"Zeus! Zeus! Zeus!" came the shout from one thousand offspring voices. "Zeus! Zeus! Zeus" Until the word became lost within the throbbing of sound--it was like the undulating hum of the Hardarian plasma storms--the noise made even the gold ground vibrate.

Max Jones covered his ears with his hands as he looked around. The Ophiuchian Captain was shouting to Riggs and her crew, but Max couldn't hear what she was saying above the noise from the tree.

Churchman had advanced and was swinging his sword wildly into the air under the branches and calling out words that were also lost to the noise. The giant Emma was standing in front of Max perfectly still; she reminded him of that first time he ever beheld her majestic form; when she had appeared to him to be a statue. Max moved around to look at her face and get her attention, but while open, her eyes seemed dead.

"Emma!" he shouted looking up to her frozen stone face. Her skin still shimmered with the faint, undulating sheen of rainbow colours so, as odd as the thought was to him, it seemed that she was still alive. He reached out and grasped her warm arm and gave it a tug. But, while her surface was soft like normal skin, the arm was fixed solidly in place and immovable. Trying another approach, Max concentrated and directed a thread request to Emma via a SIS stream that she had assigned to him, but there was no response. He tried the same technique directed at One who still held the insectoid form had moved to his side.

One accepted his thread.

"One, can you hear me?"

"Yes Father, what is happening?"

"I don't know. Can you communicate with your mother?"

"No, I can not."

Max looked around the clearing and noticed that ground seemed to be moving, but then realised that the ground was still and it was the shadows from the high branches of the tree that were moving, "Look One! The tree!!"

"Yes, my siblings are restless."

"Is it them making the noise? Their voices?"

"Yes."

"Can you ask them what's going on?"

"No Father, I have lost direct contact with the others. All I can sense from them is a feeling of purpose and determination."

"What purpose?"

"I do not know."

Max received a thread request from Riggs. He accepted, and the controlled voice of the auger was also channelled via his autex which temporarily blocked out the sound, "Do you know what is happening here?"

The branches were moving faster now.

"No idea Riggs," Max replied as the auger jogged to his position. The lean horned figure stopped next to Max and One and continued the communication stream, "One says that the siblings are causing the commotion."

"Does it know how to make it stop?"

"I don't think so."

The branches swung and shivered wildly, and even the trunk of the tree was moving. An object fell from a high branch; it was clearly of the same material from which One was made, but instead appeared to be a large stick writhing on the ground. Another object dropped, and other, then many of the stick-like objects fell from the tree all around the Churchman. One stick would have hit the Churchman in the head had he not batted it away with his sword.

The shapes, over one hundred now on the ground, began to change as others continued to fall. At first, they transformed into rectangles that sat up from the ground like the ancient neolithic monuments of prehistoric Earth, but then small arms grew from out of a rectangular torso. A smooth black oval head formed, its face featureless except for bright nodes (the same as those which appeared on One's body) that gave the appearance of strangely lit eyes on stalks. The creatures had also sprouted legs and began to stand up.

Max noticed the Captain, Denver, Evenjevy and C-Buck had joined him and Riggs. They stood in the shadow of the Emma statue cast by the yellow globe of light above.

Max turned back to the tree and watched as Churchman held his sword in two hands and raised it above his right shoulder and sliced down and across into the body of the nearest small, child-like figure. The offspring went flying into the ground, knocking over several of its siblings in the process before rising again seemingly unharmed.

"Emma!" Max called out loud again, so hard that it hurt his throat. His shout remained unanswered. He began to worry--if Emma could not help them, they were doomed.

The noise began to hurt his head, and still more offspring fell from the tree that was now little more than the thick, tall truck and all but the thickest bare branches.

"Churchman!" Max yelled instead to his friend who seemed possessed by a berserk rage as he swung his weapon wildly about tossing offspring about as if they were dolls. But the call was in vain, and Max was too frightened to venture from the protection that he hoped Emma could provide.

Then the noise stopped completely. The sensation of the sudden absence of sound made Max feel dizzy. "Emma!" he didn't know if he was shouting or not, as his voice sounded foreign to his ringing ears. Emma did not reply; she was still frozen.

The offspring under the tree continued to stand in their place, but not entirely motionless as there was a kind of tension in their stance--they swayed.

Churchman had given up his faux slaughter and stood leaning on his sword amidst the offspring as if defeated. He looked over to Max and started a slow walk to join the group.

"Man, what are these creatures?" Ven asked Max, referring to the figures that surrounded the tree's trunk.

"They are Emma's offspring--and mine too apparently."

"Your's?" Ven looked quizzically shocked.

"It's a long story. They are the same as One here, but it looks like they've taken another shape." Max asked One, "So can you change into a human shape too?"

"Yes, Father. I can take any form that fits a given situation, mass permitted."

"So what are they doing there and why didn't they attack the bakra while he was hacking into them like a Skyean lumber jack." Ven tossed her head to show that she was referring to Churchman.

Max shrugged, "We don't know."

"What do we do now then?" asked Ven

Max replied again, "I don't know."

"Well I know," interjected C-Buck, "we take the opportunity while the metal monster here is asleep, go back to the ship, and P.O.Q."

"P.O.Q.?" asked Max.

"Yeah, dumbass. P.O.Q. Piss off quietly."

"That's enough C-Buck." cautioned Ven. "There's no need to insult our host. This man has done nothing wrong by us."

The nature of C-Buck's flippant sense of humour was unknown to Max, and so the term 'dumbass' hit him in the chest like a mortal blow. He had spent his whole life being put down by his superiors--just about everyone he ever met--here, at least, he was worthy of, if nothing else, respect. Max saw red and couldn't let the remark go undefended. He took a step towards the Skyean alchemist and stuck a shaking finger to his face, "If only you knew what I've been through since I came here. The pain and suffering I've had to witness--the uncertainty and loss of my dreams and my friends -- and here you, the good looking perfect man, comes wandering in and call me stupid." Max's nostrils flared, and he finished his angry rant through clenched teeth and with tears welling in his eyes, "Yeah, okay, I'm just a stupid autopilot. But I deserve better; I'm a human being too!"

Just at that moment, Emma re-animated. Quicker than even Riggs could track, the orr construct took a step to C-Buck and grabbed him by the forearm with a large hand. She lifted the Skyean off the ground until his panicked eyes were level with hers. "How dare you insult my Max."

Before C-Buck could respond, she flung him into the air. The helpless man landed heavily into the side of the hill with blood spurting out of his shoulder from where a second earlier his arm had been attached. When Emma had tossed him, she had not let go of his arm and inertia had ripped the limb clear off his body. A line of rich red arterial blood had splashed across the clean white midsection of Ven's uniform--she gave a scream of shock and horror.

Emma stood holding C-Buck's arm as her hand began to glow white hot and the flesh and bone in her grasp spontaneously combusted into ash and fell to the ground in chunks and dust.

Evenjevy was fast and ran to treat his fallen comrade who was unconscious.

Furious, the Captain turned to Emma, "Was that necessary!"

"Silence Ven Verde. You should be thankful I did not turn the whole of him to ash."

Denver had placed a hand on Ven's shoulder in support and the Captain quickly regained her composure. "Yes, of course. I am thankful. Thank you, Emma. Will he survive?"

"Yes, he will survive."

Ven and Denver rushed over the where Evenjevy was treating the fallen C-Buck.

"Is it true, will he be okay?" Ven asked her medical officer, who was using his mouth to hold some medical instrument while he treated the trauma, and just gave a quick nod, to confirm.

Ven then asked Emma, "Can we move his to the Parsifal? We need to get him back to ship for treatment."

"Very well." Agreed Emma and then changed the subject as if the incident with the Skyean had never happened. She addressed Max whose eyes had become red and wide, "The enemy has been here all along. It was here before I was born; influencing events; applying powers of subliminal persuasion in dreams. I believe it was responsible for my genesis and the murder of my mother, Emma Yee."

"Yes!" cheered the Churchman, "You see it too! The Beast, it has tricked its way into Eden!"

"Silence!" commanded Emma.

"It has indeed been clever and subtle in its approach and is seemingly operating from an n-dimension where it has been able to influence dream state; impressions which I too consumed as I copied the cognitive patterns from the people who lived here.

Just as one does not walk around looking to the sky for falling fish, it would have been impossible for me to detect the presence of this unknown entity."

"So who or what is it?"

The voice of three hundred offspring issued the word, "Zeus." and the word seemed to echo throughout the dome.

As if a spirit summoned by a word of powerful magic, the trunk of the great tree began to transform, its large branches folding down to form four arms, each with large hands and long sharp fingers. The trunk separated at its base to form long strong legs. Several of the child-like offspring that were on the ground jumped up onto the shapeshifting tree and scampered dexterously up to the top of the trunk where they joined to form a rectangular and featureless head.

The figure took one step forward and raised its powerful arms in the air as the voices of the offspring whispered in chant, "Zeus. Zeus. Zeus is here."