Shepherd Moon, Book 2: Homeworld   by Roberta J. Cabot

Chapter Seven The conference had started, and, everyone got to know everyone else. There were representatives from the Arachnians, the Dixx, and, of course, the Elyrans. Humanity's newest friends, the bear cub-like Telcontari, had also sent representatives, as well as the Daemons, the ones that look like lions with their long, thick manes, but what was not expected were the people of Star-453 sending representatives. These particular aliens were considered the most technologically advanced race in the Federation - all their citizens were completely cyberneticized at birth, and all that everyone sees are their roboticized outer shells. If people didn't know any better, they'd probably assume these were actually sentient robots. And, of course, there were the Humans. The conference was all about the discovery that the Earthers made - that, apparently, Phase-Wave wasn't as never-ending as they thought, that there was an actual border to it. And, at the border where Phase-Wave ended and the unknown part of the galaxy started, the Fifth Fleet's Explorer-Class DSC Earthship II, and their most advanced Type-One ship, DSC Mikasa, discovered a new planetary system. The new system was weird, to say the least, but what was discovered on one of its planets held the promise of new knowledge and something that was indeed world-shaking.

---

 

Chapter Seven: The Land of Giants and Dragons

 
Giants Under the Ice

At sixty-four, Captain Sylvia Esteban was unusual in that she was the oldest active serving captain in EarthForce currently in command of one of EarthForce's capital ships. Aside from that, the captain was also unique in that she was actually not a military person, but was essentially a scientist (specifically, a level four physicist and engineer) that was part of the team that designed Earhship II, and was assigned as her commanding officer in Earthsip II's original incarnation. After the ship was recalled, she was given a field appointment by Mia (so she became a bona fide captain with EarthForce instead of just a civilian captain), and given a six-month training course in Fort McCain for civilian professionals transitioning into Earthforce. After which, she was again reassigned to command the upgraded, now-FTL-capable "Explorer-class" Earthship II.

And for almost ten years, she commanded Earthship II with distinction, and, with her science crew, always at the vanguard of the Fifth Fleet's exploration missions, and has more than held her own in skirmishes during a few encounters with rebel Tiros and Detterex ships. Still, her main calling was her scientist side, and she had helped survey and explore almost all thirty-nine planets that Earth had claimed and had started to settle. She thought of her time as Earthship II's captain as the height of her career, and felt sad that she was facing mandatory retirement next year or, if she took the option, a teaching position at the academy or other non-line position.

But she still had a year, and it was her intention to get as much out if this last year. Anyway, she was currently exploring, or trying to explore, this weird planet in this newly-discovered planetary system.

Despite being less than a hundred million miles from its primary, this planet, and its two sister planets in the same orbit was in what Earthers call the "Goldilocks Zone" - right there, the planet and her "sister planets" were already very weird - but aside from that, were also ice-locked. How that's possible, Captain Esteban didn't know.

From what they could see using non-Phase-Wave systems like sonar, radar and lidar, the three planets' gas enevelopes had been turned to ice. For this particular one, it had a base layer of frozen water over a thirty thousand feet thick in a few places, and over that a smooth, frozen nitrogen layer about a hundred feet thick, and then over that a thinner oxygen layer about twenty-five feet thick. What froze them, and what keeps them frozen, the Captain didn't know.

Cutting through these layers were rocky outcroppings that could be like mountains and such, which would have well been within the planet's atmospheric envelope if the gases weren't frozen, and if ever her frozen layers were to transform to to their gaseous states, these outcroppings would be the equivalent of Everest, K2, the Himalayas or any of Earth's tall mountain peaks. But at the moment, these outcroppings were just dry rock exposed to space.

Some of Captain Esteban's crew, and Captain Nobunaga's of the DSC Mikasa, were on several of the taller outcroppings doing tests. So far, what they've found was that the mountains held evidence of fossilized remains of the planet's former flora and fauna, but were completely mineralized, with no active or hibernating organic structures on, or in them. In other words - totally inert. Again, that was impossible - no matter how hostile the environment, there would have been some remaining life, or at least hibernating bacteria, viruses or their equivalents. How it was possible that these rocky remnants were completely dead, no one knows. This also showed that the planet wasn't ice-locked before, and had an atmosphere and, probably, liquid oceans.

As for Sylvia Esteban, she was investigating another weird outcropping - this one in the shape of an enormous dome. Sonar and lidar detected that the structure was actually a giant, hundred-fifty foot tall sphere that was resting on an otherwise flat plain, with ninety percent of it still underneath the ice layers, and only the top ten percent was sticking out of the ice in what looked like a dome.

It would have been nice if they could have hacked the oxygen ice and investigated the sphere further down, but she nixed that idea - by doing so, a substantial chunk of the ice could sublimate into pure, gaseous oxygen, which could actually combust if given half a chance, putting the total oxygen layer in jeopardy, maybe even the entire planet.

In fact, she was already worried that trace amounts of their body heat could actually warm up the sphere enough and transmit the heat to the ice, so she ordered everyone with her to wear insulated boots and gloves over their skin-tight environmental suits.

So she and her breakers clambered over the smooth surface of the "dome," and noted seams running down it equidistant to each other, radiating from a point about thirty degrees from the top of the sphere. It was like the sphere was tilted thirty degrees. In any case, after a few days of exploring or investigating, they couldn't get anything else: their detectors couldn't penetrate the material nor could they take any samples of the material - all their instruments couldn't nick, crack or dent the ceramic-like surface. But then, one of her breakers found something: He found a slight surface anomaly at the top-most part of the sphere, and it seemed to be a kind of window, made of some transparent, smooth, vitreous material, and as they brushed the snow-like frozen material off the "glass" and shined a light inside, the marine holding the light exclaimed "bozhe moi!" and fell down. He quickly turned over and kneeled instead so that only his insulated boots, kneepads and gloves were in contact with the sphere.

What the soldier saw was an upturned face - a seemingly-normal face of a man, what looked like an Earther man given the hair and other features - looking up and out the "window," but in dimensions that made him to be around thirty feet tall. Subsequent investigations with more lights showed that there was another face right beside him, this one a female, and one that looked like an Elyran - the hair and certain features being giveaways. But the lines and modeling of the faces seem curiously smooth, and the eyes were blank. They were obviously statues. But another thing was that the two had the palms of their right hands open and displayed, in a frozen gesture like a casual wave. But the first thing that one noticed were the fingers. The humanoid man's hand had four fingers, and the Elyranoid woman's hand had five fingers!

"Oh, my god!" the captain said, echoing the sentiments of the marine. "Giants! Human and Elyran giants! But the hands!"

 
Day One

"So," Mia said, as she flashed a last picture of the window, and the figures that were illuminated within, "needless to say, we saw fit to conduct a thorough investigation of the planet.

"Looking further into the window, the team glimpsed many intriguing things, like tables, chairs and saddles suited to us and our dimensions, and banks of what looked like deactivated control panels and other things. Besides the enormous figures of the humanoid man and elyranoid woman with the switched-around hands, we also glimpsed what looked like a dixx and an arachnian statue, and a proto-entity from Star-453, or perhaps a Telcontari, but they were several dozen feet away so it's hard to distinguish more features." (A "proto-entity" is what the citizens of Star-453 were called prior to full cybernation - in other words, what a Star-453 citizen would be upon birth, and if it weren't roboticized. A "proto-entity" looked much like a Telcontari, in terms of general features and stature, except that, instead of looking like chubby polar bear cubs, they were like bear cubs that had been on a crash diet, with long, thin limbs and somewhat gaunt faces.)

Mia continued. "Dr. Esteban asked Captain Nobunaga and the Mikasa to fly back to a region of space where Phase-Wave was active, send back all of their reports and other material, and ask for general instructions.

"I asked her and Captain Nobunaga to not disturb the sphere further and avoid increasing the ambient heat inside of the sphere by flashing too much light into the window - we don't know if the heat would disturb or destroy what was inside. In fact, Captain Nobunaga had the window covered with carbon soot scraped from the insides of the Mikasa's three utility chemical maneuvering rocket bells, and that arrested any further increase in temperature inside the sphere.

"Because the sphere was off-limits now, they started to investigate the rest of the planet, as well as the other two that were in the same orbit. Subsequent exploration, using radar, sonar and lidar, showed that the other two planets were very, very similar to the first one, except that they didn't have a sphere or other similar structures. Presently, Captain Esteban, Captain Nobunaga and their crews are continuing their exploration as we speak, expanding the scope of their activities to include the rest of Ultima Thule, and they have been sending daily reports. All of these reports will be available to everyone here, but we shall be holding everyone to the confidentiality contracts that you signed prior to this conference. I'm sure you see the reason why - the question of the Phase-Wave matter, and the admittedly world-shaking discoveries that have so far been made must be evaluated further and understood before being released to the general public.

"It is good that Councilor Rowan, from the Council of Custodians, is here, and may vouchsafe us in terms of the ethical considerations for keeping this from the public. Councilor, may I ask you to comment?"

Rowan stood to his full nine-foot height.

"The fact that the Earthers have invited us all here speaks well of them and their intentions," the influential extraterrestrial said. "It is regrettable that the other major races have seen fit not to respond to this invitation, since they thought it was just another exploratory expedition, but the fact that the Erocii and the Dravidians were also invited shows the Earthers' sincere and earnest desire to inform the Federation and all its people regardless of their own political leanings. A question, though, Princess Mia - why were your invitations limited to the major-power races?"

"If I may, my love," Sahsha said to Mia before Mia could respond, and turned to the tall alien. "Councilor Rowan, it was judged by the Earther and Elyran leadership that these sensitive matters could not be disclosed to all citizens, as it may lead to erroneous conclusions that may lead to, ummm, discord among the populace. Avarice, xenophobia and panic being the foremost concerns. And, further, in order to fully secure the system, EarthGov has claimed it as a colony."

"Thank you, my lady," Rowan said. "I thought as much." He turned back to Mia. "Princess Mia, I am in full agreement with you about keeping this matter confidential, and I am sure that the entire Council of Custodians will likewise agree. I hereby vouchsafe this project in the name of the Council of Custodians, and the Federation. I do, however, make one caveat - that all investigations be concluded as soon as possible, so that whatever findings we make can be disseminated as quickly as possible."

Sahsha banged her gavel. "So noted, Councilor. A motion has been put forth. How say the delegates?" Everyone in the room responded with a resounding "aye!"

- - - - -

The planet with the sphere, Terra Dracones, and her sister planets, Tau and Omega, were extensively mapped using a combination of radio telescopy, radar, sonar and lidar, and based on Captain Esteban's figures, all three should roughly have the same kind of atmosphere and gravity as most Federation planets, but closest to Elyra Prime, if ever they were unfrozen. Except that all three would be inert in terms of organic life - they would essentially be sterile, dead planets, but will be able to support any life deposited on them, if they could be unfrozen, that is.

So, if they can kickstart the three planets' internal "motor" and get some geothermal activity going, that might thaw them out. The reason for them being ice-locked was still a mystery, though, and that should be one of the areas for investigation. After all, the three seemed to have fairly large ferrous-bearing cores, and being exposed to cosmic and solar rays, this should have induced some thermal variances as they spun on their axes, and got some geologic activity going. But there was nothing.

And if the thaw happens, the planets would develop oceans and an Elyran/Dixx type of atmosphere, leaving the planets ripe for seeding with the appropriate flora and fauna, and this could happen in a minimum of ten years.

Because they were officially Earth colony worlds, everyone agreed that, if ever, seeding should be carried out using Earth biologicals, and this would be the project of one of Phil's interns, Elmonte Oliveira, and a hand-picked crew of Telcontari, led by Phil's two Telcontari interns, "Shoo" and "Meow," since Telcontari were recognized as the Federation's foremost terraforming and solar-power-generation experts.

As for interfacing with the rest of the Federation, not to mention planning for dissemination of the information they will be gathering, another intern, Ivan, will be put in charge. It was the intention of Phil and Mia for Ivan to be the spokesperson for the project, and and therefore the face of the team to the rest of the Federation.

As for the work of unravelling the mysteries of Terra Dracones and the rest of Ultima Thule, that would fall to Via, Phil's lone Arachnian intern, and Trixie.

- - - - -

Most of the rest of the first day was taken up by follow-ups and by the various delegates spontaneously breaking up into various groups according to their areas of specialization, with Shahsha and Ben like a tag team moving among these groups, coordinating and keeping the ideas and work flowing and running in a coordinated manner.

Tasha and Mia just looked at each other sheepishly - there was \virtually no work for them - Sahsha and Ben having everything humming along. From time to time, though, one or another of the delegates would have a clarificatory question and Tasha and Mia would answer, and that was how they found their niche in this conference.

At the end of the day, the individual groups submitted their working notes, and Ben had his staff collect and collate them, and start putting them in proper working-paper formats, to be made ready for dissemination and discussion the following day.

Before the end of the day, Mia had a small announcement: it seems the IAU had come to a decision on the names of the other planets of Ultima Thule: in the order of their orbits, starting from the one nearest to Thule, their primary, there was Tethys, named after the Titan with the winged brows; Phoebe, named after the Titan goddess of the moon; the trinary planets Tau, Omega and Terra Dragones orbiting in the same orbit; Themis, named after the Titan goddess of law and order; Cronus, the king of the Titans for the largest one; Theia, the Titan goddes of heavenly light for the one with lots of prominent planetary rings; Rhea, the mother of the gods; and Mnemosyne, named after the Titan goddess of memory.

As for the three proto-planetary groups - the three groups of rocks and asteroids that were starting to coalesce into planets - they named the group nearest the star the Hyperion Group, named after the Titan god of heavenly light. The group that had an orbit perpendicular to the system's plane was named Coeus, named after the Titan god of the North. As for the least-coalesced group, which looked like a long stream of rocks moving along the same orbit, it was named Oceanus, named after the Titan god of the Earth-circling river called Okeanos.

Ultima Thule, like almost all systems, also had its own equivalent to Earth's Kuiper Belt. It was a region of space beyond the orbit of Mnemosyne that was full of icy rocks, and the IAU named it the Crius Belt, named after the Titan god of constellations.

As for the rest of the bodies, the IAU had mandated a simple naming convention, and that was basically to name them numerically in the order of discovery. So, for example, if there was a the tenth object identified, it would be named "Ultima Thule 10," or UT-10, and the next one "Ultima Thule 11," and so on.

Mia promised that, by tomorrow, she would have all documents revised to reflect the new names.

Soon after that announcement, Sahsha adjourned for the day, and they would reconvene for dinner and fellowship at the Four Seasons, where EarthGov had them billeted, and then return the following day to continue the conference.

Because of the presence of so many luminaries from the Federation, plus the attraction of Mia, Tasha and Sahsha, the dinner was like the cast part of the opening night of some famous play or the premiere of some new Hollywood movie. The papparazi was out in force, both Earth media and non-terrestrial media. Later in the evening, Secretary-General Romarkin passed by and it became an even bigger deal.

Everyone asked for details of what the conference was about, but no one gave much detail except that Earth was embarking on its fortieth colony, or fiftieth in Base-8, and the people that Princess Mia called in were going to help in setting up the new colony.

This was, of course, very unusal. Historically, each race undertook the colonizing of a new system on their own, but this one had some unique concerns and EarthGov had asked for help. Though unusual, it wasn't against any rule of the Chamber of Migration and Peerage. But Sahsha said to the BBC reporter interviewing her that she was disappointed that only a handful answered Earth's invitation.

 
The Admiral and the Spy

Conspicuous because of his absence was the Admiral of the Fleet, Benjamin Silverman, but the press was told that the admiral was supervising a very delicate matter that needed his personal attention. Which was totally true, after all: he was supervising the investigation into the attack.

He came into the cell that the Detterex woman, Asha Terisa, was being held, and woke up the prisoner.

The small, Detterex woman woke up with a start. She sat up from her cell's bed and looked at Silverman in terror. She looked very much like an Elyran, but Silverman could tell right away that she wasn't.

He looked at the painfully thin, almost emaciated Detterex, and he knew this wasn't some invader.

"T'chahn," he said mildly, and the woman started crying.

Silverman came closer, hoping to calm the woman down, but she scrambled back to the end of her bed, and covered her head with her hands, as if protecting herself from blows, and huddled against the wall whimpering.

It broke Silverman's heart, that this woman was reduced to this. He approached, but was worried that the girl might jump out of her skin or something. He wanted to comfort her in some way, but didn't know how.

He knew it was a mistake as soon as he did it, but he ended up touching her head, like he was calming a skittish pet dog by petting it, but he didn't want that. He didn't want to be condescending.

He resisted patting her, and just kept his hand on her head.

"You have no reason to be scared," he said in his best Elyran (he didn't know how to do Detterex). "You are with Earthers. We don't hurt when we can avoid it. Be at ease, young lady. Believe."

He turned back and walked out of the cell. He gestured at someone - a social worker sent by the the government.

"Better get in there," Silverman said to the man, and the social worker hurried inside the cell.

Silverman beckoned to one of the lieutenants hanging about. "You were looking for me?"

The navy man saluted. "Aye, sir. We were sent down to brief you."

Silverman nodded. "Lead on, then," he said, and followed the lieutenant.

"That poor woman," he said. "I can't believe the Dravidians picked her..."

The lieutenant nodded agreement.

In a minute, Silverman was ushered into a small conference room. Two people in the room stood up.

"You are?" Silverman asked

"FBI Special Agent Booth, sir," the taller one said. "This is my partner, Agent Aubrey. We're the agents assigned to this case."

They shook hands and sat.

"So," Silverman said. "What have you got for me?"

Booth nodded to his partner.

"Sir," Aubrey began, "we have determined that the person that was flying that Tirosian fighter ship was the woman you just met. She is a Detterex citizen, a Miss Asha Terisa. She's from a large residential area in the Detterex capital city, called the Pollux District. Pollux is in the poorer area of the city, and is nothing much more than a slum, actually. Crime is rampant in that district, and it is full of desperate, poor people. Ms Terisa lives with her parents, as well as several siblings and their children in a ramshackle hovel they call home, which we now know is typical in that district.

"We have determined that a large group of Dravidians visited Pollux recently. The reason we were able to determine this was because non-Detterex visitors to Detterex Prime are very few, so it was easy to identify and track them down.

"From Ms Terisa's account, a dozen of these Dravidians visited her neighborhood, looking for, ummm, 'throwbacks.' That is to say, they were looking for Detterex that look like Elyran, and they found her. From then on, she was trained to pilot a Tirosian fighter, and then she and this same bunch of Dravidians illegally boarded an old Kembel cargo ship bound for Earth, bringing with them a large load of their own cargo, which turned out to be an old Tiros fighter plus a lot of electronic odds and ends. We are currently trying to corroborate her story, but we have no reason to doubt Ms Terisa's account at the moment."

"Did you trace the ship that was used to attack the parade," Silverman asked.

"Yes, sir," Booth said. "The spaceframe numbers and other serial numbers show that this was one of the thousands of fighters that were downed during the battle of Tiros. This particular one was recovered from one of the many mangrove swamps on Tiros Prime. It was waiting to be recycled until a Kembel business person bought it, as well as several other pieces of junk from the war. At the time he purchased it, the ET said he hoped to use the material for an art installation that he was commissioned to do, which was meant to be put up in the permanent museum on Colossus.

"We checked, and the art piece is still being constructed in the artist's temporary studio on Detterex. He's still there, still assembling his piece. Needless to say, the fighter wasn't part of the material he had on hand - he had pieces from other fighters and other junk from the war, but not the fighter used to attack the parade. But to be fair, he had thrown away a lot of what he got. So the junker ship could have been part of what he threw away, and someone else got it."

"Is there any reason to suspect the Kembel artist?"

Booth shook his head "No, sir. The Kembel artist has a spotless record, and is known to be an upstanding and loyal citizen of the Federation, and is famous for his sculptures and art installations. Our Elyran covert agents on Detterex are trying to get more information about him, and we'll update you as soon as we get something."

Silverman nodded. "Continue, please."

"We have also checked out the other material we recovered," Aubrey said. "The ship was equipped with Dravidian chemical rocket engines and not the normal Tiros engines. That was the reason the ship was disabled - the power generated by the outsized Dravidian engines was too much for the tiny ship, so after a short period of full thrust, the engines burned through the exhaust bell, and then through the shielding, and exploded. What was left of the engines wasn't enough to be traced.

"As for the energy pulse weapons, we found that they were Earth weapons, and their serial numbers showed they were retrieved from some metal reclamation facility in Taiwan, and it was scheduled for scrapping.

"As for the rocket that it launched, it was a fairly standard Dravidian air-to-ground missile. Again the remaining material was not enough to trace."

"What about the Dravidians?" Silverman asked.

"We traced them to a warehouse in New Jersey. Apparently, that's where they rebuilt the fighter, and where they launched it from. This is based on reports from the neighbors. An hour after the fighter was launched, the Dravidians scattered, and moved to other locations within the state. We didn't pick them up, however, and instead we had them put under surveilance, with the hopes of them leading us to new spies in the area.

"A background check revealed that these twelve Dravidians are actually part of the Dravidian criminal underground, and are known for industrial espionage and sabotage. White-collar criminals, if ever there are such criminals. Dravidian warrants are out for their arrest actually. All except one - one of them is a family retainer of Cor's clan. He is considered a staunch supporter of Cor and his family, and has been caught and charged several times for small infractions of Dravidian law, mostly to do with petty bribery and forging government documents. So far, these charges have been dropped, mostly because he's a known associate of Cor's very political and influential family. Dravidian authorities, however, suspect he's involved with other more serious cases, but so far they haven't been able to gather sufficient evidence to charge him."

"I see."

"Admiral, I would like to ask, is there a way to protect Ms Terisa in some way? She already signed her parole, after all. But as FBI, we're a bit constrained. Would you, perhaps..."

"Leave it to me, Agent. By this time tomorrow, it'll be known that an Elyran citizen was found dead, the body being that of the pilot of the bogus Tiros fighter. The Dravidians should therefore leave her alone."

"Thank you, sir."

(Later that night, through confidential channels, a query was sent to the Elyran government - that EarthForce officials found out the pilot of the rogue Tirosian fighter was an Elyran, and that they were trying to identify who she was, and what was she doing piloting the fighter in the first place. It also said that the body of the Elyran as well as the Tiroisan fighter were so badly compromised by the fire that there were no means of identifying either. Pictures accompanying the query showed a badly-burned body that could have been anyone, and a completely destroyed fighter.

(Both Earther and Elyran authorities were confident that the query would be intercepted by known Detterex spies on Elyra within the hour, and, in that way, it was hoped that Ms Terisa would be safe from the Dravidians since they would believe she was dead already.)

Silverman then drafted a report that had all the details of the investigation, which he then transmitted to the Secretary-General, Mia and Tasha. He then arranged with the director of the FBI, the and the chiefs of police of New York and New Jersey, regarding the surveillance of the twelve Dravidian... illegal aliens (Silverman had a private laugh at the term) - that he be updated constantly, and that the Dravidians not be arrested.

After that, he asked to talk with the Elyran ambassador on Earrth about the possibility of Ms Terisa's resettlement on Elyra or on one of her colonies, much in the manner of the old "witness protection program" of 21st century America. Despite the hour, the ambassador hurried to the Admiral's office.

He found out that there was such a program on Elyra, and Asha could be enrolled in that program, giving Asha a fair chance of living out the rest of her life better than the life she was presently leading. The ambassador did say that some minor plastic surgery might be needed, though, so that Asha could be made to look a bit different so that Detterex or Dravidian operatives won't be able to identify her, and to make her look more like an Elyran rather than a short Detterex, and allow her to easily integrate into whatever community she would end up in.

Silverman therefore made arrangements for the FBI to transfer custody of the would-be Detterex spy to the ambassador, and the ambassador started to arrange things on her end as well.

 
Babies, Fingers and Toes

It was already one in the morning by the time Silverman was done, and decided to go straight home instead because he knew that Day One of the conference would have wound down by then - they did have to reconvene again at nine the following day, after all.

By that time, Mia, Tasha and Sahsha had also retired to their suite at the penthouse floor of the Four Seasons, and tried to relax and absorb all that had happened since the morning.

As Mia half reclined on the couch that was facing their suite's big picture window, and leafed through the report submitted by Ben's staff while taking down some notes, Tasha and Sahsh approached her with trepidation.

Tasha reached out and timidly tapped Mia on the shoulder.

Mia looked up. "Oh, hello girls," she said in Elyran. Nowadays, the three of them would randomly lapse into colloquial English or high-born Elyran, shifting into each language without seeming to notice. Their fluency in both languages was such that both languages saw frequent use in their household.

"Ummm, Mia, my love," Tasha said timidly. "Can we talk with you about something?"

Mia looked up. She sensed the seriousness from Tasha's tone. "Of course," she said, and put away the report and sat up.

Tasha and Sahsha sat on the coffee table in front of her, and in nervous and quiet tones, they took turns to talk about the meeting that they had with Dr. Puerrot.

Mia didn't know they wanted babies, and she felt so guilty that she didn't.

She looked them and their sorrow and embarassment.

"Sahsha, my love," she said. "You should have told me. I know I don't have the necessary equipment anymore, but we can still have a baby. Have you heard of EECF? it's not done often, but there's a three out of four chance to conceive via EECF. EECF stands for..."

Sahsha nodded. "Yes, Dr. Puerrot explained it. I didn't now about it, but if I did, we probably wouldn't have gone to her in the first place. Except for..." She looked significantly at Tasha.

Mia looked at Tasha. "Tasha," Mia said sadly. "Dearest - I understand what you're feeling. But how could you even have thought it was even possible -"

"I'm not ignorant, Mia," Tasha said, "but I did some research. Look at this."

Mia accepted Tasha's CC where Mia could swipe through the pictures and documents that Tasha got.

Mia read through the files in her usual rapid clip, and, after she was done, she sighed.

"Tasha... these documents don't really tell me anything. They're speculation at best, and at worst..."

"Did you see the picture in the last file?"

"Yes, but what was the significance of..."

Tasha then told her to look at the hands of the statues, and then explained where they're from, and what they were.

Mia's eyes grew round, and looked at Tasha and Sahsha in wonder.

"Just like the giant statues in the new planet..." she muttered.

"Here's some more, Mia," Sahsha said, and handed the folder Dr. Puerrot gave them.

Mia got the folder and read the contents from cover to cover. Afterwards, she stood and went to the suite's balcony. She stood out in the cool air while the mild New York breeze whipped her long, blonde hair around her face, and she stared across the city's skyline.

Tasha and Sahsha looked at each other. After a minute, Tasha took a deep breath, stood up and started walking to the balcony. Sahsha put her hand on Tasha's arm.

"Want some company?" Sahsha asked.

Tasha leaned down and kissed her gently. "I'll be fine."

Tasha knocked on the door leading to the balcony, and opened it.

"Can I come over there?" Tasha asked.

Mia looked to her. Mia's hair swirled around her face like a halo, lighted by the stars and the moon. She looked like an angel, and it made Tasha's heart skip a beat. Tasha thought, even if Mia wasn't her bridge, she'd still love her Earth princess.

Mia was trying to smile, but just wasn't able to. She opened her arms, and Tasha came over, allowing herself to be enfolded in Mia's soft, gentle embrace.

"Mia... what are you thinking?"

"My love," Mia said, "I feel your pain. I know your longing to have a child. I want it, too. But... Dr. Puerrot's findings were amazing, and the implications... But even her findings couldn't guarantee a normal, even a safe, birth. What if we try, but our child is born damaged, or defective, or... I don't think I can live with myself if that happens. It's not just us here, dearest, it's also the life of an innocent child. Are we all right in possibily condemning her to a life of..."

Tasha reached up and put a finger across Mia's lips.

"I know," she said. "My love, I know." Tasha was crying. "But..."

Mia sighed. "Then what do you want to do?"

"Even with the risk - I want to try. It's selfish of me, but..."

"I think I understand. But, Tasha..."

"But! ... but... if our child is born imperfect, know that I will love her... or him, as much as I have ever loved anyone, and will never abandon her."

Mia tightened her arms around her. "I know that."

"How about you - what do you think?"

"I think my opinion is moot at this point. But I will support you all the way, and whatever will happen, I will love our child just as much, and I will love you as much as I always have."

Tasha cried melancholy tears, and they stayed like that out in the balcony for a while.

As they stood there in the crisp air, they felt a pair of arms wrap around the both of them.

"Are you guys okay?" Sahsha asked.

"Yes, my love," Tasha said. And the three of them stood there for a while, just like that.

to be continued...

 

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