so on. Rath wants to stick close to me, but I think I may have to find a way to go get him to take his lumps and do his part."

"Yeah, good point, Your Highness," Jim put in. "Come on, Rath - we can all go together, and keep each other company telling dirty jokes or something as we carry around heavy furniture." Rath looked unimpressed by that possibility, but shrugged.

Breakfast continued on a fairly relaxed basis, and though Alex wondered several times if there was going to be a huge influx from the other bedrooms, only a very bedheaded Maria finally emerged as he pushed away his plate and sipped from a glass of delicately flavored water. "Michael's still out like a light," she complained. "Anybody know what he and Max were up to for all hours of the night?"

"Umm - they mentioned something about going to talk to - well, the good Lady Ava," Isabel said, with an apologetic shrug in Prince Zan's direction. "Along with the Doctor. Not entirely sure what they had to say to her." That last part wasn't really the entire truth, but it was certainly close enough that Isabel could say it without giving anything away. "Sit down, have just about anything you want, and don't worry about Michael for now. He'll have less breakfast to choose from, and it won't be hot, and that serves him right."

"No, he'll make it hotter than it needs to be just to spite us," Maria laughed, pouring a glass of something deliciously blue and sitting down with it. Before drinking, she let out an enormous yawn that seemed to just go on and on.

"Well," Amy said, looking around the table. "So, any idea what I can expect from the naming-day party of a Crown Prince of Antar?"

"Let's see," Rath said after a moment. "The celebration will last around four or five hours, I guess, and it's broken up into different sub-parties in sequence, each of which will take place in a different section of the palace. I'm not sure of the exact sequence, but there'll be an elaborate dinner of course, and a musical performance, some sort of games, and stories being told about when the Named Boy was much younger."

"Ooh, will we get to see baby pictures?" Isabel asked.

"Huh?" Zan asked, a distressed look coming over him as his face started to get very pale.

"Well, I don't know," Rath said, looking over at his friend. "Is that a tradition from Earth?"

"Sort of - not something that always happens at a birthday party, but often paired with stories from when someone was young," Amy put in.

"I'll have to ask Her Majesty if she has any hologram storage units around," Rath said with a smile. "Once I'm sent away to help with the party setup.

Zan groaned softly to himself.

-----------

Somehow when Kyle woke up next to Rose this time, he expected that they'd mysteriously have ended up in the banquet hall or somewhere else equally embarassing, but the two single beds were still next to each other in Rose's room, where he'd struggled and sweated to get them there. "Good morning, my darling dear," he whispered in the vicinity of the sweep of golden hair that covered the right side of Rose Tyler's head.

Rose turned towards him and something in her look was so bittersweet that somehow it staggered Kyle. "Hello and good morning, very precious Kyle," she breathed, and actually lifted a hand as if to brush a tear away from the corner of her eye, though Kyle couldn't see any moisture actually building up there.

"Hey, hey - is something wrong?" he asked her.

This time, there was no mistaking the sadness in her eyes. "Well, I suppose that you could say something isn't right." She took a deep breath that seemed to be full of false cheer. "But we needn't worry ourselves about that just now, do we? It seems to be a great day for a party - from what I can tell." Rose chuckled to herself very softly. "Do you want to go out onto the balcony and see what's available for breakfast?"

"Hmm." Kyle could hear somebody talking outside their sliding door, and he crept out of the bed and over to listen for voices. In a few moments he was by Rose's side, as she stirred from the bed and rummaged through her clothes. "Nah, let's go the other way - after washing up quickly and dressing."

"Well, alright I suppose," Rose said, a puzzled expression on her face that managed to knock out the melancholy at least. "Mind if I ask why?"

"Not sure if I'm up for keeping company with His Highness so early in the day. We'll have to face enough of him at the party."

Rose shrugged, then got up and headed for the bathroom. "You're not a big fan of Prince Zan?"

"No, I can't say that I am," Kyle admitted. "Which is kind of funny when you think about it for long enough. I didn't get along with Max either, for a long time, and I'm not sure that was all because of the Liz drama."

"Right," Rose said, and disappeared into the bathroom. Kyle thought for a moment about joining her in the fountain shower, but quite a few signals seemed to be indicating that he'd be pushing his luck there.

Soon both of them were clean, and decently, if casually, dressed for the day. Kyle wondered as they proceeded into the Palace hallway if Zan or anybody else out on the balcony had heard the water running in their bathroom, and expected them to be coming outside. Well, Zan could have all the expectations he liked.

Down the nearest ramp and along another corridor, and for a little while they didn't see anybody else. And then, a party of three Antarians emerged out of a cross-passage - a tall male servant, the Princess Vilandra, and a girl in her younger teens who Kyle had seen around the palace a few times, and guessed to be another princess, one of Zan and Vilandra's sisters. "Good morning, both of you," Vilandra said brightly, her voice a little too loud for the distance between them. "You're drafted."

"Drafted?" Kyle repeated, a sinking feeling in his middle. "To help with the party setup, you mean?"

"We'll serve, won't we, Kyle?" Rose said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "But you'll need to feed us first, that's only humane."

"Didn't you eat enough upstairs on your balcony?" the younger princess said. "I saw all the food that Rath was making sure the kitchen staff were delivering up there."

"That may be true, but we haven't even been out on the balcony this morning," Kyle told her. "Got up, washed and dressed, and came downstairs first thing."

"Alright, alright, come this way," Vilandra said, and then cocked her head. "No, on second thought, don't follow me, I was on my way to check on the outdoor construction crew, wasn't I?" The servant nodded gravely. "Well, Amerit, see our guests to the downstairs hall for their breakfast, and let Lady Ava know that she can put them to work once they've had something to eat." And with that, Princess Vilandra continued on in the direction that Kyle and Rose had come from.

"Quite a difference from the welcome we got from her our first day, isn't it?" Kyle whispered to Rose, who shrugged. The servant meanwhile, led the way, and Vilandra's little sister, after looking around for a moment, decided that she could please herself and fell in step next to the visitors.

"You're the ones who went all psycho because of the curse that was laid on my sister, aren't you?" she asked Kyle and Rose impertinently.

"I prefer to call it going 'psychic', Kyle told her with a laugh. "And I'm not sure it qualifies as a curse, but yes, that's us. Kyle Valenti, of Roswell, and this is Rose Tyler from London. And I know that you're one of the princesses of the Royal family of Liaret, but I'm sorry, I didn't remember your name."

The little princess raised one eyebrow. "That's new, I suppose. My name is Arynda Liaret."

"I notice a running theme in the names of the women of your family," Rose noticed.

"Yeah, that's Corvanni thing that Mom's keeping alive in her family," Arynda said glibly.

"Corvanni?" Kyle repeated. "What's that?"

"Oh, it's a large island in the Southern Opposite ocean," Arynda explained. "Where she was born, and lived all her life until she was older than Vilandra is. They're a bit old-fashioned and traditional over there, religious even. But she's proud of her Corvanni heritage, and Dad doesn't let anybody make fun of them, even if she's not around."

"Interesting," Rose said. "There's so much we still don't know about Antar, and it looks like we'll be leaving so soon. Have you been able to travel much, Arynda?"

"Not as much as I'd like," the girl said. "We spend most of our time in the Royal Castle just outside Capital City, or the secured apartments in the city center. But let's see - I've visited Brok Bay, and North Tilles, and I've been to Corvann for a short visit with Mom's family. And we've been to Jjefen, and visited Rahlicx, and Dimaras, and Taliernar, and Vrelayan."

"That doesn't sound like it's too bad," Kyle said, once the young princess had paused for long enough that it seemed like she had run out of alien place names.

"No, it isn't," Arynda admitted. "But there's so many other beautiful places to go, even just in the Antar sector - there's the Saphiran cluster, and the underground concourses of Kaalto, and even Breoll - I don't really like the Breollyn that I've met so far, but I'd like to see the planet that they came from."

"Everybody seems to pick on the Breollyn," Rose noticed.

"Yeah, well, they pick on everybody else even more," Arynda explained. "As long as they think they're in a position of strength." And with that, she led them around a corner into a familiar corridor, and then they were passing through into the large feast hall. "So, whatcha want for your breakfast? You'd better get something you can eat up quick, because there's lots to do."

Rose looked at Kyle, and then asked, "Can we at least see a menu or something?"

TO BE CONTINUED...
Read my other roswell stories!

"A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it. If the Rowan tree's roots are shallow, it bears no crown." From 'the farthest shore', Ursula LeGuin.

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Chrisken
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Re: Children of the Molecule (DW XO CC, Teen) Pt. 21 Oct 26 2010

Post by Chrisken »

Chapter Twenty-two

Max sighed, rolled over a bit and held Liz closer, and then it occured to him that something was different. A smell was what tipped him off, as surprising as that was - a very faint smell that was nevertheless completely unlike the usual scent of their room at the Brok Bay palace. Groaning, he opened his eyes, which didn't recognize much additional light from that action. "Okay, this is at least a little b... bit odd," he muttered, having to clear his throat in the middle of the statement not because of nervousness but because some sort of a tiny mote had lodged itself temporarily in his throat.

He recognized the elegant king-sized bed, its various covers, and Liz herself of course. That was about the extent of the familiar. The near side of the bed appeared to be crammed up against a highly slanted wall, to the extent that if Max lifted one arm straight up, his fingers would probably run into the surface, which met another slanted wall to form a peaked roof. The only light source appeared to be a curtained window halfway across the room, and the entire volume of the room, except for what was immediately above the bed, appeared to have junk in it. Not crammed full of solid garbage or anything, or he wouldn't have been able to see the window at all - the items that filled up the room were scattered fairly densely though, like a forest of discarded furniture, storage boxes, and several kinds of things that he couldn't immediately identify.

"Ehh, I don't care about odd," Liz mumbled, her eyes still closed. "Just hold me tight and let's go back to sleep."

"Hmm... as tempting as that is, love of my soul, I think that we'll have to deal with the odd sooner or later, and this may be the necessary time," Max breathed close to Liz's ear, and carefully crawled over her to examine something in slightly closer detail. An odd assortment of straight spikes appeared to be the legs of a couch, similar in style to some that he had noticed in the downstairs parlour two nights ago, as the couch rested upside down on what appeared to be a trunk or low dresser.

"You're starting to piss me off, Evans," Liz muttered, smacking him, not too hard but with feeling, for leaving her behind. But when she opened her eyes and looked around, even Liz started to grow concerned and curious about their predicament. "Okay, so we ended up in the attic," she started.

Max opened his mouth to correct Liz, or at least warn her about coming to conclusions, but she kept talking over that. "It's an ATTIC," she insisted. "From the house next door to the furthest galaxy, I can recognize one when I'm in it, for all that we don't actually have one in the Crashdown building. I would have thought that you'd know them well enough, after that - umm, memorable afternoon in your attic Labor Day weekend."

"Okay, point taken," Max said, smiling at the memory of the incident to which Liz had referred. "The furniture and other items in storage, the peaked roof, the almost non-existent lighting and clutter, the dust..." Somehow just mentioning that last feature made him sneeze. "Yeah, this certainly does seem like an attic, though I do challenge your implication that you could identify one no matter what kind of planet you were on. Antarians are close enough to humans, after all - who knows what kinds of life forms there might be out there, and what their attics look and smell like?"

"Well, let's not bother with that particular conversational bypass, then, 'kay?" Liz asked him. "We're in the attic, along with our bed, and the clutter, as you so aptly described it, is thick enough around us that there's no way the bed could have been moved in here without rearranging it. Which suggests that we've been deliberately surrounded by the worst clutter that could possibly be arranged - and what does that make you think of?"

"A prank," Max answered, since it really was the obvious explanation. "The Royal Four would be the obvious suspects, to my mind."

"All four of them?" Liz replied, scooching over to a spot where she could set up and not bash her head in. "The guys, yes, I could see them being involved in a sophomoric stunt like this - probably with Larek joining in."

"Hey, don't count the girls out from sophomoric stunts, just because you wouldn't take part in one," Max shot back. "Maybe not the Princess Vilandra, come to think of it - but I do have a sneaking suspicion that Ava could have been ringleading the Attic Bed caper. And no, I don't have any firm proof about that or anything, just..."

"Just what were you chatting with her about, so late last night?" Liz said, lifting an eyebrow.

"Nothing - well, nothing inappropriate. Let's see..." Max started counting off on his fingers. "The perils of time travelling, coughwood trees, Antar's four moons, her family, the dangers of falling in love with the wrong Antarian..."

"Ehh?" Liz interjected. "You sure that wasn't inappropriate?"

"Um, I don't think so, not in the context. She was talking about her mother and the father of her half-brother. I won't go into all the details, but it looks like with Antarian connections, if a love affair goes badly enough wrong, you need professional help just to break up and make it stick."

"Hmm... yeah, I can see how that would be traumatic," Liz admitted uncertainly. "Okay, was that it?"

"She told her side of the story of how she and Zan first met her, and Michael told a few stories about getting to know Maria, nothing that could incriminate us or anything." Max shrugged. "More than anything else that's suspicious, there was an intent look in her eyes when she wished us goodnight and 'safe travels tomorrow' - which would be later today. I know it's a bit unfair, but I remember that look in Tess' eyes, though I don't think it's quite as bad news with Ava."

"Hmm..." Liz considered this. "Well, any of them could have decided that if they were going to play a little joke on their visitors before we left, last night would be their best chance." She looked around. "You don't have a watch or anything, of course. None of the things we left on the dresser or bedside tables seems to have been brought with us."

"No, but I do have the notion that it's getting late in the morning," Max said. "Any of them could have connected with both of us and reinforced our sleep response, at least I think that's within their ability level. To make sure that neither of us woke up while the bed was being moved around."

"Okay, that does make some sense," Liz agreed. "And making sure that we'd sleep late, so that we'd have to hurry to get out in time for the party, and would be finding our way back to the room while everybody else in the Palace was already up, would have made the joke better." She tugged slightly at the red tank top that she'd gone to bed in. "And depriving us of any other clothes to use. I don't see anything around that's made of fabric, and even your powers can't do much with this material."

Max chuckled. "If you can't see anything made of fabric, then you're not looking 'close' enough," he teased her.

"Huh?" Liz looked down, and then got it. "Oh, right. Okay, that'll work. Next, figuring out how much moving and rearranging we'll need to do to clear a decent path to the door."

"The window's closer," Max pointed out.

"Yeah, but I'm not going out the window," Liz insisted.

"Okay, *your Majesty.*" Liz stuck her tongue out in reply to that line, and then Max couldn't resist coming close and kissing her.

The blankets turned out to be almost useless for clothing purposes, with some kind of metal weave inside that was comfortable and hard to notice when they were in their proper shapes, but insisting on sticking out at odd angles, (and poking skin as often as not,) and eventually they both gave up on it. The sheets were somewhat more useful, but also on the thin side, so with a bit of effort Max made one of them into knee-length shorts for Liz, and disintegrated most of the other, trying to turn it into a t-shirt for himself. And that was that.

Making their way through the attic was also harder than it originally seemed. Max had been determined to do whatever was needed to clear a path, 'and let the pieces fall where they may, literally,' but Liz pointed out that the contents of the attic were unlikely to be as junky as they seemed, especially considering how easily the Antarians could recycle garbage, with their powers if not through technological gadgets. Somebody, probably Sanren and Alinda, must have stored this stuff away for sentimental reasons, and just because their children and guests were probably behind this prank, didn't mean that it was right to break their precious memories.

So the two of them proceeded more carefully, first moving items from around the bed onto it, and then using that cleared volume as space that they could proceed into. "Any idea where this room would be in the Palace?" Liz asked doubtfully. "I know I saw a lot of - is minarrettes at all the right word? Little peaked roofs, up on the third floor or even higher."

"I don't think that's the right word for this architectural feature," Max said. "But you're right that there are a lot of peaks like this, all up high. Poking out of round towers, many of them. I don't think it's possible to guess where we ended up, though it does seem possible that we're fairly close to our old room, since it can't have been that easy to move us through the Palace late at night. On the other hand, maybe they were motivated enough to put us further away, to make for better laughs." He sighed. "We won't know until we get to that door." Max jerked as his fingers touched something on a blue metal table, and he nearly stumbled. "Whoa - flash city."

"Really, what was it about?" Liz asked, and her mouth drew into a frown as Max hesitated. "Oh, no, you didn't let another ghost out of the bottle, did you? I really don't want to get posessed by an alternate personality, on top of everything else we have to deal with today."

Max laughed. "No, not that kind of flash - at least, I really don't think so. Vilandra and Isabel didn't even notice anything when they let the ghost out, did they?" Liz shook her head. "It - umm, it was a bunch of little Antarian children playing a complicated ball game in an open field." He reached out for something from the table again and held it up for her - a squeezable rubber ball, or the Antarian equivalent. Actually, Liz noticed that the shape was an icosahedron - one of those three-dimensional geometric figures, with twenty triangular sides, that dungeons and dragons players used to make their most elaborately complicated dice. The points and edges between triangles had been rounded off to make sure that nobody could get poked.

"Cool," Liz said. "Do you think that little Zan and Vilandra might have been among the players?"

"Umm - I suppose they could have been," Max said. "Don't really know how to recognize them."

"Then we could take the 'ball' and ask Alinda or Sanren about it," Liz suggested.

"Hmm... alright, but you carry it," Max said, tossing it to her. Liz wondered if she would get a flash as soon as she touched it, but didn't. However, she took a moment to concentrate harder, willing the impressions to come, and got a momentary vision of celebration as one little kid scored a goal of some kind.

There were several other items that they came upon on their trip across the attic that seemed to be significant, either for flashes or otherwise. A metallic rod about three feet long would mentally 'speak' untranslated Antarian into their minds whenever either Max or Liz touched it. An effort of will could get the thing to switch passages apparently, but without knowing the language neither of them could get the hang of it more than that. Liz wondered if the thing was an Antarian literature textbook or possibly just a somewhat compact library. She tucked it under one arm as they continued.

Finally Max flung the attic door open with a great sense of achievement and accomplishment,,carrying a photo album that seemed disappointingly human and old-fashioned for an Antarian artifact - It was flat and nearly two feet square, recognizably a codex-style book, with thick, stiff covers, and a kind of metalring binding - not a spiral, but perhaps twenty separate rings serving the same purpose. Each of the interior pages showed six or nine pictures, not attached or inserted separately, but developed onto the album page itself.

Liz followed, her arms and hands also full with the ball, the library rod, a short cloak that they'd both gotten flashes from, several pendant necklaces that had just been lying around, but Max thought might have been somebody's pledge tokens once upon a time, and a silver ring with Antarian symbols inscribed on it.

The corridor that they found themselves in was sharply curved, but when Max headed to the right, they soon found themselves only at at one unpromising locked door. Going back and trying the other way took them to a narrow stairway, which the bed simply could not have been taken up, but Liz was happy enough to lead the way down and not ask more questions. At the bottom of the flight, an Antarian woman, maybe thirtyish if her looks were judged by human standards, watched them emerge with a bemused expression on her face.

"Good... morning?" Liz tried, sounding slightly uncertain. "Umm - you're related to Ava, right? I guess I didn't realize you were still here."

"I'm not exactly, dear," the lady said. "But I stayed close to the neighborhood, since my niece invited me to Zan's party. If you don't mind my saying, those are interesting - costumes to go salvaging through the storerooms in."

"It wasn't exactly our plan," Max said. "Somebody thought it would be clever to strand us up there in the middle of the night and dig our way out - and I think somebody will have to figure ou a way to get a king-sized bed back down. Hopefully the same somebody."

"I see," the aunt replied with a pensive nod. "Sounds like nothing more than youthful high spirits." She looked upwards. "Perhaps literally."

"You wouldn't happen to know, um, where our guest rooms are, would you, and how to get there?" Liz said, with a slightly awkward smile. "And, I'm sorry, but I can't quite remember your name. Sounds like Shella, but that's not it."

"Very close, actually. Shelda Dervensee." Shelda smiled at both of them.

"Thank you, Shelda," Max said. "And, if it helps, I think I remember someone, perhaps Vilandra, mentioning that we were off the Derclan corridor."

"Yes, I think that does give me a notion of where to lead you," Shelda said. "There's one thing that's still confusing me, though."

"Yeah, ask away then," Liz told her.

"If you were stranded in the attic because of a prank - then why did you bother to bring so much stuff out?"

Max and Liz both laughed. "That's a good question, and I'm not sure if there's one answer or not," Liz said as Shelda led the way off. "Some of it we thought might be put to good use for the party, and some of it we just came across and wanted to ask about, if anybody knew what they had been for, what the story behind them was."

"Ahh, I see. Are you both pack moles at heart?"

"Can't say that I know what that means," Max told her.

"Somebody who enjoys digging through the junk that somebody else has packed away, exploring it, trying to figure out what it all means."

Max and Liz exchanged a look. "Maybe I am, a bit," Liz said. "Max just puts u with my inquisitiveness, at least when it's turned towards something as mundane as garbage."

They continued to make small talk as Shelda led them through the corridors of the palace, and ran into Rose and one of the younger princesses briefly, as they rushed off on some errand. The princess, Arynda, took a brief look at Max and Liz's attic finds and suggested that they should be shown to Ava or Vilandra. "You should be able to find them if you hang around in the downstairs feasting hall for a little while," Rose added. "And you should - we need more assistants."

"Give us a chance to get changed properly first," Max called as they rushed off. "This is going to be one of those busy busy days, at least until the party proper starts, isn't it Shelda?" he complained. "I thought I approved of how generally self-sufficient Brok Bay was without a huge retinue of staff, but this is the kind of occasion when I'd like having a few more servants around."

"Yeah, well," Shelda said, and shrugged. "I've managed to avoid getting drafted for anything too frantic so far, but you might not be so lucky."

Shelda found the way to their room without any further incident. Once there, Max and Liz showered off together in the fountain, got dressed properly for the day, and confirmed with a timepiece that it was indeed quite late in the Antarian morning. There was conversation out on the balcony, and it turned out that Zan was out there along with Rath, Larek, Isabel, and Alex, all of them cheerfully avoiding work and swapping tall tales. Max was tempted to spend time with Zan in order to join in, but instead he herded Liz down into the feasting hall, which was in the process of being transformed as one of the party venues.

"Have you seen Rath or Larek?" was the first thing that Princess Vilandra asked when she was Max and Liz.

"Umm, yeah," Liz admitted. "Just four minutes ago, up on our balcony, talking with Zan."

"Just the three of them there?" the eldest Princess asked her cannily.

"No, umm, Isabel and Alex were there too," Max mumbled, and Liz looked at him as if she thought that he'd betrayed his sister and her best friend. Well, maybe he had, in a very small way.

"Florbniss," Vilandra muttered angrily. "This may be my brother's big day, but he does NOT get to pre-empt so many people away from party duty. That's it, I'm drafting the lot of them." She grabbed a kind of message pad and started to inscribe a message on each of four pages, by waving her hand over the pad over and over again. "One of you, go back and serve these. They'll be required to attend - even your sister, Max, and his boyfriend. That is, if they have any respect for Antarian tradition at all."

Max had his doubts about the authentic pedigree of this tradition, but didn't want to bring that question up with the spirited Princess. More to the point, he really didn't want to go up there and serve these 'summons', and apparently Liz could sense or guess her doubts. "Okay, I'll be happy to serve," she said, holding her hand out for the little pieces of paper.

Soon Liz was hurrying back to the upstairs, and Vilandra offered Max the chance to use his powers to help putting up the elaborate decorations in the hall while he waited for her to come back. Eventually Isabel showed up, made immediate tracks for Ava, talked with her for a minute or so, waved up to Max, and headed off on some errand of her own, probably one that would keep her well away from Vilandra. Both of them seemed to share the same 'party Nazi' trait, Max reflected, not that he'd call it that while he was here, and he wondered how Isabel would deal with the notion that getting this particular celebration 'just right' was already in stubborn hands, and she wouldn't be able to have everything her way.

Maybe a minute later, Alex, Rath, and Larek showed up, considerably more resigned about the job. They checked in with Vilandra, and Rath started to pitch in with the decorations too, and Larek headed off towards the kitchen entrance. Alex walked over towards Max, which Vilandra complained about, until Alex managed to make her understand that he'd just be a minute.

"What's up?" Max said, climbing back down to ground level as Alex reached the base of the elaborate Antarian ladder.

"Liz wanted me to give you this," Alex said, handing back his own 'summons' slip. On the reverse side from Vilandra's imprint, there was a message in blue ballpoint, and Max recognized his girlfriend's precise handwriting.

"Max, I've done my duty by Vilandra, and gotten her several helpers. But Zan deserves somebody to keep him company while he waits for the party to start, and nobody served me to compel my service. We'll see you in about an hour and a half."

Max sighed and handed the slip back to Alex. "Did you know what she was doing?" he asked.

"I did after I got to the ramp and started reading the note," Alex said with a quiet chuckle. "She said that she'd be along in a minute, but I guess I had my doubts even when I left her." He shrugged. "But so what? Zan does deserve someone to talk to - and I think that Liz might have some things that she wanted to ask him. If you could go seek out Ava, isn't she entitled to play turnabout with your opposite number?"

Max thought about that, sighed, and shrugged. "I wonder what's on her mind... but I guess I'll find that out when the 'time' is right. In the meantime - do you think this is all straight enough to meet with Vilandra's approval?"

"Hmm..." Alex backed off, casting a critical eye on the streamers and gauzy semicircular drapes hanging from near the ceiling. "I dunno, if she's as picky as your sister... we might need to do some work on that side," he said, waving to his right."

"Lift up, or lower down?"

"Umm - lift the semicircles and lower the streamers."

"Really?" Max looked back and forth in dismay - he'd been sure that at least he'd gotten the gap between the two kinds of decorations reasonably consistent. "Okay, give me a hand with this contraption," he said, gesturing to the unusual ladder.

----------

"I feel like I have so many questions," Liz said to Zan, as they walked through the flower gardens at the edge of the Palace grounds and onto the beach - the one in the opposite direction from where the TARDIS used to be parked. "Do you feel like you'll ever be ready to be King of a planet?"

"Sometimes I'm sure that I will - given enough time to study, and practice," Zan said, sighing. "And sometimes it amazes me that anybody, even a man I admire and respect enormously like my father, could ever live up to such responsibilities. At least the issue shouldn't be put to the test for - oh, for decades and more. Father is in the peak of health, according to his doctors."

"You can never tell by that, I think," Liz warned. "Death doesn't always follow a slow and predictable course."

"Well, I suppose that anybody could meet with an accident of misadventure, but the number of security we have around no matter where we are should mitigate that, I think."

"I don't know about that," Liz admitted. "Bodyguards and personal security could make accidental death much less likely, I'll agree with that, but the guards I've seen around here aren't nearly intrusive or omnipresent enough to make that much of an impact, it seems to me. And then, there's the reasons why a King would *need* security around, which could be strong enough that there would never ever be enough. Do you know of any enemies that he might have who could engineer an assasination plot?"

Zan stopped short, breathing hard. "Nobody... nobody ever says that word around us. It's as if they think it's unlucky, that to mention the concept is to tempt fate or something like that. But yes, I'm aware of a few... the republican hardliners who take it as a personal insult that our world is a monarchy, and one General who Mother is certain has dreams of establishing a Junta government, in the civil unrest that would follow a royal bloodbath."

"They do sound like bad enemies to have," Liz admitted. She was tempted to mention Kivar Andraikus' name, but thought that it might be tempting fate of the temporal kind, so soon after she'd asked about assasination. What if Zan put the pieces together a bit too quickly. "If your father died tomorrow, and you were left in charge - any ideas what you'd have to do first?"

"A few," Zan admitted. "Meet with his advisors to get briefed on the details of government affairs that I haven't had to immerse myself in on a daily basis, find some way to show the Senate that I mean to be a strong ruler without alienating them." He took a deep breath. "And ask Ava to marry me, as soon as the arrangements can be made."

"Wow," Liz said, nearly tripping over a sand dune. "But - well, when Isabel told me about - about the big surprise that they're planning for today, she said that neither of you thought that you were ready to get married."

"No, really, we're not, personally," Zan said. "But for a King to marry at a time of his own choosing is an expensive luxury. So is marrying a Queen of his own choosing, though I do not intend to sell out on that choice. But if, as we were saying, hypothetically, Father was suddenly assasinated, the entire Royal tradition would be endangered, and for me to marry would be a way of sending a number of good signals, that there would be a continuation of the dynasty, legitimate heirs to follow after me. 'The Royal Family is still here, and we're not going anywhere,' that sort of thing." He looked out at the bay. "And the common people like Ava and I together. They've done opinion polls on that. We've got a solid approval rating in the high seventies."

"So it would be a marriage of convenience, driven by reasons of dynasty and public relations?" Liz asked. "I mean, you've said that you have honest feelings for Ava, I'm not suggesting that you don't. But if you wouldn't have married her if not for the welfare of your house, and the chance to be the best King you can be to your people..."

"Maybe that's a better foundation for a marriage than purely personal feelings," Zan mused out loud. "Duty, and honor, and a hope for the future. Can't that be stronger than a love between a man and a woman?"

"I... I wouldn't know," Liz said. "But I think it might be hard to like a woman for the rest of your life, if you married her for duty, honor, and a hope for the future."

"Maybe you're right," Zan said, and took a deep breath. "So, what else are you curious about, in our world, Liz Parker?"

"How do you know I have any other questions?" she asked.

"Oh - something in your face, I guess. Come on, ask away."

Liz thought. "Well, this is a long shot, but -- there must be so many ways to use Antarian powers, some of which could be dangerous or harmful. Are there any people who have gotten into trouble, simply for having Antarian secrets so horrible that they could never be used."

"Hah - admit it, you were fishing!" Zan exclaimed, pointing a finger at her.

"Fishing?" Liz tried to act as innocent as she could, but wasn't sure how well she pulled it off. "Now, what could I have been fishing for?"

"Someone must have told you a bit about Kivar, and you wanted to make me bring him up in conversation first," Zan said.

Liz sighed. This much was true enough - Alex had found an interesting reference to Kivar in the historical database material from Kaalto, and Liz thought it would be a good way to nudge the conversation along. "So who's Kivar?"

"Do you really want to play dumb with me?" Zan demanded, and Liz just shrugged. "Okay, I'll play along, for now. Kivar Andraikus is somebody who's spent most of his life studying applications of telepathy and similar implications of 'the power.' He grew up the only son of a reasonably wealthy family, mine owners who invested in social connection software, that sort of thing. And he also belongs to a philosophical school, whose conclusions... I find disturbing, and so do most of my family and a lot of people with more traditional values. They talk a lot about how pain isn't an absolute negative or pleasure an absolute positive, that protecting the weak can have worse consequences on society in the long-term, and about how Antarian society could proceed further if it were run more like the survival of the fittest."

"Ooh, yeah, that's a bit sinister," Liz muttered.

"What do the tenants of a belief have to do with favoring one hand," Zan asked, curious.

Liz stared at him, then laughed out loud for delight. "Ah-ha! Sorry, I've just been waiting days for the TARDIS translation field to truly slip up on something like this. The English word I used, 'sinister', did originally mean somebody who favored writing or fighting with their left hand, which is uncommon among humans." Liz waved her own left hand to demonstrate. "But now it has other meanings that are more common - let's see, of bad omen, suggestive of an evil presence."

"Bad omens, and evil presences," Zan repeated. "Reminds me of the past few days."

Liz fought to keep her face straight and not give anything away - she hadn't wanted to draw any link between those events and Kivar in Zan's mind. Once again, she wasn't sure how well she managed. "Yeah, I guess so. But - well, so did Kivar do anything with telepathy that seems especially ominous?"

"Yes," Zan agreed. "He originated the first power technique that's been outlawed by decree of the Crown in ninety years. A way of ripping memories out of another person's mind." He shook his head. "It's nasty stuff, but Kivar's friends are powerful - some of them are even on the Senate. The Senate voted against the sanction on mind-tearing, but Sanren could pass it anyway, with at least one third of them on his side. And Kivar's been an outspoken critic of his ever since."

Liz stayed silent, figuring that she had enough about Kivar, and that it wouldn't seem too unusual to let the conversation lapse after a revelation like that. After a moment, she thought of something else. "What do you think about your sister and your best friend - you know, being together?"

"Vilandra's been seeing Larek behind Rath's back?" Zan joked, and Liz rolled her eyes. "And I think that I'm serious about Larek being my best friend, though Rath is definitely also a close companion. But - well, they're young to be choosing who they want to be with for the rest of their lives, but I can see how much they love each other, and most of the time I feel as if what Ava and I have doesn't measure up. But then, maybe they feel the same way about us - I can't really tell."

"Have you ever actually had a one-on-one talk with Rath about relationships, and asked him what you think of you and Ava as a couple?" Liz asked. "Or your sister, for that matter."

"Well - no, I guess not as such," Zan said, blinking. "I'm never sure how to talk to anybody about this kind of stuff - even Ava herself. Do you talk with your friends about that kind of thing?"

"Well, sure," Liz admitted. "Maria and I were trading secrets about Max and Michael - since not too long after we'd both gotten a kiss. But maybe that's a girl thing, I don't know - Alex has been my friend for years and years, and I didn't really ever get to know Isabel until after I started spending time with Max, but somehow it's easier to draw her out about their secrets than Alex, just because of that 'shared feminine mystique' thing, or whatever." She looked around, sighed, then kicked off her feet in the sand and wandered into the water. "Do you think they'll be able to find us here, when everything's ready?"

"Maybe not," Zan said. "But I have a notion when things might be 'starting to get close to time,' and we can wander somewhere more approachable before then." He sighed. "So, is it my turn to ask a question?"

"Sure, but I'm not making any guarantees," Liz sing-songed back.

"Well, how did you find out about aliens?"

Liz considered. She wasn't sure if Zan would have heard the bit about Max and the others being an alien hybrid, but surely it couldn't hurt much to be honest about that part, and the shooting was too good a story not to tell, by now. "Well, I was working in my parent's restaurant, getting people their food, when two of Maria's customers started to have an argument, and one of them pulls out a gun, a weapon..."

-------------

Michael felt an odd impulse to yell 'surprise' as Zan and Liz stepped through the open doorway and into the name day party feasting hall, even though probably nothing about the party was a surprise to him - well, actually, Michael wasn't so sure about that. The fact that he was getting a party today was certainly not a surprise, but some of the arrangements might have been things that he hadn't found out about him beforehand. He hadn't been involved in any of the arrangements, but nobody had said that was to keep from spoiling a surprise. Michael had gotten the impression that more than anything else that it was just seen as unfair to make the guest of honor work on his own festivities, which was an attitude that he could respect. (Then again, Michael tended to prefer celebrations that nobody had to put too much work into.)

Everybody clapped or cheered softly as Max took the seat at the right hand of his father at the table, and Michael remembered one thing about the party that had been definitely mentioned as a surprise - whatever it was that Ava was supposed to be doing to publicly show how much they cared about each other, in a way that was non-traditional enough that nobody would be obliged to betroth marriage as a response, or what-the-hell ever.

He wondered vaguely what that thing would be - it would be a surprise to him too, though certainly all of the Roswellian girls had been involved in the planning, and possibly Maria had asked Rose for her opinion, too. At that moment, though, he was distracted by Maria tugging on his hand. Nearly everybody else had taken their places at the table, and Michael sat down in one of the empty spots that had another vacancy next to it, so that Maria could be next to him. That spot also had the distinct advantage of being at least seven places away from Lord Rath.

Dinner was very hot and spicy, mixed with sweetness, to the point that even Maria, who had gotten used to this sort of thing in the years that she'd known him, was obviously having trouble, and Michael did what he could to suck some of the extreme tastes out of her dish with his powers, without doing anything that might go too badly wrong. He gathered that the food being served was all of Prince Zan's favorites, so it didn't seem to be too polite or respectful to be requesting substitutions. When Michael looked around the table, he noticed that Kyle didn't seem to be eating much, but Alex, who Michael generally thought of as having a much lower tolerance for hot peppers than anyone else in the group, was chowing down with a will. What the? Had Isabel anticipated this, and arranged for him to get blander fare as a special order? And left Maria to fend for herself as best she could?

The dinner continued on for a long time, with about five or six courses, not all of which were equally hot, at least. (Though for himself, Michael liked the spiciest ones best too.) The last was a sweet with a consistency somewhere between soft-serve ice cream and soft taffy - a cool, sugary mess that left a stringy trail behind when you spooned a biteful out of your bowl, in flavors that reminded Michael of lemon, pistachio, maple, and honey.

"Alright, everybody," Alinda said, once the bowls and spoons had been cleaned away, (and the paper tablecloth was splotched with little lines of spilled sweet.) "If we can all make it to our feet after that, and follow Zan and Ava to the Grand Parlour, we'll proceed to embarass both of them, but especially him, with stories and holos, and even some flat pictures that Max and Liz managed to find in one of the attics."

"What were they doing in the attic?" said Kyle, who must have not heard that story yet.

"Larek, I'm going to kill you for thinking of that," Zan threatened, and several people laughed nervously, even the ones who didn't really know what was so funny.

"Actually, if you don't mind my taking the lead, your Majesties," Liz said once everybody had made it to the parlour, "I'd like to start by prompting you for stories, if you've got any, about some of the other things that Max and I took with us out of the attic. We can leave the pictures for later, and if there's a story but it's not about Zan, you don't have to answer, but... well, I had to ask about this." She held up the foam-rubbery 'die-ball' so that nearly everybody gathered into the room could see it, and tossed it towards Queen Alinda's lap.

"That's was *my* Gamma shot!" Arynda exclaimed in a mix of delight and outrage. "Who put it up in the attic?"

"It can't have been yours to start with," Tolecnal shot back.

"Well, no," Arynda admitted, somewhat deflated. "Zan and Vilandra were both given it for Blessinday, way back when you were a baby in Mom's arms and I was too young to even start playing. But Vilandra said that she was too old, and that I should have it, and she even asked Zan and he said 'whatever, I don't mind.' I loved playing, I loved having my own shot, and I cried for a night when it just vanished and we couldn't figure out where it went to."

"Maybe somebody got a bit annoyed at just how much you loved playing," Larek muttered, a bit too loudly, because Arynda immediately whirled around and stared daggers at him.

"I think that, though all of that is true, Arynda, there's a part of the story that you might have forgotten," Sanren said, in a low but well-projected voice, and nearly everyone turned immediately, including his middle daughter. "This gamma shot already resurfaced once before, after that night that you cried over losing it, and you knew that it had been found, because I told you."

"Umm..." Arynda considered, then spoke up in a very small voice. "Maybe. What did I say about it?"

"Are you sure you want me to repeat what I remember you saying, in front of everybody?" Sanren asked, and Arynda nodded silently. "You said that you didn't care any more, that gamma shot was a stupid game, and that you couldn't believe you'd gotten so worked up about it," he explained. "I think possibly you were just feeling a little foolish for having gotten so worked up about losing it, and had gotten so 'sour apples' that even getting it back couldn't make you feel excited about gamma shot any more. I tried putting it in your room or with the other sport equipment a few times, and always it ended up in a waste receptacle." He sighed. "So I handed it to one of the staff and asked them to put it away somewhere safe."

"Oh." Arynda said, considering that. "Well, maybe I'm ready to get back into the game now."

Alinda tossed the 'shot' to her daughter. "What can I possibly add to that story?" she asked Liz.

"Wait a second, there's still something that seems to be missing," Max put in. "How did it get misplaced in the first place?"

"Somehow it ended up in my office, it seems," Sanren explained, "and was found by some security corporal who had never even seen a game of Gamma shot. He had the 'unexpected object' whisked away for tests to figure out if it was an explosive, or spying device, or if it was pumping out mind-affecting waves or something of the sort?"

"Without asking anybody?" Zan asked.

"Well, he asked somebody else on the security detail if he'd ever seen the shot in my office, which the other guard had to say that he hadn't. Of course, the other guard realized what it was, and even figured out how it had likely ended up there, but didn't volunteer that information."

"All right," Liz said. "That sounds like the rest of the story. Let's see." She checked her pockets. "I doubt that this is a story about Zan at all, but I was wondering if you knew who these pendants are," she said next, holding them out.

"Hmm... let's see, I don't recognize any of them immediately, they were in the same attic?" Alinda said, leaning close to look. "We might have a minor mystery on our hands. My darling, do you have anything to add?"

"The blue stone might have been my uncle's, from his engagement to - oh, the Lady of Wistona, I don't remember her name. The one who caught a Xianthan virus and passed away before the healers could help her, and so they never had a wedding day," Sanren said. "I don't recongize the other two either, though. Hmm." He looked over at Liz. "It would be a shame for you to leave before we find out the truth."

"Don't worry about me," Liz inisted. "This is Zan's day."

So next she held up the poetry rod, which got Vilandra talking about the literature tutor they both had when they were nine years old.

TO BE CONTINUED...
Read my other roswell stories!

"A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it. If the Rowan tree's roots are shallow, it bears no crown." From 'the farthest shore', Ursula LeGuin.

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Chrisken
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Re: Children of the Molecule (DW XO CC, Teen) Pt. 22 Dec 21 2010

Post by Chrisken »

Chapter Twenty-three

"So there the two of them were, perching on high stools over the counter, the entire dining room a mess," Alinda continued, her finger still marking the relevant picture from the Antarian 'photo album.' "And Zan turns to me, with a big smile on his face, and says, 'Mommy, I turned the cake batter bowl into a Vol-ca-no! It was the coolest thing ever. Can we mix up another batch of batter?" She shook her head. "I still remember how carefully he pronounced the word volcano. He'd written a paper for his tutor a few weeks before about earthshakes, and spelled volcano wrong, and gotten drilled on that and many other earth science terms."

"So, what did you tell them, about the batter?" Kyle asked. Everybody laughed.

"I - well, I don't remember. Probably I said that we'd have to leave it for another time, after the room could be cleaned up." Alinda sighed.

"Well, as much as I've appreciated hearing all of these stories for the hundred and fifth time," Vilandra started, "we do have to be moving on fairly soon, so can we wrap it up?"

"Certainly," Sanren answered, "but I think that Max and Liz brought one more fascinating find down from the attic, didn't they? Unless I'm losing track."

"Oh, right," Max said, taking the little black cloak that he'd been keeping on his lap. He showed it off for everybody. "Was this Zan's, by any chance, when he was little?"

"No, that one was mine, until I grew out of it," Tolecnal put in. "I think that Zan had one when he was little, too, but his was grey."

"Yes, umm... I'm not sure if I can come up with a good story about either cloak," Alinda said. "They both wore them nearly everywhere when they were little..."

"I've got one, actually," Zan volunteered. "This is back when we were both at the Royal Academy - my last term there, actually, and Tollie's first. I'd been... um, working on some homework, seriously..." there was a ripple of awkward laughter, "and I happened to look out my dormitory window, which faced the quad, and on the other side of the courtyard terrace, there was a tiny little blob of black that I thought I recognized." He smiled over at his little brother, who mustered a half-hearted grin to send back.

"I rushed down the stairs and over fairly quickly, but it didn't look as if he had moved - sitting there and hugging his knees under the fabric, head bent downward. If this cloak had a hood on it, I wouldn't have been able to see anything but the black." Rath laughed alone this time, and broke it off when he realized that nobody else thought anything was particularly funny.

"So I sat down next to him," Zan continued, "and he didn't look up at first, but I just kept talking, saying not much of anything important, cracking jokes, and eventually he picked his head up, and then I asked him what was wrong."

"I was homesick," Tolecnal volunteered at this point in the story. "And some of the other kids were teasing me, calling me the King's baby, and acting like I thought I was better than all of them. And I wasn't, at least I didn't mean to, but I didn't really know how to act like I was just one of them, either."

"Been through that," Arynda put in.

"Yeah, I know how that is," Vilandra told her brother.

"I may not be royalty, but I do remember being a young man apart, looked at differently because I was 'higher born,'" Rath said, very sincerely. "When I went through boot camp at fourteen, and I was the only noble son in my grunt class."

"Yeah," Zan said softly. Ava shrugged a bit awkwardly, as if she wasn't sure if she could entirely relate to this. "I didn't really have any answers, except to talk about it, telling Tolecnal that I went through that too and eventually it got better, that I missed home a bit too, and that he was my little brother and I'd always love him."

"Alright, that works," Vilandra said. "Is there a post-script?"

"Two days later, I made my first non-brother friend at the Academy," Tolecnal declared, and everybody laughed at that one.

"Okay, Vilandra, what's next on the schedule?" Zan asked her.

"Game time, hide and seek," Vilandra declared. "You're the first searcher, dear brother, and we all have five minutes to take to our hiding holes. Ava has arranged a few surprises to make the game exciting - a scattering field that will make sure you can't trace any of us by the sense of our minds, for one thing, and sound effects to make it a bit harder to overhear someone hiding. When you find someone, you have to bring them back here, where good Mister Banforth will note the score, and the found person becomes another searcher, who can help you look for the next."

"So, any searcher can bring someone that they've found to this room, and convert them?" Isabel asked. "Zan himself doesn't have to be here each time?"

"No, any searcher can bring the found here, but Banforth will keep an eye on them until Zan checks in," Rath said. "Then he'll convert them."

"Interesting," Max said, catching Liz's eye. "Nowhere off limits on the Palace grounds?"

"Outside is off-limits," Vilandra lectured. "Also Father's private study. Occupied bedrooms are not strictly verboten, but will be locked down, and damaging Palace property to get through will be considered an aggravated foul." She brought out a little crystal. "Your five minutes begins - now!"

Max reached out for Liz's arm as they were both carried along in the crowd of people hurrying to get out of the Grand Parlour and find a good hiding place in the time that they had.

"Back up to the attics?" Max suggested.

"After all the fuss that was made out of the stuff we found up there last time?" Liz suggested. "No, I think that's the first time Zan will be looking - and I hope that nobody else thinks of hiding there." She considered. "Vilandra said that the bedrooms would be locked down - does that mean that our own keys for our room won't work?"

"I'm not sure - probably, otherwise anybody with a room of their own has an enormous advantage over the seekers there," Max said. "In any event, all of our rooms aren't too secure, because of the balcony doors. They don't have decent locks - a little privacy switch, yes, but Rath showed me how they can be bypassed easily without damaging the door. Do you have any other good ideas?"

"Hmm." Liz considered all that she had seen of the palace over the days since arriving at Brok Bay, and shook her head. Then she noticed that Max was trying to keep himself from grinning. "No, but I think that you do. Spill?"

"Come on," he said instead, taking her hand in his. "If Zan expects us to go up to the attics, perhaps we should try the opposite."

"Oh, right," Liz said, seeing it. Max had been shown around the basements, while they were searching for clues to the posessions, and Liz had gone with Zan and the Doctor out to the Foursquare stones. Had he seen something that would work particularly well as a hiding place? "Let's go."

-------------

"What is this place, Jim?" Amy asked as he led her into a small chamber, with shiny white rock walls and simple but practical furniture. Jim hit a button, and a solid steel door started to slide down behind them. "And why wasn't it locked down before we got here?"

Jim turned and gave her a cheeky grin. "It's the palace panic room," he told her with a grin. "Not included in the ordinary lockdown protocol, because that would defeat its primary purpose. The door doesn't seal until it's operated from inside."

"A panic room?" Am repeated, looking around the small space with a new appreciation. "Meant for the members of the Royal Family, I would assume, since the entire staff couldn't really fit in here."

"I suppose so, yes," Jim agreed, taking a seat in a wooden chair so well crafted that he'd have been pleased to have it in his own artisan's portfolio. Hmm, perhaps he should try to make a sketch of it before they left.

"And now that you've engaged the door, it can't be opened again until we open it?" Amy said. Jim shot her a look. "Yes, that's part of the function of a panic room too, I suppose. Doesn't it seem at all presumptuous to preempt the place for a game of hide and seek? Not to mention unfair to Prince Zan?"

"Well, I thought it was an innovative hiding place," Jim shot back. "Just because few other people would have thought of it. What, do you think I should have left it for one of the Liarets?"

"That's not the point," Amy insisted.

"As far as unfairness... well, making him figure out a way to open the door to 'find' us would be taking the thing a bit far, I admit," Jim allowed, reaching out for Amy's fingers as she paced past - she slipped her hand away, but took a seat nearby, looking intently at his face. "There's an intercom that someone could use to call in just outside. If young Zan calls in and asks if anybody's hiding in here, then it's a fair cop, and we'll come out to get turned to the dark side. Does that make sense to you?"

"Then it might not be very long, if he's half as clever as you are," Amy pointed out.

"I'm not so sure about that. Now that the door is closed, it might not be obvious to anybody else that this room wasn't part of the lock-down. Zan will have to figure that out himself. And if it's one of the horde of helpers who tries first, we pretend that we're not here."

"Isn't there an alarm or something that security can use to tell that someone closed the door from inside?" Amy said.

"I... I don't know," Jim admitted. "If you don't want to take your chances in here with me, I'll let you out, but if you'll stay, I'd just as soon change the subject, and ask you what you think of the Antarians now that you've been here for nearly a day."

"Hmm... quite a change," Amy admitted, and sighed, considering her impressions. "The younger ones are charming, and yes - they do remind me a lot of their opposite numbers that we know much better, though there are a lot of differences, as anyone might have expected considering that they've grown up in a very different environment, a different time and on a different planet. And the really young Royals..." She shook her head, unable to come up with the words.

"You wish you could entice Tolecnal into following you home to Earth, don't you?" Jim teased her, and Amy shook her head, blushing. "Well, probably best that you keep your maternal instincts in check. By our time, he's probably married with grandchildren of his own."

"Wait a second, didn't Kivar get the entire Liaret family?" Amy demanded suddenly, her voice dropping smoothly to a whisper. "What's the big deal about Max and Tess' daughter, then?"

"I'm not entirely sure, and I'm only guessing that there are grandkids, though from what I understand, Max did find out that there was a royal brother who escaped at the time of Kivar's takeover, so that would have to be him," Jim replied, his voice just as low.

"I suppose that's good," Amy muttered. She considered it for another moment, and then shrugged. "By the way, I think I've made up my mind that now I'm mixed up in this crazy trip at all, for the good of Michael and the Evans kids, I might as well go through with the rest, and come along to see Tess."

"I'm glad," Jim said softly. "For a few reasons. First, stopping off at Earth in our present to drop you off might introduce some other kind of temporal complication, though I don't immediately see how. And more importantly, I think that you'll be a help when we get to Nunyes. Tess always liked and respected you, and you might be able to help defuse any part of the situation that gets touchy."

"If wiping out my memory is how she shows her respect, then I'm not sure if it means much," Amy grumped. "But in a strange way I liked her too, horrible problem child that she showed herself to be and all. Not entirely sure I can blame her for acting out, with that horrible creature as her only parental role model for ten years. I'll do what I can, including being open to forgiving her for what she's done."

Jim quirked up an eyebrow. "Being open? I admit that I'm curious - it's been months since Tess left Earth. If what she did isn't entirely unforgivable, then why haven't you done it already?"

Amy stared coolly back at Jim for a long time, and slowly he got the impression that she thought he was slightly foolish for even asking. Finally she muttered, "God may be infinite in forgiveness, but as much as I try to grow in his image, I'm not, yet. And my own capacity to forgive, I have to say, is not just a question of deeds, but circumstances - like remorse. I suppose I've forgiven Tess for her trespasses against me, considering the situation, and that to some extent she was doing it for the other kids as well as herself. But what she put Alex through - and Liz, and Max... not that, not yet. Not until I find out how she feels about it now."

"Okay, that makes sense," Jim said, smiling. "Even matches with some of what I didn't realize I was feeling myself, until you said it. So... umm..."

He fell suddenly silent with a crackle of noise on the intercom speaker, and then a clear voice. "Is anybody hiding inside the panic room? That's really hardly fair."

Amy opened her mouth, but Jim put a finger over his lips, and she clued in. Lord Rath continued to badger the speaker for a moment longer, and then the room fell silent.

------------

"Okay, it's getting hard to keep track," Ava said to Alex. "Who are we missing now?"

"Max and Liz," Isabel immediately called from the other end of the first-level corridor. "At least, I've not heard anything about them being taken. And what about the Lady Vilandra?"

"I chased Her Highness out down the secret passageway between her dressing room and the guest bedroom myself," Ava said with a laugh. "She's with Rath now, combing through the attic for well-hidden boltholes for the fourth time. How about Sir Valenti?"

"Zan got 'em himself," Alex reported. "They were inside the panic room, after all. Made up their mind that they'd surrender to the birthday boy himself, but play dead if anybody else asked if they were inside."

"Well, that's fairer than they might have been, I suppose," Ava agreed after a moment. "Anybody else??"

"Larek was unaccounted for the last time I heard, too," Alex said. "I think that might be it. Any good ideas where to look?"

"Maybe try going through the Telcit hall," Ava suggested. "I've been over it once already, but Larek does have a few tricks up his sleeve yet. And then maybe we should check in back at home base again."

"Sure," Isabel muttered, following the alien girl.

They'd gone around the large hall, full of furniture that had been gathered from a dozen worlds, and more strange nicknacks up on the wall than any restaurant Isabel and Alex had ever seen back on Earth, when suddenly Alex did a double take and turned to look at a spot between a low buffet and a plain wooden armchair. As Isabel turned to follow him, Alex walked up and reached out - and suddenly he was shaking the shoulder of a Larek who hadn't seemed to be there a moment ago. "Okay, okay, frebznle. Fair get."

"Where was he?" Ava called, running over as soon as she recognized Larek's voice.

"Sitting right in plain sight," Larek muttered, his demeanour caught between bragging and regret. "Used a low-level cloaking field to make anybody want to not notice me there - except Alex, apparently."

"That's impressive," Ava said to Alex. "I didn't see through that cloaking field - and I'm fairly good with mental trickery via the Power, if I do say so myself. How did you manage, Alex?"

"It could have been just..." Isabel started defensively, but Alex began speaking half a second later than his girlfriend.

"You can't fool me with that kind of trick - not anymore."

Ava and Larek considered this for a moment and thought their separate thoughts. Then Alex winced visibly, and Isabel wrapped an arm around his back comfortably.

"Is it a bad headache, honey?"

"Kinda, yeah. That's still never easy for me."

"If you need to go and lie down or something, you just go right ahead, Alex," Ava told him. "I'll take Larek down to home base, for his best friend to Convert to our cause."

"Yeah, umm, thanks, I think I may do that," Alex agreed.

"I'll come with you," Isabel muttered.

"No, come on," Alex protested. "I'm not that weak or invalid - and I don't even need to go anywhere much." To prove the point, he sat down on a sofa long enough for him to stretch out on, and Isabel went down with him, since she was still holding him. "If Max is still missing, nobody else knows him well enough to find him but you - not if Liz is missing with him." Alex chuckled at that thought, remembering another time that Max and Liz had been hiding, and Isabel had asked for his help in trying to find them.

"Fine, if you're sure, but do me one favor first," Isabel said, kissing the side of Alex's face and then letting him go so that she could stand up.

"Umm, what is that? I'm not really in trim to catch butterflies for you or anything like that, honey."

"Just lie down right there so we know if this thing is going to murder your back."

"Oh, dammit, I hadn't even thought of that," Alex said, opening his eyes wide and looking down at the couch almost as if he expected it to literally bite him.

"It should be fine," Ava assured him. "This sort of furniture is designed more for Antarian rear ends than our spines, actually. I'm not sure that one of us would lie down on a tri-seater like that, just because you can't get the support rods into it without making it hell to sit upon."

"Well, that's a little reassuring," Isabel said. "If it's customized to sit on, Alex might still have a few minor issues." But Alex seemed happy enough to lay down on his back and close his eyes, so Isabel grinned herself. "Okay, I guess I'm with you until the Royal Converter takes care of this bud, and then we'll see about Max and Liz."

"Sure, okay," Ava said. "Have a good rest, Alex. If anybody else bothers you, just let them know that you've already been found and that you need a bit of recuperation time."

"And what if it's Max and Liz who bother him?" Larek wondered. "Can he officially 'find' them without opening his eyes and getting up?"

Nobody bothered to answer that question, and soon Isabel, Ava, and Larek were back in the Grand Parlour where Vilandra had announced the game, and a few minutes later Zan walked in, grinning a big grin when he spotted his old friend. "So the girls got you, too?" he asked, clapping Larek on the shoulder. "You're one of us now, you realize."

"Yes, and it wasn't the female persuasion who spotted me," Larek insisted. "Young Alex Whitman, though the stress of seeing through my mental cloak appears to have laid him low for a short stretch of time. What news?"

"Well, we are officially down to just Max Evans and Liz Parker," Zan reported.

"And I think I know where to look for them," Vilandra added, following her brother into the room. Isabel made as if to bolt away, but Ava held her hand reassuringly,and Isabel stayed put where she was with an Ice Queen smile. "Everybody down to the Brandy cellar!"

"Alright," Larek exclaimed. "They're not going to escape us all afternoon."

"Why didn't somebody try down there before?" Isabel asked, following the rest of the posse.

"I did do a sweep, early on," Zan admitted. "But..."

"But he didn't remember that Rath and I showed Max and Maria around down there," Princess Vilandra finished. "Back when we were still trying to figure out what was happening with the hauntings. Neither did we, until just a few minutes ago. And I showed them some of the really good hiding spots inside the basements, that Zan probably forgot about and didn't realize that anybody else would know - well, except maybe family."

"Whatever," Ava said, as they got to the head of the stairs. "Let's do this."

It was rather an anticlimax when Zan crawled on his stomach up a narrow tunnel in the cellar wall, and eventually pulled himself back out. "Okay, they're found," he reported. "But they'll need a few minutes, I imagine."

"A few minutes?" Ava asked blandly. In the total silence of the basements, you could just about make out the sound of two people panting and softly crying out around the mouth of the tunnel. "Oh, I... I guess I get it now."

----------

"So, what's the next big party activity?" Maria asked, once they were all gathered in a large hall near the back of the palace, where they hadn't spent much time.

After some trading of glances, Vilandra and Alinda gestured that Lord Rath had the foor to explain. "Well, it's come to our attention that you knew something about the swim costumes and beach traditions of summer court. Of course, it's too early in the year for summer court, and much too cold to go swimming with much comfort out in the Bay - but we wanted you visitors to have a little taste of the fun. So, the outdoor pool has been warmed up, and we want to see all of you in your bathing gear, chop-chop."

After a second of stunned silence, a babble of responses emerged from the Roswellian contingent - a few pained groans, and also some chuckles. "I'd actually forgotten all about this part, and all of the running around looking for suits at the last minute back on Earth," Max admitted in a whisper to Liz.

"Well, there were plenty of other things going on to distract us, just as soon as we landed," Liz agreed.

"Wait a second, what's all of this about?" Amy complained in a loud voice. "Nobody told me that I'd have to show up to a pool party. I certainly didn't have a chance to pack a suit or towel..."

"It's alright," Jim assured her. "This is for the young ones. You can just sit out on a deck chair in the clothes that you're wearing now, if you want to." Rath opened his mouth to contradict him, and the ex-lawman managed to send over a glare fierce enough to prevent anything from being spoken out loud.

But after a moment, Maria broke the silence. "Come on, Mom - you can join the rest of us girls in a suit. It's not that big a deal, you're still in really good shape."

"For a woman of my age?" Amy quipped wryly, but from the look on her face, it was clear that she was wavering.

"Well, I'll be going into the pool, Miz DeLuca," Queen Alinda told her with a small smile. "From one 'woman of a certain age' to another, I understand how you feel, but it's all for fun."

"And... actually, I brought your black one-piece," Maria confessed. "The one you like, that doesn't cover too much and makes you look half a size skinnier. I was going to wear it myself, but I'm sure that somebody who lives here will be able to loan me something."

"Okay, everybody who's not lobbying Miz DeLuca, go and get changed," Vilandra called. "We're losing the daylight here." This brought a bit of laughter, as it was obviously still relatively early in the afternoon, but most of the group did disperse, with Ava leading the visitors back to their rooms so that they could go through their luggage.

-----------

The pool courtyard was at least as beautiful and grand as any part of the palace that they'd seen yet, and the pool itself was of a good size - a little less long than the facilities at West Roswell High, but spacious enough for the two dozen-odd party guests. And the water was heated to nearly the same point as a hot bath or a jacuzzi, so that nearly everybody found itn more comfortable to get in than sit out on the deck chairs in the slightly cool air.

Rath and Larek tried to start a team game involving throwing around a rubber pyramid that would float when it hit the water, but nobody was really interested in more sports after the hide and seek. A few people started doing racing laps, while others simply floated or tread water in circles and talked.

-----------

"I think that I've lost track of what we've done so far," Kyle admitted, once he was changed back into warmer clothes. Unsatisfied with the moisture dripping down onto his forehead, he grabbed up a watermelon-sized sponge and started rubbing it all over his hair. "Where to next?"

"Out to the front lawn overlooking the beach, and where we first met you," Ava told him, laughing. "This is the last stage of the party, by the way - the ultimate surprise finish."

"Okay," Rose said, perking up with the infectious excitement. "Umm, which way is the front door, then."

When Larek led the way out the fairly small portal onto the stretch of freshly mown grass between the palace and the beach, it would have been impossible to miss the evidence of Ava's ultimate surprise. A stage had been erected on the edge of the green, with speakers of an unfamiliar design upon it, and several Antarians holding their musical instruments.

"Royal Command Bandstand," Michael muttered appreciatively. "Nice one, Ava. Did you give her the idea, honey?" That last part was aimed at Maria.

"Excuse me, for the record, I was the one who suggested bringing Droguer to play the party," Vilandra snapped haughtily.

"You suggested them," Rath agreed. "I was the first one to say that we should get a great band, in the first place. The plans that you Earthling girls hatched with Ava just piggybacked off our hard work."

"And I can't thank you enough for making all of this possible, guys," Ava told them both. "Happy Naming Day, Zan Liaret."

"Thanks," he said, his eyes focused on the bandstand. "Is the playlist set alerady?"

"Well, we put something together," Vilandra admitted, "but I think that they might be willing to take a few special requests for the guest of honor."

"Happy day, Your Highness," the central member of the musical group called out with full amplification once they'd gotten within a stone's throw of the stage. "Is there anything we can do for you, other than getting started?"

"It's a pleasure to be here, your Majesties, Your Highnesses," somebody else, (holding a skinny implement taller than he was,) added.

Zan shot a sidelong look at Ava, and then called out "Safe in your heart!"

The spokesman paled slightly and hesitated. "We're, umm... we'll be playing that one, your highness, but we're not quite ready for it yet. The plan was to start out with 'Tougher than a Cyclone...' Is that alright?"

Zan hesitated only a moment. "Yeah, sure, sorry."

"No need to apologize, Prince Zan," the keyboardist chimed in. "We're happy to take requests if we can, just... trust us when we have to demur, okay?"

"Of course." There was a brief moment of preparation, and then Droguer exploded with an earthquake of music that Kyle suspected wasn't in any key according to western musical notation on Earth, and yet somehow it was unmistakably a powerful rock-dance number too. He wondered for a moment if the TARDIS translated music at all, or if some things were just universal - between humans and Antarians, at least.

Rose grabbed his arm as the lead singer started to belt out the lyrics in a strong tenor voice: "It's not like much when it starts on a sunny day / The wind blowing hard across the plain / Then a cloud appears and your friend might say / It's starting to look like more than rain..."

As that first song played through, Kyle noticed that Ava and Rath were busy, trying to pull some kind of a flat sheet of material out from under the stage towards the rest of the audience. When it became clear that the surface was more than the two of them could immediately handle, Max, Michael, and Alex were immediately sent in to assist by their girlfriends. Kyle shot Rose a look, and she shrugged. The five of them seemed to be doing well enough with the portable floor, so Kyle stayed where they were, splitting his attention between the performer and the preparation. Once she was satisfied with the overall positioning, Ava stepped up onto the stiff sheet and hurried back and forth, doing something to prop it up where she wasn't satisfied with the flatness of the thing.

It was only as 'Cyclone' was winding up to an end that Kyle suddenly realized the point of the exercise - the thing was an outdoor dance floor.

When the music died down, Ava Dervensee stood before the stage, and everybody's attention focused on her. "I... well, I didn't figure that you'd enjoy the music much more while you were still waiting for our song, Zan, so I figure we should have it now. Zan Liaret, will you dance with me?"

Zan looked all around him, bemused, and then grinned at her. "Of course, my dear. This is your surprise?"

"Well, yeah," she admitted. "I figured that something simple and heartfelt would do."

"That it certainly does," Zan reassured her, stepping up onto the dance floor and crossing over to her.

"And I'd like to ask that the floor be left to the two of them, for this song," the lead singer asked, again with way too much amplification. "There'll be other dance numbers."

"Yeah, we know," Isabel shouted back at him.

As the softer and more tender music began, and Zan and Ava stepped back and forth across the floor in each other's arms, Kyle thought about what his female friends had certainly helped to arrange. Probably the custom of the bride and groom's first wedding dance wasn't a part of Antarian tradition, or they wouldn't have recreated it so closely on this occasion. But given that it was an unfamiliar ritual - the symbolism, the significance was clear, but not so overt as to force them into a public commitment that neither of them felt ready for yet.

Reminded by that thought, Kyle looked around over his shoulder, trying to be nonchalant about it, (though of course trying wasn't nonchalant by definition.) Alinda and Sanren were watching with their arms around each other, smiling fondly at their son and his girlfriend, pleased at what they saw but not eager for anything in particular.

Ava's aunt Shelda, on the other hand, seemed to be eager, and Kyle's stomach lurched slightly when he realized that nobody else had noticed the way that she was staring hungrily at the dancing couple. And whatever Shelda wanted Ava to be a Princess, or Queen for, there was no way that Kyle could do anything about it, because that would be interfering in the past.

"And no matter what the cruel world may do to us,
Though circumstance may keep us long apart.
I know every choice I make I will be true to us,
And my love will have a home, safe in your heart."

Quickly the song came to an end, and everybody clapped enthusiastically when Zan and Ava turned around to bask gleefully in their big moment. Shelda wasn't the loudest applauder, or the quietest, but Kyle couldn't seem to stop stealing glances at her, or dwelling on what he'd seen even as the band started another ballad. He was still pre-occupied when Rose pulled him out on the floor for an open dance.

-----------

"What is it?" Rose asked Kyle, pulling him away from the crowd as the next-to-last number on the set list began.

"What's what??"

"Don't even try playing dumb with me, kid," she growled. "There's something that's suddenly eating you, and you're going to tell me what it is."

"Okay, it's just... Ava's aunt," Kyle suddenly blurted out. "Nothing too important about it, really. Just a look on her face when the two of them were dancing, like she just couldn't wait for Ava and Zan to get married. I don't like it, but she'll get her wish soon enough, and we can't change that even if we want to. You understand the dangers of messing around with the past."

"Yes, but..." Rose shook her head and leaned closer. "Try to think clearly about it, Kyle. The whole reason that we've come here was to learn about the Royal Four in their own time, before going to the future of the Antar sector and confronting Tess. I know that Max was more or less satisfied with the deep background he's absorbed, but up until that moment when you looked over at Shelda, nobody had really learned anything surprising."

"So... so you think this is important, for going to find Tess and Max taking his daughter back?" Kyle repeated, feeling like he couldn't quite concentrate with the music so near by.

"Well... considering how hung-up Tess was on Ava and Zan marriage, how could it be anything but important?" Rose countered. "That one of Ava's family might be pressuring her towards the wedding?"

"We don't know that Shelda's ever done anything to manipulate Ava's choices," Kyle pointed out.

"No, but we'd better find out, hadn't we? If she ever has, and if she's likely to in the future."

And that was the tricky point. "But - but we can't stay here. Everything's arranged, that we'll be leaving essentially as soon as the concert is over!"

"Plans can change," Rose said. "It'll be tricky, I'll admit as much. Especially if we want to keep Shelda from getting suspicious of us in return. But somehow we have to learn more, before the TARDIS leaves this time and place. And that means that the others have to know - especially Max and Liz."

Kyle stared back at the stage and wondered just how to tell them.

TO BE CONTINUED...
Read my other roswell stories!

"A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it. If the Rowan tree's roots are shallow, it bears no crown." From 'the farthest shore', Ursula LeGuin.

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Chrisken
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Re: Children of the Molecule (DW XO CC, Teen) Pt. 23 Dec 29 2010

Post by Chrisken »

Chapter Twenty-four

Max, Liz, and the Doctor had already gotten back to the TARDIS by the time Rose caught up with them. She pulled Kyle in along with her, slammed the door shut, and locked it behind her. "Hey, what's going on?" Liz asked. "Half our party is still outside there. More than half, right?" She started silently counting up on her fingers.

"They'll be fine, we're not going anywhere," Rose announced. "But we need to figure out our excuse as to why not."

"Our excuse?" Max repeated. "Well, can you give us the reason why first?"

"Of course, that's why we're all in here together," Rose said, and pointed at Kyle. "He spotted something during Zan and Ava's solo dance together that all of the rest of us missed, a very little something. Just an expression, but I think that it's important enough that we can't move on until we learn more."

"An expression?" Liz and the Doctor chorused, and shot sidelong looks at each other. Kyle snickered.

"What kind of an expression?" the Doctor asked.

"And who was wearing it?" Liz put in.

There was a moment's pause, and Rose gestured to Kyle that he should speak up. "Sorry, I thought that if you'd gotten this far yourself... never mind." He sighed. "It was Ava's Aunt Shelda, and she looked... I'm not quite sure how to put it. Umm, she seemed very pleased, and eager, to see the two of them together."

There was a moment's pause as the three people evaluated this. "You're right, Rose," Liz decided first. "That wasn't what I was expecting to learn about when we came here, but it's something that we should investigate more closely, so we'll have to find a pretext to delay our departure."

"Right," Max agreed, settling down onto a convenient flat surface the right height to sit on. "Anything that can help us understand more about Tess' motives, before I have it out with her. But what could we say that would believably explain a delay, after we'd made such a big deal about having to leave as soon as Zan's party was done?"

"Well, let's think about that," Rose suggested, nodding. "These Antarians don't understand much about the TARDIS, right? Time Lords are legends to them. Do you suppose we could say that there was just some problem with the engine, and it'll take twenty-four hours to fix?"

"That would kind of step on my legendary reputation," the Doctor put in. "But frankly I don't mind."

Everybody traded looks. "Probably the simplest thing that we could come up with," Max agreed. "It's beyond their level of technology, so it would be reasonable for you to keep anybody from coming in here to poke around with it. And we can get it 'fixed' anytime we need to."

"Good enough," the Doctor said. "We'd better go and let His Majesty know as soon as possible that their unexpected guests need to stay over one more night. Who's with me?"

Rose, Max, and Liz nodded. Kyle shrugged and stepped aside. "I'd rather not be there, if that's all right. Good luck and all."

"Okay, sweetie." Rose kissed him on the cheek, then stepped back to the door and opened it up. "Sorry, everybody, but it looks like we've got some technical difficulties to sort out."

"What the hell?" Michael asked.

"One more night here, Michael," Liz told him. "Don't worry, we won't be late getting anywhere."

"I don't think this TARDIS is really all it's cracked up to be," Michael complained, as four figures emerged out of the door and proceeded past him towards the nearest entrance into the Palace proper. After a moment, Michael and Maria, Isabel and Alex followed the delegation, while Jim Valenti held the TARDIS door open before they it could swing closed on its own and proceeded inside, followed by Amy.

------------

"Okay, come on, that was the fourth place we've tried at random, I'm not going to go through this again," Liz said, after Max and Rose poked their head into the formal dining room looking for King Sanren. "Hello, Zavnia?"

"Yes, Miz Parker?" the elderly serving woman said, turning around and bobbing her head at the distinguished guest who had called her name.

"I'm so sorry to bother you, but we need to speak to His Majesty - Both of their Majesties, actually, and can't seem to find them. Would you be able to figure out..." Zavnia handed Max her high armful of clean folded fabrics and whipped a small gizmo out from a pocket in her uniform. "Okay, I'll take that as a 'yes.'"

"Sanren is currently... in the Royal sleeping chamber," Zavnia reported after a moment. "Do you want me to send him a message, asking if you could meet somewhere a little more official?"

Max shot a look over the armful towards the Doctor. "Umm, what would the protocol be regarding bothering him in his bedroom?" Max asked after a moment. "Is that something that just isn't done, or would really piss him off, or..."

"Nah, he sees guests in there if it's convenient for him," Zavnia told them. "Can't hurt to ask. After such a big day, he might want to keep whatever-it-is informal instead of dressing up and going someplace else - if that's alright with your lordships."

"Fine by me," the Doctor said. "Thank you very much for your help, Zavnia."

"All part of the service, your Lordship," Zavnia said, taking the fabrics back from Max and then realizing that she still had her gizmo in one hand. Awkwardly she tucked it into the bottom of the pile.

"Just one thing," Max said. "Where's the Royal sleeping chamber? I don't think we've had it pointed out to us before this."

"Give me one minute, and I'll take you there," she promised.


"Yes, hello?" Sanren called from behind his door a few seconds after the knock had been sounded. "Mister Doctor, is that you?"

"Yes it is, your Majesty," the Doctor replied, and after a moment, Sanren opened the door, wearing a very comfortable looking striped shirt and bright purple pants.

"And most of your friends, I see," Sanren said, counting up the Earthlings in the hallway. "You didn't really need to come and pay your respects again, after we said goodbye out on the lawn."

"No, I'm afraid it's something else," the Doctor said, nodding very slightly. "Your Majesty..."

"Please, don't repeat that every time, not at a moment like this," Sanren snapped. "And come on in - all of you, or as many as we can fit. Just a moment." The Doctor stepped into the room, and took a seat opposite the king in a chair made out of something that looked like wicker.

"Wh-what are you doing in here, Your Highness?" Isabel blurted out as soon as she saw the other occupant of the room besides Sanren.

"Talking with my father!" Vilandra said. "Why shouldn't we talk 'in here?'"

There was a moment of silent activity as Isabel took Alex gently, but firmly, by the upper shoulder and made as if to drag him away. However, Alex stood firm, and once Isabel had clued in that she'd need to actually pull if she wanted to get him anywhere, he very calmly and slowly walked into the room. In the end, it was Isabel who was 'dragged' in with him, refusing to let go of her beloved and scurry away on her own.

"No reason at all," Maria said. Vilandra quirked her cheek in a way that a human probably wouldn't have been able to match, and then stretched her legs out from the comfy chair that she was sprawled out on to a small footrest placed in the appropriate spot.

"If I may, I'll get us to the point," Max volunteered. "There's a small problem with our ship, your Majesty..." He broke off as Sanren glared at him. "Sir. It should be repaired soon, but in the meantime, would we be able to stay here at Brok Bay for a little longer? At least overnight??"

"Hmm." Sanren considered this. "I realize that the answer might not mean much, but what kind of a problem?"

"The, well, the Arton power cells are too weak to permit a safe flight off-planet," the Doctor volunteered. "I don't know what affected them, but most are regenerating already. There might have been a freak dimensional wave that nobody else in this sector would have detected."

Sanren waited for a moment. "Certainly, we're pleased to have you for a longer visit," he finally said. "I'll make certain that all of your rooms are still available. And Lord Doctor, are you sure that you won't reconsider and take the sixth room on the visitor's row adjoining your balcony? I understand that when, umm, when Lady Amy DeLuca arrived yesterday, you went to sleep in your remarkable vessel."

The Doctor smiled. "That's a very generous offer, which I'd ordinarily be pleased to accept, however under the circumstances, it's probably better that I stay in the TARDIS again tonight, just to keep an eye on those Arton cells."

"Of course. Let me know about anything else that you need." Sanren looked around at the crowd of visitors. "Is there anything else that you need at the moment?"

"Out of curiosity..." Rose started, and broke off as Liz gently delivered a tap from her foot to Rose's shin.

It wasn't quite soon enough. "Out of curiosity, what?" Vilandra asked.

"Do... do you know if Prince Zan is still up and around?" Rose blurted out after a second. "I realize that he's probably somewhat tired of the best wishes on his special day, but, umm..."

"My oldest son is enjoying a private evening alone with the Lady Ava," Sanren said. "As a special naming-day treat for them, since they have to be content with chaperones or group activities so much of the time. I think it would be best if no-one disturbed them."

"Of course. I do think that'll be all for us, and thank you once again," the Doctor said, and wasted no time in herding all of his friends back out into the corridor.

"Okay, what the heck is going on?" Maria whispered.

"Not now," Max told her. "We can spread the latest news once we're back to our rooms."

"And once they've been 'swept,'" Liz added meaningfully. "Again, just in case."

------------

"Aunt Shelda?" Michael said, looking over at Maria and then at Max. "You really think that she's important to this whole Tess-Ava thing?"

"Well, from what Kyle described seeing during the dance, it looks like a case could be made," Max said. "Do either of you remember noticing her then?"

"Not really," Michael said, and Maria shrugged uncertainly. "Okay, so, what do we do next? I guess Guerin and DeLuca investigations' go-to move would be to break into her room and search it - but that might be awkward with Royal Security crawling around the palace, and I'm not sure what we'd be looking for, anyway."

"I think that we need to be more subtle, Michael," Maria told him. "What about trying to talk to her about Zan and the royal family? I mean, she isn't going to say anything really incriminating, but if she doesn't suspect that we're on to her she might drop a clue."

"That sounds like a good place to start," Max agreed. "For Maria. No offense, Michael, but I'm not sure that we need you on the case right now, though I'm happy to keep you in the loop."

"So what, you think that I can't handle a casual conversation with any subtlety, that I'll blow the deal for our side?" Michael thought about it. "Actually, it wouldn't kill me to sack out early, come to think of it. Don't stay up too late playing spy-girl, honey."

"Gee, thanks. So, Max, are you volunteering to be my partner, then?"

"I could - or maybe you could meet up with Liz, if you think you'd work better with her."

"Maybe. How are we going to just co-incidentally arrange a run-in with Aunt Shelda, anyway?"

-----------

"Yeah, I've got the hang of interfacing with the computer desktop by now," Alex said, suiting action to word as he moved his finger throught the holographic display in the room that he shared with Isabel. "Tracing Shelda won't be hard, and I don't think that inquiries like that are terribly easy for other people to track. If security is bound and determined to know exactly what we've been doing with the computer, they can probably find out, but it won't set off any alarms otherwise."

"Good," Liz said, and turned to Isabel. "I just bet you can guess what I'm thinking of for your assignment."

"Oh, boy, can I ever," Isabel shot back. "All I have to do is dream. Again."

"Okay, here's Shelda," Alex reported. "Looks like she's up in the scenic parlour. That'll be a good setting for a casual conversation."

"Sounds good," Liz said, and pulled out a small flat rectangle that fit easily over the palm of her hand. "Hello, my dear soulmate?"

"How lovely to hear your voice, my dearest love," Max's voice came softly from the rectangle. "Has Alex worked his magic already?"

"Yeah, he's found Shelda. Umm. let's see, it looks like she's up one flight of stairs, and then..."

"Oh - we can see the whole route from here."

"You can?" Liz exclaimed, surprised.

"I sent the schematic from my desktop to Michael's," Alex said. "Easy-peasy."

"Well, good enough," Liz reported. "All up to Michael and Maria now?"

"No, Max benched Michael." Now it was Maria who was speaking through Liz's rectangle. "And he's letting me pick a replacement partner, so I pick you, chica. Meet me out in the hallway in thirty seconds?"

"Umm..." Liz looked down at her clothes automatically, then shrugged. "Sure." She passed the rectangle over to Isabel. "Do you know how to work these?"

"No, but I figure Max or somebody can help us out," Isabel told her. "Good luck!"

"Thanks." Just as Liz was opening the hallway door, somebody tapped from the patio, and Alex keyed an automatic control to slide open the patio door.

"Hello, Valentis," Isabel said. "Liz, wait a second."

"What?" The question was muffled as the door swung shut behind Liz.

"Could you come back in here a moment?" It took a few seconds, and when the door opened again, both Liz and Maria filed in, which meant that the room was suddenly rather crowded. "Okay, Maria, if you're team captain... I'll make a pitch on behalf of Jim to make it a trio. He's got a lot of experience talking to people without making it obvious to them that they're being interrogated, and looking for small clues in people's behaviour. Of course, he didn't know about Michael and I until it was completely, blindingly obvious, but..."

Kyle broke out laughing as his father rolled his eyes up towards the heavens. "Yeah, what the heck, he's probably good for something," Maria decided. "Do you know what the mission is, Mister V?"

"Well, I've been briefed on the overall situation," Jim said, pointing a thumb over towards Kyle. "I assume that we're off to talk to Shelda Dervensee?"

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "Subtle is the watchword, just trying to figure out what her general attitude is towards Zan and ~~the royal family, Ava getting involved with Zan, and that kind of thing."

"Background interview, casual style," Jim interpreted. "Good enough for me."

"Good, then let's go," Maria said. "We don't know how long she'll be hanging tight where she is."

After a moment Jim nodded, and the party of three made their exit out the door. Isabel looked pointedly at Kyle. "Can we help you with something?"

"Umm, I guess not - unless you happen to know where Rose got to," Kyle muttered. "I checked - our room, but there was no-one there."

"Hmm." Alex considered. "Last I saw her, she was with the Doctor - and I'm not quite sure where they were going to go, if not there. Back to the TARDIS perhaps? Is that where you guys just came from?"

"Yeah, but they could have taken a different route," Kyle muttered. "Maybe I should go back and try her." But he didn't make a move towards either door out of the room.

"You don't seem quite sure about that," Isabel noticed dryly.

"I dunno, I guess I'm not sure if I should bother her," he mumbled, sitting down on the desk chair that Liz had vacated. "How did she seem, after leaving the TARDIS?"

"Alright, as far as I know," Alex said. "She was a bit quiet, but then, she and the others were trying not to give away the whole thing about Shelda until we could get back here and talk privately. Oh, Rose almost went and asked Sanren about Shelda directly before Liz shut her up, I think."

"Oh." Kyle considered that. "Makes sense. She's not really as used to this sort of covert investigation as we've become, and the dangers of being too obvious."

"Yeah," Isabel agreed. "Oh, and I'm not sure if this is relevant at all, Kyle, but I thought I'd mention it. Sanren offered the Doctor the empty room at the end of the row here, and he said no, that he'd prefer to stay in the TARDIS, keeping an eye on the power cells or whatever. That was part of the cover for why we have to stay here until we're done investigating Shelda."

"Okay." Kyle stood up. "I guess I'll go knock on the TARDIS door and see if I get any answer."

"Okay." Alex cocked his head, considering for a moment. "Where did you guys leave Maria's mom?"

"Right!" Kyle exclaimed. "She's in Dad's room. Well, the room that she's sharing with Dad. He said that he wouldn't be long - probably someone should go tell her that he's off on a job." And with that, Kyle opened up the patio doors again. "See you later!"

"Kyle!" Isabel called after him, but no no real effect. She sighed and looked back at Alex. "Okay, so who's left in the rooms now? Just us and Michael?"

"Well, also your brother I believe," Alex reminded her, heading back over to the computer 'desk-top.' "I'm liking this room-to-room communication using the desktops. I'll leave them a message letting them know about Missus DeLuca, and the Valentis... and then, Isabel, you are going to let yourself relax. You'll be no good dreamwalking if you keep yourself this uptight."

"Okay, okay," Isabel said, lying down on the bed. "Oh, hey, are you good enough with those Antarian computers by now that you can use them to investigate Shelda electronically?"

"Hmm, like what?" Alex turned to her. "Like break into a computer system she has back where she lives? I don't think so."

"No, well, I wasn't thinking about anything like that," Isabel told him, closing her eyes. "Just - I dunno, whatever the equivalent of a Google search is, if they have enough of a worldwide computer network for that. Background detail, like what Liz and the others are doing. I know that you're not likely to find a smoking gun in the computer info that's available to half the planet, but you might be able to..." She paused and blew out a long breath between pursed lips. "To figure out enough to help me find out what I need to do, if I get into her dreams. I'm the one most likely to really find out what Shelda's hiding."

"Yeah," Alex said softly, rolling the chair over and putting his hand over hers. "I'm sorry that you have to do this again, I know that - well, that you almost never look forward to dream-walking."

"Unless it's my idea," Isabel told him, her lips forming into faint smile. "Unless I'm just doing it for recreational purposes, as opposed to serious Club business."

"Yeah, something like that."

"Oh, no, I just thought of something." Isabel suddenly sat up. "Do we even know if... well, there's several problems with this that just occured to me. Is it possible that Shelda will be able to use some Antarian power technique to block me out of her dreams? Or to trap me inside her mind once I get there? Will the Royal Security be able to detect what's going on, and start asking questions? And do we have a frickin' picture of the woman??"

"I think that Liz and Maria will be able to figure something out for the picture," Alex told her. "Lie back down. As far as the rest of it - well, we'll figure it out somehow. But you need to relax."

Isabel didn't lie back down, but she smiled a very different kind of a smile. "Why don't you come over and relax me?"

"I thought that you wanted me to google Shelda Dervensee on the computer."

"No, the only person I want you googling is... no, sorry, I can't finish that sentence." Isabel tugged on Alex's hand. "How about goggling at me instead?" She brought her free hand to the buttons on her sweater, but actually had some difficulty undoing them like that.

Alex was happy to solve that problem for her.

------------

"Okay," Liz said, slipping the computer rectangle into the front pocket of her baggy jeans, and shot quick looks at Maria and Jim Valenti, who both nodded. Without a word, the three walked up to the open doorway, and Liz poked her head inside. "Ohh - hello."

They hadn't been quite sure if Aunt Shelda would be alone, or if there would be a lot of other company in the parlour, though it seemed almost certain that she wouldn't be spending time with her niece or Prince Zan, and unlikely that Sanren or Princess Vilandra would have beaten them there. She certainly hadn't particularly been expecting the other person in the room along with their target. "Good evening, Miss Liz Parker," Rath told her, and made a 'come-in' gesture with his right hand. "Shelda and I were just having a drink and talking a bit about the North Country. She was born not that far from my family homeland in North Tilles."

~~"Well, we didn't mean to interrupt a walk down memory lane or anything," Liz said, Maria and Jim following her into the room. "But a beverage and a bit of convivial conversation sounds like a good deal tonight, if you don't mind us joining you. None of the brandy, though." The Doctor had warned them all that Antarian Brandy had a heavy dose of benzene components that were harmful to pure humans, and even to Liz, whose metabolism was still mostly homo sapiens. The three pod squad hybrids had rather enjoyed the intoxicating effect, that they'd never been able to experience safely on Earth, but none of them had over-indulged in drink on account of the secrets to be kept.

"Sure, come on in," Shelda said. "I'm a bit confused though - weren't you supposed to have arrived at some other planet by now, in that nifty little Time Lord spaceship?"

"Yeah, we were supposed to, but the batteries were dead when the Doctor tried to liftoff," Maria said off-handedly. "Some sort of wibbly-wobbly dimensional shift thing. So we're stuck here until the morning, or maybe later. Lord of the palace has been informed and all that."

"Alright, well, it's nice to see you again," Rath said with a smile at the two earthling girls that went just a shade beyond 'pleasant,' though it wasn't really salacious enough to offend either - though Liz thought that Vilandra would probably have been upset if she was there to witness. "Help yourself to anything from the bar, and - do any of you have a preference for conversational topic?"

"You can just keep on with what you were saying about North Tilles," Jim said, stepping over to the sideboard and pouring a tumbler of a clear liquid with a label that he recognized - it was water lightly flavored with a touch of fruity sweetness and half a smidge of something spicy. "Maria, Liz?"

"Rynec, please," Maria asked immediately, and Liz nodded and held up two fingers on her left hand.

"Actually, what I was saying wasn't exactly about North Tilles," Shelda told them. "Er - depending on how you define the term. Tilles is a large continent, and there's a patch of it bordering on the Polar sea that used to be the Assembly Region of Selez, but was renamed as the province of North Tilles during the reign of Sanren's great-grandfather for a couple of complicated political reasons. The point is, the city where I was born is in the northern half of Tilles, but not within the borders of the province of North Tilles."

"Got it," Jim said, passing the girls their drinks. "Go on."

"No, wait, I'd like to ask one other thing," Liz said. "Selez - that's a part of your family name, right Rath?"

"Yeah," Rath explained. "That's part of the political stuff - the first Liaretian kings on the throne didn't want to keep province names that were based off the noble families that had controlled their Regional Assemblies."

"Oh, so the dynasty's only been going for four generations or so at this point?" Maria asked. "I guess I hadn't realized that."

"I had," Jim said. "And with all due respect, I'd rather if this conversation didn't stray any further into an Antarian history lesson just now."

"That's fine," Maria said. "Go on."

"Well, umm." Shelda shook her head, trying to find her place. "There was a stone pillar about a mile outside of town - some flukey geological thing, like a very small plateau about forty feet high and maybe a hundred yards across, with a few shrubs and grasses growing on top of it. For some of the young people in my neighborhood, it was a coming of age challenge to go out there and climb up the side of the thing without using any gear."

"Wasn't that terribly dangerous?" Maria asked.

"Not really," Shelda said. "If you know how to use the power reasonably well, you can catch yourself safely if you fall from a height like that - and it was okay to have somebody watching and 'spotting' you, so that if you couldn't catch yourself with your powers, they could do it for you. But it's a lot harder to use powers to support yourself while you're climbing without making it totally obvious that you're faking it, of course."

"So, did you do it on your first try?" Liz asked Shelda.

"Oh, no - I must have fallen off at least six times, but I refused to give up. Especially after - well, I had my heart set on a boy who was about a year older than me, Pinchan, who'd made it up when he was fourteen, on his first try. He made it very clear that he'd kiss me when I could meet him up on the plateau, having gotten up there by myself."

"I guess there's nothing like having a strong motivation," Jim said, laughing. "So you got up there after trying for maybe the seventh time?" Shelda nodded. "And did things with Pinchan ever come to more than a kiss?"

"Well, yes," Shelda admitted. "Not that much further, though - he liked me well enough, but - I guess after a few months of... of a very informal courtship, I suppose..."

"Dating, roughly," Liz put in. "In Earth slang, at least, that seems to fit."

"What do palm fruits have to do with courting?" Shelda asked.

"Sorry - translator must be getting a bit screwy," Maria put in. "Dates, as in specific social occasions between two people who have a romantic interest in each other... though 'dating' has become the term even when there aren't formal dates. Never mind, go ahead describing the courtship your way."

Shelda shook her head in confusion. "Yes - well, as Pinchan and I got to know each other, we realized that there were certain aspects of our personalities that didn't fit that well together - nothing that we couldn't have worked through together, at least in theory, but... well, I had a family example of a relationship going wrong, and because of that I guess I got scared of. In fact, I backed away from several fine young men before I realized that I needed to come to terms with my deep-seated fears if I was ever going to find myself a mate."

"A family example?" Jim prompted. "Was that your parents?"

"No, your older sister, right?" Rath put in. "Ava's mother?"

"Yes," Shelda muttered.

"Oh, Max told me a little about that," Liz said. "How she bonded early with a guy who wasn't right for her, and they even had a child together, Ava's older half-brother, and how they needed to get their bond severed by a specialist, which left the half-brother without any natural tie to his birth father."

"Ava told Max about all that?" Rath said, sounding surprised.

"Yeah, last night I guess. They talked very late out in the garden, along with Michael and the Doctor."

"So, anyway, because I was trying to avoid Ardra's mistakes with Carrin, I ended up blundering into my own," Shelda said in a very little voice.

There was a pause, and then Maria said, "Do you ever wonder if Zan's really a good match for Ava?"

Shelda turned to stare at her. "Well, they're not going to be Zhorva, like her mother was. You just need to look at them to see that."

"No, I guess not," Jim agreed. "Or at least, I'll take your word for it, because I don't really follow this Zhorva stuff myself. But when I met Kyle's mother... Michelle was pretty, and she thought that I was handsome, and we were both a little lonely and looking for somebody to love. That was enough for us for several years. But it wasn't enough to last, and one morning she just headed off for someplace new. I can tell how much that's hurt my son over the years, that his mother didn't love him, or me, enough to stay in our lives. And marrying Zan - if Ava and Zan do agree to take that step, is something that Ava's not likely to be able to walk away from. Do you think that their love will be enough for a lifetime?"

This time the silence was thick enough that it seemed you could poke a knife into it and thus support the knife at any point in the air you pleased. Liz wondered if her friends had gone too far, but at least it seemed that they'd managed to find an avenue through which Isabel could find out more by dreamwalking Shelda - if the woman didn't suspect them or couldn't block Isabel out of her sleeping subconscious.

"I... I don't know. I hope that they'll be okay - if they do get married, I mean," Shelda muttered finally. She sounded more stricken and uncomfortable than suspicious, Liz realized - as if Valenti's example had really struck home. Great, the last thing they really needed, to do something that actually might change the Royal Four's future. "I mean, my mate and I - we're not that different from the way you described yourself Michelle, Jim. But we're still doing okay, at least so far. Not all of us are lucky enough to find the big love, the crazy soulmate thing, and have to find somebody who we can live with and have families together as best we can."

"Maybe you're right," Liz said, feeling horribly guilty because she had found that, in Max. But she needed to reassure Shelda about that - or she might find Max pulled away from her by the cruel forces of the space-time continuum. "Maybe we should change the subject to something a little bit less - upsetting?"

"Sure," Shelda agreed very quickly. "Mister Valenti, do you have something less depressing to share with us?"

"As it happens, I think that I do," Jim said, with a big grin. "Just recently, I've found somebody new - probably not a crazy soulmate, but I think that we do love each other very much. We're planning to get married in two months, once the summer season starts back home."

"Oh, how lovely," Shelda exclaimed. "Who is it?"

"My mom," Maria said, with a resigned and tolerant smile for her stepfather-to-be. "The one who showed up yesterday afternoon."

"Marvelous," Shelda said. "I didn't realize that the two of you were - romantically involved. Did you and Kyle meet before your parents were engaged?"

"Yes," Maria said. "But they knew each other when they were my age, and then lost track of each other for years." She cocked her head at Jim. "Do you want to tell her the whole story, from almost running my mom over on?"

-------------

The knocking went unanswered for almost a minute before Alex finally dragged himself to the door and let Maria and Liz in. "Did something happen to Jim?"

"He just went to keep his fiancee company," Maria told him. "Why do you have the lights turned out?"

"Because I was trying to get some sleep, since you were taking forever," Isabel grumbled from the direction of the bed.

"Well, we're here now," Liz said. "And we've got something for you, but you're going to have to be careful that Shelda doesn't take any particular notice of your dream, if you can." She stepped past Alex and pushed the pressure spot that flooded the bedroom with light.

Alex and Isabel both groaned at the sudden illumination, and Isabel picked up a pillow and threw it towards Liz's head. Liz caught the projectile with no particular difficulty. "Why careful?" Isabel asked.

"Well, it almost seemed to me that Shelda was feeling - regretful about Ava and Zan being together when Jim brought up the question of if they were a good match. If she really is pushing her niece towards a Royal Marriage, we don't want her to actually back off now, just to know about it for later."

"No, I guess we don't," Isabel muttered. "Okay, I'll do what I can. Is that it?"

"No," Maria said. "Here comes some of the rest." Max and Michael filed in through the still-open door, and closed it behind them. "How much do you remember of what Ava told you last night about her mother's Zhorva young love affair?"

"A fair bit I guess, why?" Max said, sitting down on the dresser-top next to Liz and hugging her shoulders with one arm.

"Because that's the key to Shelda's guilt and regret," Liz said. "Isabel's going to need to figure out how to get close enough to it to get the answers we need for Tess, while not pushing that open wound hard enough to rewrite history."

"Oh, joy," Isabel muttered. "Okay, first, before you start with the explanations that I'm going to need to remember, somebody hand me my light brown carry-on bag. I stashed half a bag of M&M's in there, and I need the caffeine fix now if I ever did."

TO BE CONTINUED...
Read my other roswell stories!

"A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it. If the Rowan tree's roots are shallow, it bears no crown." From 'the farthest shore', Ursula LeGuin.

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Chrisken
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Re: Children of the Molecule (DW XO CC, Teen) Pt. 24 Jan 20

Post by Chrisken »

Part 25

Isabel blinked when she was first struck by a bright, hot sun shining down into her face and along the front of her body. "Oh, hello Isabel. Do you have any idea why we're here?"

At first Isabel couldn't help but cringe when she recognized Shelda Devensee's voice and knew that Ava's aunt had recognized her. She was supposed to be surreptitiously inside the dream of Ava's Antarian Aunt, and so far seemed to be earning zero points out of ten for stealth. However, when she looked over at Shelda, and found an Antarian girl who seemed to be at most her own nineteen years, she didn't see any suspicion at all in that innocent face.

Shelda had to still have some of her adult memories, if she had identified Isabel, but apparently didn't seem to think anything was odd about seeing some Earth girl who she had just met in a dream of her childhood. Dreams could certainly be at least that jumbled sometimes - Isabel knew that much from personal experience. "Umm, I don't even know where we are," Isabel said without thinking it through, and then decided that pretending ignorance could go even further than admitting it honestly. "Or who you are. What happened to Roswell?"

"Umm... that's a long story," Shelda said, with a private smile. "We're at the rock of Nairda, near the city where I grew up in the province of Bubozif."

Isabel couldn't keep from laughing. "You're not making up those names, are you?"

"No!" Shelda insisted. "Keep quiet, you're just an Earth girl who wouldn't even understand my language without the TARDIS thing - and if you weren't a fragment of my dream."

"Gotcha," Isabel agreed. "I'll keep quiet - for now." To herself, she wondered if being inside Shelda's dream was indeed confusing her understanding of the Antarian language, or providing a translation that worked in a different way from the TARDIS. Had the time lords who had devised the translation field planned for it to cover dream-walking?

"No, I guess you don't have to do that," Shelda said with a sigh. "I appreciate the company, actually - just, try not to ask stupid questions, okay?"

"Gotcha."

There was a long silence. "Which means that I'll have to start the conversation by rambling, I suppose," Shelda continued, wandering towards the rock. "I guess it's natural that I should dream of being back here, after talking with Rath and your friends about climbing up this way and about meeting Pinchan."

"Okay." Isabel considered. "How does being here make you feel? I hope that that's not a stupid question."

"Well, no, but it sounds terribly like something that a psychologist might ask you about a dream in a session, isn't it? Getting asked the question inside the dream is something like irony."

"Maybe a little," Isabel said. "Somehow I'm surprised that you have psychologists on Antar - and irony."

"Some things are nearly universal," Shelda remarked. "Well, I feel uneasy, as if this rock is representing more than just my past with Pinchan, but some other deep dark secret that I haven't been willing to admit to myself." She reached out to touch the rough surface of the cliff, which was reasonably full of appendage-holds. "And I'm not in a mood to hide from my own secrets tonight, so what do you say, Isabel? Up to the top or give it our all trying, and see what's there when we make it?"

"Umm... I'm up for it if you are," Isabel muttered. "Can't say that I'm good with climbing when I'm awake. Is it true that if you hit the ground when you're dreaming, you die of a heart attack?"

"I don't know, but I don't intend to let myself hit," Shelda said, taking two handholds, then one foothold and another. Isabel nodded and waited, deciding that she'd be best off taking the same route that Shelda had chosen after her, instead of trying to find a parallel track up.

Climbing up the rock face in a dreamscape was somehow surreal for Isabel, as if her fear of falling had been turned off, and though the weight of her body as she was hanging on felt more or less normal, she missed her footing several times, and was able to recover it in a way that seemed as if an invisible force was helping her out, though maybe that was just because she didn't have enough experience climbing to know when you really could get a second chance like that.

In just a few minutes, Shelda was hauling herself up over the edge, (and showing Isabel way too much of an Antarian posterior in tight pantaloons at the same time,) and Isabel hurried to follow. As she struggled to her feet, something was immediately wrong when compared to her expectations. For one thing, they were inside a room, or possibly just half a room in half a house, bisected by the cliff.

Well, when in doubt, ask the dreamer. "Where are we? Shelda, do you recognize this place?"

Shelda looked around and shuddered. "This - uh, it's none of your business. What are you doing in my dream anyway, Isabel Evans?"

Isabel smiled slightly to herself. She knew how to spot when someone was scared of having the truth come out, from years of experience. Apparently the signs weren't so difficult to recognize even for another species. "That's not going to work, Shelda. If I'm here, it's because I need to be here for you to face your dark secrets." Would Shelda believe that? "You're going to have to answer my questions. If you don't want to tackle where, then here's another one." She pointed at a cute little Antarian rug-rat, dressed in a pretty light blue jumper, crawling on his hands and knees through a doorway towards them. "Who's he?"

Shelda chuckled. "She. Who'd dress up a baby boy in blue?"

"Guess that's a cultural gap," Isabel muttered to herself. "Okay, then, who is she?"

"Probably Ava," Shelda said with a fond smile. "This is the house that her parents lived in for the first four years of her life, or at least part of it. The real house wasn't built on a mesa top with walls open to the cliff edge."

"Yeah, I should hope not," Isabel said, walking over to pick baby Ava up. "So why were you scared to tell me about this place? Is there some bad memory that is rooted here?"

"No, nothing bad ever happened in this house," Shelda insisted. "We should stay right here and finish the dream."

"Yeah, right," Isabel muttered. If Shelda's panic reaction was leading them to stay in the house, then whatever she was afraid of wasn't here, surely enough, but it had to be close. Maybe in the neighborhood that the house had been a part of. Dream rules being what they were, there was no guarantee that if Isabel went out the front door of the house, she'd actually find the neighborhood. It had been a mismatch that had brought them here, after all, and the dream house could be on top of the mesa with Shelda's old sweetie waiting for her, or in a jungle, or just about anything else. But she didn't want to hang around somewhere that Shelda Dervensee thought was safe.

It took her a lot of tries to find the front door, and Isabel ran into other dream figures along the way, including family members who weren't exactly happy to find a stranger holding their little daughter/sister, but eventually Isabel found the door, the entire Dervensee clan trailing at her heels now, and pushed the button to slide it open, wondering just what she'd find.

"Don't do that!" Ava's mother yelled, and started rummaging in a chest of drawers near the door. But it was too late to stop the door from opening, and the scene that greeted Isabel was indeed a small-town neighborhood, with a few differences that she could see.

First, there was the thick fog, white with a blueish tinge, which seemed to blow through in uneven clouds, and completely masked anything more than half a block away. Everybody out walking in the fog, from elderly couples walking arm in arm with one cane on either side, to the little boys who stood a few feet high, were wearing some kind of gas masks strapped to their faces, and all of them, with the possible exception of the little boys, seemed to be very focused on where they were going.

A wheeled vehicle drove down between the sidewalks, and Isabel peered at it through the fog. The driver and passenger didn't appear to be wearing masks, but the entire vehicle seemed much bulkier than an Earth car, or the comparable vehicles that she'd seen at Brok Bay. Puzzled, she stepped over the threshold, trying to get a better look, and immediately started coughing and wheezing as she breathed in the foggy air. In her arms, little Ava started to cry and squirm herself.

Belatedly taking the hint, Isabel rushed back inside the house and blindly stabbed for the button that would close the door again. Once she had her breath back, she turned to Ava's mother, who had pulled something out of a drawer that extended sideways out of the chest and was holding it out to her.

It was a gas mask.

"What the heck is going on out there?" Isabel demanded, throwing her free arm in the direction of the door.

------------

"Uh-oh," Alex muttered, as Isabel's catatonic body started to tremble and shake in distress. "I think that the dream's getting into a bad bit."

"Should we try to snap her out of it?" Liz asked, biting her lower lip as her brown eyes filled with worry.

"No," Alex insisted. "Not for something like this. I don't think that there's anything in Shelda's dream that could actually hurt her, and if there is - then there'll be a clearer sign than this. She told me once that when dreams take a bad turn is usually where she learns the best details. I'm not sure if she was thinking of this kind of situation, but it makes some kind of sense."

"Alright," Max said. "I do hope that Isabel manages to find something out, because she's really our only lead left."

"We could try dropping in on the rest of Ava's family," Liz suggested. "Finding them might be a bit of a pain, but still. There's no hard and fast rule that we have to go back to the present to meet Tess as soon as we leave Brok Bay."

"The Doctor might have something to say about that," Alex pointed out. "I think that he planned out this little jaunt to minimize the chances of interfering with the past, and still we've had two close calls, as I make it - Vilandra's ghost and Aunt Shelda."

"Yeah, you may be right," Max said. "If the Doctor says that we pull out of Antar's past, then we go." He cocked his head. "Did anybody tell him what we were trying with the dream walking?"

"I don't know," Liz said, looking over at Isabel, who had started to quiet down. "What's his Time-Lordiness up to, anyway?"

"Not sure, aside from keeping watch over the TARDIS and pretending that he's keeping an eye on the power cells," Alex pointed out. "But wasn't Kyle last seen going over to check and see if Rose was in there with him? He would have been able to bring them both up to speed on the plan."

"Did we know the whole plan the last time Kyle was around?" Liz asked. "I thought that was when we were going over to casually chat with Shelda, so nobody had come up with the plan to dreamwalk her yet."

"No, we knew that she might have to dreamwalk to follow up any leads that you got from talking to her," Max replied. "But maybe somebody should go to update the Doctor with what's happened since then." He sighed to himself. "It's been a long day, and a long evening."

"I don't think that anybody should go running off quite yet," Alex pointed out. "Isabel's coming 'round."

"She is?" Max asked. Isabel didn't seem to be obviously shaking off her dreamwalker's trance yet, her finger still on a borrowed portable communicator with which Jim Valenti had captured a visual image of Shelda Dervensee.

Liz chuckled. "Give Alex a little credit for understanding your sister more deeply than you do by now, dear."

"That much, I have no problems admitting," Max laughed. "I certainly wouldn't want to be as intimate with her as Alex is."

"Trust me, none of us want that," Isabel mumbled, and one of her eyes flicked open. "Okay, I think that I've got the details. Hopefully, I also managed to end the dream in a way that won't make Shelda back off on her level of pressure with Ava."

"Is this going to make me feel guilty about letting the past fulfill itself?" Max asked her.

"I don't think so - it's a bit of a noble goal, though possibly impractical. Let's see, umm." Isabel coughed, and crawled into Alex's arms. "Something to drink first would be good. Not that Rynec stuff."

Liz went to fetch a glass of water. Isabel took a sip, rinsed her mouth out with it, looked around for a moment as if wishing that she had something to spit out into, and then reluctantly swallowed. Liz stifled a snicker.

"Don't rush yourself, honey," Alex advised.

"I'll try not to. Let's see. There's a large town over on Breoll, where Ava's family lived for a few years - actually, she may have been born there, I'm not sure. Miserable little place, even by Breoll standards. It's a mining town, and there are poisonous gases that come out of the mine shaft and hang around the entire area, like this blue-tinged fog. I saw the stuff, in Shelda's dreams... she wasn't living with them at the time, it was just Ava's parents and siblings, including her half brother, but Shelda visited."

"Why did they build a town there?" Alex asked.

"Money and power, I guess it comes down to. I didn't really understand what they were mining, but it's something that was only found at that one spot on all known planets, and very valuable, partly because of that scarcity. And the mines are big enough that there need to be a lot of workers, and processing plants reasonably close. Some of the mine workers have their families live away from the mine town and the gas, but some of them can't afford to, and some of the families don't want to. It's pretty safe, as long as your house is properly air-conditioned and you're careful about wearing gas masks outside and all of that stuff, but still, it seems a pretty shitty way to live to me.

"That's where Ava's parents came in. They went there to try and improve living conditions for the worker families, and I guess part of the reason that they brought their kids was to inspire the trust and confidence of the Breoll workers - they don't just say that the new kind of houses they're putting up are more reliably gas-tight, they brought their own children to live in one of them, that kind of thing. But in the end, there wasn't as much that they could do for those Breoll as they'd hoped, and after they got back home to Antar, the Dervensees came up with a different plan, but there was at least one big problem with it."

"Well, don't keep us hanging," Max muttered when Isabel trailed off awkwardly.

"It was something that would take royal approval," Liz guessed. "The Granilith maybe, or just top-level diplomatic access, since changing the local conditions around such an important mine could be considered interference over Breoll sovereignty."

"Both of the above." Isabel took another drink of the water. "Still, it was just an idle notion, as the kids grew up, until something else happened. There was an accident of some sort in part of town, with the air conditioning failing, and an old safety device malfunctioned. Several hundred Breeolyn, and a few visitors, are stuck in time-stasis now, on the point of suffocating to death. Nobody can turn off the stasis without letting them die, so they're just stuck in limbo. The Granilith is probably the only thing that can save those people's lives, but the Breoll government won't ask King Sanren if he'll help them. And the rest of the safety equipment in town is just getting worse and worse."

"So what happened then?" Alex asked. "Do you know how much the older Dervensees connived to get influence over the Granilith, and the royal family?"

"That's still a little bit unclear," Isabel admitted. "I've got part of Shelda's version of events. She was the one who first really paid attention to the fact that Zan was around the same age as Ava, and that they were both starting to go through Antarian puberty at the time. She did arrange for Ava to visit the seaside town with her girlfriends from school, at the same time as Zan would be there, but claims that she didn't do anything else to make sure that they would meet. And I couldn't really get a straight answer about how much she did to encourage Ava after hearing that she and Zan had met."

"Okay." Max stepped close to the bed, and reached out to touch Isabel on the arm for a moment. "Thanks for stepping up, Isabel. You did well." He sighed. "Okay, now somebody should go to catch the Doctor up to speed, and probably that means you at least, since you've got the direct information. Any preference for who you want to go with you?"

"Oh, come on Max," Isabel edged away from Alex and lay her head down on the fluffy pillow. "Any of you can take the secondhand news to whoever you like, and I'll debrief anybody in the morning. Preferably either over breakfast, or after breakfast. But me needs sleep right now."

Max, Liz, and Alex exchanged looks. "Though she hasn't asked for you specifically, I think that having her Alexxy to snuggle with will keep Isabel happier, and the last thing we need is for her to get any crankier tonight," Liz said with a smile. "Max, I think that we can relay the update before hitting the sack. What do you think?"

"That we should get out of their room, immediately if not sooner," Max chimed in. "Goodnight, and we'll see you both at breakfast."

"Bye now, sweet dreams," Alex said, waving and stretching out under the light covers next to Isabel.

Max and Liz let themselves out via the balcony doors.

------------

Kyle woke up with a headful of blonde hair in his face, and smiled to himself. "Hey, are you up already?" he whispered.

"Do I look as if I'm up, Valenti? I'm right down here with you."

"Yes, but I guess that answers the question I was really asking." Kyle stretched his legs out on the bed slightly. "I guess that I'm a little bit surprised that we made it to daybreak without getting woken about some new development on the Aunt Shelda thing."

"Well, you weren't sending out 'Hey, come talk if you have questions or need help' signals last night," Rose pointed out, stretching her arms out, one of them running along his side. "But I guess that we're not going to learn anything more until we go out for breakfast."

"Well, not unless we have something to learn from each other." Kyle sat up, got his feet oriented properly to slide into slippers, and reached out for a robe. "What's going on with us, Rose? I mean, from your perspective. I could have sworn that you were really into me, and then yesterday, just before the naming day party, it was like something made you cool off."

"Well, yeah, I guess that something did." Rose admitted. "I don't remember exactly when it was offhand, but you kissed me, and somehow I guess I could see something from deep inside you. I'm not sure if that's because Max healed you and you're partially alien now, or maybe I'm a little bit psychic myself now from travelling so much with the Doctor. I don't suppose that really matters."

"So what was this thing that you saw, that was enough to make you drop me like a hot potato? Did you get a flash of the way I used to treat girls? Or maybe it was just that I seem so young and immature, compared to a woman like you."

"Neither," Rose whispered softly. "Well, there was one other girl, but not one that you treated badly, as far as I could tell. And she might have treated you better than she did, but there's still a piece of your heart that's true to her, after all this time."

"Dammit." Kyle flopped down into the desk chair. "Tess. I really didn't want to hear that, from you. I don't want to even like her anymore, after the stunt that she pulled."

"Is - is it okay if I ask about the two of you?" Rose's voice was soft and her face very sympathetic. "I mean, I've picked up some of the broad strokes of how she fit into the rest of the gang, but..."

"I asked her to our junior prom," Kyle muttered, wondering if this would be relevant to what Rose wanted to know. "I finally admitted to myself that night that I liked her like that, that I might be falling in love with her. And she told me that I was like a brother to her. Then Liz went looking for Max and found him kissing Tess. Max had been Liz's date, too."

"Oh," Rose muttered. "That must have been hard for both of you."

"Yeah. And it was a few weeks later that I saw Max walking Tess home - the next day at school they were holding hands walking down the hall and everything, and soon enough the word was going around in the group that Tess was pregnant."

"Wow." Rose took a deep breath. "Did she say anything to you before she left?"

"Not really," Kyle admitted. "There wasn't much time before the Granilith launched, and the four of us had just rushed up to the pod chamber to let Max and the others know how Tess had used Alex to make sure that she had a way home, and that he was in bad shape as the mindwarp wore off. There was a lot of arguing about that, and if Tess had arranged the whole thing to steal the Granilith for anybody, and no time for anything else."

"Right." Rose took a deep breath. "Well, as much fun as it might have been to take the next step with you, it's looking like the timing's not so great. Once the Aunt Shelda thing is worked out, we're off to face Tess, and you'll be able to get some closure if that's what you want - but then the Doctor and I will be heading off for some other place and time. I mean, unless you want me to ask him if he'd consider taking you with us, at least for a while. He's done that before, but I'm not even sure if that's what you'd want."

Kyle considered that. "I'll think on it, but I'm not sure I need to get mixed up with other aliens like that."

"Fair enough." Rose started to pull on a set of cute sweats. "Now, let's see about breakfast."

------------

"Could you pass me the tea biscuits, please," Maria asked her mother.

"I think that these are scones, not biscuits dear," Amy said, but she handed the plate down the table. "Oh, say, are those birds of some sort?" She pointed out in the direction of the bay, where the orange Antarian sun had just risen.

"I can't tell in this light," Jim muttered, trying to shade his face from the bright light with one hand and still look at the tiny little black flying specks in the distance.

"Zan and Vilandra mentioned some kind of flying amphibians living out by the bay," Michael said. "Not that big, but maybe pigeon-sized. Oh hey, we've got two more. Good morning, Valenti junior, and good morning Doctor's companion."

"Hi there," Kyle said, waving at the breakfast gathering.

"Sit down and help yourself," Amy invited. "The breakfast buffet isn't Antarian cooking, and we're not sure who arranged for it."

"It could have been the Antarians, Miz Deluca," Kyle told her. "They did a pretty good job with cheeseburgers and French fries - that was before you came over."

"Could have been, honey, but it's not," Rose countered, patting Kyle on the shoulder and then taking a seat on the patio table. "I recognize the flair if not the spread. This would be the work of a one-man operation that you could call 'TARDIS Catering.'"

"The Doctor?" Jim asked.

"Actually, yeah, that kind of fits," Michael said. "He had us inside the TARDIS for breakfast one morning on Kaalto, and yeah, it was a bit like this - full English breakfast style."

"Okay, that's okay by me," Kyle said, lifting a dish cover in the center of the table. Inside were a large number of waffles, warm and crisp. He transferred two over to his plate and started looking around for some maple syrup. "Where's everybody else?"

"Well, let's see," Jim passed his son a little glass bottle full of thick dark brown liquid. "Max and Liz are presumably in their room, Alex and Isabel likewise. We haven't checked on any of them yet. And the Doctor hasn't put in an appearance while any of us have been up, and nobody's mounted an expedition down to the TARDIS to check there for him."

"So you just got up, found breakfast, and fell to?" Rose put in with a smile.

"More or less," Amy admitted.

"Michael and I went to bed late, and the other four were still up then, more or less," Maria put in. "Isabel was going to dreamwalk Aunt Shelda, and the others were planning to wait up and see what she found out."

"Okay," Jim said, nodding. "I remember somebody mentioning the dreamwalking plan, but not those details I think. So I guess none of us know how the dream went."

"I suspect it went well, if the Doctor went to all of this trouble," Rose said, waving at the breakfast spread and smiling. "A bit of a celebration, and maybe also figuring that we wouldn't need Earth food any more, so we might as well enjoy it now."

"But we're not going back to Earth straight away, are we?" Amy asked. "I thought that the plan was to go to Tess' moon." Rose just shrugged in reply.

There was some silent munching. "That is indeed the idea, Miz DeLuca," a voice suddenly announced from down over the edge of the patio, and soon the Doctor's head popped up as he climbed the last few rungs of the wall ladder. "So perhaps I'm being a bit too theatrical in using up my supplies, but why not commemorate the occasion with them. Somehow I'm not sure that we'll be spending as long at Dimares moon as we have at Kaalto and Antar, anyway."

There was a stunned silence as the Doctor strolled over to the table, picked a tater tot out of a heaping bowl of them, dipped it in a smaller bowl of ketchup, and popped it into his mouth. Then Rose chuckled.

"Good news from Isabel's dream?"

"Nuh-uh." The Doctor spun around playfully and waggled his finger in Rose's direction. "That's not the right possessive. It was Shelda's dream; Isabel was just dropping in for a visit. But the news was definitely good, though I'd like to hear a bit of it straight from the... oh, no." The Doctor took a seat opposite Rose, his face almost comically pensive. "I wouldn't want to say 'straight from the horse's mouth'; it's hardly very complimentary to such a talented young woman. Straight from the messenger?"

"Straight from the source?" Amy offered.

"Well, is Isabel the source, or just the relay to the true source, which was Aunt Shelda?" The Doctor asked. "Then again, if a relay or a messenger is good enough, why not Max and Liz who relayed from Isabel to me?"

"Straight from Isabel?" Kyle suggested, and the Doctor sighed at such a prosaic turn of phrase.

"Straight from the witness," Valenti volunteered, and the Doctor snapped fingers at him, delighted by that one. "Yes, I thought that it fits. Isabel directly witnessed, while Max and Liz were just relaying hearsay."

"Well, come on, what's the hearsay?" Michael asked. "The rest of us haven't heard anything at all."

But the Doctor just shrugged and scooped himself out a bowl of the porridge and picking out things to sprinkle into it.

------------

It wasn't too long before Isabel emerged to give them all the recap of her dream. Max, Liz, and Alex also came out for breakfast at around the same time, bringing the entire Earth/Gallifrey party together out on the patio. Everybody who hadn't already heard the details listened quietly until Isabel was done.

The first to comment afterwards was Michael. "Okay, so how does this help us with Tess?"

"I'm not sure," Max admitted. "It depends on if Tess has already figured this much or more out about Ava's background. If not..."

"What have I, against your men, your mental powers, and yes, even the Granilith, which is stronger than anything that I have ever dreamed of possessing?" the Doctor asked softly. "Why, nothing, except a little grain, such a little grain of knowledge, that even yet you do not possess. Now you see it and now you don't." He looked around the table and grinned at all of his new friends. "Knowledge is always powerful. Trust me on this. Whether Tess knows this same thing about Ava's background that we do or not, we're the stronger for having learned it."

"That much makes sense to me," Amy admitted, her head cocked slightly. "Especially since it seems that she put so much stock in Ava's and Zan's story, more than the rest of you have. So, on a more practical note, what now? Just go say our final goodbyes to the Royal family and the hangers-on, and pile all into the TARDIS?"

Max looked over at Liz, who shrugged. "I don't see that there's any more unfinished business keeping us at Brok Bay."

------------

As breakfast was winding up, Vilandra came out to the patio to pay a courtesy call on the visitors, a little brother and sister trailing in her wake. She asked the Doctor how the repairs or recharging of the TARDIS was going, and he gave her the good news that they were ready to make their departure at just about any time.

The news spread quickly, and there was a sizable group of the usual suspects gathered around the courtyard an hour later to give the visitors a royal sendoff. Ava rushed forward to hug Liz goodbye, which took Liz a little by surprise. "Thank you all so much, for your help with the party and everything."

Liz giggled and nudged the Antarian girl in the side. "How did your special private night go with Zan?"

"We both had a really great time." She flushed slightly blue. "Not *that* great or anything, if you know what I mean. It was just nice to talk with him and have a dinner and some music in private, without needing to worry about chaperones."

"Sounds pretty great to me," Max muttered, and Liz smiled, patting Ava's shoulder reassuringly.

"My turn, I suppose," the Doctor said, just loudly enough to help everybody pretend that they hadn't heard Ava's whispering. "Your Majesties, Your Highnesses, and all. I'd like to formally thank you for your hospitality in the names of the Time Lords of Gallifrey. Don't worry; the formality doesn't require that I list off all of their names."

Sanren nodded at the Doctor, with a smile on his face, and offered him his hand. "Not many Kings, even, get a chance to spend a few days with a living legend, Doctor," he said. "You're not just any Time Lord. It's clear from the research that I've been able to, that the Doctor is one of a kind." He paused. "Unless that's a ruse, and there are really dozens of you who just call yourselves the same thing."

The Doctor snickered, and Rose smiled a private smile. "I can assure you, Your Majesty, that there's only one of me, though sometimes you might occasionally see more than one, through a trick of the light. We've all had a great few days, but really should be leaving, unless there's somebody else who needs to say something..."

"Oh, you're not getting away quite that easily," Queen Alinda said severely. "Not without a proper send-off line." There were a few blank stares from the Roswellian contingent, and not even the Doctor quite knew what she meant by this. "Line up, all of you." Alinda gestured to indicate a straight line through the area where most of the guests were already standing, in front of the TARDIS.

Once their line was straight, the Brok Bay hosts formed a second line of their own, with Sanren and Alinda in the lead, followed by Zan and Ava, Vilandra and Rath, the younger prince and princesses, Larek, Shelda, and a few other notable persons. Sanren stepped up to Kyle, who was at one end of the Roswellian line. "Farewell, Kyle Valenti, and may the best of fortune follow you until the end of your days."

Kyle paused only a moment before reflex courtesy took over. "Goodbye, Your Majesty, and thank you for making us so welcome here in your palace. I shall bear good word of your grace and kindness, wherever I go."

Sanren smiled and moved on to Rose, standing next to Kyle, and kissed her on one cheek, while Kyle came up with a departing wish for Alinda. As she waited for the Royal couple to reach them, Liz was struck with the irony of acting out another Earth ritual from wedding traditions, in a very different alien context - this was the receiving line, but sort of backwards. (Even to the name, as in receiving and sending.) And an odd thought struck her - if any of them actually lived to go through an alien wedding ceremony, how weird would that be - for her to join her life with Max, say, in a day full of alien customs instead of the American wedding day that she'd sort of come to expect.

Then she wondered what had made her think about that. They would be going back to Earth as soon as they'd been to see Max, wouldn't they?

Then Sanren was wishing peace and dreams on Max, and Liz shook herself, realizing that she'd be up to face the full lineup next.

-----------

"Alright, finally ready to get on our way?" the Doctor called as Isabel slipped in through the TARDIS doors and closed them behind her. Rose had unlocked the time box after she and Kyle had finished with the sendoff line, and one by one the others had followed them inside.

"Yup," Isabel agreed. "All present and accounted for, and if anybody left luggage behind, that's just too bad."

There was a pause for anybody else to complain even so, and then the Doctor started to work the Time Vortex controls. "Last chance for anybody to speak up for a side trip back to Earth, for any reason. Anybody at all?" There was no answer. "Alright, setting co-ordinates for Dimares moon, local equivalent of April second, 2002."

Amy shook herself slightly and clung tightly to Jim's side as the distorted vworp vworp sound began. Liz didn't really feel disturbed, even though this was only her second trip in the TARDIS, but having an excuse to snuggle up to Max looked fun, so she pulled his arm around her shoulders and nestled in tight, grinning a big grin. And then it was like the police box crashed and bounced.

Everybody was either knocked off their feet by the first impact Liz looked up to see the Doctor struggling back to the controls. "What's going wrong this time?" Rose yelled at him.

"There's something fighting the TARDIS engines," the Doctor reported. "If I didn't know better, I'd call it one of the Time Lord banishment fields - but that's almost impossible." The control chamber shook again, violently, but this time the Doctor stayed at the controls. "The Arton power cells are discharging fast - as if that's the karmic payback I get for telling a tall tale about them." He pushed one of the levers up higher. "If we can't break free in another thirty seconds, then I'll have to back away and figure out what the hell's going on."

"Maybe that would be a good thing to do right now," Max suggested, a worried frown on his face, his fingers clenching at Liz's hand. But then, there was a different sensation, one of motion without motion, and Liz caught the impression of unimpeded flight for a few seconds, then the entire TARDIS shook with a hard landing. A few faint 'vworps' sounded from somewhere nearby, as if an afterthought.

"Did we make it to Dimares," Michael asked weakly.

"We'd better see," Max said after the Doctor didn't comment, just frowning at the TARDIS controls. Rose opened the doors for them, and all the Roswellian kids piled out of the police box into a very different courtyard than the one that they had just left at Brok Bay. Walls of yellow-white metal stretched twenty-five feet high in two directions. Above, an orange-yellow sun gleamed in a bright sky that shone with highlights of green through purple.

And maybe fifty feet ahead of the TARDIS doors, a giant glowing cone was lying with its curved surface resting on the uneven stone cobbles. Its surface didn't look like the Granilith had when it was in the pod chamber, but there was no way to mistake the size and shape of the artifact.

As everybody stared at the Granilith, somewhat dumbfounded, the Doctor emerged and checked on the molding at the bottom of the TARDIS. "That's odd," he muttered. "Usually it'd park itself against one of the walls, if possible, not just in the middle of nowhere like this. Then again, that certainly isn't nothing."

"Damn it all to hell, one minute too late," a familiar voice called out. Liz looked around in surprise, and then Max gently guided her around the side of the TARDIS. A blonde woman about Liz's height stood there, dressed in a floor-length long sleeved light rose gown, with a tiara of gold and pastel-pink gems in her hair. To anybody who didn't know her, she would have looked every inch a princess, or a young queen, but Liz knew Tess Harding and wasn't impressed with however she dressed herself up.

"Yeah, your time's run out," she muttered.

"Well, I kept you and your Time Lord friend away for long enough, but I guess you just wouldn't give up," Tess grumbled. "I could have kept it up for longer, if it hadn't been for that case of food poisoning that Larek gave me - kept me from attending to the Granilith."

"Wait a second, what are you going on about?" Max asked Tess. "You kept us away using the Granilith - for a long time? We only just set out to reach you a few minutes ago."

"Ooh, I get it!" the Doctor exclaimed, coming up behind them. "If Tess set the Granilith, old Time Lord relic that it is, to repel a TARDIS, then it would work, but the TARDIS slipped forward in time, trying to find a gap in the repulsor field. And it did - but then it landed us in our future, without a clear warning. Sorry about that."

"How - how far in our future?" Liz asked. Tess didn't look middle-aged or anything, but she could easily be years or even a decade more mature than when she had left Roswell. It would be hard to tell, especially since she had a rather child-like face for a sixteen year old even when Liz had first met her.

"How old is our daughter now, Tess?" Max asked, cutting to the chase.

TO BE CONTINUED...
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"A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it. If the Rowan tree's roots are shallow, it bears no crown." From 'the farthest shore', Ursula LeGuin.

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Chrisken
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Re: Children of the Molecule (DW XO CC, Teen) Pt. 25 Feb 26

Post by Chrisken »

Part Twenty-six

For a moment, as Tess silently stared at Max, Liz could see perhaps half a dozen emotions flood over her face - fury, despair, regret, sadness, fear, and - well, perhaps that was only five, unless there was another that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Then, her voice filled with resolve, she called out "Hit the gas!"

"Hit what gas?" Max asked, confused, and reached out to grab Tess by the arm, but she spun away to avoid his touch. Then Liz heard a faint hissing sound from somewhere, and thought that she understood. Pulling Max along, she hurried back around the TARDIS and looked for the Doctor.

"Doctor! Does the TARDIS keep out dangerous gases?"

The Doctor, standing in the shadow of the Granilith cone, turned around, and took a moment to clue in. "Yes, if the doors are closed, or if the 'No Problem' device is turned on."

"Where's it coming from?" Michael demanded, whirling around and keeping ahold of Maria much as Liz was holding Max close.

Liz ignored that question, as interested as she was, and pulled at the TARDIS door - but it didn't open. Desperate now to get Max into the only shelter proof against Tess' cunning and clever trap, she scanned the rest of their rag-tag bunch again. The Doctor was jogging her way, but he was still a long way off, and she wasn't sure if he'd be overwhelmed by Tess' gas first. But Rose and Kyle had been much closer, and Rose was bringing out her key to the TARDIS.

Liz was feeling woozy with the gas by the time Rose reached the door and started to fumble with the key. Michael and Isabel had joined forces to try and push the gas away and keep safe air around them, but that tactic didn't seem to be working perfectly, perhaps because of the inherent difficulty of telling different gas molecules apart with their powers.

Finally Rose got the door opened - and a tremendous wave of alien energy knocked her down, along with everybody else who had been waiting near the police box hoping to reach safety inside. Rose didn't get up from the cobbles of the courtyard immediately, or Max and Liz felt her own level of alertness fading. She turned around and saw Tess, on her knees from the gas herself, but a grim look on that round face, and knew that above anything else she couldn't let Tess get inside the TARDIS. Slowly, achingly, she reached out to grab the edge of the open door and push it towards the interior that was so much larger than the outside of the box.

The door swung to meet the other one, which hadn't opened when Rose had unlocked the TARDIS, and remained shut. But what good would that be if Rose and the Doctor were helpless, unable to retain their keys?

But the Doctor had an answer for that, it seemed. "TARDIS," he gasped out. "Lock mode voiceprint." The blue paint seemed to flash very slightly in response.

And then Liz let herself pass out.

------------

For a second, when Liz realized that she was waking up, she really expected to find herself in a decrepit dungeon, or possibly a sterile laboratory for experimentation on living subjects. But when she opened her eyes, the cues didn't make sense. The ceiling was dimly lit from underneath with blue tones, and she appeared to be on a stiff bed with clean sheets. She looked around and saw all of her travelling companions in similar beds, filling up a room that looked like nothing she knew except a children's dormitory in an old movie about boarding school. The only two people standing up in the room were Tess, and a little toddler with light brown hair and hazel eyes, who seemed to be trying to stare in every direction at once.

The girl must be Max's daughter, Liz realized with a shock that twisted her guts painfully for a moment. They'd come expecting to find a baby, but something had gone wrong with that plan, hadn't it? And then, she suddenly remembered the other thing that had gone wrong, with Tess overwhelming them all using gas. Surely she'd done something after subduing unwelcome visitors other than putting them into bed to recover. Liz checked herself and found a thick metal bracelet around her left wrist, with blinking lights of several colors, and when she checked with the fingers of her other hand, Liz couldn't find any easy way to take the thing off. "Okay, Tess, what does this thing do?" she mumbled. "Alien mind control? Torture? Or is this just your way of taking away our abilities?"

"None of those, Liz, not quite," Tess answered. "I'm sorry about all of the dramatics, and I'm not really interested in dominating or hurting anybody any more. Really. I was just afraid of what you'd do to me if you got the chance."

"That's our little Tessie," Alex grumbled sourly. "Do unto others before they do unto you."

"That's not fair," Tess insisted. "If I was giving myself carte blanche to do anything that I expected you'd do to me if you had the chance, I could have locked you in the dungeon, and definitely kept Ardra away from you. But I knew that you'd want to see her, Max."

Liz was about to try and get the subject back to the bracelets, but Max spoke up first. "Thank you, Tess," he said dryly, and Liz thought that she could sense a mix of sincerity and sarcasm in his voice. "I did want to see her very much. That's why I came here, in case you had any doubt. Not for your sake, except inasmuch as I knew that you'd have her with you."

Tess' face darkened into a frown, and Liz decided to seize the initiative before giving Tess a chance to throw a tantrum. "Bracelets? Hello? What's the point??"

"They're to stun you," Tess muttered grumpily. "In case you try to hurt me physically."

"That's pathetic, Tess," Isabel muttered. "You used to be evil. Now you're just paranoid."

"Let's not get down to the name-calling," The Doctor said. "Might never stop until somebody pulls out a temper and a gun. So, Miz Tess Harding, it's somewhat nice to meet you, in the strictest pleasantry sense, but I do hold out hope that it might get nicer. I'm the Doctor, not sure if you'd have heard rumors about me, since you were obviously expecting that Max and his friends might be along sooner or later."

"Yes, of course we've heard rumors," Tess admitted. "A mysterious Time Lord, from a great planet that was lost in a horrible war, who visited one of Larek's little colony planets and sent him word that you'd be coming here next. Larek's over to visit, by the by. He's been coming as often as he could, hoping to be here when you arrive, I think."

"And you didn't keep him away, too?" Liz asked Tess, getting up and sitting next to Max on his bed.

"No, I let him through whenever he wants to come." Tess' smile was both proud and warm. "I like Larek, and I think that he really does like me. Of course, I don't let him take guards with him. I'm not stupid or anything."

"Control freak," Michael muttered under his breath. "You have to have everything your way, on your little moon here, don't you Tess? So, what's the plan now? What does Tess say? You're not going to kill us all, apparently, so what else? Are you going to exile us into our own future, or keep us here forever?"

There was a tense moment of silence, and then the little girl spoke up. "What - what's going on, Mommy? Are these people your friends? Why are they so mad at you??"

Tess' cheeks paled, and she crouched down close to her daughter, who turned around to face her. "Honey - I didn't realize that you'd picked up so much English from me."

"She's in range of the TARDIS' translation field," the Doctor put in.

"Oh, I see." Tess slowly rose to her full height and to what dignity she could manage. "Well, you'll be staying for dinner with Larek, if that's alright. After all, you've come all this way. After we've eaten, maybe it'll be easier to sort out that next step without anybody's temper getting in the way. Including mine."

"We'd love that, Tess," Liz said. "I'm sure that as the Queen of the Moon, you must have a fancy kitchen staff here waiting on your word. Do you think that they can make a Porth'una casserole for the evening table? I've grown somewhat fond of it."

Tess' eyes narrowed slightly, as she gestured that everybody should get up and follow her to the door. "They've never been big on Porth'una at Kaalto township, as far as I can tell, and it's an old-fashioned recipe most places. How did you get a chance to try it, Liz?"

Liz shrugged. "Liz and I didn't go to Kaalto," Max told Tess. "But the Doctor was kind enough to give us a lift to play tourist in the Antar cluster."

"So that's it?" Tess demanded. "You're not going to tell me where specifically?"

"No, not when a little enigma like that could be useful," Max admitted. "Consider it our own little mystery bracelet around your mind, Tess."

Tess harrumphed and led them out of the room.

------------

Tess' dining hall in her palace seemed a little homey, but that was probably just by comparison with the Brok Bay palace that they had left so recently in subjective time, and which had been in ruins for decades in Antar's history.

"Max!" a tall Rahlicx exclaimed as soon as he saw them. "It's been so long since I've seen you - for me, at least, when I'm properly me and not walking around in Brody's shoes."

"Larek!" Max shot back, glad to recognize a name at least, though the face didn't seem quite familiar. As Larek embraced him, Max risked a whisper close to the Autarch's ear. "So, do you remember us from all those years ago?"

Larek nodded. "Brok Bay," he whispered back. "Like I could ever forget the visit of the Time Lord and his friends."

"Tess doesn't know?"

"No, she hasn't accessed that many of Ava's memories yet. Alinda and I are the only ones left."

"Aww, that's so sweet," Tess called out from across the room. "The long-lost best friends, seperated by death, finally reunited in flesh, more or less."

Max drew back a little from Larek's hug and turned to stare at Tess. Larek cleared his throat and spoke with an orator's projecting voice. "Unlike some people, Tess Harding, I'm not trying to recapture what I lost with Zan Liaret by cultivating Max Evans. He's a good friend on his own merits."

Tess forced a smile onto her face. "Why don't we take our seats, and get the appetizers in here?"

Max nodded and took the nearest chair at the table, and found himself between Liz and Michael. He was a little disappointed that Larek went a bit further down the table, but told himself that that didn't matter. The things he really wanted to talk with Larek about would have to wait until Tess wasn't listening, if they could arrange that.

"So, I'm so pleased to meet you, Lady Tess Harding, after coming all this way," the Doctor said, with just the right note of grace and charm. "I've heard a lot of stories about you, as you can probably imagine."

"I deny everything," Tess tossed back, with a mixture of humor and defensiveness. Kyle choked in surprise, and he could see Jim and Amy reacting as well, remembering the time that Tess had used that line in a much happier time.

"Very well, then surely you wouldn't mind the opportunity to get some of your own side on the record," the Doctor continued earnestly. "Particularly, was this always the plan? Taking Max's child and the Granilith to Dimaras moon?"

"This was a backup plan," Tess admitted. "If the others would have come with me, or most of them, then we'd have gone to the Liaret loyalists, just like I said. We could probably have done alright with them without Michael, but I didn't like my chances missing Max or Isabel. Without any of them - they'd have taken the Granilith happily enough, but if Max chose not to come with me then I would be a dishonored bride in their eyes, a disgrace. I figured that I could do better for myself with the Granilith, if I picked a defensible power base without a strong leader."

"And I can't fault her command of political strategy," Larek volunteered.

"What can you fault, Larek?" Alex put in bitterly. "Her choice of priorities?" Larek spread his hands awkwardly, not taking the bait and giving a definite answer.

The dinner continued in awkward little verbal fencing matches from there, but everybody skated through without setting off a full hissy fit or shouting match, "So, what's your pleasure for an evening's entertainment?" Tess asked. "I can call for the minstrels, or we can adjourn to the lounge with the best of the Antarian brandy."

"Well, I hate to decline, but there's the time lag to think about," the Doctor offered. "My internal clock is saying early afternoon still, but I'll be better off tomorrow for retiring early and trying to get some rest."

"Of course, sir," Tess said. "I'll make sure that you're seen to the best guest suites in the residence - king sized beds for two, I presume?"

"That was the arrangement for most of us, in our previous travels," Liz said, smiling. "Of course, Max and I aren't living together yet back home in Roswell - my parents would blow the roof off the building at the very notion. But they don't know anything about what happens on Dimares."

"Right," Maria chimed in to support her best friend. "What about you guys, Kyle, Rose? Doctor?"

"I think you can put me down for a room of my own, with a twin bed," Kyle muttered softly.

"Aww, I'm sorry, sweety," Maria said. Kyle scowled at her, and Rose was starting to blush at the exchange.

"Well, I think that I can room with Miss Tyler," the Doctor put in. "We've done that before. Seperate beds though, I rather think."

"Won't you be sleeping in the TARDIS, Doctor?" Amy put in. "I mean, I know that you locked it as a precaution when Tess... turned on the gas, back in the courtyard, but I think we can trust her that she's not going to steal it, right Tess?"

"Why would I want to take your fancy-dancy Time Lord ship?" Tess asked. "All it can take me is somewhere else or somewhen else. What's wrong with staying here and living in the now?"

"Oh, yeah, right," Liz said. "Harumph. Like it's never crossed your mind, since hearing that time travel is possible, that if you could only go back and tell yourself to go to Roswell before Max met me..."

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that, sweetie," Tess shot back. "I liked Max, back in the day, and I'm glad that he's Ardra's father, because I love her and she wouldn't be herself if she wasn't his daughter, but the fact that he didn't pick me was not the end of my life."

"*In any event,*" the Doctor announced in a commanding voice that pre-empted whatever Liz's reply would have been, "The TARDIS doors stay closed until we're ready to leave Dimares. Just as a precaution."

"Gotcha, Doctor," Max said. "And I'm up for seeing our room and having an early night, as odd as the biological clock makes that. Wouldn't mind having a quiet brandy with you, Larek, and catching up, if you're willing."

"Certainly, Max," Larek agreed.

"Oh - what about you guys, Sheriff, Miz DeLuca?" Tess asked. "Except, oh, you're probably not back to being Sheriff again yet, are you, Mister Valenti?"

"No," Jim said with a little smile. "Amy's helping me sell my furniture, and I've been working security at the Metachem plant."

"Mostly to help us figure out if the management are alien hunters," Michael added.

"What were you going to ask about us, Tess?" Amy said. "Since you didn't get around to a specific question that strayed in my direction."

"Oh - just about, well, the subject of if you'd moved in together, I guess," Tess admitted, smiling slightly. "I notice that you seem very close."

"Oh, umm... no, we haven't actually finalized that step, not until the sale closes on my house," Jim said. "But I've asked her to marry me, and she said yes."

"And while we're here, sharing a room, and a bed, would definitely be very nice," Amy put in. "Thank you so much for asking."

"Okay." Tess sighed. "Isn't anybody going to stay for dessert at least? I wanted to see what you think of our version of Asteroid Pie."

------------

"Here we are," Larek said, handing Max a bottle as he entered the bedroom. "Distilled in the foothills of South Tilles from the best honey melon - but we should all take it easy on the brandy - it's just an excuse, right?"

"I'll stick to rynac, thanks," Liz said, thanking Larek for coming with a silent smile. "Can't touch that stuff on account of the benzenediols, no matter how many powers Max gave me."

"Actually, I'll pour rynac for all of us to start," Max said, gesturing to the table which already had a few tall beakers and little glasses set out. The three of them got settled as Max set out the drinks. "So, well - how've you been, Larek?"

"Doing well enough, I suppose," Larek said, and chuckled softly. "Tess' antics really have stabilized the political situation in the sector, as much as certain people hate that she's lording the Granolith over them, threatening devastating reprisals for any aggressive moves whether they're aimed at Dimares or not. I've been able to do some good over on Rahlicx and appoint capable administrators to the colonies, despite all of the time I've spent here waiting for you to show up."

"Does Tess have a lot of visitors from the other nearby planets?" Liz asked. "Like the other leaders?"

"Well, she's invited nearly everybody over for at least one courtesy call - to establish that she really does have the Granolith and it's not going anywhere," Larek explained. "Kivar didn't get invited back after the first time, which is probably good on Tess' part, again, because I think that his priority on the first visit was to scout out and make plans for later skullduggery. Some of the leaders of the Liaret movement have been more frequent visitors than that, but still, I'm just about the only person who can effectively invite himself over. Tess liked me from the start, as nearly as I can figure."

"Right," Max agreed. "I'm tempted to ask if you've been keeping an eye on developments back on Earth, but..."

"Nuh-uh," Larek said, and Max nodded silent agreement. "At least, not until it's settled that none of you lot are going back to pick up your old lives where they left off. If so, then anything that happened on Earth in the past three years is your own future."

"I still don't understand the full sequence of events," Liz put in. "Tess was using the Granolith as a force field, to keep any ships away that she didn't specifically invite in, and particularly targeting the TARDIS... okay. And then, she's unexpectedly indisposed for a few days, and can't keep the field up for long enough, so that we can slip through, except she manages to get out to the courtyard not quite in time?"

"That's pretty much it," Larek agreed, nodding. Then he drained the last of his first glass of Rynac.

"Did you have something to do with her indisposition?" Max asked. "I think that Tess accused you of it, just before she gassed us, but..."

"Guilty as charged," Larek said. "It took me this long to figure out that what she was doing to keep ships away from Dimares had to do with the Granolith, and I knew that she didn't trust anybody else with it. Figured that it was worth a little foul play to try to shake up the situation - and your arrival was the outcome that I was going for, though I didn't figure Tess for getting the drop on you so quickly once you arrived, and giving you those ridiculous things." Larek gestured at the stun bracelets that Max and Liz were still wearing, and then began to pour a very small amount of the brandy into his glass. There was silence in the room until he had taken his first sip.

"Okay, what's your own situation?" Liz tried. "Do you still have your own abilities? Can you take these bracelets off us?"

"Yes, but I'm not sure how to restore your own powers early - they should return by tomorrow around noon, unless Tess uses the Granolith to supress them again. She'll notice if she sees any of your party without your bracelets, and that'll be trouble. What exactly is your plan? Are you here to depose Tess, or just steal Ardra away back to Earth, or what?"

Max and Liz exchanged a sidelong glance. "I think that I want custody of Ardra, one way or another," Max decided. "Can she live back on Earth? Was Tess telling the truth about..."

"I don't know," Larek said. "If Tess conducted tests on your daughter's ability to survive a simulated Earth atmosphere, she hasn't shared the results with me."

"As far as the rest of it," Liz said. "That might depend on our Time Lord friend. I'd like to talk to him about all of this."

"Better not to go out looking for him, or anybody," Max decided. "We made sure that he, or anybody else, knows where to find us this evening. And I think that he'll at least check in with us before taking any action."

"Wait a second, I don't understand," Larek said. "This Doctor person - he has some sort of agenda with Tess, beyond just helping you get here?"

"Not an agenda with Tess per se, but with the granilith," Liz said, getting up and walking towards the bed. "He says that it's time lord tech, possibly dangerous, and he might need to dismantle it safely for the good of the galaxy. Is there an en-suite bathroom in here?"

"No, sanitary facilities are shared by the corridor," Larek said. "Which means that somebody can go out on that pretext, if necessary to make contact."

"Well, I don't need to go just yet," Liz decided, heading back. "Pour me some water this time, Max, and we'll see when my bladder says something. In the meantime, Larek, what do you know about the rest of Tess' security arrangements here? Particularly the ones that aren't Granolith-powered?"

------------

The Doctor matched his pace to Jim Valenti on their way out of the dining hall. "Meet in my room in ten minutes. Don't bring your charming wife-to-be: I think that we can't gather too many people without our hostess setting off alarm bells."

Jim continued on, not looking over at the Doctor. "That'll be easier if I can tell Amy where else to go."

The Doctor considered that. Rose had said that she'd gather up Isabel, Alex, and Kyle in one of the other rooms to discuss something else, and with four of them, that party was large enough without Amy. She might go and drop in on the drinks being served over at Max and Liz's, or... "Could she go and spend a little time with Tess and not attract any suspicion?"

"Yes, I think so. Tess liked Amy from the very first time they met. But - but is there going to be any danger to her, if Tess figures out what we're up to at the wrong moment?"

"No - at least, I truly don't think so. It's a dangerous universe, but I wouldn't send anybody into a risky situation without reasonable warning."

"Good enough." Jim nodded and turned about to find his fiancee.

It was closer to five minutes that Jim slipped into the room that had been assigned to the Doctor and Rose. The Doctor was already there, pointing his sonic screwdriver at one of the walls, and Michael and Maria were sitting together on the edge of one of the beds, watching him. "Hi, Mister V," Maria offered with a small wave.

"Hello. What are we up to?"

"First, just checking that Tess Harding hasn't bugged the room, and it seems not," the Doctor said, waving his device along the corner moulding, and then turning back to Valenti, looking well satisfied. "And then, we make our plans to dispose of the Granolith."

"It's really got to go, huh?" Michael asked, and let out a silent whistle of air. "Dammit, I was really hoping that it would be the key to kicking Kivar's ass once and for all."

"I'm not a big fan of the idea of using Time Lord artifacts as a weapon," the Doctor said. "Dangerous precedent if nothing else. And I'm afraid that the end of the Kivarian war is not something that we can change to suit our own convenience - there are fixed events in there, that can't be eliminated."

"So we just have to let the fighting take its own course?" Maria asked, making a face.

"I'm afraid so. And that's close to the nub of the problem - Tess can't be left with the Granolith, because she's kept the entire war on hold, without resolving anything. That has to stop as soon as possible. And I don't know if there's any other way to keep the thing out of the hands of those who would misuse it in even worse ways."

"Alright, what's the plan, then?" Michael asked. "Do we need to get the key away from Tess? That could be incredibly difficult, considering..."

"...a) how paranoid she seems to be lately, b) these stun bracelets that we're wearing, c) the fact that she has powers while none of the rest seem to anymore." Maria filled in. "Did I miss anything important?" Michael shook his head, and Jim shrugged.

"In answer to the question, no, I don't think so," the Doctor filled in. "From what I know about the era of Gallifreyan history that the Granolith originated in, I doubt that it would truly have a personalized lock - the crystal that you told me about is probably just a naturally occurring material that will help an Antarian to send commands into the time-space matrix. I can adapt this to interface with the cone." He pulled out the TARDIS key from around his neck.

"Like programming a new remote control," Jim said, and after a moment the Doctor nodded. "But will it still work on the TARDIS, after that?"

"No, not really. But the TARDIS is on voice lock at the moment, so that means that I can open it without the key anyway. Once inside, I can duplicate Rose's key, or 'change the locks' if something happens to hers."

"What else do you need, then?" Maria asked him. "Just a chance to get out to the courtyard?"

"It'd be good if Tess was diverted, so that she didn't have any chance to use her key to interfere," the Doctor decided slowly. "She could probably send the Granolith out into orbit if she tried, and then somebody else might be able to come in and take it."

"Would even Tess me that stupid?" Michael asked. Maria stared at him. "Okay, okay, let's take precautions against it. Send Max to her room, that'll divert her."

"Are you kidding?" Maria shrieked.

"He doesn't have to actually do anything with her, just talk."

"Send Kyle," Maria shot back. "He can do more than just talk - he's on the rebound from Rose anyway."

"Actually, Amy's already gone over to talk with Tess," Jim pointed out.

"Okay, give her a try," Michael said. "And I guess we can make Kyle the backup plan."

"Anything else we need to plan out beforehand?" the Doctor asked. "What's going to happen here once the Granolith is gone? Will somebody be paying Tess a visit soon after word gets out?"

Michael and Maria traded another look. "We'd better get word to Larek. He can probably send armed ships to help reinforce whatever standard defenses Dimares has."

"Good." The Doctor nodded decisively. "There's something else that I was thinking of. For thousands of years, the people of the Antarian sector have thought of the Granolith as a legacy - and even though it's a legacy that they haven't always used wisely, if I'm going to be the man to take it away from them, it seems appropriate to try to turn into a gift with equal potential. I believe that I can create a significant change for the most heavily populated worlds of the sector, and in the process completely discharge the Granolith so that it's no longer any danger, or any use. I put it to you, and through you to your friends - what changes should I enact, for the peoples of Antar?"

For a long moment, the three of them were stunned silent. "I... I'm not sure I can think of anything worthwhile, assuming that I can't wish for peace in our time."

The Doctor shook his head sadly. "Not even the TARDIS can work such a miracle on the living mind, to create peace in the hearts of those who yearn for war. And I don't think I can arrange a finely grained enough change to be certain that the people who want peace get all the power and say-so, at the expense of those who don't."

"We'll pass the question around," Maria promised. "Alex and Liz will probably have some worthwhile thoughts, and maybe Isabel too."

-------------

"No, Tess doesn't have any guards in the courtyard, watching the Granolith," Larek explained to Jim Valenti and the Doctor. "I don't think that she trusts any of them enough, even though they couldn't really steal it or do anything with it without her key. And she keeps the key on her at all times."

"That's good," the Doctor murmured. Jim opened up the door to his room and let the two of them through, followed by Max. "Are there any precautions at all worth mentioning? Robotic dogs? Killer vines on the courtyard walls?"

Larek looked a little blank, until Max chuckled, and then Larek shook his head, relieved. "There's an automatic surveillance system over many public parts of the residence, including the courtyard, which will notify Tess if unusual activity is detected. But I know where the core processor is kept, and should be able to convince it to turn a blind eye. Using powers to affect and control sophisticated electronic systems has been a favorite application of mine for many years."

"That's it?" Max asked, and Larek nodded. "Okay, you should take Alex with you - he's great with computers. If something goes sideways, he might be able to think of some way to use your powers that never occured to you - or even hack into it from the usual interface components."

"Is that really necessary, Max?" the Doctor asked. "Alex was recommended to me for my own team. It's not just a question of deactivating the Granolith, I want to do something more meaningful than that, and so I need ideas..."

"This is what Maria is briefing Liz, Alex, and Isabel on right now?" Max snapped, and the Doctor nodded. "Then Alex can tell Isabel his ideas before they split up. Having him with Larek can keep us all safe."

The Doctor considered that for a moment, and then nodded. "Then I'll take you as his replacement, Max, if you're not committing yourself to diverting Tess."

"Diverting Tess, as in, what?" A nervous giggle escaped Max. "Whose idea was that?"

"Michael's, and he was only thinking of having you talk to her. Kyle was also mentioned as a possibility, and Amy is laying the groundwork already."

"Umm... I think they should do fine. If I go to Tess' room to talk to her, she might suspect me of an ulterior motive. I'm fine going with you, Doctor."

"Alright, well... it'll be at least another quarter hour before everybody else is in position, I think," Jim said. "Speaking of which, where do I go?"

"I want you close to the courtyard, just in case there's really bad trouble, but not too close," Max suggested. "Larek, any ideas for a pretext?"

"What do you mean, a pretext?" Larek actually scratched his head, near the corner of his eye.

"Something innocuous that they can be doing, or pretending that they're doing, if somebody asks questions," the Doctor explained.

"Oh. There's a Rekcorc corridor nearby - it's a game involving sliding heavy weights across a smooth floor."

"Like Antarian bowling - or perhaps indoor curling," Jim said. "Okay, I'll give it a try - but will I need somebody to play against?"

"Take Michael," Max said. "So, if Liz and Isabel are with us, Doctor?" The Doctor nodded. "That leaves Rose and Maria without assignments, but I don't think they'll be too upset at sitting it out up here, safely out of any danger."

"Okay," Larek said. "I'll go let Alex know about what we've decided."

"And I'll find Michael, and we can get our game started early," Jim said.

"Good," the Doctor said. "Larek, let Isabel and Liz know to come by here when they're ready."

------------

Kyle shifted restlessly, and fiddled restlessly with his remaining red and blue chips. For his part of the plan to work, he'd had to find a place to loiter inconspicuously between the Granolith Courtyard and Tess' quarters - which weren't very far away. His job was to act as a lookout, to intercept and divert Tess if it looked as if she was going to catch the Doctor in the middle of his mission to nuke the Granolith - and Tess had obviously taken pains to assign herself rooms close to the courtyard, though they didn't look out directly on that particular view.

Larek had suggested this 'gaming parlour', which fit the requirements very well, Kyle had to admit - aside from the location, there was a reasonable excuse for him to spend time here. Tess had managed to get an Antarian mechanized gaming table set up to deal Blackjack, and one of the household staff had gotten him set up with a tall stack of 'play chips'. Not worth anything, but then, that was probably alright considering how many of them he'd managed to lose.

His mind just wasn't on hitting or staying, never mind the ever-changing combinations of his count and the dealer's up-card. Tess was stuck in his brain, in a manner of speaking.

Did he love her or hate her? "Should I laugh or should I cry?" he mumbled to himself, and wondered what kind of lame-ass song had gotten those words stuck in his head. And if what any part of him felt was love, was it love for a sister, for a really hot and passionate woman, or for a friend? He was certain that he couldn't tell.

"I'm sorry, sir. Do you wish to continue playing? If so, I need to know if you wish a fourth card," the eternally smiling dealer asked him. His lips didn't even move, with the sound just emerging from somewhere deep behind his face.

"Just a sec... I've got thirteen, your up-card is a nine... and somebody's on the move. So no, I don't want to continue playing. You can keep the rest of my chips, buddy." Kyle rose from his chair and slipped out of the parlour as quickly and quietly as he could.

Yes, Tess and Amy were in the hallway, he could make out both of their voices in conversation, probably just one twist out of sight. For a moment, Kyle was upset that Amy wasn't trying to steer Tess away from the courtyard herself, and then remembered that they'd had no way to warn her about that part of the plan without alerting Tess. Kyle's Dad had just told her that she couldn't come with him to speak with the Doctor, and that maybe it would be a good idea for her to go see Tess and catch up.

So Kyle walked up the corridor, turned around, and called out once he'd confirmed visual contact of Tess and Amy. "Hey, Tess - I've been looking for you, actually. Can we talk about unfinished business?"

Tess weighed that for a moment. "Okay, I guess. Amy, you don't mind?"

"No, of course not," Ms DeLuca disclaimed. "I think that Kyle has more of a priority on your time and attention at this point."

"Okay." Tess shifted her head to the side in a 'come on then' gesture that Kyle remembered her using from the first evening that he'd spent in her company, when they went to the library, and Max and Liz followed them, though Kyle hadn't known that at the time. Trying to be casual and un-suspicious, Kyle waved her towards him with his hand, and after letting out a quiet sigh, Tess started down the way to meet him. Without really meaning to, Kyle found himself smiling at her.

"So, just what do you have to tell me, Buddha-boy?" she asked as she drew near. "Or will it be that kind of talk where you just ask me tough questions? God, I guess it's been enough time that I was starting to forget just how hot you look."

TO BE CONTINUED...
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Chrisken
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Re: Children of the Molecule (DW XO CC, Teen) Pt. 26 May 30

Post by Chrisken »

Part 27

Max, Liz, Isabel, and the Doctor made it out into the Granolith courtyard without any trouble. "No alarms," Max pointed out. "Larek and Alex must have done their bit okay."

"And no sign of Tess yet," Isabel muttered. "But I'm not sure that we can count on Amy and Kyle keeping her distracted for long, especially since Amy doesn't know that's what she's supposed to be doing. So let's take care of this quickly and go home."

"Right, that's my cue," the Doctor muttered, bringing out his little golden TARDIS key and the sonic screwdriver, which he pointed at the key. After a few seconds of that, he pocketed the screwdriver, held up the key towards the Granolith cone, and the Granolith reacted, rising about a foot into the air and pulsing with blue light, the rhythm of it like a slow heartbeat.

"I'm in control," the Doctor said, looking at the others. "And now I need the answers to that question - what use should I put the Granolith's power to, for the benefit of the people of the Antarian sector. It has considerable power over matter, energy, and natural forces, but isn't a subtle enough instrument to work changes over living minds."

There was a momentary pause. "Safety, the elimination of dangerous natural hazards," Isabel said after that moment was done. "Like the mining town that Aunt Shelda told me about in her dream, where the mines gave off poison gas. Can the Granolith make it so that those mines could be worked safely, and rescue the people who've been trapped in stasis for all these years?"

"Good, yeah," Liz agreed. "Shelda thought that the Granolith could help, but couldn't get Royal approval for it to be used."

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, that's a good start."

"And can you extend the idea?" Liz pressed. "I don't think any of us have researched other dangerous hazards of the sector."

"When I put the Granolith into full discharge, it will feed me information about everything within its maximum range," the Doctor explained. "I just need to know what I'm looking for. This is good stuff, anything else?"

"Prosperity," Max suggested. "I - I don't know just what that would be in physical terms - new sources of energy that can be safely tapped, and deposits of rare metals to be mined?"

"The weather," Liz chimed in. "Whatever weather patterns would be most beneficial to farmers, and lead to the most safety for other people - can the Granolith actually adjust the weather on a permanent basis?"

"Probably not with permanent accuracy, but I'm willing to give it a shot," the Doctor said, grinning. "This is getting close to the limit, though. Anybody have just one more notion?"

"Hmm... just one modifier," Max said, after waiting for either of the girls to speak up. "I know that you didn't want to use the Granolith as a direct weapon against Kivar, but it occurred to me - the new sources of energy and raw metals. It'd be a shame if he could tap into many of them easily, because he'd just use them to keep oppressing the rest of the sector."

The Doctor grinned. "I think I can manage a slight bias against the regions he currently controls, Max. Of course, that might have a longer-term effect even after he's deposed. Those lands where Kivar is strongest, after all, those were the heart of the Liaret kingdom, too."

"First we need to get him out," Liz pointed out. "Let's get this done."

"Indeed, let's," the Doctor decided. "I think that all three of you can help - four heads are better than one, after all. I'll bring you each into the connection to the Granolith, and you can help look for the things that you suggested."

"Oh, great, so I'm stuck trying to figure out the weather problem?" Liz complained, and Max made a silly face at her, crossing his eyes.

"Do it now, Doctor," Isabel called out, and the Doctor gestured with the Granolith key. As quick as a blink, Liz's awareness spread across distant stars and planets. So many planets and moons, dozens with people of the Antarian species living on them - Dimares itself, and Antar and Kaalto and the other four from the Summit, and smaller colonies - and it was her job to improve the weather for each of them, she knew.

As the Doctor had said, she had information - the Granolith could provide her with that - information from the largest sweep of the air and cloud patterns to how each person, and herd animal, and plant felt about the weather and wanted from it. She could see how the climate had changed over time, as well, going back hundreds of years, and how the possible future would be affected by any possible change that she might make.

But Liz found her mind paralyzed - no matter what choice she took, there seemed to be a tradeoff - provide more summer rains for the fruit growers here, and the tour operators in the nearby cities would have a hard time earning a living, while the forests a quarter of the way around the planet would have to cope with drought. More sunshine in the corn fields of Gevinor would mean a harsher winter for the wooly mammal herders.

But the energy of the Granolith was screaming at her, demanding to be put to use, and Liz started by cheating on her mandate. Over many desolate moons and inhospitable planets like Kaalto, the Antarians themselves had set up artificial atmospheres, underground or domed living space, and the raw materials to build more of the same were generally available on hand. Wherever she could, Liz constructed more sealed-in facilities of the same general sort as what had already been built, trying not to overbuild too much compared to the capacity that was already there.

These new undercover cities would not be suitable for moving in immediately - Liz didn't have quite the finesse to provide everything that would be needed for the life support machinery, and in any event it would be a waste of energy without somebody there to make use of it. She tried to provide as many of the requirements as she could, though, and hoped that Max would think of providing ready energy sources next to her new developments.

Then, she turned her attention back to the more complicated subject of climate patterns on the full-ecosphere worlds, and to her surprise found that as she focused on a particular weather planet, subtle changes were already taking place. She wasn't sure if it was her subconscious mind taking the hard decisions, or if the Doctor was intervening, digesting the information she provided him and picking priorities. Maybe somehow, in some strange level, it was being left up to the minds of the people and creatures who would be most affected by the changes.

And as that finished, the link broke apart and Liz found herself falling into Max's arms, weeping uncontrollably for the beauty of the sector that she had perceived for that one great moment and could never see in the same way again, crying over the pain and suffering that had been inflicted upon the few for the good of the many.

"Look!" Max breathed, still holding her tight. Her eyes streaming, Liz turned her head, and saw the Granolith cone crash down onto its point, then fall on a side and roll a bit away from them. Then it seemed to collapse, like a huge balloon with half the air let out of it, and finally stopped as a lumpy shape spread over a patch of the courtyard stones. Max stepped toward it, and Liz followed him awkwardly, not letting go. They both reached down as one, to touch the surface, and the surface was like a golf ball's, dimpled with little irregularities and cool.

"Max," somebody breathed from behind her, and sobbed out loud. "What the hell have you done?"

--------------

"Okay, they're in the courtyard," Alex reported, looking out the little window. "No alarms?"

"Not a one," Larek confirmed. "So, what of you, when this is all over, Mister Whitman?"

"Well, I'm liable to follow Isabel wherever she leads me, but I'm really looking forward to going to college - back on Earth," he explained. "Not that I don't think that an education on Rahlicx or somewhere else in the area wouldn't be a fascinating thing, but - Earth is my home, and I'm not ready to give it up for long yet. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I do - and that actually reminds me of a few things that I should take care of while I'm here," Larek said, stepping over towards the computer console. "Do you think that Max and Liz are ready to give up Earth for good, if they need to?"

"Umm, I don't know... I guess it depends on what's at stake," Alex mumbled. "Do you have a hypothetical in mind?"

"Not so hypothetical, I'm afraid. Max said that he wanted to be with his daughter, and asked if I knew if she could live on Earth."

"Oh, right, I get it." Alex thought about that. "Yeah, Max is probably very serious about that, he'll do whatever he needs to. And Liz - well, she's not about to give him up, either. It's not fair to ask him to give up everything that she cares about to follow him, though I think she'd do it if she absolutely had no other choice but to leave him forever. But it's not like that. Liz could make herself a new home somewhere out here, like going with you if you'll have them, sir. And she'd probably love the chance to learn more about - well, about everything that an alien planet might have to teach her."

"That's good," Larek said. "Okay, that's one thing taken care of. Now, to see if Tess really did have little Ardra tested for Earth air quality."

"What did you take care of?" Alex asked him.

"Something that might be very important once the Granolith isn't here anymore."

Alex waited, and shrugged when it seemed that Larek wasn't going to give him any more of an answer yet.

--------------

"Okay, you had something to say, Buddha Boy," Tess pointed out, clearing her throat and staring at Kyle over the small conference table. "Speak your piece."

"Why - why did you do it, Tess?" Kyle found himself blurting out.

"Oh, no. Nuh-uh, I'm not falling for that one." Tess shook her head, and Kyle was very aware of the changes in her choice of hairstyle over the years that she'd lived since leaving Earth. Her golden locks were no longer a riotous mass of curls, nor the pigtails or shoulder-length straight 'do that she'd occasionally taken on for a change, but a sort of a wispy bob that didn't quite extend to the bottom of her neck, and left two thick streams falling down in front of each ear. "You don't really want to hear me making excuses for my crimes, do you, Kyle? Or if you do, it's only so that you can turn around and accuse me of not accepting responsibility for my choices."

"'Others have excuses, but I have my reasons why,'" Kyle quoted softly. "Do you remember a jump or a leap, or just quiet steps away from the path? Were you playing a role from the start, stumbling through the lines? Were you distracted by your own dreams?"

"What the heck are you talking about, Kyle?" Tess exclaimed before Kyle could come out with another lyric from the song.

"Just - maybe the difference between a reason is more in intention and point of view than substance," he explained lamely. "If you want to take responsibility for your crimes, then that's honorable, but I'm curious about your motives anyway. I assume that you did have some motivation for what you did, and weren't just acting out for the sake of being bad - though that's a motivation of a sort, I guess."

Tess shook her head slightly. "It's hard for me to get back in touch with those bad ol' days in Roswell. I've spent a long time trying to put that road behind me. But very generally... I don't want to keep blaming Ed for everything, but it's hard to appreciate just how much growing up with him turned me around, since none of you were there. I like to think that I've gotten my act partway together since I got here. But anyway, once it was completely clear to me that nothing would keep Max and Liz apart for long, becoming the mother to his first-born and splitting town didn't seem like such a bad idea."

"But you tried to trick Max into leaving in the Granolith with you," Kyle said, shaking his head just a little so as to keep an intense stare up on Tess.

"I let him make his own choice - and I'd have bet money that if Max did come, he'd let Liz tag along too, except that I didn't really want him to hear that idea through the grapevine. It surprised me that neither of them ever floated the idea by me."

"Okay," Kyle said. "So - um, I'm not really sure what to ask next at this point."

"I'm so blessed to have Ardra in my life," Tess muttered. "Even though some of the choices I made aren't ones that I can really be proud of, I don't have many regrets. I do wish that I could have gotten here without hurting Alex, though."

"You should tell him so," Kyle told her. "I think he'd like to hear it from you, and won't give you a particularly hard time about apologizing."

"Well, thanks," Tess said.

"And what about me?" Kyle asked. "Did you mean what you told me on prom night? Do you really love me, Tess, and if so, what am I to you?"

"I'm not sure," Tess muttered. "There hasn't been anyone else that I could open up my heart to since I got here, and when I look back on my life in Roswell, what the two of us never quite made up our minds to take hold of still looks a lot more real than my dreams about happily ever after with Max. But is that enough? If I really loved you, would any of that have kept us apart? And - and could you ever love me, after what you saw me do?"

"I... I'm not sure either, Tess," Kyle said. "I'm glad to hear that your answer wasn't 'no' - I can tell you that much."

Tess smiled - and then the smile seemed to freeze and crack on her face, and something furious shone through her eyes. "Were you a part of this?" she screamed at him. "Was this your part in the plan, to keep me occupied until it's too late?"

"Well, if you want to get technical, but..." Kyle muttered. That was as far as he got. Standing up from her chair, Tess gestured backhand in the air, and an invisible giant kicked Kyle into the wall. As the Queen of all Dimares stormed out of the room, Kyle managed to mumble, "Guys, she's on the way." And then he blacked out.

----------

"Come on, Tess, let's not have any trouble," Michael said, stepping up behind Tess and putting his hand on her upper arm, not gripping that hard. A remote control was in her hand so suddenly that he realized she must have called it from her pocket with a power of telekinesis. She let out an evil little chuckle before hitting about half of the buttons with her thumb, one after another.

This had no effect on anybody.

"Alex must have cut these little bangles off at the source," Isabel pointed out to Tess, lifting up her stun bracelet and shaking her hand back and forth a little. "I suggested that to him before we split up."

"And to answer your question, Tess, this isn't my doing, not primarily," Max told her. "The Time Lord has taken dominion of his own back. The Granolith was a Galifreyan relic; he's convinced me of the truth of that now. And a dangerous one, that you were using to upset the path of history. That power has been redirected permanently."

"And what of Kivar, when he comes here for the reckoning?" Tess wailed. "He'll come here for the Granolith, now that the protective field is down. No way will he ever take the word of any of us that it's been destroyed, and he won't just leave once he's satisfied about that anyway."

"I think that we'll have somebody else's protection by then, as it happens."

"Not that I'd let Kivar stop me from doing the right thing either," the Doctor put in.

"So what happens now? Do I face the Time Lord's judgment?" Tess spat.

"I'm no magistrate, just a wanderer, though I try to fix what's wrong when I have a chance," the Doctor said. "Max? What's your judgment?"

Max looked over at Liz, then Isabel, and Michael, and Jim Valenti, who was standing on Tess' other side to bracket her. "Tess, you're not going to be in charge here for long, not without the Granolith. I suggest that you don't try to make the transition difficult."

"Just tell me who's coming here first," Tess said with a sigh. "Did Larek call for his cruisers?" Max nodded silently. "Okay, then we should probably get inside while we wait for them, and see what there is to talk about now." Tess turned towards the doorway that she had come out of, and Michael started to circle around her, but Jim Valenti shook his head, so Michael just spun about in place and kept pace wit Tess as she started to walk.

Then Tess' mouth dropped open and she tried to rush ahead, but Jim grabbed her by the arm. "No, you don't understand!" she exclaimed. "It's Kyle, I just realized. I didn't really mean to hurt him -- but I guess I've got some work to do on my temper. We need to check that he's okay!"

------------

"Kyle, are you okay?"

Kyle cracked an eye open. "Not particularly, but I'll live and I'm not sure any bones are broken." He smiled slightly to see Rose and Maria smiling down on him, and realized from the soft sensation under him that they must have managed to carry him onto a couch or something similar. "Why are you here?"

"Rose could tell that you were in trouble," Maria said.

"I'm not o sure that's the right phrase," Rose complained. "Yes, I had a worrying feeling, and you were in trouble, Kyle, but - well, I guess the important thing is that we're here, and you're going to be okay. What happened?"

"Tess happened," Maria said, and Kyle nodded.

"Oh." Rose swallowed with a bit of a 'gulp' sound. "I guess I didn't expect that it would be so dangerous, for Kyle to distract her."

"Why, because Tess looks so cute and petite that you can't believe that she's dangerous?" Maria asked.

"No - because she's in love with him," Rose said, and Maria was speechless at that little proclamation.

"Yes - I think that deep down, she is," Kyle muttered. "That's why it was dangerous - a woman scorned and all that. She thought that I was only interested in distracting her. Which reminds me - did the Granolith get trashed okay?"

"No idea," Maria said, and Rose shook her head too. "Well then... is there anything I can get to help you feel better, Kyle?"

Before Kyle could think of an answer, there was a clatter of footsteps and low voices coming up the corridor, and soon the room was crowded - Tess was there, Michael and Jim Valenti shadowing her every step, the Doctor and Max and Liz and Isabel. The basic fact of their success in redirecting the Granolith energy was quickly conveyed, and Tess managed a self-conscious apology to Kyle for lashing out at him.

"Once is not the end of the moon, Tess," he managed to ay. "But it can't go on this way. I'm not going to stick around in a dysfunctionally abusive relationship." Tess' eyes went up in surprise, and Kyle chuckled to himself.

----------

"Larek, there you are!" Max exclaimed, as the Rahlicx leader appeared by the door, and Isabel rushed over to give Alex a big enthusiastic embrace. "There's one more thing I wanted to ask you."

"Be careful, Max Evans," Larek laughed. "By my reckoning, you're somewhat in debt for favors already rendered."

"Yes, I do realize that," Max agreed, and stepped back out into the hallway, with Larek following. "This is important, though. I - on earth, there's a special kind of judge, who rules in matters of family law, such as who gets custody of children when their biological parents separate."

Larek let out a soft hooting sound. "Yes, we have such magistrates in this sector as well. Are you asking me to find such a judge, to rule on little Ardra's fate?"

"I was hoping that you would serve as judge yourself," Max admitted. "I have seen that you love my daughter yourself, and that you're still friends with Tess, despite not agreeing with all her choices. If you feel that you must recuse yourself due to the conflicts of interest, then I'd appreciate a recommendation of someone else who will judge fairly, unswayed by any undue influence."

Larek considered this for a moment. "Perhaps I had better take care of it myself. Whatever the final judgment, Tess would respect it more coming from me. But you must realize that I cannot guarantee that you'll be pleased with my ruling. Then again, if that was your most pressing concern, you probably wouldn't have asked for a judge in the first place."

Max smiled tightly. "I know what I want, but you must rule based on what's in Ardra's best interests."

"Of course." Larek stepped back into the room, and cleared his throat. "I have been called upon to serve as a Magistrate here, and accepted the mandate. I will need to interview all here, and will ask most to submit to my power to view their minds. You are exempt from that requirement, Mister Time Lord, since I suspect there are things in your brain that might drive any non-Gallifreyan mad."

"Well, now that you mention it," the Doctor muttered, and trailed off. Liz shot an intent, sidelong look over at Max, but he was focused on Larek with perfectly calm concern.

"Who goes first?" Tess asked.

Larek considered the entire group. "Miss Rose Tyler, you are summoned to testify," he said. "I imagine that we can find some suitable place to handle the interview in comfort and privacy?"

"What, me first?" Rose exclaimed, looking up. "I mean, sir, I don't object to getting subpoenaed and all, but I'm hardly involved in this."

"That's why you're first," Larek said. "I cannot think of any better way of getting involved in such a thorny problem than starting with the witnesses who are most peripheral to it, and working my way inward to the principals. I will only ask you for general character references on your new friends, and such things. Come on."

"All right." Rose shot the Doctor a look as Larek waved her out the door. "If I don't come back when he does, come after me."

"You can count on me," The Doctor said with a little smile, but he didn't look worried.

-----------

"Wow, how much longer is this going to take?" Maria asked as she came into the dining room where most of the Roswellian teens were snacking restlessly as they waited. She'd seen Isabel being conducted in for her interview as she was led away - Rahlicx troops and functionaries had landed on the planet before she'd been called in to testify, and Larek had apparently taken very little time out of his new family court duties to get them organized, but they were certainly keeping things organized. Impulsively, she draped herself in Michael's lap instead of pulling up a chair next to him, and he reacted by wrapping an arm around Maria's waist and kissing her neck.

"Well, once Isabel's finished, he's still got Kyle, Liz, Max, and Tess to interview, and I think that he's been taking longer and longer as he goes down his list," Alex pointed out. "It might be a good idea for somebody to ask for a recess for the night."

"Yeah," Max said. "Though I had hoped to get this whole thing settled sooner. It does make me feel better that Larek is taking the whole deal so uber-seriously, on some level. Even if he rules against me, or decides on some sort of joint custody - I know that that's because it's what's best for Ardra." He turned to Maria. "Do you mind if I ask you what Larek talked to you about?"

"Yeah, sure." Maria squealed softly as Michael nibbled on her ear, and eventually pushed away from him and settled into her own seat. "There was a lot that he covered, just out loud - how long I've known Liz, what it was like when I found out about you guys, if there was anything that Tess had done that I couldn't forgive her for, what I'd think about the idea of living on some alien planet, or what it's been like dating Michael and keeping his secret on Earth."

"Yeah, he covered most of the same stuff with me," Alex said. "I think that among other things, he's trying to figure out if we believe that Max is capable of starting all over on a new world, if that's what he needs to do for Ardra's sake."

"That makes some sense," Michael muttered.

"Say, where's Liz?" Maria asked Max.

Max jumped a little guiltily and looked around the room. "She said that she wouldn't be gone for long - I guess I assumed she was using the washroom."

"Hmm." Maria reached out and nibbled on a pre-sliced piece of triangular Darva bread.

"No, I think that she's gone to fetch a surprise," Alex said, and pointed to the far door to the room. Liz had changed into a long clingy red gown that left her shoulders bare, and she was carrying a little girl carefully in her arms. Behind her, Tess sulked along, wearing a flower patterned t-shirt and sweat pants instead of her Queenly finery.

"Hi, Ardra," Max said, waving at her. "Liz, did you go to bring her to visit with me?" Liz nodded. "Thank you. I don't know why I didn't think of spending some quality time myself."

"You've had a lot going on, but yeah, it's a good thought," Maria agreed.

"Hi, Daddy," Ardra said, matching his wave. "You're my Daddy, right?"

"Yes, yes I am," he said, smiling as Liz let Ardra down into a chair near Max's. "I'm sorry that I haven't talked to you much since we got here, but there was other important stuff happening, and..."

"Are you going to take me away from Mommy? Make me leave home?"

Several people at the table shot serious looks over at Tess, who just shrugged. "Well - in a way, Ardra," Max said, and took a breath. "I've asked Larek - you know him, right? I've asked him to decide what's best for you, if you should stay here with your Mommy or maybe go somewhere else with me? I know that your Mommy loves you very much, and I love you very much, my girl, even if you don't know me very well yet. But - but your Mommy and I don't love each other that much, and though I want to be a big part of your life, if I was living here with your Mommy, I'm worried that we'd get into big arguments about things like bedtime and dinner and what you should be learning in school, and that's not good for little girls to be around."

Ardra stared back at Max for a long time. "Okay," she said finally. "Is Larek going to ask me who I want to live with?"

Max, Liz, and Maria exchanged glances, and Liz shrugged. "Yes, I'm sure that he will," Max told Ardra. "He might not go along with whatever you say, but I'm sure that he'll want to know."

"Okay. So... do you know any good games, Daddy?"

Max laughed. "Did your Mommy ever play tic-tac-toe with you?" Ardra shook her head. "Okay, here we go." Max waved his hand to make the hashmark board on the tablecloth, and explained briefly the rules about x's and o's, three in a row up and down, side to side, or at an angle. "Do you want to be X and play first?"

"Sure," Ardra said, and yawned before passing her palm over the board and marking a bright green X in the center. "Sorry, I'm still a bit sleepy."

"Is it nearly your bedtime, Ardra?" Michael asked.

"It's just after my wake-up time," she said.

"Oh, wow, we've been up all night?" Maria asked.

"We did have a little unexpected nap courtesy of Tess when we arrived," Liz put in. "And probably a bit of a time zone issue, courtesy of the TARDIS. But I think that it's time for me to go to bed."

"Me too," Kyle said. "Maybe if we're both missing, Larek will put a halt to the interviews for a while. I think that you and I are next on the list."

"I think that I'm going to stay up, at least long enough to play a few more games," Max said, and Liz kissed the hair falling over his temple.

"Okay, don't tire yourself out too much though, Daddy," she advised, and headed off.

------------

"Thank you everybody for your patience," Larek said the next evening, sitting on Tess' throne, though he'd taken pains to disclaim that he wasn't thereby exerting a permanent sovereign claim on Dimares. "I've interviewed all of the interested parties, and stand prepared to rule on the case of the parental custody for Ardra Harding-Evans." Ardra was sitting on Tess' lap, but in exchange she had suffered Larek's guards to put one of the shock-bracelets on her own arm, just to reassure everybody that she wasn't going to try anything foolish if the ruling went against her.

"Tess Harding - please stand forward," Larek intoned, and Tess made a production out of getting Ardra to her feet first, and Kyle reached out to hold the little girl's hand. Tess only stood as far away from her daughter as she could help while obeying the literal sense of Larek's directive.

"As much as I know that you love your daughter, I regret to say that I have found that you are not, at this time, a safe and fit parent for Ardra, and cannot thus allow you to retain primary custody. If you insist, I will grant maternal visitation rights, however, I strongly urge you to consider a slightly different path."

"Tess, the issues that are complicating your relationship to Ardra have their roots in your own childhood, and I suspect that they won't be resolved until you return to Earth with the intention of re-opening your heart to true love and exorcising those demons. Since, as you have determined for yourself, Ardra cannot safely come to planet Earth yet, I will not consider this choice to be abandoning your child, simply doing what you must to become a better mother, and will weigh it in your favor if I am ever called upon to review these judgments in the future."

Tess let out a sigh, and turned back to Kyle, who smiled and gave her a thumbs up. Tess giggled and made a silly wave of her own, which Ardra copied.

"Since, if you return to Earth aboard the TARDIS, there will be no easy way to return on your own, I will provide a means of communication and promise to send transportation when I can. If you return into Earth's relative past, you will probably need to not message me for several years, to avoid changing my own timeline."

"Thanks," Tess said, smiling with relief."

"That's all, Tess. Max Evans, Liz Parker, please stand forward."

Tess took her seat, and Max and Liz stood together close to Larek's seat of judgment, holding hands and smiling.

"Max, as you can probably guess, I am prepared to name you primary custodial parent for Ardra, confident that you understand the responsibility that this role entails. Since, as I have said, she cannot breathe the Earth's atmosphere; this ruling is contingent on your coming to live on some planet of the Antarian peoples. Do you understand and accept these terms?"

"Yes, I do," Max said.

"Liz - you are not Ardra's relative by genetics, but I believe in the value of a strong mother figure as well as a father when raising a child, and you would seem to be the obvious candidate by the circumstances. I believe that you're prepared for the responsibilities and choices that you'll be faced with in helping Max raise Ardra, but please tell me now for the record if you are prepared to stand as Ardra's adopted mother."

Liz took a breath, looked over her shoulder at the little girl in question, and then back to Larek. "Yes, I am."

"Very good. And, though I cannot require it of either of you in my capacity as family court judge, I will say for the record; Max, Liz, it would please me very much to officiate at your wedding ceremony, and the sooner, in general, the better."

Maria and Isabel went 'sheesh' from the audience. Max blushed, and Liz shook her head a little in frustration. "Okay, somewhat against better judgment at the moment, I will ask," Max said, and turned to Liz. "Liz Parker, I love you, and I absolutely do want you by my side as I raise my daughter - and to have more children with you, when you're ready. Will you join your heart with mine formally in marriage?"

Liz took a breath. "Yes - but not anytime quite that soon. Being engaged is enough to get used to, on top of everything else."

"I can live with that," Larek cracked. "That's all for now, Max, Liz. Isabel Evans, Alex Whitman, Maria DeLuca, Michael Guerin, stand forward."

The four named teenagers took the places out in front of the throne, most of them with puzzled expressions, though Alex had a small, worried smile on his face.

"Max and Liz will not be able to raise a daughter themselves," Larek said bluntly. "Nobody can. All parents need a support system, and though I'm sure they will make great friends wherever they choose to live, the four of you have been their closest support system, and they yours, for a long time. Will any of you commit to emigrating to the Antar cluster in order to be with the new family that will be formed?"

There was a quiet, awkward moment in response to Larek's words. All four of them exchanged a series of glances, and Maria whispered Michael's name as a question.

Michael nodded, and raised his arm as if Larek was a teacher. "Yeah, we'll step up and be the next door neighbors, the honorary uncle and aunt. They do need somebody, and the two of us - I can find a place somewhere new at least as easily as I could back home. Alex, Isabel, you guys have great lives full of promise waiting for you back on Earth. You shouldn't have to give those up."

"Okay, yeah." Isabel turned and rushed at Max, giving him a surprisingly tight hug. "It's going to be weird not seeing you every day for a while, but this is where you've gotta be, and Alex and I do need to go back. Maybe we can ride the Rahlicx ship back... but - wait a second, if you're going to be staying in this time frame, then when I see you in three years or whenever, you'll only be a few months older."

"Yeah, don't hate us too much for it," Liz said, hugging Isabel in turn.

The mood of the big judicial pronouncements from Larek broke down into a bunch of tearful exclamations and embraces at that point, even though, as Tess pointed out, nobody had to leave Dimares just yet.

TO BE CONCLUDED...
Read my other roswell stories!

"A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it. If the Rowan tree's roots are shallow, it bears no crown." From 'the farthest shore', Ursula LeGuin.

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Chrisken
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Re: Children of the Molecule (DW XO CC, Teen) Pt. 27/28 7-13

Post by Chrisken »

Part Twenty-eight

"I have to say, I don't see the allure of Kaalto township," Larek said as they walked towards the courtyard. "True, I've only been there on inspection tours, but truly - the planet is a backwater dump - a crystal mining town. Please, Max, just come to my court for a week or two, see how well you like it. Or I can arrange safe passage to Vrelayan - Queen Alinda is still living in hiding there, along with her family and most of the rebel leaders. I know that she'd love to meet you all."

Max hesitated, and Michael cleared his throat awkwardly. Max gestured to Michael that he should feel free to speak up, and after a moment, Michael did. "Maybe the fact that it's a backwater, by Antarian standards, will make it easier for us to adjust to living on Kaalto," Michael said. "It seemed like a really decent place to me, when we went to do our research."

"And don't forget," Max added. "Like all the other places where we were able to concentrate the Granilith's power, Kaalto is poised to become a boom town. Ninety percent increase in housing, thanks to the new habitats that Liz was able to put up, and I was able to seed some new energy sources and mineral wealth into the area as well."

Larek considered this. "So you've thought this through, and you're sure about your choice?"

"We'll make this our first choice," Max confirmed. "There's no reason it has to lock us in permanently, though, is there? You said that there are regular starships going from Rahlicx to Kaalto, so I have to assume that they make the trip back too. We'll be sure to come visit after getting settled in, if nothing else."

"I look forward to it," Larek said, and without much warning, he threw his arms around Max in a brotherly embrace. Max reached around somewhat awkwardly to pat the older alien on the back, but he did feel touched as well as surprised.

"So," Michael said, once the manly hugging was over. "What are the travel plans looking like, Max? Is the Doctor dropping us off on the way back to Earth?"

"Not so far as we've worked it out," Max muttered. "For one thing, I think all four of us would want to pack a little more for an open-ended stay on Kaalto than a quick tour of the Antarian sector."

"Oh, right," Michael muttered. "I can grab some stuff from the apartment, yeah, and maybe even clean the rest out, let the landlord know that he can rent it out again. But what if your folks catch you packing, or Liz's catch hers?"

"We're going to let them know that we're leaving home," Maxmuttered. "It'll be a horrible scene, I know, but it's something that I have to do. I won't let them stop me from going, but I have to tell them myself, face to face."

"Brave call, man," Michael muttered.

"I'd expect nothing less," Larek put in.

"Will you need any moral support?" Michael asked Max.

Max considered that for a moment. "Not sure if you'll be needed there, man. The plan was already for Liz and Isabel to be around, and I don't want the folks to feel like they're being ganged up on. Plus - cleaning out that place of yours is going to take a while."

Michael nodded in agreement with that and followed as Larek opened the courtyard doors. All three of them considered the pocket destroyer that would be taking Larek back to Rahlicx once his business on Dimares moon was done, and the tiny blue phone booth standing not far from the larger ship's landing gear.

"Oh, how soon can you spare a ship to go visit Earth?" Max asked Larek.

The Autarch of Rahlicx grinned and chuckled softly. "It's already on its way - should be able to land within five weeks, our time. I figure that there'll be at least a few passengers ready to go for a ride."

"You know, Max," Michael muttered. "We could all stay on Earth for those few years, and you could come back to Ardra when that ship arrives. I mean, I know it'll be a few months for her, but Larek could find somebody to take care of her, and..."

Larek turned away slightly, and Max cut Michael off. "No. Not just because of two and a half months, her time, either. I wouldn't walk away from her for three years in my life, even if it were just a few seconds of hers, or less. I'm young to take on the responsibilities of a father, but I lost Ardra for too long, and I'm ready to be there for her." He took a deep breath. "But you and Maria could change your mind, and go the long way around. Meet us in two and a half months, our time. I don't think Liz would mind."

Michael considered. "I'll ask Maria. But my notion is no - if you guys are going to be staying on Kaalto now, then I'll be there right with you."

"That's good, thanks." Max muttered, and put his hand gently on Michael's shoulder.

-----------

Liz, Maria, Isabel, and Ardra were in the middle of a tea party when Liz noticed that Tess and Kyle had entered the playroom and were watching from next to the door, hand in hand. She waved them over to join the fun, and when Tess shook her head, Liz excused herself, and went over to talk to the pair.

"So, have you made your decision, Tess?" Liz asked. "Kaalto's open to you, if you can't leave your daughter behind yet."

Tess gazed intently at Ardra as she poured for Maria. "No, I'm just strong enough to walk away from her now, and just wise enough to see that it's the right thing to do, for her good and for mine."

"Shouldn't there be something about serenity in there too?" Kyle asked. "And accepting the things that you cannot change?"

"She's got that too," Liz decided. There were a lot of things in Tess' life that she desperately wanted to change. Everybody around her could tell that much. But she'd stopped fighting the inevitable, and that was the hardest and best thing that she could do to stop her circumstances from getting worse. "So, it's back to Roswell?"

"To start with, yeah." Tess nodded determinedly. "I'll probably have to keep a very low profile to avoid attracting attention, since I've changed a lot in just a few months of Earth time. But Kyle still needs to graduate."

"And then?" Liz prompted.

"We hit the road, try to find out where Tess needs to be to fight her demons," Kyle said. "Probably a lot of them are on the East coast, wherever she lived with Ed while growing up."

"Good hunting, to both of you," Liz muttered. She wasn't entirely sure it would be that easy to sort through Tess' personal issues, but knew that expressing support would be of much more use to Kyle than voicing her doubts out loud.

"Thanks," Tess said.

"Mommy!" Ardra called out. "You've gotta come here and join in the fun."

Tess hesitated, but when Liz held out her hand, Tess took it, and suffered herself to be led to the tea party, where she could spend a bit more time with Ardra before having to say goodbye.

---------

"So, what do you think?" the Doctor asked Rose, idly turning his sonic on and just waving it in the air, then out the courtyard window towards the TARDIS.

"About what?" Rose shot back. "Your screwdriver? The TARDIS?"

"Our adventure with the Roswell aliens," the Doctor prompted. "Looks as if it's wrapping up pretty soon. And by the way, thank you very much for suggesting it. I've known about these kids for some time, as you might have guessed, but didn't realize that there was anything that needed doing so badly."

"Well, you're welcome," Rose said, making a little bow. "I find it a bit hard to think about the Granolith being so dangerous as all that, but I'm glad that we were able to unite Max with Ardra, and teach the hybrid teenagers about their Antarian history."

"At least as important as saving the galaxy from nebulous danger, any day," the Doctor said with a little chuckle. "What about you and Kyle?"

"Kyle was fun, but he's spoken for, not that he realized it when we set off," Rose said. "I guess I need to keep looking for somebody else, somebody who's got room in his heart for me." She stared meaningfully, right in the Doctor's eyes.

The Doctor quirked his mouth slightly, then turned away. "Fair enough. Where do you want to go next?"

"Well, probably it's time to go visit Mum again. After all of this business about the importance of family, of parents and children, how could I not?"

"Sure. London in the late summer of 2006. I can manage that."

Rose just nodded without saying a word.

-------------

"I'm not asking either of you for your permission," Liz insisted, squeezing Max's fingers in hers tighter. "I know that I'm not explaining much, but I don't intend to let either of you stop us from doing what we've decided to do. But I wanted to tell you goodbye like this, until we should meet again."

Liz's mother looked shell-shocked, and her father scanned the room, trying to find an ally that he could appeal to. Somewhat desperately he fixed on Liz's best friend. "Maria, I know that you've always been... a free spirit. But are you really going along with this insanity?"

"It's not insane, Mister Parker," Maria told him. "There's just things going on here that would be very hard for you to believe. But no matter what, try to trust in me - we're going to take very good care of each other, and we'll come back home to Roswell when we can."

Mrs Parker stood up. "I guess we'll have to be content with that for the time being." She opened up her arms for a hug, and Liz rushed forward into the embrace. "Remember always that you have a place here, and I'll be counting down the days."

"It may be a while, mom," Liz whispered back. "But I won't stay away from home forever."

When that hug was over, Liz's father took his turn, and he wished Maria and Max a safe trip.

------------

"Daddy!" Ardra exclaimed as Max and Liz stepped back inside the TARDIS.

"Wait a second," Max cautioned as Ardra started to hurry across the control room to greet him. She came to a stop, a puzzled frown on her face, and Max carefully closed the TARDIS doors behind Michael and Maria, who had followed them inside, and then crossed the distance to his daughter himself. "Sorry, honey, but the air out there could make you sick, and I don't want to take any chances with my little girl."

"I already thought of that, Max," the Doctor said. "There's a partially gastight force field across the doorway. Didn't you feel anything when you stepped across?"

"Actually, I did," Liz muttered. "It took my breath away, literally. How deep down the respiratory system would it pump out?"

"Oh, I'm not sure," the Doctor muttered. "Probably not any further than your throat - it's not really meant for flushing out your lungs, just for keeping out leekage around the edges of the doorway, or if somebody keeps the doors open by accident."

"Well, thank you," Max said, and noticed that the control room was quickly filling up with other Roswellians. "So, I guess this is the last goodbye."

"No, that's when the Doctor and I take our leave from you on Kaalto," Rose pointed out. "But this one is a more bittersweet goodbye."

"You got that right," Isabel said, hugging Max, and then Michael. "Roswell just won't be the same without you guys."

"I wish I could take care of Ardra and stay there," Max said to her.

"I know." Isabel brushed angrily at the wet spots that were starting to spread down her cheeks.

Once all the goodbyes had been said once, and it looked as if Isabel was about to hug Max again, Kyle and Jim took charge of leading everybody who would be staying on Earth back out of the TARDIS. There was a silent moment once the door closed, and then the Doctor started to adjust the Time Vortex controls.

"Back to Kaalto township," he pointed out. "This time, matching the time of arrival to on local day after we left Dimares moon."

"I hope that was enough time for Larek to have made the arrangements with his local representatives."

"Larek's pretty on the ball," Maria pointed out. "I don't think we'll have any problems."

-----------

There weren't any particular problems in getting settled in for the long term on Kaalto, though moving all the luggage out of the TARDIS and into their new rooms did take some time. Once that was finished, an expectant silence gathered.

"Well met, Max Evans of Roswell and Antar," the Doctor said, executing a flamboyant half-bow. "I'm glad I got an opportunity to spend time with all of you and your friends. Thank you very much for your assistance in disposing of the Granolith, and if we should meet again, I will be well disposed to do you and yours a favor."

"Are you sure about that?" Liz asked. "I mean, it'd be easy to argue that we're the ones who are in your debt, for all your help and the rides that you've given us."

"After experiencing the influence of the Granolith, I'm not sure," the Doctor said. "Perhaps we should say that we've exchanged favors - the kind of exchange that isn't a one for one calculus, each side cancelling the other out and leaving nothing left, but the circular kind that leaves a lasting bond behind in both directions."

"Sounds good to me," Maria said. "Well, you're welcome to stay and enjoy our hospitality for the evening."

The Doctor and Rose traded glances. "No, I think that we've got somewhere else to be," Rose said. "London, in particular."

"And it's time for the four of you to start taking care of yourselves here," the Doctor said.

"Well, goodbye, and thank you once again," Max said, coming forward to shake hands in farewell. Once the final formalities were complete, Rose and the Doctor disappeared into the TARDIS, which faded out, vworping until there was no trace of it left.

"What does that mean, taking care of ourselves?" Michael muttered.

"Dealing with the language gap, maybe," Liz pointed out. "As long as the TARDIS was sitting here, we were within its translation field. I wonder how much English the Kaaltan computers know?"

"Oh, boy," Max muttered, and hurried back into the living room that the five of them were sharing. "Computer, voice response? Identify Max Evans."

There was a long pause. "Voice response online in English," a computer voice announced. "Please be patient in the event of vocabulary issues - language database is rated at a one thousand word limit."

"We'll see what we can do about that," Liz said with a smile.

"Interstellar voice message waiting for you, Max Evans," the computer continued on.

"Really?" Max looked around at the others. "Play message."

"Hello, Max?" Isabel's voice sounded from the furthest corners of the room. "Alex said that he thought you'd be arriving on Kaalto soon, and we've told them to not let anybody else hear this message until you're there.

"It's weird to think that for you, it's only been a few hours or so since you left us. It's groundhog day today - Alex and I both went to school on the east coast. And - and we've been engaged since New Year's Eve!"

"Call back and let us know what Larek's been able to work out about visiting. Tess keeps talking about how much she misses Ardra."

Liz and Maria started to laugh first, which set the others off. "Don't worry about getting back to her yet," Liz whispered to Max, pressing her body against his. "We've got a few other priorities to take care of first."

THE END.
Read my other roswell stories!

"A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it. If the Rowan tree's roots are shallow, it bears no crown." From 'the farthest shore', Ursula LeGuin.

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