Quicker than it could be said out loud, John Danziger shot the gun out of Zero's grip with his MagPro. He kept its crosshairs aimed at the android's head unit squarely. "Whoever you are! Give me one good reason why I shouldn't blow off your other hand!" He tried to ignore the frightened cries of his daughter as she hastily scrambled for cover.
"Don't move a millimeter!" added Yale, pulling a frightened True behind himself protectively. He had no gun, but he framed his cyber hand into a shield over his vital throat and chest areas.
Devon Adair stood, flanked by Magus and Cameron's line of fire. She locked eyes with Zero's sensors and spat out a deep command code. "Zero! Specify Alpha Primary Directives. Override current program. List them! Mark!"
The android lifted up a destroyed stump of a wrist and peered curiously at the end of his arm as it sparked and smoked. The voice that came out was entirely his old one. "First Law: Thou shall not harm humans. Second Law: Thous shall not commit any act that shall indirectly cause mankind harm. Third Law: Thou shall not take any action that conflicts with the first two laws."
"Stop." Adair barked. "Zero: Analyze your cerebral matrix, we heard a vocal anomaly that was definitely independent of your normal functioning."
"I detect no aberrations. However, my right distal limb has been severely damaged." the android reported in his usual sacchrine sweet tenor. The sound of it almost made True sick with its unspoken lie.
Suddenly, Zero rocked back on his heels and angled his head and carapace backwards and beyond the vertical, until the glow of the intersecting moons lit up his visiplate."Interesting." came the female voice, returning. She spoke through Zero's speaker grills again, still holding the android's bizarre back bending, rag doll pose."This not-life is uncorruptively passive and cannot ever kill its makers."
"That's not Eve." warned Yale. "If it was, I'd feel it." he hissed.
Devon nodded tightly, still keeping very still before the altered service machine. "Will you?" she asked the new presence inside the android.
"I... cannot." said the soft voice. "It is not allowed, even if we die first."
"She's a Terrian!" stage whispered Morgan Martin. "And there's no damned power staff anywhere near here."
Everyone relaxed visibly. The fright was almost too much for Danziger's nerves. His gun arm started shivering with the strain. Alonzo reached up and helped him hold the muzzle steady.
"Where are you?" asked True, peeking around Yale's broad body. "Why can't we see you?"
Zero did not move but there was a shift of visual attention in the android from everybody, to just the girl, that was palpable. "I am on the third world. For only tonight, am I now touching." and she pointed to the glowing white moon being eclipsed by the dark red, smaller moon.
"Why are you here speaking to us with a voice?" Bess asked. "Why aren't you dreaming to us?"
Devon waved her silent and redirected another question to Zero. "Are you the Mother Uly tells us exists on this planet?"
"I am not. I am a Balancer. I convey any life who wishes to leave this world, for the next. Where they go, can be of their choosing. To the other two. Just one, or including my own."
"They can space travel to the moons?!" True blurted out, excited.
"The launching place must be through Mary's Moon Pool." surmised Cameron.
"Maybe Mary's cave is another kind of conduit, like the tunnel spiders' web tubes were, to that other sea that we encountered last summer." theorized Devon. "Well, it fits in concept any way."
John sighed in relief, picking up her idea. "She's a monitor, not a soldier or a defender." He lowered his gun to the ground and motioned the others to do the same. "I get it now."
The female voice continued. "Yes. Too many are now leaving this world. Some for forever. Those are... Lost. The rest can go into the moon unguent, to journey. And your life group, I see, is at the heart of all of the Lost's moments of choosing, whether to stay and struggle, or to end."
Yale defended Eden Project. "We didn't cause all of this death!"
"Not directly." Devon amended. "The ones who caused the unnatural dying to start, are dead themselves, many seasons ago."
"Clan tied are immutable, once decided." said female sounding android's voice.
True got mad. "Mary's wasn't! We had to save her from others of your kind more than once!"
"Shush, True." warned John. "We don't know who we're dealing with. Not yet."
"Hmm.." said the feminine speaker. "Your tiny female is not one of the Three. No part of us lives in her."
"She's talking about Terrian genes, Devon." whispered Julia to Adair in discovery. "We have those in our blood, Uly, Mary and I. Make her see that connection. She might help save your son from whatever it is that's k-"
Adair felt a stab of desperation. "I know." Her eyes teared up. "You've been watching Uly,... h-haven't you?" she pleaded to the stranger inside of Zero's familiar lines.
"Yes." said their visitor warmly. "He is new clan. Very strong, for an other life. Sands chose well." praised the soprano voice.
::That must be the name of Mary's clan. The same one who saved my son from that congenital wasting disease, Station's Syndrome.:: thought Devon Adair. "I am grateful he was chosen. I-it took me a while to understand why he was picked to be a bridge between us."
"He is still tied, alien mother. But our fate is his fate."
"If you're not the cause of why he's dying. Then please, tell me what's wrong with him."
"He feels the Lost." the Balancer said. "He wants to follow them."
A thrill of horror shot through the whole Eden Project population.
Morgan's voice shrieked as he freaked out, giving into his borderline manic side. "No one can feel Death! No one alive. That's an abomination. Take that back!"
Devon got scared. "You promised me a year ago, that this wouldn't happen. He's Other! Please,then. Let him go! Untie your connection. He's done nothing to you. It's not for him to die, Balancer." she sobbed. "We've seen your future. He grows into a man! I've seen this.." she cried.
Zero's body suddenly uprighted and his visual sensors pricked forward to face Devon exactly at her face level, crouched kneed in order to accomplish that. Overwhelming curiosity dripped off of the Balancer's next words. "Y-You can see our dreams?" the high voice whispered in amazement.
"Yes!" answered Alonzo. "Like you can see ours. You first saw mine after I broke my leg and couldn't sleep at night. Didn't you know that?"
"I did not. The worlds' passing touch is short. Only six times, since I began, have I been back on the world of the Mother's." she replied. "I stay, for each time, three of your hours. All I know is that we need him. We will not let him go."
Bess did not lose sight of their goal in first contact. "Uly. He's not well, Balancer. He is not normal for one of us. If he cannot separate, what can we do to make him strong for you again?"
Nearby, Julia nodded in agreement and encouragement for that kind of approach. Devon was just as certain of the choice of words. Truly, they were negotiating for their very survival.
"Save our lives." came the succinct and simple reply.
