Keri frowned as she approached the barracks building, following her mate's 'trail'. It was still very early in the morning and there was already a heated discussion going on in Anja's room, and of course Mark was in the middle of it. She didn't have to 'feel' what was going on, oh no. She could hear Mark shouting, even with the windows closed and the air conditioning running to combat the heat of a Fresno summer that refused to give way to autumn. She sighed and made her way through the building, readying herself to play mediator. It seemed especially ironic since that was what Mark had been trained to do almost since infancy.

"No, Anja, you cannot do this. I won't allow it, and that is final!" Mark shouted as Keri opened the door and surveyed the somewhat crowded room.

"We don't have much choice," Anja told him. Her voice was calm, a dead calm with no inflections and little accent, which should have warned Mark of just how angry the courier was. "It best way to get me back to council and we get Peterson family back at same time. Everybody wins…except council."

"She's right, Mark," Jeff said from the corner of the room. "Lewis? She's yours to protect, what do you think?"

"Since she's determined to be unreasonable about this, and put herself at risk for a stranger, I have to agree with that assessment," Lewis responded as he walked to the door and drew Keri into the room. He led her over to Anja's bed and waited for her to give Anja a hug before he continued. "The council has not bothered to contact Peterson about his family, that means they are confident they will be able to control him…use him against us. They are letting his fear for his wife and son build, assuming that he will be so grateful to find that they are alive and well, his resistance to the idea of spying for the enemy will be minimal." Lewis reached out and absently caressed her neck as she settled on the edge of the mattress. "At least, that would be my initial assumption if I did not suspect that he knew who had taken them."

"And Lewis would know," Tom said quietly. Keri looked up in shock. She hadn't even noticed his presence. It was probably because she hadn't expected him to leave his suite…and his bond mate so soon. "He is the expert…on terror, the council, and on Damien."

"Um, what are we discussing here?" she decided to ask.

"You are not discussing anything," Mark said, sounding annoyed. "This is faction business. The only reason Lewis has been permitted to voice an opinion is due to his status as the head of Anja's family."

"Excuse me?" Keri began.

"Keridwen is Anja's sib," Lewis snapped. "She has as much, if not more of a right to be involved in this discussion than you. She also supports your faction. It is due to her influence that you still have the use of this facility. I suggest that you show her the proper respect."

Mark's face was unreadable, but Keri could feel sullen resentment crawling through his aura. "I stand corrected," he said, turning to her. "We are discussing allowing Ray and Walter to tell the council that Anja is their prisoner, and to offer to exchange her for Peterson's wife and son."

Oh, shit. Keri's mind raced as she considered the situation and the possible outcomes. "Damien thinks she's still carrying his offspring, and from how proud of the fact Anja felt him to be he might well be willing to give up his advantage to ensure her safety." She frowned and looked at her sib. "But what worries me, is how he might react once he does have you back and finds out you're no longer pregnant."

Anja rolled her eyes. "He will be pissed. If he thinks sapiens made me lose babies, he will take revenge. Not a good thing."

"Okay…okay…um. How were you planning on being captured? I mean, what are you going to say happened that enabled them to take you?"

"I told you, another bike accident. Taken to hospital unconscious, they did scans, found the uteri and called in government."

"Hmm, they'd do x-rays first. And you'd have probably come to before they did anything more thorough. I mean, you'd have to have evidence of a serious head injury to account for you being out long enough for them to do a full body scan of any sort, and the ER staff wouldn't have any reason to think an ultrasound was necessary."

"Scheisse, I think of something else then," she shrugged. "Got to be something."

Lewis frowned thoughtfully. "They'd also be suspicious of another bike accident so soon after the last. You've run around for years on the things without any problems. Hell, you rode one a good hundred miles with a bayonet in your hip and suddenly you can't control it? I don't think so." He shot Anja a conspiratorial look. "Besides, if you had another accident on the bike, Damien would ban you from riding it. I'm certain you'd find that unacceptable."

"Damn straight. Okay, no bike accident."

Tom dropped into a crouch. "But still an accident," he said slowly. "We can't allow them to think that Walter or Ray had anything to do with your loss of Damien's offspring. And if you suffered a spontaneous miscarriage, they would insist on a complete examination to determine why."

"Which they might do anyway, and their reaction to the results would be fatal for Anja. That is why it's too dangerous," Mark insisted.

"Everything we do is dangerous," Anja told him. "Don't be a wuss."

Keri clapped a hand over her mouth to hold back a giggle. Her sib was really pissed with Mark, and probably not just about this. She forced her amusement back under control and ran a few more ideas through her head. "Okay," she finally said, breaking the silence. "What if Anja had some other type of accident? Let's say she was spending the night at a motel and was on the top floor. She'd thought she was alone on the floor but as she was about to go down the stairs some kids ran down the hall behind her. That startled her into thinking she was being attacked, and when she spun around to counter it – which is when she saw it was just kids, her left leg and hip couldn't take the strain and she fell down the stairs, ending up unconscious at the bottom. An ambulance was called, and she was taken to the hospital where they discovered she was bleeding vaginally because the impact had triggered the miscarriage. This prompted them to do an ultrasound and they discovered the multiple uteri. Realizing she was a member of the new species, the hospital staff called in the government. The government took her into custody and because the inter-agency investigation of Dani's activities is still ongoing, they eventually turned her over to Dr. Attwood," she concluded triumphantly.

The others looked thoughtful. "Not bad, cherished. Not bad at all," Lewis finally commented. "And we can probably persuade the investigation team to make an official record of this…occurrence so that the council's operatives within the various agencies will be able to confirm the veracity of the story."

Mark was nodding, apparently in agreement, surprise, surprise. "And I can have our contact in the CHP call Lynch. She can tell him that it occurred to her to check the records for ambulance calls that were not a result of a vehicular accident and that she discovered that a young woman meeting the description he gave her was picked up and transported to a hospital…we'll need to decide which one."

"Do we have any for which we can falsify the records?" Jeff asked.

"Not necessary." Tom looked up at each of his cousins in turn. "If the government took custody of her, they would expunge the records. Lynch would know that…uh, we are talking about Randall, or is it another one of his clones?"

"According to the report I received he was taking fairly thorough precautions to conceal his identity," Mark said. "I believe we're actually dealing with Randall this time."

"Okay, given his training in the chameleon program, he would definitely expect that. The fact that an ambulance record existed on the dispatch file, but not with any ambulance services and that no hospital has record of admitting Anja would tell him that the government had stepped in."

"Once he informs Damien, that should immediately trigger an order for Randall to contact Peterson or Attwood," Lewis agreed. "We'd be forcing their hand, making them act much sooner than they had intended. While they'll be off balance, you must take care not to expect them to make mistakes. Damien will make a hasty decision based on his own wants and needs, but he will still be vigilant for an opportunity to turn it to his advantage."

"What about the surgery?" Mark asked. "Damien still might insist on an examination and Anja would still…"

"No. I tell him the government found the damage to my uteri too great to fix, only one still intact, so they did surgery like this instead of just removing everything because I insist I need to be able to bear or he would not want me back."

"Sounds good. That would make him somewhat indebted to Walter," Tom mused.

"I've got a question. Since we figure that they won't be looking for Mr. Peterson any time soon, and the government would likely hold on to Anja until he was approached, can we wait to have Mark's CHP contact call Lynch until like Sunday at the earliest?"

"Why the delay, my own?"

Keri smacked Lewis on the arm. "Because, she's my maid of honor. I need her here for our wedding on Saturday and she can't be here and be in the middle of being traded for the Petersons at the same time."

Anja laughed and smacked Lewis' other arm, eliciting a glare from him. "Ja, get your priorities straight!"

... ...

Caryn looked up from the pile of glass she'd just finished sweeping up as she heard the door creak open. The maintenance staff had replaced it on its hinges just before lunchtime as a temporary measure, but it would have to be replaced. The door from the stairwell to the garage was in similar shape. Sloan entered cautiously then stared around the room.

"My God, what happened? Who trashed the place?"

"Keri. She got a bit angry with Carla."

"Oh, Tom got an update from Lewis this morning. The surgery turned out fine, he said." Sloan gingerly picked her way through the scattered equipment. "Wow, when Keri has a tantrum, she doesn't do it halfway. What did she do, go though the place with a baseball bat?"

"Ah, no. From what I understand, the only things she physically touched were the doors…and she only touched them."

Sloan took another long look around the room. "Then how…I don't…oh my Go... Did she do it on purpose, I mean, can she control it or is it purely reactive?"

Caryn shook her head. Less than five hours out of what Jeff had described as a 'mating seclusion' and Sloan was back to being the scientist already. "Not sure, though she seemed pretty embarrassed about it at dinner last night. So that probably means it's reactive. I heard Lewis muttering something about poltergeists to Jeff…they both thought it was pretty funny. And Keri was not amused. Should have seen Lewis do an about face. He must have felt how upset she was about the teasing; she hadn't so much as given him a dirty look."

"Yes, he would feel it. Tom would know immediately if I became upset with him and visa versa. It's kind of neat, well, so far, anyway."

The glass was now all on the dustpan. Caryn lifted it and dumped the contents into the trash. "Mark will have a cleaning and repair crew in here tonight, but I thought I'd go through everything and see what needs to be replaced, and I wasn't about to walk around in here just waiting for a piece of glass to go through my shoe. I know we lost most of our blood samples. Ed left them out again. Any chance we can get him to remember to put things away?"

"Ed? Put things away? Don't make me laugh." Sloan smiled as she retrieved the test tube rack from the floor. "I tried to pick up after him back at the university, but he'd stay at the lab so late there would always be a few things out when I came in the next morning. Ann never minded, she always said that small allowances could be made to encourage genius. But it gave Walter fits." She frowned thoughtfully. "I swear Ed's never slept a full night the whole time I've known him…well, except when he's sick or hurt. It's not normal and it shouldn't be good for him, but he seems to do okay."

Caryn froze for a second. Sloan didn't know. Oh boy. "Uh, Sloan? Sit down for a minute, all right?"

"Actually, I'd rather stand. Sitting is a bit, well…" she trailed off, blushing.

"Oh. Oh mah." Caryn felt the heat rise in her own cheeks. "Well…maybe you should sit down anyway, just for a little bit."

Sighing, Sloan pulled out a bench and gingerly sat. "Okay, what's wrong?"

"Wrong? Well, I don't know that it's wrong, so to speak." Sloan frowned at her. "Okay. Do you remember the latest DNA mapping we did; the one that carried the differential out to a second decimal place?"

"Sure, there were three sapiens samples that weren't strictly 1.1 percent from base primate. Walter, Ed, and, of course, Keri…okay, two sapiens samples and the sample from one, uh, partially adapted." Her nose wrinkled in distaste. "We've got to find some scientific way to describe that, partially adapted just sounds odd, not to mention it's awkward."

"I know what you mean. Okay, Ed's sample tested out at 1.17, pretty close to Keri's 1.19 percent. I also compared the EEG results. Keri's showed activity in the high range even for dominants. Ed's wasn't nearly as high. Even though it exceeded the sapiens norm, it wasn't by much more than Walter's."

"Well, yes, but Keri had the spontaneous mutation. She's got half of the abilities of the dominants."

"Right, the half caused by the nervous system adaptations. But Ed's DNA differential is almost as high as hers…and his scan, well, there's no comparison."

Sloan was starting to look concerned. "That's…odd. Ed must have something going on that doesn't really affect the nervous system."

Caryn rolled her eyes as Sloan stared intently at the floor. "He's quite an athlete," she hinted. "I hear he went through his undergrad years on a full athletic scholarship, including books, dorm, and food expenses. And that he won a grant that's given to outstanding academic athletes that paid for most of grad school for his genetics degree."

"Sure. He played basketball, ran track, and played baseball, all with a 4.0 average. Even got drafted by the Oakland A's at one point as a center fielder, but he'd been accepted to med school on a full academic scholarship so he turned them down." Sloan chuckled at the memory. "I lived in the East Bay for years, so nearly fell over when he did that…I mean, I was standing right beside him and I literally nearly fell over. But he really wanted to go to med school and they wouldn't defer the scholarship. There's no guarantee that he would have made enough in baseball to pay for it later himself. He might have washed out at some point. But still…"

"I get the picture. It would have to have been football where I grew up, but yeah, everyone would have thought he was loco." Caryn smiled, Sloan was still missing the point. "Sloan, how many near geniuses do you know that are also star athletes, or have the abilities of one? Let's not count any of the dominants."

"Hmm, just Ed." She stared at the floor, her brow wrinkled in thought. "Oh my God! Maybe the other abilities can show up spontaneously, too!"

"Bingo. It was confirmed while you were, uh, otherwise occupied. Ed is partially adapted, but has the opposite of Keri's adaptation. Theoretically, and I say theoretically because Lewis would kill Ed if Ed so much as touched his mate, were Ed and Keri to have children together, those children would be homo sapiens-dominant even though neither of them are."

Sloan stared at her, obviously shocked. "Well…damn."

... ...

Once the others had filed out of the room, he closed the door. Lewis waited until he could feel the last of them exit the building before turning on the two women. "You will never strike me, not even playfully, in front of witnesses again," he ordered.

Keridwen's jaw dropped and Anja stared at him, wide-eyed. "Lewis, what…" his mate began.

"It is a sign of disrespect."

"Oh, come on. Everyone knows that we respect you. God, love, we both trust you with not just our own life, but with each other's."

He glowered at her and Anja. Keridwen was becoming quite pissed. Her sib was also angry, but was more cautious about displaying it. "I know that you intended no disrespect, were it otherwise, I would not have hesitated to correct you immediately."

"Correct me? Damn it, Lewis, what am I, a disobedient puppy? Give me a break."

"You need to understand, cherished…"

"Oh, so I go from needing correction to being cherished in less than thirty seconds. Make up your mind," she said crossly.

Anja was scooting back on the bed; she obviously had no illusions that her status as his mate's sib would protect her if he turned his growing anger on her. Very wise. Now, how to get Keridwen's focus off of her annoyance and back on the problem at hand? Ah. He grabbed her by the arms and kissed her fiercely; by the time he pulled away she was breathless. What was that sound? Lewis looked over his shoulder at Anja. The courier had…giggled. He blinked in surprise, recovered, and then turned back to his mate. "My own, your display of what would be disrespect from anyone else was tolerable, but barely. The problem is that your action encouraged similar familiarity from your sib."

"But…we're bond mates so she's your sib too."

"Legally, yes. But in the eyes of the others I am allowing behavior that crosses the line. Should they be present as I choose to indulge your sib, or you, with such behavior it will build the illusion that I'm one of them…"

"Illusion? You specifically said that the council would try to use Ray against us."

He stared at her, wondering what he'd done to deserve a mate with almost total recall of auditory input, coupled with the tendency to interpret that input the way she wanted it. "Keridwen, as long as the coexistence faction is under my roof, we, meaning you, me, and Anja, are vulnerable to any action the council takes against them. The council is our common enemy. Now, would you allow me to finish?"

She sighed and held her arms up to him, silently asking for a hug. He folded his arms across his chest and waited. "Ohhh, Lewis!" she said, letting her arms drop. "Please stop being angry with me, I really don't see what the problem is."

"I see it," Anja said from behind them.

Lewis turned to face her, and tugged his mate in front of him. "Explain it to your sib, then," he told her.

"Keri, it's not you. It's me. I am one of them. If they see Lewis allowing me to treat him as friend, they will subconsciously get comfortable around him. Not a good thing."

"Why in hell not?"

"Because, my own, I am a leader. There will be times when they will need to obey without question…and if they're too comfortable they will try to second-guess me. That could be fatal under the wrong circumstances."

"It's not that way with Mark."

"No, it's not. Mark is not an autocratic type of leader. He's more the figurehead and tiebreaker and he delegates final authority to those who are best qualified to hold it. That is why Alexa is now head of their military operations, with Karl reporting to her for their site security. It's a valid leadership style, but I, on the other hand, do not delegate final authority for anything."

She looked up at him, her curved lips pursed petulantly. "Okay, so Anja can't do it because they'll think it's allowed for anyone and I can't do it because what I do encourages Anja."

"Exactly."

Her sigh was so deep it was almost theatrical. "I'll do my best to remember. I'm going to be miserable though; do you realize that? I'm going to have to think about every little thing I do in public. That's one of the reasons I left my grandfather's home in the first place, I hated not being able to just be myself."

"I'm sorry, my own."

"You're always sorry. Why is it that I'm always the one who has to change?"

Lewis smiled and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Ah, but I have changed, Keridwen," he murmured, nuzzling the tender skin behind her right ear. "I love you and have publicly admitted it. My…affection for Anja is also known. That's quite a dramatic change for me. Ask Tom. Before I met you no one was permitted to know how I felt about anything, well, other than anger, pride, or satisfaction."

She sighed again and looked back at him with sad eyes. "I know. But I haven't censored myself in nearly fifteen years; I don't know if I can do it."

"Of course you can," he told her, turning her in his embrace and softly kissing her lips. "You are an exceptional female, remember?"

The teasing had the expected effect. Keridwen smiled up at him and stretched up on her toes to return his kiss. "I remember," she said. "I love you."

He held her tight against his chest, closed his eyes and rested his chin on her head. "And I love you, my own," he whispered.

"Awww, how cute." Lewis' eyes snapped open and he glared at Anja. She returned his stare, dissolving into giggles…again.

"You've been around Keridwen too much," he accused, shaking his head.

"Could be worse," Anja retorted, her cheeks slightly pink. "Keri could be like me and call Dr. Parker the bim…"

"Enough," he scolded, then sighed. "She already has, fortunately not to the woman's face." His mate buried her face in his neck; he could feel her acute embarrassment.

Anja stared at them and then fell back against her pillows, laughing helplessly. "All right, Keri," she finally choked out.

... ...

"Hey, Alexa…wait up!" Ed called out as he trotted out of the house.

The chameleon paused, checked her watch and then turned to wait. "What is it?" she asked, her voice betraying a touch of impatience.

"I haven't seen you since…well…"

"Early yesterday morning. Yes, I know."

"Right," he said as he reached her. Ed stood awkwardly, his hands in the pockets of his khaki colored slacks. Now that he was with her, he had no idea what to say.

"I apologize for missing our run, I had duties that interfered."

He'd been wondering about that. His morning ritual had felt very…empty without her. At least she was still calling it 'our' run. "Oh, well. That's okay. I know you've got things to do." He stared at the ground.

"Is that all?"

Is that…? Ed looked up. She must have felt his hurt and dismay, or maybe she just read it in his face, because her expression softened and she reached out and rubbed his upper arm. "I'm sorry," he said. "Am I expecting too much?"

Alexa sighed. "No. Not really." She took a half step closer. "Ed, I'm just not used to this, to caring about someone or having them seek my company. Will you be patient with me?"

Her brilliant blue eyes met his beseechingly. "Yeah, sure, if you'll be patient with me when I look for attention. You know, Sloan says that my folks stuck me in pre-school too young. Claims it made me attention deprived." His heart raced at her sudden smile.

"I see. I have my work cut out for me, then," she said, taking the one last step that brought her to within a hairsbreadth of touching him. "Do you…"

He decided to take her proximity as an invitation. His hands slipped around her waist, and his lips descended towards hers. He hesitated just above them, unwilling to take something she wasn't fully willing to give. His consideration was rewarded. She moved the extra half inch into his kiss, and moaned when he gathered her close to deepen it. The kiss ended when he found himself gasping for breath. "Sorry…forgot to breathe, there." She smiled again; the sight made his heartbeat falter. "You don't smile enough," he complained. "And…I really missed you this morning. Running alone just isn't the same any more."

"Tate, running is for the purpose of exercise. Whether one does it alone or…"

It was obvious from her expression that she was teasing him. He kissed her again, slowly, gently. "Do you think you'll have any time to spend with me today?" he asked huskily.

"I'll see what I can do. There's several planning and tactical sessions scheduled, and I'm assisting Karl with training. He's reviewed the performance of his soldiers and feels some of them qualify to learn advanced combat techniques."

"Chameleon stuff?"

"Yes, chameleon stuff. Training that Lewis used to give to the council's elite soldiers, like Karl."

"Well, if Karl had it, why can't he teach it," he grumped. Uh oh, she was frowning now.

"He's not qualified to teach it. Of those on site, only Lewis, Tom, and I are qualified."

"Damn. And Tom's busy with his new bond mate, there's no way in hell Mark would let Lewis train faction soldiers, he'd be scared crapless that Lewis would program them or something, so that leaves you."

"I don't know; I believe that Mark could trust Lewis to train faction soldiers. Training them successfully would be a matter of pride for my sire. The problem would be convincing Lewis to actively aid the faction. He's been very careful to avoid doing anything that would not be to his direct advantage."

Ed snorted. "Well, Keri's blown that one out of the water for him."

"What do you mean?"

"Uh, never mind."

"Ed…this could be a problem, you need to tell me."

He frowned. Was Keri's involvement with the lab equipment a confidence? He shook his head. "Alexa, I really can't say, hey!" he yelped as she twisted his arm behind him. He could feel her breath warm on his ear and her body pressing into his back. "You know, this could be kind of hot under the right circumstances," he murmured.

The pressure on his arm eased and he let her turn him back around. "Ed, this is serious. Lewis is trying to strike a very careful balance, and if anything tips that balance without his knowledge, he'll be…hmm, enraged doesn't begin to cover it." She glanced up at the main house. "We don't need that kind of trouble now."

Ed shrugged. "Well, it's his bond mate that's doing it."

Alexa took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He couldn't bury the thought that it was an impressive sight. "What has she done Ed…and look up at my face, if you don't mind?"

Damn. Busted again. A lopsided grin emerged as he thought about that the dual meaning of that term. "I'm sorry. You're just so…ah, never mind. Let's just say I appreciate every inch of you." She was still staring at him with a severe frown. He sighed. "Look, Keri found out that the lab was really under-equipped, so she offered to buy what we needed. And we needed a lot. She's getting us an MRI and a transmission electron microscope, among other things. That's why she got Lewis to agree to renovate the storage building to hold a new lab; the stuff wouldn't fit in the old one."

"An MRI? How in creation is she paying for that? Lewis just spoke to me yesterday about making arrangements for them to travel to New York the Wednesday after the wedding so that she could see her estate's legal staff and get her banking issues straightened out. For all intents and purposes, she hasn't a cent until they do that."

"Uh, she said something about the Ryan money or something like that."

"Ed…she's talking about Lewis' money. He's Lewis Ryan."

"Well, yes. But he told her to treat it as her own."

"I'm sure he didn't intend for her to equip the coexistence faction with it."

He had to grin at her wry tone. "Well, then maybe he should have said so."

"This is going to be trouble. Damn it." She pulled away from him and resumed walking swiftly towards the barracks building; Ed trotted to keep up and barely managed to avoid colliding with her when she suddenly stopped. "If I inform Lewis, it will sound as though I am trying to get Keri in trouble. If I don't, all hell could break loose." Alexa looked up at him, perplexed. "I'm not sure which would be worse for us overall."

Ed shrugged. "Well, he can't hurt his mate, right?"

"Right."

"Then let Keri handle it, she'll tell him about it eventually. Lewis adores her, he might get p.o.'d, but he'll get over it as soon as she moves in for a hug. You've seen it happen."

"True. But just in case…don't allow anyone to tell him he's paying for it. Let him find out from Keri…at a time that she thinks is appropriate."

"That's cool with me. Speaking of time, will you have some for me after dinner?"

"Hmm, I might." A tiny smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as his face fell. "I'll definitely have time for you late this evening. Meet me at my suite about nine?"

Ed felt his mouth drop open and quickly closed it. "Ah, sure. Yeah, I mean, I'd love to." Her smile blossomed and Ed stared, openmouthed again. "You know, you've either got to stop doing that, or do it often enough that I get used to it. Otherwise you're going to give me a coronary." A decidedly wicked chuckle as she took off at a run was her only response. "Damn."

... ...

Amy groaned as she dumped her books on the ground and sank down beside them. She was out of her mind. Two majors. The admissions office had tried to talk her out of it; they'd even sent her to one of their overworked councilors to discuss her options. Her 4.0 grade point average from high school, and a perfect SAT combined score of 1600 convinced them to let her do it, and to let her register late and catch up with the classes already in progress.

She looked up as a group of soldiers raced past on the running track. They were moving so fast that she could barely count them, let alone know which ones it was. Way less than a minute had passed before she saw them finish the circuit and come to a halt just beyond her. The eight young men and two women were walking and stretching out their muscles. Amy smiled and looked again at the men…five of them were wearing spandex bike shorts that left absolutely nothing to the imagination…oh yeah. Her brow wrinkled as she stared at the uniformly impressive bulges. "Damn. I've really gotta ask about that," she muttered.

After taking her books up to her second floor room in the main house, Amy decided to look for Keri. She finally found her in the medical unit, visiting Anja. She peeked in and stared. Anja was lying down on the bed, and Keri was sitting beside it with both hands on Anja's stomach. Weird. She settled against the doorjamb and waited to be acknowledged…she'd learned early not to go near Anja without an invitation. The dominant finally looked up at her when Keri sighed and sat back in the chair. "You want something?" she asked.

"Um, well, I wanted to ask Keri something."

Keri turned to look at her. "Well, come on in and ask. Anja, you know Amy, right?"

"Ja, we've met."

"I see." She looked back at Amy with an apologetic smile. "So what did you want to ask?"

Hmm, it had seemed like a simple question when she was looking at the guys, but now…oh wow. Keri's eyebrows had gone up, and Anja was starting to glower at her. She'd better manage to spit it out now, or just forget about it. "Uh, well, I was wondering. Are all dominant men, uh, really well hung?" Keri turned beet red and Anja burst out laughing. Amy hadn't been prepared for that reaction.

Anja recovered first. "Hey, sis, she wants to know if they're…equipped," she chortled.

"Oh god…Anja, knock it off." Keri sighed, shook her head and then looked back at Amy. Her face was still pink. "Whatever brought that on?" she asked.

Amy shrugged. "I keep seeing them running around the place, and either they're all wearing socks in their pants, or they all have big cocks. I kinda doubt they're using socks, ya know? But I can't hardly go up to them with a tape measure and tell them to drop their drawers."

"Ah, no, that would be bad." Keri frowned, shaking her head. "Wait a minute, you're asking me? God, honey; if I knew the answer to that one, Lewis would go ballistic."

"Oh. I didn't think about that. Hey, Anja, you could tell me!"

Anja snorted. "I can tell you most of them adequate by my standard. Don't know how they compare to your sapiens males, haven't had any yet." She pursed her lips. "There are a few that are…very nice."

"Like Erik?"

"Ja, Erik. He almost as nice as Lewis."

"Anja!" Keri all but shrieked.

"Hey, he's the one that got up naked," Anja said defensively.

"Well, you don't have to keep reminding me that everyone saw him."

"Sorry." Anja didn't look very sorry to Amy.

"Okay, so you two don't know if we've just got a lot of guys that are packing some impressive equipment by human…uh, sapiens standards, or if that's normal for dominant males, right?"

"Right. Maybe Alexa would know," Keri mused. "But I don't know if she'd be really pleased about being asked."

Amy thought about the tall chameleon and shuddered. She reminded her of the actress Jeri Ryan playing a Borg on Star Trek Voyager, but colder. "No, not a good idea."

"Have I come at a bad time?" a woman's voice asked from the doorway. Amy blinked at Keri's suddenly hostile expression. She turned to see Carla standing in the hall wearing a lab coat and stethoscope. "I need to check our patient."

"Good a time as any," Anja shrugged.

Keri stood, moved the chair back against the wall and sat down again, still looking angry. What was up with that? Amy frowned and then brightened. "Carla! I'll bet you know the answer!"

The doctor's eyebrows rose. "To what, dear?"

Amy wondered what Keri's problem was. Carla had always been really nice to her. "Well, um, I was wondering about…" she trailed off and Anja snickered. Even Keri had lain off of the glare and was biting her lip to hide a smile. "Are the penises of dominant men bigger then those of sapiens men? On the average, I mean."

Carla's eyes widened, then she began to chuckle. "Well, I can't say that I know the average size for a sapiens. If you aren't specializing in Urology, they don't spend a lot of time on such things in medical school. And even that was quite a few years ago." She smiled, shaking her head. "What I can tell you is that penis size for dominant males ranges from an absolute minimum of eighteen up to about twenty-two point five centimeters. I suppose the average is about twenty point five. Any larger than twenty-two point five centimeters is, ah, exceptional." Amy did the math in her head. "That's like seven inches to around eight and three quarters…and eight inches is average? Oh, wow. I wasn't imagining it. They are all really hung."

The doctor frowned. "Well, if they were any smaller they wouldn't be able to procreate and their genes would die out."

"Huh?"

"Oh, I know that one," Keri said, finally unbending enough to get into the conversation with Carla. "Dominant women have two different kinds of birth canal. That makes the distance the sperm has to travel a lot longer, for one thing, and it has to get past the main canal just to get into all of the uteri…it can't travel from the main into the pre-birth canal because of some kind of filter, right?"

"Exactly. Now, I assume that sapiens are, on average, a good deal smaller since the instance of dominant females being impregnated by the sapiens males they've seduced is very low."

"Yeah, on average a lot smaller," Amy told her, wondering how finding out about dominant men's equipment had turned into a dominant reproductive system anatomy lesson.

"Huh, guess I don't want any sapiens males, then," Anja muttered, half to herself.

ELSEWHERE

When the facilitator called for new business, Damien stood to address the other council members. "We have several new issues that have arisen. They are directly related to old business, but the circumstances have changed to the point that everyone's input is necessary. First, we have learned that both Lewis Ryan and Tom Daniels are alive, free, and working together. In addition, they have both successfully had their memory blocks removed."

"Impossible," Henry, the Nevada representative spouted derisively.

Damien schooled his features to reflect patience. "Lewis had the help of a sapiens female named Keridwen, who, we believe, is a strong Empath. We cross-referenced that name with our database and found that Keridwen Ashton…yes, the one Lewis supposedly kidnapped during his escape, had been previously targeted by our breeding program because she had documented healing gifts. Her description matches that of the female that we are told assisted him with both the blocks and the shut down order." He paused to look around the long rectangular table with its rounded edges. "We do know that Lewis has successfully completed a mating bond with this female, and that she is carrying his offspring." As he expected, pandemonium broke out as the council members began debating the impossibility of it all.

Finally they settled down. Henry, who had recently begun to emerge as a power among the others, spoke out again. "Your informant is Jane Arthur, ah, I beg your pardon, she insists on calling herself Daniels to remind everyone that her eldest is Chosen. She is not the most reliable resource. What guarantee do you have that her information is accurate?"

His lips twisted in a smirk. He'd expected this reaction as well. "I agree, under most circumstances Jane would be considered only as a secondary source of information. However, this time we have the guarantee of Lewis himself that she has told us only the truth." He sat down, still smirking as the others erupted into chaos yet again. After waiting patiently for several minutes, he decided to elucidate. "Council Members," he said in a tone that would carry over their individual conversations. "Jane was sent, by me, to assist Lewis with restoring Tom's memories. We had planted one of the new tracers within her. Unfortunately, Lewis still suspected something and somehow, the tracer was neutralized. Jane has no memory of this. Subsequently, Lewis programmed Jane to tell the truth about certain incidents, including that of his bonding."

"What other incidents?" a female voice asked from the far end of the table.

"I'm glad you asked, Sheila," he said smoothly. "The truths she told us about other incidents are our second new issue. Jane was programmed to confess her crimes dating back to the great betrayal. During the chaos, she abandoned her youngest son, Jason, who had been wounded in the leg, ignoring the protests of her eldest. Later, she failed to properly restrain her daughter, Mary, who as a healer trainee was traumatized by the pain and terror she could not successfully block. The child ran out of hiding and was brutalized by two sapiens soldiers. This time Jane physically restrained her eldest from going to his sister's rescue. After the soldiers finished with their sport, she allowed her daughter to bleed to death, still restraining Tom from going to her aid."

Sheila paled, as did many of the other members. "That's…monstrous."

"It is. She also convinced her son that he was responsible for his sibling's deaths…which little deed the psychologists on staff believe to have induced Tom's catatonia."

"I don't think we need to hear any more," Henry said. "I was there, I was always perturbed about how she had managed to extricate two of her children without a scratch, but lose the others. Her explanation made no sense at the time."

"She didn't even extricate them. Lewis put them into hiding before he returned to protect his own family."

There was silence around the table for many minutes while that statement was digested. Roland spoke up. "So, we can lay responsibility for the deaths of Lewis' mate and offspring and his subsequent breakdown at her door as well?"

"No. Lewis chose to get his niece and nephews to what little safety was available for them. That blame belongs to the sapiens that attacked our people."

"Failure to protect your offspring, even at the expense of your own life, is a serious crime. Do you have a punishment to propose?" Henry asked.

"Ah, but I'm not done cataloging the crimes. Jane is also guilty of incest. Sustained sexual abuse of her son Timothy dating from shortly following the betrayal, until his untimely death at the hands of a clone." He smiled grimly at their horrified expressions. "She also took the opportunity to similarly abuse Tom when she captured him for our interrogator." The others were struck silent at the enormity of Jane's transgressions. "I do not have a punishment to suggest, because there is only one sentence for this particular crime. Execution."