by
Lia Faile
Author's Note: The events in this story take place in and around the Eden Advance's Winter Camp and are sandwiched between the "After the Thaw" and "The Boy Who would be Terrian King" episodes.
"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world yet lose his soul?"
Mark 8:36
-/-
"Man is something to be surpassed."
Nietzsche
-/-
"Behold, this dreamer cometh."
Genesis 37:19
~*~
Excerpt of personal GEAR entry of Alonzo Solace, Eden Advance ship pilot:
Dreams. I never thought much about them. Mainly, I guess because I had forgotten how to dream. Now I seem to dream all the time. Perhaps my mind is trying to make up for those lost decades when I misplaced my dream button. Or perhaps it has something to do with this place and if I left, they would stop again. If that were to happen, I would miss my dreams...and the Terrians. At first, both terrified me and I tried to run away from them. But we can't run away from our dreams or our realities. Both are a part of who we are, who we were, who we will be.
I do not claim to understand this connection I have with the Terrians and their dream world. All I do know is that they are part of my dreams and my reality now. We do not seem to have anything much in common, but I've come to care for them deeply. I can't explain it. It's like trying to explain why you are in love with someone. You can make up a list of reasons but when you get right down to it, feelings can't always be rationalized. Sometimes they just are....Were always meant to be.
I have learned to dream again, but dreams often come with a high price. They are double edged swords that cut both ways. I read once where dreams were described as unfulfilled wishes that even the dreamer might not be aware he was longing for. So the old Earth saying, "be careful what you wish for, you might get it" might as well be, "be careful what you dream of, it might come true." Especially on this distant world. If dreams truly are unfulfilled wishes then we must be careful . . . Because our fondest dreams can become our nightmarish realities.
~*~
Something prodded Devon awake. Some innate mothering instinct that told her that her son needed her. Her eyes snapped open and her head rolled on her pillow towards her right where he slept, just a few feet from her. She watched a moment, just lying there holding her breath, listening. She could just see the top of Uly's head poking out from his sleeping bag. When the soft sounds of Uly's breathing reached her ears, she let out her own breath with a sigh. How many untold nights had she conducted this exact same ritual? Too fearful to sleep. As if she could ensure her child's life through sheer will. It didn't matter that Uly was healed now. Years of constant vigil and worry had left their mark.
Deciding she must have been reacting to an unremembered dream, she rolled over on her side to seek out a few more moments of peace before the demands of the camp and its inhabitants took over her day. A soft moan came from Uly's bed followed by a barely audible "Mom" but Devon heard it and bolted out of her cot. She knelt next to the boy's bed gazing at him, a look of loving concern on her face. Uly's face was flushed and coated in sweat. Even his hair was soaked creating a halo of damp golden curls. She pulled back his covers to make him more comfortable. Several more moans escaped her son's cherub mouth and his eyes remained closed yet she could clearly see them moving beneath their lids. Thinking he was merely caught in the clutches of a childish nightmare, she reached out and gently shook his shoulder.
"Uly." She whisper softly, "Wake up, honey."
"M-m-mom?" Came his plaintive cry as he tossed his head and grimaced in pain.
"Yes Uly, Mom's here. Wake up."
Finally his eyes opened. Pain clearly visible in their blue depths. "It hurts," he croaked softly.
"'It hurts?'" Devon repeated, suddenly tense as every alarm went off in her head. Uly hadn't so much as sneezed since the Terrians healed him. Even when the camp had been struck by a dysentery-like illness when the water purifier malfunctioned, Uly was the only one unaffected. Julia had postulated that Uly's Terrian altered DNA imparted to him a natural immunity to the various bacteria and viruses so alien to the human system.
"Where does it hurt Uly?" A worried Devon asked as she ran her hand lightly along the boy's feverish cheek then down across his chest until she reached his stomach. "Here?"
"No. My chest and sides." He whimpered.
Devon ran her hand more thoroughly over her son's torso. This time she felt something. "Ow! Mom, that hurts! That hurts!"
Quickly Devon snatched away her hand. "I'm sorry Uly." She soothed and gently stroked his cheek. "Let me take a look under your pjs." Carefully Devon inched Uly's top upwards exposing his belly and chest. She was totally unprepared for what she saw.
"Oh my God..."
~*~
Julia rolled over and her sleepy gaze was rewarded with a view of Alonzo's rear wriggling into his pants. "No better way to start the day," she murmured with a soft chuckle that slide into a yawn as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. He had heard and turned around to flash her a dazzling, canary devouring grin. "Ohhh...I can think of several…much better…ways," he purred back teasingly with a roguish waggle of dark brows.
The man was one of those annoying, perpetually chipper morning persons. She learned that when she stumbled into the flight control cabin of the Roanoke with the worst hangover of her life from the lengthy cryo-sleep and found him practically singing. She had never wanted to punch somebody so bad in her life at that moment. Although...it did have its pluses, she mused as he prowled up her body planting warm, lingering kisses along the way. The lazy morning love session was interrupted by a nearly animalistic scream that pierced the ears and hearts of everyone in the camp.
"JUUULEEEAAAA!!!"
The screaming of her name literally pulled her out from under Alonzo and off the cot. She had never heard Devon scream like that. Not even when she plummeted to her virtual death off the cliff in VR. It was a wounded, anguished sound that cut like a knife thru the chilly morning air. Her doctor's training and genetic conditioning kicked in instantly. Taking only enough time to hastily rebutton her oversized nightshirt and grab her diaglove, she was sprinting barefoot thru the biodome towards the Adair's room.
~*~
"Open new patient log."
Patient is Ulysses Adair. Male. Age nine. Former Syndrome child cured by alien means yet to be understood or replicated by human science. According to the patient's mother, the symptoms came on suddenly some time during the night. Symptoms include a persistent fever of 103 degrees; low white blood count; shallow respiration; disorientation and hallucinations consist with a high fever; general body aches accompanied by intermittent acute pains; and a pattern of welt -like skin growths on the patient's torso, arms and legs. Administered a pain block and sleep aid to alleviate discomfort, distress, and to try to break the fever.
Tests of tissue samples taken from these adhesions have proven frustratingly inconclusive. Neither fungal or cancerous, yet obviously skin cells gone awry. One notable finding is that the Terrian DNA is far more dominate in these cells than other, unaffected cell samples. Previously dormant alien organelle have become active within these tissue samples. My limited knowledge of Terrian physiology and biology places me at a loss at to whether these active organelle are in part or in whole the cause of the patient's condition or whether they are responding in conjunction with his human immune system to fight off whatever is causing his condition .
I haven't ruled out the possibility of the boy's Syndrome condition reasserting itself and that one or more opportunistic microorganisms have infected his system. Even though no recognizable bacteria or viruses have been detected. Seeing that less than 1% of this planet's flora and fauna has been cataloged or studied, I haven't ruled out alien microorganisms yet. The simply truth is, I haven't been able to rule out anything at all yet. The patient's hybrid genetic makeup only adds to my uncertainty and lack of direction on which way to proceed. I don't want to inadvertently do anything that will worsen his condition.
On that note, I have enlisted the assistance of Alonzo Solace. He has entered the trace state with which the Terrians use to communicate with him. Hopefully, they can shed some light or offer some aid with diagnosis and treatment.
"Suspend patient log."
Julia switched off her GEAR and pulled it off. Her gaze drifted to the cot that held the slumbering pilot. Tiredly, she pulled herself from the chair and went over to check him. These trances were another unknown. Deep down, Julia sensed they were something she never would understand and certainly never personally experience. She brushed his dark bangs off his face and watched his eyes flutter rapidly beneath their lids. A glance at her diaglove confirmed that he was deep in REM sleep and his vitals were low but consistent with his previous Terrian dream states as well as within normal. She left the diaglove on and curled up next to him with her gloved hand laying on his chest. It would sound an alarm if his condition varied too radically, and he would wake her when he came "back" from the mysterious no-place that was every place the Terrians called the Dream Plane.
~*~
Hellooooo...!
Alonzo's shout echoed back at him from all directions as he stiltedly walked across the temperatureless, featureless sands. The experience had been incredibly disorientating the first few times. Sort of how a space walk would feel after an evening of drinking. But with each trip, his mind adapted to the astral sensations and the absence of physical sensations. He hollered out again knowing that though his call appeared to be vocal, it was actually mental. His mind merely manifested its astral action physically in his dream.
Why weren't they answering? He could sense them near. He could even sense that they heard him. A few weeks ago, their lack of response would have thwarted him. Then he was dependent on them to come to him. But slowly, he had come to learn how to navigate thru the Dream Plane, once he grasped the concept that he was still essentially a pilot. Only now he carried his 'cockpit' around in his own mind. Alonzo willed himself thru the "sand" to the Dream Caverns. Something he couldn't do on the Material Plane but was quite adept at on the Dream Plane. He could sense the Terrians even more intensely here. They seemed...anxious. Did they sense Uly's distress?
We need your help...Our boy is ill. Our healer doesn't know how to help him. Please...
The anxiety Alonzo felt intensified. Did they know about Uly's illness but were as baffled as Julia? He wound his way thru the maze of tunnels undeterred. Normally he would respect their privacy and not intrude unless invited, but a boy's life was at stake. If they couldn't help, the least they could do was say so to his face.
-/-
It was nearly impossible to judge the passage of time within the timelessness of the Dream Plane. Yet Alonzo fuzzily sensed that he had been wandering thru the tunnels for some time. He also sensed with each bend and twist a definite downward slope. The Dream Plane and Dream Caverns never had a aspect of coolness or warmth before. But he was steadily feeling a gradual increase in temperate the further down into the Caverns he roamed. All these negligible differences were combining together and starting to cause the little hairs on his neck to snap to attention. For the first time, in a very long time, Alonzo was feeling nervous about being in the Dream Plane.
It was while he was mulling over these niggling feelings that the tunnel abruptly opened up into a large, cathedral sized cavern. The center of the cavern dropped away into a large pit. Heat and mists full of noxious fumes rose up from the pit and crept along the edges of the floor level Alonzo was on. A group of Terrians was standing along the edge crouched down, one hand flat on the ground, and heads bowed. Their attentions transfixed by something down below. Alonzo trended lightly and slowly towards them. Everything about this place screamed "holy," and he was well aware he was trespassing.
"Erm, excuse me..."
Every head whipped around and every mouth opened in unison. Alonzo took a step back under the onslaught of trills and mental images. His hands came up in an open palmed, beseeching gesture as he winced and tried to make sense of the cacophony going on in his mind.
"Wait, please, one at a time...Who? I don't understand...The boy? What about the boy?"
Alonzo made his way closer to the edge of the pit as he tried to comprehend what seemed like warnings to stay away. Not stay away from them, but from the pit.
No, no...I'll be careful...I won't fall.."
Alonzo glanced down and thru the eye stinging mists he could make out a small, human form standing statue still on a large boulder in the middle of a huge lava lake. All thought of appeasing and assuring the Terrians fled his mind at that sight.
"Uly?! Don't move!"
Whether the boy could hear him or not was uncertain but the caution came automatically. Just as the Terrians had been staring into the pit at him, Uly was staring into the bubbling, molten stew. Had he fallen? Was he in shock? How the hell did he get all the way out there, fly? Ignoring the Terrians and their chatter, he jumped over the edge and landed on the pumice bank about 3 meters below. The pilot's dark eyes frantically scanned the "beach" and the lava filled distance between them. This was a dream but the Dream Plane had a reality and a finality all its own. One could die on the Dream Plane. Alonzo had killed and nearly been killed on the Dream Plane. His eyes picked out a trail of smaller rocks meandering thru the lava and eventually leading out to the larger boulder. That solved the how of Uly's getting out out there. Provided the rocks held his weight and if he didn't slip, he might get an answer to why the boy was out there. Alonzo choked down his own fear and took the first leap out to the first rock. The way the boy stood there, dumbly staring, Alonzo was afraid he'd topple over or purposefully plunge into the percolating lava before he got there.
"Uly, don't move. I'm coming to get you."
Lady Luck still seemed fond of her boy, Lonz because he managed to reach the boulder without falling in. He grabbed a hold of Uly's shoulder and lightly squeezed it but go no response. Kneeling down, he forced the boy's chin and gaze up to meet his. The vacant, unseeing stare shook Alonzo badly for some unnamed reason.
"Hey Champ!" Alonzo forced a smile and a cheery tone. "Whatcha doin'?"
He didn't really expect an answer and so he almost yelped when the boy's monotone reply came.
"Waiting. They told me to come and wait here for them."
"Who? The Terrians? They're up there." He pointed to the distant edge of the pit where the Terrians stood watching and anxiously trilling amongst themselves.
"No...not them. The Pyradaens."
"The who?" A large burp of nearby lava flung gobbets of the hot muck onto the boulder. Alonzo decided the Q & A could wait for later.
"Uly...Uly, can you wake for me? Cause I'd really rather for the both of us to wake up instead of me trying to haul you back across this inferno."
The boy didn't answer and his mesmerized gaze had fallen back to the bubbling lava. Alonzo tried lightly patting the boy's cheek to no avail. Julia's sedation might be preventing the boy from waking on his own and it could explain his out of it behavior. He could wake up himself and then go to the boy's corporeal form and try to wake him on the Material Plane, but what if something happened to him here before he could reach him there? Deciding he couldn't risk that, Alonzo hefted the mannequin still boy and began the slow and nerve racking hop and wobble return.
Alonzo closed his eyes and offered up a silent thanks to Lady Luck for literally keeping his tail out of the fire. He sat Uly down against the wall of the pit. He'd be safe here while Alonzo returned to get Julia to revive him. He turned around and this time he did yell. Eyes of burning yellow fire glared out at him from an angular, obsidian face. For a brief moment, his mind flashed back to the evil Terrian he had so recently fought. But that Terrian was dead. Its energy dispersed forever. At least according to the Elder. These eyes were similar but markedly different. They burned not with the fires of rage and hate, but with the blind, unfeeling blast of a furnace fire or the molten glow of...sunstones.
Before Alonzo had any more time to speculate further or to act, a flipper like hand smashed him in the chest with the force of a mallet. His mind faintly registered that his shirt was burned thru. A searing pain in his chest and lungs quickly surged thru his body verifying that fact. The fire brand hand of burning black glass shot out again clamping onto his face and began lifting him off his feet. Over his mindless screams of agony he could hear his skin sizzling.
~*~
The insistent shrilling of the diaglove's alarm woke Julia a second before Alonzo's screams started. The startled doctor vainly tried restraining and dodging the flailing pilot's arms. "I NEED HELP! NOW!" She yelled out as he violently bucked and shuddered beneath her. Alerted by the man's screams, several people had already been making for her med chamber. "Hold him, hold him!" Julia barked out at Walman and Danziger. When they complied, she reached over and dumped the contents of her med kit out over her and Alonzo. She scooped up and wedged a tongue suppressor between his teeth and over his tongue. Pressing up on his chin to hold his mouth closed, she impatiently motioned for Bess to hold it like so. Her patient semi-secured, she pressed several buttons on the diaglove and scanned what flashed back at her on the tiny readout screen. The readings were fluctuating so wildly, she actually shook her arm thinking the diaglove was malfunctioning. Abruptly and simultaneously, the readings went flat and Alonzo's body fell still.
"He alright?"
Frantically her eyes swept back and forth across the readout. "Fibrillation? No, no!"
Julia shoved everyone off the motionless man and unstraddled him. "Defibrillation mode, standard joule setting. Now."
Alonzo's body folded up to a near sitting position as the electrical current raced thru it then flopped down lifelessly when the current cut off. She didn't need the readout to tell her there was no change. While the diaglove was cycling back up for another charge, Julia dove back into the scattered piles of medical supplies. "Hypo-spray!" She barked and three hands found and offered her a choice of three. Snatching up one, she popped a heart stimulant into it and yanked open his shirt.
"Holy! Did you do that?!"
"Not only there, look at his face!"
Julia was momentarily stunned at the large, hand print blistering up on his chest and finger shaped burns outlining his left cheek. She shook her head slowly then her training kicked in and reminded her she was on the clock. She injected him directly above the heart then gave him another cardio-jolt. She intently watched the readouts dance by for several moments. Finally she allowed herself to breath.
"He's stabilized."
"What the hell happened to him?"
"I don't know," a stunned and adrenaline drained Julia replied. "I should have stayed up and monitored him," she softly admonished herself. Mechanically she waved her gloved hand over his face and chest. "Third degree burns..." She started to treat those when Alonzo's hand weakly closed around her wrist.
"Uly," he croaked out. "Wake Uly...hurry."
~*~
A visibly shaken Julia sprinted into the Adair's room only to be confronted by a fearfully furious Devon cradling an unconscious and violently dreaming Uly. "What's going on? What's all the yelling about?" She demanded over the boy's shoulder as she struggled to hold him still in her arms.
"I'm not certain, but something went horribly wrong on the Dream Plane. Alonzo nearly died," Julia blinked away the sting of tears she felt forming in her eyes. "He insists Uly's in great danger there."
Devon watched the woman go from nearly unglued to stone cold in that eye blink. For once, the panicking older woman found herself envying Julia's skewing. She wished she could flip her emotions off and on that easily. "I haven't been able to wake him," Devon informed Julia as she laid the flailing boy down onto his cot. "He's...changed...more since this morning."
Julia moved in and did a quick scan to record his condition for later examination. Her eyes told her that Devon's remark was a vast understatement. The boy's healthy pink skin had been replaced with a decidedly Terrian cast and texture. His nose had a wrinkled, rotting fruit appearance. Only a few of his golden curls remained defiantly clinging to his head. The rest laid scattered over his pillow and the floor. Devon sank down onto the other cot to give the doctor room to work. A lock of Uly's hair clutched in her hand like a talisman.
"Help him...please."
The lost desperation in Devon's soft plea threatened to destabilize Julia's iron-willed calm. Again, the salty bite of tears burned her eyes and again, she managed to swallow them down. She now had the trust, the respect, and the chance to prove herself as a doctor she had longed for so many months ago. Now she found herself wishing those wishes away. The crushing weight of being expected to know the unknown, to cure the incurable, to explain the unexplainable was proving to be too much for her. These people expected too much. She was a doctor, not a faith healer. Why couldn't Devon have waited for Vasquez to shuttle over before launching? She had been lucky so far, and she knew it. When that luck ran out, what then? Would their bless yous turn to damn yous?
The stream of self recriminations and self pity flowed thru Julia's mind as she prepared a stimulant to counteract the sedative she had given the boy earlier. Hopefully it would break the hold of the Dream Plane. She pressed the hypo to his neck and was about to inject him when Uly's eyes shot open and rolled wildly about. The ground beneath the Dome began violently shaking. A garbled gibberish, half English, half Terrian spilled over his lips. "They're here! Di-liii-Di-liii!"
"CAMP ALERT!"
Julia pressed the trigger and silently prayed.
~*~
"CAMP ALERT!"
Baines had stood his post at watch when Alonzo then Julia started hollering loud enough to wake the dead. But when the dead showed up to complain about all the noise, he beat a hasty and loud retreat towards the Biodome. The trembling earth made running or walking difficult. He fell often. All around him the ground was cracking and separating. Jets of fire and fountains of lava shot out of the ground. Trees toppled and a few burst into flaming torches and cast the hellish scene in a dancing, eerie light.
Drawn out by Baines' shouts and the quaking ground, the others spilled out of the Dome bearing what weapons they had. Seeing the burning trees so near the vehicles, Danziger dove back inside to retrieve the fire extinguishers. All humans were born with an inherent fear of fire. Station dwellers were no exception. Next to a hull breach, a fire was their single worst fear. A very wide eyed True stood petrified in the doorway, clutching the jam with whitened knuckles.
Magus and Cameron were tossed extinguishers and dashed over to ward off the encroaching flames from the Transrover. Before rushing to join them in the defense of the vehicles being bombarded by flaming pine cones, Danziger handed one to Bess and told her to keep an eye on the Dome itself. Julia, Devon, Uly and Alonzo were still inside.
"Bess, you know how to use that thing?"
In answer to Morgan's nervous query, Bess let loose a short burst of gaseous, frozen CO2 onto a burning tarp. Bess eyed the spreading puddles of lava and noxious mists bubbling out of the ground. As an Earther and a miner's daughter, she knew about molten rock and deadly, sometimes combustibly so, gases. "Morgan honey, stay close me and don't breath any of that smoke." Morgan followed her example and pulled his shirt up over his mouth and nose.
Everyone was engrossed in the defense of the camp. It was True who saw the first creature emerging from a pool of crusting lava. Her piercing scream accompanied the eruption of two more. The fires reflected and danced off the shiny black obsidian of their bodies. Auras of steam formed around them as the cold of the night struck the heat of their bodies. The pure blackness of their forms were peppered here and there with streaks and clusters of quartz, a variety of precious and semi-precious stones in the rough, and what looked like gold. No two born the same patterns. Much shorter than the Terrians, they couldn't be much over a meter and a half. Their forms were odd and not uniformly proportioned. They looked like primitive, rough hewn statues come to life or nightmarish Picasso beings stepped out of a painting. Smoldering, inhuman eyes glowed out from the night visage of their faces like twin suns.
"What the hell are those?!" Morgan shrieked, giving voice to the question on everyone's terrorized mind.
"Pyradaens," Alonzo croaked behind him. "Swimmers of the Deep Earth." The injured dreamer staggered out of the Dome and grabbed the petrified man's shoulder for support.
"Wh-wh-what do they want?"
"Uly."
"That all?"
"Morgan!"
"What?! I just asked a question, Bess!"
"A terrible question."
"They're drawn by the Dream Link between themselves and Uly. We have to keep them distracted until Julia can wake him and break it."
Alonzo stood transfixed, staring at the beings he had so recently encountered on the Dream Plane. The nearest Pyradaen caught sight of Alonzo and charged. Walman fired at it but the bullet harmless ricocheted off its back. Bellowing like a bull, it didn't even acknowledge Walman's attack with a flinch or a stumble. Bess reacted instinctively with the only weapon available to her, the fire extinguisher. The cloud of CO2 enveloped its face. The Pyradaen bellowed in pain and sank into a pool of lava that opened to receive it beneath its feet. The remaining two's attention zeroed in on their brother's attacker.
They each made a wiping off like gesture down their chests and flicked their hands at the ground in unison. A knee high snarling fire sprouted from the ground before each of them. The flames raced parallel towards Bess like a pair of baying hounds. Morgan shoved her and together they ran out of the way, but the fires adjusted their trajectories. No matter which way they ran, the racing fires followed.
And gained.
"Bess, use the extinguisher!"
Alonzo's shouted advice steeled the young woman's resolved. She planted her feet against Morgan's urging tugs and turned to face her pursuers. The hounding fires dodged and feinted every shot she took at them.
"OhmyGod, Morgan! It can think!"
"Smart fire, Bess?! Whoever heard of smart fire?! I hate this planet!"
The fires split off and spun around the panicked pair. Trapping them in the slowly shrinking eye of a whirling tornado of fire. Their screams carried over to where Danziger, Magus and Cameron had all but won the battle for the vehicles. The trio jogged over and between the four extinguishers, the oxygen starved flames wilted into nothingness. The immediate crisis over, everyone turned to deal with the fire starters.
But they were gone.
If not for the smoldering ruins, puddles of cooling lava and lingering stench of sulfur in the air, one could write off the whole experience as a bad dream. But memory and evidence proved otherwise. The shell shocked group stumbled back into the Dome for what was sure to be a sleepless night for all. Danziger stopped when he reached Alonzo. The injured man stood swaying over and staring into a crusted over pool of lava. The mechanic laid a steadying and companionable hand on his shoulder.
"That who got you?"
"Yeah..."
"I think you better come inside and tell us all about it."
~*~
"I thought the Terrians were okay with us?"
"These aren't Terrians, Baines."
"Yeah, yeah...Swimmers of the Deep Earth. What a load. Big scary Pyromaniacs is more like it."
Devon sat there fingering the lock of Uly's lost hair. "They're behind what's happening with my son?"
Alonzo nodded. "They want to severe the bond the Terrians created between themselves and Uly. They feel it endangers the planet."
"They're afraid of a little boy so they're going to kill him?"
"Not kill, Devon. Change. They want to cut off the bridge so others can't cross. By activating Uly's dormant DNA, they plan on making him wholly Terrian. Not half Terrian, half Human. His identity and loyalty will be secured."
"Can we stop them? Undo what they've done?"
All eyes shifted to Julia and the weary woman stiffened. "I'm not even sure how the Terrians caused the cellular changes in him in the first place. It appears that the change accelerates when he's asleep. It's possible they use the Dream Plane in some way to do it."
"Can we stop Uly from dreaming?" Yale asked.
"There are drugs that I could synthesize. Similar to the family of drugs used in the Y.A.L.E. and Z.E.D. programs. But long term exposure has been documented to cause permanent brain damage and psychosis."
"Can the Terrian DNA be removed?"
Julia nodded thoughtfully. "I could try to filter it out or chemically dissolve it. That could arrest or reverse the Terrian mutation but then any benefits Uly enjoyed would be removed along with the alien DNA. He is nearly nine. I'm not sure how well his body or his mind would handle a resurrgence of the Syndrome."
"What about the Terrians? Don't they have a say in this? Couldn't they help?"
It was Alonzo's turn to field the eyes and questions. This time he shook his head. "I don't quite understand the connection between the Terrians and the Pyradaens. The Terrians on the Dream Plane acted submissive towards them. Either they can't or won't go against whatever the Pyradaens decree."
"So our choices are: madness, mutation, or death," Devon mumbled.
~*~
The next morning Julia carefully worked on Alonzo's burns. "These burns are very bad. With access to a full lab or hospital, I can minimize but not prevent scarring. Some nerve damage will be likely too."
Alonzo's gaze and hand slide to hers and quietly held them. "If won't bother me if it doesn't bother you."
"It doesn't."
He sighed and curved his arm around her waist and laid the uninjured side of his face against her. She set down her medical instruments and wrapped her arms around him. Their peaceful moment was interrupted by the appearance of Danziger.
"Devon and Uly in here?"
"No. I thought they were still in bed."
"Nope. I checked their room."
"Did you check..."
"I checked everywhere. They aren't here."
"We better form search parties."
~*~
"Anything?" Julia anxiously asked Danziger as he and Cameron stomped in.
"Nothing. But it started snowing almost as soon as we left. Any tracks we might have found were quickly covered. It's practically a white out out there. Nobody goes out again until morning."
"And if the Fire Bugs got them?"
Danziger skwered Baines with a look but before he answer, Bess gasped and pointed over his shoulder.
"Oh my God, Devon!"
The group turned en mass towards the door at Bess' outcry. Nearly as white as the caked snow slowly melting in her hair, Devon stood in the doorway like a sunken eyed ghost or walking corpse. Bess was the first to shake off the spell of the arresting sight of the returned woman and rushed to her. Bess lead the snow covered zombie to a chair. A blanket was hastily found and draped over her shivering shoulders. While the others gathered around her offering comfort and asking questions, Danziger exited the dome. In the faded twilight, he walked around examining the tracks in the snow and the darken edges of the forest clearing. He stomped back in and boomed over the chatter of voices.
"Where's Uly?"
The chattering stopped and all eyes danced from Danziger then to the silent Devon. John walked over to the seated woman and squatted down beside her and repeated his question more softly but no less intensely.
"Where's Uly?"
She sat there staring at the drips of water falling like tears from her hair into her upturned palms. Yale stopped Danziger's reaching hand with a shake of his head. The cyborg tutor crouched down in front of Devon and slipped his older and darker hands into hers. "Devon...Where is your son?"
Her voice came thin and whispery, as if she spoke to him across a great chasm, not less than a foot away. Her eyes remained downcast and distant. Looking at the drops of water now splashing on the backs of Yale's hands yet not really seeing them. Her attention seemed turned inward, on a vision only she could see.
"I was so upset when I learned I was pregnant. How could I have been so careless? A child would needlessly complicate my life. A lodestone around my neck at a time my career was finally taking off. I fretted over his impact the entire time of my pregnancy. Then, when I laid eyes on Uly for the very first time, I knew he was the most precious thing in my life. Nothing was more important than him. Not his father. Not my family name. Not my career. Not my fortune. Not even my own life. Then when he became ill..."
Her voice cracked and Yale's hands squeezed hers comfortingly. In the warmth of the Dome the snow melted rapidly. With her head still bowed, it was difficult to tell if watery trails sliding down her cheeks and nose were make solely of snow. Devon cleared her throat and returned Yale's squeeze. Her was voice was stronger, clearer this time.
"When he became ill, my first fear was it was because I hadn't wanted him at the beginning. That somehow my rejection of him had passed across the placenta along with my blood and nutrients. Or God was punishing me for seeing too late what a gift Uly truly was."
"Devon...there is no reason to go down that road again. It is in the past. Leave it there."
She continued as if she hadn't heard him. Her words grew faster and more urgent, like she was a sinner desperate to confess her sins before dying. Or a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. "You tried to reassure me that I was a good person and God didn't punish good people. Maybe not, I thought, but he does test them. Abraham was tested. Job was tested. Maybe I was being tested. Then I thought, how dare God test me? How dare he test anybody...especially when the tests involve their children. I was determined I was going to beat this test. No God, no Syndrome, no man, no government, no nothing was going to prevent me from saving my child. That's all I wanted to do...Save my child. Not watch him waste away and die like a neglected plant that never got watered...Not get involved in conspiracies, or aliens, or Z.E.D.s, or living planets. I just wanted my little boy to have a chance to grow up."
"Devon!" Yale pulled her to the edge of the chair and gave her a firm shake forcing her eyes up to his. "Where is Ulysses?!"
"With the Pyradaens..."
"Dammit! We warned them what would happen if they took him!"
Devon answered Danziger but her gaze never wavered away from Yale's. "They didn't take Uly. I took him to them." Devon's eyes widened and suddenly flooded with tears as the shock finally wore off and the finality of her act sank in.
"Oh God, Yale...I gave him away...I gave my baby boy away."
The only sound that could be heard in the otherwise tomb silent Dome, were the muffled sobs of a broken hearted mother being rocked like a child against the old black man's shoulder. The magnitude of Devon's sacrifice and its ramifications were not lost on any of them. More than a few gazes dropped guiltily to the floor. It was Danziger's gravelly grumble that broke the silence.
"What the hell were you thinking, Adair?"
Alonzo unfolded his arms and intently watched Danziger shove himself up and sling his magpro rifle over his shoulder. While the others were occupied with Devon, Alonzo followed the scowling mechanic outside. He laid a friendly but restraining hand on the bigger man's shoulder."
"Where you think you're going, Danziger?"
"Maybe your conscience can deal with a little kid being sacrificed for your safety, Solace, but mine can't." Danziger violently shrugged off the pilot's hand. "Nor do I trust your buddies to leave us in peace afterwards. Devon's lived up to every promise she's ever made to the locals, and this is how they repay her? Repay us? My only chance of getting of this dirt ball is that Com Dish and the Colony Ship. I'm not spending the rest of my life on a, on a...Reservation! Hell, how do we know they didn't get in her head and make her hand over Uly somehow?"
"What are you going to do? Shoot them? That magpro has as much effect as a pea shooter on them. You saw it. Walman's shot barely chipped it."
"We've got the geolock..."
"Which only has a one kilometer range. The Terrians called the Pyradaens the Swimmers of the Deep Earth, remember? They live down in the mantle close to the core. The geolock can't touch them."
Danziger kicked over a storage container in frustration. "What choice do we have, Solace?!"
"I can try again..."
"Taken a look in a mirror lately, Solace? They aren't exactly fond of you."
"Like you said, 'What choice do we have?'" Alonzo zipped up his leather jacket, flipped up it's collar and headed off for the woods.
"Hey! Where you going?"
"To see the Elder. Then the Pyradaens."
"Great. Just...great."
~*~
Ragamuffin met Alonzo a short distance from the Human/Terrian commune as if expecting him. Silently the boy escorted him into the caves. The tunnel maze was full of activity. Every face he saw was etched with worry.
"Captain Solace, welcome, welcome."
"Evening, Elder. And just Solace or Alonzo will do." The men clasped hands warmly. "Looks like you guys are fixing to go on a trip. Kind of late in the season for traveling, isn't it?"
"Yes, but considering the recent turn of events...it's for the best."
"It's the middle of winter. Where are you going to go? How are you going to survive?"
"We have no choice, my boy. The Pyradaens don't approve of Terrians and Humans cohabitating. These are our friends. Our family. They shared their home and their gifts with us. We have no wish to bring sorrow or danger to their door."
"No choice. There's a lot of that going around these days. Elder, who are these Pyradaens that the Terrians bow to their every command?"
"I've asked the Terrians that very same question," the Elder sighed.
"Did they give you an answer?"
"After a fashion." The Elder shrugged and smiled weakly as he settled down on a cushion by the fire. "You know how cryptic and ambiguous the Terrians can be." Alonzo nodded and joined the Elder. "Any guesses then?"
"A few."
"Lets hear them."
"Angels."
Alonzo barked out a laugh. "They didn't seem too angelic to me. Besides, isn't their home more hellish than heavenly?"
"By Human standards maybe. Traditionally we've looked up to find God and his servants. The Terrians worship this planet. The Pyradaens live close to its center. Close to the heart of the planet. Angels exist between God and Man. The Pyradaens exist between the Mother and Terrians. That would make them holy to the Terrians and would explain their submission to them."
"Avenging angels. Morgan would buy that. Any nonreligious theories?"
"If not angelic, then ancestors. The Terrian folklore tells of the day the First Terrian came into existence. It emerged out of ground and at first was terrified of all the open space. But it soon realized that so long as it have the Mother beneath its feet, it would be safe. The Terrians could have evolved from or shared a common ancestor with the Pyradaens. The Terrians became semi-surface dwellers, the more primitive Pyradaens remained deep earth dwellers."
"Monkeys that never came down from the trees."
"Precisely."
"Next theory?"
"Your pretty doctor favors scientific explanations. She's spoken of the old Gaea hypothesis and its relation to this planet and its indigenous life forms. If we think of this planet as a living system, the Terrians would be the repair cells that keep its epidermis, its crust, healthy. It would explain their almost compulsive drive to heal. They healed Uly. They reached out to you in your pain. They offered my people shelter and hope."
"How do the Pyradaens fit into this theory?"
"Antibodies. More specifically, killer T-cells. They seek and destroy anything they don't recognize as indigenous. We're nothing more than invading viruses, bacteria or parasites in their eyes."
"Why would it take them this long to react to a human presence?"
"It takes a human body 3 to 5 days to respond to a cold virus invasion. Some diseases have an even longer incubation period, weeks in some cases years. Or perhaps we hadn't multiplied to a noticeable or threatening level yet. Maybe it was Uly's successful healing and participation in Moon Cross that triggered their concern."
"I'm not sure if I like this theory. Leaves the possibility of the Pyradaens not being satisfied with just severing Human and Terrian relations."
"Why do you think we're leaving the Terrian den, my boy?" The Elder got to his feet and busied himself with packing. "Especially when they realize that you have mastered the ability of Dreaming without the aid of Terrians or their DNA. I will miss Dreaming. Of visiting with my grandchildren and my great grandchildren back on the Stations. Unlike you, I can't Dream without physically touching a Terrian."
"That's it," Alonzo snapped his fingers and stood up.
"What's it?"
"I have to convince them that Uly isn't a threat, but protection. Protection from others, many others that are on their way, that are capable of Dreaming just like me."
"That's dangerous. They nearly killed you once. Make threats like that and they will."
"Not threaten them. Make they see that Humans aren't harmful parasites, but beneficial symbionts."
"Yes, yes. But how to convince them of that?"
"By pledging myself to their cause. If they can believe that a being with no connection to them at all is willing to side with them, they have to accept that a hybrid like Uly would never betray them."
"Wait. Not a being with no connection. But an alien being with a connection. The Terrians speak of the interconnectiveness of all life on the planet. I think the Pyradaens share similar beliefs. If you could get them to expand that belief to include all life, even that beyond this planet, they would accept Humanity as a part of itself."
"How do I do that?"
The Elder walked Alonzo to an empty niche in the wall. An unoccupied Terrian bed. He touched Alonzo's chest. "You already feel a kinship with the Terrians here." His hand moved up and touched Alonzo's temple. "You have to feel it here too."
Alonzo stepped back into the bed. His eyes fluttered closed and he felt the incredible, intoxicating sensation he had felt the last time he had stood in a Terrian bed. The Elder's voice drifted distantly across his unconsciousness to him.
"Uly is the link between Humans and Terrians. You must become the link between Humans and the Pyradaens. You are their equal. That is why they fear you. Why they attacked you. You are a Dream Warrior...just like them."
~*~
Alonzo stood on the rocky shore of the great lava lake again. Neither Pyradaens or Uly were in sight. He crouched down, laid one hand flat on the ground and bowed his head.
I know you can hear me...I know you can sense my presence...Just as I can hear and sense you...Ask yourselves why and how...
I am one of you...One with you...
He felt something like a ripple run thru his mind. His eyes slowly opened. He couldn't break thru to them. Not here. He had to go deeper into the Dream Plane than he thought possible. To a level he never dreamed existed. He had conquered the evil Terrian by releasing his anger. To be victorious this time, he'd have to let go of his fear. That meant letting go of his life line back to his consciousness. He stepped to the edge of the molten lake.
I am one with you...
And dove in.
~*~
A gasping Alonzo awoke and stumbled blindly out of the Terrian bed. He collapsed to his knees. Only then did he become aware of his burden. He looked down at the sleeping, very human form of Ulysses Adair. The boy looked as if nothing had ever happened to him. Alonzo whooped for joy. He had done it!
"I did it..." he whispered.
"Yes my boy, you did." The Elder smiled at him and patted his smooth, unmarred face. "You did it."
The End