A/N: Since it's Labor Day, I'm posting an extra chapter(assuming I can get an internet connection long enough to do so... . Also I've slightly edited the end of 3ii; the 'Life is Chemistry' wasn't Gerald's own thought but an attempt to rationalize a decision he knew he shouldn't make, which I did not make very clear initially. But welcome to Chapter 5; ten points to anyone who recognizes the title quote before reading the explanation:

5.i. "Curls Up but Can't Swim"

Maria recovered slowly and was still in sickbay when Ivan and Katherine were returned to Earth. GUN had declared a colony-wide alert; and all non-resident persons were required to leave or be evicted. As there was nothing to be gained by arguing, Gerald assured his remaining son and daughter-in-law that he and Maria would be fine and encouraged them to obey the "request" before it became an enforced order. There were rumors that the government was going to require residents to evacuate as well, at least those who were considered "non-essential" personnel, but that never quite materialized. Most of the patients in the sickbay, however, were returned to Earth; Gerald had to join forces with the head doctors in fighting for Maria and a few others who could not return to Earth. There were several patients who for various reasons could not tolerate the gravity on-planet, mostly due to bone or heart conditions. Maria, of course, had the NIDS combination of neurogenic toxin and immune destruction that required daily therapy with Heal Units, and these could not be made on Earth. In the end these few patients were permitted to stay. Gerald did not join the researchers fighting for Project: Shadow; they had decided together that it would be more effective if he lent his voice and seniority to the doctors, who were much less experienced in countering GUN. Not that I have much experience myself, Gerald thought. It was always Mary who really stood up to them... But the image of Mary's face in his mind became Maria's, and Maria could not fight for herself. So Gerald planted his feet and refused to be moved. He won the right for Maria and himself to stay, and the researchers kept Project: Shadow alive, but there was to be a subsequent price no one anticipated. Several of the other research projects were closed down, the researchers called back to the Earth-based ARK. The staff that remained on the Space Colony ARK were redistributed among the remaining projects, including Project: Shadow which acquired two new lab techs. Gerald was to wonder, much later, if that was a critical factor in what happened after.

But for now things settled down, briefly. Maria recovered enough to return to her rooms in Gerald's wing. The Biolizard, now wearing a specially-designed life-support unit strapped to her back, recovered from her lethargy and apparent "starvation". With the life-support pack freeing the energy of the chaos drives and concentrating the energy in one area, she was now growing faster than ever. Gerald had to get several of his fellow researchers and techs to help him herd the giant lizard from her secret room to one of the now-abandoned, deep-level weapons test rooms. For a beast that was unable to stand on her own four feet, she was alarmingly mobile. The creature lunged and snapped at the poles and makeshift shields they were carrying to guide her with until Gerald wished he'd brought the Gizoid to help move the beast; at least she would have been unable to damage the robot, as it looked like she wanted to do to the humans. But the Gizoid was back watching Maria, and Gerald did not want to leave hid granddaughter by herself even briefly. Finally they turned the creature in at the correct door and sealed it behind her. Gerald and a few of the others went up to the control room where they could look down at the testing area. "Well, if GUN wanted a weapon, I'd say they've got one," someone said. "And it's still growing!"

"Weapons that attack their makers as well as the enemy aren't much good. You need something with enough brain to train, per the project specs" someone else replied.

Gerald frowned. The Project was about immortality; he didn't recall anything about training Shadow as a weapon. When he left the group, it was to go straight to his lab and pull up the Project: Shadow specs again. It is there. Why didn't I see that before? ...to create the Ultimate Life-form; a weapon capable of self-regeneration and self-reproduction that can be directed to attack designated enemies of the Nation... He closed the file. Had that been there all along? Or had it changed sometime in the last years?Regeneration and self-healing were right, he remembered those, but the Chaos lizards' self-reproduction was only because he'd selected the parthenogenic lizard as his model; The Chaos rats were either male or female and reproduced as rats did everywhere. And he wasn't even certain what enemies the nation had at the moment, they certainly weren't at war with anyone. No, that couldn't have been what he'd signed, it was only the immortality at the start. At any rate, his goals were always different; they had never been quite what the project specified, only now, the degree of difference had changed..

But it was very true that he needed something controllable, with a brain, and something smaller that would not grow indefinitely. He wondered just how big the Shadow the Biolizard would get. Unlike mammals who hit a genetically-determined size and stopped growing, reptiles never quite did. Normally, of course the growth rate plummeted once they got to be a certain size, but it never stopped completely. The other active and passive Chaos lizards followed the usual pattern. The actives were 4 times the size of the passives and normal whiptails, but at about the same age they all dropped the highspeed growth and well, in the last 5 years the original actives, Biolizard's clutchmates, had grown about an inch and a half. She, on the other hand, was now nearly twenty-five feet long. Her proportions were also changed, as her neck was now as long as the rest of her body, and her tail comparatively shorter than normal whiptail proportions. And then there were the weakened legs, though she slithered rapidly enough.

Mammals for fixed growth. Would that fix the proportional shift? That's NOT a whiptail trait. And until she KEPT growing, she was properly proportioned. So, using a mammal with a limited growth span may correct that. But which mammal? Rats? Rats are intelligent, but... The professor grinned in spite of himself, picturing his report to GUN on why their weapon looked like a rat. The image of a giant rat with a tail curled behind it intruded on his thoughts - an image from a book he'd read to Maria once, the Rusty Rats or something like that guiding people through the snow with their up-curled tails. Up-curled, curled up... curled up? "Curls up but can't swim"; the grin was replaced by a frown. Where do I know that from? Kipling, of course, but... He'd read Maria the nonsensical Just-So Stories and she'd loved "The Beginning of Armadillos" - Stickly Prickly Hedgehog and Slow Solid Turtle, playing their trick on Painted Jaguar. But that phrase had always resonated in his brain somehow, with an odd ring of familiarity. He jumped as the clock chirped at him and looking at the time, went to make sure Maria was getting ready for bed. Supervising bath, nightgown, tooth brushing and Heal Unit usage occupied his thoughts. And of course, prayers, bedtime story (Kipling, oddly enough, though she chose "The Cat Who Walked by Himself" tonight) and goodnight hug and kiss. By the time he got to his own bed the line had slipped from his conscious mind. ...But it still prowled his subconscious.

At 3 am he sat straight up in bed, waking out of a sound sleep to yell, "Rafe! The pyramids! 'Can Curl but can't cook.' That's where I'd heard it before!" He sagged back against the pillows, rummaging in his brain for thirty-year-old memories. Rafe's last name is Curl, but it's also a sort of talent that runs in his family - the way some humans can curl their tongues and some can't - although in this case, it's the whole body that the hedgehogs roll up. A throwback, they think, from the ancestral hedgehogs who could flex a single muscle -so!- and change from a tasty-looking potential meal into a ball of sharp thorns. The dokan who possess the ability can't truly ball up the way their ancestors did, with that same muscle pulling the sides of their skin together over their arms and legs; the proportions have changed too much. Jenny couldn't do it all. But Rafe could; and with a bit of momentum, he could do a tuck and curl that would send a spine-edged disk rolling along for a surprising distance, and he could jump and curl at objects as well. I remember him showing me how he did it that night in the jungle, when we were on our way back from the pyramid. We then had one of those half-serious campfire discussions about ways to sharpen or stiffen dokan quills, and turn a curled hedgehog into a sort of rolling saw blade. Or a flying one, by launching the hedgehog off a catapult. That might make a suitable weapon. Everyone overlooked the dokan, and "everyone" would also see that a three-foot-tall hedgehog couldn't truly be a threat. Not like one of the dokan crocodiles, lions, or even foxes might. All of the dokan, regardless of height, were stronger and tougher than the average human, with denser bone and muscle. A hedgehog's quills were so obvious as to be overlooked; it couldn't be disarmed; and it would be intelligent- Gerald snapped upright again, appalled at his own thoughts. Was he truly considering turning an intelligent species - he had friends that were hedgehogs! - into a military weapon, a slave! For that was what they would have to be, to be what GUN was after.

But they might not get what they expect...if I left full intelligence and free will, then it would not HAVE to obey them. ...if it could choose it's own path... He couldn't make a person a slave, and the dokan WERE people despite what some humans might think. But if he made the changes, altered a hedgehog to be immortal, to utilize the Chaos energy, that would be major tampering. Talk about playing God. I don't have that right. Not even for Maria. He lay down again and pulled the sheets up over his head, trying to clear his mind of thoughts that challenged his deepest ethics. But this voice was internal and could not be shut out so easily. And it knew the bait that he could not pass up - the chance to save Maria's life

If it could choose NOT to obey... He flopped over and buried his face in his pillow. If it retained free will, if it could choose like anyone else whether it wanted to be a soldier or not...a willing soldier would be better than an unwilling slave, surely... But I could hardly tell GUN that I was trying to create a weapon that might refuse to be used. But then would I have to tell them? They didn't tell me when they changed the contract. It was supposed to be an immortal life form, now it's an "Ultimate" one -but I could do that. I think. It wouldn't be very Ultimate if it was a mindless automaton, so it must be able to think for itself. Another thought occurred to him. No, it would be far to dangerous that way - the Gizoid was the Ultimate Being, and it destroyed the Fourth Great Civilization because it's only purpose was to absorb fighting methods and apply them. So it must be able to make judgements and decide its own actions. He hauled himself out of bed and began to pace, worrying the problem back and forth. He was aware that he was trying to work out the details for something he had no business even considering, and equally aware that he would do it, for Maria, even though he'd cover it up with pretty words and specious reasoning. He shoved his qualms into a dark corner of his mind and kept pacing, wrestling with the problem until the lights came up to tell him it was "morning".By then the creation of the Ultimate Life-form was a foregone conclusion; only the how remained uncertain.