Chapter 2
Trance ran the scanner over Harper as he lay silently on one of the horrendously uncomfortable MedDeck beds he frequented so often. Once the Maru had docked with the Andromeda Trance, Beka and a distant Harper had walked to MEd Deck. Beka had asked for Andromeda to meet the trio in Med Deck. Andromeda reported that Dylan, Rev, Tyr and her Avatar would have to finish the reception they were currently attending or risk causing the Tellarian ambassadors. Beka had been very objectionable to this and Dylan and had promised to leave as soon as they were able. With this Beka would have to be content.
"Just lie still, I'll be finished in a moment." Trance said in her most reassuring voice. She was very worried about the Blonde engineer, she had only the vaguest idea of what had been done to him and certainly no clue about how to reverse it.
"Trance, can you tell what happened to him?" Beka's question only served to make Trance feel even worse at her own inability to help.
"I can't tell. The scanners are having trouble reading him at all, and what data I can get makes no sense."
"Look, here's what Harper's body looked at when he had his last checkup two days ago." Trance pressed a control and a three-dimensional representation of a fairly typical human body appeared onscreen. Bones, organs, muscle tissue, it was all where it should be.
"And this is what the scanner is reading now." Trance continued, tapping a few controls. A second image appeared next to the first. The first thing that beka noticed was how grainy and distorted the picture was, she asked Andromeda about it.
"I'm sorry Beka, the scanner is working fine, Harper's body is generating a kind of energy field, it's not very strong now but it does the equipment some problems." Said Andromeda's hologram that had just appeared next to the bed.
The bones were in the right place, physically there was little difference that Beka could see.
"The Bones look the same." Beka said.
"For the most part they are, however at high powered magnification there are some minute differences, the bones are developing tiny tubes, hollow channels that are microns in diameter but run along every single one of his bones." Andromeda reported, before adding in a doubtful voice. "I can't tell what they are for, but the interference is making it very hard to detect any other changes that may exist."
"As for the rest of him, it gets sketchy. We had to use old X-ray style mapping to see the changes in his bones because the interference is making the scanners go haywire. I can say that his organs are changing, but not how and certainly not why. I'm sorry, Beka." Andromeda added reproachfully.
"It's not your fault. Lets just concentrate on making Harper well, and then we can get to work on the guys who's fault this really is." Beka's temper was flaring slightly, but she pushed it down.
"That's just it, Beka. He's not unwell, he's not sick or diseased or injured in any way we can see. He's just, well, different." Trance's voice was becoming more and more worried as she watched Beka, she doubted that Beka would accept this quickly, if at all.
"That was the idea." Harper's quiet statement filled the room as he spoke his first words since the incident.
"Harper!" Trance leapt to his side to give him a hug, which he accepted and even reciprocated carefully. She looked into his eyes and saw her Harper staring back.
~'My' Harper? Am I getting possessive?~ The thought drifted across her mind before she shoved it aside to focus on the task at hand.
No sooner had Trance released him, Beka moved to his other side to put a hand on his forehead.
"Seamus Harper, you have got to stop worrying me like this. How do you feel?"
"Strange" Was the only answer he supplied.
"Are you in pain?" Trance was anxious, but she looked slightly relieved when he shook his head.
"What happened to me. I feel, different"
"Different how?"
"It is hard to explain. I'm seeing things, things I never noticed before."
Harper sat up and looked at Trance for the first time, his eyes were wide with awe.
"What?" Trance blushed slightly under his scrutiny. Harper just smiled and turned away slighty.
~I can see colours around you. It's silvery and flows around you and through you. It pools at your chest, winds up and down and around your body, your arms and legs, even your tail~ Harper thought
Harper was starting to get the hang of this kind of this weirdo-vision , it was like it overlapped over the way things looked normally. Looking around he saw different colours on everything. A blue 'aura' surrounded Beka, but it was gauzy and indistinct when compared to the brilliance that enclosed Trance.
Harper had always thought Trance was pretty, but lately he had been noticing more and more just how attractive this girl was. She was a myriad of contradictions; naïve and trusting she was, but she was also very intelligence and incredibly wise. Beautiful and outgoing, yet she seemed completely oblivious to the way most of the males that laid their' eyes upon drooled at the idea of having her. Harper suspected that if she were to ask him about sex, he would have to explain an awful lot.
Harper felt a strange buzz that dwelled behind his eyes, it wasn't painful, it actually tickled a little. Then he saw images of Trance, his memories of her when he first caught her trying to relieve him of his money. When he had later saw her signing up on the Maru. The way she moved when she was happy or excited, the bounce always present in her step. A thousand other things about her flew through his mind, every memory, every feeling and every sensation that connected him with Trance. Tiny morsels of information that quickly slipped into place to form a dazzlingly clear picture of who Trance was to him.
All this happened in a blinding flash, in less than a fraction of a second and it nearly dropped him. He blinked a few times, and realised how stupid he must look having just stared at Trance for what felt like hours. Yet, given her lack of reaction, he realised that it must have taken a mere instant.
So, Seamus Zelazny Harper called upon his psyche's most powerful capability, his capability for denial. Steeling himself for a Herculean feat of repression, he filed this particular piece of disturbing information away in a little mental cabinet that he knew would not stay closed for long.
"So trance, what did the mad doctor and his insane experiments do to me?" Harper was ready to face up to physical changes, he had a feeling that they would hit him the softest.
"Well, I'm gonna need a blood sample." Trance took the sample with easy precision and placed it under the scanner.
"Andromeda, please run a scan of the sample and show us the results." Trance's voice was less shaky now that she was actually doing something.
On the screen, Andromeda showed the group the changes that had occurred to Harper's DNA.
"A Triple-Helix?!?" Trance was shocked, if the changes had affected Harper at the genetic level, it would be very likely irreversible. No, she would not accept that, she had to help Harper.
"Harper's DNA has undergone a massive change. Not only is there an extra strand in the helix, but the DNA is the most densely packed arrangement of nucleotides I have ever seen. He also has extra bases, not four but eight different organic bases. I don't know how this kind of strand can even support itself, let alone replicate at the rate it is." Andromeda's voice was, as always, calm, but there was a tinge of worry in her voice. In truth, though she had had literally hundreds of engineers, none were so close to her as Harper. She was worried for the Human who kept her running better alone than a team of fifty High Guard engineers.
"So, any other good news?" Harper was being to calm, very little of this had soaked in yet; on the plus side he was starting get the hang of ignoring the auras and just seeing things normally.
"The energy that your body is putting out makes it hard to scan you, but your body is undergoing massive changes at every level: skeleton, muscles and organs are all changing . In fact, given how fast your metabolism must be running to keep up, you should be getting pretty hungry right about now." Trance said.
"You're right, I am hungry, if your purpleness has no objections, I'm going down to the mess to eat. Anybody wanna join me?" Harper tried to sound as though he didn't want to be left alone for a while. Deep inside he knew that the changes could never be reversed, so why dwell in hell?
"I'll go." Trance said quickly, she wanted to keep an eye on him, he had the most annoying habit of pushing himself too hard. Beka declined the offer, she wanted to go beat the hell out of Tyr, she found it a most enjoyable way of relieving emotional stress.
~Plus he is really hot~ she thought
So with a brief look to the recovering engineer, she departed MedDeck.
Harper looked at Trance again, studying her, before he felt that buzz again behind his eyes and turned toward the door a little too sharply.
"Well my Sparkly Purple Babe, are you ready to escort little me to the Mess?" Harper's tone was mocking, but his teasing smile and the glint in his eyes let Trance know he was only playing. It amazed her how well she knew Harper, his mannerisms and habits were second nature to her, she decided she liked this.
~Plus he is really hot and I love him~ The thought came unbidden, it screamed at her of truth. She would push this away for now, Harper was sick and he needed her help. With that she turned and walked in stride with the blonde.
As they walked with shoulders touching very lightly, Trance became aware of Harper's hand at the small of her back, touching her so gently she almost didn't notice it. A second later, she realised that her tail had left it's habitual position of trailing along the floor and had began to oh-so-gently wrap itself around his waist. He didn't seem to mind, though. The old Harper might not have even noticed it, but something about the way he acted made her believe that he was becoming far more sensitive to his surroundings. She had excellent hearing and keen eyesight, and it had taken her quite a few days on this ship to learn to tune out the tiny little noises that cropped up around the corridor. She watched Harper out of the corner of her eye, his eyes were flicking around very fast, looking at this part of the bulkhead and then that section of the ceiling. He was sensing the most minuscule things that had always escaped him.
Harper was perfectly aware of the way they were moving, the proximity of her warm body was comforting to him as he tried not to jump at the little things he was starting to see and hear. Ever since he had left MedDeck he had heard a kind of buzzing that was loud and very annoying, it had taken him awhile to realise that it was the sound of the electronic systems in Andromeda working. Trance had always made him feel something he had very rarely experienced in his life, she made him feel safe.
~And besides, if she was uncomfortable, she wouldn't be looking at me like that~ He referred to the way she was sneaking glances at him when she thought his attention diverted. It was actually kind of cute, and the look she was giving him was warm and sparkly, just like her. The contact between the two increased ever so slightly as they both decided they liked the feel of each other close to them.
All too soon, they arrived at their' destination and reluctantly parted as Harper went to get some food and Trance sat at a table. Harper returned with a small meal for Trance, three cans of Sparky cola and a huge plate filled with very unusual foods. Trance wasn't sure she recognised all of the stuff on Harper's plate and was tempted to run some of it by MedDeck before Harper ate anything poisonous, she supposed the food might have been left from one of the meals that the Andromeda hosted with some alien ambassadors.
Harper was eating with gusto, he was munching down foods that, when he thought about it, he would probably not have even touched two days ago.
"So, Trance, I've been thinking, if that machine was supposed to have 'evolved' me, then why is my body still changing? And why am having these strange dietary urges?" Harper said between mouthfuls, he opened a can of Sparky and downed it in one. Trance glanced at his meal and saw that he was almost finished, while hers' had been barely touched.
"I don't know. Maybe whatever went wrong with the machine also screwed up the sequence. That Doctor Jacobs." Trance had an almost angry look on her face as she said that name. "didn't he say that the machine had evolved your body much further than they had intended? Maybe the machine 'evolved' your DNA that far but didn't have time to work on your body before they turned it off." Harper pondered this for a moment, before shrugging and finishing his meal in record time.
The two stood up and walked closely and silently to the ObsDeck. There was a brilliant view of the planet Tellaris below them. Harper sat down quietly against the wall, and after a moment's hesitation Trance sat next to him, her arms wrapped around her legs and her tail wrapped itself gently around his waist.The duo looked out at the planet in silence, quietly enjoying the view. A minute passed, then two before Harper spoke.
"Trance. What that machine did to me. It's not going to reversible, it's permanent. I know that you think that's just my own fear talking, but it will be true, I can feel it. So I don't want you to feel bad when you can't do anything, I want you to try and accept it." His voice was calm and his voice betrayed an utter certainty, he didn't look at her, but her head snapped to look at him.
"I want to help, Harper! You're shouldn't be talking like that!" Trance was almost in tears. She felt so helpless.
"You DO help me Trance. You make me feel so much better just being here. You have always been there for me, you make me feel safe. I don't like what is happening to me, but I know we can't change it. It's better I just try to deal with it, rather than fight it for no reason. You know what I'm saying is the truth." His voice was full of emotion.
Trance was shocked, despite his outgoing personality, Harper had always been very private about his emotions. His last sentence conveyed more emotion than Trance had heard from him in all the time she had known him.
"I know." She whispered quietly, Trance was very scared for him. Harper wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned her head against him and closed her eyes.
"It's just, I've lost so much already, I couldn't bare the thought of loosing you." Trance spoke in a quiet, trembling voice.
Whereas before, Harper would have jumped on any tiny morsel of information about Trance, Harper just laid his head gently on hers and hugged her tighter.
"You're not going to loose me, Trance, and I'm not going to loose you either. Trust in that, I'll be here for you for as long as you'll have me." Harper spoke reassuringly, knowing that this would be difficult for them both. Trance was very rarely scared of anything, but he could tell that she was terrified right now. He thought perhaps she knew something else, but cast it aside. Even if she wasn't telling him something, he trusted her enough to know that there would be a good reason.
Strangely enough, Trance was comforted immeasurably by the simple statement. The events of the day were beginning to catch up with her. She was so tired, and he felt so warm and safe. She closed her eyes and drifted off into a peaceful sleep.
Harper smiled slightly as he felt her fall asleep. Realising that he was just as tired as Trance, Harper relaxed and closed his eyes as well, following Trance into dreams.
A figure watched them silently from the corridor, he moved not at all and wore a dark cloak which covered his head and bathed it in shadow. He saw the two fall asleep and smiled.
~And so it begins~ He thought, before stepping backwards and disappearing from the Andromeda, leaving not a trace. Quietly, Harper stirred in his sleep.
Trance ran the scanner over Harper as he lay silently on one of the horrendously uncomfortable MedDeck beds he frequented so often. Once the Maru had docked with the Andromeda Trance, Beka and a distant Harper had walked to MEd Deck. Beka had asked for Andromeda to meet the trio in Med Deck. Andromeda reported that Dylan, Rev, Tyr and her Avatar would have to finish the reception they were currently attending or risk causing the Tellarian ambassadors. Beka had been very objectionable to this and Dylan and had promised to leave as soon as they were able. With this Beka would have to be content.
"Just lie still, I'll be finished in a moment." Trance said in her most reassuring voice. She was very worried about the Blonde engineer, she had only the vaguest idea of what had been done to him and certainly no clue about how to reverse it.
"Trance, can you tell what happened to him?" Beka's question only served to make Trance feel even worse at her own inability to help.
"I can't tell. The scanners are having trouble reading him at all, and what data I can get makes no sense."
"Look, here's what Harper's body looked at when he had his last checkup two days ago." Trance pressed a control and a three-dimensional representation of a fairly typical human body appeared onscreen. Bones, organs, muscle tissue, it was all where it should be.
"And this is what the scanner is reading now." Trance continued, tapping a few controls. A second image appeared next to the first. The first thing that beka noticed was how grainy and distorted the picture was, she asked Andromeda about it.
"I'm sorry Beka, the scanner is working fine, Harper's body is generating a kind of energy field, it's not very strong now but it does the equipment some problems." Said Andromeda's hologram that had just appeared next to the bed.
The bones were in the right place, physically there was little difference that Beka could see.
"The Bones look the same." Beka said.
"For the most part they are, however at high powered magnification there are some minute differences, the bones are developing tiny tubes, hollow channels that are microns in diameter but run along every single one of his bones." Andromeda reported, before adding in a doubtful voice. "I can't tell what they are for, but the interference is making it very hard to detect any other changes that may exist."
"As for the rest of him, it gets sketchy. We had to use old X-ray style mapping to see the changes in his bones because the interference is making the scanners go haywire. I can say that his organs are changing, but not how and certainly not why. I'm sorry, Beka." Andromeda added reproachfully.
"It's not your fault. Lets just concentrate on making Harper well, and then we can get to work on the guys who's fault this really is." Beka's temper was flaring slightly, but she pushed it down.
"That's just it, Beka. He's not unwell, he's not sick or diseased or injured in any way we can see. He's just, well, different." Trance's voice was becoming more and more worried as she watched Beka, she doubted that Beka would accept this quickly, if at all.
"That was the idea." Harper's quiet statement filled the room as he spoke his first words since the incident.
"Harper!" Trance leapt to his side to give him a hug, which he accepted and even reciprocated carefully. She looked into his eyes and saw her Harper staring back.
~'My' Harper? Am I getting possessive?~ The thought drifted across her mind before she shoved it aside to focus on the task at hand.
No sooner had Trance released him, Beka moved to his other side to put a hand on his forehead.
"Seamus Harper, you have got to stop worrying me like this. How do you feel?"
"Strange" Was the only answer he supplied.
"Are you in pain?" Trance was anxious, but she looked slightly relieved when he shook his head.
"What happened to me. I feel, different"
"Different how?"
"It is hard to explain. I'm seeing things, things I never noticed before."
Harper sat up and looked at Trance for the first time, his eyes were wide with awe.
"What?" Trance blushed slightly under his scrutiny. Harper just smiled and turned away slighty.
~I can see colours around you. It's silvery and flows around you and through you. It pools at your chest, winds up and down and around your body, your arms and legs, even your tail~ Harper thought
Harper was starting to get the hang of this kind of this weirdo-vision , it was like it overlapped over the way things looked normally. Looking around he saw different colours on everything. A blue 'aura' surrounded Beka, but it was gauzy and indistinct when compared to the brilliance that enclosed Trance.
Harper had always thought Trance was pretty, but lately he had been noticing more and more just how attractive this girl was. She was a myriad of contradictions; naïve and trusting she was, but she was also very intelligence and incredibly wise. Beautiful and outgoing, yet she seemed completely oblivious to the way most of the males that laid their' eyes upon drooled at the idea of having her. Harper suspected that if she were to ask him about sex, he would have to explain an awful lot.
Harper felt a strange buzz that dwelled behind his eyes, it wasn't painful, it actually tickled a little. Then he saw images of Trance, his memories of her when he first caught her trying to relieve him of his money. When he had later saw her signing up on the Maru. The way she moved when she was happy or excited, the bounce always present in her step. A thousand other things about her flew through his mind, every memory, every feeling and every sensation that connected him with Trance. Tiny morsels of information that quickly slipped into place to form a dazzlingly clear picture of who Trance was to him.
All this happened in a blinding flash, in less than a fraction of a second and it nearly dropped him. He blinked a few times, and realised how stupid he must look having just stared at Trance for what felt like hours. Yet, given her lack of reaction, he realised that it must have taken a mere instant.
So, Seamus Zelazny Harper called upon his psyche's most powerful capability, his capability for denial. Steeling himself for a Herculean feat of repression, he filed this particular piece of disturbing information away in a little mental cabinet that he knew would not stay closed for long.
"So trance, what did the mad doctor and his insane experiments do to me?" Harper was ready to face up to physical changes, he had a feeling that they would hit him the softest.
"Well, I'm gonna need a blood sample." Trance took the sample with easy precision and placed it under the scanner.
"Andromeda, please run a scan of the sample and show us the results." Trance's voice was less shaky now that she was actually doing something.
On the screen, Andromeda showed the group the changes that had occurred to Harper's DNA.
"A Triple-Helix?!?" Trance was shocked, if the changes had affected Harper at the genetic level, it would be very likely irreversible. No, she would not accept that, she had to help Harper.
"Harper's DNA has undergone a massive change. Not only is there an extra strand in the helix, but the DNA is the most densely packed arrangement of nucleotides I have ever seen. He also has extra bases, not four but eight different organic bases. I don't know how this kind of strand can even support itself, let alone replicate at the rate it is." Andromeda's voice was, as always, calm, but there was a tinge of worry in her voice. In truth, though she had had literally hundreds of engineers, none were so close to her as Harper. She was worried for the Human who kept her running better alone than a team of fifty High Guard engineers.
"So, any other good news?" Harper was being to calm, very little of this had soaked in yet; on the plus side he was starting get the hang of ignoring the auras and just seeing things normally.
"The energy that your body is putting out makes it hard to scan you, but your body is undergoing massive changes at every level: skeleton, muscles and organs are all changing . In fact, given how fast your metabolism must be running to keep up, you should be getting pretty hungry right about now." Trance said.
"You're right, I am hungry, if your purpleness has no objections, I'm going down to the mess to eat. Anybody wanna join me?" Harper tried to sound as though he didn't want to be left alone for a while. Deep inside he knew that the changes could never be reversed, so why dwell in hell?
"I'll go." Trance said quickly, she wanted to keep an eye on him, he had the most annoying habit of pushing himself too hard. Beka declined the offer, she wanted to go beat the hell out of Tyr, she found it a most enjoyable way of relieving emotional stress.
~Plus he is really hot~ she thought
So with a brief look to the recovering engineer, she departed MedDeck.
Harper looked at Trance again, studying her, before he felt that buzz again behind his eyes and turned toward the door a little too sharply.
"Well my Sparkly Purple Babe, are you ready to escort little me to the Mess?" Harper's tone was mocking, but his teasing smile and the glint in his eyes let Trance know he was only playing. It amazed her how well she knew Harper, his mannerisms and habits were second nature to her, she decided she liked this.
~Plus he is really hot and I love him~ The thought came unbidden, it screamed at her of truth. She would push this away for now, Harper was sick and he needed her help. With that she turned and walked in stride with the blonde.
As they walked with shoulders touching very lightly, Trance became aware of Harper's hand at the small of her back, touching her so gently she almost didn't notice it. A second later, she realised that her tail had left it's habitual position of trailing along the floor and had began to oh-so-gently wrap itself around his waist. He didn't seem to mind, though. The old Harper might not have even noticed it, but something about the way he acted made her believe that he was becoming far more sensitive to his surroundings. She had excellent hearing and keen eyesight, and it had taken her quite a few days on this ship to learn to tune out the tiny little noises that cropped up around the corridor. She watched Harper out of the corner of her eye, his eyes were flicking around very fast, looking at this part of the bulkhead and then that section of the ceiling. He was sensing the most minuscule things that had always escaped him.
Harper was perfectly aware of the way they were moving, the proximity of her warm body was comforting to him as he tried not to jump at the little things he was starting to see and hear. Ever since he had left MedDeck he had heard a kind of buzzing that was loud and very annoying, it had taken him awhile to realise that it was the sound of the electronic systems in Andromeda working. Trance had always made him feel something he had very rarely experienced in his life, she made him feel safe.
~And besides, if she was uncomfortable, she wouldn't be looking at me like that~ He referred to the way she was sneaking glances at him when she thought his attention diverted. It was actually kind of cute, and the look she was giving him was warm and sparkly, just like her. The contact between the two increased ever so slightly as they both decided they liked the feel of each other close to them.
All too soon, they arrived at their' destination and reluctantly parted as Harper went to get some food and Trance sat at a table. Harper returned with a small meal for Trance, three cans of Sparky cola and a huge plate filled with very unusual foods. Trance wasn't sure she recognised all of the stuff on Harper's plate and was tempted to run some of it by MedDeck before Harper ate anything poisonous, she supposed the food might have been left from one of the meals that the Andromeda hosted with some alien ambassadors.
Harper was eating with gusto, he was munching down foods that, when he thought about it, he would probably not have even touched two days ago.
"So, Trance, I've been thinking, if that machine was supposed to have 'evolved' me, then why is my body still changing? And why am having these strange dietary urges?" Harper said between mouthfuls, he opened a can of Sparky and downed it in one. Trance glanced at his meal and saw that he was almost finished, while hers' had been barely touched.
"I don't know. Maybe whatever went wrong with the machine also screwed up the sequence. That Doctor Jacobs." Trance had an almost angry look on her face as she said that name. "didn't he say that the machine had evolved your body much further than they had intended? Maybe the machine 'evolved' your DNA that far but didn't have time to work on your body before they turned it off." Harper pondered this for a moment, before shrugging and finishing his meal in record time.
The two stood up and walked closely and silently to the ObsDeck. There was a brilliant view of the planet Tellaris below them. Harper sat down quietly against the wall, and after a moment's hesitation Trance sat next to him, her arms wrapped around her legs and her tail wrapped itself gently around his waist.The duo looked out at the planet in silence, quietly enjoying the view. A minute passed, then two before Harper spoke.
"Trance. What that machine did to me. It's not going to reversible, it's permanent. I know that you think that's just my own fear talking, but it will be true, I can feel it. So I don't want you to feel bad when you can't do anything, I want you to try and accept it." His voice was calm and his voice betrayed an utter certainty, he didn't look at her, but her head snapped to look at him.
"I want to help, Harper! You're shouldn't be talking like that!" Trance was almost in tears. She felt so helpless.
"You DO help me Trance. You make me feel so much better just being here. You have always been there for me, you make me feel safe. I don't like what is happening to me, but I know we can't change it. It's better I just try to deal with it, rather than fight it for no reason. You know what I'm saying is the truth." His voice was full of emotion.
Trance was shocked, despite his outgoing personality, Harper had always been very private about his emotions. His last sentence conveyed more emotion than Trance had heard from him in all the time she had known him.
"I know." She whispered quietly, Trance was very scared for him. Harper wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned her head against him and closed her eyes.
"It's just, I've lost so much already, I couldn't bare the thought of loosing you." Trance spoke in a quiet, trembling voice.
Whereas before, Harper would have jumped on any tiny morsel of information about Trance, Harper just laid his head gently on hers and hugged her tighter.
"You're not going to loose me, Trance, and I'm not going to loose you either. Trust in that, I'll be here for you for as long as you'll have me." Harper spoke reassuringly, knowing that this would be difficult for them both. Trance was very rarely scared of anything, but he could tell that she was terrified right now. He thought perhaps she knew something else, but cast it aside. Even if she wasn't telling him something, he trusted her enough to know that there would be a good reason.
Strangely enough, Trance was comforted immeasurably by the simple statement. The events of the day were beginning to catch up with her. She was so tired, and he felt so warm and safe. She closed her eyes and drifted off into a peaceful sleep.
Harper smiled slightly as he felt her fall asleep. Realising that he was just as tired as Trance, Harper relaxed and closed his eyes as well, following Trance into dreams.
A figure watched them silently from the corridor, he moved not at all and wore a dark cloak which covered his head and bathed it in shadow. He saw the two fall asleep and smiled.
~And so it begins~ He thought, before stepping backwards and disappearing from the Andromeda, leaving not a trace. Quietly, Harper stirred in his sleep.