Morgan Martin piped up suddenly. "Can satellite lasers cut through rock?" he asked, pointing to their cave's ceiling.

John Danziger smirked. "I appreciate your paranoia, but not in this day and age."

Julia Heller shrugged. "The council saw no reason for any planetary defense or penal colony control measures, Morgan. Exile is exile. Ships were made to last only the one way trip down."

Martin eyed up his doctor from his bedroll. "That holographic total recall of yours still creeps me out. Why do you still use that stuff in your head, Julia?"

Heller was at a loss. "Well, uh, Some of the facts are useful, but not so much any more, now that we're probably the only human survivors on G889."

True Danziger piped up. "Where's Mary in all this? She was a cast away, not a prisoner."

"I would know if she had died, True." Uly reassured her. "The Terrians really like her. They would act totally chaotic if she ever ended. They'd be shooting off bolts all over the place the first click after it happened." He held out his hand to reassure his playmate. She gingerly reached out and clung to the frail boy's pale fingers as their head sets all began to faintly glow at the temple connections.

Danziger looked up at Yale as he tossed more wood onto their campfire. "Yale, are we patched through to outer space yet?" he quipped, trying to hide his nervousness.

The tutor never twitched from his monitoring stance, watching a readout projected above his cybernetic hand. "Geosynchronous orbit is twelve minutes away using VR mode. If you prefer, I could send up morse code by light beam." he soured sarcastically.

"No,, no.. not trying to pry." John said immediately back tracking. "Remember, none of us know any of Earth's nonverbal languages for communication. VR's just dandy. Sorry for interrupting. he said sheepishly.

Devon Adair leaned into John. "I thought I was the impatient one around here."

Danziger grinned. "You hide it better." he grumbled.

"Why, thank you." she demurred, glancing up at him.

"But seriously, what are we going to do if this whole re-establishing contact thing goes south?" wondered the mechanic.

Devon raised her eyebrows, "What's E.V.E. going to do? Kamakazi pilot her satellite by plowing into our coordinates? The council wants decent people to take over G889.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Julia."

"You are not." said their doctor, sipping her hot drink wryly. "I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this Phage is actually a simultaneous solution to change the world from an exile planet into a conquered one."

The tutor snorted. "Lovely thought. So human."

Beside them, Alonzo Solace laughed. "Boy, did we get suckered into scouting out any unexpected issues for Earth."

Bess Martin rolled her eyes. "The council's past agenda is not all of Earth's, you guys. I had no idea there ever was a mission out here, not until the Syndrome protests broke out from families trying to gain a berth on board our ship. My job was just to grow some food, for local exploration of the Kuiper Belt."

Adair angled her head. "You had no idea how far we were going? Cryo sleep's usually reserved for extended travel to save on supplies, fuel and oxygen requirements."

Bess shook her head. "I'm a farmer, not mission specialist. That's Alonzo's job." she jabbed, feeling self defensive.

"And I miss it!" Solace added heartily. "It sucks knowing that I'll never fly again. This current future's just as bad as all of the other ones I left behind in cold sleep."

Julia pointed a finger. "You're not old, Alonzo. You may have been born 74 years ago, but biologically, you are thirty one on my scans at the very least. Here's some hard ball so buckle up. You've been isolating yourself from us, because of false misassumptions about all of the supposed generations of people who've lived the whole time, while wide awake, during your sleeping years. Thank you for not judging us, your team mates. Because we've been awake for the same three decades, subjectively, as you have. Only John's truly older, he's 41."

Yale's eyes twinkled from around his headset. "And I'm 46. But you can't tell that, can you, doctor?"

Julia looked discomforted and she shifted on her rock.

"Which? Are your parts, or your body, that age?" Morgan challenged Yale.

"Both!" said the tutor. "We were made modified without being metabolically suspended, just anesthetics was used at puberty. Our biological implants were started and tailored genetically, to us as individuals, at birth. No other Y.A.L.E. can wear my armor."

"That stinks of a shifty Council's kind of idea, all over." Danziger muttered, but everyone heard him.

" I had no idea that I was rounding up penal colonists, during the wars, who were destined for G889!" Yale said to the mechanic.

"Easy, Yale! Soldiers are never told everything about their missions. Everybody here stopped blaming you for your past a year ago. What's making you suddenly flare up again today?"

Yale tapped his head set. "I'm starting to hear E.V.E. and some of the old terror is trying to resurface in my memories. Not any rogue records, like before, but just me, remembering my sins."

Devon rose and sat down by her friend's side and took the tutor's cybernetic hand into her own. "We're not anybody's sheep. Not by a long shot." she promised.

Bess caught Devon's troubled eyes with her own and held on with a soft, understanding gaze. "A large part of the Eden Advance movement is curing our kids and finding new sustainable resources to share with everybody. At least that's how I see things. How is that militaristic, Morgan, to the point of us getting attacked again now that we're very much out of range of Earth?"

John sighed. "Since when have we known about any government, anywhere, who shared what they had equally amongst all of its people?" he shrugged, open palmed.

Bess folded her elegant arms over her elbows. "I'm not naive. That's why we're in a cave system for doing this ...conference, for lack of a better word. What I've been thinking about is ,... what if the ZED creators are Black Ops or some other kind of crazy human sh- uh, shenanigans. They don't know we ended all of their soldiers in the field. They don't yet know about Balancer. We're just hoping. Maybe they won't send any more."

The tutor held up his hand. "It's starting."

Their visual holographic screens came into play before their eyes on a new blue official looking seal over black. ##E.A.2, orbital channel is initiated.## came E.V.E.'s steely placid voice modulation into all of their ear buds. A holographic image of an Earth woman wearing a pure white gown appeared in the air on VR, waiting patiently.

The tutor fought down his emotions. "This is Yale, E.V.E. Would you like a status report since our last date of contact?" the Jamaican man asked neutrally.

##I would welcome the new data. Your biostats are still nominal, I trust, in the face of the variant?##

True flicked off her microphone to whisper to Uly. "Is that her word for the Phage?"

Uly copied her manual mute mode. "I guess. " he nodded back, both eyebrows raised.

Yale continued his conversation through the link he was sharing with E.V.E. "They are. We are all healthy." he said, carefully being vague.

E.V.E. spoke up. ##I am reading a male in your vicinity who is a unique, like Devon Adair.##

The tutor nodded. "That's Seth, a non-adult we discovered, born from the penal colonies."

##That effect was anticipated. Criminal grade are resourceful. Know this new unit may not survive the variant, EA2, without my assistance. ## E.V.E. said. ##I offer it.##

"I am quite cured already, Voice-In-Space." said Seth to the satellite computer. He could not disguise his distaste at a machine that had the ability to act like an overlord.

E.V.E. was silence for half a second. ##The variant is un-survivable in the unmarked. How was this possible?##

Seth paused to get a group go ahead, to continue.

John gestured in acquiescence. "Let her rip."

"E.V.E., " intoned Seth, "G889 cured me."

Morgan snickered, "Chew on them apples."

The electronic warble in the background of their channel to E.V.E. paused, far beyond the time it took for a signal to bounce up, then down, from the satellite.
##I have no record of additional science vessels , landing after your party, since my own, with EA1.##

Seth smiled and gripped his headgear tightly. "I didn't specify any humans, machine. I said the PLANET did it."

Devon Adair linked onto E.V.E. so she was visible to Yale and the computer. "There's the clincher right there. The council, nor E.V.E. has ever taken our account of The Mother, seriously. She's real, E.V.E. And she considers all corporeal life who impacts the Terrians, as part of her Brood. We think she is in the process of adopting us outsiders, into Her synergy."

##For what purpose?##

"For just being." Yale interjected at the simulacrum of the puzzled young woman's visage.

"For being able to relate to each other, while She considers new options for our mode of survival and instincts." Julia Heller added.

##Is Mother artificial? I do not sense Her physical presence. Who created Her?##

Adair laughed at the computer's line of query. "It doesn't matter. We are very certain Her powers are vast, and as long as we get along with anything indigenous, She is pretty benevolent."

##Why are we in communication now? EA3 with the syndrome children are still under deep sleep in hyperdrive.##

Zero the android stepped in as his mission was very similar to E.V.E.'s. "Indications on long range show that penal colonists are deceased. We want to deactivate the variant, so it does not completely sterilize this continent over excessively."

Eden Advance could not hide their shivers at the cold terms being applied between two machines, as the Phage's reason for being deployed.

Bess added to the report. "Plant life is needed to prevent erosion before the winter storm season sets in." she interjected. "If we lose the topsoil..."

##Growing digestible matter will become more problematic.## returned E.V.E. ##My parameters do include mitigating events that might lessen maximum survival chances.##

Devon Adair was quick. "Is that why you saved my life?" she asked E.V.E.

##Yes.##

"Then help us now. We need to center a geolock to capture all of the infection, the.. the variant, as far as it has spread, but no further than necessary."
Devon said.

##I cannot endanger you.## E.V.E. replied. ##You are in the dead zone.##

Adair shifted her look to John Danziger, who took a virtual step forward. "We can escape this region, using the abilities of a Terrian called the Balancer."

E.V.E. spouted facts. ##I cannot see or detect the Terrians beyond visual spectrums. They are irrelevant.##

"Damn it!" Devon swore.

John held up his hand. "This changes nothing, Devon. Alonzo can find Her, using the dreamscape. The Mother wants us to find the Balancer, so we'll do things Her way."
"E.V.E., this being we've found, has the ability to teleport us to safety. Once we've moved, can you coordinate our new location as the edge of a concentric circle, with respect to the Phage's ground zero origin point?"

##I can. Your biostat implants can provide tracking data. With your permission, EA2?##

"Please do!" John shouted into his microphone. "We'll let you know when we're all ready for geolock implementation." Danziger made a cut throat gesture to Yale and the tutor ended his link to the satellite abruptly, rendering E.V.E. fully disconnected from their VR gear.

Morgan's suspicious nature emerged. "So cooperative."

"She's not changed." Yale reassured him. "I would know if there had been any fresh tampering to E.V.E.'s mainframe, since we rescued Devon from her cryobed. We can rely on E.V.E. to accommodate us."

"Computers can be programmed to lie." said Cameron, giving voice to misgivings.

"E.V.E. saved us." True said. "As soon as she found out what happened to us last time, remember?"

"Like a zoo keeper in a pen of lab chimpanzees who caught a cold!" Morgan yelled at the little girl.

"A fight!" Uly crowed happily. "We need to burn off this stress!"

Eden Advance voices rose, and headsets were pulled off, as arguments and speculations flew around the cave.

Yale simply sat back on his rock, and let it happen. His relief at E.V.E.'s future coming support, was enough to let him begin to doze for the first time in days. His snores peeled around the cavern, fully ignored by the others, who were venting off mental steam.
Devon was present, but she was lost in thought. "Do you think that Terra has given up on sabotaging us? There was no sign of the holographic Council appearing with E.V.E. yesterday."

"No way to know for sure." Julia Heller replied. "Who wants G889 more? The Syndrome families? Or the rich businessmen in private sectors looking for natural resources, or the militaristic government types who want to get a jump on population suppression here, to preserve their future power seat, in a new place?"

"I'd rather be a pioneer." tossed out True. "Like Bess."

"Aww, that's sweet, honey. Mine's a good way of life." Martin gushed, hugging the little girl in admiration.

"Here, here, Half-pint." said her dad. "A little peace and a lot of freedom is better than none at all, like on Earth. I'm glad we're getting a taste of that here, on G889."

In the end, it was Seth and Alonzo who found the Balancer.

"She's in there." Solace pointed at a cave entrance about 10 clicks from the one that they had chosen for re-establishing ties to E.V.E. That cave had been relative safety in more ways than one. But now, they were exposed once again to the elements and the dusty, rotten effects of Phage driven decay. They were beginning to cough despite their continual use of masks and googles. They hurried into the water filled cistern grotto beneath a hill. Two orange willows on either side of the entrance had been fully restored to leaf and life in a ring around a glowing moon pool.

"Do you want me to talk to Her?" Seth offered.

John sighed. "I sure as hell can't do it."

"What do I say?"

Yale smiled. "Tell Her we have new Exo-machina with us for her to meet." he said, patted the head gear hanging from a shirt pocket.
And he pointed up into the dawn sky.

Morgan giggled nervously. "You want to sic the Balancer onto E.V.E.?"

Devon's mouth quirked. ""They have the same goals, Mr. Martin."

"And the same insatiable curiosity." Julia agreed.

Uly chortled. "That's gotta work, or we're gonna freeze solid, by geolock."

"Shhh!" shrieked True, in horrified mirth.

Zero spoke up. "The augment liked me."

"She sure did!" said John Danziger. "If only we had half your charm, Zero. We'd already be over this and onto the next thing."

"Then I'll give this a go." Seth said, grabbing up a fire brand with which to see

Devon patted Zero on the arm. "Zero, escort. Make sure the air in there's safe. That pool down there might be an acid one."

Danziger handed Seth a bag of sulfur powder. Use this if that green fire's too dim. The light will change to orange color and be much brighter afterwards."

"Like adding tar?"

"Yeah."

"I'll do my best." Seth promised the others. Then he disappeared into the opening under the newly living willow trees.