Personal log.

Well, two days into the mafia game, and the first person has been voted off. It was Rath, and he didn't take it too well, especially because he was loyal town. Some of the other players are a little disheartened now, but it isn't too unusual to lynch fellow townies a time or two before getting a line on the pack. We're into the night stage now, and the pack is eagerly discussing their counterstrategy.

I happened to talk to Christin and the ship's captain, Variun, about how disconnected us Earthpeople feel from our roots, having had to leave so suddenly and with so little. Variun had an idea, about trying to see if we can get a library dump from some other ship at a rendezvous spot. It's surprising how much human cultural stuff aliens have gotten their hands on, apparently. Though they didn't say it out loud, I sort of get the impression that part of the appeal is that they find it campy - like the passing fad last fall for Russian pop music. It probably won't be all the newest and latest stuff, but I'd appreciate even a hit of seventies nostalgia at this point - assuming, of couse, that we can manage to arrange it without compromising the secrecy of our trip. There's also some Earth stuff that Christin had collected over her years here that wasn't available in the ship's computer yet - some CDs, books, and a sixty gig laptop hard drive almost full of newspaper clippings, audiobooks, classical performances, cached webzines, and a little bit of viral video. (As in the popular sense, not actual computer viri.)

Let's see, what else can I tell you about? Something seems to be bugging Maria about Michael, but I'm not sure what happened, and frankly I'm not convinced that Michael does either. Maybe it's just the close quarters getting to them - and Ava is pretty eager to take over their room if they can't occupy it together without fighting. (Taking Rath with her, of course.) Max and Liz, on the other hand, seem to spend more time alone together than just about anybody else, and are generally holding hands and looking all mooney-eyed at each other when they're 'out in public.' Of course, given the whole engagement thing, I should probably cut them some slack. And through all this, Lonnie seems to be more and more confident interacting with the rest of the gang - maybe because she wasn't first voted out of werewolf after all, (she made this big impassioned speech about how the town needed someone with as much killer instinct as she if they hoped to fight off werewolves,) and nobody's even talked about throwing her out of the airlock so far. Kyle's been acting very moody recently, on the other hand, and he actually asked Michael for a print of an old picture with Tess in it. (Everybody was very surprised that Maria and her mom kept that pic on a memory card, and Maria said that it had been saved somehow and she hadn't been sure how to delete it.)

Oooh, I think I'd better break off now. The psychic has left me a message about who he wants to try dreaming about. Ta ta.

#

"Let's see how long we can actually hold a conversation in Antarian," Max said to Liz in that language early in the afternoon. They'd gone back to their cabin after lunch for a - sexual exercise session, followed by brief naps. "About anything at all, as long as we've got the vo- the words for it."

"Okay, my dear love," Liz agreed. She was sitting in the chair in front of the dresser-desk, (still without a stitch on,) while Max stretched out all over the bed. "Have you thought about what you want to do about - about Tess' baby, once we get where we're going?"

Max drew in his breath. Somehow every time he invited the girl he loved to 'talk about anything she wanted to,' she managed to surprise him. "I... I'm not sure. She - in her letter to Kyle, she talked about - about having us adopt him, or you at any rate. Of the two of us raising him as our child."

"Yeah, I know. Isabel mentioned that in her message to Tess too, remember."

"Right. Well - I'd like that, but only if you're - if you would wish it of your whole heart." The grammar there was just as awkward in Antarian as it is translated directly into English, but it was the only way Max could think to phrase his thought with the words he knew. "Otherwise - try to find somebody who would be good family to him - maybe collateral branches of the Liaret royal house, maybe people with no direct blood relation, but hearts big enough to look past that."

"Yeah, I guess the way you and Isabel turned out speaks well for some adoptive families," Liz agreed. "He should have that much love in his life."

Max nodded at Liz, pleased that she understood. "Tess also mentioned - Queen Alinda taking care of the baby, but I don't think so. She's got to be very old, even for an Antarian, and probably not up to taking care of an infant, a toddler, and so on until he's old enough to leave the nest."

"Yes," Liz agreed, and giggled. "Raydeleen - she's Alinda's personal stand-in, right? Something like that. So if Alinda took on the guardianship of the baby, then Alinda would need to take care of him herself, if Alinda wasn't fit enough to live up to her own obligations..."

"Right - which might take away from the time and energy that Rayde is able to put into running the rebellion," Max said, seeing how complex the ramifications could get. "Better to head that one off, I think - Raydeleen seems to be competent enough where she is, and I'm not sure how good she'd be with a kid anyway."

"We don't really know her enough to tell, no," Liz agreed, and got up, looking for something to wear. They'd all had a few outfits designed and manufactured by the computerized ship's stores by this point, capably aided by Jevrok, who was eager to extend hospitality to all of his passengers. It helped to not be stuck in the one set of clothes that they'd each been wearing when boarding the ship that night. (Of course a few people, like Isabel and Lonnie, had been quick to use their own powers to make alterations to the wardrobes, providing for even more variety.) "That makes me think of another thing. Rayde's vows to Alinda - would they keep her from taking a husband? Having a child of her own?"

"Hmm... another good question," Max admitted. "I don't understand it well, but there's nothing that specifically prevents such things in gerhvellka, if both parties are amenable to it. But if Rayde's as much of a stickler as I think she is, she might have avoided such things because she felt that she couldn't serve Alinda as competently if she had other loyalties and attachments."

"Sounds a bit lonely for her," Liz said. And just at that point there was a soft buzz, and an interruption of English words coming from outside the door.

"Come on, you two! Night's over, and it's time to go and find out who got snacked on."

"Already?" Liz muttered in English herself, climbing into clothes all the faster, and tossing Max a bathrobe-like thing that would be easy to clothe himself in quickly. Rath had been eliminated only the evening before, and she'd sort of gotten the impression that night would last at least a day. Apparently it didn't take too long for the wolves to decide on their next move, or the psychic, whoever that was.

"Okay." Max kissed her, and brushed his fingers through her hair quickly. "You nervous?"

"Umm... no," Liz muttered, blinking. Up until that point, she hadn't even consciously realized that this point might be as far as she progressed in the game. But after Max brought the possibility to her attention, she was aware of it enough to get the point when Alex caught her eye in the hallway, shook his head, and pointed back to the room. "Umm, you go ahead without me. I forgot, umm... I'll be there in a moment," she told Max.

Max protested a bit when Alex started to make his announcement of the end of the first night period without Liz there, until the reason why sank in. Alex painted a vivid picture of how the blushing bride-to-be had been set upon in her bedchamber in the darkest hours before dawn, while her fiancee had been downstairs attempting to write wedding vows. "Or so he said," Alex quipped ominously. "Not trying to point suspicion your way, Max, just pointing out that you're a possible wolf yerself. And, to be perfectly clear, Liz was a townswoman, so that's two down."

"Okay, so the voting's started for lynching again?" Maria asked.

"Yes, or it will, in about one minute," Alex told her. "Any questions at this point?"

"What about the psychic's dream?" Ava put in.

"The psychic has his first result - or will, when he or she next checks the computer file, because I'm not sure if it's been read yet," Alex said. "None of the rest of you will know about it until and unless the psychic reveals."

"But what if the wolves get the psychic before he-or-she tell the rest of us about the dreams?" Jevrok put in. "Then there is no effect at all."

"Chicken game," Lonnie suggested. "Psychic wants to wait long enough to have some valuable info, in case they die soon after, but not too long to lose it all."

"Also, I guess I should mention the notion of breadcrumbing here," Alex put in. "Fairly usual tactic, so I don't think it's unfair interference to mention it. Basically, if I were the psychic, I might find some way of mentioning the results of the dreams in a way that's not obvious until the rest of you realize that I'm the psychic - like if the werewolves and my special status is announced after my death."

"Okay," Max said. "But the wolves will be looking at what everybody says, and if somebody too obviously drops breadcrumbs then the wolves will figure out why, and make a point of killing that person early."

"So maybe the rest of us should also say things that could be breadcrumbs, but aren't really," Christin put in. "Like - I pretty much get the idea that you're dependable, Michael - you're good with me."

"A bit obvious in that example, but a good idea nonetheless," Kyle agreed. There was a pause, with a couple people turning to look at him. "No, I may drop a subtle breadcrumb, but I'm not going to do it right now, when everybody's expecting it."

"Alright, then enough of the werewolf," Isabel suggested. "Nobody needs to vote right now, unless you're dead set on it. Language lessons now."

But Christin went up to the voting screen, cleared it of all the previous day's marks, (which nobody had done after Rath had been lynched.) and put a spot on her own line - Maria. "If anybody wants to know a reason why, it was because Maria seemed a bit over-eager to follow Liz's voting strategy yesterday, and now Liz is dead. Seems slightly suspicious to me, better than any other lead we have."

"Hmm." Michael's eyes narrowed slightly as he considered that.

"Is there a saved copy of the stuff you just cleared away, Christin?" Alex asked. "I wanted to keep a record of all the voting in case people want to consult it later."

She tapped a few buttons next to the diagram. "There is now - pasted out of the undo buffer under your main dataspace, Alex."

"Thanks." And they broke up for more intensive verb cramming.

#

"Hello, Miss Parker. Is there a question on your mind?"

Liz jumped a bit - partly she hadn't really expected anyone inside the conn room to notice her hanging around outside the doorway - and then there was further surprise since Flaiissar, the pilot, had spoken to her in pretty good english, without using the ship's translator function. Apparently they weren't the only ones who were studying hard at bridging the language gaps.

"Err - first off, is it okay that I'm here?"

"I certainly think so. Since things are calm, you could even be over here." Flaiisar gestured over into the room, closer to the thing, (or effect,) that Liz had been looking at. "We would discourage passengers inside crew working areas during less-calm times, but that is simply because you might occupy needed maneuvering room."

"Or, in simpler words, I'd be in the way," Liz said, stepping across the threshold. "And yes, there was something I was wondering about the holographic display. It's charting our course through warp space, right? Not just the jump that we're in the middle of, but other steps in our journey towards Sanctuary."

"Yes. Variun programs these - jumps, of course, and I simply execute them using the controls to the discontinuity manifold compressor."

"Okay," Liz managed. "But my question is - well, why do the marked paths curve so much? If we're not travelling through real space, wouldn't it be simpler to just connect the start and end of a jump with a - well, with a straight line? Or is there some way that the curved line represents our actual path through warp space better than a straight line would?" There was a moment's silence. "Sorry if the question sounds naive - I'm very interested, but I couldn't think of any better way to phrase it."

"No, that's alright," Flaiisar assured her. "I'm simply trying to think of the best way to explain it to you."

"Try talking your own language," Liz prompted in Antarian. "If there's something that I don't get, we can have the computer play go-between."

"Hmm, alright," he replied in the same language. "Well, first off, if you'll see, the straight line paths from the transition point to reinsertion are also marked in the holodisplay - but much less clearly, because they are of secondary importance."

"Oh, right, I see them now," Liz agreed. "Very faint white lines, possibly not even solid. What else?"

"Well, there are involved mathematical functions to solve in plotting a warp-space jump, and this curve through real space, the Korguvar baseline, can be defined based on the mathematics of the 'jump," he continued. "Again, Variun could probably say it better, but - I think it's partially correct that it indicates the set of the closest 'point' in real space to whatever spot in the multispace outside our own universe we truly occupy at any given moment during the trip..."

"So it's a sort of a projection of our real course into three dimensions?" Liz said. "A flattening out of it?"

"Yes - something like that I think."

"But - but why is it so looped?" Liz persisted.

"Well... part of it is that the time we take to execute our course has less to do with the length of the Korguvar baseline - and more with how free it is of gravitational interference. If we can 'curve' the baseline so that it avoids planetary systems, rogue planets, even known cometary clouds, then..."

"Then we go faster," Liz said, seeing it suddenly with a delighted grin. "And on the other hand, there are probably limits to how complex the curve can be, or levels of difficulty - a cubic curve is more difficult than a quadratic one, and easier than a quartic one." She said the names of the polynomial times in english, letting the translator fill them in, because she didn't have that kind of specialized math vocabulary in Antarian yet. (But soon enough she'd have to - especially if she wanted to start studying alien science in detail. Which might be a study that would take her a lifetime...) "And so on."

"A bit simplified, but yes." Liz realized that it hadn't been Flaiisar who answered her this time, and spun around to see Variun behind her in the doorway. "Please, no panic reactions, Liz. I'm pleased that you've started asking about ship operations. Any other questions?"

Suddenly Liz didn't want to get into many technical details. "Yes - is this part of why we're stopping - re-inserting, I mean, into normal space in the middle of nowhere? So that we can start off a new curve, instead of trying to join them into one trajectory where the formulae might not add up right?"

"Part of the reason, yes. Also because it's a good spot to check our position and integrate that into the new course calculations, and to send and receive messages without being caught at it by any of Kivar's patrol ships. In addition to receiving the reply from Sanctuary, we're going to be attempting to arrange a rendezvous with a Tleonic trade convoy. They won't sell news of us to Kivar, and I think I can scrounge up something that they'd be interested in bartering for."

"Okay, that's - that's good news I guess," Liz said, stepping away from the holograph. "I'll... I'll get out of your way now, if that's quite all right."

"Well... certainly Liz." She made her escape, trying to figure out why neither getting called 'Miss Parker' or 'Liz' by the crew really made her feel particularly at ease.

Heading down the corridor, it was hard not to notice that somebody was arguing, and that the subject of - of dispute was connected to the werewolf game. Liz hesitated only a moment before following the raised voices. She might not be allowed to interfere in the game anymore, as a dead girl, but that didn't mean she couldn't watch and listen.

"It's crazy," Maria insisted. "They can't base their vote on... on a game of some freaky four-way chess."

"If we want to, of course we can," Isabel said. "I... I'm sorry if you're upset by it, but I thought it was an interesting twist to put things in, and I hope it works out well.

"Who's betting votes on four-way chess?" Max said, heading towards the game room from the other direction. He smiled when he saw Liz and reached out his hand for her to take, which she did.

"Isabel and I are playing, and betting, against Ava and Kyle," Michael said a little reluctantly. Probably the dirty look that Maria was giving him had something to do with the reluctance. "If we win, they vote against Lonnie. If they win, we - we vote against Maria."

"Hmm." Max considered this. "Whose idea was it, and who seems to be winning?"

"Ava's idea," Maria said, flinging out her finger in accusation. Max nodded calmly in response. "And - and I'm not really sure if anybody's winning yet. They haven't made that many moves."

"No, we haven't," Kyle agreed. Sure enough, the big digitize game board on the table, (a twelve by twelve grid with irregular notches taken out at the corner,) hadn't been disturbed too much from the opening positions. Isabel was white and Michael light blue, against Kyle's black and Ava's burgundy. One thing that Liz had found very distracting about this kind of variant the few times she'd tried was the notion that the enemy wasn't straight across the board from you - partners sat opposite each other, like in bridge and other card games, so that you had to level your attacks towards the sides of the board, instead of straight across. To a certain extent, it flopped the roles of bishops and rooks, in that bishops could now attack directly with a bit more ease, while rooks had to change direction halfway, instead of vice versa.

"Do you want to stay here and watch the whole game?" she asked Max in a whisper.

"Hmm... I'm not sure," he admitted. "Maybe we could grab something to eat, talk or whatever, and still come back for the tense endgame." Liz grinned at that thought. "Oh - how is the final winner being determined? First to make a checkmate, or last person standing?"

"Last team standing," Ava said absently. "With one of the mixed-takeover variants for what happens after an early checkmate."

"Oh." That meant, after the first team member was eliminated, whoever had managed to press the attack home would get the first choice of his or her pieces to 'recruit, and some would go to the other players, the rest removed from the board. So if Isabel, for instance, got checkmated by Kyle, Kyle would become even stronger, and Michael would pretty much need to make a checkmate himself soon after, or he'd quickly get overwhelmed by a co-ordinated offensive.

"Let's just grab food quick, and come back to watch," Liz suggested. "I'm suddenly very interested - but also pretty hungry."

"Yeah, sure," Max agreed, heading towards the rec room instead of back into their cabin. "So, what have you been up to?"

"Actually, I was asking the pilot some stuff about charting a course through warp space," she said. "Much more involved than I initially thought it was."

"Big surprise there," Max said. "I guess the Granilith made it easy for Michael and Isabel - they just told it where they wanted to go, and it took care of everything else."

"Yeah, being a mysterious alien supercomputer inside must have helped it out there," Liz added with a laugh. "Okay, what about you?"

"Oh, helping to catalog some of the stuff from Christin's media hard drive," Max said with a laugh, "and getting lost in it - like newspaper accounts from a small town in North Carolina from the eighties."

"Hmm." Liz considered that. "Seems highly compelling in a severely random way, yeah." Max laughed at that. "Oh, captain said something about meeting traders for some bargaining, if we can. Any idea what that's about?"

"Probably more earth media for us hungry and dislocated refugees," Max laughed, "though there might be other stuff that the crew need for themselves or for keeping the ship running well. I wonder what they'll offer to trade in exchange, though."

"You could ask," Liz pointed out. "You're the king after all."

"And you're my queen," Max said just as matter-of-factly. "You're the one who was always supposed to be the queen, Liz, and don't think that these people don't understand that yet. You've got every bit as much royal authority as I do, or Isabel or Ava."

She smiled at the thought and finished ordering her food. "Yeah, but it's one thing to say and another thing to get used to the idea of ordering people around."

"Yeah, like you don't love taking charge and being in control of the situation," Max pointed out. "I think I know better than that. Yes, it's a bit of a stretch to realize that you have authority in this particular situation, around people who are adults, really, and some of them trained to command themselves. I have the same issues - but maybe it's something we can work our way through together?"

Liz laughed out loud. "Why, that sounds simply smashing, your majesty!" He kissed her hand in courtly fashion, chuckling too.

"So," Liz picked up again after they'd started eating for a couple minutes in silence. "If you don't mind me pushing the future plans stuff yet again, any idea what you expect you'll be doing when we get to Sanctuary? Of course, we may not have that much say ourselves, at least not about the expectations that people lay on us, but trying to get a handle of what we expect and what we want may make things easier."

"Yeah," Max agreed, and took a deep breath. "One thing that will probably be tough on us, but that I think is important, would be working with Rayde to get a handle on the current state of the rebellion - how hot or cold the war is, and what the circumstances of the people really are."

"Oooh, yeah." Liz had to think about that for a moment. "So that you could take charge of the fighting yourself?"

"Or - or negotiate a peace, if that's even possible with Kivar," Max said reluctantly. "I... I know that it could be dangerous, either way - but if there are people who are suffering because I haven't been able to come through for them yet - Well, the reality is probably more complicated than that, I realize. But..."

"But you want to help, if you can," Liz said in a soft breath. "If you didn't, then you wouldn't be the man that I love, the man I am going to marry."

"Yeah," he agreed with a big grin. "And what about you? I'm sure that you have some sort of plans beyond being a trophy queen."

"Indeed - I want to learn," Liz said straight off. "Antarian science, history, their society and culture, maybe even how to better control the powers that I've been showing now and again recently. Not even sure if I'll have the time to learn all of what I want to know before I have to - to roll over and die maybe, or whatever." She smiled an oddly cute smile at him, incongruous with what she'd just said. "Maybe I can even figure out something new to teach others there, either just working hard at it with my god-given brain, or synthesizing Antarian knowledge base with something that's routinely taught on Earth and that none of them ever thought to apply."

"Alright, sounds good enough," Max agreed.

"And also, at some point - I do want to have children," Liz said. "Your children and nobody else's, clearly. But - whether or not I'll be able to open my heart to the son that - that you've already got on the way, and I'm not saying anything either way on that one yet - but I want to carry a child of yours within me. To bring him or her into this galaxy, even if that hurts."

Max smiled at the thought and took one of her hands in both of his. "Christin and I have talked a bit about the healing gift that we both share. It's customary among Antarian and other galactic societies for a healer to attend the birth of children, and use their abilities to keep the mother from feeling pain. I want to do that for you, to hold your hand while you're in labor with our baby and keep it from hurting you."

"Sounds good," Liz agreed. "Umm, I need that hand to eat with now, though."

"Oh, right," Max laughed nervously as he let her go. "Sorry."

When they got back into the games room, the midgame was definitely well under way. As far as Liz could tell, Ava was concentrating hard on attacking Michael, while Kyle was splitting his attention between supporting her, and keeping Isabel from effectively harassing either of them. As interesting as the play was, Max started to get a little bored just watching, so he, Liz, Lonnie, and Maria started a game of railroad Euchre further down the table. (They could always go back and review the chess action on a seperate display if somebody missed a critical move during actual play.)

It took a while for the game to finish, but it seemed shorter to Liz, because she was distracted with her cards whenever something really important wasn't going on. Ava checkmated Michael, but accidentally opened up a hole in her defense in the progress, so it seemed that Isabel would be able to checkmate Ava. Kyle managed to prevent that, but at the cost of his own defenses, so that Isabel was able to press home an attack with one of Michael's recruited knights against him. That left Isabel versus Ava, each with swelled armies from having made a conquest. The struggle was titantic, but fundamentally unstable, and everybody could tell that it wouldn't last long. Finally, Ava made a clever double-check and turned that into mate a few turns later.

"Alright, fair enough," Michael said, going over to the voting board and changing his vote to Maria. "Isabel?"

"She has to, doesn't she?" Lonnie asked. "What did Alex say?"

"That you could let this bet determine your votes," Christin answered from out in the hallway. "He didn't say that anyone was enforcing the bet. Isabel has to decide if she's really going to go through with it, or weltth."

"That's welsh on a bet, or something like that," Isabel muttered. But apparently her pride had been stung enough to go through with it, because she went up to the board and altered her own marking.

"That's a majority of the nine remaining players," Kyle pointed out. "More than a majority, actually - six out of nine, counting Lonnie and Christin's votes for Maria. When do we go through with this?"

"God, come on, impatient for my blood much?" Maria nearly spat at him.

"We should bring Alex in, though," Max said softly. "He'll set an appropriate time limit, though I don't think there's too much chance that two of you will change your minds."

Alex was found in the room he shared with Isabel, (trying to make up some music on the computer,) and he agreed with Max. "Two and a half hours, I think. That'll mean the lynching can go through before anybody's dinner time, if nothing interupts countdown."

#

Everybody gathered around for the second lynching announcement, except for the ship's pilot, and Rath, who seemed to be boycotting the werewolf sessions entirely in his funk. Alex went over some of the circumstances that had led up to the power bloc voting against Maria, mentioning that she, Max, and Jevrok were still voting against Lonnie. "Maria gets brought up to the gallows, her head forced into the noose, as she struggles violently," Alex reads out. "As the breath drains from her body, it turns back into its true wolf form." Maria made a sort of a 'dying snarl' sound as elaboration and frustration. "Congratulations town, you have found your first wolf. Night phase starts now. No strategy discussion for good townspeople until the morning."

"Wow," Max said, breaking the silence. "I can't believe that that actually... well... I have to say 'well played' to Maria, if that's allowed."

"I guess so, but it's pushing it," Alex said, and there was kind of a nervous restless shuffle at this point. "Maria, Liz, if you want to discuss your impressions of the game among yourselves, though, you're welcome to. Rath and I can join you, any of the crew who didn't decide to play."

"Hmm." Maria considered that. "I don't have to tell them who my packmates are, though, do I?"

"What, you don't want to share with your oldest friend?" Liz teased her.

"No, I'd rather you didn't give away secrets like that actually," Alex agreed. "Not saying that you'd let anything slip to Max, Liz, but better not to risk it. We'll all... well, I already know all the secrets, so the rest of you will find out soon enough."

A lot of the people still active in the game ended up crowding into the rec room to have dinner again, a part celebration of having killed one of the wolves, and 'last meal together' since one of their number would be killed by the wolves before game-time morning arrived. It was a bit of a stilted affair, between nobody being able to talk about strategy, and the knowledge that there was at least one werewolf still at large in the town who might well be at the table.

Liz, Maria, and Alex did have a more intimate dinner together in Liz and Max's cabin, not talking about the game so much as other things - including a spreading of the sort of things that Max and Liz had been discussing about plans for life on the alien planet of Sanctuary.

"I do understand what you mean about having so much to learn, Liz," Alex agreed, after taking a bite with both chicken fingers and fries in it. "Finding out how to really work with computer systems like the one on this ship - not just giving it instructions and having it respond, but figuring out new ways to build them and make them so user-friendly - or at least building interfaces for other people to use without having to specify them themselves... I'd love to get into something like that." He sighed. "Not sure if Isabel has any idea what she's going to do there, actually."

"Well, we've all got a little time to figure it out," Maria pointed it out. "Not sure - aside from seeing if I could make it as a famous folk-rock singer on Sanctuary, or something like that." Liz chuckled. "Well, we don't really know what they think much of human-style music."

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "Did you know that according to the last census, Sanctuary has about seven thousand 'human' citizens, and nearly fifty thousand hybrids?"

"Wow, no, really?" Maria asked. Liz nodded solemnly. "Michael mentioned something about there having been some human abductees and so on who ended up on Antar, but I didn't realize that there'd be so many at the Rebel headquarters. Fifty thousand - that's more than the population of Roswell, right?"

"Yeah," Liz nodded. "Total population of Sanctuary is somewhere around three million I think, which is around the size of Phoenix with some of the bigger suburbs included. So the human hybrids are a minority, but not really a tiny one."

"I wonder what kind of minority subculture they have," Alex put in. "I mean, most of them, even the 'pure human' ones, would have been born on alien worlds, or spaceship and space stations. Their people can't have passed much on about Earth, especially if they originally came from abductees - and there'd be all kinds of different cultures and historical periods that they represent." There was a pause as people considered this. "Isn't Raydeleen part human? I thought Max mentioned something about that."

"Like one eighth human, so one of her great grandparents was," Liz said. "I think that's what Max said. She has brown eyes and reddish-orange hair though, which is unusual for Antarians, and I think someone said that she'd have been able to breathe the air on Earth if she needed to. How they figured that out I'm not sure."

"Without needing a Skin or anything, you mean?" Maria asked, and Liz nodded. "I guess if they know what crap it is in Earth's air that they have a hard time with, they could test her under it in controlled conditions. Making her exercise while breathing a simulation of human air pollution, and so on."

"Yeah." Liz sighed and took a bite of the pizza, which she had worked hard to program right. "This may sound weird, but what do you guys think I should do about Max and Tess' baby?"

"Hmmm." Alex thought about this. "Well, this might be an odd thing to bring up in connection, but it it hadn't been for that scuffle around the pod chamber back in the fifties, the one that Christin had to clean up, it would have been you growing up inside of Tess' body, right?"

"Huh. Yeah, I guess, in a way, though it's weird to think about that." Liz sighed. "I still like being me more than the idea of being a bouncy hybrid with really blonde hair like that."

"Because it's what's familiar to you," Maria said, and Liz allowed that with a nod of her head.

"So, what you're saying is, in terms of genes, Tess got the ones that I was supposed to end up with, and so in a way, her son is already mine?"

"Something like that," Alex said. "You keep saying 'in a way', not that that's unexpected with stuff like this. Everything's far from clear."

"Yeah, but that does help," Liz said. "And it's not going to be this kid's fault how Tess connived to get him conceived. I'll have to think about it a bit more, but I'm leaning towards saying I do want to adopt him."

"Okay," Maria put in. "This might sound a bit weird, but what about the soul aspect? I know that DNA-wise, there's no real question of incest, but... but if Max had the soul of Zan, and Tess had the soul of Vilandra, then..."

"Probably better not to even get into that." Liz said. "I think that even the alien scientists aren't too sure of what's going on when they're not mucking around with 'essence' - how much of it is inherited from the parents, what part of it might come from a great beyond or whatever. Still - we don't know of any psychic problems associated with soul incest..."

"Not like the situation has ever come up before," Alex pointed out.

"Yeah, but still." Liz took a deep breath. "And I don't think that Vilandra is reprehensible, in any of her versions, actually. She may be somewhat lacking in empathy and less aware of the moral consequences of her actions than is really good, but - but I think that there's some nobility in her heart and a capacity to better herself. If the kid inherits any of her faults, then maybe that's a better reason for Max and I, who know those failings well, can bring him up and help him learn to fight off... the temptation of the dark side?"

"Hey, Luke Skywalker did it," Alex put in. "He even managed to redeem Anakin - or Anakin redeemed himself out of the love that he felt for Luke. That's good enough for me."

"Yeah, a good example to keep in mind," Maria agreed. "Especially as we head towards our own Rebel Alliance base."

The three friends all laughed together, and Liz suggested ice cream for dessert. (It was low-fat and tasted just like it wasn't.)

#

Kyle looked at the door of the cabin nervously. Since Rath had been first out of the game, he wasn't that likely to honor the privacy signal and stay outside, just because he was doing game business. Then again - if he did happen to find out something, he probably wouldn't say anything about it to anybody still playing, if only because Ava would kick his ass for disrupting things, but...

He touched the screen to identify himself, and pulled up his private file that Alex had given him, pulling up the information on his psychic dreams. He had asked about Lonnie the time before, and gotten confirmation that she was townsperson, which was part of why he had argues so fiercely on her behalf, along with Ava, and thought up the chess game thing. Actually finding out that Maria was a wolf had been an interesting plus, but he was pleased with that much. So, what now?

Well, there had been quite a few people who had been defending Maria or trying to pin the finger of suspicion onto Lonnie - Max, Michael, Isabel - and that steward guy. Taking a moment's consideration, he said to the computer, "I want to dream about Isabel and find out if she's a werewolf or not."

"Acknowledged," the computer said softly. "Please log back in later for the results of your dreaming."

"Okay," Kyle said, just out of habit, and logged out of the system now that his business was done. He got up from the desk and went over to the bed, wondering if there was anything else he should do before trying to fall asleep. Oh, right. "Computer, take off the privacy code on the door."

"Acknowledged."

Dreaming - that reminded him. He had had a dream about Lonnie last night for real, a dream that had been both erotic and faintly scary. Had she been... an actual monster in the dream? Certainly not a werewolf, he'd have remembered that. A vampire?

No, not an actual monster, but - she'd attacked him. They'd been - yikes, they'd been in the middle of foreplay, and she'd strangled him, taunting him by saying that if he wanted to let go, all he needed to do was tell her the safe word. For one thing, he hadn't been able to say anything without air, and in the dream he hadn't known what the safe word was anyway. He had tried to claw her away from him, but hadn't been able to do anything to phase her, although his hands had slid over naked skin that would have been exciting in any other circunstance - was maybe "still' exciting even in the danger he was in...

"Yeesh." Well, what else? If he didn't like that dream, he could try to control it, like his character in the dream - or at least redirect it. Almost immediately his thoughts went to Tess, though he wasn't sure if he was any less scared of her. And the two girls were just different faces of the same soul, apparently. Was it his fate to be linked to a sociopath no matter what? Well, it wasn't like he'd really have many more chances to meet a nice girl next door on Sanctuary. Or would he?

He groaned and turned over, wondering if he'd be able to get to sleep at all.