As it turns out, Zod has found himself some trouble. And he has even brought it home with him. Mindful of the audience, Lara only rolls her eyes internally, before she patches up the human soldier the general has picked up somewhere.

She does demand an explanation, though, if discreetly. Once the first exasperation has faded – for, of course, General Zod has somehow managed to snag himself the very Colonel Hardy that Lois described as his human alter ego – she finds that some facts do not add up properly.

A misunderstanding, Lara assumes, until her son ascertains that, no, the man meant exactly what he said. Then she has to remove herself from the scene, for, of all the barbaric …!

Martha and Lois take one look at her and chorus, "What happened?" before her husband has even noticed her upset.

It's hard to put in words, the sheer wrongness of the accusation, but the two human women get the gist quickly enough. They promptly step outside, determined to set things right, while Jor wraps his arms tightly around Lara.

"It has happened," Jonathan says cautiously. "All in the past, one hopes, but the precedent is there. People have done horrible things to those they consider 'less-than-people.'"

Jor takes a deep, steadying breath.

"There have been … unscrupulous experiments on Krypton, too, once," he says just as carefully. "It is heresy to even speak of such things, now, but they have happened. It seems that we are not that unlike in this regard, too."

That was thousands of years ago! Lara wants to rail, unknown to all but a few very select historians. Not so close to the surface that it is the first thing a soldier thinks of!

But Jax has made proposals to Zod over the years, alternatives in case they found a Genesis chamber but not the Codex, that veered dangerously close to such heresy. The general has never shown any interest, but if he had given the other man free reign ….

Burying her face into her husband's shoulder, Lara takes a few deep breaths to calm herself, and then forcefully changes the topic.

The two men answer warily at first, when she inquires about their previous object of discussion, and how a motorcycle differs – or compares – to other human vehicles, but by the time the door opens again, the mood is almost back to normal. Jor is explaining things with grand gestures, Jonathan is pitching in with the occasional detail, and Lara is content to let the secondhand passion wash over her.

Martha gives Lara a critical onceover when she enters, but seems to approve of what she sees.

"I set the man straight," the human woman declares. "It should keep for a while."

She seems on the verge of saying something else, but then her matter-of-fact confidence dims. "And then it won't matter, will it? You won't be here for long."

Martha swallows and reaches, maybe subconsciously, for her husband's hand. "And you are going to take Clark away with you, aren't you?"

Lara takes a good hold of her own source of strength before she can answer. "I … I certainly want to – I haven't seen him for so long – but I'm not sure if he will accept it. He has … roots here, now. Friends, parents, a planet that he feels protective of."

"And I guess that 'ocean of stars' isn't one you can cross just by hopping on a red-eye flight, right?" Jonathan asks with a perceptiveness well-hidden under the rugged exterior. "So, he can't … commute. Or visit often."

"Actually," Jor starts, his tone shifting the way it typically does when he is thinking aloud, "the fourth planet of the system might be suitable for colonization. The nearby asteroid belt would yield many resources and a drier climate and thinner atmosphere would be more …."

On the second kick to the shin her husband peters off, because no matter how promising his flight of inspiration might be, General Zod will never support – read: allow – such an important venture if it is planned without his input.

"It is by no means decided, yet, but it might be a possibility," Lara finishes, and vows to herself that she will make Zod see the potential, too, for the more she thinks about it, the more she likes the idea.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

Zod has no interest in settling on a dead rock in the middle of nowhere, naturally, even one that would need only slight tweaks by the World Engine to make it habitable and therefore stands a good chance of staying habitable in the long term.

Without the Genesis Chamber detected aboard the old scout-ship, the general would not have listened to any arguments to abandon their search across the stars. He would have taken Kal aboard, with or without the latter's consent – watching Kal spar with Faora is a harsh object lesson for Lara on how easily the soldiers could have taken (and kept) her son by force – and continued the relentless quest for a new Krypton without a second thought.

With a Genesis Chamber around, on the other hand, the only argument Zod will hear is access to the Codex – and that is exactly the point where Jor balks.

There is a shouting match.

Lara resists the urge to bash their heads together until some sense rattles back into place, and settles for a trick Lois has taught her: an ear-splitting whistle.

In the resultant shocked silence, she tells her gaping husband, "You will tell General Zod where the Codex is or I will do it for you!

And you," she turns at the equally stunned general, "will listen very carefully to everything Jor has to tell you about the fourth planet and its potential for a colony!

And I," she glares at both of the men in turn, "will be making the final decisions when it comes to using the Chamber! I am the one who specialized in the life sciences, after all!"

Lara can count, too, and simple numbers dictate that the Genesis Chamber plus the Codex is the only way to keep the Kryptonian race from dying out. As much as she agreed with Jor that Krypton's reproductive traditions had run into a dead-end in the final years of the planet – she would have hardly consented to bearing Kal in person otherwise – seeing her child again, grown and old enough to think about children of his own, has made her realize that she hasn't given up on life yet.

A new colony will need a healthy mix of all kinds of talents, and the Codex can deliver that. Doing away with the rigid determinism of the caste system, that should be the trick.

It's not that easy, of course, but in the end Jor makes an impressive pitch about how more distance from the yellow sun will lessen the impact of its radiation on new, growing generations while keeping the advantages in general, and that a drier climate and thinner atmosphere will feel more like home for those who remember it. A clever combination of asteroids snagged for mass from the nearby belt through phantom drive technology and the World Engine will establish a heavier gravity, to complete the set of Kryptonian conditions.

Lara meanwhile reinforces her stance that she and not Jax-Ur will be in charge of the Genesis Chamber, and finds unexpectedly strong support among the soldiers.

"I don't want to see that man anywhere near a nursery!" Faora-Ur opinions, and Nam-Ek and even Tor-An nod in grim agreement.

Kal is taken aback and then intrigued by the fact that he has carried the Codex in his cells all this time, and then downright ecstatic at the news that he won't have to choose between his adopted homeworld and his birth parents. He is even cautiously thrilled to keep the rest of the Kryptonians around – her son has formed some sort of bond with General Zod after all, if not quite as idolizing as Lara once feared.

And Zod … well, in the end the prospect of having a planet to protect again, instead of just searching for one, wins him over easily enough.