Authors note: Yeah, so it's Lily-Lee again, hogging the spotlight. If you don't know Lily-Lee, you can picture her as an Australopithecus with a good brain and a four-nostriled sense of chemical analysis. If you need more details, check out "The four-nostriled creature" (M-rated). Art by KalleJ.

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Chapter 1 - Phone Home

Uhura was working the early shift on the bridge when a signal reached the ship. She answered at once. Not much else was happening right now.

"This is the Enterprise, come in please." The signal wavered a bit but there were voices in it. Was it a distress call?

"What is it?" Sulu looked up from the helm.

"I'm putting it on the screen now. I'll have the origin position in a few seconds." The screen flickered and suddenly showed a clear image. A hairy, dark-and-white-striped face sitting very close to the camera and many others around it, trying to push closer.

"Hello? Is this thing working? How do I . . . quit pushing!"

"Sulu, will you go and fetch Lily-Lee? She's got a call from home."

Gossip spreads quickly on a ship. Before Sulu had gotten Lily-Lee out of bed and up on the bridge, many others had also come to watch. Kirk still had his breakfast coffee mug with him. The screen now showed two dozen small women huddling close together. There were children running about and one large male far away in the background, patrolling up and down.

"Lililelola, is that you? Wearing clothes, that is so new!"

"Aunt Sosusossosi, I'm so glad to hear from you. Why didn't you use the machine before now? We thought it stopped working."

"Well, we migrated, and nobody was going to carry that thing, it's heavy. But we have good news for you, you're a grandmother!"

"Oh no, a premature? Emomoma is not due yet. No wait, I can see her over there with her sister and she's still got the belly on her."

"Much bigger news. Like I said, we migrated, right? And we went northeast this time, pretty far, and we came across this other flock that was migrating southeast, so we sat down for a chat and they had come pretty far too, and on the way they had passed that big, rich territory you've heard about, the one with the creek going from the lake to the sea? With the Kika bird colony? They wanted to see if it was free because obviously, right? But it wasn't, and you can never guess what!"

"What?"

"Your oldest son has it! He's gotten his own territory and it's a big one, and he got his first brood out, and the oldest is already half a year and the youngest was just newborn when the others passed, and there are probably one or two more coming. How about that for news, huh?"

"I can't believe it . . . how many were there?" Lily-Lee was stunned.

"Ten! By eight mothers."

"I can't believe it . . . I think I'm going to cry . . . my little boy is all grown up." Tears started welling up in her eyes and ran down her cheeks.

"We just HAD to come back and tell you, well not straight away obviously, it's a long walk and we actually don't want to stay in this territory even though it has the machine in it, and we're going to have to tell the poor guy that we're leaving again right away and he's going to get the worst case of blue balls anybody has ever SEEN!"

A loud yell from the male in the background made everyone on the screen look over their shoulders.

"Eater alarm. See you someday!" The crew on the Enterprise could see the crowd dispersing in all directions, picking up children and infants as they ran. For a while the screen showed a grassy field only, and they heard a growl. The tip of a tail passed in front of the camera, and Lily-Lee shuddered. A paw, a crash, and a black screen.

"No more signal. Sorry." Uhura looked at Lily-Lee with concern. "Are they going to be all right?"

"Oh, sure. It wouldn't swipe at the camera like that if the flock wasn't already far away. My boy... with his first brood. He was my first to survive to adult, and I've not heard from him since he went away. I'm so happy I don't know what to do!" Her whole face was wet with tears and McCoy handed her a tissue. When the wet tissue crumbled in her face hairs he produced an old-fashioned handkerchief from a pocket.

"Well, I know what you should do. You should celebrate!"

"Yes . . . yes, I suppose so . . . here's your handkerchief back. But how?"

"In my experience, any human celebration will involve consuming unhealthy amounts of ethanol."

"Damn straight, Spock. So how about we throw a party for the first grandchildren of the Enterprise?"