Love will last forever (CC, I/A, ADULT) Pt 37/37 - Feb 1 09

[Chrisken]

Part 21

"Hmm." Isabel scrambled over the floor of Michael's living room to consider another note of the several dozen that she had laid out there, marking interrelations and sequences between them. "Okay, what about the tungsten - what do we know??"

"Well, tungsten is on the rare side, and valuable in industrial applications, but it's not really as expensive as the truly precious metals," Alex put in.

"Probably a bit out of our usual price range, though," Max put in. "Not to mention that a bunch of kids buying so much might attract attention."

"We could probably boost it," Michael put in. Isabel sighed. "Yeah, I know I know. But bear in mind - this is probably one of those situations where you're going to have to deal with the idea of breaking a few eggs to get your omelette made, Isabel."

"Yeah, but still - we don't break the law if we can figure any other way to get things done. Makes sense?" Liz said. Max nodded, but Michael didn't seem too impressed.

"One other tidbit - tungsten is highly dense," Alex put in. "Something like nineteen thousand kilograms per cubic meter. I'm not sure offhand how big that makes forty pounds of it, but probably it'll be surprisingly compact."

"Alright," Isabel said, noting some of the most relevant facts there onto the tungsten note. "But clearly this one won't be too hard - it's something that's available on earth without real restrictions." Isabel sighed and looked back at the rest of the 'shopping list' on Michael's floor. "What next - anybody have ideas??"

"The enzyme catalyst whatchamacallit?" Maria said, pointing to something near her feet. "Can somebody explain to me what the point of that is?"

"Basically, that's the stuff we'll need to tell Alex's new clone body that it has to grow much faster than normal," Liz said softly. "So that he'll be grown up... before Isabel's thirty, at least." Isabel shot Liz a nasty look. "Yeah, this might be a tough one, because Langley wasn't even sure that any such thing exists yet. There are equivalent substances for Antarians and some of the other races, but they'd be no good on human cell structure."

"Or on hybrids," Tess said pensively, leaning against the wall, well out of Isabel's way. "Which might explain why they didn't use anything like that with us."

"They didn't WANT anything like that with us," Michael replied. "They wanted to keep the new Royal Four on ice, out of the way about as long as they could. So that Kivar would relax and stop worrying about us before we actually showed up or something like that."

"And which set of Royals is that?" Max mused. Michael and Isabel turned to stare at him. "Sorry, wrong tangent to take right now I guess - was just wondering if Langley might have anything to say about us versus the dupes."

"We didn't mention it today," Michael said pointedly.

"When I talked to him on the phone before we left for the cabin," Isabel said slowly, "he said that THREE sets of each royal were gandariumed, and the souls were joined to the most promising ones." She sighed. "Maybe I should ask about where the ensouled pods went - and what happened to the third set, if they weren't rescued from the crash site."

"Perhaps," Liz said. "But right now - enzyme catalysts?"

"Right," Michael agreed. "So, the aliens don't have one for humans, and it'd probably take way too much time and effort for them to develop a new one, even if they've got some relevant biotech experience."

"On the other hand, something useable is probably developed here on Earth already," Isabel said with dogged optimism. "Langley isn't familiar enough with our biotech business to identify it, but... well--"

"Why would we have it?" Maria put in. "Is it good for anything other than cloning people - which not many people are really trying to do."

"There are those creepy cult guys who pop up in the news every so often," Kyle mentioned, glad to have something to contribute to the conversation. "And they've pulled off some fairly decent bioengineering, I think. Maybe they've got it."

"And there are other reasons why a legitimate researcher may have worked it out," Liz said. "For one thing, it could be used to heal certain kinds of embryonic damage and injury. Therapeutic use on little kids, depending on how long it's effective." She sighed. "And it might have been developed as an intermediate stage towards coming up with a similar serum that could be used on adults, which would be absolutely without price."

"Right," Max said, seeing it. "Heart failure, senility, failing sex drive - there's just about no age-related syndrome that couldn't be cured if you can target specific cells and get them to remultiply. And then there's injuries that damage vital organs but leave small fragments of healthy tissue intact..."

"Okay, so - where do we go to figure out how to get it?" Tess asked, cutting him off. "If the stuff does exist."

"I think that my dad is a logical go-to guy again," Alex said. "Maybe somebody goes to ask him for his help with a summer school research project or something like that?"

"Umm - maybe," Isabel said, sighing. "Need to be careful - we don't want him to find out that our excuse doesn't hold water later." There was a short pause. "Maybe we move on for now?"

"Yeah, sure - what's next?" Kyle asked.

"Umm - the special unit stuff," Isabel said reluctantly. "Well, the notes from alien scientists that Langley, Ed, and the others were working off of aren't in special unit hands anymore, at least. He said that they were sold off by FBI insiders to a private collector in the early nineties. Max, do you think you might be able to use Brody's files to track them down?"

"Umm." Max shook himself, trying to concentrate. "Depends on how much we have to start with. UFO crackpots tend to be pretty secretive about what they've got sometimes, and I've never heard about something like that as an exhibit or a publicly known trophy item. But - if Langley has any information about the original collector who made the buy - we might be able to narrow it down, yeah, and do our best to figure out if the same guy still has the notes or if they've changed hands since."

"I'll ask Langley, when I can," Isabel said.

"There just might be more info on that sort of thing in Ed's watch," Tess put in. "He spent some time trying to figure out what happened to anything alien that the special unit had got their hands on."

"Okay." Isabel drew in a deep breath. "And the soul implantation gear is the big one. The air force took that originally when they cleaned up the crash site, and then the Special Unit took over all of the air force's alien relics when it was formed." She looked around at all of them. "This is key to the whole plan, and it's the only one of its kind in the whole universe. Quite possibly the only one that will ever be."

"Why so?" Maria asked her. "I mean, we're assuming that we can get another model of the memory transfer device, because that one was totalled. Why not get another soul transfer device made off-planet too?"

"Partly because copying memories has applications that go beyond making clones," Alex put in. "It's a modification of a fairly well-known educational technique on Antar. But the soul transferrence stuff - that was developed by the Senedynast scientists specifically for creating our pod squad. It's the keystone for the 'immortality' aspect of this cloning stuff - the most hotly contested part of it." He sighed. "So it makes a lot of sense that the critical information for recreating it would be held by very few people out there among the alien worlds, and they'd be unlikely to go through it all again for - for my sake."

"Yeah." Isabel sighed. "We hit Nasedo's notes again, see what he has to say about alien relics that were still in Special Unit hands when he took over." She sighed. "And we hope that he didn't decide to do anything really inconvenient like destroy them."

"Gotit," Michael chimed in. "Oh, speaking of other alien worlds - are we going to try going up to the pod chamber anytime soon to talk to people?"

"Well, we've lost the window for Kaalto," Max pointed out. "Today. Try again tomorrow, sounds good. As far as Seti - yeah, I admit that I'd like to hear more of what these people have to say." He sighed. "Wonder if that girl who talked to you really was our age - allowing for the difference in lifespans, if any. I can hardly imagine actually trying to manage any planet, even a fairly small and centralized one."

"Yeah, well, I guess that a lot of it is practice, that you haven't had a chance to get," Isabel pointed out. "Anything else we need to cover today?"

"What's Langley up to?" Maria asked nervously.

"He didn't say, and we didn't really ask," Liz admitted. "He'll be able to stay in Roswell for four and a half days, so we've got that long to ask him what we need to." She sighed. "And somehow I get the impression he may have ordered fresh lemons from room service."

"Lemons?" Kyle blinked at that.

"That's part of why he's so dead-set on not changing out of his current form, in a way," Michael explained. Max raised an eyebrow. "Shapeshifters don't generally have much in the way of a sense of taste - or anything else that doesn't directly help with their bodyguard duties. He heard a rumor, back before he left his home planet, that if they just picked one form and could stick with it, they'd be able to cultivate those more subtle senses. So far, the best taste he's been able to acquire has been sour lemons."

"And he likes that so much that he orders them by the bucketload?" Tess asked doubtfully.

"Not sure how many, but he does seem to like the sense," Isabel agreed. "He's trying to acquire appreciations for renaissance paintings and Romantic-period music, too. I have to admit, I can respect that a whole lot... struggling to find an appreciation for beauty that was deprived him by his former overlords, to bring some scrap of meaning to his existence here."

"And one question I've been wondering about," Max chimed in. "Are shapeshifters a naturally evolved race, or were they engineered by the Antarians as slaves?"

Michael, Isabel, and Liz shared a few long looks. "I, umm, I'm not sure about that yet," Liz said. "Langley himself has almost certainly gone through genetic manipulation to make him the perfect bodyguard. Whether he was picked from his 'people' for this job, or if all shapeshifters are in the same boat - I couldn't say."

"I guess it doesn't matter a huge lot, unless Langley admits that sort of thing freely," Maria said. "You treat him with as much respect and consideration as you can, and see what happens." She moaned softly. "Well, I need to get back home now. Mom's started to get touchy about the time I spend with you guys."

"Hmm." Michael considered that. "Any idea how things are going between her and Mister V?"

"I think she's still a bit upset that he didn't invite her along up to the cabin as another chaperone," Maria said. "Well, that was his choice, and they'll either work it out or they won't."

"True enough," Liz agreed. "I'd probably better be heading back home too. How about a ride?"

"Yeah, you're with me, baby," Max said immediately. Isabel thought about that and realized that if she got Max to drive her home too, (which only made sense, because they were ending up at the same place,) she'd probably have to wait in the car a little while as two lovebirds said a private farewell up on the balcony outside Liz's window. Tess and Kyle said their goodbyes too.

"So, whatcha think about today?" Alex asked her, climbing into the back seat next to her. "Good day?"

She paused for only a moment. *Yeah, a great day - the Crashdown stuff was a bit hectic, but no huge disasters happened, and I do believe that I'll settle down there. And - and now I know what I'll need to put together to bring you back to me. It's - it's a big list, and there are some things that might be problematic or tricky, but nothing that seems seriously impossible. We can DO it!!*

Alex grinned at that. "We should do something to celebrate."

*We will - as soon as I get you alone in my room,* Isabel promised. *Oh, unless you didn't mean that kind of celebration.*

"Isabel Evans, my dearest love - I meant EVERY possible kind of celebration," Alex said. "The kind that we share with all of our friends as well as the kinds that are just between you and I."

*Good answer!*

-----------

Isabel groaned as Max shook her away in the middle of the night, and tried to hide any telltales that might let her brother realize that she hadn't been deeply asleep or dreaming of calm blue oceans - she'd actually been just about to get down to the main event in a steamy shared dream love scene with Alex. Fortunately, her waking body didn't show all of the same signs of arousal once she had wakened, though the memories of what her boyfriend had been doing kept running through her mind.

They drove to Michael's apartment in the Jeep to collect him, and then made the long drive out into the desert night without saying much. "Max," Isabel suddenly blurted out with maybe five miles to go to reach the turnoff, "how far are you really willing to support me in this? I... I just feel like I need to know that before going on."

"In bringing Alex back to life through cloning?" Max hemmed over that question as he drove along. "I... I'm not quite sure how to answer that. I'll sacrifice a lot for the sake of this... because by this point it's not just about Alex, much as I like the guy, or even about making you happy and fufilled." He sighed. "Like last christmas, there's a kind of karmic imbalance, a fundamental injustice to what happened, and giving Alex his life back is the only way to set right what's gone wrong." He sighed. "On the other hand, I suppose that if the only way to continue the quest was to seriously risk a double-or-nothing at extreme odds, then I'd start to have some qualms about it. The universe isn't always fare, and we could lose more of the people we care about trying to get Alex back. I don't want that to happen, and I'm not sure that stubbornly insisting that we could skate through is the best way to deal with that sort of risk."

"Hmm." Isabel considered that, and looked around for Alex to see if he had a reaction to make. At first she couldn't see him, and then there was a flash of familiar eyes, which took her a second to realize were just in the back of her mind, not something that she was even seeing in the world around her the way she usually saw Alex. "Okay, that's fair enough. You - you can be my common sense, and reel me back in if I get too nuts about this, because I have to say that I feel stubborn and insistent."

"You're telling me," Michael grumbled. Isabel didn't even pay enough attention to glare at him this time.

"Maybe you guys should take care of the call," Max suggested once they were up in the pod chamber. "Since you were here to get the message."

"Okay," Isabel said, checking her watch. "We've got nearly a minute and a half before the window opens I think." Aside from getting the orbs and arranging themselves, there was little to do to pass the time as they waited. Finally her watch clicked over to the right point, and Isabel cleared her throat. Making the proper mental effort, both orbs glowed into activation, and the pod chamber walls began to shine a slightly brighter blue.

"Alright, this is Isabel, Max, and Michael from Earth, calling Karia at Seti 4 - or anybody else in the community leadership, if she's not available." There was a pause. "We, umm, we got your message from a few days ago, and..."

"Isabel!" For a second the name seemed to have been said by a shapeless ball of blue light, and then the same young girl appeared in the pod chamber facing them, with a tall boy standing next to her. Isabel nearly jumped a few inches in surprise, because the second holographic figure seemed to resemble Alex quite closely on first glance - same lanky height, same shag of dark brown hair, and big ears that stuck out a little. However, his eyes were blue-green and his cheeks were covered with fine stubble - in general, his face wasn't that close to Alex's - it was other things that had fooled her into seeing a resemblance. "It's great to hear from you - I wasn't even sure that you'd be able to get my message. How are things in Roswell?"

"Things are, umm, are not doing that badly, Karia," Max said, stepping forward a bit and using his best stern voice. "But, umm, well, I have to say I'm wondering why you seem so immediately friendly to people who you've never really met."

Karia shot a long look at him. "Distrust comes out of ignorance and fear," she said softly. "I know more about you than you might realize, Max Evans, and I don't believe that I have anything to be scared about when I'm dealing with you. Would you prefer that I was UN-friendly??" Max couldn't seem to come up with anything to say. "Oh, excuse me very much for the lapse in manners. This is Everran, one of the community representatives. I was meeting with him when your call came in, and asked him to stand in."

"Hello Evarran," Michael said, and Isabel nodded her head politely.

"No, we're glad that you're being friendly, just taken a little off guard by it I guess," Isabel admitted. "And, well, curious about what you said in your message that you could help with my mission. Was there any particular kind of help that you were thinking of providing??"

Karia blinked. "Ummm... not really. I'm not sure what's required, and we don't have the offensive millitary capability to take or steal something very valuable from Kivar's dominion, for example. But if there's something that you need to get from friendlier factions, then we might serve as a valuable relay station. Do, umm, do you have any idea what you might need?"

"A memory transfer device capable of integrating particular information into the neural structure of a developing brain?" Isabel asked.

"Hmm... yeah, we might be able to help out with that. It's not an off-the-shelf item, though, so there might be some difficulty." Karia paused meaningfully. "Is that all that you really wanted to ask me about?"

"No, there's a few other things," Max said, and took a moment to organize his own thoughts. "Umm... well, both of you seem very young. I know that everybody's appearance is altered by these communication devices, to match the species of the viewers or something like that. But I wondered if you were..."

"Well, umm, yes, I'm legally an adult by our standards or Antar's, but I'm also in the early third of my lifespan," Karia admitted. "So are many of the council. That's sort of a tradition from the early days after the crash. It was the young people who were willing to take charge, who had strong ideals and courage of their convictions, and they prevailed in the first conflict when the Breeolyn came here and tried to disposess us and seize the ancient ruins for themselves. I wasn't even conceived back then, of course, but a lot of young people apply for leadership positions early - before finishing their tertiary education programs, even. Then many of them retire from public life and pursue a second vocation after."

Isabel tried to come to terms with that... with what the united states would be like, if senators and governors were routinely elected from the ranks of college students. Definitely very different - but if it seemed to work well for the Setians, more power to them. "Okay," Max said. "Maybe you should tell us a bit more about the origins of your world - about this crash and what happened right after."

"Well, that's a long story."

"Indulge us," Max said, a wide smile spreading across his face.

"Okay, you asked for it," Evarran said, speaking up for the first time...

-----------

"Oh, boy," Isabel said, collapsing onto her bed at five minutes to three AM. "Umm, can you even remember what we were up to before getting so RUDELY interrupted??"

"Oh, yeah, I don't think I'm likely to forget," Alex agreed, running his hand over her arm. "But are you sure that you're up for more fooling around right now? In the middle of the night??"

"Hmm." Isabel considered. "Maybe we should go mental, so that my parents don't notice anything weird."

"That's, umm, that's not exactly what I meant, darling," he said, as Isabel stroked his cheek and his neck. "It... um, it's the middle of the night, you were up late last night - and you've got a 6 am shift at the Crashdown tomorrow." Isabel groaned. "Maybe this isn't the best time to be fooling around."

"I swear, you aren't quite human any more," Isabel teased him. "Okay, okay, alright, maybe that's a point. But if I go right to sleep and then to work in the morning - then we have to get some nookie time in the afternoon. No excuses, mister!"

"Hey, I'm not about to make any," he grinned as Isabel pulled off her jeans and crawled into bed, still wearing the sweater that she'd gone up into the desert night in. "Of course, if we nookie in the afternoon, then you'll probably want to meet up with Langley in the afternoon." Isabel nodded, feeling tired already at how quickly her tomorrow was filling up. "Anything that I'm missing?"

"Yeah, I'm still horny," Isabel teased him. "And restless. How am I going to get to sleep like this?"

"Oh, that's easy," he said, smiling at her.

"It is? Hmm??"

"Yeah," Alex admitted, and a wave of lethargy seemed to hit her, so that her head hit the pillow, ponytail first, which was frustrating until she turned to the side. And then...

Then, the alarm clock was blaring some kind of loud alternative rock at her. Well, she'd set it to do that because she found that annoying music was helpful when she really needed to get up. But - but was it really... yes, she'd gotten several hours of deep sleep, and she did feel the better for it in a slightly confused way. Now, shower, quickly change, and off to the diner to open up with Maria.

How had Alex managed to put her to sleep so quickly and effectively? She tried to sense him, but probably he'd blipped out to make sure that he could spend most of the day with her, and that was alright. Her sweater was a little bit damp - it was really too warm to sleep in, but that hadn't woken her up. Well, she'd be able to clean it out later.

Morning shift at the diner wasn't quite as frustrating as it had been the day before, which was about as much as she could ask for, really. Michael wasn't cooking, but Max, Kyle, and Tess all showed up for breakfast, and she was able to spend little breaks with them over the course of the morning. And some flamboyant college boy gave her a ten-dollar tip even though she had NOT been flirting back with him. Probably a trust fund kid who the money didn't mean anything too - just threw it around everywhere in case it managed to impress a certain percentage of the pretty girls he came across.

Nobody was home when she slipped back in. Uneasily Isabel realized that nothing had ever really been resolved about that picture of Alex at her graduation - she hadn't given any sort of answer to her parents, when they said that they thought she was hiding something from them, and they hadn't really pressed her about it. Well, she hadn't been spending much time with her folks - maybe she'd try to change that whenever she could, and see where things led. It was tempting to avoid them, but that didn't resolve anything or make things better, and interacting with them might, one way or another.

Isabel hurried into her room, closing the door, and flopped down on her bed again. Then... "Alex? You're here, right??*

"Where else would I be, my darling?" He stepped through the door. "You saw that I'd popped back in, when you were serving out lunches, right? And I don't leave you."

"You didn't use to," she whispered. "Until you realized that you could jump away from me for short periods."

"Well... I won't do that again without warning you in advance," he said, stepping close. "Where to today??"

"I - umm, I don't really want to go into a dreamscape or a mental space," she said, letting her voice rise slightly. "We've got the house to ourselves. Do it right here, in my bed." She sighed. "We should have had the chance to sneak around here many more times, for real. And your room - we were never together there before you died."

"Hmm... no, I guess not," Alex admitted. "Okay, well, okay, might as well get started."

"Yeah." Isabel shot a sexy look at him. "But don't hurry. I want us to take our time."

"Hmm." Alex reached out to pull Isabel up off the bed and wrap his arms around her - he kissed her and pulled her hair out of the little green scrunchie that Maria had lent her that morning. She chuckled softly into his mouth, and the laughter turned into a bit of a gasp when Alex pushed her back down onto the bed. In quick succession, he flopped himself onto the mattress next to her, and pulled her over to straddle him. "Okay, if you want to dawdle, maybe you should take your turn at this point."

"Oh." Isabel felt herself squirming, and not in the way that she wanted to be. Tried half-heartedly to climb back off of him, but a hand on her thigh restrained her. "Come on, sweetie."

"What - what's wrong?" Alex looked up at her. "Do you not WANT to be on top?" His eyes danced with silent laughter.

"Umm... not generally, but - well, it seems sort of weird to..." Unable to explain further, she bounced herself slightly, as if to make the point more strongly.

"So - you don't mind me leaning on you, but when you're leaning on me, it makes you feel as if you're going crazy?" Alex asked softly. His words were tender, but hearing the sentiment phrased out loud made her worries seem more than a little silly. "Well, I don't really mind trying another position if it makes you feel better, but..."

"No, not a chance," Isabel suddenly decided. Rubbing her butt against his legs playfully, she snapped her fingers and concentrated - and Alex's purple t-shirt vanished, leaving his chest naked. Isabel bent over and kissed his skin, suddenly missing the way her longer hair would have brushed his body before she got it cut off. Then something else caught her attention and she realized that Alex was losing even more clothes - presumably he was doing it himself this time - slowly fading out his jeans an inch at a time, from the belt down. His shoes and socks fuzzed out of view too, leaving him wearing only a pair of well-tented boxer shorts.

"Alright, that works for me," she said, brushing and then gently rubbing the tent pole through the fabric covering it. "Now enough of this taking turns stuff. It's more fun when we're both doing stuff at the same time. Don't worry about the pacing."

"Hmmm." Alex considered that for a moment, and pulled her back down so that her neck was close enough to his face for him to kiss it. Isabel let her hands wander caressing over his lower torso, but had to stop that when she realized that her lover wanted to take her top off. Getting ready for working at the Crashdown that morning, she had thrown on a simple blue short-sleeved blouse with a high neckline, as well as a semi-short white linen skirt. (The outfit had worked out well as something to wear comfortably under the waitress uniform.) Now Alex's fingers were working nimbly at the buttons of her top, and tickling and tweaking the tender skin beneath. She raised her arms up behind her at the appropriate point to help him remove the shirt entirely. Alex threw it directly into her laundry basket, turned back to look at her, and blinked in surprise at her bosom. "Weren't - weren't you wearing a bra when we came in here??"

"Umm - er, yes, definitely I was," Isabel confirmed, favoring him with a cat and canary grin. (And that wasn't all she wanted to swallow today.) Alex reached up and caressed the voluptuous curves that had been entirely exposed. Isabel moaned loudly - the way he touched her there always hit her hard. "Umm, I merged the fabric into the blouse, while you were necking me," she gasped, feeling a strong urge to share that detail. "I, umm, I know that I can't really go braless - anywhere in public, with these girls -- but just once I wanted you to see them as soon as my shirt was off."

"Hmm... how very considerate of you," Alex whispered, bringing both hands to her 'girls' and fondling them more intently, tweaking and pinching gently, which made Isabel's insides flow with passion. "Do you want to deal with the skirt, or let me? It might take a while..."

"You do it, but don't worry about taking it off," Isabel whispered. "Just push it up - it'll all bunch up around my hips, and that's good enough for right now."

"Oh, okay," Alex had to move his hands down to work on the white linen, and Isabel took the opportunity to pull something down - Alex's shorts. The position would have gotten too complicated if she got them any further than around Alex's knees, but that was more than far enough for what she had in mind, especially to start. She leaned in at the tent pole without a tent and licked all the way up its length. "Oooooh man. That feels... feels great, but be careful..."

Isabel felt a strong hand cupping her butt, and then that sense was replaced by fingers working under the edges of her skimpy underwear to stimulate the delicate skin that hid underneath it. For a second she was confused, and then realized that because of what had been going on right before, she wasn't in a usual blow-job position, with the length of her body stretching down above or between Alex's legs, but instead she was on all fours with her torso pointed back at an angle, diagonally towards her beloved's head. It was probably pretty close to what was referred to as a 'sixty-nine' position, she realized, not that she'd ever actually SEEN one or anything, but Isabel supposed that if she stretched out a bit and adjusted her angle, she'd be able to rest her knees on either side of Alex's head, and then he'd be able to lick her hottest and most private parts - once that little scrap of underwear was well and truly out of the way.

She thought about actually getting into position, using her powers to take the panties off, and seeing what Alex would do, but put the whole notion aside for a few reasons - one was that what Alex was doing right now felt really good - he'd moved on and was caressing the backs and insides of her legs, but still. Also, she didn't really want the sucking part to last much longer and be a main event, but just a warmup. And that reminded her. *Be careful of what??* Advantages of thought transmission - you can be clear even when your mouth is full of something else. Oh, but maybe he'd have liked her to TRY to talk like this. To make up for that opportunity lost, she tried humming faintly deep down in her throat, while pushing the head of his pole as close to that part of her mouth as she c...

"Be careful not to make me shoot OFF in there!" Alex exclaimed. "I want you to be riding me in just a few seconds, and I think you - want it too." He was right - she definitely did, and judging by the tone of Alex's voice and the way his body was reacting, Isabel figured that the time to move on had come, and she had already started slipping her mouth off of his equipment before he finished speaking. Curious, she exerted her powers for a moment and connected to his body, trying not to reduce his arousal and excitement, but increasing the limit of how much direct stimulation he could endure without losing his stuffing. They both gasped as the connection fell away - presumably Alex had realized what she was trying to do and was turned on by the idea - while the link had been in place, he had sent back a strong mental sensation, of his tongue planting itself on her clit and teasing it just hard enough.

Her body flooded with arousal that she didn't want to let slip away, Isabel quickly yanked her panties down the human way, rolling around on the bed to continue the operation as quickly as possible without getting fabric caught between herself and the surface she was resting on. Once that was done, she made sure that her skirt was still pushed well up out of the way, and suddenly something weird occured to her. She had connected to Alex without thinking about it - but he didn't even have a real body - his only reality was inside her mind, as strongly linked to her as anything could possibly be. Yet nothing had seemed odd at the time about the process of linking her mind to his body - she had affected his system just exactly as if it was real, and Alex had sent her thoughts directly in a way that he didn't ususally tend to when he was in her world.

Just how far did this illusion that Alex was real, to her, extend - and did it start to fit the definition of a hallucination somewhere along the way? Well, she was NOT going to worry about it right now - she was going to fuck the hell out of that ghost boy and use his non-existent body for her very real pleasure. Alex remained stiff and shaking slightly, and Isabel felt as hot and steamy as the Amazon rain forest, so she crawled back up on top of him, no longer worrying about what was bearing her weight, and lowered her body down onto him. He gasped loudly and started to buck his hips a bit, which sent a wave of pleased fufillment through Isabel, and her knees trembled, making her fall down onto his member more solidly. Both of them screamed out loud as the hot animalistic lovemaking began.

Alex reached up towards her breasts again, and Isabel leaned forward, making them swing against each other hand hang out from her body, loving the sensations as he squeezed and palmed them, rubbing her skin and pressing the gap between the two wonders tightly closed. Isabel laughed merrily, pumped herself even harder on his stiffness... and froze almost motionless when Alex suddenly put a finger to his lips.

She had no idea at all how he'd been able to tell, in the midst of everything else that had been going on - but a car engine was dying away in the driveway leading up to her house.

Panicked, Isabel tried to think of what to do next. She considered retreating into a mental space to Alex to continue with what they had been doing - but that meant that she'd be insensate out here in reality, completely naked except for a white skirt bunched up around her hips, sweaty and the smell of her own sex leaking onto her. Of course, whoever was coming into the house probably wouldn't enter her room if they didn't get an answer - but somehow she couldn't abide riskin that chance, no matter how slim it might be.

Her body suddenly bounced a little again, just to keep both of them around as turned on as they had been before Alex had heard anything, and just at that moment, someone called out. "Hey, anyone here?"

It was her father. "Umm, yeah Dad. In my room."

"Okay." She couldn't make out anything more for a long time, and was pretty sure that he wasn't coming near after a minute or so. Then, suddenly, she started going for it again... trying to be as quiet as possible about the entire business, rocking softly so as to not make the mattress squeak audibly, and biting her bottom lip to keep any cries of passion from escaping out loud. (The thought ran through her brain that if he DID hear anything, from the situation her father would assume that she was energetically masturbating, which wasn't too unexpected for a girl her age, but theirs was a family where any such things were hidden from other family members as much as possible - at least, as far as any of the kids were concerned. Mom and Dad might share stuff like that, but -- ewww, bad mental picture to bring in.)

She connected to Alex again after a minute of coitus, meaning to drop his barriers to orgasm again - and maybe her own, but she never got the chance. When the link between them formed, the channels immediately filled up with a huge blast of erotic pleasure in feedback loop - she could sense what it felt like for Alex to be inside her as well as her own body's stimulation, and he was receiving both channels too, and the more sexual response either of them felt, the more they were broadcasting, until quickly they were both catapulted together through the climax...

In that quiet, rainbow-strewn crystal that lay on the other side, Isabel paused, holding Alex tightly to her, and boggled intelligently. There were a series of huge pictures there... herself looking over the railing of an observation deck on a tall tower, seeing a land of smaller buildings and wide freeways, and a deep blue ocean crashing on bright yellow sandy beaches. The white double doors of a blue building, with steps leading up to them, and words above the doorway that she couldn't entirely read because one of the doors, open, was blocking them. The granilith cone, towering enormously, but the walls of its room alive with alien energy, and Michael's face and upper body visible somehow INSIDE the cone itself. A strange shape, spinning so fast that its outlines weren't clear, shooting vigorously through space. Tess staggering and faltering in a dead run, looking up with a mix of panic and resolve in her eyes. And - and a digital watch ticking over to 10:30 - she wasn't sure if it was in the morning or evening.

And there were words spoken there too - but she couldn't remember them all. "...though the road of atonement, of attempting to redeem oneself after great evil, is long and straining, but nobody walks it alone. Forgiving another is hard in so many ways, and yet it m..."

There was a knock on the door, and Isabel started slightly - she was lying with her head back on the pillow, Alex held tightly next to her. "Princess, are you okay in there??"

She jumped slightly - princess was something that her father had never been wont to call her very often, and not at all since she'd been nine or so. "Umm, yeah, just a bit tired after my shift at work. I'm probably going to try to see if I can catch a nap, okay?"

"Alright, darling, just don't tire yourself out too much on the hunt, okay?" She laughed as much as she could at the very old joke, and lay there, pulling her skirt back down. "I'm, umm... I'm back off," Dad called, what might have been seconds or many minutes later. "Got a client meeting. Back home for dinnertime, okay?"

"Yeah, gotit Dad." She could hear him leaving and the car pulling away, and Isabel had to admit by that point that she did not really feel tired. She got up, went to the bathroom, sponged herself down a bit and put on a black t-shirt. When she went back into the room Alex was sitting up on the edge of the bed, and watching her. "So - what now?"

"Umm, whatever you want to do, pretty much like ususal," he admitted. "I don't have any big priorities for the day."

"Hmm. Well, first, there's something that I want to settle. Pick me up."

Now it was Alex who blanched at the thought. "You - you want me to carry you - just to settle if I *can*?"

"Yes - I feel like it's very important to know at this point," she insisted. So Alex stood up, and moved close to her, and she could smell the faint and pleasant trace of sweat from his unwashed body, and he kissed her while they were close. So suddenly that she was caught off guard at first, Alex bent down to reach one arm underneath her thighs, and another supported her back solidly just below shoulder level. He swung her around the room slightly, and Isabel realized that she had never been picked up like this since she was a little girl and Dad had done it - never had Alex or any other boy her own age do this...

As she looked around the bedroom, a few things started to become clear. She definitely WAS being supported by something or someone - there was no real trace of uncertainty about the perspectives with which she was seeing everything, including the reflection of herself in the mirror. The reflection of Alex, though - had she never had a chance to notice this before? There was something a little unreal about his image in the mirror, and if she squinted just right he became very slightly transparent. Was that a cue from her subconscious mind about how he really wasn't there, just getting filled in by the presence of his spirit?

But - but there WAS something that was really there, Isabel realized, even if it wasn't visible. Sort of like - it was a pattern of alien energy lines and fields, that occupied exactly the same space his natural body would have. Uniquely attuned to her - so that only she could see Alex's semblance in those energy sequences - or hear his voice, or touch 'him.' Any other person moving close to those fields might disrupt them, as Michael had when he had sat in Alex's place in the car that time, not knowing he was there. But... but when she touched Alex, or made love to him, that contact was real enough, if supplanted by her own alien powers. She was relieved to know that much.

"Alright," she whispered to him. "Walk on the air, instead of on the ground."

"What??"

"Come on - can't you do that much for me?" she teased. "Just take a step three inches or so up, to start with."

He did, and seemed a bit unsteady at that point. He had to draw on her powers to support them without being directly in contact with the floor, she realized. He was flying, much like Isabel probably could herself if she put her mind to it, pushing down against the floor with kinetic power. "Alright." She kissed him. "That's enough - and thanks for indulging my curiosity."

"Um, sure." Alex landed them, and helped set Isabel back down on her feet. "So what's next?"

"Well, I want to get a snack," she said. "And to tell you about something." Alex paid very close attention as she told him about the things that she'd seen, and the words, which seemed to have something to do with Tess, but she wasn't sure what to make of them yet. "Any ideas?" She stirred some tabasco into a little cup of tomato soup and took a sip.

"The city and the ocean could be Los Angeles," Alex guessed. "Maybe you'll go there at some point to ask Langley more questions, after he has to go back." Isabel nodded. "Can you remember any of the words above the door in the blue building??"

"Oh, no, dammit," she muttered. "I remember being able to see some of them - or letters at least, but they've gone out of my head. Maybe I'll remember later." She sighed. "I - I think I want to work on the book translation to see if the flash of Michael inside the Granilith cone makes any sense. Maybe he was getting ready to travel somewhere, or... or go back in time."

"Okay," Alex agreed. "Maybe the shape flying through space is the Granilith functioning as a vehicle, though I don't see why it wouldn't still be regular and conical. The watch could mean just about anything."

"Maybe that's the time that your new clone body wakes up," she said with a smile. "And the other image - of Tess getting hurt. I don't know why, but I think that that's important."

"Well, I hope that you figure out what it means in time to make a difference," Alex said.

"Yeah." Isabel idly broke a tiny piece off of a saltine cracker, and tossed it over to him. "Do you want to try eating it??"

"Huh? I can't - not here."

"I - I don't think that you need the alien crystal cuboid for that," she insisted. "You'd just never tried before then. You can pick things up - I *know* that you can. Try eating it."

"And what if it makes a big stink in the dining room?" Alex teased. "How would you explain that to your mom??"

"Hmm, that's a point," she admitted. "Come outside and try it in the back yard. Nobody's too likely to notice it there - and we can say that maybe a skunk sprayed."

He laughed and shook his head. "Okay, I'll try - with a little piece like this - and then you start working on the Book translation stuff about the Granilith."

"Well of course!" Isabel took his hand as they got up. "I love you even if you have zombie breath, my friendly ghost."

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part 22


"Hmm." Langley considered, as he and Isabel sat in the park, spreading out bread crumbs for a few half-interested avians. "A planet called Seti? No, can't say that it rings a bell offhand. Do you know anything else about it other than the name?"

"Urm, non-breatheable atmosphere, powerful alien ruins, and a slaver ship landed by accident there something like a hundred and..."

"Oh, *that* place," the mysterious shapechanger filled in with a very sharp chuckle. "I guess I should have born in mind the trickyness of relying on automatic translators. Myself, I'd have pronounced the name more like 'Ceeta', but that doesn't really matter. I know the place that you mean now."

"Um, okay," Isabel said. "Any more that you can tell me about... about them or how they fit into the other interstellar politics stuff?"

"Hmm, not much - never dealt with a Ceetean direct, because they generally stay put and don't like many visitors coming over. Purposefully stay wrapped up in mystery and rumour, too. But let's see... politically they are standoffish and isolationist, with a buried idealistic streak. No friends of the Breeolyn, because they run the slave trade, or of Kivar really. Some ties to Rahlicx and the Liaretians."

"So, that makes them sound a little like they're on our side," Isabel filled in. "What about, umm, the other planets - Gevinor and... oh, I can't remember. The place with the jungle nobility."

"Taliernar," Langley filled in, the strange name rolling off of his tongue with apparent ease. "Um, cautious friendship I suppose. They trade with both worlds - and have had at least one squabble with each of them. What more can I say?"

"In the rumors... are there humans, or part humans, living there?" Isabel asked.

"Pretty certainly, since the ship had landed on Earth for a slave raid and was on its way back."

"Just how does that work? Where would they have taken the slaves from, specifically, and how many have been taken? Why haven't they taken even more? It's not like Earth could have put up much resistance to spacefaring ali-- peoples that long ago, or longer." Pause. "Sorry, I know that that was a lot of questions, but..."

"It's okay, but I don't have a lot of answers," he assured her. "Price of transport probably had a lot to do with why there weren't more slaves taken, and there isn't really a huge market for Earthlings. ~~"

"Okay, well, guess the rest of the questions don't matter too much," she allowed. "Max, Michael, and I - we talked with the leader of the Ceeta colony. She, umm, she offered to try to find a workable memory transfer unit and have us just pick it up there."

"Be careful," he muttered automatically. "You probably know that nearly as well as I do, but - but since your only real way to get there is the Granilith..."

"I did think about that," Isabel said. "But... is there any particular reason that they'd WANT to have the Granilith, except that everyone else does? They seem to be sitting on quite enough powerful and unexplained technology, and the big G might attract more attention to them than they could easily fend off, even WITH it."

"I... I don't know, you might have a point," he said. "That was just a gut reaction I guess - not that I exactly have guts in the traditional sense." Isabel shook her head. "What about the rest of it?"

"We've been doing research on the list," Isabel said. "Have a plan on some of the easier ones... a contact for the enzyme serum stuff..." she sighed. "Not sure where to start with the soul implantation one... even the most careful way of inquiring into... into FSU stuff could start a WHOLE lot of trouble."

"I know," he admitted. "Did the notes and other stuff from... from my old partner yield anything useful for that sort of thing?"

Isabel shrugged. "A few places to start I guess - except for the problems of following up on a lead, as see above." She sighed and closed her notebook firmly. Enough of business for today. She looked up and saw Alex smiling at her. "So, any idea when you'll need to leave town again?"

"Probably around a day and a half," Langley said. "Oh, but it looks like I won't be heading back to LA for a little while."

Isabel blinked her surprise at that remark. "No? Why not?"

"New project... shooting in Phoenix, or somewhere near there. Not my usual sort of deal - independent funding, first-time scriptwriter, that sort of thing. They offered me a spot as a 'production consultant', and I kind of figured what the heck. Had a bit too much lately of the antics of the big-name studio, so..."

"Okay I guess," Isabel said. "Any idea how long you're going to be there?"

"Not exactly - will probably be going back to LA while the indy movie is still prepping and shooting," he said. "Calling in favors from my industry contacts and so on. But in principle, something like four months."

"Alright," Isabel said. "Maybe we can meet there in Arizona - it'll give me a chance to visit Michael's sister, too. Been too long since I've heard from Laurie, actually."

"Okay," Langley agreed. "Well, you'd probably better go get ready for your shift, huh?"

"Oh, right," Isabel said. "Well, thanks for your help, and I'll see you sometime before you go." She had an odd impulse to kiss the shapechanger on his cheek, but figured that it might seem weird for both of them afterwards, so settled for an enthusiastic wave as she left.

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

Over the next week and a half, a copy of the 'grocery list' in Isabel's organizer, (which she guarded unobtrusively and yet fiercely,) gradually got bunch of notes added to it that made her smile a little when she took a peek.

Max had started to follow the trail of the stolen alien cloning notes, identifying a crackpot 'UFOlogist' in the mid-southern states who had originally bought them from a crooked FBI agent, and gotten the name of a rich enthusiast collector who had paid the crackpot a much higher price for them, all of this back in the early nineties.

The tungsten had been purchased in Albuquerque by Jim Valenti, (with Isabel and Max paying him back out of pocket,) and transferred into a corner of the pod chamber as a storage location.

The recipe for the nutritive fluid had been worked out, a mix of ingredients that could be gotten at the grocery store and some that would require a purchase from the medical supplies distributor. Actually stocking any of it would have to wait until they were a lot further along with some of the other requirements - Alex referred to the mix as 'perfectly perishable' - mostly because microbes would find it as nutricious as a clone body would.

Liz had gone to talk to Alex's father about a 'biology independent study project' and asked a lot of rehearsed questions about enzymes, mitosis, and human growth. John Whitman hadn't been able to provide a specific reference to a catalyst that would fufill Langley's requirements straight off, partly because Liz couldn't find any way to admit what she was looking for and not sound like she was crazy, even using hypotheticals. (Maybe he wouldn't have known of one even if she'd found a way to ask directly.) But she had gotten some leads that Max was helping her to follow up.

Maria had finally, reluctantly agreed to go through 'egg donation' at the appropriate time so that Alex could live again - but only because Max had promised that he'd be able to get the job done painlessly for her.

Next to the 'alien soul transplantation' entry Isabel still had only one cryptic note, mostly made up of a name - Bryan Waverly. Apparently he'd been involved in the Special Unit at the time that Nasedo infiltrated it, and shortly after, he and several other agents disappeared AWOL - and took one-of-a-kind alien artifacts with them. Nasedo hadn't been able to hunt them down before he died, because exposing and dismantling the rest of the organization had been a higher priority.

-----------

In the last week of June Michael threw Maria a birthday party for her eighteenth year. Insisting on making it a surprise was probably a mistake - Maria got so upset that Michael was 'busy' that she decided to blow off an errand that her Mom asked her to run, which actually meant that she was blowing off the whole party. Eventually half the gang had to go out looking for her, and when Isabel found the prodigal birthday girl, she pretty much blew the surprise in favor of getting Maria to come on right away.

But the party itself was great, with mixes that Alex had prepared that day playing on the stereo, and lots of good presents for the guest of honor like an MP3 player that Michael had been saving up to buy, and just plenty of fun in general. Some of Maria's birthday-girl thunder was stolen by another topic of conversation - Kyle had asked Tess out on a lunch date for two days after the party, and she had said yes. Isabel, for her own part, wished them the best, and thought that everybody making such a fuss about the date was probably a bit counter-productive, but what the hey?

And once the party was over, Liz went home and found a girl with pink-dyed hair and a miniskirt waiting around her back door.

-----------

"Ava?" Isabel said into the phone. She was getting the story third-hand from Max the next morning.

"Yeah, apparently she just decided to drop by Roswell and visit Liz again on a lark, now that she was sure that Lonnie and Rath had given up on trying to find her. Hadn't heard about Alex's death, or what Tess did, or any of it. I think that she took the news pretty hard - like she thinks that she could have done something to stop her alter-ego."

"Hmm." Isabel considered this. "And just when did you head back to the Crashdown, Max?"

"Well, umm... when we got in, Liz's message was already on our phone. She wasn't terribly coherent, and I thought about asking you to come, but... well, she only said that she wanted me to come back over right away, so that's what I did. Figured that if it was a real emergency, I could call you. But I guess we both wanted you and Alex to enjoy some time alone if you wanted to."

"Hmm." Isabel wasn't sure if she was grateful for that or miffed that her friends were still treating her as a honeymooner with her seldom-seen ethereal sweetie. "Okay, well, I'll be over in a bit for my shift anyway."

"Okay, but Ava won't be here," Max said. "Liz's parents are going to be back any minute - I'm taking her to stay at Michael's place, so that they don't ask any awkward questions."

"Hmm." Isabel thought about that. "Okay, good enough. I'll catch up with her eventually." As she got ready for work, Isabel started to run over all of the things that she might want to ask Ava about.

Maria was on shift when Isabel got to the cafe, but Liz wasn't around - probably helping Ava settle in at Michael's. Kyle and Tess were hanging around, getting a kind of midmorning brunch, and then there was a sudden rush as every townie and high school student seemed to come by wanting burgers. Things finally quieted down around four o'clock, a little while before Isabel got off her shift. Maria drove her over to Michael's, and Ava had settled into the living room pretty well by then.

"So, what've you been up to since Thanksgiving, Ava?" she asked brightly.

"Umm, well, this and that," Ava said in a mumble. Her hair was, surprisingly enough, no longer pink at this point - perhaps she had dyed it to avoid attracting too much attention. The short strands framing her face, (and the ones on the back of her head too and everywhere else for that matter,) were a soft, golden brown that seemed to set off her blue eyes and pale skin strikingly - quite light, as brown hair went, but not nearly as light as Tess' blonde do of course. "I went north of the border for a little while, found work as a muffler shop receptionist in Manitoba somewhere until the winter was over, pretty much."

"Okay I guess," Maria replied. "Sounds a little... well, it lacks a certain something that I can't name, but at least it probably wouldn't suck too much."

"Yeah," Ava agreed. "Met some kinda weird people up there in Canada, but they were nice." She sighed. "Dropped by Detroit, to talk to one of Zan's old contacts and see if I could figure out anything about Rath and Lonnie. Apparently, they've gone abroad - Lonnie always had a talent for picking new languages up in a flash, so she wanted to try her luck out in Japan and China."

"Well, that's reassuring," Michael put in. Liz wasn't sure if he'd already heard this story before or not. He'd been around for at least part of the day while Ava was moving in, Isabel assumed.

"Yeah. And I did some retail at the Mall of America, celling cigs and bubble gum to the tourists, before getting bored of that. Kinda messed around with a cute Midwestern boy, but he wasn't up to much other than a passing diversion." Ava shrugged. "Since then I've been wandering around, and decided to swing back and see my cornball." Her gaze rested fondly on Liz for a moment. "Now, from what I've heard, you've been going through some wild stuff lately yerself, Miss Evans."

"Well, yeah, I guess that that's true," she admitted. "How much have Liz and Max told you?"

"Don't worry about that." Ava's voice was oddly reassuring. "Just tell me the story from the beginning - from the night that he died."

"Oh, hey, you're here already," Alex said, popping in. Ava did a remarkable double-take. Probably nobody had managed to find the time to explain to her about the alien crystals that were still in operation in Michael's living room, allowing Alex to be visible to anyone. "Umm, hey Ava. How... how's it going?"

"Not too bad. I... I was just telling Isabel that I wanted to hear the whole story of your death and afterlife from her. Now that, well, since you're here, I, umm - I guess that I can get it from both of you."

"Yeah, alright." Alex took Isabel's hand and guided her to the loveseat.

Telling things, as you might imagine, took most of the afternoon, three pizzas, and most of the evening. Finally, once Isabel had told Ava all about the latest news on the requirements for her quest, and how Kal Langley, (who had been Ava's guardian back in New York City when she was young,) had gone to Phoenix for the independent movie. "So... is there anything that you think that you can help out with?"

"Hmm... not sure at the moment," she admitted slowly. "May need to, you know, sleep on it. Some of them are definitely not up my alley. But - well, I'm up for joining the hunt against the FBI Special Unit holdouts. Kind of makes sense to figure out what they're up to before they suddenly get in our face, after all. And - well, if you want some company on a trip to that Ceti planet, I'll come along."

"Hmm... okay, I'll keep that in mind," Isabel said slowly. She was eager for Ava's help, but still not quite sure how much she could trust the girl, who shared Tess' DNA, and possibly some of her spirit. Then again, she'd always been friendly to Liz, which counted in her favor, and had helped save Max's life from Rath and Lonnie - then again, Tess had helped Max out of tight spots too, but she had had selfish reasons for it that didn't apply so much to Ava - unless she just sort of liked Max because he reminded her of Zan...

"So, do you have any plans, Ava?" Liz prompted. "Are you going to stick around Roswell for a while?"

"Yeah, sure," Ava agreed. "This place seems to have more fun and action than anywhere else I'm likely to find, after all." She sighed. "What about you, Liz?"

"Well, actually, aside from working at the diner, I think that I've got a lead on that enzyme serum for clone Alex," Liz replied. "This company that's building a factory outside of town apparently does lots of really cutting-edge ~~biochemical research - Metachem. Because I'm such a good science student, (even with alien-related stuff going on taking away from my homework time,) I was able to get some people at the school to arrange a meeting with the regional director and some of their top biochemical research team leads. I might even be able to get to work inside there as a research intern - mostly a public relations thing, but it could be a good opportunity."

"Hmm... a chemical company, setting up outside Roswell?" Isabel asked. "I, umm... I wonder if they were the people who commissioned Gr - ehhh, he-who-shall-not-be-named."

"Come on, sweetie," Alex chided her with a very affectionate nudge. "You can mention old boyfriends if they happen to legitimately come up in the conversation. Being dead, I'm kind of beyond getting jealous of someone like Grant Sorenson - especially since he beat me over here, in a way."

"Hmm... well, I'm not sure," Liz said. "There wasn't anything about him, or geological surveys, in the stuff that I found out about Metachem, but there probably wouldn't have been even if they are connected. Whoever hired him, that was probably before he managed to run into the Gandarium in Frazier woods and get... eeek." The gesture that Liz made didn't really convey how Grant had been invaded and taken over by an alien crystal intelligence any more than the sound did.

"Well, Max - you told me not long after he showed up, that you'd checked on his credentials and his reason for being here in Roswell," Isabel said. "You didn't mention a company name to me, but from the way you talked about your findings, I assume that you'd have seen one."

"Yeah, but that was like nine months ago," Max protested. "Meta-chem sounds vaguely familiar in that context, but I don't think I can be any more than seventy per cent sure at this point. And I'm not at all sure that I can retrace the steps of the fact-finding that I did back then."

"Well, it's not that important, the Grant thing," Alex put in. "This meta-chem lead looks like a good one, Liz. Take it as far as you can, and let us know if you need any help. I'll be up for doing some ghostly sleuthing around the plant, if necessary - Isabel can come to visit you one day if you get the intern job."

"Yeah, and this internship might be a good opportunity completely aside from the clone project," Maria pointed out. "Looks good on a college transcript, might be handy when you're looking for a real job."

"Yes, but I'm a bit worried," Michael said. "Especially - well, if the Grant connection is there, that would show that Metachem has been planning this for nearly a year, possibly more. Of course, there could be all kinds of innocuous reasons that this company sets up a plant near Roswell, but there are also reasons that somebody who's a player in alien affairs might want to do it."

"You mean, maybe there's a Skin or other enemy alien agent involved?" Max asked. "Yeah... I guess that's possible. Last year was right after the transmission - after the Skins found out that we were here."

"Could be aliens," Ava said. "Could be the FBI special unit, what's left of them, or just independent crackpot alien hunters."

"I... I don't think that the usual sort of crackpots who chase us are able to direct policy for billion-dollar drug and chemical supply companies," Isabel put in.

"Maybe we're attracting a better class of crackpot," Alex put in. Nobody laughed. "Oh well, I tried."

"So, you heard all about Tess, right?" Isabel suddenly asked Ava. Caught by surprise, the petite girl nodded. "I... I hate to even ask you about this kind of thing, because you've never done anything against me, but..." She trailed off uncertainly.

"You want to know if I could ever do something like that?" Ava asked bluntly. Isabel shifted uncomfortably and made a very little nod. "Well, I - I wouldn't like to think so, but maybe she thought the same before things started. I didn't have Nasedo workin' on me when I was little, and Langley just seemed to want to get us out of his hair, so there's that. On the other hand, growin' up with Lonnie and the guys was a little weird, and I still have weird stuff from that what I'm still dealing with. But I don't think that would ever be enough to make me hurt any of you - or to keep secrets about things you need to know. How's that??"

"Sounds pretty good to me, Ava," Alex said. "Thanks, that really helps."

"Nothin' doing." She stretched. "Now, could you guys like, all clear outta my room? It's been a long and busy day, didn't sleep much last night, and I did a lot of driving yesterday."

"Okay, okay," Max said with a smile.

"I'll go, but remember, this is my living room, not 'your' room," Michael insisted. "You can crash here for a while, but not indefinitely."

"And it's the only place that we can safely use the crystals to make Alex appear, here in town," Isabel pointed out. "So we'll need to hold a lot more meetings in here probably."

"What about Valenti's place?" Ava pointed out reasonably. Isabel thought about that. "Don't worry - I won't be a pest about things. Thanks Michael - I really appreciate this favor."

"Hey, it's not a big deal," he told her, as the others started getting ready to leave for the night.

-----------

Liz ended up getting offered the internship position that she had talked about, and of course she took it. Isabel decided to use whatever time wasn't taken up by waiting tables and Alex helping Max out with the cloning notes aspect of the project. With Alex's help, she was able to use the internet to track down the name of the rich enthusiast collector, and Max prevailed on Brody to call him. He still had the 'item of question', and was not interested in selling. Brody asked a lot of questions about what these plastic sheets full of mysterious markings were, and why Max and Isabel knew about them. Max tried to come up with a fairly simple story to satisfy his boss' curiosity, but Isabel privately wasn't sure that Brody was entirely satisfied. Maybe it'd have been better to prod Max into making that call himself.

The next afternoon, which was a day off for Isabel at the Crashdown, she got a call on her cell phone around one-thirty.

"Hey, who is this?"

"It's Liz."

"Oh, right." Liz was at the internship, she remembered. "How's things at Meta-chem?"

"BAD!" Liz hissed. "Listen, I've told my boss that a friend of mine is having a personal crisis. Can... could you come here and pick me up? I... I've just got to get out of the building for a little while and sort some stuff out, okay??"

"What, why..."

"I can't tell you any more on the phone," Liz pleaded. "If anybody's managed to overhear this much, it'd be bad enough, but..."

"Okay okay," Isabel said. By this point Alex was looking straight at her with a very concerned expression, worried about his friend. Presumably he could tell what Isabel was hearing over the phone, but didn't know anything more about what was upsetting Liz at this point. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

When Isabel pulled up into the Metachem parking lot and presented herself at the security station outside the front door, Liz was waiting for her there, and hugged the taller girl so tightly that Isabel wondered how much of this was an act and how much was Liz's own honest distress. Isabel did her best to play along with whatever Liz seemed to want of her until they were both in her mother's car and heading back to town. "Okay, what's the deal?"

"Well, the first thing is - Doctor Sosa tried to spill some mysterious chemical or preparation on me, or near me, something like that. He said that it was completely harmless, but I'm not nearly so sure..."

"Wait, he tried?" Isabel said. "What stopped him? Spilling something is pretty easy to do, I'd figure."

"I... I think I might have stopped him," Isabel said in an upset whisper. "At least, the beaker seemed to right itself and come down on the counter as if an invisible hand had caught it. And the breath went right out of me and I shook - is it sometimes that way when you use your powers?"

"Umm... sometimes. I think it was when I was little, when I wasn't used to it." She sighed. "Did this Doctor guy notice what happened?"

"Well yeah, at least a little, I don't see how he could have missed it." Liz took a deep breath. "That was freaky enough. He went off, probably to talk to the regional director, kind of a creepy lady, Mary Wheeler - no, not Mary, something else that kind of sounds like that though. While he was gone, I actually snuck into his office and looked around a bit. And I saw a file folder label with my name on it and 'September 18th 1999.' I didn't have a chance to look inside, because I figured that Sosa would be back any moment, and actually he was. But - well, that's when I started to work out my escape plan."

"Probably a good thing," Isabel said. "September eighteenth - that was the date of the shooting, right?"

"Yeah, I'll always remember that day," Liz agreed. "Guess you can sortof see why."

"Yeah," Isabel agreed. April the twenty-seventh had about as much resonance for her, for a similar reason. "If... if they're interested in the shooting, then maybe it wasn't just because of your bright idea that they offered the internship. They wanted access to *you*. And if they were deliberately exposing you to some strange substance - well, I'm very glad you were able to keep the beaker from spilling, even if Sosa saw. Not sure what he'll be able to make of it - hopefully not too much."

"But HOW was I able to do it?" Liz persisted.

"Ava said that you were changed when Max brought you back from the point of death," Isabel replied. "That you were a little more like one of us. Maybe you'll start to get more alien powers than that."

"Hmm." Liz thought about that. "Well, we need to definitely do more research on Metachem - and on Meris Wheeler. That's her name. There has to be something that we missed."

-----------

"Mister Clayton Wheeler," Alex said, pulling up an information page from the search engine. "He's the missing link." Alex, Isabel, and Liz were back in Isabel's room, with Alex using the computer - his old computer - as naturally as if nothing had happened to him.

"Chairman of the Board of Directors, holding a significant controlling interest in the company," Liz read through Alex's shoulder, since she couldn't see him at the moment. "For the past eighteen months, Mister Wheeler has been in long-term care at the Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas." She whistled. "Suffering from an exceedingly rare degenerative syndrome of the bone marrow, known as Waylington's disease."

"And this is Meris Wheeler's husband?" Isabel asked.

"She's his second wife, though apparently there were a lot of 'lady friends' who were fishing for the wedding ring and never caught it," Alex confirmed. "So, what does it all mean?"

"Well, I can see how someone in Clayton's position might issue orders to find a mysterious healer," Liz said slowly. "Following up rumors - like the ones that developed in the crackpot UFO community that heard stories about my shooting... or even trying to get info out of the Special Unit, if he knew about it."

"And Meris?" Isabel asked. "Well, if she's not just a gold-digger out for the estate, she could be spearheading the project. Though he's what - forty years older than she is?"

"Nearly," Alex said. "Maybe she started out as a gold digger and came to honestly care for him later. Anyway, this is fairly good news I think. If they're following more conventional approaches to treating the big boss, then they'll quite likely have developed what we need as a partway step."

"But how do we get our hands on it, if they're trying to find us?" Liz insisted. "Find Max I mean - he's the one that they really want."

"Well, you should probably say that you're resigning the internship," Isabel decided. "That just gives us more leverage, really - if they want you back, maybe we can negotiate for something. Say that you're really needed at the cafe or something. I can go with you when you go to let them know and sign your exit form at Human Resources or whatever - thus giving Alex his chance to look around. Then we'll figure out what we can do next."

"It might be..." Alex said softly and uncertainly, "that the best course would be to offer a trade. Give them what they want in exchange for what we want."

"Are you serious?" Liz asked. "That... that would mean admitting in Max's powers... and SOMEBODY is probably going to figure out that something odd is up with Mister Wheeler's 'miraculous recovery' and start sniffing around for their own turn with Doctor Alien. Over and beyond all of that - what if curing something like that... is beyond Max's abilities? What if it would hurt him? He - he wasn't able to save Grandma Claudia, though I'm grateful for what he was able to do on my behalf with her. And with people so determined... we couldn't really let Max examine the old guy and then say that he can't help. They wouldn't take no for an answer."

"It was just a suggestion," Alex said. "There may be problems, and safeguards that we'd need to employ before even seriously thinking about it. But... but going to all of this cloak-and-dagger stuff to bring me back from the dead, and avoiding chances to help other people along the way - it seems paradoxical and selfish, a little."

"Well, I guess I can't argue with that one," Isabel admitted. "Okay, we'll think about it."

"Wait a second," Liz said suddenly. "Scroll down a bit on the screen, Alex." He did. "That link on the side - Peter Tarisar - click on it." A new profile emerged. "That - that's the guy who bought up the freakin' cloning notes!"

"Metachem's VP of finance," Isabel realized. "Probably working under Wheeler's orders, hoping that they could decode the alien writing and find something that could help him."

"Oh, boy," Alex said. "So, now they have TWO things that we need. Just great."

"We'll have to tell Max and Michael right away," Isabel said. "And Ava probably."

"Hey, Isabel?" Her mother's voice called out. "You've got more company."

"If that's Michael coming over, it's going to be a bit too weird," Liz remarked under her breath as they headed out of her room, Alex staying quite silent.

The new arrivals were both not Michael - instead Tess and Kyle were both waiting in the front hall, looking fairly coupley. It wasn't hard to guess how the dating was going between them. The five kids elected to head out to the Evans' back yard to talk.

"Yeah, I um, I mostly just wanted to come and check in," Tess said when Isabel asked what the reason for the trip had been. "Realize that I've been sortof falling out of the loop with AlexQuest, since Langley arrived, and Kyle and I, well... and after Ava came back." Isabel wasn't sure if Tess had said much to her New York dupe - probably it was nearly as awkward for the two of them to interact as it had been for Isabel to deal with Lonnie. "But I still do want to help, if there's anything that I can do."

"Hmm," Isabel said, and started to acquaint Tess with what they had learned about Metachem and the Wheelers.

"Well," Tess said, getting up from the patio table once the basic facts had been passed along. "If these guys are human, not aliens themselves - and nothing you've found seems to point that way, then probably I can use my powers to get the upper hand on them. If you want me to."

"Hmm... not sure about that," Isabel said. "Probably you can tell why I don't really want to be going for the mindwarp as a first tactic. Thanks for the offer, though. It might help, especially if we get into a tight spot with the Wheelers."

"Sure," Tess said.

"Maybe you should ask Langley if he knows anything about Metachem and the Wheelers?" Kyle asked. "If they have any alien connections, he'd probably have some sort of line on them."

"Depends on how straightforward the connection is I guess," Liz said. "Seems worth a try though. Anything else?"

"How long has it been since you've gone up to the pod chamber?" Tess asked.

"Umm - maybe a week. Why?"

"Just wondered - there might be a message from the Ceetans - or from Larek, or even somebody else. Don't want to lose an opportunity because we're not checking the answering machine often enough."

"Yeah, okay," Isabel said. "Probably taking a trip up this afternoon makes sense - you guys all want to come along?"

"Sure I guess," Kyle said. Tess and Liz nodded as well, and Alex was grinning at Isabel.

"We can take my car," Tess suggested. "Instead of you having to borrow one of your parent's again. How's the crashdown car fund coming?"

"A bit slowly, but that's to be expected I guess," Isabel said. She had been saving nearly everything that she got from waitressing, but still it didn't seem to amount to much against even a portion of the money to buy a car. "Maybe I should take on an extra shift."

"Well, you're probably ready for that," Liz remarked critically, "but that'll leave less time for all of the rest of this stuff."

"Yeah, I know."

They piled into Tess' blue SUV.

----------

There were no messages waiting at the Pod chamber, and after a bit of discussion with the star charts it was clear that they couldn't make any outgoing calls to useful places even if they had wanted to. Tess and Kyle stayed in the outer room - she was showing him which pod had been hers before the four of them emerged from suspended animation, and where they had healed Nasedo once, and then failed to do it a second time.

Liz, Isabel, and Alex went into the Granilith chamber. Isabel put her hand against the cone and jumped slightly, not pulling away immediately. "You know, it's weird, but I sort of get the sensation that this might be able to do more for us than just serve as a transport vehicle to other planets... if we could just figure out how."

"Hmm." Liz frowned and narrowed her eyes a bit. "Are... do you think you might be in contact with something, touching it like that?"

Isabel was surprised at the suggestion. "I... I don't think so, but maybe. Should I try pulling away and seeing if I can detect a difference."

"No, not yet," Alex said. "Whatever connection you have, might be hard to re-establish. Try to delve deeper into it first, since I can't think of anything else that's worth tryi--"

"Alex!" Liz exclaimed. "I... I can see you again. How can I see you in here??"

Alex and Isabel traded a long glance. "Okay, maybe the Granilith has something to do with THAT," Isabel said, "because I can't think of any other way to explain it. Hmm..." She thought hard for nearly a minute, and then decided to try something supremely obvious. "Granilith, can you hear me? Can you respond??"

Liz caught her breath, and Alex chuckled very faintly. Isabel strained past the reactions of her friends to 'hear' any reply from the alien artifact, and then very faintly, she could sense something. Not a voice, not even words in her head, but a faint sensation or a wordless thought that had NOT originated in her head. A sensation of something attempting to signal, to communicate, but not being able to convey anything more than that faint trace of contact. "Sort of the mental equivalent of waving your arms around as hard as you can," she muttered under her breath. "'I'm here, I'm here.'"

"So, is the Granilith intelligent in a way?" Liz asked. "Can it understand what we say?"

"I... I'm not sure," Isabel said. "I can sense something from it, and I guess it's able to respond to something in order to send out what I'm receiving. Anything more than that... we may need to find a key before we can get further."

"The crystal, the one that Tess gave us," Alex put in. "That could be a literal key, and allow the G to respond more clearly."

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "We should try with that, as soon as we can."

"That may be the day after tomorrow," Isabel put in. "Unless you want to try without me, and really I'd rather be there."

"Sounds okay," Liz said. "So, we've got the granilith, Metachem, asking Langley about metachem - and what else to worry about?"

"Not too much, for the immediate moment," Isabel decided. "Maria's egg donation can wait for later, just like the nutritive fluid. There's the memory transfer unit - I'm getting a bit worried that Ceta hasn't contacted us about that, actually. And the missing FBI special uniters, with the soul transfer gear."

"Quite enough headaches, in other words," Alex said, hugging her as they walked towards the one doorway out of the Granilith's room. "You need to relax a bit, honey, you've been going at full tilt for so long."

"Well, I think that you know some ways to get me to loosen up," Alex teased.

"Oh, come on guys - surely you get enough time to talk to each other like that when I'm not around!" Liz exclaimed.

"Like you and Max do, when we're not there?" Alex said to her, Liz flushed bright red.

Tess and Kyle were done when they got out to the pod chamber door, so the five of them started to head back down the hill, ready to return home to Roswell.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Twenty-three

"Oh, hello Liz," Meris Wheeler said as she and Isabel stepped into Doctor Sosa's office in the huge Metachem building. "Is this your friend? I hope that the crisis has been sorted out well enough."

"Um, hi Missus Wheeler," Liz said with a bit of trepidation. "Actually, no, I don't think that things were so simple. I'm afraid I'm going to have to formally resign the internship."

"Oh, that's terrible," Sosa said, narrowing his eyes slightly. "I was looking forward so much to working with you, Miss Parker. Your enthusiasm and perceptiveness have been a breath of fre..."

"Yes, that would be a shame," Wheeler said, a good deal less friendly than she had been. "I understand that personal issues do arise, but you made a commitment to this program, Miss Parker, and I would be very displeased to see you abandon it. After all, though we may not be employing you formally, we've spent time and effort training you, and leaving just at this point might be a choice that would have unpleasant consequences."

"Oh, spare me," Isabel muttered, a little louder than she had meant to, and everyone turned to stare at her, even Liz - Alex too, who nobody but she could see. "I... I mean, if for some reason Liz wasn't working out as an intern, even if it was no fault of hers, you wouldn't waste any time ditching her, and she shouldn't be afraid of saying that she's made a mistake and your internship program isn't working out for her. The effort you've spent training her is the risk you take on."

"Just who do you think you are?" Meris barked severely.

"I'm Liz's friend," Isabel said simply. "As her friend, I don't think that she should be working here one moment longer under the current circumstances. Of course, if you want to renegotiate the terms of an agreement with complete honesty - like, say, coming out and admitting why you wanted her so badly in the first place, then maybe we can strike a deal." Wheeler and Sosa were both speechless. "Yeah, I didn't think you'd jump at that right away. Know where to reach us, of course. Come on, Liz - let's go." She had to tug pretty hard on Liz's arm to get her to turn around.

"I... I can't believe that you said that to them," Liz breathed as they headed through the corridors of the building towards the exit.

"Frankly, neither can I really," Isabel muttered. "It wasn't planned out. But somebody needed to stop dancing around the issue, and I was happy to volunteer.

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

"Hey, anyone here?" Liz asked as she opened the door up to the stairs of the Parker apartment a few minutes later. "Mom? Dad??"

"Nope, not them," a female voice replied. Isabel traded glances with both Liz and Alex, and then gestured for Liz to lead the way up to her own home. When they got up to the top of the stares, Liz tried to glare into the living room and didn't entirely succeed.

"Ava? What are you doing over here, when nobody else is home?" she asked as fiercely as she could.

"Ehh, I got nostalgic for the place, cornball," Ava teased her back. "And Michael tossed me outtuv his living room so that he could have a nice quiet lunch with Maria. It's more or less okay that I came, right?"

"Umm... I guess," Liz said. "Though be careful with just letting yourself in - if only because it could get complicated if my parents come home. Actually, it's kinduv good that you're here, I wouldn't mind having you in the loop as far as our next move."

"Oh, right, the Metachem thing... you just handed them your walkin' papers?"

"Oh yeah," Isabel agreed. "And I added a few enigmatic lines in, just to start them wondering about how much we know and how much we've guessed about what they're up to."

"What - what do I do if they call me?" Liz blurted out.

Alex had the answer to that. "Tell them that you'll meet Meris down in the Crashdown. Nice public place, plenty of opportunity for you to have friends around. It's a way of making her come to your turf, on your terms, and that'll be completely obvious to everybody there. Should send a nice signal."

"Hmm." Ava considered that. "Yeah, I suppose. And what if they *don't* call?"

"They'll make a move sooner or later," Isabel insisted. "Mister Wheeler isn't going to improve all by himself. And if they pull something that we didn't expect - well, we'll deal somehow or other. We always do."

"Alright," Liz decided. "So, what else is up?"

"Not too much with us," Alex answered idly. "How about you and Max? Now that you're not interning - for the moment at least, I guess I thought that the two of you would be immediately off to spend quality time together."

"He's still working pretty long hours at the museum," Liz admitted with a sigh. "There has to be something that the four of us can do productively this afternoon."

"Go back up to the pod chamber?" Isabel suggested. "We have the granilith key thing to try, and I admit it might be a little bit neurotic, but I want to check for another Ceeta message, since nobody was able to go up there early enough to actually catch their transmission window."

"Alright," Ava said. "Sure that I can come along?"

"Hmm?" Isabel blinked in surprise to that. "Umm... yeah, of course we trust you enough to show you the pod chamber and everything - right?" Liz and Alex both nodded in agreement. "Probably makes some sense that we didn't show you in beforehand, just in case Lonnie managed to track you down or something, but now... we could use another brain or so, trying to figure out the Granilith, and I'm interested to know if you can use your palmprint to open up the pod chamber door."

"Yeah, that would settle a nagging question or two," Liz admitted. "Alright, umm, I want to drop by across the street and let Max know what's up, and then we can go."

"Okay, sure," Isabel said softly. Was Liz deliberately giving Max a chance to veto letting them spread the Granilith's location to Ava, if he chose to? Well, maybe that was for the best.

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

Ava turned and smiled nervously at Isabel as the Pod chamber door slid open. "Okay, so it works I guess," she said, waving her hand at the other kids.

"I... I'm glad that you're on the list," Liz told her. "Even if this might mean more trouble with Lonnie and Rath, if they ever decide to come back to town."

"Let's not worry about that," Isabel said, hurrying into the chamber proper and checking for messages. "Dammit, nothing. What's keeping them?"

"It could be all kinds of things, honey," Alex said, stepping up to her and wrapping an imaginary arm around her. "They've got an entire planet to worry about running."

"Yeah, I guess that's true," she admitted, letting go of her frustration and smiling up at him. "Okay, granilith key time."

"Yep," Ava agreed. "But no matter what, nobody starts the countdown to launch it into space."

"Yeah, I think that we can avoid that," Liz assured her. "According to the book translation, in addition to having the key, using the G as a spaceship requires using particular control interfaces that develop in the chamber. We can just stay away from those commands that would confirm starting the launch countdown."

"Is it possible to stop the countdown safely once it's begun?" Alex asked. "That one always bothered me."

"Yes, up until sixteen minutes before the launch," Isabel said, frowning slightly as she led the way towards the Granilith cone. "Most easily just by removing the key and taking it out of the pod chamber area. After that deadline, though, it's point of no return. I mean, unless you literally return in the Granilith after you've left."

"Let's not talk about that any more," Ava said as they filed into the Granilith chamber. "Where do you insert it, anyway?"

Isabel shot Alex a look without being too obvious about it. Was it possible that Ava was being just a bit too curious about this stuff? No, if Isabel had been out of town when all of this had been happening, she'd be at least as full of questions herself. "Over here," Isabel said, being neither too deliberate nor terribly vague about where she slid the key into an almost-invisible slot in the wall. A giant diagram full of alien symbols appeared higher on the wall, but she ignored it for now. "Granilith, can you reply to verbal commands now?"

A voice spoke from nowhere in particular, resounding in the chamber - in words that Isabel absolutely could not understand. "Oh well, so much for that," Alex muttered.

"Alien words on the diagram," Liz said thoughtfully. "Alien words spoken out loud. If we can't figure out..." And there she trailed off, deep in thought.

"Alex's system has worked out the alien language, for written words," Isabel pointed out. "That's not just limited to the book material, though he was using it at the University. We could get a laptop computer or something up here to help us work out the wall display - anything that isn't already described in the book material that we've got."

"Yeah," Alex agreed enthusiastically. "Or something even easier to carry than a laptop - we could pick up a snazzy palm pilot or something like that."

"Okay," Ava said. "Is there anything that we can do here until you guys have got all of that sorted out??"

"Try the physical contact thing again, Isabel?" Liz suggested. "You said you were almost getting through the other day, without the key. And you haven't tried to touch it this time."

"Hmm, yeah, okay," Isabel said. "Should I hold the key, or leave it in its slot?"

"Try holding it," Alex said. So she removed it, and strode over to put her other palm against the cone surface. She gasped, and looked across the room where the wall had lit up again in a slightly different display.

"Who designed this place?" she suggested. "Would be better if I could touch the wall and the cone at the same time - oh well." Liz was already hurrying over toward the wall. "Tap the little green square in the lower right corner."

"Okay."

"You should get three thermometer displays," Isabel continued before Liz had managed to touch the spot. "Tap and drag the middle one up nearly to the top, and the right one up about an inch worth."

"Alright," Liz replied when this was done. "What now?"

"Now I can... oh, dammit, no source material to work with." Isabel sighed and let her hand drop away from the cone, which made Liz's thermometers angrily blink away into the usual dark gray wall color. "We need to carry some stuff up here that I can experiment on - that was a large-scale molecular reshaping capability - much more powerful than anything that Max, Michael, and I could do together. With computer-assisted design routines or something of that sort, so that I wouldn't need to know what I was making in extreme detail."

"Hmm," Alex considered that. "Could be really useful for making the cloning vat and such. Did it have to be within the pod chamber? You could try making rock sculptures in the mountain outside."

"Tried that." Isabel went over to embrace Alex. "Within the installation only, more's the pity."

"Okay. Nothing else interesting occured to you while you were connected?" Liz asked. Isabel shook her head, and the four of them drifted out towards the main chamber.

As Isabel was moving towards the door, though, there was an odd surge of light, and Liz gasped. "The communicator! Incoming!!"

"From where??" Ava asked. "Seta isn't oriented right."

"Don't answer it yet," Isabel said, pointing to the orbs, which were still placed in the 'answering machine' spot. "I think that we'll be able to see their introduction and then 'pick up' in the middle, the way others have done when we've been making outgoing calls."

"Alright, sure," Liz said. The usual ball of glowing air developed, and then turned into a rather handsome man, not quite young, with short dark hair, dark clothes, and stylish glasses.

"I am Kivar, of the dynasty of Andraikus," the man declared, and nearly everybody drew in their breath, letting loud gasps resound around the chamber. "Calling to the planet Earth, with a message for he who is now known as Max Evans, and also his sister Isabel. You are currently in posession of stolen property, namely that relic known as the Granilith, which is the greatest treasure of the Antarian throne, which post I have now taken for three score cycles at the behest of the Millenial council."

To wit and therefore, I make the following demand - produce the Granilith and send or accompany it to a safe landing in the vicinity of the Royal Palace, or I will be forced to take brutal action to retrieve it myself. This ultimatum is the only warning you will receive to comply with the will of the law."

"Isabel," Kivar breathed next, and there was an odd blip in the image. She blinked, and then the speech was continuing. "Given the past struggles between our families, you may have reason to fear me or start a pre-emptive attack, but rest assured I bear you and your friends no malice. Return the Granilith and keep your human noses out of Antarian affaris, and I will not harm you. Goodbye." And with that, his image disappeared.

"Sheesh," Liz breathed.

"Why did he say my name like that?" Isabel asked, shaking her head.

"Huh? Because he wanted you or Max to know that he was talking to you," Ava said.

"No, not then - he said my name a second time, and almost beeped," Isabel insisted. Liz grunted in surprise. "You guys didn't hear it?"

"I did, but maybe that's because I'm in your head," Alex said. "It could be that he had something private that he wanted to say to you."

"Ohh," Isabel groaned at that thought.

"If that's it, then you should be able to get the message by touching the orb," Ava suggested. Isabel took a deep breath, crept closer, and then she wrapped her hand around both of the orbs. Yes, there was a private message for her, she realized. She told the orb to show it to everybody, not caring what Kivar thought should be private. The handsome man reappeared.

"Isabel, I don't know what you think of me, but I might as well say this," he said with a much different tone than the arrogant ruler that they had seen before. "It is told that like Vilandra Liaret, you are beautiful, determined and passionate - very much like the princess that I loved when I was much younger. If you should wish to come to me, I would show you honor as a lady of the Royal Family once again, and... well, I'm not sure what else I can promise to a stranger, but I would urge you to come, to leave Earth and its people behind. The rumors go that you quest for the soul cloning technique to restore a human lover boy, but he could never be worthy of you...."

"You're one to talk, buddy," Isabel muttered, in her anger destroying the message, even though it was not finished replaying. "Alex is easily five times the man you'll ever be, and it'll be a cold day on Venus before I ever come to you of my own free will."

"On the other hand, I'd almost call this message good news," Ava put in, and Isabel whirled angrily at her. "The open part of it, at least - I mean. He may be trying to play hard ball about getting the Granilith back, but those threats sound a lot like bluffs to me. If he really had the means to send an expedition here and take it back, wouldn't he have done it already?"

"Maybe he wanted confirmation that we had it here in Roswell first," Liz said, "which Max provided back at the Summit. It would take time and expense to put together a mission like that, and once he found out that we'd learned how to use the pod chamber communicator, he thought he'd try a threat to see if it got him what he wanted cheaper."

"We can try sending a message to Larek's people again," Alex suggested. "They might know if Kivar is really mobilizing."

"Yeah, but not now," Liz said, and sighed. "Oooh, I nearly forgot Alex - did you have a chance to see anything interesting while we were at Metachem?"

"No, not really," Alex admitted, sighing. "There wasn't much time for snooping, everything was over so quickly - and I guess that I was watching what was going on with you girls instead of looking too hard. I'm sorry."

"Oh, that's okay baby," Isabel assured him. "We don't really need to know too much more about what they're up to just yet."

"Well, I guess it's back into town at this point," Ava put in. "Liz, maybe you can take an extra shift at the cafe and pick up some good tips."

"I suppose that there's always the first time," Liz replied dryly, and then laughed when Ava wrinkled her nose in a bit of confusion.

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

Isabel worked hard at the Crashdown that afternoon herself, and the tips were relatively decent, if none too greatly inspiring in amount. After dinner with her parents, which was a quiet affair, she headed back to her room with the book translation, trying to figure out if there was anything else that the Granilith was capable of doing that could help her with the plot to clone Alex. Was there any way that its powers could be leveraged effectively in a fight against the lost Special Unit hardliners, for instance?

Alex popped out, and eventually Isabel got tired of reading through the oddly stilted prose - probably the unusual phrasings had to do with how the material had been translated into english from an alien language, but that wasn't making it any easier to read. Finally she got up, mentioned to her mother on her way through the kitchen that she was going out for a walk, and headed off down the street.

Deep in her thoughts, she never really noticed the dark red sedan driving down the road next to her, although she did look up distractedly at the sound of a power window sliding down. Then a flash in the dimness, a horrible crack of sound, and a sudden sensation of pain between her shoulder and collarbone.

Even as Isabel collapsed into a pitiful heap on the sidewalk, it never really occured to her what had happened. There was a moment's confusion, of feeling that it was terribly important to work out what she had missed, but that passed quickly.


Isabel Whitman looked up at the clock in her kitchen and frowned. Five minutes to eight in the evening. WHAT was keeping her dear husband this time? He hadn't said anything about having to run errands or take a meeting after his usual workday ended that morning, or called... at least, she didn't think that he had called. Crossing the room, she picked up a cordless phone and hit the green button, just to get a dial tone and double-check for messages. Nothing - the dialtone was constant and uninterrupted, and she refused to actually dial in just to triple-check. That would be taking obsessive compulsiveness a little bit too far.

"Can we start dinner without Daddy, just this once?" a little voice piped up. "I love him a lot, but I'm hungry too, and it smells really good."

Isabel sighed as she turned around and saw the little boy sitting in his place at the table. Further around, a younger girl squirmed around in her high chair and tried to reach something that she could toss around - obviously, Mary was feeling frustrated and hungry too. Isabel stepped over and bent her knees to get closer to her son's eye level. "I... I really like waiting for your father before we start eating, but maybe you have a point, Evan," she admitted, ruffling his hair. "Umm... can you go to the drawer and get out some silverware for both of us? I'll start serving out the casserole." Evan smiled and got up out of his chair. "And remember, if your father isn't around, that means that I'll be paying more attention to make sure that you eat your vegetables."

"Yes mom," he repeated, and Isabel kept half an eye on the dining table as she brought the rectangular glass dish out of the oven, then switched the dial from 'warm' back to 'off.' Two helpings, each containing plenty of little peas and corn, chunks of chicken, and pieces of elbow macaroni in a thick creamy sauce. Each on its own fancy plate - the ones that Max and Liz had given them as wedding presents. She made a mental note to call Liz - she'd probably be glad of a friendly voice, since Max had insisted she keep to bed rest with the new baby due to arrive in - three weeks? Yes, that sounded about right. Plates out to the table, one for her and one for Evan. Some banana sauce from the fridge, in a plastic bowl, for Mary.

"What about grape soda to drink, Mom?" Evan asked with a little smile on his face.

"No soda," she insisted. "You can have your chocolate milk if you want - at least that's got some vitamins in it - but the chocolate syrup is instead of dessert."

"Aww, mom!" Then Evan cocked his head. "Maybe I should go for it, though. When Dad gets home, he'll probably let me have something nice for a snack later tonight."

Isabel stared into her little guy's eyes, not quite sure if he was trying to joke with her or not. She reached out a hand, concentrating, and soon a glass of fresh milk, completely untouched by chocolate, floated into it. This was put next to Evan's plate with an air of finality, and then she got some of the sparkling-fresh water for herself.

About halfway through her plate, the door burst open and Alex rushed in. "What - what's taken you so long?" Isabel asked. "And... and where did you get those clothes - you didn't leave her this morning dressed like that, did you?"

"I... I had a lot to take care of before I could make it here," he managed to pant. "Cute kids - anybody I should know?" Her mouth dropped open in surprise.

It wasn't just the clothes - a very baggy plaid cotton shirt and torn blue jeans - that seemed off. Everything about Alex was... well, it reminded her of when they were teenagers, just around the time that... Once again, something important nagged at Isabel, and she shook her head, trying to concentrate. "You... you don't know our children?" she managed to gasp, feeling a bit dizzy and closing her eyes.

Alex must have sensed her confusion. "Isabel, Izzie my darling, this isn't real," he insisted. "I... I popped back in early - it must have been because you needed me, and - and when I'd done all I could for you out there in the real world, I... I went inside here to find you, because I could tell that you'd retreated into your mind."

"Retreated... into this fantasy?" Isabel repeated, not really believing it. "So... so we're not married, with two beautiful children, and a good job with a big company that you go to every morning..."

"I, I'm afraid not," Alex insisted. "You only just graduated high school, and I..." He didn't finish, probably because Isabel had burst out in tears, as she remembered his death all over again. "But you've never given up on me, not once, and I'm damned if I'm going to give up on you now, or let you give up on yourself."

"What... what do you mean, let me give up on myself?" Isabel was fighting to return to a memory of reality. "I... I had gone out for a walk, and I hadn't gotten far when..."

"You were shot at," Alex said gently. Isabel's eyes came wide open, looking at him. "Maybe Meris Wheeler's goons from Metachem, playing hardball because you hinted that you knew what they were up to. Sending a message to Max, maybe, or Liz. And... and though I did what I could to play paramedic, to call for help... I'm worried that if you stay here, it'll be too easy to slip away from - well, probably not from me, because I suspect that if you go I'm going with you, as tied together as we are. But I don't want to slip away from everyone who cares about either of us..."

"Slip away, as in to... to die?" Isabel repeated. As if on cue, an unearthly blue radiance began to shine through the front bay window, and dimly Isabel realized that it was the great light of beyond, the one that was supposed to represent death and the afterlife, that a dying soul could either move into, or refuse. "Would - would it be so bad?" she asked idly, knowing what his answer would be. "To - to be together forever, and not have to keep struggling against an uncaring, cruel world..."

"We don't know that we'll be able to stay together there," he pointed out. "Whatever's bound me to you, it's a part of your living brain, and it goes away when you die, I think. And we don't know the rules of whatever afterlife is out there well enough to be sure we'll be filed and classified together." Isabel made a little 'sheesh' sound at that... just like Alex to get technical about the prospect of the great beyond. "But the bigger thing is - no, it's worth it to keep fighting, to keep trying to live our lives in the mortal world, to stay with our friends because we know how much it would devastate them to lose you before you've lived anything like a full life. You have to choose to live."

"Alright, alright." And Isabel turned away from the light, dispersing the fantasy setting around her with a wave of her hand - and with that effort, she ended up falling into a peaceful, dreamless, restful sleep.

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

When Isabel woke up again, she was very upset to see a hospital room. "Don't worry," a voice immediately whispered in her ear. "There aren't going to be blood tests or anything, and you'll be going home tonight."

"Max?" Isabel breathed, recognizing the voice and turning to look at him - but when she opened her eyes wide, the light was too hard to bear. "Did... did you arrange for that?"

He chuckled softly. "Know that you hate these places as much as I do."

"But... but it's the Metachem people," she muttered. "If - if they get a look at my medical chart, then they'll see that I wasn't hurt as badly as I should be. That'll be the proof that they need to..."

"Yeah," Max agreed, "but that seemed like the lesser risk at this point. Meris Wheeler isn't the only one who can play hardball. Once you're up to it, we're going to pay her a visit, just to let Metachem that they aren't going to get anywhere by trying to push us around. Sound good?"

"Yeah, sign me up," Isabel insisted vehemently. "What - what did Alex do? He said something, but didn't mention..."

"Well, let's see," Max said. "I'd be guessing, of course, because he hasn't communicated directly with any of us since it happened, but - Liz and I both got a very clear sense of something having gone wrong, near but not at our house, and we drove here as soon as we could. Mom says that she heard you cry out, and I'm not certain that she could have heard even if you really did."

"Hmm, yeah, I don't remember yelling or anything," Isabel said thoughtfully.

"When I got to you, which was after Mom and a few neighborhood people had gathered, and just about a minute before the ambulance arrived - there were kind of microstitches in the torn vein and in the skin of the gunshot wound," Max said. "An ingenious way of using molecular manipulation to limit blood flow without needing a full healing talent."

Isabel smiled. "Alex is nothing if not creative."

"By the way, Liz was clear-headed enough to suggest that I try connecting to you, for the more intensive healing, on a no-contact basis." Isabel's breath drew in. "One of the things that Tess has been teaching lately, and it really came in handy."

"Why?" Isabel said, and then she hit her. "No silver handprint??"

"Not a trace of one," he agreed. "Now, try drinking some grapefruit juice, and then get some rest. The doctor won't be here to ask you anything for around two hours."

"Alright," Isabel admitted, reaching out for the little juice cup that he held out to her. "Who else is here? Mom and Dad??"

"Yeah, like I could keep them away," Max admitted. "They've been at your side for more than an hour, but then Dad convinced Mom to go away and get some bad coffee at the cafeteria. Pretty much everyone in the gang is down in the waiting room, but they wouldn't let anyone but family come into your room."

"Once the parents get here," Isabel said, "you should go and reassure everybody that I'm alright." Pause. "And apparently that's now - hi guys."

"Oh, honey." Mrs Evans rushed forward to clasp Isabel's free hand in hers. "How could something like this happen in a quiet, safe neighborhood like ours - right down the street from our house??"

Isabel wasn't sure how to answer that question.

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

"Okay," Max said, once they were all gathered in Michael's apartment the next evening. "We'll go tomorrow night, straight into Metachem. Full alien firepower at the ready."

"What about... those who don't have any?" Michael asked, concern passing over his face. "Shouldn't somebody stay behind to make sure that they're okay?"

"Well, let's think about that," Ava chimed in. "Liz is going to be coming along - she knows the most about the building, and she's the one who knows Meris and Sosa. Also, I do think that she's got some juice hidden away that could trigger just when we might need it."

"As far as Maria and I," Kyle volunteered. "I think that we can probably arrange for Maria and her mom to get invited over to my place for dinner. That way, my Dad will be on the watch out."

"Yeah, that'd be appreciated," Michael said. "Are you sure you can be subtle enough to keep Amy from figuring out that something's weird?"

"I *drip* with subtlety," Maria boasted, and Liz chuckled at the look on Michael's face in response.

"Okay, sounds good so far," Isabel agreed. "Wherever I go, Alex goes too, of course - and you should feel free to use my powers if you see something worth doing that I haven't noticed." Alex nodded. "So what's the plan when actually move?"

"Shock and awe, first," Max said. "Don't hurt anybody, but go in about as impressively as we safely can - make it clear to Meris Wheeler that she can't keep us out, and that we could hurt her if we really wanted to." He chuckled softly. "And then open up negotiations from a position of strength."

"Alright, but let's not underestimate that safety angle," Liz insisted, holding Max's arm close to her. "It'd be better to hide ourselves from the plant security, instead of letting them realize that we have unearthly powers."

"Yeah, obviously," Tess chimed in, and then there was a pause. "Umm, didn't mean to sound condescending or anything, if I did - was just trying to agree." Liz gave the other girl a half-smile.

"Speaking of security - are we sure that we can't put this off?" Michael asked. "I saw an advert in the paper today for a night shift security guard at the plant. Might be really good to have an inside guy..."

"No, there's no time for that, as good an idea as it might have been before other events took their course," Kyle told him. "They probably know that all of us are friends of Liz and Isabel, and everybody in this room is under suspicion of being 'the healer.'" He took a deep breath. "They might offer you a job as a guard, Michael, but they'd only do it in order to watch you even more closely."

"Yeah, tomorrow is good," Liz put in. "I think that Sosa and Ms Wheeler stay late every Thursday night, in her office - preparing for a teleconferenced meeting with some of Clayton Wheeler's other flunkies on Friday."

"Alright," Michael muttered. "Okay, is there anything else that we need to discuss at this point?" Nobody volunteered anything. "Okay, we meet back here tomorrow at eight, except for you guys." That last was accompanied by nods towards Maria, and then Kyle.

Isabel was quiet on the drive home - even though the wounds from her shooting had healed entirely by now, she was shaken by how easy it had been for someone to get past her guard and nearly k... well, they hadn't really been trying to kill her - that had been clear enough when they talked about it. Wheeler didn't have any motivation to see her dead, just to scare Max and Liz. It wasn't entirely clear if someone had miscalculated, or if some other help would have come to her if Alex hadn't taken charge of the situation.

Probably, though, the Wheelers hadn't had any notion of the kind of trouble that would have developed if Isabel had had to undergo extensive medical care at the hospital. They'd probably wanted to get her healed, but since they didn't know who the healer was, they couldn't be sure that he would be nearby - as indeed Max hadn't, when the shot was fired...

"Don't worry, baby," Alex said, reaching out a hand to rest on her leg in a comforting way. "We won't let anything like that happen again."

*Yeah, I - umm, I know,* she sent back silently. *Just not quite sure how all of this is going to play out in the end.*

----------

"Well, I have to commend you on the skill with which you broke and entered," Meris Wheeler sneered, looking at the six intruders facing her and Doctor Sosa in the large office.

"Yeah, you're obviously pretty good at ordering a hit, too," Isabel muttered. "Don't bother to deny it. Should we get down to business?"

"This is outrageous," Sosa exclaimed. "Why should we listen to anything that you have to say??"

"Because you've been looking for an alien healer," Michael replied tightly. "To save Mister Wheeler's life - your boss, Doctor. He's in this room right now - and the reason that we showed off a bit of our determination to you tonight was so that you'd believe whover of us said this - we are determined, as with one mind, not to let you threaten the Healer into doing what you want on your terms."

"Hmm," Meris let her gaze sweep over the younger people with a much more interested expression. "Very interesting. Now, I understand what you say about responding vehemently to pressure, but I'd like to be able to verify your statement that the person I am looking for is present. So I ask this - if I deliberately incure a self-injury in order to provide a convenient test case, will the Healer demonstrate his talent on me?"

Everybody exchanged glances in order to conceal Max's identity until the last possible moment, though this didn't seem terribly productive now except as a matter of theatrical effect. "Yes, he will," Liz said. Meris gave longer searching looks at Max and Michael, since they were the only 'he's, then picked up a sharp letter opener and sliced into her arm with it.

After a moment's pause, Max stepped up, took Wheeler's free hand in his, looked into her eyes, and put his other hand over the wound - and the cut sealed itself almost instantly. "There you go," he said.

"Max Evans, right?" Meris said after a moment. "Alright - you seem to know what I want, and from the proactive stance, obviously you have counter-demands. Lay them on me."

"First, our price for your husband's life," Isabel said. "There are certain relics of our people that we've been looking for, that a man working for Metachem purchased. We want those items back."

"Done," Meris agreed readily.

"Are you crazy!" Sosa exclaimed. "You realize how much we've paid for alien artifacts over the past..."

"How much is Clayton's life worth?" Meris hissed back at him. "All those items were procured with this aim in mind, no other. I will not come so close and introduce new complications now."

"Also, we have a need of our own for a fairly obscure biochemical item," Liz insisted. "Thought you might be able to help us out - an enzyme capable of accelerating mitotic division in immature cells."

"The rapid maturity serum?" Sosa exclaimed. "What could you possibly need that for?"

"That's private," Tess insisted. "That's our fee. There will also be requirements and safeguards to protect Max from overspending his power while he's helping Clayton out. Restoring someone with serious degenerative diseases is much harder than fixing scratches or even gunshots."

"So you might not be able to do it?" Meris asked sharply.

"Maybe not," Max admitted. "Of course, we get nothing until he's better. Now, some of the assistance I need will be provided by my friends, but I'll want to know what treatments you've tried, and how well they've done."

"What business is that of yours!" Doctor Sosa exclaimed.

"Simple," Liz replied. "Maybe Max can help one of them work better, or work in combination with it. Better for both him and the patient than trying to do everything himself."

"Alright," Meris sighed. "I'll get you what you need. But I warn you - I seriously expect results. Fail me in this - and that maturity serum is going to be the LEAST of your worries."

"I don't guarantee results," Max said. "But I'll give it my best effort."

"Should we start right away??" Meris Wheeler asked. As she, Max, Liz, and the invisible Alex started to gather around a computer and Meris began looking for the appropriate digital files on Metachem's network, Isabel wondered just what kind of devil they'd made a deal with.


TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Twenty-four

"Man... I can't believe that it's August already," Isabel complained, coming into the house. "The summer has just flown past."

"Yeah, well... when you're working long hours, researching a top-secret method of bringing the dead back to life through cloning, and working with crackpot biotech executives in your spare time, it does tend to eat up the time," Max remarked dryly from over on the living room couch.

It took Isabel a moment to be sure that her brother had really said what she thought she heard. "Umm... mom and dad aren't home I take it?"

"No." Max looked up and cracked a smile at the thought of anybody overhearing a remark like his. "Don't expect them until late. Both of them seem to be spending more and more time working down there in Artesia."

"Yeah," Isabel admitted. "I've heard them talking about it... well, eavesdropped actually, especially in the sense that they probably wouldn't have been speaking if they knew I could hear."

"As opposed to the sense in which you were actively trying to overhear secrets?" Max teased her.

"Umm... yeah, something like that. Anyway, after you've graduated next year, they might move away from Roswell. Not to Artesia, at least probably not, in that the branch there will be well started with other people by then. But apparently there's better and higher-paying work in some of the smaller towns for both of them than Dad can get here in Roswell for the forseeable future."

"Hmm." Max made that slightly frowning face that Isabel knew meant he was mulling that thought over to see if he disliked it or not. And then he changed the subject. "How was work?"

"Tiring and frustrating, but ultimately worthwhile," Isabel admitted, letting her tired body sprawl into the comfy armchair.

"Which means that your car fund is coming along nicely?" Max interpreted, and Isabel nodded happily. "How's Alex?"

"Out at the moment... in fact, he's due in a little under ten minutes."

"Gotit."

"Don't worry... I don't think that we have to rush off and be alone together right away," Isabel added with a smile. "So, what is on those papers you're looking at anyway?" Actually, Max had put the printed sheets away on the coffee table when she came in, but Isabel was still interested in them.

"Metachem stuff."

"Oooh... are we actually close?"

"I think so - it took long enough, but the results of this hormonal drug test and the bone marrow transplant look like something that I can work with. Together alongside the healing stone ritual... it looks like Clayton Wheeler is going to get a new lease on his life."

"Wow," Isabel breathed, her eyes shining suddenly. "And my Alex gets a little bit closer to his own."

"Hopefully, yeah." Max sighed. "I... I have to say that I'm very worried about a possible double-cross from Metachem."

"What?" Isabel looked sharply at him. "I thought that Meris was playing fair ball with us, as it were."

"It... it's not actually Meris that I'm worrying about, not especially. From what I can tell, she's got her own code of honor, albeit a little twisted around the edges, and getting Clayton healthy is really the biggest thing that she wants. But... but when we pull this off, it can't possibly escape the notion of Doctor Sosa and the few other Metachem officers that Meris has already brought in on the secret that my powers could earn them an awful lot of money and power, if they find a way to tap into them again."

"Oh, right." Isabel's face fell. "That. I wish that we could have kept it with just Meris, Sosa, and Mister Wheeler knowing."

"Yeah, but even if we'd bargained for that upfront, I'm not sure it would help," Max pointed out. "They knew that we wouldn't break contact because of it, they know that we want what they've got too badly. And by tipping them off to what we want, we've put them on their guard so that there'd be just about no chance of ever stealing the stuff safely."

"Right," Isabel sighed softly. Even when she thought they were actually making progress, whatever move they made seemed to have a cascade effect on other things to be worried about. "So to sum up, we need to watch our back versus a surprise backstab by Sosa and the other Metachem people... and possibly just as important, impress them with our preparedness enough that it convinces them to just get with the program, instead of coming up with something that we aren't prepared for."

"That sounds like an ideal solution if we can work it out, yeah." Max sighed. "Somehow I suspect that the greediest bastard of all is going to be Clayton himself, once he's well."

"Oh, brother," Isabel sighed. The thing was, that fit with her own impressions... none of them had actually met Max's patient-to-be yet, but just from the general fact that he had worked his way into being the owner and chair of such a powerful corporation, and some of the specifics of his business practices that Alex and Isabel had researched together, he did fit the profile of a man who wouldn't be content simply to be free of disease and with years to live ahead of him, not when the potential of healing gunshot wounds and cancer was in front of him, not to mention the other 'applications' that he might see in the use of alien powers.

"Any news on the rest of your grocery list?" That was a code so well-established it had become a running in-joke at this point - the manifest of requirements that Langley had given Isabel for the project to clone Alex from a cell out of his old body and reunite that flesh with the spirit that Isabel had unwittingly provided a sanctuary for.

"Not really." Many of the items had already been secured or arranged for, and Meris Wheeler had committed to two more in exchange for Max's help in curing her sick multi-millionaire husband - a folio of alien scientific notes, (among other crash artifacts that Metachem's CFO had bought up using company funds,) and a supply of a genetic enzyme that could be used to stimulate the clone body to grow more quickly than natural maturity would account for. "We need to get in touch with Ceeta again and see if they've got the memory imprinting gear for us yet."

"Yeah," Max agreed. "And check in with just about anybody else who'll talk with us about whether Kivar's really going to make a move to come to Earth and collect the Granilith. Man, that'd be all that we need."

"Yeah... I think I'm starting to believe that it was just a bluff, not anything we need to worry about now - but we can't afford to get complacent about that. Complacent and careless - both big no-nos."

"I guess not... but what in specific can we not afford to get complacent about?" Both Evans siblings looked up, but only one of them could see the person who had just appeared, because strictly speaking Alex was still stuck in Isabel's head.

"Kivar coming," Max said.

"Oh, yeah. Is it complacent if I say that I now know, from my ghostly powers, that you don't need to stress about that?"

"Heh?" Isabel patted the side of the armchair, and Alex headed over and perched there, with his legs draping crossways over hers. She wondered for just a moment if he'd have tipped the chair over sitting like that if he had any weight, and then stopped caring. "Depends... do you actually have ghostly powers that can give you information about something like that, or are you just joking to make me feel better?"

"I... I'm not sure," Alex admitted. "It's not something that's happened to me before, but I'm pretty sure that the future is not going to turn out like that - almost as if I can sense the thread of history that might have led him here, and so I can see that we've left it behind now."

"Huh, weird," Isabel muttered. "Okay, resuming something that we were in the middle of before that... we still don't really have much definite information on the special unit fanatics who took the soul transfer gear, and we're going to NEED to know a lot about them to actually try taking anything from them."

"Definitely," Max agreed. "Did you ask Mister Langley to look into that?"

"Yeah... there's only so much he can do without drawing attention to himself, though," Isabel muttered. Langley might have behavioural conditioning in his brain that forced him to obey their orders, but Isabel was firmly determined to honor his comfort-zone limits and not push a tentative friend and ally into a frustrated and chained enemy. "I was thinking that once he gets a few names, I might go off and try to follow them up in more detail."

"And draw attention to yourself instead," Alex said in a low and resentful voice.

"Maybe - but I'm willing to take on some risks in order to get this accomplished," Isabel insisted. "I wouldn't ask anyone else to do what I wouldn't do myself."

"Okay, let's get back to other business," Max said, eager to head off an argument between Isabel and Alex on this subject. "Like Clayton Wheeler. Things are going to move pretty quickly once I tell Meris that I'm ready to have him brought to Roswell... but I'm not sure how much longer I could really stall her anyway."

Instantly Isabel got her head back to business. "Okay... you mentioned bone marrow transplants - do they already have a donor lined up?"

"Yeah I think, there's a mention that the same guy who donated before was ready and willing... a nephew."

"Hmm... I wonder what he'll be expecting in return for helping out Uncle Clayton," Alex mused.

"Somebody else's problem - Clayton and Meris' I guess. He's *not* going to find out about our part in this," Max said. "I want to talk to both of you, and Liz, about... about creating the right psychological effect with Clayton. As much as I hate to admit it, putting on a charlatan's show in order to influence their reactions might be a lot better than being truly honest about my capabilities."

"Hmm... sounds promising, yeah," Isabel agreed. "Like what? Have any ideas what reactions you want out of them specifically?"

"Well, like we said... anything that would downplay the practical value of my status as a healer," Max said. "I'm already planning to do some prep sessions with Mister Wheeler, in conjunction with his other treatments, before the big main event. Maybe... I could pretend that those were taking more out of me than they really do?"

Isabel considered that, and shot a glance over at Alex. "Yeah, probably couldn't hurt. And we can try to make a huge fancy production out of your big number, insisting on a lot of requirements that would be impractical in any other situation, even if they don't really matter."

"Yeah, but be careful," Alex warned. "If they clue in that you're playing games, it might justify breaking the deal in their twisted minds."

"Yeah," Max said. "Okay, so got any plans for this evening?"

"Not really," Isabel said. "Feel like being around my friends."

"We could try Michael's place," Alex suggested. "I wouldn't mind being visible for a while."

"Okay, I'll leave a note for the parentals," Max said, getting up with a bit of a smile.

-----------

"I got up to the Pod Chamber tonight," Tess said as soon as ~~she opened the door of Michael's place. Isabel blinked so hard that she nearly stumbled. (Well, maybe to be precise, she was stunned so much that she blinked a lot and nearly stumbled.) Her first reaction was along the lines of, 'Oh no, Tess can still get into the Pod Chamber... and without any of us, probably. We *need* to find some way of changing the locks on her!' But after a moment, she resolved to calm down somewhat and find out what Tess had done in the Pod Chamber. Maybe if she proved trustworthy with her access, there was no big need to worry.

As it turned out, there was a long time before she got around to asking that question - because Michael called out something to Maria, asking if she knew where he'd left his black jeans, and Max replied that no, he didn't, and then Alex walked into the living room and Maria was so pleased to see him again, and one thing led to another and so on. Max wanted to tell their friends his worries about a double-cross from the chairman of Metachem, and about his plans for putting on a bit of a charlatan's show.

"I dunno, actually," Michael said, taking up residence in his old barca-lounger. "Liz may have some ideas." He paused for a moment. "Where is Liz, anyway? On shift??"

"I think so, yeah," Maria agreed. "Or... no, it's past eight, so I think that she's off. Either having a late dinner with her parents - or on her way to find Max." She grinned over at Max. "Do you think she'll be able to guess that you came here, or head off to your parents' place?"

"Hmm." Max considered that, and then muttered a quick excuse, heading off to use his cell phone. Alex laughed softly, and Isabel took advantage of the opening in conversation.

"So, Pod chamber. What's up there?" she asked Tess bluntly.

"Umm... message from the Ceeta council. They've got the memory transfer gear, and when can one of us go there to pick it up?"~~ Tess smiled very slightly at that point, as if she knew the reaction that missive would generate.

"Whooh," Maria moaned. Michael got an unsettled expression.

"Yeah," Alex agreed. "Too much is happening all of a sudden."

"But at least this one doesn't have to really start until we're ready for it," Max pointed out, taking his place on a wooden chair once again. "Nobody leaves the planet until the Clayton Wheeler situation is resolved, at the very least... and probably that means a little while after he's okay, just to be on the safe side." He looked over at Isabel. "You got that?"

"What, do you really think I'd be crazy enough to go off and leave you here without knowing that you'd be okay?" Isabel said, nodding. "I... I know that I come off a bit impatient sometimes, but I'm definitely with the safety program. If I weren't before Meris Wheeler's goons had me shot, then I definitely am now."

"Okay," Michael said. "Should we tell... oh, whats-her-name, the Ceetan leader girl..."

"Karia," Isabel said absently. "Yeah, telling her directly that there'll be a delay sounds like a really good idea. I don't suppose that there's anything that they could do to help with the immediate problem, but..."

"But maybe another alien can!" Alex put in quickly. "It's been a while since anybody's made a point of giving Langley an update, yes?"

"Yeah, actually... I thought that I didn't want to run the risk of the Wheelers finding out about him," Isabel said slowly. "But... yeah, if we're seriously anticipating some trouble, having him close by sounds really good."

"Agreed," Maria put in. "Especially around the time that you're actually making the save, Max."

"Hmmm." Max considered that for a long time. "So how do we get him here without Metachem figuring out that we're calling for backup?"

"I can try to use my powers to contact him again," Isabel suggested. "Not dream-walking per se - we've pretty much established that that won't work, because his brain works differently enough that he doesn't dream. But I think that I can still get in touch with his mind somehow."

"Without needing a picture of his true self?" Tess asked.

"Actually, yeah," Isabel said. "By now, I think that the form he's chosen is starting to become his true self, if it wasn't at first."

"Alright," Alex said. "Good enough. And I think that we do want to tell Meris that we're ready for Mister Wheeler to come here, yeah?" Maria and Max shifted a bit, uncomfortably.

"I dunno, maybe we should see what Liz thinks about that," Maria muttered. "Did you reach her, anyway, Max? You weren't gone long."

"Yeah, in fact, she should be here any minute." Max paused, as if waiting for Liz to dramatically knock on the door or just enter at that moment. No such luck. "Umm... how about ordering some delivery in the meantime?"

"Actually, I've still got plenty of pizza - there was a bit of a mixup with my order yesterday, and I didn't want to make a big deal about it," Michael said, heading over to the fridge. "Figured that it'd all get eaten happily enough."

"As long as they're not all that black olive and mushroom combo that you like, sheesh," Isabel shot back.

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

Improbably enough, the 'mixup' had provided a sufficient variety of pie that nearly everybody was satisfied, (except Alex who didn't have any because he was dead,) and Liz arrived in about five minutes and was happy enough to join in.

"Okay, this might sound like a picky point to sound a note of caution on," she said in between bites of her salami-green pepper-and-tomato slice, "but I'd say to not give the word to Meris until Isabel's tried to send her message to Langley."

"Wouldn't it be better at that to wait until Langley *gets* here, assuming that he can?" Michael asked.

"Maybe... but I'm not sure if we want to let things drag out that much." Liz looked over at Isabel. "I was sort of taking the tack of doing everything that we could control the timing of first, which shouldn't take more than a day or so."

"Hmm... okay," Isabel said. "If Langley can be here soon, it wouldn't hurt to give him a head start, which doesn't necessarily mean waiting until he's won the race before letting Clayton start." She considered. "The connection is much more tentative, but arranging a talk with Karia first probably makes sense too."

"Yeah, at least that way we won't be distracted by having to arrange that and the Clayton Wheeler stuff at the same time," Tess replied. "What's the timing like on communicating with Ceeta now? Obviously we can still get a message through, if they left one for us."

"Morning window I think," Alex replied. "Not that early - ten twenty-five to ten thirty or so."

"Not much time," Max breathed.

"The earth spins too quickly," Liz teased him. "Always has."

"And... and I think that we might lose touch with them soon," Alex added, with suddenly growing concern. "Doesn't mean that we can't put off the trip, but we'd better make sure that we say everything we need to first. Including directions on how to land the Granilith safely close enough to their forbidden planet fortress."

"Wait a second," Liz interrupted. "Lose touch? But the ring of sky that the pod chamber covers should be the same no matter what. I mean, yeah, the Earth wobbles on its axis a bit, but I don't believe that you've got that calculated well enough to predict when Ceeta will wobble out of the fix."

"No," Isabel said, guessing it. "But he can tell when something will be *between* us and Ceeta. Like the sun."

"Oooh, yeah," Max breathed. "For how long? How much does the sun mess up the Pod Chamber transmissions?" Neither Alex nor anybody else had an immediate answer to that one.

"Okay, we've got a road trip tomorrow morning I guess," Isabel said. "Meet at our place, seven AM."

"I can't go, I'm on shift," Maria pointed out.

"Actually, me too - Brody specifically made sure that I'd be available for inventory tomorrow morning."

"Inventory of what?" Michael asked, surprised. "T-shirts and alien-head swizzle sticks?"

"Among other things," Maria shot back a bit archly - her mother was one of Brody Davis' suppliers. "It might not seem serious, but there are still good business reasons that he needs to know how much of what he's got available for sale."

"So that he knows if he needs to order more?" Michael said, a bit mutedly.

"And for financial reporting on taxes and so on," Liz put in. "Okay, so Maria and Max are out... who else? I don't think you and I have to start until ten, Isabel." Isabel nodded. "And where Isabel goes, therever Alex will be in spirit, of course."

"Heh heh," the spirit replied.

Michael raised his hand to indicate that he'd be along, and Tess nodded. "I'll ask Kyle if he wants to come, if that's okay," she said. "What about Ava, is she up to anything else lately?"

"Working as a waitress at that roadhouse out by the highway," Michael told her. "And she got her own place. That's about as much as I know."

"What, it never occured to them that she was under twenty-one?" Liz asked, seeming a bit upset about that.

"Well, she's not really, you know," Isabel put in. "None of us hybrids are, not that we could prove it."

"I'm not so sure that a place like that cares so much about the legal drinking age, Liz," Maria put in, and Liz had to nod agreement to that.

"Well, anybody know where this new place of hers is?" Isabel asked. "We'll need her around for the Metachem thing too."

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

"No, I checked that address you told me," Isabel said a bit grumpily the next morning as they approached the desert rocks that hid the Pod Chamber. "Waited for an hour and a half at least, but no sign of her - and then I really needed to go home and sleep."

"Hmm," Liz considered that. "And she wasn't home this morning either. I'm starting to get a bit worried."

"We'll find her today," Michael promised. "As soon as we get this conversation out of the way."

"Good," Kyle said, and then they fell to silence for a long while.

After making the long walk up to the hidden door and filing inside, Isabel checked her watch. "Two minutes to go before we're in alignment, as far as I can tell. Do we have to wait before starting the signal?"

"No, I don't think so," Alex said. "Well, not that long. Let's see how we're doing on time after you've got the orbs out and everything."

So they made the arrangement, and checked on time, and Isabel and Michael activated the orbs together. After she called out to the Ceeta colony council, Isabel waited in frustration. There was no response of any kind for long enough that she was about to hail again, in fact had started to speak, and all of a sudden there was an image, but not a human image like they were used to from using the communicators. It looked like a gigantic TV screen with a happy face plastered over it.

"We apologize for the inconvenience," the TV hummed in a stilted voice. "All living representatives are currently busy. Please stand by and remain in the automated queue and..."

"I don't believe it," Kyle said, talking over the voice. "We're on alien-hold."

"We can't stand by for long," Isabel said to the TV image, wondering if it could actually hear her and react in any decent way. "Our window of alignment to speak with your planet isn't long, and we need to..."

"Time constraints acknowledged," the TV snapped back at her. "Transfer to priority status is approved. This is all that the system can do in the absence of a living represent..."

All of a sudden, the TV blinked out and was replaced by a woman who reminded Isabel a little of her mother - her human mother in Roswell that was - except her hair was dark and a bit shorter. "Miss Evans?"

'Wow, who's have thought that priority status actually worked so well?' Isabel thought idly. "Hi, umm, is Karia available?"

"No, sorry, you've called at just the worst possible time. I know that you don't have long to hold this alignment, but... the entire council is in an emergency session, and... I'm Karia's personal aide, and if you don't mind dealing with a lower functional I think I can assist you with..."

"Alright," Michael took the initiative in dialog. "First off, we're very glad to hear that you've arranged our memory transfer gear, but nobody will be able to collect it for... for three or four weeks at least. By that time we won't be able to communicate in this fashion, because our sun will be between the Earth and your star."

"I... I understand," the aide muttered. Isabel reminded herself to ask for the woman's name. "We thought that it was a priority issue for *you*, but..."

"Well, I was sort of impatient, because I felt like I wasn't making headway with everything," Isabel said. "But now... well, we have an opportunity to get two more of the requirements for the plan here in Roswell, if Max can save the life of a rich businessman..."

"Oooh. Wouldn't that mean exposing your secrets to him?"

"Some of them," Liz chimed in. "But they'd figured out some stuff about aliens anyway. Don't worry, we're being cautious. And thank you very much for your help. May I ask your name?"

"I'm called Claudia Parker."

Liz reacted with obvious shock to the name. "That... that sounds like a human name," Isabel told her. "Are you..."

"Yes, a descendent of Earth slaves from the original crash," Claudia said. "They've tried to keep some of the old cultural traditions alive, like names."

"Whoa," Kyle muttered. "Need to find out if somebody in your family tree ever disappeared or was abducted by aliens, Liz."

"What?" Claudia seemed confused now. "Who's Liz?" Her glance flicked back between Tess, hanging back silently, and the rightful owner of that name.

"That would be me," Liz said. "Liz Parker - and I had a beloved grandmother named Claudia Parker. Actually, it was Claudia Nielssen, but she married a Parker, and..."

"You change the surname when espousing??" Claudia exclaimed. "Sorry, that's a side-track I know, but..."

"Yes, it's a tradition that's not followed all the time anymore, here in America," Isabel said. She knew how it felt to be so curious about a part of her heritage. "The woman takes the surname of her husband, and it's passed onto the children. How do you handle it?"

"Umm... the two spouses keep their surname, though they may choose to take on a middle name to honor their new partner as they enter married life. And they choose between them which of their surname to give to each child, which one will best complement the selelcted forename, or which one represents a more prestigious family line..."

Michael checked his watch. "Sorry, I just have one other question to interrupt with. Have you heard any rumours about Kivar and the Granilith?"

"Umm... no, I think that he'd be too busy with other things to worry about the Granilith just now. That - well, in a way, that's what Karia and the others are meeting about today. You see, well, Kivar, we've received word that..."

And her image distorted, turning all of Claudia's words into static.

"You... you've gotta be kidding me!" Isabel exclaimed, concentrating furiously on the Orb as if she could clear up the reception that way. But the only reply was Claudia's gray and fluctuating form getting smaller and smaller and smaller until it vanished.

"Oh, man," Tess muttered. "So what is Kivar really up to, that everybody's forgotten about us?"

"I don't know," Liz muttered. "But we'd better do this again tomorrow."

There wasn't much else to do while they were at the Pod Chamber. Isabel thought about going to the Granilith, to walk through the steps that would be needed to launch it off towards the Ceeta colony, but she still felt like she didn't want to get into that stuff too much while Tess was close. They headed back down to the car.

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

When they got downtown, Michael turned into the Crashdown parking lot without a work. Nobody, not even Tess, seemed to mind. They piled out of the car, headed into the back of the restaurant, and Liz and Isabel got changed into their uniforms right away. When the two of them got out into the dining room, Max was siting in the second booth closest to the front door, and he waved both of them over. Michael was next to him, Isabel realized as she got a bit closer, and both of them looked very serious and not particularly happy.

"What now?" Liz asked, pouting a bit, and Max realized after a second that she had expected to be able to sit next to him, so he got out and switched sides. Isabel took her seat next to Michael without feeling any nervousness about what that might seem to imply.

"Meris came to the UFO center this morning," Max said, "I think she was trying to send some kind of a signal. Dropped some not-quite-hints around Brody."

"Oh, man, I hadn't even thought of that," Liz muttered. "Now that Metachem know your secret, they can punish us without hurting anybody, if they want to. Try to 'out' you with your family, or anyone else you're trying to hide from."

"I don't think it'll really come to that," Max said in a low voice. "It would be way across the line of the deal we negotiated, and would trigger some serious retaliation. Nobody was to know. But yeah, I think she might have been wanting me to realize that she considers that a nuke in her pocket, in case we don't comply anyway."

"Probably right about how much megatonnage it's worth," Michael admitted.

"Hmm... why Brody, though?" Isabel asked. "Is there any chance that they know anything about... you know, his better half?" She didn't want to even mention the name 'Larek' out loud, though it wouldn't mean anything to a casual eavesdropper. There wasn't anybody who could listen that she could see at least, anyway.

"I don't see how," Max said in a low voice. "I think it was just that he's a UFO crackpot himself, and I'm working under his nose. I think that we've been through enough with Brody that if he did find out... the truth, the situation would probably be saveable. Same way as with Kyle's dad, though I don't want to put that to the test."

"Alright," Isabel said. "Did she say anything about her husband?"

"Yeah, he's supposedly taken a turn for the worse, and she wants to bring him here." Max sighed. "I didn't think it was worth pissing her off, so I said that that should be okay, though I wouldn't be ready to start serious work as soon as he arrived."

"And so things keep moving on," Liz breathed, taking his hand. "Is there anything that we can do to help you out at this point?"

"I'm -- not sure," Max admitted. "It's after eleven - shouldn't you be working by now?" There were only a few customers around, but one seemed to be looking around in some agitation. Where was Maria anyway, was she on a bathroom break or something??

"I'll get it," Liz said, getting up, and Max nodded. "There's something you're thinking of, though. Tell it to Isabel."

Max and Isabel exchanged an odd look as Liz left. "Umm... I don't think it's anything specific," Max mumbled uncertainly. "But... is your good friend about at the moment?"

"Hmm... what?" Isabel thought about that. No, she couldn't remember seeing Alex ever since they'd left town in the morning, and he shouldn't have needed to blink out yet. Had something gone wrong?? Come to think of it, she could sort of faintly sense his presence in the back of her head... had he 'jumped in', literally riding backseat in her body instead of maintaining a virtual body of his own? Answers of 'yes' and 'no' came to her in response to that question almost at the same time. It was something like the riding backseat, but not the way she was used to it at least, or otherwise he would have heard Max asking about him, felt her worry, and manifested a direct thought in response to her to reassure her - or even use her powers to whisper a reply to Max. It was as if...

"I... I'm not quite sure what's up with him this morning," she admitted. "Hard to explain. He's around, and yet - not terribly visible or communicative." She felt horrible that she hadn't noticed this before, that she had started to take Alex for granted again and not noticed that something unusual was going on. And with her shift, she wouldn't even have any time to figure it out, and get him back, if she needed to...

"Hmm," Max thought about that. "Maybe he's trying to conserve his energy so that he doesn't need to be blinked out and completely out of touch so much."

"Hmm..." Isabel considered this. She knew that Alex had been upset about the prospect of spending more and more time in astral slumber, not even sensing time passing, as the months elapsed since his death. And another thing... possibly he'd been starting to get worried about the supposed negative effects on Isabel's own mind for taking a hitchhiker for so long. Well alright, she would let thing be for her shift at least, and see if he brought himself out of it when the evening arrived. "Does Alex have some connection to your vagueness?"

"Hmm?" It took Max a moment to realize that she was talking about his idea for somebody helping him out with Clayton that he couldn't specifically describe. "Yeah, I think so, but don't worry about it now. I'll talk to him later. Go wait tables."

"Alright, I'm waiting, I'm waiting," she insisted, leaving the table again.

"And get me an eclipse burger, before I need to go back and start making them," Michael shot after her.

Isabel sighed, but she went over to the kitchen counter to put the order in.

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

"So nice to meet you, Miss Evans," the old man lying in the hospital bed said, lifting up an arm slightly. "Will you be one of the ones helping with my treatment?"

"I'll be assisting, yes," Isabel said a bit stiffly. "Mister Whee-- oh, can I call you Clayton?"

"Heh... a nice ploy," he admitted, and coughed slightly. Meris, standing close by, bristled slightly. "Of course. I only make the people who work for me in more usual capacities call me Mister Wheeler. And really, even in this you're not working under me... just - would you call it a form of contracting out, dear?"

"Whatever you like, sweetie," Meris said, and fussed meaninglessly over his bedsheets.

"Anyway, I don't have any particular healing talent like Max does," Isabel said, truly enough. "I'll be using a simple... well, I'm not quite sure how to describe a healing stone actually, except that it'll let me transfer power to whoever needs it - Max, or you. That doesn't take any alien abilities at all."

"But you aren't human, are you Isabel?" Clayton's eyes on her were bright. "Once the example that Max set was clear, it was easy enough to follow it and see which of the group were orphans and which weren't. You and your brother... adopted as very little ones. Incidentally, do you have any evidence of a REAL sibling relationship in your true past?"

"Yes, but it's very complicated to explain how and none of your business," she muttered. Max was keeping a perfect poker face, but Isabel wasn't sure how to stay composed and answer this man's questions at the same time.

"Your friend Michael Guerin - a long history in foster care, now emancipated - obviously he's one of you too. Liz Parker and Maria DeLuca, Kyle Valenti - all of them have their true parents around and their hospital records in good order, though I certainly wondered if there might be a possible switch or an alien baby implanted in a human woman's..."

"Clayton, for god's sake!" Meris exclaimed, seeming to find the remark in excessively bad taste.

"As for Tess Harding and her remarkable lookalike... I don't really have any information one way or the other. Neither have made any claim to a Roswellian origin, and my agents haven't been able to find out anything falsifiable in their backgrounds... which is somewhat suspicious in itself." He sighed. "Well, never mind. So, you're going to supply power. I assume that we're not talking about electrical wattage here."

"No," Max said, speaking for the first time. "We don't really understand what makes up the energies of the Balance. The only person who was ever able to explain much about them was an old Indian." Isabel braced herself. If Clayton made an offhand remark indicating that he was familiar with River Dog already, she thought that she might scream.

But the old man didn't seem to even pay any attention. "And what else, aside from power, will you need?"

"Bone marrow transplants, and hormonal therapy, as I indicated to your wife," Max repeated stiffly. "I'll work with you after each treatment to do whatever I can to increase their effectiveness and reduce side effects. After about a week and a half of that... I think that you'll be strong enough for me to really push for a cure."

"Wonderful." An honest, cheery smile managed to cross Wheeler's face, and Isabel suddenly realized how tired this driven and intelligent man must be of the weakness and sickness that had bested his body's strength. If there was any avarice, any greed forefront in his mind that moment, she didn't see it, but maybe that didn't mean much.

"And then we collect our side of the trade and you don't bother us again," she repeated, just to see how he would react.

"But of course. In fact, a few odds and ends - which are, after all, in a sense your legacy in the first place, stolen away by cowards, and a sample of an obscure biochemical agent hardly seem like enough of a payback for the new life you will give me, if this goes well. Is there nothing else I can do to show my gratitude?" Wheeler's eyes focused on Max, and behind the enthusiasm there was definitely a canny aspect to them. "Your young lady friend who brought us together, Max... Liz. The internship, a college scholarship, or both could still be hers - no strings attached."

Max sighed. "Let's just get you walking again, Mister Wheeler. We can talk about gratitude later."

Isabel couldn't agree more.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Twenty-five

"What do you think about that one?" Alex said, pointing at a bracelet inside the display counter at Archibald's.

"It's pretty," Isabel had to admit. More than pretty, really, with the bright rubies and emeralds set into the gold of the jewel. The sales hand looked up at her, and she realized that once again she had forgotten to communicate silently with Alex in public... well, at least, that was something that wouldn't seem too odd for a girl by herself to say looking at shiny gems and such. *I think that window shopping is just depressing me. YOU can't buy me any of this stuff after all, and I can't splurge on it for myself, not if I'm going to get the car before labor day, even with my parent's help...*

"Hmm, is this window shopping?" Alex asked, avoiding the substance of her complaint and focusing on an incidental detail in a way that she somehow found completely charming... especially because she knew that he did it in an attempt to divert her from something that was upsetting her, and against all her expectations it had worked surprisingly well in the past. "Usually that means staying outside the store, and looking through the windows at what's inside I thought. Of course, there's a sort of window on the display counter, but still..."

*Okay, I feel better, but still, we shouldn't stay in here, or I might give in to temptation and hold the joint up in a robbery using my powers,* she sent to him jokingly. *What now?*

"Well, let's see," Alex said, taking her hand in his and leading her out of the small storefront back onto the downtown promenade, which was crowded with local shoppers and tourists on the warm summer evening. "Check the stage schedule for the six o'clock show?"

*Sure.* Isabel made her way through the throng, up to the posted sign, and all of her eagerness about standing amidst other spectators, listening to a good act with Alex, in a situation where nobody would find it odd that she was there alone, was all dashed when she recognized the name of a particularly awful local rap trio. *Dammit.*

"Well, the Furious Suburbanites will definitely be worth waiting for," Alex asserted, drawing her attention to the next entry on the schedule, at seven thirty pm. "Maybe it'd be a good idea to do something else while waiting, though." He considered. "You could grab dinner, and I'll... watch and talk to you as you eat?"

*I... I dunno, Alex, that just seems weird.* She sighed, not caring who might notice - the fact that 'We three queens' would be performing in public was more than enough to explain some disappointed noises from her as far as she was concerned. *Shopping, music - even dancing in some circumstances, I don't mind doing these things with you in public, because you can share in them, even if nobody else knows that you're here. But eating...*

"We're in public, and you kinduv need to get something to eat," Alex pointed out reasonably. "I'll share in your company, and enjoy it a lot, even if the food is something that I can't eat - and can't try eating without unleashing zombie breath and clearing out the restaurant or something like that."

Isabel had to giggle, walking back down the promenade past the jewelry store. *You know, we should keep that as a surprise tactical weapon sometime. Have me keep a cookie in my pocket or something, and I toss it to you when we want to create a mysterious stink bomb effect...*

"You're getting sidetracked," Alex pointed out. "Conversationally, at least. Physically, I think that we're right on target - well, maybe a little bit far to the right actually."

*Huh?* Isabel looked up, then slightly to the right, and saw the sign for a slightly fancy restaurant that was definitely within her budget - and Alex knew that she particularly liked their chicken. *All right, alright. I'll go check out the line and see if it seems likely that I'll be able to eat and be done by seven thirty.*

The queue of diners waiting for a table wasn't enormous, and Isabel took her place, letting Alex ramble on to her about things without contributing much to the conversation other than her silent appreciation of his good humor. A few minutes after he managed to segue from the Clayton Wheeler situation facing her and Max to a favorite television show from his childhood, a party of seven was invited to jump the line right ahead of her because there wasn't anybody else waiting for such a large spot. Isabel stepped up to occupy the space that had been vacated - and did a double-take when she recognized the party of two that had been right in front of the larger group in line. "Kyle?"

"Isabel?" Tess said, while Kyle looked from one girl to the another, rendered momentarily speechless by the sudden conjunction. "What are you doing here... is *he* around?" That last phrase was whispered almost silently, as all references to ghost Alex had to be.

"Umm, yeah, right here," Isabel whispered back. And - well, I guess I don't need to ask what's up with the two of you." Both Tess and Kyle were dressed up in fun date-or-party type clothes, (tight jeans and a wifebeater on Kyle, which wasn't a bad look for him, and a fairly low-cut dress for Tess in a light bluey green.) Also, they were still standing very close together, and the body language between them had been intimate and flirty, until Isabel had happened along.

Tess blushed and looked down, but Kyle stood his metaphorical ground, making eye contact with Isabel. "No, you don't." That could be taken two different ways, she realized - she didn't have to ask because it was obvious, or she didn't have any reason to ask because it basically wasn't any of her business. "I, umm, I hope you have a good evening, and..."

"Yeah, same to you," Isabel repeated, feeling a bit awkward herself, and risked a look out of the corner of her eye at Alex. He was just standing there, looking at the three of them, and smiling slightly. He had never really held anything much against Tess, aside from a bit of surprised anger just after finding out and remembering the circumstances of his death for the first time, she realized. Alex had been very insistent, when they'd first figured out that he was haunting her mind, that she should help Liz 'solve' the mystery of his death, to make sure that nobody else's life was endangered by the mystery, but in a way he had also been the first to give Tess a chance to turn her life around and make things different in a good way. "Are you guys going to catch the Suburbanites show?"

"Umm... yeah, actually, we were thinking about it," Kyle said. "You?"

"Definitely. Alex recommended them." She said that one out loud, because it could be taken as something that he had mentioned to her before he died - if the band hadn't been formed just recently at least.

"Table for two?" the hostess called, and Tess tugged on Kyle's arm just slightly, because they were now at the head of the line.

"Just one thing," Kyle said, and stepped aside with Isabel as far as they could without being out of the line. After a moment, her face falling, Tess caught the hint and stepped away, past the hostess' station, so that they could have a bit of privacy. "I... I know that it's weird, me dating Tess after everything that she's done, but..."

"Not as weird as we're making it possibly," Isabel told him reassuringly. "If the two of you have something valuable when you're with each other, then it's really sort of stupid to let even big huge mistakes from the past get in the way of that. Trust me when I say that seizing the day because you don't know what tomorrow might bring really is the way to go."

Kyle considered that. "Okay, yeah." And then he hurried off to follow Tess. When the hostess got back to her stand she asked Isabel if she was by herself.

"No, table for two," she blurted out automatically, and then caught herself. "I mean, umm - I'll be the only one ordering and eating, but you don't have tables that just have one chair or whatever, right? It's sort of a pet peeve of mine, I guess."

"Umm... I think that we can squeeze you into a booth for two," the hostess said with a conspiratorial smile. Isabel tried not to berate herself - she'd been here long enough to know that there really WEREN'T tables with just one chair, and that single diners were often put in booths that could fit two, just as couples were often given booths that could seat four as long as they weren't needed for families.

"Um, thanks."

"Just a moment, they're busing it now I think."

Isabel enjoyed her boneless barbecue chicken breast with ditali and tomato sauce on the side immensely, and even indulged herself in a small chocolate fudge sundae, while Alex regaled her with funny stories about some people that she'd never really liked in high school. It was surprising the amount of snooping that he'd been able to accomplish in just a few months of his death. And after paying the bill, she went back off to wait for the Furious Suburbanites to take the stage, after checking to make sure that We Three Queens had finished their encore. It was hard to get much further than the last few lines of seating, but she didn't really mind, and noticed that Tess and Kyle were together, ahead and to the left of her. Neither of them noticed her, being occupied with other matters while waiting, and Isabel had to admit that they did make a cute couple.

The Suburbanites were every bit as great rockers as Alex had promised.

-----------

"I... I dunno, Isabel, we've tried everything that I can think of, and getting nothing," Max said, setting the orb down on the Pod Chamber floor. "

"Is it possible that somebody has sabotaged the orbs or the antenna?" Michael put in, looking as if he was ready to throw the second orb. "Tess? Or, much as I hate to even suggest it, Ava? Heck, maybe Rath and Lonnie sneaked back stateside and followed us out here."

"I think that all of that is reaching a bit, Michael," Liz put in from the side of the room. "Much as I hate to say it, my solar flare theory seems to be looking more and more likely at the moment."

"And that means what, exactly?" Isabel flared at her. "That the orbs are worthless now, and we're cut off from interstellar communication until we launch the Granilith to blast into the unknown? Kivar has made some kind of move - we all heard that much of... of what Claudia from Ceeta told us. We *need* to know what it is!"

"Hey, hey, come on," Max said, automatically moving close to Liz, putting an arm around her and interposing his body between Liz and Isabel as if to physically shield her from Isabel's fierce tirade.

"That's alright, I understand why she's so upset," Liz insisted, peeking out from around Max's shoulder. "The answer is, I don't know how long the effect will last if it is flare-related... or even if it isn't, for that matter. We have no idea what the antenna is made of, or what kind of radiation in the solar flare it might have been substituted, even whether it's radiation that's known to human science or something else that's capable of naturally travelling faster than light. So we have no idea if it can recover from overexposure or whatever, or if it's ruined."

"Maybe there's a backup antenna in New York, where Ava and the others were," Maria suggested. "They don't have a granilith obviously, but if it's so easy to accidentally wreck the orb antenna here in the pod chamber, it makes sense to have a second one."

"Possibly," Max said in a low voice. "But I'm not sure where. It doesn't make sense to have any kind of antenna down in the sewers and subway tunnels I think."

"It might not matter if it's underground," Alex put in, using Isabel's powers to project his voice so that the other five could hear him.

"Maybe," Liz said. "But I'm not sure I'm wild about the idea of going to New York just to try it. And recalculating the star charts to find a communication window."

"Wait a second," Michael put in. "How did we get them figured out for here, when we weren't even sure which way the pod chamber antenna 'pointed'?"

There was a moment's pause, and then everybody turned to look at Alex. "What, was that me?" (Actually, Isabel turned to look at Alex, and then everybody else looked in more or less the same direction as her gaze was fixed.)

"Yeah, nobody else love," Isabel put in. "And there wasn't any information that clear in the book translation, I remember that much."

"Hmm... I don't know," Alex admitted. "Maybe I was able to sense the antenna working once you came up here, Isabel, even if I wasn't consciously sure about it."

"Then - then you could jump over to the New York tunnels, if Max describes them to you clearly enough," Isabel suggested. "Sense if there's a working antenna there."

"No, something else first," Liz put in. "Sense HERE. Sense if the antenna is damaged, and if so, whether it's recovering itself."

"Hmm..." Alex considered that, and stepped invisibly closer to Liz. "Tell me again what you think about that solar flare - it might help me 'tune in' or something."

"Well, okay." Liz sighed. "The evening after we talked to Claudia Parker and lost her in midsentence, the star simulation program shows that the antenna focus swept over the sun. A solar astronomy website I found said that there was high sunspot activity and several solar flares over the period from around noon to four AM. Couldn't find out any more specific details about where the solar flares were..."

"Okay, that's enough," Alex reported. "Give me a moment. You don't need to be too quiet or anything."

"If it's in New York and not the sewers, then has Ava mentioned anything else that might fit, Liz?" Maria asked. "Maybe someplace high up in one of the skyscrapers, that nobody would necessarily suggest any alien connection to."

"No," Liz said. "Langley might know."

"Okay, he should be here by tomorrow morning," Isabel put in. "I can ask him about it... though I'd rather not let him come up here to investigate THIS antenna himself. I mean - he might have access, if he's one of the ones who put us here in the first place, and he probably knows where it is. Still..."

"I see the point about not pressing our luck," Max agreed. "On the other hand, we've had a lot of success with Langley by showing him trust and consideration. If he *asks* to be taken up here, and can provide a decent and productive reason for it... maybe it'd be better to go along rather than antagonize him about it."

"Maybe you could come along but have him drive and lead the way in," Maria suggested. "Which would settle whether or not he has the ability to get here himself."

"Maybe we don't need him here, offhand," Alex said softly. Isabel looked up at him. "I... I think I'm getting a sense of a flare overexposure like Liz mentioned. It *is* fading, though I'm not sure I can guess when the system will be recovered enough to be operable again. Maybe two or three weeks."

"That'd be after the end of the summer proper," Liz said, thoughtfully. "But still good news. Hopefully that will be about when we're done with Langley, and... and after Ceeta is occluded by the sun, right?"

"Probably," Isabel said. "But I think that I can consider the Ceeta policy as door-open for a Granilith visit. And we could contact Kaalto or someplace like that to see what they know about Kivar." She took a deep breath. "Do you feel up to trying an astral jump to New York, sweetie? Just to see if we can identify a backup transmitter that's working NOW?"

"Not just this minute - or for a few hours, maybe," Alex said, sort of sagging into her. "That took a lot out of me somehow, figuring so much out about alien technology. And jumping to someplace that I've never been - somplace so far away from you - is going to be pretty tough too. In fact, maybe we shouldn't risk it. I know that I've been able to 'hop' out of your immediate vicinity, but that was just a few miles away at the most."

"Hmm... alright, no need to press it," Isabel admitted. "So, any other business to attend to while we're here?"

"Experiments in large-scale molecular transmutation using the Granilith," Michael said, hefting up a sack that he'd carried up the path with him. "Or, well, fairly large-scale compared to what we've been able to do on our own."

"What is that?" Max asked, as Michael shook it out to reveal an impressive collection of odds and ends, mostly junk and spare parts. "Correction - what is it hopefully going to be?"

"Three-bay region free DVD player," Michael said. "I did all the research on the parts required."

"But still - the most complicated part of a gadget like that has to be the microporcessor design and the programming," Alex put in. "You can do basic research, yeah, but I'm not honestly sure you're competent to fabricate all of that from scratch."

"Well, I guess we'll see if the Granilith can help me out then," Michael said with a big grin, heading down towards the hidden room. "Who's with me?"

"I'll come watch," Maria said, and Liz volunteered as well, out of curiosity. Isabel made a gesture to suggest that Max and Alex should hang back.

"So, how are things with Wheeler?" she asked in a low voice.

"Pretty well. We've gone through a few rounds of treatment already, with the transplants and the enzyme therapy. He's been reacting easily as well as I could wish, and I've sort of got an impression of just what's going on wrong in his bone marrow, that needs to be fixed. It's not just a question of those cells dying off, really - Wheeler's own immune system is attacking them, and if I hadn't clued into that, it might have been very bad to start an intensive healing process. Even now, I'll need to be... clever with my powers to figure out a way of resolving the syndrome - to bring peace and balance back to the complex systems of his body. It's probably not something that lots of raw power will help with, either in me or in him."

"So, no real point in trying the healing stones trick?" Isabel asked.

"Well, except maybe under the category of misdirection," Liz suggested. "They probably can't hurt."

"We don't - actually, I suspect we know the opposite of that," Max warned her sternly. "The balance can pull you in. River Dog's own words - and the only person who ever told us much about those things. Clayton Wheeler is still very sick, and if the healing stones link is made, his body may try to suck more energy, more of the balance, out of anybody 'donating' than they can afford to lose, even if it doesn't do him any good. Life has a sort of driving motivation to it that is much deeper and more primal than even the deepest layers of our minds."

"Okay, well, it's up to you what we can do or try to help," Liz said in a small, subdued voice. "Maybe we can figure out some way to make the stones light up without actually connecting to us."

"Score!" Michael called out from the Granilith room. "Come on, let's go back to town so that I can try hooking this thing up! It certainly looks shiny enough right now."

"Well, I wanna see if it actually works," Isabel said. "You in, Max?"

"Sure, why not? We can hang out and I can actually see Alex at Michael's place." Michael brought his new toy out, with Maria and Liz trailing him.

----------

"Well, let's see now," Langley said, reaching out and picking up the mug of hot lemon that Isabel had offered him. Since her parents were out, she was meeting him at her house this time. "The pod chamber antenna - you mean the tachyon resonating chamber that is needed to activate and use the orb communicators?"

"Right," Isabel said. "We didn't really know what to call it regularly, and it seemed to work like an antenna in its own terms - focusing the communication and aiming it in a particular direction. Actually, sort of like a satellite dish more than anything, though I suppose that that's a kind of an antenna - a parabolic reflector."

"Yes, I suppose so," he allowed. "And no, I never set up a second redundant one in New York, though I did wonder about getting one made that could adjust its own orientation instead of being dependent on the Earth's own spin for proper placing. That's the way such things are handled on Antar and nearby planets, though they're large installations that are hard to miss. When you send a beam out to a place like Stallynfrus, say, there's a full-sphere resonating chamber that detects your signal and orients to match on it. Often they're positioned in orbit for maximum convenience. One on the surface of the planet is useless half the time or more."

"Right," Isabel agreed. "Well, we'll leave that idea alone for now - building a new one I mean."

"Proobably best. You say that Liz thought it was sunspots?"

"Sunflares."

"Amounts to more or less the same thing. When the spots come, the flares will follow. I suppose it's possible, though it would have to be a very large burst of energy within the star and when the antenna was oriented just right on the heart of Sol to overexpose it like that. I was never a great expert on solar dynamics myself, but I believe that the high energy reactions that create solar flares can also create neutrino and tachyon pulses from much deeper inside."

"All right then," Isabel said. "And it should recover from overexposure within a few weeks?"

"If Alex could pick up any signs that the resonation plates were recovering, then yes," he said. "The 'sense' of them being fried dead would have been hard to mistake if he had any affinity at all with the chamber. So what's the next question?"

"Healing stones and the dangers of using them?"

"Healing... you mean Ratarran energy transfer crystals?" Isabel slipped one out of the buffet drawer, (underneath a tablecloth that her mother hated and never used,) and presented it to him. "Yeah, that's it. I know that you shouldn't use one if the emergency isn't pressing. What else?"

"When - when Michael was suffering from excessive heat and humidity from the Mesaliko sweatlodge and had fallen into a coma..."

"Oooh, right, the Cruchausn limit," Langley said offhand. "Didn't realize any of you had run afoul of that. Stupid indians."

"Well, River Dog, this Indian who knew Nasedo a long time ago, he gave us the healing stones and told us a bit about how we could use them. But he told Liz that she couldn't help - that she was too scared about the idea of something like that happening to Max, that she couldn't participate."

"Hmm... not sure," Langley said. "Ed Harding - he might have told this 'River Dog' something that I didn't know about the crystals. Then again, he might have just been spouting off some indi-- oops, sorry, native american nonsense."

"Alright I guess," Isabel said, and tried to rack her brain for something else to ask him. "Oh, have you heard of this Clayton Wheeler thing before?"

"Not exactly - I've heard of Metachem industries buying up Antarian artifacts from the Roswell crash, but I didn't have any idea about the big man in the company being sick until I got Max's message."

"Well, okay I suppose," Isabel said, and sighed. "So you don't have any specific information on these people - Doctor Sosa and Meris Wheeler and so on?" Langley shook his head. "Any generic tips on how to best watch our back?"

"Three key words - paranoia, paranoia, paranoia."

"That's one word three times." Langley glared at her. "What, don't you watch 'Buffy the vampire slayer' out in Hollywood?"

"Hey, honey, we're home earl-yy," Mrs Evans sang out from the front door, and Isabel stifferend. "Um - who's your - much older friend?"

"You must be Isabel's mother, she's told me so much about you," Langley said without any bit of hesitation, getting up quickly. "My name is Ryan Caldwell, and I'm with the local Peace Corps office. Just giving Isabel a bit of the inside dope about what she could expect if she signs on to go abroad with our organization."

"The - the Peace Corps?" Diane Evans repeated, torn between pleasure and just frank shock for a moment. "Why, honey, I... when you said you wanted to take a year off and travel before going to college, I guess I had something very different in mind. You - you'd be so far away from us and your home, wouldn't you?"

You have no idea just how far I'm planning to travel in the name of peace, Isabel thought silently. "Yeah, I know, but it sounds like an incredible experience. I haven't committed to anything, though things may move quickly if they have a spot for me and I decide to go for it. You don't have a problem with the idea, though, do you Mom? I... I don't guess I need a signature, but still, I don't want to do something like this without your blessing."

"Well, I guess we'll have a lot to talk about at dinner. Nice to meet you, Ryan."

"Yes, I feel the same way," he mumbled you. "And I do think that I have to be going."

"Alright." Mrs Evans walked him out, and introduced him to her husband, who was just heading in, along the way. "Isabel, if you're going to be shipped out, does it really make sense to buy a new car?"

"Worst thing that can happen, if I don't need it someone else in the gang can borrow it," Isabel said, truthfully enough. "But that's another way of keeping my options open."

----------

"Okay, we're going to do it on Sunday evening, I think," Max whispered. Isabel was using a new variation on dreamwalking technique to hold a secret conference between the prime movers of this plan, more because they hadn't had an opportunity to all meet in person as for any other advantages of meeting without coming physically together. "Liz, you'll be with me, connecting to me and giving me access to all of your biological knowledge that might be helpful. Everybody but me, including Liz, will be using fake healing crystals - as a diversion technique, and so that if they get the idea to steal a few more 'alien artifacts', they'll just get some random lumps of quartz we can get down at the quarry."

"Question," Maria put in. "I know that you guys can probably make any sort of crystal glow impressively like the healing stones did, but me and probably Kyle - the only way we could 'work' the healing stones was because of their own virtue, I always thought. How impressive is it going to be for us to just stand there holding lumps of quartz?"

"The healing stones were just focusing agents, remember sweetie," Michael put in. "You have the same kind of power, of energy, in you as we do - or you couldn't have helped save my life. It's just that you have a naturally harder time focusing it. Max, Isabel, and I have put our heads together, and we think that getting you to make a little light shouldn't be too hard a thing to teach you."

"And if that doesn't work, then the backup is that we can make stones glow even when we're not holding them at the time," Isabel put in. "So we'll cover for you."

"Like Skeeve doing majik to make it look like Aahz was still a powerful magician," Liz said with a smile.

"Huh?" Kyle stared at her.

"Oh, that'd take too long to explain," she put in. "But I think that we'll find a way to make things work. So, what else?"

"Well, Isabel, I'd like you to keep an eye on the healing process from two steps back, as it were," Max said. "Watch what's going on and step in if something seems to be going desperately wrong. Alex, you're with her, as usual. Michael, Maria, Kyle -- maybe I'm being too paranoid, no matter what Langley said, but I want you to be on the watch for anything suspicious from the Metachem people."

"And as for Langley himself?" Isabel put in.

"He won't be there, but he, Tess, and Ava will be ready to serve as a backup team in case we need rescuing or something of the sort."

"Oooh, that'll be an interesting group if they actually have to work together," Maria put in.

"Yeah, Tess and Ava have their friction, but they'd all be willing to do whatever they need to do I think," Michael put in. "Let's hope that we don't need them."

"Right," Alex said. "Okay, we all clear? Then break!" There was an awkward silence. "Come on, Isabel, let them go back to bed. I know that keeping all of us together is no picnic for you."

"Just one thing first," Liz said, and gave Max a hot kiss. Isabel winked at Alex, and blew them away into seperate dreams right in the middle of it.

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

"Come on," Maria insisted. "Of course we should go shopping for a car today, Isabel. In fact, I really think that we should buy one, if there's anything out there that's remotely decent."

"Umm, why?" Isabel asked, looking up from where she was stretched out comfortably on the couch.

"Well - so that you'll have something to be looking forward to when we go and do the thing with Wheeler tomorrow night?" she said. "And so that you've gotten it out of the way by then so that when we've gotten the serum and the notes, you can go straight on to the next thing, whatever that is?"

"Actually, I can't, not if that next thing is Ceeta, which I'm starting to think it is," Isabel said, sighing and getting up. "Need to stick around at least long enough for my parent's labor day barbecue."

"Still, you know what I mean," Maria put in.

"Yeah, I guess that I do." Isabel stretched slightly. "Okay - what do you wear to go car shopping?"

"I think that that's good enough," Maria said, indicating the shorts and thin crop top that Isabel had on. "Especially since if the salesman's a typical guy, you could probably flirt enough to shave four hundred bucks off the price at least - if you wanted to, that is."

"Hmm." Isabel considered that. "Tempting as the money is, I should probably put a bra on to go out of the house."

"Ehh, it's your slave wages," Maria put in, and then stifled a giggle. Isabel threw one of the cushions at her and headed off to her bedroom.

Alex 'popped in' as they were browsing through the certified pre-owns at WAYNE'S (auto) WORLD, and got into the spirit of car shopping pretty quickly. Even though he had never really been a big motorhead in life, Alex was familiar with the day to day routine of driving and taking care of a vehicle, having taken on a lot of the responsibility for his father's old Ford in exchange for the wide reaching driving privileges he'd enjoyed. Also, his geeker mind adapted quickly to the numbers of specifications that applied to a vehicle, (miles per gallon, horsepower, zero to sixty, volume and number of chambers,) from the similar metrics that would be relevant for a new computer.

In the end, they settled on a 1999 Hyundai as the vehicle that Isabel would be making a tough offer on, and Maria and Alex withdrew a short distance and watched her making her moves. "Is this sort of thing hard on you?" Maria asked softly into the empty space next to her. "Seeing her flirt with somebody else to get something that she needs?"

"It used to piss me off mightily, when I wasn't even watching it directly," Alex said thoughtfully. "Like when I heard about her going up to find out about Grant after he found the bones..."

"Well, that was a more complicated situation," Maria put in.

"Yeah, but still. Or around the same time - when she distracted the security guard so that Max could sneak into the particle accelerator lab."

"She did? I never heard about that one - how did you work it out?"

"Uh, Max told Liz and Liz told me... actually complained to me about all the time that Max was spending hanging around her and how she couldn't hardly get rid of him." The two old friends shared a laugh. "And all that sort of thing. But I guess now, it's easier, for a few reasons. Like I know how much she really loves me and doesn't want anybody else, and also how she really dislikes using her sex appeal like this." Alex sighed. "Not that you'd guess that from how good she is at working it..."

"Yeah, nice use of the forward lean," Maria admitted clinically. "Of course, she's got better cleavage than anyone else I know, so why not take advantage of it?"

It wasn't long at that point that the papers were signed and all. Maria whistled silently, glad that the salesman and manager both had their backs turned, when she found out just how well Isabel had been able to do with her negotiations - the cashier's cheque that Isabel had had drawn out the day before was signed over, and Maria seemed a little disappointed that they didn't even end up needing the low-rate financing. Soon the three of them drove out of the lot on Isabel's new wheels - she insisted that Alex got the front seat, no matter how weird it might seem for Maria to be in the back.

"Of course, if this was a tv show, we'd find out now that the engine's nearly shot," Maria commented.

"No, I checked it out, trust me," Alex said with a big laugh.

"Okay then, where should we go for the ceremonial first cruise?" Isabel asked. "Hobbs? Carlsbad? Clovis??"

"Actually, I can't afford to go anywhere too far," Maria put in. "Have shift in half an hour, and then plans with Spaceboy."

"Yeah, maybe Max or someone else should help me check it out one more time before a big shakedown," Alex pointed out to Isabel. "We've got nothing else much to do tommorrow until 5:30 pm."

"Alright," Isabel admitted after a moment's pause. "We'll give that a try."

"But if we've got half an hour before dropping Maria off at the Crashdown, then we can drive around town a bit," Alex put in. "Maybe go and sneak out onto the golf course just to admire the summer sunshine on the green lawns."

"Sounds good to me," Maria put in. "Drive, princess."

"Don't ever say that to me again."

-----------

"Hmm, I don't really like the look of those clouds behind us," Max pointed out. "We're going to have to drive into that storm coming back no matter what, it seems to me, so we'd probably better turn back around now."

"No, come on - no talk about turning around yet," Isabel grumbled, taking only one look back behind her at the admittedly impressive thunderheads before concentrating on the road ahead of her and planting her foot on the gas. "We haven't even GOTTEN anywhere yet."

"We could have," Liz said in an undertone, "if we hadn't picked the one direction out of Roswell where you have to go the very furthest to get anywhere." Isabel glared at her, and Liz stared back with loads of determination in her silent face.

"I, I have to say, I think that Max's idea is probably a good one," Alex said to Isabel. "In fact, I've really got a bad feeling about this one."

"Dammit, why couldn't we have gotten on the road earlier this morning, like I wanted to," Isabel muttered, slowing down and easing onto the shoulder, waiting for a moment when the two-lane road would be free of traffic so that she could try a three-point turn. There didn't seem to be many other people heading south towards the storm, but numerous cars that had been behind them were speeding up, probably trying to get home to the town of Vaughn, New Mexico before any of the bad weather hit. Finally there was a break big enough for her to make the maneuver in, and head south along the 265 road, looking at the clock on the CD player as she went.

Unfortunately, a quiet and uneventful drive back home was not to be. They had only been heading south for ten minutes before coming to a stop - it soon became clear that state patrolment were turning all cars back. "Oh no, not this again," Max muttered.

"Not what again?" Alex asked.

"When - when the three of us were chasing after Michael and Maria, when Michael stole Maria's car and went to Marathon," Liz put in. "There was a closed road that time too, a jackknifed truck or something. We were stuck for hours before we even realized that the Jetta had broken down and Maria was in a motel room with Michael just a quarter of a mile away or so, on the same side of the blockage."

"Don't figure that something like that is going to help us out this time," Max said, as the big sport-ute ahead of them reluctantly U-turned around and headed back north.

Isabel nervously rolled down the window when she was signalled to. "Yes, officer?"

"Really sorry honey, but there's already a lot of flooding on the road just north of Roswell and it looks like it's only going to get worse. You have to turn back."

"Oh no, what are we going to do? We have to be back in Roswell by five-thirty?"

"No, that's not going to happen. Frankly, even if I did let you go on from here, you wouldn't get through okay, unless you could turn this car into a boat." Isabel must have gotten a thoughtful look on her face in response to that. "Just go up to Vaughn, okay??"

"Is that an order, officer?" Liz asked. "What do you expect us to do there?"

"I don't know, and it isn't an order to stay there I suppose. You can stay on the shoulder of the road, once you've gone a mile away or so I suppose, or you can keep on going through. But you cannot stay here and you cannot continue on - that IS the word of the law. I'm sorry."

"Okay, we need to go into damage control mode," Isabel admitted grudgingly as she started back north again. "Anybody got a cellular signal?"

"One bar," Liz reported, while Max shook his head, and Alex stared glumly at Isabel's own phone. (She was tempted to ask if Max and Liz saw the phone hovering in mid air. "No, I... I don't know if it's the rain or what, but I can't even hear it ringing."

"Well, we'll try a land line from town or something."

"As weird as it might be to replay history, we should probably see about a motel," Liz admitted.

It was becoming clear that they were not the only ones stranded in Vaughn by the flooding, and the motels were filling up quickly by the time they got to town. At the Robson arms, the desk clerk told them that there was only a single and a small suite available, and Liz pointed out that they probably wouldn't have any better luck trying another establishment."

"I think that this qualifies as an emergency," Max said, pulling out the credit card his father had entrusted to him. "We can't all fit into a single - so I'll take the suite."

"Very good, sir."

"Ask to use the phone, Max," Isabel said, pointing to the old fashioned black dial model on the desk while the credit card was being rung.

"Don't be silly," Alex said silently to her. "Whoops, sorry, shouldn't have said that. But we'll be able to try the phone when we get to the room - I mean, the suite."

But the clerk had heard her, apparently. "If you're from Roswell, you might have a long wait to get a line back home," he pointed out. "There have been lines blown down - phone and power too, everything. I think that they're trying to route through some lines between Roswell and Carlsbad that are still up, but it's confusing all of the phone company switching computers, and there's probably too many people calling to get handled by just a few lines like that."

"Oh, lord," Isabel bemoaned. "Is there anything else that can possibly go wrong to us today?"

"Sure there is, and now it probably will," Liz piped up, "because you had to say that and jinx us."

After a moment, Max and Isabel started laughing helplessly thinking about that, and even Liz and Alex joined into the spirit of absurdity.


TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Twenty-six

"Let me try," Alex said, pointing at the phone in the motel room. "Ghost in the machine should do the trick, even when alien powers fail."

"Hmm? Okay, sure, who's stopping you?" Isabel said, waving the handset back at him a little. "Just don't get so deep into the machine that I can't pull you out."

"Never," he replied with a slight smile. Isabel watched for a moment, but there weren't any special effects, just Alex staring at the phone exactly as if he *were* trying to use alien powers on it. Then she looked out the window, past Liz, to where the rain was still coming down pretty hard outside. It had to be one of the worst New Mexico thunderstorms of the summer, at least. And the flooding out on the desert was keeping them from getting back to Roswell at a time when they desperately needed to...

"Okay, try dialing again," Alex said, shaking Isabel out of her thoughts. She paused, and then tapped in the Roswell area code and the number for Michael's apartment. As much faith as she had in Alex's affinity with electronics, it did surprise her a little when the phone on the other end actually rang and no message broke in to say that it couldn't make a connection.

"Hello?" somebody said after the second ring.

"Yeah, hi? It's Isabel - we're stuck in Vaughn. The road back to Roswell is..."

"Is flooded, yeah, we heard." There was a big sigh. "I'm Maria, by the way."

"Oh, right."

"We tried to warn you a little while ago, when they were talking about the roads starting to get bad, but couldn't reach anybody's cell phone. The Wheelers and other Metachem people are REALLY frickin' pissed that you're not here in town."

"Oh, forget them," Isabel said, though she knew that it might not be so easy. "I just got a new car and was out driving with my best friends. Not my fault that there was a goddam desert flood today."

"Is that exactly what you want me to tell them?" Maria said, sounding almost as if she'd actually do it, given an opportunity.

"Umm... no, probably better not to. Just say that we're sorry about the delay, and will return to help Clayton as soon as we can safely get back to town, which will probably be tomorrow at this rate..."

"Or maybe longer," Maria muttered. "The storm is staying put for now, and if there's much more rain on the desert, then it could take hours to drain even after the rain stops."

"Frobnizzle," Isabel muttered. "Okay - who else is over there? I want to talk to Michael or Ava... even Tess or Langley."

"Yeah, Michael, Tess, and Kyle are here," Maria answered. "Think that Langley and Ava are off somewhere having a talk about the old New York days. Why?"

"Just... hang on a moment." Isabel covered up the mouthpiece and turned around, looking for Max. It wasn't hard to find him in the little bathroom with the door open, toweling rainwater off his hair. "Max, don't ya hate how everybody bitches about the weather and nobody ever does anything about it?"

"Umm... not really... oh." He looked out at the water outside. "Seriously?"

"Just give it a little try - push that thunderhead somewhere so that we're not stuck here more than a day."

"Ohh..." That started the wheels turning in Max's head. Even their emergency funds wouldn't cover this suite for more than the one day, and if the roads were still closed they'd probably have an even harder time switching to another hotel. "Alright, so what do we need to do?"

"Look at the weather channel first," Alex suggested, and the tv switched itself on. "Figure out what direction it'll be easiest to push the storm system in, with everybody here and there working together."

"Yeah. I just wonder if we'll even be able to tell whether it's working or not," Isabel said. And then she realized that she was still holding the phone. "Hey?"

"Hi, Isabel," Michael said. "Let me guess, you want us to help push some thin air around."

"Well, couldja? Not so worried about the Wheelers, but Liz and I have got shiftwork at the Crashdown tomorrow."

-----------

"I wouldn't have thought that trying to use my powers on air and clouds could be so tiring," Max complained a little later, as they were eating some takeout food, (well, everybody but Alex,) and watching a movie on the local network station. "Guess it makes sense - they may not be heavy, but they're so far away and so much of them."

"Yeah, well, let's not worry about it," Isabel said. "Even if we didn't do anything, the forecast is looking alright for less rain and some drying up overnight. I think that we'll be okay to head back tomorrow around noon and all. Our shifts are all covered and everything."

"Yeah, we've got a chance to take a little vacation out of town, and we should enjoy it," Liz said. "Which unfortunately, seems to preclude actually watching this movie! Am I right in anyone else's opinion?"

"Um, yeah, it's pretty awful, and not quite so bad it's good," Max admitted. "Isabel?" She made an uh-huh sound. "Alex?"

"I could go either way. Doesn't seem so bad, but maybe that's because it's been so long since I've seen a movie. When I'm popped in there are usually other, and generally better things to do."

"Oh, we have to have a *good* movie night sometime soon," Isabel immediately said, and Alex grinned back at her as if he'd expected that response from her. "Back home in Roswell, where you can pick out a favorite DVD or something. But no more of this." She waved her hand, and the tv switched to a sitcom with the volume blared up to maximum. "Oh, whoops, didn't mean to do that." Liz reached for the remote and pushed the power button.

"So, how have things been going between you two crazy dreamers?" Alex asked. "I've picked up a little from context, and you seem really happy, but... well, I guess I'm curious about a few more details."

"Oh, come on," Isabel said.

"Sorry... I've been sitting on the question for weeks now because - well, every time I see Liz you're around, because you're always around. Can't keep it in any longer!" There was a pause. "You can go into the other room if you really can't bear hearing."

"Hmm... no, I guess I'd rather stay with you no matter what," she admitted, wrapping an arm around his.

"Okay, well, I'd sort of rather have this conversation in the resonance chamber, where we can see you, Alex," Liz pointed out. "Never thought I'd be telling invisible boy about my personal life."

"Oh, damn, sorry, I totally forgot about that by now," Alex admitted. "We can..."

"No, it's alright," she insisted. "I mean, okay with me if it is with you, sweetie," she said to Max.

"Just one condition," Max said. "Nobody is allowed to use the term 'cement' -- after this."

That set off quite a bit of laughter. "Okay, then, how to phrase this delicately," Liz said. "We've... moved on into, a -- physically adult relationship?" Waited for a few nods of understanding. "Enjoying ourselves quite a lot, never felt closer or more in love."

"Well, good, I'm happy for you," Isabel admitted. "And just think, now if one of you dies, you'll have a chance to live on as a ghost in the head of the other."

"Not sure that sounds like much of an upside," Max admitted. "But thanks for the good wishes."

"And is there something that you want to say to Liz, Max?" Alex asked.

"Huh, what do you mean?"

"Or - or something that you want to GIVE to her?"

"WHAT?" Max looked at the spot where he knew Alex was invisibly sitting. "Come on, man," he hissed, "you're killin' me here!"

"What, you don't think this is a good moment?"

"With the two of you here?"

"Did you think it had to be just you and Liz? Share the love a little, man - I know that Isabel will be thrilled to stand as a witness... and watching is one of the few big pleasures that I've got left..."

"Okay, come on, what are the two of you on about?" Isabel asked. "Alex, if Max doesn't want to share whatever it is right now, then STOP HOUNDING HIM."

"I..." Max turned to look at Liz, and it was hard for anybody not to be struck by the mix of love, tenderness, and gentle curiosity in the way she was staring back at him. Apparently it would have taken a much more stubborn man than Max Evans to tell her she had to wait to find out what this was about. "Okay, I guess Alex spotted me going into the store - I thought he'd have been waiting with you girls in the pizzeria." And with that, Max produced a little jewelry box from his pants pocket and handed it over to Liz. Grinning, she opened it up, and found a small pendent on a golden chain necklace. The pendant had two bright red gems, cut into faceted half-spheres, one above the other.

"It... it's beautiful, Max," Liz breathed. "But - but somewhere along the way, we heard something about - about Antarian wedding traditions. Max... is there a question that comes along with this?"

"Yes, there definitely is." Max shot one look at Isabel, as if still not too happy that he had to do this in front of his sister, but the blissed-out look that had come over Isabel as she realized what Alex had given her a front row seat to made Max turn and go back to the business at hand. Moving out of his seat, he kneeled on the motel carpeting next to the corner of the table they'd been eating from, and took Liz's hand that was nearest to him. "I... I know that we're still young, and as much as we may talk about adult relationships, we're not really living adult lives yet. But I love you so much, and I haven't been able to forget those stories about the two of us marrying in Vegas. I'm not sure when and where we should get married, but I wanted to ask you to become my wife, when the time is right. You might become a royal bride on a far distant planet, or maybe a fugitive on the run, I don't know what my life has in store well enough to promise you anything other than my love..."

"Yes," Liz put in when Max hesitated. "Of course the answer is yes, Max - from the very beginning it was yes. I... I was never sure until just now that you'd ever ask, but since that day almost two years ago, when you let a silly and immature schoolgirl peek into your soul, I've always known that if you'd ask I would say yes. I would be pleased and honored to be..."

"You've NEVER been silly or immature, Liz."

"Hey!" The word was said sharply enough to make Max stiffen slightly. "As much as I appreciate the sentiment... not a great sentence to interrupt me in the middle of, darling!"

"Oh, yeah." Max had to laugh. "Sorry... continue, or start again, or whatever."

"Th- thank you." Liz had to let out a chuckle of her own. "I would be pleased and honored to be your wife, and I'll wait as long as we need to for that day to come." She opened up the clasp at the back of the necklace, stretched the two ends behind her shoulders, and held that pose. "Make it official?"

"Hmm? Oh, right." Max got up to stand behind her chair, took the ends of the necklace, and after Liz brushed most of her hair forward, he fastened the clasp again and let it fall to the back of her neck. Liz took a moment to rearrange her hair again and check on where the pendant had fallen. "Oh, and one small point," she said, standing up and facing him. "Though I understand what you said about how we can't count on the real trappings of Royal Bridehood, but there's a little detail I'd like you to indulge me on. We're not engaged, and we aren't fiancees. I am your Betrothed, and you are mine. Alright?"

Max had to chuckle. "Whatever you say, my dear. A kiss to seal our pact?"

"Better be more than one," Liz replied, as Max bent down to put his lips against hers.

"Okay, that's enough for now," Isabel said, once the clinch had gone over thirty seconds. "At least until the pizza's done. Then we can take off and bunk down on the cot in the lounge, and you guys get the main bedroom to yourselves."

"Thanks," Max said quietly to his sister.

"Yeah," Liz agreed, taking her seat again and keeping ahold of Max's hand. "So Isabel, are you still thinking about going to Ceeta after Labor day?"

"Hmm... yeah probably assuming that this Wheeler stuff is done," she admitted. "And probably see if we can wait for the communicator to come back up, even if Ceeta will be behind the Sun so we can't talk to them."

"We could try relaying a message through somebody else friendly," Max put in. "Well, good luck. Do you want it to be just you and Alex?"

"Hmm." Isabel shivered slightly at the thought. "Not really, but I hadn't gotten around to asking for volunteers. Nobody who'd be missed at home or at school, which lets you guys out. I've got the Peace Corps alibi, or maybe something else that will better cover a short absence."

"Maybe you could ask Ava," Liz said thoughtfully. "I mean, she hasn't registered for school or anything that I know of."

"Yeah," Isabel said, and took the last piece of tomato green pepper pie. "Okay, who wants the last two of this bacon and beef deal?"

Max and Liz exchanged looks. "One for each of us, I guess," Liz said.

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

"Well, I'm happy for them," Isabel said sleepily, curled up on the surprisingly comfortable little bed in the suite lounge. "Max looked so happy when she said yes... and Liz looked happy too of course. Think that they'll be alright, no matter what weirdness might lie in store for all of us."

"Yeah, I certainly hope so," Alex agreed.

"And tomorrow... Maria and Michael are going to flip when they hear the news - maybe Tess and Kyle too." Isabel yawned. "They'll probably get asked to be the maid of honor and the best man, come the time."

"Are you jealous about that?"

"Ehh... maybe a little, but I understand that Maria's known Liz longer. Besides, if it's all about being in the prettiest dress on the big day..."

"Then you just have to wait until it can be the two of us, getting married," Alex told her.

"Yeah I guess... though I know that's definitely counting chickens before they're eggs, or something. We're still not sure if this crazy plan of mine is going to work out, and even if it does..."

"Ssh," Alex said, stroking her upper arm. "We don't need to go through this all again, especially not when you're so tired."

"Okay. Wake me when the rain's stopping... or ten AM..." She didn't say anything else, but didn't really fall immediately asleep either, and it was hard to tell when it finally happened.

She clearly remembered looking around though, and seeing the pretty and somewhat exotic meadow spreading all around her. There were patches of woods in the distance, and a huge sort of pavillion tent not far away. "Hmm, I wonder what's going on?"

"Must be quite an occasion." She turned just a bit to see Alex, and then blinked a bit at what he was wearing. There was a black shirt with long sleeves and green stripes down the sleeves, black pants, and black leather pants. His hair was cut very short, and somehow the overall effect reminded her of the uniforms on 'Star Trek' or one of those similar shows. Still, though, she couldn't really complain, he looked very formal and handsome like that. "I mean, you look great like that, dressed up to the nines."

"Hmm?" Isabel caught a glimpse of her own clothes with peripheral vision, and decided that she wouldn't be able to get the full effect by craning her neck down, so she waved a hand and generated a mirror surface in mid-air. Yes, there was Alex again, at her side... and she was indeed such a remarkable vision that she hardly recognized herself. The elaborate and yet elegant hairstyle that her golden locks had been arranged into, the gorgeous blue gown that she was wearing, the expensive-looking jewelry... "Wow. You like?"

"Yeah, definitely. Even though I normally said your hair is better just down, or in a ponytail... hard to argue with the big effect." She kissed him.

"Want to go over and check out the tent?"

"Okay, sure." Isabel formally offered Alex her arm, and giggled as he took it in his hand. "Okay, your boots are going to be much better on this grass than my slippers."

"Sorry. I didn't dream up the outfits I think."

"Ohh - yeah, right." Isabel waited to see if reality would take a right angle turn now that she clued in that this was a dream, but nothing strange seemed to happen offhand. "You know - this could be a wedding scene, actually. Would make sense that I'd dream about something like that after - what happened earlier."

"Hmm, maybe," Alex admitted. "Alien wedding? This doesn't really look like New Mexico, and the outfits..."

"No, I've got somebody stylist's idea of princess chic, definitely," Isabel admitted. "Not that I don't like it, but it's not really me. If I'm in Liz's wedding party, I'd rather be in something a bit similar, and with the hair a lot less overdone. I actually feel like freakin' Padme Amidala."

"Well, it's not your choice, really..."

"And I don't think Liz would wish something like this on me," Isabel continued. "As far as you... do you think it's possible that you're in the Space Navy or something?"

"Hmm." Alex considered his uniform. "Maybe I guess. Never really wanted to be a millitary man, but if they needed me... I hope I'd just be able to be some technical fix-it guy behind the scenes and not have to run screaming into combat with a gun or whatever, you know."

Just at that moment, somebody ran screaming out of the tent. "Is that... Maria?" Isabel asked.

"Um - sort of looks like her," Alex admitted. Maria dressed in a reddish-purple bridesmaid's dress, to be precise, and ranting something about the flowers and whether she'd have to fix the streamer decorations all by herself. Isabel giggled helplessly - until a man dressed in drab olive fatigues suddenly appeared right in front of them.

"Did it work?" he asked himself.

"Did - did what work?" Isabel asked, immediately unnerved by the quiet and powerful face of this guy.

"You." He stared right into Isabel. "There was somebody who was asking questions, through go-betweens. About what's left of my Unit. That's you, the person behind the whole deal. A goddammed Barbie doll!"

"What did you do?" Isabel replied, her voice rising. "This is my dream, my head. You can't be here, whoever you are!!"

"I can, because I borrowed your alien secrets," he replied, sounding unwilling to talk and triumphant at the same time. "One of those gadgets from where YOUR ship crashed! What's your name? How do I find you??"

"Alex, help me," she cried. "Whatever he's doing..." It felt like his eyes were probing into her mind, making her WANT to reveal all of her secrets, or at least the ones he was asking about. "I can't hold out for too long."

Alex threw himself between them, facing Isabel and turning his back on the stranger. He shook her violently and pinched her arm through the sleeve of the gown, REALLY hard. Furious at this, the guy in olive punched Alex hard in the back of the neck, he cried out in pain...

And Isabel woke up in the motel suite, gasping for breath. "Alex? Alex, are you out of the dream?"

There was one long second before he appeared, standing up but back in his pjs. "There - there wasn't a dream after you woke up - it wasn't mine. But - but I was lost in darkness until you called out for me. And - and he wasn't far away in the night."

"Maybe - maybe he won't be able to find his way back," Isabel grumbled under her breath. "Do you realize what was going on there?"

"I - I have some guesses," Alex admitted. "The Special unit team with the soul implantation tech you need for me. They were able to - to use part of it, or something else that they got with it, to dreamwalk you."

"Not just dreamwalk me," Isabel admitted. "He was taking me on in some kind of psychic, mental one on one combat, and he was winning. If I had lost - I'd have told him exactly how to find me, maybe Michael and Tess and everybody else too. How - how can I even go back to sleep now?"

"Ssh," Alex said, pulling Isabel up in his arms and pulling her into his embrace. Just at that point, the connecting door flew open, and Max charged in, only a bedsheet covering his crotch area. Isabel started to giggle in nervous histerics. "Either go back to bed or get dressed, Max," Alex said out loud, but quietly. "I think I had it more or less taken care of, until you showed up."

Max blinked a bit and retreated, but just about ten seconds later, when Alex was getting Isabel settled in the armchair, Liz took his place in the doorway, wearing a fluffy motel room. "What happened?"

"I got dreamwalked and assaulted by the special unit guy!" Isabel spat out angrily.

"Which... oh, the one who you're going to need to steal the... oh, I see." Liz paused, and sat on the edge of the bed, seeming to have a bit of trouble with her legs and the robe. "How - do you have any idea how he knew what you looked like?"

"That's one of the weird things," Alex said. "He seemed surprised - by how Isabel looked and who she was, though he was able to recognize her as an alien."

"Called me a Barbie doll," Isabel complained. "As if. And he knew about - well, Max asked some questions, trying to find out what had happened to the people who had been in the Special Unit, right?"

"Well, yeah," Liz said. "Not directly, but he got things rolling. So did Langley I think."

"I got things rolling," Isabel said. "Max and Langley were just the first two other wheels I rolled into." Liz nodded agreement to that. "I... I think that he wasn't sure what he was doing, that he would be going into anybody's dream or anything. He was just... just trying to use alien technology to find an alien who was trying to find him. And the gear - very nearly got what he wanted for him."

"So - so what now?" Liz asked. "I... I don't even know what to suggest, but..."

"I can't go back to sleep, not after that," Isabel said.

"No, you're going to need to," Alex put in.

"ALEX!" she exclaimed. "How could you even..."

"No, listen to me," he insisted. "You *have* to sleep sometime, or you'll be no good to anybody. It doesn't have to be right now, but you should go to sleep before you're totally exhausted - so that just in case, if this happens again, you have the strength to fight back. And - and I'll do what I can, which probably means not sleeping with you and going into your dream with you, but watching over you from here, so that if anything is wrong I can bring you out of it."

"Oh." Isabel sighed. "Much as I hate to admit it, that does make some sense." She looked up at Alex. "But - but if he realizes that it's my dreams he's getting into, maybe it would make more sense to sleep during the day, when he might not be expecting it? I could go to sleep in the back seat of the car, and somebody else could drive back."

"Maybe. You can't sleep all day for long. Your parents would notice."

"Isn't that one of the usual parental complaints about teenaged kids?"

"Yeah, but you've never been a usual teenager," Liz put in.

"Okay, I'll have to give you that one." Isabel sighed. "Well, once we get back, I can ask to see if anybody has hints about defending against this kind of thing. Tess, Ava, Langley - any or all of them might have helpful info. I'd call back home to Roswell right now..." A check on the small alarm clock's bright LED numbers, "but I don't really want to wake anybody up at two thirty AM."

"Alright. And on that note, since you seem to be doing - well, you've got a plan and all... I should probably go put Max back to bed, especially if we're going to have to drive you back home."

"Yeah, and that's bed as in sleep, not betrothed adult fun," Alex called after her as Liz got up. She just shook her head a bit.

"Thanks for checking on me," Isabel admitted reluctantly. "Okay, Alex, what now? I just want to sit up and do something sort of fun and childish with you." She hesitated, cocking her head. "You don't have to blink out soon, do you? You were with me in the dream, and all day since before we left on the road trip. I... I just really need you to be here with me now, to help me get through this..."

"Sssh," he said, reaching up a finger to stroke her cheek. "I don't feel like I need to go anywhere. Maybe I was blinked out for a while when you were sleeping, before the dream started."

"Okay," she said. "So any ideas?"

"Hmm..." Alex concentrated, and a box with little flexible cards appeared on the bed between them. He pulled one out and read it. "How would you describe yourself to somebody who doesn't know you?"

Isabel had to smile a little. "First - what made you think of a 'getting to know you' game? Haven't we been through all this stuff before?"

"It's not quite like that... and I think there's always room to learn more about the people that you love. People are so complicated that they always keep you guessing."

"Alright. And then..." She reached out and took a card, not really looking at the type on one side of it, just marvelling at an object that had appeared out of thin air. "Did you put this together out of air molecules or something?"

"Actually - I think I didn't put it together out of anything. It's sharing my real-ness with respect to you, for as long as we need it."

"Hmm... very handy. Let's see... well, for all the obvious reasons I wouldn't describe myself accurately to somebody who I don't trust. I'm a... oh, yeah, I can't say that I'm a high school student anymore, huh?"

"No, I guess not."

"Well, I'm a teenage girl, in between things at the moment because I'm out of high school, not ready for college yet, and not wanting to move on without my friends." She sighed. "This sounds like Anonymous Person is just one more figure in my life who I have to cover in front of."

"That's okay," Alex said. "Do you want to read your question now?"

"Oh, okay, yeah." She flipped it over. "Interesting. 'Talk about a happy marriage.'"

"Hmm, I guess I'd have to start with my parents then," Alex said, rubbing Isabel's fingers with his own.

-----------

"Do you remember any dreams?" Alex asked as Isabel woke up in the car.

"Umm - no, nothing at all. Maybe I didn't dream."

"You were in REM sleep," he said. "I could tell that much. Tried to sense impressions from the dream without getting sucked into it, but I couldn't really tell much. There was no hint of distress or suspicion in your expression, though. I don't think he tried to get in again, or at least if he did, he didn't get far enough in to even bother your subconscious."

"Hmm... maybe not." Isabel wondered if possibly this mysterious special unit man could get inside her subconscious mind WITHOUT bothering it - using tricks like hypnosis, to convince her deeper mind that he was a friend and not an enemy. But it wasn't really worth bothering Alex with notions like that. "So, how close are we to home?"

"Around twenty minutes or so," Liz said. "Not bad timing of you to wake up here."

"Ehh, I'd rather have slept on further," Isabel said, sitting up straighter in the back seat, "but this doesn't suck, yeah. Have we heard anything new from the rampaging Meris Wheeler?"

"Tess says that she managed to calm the monster down somewhat," Max put in, chuckling. "Little bit of the carrot and the stick, though I'm not sure which was which. Meris knows that she has her own leverage with us."

"And if she's smart, she won't want to get into a struggle of our leverage versus hers, because of something that's a buried issue anymore," Liz said. "We'll be there soon, and we're doing the procedure on Clayton as soon as we get to town. SOME of us are even skipping work for it."

"Yeah, I hope that she shows some kind of gratitude for that much," Alex whispered quietly. "I have a bit of a bad feeling about this."

"Come on, don't say that," Liz put in. "Isabel got haunted in her dreams because she said the 'can anything else possibly go wrong' jinx yesterday..." She broke off as her seat suddenly wrenched itself back. "Hey!!"

Isabel couldn't help but laugh, as Max just shook his head and drove on.

-----------

"You're engaged??" Maria asked.

"They're 'betrothed'," Isabel put in theatrically.

"A little bit over-dramatic, don't you think Maxwell?" Michael teased. "Especially for Mister 'no I don't want to be King of anywhere.'"

"Hey, what can I say?" Max shot back. "The lengths you have to go to with indulging a lady."

"Well, congratulations to both of you," Kyle said. "That's okay, right? To congratulate the Betrothed couple. It's not bad luck or anything??"

"I'm not really up on the superstitions of betrothals, or etiquette for that matter," Maria said. "As far as I know, it's okay for engagements though. It's on the occasion of the wedding that you shouldn't congratulate the bride, and just say 'best wishes.'"

"Okay, good enough," Michael said, obviously trying to get the topic of conversation moving along, though he was at least as happy for Max and Liz as any of them. "What's the other thing you wanted to tell us about, before we go to Metachem?"

"Isabel was attacked in her dreams, probably by the head of the Special Unit splinter faction," Alex said quietly. "He tried to... possibly to mindrape her actually, to find out who she was and where she lived."

"Oh, no," Maria breathed.

"Wait a second, am I missing something?" Michael said. "Dreamwalking, mindrape - these are alien powers. How could someone in the Unit use alien powers against us?"

"Another alien mole inside the organization, like Vanessa Whittaker?" Kyle suggested. "Well, Whittaker wasn't really in the Unit, but she had connections."

"No, we think he was a human, but using alien tech, maybe even the same gear that we need to take from him," Max said. "Hopefully he didn't do anything to it that can't be fixed enough for the soul transfer gear to fufill its original function."

"But in the meantime, I need to build a defense in case this happens again," Isabel said. "Alex watched over me as I grabbed some sleep on the drive home, but as much as I usually feel safe with Alex, I'm worried that won't be enough. Tess, Ava, Langley, do you have any notion how to..."

"Nothing I can think of, sorry," Ava said.

"Yes, I'm immune to dream walking from unfamiliar or unwanted sources, as we demonstrated when you first tried to get in touch with me, Isabel," Langley put in. "But that's an inherent property of my status as a genetically engineered servant, nothing that I could teach or transfer to you no matter how much I might want to."

"Well I know something that might suit," Tess said after a moment. "Something that Nasedo taught me before he died to help me protect myself. It's not so much a question of a defense, as training in a way of clearing your mind of resistance." Isabel gasped softly. "Yeah, I know how it sounds, but that sort of paradox is something that human and alien minds have in common. It's resistance and fear, a certain kind of fear, that let someone else exert influence over your mind, or contact you if you don't want to let them in. Probably Langley's natural immunity is a factor of that sort of resistance being foreign to his nature, so he never had to learn what I can teach you. But trust me, if you can master this, then no-one will be able to threaten you like that again. I don't have any reason to want you to be defenseless against the Special Unit, now do I?"

"No, I guess not," Isabel said uncertainly. "Well, we'll give it a try, but after the Metachem deal, right?"

"Sure, of course," Tess agreed. "I didn't think we needed to get on it right away."

"You need to get on the job." Isabel, Michael, and Liz were the first to look up from their table at the Crashdown to see Meris Wheeler standing near the kitchen door. "Immediately if not sooner."

"Well, it's too much of a bother to go back in time and heal your husband then," Michael said flippantly, "so I guess it should be now. We'll follow your car."

"Well, alright I suppose," Meris muttered. looking puzzled for a moment. Isabel smiled slightly to herself, knowing that they wanted to leave Meris in doubt about whether the time travel thing had been entirely facetious or had some truth at thecore of it. The powers of the Granilith could represent an emergency safeguard against betrayal by the Wheelers and Metachem, but it was a dangerous provision to rely upon, and just like Kivar, the Wheelers might want to take the Granilith for themselves if they had any idea what it could do.

The trip to the Metachem building was boring but tense for Isabel. The seven kids, (not counting Tess, or Ava) were led into a large conference room where Clayton Wheeler waited in a wheelchair, two doctors attending him, and attached to various IV drips and other medical equipment.

"Do you mind if I check the vitals?" Max asked. Clayton nodded, Meris waved slightly, and one of the doctors retreated to get out of Max's way. He considered the numbers and graphs on the equipment, showing traditional vital stats as well as more exotic information, and nodded.

"Alright, I think that we're ready to begin the procedure, Mister Wheeler," Max said. "Take my hand and look me in the eyes."

Isabel stood there nervously, trying not to look in all directions, as Wheeler complied.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Twenty-seven

Isabel relaxed, feeling confident. That was really her first mistake, and she knew that she wasn't the first mistake. Max had just been in the middle of wrapping up the procedure to restore Clayton Wheeler's health, when the Metachem goons made their move. Nobody bothered Isabel herself, but Max and Liz were pulled away from Clayton in the middle of what they'd been doing, (Liz had been in the connection too, to help Max out,) and Liz and Maria each had three guns pointed at them inside of a second. *Help, Alex!* Isabel instinctively called. *What - what do we do now?*

"Hmmm... actually, as odd as this sounds, I don't think that we need to worry about doing anything," Alex said, a little secret smile playing over his face. "Whatever happens, just stay calm." He paused for a moment in thought. "Actually no, not quite. If I start screaming and yelling at you - well, you can stay calm even then, as long as you start taking action, but I don't expect that will be necessary. And don't make any moves yet..."

"So what's the deal now?" Max asked, unknowingly cutting Alex off, and Alex shut up to listen to what was going on now. "You may have the drop on us just now, but - but I'm not going to walk into some cage just because you have a gun pointed at my Betrothed." The look on his face was incredibly resolved and dangerous. "Never again. And if you hurt her..."

"Okay, then let's put the cage off the table," Meris smirked. "We have a list of additional demands we'd like to make to the original deal, Mister Evans. Nothing that will keep you and Miss Parker from living a long and happy life together, as long as you co-operate. Blood and tissue samples that we'll take, from you and your friends, procedures involving trying to recreate the energy fields that develop when you apply your powers. There are half a dozen men and women in Santa Fe who are also living with terminal syndromes and willing to pay in enormous favors for a chance to be freed." She considered the list. "Oh, and we'll be keeping the alien artifacts that we paid so dearly for. The enzyme catalyzer you can keep, that's not nearly so expensive."

Isabel's blood nearly boiled in fury as she heard this, even though Alex was making wordless crooning noises to try and keep her relaxed. The sheer *nerve* of the Wheelers to plan something like this, when Max was holding up his end of the bargain! (Of course, they'd kept telling themselves that Metachem would sucker them if they could, but still...) What Meris was proposing wasn't as bad as the White Room, on the surface, but... what would she be able to do if she could recreate Max's healing powers, and maybe the rest, with science? ~~And was there a possibility that the experiments could actually remove some of Max's abilities?

And then, there was the core of fury that Isabel felt about being stiffed on part of their fee - the one item that was truly irreplaceable and required in her quest. They would *NOT* get to keep...

"I don't believe in might making right," Max said, a very small smile playing over his face as if he knew the same thing that Alex did. "Just by pointing guns at a few girls who can't defend themselves, you can't rewrite our deal. And I don't negotiate with people under circumstances like these."

Meris didn't seem to be too offended at his principles, just slightly bored. "Very noble, Max, but ultimately pointless. What do you expect to do when I shoot Liz in the leg to help convince you to negotiate."

"Well, if you do that, then once Liz and Maria are safe, then I mangle both your legs so badly that you'll never walk again," Max shot back very evenly.

"WHAT?" The bravado with which he answered flabbergasted both Wheelers for a second. "You - you've still got an ace in your pocket," Clayton gasped. "Or you think that you do. What is it?"

Max shrugged. "The fact that I was torn out of my work in the middle of *repairing your heart,* Mister Wheeler. You may be feeling fine, but I think that the chest pains are going to start up in less than thirty seconds. If I don't finish what I was doing in the next four minutes or so, or at least do some damage control, then you're going to die." He glared over at Meris. "And I am NOT going to work for you while there are any guns in this room, or any other restraints or threats against my friends."

"We'll rush him into conventional surgery," Meris blurted out, but she must have realized a fraction of a second later how desperate that sounded.

"No time, not to find a human heart surgeon capable enough for what needs to be done," Liz replied, her voice mostly even though it trembled just a bit. Isabel guessed that wasn't because of a lack of confidence, but just because of how badly she hated being in a situation with a gun pointed at her again. They had no absolute assurance that one of Wheeler's men wouldn't take a shot just out of spite...

*Oh, of course, how could I have forgotten that?* Reaching out with her own powers, Isabel did her best to silently sabotage the guns, by adjusting the molecular structure of the bullet ammunition. Most of the bullets in ready-to-fire position were already duds - had this whole thing been a crazy bluff by the Wheelers? No, it had to be Michael, thinking of this tactic before she had...

Clayton Wheeler, while she'd been distracted, had declared his intention to wait, and was now attempting to hide and deny the symptoms of pain that were coming across him. Finally he burst out, "Okay, I give, Evans! Meris, get all of the guards out of the room."

"You stay outside with them," Liz said, taking a bit of quiet glee in telling her that. "Make sure that the catalyst AND~~ the artifacts are ready and waiting for us when Max is done. We don't want any more trouble."

"No," Meris grumbled. "Of course not."

"And one more thing." Liz grabbed the gun away from one of the guards who'd been holding it at her until he'd been given the stand-down, whipped around to point it at Meris' chest, and squeezed the trigger. Everyone reacted, even Isabel, who knew that she'd treated that gun herself, but couldn't be sure that she'd gotten it right. There was an oddly muffled bang, and a small lump of metal emerged slowly from the muzzle of the gun and landed pitifully on the floor between them.

"You CAN'T use guns against my friends," Liz said witheringly, for the benefit of all the Metachem people. "Not like this. Their powers go deeper than we've shown you - which was our only way of protecting ourselves against the kind of treachery you showed today. You will NEVER be able to turn those abilities to your own greed and lusts, and you'd better stop trying right now. Clayton, Meris - you've been given a remarkable gift, or you'll have it once we're done. Accept Clayton's restored health and be content with that, for crying out loud!"

The only response was an uncomfortable gurgle from Clayton, Meris snatched the gun away from Liz and stalked out of the room with it, the guards following it. "Sorry for speechifying, sir," she said. "Now let's see about finishing the patch job on your heart."

*Did - did she know that the guns were altered?* Isabel wondered silently, just to Alex. *Maybe she just assumed that Michael and I would be quicker on the uptake.*

"I... I tried to tell her silently," Alex admitted. "Wasn't sure if it would work, but the info seemed important enough to try and pass it on."

*Well, maybe that worked,* Isabel said. It had certainly made a dramatic moment to intimidate the Wheelers and Metachem with, and it was nice if Liz had been reassured in that moment -- but a part of Isabel felt disappointed at the idea that her private bond with Alex might be widening that far, to include one of his old friends.

----------

"Okay, well, there we go, and boy am I glad that that's over," Max said two hours later in the Pod Chamber, as he theatrically dropped the enzymes and the Metachem artifacts into their 'box of alien junk.' "Two parts of the clone recipe."

"Thanks for that, Max," Isabel told him with a smile. "I know that it was hard for you to put so much on the line with the Wheelers, especially now that you've got so much to protect." Max shrugged, blushing slightly.

"Okay, so where do we stand on the rest of the recipe?" Liz asked.

"The memory transfer gear is ready and waiting for me to collect it on Ceeta," Isabel rhymed off. "For the soul manipulation equipment, we're going to need to brace ~~Special Unit dream-boy, but that can wait for a while, until he doesn't expect us coming. Tungsten is right here and waiting, and we can get the nutritive fluid whenever we're ready with everything else, because it won't keep."

"Yep," Michael chimed in. "Alex's DNA sample is a check."

"And I'm still on the hook for providing a donor egg cell, when required," Maria mumbled, though she sounded a little ambivalent about it. "That's about it, right?"

"Yeah," Isabel said, relaxing. "Well, as soon as we can verify with Langley that this is the right set of notes that Metachem gave us. I don't think that we need to worry quite so much about the enzyme, but alien relics I want to be careful with."

"When are you planning to make your trip to Ceeta, Isabel?" Liz asked her. "Have you mentioned anything to your parents about it?"

"Two days after labor day, and yes," she said with a smile. "The alibi is set up with Langley's help - a volunteer mission to Guatemala."

"And I'm working on a parting gift," Alex announced, though he couldn't be seen here except by Isabel. "A combination setup for voiceprint disguise and long distance phone rerouting."

"Oh," Maria said, seeing it after just a moment of thought. "Your parents wouldn't be expecting Isabel to go completely incommunicado even on a trip like this to the poor parts of a Central American country. But you can't phone home from an alien planet, so we'll have to pretend to be her, calling in."

"And emailing, maybe," Max said - he'd worked out parts of this along with Isabel and Alex. "That'll be less trouble in some ways, but more suspicious if we overdo it."

"Have you decided if you want Ava to come with you, Isabel?" Liz asked. "It shouldn't be too long, but - well, even with a guy for company I guess I'd be worried about getting lonely and homesick."

"Yeah, I guess I am," Isabel said. "If we could, I'd ask all of you to come, but that would seem suspicious even if you didn't all have school."

"Rub it in, why don't you?" Michael complained.

"Hey, if you'd put in the same amount of work, maybe you'd have graduated ear--" Isabel broke off from the force of the dubious stare that Michael levelled at her, (which was probably a first, Isabel getting phased at a look from Michael.) "Well, anyway."

"We could have made up a cover story about going camping again, or a road trip to the beach," Liz started.

"But we couldn't have covered for each other as long as we were all gone," Max put in. "The mountain trip we got away with not calling home, but Valenti was along and we didn't stay for a full week."

"It doesn't really matter," Maria said. "Good luck ~~with everything, and I think things should be okay with Ava. You've been getting along with her okay, right? And I don't think that she's going to pull anything unexpected as soon as she gets around the Granilith or away from Earth... unlike some blonde aliens I could mention."

"Well, yeah." Isabel sighed. "How long before we get the Kaalto window?"

"Three minutes," Max said, after looking at his watch. "What was the name of that special unit guy? I know that he didn't introduce himself in the dream, but we got a name from one of Langley's contacts who knew about the FBI stuff, right?"

"Commander Bryan Waverly," Liz recited. "With a 'y' in Bryan. I still wish that we could get ahold of more of his record - where he served, what his superiors thought of him, that sort of thing."

"Any records that pertain to the Special Unit alien hunting stuff were probably destroyed by Nasedo himself," Michael put in. "There was probably plenty of stuff in it that could have kept a UFO crackpot going, even if there wasn't any real proof that led specifically to us."

"Oh, yeah, and having the reords mysteriously dissappear doesn't make people, even non-crackpots, think about conspiracies," Maria put in.

"Yeah, but he managed to get the conspiracy stuff to plausibly point in the other direction," Isabel said with a smile. "That Dan Pierce had built a career, with a lot of pay and a position of power, out of getting people worried about aliens when there was really nothing credible to fear, and that instead of admitting the scope of his lie to be exposed, he arranged for the records to 'accidentally' vanish or get destroyed, and then there's a permanent state of uncertainty."

"Yeah, but that still works a bit too well," Liz put in. "There still is public uncertainty about the tate of the special Unit files, in the eyes of those who care at all about it at least, but that wasn't really what I was talking about. He wasn't born as a Special Unit operative, and I doubt that they recruit many naive high school graduates. He had to have some kind of job beforehand, and I suspect that he was in a previous government branch. From what we've heard about him, I suspect he was millitary background instead of police."

"Yeah, that sounds likely," Max admitted. "Something else to ask Nasedo about - he should have Army contacts and so on, if he's willing to use them." Then he stared meaningfully over at Isabel. "Do you think that we'll be able to work with Nasedo okay without you?"

"Without me?" Isabel repeated. "Umm, should be fine as far as I know. I was the one who arranged the understanding and compromise with him, maybe, but as long as you stick to it he's got no problem with any of you I'm pretty sure..."

"Hey, it's time," Liz said. "~~Come on, who's got the orbs?"

"Umm..." Isabel looked down and realized that she was holding one. Maria had been examining the other, and she immediately tossed it to the nearest hybrid - who was Michael. Without them even trying to work them, the orbs suddenly activated, and Isabel realized that they had an incoming signal. Should Max and Liz be in the picture? Would any alien automatically recognize the pendants that they were wearing? (Well, Max didn't even have his visible, here in the privacy of the Pod Chamber, just a gold chain around his neck, with the rest of the necklace that Liz had bought him tucked underneath his t-shirt.) Maybe it would be better to wait on that until they knew who they were talking to. Isabel ended up in the middle of the 'shot', with Michael on one side of her and Alex on the other - the way the orbs worked, he would appear to whoever it was. "Hello? Who's calling? Are you on Kaalto?"

"Yes. Isabel Evans - is that you?" A woman a little younger than Amy Deluca appeared, rather pretty, and with a circlet of gold and green stones around her sandy blonde hair. "And - and Michael, and Max?"

Isabel chuckled slightly. "No, the handsome boy on the right side of your display is Alex, my spirit lover. And I'm here with Michael - Max and a few of my other friends can hear you but you can't see them. Who are you?" She had a guess but wasn't clear on the names, and didn't want to presume.

"My name is Karralla, and I'm the daughter of Princess Eelin, daughter of Sanren and Alinda. I guess that makes you my..."

"Cousin," Isabel said firmly. "And you mine - it's nice to meet you, cousin. What's going on?" She suddenly guessed at something. "Is Lady Alinda okay?"

"Umm - no, I'm afraid not." Tears started to flow from the eyes of Karralla's human image. "Kivar's forces raided Sanctuary suddenly, without giving away that he was aware it was the rebel base. Grandmother is... is enjoying the hospitality of the Royal Palace once again, but - but the news we have is that she won't live long, and nobody is being allowed safe passage inside to see her. We - we knew that she was fading, but - but to take an old woman prisoner and force her to such a journey, to make her die alone, without those she loves about her..."

"Oh, no," Max gasped, starting to realize it. "We - we realized that Kivar had done something, but... but this..."

Isabel firmly gestured Max and Liz to come over. "I... I realize that it's a disturbing time, but there is much that we need to know. Are - are you under Larek's protection, that you call us from one of his far-flung colonies?" Michael asked. "What about the other members of the family - of, of Raydeleen, and Turik, and other ranking members of the rebellion?"

"I... I'll try to tell you all that I can, but there's some things that still aren't clear," she said. "My cousin Vorjal, prince-in-exile of the House of Liaret, was able to leave the surface of the planet, along with Vorjal and Raydeleen. We have not heard from them, and Kivar's forces were searching for them soon after they escaped. Larek did indeed shelter me, my husband and my little ones and my brother Nikkes, and sent me along here to make sure that you got word of what happened. His own power base is firm, though he's ~~disturbed by the fall of Sanctuary and what's happened to friends of his from the rebels. The Rahlicx space fleet is on full alert, just in case Kivar tries anything against him, but we don't think that he will - there have been terrorist attacks from dissident factions on Antar while his forces were busy with this operation."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear about all of that, Karralla," Max said. as the others moved aside to let him and Liz in - Alex ended up in the middle, with Max seeming to know just how much space to allow for his deceased friend - Max and Liz on the left, Isabel and Michael on the right. "But it's good to meet you, and to hear that your immediate family is okay. I'm Max Evans, and this is..."

"Oh-ho!" Karralla laughed, and indeed, as far as Isabel could tell, she was looking back and forth between Liz's pendant and Max's chain. "May I offer congratulations to you on the recent development, cousin Max?"

"Okay, okay, yes. I've asked Liz Parker to be my bride, when the time is right, and she said yes. We are betrothed."

"Wouldn't that just stick into Kivar's craw if news started to spread?" Karralla laughed. "Can I tell people?"

"I'm sorry, just why would he care?" Liz asked. "Or - well, wouldn't he be just as pleased if Max marries some human girl who nobody really knows about? If - if he stayed single, then as a representative of the Liaretian dynasty, he could cement an alliance with some other ruling family or power faction, which might help the rebellion get through this latest chaos. I realize that his best hope would have been for Max to end up with Tess, since Ava was a cousin of his, but..."

"I guess I wasn't thinking of it in those terms," Karralla said. "Just that it would be news to put the focus on you, and that you are rising above and your spirits haven't been crushed by what he's been doing. And everybody loves to hear about a Royal Betrothal, no matter who the Betrothee is."

"Does Kivar have a consort of his own?" Michael asked. "Just curious. If there are so many political and public benefits to taking a wife, I wouldn't think that he'd be stubborn enough to hang on to his bachelor lifestyle..."

"He's on wife number two - his first Queen, Her Majestic Lady Andorin of Taliernar, died a few years back, under rather suspicious circumstances that the Crown has never deigned to comment on. She was quite a lady, dignified, graceful, and considerably too noble to suit Kivar's own soul I think. The new mistress of the palace is much younger than him, a little slip of a thing, with curly hair..." ~~She broke off as all three girls, (including Maria who was still offscreen,) laughed out loud immediately, and even Michael joined in a bit. "What is it?"

"Just - just sounds like Tess - our version of the Princess Ava, over here," Isabel put in. "Sounds weird that he got another version of his cousin as a second wife. A pretty little thing without much substance to her."

"Yeah, well... I think that we'll lose our alignment in a moment or two," Karralla put in. "Are there any more questions?"

"No, but we'd like to ask you to relay messages for us," Max said, quickly all business. (He hadn't given in to the laughs at Tess' expense beyond a slight smile.) Karralla nodded immediately. "First, convey our respect and gratitude to Larek for sheltering you and sending you to speak with us. If there's any further news about the fate of that Liaretian ship or those aboard her, we'd appreciate knowing as soon as possible."

"Of course."

"And - we were negotiating with the Ceetans, but can't communicate with them directly because their star is behind Earth's sun," Isabel put in. "If you could say that I'm ready to leave and visit them, 'make the pick up,' that would be good. They'll know what that mea-- actually no, maybe they wouldn't, it's an Earth expression," she said.

"There are human refugees on Ceeta," Karralla reminded her.

"Yes, but still, no point in taking chances. Say that I want to collect the merchandise that they purchased on my behalf."

"Alright."

"This isn't really critical, but what is your family like?" Liz asked. "Just - well, I admit that I'm curious."

"Hmm... okay, well, if nobody has anything else to kill the remaining time?" There was a brief pause, and nobody else spoke up. "Well, this is my daughter, Eekin." The still picture that appeared arround Karralla's toe to waist level, off to her left a bit and obstructing part of her own image, was apparently not subject to the image translation effect that real-time chatters were, because the little girl didn't seem human - she was cute in an odd way, with gray-green skin and dazzlingly white hair.

She was just up to introducing the brother when the images winked out entirely. "I wonder just how they'd managed to route those pictures through the communicator so quickly," Alex wondered. Did she have them already linked into the communicator system, or maybe in a pocket memory module that she plugged in?"

Nobody answered him immediately, and Alex shrugged. "Sorry, honey," Isabel said. "Just - there's big stuff going on out there in the galaxy. I wonder if there was any connection between that, and the message that we refused to reply to."

"Wouldn't surprise me if he's trying to play hardball," Michael said. "But he didn't manage to lay down the whole rebellion at a stroke."

"No, it really is depressing about the old queen, though," Max said. "I did sort of hope that we'd be able to meet her - that we'd be able to help out, like her message asked for."

"Yeah, but we've just got to take it as it comes, more or less," Isabel said. "And now that we've had our interstellar conversation, I think that enough time has been spent up here. Let's go back to Roswell."

Nobody expressed any opinion much to start with, and then Maria was the first to head silently for the door, voting with her feet.

----------

"Hey, Isabel, the phone's for you," Max called after dinner. "It's Mrs. Whitman."

"It is?" Isabel was surprised. She hadn't spent too much time with Alex's family since that night that they'd used Tess' powers to let him appear to them after dinner. What would she want to talk about? Was it about the computer, or something else about Alex? She tried to think of anything and couldn't, so the only way to find out was to pick up the telephone. "Hi, uh, Gloria?"

"Hello Isabel, and how have you been doing?"

Just in time Isabel realized that it would be tactful, under the circumstances, to moderate her response. In truth, she was actually feeling remarkably positive, between the amount of time that she'd been able to spend with Alex lately, the success of the whole Wheeler gambit, seeing how happy Max and Liz were together, and looking forward to her mom's labor day party in a week's time, but she knew that she couldn't decently say that to Gloria Whitman, especially since most of the circumstances wouldn't admit of an explanation at this point in time. "Well, I'm doing better than I used to be, and keeping busy? How about you?"

"Well... I don't exactly know I suppose. Do my best, but it gets hard to come to terms with an empty house in the afternoons, what with John throwing himself into his work so much. Tried to take up a hobby, but none of them have stuck so far." She paused. "I, well, I realize that this might sound strange Isabel, but we were going to go up to the cemetary tomorrow, and if you wanted to come as well, I wouldn't mind?"

"Tomorrow?" Isabel breathed, trying to fathom the significance of the date. It wasn't the four-month anniversary of Alex's death, or a special day for commemorating sons, so... "For his birthday, of course."

"Well, yes." If Gloria realized that Isabel hadn't actually known the date before getting this call, she didn't express too much dismay over it. "Just felt as if we wanted to get as close to him as we could, on the day."

Isabel looked around, but she couldn't see Alex. Maybe he had blipped out while she'd been reviewing the Antarian pronunciation guides that Langley had made for her. So this decision was entirely up to her, and... "Yes, I think that we'd love to come. Whoops, I mean - if you intended for it to just be the three of us, then..."

"Actually, yes dear. As much as I like your brother, and Liz and Maria, they were... they were only Alex's friends, no offense meant to that. But I do feel as if you're part of his family in an odd way, or you were."

You have no idea just how right you are, Isabel admitted silently. "Okay, so... do you want to meet up at Peaceful Pines sometime?"

"Hmm - okay, yeah, how about two in the afternoon?"

"I'll be there."

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

It was a very strange experience for Isabel to walk over to Alex's gravestone, seeing the dead boy himself out of the corner of her eye as she came, and being unable to acknowledge his existence in front of his parents. By unspoken agreement she waited behind on a bench as John and Gloria Whitman took a moment together at the grave, and then they withdrew to let her be alone there if she wanted to.

When she carefully sat down on the grass and looked at the name on the stone, Alex was sitting in front of it and staring right back at her, almost impishly. (Though imps were rarely six feet and three inches tall.) *Do - do yu feel any kind of resonance with your body here, any sense that your own life that you could lead for yourself has been left behind here?* she asked silently. *I - I know that you like having 'moved in' with me, but still, it can't be the same.*

"No, it's not the same," Alex admitted. "I do feel how much my existence has changed since that day, but no, it doesn't really connect me to this spot in anything but a very vague, symbolic sense. Back in the few days after the wake, yes, I could feel something tugging at my towards the cemetery no matter where we were. But now, the stuff that has made it special has all rotted away, and become one with the rest of the biosphere."

"Eww, Alex! Come on, could you please not use the word 'rotted' while I'm here?"

Alex reached out to touch her in a gesture that started as a swat and became a caress. "You know what I mean. My own brain just isn't what it used to be. If I wasn't stuck inside yours, there wouldn't be any of me left in this world anymore."

"No, I do understand," Isabel admitted. "When - when we get the memory transfer stuff, we'd probably better start saving things into it as soon as we can, if it's got a storage unit. So - so that we'll get as many of your memories and experiences, the history of your life, down as well as possible before there's any risk of it fading."

"Yeah, I think that sort of thing should be manageable," Alex said. "And I got the impression that they don't all need to be memories coming straight from me, that Liz and Maria, all the rest of you can contribute memories that have me in them, even if the perspective is a little different, without too much danger of turning clone me into a schizophrenic."

Isabel nodded. *Just ten more days.* She realized at about this point that she'd been speaking out loud by accident instead of sending privately to Alex, and hoped that his parents hadn't had any clue just what she'd been saying. Figuring that it was more or less the best time, she gestured them both back over.

"Well, you may not need anything where you've gone, but we got you gifts anyway," John mumbled to the headstone. "For mine - Nicky and Markos and Chris got me some recording tapes that you guys made, and - well, here." He put a CD case with mostly-black album art onto the stone. "The record store down on Arizona street has agreed to try and sell them, and everybody else on the record has copies."

"Wow, may I take a look?" Isabel said, reaching out partway. John and Gloria both nodded, and Isabel picked up the case to examine it, (and also to show it to Alex himself without his spirit having to bend down over the headstone.) 'Love Kills', it proclaimed, by the Whits with Maria DeLuca. Alex nearly fell over laughing at the title. Isabel had to stand there and devote all of her attention to controlling her expression to not let the inappropriate mirth spread to her.

"I, umm, I didn't hear anything about this from Maria," she said after a moment.

"Well, I asked her not to spread the news just yet," John said. "and she hasn't actually gotten her freebies yet. Umm, Gloria, your present?"

After a moment's pause, Gloria produced a little wrapped package. "Avengers 3, the game," she announced simply. "Sorry I didn't get it for you back when you first asked for it."

Alex's countenance was suddenly completely serious. "Okay, we need to sneak back here after they're gone and take it so I can play it on the system back at your place."

"I'm sure he'll love that," Isabel said to Gloria with a straight face. "As, well, as it happens, I brought something of my own - Alex mentioned how important birthday gifts were in your family, and - though I didn't know that you'd be giving him anything under the circumstances, I didn't think you'd find it weird if I did - something that represents what I didn't have the chance to share with him enough while he was alive." Actually, Alex had guessed that his parents might have the idea to bring him gifts on this occasion, and they'd worked this part out together, though it was easy for Alex to say that it would be okay when he wasn't the one who'd have to do it, or even face the stares once Gloria, in particular, clued in. Nevertheless, she screwed up her courage, walked up to the headstone, pulled out a small and compact bundle from her pocket, shook it out and spread it out near the foot of the marker - a very thin and lacy back nightgown that she had seldom worn.

Gloria looked severely at the 'gift' and then up to Isabel. "Didn't have the chance to share *enough*? Exactly how much did you share?"

Isabel paused for just a moment, caught Alex's eye, and decided to be honest up to a point. "Alex and I... we made love, the day after the prom, a few days before he died. I... I'm not sorry about it. I feel like I've kept much more of him in my life than I would have if we hadn't taken that step, though obviously it doesn't compare to everything that we could have shared together if he hadn't been in that car crash."

"You - you're not pregnant with his child, are you, Isabel?" John Whitman blurted out.

"Come on, obviously not" Isabel snapped to him. "It's been - been long enough since it happened, that she'd be showing by now - especially as - well, you're not as thin and svelte as some girls are, dear, but you're not really plump either."

"No," Isabel confirmed. "Though it might have been sweet in a 'sand and water' way to have conceived Alex's child, I didn't and haven't." It was completely fair in these circumstances to not mention her plan to 'give birth' to Alex himself all over again, indirectly. "Just - there's a sense in which Alex's spirit lives on inside me, that I don't think would have been the same if we hadn't... shared our love that way."

"Hmmph, sounds like new age hogwash," John muttered irritably under his breath.

"Now, come on John, be nicer than that," Gloria warned. "Isabel - how about we go and grab some coffee from here?"

"Yeah, that sounds alright to me I guess," she admitted, waving at the tombstone and walking away from it.

----------

The Evans labor day barbecue was definitely in full swing.

The weather was great - warm without being too hot, a mix of bright blue sky and puffy white clouds that wouldn't rain on anybody. Dad and Max were working side by side at the grill, and all kinds of people were in attendance - all of the 'I know an alien gang' including Mister Valenti and even Langley, (who Isabel had connived to invite without answering many of her parents' questions about him,) numerous neighbors, parents of her friends like Amy DeLuca, the Whitmans, and the Parkers, the members of Alex's old band and some of Isabel's old acquaintances among the popular clique, and even a few twenty-somethings who Isabel suspected of having crashed the party. Her mom had always thrown a great Labor day bash, with lots of great food and all, but she hadn't realized just how much of Roswell seemed to know about that little fact.

~~"Hey, Isabel." She turned around to see - was it Chris? The drummer in the Whits, who she didn't know much else about.

"Happy labour day," she said with a little wave.

"It's nice to see so many people who I haven't been around lately," Alex put in, looking around the crowd. "Even if they can't see me. And I still can't eat a hamburger or anything."

*Hmm, no, definitely best not to,* Isabel admitted, supressing a frown at the thought of how the 'zombie breath effect' would affect the party. *If you're really hungry, then maybe you and I can have a special dinner, at Chez Subconscious.*

"Hello, Isabel," Nancy Parker called out. "Have you tried an ear of corn yet?"

"Umm, no, actually," she said, with a smile. "Are they good?"

"We think so, but we might be biased," Jeff said, offering the big plate full of ears. "Picked 'em ourselves yesterday afternoon."

"Oh, wasn't that thoughtful," she admitted, taking the ~~ear closest to her, already dressed with cob holders and what looked like a more or less appropriate amount of butter and salt. "Hope you're having a good time."

"Yeah, even though Jeff is nervous about what's happening back at the cafe," Nancy teased him. "So, Diane mentioned that you're leaving for a short trip abroad in just a few days."

"Yes, it's a great opportunity, though I have to admit that I'm not really sure what I'm going to be in for," she said. "I mean, I know where I'm going, and what we're supposed to be doing, but..."

"Alex?" somebody called from behind. The name cut through what Isabel was saying, and she let herself turn around immediately. It was Chris from the band, staring right at Alex, one arm twitching as if he wanted to point but thought that would be way too rude.

"Alex who?" Somebody else, who Isabel didn't recognize, turned around, and also fixed on where Alex had been standing, presumably invisible except for this kind of stuff happening. "Who *is* that, and why should I care?"

"Uh-oh, this could be bad," Alex muttered under his breath. He nearly reached out to take Isabel's arm, an automatic reflex in search of comfort, and then caught himself, remembering that these people could see him and it might be suspicious if he got too close to her.

"What in the world?" Jeff Parker said, shaking his head. "This - this can't be real, I have to be imagining it..."

"I'm telling you, John, I *see* him," Gloria Whitman's voice came, once again from behind Isabel the way that she was turned now. "Just standing there, next to Isabel..."

*Blink out, or go inside my head, or something,* Isabel instructed Alex without any hesitation or tentativeness. *You can't be out here in my world, not with all of this happening. Alex, PLEASE, I'm not ashamed of you, but I can't deal with this today.*

"I... how could I possibly," Alex started, and then after reconsidering the look on Isabel's face, he concentrated for just a moment, and vanished. Several exclamations around her suggested that that had had some sort of visible effect, hopefully the desired one.

"Could, could you see Alex too?" Jeff Parker asked, reaching out to take Isabel's forearm in an unintentionally firm grip. "~~Do - do you know something about this?"

"Come on, Jeff, let the girl go," Nancy said. "I think that you're hurting her."

"Why don't you answer the..." Jeff continued, and then seemed to realize what his partner had said, and let Isabel go, though his eyes remained fixed on her.

"I... I don't know what just happened, or why," Isabel muttered, with some truth to it, though it was also slightly weasely phrasing. "I, um, I didn't see anything unusual myself, but it was like a cold wind blew over me, and maybe I thought I heard Alex's voice."

"Isabel." This was Max, and he was approaching her. Must have left his place at the barbecue when things started to happen. "Come on, maybe you should come inside and sit down for a few minutes."

"I... I won't argue with that," she said, and took Max's hand in hers.

"That's a very impressive necklace that you're wearing, Max," Nancy Parker said. At that moment, Isabel realized that his engagement necklace was visible, that it was over top of the t-shirt that he was wearing. "Wouldn't you say so, Liz?" The fact that Liz's own pendant was visible was much less remarkable, especially in the low-cut tank that she had apparently chosen to wear for a ceremonial farewell to the hot summer weather. The two jewels weren't obviously a matching set, but obviously Liz's mom had recognized that there was some sort of similarity to them.

"Oh, lord," Isabel muttered deep under her breath.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Twenty-eight

"Well, as far as I can tell, there were more than a dozen people who saw him for that short period," Max said, after the guests had started to leave. The five of them had gathered again in Isabel's room - without Alex, who must have popped out because he hadn't appeared or spoken to her yet. (She refused to give in to the nagging whispers that were asking her what she would do if this was the time that he didn't come back to her.) "No apparent correlation in age, gender, how well they might or might not have known him, or even species."

"Species?" Isabel muttered. All of the people who had commented that she'd heard had been human, so... "Whom from among us?"

"Tess," Max said.

"And me - though I'm not sure if I qualify as anything other than human, even yet," Liz said, raising a hand slightly. "None of this gives us any indication of why this happened or how we could possibly stop it - or do it on cue, for that matter, if we wanted to. The only thing that I can think of is how many times we've exposed you and Alex to the alien crystal energy field since your Graduation."

"That seems a rather unlikely connection," Alex said, appearing without any notice. "Considering that we're nowhere near the crystals now, and it didn't happen immediately after the last time I left Michael's apartment or anything."

"Fine, mister smarty ghost," Liz snapped. "What's your hypothesis?"

"Umm - I don't know," Alex admitted. "Might have something to do with the mental assault from Brian Waverley." He sighed. "It's probably a good thing that Isabel and I are going to Ceeta later this week - we can ask if they have any notion what's going on."

"Fat chance," Max put in. "I mean... Tess may have said that this sort of 'spirit trapped in a loved one's head' thing has been known to happen, but I don't get the impression that it's really common or well understood."

"Granted," Isabel admitted. "But essentially it seems like the general pattern is one of my alien powers going awry - creating an effect that I can't even manage consciously, but still. They might know how to treat it on that basis." She sighed. "And on another note - did you tell your parents anything more about the new jewelry, Liz?"

Liz's face turned downward as she shook her head. The pendants that she and Max were wearing were a token of their recent betrothal according to old alien customs that they'd learned about - but of course none of that could be explained easily to parents at this point. Unfortunately, amidst the confusion of several party guests at the Evans' July Fourth barbecue mysteriously seeing Alex's ghost, (something that was usually Isabel's sole perogative,) Liz's mother had unexpectedly made the connection after seeing Max wearing his pendant openly. "No, I've tried the whole 'there's nothing to tell' spiel, but I don't think that she's buying it this time."

"Has she mentioned what she herself suspects?" Maria put in. "I mean, without the alien info we have, the resemblance or connection to an engagement or commitment deal seems rather sketchy."

"I don't think that she knows what to think," Liz admitted. "Just that - it seems out of character for Max to be wearing it, and that it's similar to something that I'm wearing myself, though for me in and of itself the necklace wouldn't be suspicious. So it's something that suspiciously connects the two of us together. Maybe she thinks it's the badge of a gang or a cult that we're in together."

"Oooh," Michael muttered unhappily. "Would she be at all reassured if you told her that they were promise jewels or something?"

"I'm not sure," Max said. "Whatever - we'll find some way to sort it out." He shook his head, trying to think of something else to talk about. "Isabel - is it settled that Ava will be coming with you to Ceeta?"

"Yeah, I've asked and she's agreed to come," Isabel said. "And we've both got some packing to do I think."

"Was there anything in the Granilith instructions about baggage limits?" Maria asked.

"Well, I think it's supposed to be able to carry at least four people," Michael replied. "So with Isabel and Ava - ghosts don't weight anything so they can take at least 90 pounds of clothes each?"

"Actually, it's not quite that simple," Isabel put in. "Living people react to the Granilith differently than inanimate 'stuff' does, but the way we figure it, we do have a decent allowance left over - about as much as an airline would allow for each of the two of us. With more people, things would be narrower."

"And really, how much stuff can you take with you that's really important to have on another planet?" Liz asked.

"Do we know what the total passenger limit is?" Max asked. "Just - with a faction of the Special Unit out there... I've been wondering if the Granilith would serve as an emergency evacuation route for the whole group - all eight of us."

"Nine after Alex is back," Isabel felt compelled to point out, and Max nodded in silent agreement.

"Well, I guess from the enthusiastic response," Liz deadpanned, "that nobody really has any clue."

"Something else to ask about on Ceeta, I guess," Alex put in. "If they don't know, maybe they can pass it on to - to Larek or somebody."

"And make sure you ask about the rebel base refugees," Michael chimed in.

"Well, duh," Isabel said. "Of course we want to know that."

"Is there anything else that anyone wants to say?" Maria asked. "I've got to get home."

"No, not really," Alex said. "Heck of a labor day party."

Nobody else had anything to add to that.

-----------

"Hmm... okay, got a few changes of clothes that I like," Isabel said, considering her room and turning to Ava and Alex. "Some snack foods - my usual vacation toiletries. What else?"

"Some CDs?" Ava suggested. "I've got a diskman with several changes of batteries among my stuff. Figured that some of them would be interested in what Earth music was like, unless the aliens among us have been constantly reporting on the latest."

"Hmm, okay, alright," Isabel said, and started going through her album rack. Soon after Alex's computer had arrived, he'd suggested that she should digitize her collection, so most of the disks had already been copied into MP3 files on the computer hard disk, but she'd never gotten around to putting the CD jewel cases away - or getting one of those little ipod players. The stereo in the new car could supposedly play a disk that had been filled up with MP3 format music, (which meant that it could hold many times more than a regular disk,) but she hadn't gotten around to trying to make one of those either. "A few good books makes sense in that vein too. Trying to organize a portable DVD player would probably be overkill."

"Yeah, they suck up battery power like nobody's business, and I'm not sure how well they'll be able to come up with a batch for our traditional specifications," Alex agreed. "Okay, let's see.. have you got a bit of jewelry packed? Makeup? No need to go overboard on either, but..."

"Yeah, makeup bag is in with the toiletries, but I forgot about bling," Isabel said, turning to her old jewel box. "Hmm... should I stay clear of anything that's pendant-like? Wouldn't want to give them the impression that - well, I *do* mean to marry you, honey, but we haven't made it official or anything. I didn't really want to, not until..."

"Until I'm among the living again," Alex agreed. "I dunno, it seems to me that not ALL pendants would have that kind of cultural overtones. Like with rings and western cultures - wedding bands and engagement rings are very important, but not all rings are like that."

"No, I guess not," Isabel admitted. "On the other hand, if I met a guy from Poland or something and he was wearing a ring, then without any other clue to the contrary I'd guess it was probably a wedding ring."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Without knowing the cultural cues... oh, take that gold chain necklace, then! No pendant, but I always liked the way you looked with it."

"Alright, sweetie," Isabel answered him offhand. "So, I talked with Langley this morning."

"About what?" Ava asked, her voice sounding a bit muffled. Isabel turned around from the jewelry box and saw that the New York girl was looking through her closet for something, and frowned in surprise.

"Uhh... about looking out for the gang while I was gone, and the deal that I struck with him way back when we found each other."

"And the stuff Michael was talking about a few days ago?" Alex said. "That Langley might not stick with it if you're not here?"

"Yeah, I guess I wanted some reassurance," Isabel said. "Don't think that there's any worry. As determined as I can be, I'm not the one that Langley is really scared of - it's Max, the King. If Max really wanted to, he could give Langley orders that would ruin the life that he's built up in Los Angeles. Of course, he might need to worry about some sort of subtle payback if he really did that - but the point is, Langley doesn't want to rock the boat, and I think that in an odd way he's started to genuinely care about us a little. He's on board."

"Good," Alex agreed. "Too bad he can't help Max and Liz deal with her parents."

"Yeah," Isabel said, then looked around. "Do you think they'll have swimming on Ceeta?"

"I dunno," Ava said. "Probably couldn't hurt to take a suit. It's not like any of the ones in here would really take up much volume."

Alex snickered, and Isabel whirled on her. "Just what the Antar are you doing poking around in there, anyway??"

"Just curious I guess," Ava said, coming out again and looking rather sincerely contrite. "Sorry."

"Hmmp," Isabel said, only half mollified. She headed into the closet herself, brushing past the shorter girl, and took the thickest and most concealing suit she could find, a black tank that covered her shoulders and went almost up to the neck.

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

"Okay, so how does this Granilith takeoff thing work, anyway?" Maria asked as they gathered in the chamber. "I mean, I understand about the timer that you started yesterday - though I'm not really clear on all of the details. But - there isn't a door in the Granilith cone or anything. How do Isabel and Ava - get inside?"

"They have to do it with their powers, Maria," Liz said softly. "They reach up and touch the surface of the Granilith and concentrate. Their bodies will vanish in a cloud of component molecules and get absorbed inside. We may or may not be able to see their image in the reflection, but that doesn't matter. When the Granilith leaves earth, they, their stuff, and the key will go with it."

"Inside solid metal?" Kyle put in. "What's that going to be like? Do you know??"

"Not for the first bit or the landing, no, we're not really sure what to expect," Isabel said. "When the Granilith goes into - warp drive, or something like it - then it sort of creates a little ship or pod, inside warp space, for us. We'll be able to create whatever furniture we want by thinking about it and so on - not that the trip to Ceeta will take long, at the Granilith's warp speed."

"Okay, this is the two minute warning," Max said, waving at the displays on the chamber wall. "Quick goodbyes, and then get to it. All of us who aren't going should be out of the chamber area. The launch might be dangerous to anyone who's too close."

"What about the pod chamber, Max?" Liz asked. "We don't want to wreck the premises..." She broke off as Isabel hugged Max goodbye, and then Liz herself, and moved on to Michael. "Ideally, Isabel should be able to land here again when they return from Ceeta. Will that be... possible?" As she finished the question, Ava made her own round of farewells.

"Yeah, we programmed that into the launch sequence," Isabel said. "At maximum effect, the exhaust could destroy the whole complex, and if we ever really do want to leave Earth forever, or even if we're just not sure if we'll ever come back, I think we should use that option. Clean up after ourselves, eliminate the chance that anyone will find out our secrets from the chamber." She gestured Ava on to touch the Granilith first. "But we're down near the other extreme this time. Shouldn't damage the walls of the Granilith's chamber."

"Good," Michael said, and blinked as Ava seemed to disappear entirely. Isabel walked up to the cone, touched it, and concentrated on working with the bodies of her own body in the same way as she manipulated coffee or nail polish. This was something that she'd never really done before, despite a few conversations she'd had with Michael and Max, before Liz had ever been shot, that if they could manage the transition right, they'd be able to quickly teleport anywhere in the world. Of course, the trouble with that was...

It wouldn't work anywhere except in the vicinity of the Granilith, Isabel realized as the sensation of having a body, (and a pretty cute body,) slipped effortlessly away. She wasn't in charge of the process, the Big G was, exercising control over the matter and energy that made her up with her permission. She could still 'see' the chamber, but not the cone - her senses seemed to center around the Granilith herself, as if she was perceiving from all around its surface. Maria was the first to wave goodbye, and then all her friends were doing it. Isabel wondered if they really could see her face on the surface.

And then, they were leaving, and Isabel felt the tremendous energies of the thing that she had become a part of building towards takeoff.

-----------

It was a tremendous relief when the Granilith slipped 'into warp', and she popped back into existence in a vaguely bullet-shaped room right next to Ava. Alex showed up a few seconds later. "Okay, so now, what do we do to wile away the time?" Isabel asked.

"Alex!" Ava exclaimed, a bit surprised. "Didn't realize that I'd see you in here."

"Didn't realize that I'd be seen," Alex admitted, with one of those little smiles of his. "Kind of nice, though. I wonder..." He reached out a hand to Ava, and she touched him, and broke out giggling. "Well, I guess this space isn't completely real as much as hyper-real, so it makes a little bit of sense that..."

"Wouldn't something hyper-real be more real than real?" Isabel broke in to ask.

"Not the right term, no," Alex agreed. "I was wanting to go with the hyperspace idea, but - never mind. So..."

"Anyone for rummy?" Ava suggested, gesturing and materializing a table with three chairs around it, a deck of cards, a small pad of paper and a tiny little stub of a pencil.

"Ehh, alright," Isabel said, without any particular enthusiasm. She hadn't played any card games much lately, but back when he'd been alive Alex had always beaten her at Gin or spite and malice, (when she'd even agreed to play him,) and it didn't look like sharing her brain cells was slowing him down any.

"Sure," Alex said, taking pleasure in shuffling the cards himself when he sat down. "So, what happens when we land on Ceeta? Is there an underground parking garage like place that we could land the Granilith? A hanger??"

"Ooh - I didn't even think of asking about that," Isabel said, stunned by the omission. "We know their star's co-ordinates, how to identify their planet, and even the location of the base on the planet, but - but not any details of what structure is where in the base layout, or what's surrounding it."

"Eh, boy," Ava muttered, also sounding upset at herself for not thinking of that. "And the planet is - not airless, but it's not an oxygen atmosphere, right? And we don't have suits or even oxygen packs with us."

"Yeah," Isabel said, frowning. "Well, we probably wouldn't have been able to get any on short notice."

"Might have been able to make some without that much trouble," Ava said. "While we had access to raw materials - like the Earth's atmosphere just jammed full of oxygen molecules."

"Come on, no bickering back and forth," Alex said to both girls. "We can talk constructively about how to best resolve the problem, but going back into what we 'could have done' is way too close to placing blame."

"Okay, yeah," Isabel agreed. "Unfortunately, almost everything depends on what we might be able to find out when we actually come out of warp in the Ceeta system, and how much we can control the Granilith at that point. We were able to program it beforehand, when it was in the chamber, and I think that I could make a control interface if we needed to alter the warp course, but... but when I'm INSIDE the darn thing, without a body of my own--"

"I think that the computer inside the Granilith will still be responsive to your wishes," Ava put in. "You're the one who used the key and activated the launch sequence - so you're still in control. Once this space disappears, just think and see if it responds."

There was a long silent moment, and nobody asked what happened if Isabel *couldn't* get a response under those conditions, but probably all of them were thinking about it. "Oh, by the way, how long have we been in here so far?" Alex asked, curiously, showing his wrist, which was usually bare of a watch now that he was a ghost. (And the few times Isabel had tried to wish one up for him, it didn't seem to work very consistently.)

"Umm..." Ava checked her own timepiece. "Eleven hours, twenty minutes? That... can't be right - and... and looks like it's twenty-one - NOW."

"Time is passing more quickly in here?" Isabel asked, confused.

"No, I don't think that's a good way to put it," Alex said. "Ava's watch is just reading wrong. I think I've heard that the vibrational frequency of quartz crystal can be derived from the basic physical properties of the universe. Well, we've taken the watch into a little pocket universe of its own. I shouldn't be surprised that it's reacting differently."

"Aren't we reacting differently to this universe too?" Isabel said, suddenly upset.

"Probably in small ways, if Alex's guess is correct," Ava said. "But we know that Antarians, and even hybrids, have travelled safely in the Granilith before." She sighed. "Not human hybrids like us, I admit. But also - the Granilith computer is controlling our 'universe', and part of its standing orders are to see to our safety. Not, necessarily, to make sure that our watches run right."

"Okay," Isabel said, thinking about that. "Is there a way to estimate just how badly the rate of the watch is off, and to see if it seems constant?"

"Check your heart rate against it," Alex suggested. "You're probably very close to your resting heart rate, or you will be once you've let go of all your nervousness about this trip not being safe... and that's probably around sixty-five to seventy beats a minute, taking into account your age and all the jogging you've been doing lately."

"Yeah, alright," Ava said, and started looking back and forth between the watch and Isabel's head. After a few seconds, Isabel realized that the other girl was waiting for her to put her fingers to her neck and find the pulse point there so that she could start counting. It took her a while to find it, as Ava said 'Ready?' every so often.

"Okay, yeah, ready now. Finally."

It looked like the watches were running somewhere between fourteen and fifteen times their usual rate, and Isabel decided that they should try again a little bit later. "Okay, might as well drill on what to do after the transition back to normal space. Somebody want to role-play the rest of the universe?"

"Sure," Alex said, grinning. "Always loved role-playing games."

"Actually, I'll take on the part of the ship," Ava put in. "Because that's the other entity that you're likely to be interacting with most. Alex can take anyone or anything else."

"Okay, but what if Isabel asks the Granilith for a sensor sweep?" Alex put in. "She can't look directly, but you can't just make up what it sees."

"Yeah. I'll determine if sensors are operational, and then ask you for what's out there to sense." With that, Ava turned back to Isabel. "We emerge into the Ceeta systems. Travelling in towards the planet at a speed that will take us there within three minutes. Thanks."

"Umm... slow down, full retroactive acceleration."

"Acceleration cannot be retroactive in time, since control systems are causal, and also because acceleration is not meaningful in warp space."

"Dammit, Ava, you know what I mean. Slowing down, acceleration opposite in direction to our current velocity." Ava nodded. "Sorry, I know that you were just trying to role-play a literal computer system as best you could," Isabel admitted quickly. 'Retroactive acceleration' probably wouldn't have gotten her very far with the Granilith either - she'd been thinking of retrothrusters.

"Full decceleration confirmed - query as to final orbital course? Dead stop relative to Ceeta and its primary will require constant impulse activity to maintain without falling into gravity wells."

"Umm - let's not worry about it for now - we won't stay stopped for long, if we get to that point," Isabel promised. "Can you open a light-speed communication beam to Ceeta's control room?"

"Communication systems are on-line. Alex?"

"Roll a d12 for a communication like with unfamiliar alien systems," Alex said glibly.

"Hey, come on, I draw the line at rolling dice," Ava shot back. "That's too geeky."

"Then I'll roll on your behalf," Alex said smoothly, and a tiny little object with many five-sided faces materialized in his hand. He tossed it to the table. "6, and the communication link is confirmed."

"Okay, I tell them who I am, why we're here, and that we're not sure where to land or park," Isabel said, grinning.

"Let's see." Alex rolled the die again. "They report that an exterior-atmosphere covered landing field with sufficient space is available. Please stand by while the roof is retracted."

"Alright," Isabel said, smiling. "While we wait, let's move into a low orbit around the planet - say, around twice as high as the highest trace of atmosphere that would have a detectable drag on us."

"Detectable drag quotients are extremely low," Ava put in. "That would put us beyond Ceeta-synchronous orbit level."

"Okay, twice as high as the level that would drag us down to the planet in approximately two years."

"Confirmed."

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

Acording to Alex adjusted time, it was something like one-thirty AM that night, some seventeen hours after they boarded, when the Granilith returned to Einsteinian space. Taking the mental equivalent of a deep breath, Isabel considered the situation. *Granilith computer, can you read me?*

*Yes, Isabel Evans. Do you have further instructions? The course details are somewhat vague after landing on the fourth planet of this star system.*

She felt an odd sensation as she tried to grin and couldn't. *They are. Adjust our heading as required to enter a stable orbit of the planet instead of landing, and open communication lines to the Colony administrators.*

For a long time, the Granilith swooped in towards the planet in silence. Then it had to report, *No communication line possible.*

*What?* A bit of panic started to spread into her mind. *Why not?*

*Ceetan equipment is apparently incompatible with my communication systems. Modification of the available assets on either side is not indicated within the time period that living beings can safely be maintained within my ionic matrix.*

*Oh.* Isabel frantically grasped for a plan B. They'd gone through a few runthroughs like this, but sometimes it hadn't worked out well - almost never as well as when they'd been able to get in contact. *Find the outpost location and sweep over it, using full sensors. Give me everything that you can find out.*

The Granilith silently complied, but what it showed Isabel wasn't anything that she was able to easily work out a plan from. Finally... *This spot on the extreme corner - is that a functional airlock to the interior?*

*It would seem so. Estimate ninety-nine point three percent probability that the lock is in working order.*

So one chance in a hundred fifty or so that they'd be in trouble if they counted on that. *And the sandy plain just beyond - you can land us quite close to the lock door?*

*Yes, materialization within sixty yards of the door or better.*

*Only that far away?* she asked, disappointed. But still - she and Ava could manage to run sixty yards while holding their breath, she was sure - as long as they emerged from the Granilith with breath in their lungs. A silent reassurance came from the Granilith that their lungs, like the rest of them, would be exactly as they had entered the cone back on Earth. *Alright, do it.*

*Course engaged.* Isabel waited, frustrated, as the cone dived down through the atmosphere of the planet, plunged down to the ground in a not-so-gentle landing, and - and then she was standing on rough sand under a cloudy sky, with some of the sand actually flying around her. Natural sandstorm, or just clouds of it from the Granilith landing? The familiar cone shape was right next them, but what about the outpost? The airlock? Isabel struggled to look around, and was nearly struck off her feet by the realization that this was the setting of a nightmare that she had had back in the mountain cabin in Colorado or wherever. Only the fact that she didn't have a breathing mask to wear kept her from sensing that the dream was about to play through - herself being chased through this desolate landscape by some shadowy and dangerous figure...

Ava, probably not realizing the source of her weakness, had grabbed Isabel's hand and was leading her forward. Isabel concentrated on moving forward as well as she could, one foot inside of the other, and just as she was starting to feel short of breath, tired of the stale sense in her nose despite not breathing in, there was a wall in front of them, and part of it was sliding away to show a small alcove just big enough for three people to cram into. The door to the outside slammed shut again after they had hurried within, and gradually the air inside started to seem less dusty and stale, more breathable. Isabel wondered idly how an airlock like this would work, not against hard vacuum or water outside, but unbreatheable air that better air would mix with. Probably they had heavy-duty carbon dioxide scrubbers or something of the...

"Welcoome to Seti," a hidden loudspeaker blared in oddly accented english. "Please confirm your nemes."

"Isabel Evans," Isabel called out, and Ava replied with just her first name. There was a long pause. Alex caught Isabel's eye, but she sent a negative thought - there was no particular point in his spirit manifesting unless she was challenged about him in some fashion.

"Interior doors will upen in momentarily," the voice finally replied. "Please to exit and hold your position aftorwards. Proper escorts are on their wey."

"Weird," Ava mentioned as they carefully stepped through the opposite door. "They know a lot of english words and grammar, but get a few things wrong - or different from what we're familiar with, at least."

"Well, there were human slaves among the original discovers of the ancient relics here, right?" Isabel replied. "Probably some of them were from England or America, or somewhere else. And over the time - any of the language that survived got mangled somewhat from disuse. There can't have been enough english speakers to make it more than a cultural minority - and a place like that, where everybody has to work together in perfect sync to fend off possible attacks from without and keep the place working well enough so that everybody stays alive... well, there can't be much room for cultural minorities. They'd have ended up in some kind of a linguistic melting pot. I'm surprised that this much English survived - maybe they kept it in computerized records."

"Or were able to tap into Earth media broadcasts using some sort of faster-than-light technology," Alex put in. "We're far enough out that - no, I missed the order of magnitude. Even at light speed, they'd probably have seventies radio and tv leakage here, if they can focus intensively enough on Sol system. That would be enough to get them a lot of english language exposure, though of course it would be hard to learn entirely from something like that..."

"Isabel, Ava," someone said in the corridor behind Isabel. She turned around to see a young man with blue-ish skin and a shock of silver-white hair. "Welcoome to our homeworld. I am Targlen, of the ruling council. Apologies that our leader is not available to meet with you yet, but your arrival at this pecific time was somewhat - notexpected."

"It's very nice to meet you, Targlen," Isabel said, reaching out her hand tentatively, and he shook it very enthusiastically. "Understand about... about Karia being busy right now. We'd have sent word through the communicators if our planet weren't behind its sun right now, from your point of view."

"Yes, yes, of course."

"I hope it's okay that we parked the Granilith just outside that lock," Ava added, speaking slowly and distinctly. "We couldn't reach you on the short-range line."

"Yes - we'll have to get it inside an oxygenated hangar eventually, but that can wait until you've eaten and talked," Targlen said with a slight smile. "We have the memory transfer gear that you've asked for, and it should fit into the Granilith with you... is there anything else that you wanted to do or to arrange while you're here?"

Isabel traded another look with Ava. Yet one more detail that had somehow managed to slip her mind while organizing this whole thing - the actual cargo that they needed to bring back to Earth, and the weight or mass allowance for it. Would the two girls need to leave most of their luggage behind just to get things to work out? Was there anything in the clothes and jewelry that Isabel felt she absolutely HAD to bring back with her? The necklace that Alex had said he liked, certainly enough... Maybe it would have been better if Ava hadn't come.

Ava shrugged and turned away - maybe she didn't get the point, or just thought that it wasn't worth bothering with such things right now. Isabel felt completely overwhelmed with all that had happened, and couldn't think clearly. "We... we can talk about plans later," she said. "Eating sounds good." They hadn't really felt any need to eat or drink inside the Granilith - possibly those functions had been suspended for the trip, but she felt a psychological need to - to eat whatever their hosts would offer them?? Ehh - well, worst came to worst, they could start raiding their snacks.

It wasn't too long before the three visitors were sitting in a fairly comfortable and normal looking reception room, with beakers full of a green drink that had little blue sparkling lights floating inside the liquid. It tasted great, though not really like anything that Isabel had tried before - piquant and sweet at the same time. The little cookie-like discs were great too, smelling and tasting almost exactly like vanilla birthday cake, or donuts fresh out of the fryer. (Idly Isabel wondered if they were fattening.)

"Oh, it's so great to finally see you," an older woman's voice came as the door opened. They looked up, and saw a forty-something healthy woman wearing a loose shirt and pants, and a younger alien girl with almost no hair left on her head, just two purple locks, on on each side, tan-brown skin, and eeriely black eyes. The older woman looked somewhat familiar.

"Claudia?" Isabel said. "Yes, it is you, isn't it? Nice to see you too."

Claudia stopped still and nodded her head in slight acknowledgement. "I... thank you, but I was actually speaking on behalf of... I am here to translate for Lady Kalia, since she does not know much of the language of Earth."

"KALIA!" Isabel exclaimed, focusing on the other figure, who looked almost nothing like her communicator image. "Um, well, Miz Kalia, it's very nice to be here, and thank you for... wow, sorry."

Claudia and Kalia spoke in some alien language, and Claudia nodded before she began to translate the council leader's reply. "Yes, the images across light years can be deceiving, can they not? Sorry if I startled you."

"If I might ask, is there some cultural significance to... to the way you mostly shave your head?" Ava asked. "Since you're so young, I wouldn't think that it's a natural condition that might affect the growth of hair."

Kalia laughed in a strange, almost quacking way when the question reached her. (Isabel tried to ignore the translation at this point, though she did want to converse with Claudia directly, but while she was performing a useful service as Kalia's proxy it seemed to be far too confusing to interact with her directly as well.) "There's an old tradition about great leaders shaving their heads for a couple of different reasons, but it's not followed too often anymore. Really, I just like the effect and find it easier to manage this way."

"Okay," Isabel said. "So - Targlen said that the memory transfer gear was all ready. Is it possible that we could load it and be on our way soon? I don't wish to be rude, but..."

"I think I understand your sense of urgency, but there are a few counter-considerations," was the response. "First, even for such a short trip as this, the Granilith requires 'recharging time' I believe after a warp-space journey and will not respond to a launch command yet. Also - I suspect it would be of value to you to not have anyone, other than we here at Seti, the remaining Liaret royal family, and Larek's top aides realize that you have been travelling between stars using the relic as your conveyance? We who have known of your impending trip took some care to not have the news spread."

Isabel thought about that. Kivar presumably still wanted the Granilith, and the leaders of the other planets probably would too... Breoll, Taliernar, and Gevina at least. "Alright, yes, that makes sense. What of it?"

"A long-range Gevinan scout ship has moved into this space sector recently," Kalia continued through Claudia. "If there'd been any way to send you a message, I'd have warned you to wait for the all-clear before coming. Most likely they haven't detected anything conclusive from your trip here - just strange readings on their warp detector. In a few hours we'll see how they're responding to whatever they've seen."

"And if at all possible, we should sit tight here and wait until they're back out of range before setting the Granilith's launch timer?" Ava asked. Kalia nodded. "Well, we can try, but Isabel can't stay here for too long, no matter what."

"I understand. Would four Earth days be too long?"

Isabel and Ava exchanged glances. That had been about how long Isabel had vaguely thought of staying, before she'd been reminded of the nightmare, and before unexpected things had started to pile up on her. "Okay, we'll give that a try, yes," she agreed. "While we're around... is there anything you might be able to test with regards to... my spirit boy? Things have started to get a little out of hand, back on Earth, with ordinary humans seeing him, and... and I just want to make sure that Alex isn't overloading my brain much more quickly than we expected."

That took a long time for Claudia and Kalia to sort out, apparently. "We could have a trained healer examine you, and someone who's tried to learn the profession of Essentologist," Claudia said finally. "Not sure what they'll find, or if it will be of any use to you."

"Worth a try, anyway," Isabel put in. "And thank you."

"And I have some things to ask about as well," Ava said. "A dangerous human, one of the last survivors of a group who wish aliens no good - has somehow discovered how to dreamwalk through using equipment from the original crashed ship, and maybe other powers as well. We need to figure out how to defend against him - how to find him and take the relics back, as well."

"We shall help all that we can with that," Kalia assured her indirectly. "And if it is not improper, I would like to tour you through the settlement, and press our case that you and all of your friends from Earth could join our company. ~I do think that you'd fit in well around here."

"Well, that does sound like it'll keep us busy for a few days at least," Isabel said, and sighed. She already missed Max and her friends back on Earth, and wondered if she was strong enough to try dreamwalking them so far away.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Twenty-nine

The metal cone of the Granilith crashed to the paved stone floor of the courtyard nestled among the domes and giant buildings of that part of Ceeta colony, and even though the room that she was standing in shook somewhat from the impact, Isabel relaxed gratefully and put the key back into her jeans pocket. The amount of mental effort required to keep the huge thing in the air had been considerable, but there had also been the unexpected complication that without being inside the Granilith or having access to a more sophisticated control interface, she had to be holding the key in her hand and looking at the thing, in order to move it.

Going back outside in a protective gas-tight suit had been an option, but not one that Isabel had been at all eager to face. In retrospect, though, that might have been less of a hassle than staying inside the protected spaces of the colony's life support zone, running from window, to skylight, to dome, and finally to this control room, which did have a fully transparent wall looking out at the garage zone. At least the Granilith had been willing to stay hovering while she'd been moving from one place to the other and her line of sight had been interrupted - as long as the key was still close to her.

After rechecking the vertical clearance, Claudia held a scissor switch down, and the metal roof of the courtyard started to emerge from its retracted spot - it appeared to be made up of ceramic planks that could be 'rolled up' to a certain extent, with flexible material joining them together to hold good air in and keep bad air out. After the last glimpse of the outside was sealed off, Claudia turned to Isabel and Ava. "It will take quite some while for the oxygen level inside the garage to reach breathable levels, but I assume that you'll want to make sure that the memory transfer gear is loaded on as soon as possible?"

Isabel hesitated, and Ava jumped in. "No, that's not feasible. Granilith isn't like a traditional spaceship like that way. We can transfer the equipment into its storage matrix - we'll have to before we leave, but I don't think it can maintain solid objects in there for four days while it's in normal space." Of course, Isabel agreed silently. If it wouldn't work for us, then... "Just - just put the gear in the garage, next to the Granilith cone, somewhere that we can't possibly miss it when we're ready to go. If this spot is secure enough to hold the Granilith, then nobody will mess with anything else that they aren't authorized to touch, will they?"

"No, of course not," Claudia agreed. "Can I assume from that reaction that you don't feel you need to supervise the transfer into the garage?"

"No, I don't," Ava agreed. "We can find better things to do - like arranging that psychic exam for Isabel."

"Miz Kalia is already preparing the arrangements, but it will be tomorrow at the earliest," Claudia said. "We don't have that many people qualified for such things, and they're usually quite busy."

"Okay," Isabel admitted. She was quite willing to go along with Ava's decision not to stay here and supervise, even though the memory transfer gear had been important enough for them to come all this way for... but it was a good way of showing trust in the Ceetans and she was already impatient. "Well, Kalia also said that you should show us around. What is there to see?"

Claudia had to think about that. "Would you be interested in watching an Antarian ~~athletics competition? There's going to be a Karanton match starting in the arena in - well, just about enough time for us to get there and arrange admission, so..."

"Well, that isn't really our thing," Ava disclaimed. "Michael might have been interested, or Kyle if he ever comes here..."

"Even Max," Isabel admitted. "How about an art museum or something like that?"

"Well, we don't have any large galleries or anything like that, but I think that there will be some display rooms at the college."

"Oooh, yeah, college," Ava chimed in.

"Alright," Claudia agreed. "Oh, I'll need to contact my mate and let him know that I won't be able to make the match with him, after all..."

Suddenly Isabel felt her mind changing. "You and... and your husband? You'd made plans to watch the game together?"

Claudia looked very ashamed. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned it. The plans changed when I'd heard that you landed, really, and..."

"Come on, Ava - I think that I've changed my mind about Karanton," Isabel said, looking over at the other Earthgirl. "What do you think?"

"Hmm." Ava was apparently torn between her own distaste of sports, and her sympathy for letting Claudia make her date, and curiosity about her 'mate' as well. "Well, maybe. What kind of game is it, what's the point? Is there a ball or a cube or something, with two teams competing to get it somewhere?"

Claudia hesitated. "Let's head towards the arena while we discuss it," Isabel suggested. "Just in case."

Apparently that was the right thing to say to resolve the other woman's hesitancy. "No, no spheres or cubes, anything like that - is that what all Earth sports are like? I've heard of base ball, and it never seemed to make much sense..."

"Not all of them, but quite a few," Isabel admitted.

"There's a trophy in Karanton, two of them actually, with each side trying to steal the other's, and the beguarded people... the trophies are oddly shaped, so that they won't roll far if they're dropped - and rather heavy. It's a simulation of small unit tactics, really..."

"Yeah, that's how it always starts, isn't it?" Ava said. "Okay, good enough I guess. I'll pick up the rest of it when we get there."

-----------

Isabel had to admit, there was a certain thrill in getting sped through the 'Very Important Entities' gate at the colony arena, and being led up to a sort of a private balcony where they had a good view of the whole playing field - except where the artificial trees blocked something out, of course, but that was inevitable unless maybe if you were straight overhead and looking down. There were jumbotron-ish screens here and there, which presumably would show action near the trees that some of the crowd might miss.~~

"Hall... hell.. hullo there," a guy said, coming onto the balcony. From the affectionate greeting he got from Claudia, Isabel immediately assumed that this was her 'mate.' She'd been wondering what he might look like ever since Claudia had first mentioned him, and would probably have been surprised no matter what the truth was, since there were so many possibilities. He turned out to be a modestly handsome man of around middle age, with distinctly red skin and a greyish-white beard and short hair of the same color.

"Isabel, Ava, this is Crimbin," she said. "Crimbin - Isabel Evans, and Ava, from Earth." Then she dropped into an alien language for a while, and explained in a low voice, "I hope you don't mind, but I told him that he probably shouldn't try to speak English - he knows a bit, but not that much, and it might be confusing for you... I've learned that as English is usually spoken here, it doesn't quite match modern American English."

"No, I suspect not," Isabel admitted. "You've been doing wonderfully - we haven't had any problems understanding you since - well, at first..."

"I was slipping," Claudia admitted. "But ever since you first spoke to me... I've been reviewing all the most recent Earth tapes that we have, and drilling myself on speaking well... because I knew that you'd come soon."

"Thanks, it does help," Ava admitted. "Though I'd like to learn Antarian or whatever language most people here speak. Is it hard? I mean, umm... I know that learning a language by drill and repetition can take time and frustration, but..."

"No, people with mental powers or advanced technology have tried a lot of ways to short-cut the process, but I think that to learn well, you have to do it the slow and tiresome way," Claudia admitted. "I can certainly help teach you. The usual beginner classes for 'Antarian as a second language' don't generally have English as the mother tongue that they plan for."

"Nobody learns Ceetan-English at home, here in the colony?" Ava asked.

"Well, a few maybe, but..." Whatever qualification there was got sidetracked as Crimbin tapped his mate's shoulder and expounded at some moderate length. She chuckled. "He wanted me to thank you both for letting him get into the premium balcony."

"He's very welcome," Isabel said, laughing. "Would it have been dangerous to us to sit in normal seats?"

"Probably no physical danger, but Kalia wanted to reduce the exposure of ordinary citizens to you two as much as possible. A lot of them would have seen us going through the gate - but that can't be helped, the way they've got the entrance designed, and it'll keep happening unless you stay in seclusion."

"Because she doesn't want rumors of us to spread more than she can spin them under control?" Ava guessed.

"Something like that, yes. Oooh - they're starting." Sure enough, players were lining up and assuming spread-out formations on the field. "Let's see... the ones in green are East side, we're - we're cheering for them, and the North loop boys are wearing gray-black."

"Wow," Isabel muttered, as a high pitched beep apparently started ~~the play going. Some of the figures on the field started rushing around, mostly towards each other, though some hung back, presumably on defense. North seemed to be putting more of their people on offense, actually, and East was hanging back and waiting for them. Some of the defenders were wearing huge packbacks and carrying enormous cylindrical guns, and shot at the attackers. Some of the north side had similar gear too - but they couldn't rush forward with their leading scouts, because of the heaviness of the gear apparently. They did move cautiously and started shooting... at the riflemen on the East side. That made some sense.

And two players had each risen above the ground in some kind of flying harnesses, one from each side. "What all's going on?" Alex asked. "Why the different gear?"

Claudia and Crimbin looked around, startled. "That... that's Alex, my love," Isabel said. "You won't see him. Is it too weird to be talking to an invisible boy?"

"Um, no, I guess not, but..." Claudia sighed and tried to explain to her husband briefly, though he didn't seem too reassured when Claudia pointed at Isabel. "Regular players can tag each other out, by laying hands upon an opponent's chest, arms, or legs. The playing suits are all computerized to register such tags, and continuing activity once you've been tagged out is a... a serious game offense, and can lead to exiles from the team league, and further penalties. The shooters can fire off infrared light that will tag out an enemy at a distance, but to counter out that advantage, the gear is made much heavier than it really needs to be, as a limitation on their agility."

"And so the shooters are heavy, strong types mostly," Isabel said, seeing it. "But presumably with good eyes and good aim as well."

"Yes," Claudia agreed. "The flyers can tag enemies out at a pace or so beyond their reach, though they can still be shot out, and a runner can make a suicide run to tag out the enemy flyer, though he'll be tagged out on range as well. The flyers can't move the beguarded or the trophy themselves - they can only really tag out enemy runners."

"And what do you have to do to score..." Ava started, but Isabel shook her head and interrupted.

"I'm sorry, but - well, you can watch for a few minutes, please? I... I've had enough of the game explanation to absorb for right now."

"Hmmph," Ava muttered, but didn't really object. "So we should just try to figure it out in silence?"

"Not complete silence, I'm afraid," Isabel added. "I have non-sports questions for our guide. Do you and Crimbin have any children?"

"Um - yes, two. Aarina is in the college now - she's a bit older than you girls, I think, and considering running for office this winter. Varnt is - well, he just turned twelve years old here, those are local years which are a bit on the long side. He'll be entering the secondary school soon."

"So a high school freshman," Ava interpreted. "Can we meet them sometime?"

Crimbin said something - apparently he'd been able to start following their conversation. "We... we'll see honey," Claudia told him, and then to the girls, "He said that we have to have you over to dinner tonight, but I'm not sure - if we're going to have any time to spend at the college, then~~ we'll have to leave after the game is over, and grab something to eat there."

"Oh, come on," Isabel put in. "The college will still be there tomorrow?"

"Well, I don't know. I mean, yes, it'll be there, but... Kalia might be upset. I was supposed to show you the colony, and after dragging you to a game that you weren't interested in, then dinner with my family..."

"Don't be like that," Ava said. "The game is interesting... whoo!" She let out the cheer as one of the East runners apparently made a successful tag-out suicide run on the North flyer. "And we're the ones who want to meet your family for dinner. It'll tell us at least as much about the colony as going to the college, I think."

"Yeah, we'll work it out," Isabel insisted. "But - speaking of things to eat - could we get something to snack on here?"

"Oh, you're hungry?" Isabel and Ava both nodded enthusiastically, and then answered 'yes' out loud when this gesture didn't seem completely clear to Claudia. "I should have thought of that before... but this is definitely a good place. I'll pick some of the things that I think would be easiest to take on a human palate that's used to Earth 'fast food.'"

"Nothing TOO familiar," Ava put in. "We do want to try as much Ceetan cooking as we can."

"Dinner will be a bit more traditional," she said. "And I don't think we'll find anything that will bore you." And with that, Claudia, pushed a button and started speaking into an intercom panel."

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

Dinner was great, despite the number of unfamiliar textures, tastes - and especially spices. By this point, all three of the earthborn kids had started to get used to the English dialect sometimes spoken by those with human ancestry on Ceeta, understanding and speaking it without thinking of the differences, which made things easier.

At Crimbin's suggestion, Claudia had taken them over to the college, to see one of the art display rooms, and arrange for nearby rooms to stay the night, while Crimbin had returned to their residence apartment and gotten started on the food preparation tasks. They'd met a few of the students, who'd all been curious about who these 'guests' were and had gotten very few details. Claudia had also managed to rendezvous them with her daughter Aarina after her last lecture let out, and they'd all made the trip home in an official government vehicle.

In the middle of dessert, a high-pitched screech-ring started to sound from all around the dining room table, and a spot on the wall flashed with purple light. "Oh, that'll be Kalia, calling to check in," Claudia explained in response to the surprise of her guests and the alert interest of her family members. "She'll want to speak with you as well." With a few commands in an alien language, the attention-getting effects ceased, and a slightly transparent image of Kalia appeared in the corner of the room. After looking around and taking in the situation, she walked over, pulled a chair out of nowhere, and settled herself where there was the most room on that side of the table, which was between Crimbin and his son.

"Miz Parker, report?" The words were so crisp and businesslike, contrasting with the actions taken, that for a second Isabel didn't even clue in that they were English, or Ceetan-English. Hadn't Kalia needed Claudia to translate for her? Oh, maybe this communication equipment had computerized translators built-in... but then, couldn't they make translators that would work in person? Maybe she'd just *preferred* to use Claudia as a status symbol or something.

"Let's see," Claudia replied in English casually, not sounding very deferential to her leader's strict tone. "I showed our guests the Karanton game..."

"Go east side!" Ava called out. The East team had managed to bring the North-beguarded to their second hide and win the game, with North pressing the clock against them, and it had been a quite exciting climax.

"Toured some of the quandary art display rooms at Miss Isabel's request, and arranged quarters for them in the tertiary student dorms. They wish to see more of the college. And - well, we just finished dinner now."

"Karanton games, and dinner at home?" Kalia let out an incongrous bark of laughter. "Well, I wouldn't have expected this, but your charges seem satisfied enough, so whom am I to make trouble over it?"

"A sensible attitude," Isabel decided out loud. Kalia nodded in agreement. "So, is there anything else you wanted to say or to ask?"

"Certainly. First, what did you think of your day, Isabel?"

Ooh. Isabel paused a moment and restrained herself from catching Alex's eye, but his reassuring thought flooded her mind anyway. "You've built a beautiful community here, and to be honest... if the time comes to leave my home on Earth permanently, then Ceeta is at the top of my list for resettlement destinations." It was nearly the only thing on the list, actually, and certainly the only other place she had any other experience. And it hadn't escaped Kalia that she hadn't said anything beyond 'if' about leaving Earth for good.

But the young leader girl seemed to be satisfied. "As regards tomorrow, you will have some time to tour the college in the morning, which I hope will be as interesting as you expect. But your appointment with our best Essentoligist is only half a segment of time after meri."

They took a moment to work that one out. "Not very long after mid-day?" Ava hazarded.

"Indeed," Claudia agreed. "We'll have to arrange a slightly earlier than expected mid-day meal, unless... is eating before an Essentoligist appointment bad?"

"Not for an ordinary checkup," Kalia said with a small smile. Hmm, Isabel wondered. Did she know that from personal experience? Just why would you gu to an expert in the study of souls and spirits for an 'ordinary checkup'? "Isabel's examination won't be ordinary, but I don't think that will change."

"I'll make a point of finding out, to be sure," Claudia said. Did it seem strange to her that she hadn't made the appointment, as Kalia's assistant? Or were there other people on the staff??

"Yes, do that," Kalia agreed with a small smile.

"What about me?" Ava put in. "Should I go with Isabel, or... is that not okay?"

"I think that I'd like the company," Isabel said.

"Not sure if that's usual, but we can sort it out I think," Kalia agreed. "Actually, you should probably get a checkup yourself, Ava - as a hybrid and a subject of a soul implantation procedure. It'll help confirm a baseline for what Isabel wants to do with Alex, among other things."

"Sure," Ava agreed. "And we can figure out if I really am the true incarnation of the original Ava perhaps. I never did quite understand that... can souls be copied, or is it an 'only one thing' between Tess and I?"

"How much do you know about the original Ava, Kalia?" Isabel blurted out. "I mean, not just you personally..." She suddenly trailed off, wondering if these people had a perspective of their own on the Vilandra treachery... that she wasn't sure if she wanted to know. Vilandra was behind her, and maybe Ava didn't want to know about her namesake any more.

But Isabel did, because any insight into Tess might still be important to their survival.

"I think that can wait for... for the day after tomorrow, possibly," Kalia said gently. "You can view anything we have in our records regarding Kivar's overthrow of the Liaret monarchy on Antar, and the personalities involved in those events. I... I believe that we do have a few citizens with personal testimony - refugees who fled here when Kivar's bounty hunters were after them, and begged asylum. That was long before my own tenure, of course."

"Thank you very much," Ava repeated dully.

"Think nothhing of it. Well, enjoy your evening and your morning, and if possibly I'll meet for your before-noon meal?"

"Yes, thank you," Isabel answered, and with a few more signoffs, Kalia's image winked out. "Okay, what next?"

"Well, we don't need to head over to the college for a little while yet," Claudia answered. "What would you like to do now?"

Isabel and Ava shared a look. "What might you be doing if we weren't here?" Ava asked.

Claudia and Crimbin exchanged a look, apparently not quite certain how to respond to this, but young Varnt didn't feel so inhibited. "Well, my favorite vid program is showing tonight. Do you want to watch along with me?"

"Hey, no fair if you're trying to sneak on the schedule," Aarina complained in a display of sibling rivalry so familiar it made Isabel miss Max. "I had first pick tonight, and so 'Kinroy central' will be playing here in our lovely home..."

"You're so hard to live with," Varnt shot back. "Can't you go hang out with your college friends? I know they'll have that crock on one of the residence floor big-screens..."

"Speak nicely or make yourselves quiet, both of you!" Claudia snapped at her children. "Varnt, thank you for suggesting something to our guest, but just because your sister starts a spat doesn't make it okay for you to take her bait." And Aarina whistled faintly, obviously realizing that she was about to get a telling off herself.

Crimbin took that one upon himself. "Daughter of my flesh, I find it most distressing that you didn't even RECOGNIZE that your little brother was talking about a show that was aired at a different time than your own selection. Haven't you paid any attention to the fact that he's also chosen a program right before Kinroy central, going back - oh, at least twenty work cycles?"

"Well - yes, I have paid attention, but I wasn't sure that was the program he was talking about," Aarina said penitently. "He *has* taken that time slot when he's had the chance."

"Not lately," Varnt insisted. "Not when you made KC your own first choice."

"And if you weren't sure, then you could have waited for him to explain, or when it was," Claudia put in. "Instead of making accusations first."

"She wasn't quite accusing," Ava pointed out helpfully. "Just pre-emptively objecting."

"Do you live at the college, or here with your parents, Aarina?" Isabel asked, trying to change the subject at this point.

"Here at home," Aarina explained. "I tried for an on-premise room assignment, but - well, I didn't qualify on the basis of a difficult trip to the college - we're in the same dome, only two short transit lines away. I've got an after-class work assignment, but it's nothing that would entitle me to a performance privilege like that, and the parentals..." She looked up at the two of them. "Well, they *could* have gotten it for me, but I guess I understand that they didn't. They've already sacrificed a lot for V and me, and need to keep a few savings credits against bad luck that might come in the future."

"Okay, sorry, but that reminds me of something I was curious about," Ava put in. "The, um, the economic system here on Ceeta..."

"Eekco-nommik?"

"Guess that's an English word that didn't survive here," Isabel said. "I should have figured there'd be some. Surprising we didn't come across any before this, really."

"It's a complicated idea, really," Ava put in. "But - how the colony deals with things and services that are valuable in short supply. People working, the privileges that they earn, the technology that they use, and where they live. Nobody can get everything that they want, so how are things like that decided? It sounds a bit like... well, humans on Earth have tried a lot of ways of keeping track of things. There's capitalism, where just about everything is worth money, ~~and the government doesn't really interfere in anything, letting the free market work everything out. You get paid whatever you can convince somebody to pay you for the work you've done, on the strength of 'if you don't, I won't work any more,' and buying or selling everything works the same way."

"Yes, alright, I think I've heard of similar planets," Crimbin put in. "Of course the government has to tax some, and somebody cries interference no matter how they set up a taxation scheme. And those with money usually manage to find ways of accumulating more and more."

"Right," Isabel agreed. "Let's see... there's royal command economies and such, where the king and his ministers try to decide everything... who works at what jobs and how hard, who eats what and where the luxury groups end up. If the other people don't like it, then they don't have much recourse other than planning a coup. If they succeed, they might try something like communism, which is a command economy by committees and elected representatives, trying to make everything work for the good of the greatest number. But command economies generally don't work out very well even for the people running things, though with computers to analyze what's going on they might get a little better."

"Right," Ava put in. "And there's various kinds of socialism, which is sort of a continuum between capitalism and communism, as I understood it. There's money moving around the system and greasing the wheels, but the big bosses are also making choices and decisions to fine-tune the system, or run large parts of it themselves."

"I suppose that would be what we've got, yes," Claudia agreed. "There's various forms of credit and other currency, but generally everyone has what they need without having to raise credit for it."

"Social safety net," Ava agreed. "Welfare state, maybe, even." Claudia shrugged.

"Well, that's enough of the finances talk," Varnt decided, getting up.

"Economics, not finances, Varnt," Claudia insisted. "And since we're on our best behaviour with guests, you should ask to be excused from the table before leaving."

"Sorry, mom. May I..." He waited a moment for an answer, which didn't come, and then sat back down. "Might I go and turn the vidscreen on?"

"It's not time for your show yet," Crimbin said, "so tune it to the local news, alright?"

While they all waited, Isabel asked Claudia about travel between Ceeta and other planets. It did happen sometimes, like with the refugees that Kalia had mentioned, but was so infrequently possible that entering or leaving the colony was usually considered a once in a lifetime event. This was mostly because the colony authorities were very cautious about who or what might come with arrivig ships - stowaways, thieves or spies pretending to be sincere immigrants, even tiny manufactured devices that could explode or relay back secrets to one of the other worlds. And there weren't many resources for the Ceetans to make their own space vessels with - even allowing for the fact that incoming ships were often turned over to natives, there was a waiting list of young ~~people who were frustrated with the restrictions of living in the small and crowded premises and wanted to go and seek their fortunes in the wider galaxy.

"Really?" Ava asked when she heard that. "I mean, I can understand the itchy feet syndrome, but this does seem like a pretty good place to stick around."

"Well, it's not like every kid really signs up for one of those waiting lists at one time or another," Aarina weighed in. "I haven't, and I don't expect to. There are problems with this place, like anywhere else, but I'm looking forward to growing up here, doing what I can to make it a better place... having kids of my own sometime soon, even."

"Is there a prospective father in the picture?" Isabel asked her.

"Oh, no, more's the shame. The last guy I was seriously involved with... wasn't quite so serious about me." Isabel felt sympathy for the woebegone expression on the girl's face. "I keep trying to put myself out there and meet new prospects, but it can be hard. You're lucky to have found what you have with Alex, Isabel, even if there are a few... metaphysical obstacles in the way."

"Oh, don't I know it."

"Jerins Gwyn says that he's not going to even bother with the waiting lists, that he and his brother will have a warp ship ready to launch in three revolutions," Varnt announced. "Told Petr and me that he'll hold spots for us, but only if we tell him that we'll go soon." He flopped his head from side to side uncertainly. "He'll probably give my seat away to any girl who kisses him and asks for it, even if I do confirm."

"But... but would you even be interested in that, darling?" Claudia asked, her skin paling slightly. Apparently this was the first time her baby boy had mentioned the prospect of leaving the colony.

"I... I don't know, okay? That restlessness - I feel it, yeah, and I wish that I could see more of the galaxy. On the other hand, I'm also scared, and worried because I know that it's a dangerous place out there. Don't think that I'm going to make up my mind for a little while, mom... maybe some of the restlessness will die down once adolescence is done with my bloodstream. And I want to finish the secondary school, maybe even get some more advanced training while I can."

"That's the worst part of it," Crimbin put in. "No offense, son - I don't mean to accuse you, but - since our educational system is free, there are people who go through just that - go through very expensive training at the expense of the state, and then leave to ply their trades elsewhere. Earning your postmaster's in electronic engineering at the Royal University of Antar costs a Duke's ransom now."

"Well, what would you suggest then, Dad?" Aarina put in? "Keep anybody who's attended secondary school or higher from leaving, unless they can ~~pay off the 'fair cost' of their education?"

He sighed. "Well, that's not the worst idea I've heard... not secondary school I suppose... it's reasonable to allow that much to every student, especially since you're not eligible for the waiting list until you're old enough to get through secondary. If you choose tertiary schooling or training, then I think you should be mature enough to face the options... that you can expect to use that training for the good of the community or pay back for it."

---------

"Okay, sorry, but I'm not feeling quite clear on all this," Ava said, as Claudia was getting them ready to leave once the vid programs for the evening were done. "You're coming back here, so - well, I mean, I guess I've gotten a little bit used to you being around, nearly since we arrived. Who do we go to if there's some problem? Couldn't we have gotten a room closer to here?"

"Not really - there's no vacancies closer than sectional transients, and that's down one floor and through nearly a handfull of corridor intersections," Claudia answered. "And I think that going through the night and the early morning routine without me hovering will be good for you girls. The man who I introduced you to while arranging the quarters - Warron Deen, he's a junior admin for the college, and he's very good at languages, though he hasn't studied contemporary English I admit. He understand about you being visitors from Earth, and I'll show you how to reach him on the intercom panel before I leave you there."

"Okay I guess," Isabel said. "I know it sounds a bit pitiful, but I'd have been more comfortable with another female."

"What, why so?" Claudia stepped close to the front door of her appartment, waving fingers in the spot that controlled the opening mechanism, and Isabel shot her a meaningful look. Somewhat taken by surprise, Claudia stepped away from the door. It didn't automatically close, so she got close enough to Isabel that anyone outside wouldn't be able to hear them. "You - are you concerned that someone like that might - might violate you physically?"

Isabel smiled weakly. "Well, a little bit - not likely outright rape, especially if he understands I can use my powers well enough to defend myself. But - well, I guess I've picked up enough about that kind of thing from Earth to fear it, and considering that we're two young girls surrounded by an entirely unfamiliar community."

"Well, I suppose it's always sensible to be aware of the possibility and concerned about it," Claudia admitted, leading the two of them out and into the hallway, keeping her voice low. "Without such vigilance, there is no defense against such... horrible things. But - well, there's only been one trial for such a thing in all of my life." She shuddered. "I... I was in some classes with the... the male person who - who did the deed. The evidence was open and shut... and such malefactors are put outside of the dome without protective gear."

"Makes some sense," Ava said, shooting Isabel a look. "Someone who would do that to a fellow being doesn't deserve shelter or oxygen. And I guess... we'd better be off, huh?"

"Yeah," Isabel agreed, glad to leave this subject behind. She had a few other questions about the penal code of Ceeta - it wouldn't do to come back here without being sure that there wasn't some gotcha law that made no sense to someone from Earth, that might get one of her best friends killed. But there was possibly someone better than Claudia to ask such questions of.

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

As soon as her head hit the pillow, the room around Isabel flashed and she seemed to be somewhere else... in fact it was her bedroom back home. She was still lying back on the bed, (which was surprisingly similar in feel to the one in the Ceetan college,) and Alex was standing up and leaning against the dresser. "Hey - I thought you'd appreciate a little taste of back home."

"Yeah, but that isn't all that I want," Isabel said, beckoning him over. Grinning, Alex settled on the mattress next to her, (which meant, as usual, that she had to shuffle over the twin-size mattress until she was tightly pressed between the wall and him,) and kissed her deeply. "Come to think of it, you haven't been very talkative or active here on Ceeta, even when you've been... with me. Is there something wrong? Did going through warp space have some bad effect on your connection to me??"

"Ssh," Alex insisted, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder and kissing her cheek comfortably. "No, come on, you've got me trained better than that! If - if something was seriously wrong with me, then I'd tell you first thing as soon as I had any notion of it... not that I specifically want to upset you with bad news, but because you'd have a genuine need to know, to ask other people for help in resolving whatever it was." He sighed. "Even if I had the notion of trying to spare you pain by keeping bad news from you, that would be self-defeating, because in the end it would cause you even more distress to have something happen to me because you hadn't learned the warning signs in time to act."

"Darn tootin'," Isabel agreed with a soft chuckle, kissing him back a little more energetically. "So what, have you just been kickin' back and taking it easy, looking and listening lots and talking little?"

"Yeah, I guess," Alex agreed. "Probably the same thing I would have done if I'd come to a place like this without being so... living-impaired, except that then other people would have had more chances to draw me into whatever conversations were going."

"Right," Isabel admitted. "I can picture that. Well, as long as you're doing okay, I don't really mind if you're shy - in public. When you're alone with me..."

"Yeah, I know the drill in here," Alex laughed, before putting his lips to her neck and starting to unfasten the snaps of her sweater.


She didn't go through the routine of trying to dreamwalk Max or anybody else, getting a picture out and tapping it and concentrating, although she'd made sure to bring wallet photographs of the whole gang along with her. But sometime between falling asleep, satisfied, with Alex next to her in the mental recreation of her room back home, and waking up the next morning, Isabel dreamed of her friends and family back home.

She was standing in Michael's kitchen, between the stove and the pantry counter. The dull off-white fridge and the sink full of dirty dishes were somehow a sight for sore eyes to her at this point. Michael, Maria, and Max were all gathered around the coffee table. "Hey, boy, am I glad to see you all - what have I miss..."

"Just sitting around here might drive me crazy," Michael muttered under his breath.

"Well, nobody's holding a gun to your head, Michael," Liz announced, coming into scene, as it were, from the direction of the bed and bath. "Yes, I suggested that it might be a good idea to stay out of sight as much as possible while this guy, or his friends, are about... but becoming hermits is probably excessive caution..."

"What guy?" Isabel asked, and when nobody even so much as turned to look at her or acknowledge the question, she silently accepted that she could see her friends, but not be seen or sensed by them, (at least by the rules of the dream,) and sensibly shut up to listen.

"I... I dunno," Michael admitted. "I'd feel a bit foolhardy, cruising around town like nothing was wrong, knowing that there might be a Special Unit guy around, trying to flush out a trace of us."

"As long as you act like everything's normal, he won't have any reason to suspect us," Max said. "The Evans doctrine would seem to apply in this case." He considered that. "In fact, if anybody actually puts together the idea that we're staying out of sight since that guy first showed up, it might actually be odd enough that someone would mention us to him." He sighed, reached out, and took Liz's hand, and Isabel was startled to see a faint flash of light come from their fingers as they touched. "Just remember..."

"Act like normal kids with nothing much to hide," Maria rhymed out by rote. "Well, at least Isabel's well away. No chance of anybody recognizing her from that weird dreamwalk the special unit guy managed a few weeks back."

"Yeah," Liz agreed softly. "And she's been gone long enough that there's no obvious connection." She sighed, waved a hand, and an apple whizzed into her hand from the shelf. Isabel boggled intelligently at that, while the others didn't seem to even notice. "I wonder how things are going over there, and how long she'll be gone."

"I don't know," Michael admitted unhappily. "In a way, I guess I'm jealous of her, for actually getting a chance to check out an alien colony - a friendly one, at that..."

"Or so we hope," Maria muttered.

"...and then come back," Michael said, "I've thought about going 'home' or something like that, but I was always scared it would be a one-way trip."

"It might be, yet," Liz pointed out. "But come on, Max was right. No real reason to keep hanging around here. If we hadn't spotted that guy, I'd be over at your house, Max, and hinting around to see if your Mom wanted to cook me dinner. Let's go."

"Yeah, that's good," Isabel said, and felt that vision of home suddenly fly apart into a whirlpool of seperate images that she couldn't make out.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Thirty

"Hey, are you going to sleep the whole day away?" Ava asked. Isabel thought that it sounded tempting, but probably self-defeating, and that therefore she should open up her eyes. In fifteen seconds... "It's a madhouse out there, and the lines for the bathroom don't seem to be getting any shorter. Also we got some sort of a message about Sanctuary refugees, or at least that's about as much as I can figure out from it."

"Okay, I'm up," Isabel finally said, opening her eyes and propping herself up on one side somewhat to prove it. "How can I take a whack at this message myself?"

"Umm... sure you don't want to try the bathroom first?" Ava asked.

"No. Eventually they'll get emptier, like when everybody has to be in class," Isabel countered, getting up out of the cot. (They'd been through seven different bed types before settling on something that didn't feel like a torture device, and even so her back wasn't happy with her now.)

"If this is anything like a college on Earth, just because there are classes doesn't mean that most of the students actually go," Ava put in, and Isabel actually stuck a tongue out at her slightly. "Admittedly, this does seem to be a more rigid and authoritarian society in some ways. As far as the message, well... just tap that red rhombus on the screen there," she said, indicating something on the computer interface panel of their screen.

Isabel tapped, and listened closely, but had to admit that she wasn't very much the wiser. Whether from a computerized translation or the original speaker, the words were in a thickly accented and distorted kind of English, probably sprinkled with words that had been left in Antarian or some other language, and so it was hard to get a sense of the overall meaning. Somebody who had been on Sanctuary at the time of Kivar's raid and gotten away, wanting to either be granted permission to land at Ceeta or speak with Isabel herself... a bit of long-winded speechifying about Zan and Max Evans, and the old Royal mother, and how Kivar had gone too far this time and the worlds of the Sector must surely rise up against him and 'rid themselves of a sore.' When it was over, the only thing that Isabel could decide for sure was that she wanted to talk to Karia and Claudia about the whole thing, and play them a copy of the audio if they hadn't heard it already.

"What about breakfast?" she suggested to Ava next. "Yes, before I wash or dress. I doubt that the opinion that anybody here has of me will be changed too much by a little detail like eating in my pyjamas, with bed-head, morning breath, and not much makeup. I can just lie and say that it's an Earth tradition. Actually, that wouldn't be a complete lie."

"Hmm... possible," Ava agreed. "From what Warron the junior admin said, we'd have to go to a community dining hall for our morning meal, and our temporary ID discs would cover the payment." She paused. "I'm ready to face the public if you are."

"Great, let's see what we can find," Isabel said, taking the ID disc from the bedside counter where she'd put it last night and tucking it into the shirt pocket of her pajamas.

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

Finding appetizing breakfast foods at the student cafeteria wasn't really a problem. Ava followed her nose to something with a rich blend of flavors something like pizza with the works, and it turned out to be shaped as a large number of little rectangular semi-flat items about as long as shoes, which didn't seem to be baked or to have come through any other cooking process that Isabel could recognize, but both of them loaded up with three different kinds of them. Ava also tried something that looked and smelled like a spicy purple 'orange', and they got tumblers of water with a sweet and bitter colorless infusion.

They said 'hello' and other appropriate english phrases to most of the students and other people that they met along the way and in the dining hall - a slim majority gave them blank looks, but many at least attempted to answer in broken English themselves. The monitor who checked their ID disks on the way out of the selection area into the seating tables with their food was one of the people who didn't even try to talk to them, but apparently the computer spoke well enough for them. As they ate, it was hard not to notice the build-up of some kind of commotion, and just as Isabel was starting on her third pizza slab, two familiar figures rushed up to their table - it was Karia and Claudia. Isabel instantly stiffened, wondering what was so important as to bring the colony leader to them, instead of just sending Claudia with instructions to bring the two strange girls to her.

"Come quick," Claudia said, in that intonation that Isabel now thought she recognized as signifying that she was translating for her boss. "You can grab what's left of your food if you can handle it while walking."

Isabel picked up the slab and her tumbler and stood, hesitating just briefly before leaving her tray and reusable 'plate' on the table. This had to be bad manners on any world, but when the presidente said 'come quick', then some rudeness could be excused on that basis, she figured. Ava just picked up her purple orange and followed.

"What's going on?" Isabel asked the Ceetan ladies as they headed towards one of the exits from the dining hall.

Karia just muttered a few syllables, and Claudia began speaking at length, so Isabel judged that the command had just been something along the lines of 'tell them' or 'explain' - thus Claudia was speaking from her own prior understanding of the situation instead of interpreting Karia's words directly... or maybe reciting an explanation that they had already gone over together. "A few hours ago, we received a message from a ship called... 'A Forlorn Hope'. It's a pocket courier, equipped with a good stealth system, and it was one of the Liaretian vessels that escaped Sanctuary as Kivar's forces were attacking.'"

"The... the one with Vorjal, and Raydeleen aboard?" Ava asked excitedly, distracted just before she could take the first bite out of her fruit. "And Mister Turik?"

"The very same ship, indeed," Claudia agreed. "As they are being hunted by Kivar's fleet, and Breoll bounty hunters, they asked permission to make a landing here, in order to make certain maintenance on the ship, and purchase new supplies, before leaving again. Such a thing... would not ordinarily have been allowed, years ago, but there are many Liaretian sympathizers on the council now, and they are strongly arguing that we must act quickly for the sake of mercy."

"And what do you think of that debate, Karia?" Isabel asked. Claudia clarified the question, and there was a bit of back-and-forth conversation in the Antarian tongue between them.

"I am torn, and more than happy to let my council decide for me," Claudia said for Karia finally. "If they cannot settle the issue themselves, I might vote against allowing the landing, but I do not believe that is likely to happen. However... my concern at the moment is for how this affects your own errand."

"How's that?" Ava asked. "I mean, it's good news that these people are still free, and will be able to keep on the go. If they'll be here, then maybe we can even talk with them, but how does that affect our mission."

"Was that not clear?" Claudia asked. "If they do land, it will indeed be impossible to keep your own presence here secret from Vorjal and Raydeleen. If they know that you have come, they will guess that you arrived in the Granilith."

"Yeah..." Ava said, sounding unconcerned, but Isabel had a nasty feeling. Almost as if he was being summoned by this conversation, Alex appeared, walking in step with her but not close enough for her to reach out and 'touch' him.

"If they know that the Granilith is here, might they not ask it from you??"

"Oh, right," Ava said, seeing the implications. "It was placed in Max's care, but that was a long time ago, and... it can be used as a weapon, or a defense, right? Their own rebellion is going badly, now, and Vorjal might be tempted to use it to even the score. But... but surely he'll understand that it's our only way home..."

"Will that really be more important to him than the situation here?" Isabel asked. "I can just picture what some alien prince might say. 'Well, I've got a ship, I can drop you off... but really, what do you want to go back to Earth for now that you've gotten this far? In fact, why don't I swing by there and give Max and Michael a lift OFF that little mudball? There's work for all of you in the struggle against the despot.'"

Claudia translated that for Karia, who quack-laughed again. "It's hard to say for sure, I know little about Vorjal himself, but that reaction does seem possible based on other opinions I have heard from planetary leaders about Earth," she interpreted. All four of them had been hurrying through corridors as they walked, and at this point Claudia took the controls of a small six-seater vehicle and gestured them all in. Once all had activated the seat restraints, Claudia drove into a kind of a black tube that seemed to be restricted for official vehicle progress. "Are we to correctly interpret that you have no interest in joining the Liaretian cause at this time?"

"No, not yet," Isabel said. "Not until I've finished what I have to do back on Earth for Alex, at least. Even afterwards... I realize that they have a righteous cause, but still it's hard to think that we have any obligation to help out with their war, considering that none of them did much to help us out while we were growing up, and fighting for our lives on Earth. They might not have been able to spare anyone for such inclement duty, but still... does the fact that they created us from their princesses and kings mean that we're obligated to give up our lives and help them when we can?"

Another translation pause, somewhat protracted because Claudia was also concentrating on chauffeuring. "A difficult philosophical question," Karia admitted. "Historically, the lot of kings and princesses has been one of either tyrrany or obligation, with very little middle ground. If you acknowledge the inheritance of Vilandra Liaret, then those may be your choices as well... and trying to achieve a tyrrany may be more trouble than it is worth."

"But still, even a princess can quit," Isabel grumbled. "Can't she? A king can abdicate - can a princess emancipate herself from the Royal family?"

"Actually, I know that this is coming out of left field, but... but would you hate me if I said that I'm considering going with them, if they'll have me?" Ava suddenly put in. "I... I know that I came here for your sake, and I'd be abandoning you in a little way, but... none of us anticipated this opportunity. There's not as much waiting for me back on Earth... your friends are nice to me, but I don't quite fit into the gang. If I can find a place for myself out here among the Liaretians, do something worthy with my life... I'd be willing to take a leap, even if there's no easy way to make it back to Earth, or back here to Ceeta, if things don't really work out."

"Wow, umm," was all that Isabel could manage as a response to start out with. "No, of course, if that's what you really want, I won't hold you down or stand in your way, Ava. Liz will be pissed at me that I didn't bring you back, but probably also happy for you that you went after something that you want. And as far as me... you were by my side for the first few hours of acclimating myself to an alien society, and that's the most important part. Even if you go with the Liaretians, they probably won't be leaving here before me, at least not by much, so I'll be fine."

"Well, it's not a settled decision," Ava disclaimed. "Just a possibility, and of course we'll have to ask them if they're even interested."

"Okay." Isabel turned her attention back to Karia. "If... if they don't take no for an answer from me, about the Granilith..."

"I promised you that if you arrived in the Granilith, you would be free to return to Earth and take it with you," Claudia said. Karia had started speaking before even getting a translation of the start of the question... possibly she'd been listening for the word and a few other key English indicators. "I will stand by my word, no matter what. I expect that the council will insist on assurances to make sure that the Liaretians cannot try a... a 'power play.'"

"Sounds good," Isabel said, and looked down at herself. "Just what do you need from us, Karia... only to make sure that we understood the situation, or something more?" She looked down at her pajamas. "I... I'm not even dressed for the day."

"Oh." Claudia traded a look with Karia, and they exchanged some words, but an official response from Karia didn't seem to be immediately forthcoming. "You were eating breakfast before dressing?"

"Earth tradition," Isabel explained.

"Well, anyway... there's nothing specific that Karia needed you for," Claudia explained, "but we didn't think that leaving you on campus was such a good idea. Political feelings tend to run hotly among the students, and now that public debate has started on the Liaretian development... if somebody realized that the two of you were tangentially connected, you might not be safe. We'll be keeping you in somewhat safer government complexes until the time comes for your Essentologist appointment, Isabel... and clothes or sanitary facilities can be provided, if you wish."

"We had personal effects in the college room," Ava pointed out.

"I'll arrange for somebody to fetch them. Perhaps even it would be best to send Aarina, rather than one of the usual government runners..."

"If it wasn't safe for us to spend the morning on campus, like originally planned... then what about if we do agree on a more permanent arrangement?" Isabel asked Karia. "To a certain extent, I like the idea of living somewhere that the authorities are worried enough about my friends to put them in government custody when that's required, but it seems like it could be exhausting after the first few times."

Karia quacked again when this was translated. "I don't think that I'd be nearly as worried if it weren't that you've only been here for a few days, and that you're not staying permanently," Claudia said as Karia's less ducklike reply. "There's something in the Ceetan psychology that draws dividing lines against 'visitors', but accepts newcomers fairly promptly. Most of our rare cases of violent crime are directed against the former - or at least a disproportionate minority considering how seldome we have any visitors at all."

"Hmm." Ava considered this. "Are you taking security precautions in anticipation of approval for the Liaretian 'visit' as well? I imagine that there are probably citizens here who wouldn't be happy about them coming. Even people who are descended from their enemies."

"Yes, believe me, I'm working on it," Karia replied, (through Claudia,) after a few moments.

"One thing that I'm curious about," Isabel said. "This Raydeleen's role. From what I heard about her, she was Queen Alinda's personal stand-in, not a lookalike, but by Antarian cultural custom she could wield royal authority and power on Alinda's behalf. What happens to her role now that Alinda's been captured by Kivar?"

"As long as Alinda draws breath, she is still... there's no real English equivalent, obviously. The Antarian term is gehrvellkah," Claudia explained. "But her authority and power will be much diminished by now, after so long without being able to communicate or check in with Alinda. Vorjal will be effectively their leader. Based on the reports we're getting from Kivar's capital city on Antar, Alinda may die in the next few days..." Isabel gasped in shock at the immediacy of that forecast, "and then Vorjal will need to decide if he retains Raydeleen's services in another capacity."

"He'd be a fool not to keep her close in his councils," Ava pointed out. "She must know much about the rebellion that Vorjal wasn't able to follow personally, even if he wishes to make a change in strategy now that he's in charge. Plus, from what I've heard, she's shown herself to be a capable leader and political strategist."

"Yes, I think that I agree," Claudia put in. "Hang on, we're approaching the office."

The complex that the car drove into was quite frenetic at the moment, with Ceetan citizens of all kinds running about. Karia jumped out of the car and immediately started to ask loud questions, getting answers, and followups, from three different directions. After about a minute, she turned to Claudia and gave her some orders.

"Looks like 'A forlorn hope' will be landing soon," Claudia put in. "Karia wants you to come to a state dinner with her and Vorjal after your appointment, Isabel."

"Whoo," Isabel muttered. "Okay, yeah, doesn't sound like a fun time, but I'll go."

"Good," Claudia said. "Come on, I'll show you somewhere out of the way. If we can't do the campus tour, how about I help you find out more from the Colony computer system?"

There was a pause, and silence from Isabel. "Sounds like a plan," Ava said, as she brought up the rear.

----------

"Oh, it looks so much like a doctor's office on tv," Isabel complained, looking around the examination room of the Essentologist. "I never ever wanted to have to go to a doctor, even before I understood about being different from other kids, and I don't want to be here now."

"Really?" Ava said, looking up from a low shelf or sideboard type of thing that she had been peering at the contents of. "How long was it, that you really thought you were the same as other children? I mean... well, living in the sewers, we never really had that stage."

Isabel chuckled. "I... I'm not sure, actually. Of course, Max and I weren't even coming home with Mom and Dad before we realized that the other kids in the orphanage... they knew where they came from, mostly, in a way that we didn't. And then, going to school, the kids there weren't even orphans or adopted. It was - hmm, well, maybe only four months before Max realized that he could - could do things that nobody else could, and then I figured out how to do some of them too, and we recovered very vague memories of the pod chamber and so on. What I meant, though, was that it wasn't until Max first got a science kit for Christmas, a year and a half later, and did a comparison of Dad's blood with his own, that we knew there was something concrete about our different-ness, something that we could be 'found out' by."

"Right," Ava agreed. "And how long after that before you found Michael, in the school cafeteria, and offered him your fish sticks?"

"Oh, did he tell you about that?" Isabel said, smiling at the memory. Ava nodded. "Umm, let's see... that was third grade... so another year and a half, I suppose."

Right then the door opened, and a pleasant-looking Antarian came in - his skin was a deep brown-tan, and he had intense purple eyes and grayish-white hair. His clothing somehow seemed to make Isabel think more of office business casual than a doctor's coat - smartly cut black pants and a purple shirt with snap buttons and no collar. "Hello, Isabel, an Welcome to Ceeta. Please not to be nerves, for the samination has no pain."

Isabel looked over at Ava and felt her eyes grow wide. She'd feel much more comfortable if Claudia could have been here, both for moral support and as a translator, but something to do with the Liaretian ship landing had apparently taken priority of her attention over dealing with the two Earth-born hybrid girls. So she told the Essentologist, "I'll try not to be nervous, but I'm not just worried about pain, and it doesn't help that we have a bit of a language problem. What's your name?"

"My? Oh, coursey. Calling me Vinta Moreoglore." He considered that for a moment. "Vinta is not forenamish, but respecting title-learned."

"Like 'doctor' back home," Isabel muttered, mostly to herself. Even though the language gap hadn't closed much, she was starting to like this Moreoglore guy, and it seemed that they could understand each other if they tried. Maybe the miscues might even provide some comic relief to defuse her anxieties about the things she might learn from him. "Okay, so what happens next? Do you need me to do anything particular?" She was worried about being told that she'd have to undress, but surely that wouldn't be important for an examination of her soul, would it? Did clothes really hide the spirit of the person wearing them, literally?

The Vinta clucked, (not like a chicken clucked, but very much in the same way a human might make a 'tuk, tuk' sound in his or her mouth while considering something,) and went over to the sideboard to withdraw something - a sort of an elastic band with brightly colored cables running through it, and rectangular blocks about two inches long each attached to it at nearly regular intervals. This he produced and handed to her. "For prelimary scan of br... of head nervous." After a moment, he gestured with his fingers on his own head, tracing a line from low on the forehead to a spot between the back of his head and the base of his neck. She just stared back at him for another few seconds, and then he volunteered, "Prefer if I wore it to you I-self?"

"Umm, no, no, I can do it," Isabel insisted, stretching the band in her hands to buy a little bit more adjustment time, and then one of her hands went to her head to check on today's hair. She'd never taken the time to do anything much other than cleanse it, so her golden tresses were down and loose, and something in the Ceetan shampoos had provoked a slightly curly reaction. It might be better to have a ponytail for this kind of thing, but she didn't really want to take the time for that, so she just slipped the band over the top of her head, trying to pretend that it was just like any other ordinary headband.

Out of the blue, as she slipped it down the back of her head, she thought of the haircut that she'd gotten for graduation day. Her hair hadn't really grown out very much over the summer, and she'd had it trimmed a few weeks ago, which had taken away some of the 'layered' effect. Maybe she should get a new, even shorter 'do from a Ceetan stylist before leaving here. Aside from the gang, her parents and everybody else thought that she was out of the country with the frickin' peace corps, after all, and shorter hair would be more tropical or something like that. Not too short, though, or Alex would never let her hear the end of it And *when* would she be able to get home...

"Disturbance in your mind, the indicators read," Vinta M chided her, like a taller Yoda. "Thoughts your calm. Exxh - I mean..."

"Yeah, I've got it," Isabel said, though she thought it was a bit weird that such an ordinary jumble of thoughts, by her own standards, registered as a 'disturbance.' Yes, she'd been a bit upset and anxious about certain topics, but... well, not the time for intense self-analysis either she suspected. Breathe, and try to think about something peaceful, like a not-too-warm desert breeze blowing through her hair...

Moreoglore took readings from the headband, and also from another little attachment that wrapped around her wrist, her palm, her thumb, and two of her fingers. Then - "I must touch mind yours, and your spirit," he said. "Are familiar with such a thing?"

"Like a touch connection?" Isabel asked, and took a breath. Though she hadn't expected this, baring her mind to this stranger was probably worse than baring her body, but if she wanted to make sure that she and Alex were okay and healthy, it would need to be done. As if on cue, Alex appeared again, standing close enough to the examination bench that she could touch him, and reaching out a hand for hers. She took it, gladly, not worried about if M thought it was weird.

"Yessa."

"Okay, go ahead." Isabel opened her eyes up wide, and extended her other hand to the Essentologist. After taking a moment to prepare himself, he met her stare full-on and her hand with his own fingers.

The sensation of connection was a bit unusual to Isabel, partly because Vinta Moreoglore must have had extensive training in keeping his own thoughts and his entire self from leaking through to her. Probably he had also trained at least as much in finding only what he needed to from her, instead of being overwhelmed with intense and vivid memories that had nothing to do with his profession. Isabel could dimly sense what he did perceive - a few memories from her youth, and high points of more recent adventures - seeing the vision of Queen Alinda, discovering the Granilith, and sitting by Grant Sorenson's emptied body. (Arguably that was a low point, but it was a memory that she had intense memories of.) Also several kisses with Alex, and fighting for her life with Nicholas in the Copper Summit stagecoach museum, struggling to send a warning to Max when he was in New York, and helping to carry Michael into River Dog's cave, when he was dying of the disrupted balance.

Her experiences since Alex's death were examined in greater detail, and she could also dimly sense him examining something that was unrelated to specific memories or thoughts, something beyond her own usual consciousness. At one point she thought that his awareness might be probing for memories that weren't a part of her own life on Earth, memories that might have been Vilandra's, but if that was it, she couldn't tell what he found. Finally the examination was over, and she couldn't even tell if it had lasted four seconds or as many hours. She'd have to ask Ava later.

"Very much thank you," Moreoglore said formally.

"Is that all of the checkup?" she asked, a little bit uncertain.

"For routine examination, yes. Would it be, is that. In this case, considering the spiritual inhabitation, require also a sample for analysis." He held up a weird little object that seemed to have a needle tip and a canister in the handle.

"Umm... okay, wow," Isabel said, really wishing that this was over. But Alex squeezed her hand, and that reminded her that she was doing this for them. "So... so you need to suck something out of me with that?" He nodded. "Not part of... of my soul, or Alex's, I hope."

"Not true spirit, no," he assured her. "That is nearly uncontainable. Blood fluid, and psychic energy, but they will show the state of spirit in tests, because of close association with your... your soul."

"Okay," Isabel said. "Where do you need to point it?"

"On... on torso, near to heart." Isabel raised an eye to him. "Not need to bare breasts, if that offends. Perhaps..." And he pointed on his own torso, a point below the shoulder and collarbone, just at the top of the rib cage. It would indeed be suitably far from delicate territory on herself.

But it was still covered up by the Antarian-style tunic that she had put on in the spare office of Council HQ that morning. After considering for just a moment, Isabel ran a finger down the front seam of the tunic, hoping that it wouldn't decide to unseal all the way, and it didn't. She tried to just pull one side away from her shoulder, wasn't satisfied with the amount of access that Moreoglore would have, and then pulled her left arm entirely out of the garment, then brought it back to her side to hold up the fabric. That wasn't perfectly decent, at least in that her bra would be showing from too much of an angle, but - heck, he WAS a doctor of a sort, and a different species, and probably life-bonded to a mate for all that she knew. And Ava was here - she wouldn't hesitate to act if things turned truly inappropriate.

The Vinta hardly seemed to notice the point of her fussing, but stepped close with the sample taker, waited to get her nod of permission, and put it up against her skin. There was a poking sensation, and Isabel gasped as she did feel something that wasn't either solid or liquid get absorbed from the nearby core of her body. It went on for a few seconds, and Isabel looked over to Alex for reassurance. To her surprise, she could hardly see him - most of him was invisible at any given moment, like some sort of squirming pattern was interupting the psychic resonance that let her see his spirit - in those serpentine patches, she could see through him to the far side of the office. "Stop it now!" she exclaimed. "Alex, Alex, are you okay?"

"Umm... I, I'm not sure," he admitted. "Feeling a little bit - er, not sure how to describe it." At least his voice was perfectly clear. "There's no pain, but I can't really think clearly, and..."

"Me almost done," Vinta M chirped pleasantly. Ava stepped up, responsive to Isabel's orders even if she wasn't sure of the details why. Isabel could see that she was trying to figure out how to force Moreoglore to withdraw the sampler, except that he did it on his own before he noticed her. Isabel didn't bother paying much attention to either of them, but stared at Alex, hoping that he would return to his normal appearance. He didn't, right away, but stabilized somewhat into a very pale translucence that was at least less distressing to look upon, and gave her a tired smile and a silent thumbs-up.

"You sure you're okay?" she asked. "I... I shouldn't have gone and let him..."

"No, it's alright," Alex said. "I think that even at worst... I could have gotten 'blipped out' bit by bit if it had gone on for a lot longer, but that's not the same as tearing me away from you. The energy that he was sampling... that's what lets you see me and hear me, let's me manifest outside your body and see things from my own point of view - but that's not what keeps me with you in the deepest possible way. He wasn't touching that - maybe he can't, or maybe he was smart enough not to."

"You - you are talking of haunting boy?" Vinta asked her. "Speaking to him?"

"Yes, she is," Ava insisted. "Did you know that what you were doing might affect her connection to him?"

"No, not in any way that them of either could tell," he insisted. "But I not have examined anyone with such a death link before."

Isabel grunted a bit at the words 'death link', but tried to shrug it off. "Is there anything that you can tell me before... before finishing your analysis?" she muttered, not knowing why she even wanted to ask but feeling like the effort had to be made.

"Erm... concerned I is, about the state base of your spirit," he muttered. "Between the origination of your life under unusual conditions laboratory, and - and your Alex... cannot yet a determine recommendation..."

"Okay," Ava said, reaching out for Isabel's hand and not realizing that she was already holding Alex with that one. After a moment Isabel got herself put back together and stood up, offering the other hand to Ava - just as Alex switched that way, in an attempt to be helpful, not realizing what SHE was trying to do.

*Cut that out!*

"Okay, okay," he muttered, chuckling. Finally they were in a row, with Isabel in the middle.

"We'll... we'll let Karia's office sort out the followup visit," Isabel told him. *And make sure that there's a better setup for translation.*

"Yeah," Ava agreed, and led the way out of the office, with the Vinta reduced to protesting in his own language entirely at this unexpected departure. Quickly they slipped through the reception room and out into the public corridor. "Whoops. And now we're alone without a guide in the middle of the alien city," she muttered.

"Didn't Claudia leave a bodyguard here for you or something?" Alex asked.

"I... I'm not sure," Isabel admitted. There had been guards to accompany them to the Vinta's office, but she and Ava had been hustled into an examination room alone so quickly that she couldn't be sure if any had been waiting outside. "You'd think that if anybody was 'on their guard', they'd have noticed us hurrying through and be heading out already to catch up with us." She looked back at the office door, not at all sure whether she wanted somebody to come through it to keep them out of trouble. But nobody took up the cue, at least not right away.

"Maybe we should - I don't know, go back into the waiting room and ask if anybody's with us?" Ava asked, and shook her head in frustration, dissatisfied with that. "Or call Karia's office right away? I mean, she said that this planet is a hotbed right now, and that we might be seen as outsiders. This isn't a good time to play out a Roman Holiday scenario, if there ever was one."

"Okay, we can make a public videophone our first priority," Isabel admitted. "Claudia pointed one out yesterday, either before or after the match, right?"

"What about money to pay for the call?" Alex asked.

"Guest ID bracelets," Isabel told him, holding up her wrist. It wasn't something that she'd have worn as a style choice, but... "They have emergency credit funds tied to them - probably not much, but a phone call should be fine. Maybe even taxi fare to the Council HQ building."

"I'm not sure that private taxis are going to be common in a place like this, Isabel," Ava pointed out. "Too elitist or something. Everything's so big with public transit."

"Excuse me?" one of the people who was walking in roughly the same direction said, turning to Isabel and Ava. Her pronunciation wasn't quite what Isabel was used to, but after the Vinta she could have sighed in relief to hear somebody else speaking so well, if she weren't immediately suspicious of the stranger. "Are you in some sort of difficulty?"

"Umm, a little bit, but it's hard to explain and nothing you need to worry yourself over," Isabel said. "Nice to meet you, though. My name is Isabel Evans."

"Taarna Sowelsin." This new person didn't seem to notice anything strange about Isabel's name, but then, apparently a lot of people had picked earth names, or been given them - like Claudia herself. She seemed to look nearly too exotic for Earth without quite being recognizably alien - perhaps a natural hybrid of some sort.

"Ava," Ava said shortly. She still hadn't taken on a last name. "So, what do you think about this stuff with the Liaretians landing?"

"Ehh... doesn't upset me much," Taarna admitted. "Actually, I sort of think that we should be doing more to help them, but not many people seem to feel the same... Oh, hello there?" All three of them turned to watch two larger figures jogging up to converge on Isabel's general location.

"Corporal Evennd, on Karia's service, Miss Evans," one of them reported. "Do you wish an escort back to headquarters?"

Isabel wasn't immediately sure that she did, but... "Yes, I suppose that would be best. Nice to meet you, Taarna."

"Thanks. Good luck... with whatever." Taarna made a big waving gesture from the elbow, (that seemed to require elbows jointed differently from human ones,) and disappeared from the scene again. Isabel caught Alex's invisible eyes, and he shrugged before turning around to keep up with their walk through the hallway.

-----------

"Is it *really* required to dress up so formally?" Isabel complained, looking into the mirrored force fields at herself.

"Don't you want to make a good impression on these people?" Claudia said, and something about that response actually reminded Isabel of her own mother. The thought brought a sharper pang of homesickness with it.

"Yeah... but I can make a good impression in jeans and a t-shirt," she argued back. "If Prince Vorjal and his entourage need a fancy dress to think well of me, then I'm not sure if they care."

"I think that what they'll think well of is the effort that we're putting in," Claudia remarked, looking for something on the dresser top without telling Isabel what it was first. "The time and care shows through no matter what, that's what I always tell Aarina."

"Not even sure why I bothered to bring a formal gown with me," Isabel muttered under her breath. She hadn't *wanted* to get sucked into a situation where she'd have to be dressed up all fancy on a foreign planet, or even necessarily to have it as an option. Maybe Maria had managed to play on her 'pack everything' tendencies to get her to throw it in. Maria might have even been more at home with a fancy dress ball on Ceeta than she would have been. But then, this wouldn't be a ball, and there probably wouldn't be dancer, just fancy outfits and dinner. (Possibly some other kind of 'light diversion' after dinner, Claudia said, but she hadn't ventured more of an opinion as to what that might be.)

"Well, if you *hadn't* had something appropriate that was authentic Earth fashions, perhaps we could have arranged an Antarian royal gown for you," Claudia said. "Like the ones in that photo Karia was able to show you this morning."

Isabel broke out in a sweat - almost literally. The picture that Claudia was referring to had been a very old image of Princess Alinda and Prince Sanren of the house of Liaret, taken at some royal function after they had wed, but before Sanren's father, King Granas the Second, had passed away and left the throne to Sanren. Isabel had been fascinated by this look at Zan and Vilandra's parents as they had been before they had children, but she certainly thought that the outfit Alinda had worn looked very hot and uncomfortable, and not particularly flattering to her own tastes. "Umm, then, well, I guess I *am* glad that I have this dress," she muttered.

"Okay... but I was joking really. We could have found you something that wasn't quite as, umm, as stiff as those."

But even the mention of how much worse it could have been had managed to get Isabel to see the 'little black dress' covering her in a new light. There were certainly worse things that she could have ended up wearing, even if the choices had to been taken from her wardrobe back home. And Alex suddenly appeared in the mirror, (though something seemed very shimmery about him when seen that way,) met her eyes, and smiled. She could tell that he liked the dress on her, (or her IN the dress,) and that made everything better than okay. "Alright, what else? You said that we were late, so what's the holdup?"

"I'd like to do a little something more with the hair," Claudia said, running a hand through her golden tresses fondly.

"No updos," Isabel insisted, smiling. "How about curls?" And she waved a hand about her hair, concentrating, and the locks developed from mostly-straight to high-volume, to gentle waves, and settled at the 'loose curls' stage.

"Wow," Claudia muttered. "Don't think I've ever seen anyone use 'the Power' quite like that before."

"Why not?" Isabel asked. "How many of the people on Ceeta have powers, anyway?"

"Um, that's a topic for another time," Claudia pointed out. "I won't forget, though. You look lovely, so it's time to show up for dinner." Isabel sighed, and got up. Almost she stumbled just because she'd been compensating for heels, which she usually wore with this dress to match. But she had NOT brought her usual black pumps, or any heels of the same color, and that kind of footwear was apparently not in fashion here. Someone on Karia's staff had managed to provide a great pair of flat black boots that Isabel liked enough to try bringing them back to Earth as a souvenir. It really was easy to make confident and determined strides in them too, once she remembered having them on.

The stately dining room was smaller than she had expected - about the size of dining room and living room at home, (sigh,) put together. The long table had been set for ten - all occupied, except for herself and Ava, Isabel supposed. Karia was at the head, and Claudia guided Isabel to the spot immediately to the right of her - probably a position of signal honor, with Ava further to *her* right. Opposite her, at the hostess' left, was a dignified Antarian with blue-black hair and silvery skin, neither very young nor very old - and the thin circlet of metal around his head, hardly adorned at all, made it plain to her that this must be Prince Vorjal.

"Sorry to be so late, and thank you for having me," she muttered, expecting Claudia to translate for her to the dinner guests. Instead, a little metal sculpture piece between her place setting and the empty one for Ava was apparently on duty - the kind of computerized in-person translator that she had wondered at not seeing before now. Well, maybe this was the first time that there had been a 'suitable occasion' for it in the Ceetan social protocols - a circumstance where she would need to be conversing in person with people who didn't understand her language, and where it would be awkward for some reason to have Claudia present for the whole time.

Karia simply nodded a ladylike acceptance of her statement, once it had been translated, but Vorjal rose to his feet, and four of the other guests did the same - presumably the 'entourage.' "Lady... Vilandra?" the translator said for him. "It is a great honor to be meeting my... long-lost aunt, in this way."

"I am honored to meet you as well, your highness," Isabel said, taking the hand that he'd offered her and making a half-bow. "But please - my name is Isabel Evans, and... and I think properly I should be your cousin instead of your aunt. I may be the flesh of Vilandra's flesh, begotten of her spirit in some way... but her life was not my life." Even though she'd talked about such things with Max and Michael before, getting ready for this kind of conversation, (and had already made such clarifications over the communicators,) the implications to her cloning plan hit her fresh. Was she pinning all of her hopes on a love affair with Alex's son, via cloning, and not a return of the young man who she had known and fallen for?

"Umm, very well I suppose," Vorjal said. Already Isabel was starting to grow very used to the translator, especially since it was using different voices for each speaker, better than Claudia could. "Since you have guessed mine own identity, might I make you known to Turik, my second-in-command..." this was a slightly older and hard-set Antarian man, "Krawsha, my dear mate, and Pradley, our son." Isabel nodded at these people too, a little too overwhelmed to consider them in detail yet as she wanted to. "And Raydeleen, the gehrvellkah of - of our beloved grandmother, Queen Alinda..." Raydeleen seemed to be only thirtysomething, a dynamic woman with red-orange hair and brown eyes - Isabel had to wonder if she were part human.

"And here is the last member of our group for this evening," Karia said, with a trace of a smile. "Ava of New York." Sure enough, Ava was being escorted in by another of Karia's 'helpers' that Isabel had seen around - one who knew a little bit of Ceetan english, but not the closer variant that Claudia had studied. Ava was dressed up in Ceetan clothes, a sort of a purple long dress that went up her torso to cleavage level, and attached just barely to long sleeves at the underarm area while leaving her shoulders entirely bare. The hem was tight enough that Ava had to take little ladylike steps, which probably wasn't her favorite thing, but from the twinkle in her blue eyes Isabel knew that she was still digging the threads at least a little.

"Yes, glad you could make it Ava," Isabel said. "we have Prince Vorjal and his family, sir Turik, and the incomparable Raydeleen," Isabel said, discreetly nodding in the various directions as appropriate."

"Also, two members of my loyal council, Xubuna and Evarran," Karia put in smoothly.

Ava took a moment to get used to the translator thing, and then waved hello and took her seat. (Carefully.) "So, Ava... if you're from New York City, does that mean that you weren't from the same... um, the same 'set' of hybrids as Isabel and her friends in Roswell?" Turik asked bluntly.

Ava blinked slightly, and quickly popped something into her mouth to cover her uncertainty about replying. "No, we only met Ava less than an earth year ago," Isabel said. "But she's quickly become a good friend."

"The New York dupes were traitors," someone said. Isabel had to look around to see who this was - it turned out to be the one Vorjal had identified as his son - Pradley. Vorjal made an emphatic gesture for his boy to shut up, probably, to quit embarassing him.

"No, I'm glad he brought that up if it was on his mind," Ava announced. "Two of my - my podmates, Lonnie and Rath, are indeed very treacherous. One of Kivar's closest deputies, going by the name of 'Nicholas Crawford' on Earth, was able to suborn their loyalties and turn their great desire to return home against what better natures they had. They slew..." And suddenly she started to choke up. "They slew Zan, the mate of my heart, because he was... was refusing to attend the leader's Summit..."

"And why was that?" Rayde put in. "I mean... surely it is no justification for them to turn against him, but why did Zan not want to attend? Was he afraid of facing the envoys of the worlds of his home sphere, or arrogant enough to think that he had no responsibility to attend?"

"I... I'm not sure," Ava muttered. "I would have asked him his reasons why, in private... at least I wanted to, but I never had the chance."

"Could you not sense his motives without words?" Vorjal put in.

Isabel was fed up with them hectoring at her. "Wait a second. Why were they going to Earth for representatives at the summit in any event? Vorjal, or Rayde... surely you would have been better representatives of the Liaretian cause." Vorjal's eyes narrowed, but the look in them was suddenly more respectful, and Rayde looked very pleased at her interruption. "Why go to speak with a few hybrids out on a distant world, even to the point of having the leaders of four of the worlds send their spirits to speak through human vessels... and letting Nicholas speak on Kivar's behalf?"

There was a moment's pause. "It was one of Kivar's political maneuvers, really," Princess Krawsha told them. "He insisted on having 'the true lost King' of the Liaretian line meet to parley, when Larek demanded that the Liaretians have representation in the Summit, as claimaints to the rulership of Antar. I suppose he felt that one born with human blood, on Earth, would inevitably alienate the other leaders." Isabel chuckled at yet another play on the word 'alienate', but then wondered if it was a pun in the Antarian language or just a coincidence of translation.

"Or... or make a worse blunder than that," Isabel said. "Nicholas offered Max safe passage home for four, and to work to end the fighting, if Max would take a post as puppet King and call on you to lay down your weapons."

"Right," Vorjal said. "And I am glad he did not make the deal. Our most determined of supporters would not have agreed to such a thing unless Kivar truly made the first move of peace, not that that's likely to happen... but it would have had a bad effect on recruitment, retention, morale, and public relations for our side in the war."

"And... and when Max turned down the deal and Nicholas used it as a pretext to adjourn the summit," Ava finished, "Rath and Lonnie acted on a secret deal they'd made and attempted to assasinate Max. It... it makes me proud to say that I had a hand in foiling that attack, along with Isabel - and Liz Parker, Max's betrothed mate."

Isabel groaned, wondering if Ava had really had to make such a big deal of Liz's status. As Vorjal and his followers, (with the notable exception of Rayde,) started to pepper them both with questions, Karia tapped a little bell next to her place setting.

"There will be time to talk of many such things, during and after the meal," she announced once things had quieted down slightly. "For now - we have been all neglecting the delicacies my chefs have labored to prepare, and it is I who shall have to face their little acts of wrath if we continue with such disrespect. Please." And she took the lead by popping a large treat about the size of a macdonald's chicken nugget into her mouth whole and delightedly chewing it. Isabel was more than happy to follow suit.

TO BE CONTINUED...