The night was hot and rank with dry rotting vegetation and animal decay. True was intelligent enough to feel horror for Kitty, her Koba, whose family was currently trying to flee the contagion zone, and most likely failing. The telltale scent of musky sweetness and boiled Earth peas from their unseen carasses sprawled in clusters underneath the eye stalks, was making her heartsick. She brought up a valid question to Heller, speaking through her silent tears of comprehension. She almost choked at the smell which was announcing Kitty's rapid species line's eradication. "Why isn't he as sick or..or.. dying like the others, Julia?"
Heller was taken aback visably. "Well, ...your Koba's has had...physical contact with us and he's eaten our food, which, despite its inherent Station pollution, is much richer than anything growing native. Nutrition is a core necessity for all living things, True. He's been very well fed by us over the last few months. His internal Phage infection's probably being resisted as a result." she smiled, trying to give True hope.
"Is he going to die?" the Danzinger child finally asked, her lower lip quivering. True cradled her side as sobs wracked the stitches over her ribs where she had been shot. "If so, when? I want to be ready.." she sniffed.
Julia felt a pang at the brave face John's daughter was putting on. She reached over and took the backpack True had sitting between her legs which was serving as Kitty's traveling nest. She unzipped the top and carefully unwrapped the T shirt that Kitty was swaddled in, to expose the top of his head. She cautiously laid two diaglove fingers on the weakily warbling, napping Koba's head and performed a diagnostic scan. True softly hushed her pet as he startled awake in fright at its sudden hum, with a few caressing fingers to his chin. The dia-glove spit out a sour note a few seconds later and issued a readout to its screen. Heller sighed. "He's the same, True. He might be depressed because he knows that others of his kind in this area are dead. If you can keep him eating, he might hang on to life a little longer."
"...what?..." the girl croaked in a very tiny voice, denying what was happening. "..no.." she whispered.
"I'm sorry. I wish I could say something good. It's just that, we don't know Kobas as well as we could, yet." Julia told her.
"Hang on a minute. Don't talk like that, Julia. Kitty loves you very much, True." said Uly, rolling over on his cot. "That's why he chose to leave his family and come live with you. Haven't you seen how he stung Morgan and O'Neill just so he could stay with you? He doesn't want you to give up on him. You're all he's got now. So don't let him see you cry."
Bess Martin, cleaning up after their dinner and fruit tea, smiled sadly. "Nobody's giving up just yet, True. Yes, this blight was human caused, but we've just learned that it might very much be something we can ultimately stop. We've found a powerful ally in The Balancer who agrees that time still exists to reverse this genocide effect and end the damage being done to the planet."
True started to cry in earnest. "Nobody can bring back the dead, doctor!"
##I cccccccan.## said Uly, his face suddenly becoming strong and vibrant, with his eyes glowing red in Terrian dream mode. It had to be the Mother's voice that they all heard; complex, multi layered, feminine... A cacaphony of sound. ##FFFFFFor all small life, is mine. I ssssstart anew. I will speak to this exo-bonded Kobaaaaaa...##
Heller jolted back on her heels, away from Kitty as the mini reptile looking hippo-skinned biped suddenly convulsed in ectasy at a mental touch. He suddenly shot out all of the sedative thorn claws simultaenously from all twelve of his limb digits. Each projectile narrowly missed striking Eden Project people as they burst forth and embedded themselves into tents or cave walls, into the ceiling, or into the metal shell of the food hydrolizer. He began to purr very very loudly, making True laugh.
"What was that?!" Morgan Martin shrieked, ducking for cover way too late. "Is your disgusting pet trying to kill us, True?!"
True answered happily.. "No, Mr. Martin. He's shedding! Kitty's finally coming out of his emergency hibernation!"
##This TTTTTTTurning must be nnnnnnullified.## Uly spoke in the voice of the planet.
Next to them, the eerie light in Uly's eyes faded away, along with the overwhelming presence they all felt pressing softly on their minds. "We will help with that." the boy promised Her, and he instantly, went back to sleep.
Julia Heller, narrating.. " 'First do no harm.' is part of the oath I took from Hippocrates as a physician, five years ago today. Now I don't know if that creed even operates any more on this G*d forsaken planet. I was at the end of my wits earlier this spring when I thought I had been permanently outcast from the rest of the group. Now it seems that the group is being permanently cast out by the rest of the planet. Partly by our own species' design, and the rest due to the metaphysical effects that is every doctor's sworn enemy, death. We can't eat anything but that, which is freshly dead, or still alive. Mostly as plants. The dust that everything is now, is in a zone so large, that Zero cannot find the edge of it even on his widest scans. According to Yale's calculations, the Phage may already have touched as far as the Western beaches. I can only say one thing at this point for my monthly diary. Thank G*d, salt's so lethal to bacteria across the known galaxy. G889's oceans will most likely be perfect natural barriers to the spread of this engineered, human caused infection. I am only regretting that I don't have a shot large enough to save everybody's lives who are still living here under the constant germ threat."
Morgan Martin, narrating.. "G*d the world is really closing in! I feel like I'm going crazy. I just noticed the marks I left on Uly's hand, when I caught myself gripping it so tightly, when another mumbo jumbo session of his hit. It's always when you least expect it. I swear I don't have anything left of my stomach lining no matter what Julia says otherwise. I can't sleep at night. I can't eat. I gag just looking at eyestalks now. There's just something about your food when it has the power to look back at you from your dinner plate that sickens me. I wish I could run away, but there's nowhere to run to. And Bess, she's been my only saving grace. Without her, I don't know what I would do being stranded like we are in the middle of an out of control extinction event. Uly's creepy, but he makes me feel just a bit safer than any of the others past my wife. It's probably because I know the Terrians won't kill him. Golden Boy, invalid extraordinaire'. I hate him especially, because he usually gets what he wants all of the time."
Devon, John, Magus, Julia, Cameron, and Yale, fully armed with Mag-pros, ran out of the cave to where Zero was standing watch with Uly's flickering staff.
The sentry robot automatically gave them a perimeter update. "No bipeds detected. Ambient light is 42% of normal illumination."
Yale, the tutor cyborg chuckled. "That's a lunar eclipse, Zero. Access your files on G889's local astronomy."
"I shall. Immediately. Hmmm. Three eclipses in one seven G889 equivalent day period every 180 solar days, causing both terrestrial and oceanic shadowing. Each occurrence is separated by exactly one and 6/8th's solar days." the robot reported. "Tonight starts the first eclipse trio run of the current E2 year."
"Enough of the science lesson, Zero. Can you summon the Balancer back into your circuitry? We need to talk to her." Danzinger ordered.
"I...do not understand that command." the android replied, after a brief pause.
Devon Adair stormed up to Zero's eye sensors. She was careful not to touch the static arcing Terrian staff being held still as a rock in his limb manipulators. "Zero. Are you still on continuous patrol record mode?"
she asked their automoton.
"Yes."
"Well, then. Examine record Alpha B711 from last night. 2200 Zulu to daybreak. Review, and capitulate Unit John Danziger's order." she snapped out, pacing a nervous circle at a safe distance around him, impatiently.
"I do not understand that command, Unit Devon."
"&% ! What does not compute, Zero? Do it now!" Adair swore out loud. "What a multi million dollar pile of -"
Yale spoke up. "Devon.. let me try. There's every chance the Balancer did not use traceable technology when she interacted with us. If so, then Zero will have no knowledge of her. We'll have to reach our Terrian benefactor in another way."
"Oh, yeah?" asked John, genuninely amused at Adair's ire, a sign of robust health is his eyes. He was very interested in seeing a successful, second solution. "How, Yale?"
The cyborg tutor reached out and grasped Uly's staff that was clutched in Zero's fingers with his own cybernetic grip. He raised the stick and both of their machine hands towards the nearest moon and closed his eyes. A huge jolt of raw laser beam shot out of the fork and ribbon prong at the top of the staff with a deafening crack. It began to hum as the projected energy lanced out into space. Eden Project couldn't resist looking up after it from their bellies where they had thrown themselves on the ground. The roaring rosy beam continued to travel at light speed until it struck the craggy moon's lunar surface with a light splash that lit up its whole planet facing shadowed disc in a brilliant red. "Umhhffff.. So that did not hurt. As I suspected." he smiled. "That was easy."
"What did you just do?" John asked, still cringing at the light beam slicing into the sky.
"I am ringing the Balancer's doorbell. This staff is harnessing the static charges stored over the eons within the bedrock beneath our feet. All it takes is a little magneticism to call it free." he shared. "I surmised that this connection is how the Terrians swim through the earth."
"Yale,.. they aren't robots." frowned Devon. "Terrians don't have metal hands."
"They have metal bones, Devon, underneath their ichor skin. When they flex their muscles, the magnetic state takes over and then they can travel inside of any dirt once they move their heads just a little bit. If they don't move, they can directionally fire that energy, like I just did, into a protective or a signalling bolt." Yale shared, excited about being successful in his experimentation.
All of the sudden, Yale's light spear was being deflected back with a lurid blue one, being pushed swiftly in reverse, until it slammed back into Uly's staff in a colorful spray of St. Elmo's Fire. Yale let go of Zero's hand, ending his use of the ground's power. "Ah, there she is. I knew her mode of mental travel had to be by light wave technology." the tutor smiled. "Zero doesn't have any."
The others stepped back cautiously when Zero's head tilted into a familiar rag doll awkward pose with a faint blue fire glowing in his eye sensors. The Balancer immediately made things totally safe for Eden Project. She opened Zero's digits and released Uly's staff from the android's grip. It tumbled to the ground, rendered as harmless as the inert ribbon and wood it truly was. "Is the boy in trouble? I felt him."
Devon Adair whipped into her VR gear to monitor the vital signs readout on Uly's cot monitor. "I... don't understand. This says he's doing fine. He's just sleeping." She drew away the gear's interface from her eye. "Balancer, what was it that you just felt?"
Bess Martin, popped out of the med tent with urgent news. "The Mother just contacted us, through Uly. She cured True's Koba and then begged for help from us directly, on ending the Phage's extinction effects. She called it, the Turning."
Julia nodded. "That's a good analogy to an infection, a turning into a changing state of life and health."
"The Mother..." the Balancer whispered in awe. "She has never spoken to us, although we know She is there inside our Lands."
The tutor's mind was on overdrive for the group. "We don't have much time left of this eclipse tonight, uh,...of this Moon Cross, Balancer. Only one hour remains. Then we'll have nothing until the second Crossover in about two days. We have an idea to fix the sickness, but it potentially involves more destruction. On a massive scale." Yale explained. "We need to find a way to contact Mother to show her what this plan of ours will do. If it works, this Phage, uh,...the Turning, will then be contained completely, to cause no more harm."
The Balancer angled Zero's head as she contemplated the data and tried to understand it. "Does it involve use of the interrogators? They are functioning in a new pattern that I know not."
John Danziger startled. "I'll say they are, Balancer. They just shot my only offspring a few hours ago. We think they're being used to try and wipe out the Phage. They think our children are the germs."
"I... don't understand. I can see them on the Mother's Lands. And I watch them at times. Like now." she replied. "They are part device, like this one, through which I'm speaking to you."
Yale simplified the question. "Balancer, in our language, interrogator equals Z.E.D.. Do you know how many Z.E.D. there are on the planet in total?"
"22."
Devon Adair grew impatient." And how many are aware and currently oriented on us humans in camp?"
"9. Niner. 9. 9.. 9...9..." Just as quickly, the blue light in Zero's eye modulators flashed and went dark, leaving behind a very bewildered android sentry in the Balancer's place.
Zero spoke in his normal baritone. "What just happened? I am off patrol."
"Oh my. Did we offend the Balancer?" whispered Yale. "We don't stand a chance if the planet now chooses to act against us."
A gaze motion shift in the field of eyestalks, cast from the group, to the med tent, alerting everybody into aiming a few mag-pros into the direction of the disturbance. The scent of fresh water grew stronger as the yellow plants globally increased their bait and lure smell in reaction.
Morgan Martin came out of the tent, bearing the sleeping Uly in his arms. Everybody swept up their gun muzzles to the sky in shock to avoid shooting him.
At the sight, Devon Adair got mad. "What are you doing touching my son, Morgan?!"
The look on his face was beatific and gentle. "I am sorry, Devon. I did not mean to frighten you." he said in a soft cadence. "But we need him now to be our eyes and ears and voice to the Mother."
Morgan's usual nervous twitching and sense of unease, were entirely gone from his messy, long ponytailed posture, and demeanor.
Bess looked askance at him. "Balancer? Is that you in there with my husband?" she wondered, peering closely at his eyes.
"Yes." Mr. Martin replied, gracefully laying Uly down onto the ground by Zero's feet. He picked up and carefully placed the Terrian staff back into one of the boy's lax hands. "He is most interesting. He does not prefer to be on this World with us."
At the touch of its wood, Uly awoke and opened his eyes. "Hi, Mom. I'm all right. It's so good hear my friends again." he said calmly, still sleepy. "The Balancer's back."
Devon and Julia knelt by the boy, but they didn't physically touch him when the staff started fluxing with it's tesla-like static charge again in a dull golden glow.
Heller brought out her dia-glove and scanned him. "He's still weak, but getting no worse." Then the doctor scanned Morgan Martin who did not mind at all for once. "And he's ...well, Bess, I don't know how better to put this. He's... been tamed. I think. He's no longer showing his normal earmarks of continual stress."
In a test, Alonzo Solace pinched Morgan's arm, hard. Morgan did not react. Alonzo's eyes grew wide with amusement. "Our hypochondriac's no longer hyper. Look at that!"
Beside him, Bess started laughing. "Well, Balancer. You work better than VR for all of my husband's phobias.. Would you mind moving in permanently?" she joked.
Even John Danziger smiled. Only Magus and Cameron still looked ill at ease with the mental possession.
The Balancer stated the obvious. "I can only remain on this World during each Moon Cross, of which this night's ends soon."
Morgan Martin shook his head for a moment. "Wow, she feels like a fine brandy going down. But I'm still in control of myself." he told the others. "Why am I not frightened by this?"
"Because it feels good. Shut up." Julia snapped, putting away her mediglove. "Let your guest use your mouth, Morgan Martin."
"Uh, okay.." Morgan mumbled, still smiling stupidly with alien intelligence mixed in.
John Danziger took charge. "Uly, are you ready to do your stuff with that thing?" he asked, tossing a head at the sputtering Terrian staff in Uly's grip.
"I'm always ready!" the boy exclaimed defensively which made his mother smile. "I'm not even cold without my blankets tonight."
"Then we best begin." The tutor reminded the group. "Balancer, what do you need the boy to do to reach your Mother since you say he is the one most favored by the Terrians?"
"He must think about the small life who are Lost." said Morgan/Balancer, as he/she raised his/her arms. As far as the horizon, skeletons of Kobas, Terrians and even a Grendler rose into the air at the behest of the tendrils of energy that sprouted out from the top of Uly's staff, from where they had previously lay hidden underneath the grass and eye stalk meadows.
The resulting smell of rot and flesh decay made the Eden Project people gag. Julia spoke from around a hand pressed protectively over her nose and mouth. "Okay, we get the picture! Please put them down again where the wind can't reach. The smell of death is almost overwhelm-"
"Such is the suffering of the Mother." said Uly, his eyes glowing Terrian dream red. "She comes. aahHHHHHH !" he moaned as the planetary presence returned into his consciousness."There you are! I've missed you! Can I-" the boy broke off as his eyes closed.
"IIII ammmm HHHHhhhere..." the Mother spoke as Uly himself settled back onto the ground and into a relaxed pose. The rain of putrid bones falling from the air was deafening as Her power manifest itself into the vicinity and over the Balancer's helpful one. A clean, fresh wind entered camp and blew away the smell of death. "IIII willlllll lllllistennnn." She promised.
Bess Martin stood forward and lifted up a geolock device with both of her hands to show Her. "Mother. This is the machine that we believe will cull the tiny Earth life that no eye can see, that is causing the Turning."
"Annn exo-deviceeee. LLLikee the not-life on your backssss and in your bodiessssss." the Mother replied. "Thhhe Mech-in-aaahhhh."
Eden Project shot glances at the Mag-pros they were holding over their shoulders and at Yale's cybernetic implants.
John Danziger knelt down by Uly and studied his entranced, serene, sleeping face, speaking seriously. "A machine, yes, like the Z.E.D."
"...interrogators..." whispered the Balancer/Morgan, in support.
"IIIIt caused a Lostttt.."
Devon's eyes widened. "She remembers the Terrian we froze in the rock with a geolock."
John spoke again. "You can clear out the Terrians this time. Move the small life. All of them. Into safe places not yet infected. Then the machine could be used to stop the Phage that is making the Lost."
"TTTTTThhe LLLLLandDD WWwwwilllLLL DDDie."
Yale said. "No.. It will be paused. In stasis. In an alive/not alive time."
"Like..um...like frozen ice. Like water, that is solid." Alonzo piped up.
The Mother was silent.
True took Alonzo's hand in kinship to show her tie to the group. "Like winter, Mother. No growth. Just until the tiny life causing the sickness dies."
It seemed like the very earth was thinking very deeply. Even the eyestalks ceased their endless murmurations.
Devon kept on talking. "But we can't travel fast enough to find the edge of the extinction zone. It is still expanding out in a circle from where it began fifty years ago. Can you help us? Uly says he needs clean dirt again in order to get better, like what you did for him the first time you met." Adair choked up. "Mother, please. He-he will become one of the forever Lost if we can't reach the edge in time to get more."
There was a crunch of stone and suddenly Eden Project was surrounded by nine Z.E.D., aiming guns at their heads.
"Don't move." John hissed. "Don't move a muscle, anybody. Just do what they s-" he fell into silence when he saw the finger of one of the super soldiers twitch on a worm rifle's trigger.
"Tttttthe Ttturningggg bbbegannnnn bbbbecauseee of tttthe nnnnotttt-wwwwe! Ttttthhheyy wwwwillll allllll cceaseeee!" said Mother through Uly.
The boy was conscious, and he had understood the planet voice's threat. "No! Don't! I am not we! Terrians' chose me to be their speaker! So did you, to be yours! We didn't do it!"
"Sssooo mmmmmanyyyyy LLlllosttttTTT !" roared the Earth 2 intelligence.
Only Morgan/Balancer felt at ease. He/she had no gun following his/her movements. "Mother, hear me, one of yours." the unseen Terrian/seen Earther man began. "I have communicated much to these not-we. I see their lives are short, just a span of one tree's. This batch of exo life was all not yet, when the Turning began. The exo who violated the Lands are long Lost and are harmless dust on the ground. These, whom we are with, hold my heart, as you hold Uly. They fight hard for life here, as we once did. Recall that Terrians were once exo's, too!"
Every eye stalk on the mountain suddenly turned and looked right at Morgan Martin who only slightly, flinched. He felt like his brain was being x-ray-ed. Then the pressure released in a warm rush.
"TTTttthhheeen sssSSSTandDDDdd beforeeeee TTThemMMM aaand lleaD. SSSSssave mMy LLLostTTTT, SSSSSisterRRRR." And suddenly, the Gaia presence was gone. Uly sucked in a breath and held it, as he felt a transfer of power away from himself and being focused nearby.
Morgan Martin issued a cry and grabbed his head as something blue and glowing leaped out of his body and landed feet first on top of a rock. The eye stalks started singing and staring at the figure that was appearing in that spot, bit by bit, inside of a warm yellow glow. It was a slender albino Terrian, bearing clean white moon dust in both of her delicate hands. ##I am the Balancer. And I will not take this boy's life as one of the Lost.## she sang joyfully in a dreamscape that all of Eden Project could see while wide awake. The Balancer leaped over to Uly and sprinkled bits of her moon all over the boy. The glowing powder sank into his body, and disappeared like rain soaking into thirsty soil. Then she reached down and drew him up by the hand to stand by her side with their fingers laced together; the tiny boy and the impossibly tall white Terrian. A pure, snow colored staff, an albaster mirror of the one Uly held, appeared in her free hand and burst into yellow fire. She cried out and the yellow fire struck every one of the Z.E.D. in the World, burning them first to a crisp, then to a sour vapor, which dissipated on the planetwide winds into nothingness.
Zero warbled an update. "We are no longer in danger.."
"What?" Devon startled.
"I am scanning no Z.E.D. traces anywhere on the surface." the android clarified.
'Impossible!" Morgan Martin squawked. "They're super soldiers!"
John held up his hand held scanner. "They're gone. T-They're not here. No emissions are registering!" he said happily, not quite believing it.
True leaped at her Dad, and squeezed him in a hug. "The bad guys never win!"
Julia squatted very still in the dead grass, leaning forward on the balls of her feet, cradling her dia-glove in her arms. "Alonzo, are we truly free? No more of those damned worm bullets?"
Solace grinned and flipped on his vicinity VR which fed off Zero's telemetry. "It's true. The way's clear, Julia. In all directions!" he celebrated.
Bess Martin marvelled. "Nuture first?" she smiled crookedly. "That's so inhuman." she said, wrapping her arms around a still dizzy but relaxed Morgan.
Yale recovered first. "What was that last part, Balancer? What just happened? It almost blinded us."
The snow Terrian regarded the dark shaded teacher. ##I have been gifted freedom from my task to become the Mother of your clan and all of its future generations. That was protection, mechina man.## she declared, shaking her ice shaded scaley pelt, which sparkled in the sun. "Tell me. Instant talk. How exactly should we do this Stopping?"
Yale answered frankly. "We need to find the edge of the falling Lost. On the surface, down below, whereever it is in effect, Balancer. We call this an extinction zone. Oh, and it might be in the lakes and rivers and clouds, if you have small life that dwells there inside liquids or vapors."
##We do not. Xero life is only in the ground, touching it, or in the air.## the Balancer flowed delicately with words.
"The Koba gliders." Uly remembered.
##The ears of the wind.## agreed the Balancer, stooping low to caress a cluster of yellow eye stalk ferns, who were watching her intently. ##Like the eyes on the land, which I grew for you.##
Bess was surprised. "You were watching us last week even before we escaped Eve?"
##Mary-exo contacted I through the Mists. She said you nutured her life back from being Lost. This is being like a Xero. So we nutured the Devon-unit. The Turning made a way of walls against nuturing the Uly. He was Lost bound. Light am I that he called The Mother. She gifted I, so I can protect exos. And the Uly.##
Cameron could not help but ask a question. "But weren't those Z.E.D. Terrian or Grendler, Balancer?"
##They were not Xero.##
This answer gave chills up and down Eden Project's spine. Devon and John exchanged looks. ::If we had opened fire on anybody last week to kill. We would have been marked for erasure as surely as the Z.E.D.::
