Chapter 4

The group members gathered in the tent and once again Danziger found himself repeating the words Bess/not Bess had said to him. Finally, he resorted to holding the back of Julia's head as Bess had done his. "This thing is healing us, but not for long," he repeated in frustration.

"Why does everything on this planet have to be such a riddle?" Morgan moaned. "Why can't it just make sense?"

"Morgan, what did the planet tell you?" Yale asked gently.

"It doesn't like me very much," he sighed. Then he looked around at the group desperately. "I said I was sorry!" he added miserably.

"Who else has had contact with the sunstones?" Magus asked.

"I tried to link them to the scanner, but never touched them or anything," Julia answered. "They began learning our language quickly, so we tried to use them with the geolock, but Morgan had to provide the interface."

"Over the VR set," Morgan added with growing comprehension. "That's why she said I was the first mind to successfully reach her."

"Let me get this straight," Danziger began. "The planet is talking to Bess over VR using the sunstone that's powering the generator. That's the bridge she was talking about."

"That appears to make sense," Yale interjected. "But I too touched the sunstones in the cave. They opened my memory." His voice drifted away as he recollected the time. "But I never felt a consciousness behind it. Mary said the Terrians listen to find truth. I found the truth in myself, but nothing else."

Danziger looked pointedly at Julia. "Bess said that we'd changed. She made a big deal out of the whole springtime business and that the planet was grateful to us and knew us."

"I think that may be the only reason the planet isn't holding a serious grudge against me over that damned geolock," Morgan added.

"Are Morgan and Bess and I any different from everybody else?" he asked Julia.

She ran her diaglove over John's head, neck, and chest. She then changed a few settings and did the same thing again, concentrating her scan around his head.

"Your brain activity is slightly altered from the norm," she said thoughtfully. "But not in the same way that Alonzo's and Uly's have changed. I'd like to take some blood samples and see if I can find any other evidence."

She did the same with Morgan and Bess. "There's definitely something altered," she said. "I really need to find out more."

"What about me?" asked Yale. "I've been in contact as well."

Julia held her glove over Yale's closed eyes for a moment, then checked the readouts. "No, Yale. Your brain patterns are unchanged."

"Then its the spore that did it," Alonzo concluded.

Julia looked at the two changed men, aware of the consternation in their faces. "I don't think its anything to worry about," she assured them.

"Bess said we'd all have to change or we'd die," Danziger continued. "Is this what she was talking about?"

Julia was mystified. "I have no idea," she answered. "We need to set up the med tent and let me get to work."

"Let's go ahead and make camp here, guys," Danziger ordered. "Whatever we're dealing with, we've got to have some answers."

The group emptied out of the tent, leaving only Julia, Alonzo, Danziger, and Morgan at Bess's side.

"What about Bess?" Morgan asked, taking his wife's hand in his and stroking it softly. "We can't leave her like this. I have to get her back."

Danziger looked down at Bess's peaceful form. "The planet said it was going to keep her. That's not an option."

Back in wonderland, Bess was having the adventure of a lifetime. The planet opened itself to her mind and she could see things in such a new way. The interconnectedness of it all, the vastness of the intelligence that lay in the rock itself. She sought to understand what she was seeing and the planet responded to her eagerness.

She suddenly knew what the planet had planned for Uly. She could see the dark line that divided him from the rest of them, a line they couldn't cross—all of them except Alonzo and Devon. They could venture into that territory in time, but the rest of them had been cut off from the earth.

Something blocked the way and kept them from truly becoming part of her, her children. They had been stranded in a no-man's land until now. Now the planet could reach them as well as change them. They were all becoming something new, but not necessarily the same thing.

But there was a problem. That dark line was a curse and a blessing. The blessing was holding for now, but not for long. Bess could feel the planet increasing its hold on her in an attempt to explain something for which it had no words, something that was alien to it and therefore incomprehensible. She frowned at the intensity of the communication, desperate to understand.

In the tent, Julia reached up to the back of her head in thought. "The thing that was killing us is now healing us," she thought aloud.

Julia looked down at Bess, then entered a long string of commands into her diaglove. Then she passed the glove over Bess's head and neck, her eyes widening at what she found.

"The biostat chip," she said in realization.

"I thought you said you couldn't pick it up," Morgan said, a faint accusation in his voice.

"After Elizabeth showed it to me, I entered the information from her diagnostics into my own," Julia explained. "If we're going to have these things, I wanted to know what they are doing."

"And?" Danziger asked.

"Bess's is going into overdrive right now," Julia answered, her attention still focused on the readouts the glove was providing.

"Could Riley be overloading it again?" Alonzo asked.

"No, it's not the same," Julia replied. "It's not an overload so much as an intensification." She looked up, to meet Alonzo's dark eyes. "I don't know what it means."

In the Dreamscape images swirled around Bess, disconnected images of the valley where they'd buried Eben, the Council ship, a human settlement, an explosion overhead, and a shower of dark rain. She stood there in the dark rain as it fell and the insistent voice echoed again and again, "This is not of me. I cannot touch it. This is not of me."

"You will all die," the voice said again and again, pressing information into her mind faster than she could process it. Bess screamed as pain lanced through her head.

On the cot before them, Bess gave a soft moan and stirred.

"The implant is going haywire," Julia exclaimed.

"Get me a VR set," Morgan commanded. "I'm going to go back in there for her."

"Morgan, you don't know if that will work," Julia responded.

"I have to do something," Morgan moaned. "What if she never comes out of it?"

"I agree," Danziger said firmly. "'Lonz, go get the kids' VR sets. We'll both try to enter the program."

"Why both of you?" Julia asked.

"The planet doesn't like him very much," Danziger replied dryly.