In the end it took longer than thirty hours for all the tests to be completed. Lex was almost swaying on her feet, sitting so long by the side of the medipod had exhausted her but she stubbornly refused to leave Selim. Scar had come back with food and though she had forced it down, it was obvious she scarcely knew what she was eating.

"It is futile both of us standing here." He said frowning at her "You know I will stay awake."

"I cannot sleep until I know what the scan says." Her voice was hoarse with fatigue "Then I will… try to sleep, I give you my word."

"As you wish." He pressed the buttons on the control pad, waking up the screen that would display the results. Reams of data scrolled down. Even to him it was all but incomprehensible.

"I don't understand it." She said miserably.

"A few moments more… it will… summarise." He said in human language, trying to be patient. He was being as tolerant as he knew how, not just with the infuriatingly slow workings of the medipod, but with her sudden show of emotion.

In his head, he could hear R'Zuul's voice, just as he could on those rare occasions when Selim gave way to tears "Stop your whimpering you pathetic invertebrate! How do you think it will serve you except to advertise your weakness?" He bit down savagely on the words, determined not to say them. He knew that if he wanted to avoid a catastrophic rupture with her at this moment he must not show how repulsed he was by what he was conditioned to see as weakness.

Such a reaction she would consider monstrous he knew, but it was the one he knew best. Tears were something he'd left behind in infancy. Even though he understood by now that she was not weak, he still couldn't do as she did. The only way he could deal with the tsunami of fear was simply to shut it off.

He watched the screen resentfully, waiting for some answer he could give her. When finally the summary appeared, he skimmed it and breathed deeply.

She was immediately wide eyed with alarm "What is it?" She could tell from his expression that it was not good.

"It says he has some sort of growth in his brain." He said slowly, trying to read more carefully "A bundle of abnormal cells. That is what is what is caused the seizure and the vomiting."

"Like… a… a brain tumour?"

"If that is the human word for it." He said unhappily, wishing he knew more about it "It says it is pressing on the brain. That is what is causing the problem. And it is increasing in size – quite slowly – but if it is left untreated it will soon start to have a more serious effect on his brain function. His brain could be permanently damaged. It needs to be removed and quickly."

"How soon?"

"It is hard to say for certain, three maybe four weeks at most. The pod is not able to be exact about it."

"Can the pod do the operation to remove it?" She asked hopefully.

"No." He shook his head "The pod is not capable of performing complex surgery. It is simply a means of diagnosing the problem and keeping the casualty alive until they can reach medical assistance. We were lucky your skull injury was only a simple linear fracture and healed on its own... eventually. Taking a blood sample, keeping the body hydrated, keeping the lungs oxygenated and so on; these are the limits of what the pod is able to do."

"But there must be something we can do, someone who can…" She tailed off. He could see the wheels of her mind turning.

"We could take him to the Void Cutter." She said "Would the Rough Skull medics not help him? After all he is one of them -"

"You forget; they do not even count me as one of them now! We cannot know how much Khurshad was able to communicate back to Nar'Jat about what happened on Hirai but I doubt he would have passed up any opportunity to traduce me. I would be surprised if we got as far as the ship before they shot us down. We must assume that you and I are both under sentence of death and even if we are not now, we soon would be once the Council learns of Selim's existence."

"But Selim is just a child!" She spread her hands in exasperation "They cannot punish him for what we have done!"

"They could and they would, all they lack is opportunity. Most would share Khurshad's view that such a creature ought not to be allowed to live. They only need to see him to want him dead!" His expression was grim, he knew he needed to convince her "And they would most likely not help him even if he were not a half-breed abomination and the spawn of a criminal. He is too young to merit medical help."

She shook her head, bewildered "Too young?"

"Most of my clan – of my species – would consider any juvenile who cannot make it through adolescence without significant medical intervention not worth the trouble of saving. An injury sustained in a fight or on the hunt or perhaps an infectious disease – these they might treat – but an illness that suddenly manifests with no apparent cause? I can tell you absolutely they would not help him."

She stared at him, a mixture of horror and disgust on her face "You are not serious?"

"Yautja do not tolerate weakness. They would see this … illness as proof that Selim ought never to have been born. That he is genetically inferior."

"And…what do you think?"She asked tightly.

"Lexssss, you know I would wade through an ocean of blood for him."

"Even if it turns out he is not perfect?"

"Even so." He wasn't about to pick a fight with her about the insinuation. She was right on the edge, he could hear it and see it. Now was not the time. He pushed the anger down hard "But you must believe me when I say there is no going back to the Rough Skulls."

"If your species is not an option that only leaves mine." She said heavily "We have to go back to Earth and if the scan is correct I can only think of one person who can help him… but you are not going to like it."

"Tell me."

"Iversson." She was obviously reluctant to say the name given that the last time it had been mentioned between them it was almost as an expletive "We have to find her."

"Not the other… human medic?" Of the other humans he had met he had liked Hobbes the best – or at least he did not actively dislike her. She had helped him to keep Selim alive; in the first few weeks whilst Lex had been unconscious and he had been totally at a loss as to how to look after an infant so young, she had been invaluable. For that he was grateful.

"Hobbes is an army field medic, not a brain surgeon," She said slowly "And she wouldn't have access to the same resources Iversson did or the same knowledge of your species. Plus Iversson told me herself that she could help Selim. She said she could give him the best medical care money could buy…"

"And you believed her? Would you… trust her?"

"What other choice is there?" She looked at him bleakly "Do you agree; we must find her?"

He just nodded "Whatever is necessary." He growled.


Twelve hours later, they decided to start the process that would wake Selim. As he had predicted, Scar had managed to fix the right hand turbine without much trouble. Now the Chameleon was on its way back to the human planet, the autopilot running smoothly. They took turns staying by the pod as he slowly regained consciousness.

It was Scar who happened to be on watch when his son shifted and mumbled something in his sleep. He waited, not wanting to wake up Lex just yet. It was one of the rare occasions he had managed to persuade her to leave the boy's side to sleep herself. "Strange." He thought "Not so long ago I was waiting in exactly this spot whilst his mother was unconscious inside the medipod and he was asleep in the next room…."

He sat absolutely still, waiting patiently. Almost a unit later Selim gave a little sigh and lifted his head, blinking groggily.

"Mommy?" He said, in a raspy little voice.

"No Selim, it is me." He said quietly "You mother was here, but now she sleeps."

"Daddy..." Selim shook his head, bleary.

For once, he let the human pet name pass uncorrected "Yes."

The boy rubbed his eyes "I feel strange."

"You have been …asleep for a long time," He said, wishing he had the same fluent grip on the human language that the boy and his mother did. Speaking in English always made him feel rather slow and awkward but he was taking his cue from his child "Almost two days. It will take…time before you … are fully awake."

"Why was I asleep for so long?" Selim looked at him apprehensively, as if worried that he might be in trouble "Does he really think I would be angry with him for that?" He thought uneasily "Maybe she is right; maybe I have been too harsh on him."

"We thought … you needed to rest." He said, not wanting to tell him the whole truth "How do you … feel now?"

Selim screwed up his face as he considered "Really hungry!" He said finally "I am really, really hungry."

"Hungry enough to eat plants?"

"Nooo!"Selim made a face and Scar grinned at him. It was a running joke between them. They were united in their dislike of anything that wasn't meat. Scar generally refused to knowingly eat anything vegetable in origin, stating that this was the preserve of creatures lower down the food chain than himself. Selim would only do so if his father wasn't present to sanction his resistance. His mother often found herself overruled by two determined carnivores.

He removed the various tubes and sensors attached to his son's body and lifted him out of the pod.

"You do not really want me to eat plants do you, Mei'Savir?" Scar noted that Selim could remember to use yautja language when he wanted something "The little manipulator!" He thought, amused.

"I am not sure," He said, feigning serious consideration "Maybe we should go and ask your mother what she thinks…"

"But she will say I do have to eat some!"

Scar looked sidelong at the boy, who was gazing at him in mournful appeal "You are right Mei'Sika, she was very tired. We should let her sleep until after you eat."

Selim smiled delightedly, showing sharp white fangs.


The journey back to Earth seemed horribly slow to Lex but actually she knew that they were making good time. It took them less than a week, four and a half days going at the shuttle's top speed.

Selim seemed fine but tired after he woke up. She tried to behave as normally as possible. She didn't want him to be worried or upset by seeing her distress. Scar was better at it than her; whatever he felt about their son's illness he seemed to be able to just switch it off. She thought she'd learned that particular yautja trick but it seemed she hadn't learned it well enough.

That was hardly surprising. She doubted anything short of being systematically brutalised throughout childhood and into adolescence would do the job. She knew - he'd told her - the ways they were taught to be able to screw down pain and fear like that. Not to elicit pity, he didn't see any of it as being that terrible, but because she'd asked him once. She had tried her best not to show it but she had been appalled. He'd been able to tell, of course. "Do not waste your time quivering with sympathy for me, soft meat!" He said scornfully, seeing her expression "Your pity disgusts me and I have no use for it. The way I was trained up was nothing out of the ordinary. It made me what I am!"

"Yes," She had thought "A psychotic child-soldier who grew into a psychotic adult!"

At least he didn't treat Selim that way. Not that he never hit their son; he did sometimes. The two of them had nearly come to blows themselves over it. Still, she knew it wasn't on a par with the sort of thing he'd been subjected to. He certainly didn't habitually beat him or neglect him.

Anyway, however you learned to do it, being able to switch off your feelings would have been a useful skill to have at the moment she reflected. It was so hard trying not to reveal to their son the depths of her fear. All she could think of was that knot of diseased cells inside Selim's skull. Those cells were in there right now, slowly replicating, making copies of themselves. Soon they would start to damage the healthy tissue - damaging her precious little boy, taking away everything he was, obliterating him... and she could do nothing to help.

When Selim was sleeping – which he did a lot right now – she occupied her mind by going over the problems they would face when they finally did reach Earth. How would they find Iversson? Nearly five years had passed, she might be anywhere.

She reasoned she would need to go into a populated area, to visit an internet café or to talk to people. She would need money, ordinary clothes, maybe something to cover or at least disguise her face in public places. She was a wanted felon now.


At least one of these problems was easily solved. About two years previously they had been in another forest; another planet on the remote edge of Rough Skull space.

Selim had come trotting up to her. He was now out of the chubby toddler stage and starting to grow at a surprising rate. Already he was as tall as a human twice his age. He handed her a lump of mud.

"Look Mommy!" He squealed "Look at what I found!"

"Oh thank you sweetheart!" She said enthusiastically, used by now to graciously receiving gifts of rocks, sticks and leaves from her three year old son.

Scar was behind him, smirking slightly "He insisted upon bringing you this... rock." He said.

When she turned the lump over she noticed a little unexpected glint. She scratched away some more of the mud with a fingernail and it crumbled away to reveal a glittering hard surface.

It was gold! She knew because she'd seen it before in Alaska. She'd been there as part of the foundations work researching and combating the rapacious effects of the gold mining industry.

"Selim, where did you get this?" She asked her son who was still standing, eagerly awaiting her verdict on his gift. In answer he gripped her fingers and pulled her to her feet. She looked at Scar. He shrugged at her and followed as Selim led her through the trees to the bottom of a small ravine and a river. Pinpoints of gold gleamed everywhere, drifts of glittering stars. She was astonished.

"Selim, how did you find this?"

"We were hunting," Scar answered for him "Trying to anyway, apparently he is more interested in rocks. And he still calls you by this ... pet name."

Selim pouted a little, still watching her seriously "Do you like the shiny stones Momm - I mean, Mother?" He asked.

"If you found this on Earth you'd be very lucky," She told him "These rocks are actually a type of metal called gold. Lots of humans think it is precious. Many people spend their whole lives just trying to find a little bit of what you have found here. Wars have been fought over it!"

He beamed at her "So they are special?"

"Very special," She nodded "You were very clever to find it!"

"I told you she would like it Mei'Savir!" He said smugly to his father, who was watching him with an air of puzzled tolerance.

"Yes you are very clever Mei'Sika," He said easily "Why do you not go and get us some more of them."

As the boy trotted off, grabbing up fistfuls of glittering metal, he leaned over and said to her in an undertone "Are you making this up?"

"No!" She laughed "What I told him is perfectly true."

He took the yellowish lump from her outstretched fingers "Is it very useful then, this metal?" He rolled it between his talons speculatively "It seems rather too soft to be of much use."

"It can be used for making many things," She said smiling as she watched Selim plunging his hands gleefully into the mud on the river bank "But mainly we like it because it is rare and shiny and looks good. We mainly use it for… 'ornamentation'."

"For what?"

"To wear, to make ourselves look … more attractive."

"Humans." He'd looked at her sideways, clearly amused "You eat plants and fight wars over the shiny rocks that you wear. And you think we are primitive!"

She still had the bag of gold nuggets that Selim had found for her. She would be sad to part with them.


The sweep over Nevada proved futile, as Scar had suspected it would. The facility he had helped Lex to escape from was still there, but it was deserted. "It looks to me like nothing has changed since we left," He said to her as they stood looking at the display on the Chameleon's view-screen "It is a burned out ruin."

She nodded absently and he knew she was already considering their next avenue to try to find the scientist she seemed to think could solve their problems "And give us a whole battalion of new ones!" He thought "I doubt this Iverssssson is going to freely offer us her help, even if it is within her power to do so."

He had to admit he could think of no better plan. Selim needed someone with medical skills he did not possess and he had burned all his bridges.

"We will find her and, whether she is willing to help him or not, I will make her do it." He brooded, watching the shallow rise and fall of his sleeping son's chest "I will torture her if needs be to make her save him. In any case, I owe her a debt of pain for keeping Lex a prisoner and making her believe all those lies…"

Part of him almost hoped that it would come to that. This Iversson had certainly been the cause of enough conflict between himself and the mother of his child. The fear he'd seen in her eyes these past few years whenever she'd thought she might be pregnant… and the awful, murderous rage it had ignited inside him to see it; he would have liked to kill the scientist just for that.

"Just let this Iversson say she will not help Selim." He thought darkly "There is a way to make anyone do what you want. I will find a way to force her to do my bidding. I will invent one!"