Ashes to Ashes

by bloodsword

Merakith frowned as he looked at the readouts. 'Even after five thousands years, this world is still too irradiated to support viable life,' he thought with a sigh before sitting back in his brace. That was three worlds in a row that are still unsuitable for colonization, even with significant environmental conditioning. This pathfinding assignment was starting to look more like an exercise in futility, instead of the journey of hope that it was supposed to be.

"Ikon, summon the probes back to their bays," he directed, "and begin the calculations to fold space to our next target."

"Affirmative, sojourner," a soft sexless voice said from everywhere yet nowhere. "Initiating the recall on your authority. Navigational array online. Plotting terminal loci for quantum folding, target: Nisharra Five."

"Confirmed," Merakith indicated, waving the holographic readouts to the side with a gesture to bring up the navigational database. Selecting the Nisharra system from the menu that shimmered to the left of the database's main access point, he pulled up the most recent probe data that the Combine had gathered on the target, Nisharra's fifth planet.

Instantly an image of the planet spun into being, a ball of light twice as big as his head that quickly resolved into a world with large bodies of water, rocky terrain, polar ice caps and verdant plant life. Peering at it from where it hung over the console, he was about to reach out and highlight the southernmost continent when Ikon, his vessel's AI, softly chimed an audible alert.

"Yes, what is it, Ikon?" he asked without looking away from the image of the planet.

"Probe Five has detected a DNA fragment," the smooth voice belonging to the AI reported.

Merakith frowned as he turned back to the console. DNA? In that??

Unfortunately the detection of a building block molecule used by a number of species across the multiverse triggered a primal directive. One that he was loath to initiate without good reason.

"Verify," he directed and felt his frown deepened when the AI immediately replied.

"Verified. A three codon fragment has been retrieved from the environment, isolated and confirmed as an identifiable DNA segment."

"Correlate and compare," Merakith commanded. And again he felt a flicker of frustration and annoyance when Ikon quickly responded with:

"Correlated and comparable to i-72, s-21, sapient level bipedal hominid," the AI quickly relayed.

Wait a moment. The fragment belonged to a sapient level bipedal hominid?? There was nothing in the original survey that mentioned the remains of any sapients left on the planet surface when it was performed five millennia ago.

His annoyance and frustration getting pushed aside by intrigue and curiosity, Merakith turned completely back to his main console.

"I need a second, independently obtained sample, Ikon," he said, bringing the data on the planet below back to look at it more keenly.

"Acknowledged, sojourner," the AI replied. "Probe Two was just about to initiate it's ascent. Retasking it to scan for a second sample."

A tap on a floating menu swapped the image of Niskarra Five for the planet below, called Procyon Two in the initial survey carried out five millennia prior. Another highlighted the locations of his two probes still on the planet, Two and Five. He nodded in satisfaction when he found them a considerable distance apart. No chance of cross-sampling, or resampling, with that kind of, ...

"Probe Two has identified a four codon DNA fragment," Ikon reported, interrupting his thought to do so. "Verifying and correlating." There was a slight pause, then: "Verified. The segment correlates to j-56, s-17."

Merakith let a long breath ease through his nostrils. Two verifiable and correlated DNA fragments, located in two entirely different locations. While a third sample would cinch it,two satisfied the sampling paradigm. The question now was: were they viable?

Only one way to find out.

"Initiate Prometheon Protocol," he instructed.

"Please verify request with the Prometheon security access code," Ikon returned.

Face set in determination, Merakith keyed in the alphanumeric sequence, followed by a retinal scan, and his own genetic imprint to verify his identity. The Prometheon Protocol wasn't undertaken lightly. Now that it was initiated, considerable resources would be consumed as each protocol requirement was satisfied. And since he was responsible to initiating, the protocol itself demanded that he confirm that he had the authority to do so.

"Identity confirmed, Sojourner Merakith," Ikon reported, "and your authority to initiate a Prometheon event is verified. Stage One has now commenced. Please sit back in the brace to establish the neural link required for transference of consciousness."

Nodding mostly to himself, Merakith sat back and immediately felt a warm sensation at the base of his skull as the neural interface was established. 'Here we go!' he thought, mentally bracing himself. Then his pilot's cabin was disappearing in a swirl of light and sensation before it all went dark.

***

By the time the darkness receded, Merakith could feel the space he was now in, shifting around him. Opening his eyes, he looked down at his hands and, instead of flesh and blood, he found them formed out of gleaming metal and plastic.

"Neurological functionality test in three, two, one," Ikon's voice droned inside his head before his vision exploded with light and shapes that took him to the limits of tolerance and beyond. Then it was gone, replaced by sound moving through tones and octaves, then pins and needles throughout his body.

"Full functionality confirmed," Ikon reported. "Consciousness transfer successful. Your remote unit is fully operational."

"Acknowledged," he said, making his fingers move with a thought to confirm that the android shell his consciousness was transferred into, was, indeed, under his full control. Satisfied that it was with that small test, he went on.

"Establish transdimensional neural umbilical," Merakith directed in that voice that was his, yet a little more flat and lifeless.

"Umbilical established," Ikon indicated even as he felt ghostly pinpricks in his left arm. "All neurological functionality is now in remote host mode. Putting your body into hibernation."

"Is the Star Song secure?" he asked to ensure the lock down protocol had been followed. He would hate to make the trip to the surface only to watch his ship abruptly fold out of orbit and leave him stranded.

"All systems secure and the Star Song is in a stable geosynchronous orbit," Ikon replied, referring to the massive scout ship he had piloted through folded space to this place. "You are cleared for drop, sojourner."

"Initiate drop," he commanded and the small, white space he now occupied, twisted 45 degrees to the left. Then, with a hard jolt, he was falling.

Instantly the featureless interior of what he now knew was the drop pod, lit up with a dozen different holographic displays as the pod's sensors began feeding data into the system. Speed of descent, atmospheric drag, gravitational force, and terminal location were all segments of what his artificial eyes were seeing in the panoramic display. While his android shell could've just as easily poured the data straight into his brain, generating a virtual display in his mind, he preferred the more tactile holo-projection. It may have been just be a trick of his mind, but he always felt less disoriented by the transfer that way.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of being buffeted around by storms in the upper atmosphere, the pod's landing thrusters fired, slowing his descent with another hard jolt. If he'd been in his real body, the sudden change would've broken bones and ruptured tissues. His shell, however, was made of much studies stuff and the hard braking only generated mild discomfort.

Then the pod's landing alarms were going off as it neared the ground and its landing struts began to extend. For a brief moment the pod hung suspended as the landing thrusters equalled the planet's gravity, the blast serving to also burn clear the landing zone. Then it once more began to drop, easing downward to come to gently rest on the surface.

At that point Merakith sprung into motion.

"Initiating anchoring sequence," he said, his shell's artificial fingers dancing over the holographic interface that appeared in front of him in response to the completed landing. "Shield spikes deployed. Shield activated. Sweeping the surrounding area for hostile elements."

His fingers of metal and plastic became a blur as they wove over the interface, triggering subroutines and activating the pod's primary and secondary functions.

"Perimeter established. Negative on the scan for hostiles. Tuning the shield to filter out environmental toxins. Deploying test kit and autonomous assist."

With a 'ping' of release, the safety harness holding his shell in place sprang out of the way and he stood.

"All shell mobility servos are functioning within acceptable parameters," he reported as an internal Heads Up Display appeared inside his head, showing all green on a self-diagnostic once the shell had compensated for the planet's gravity. Then he was reaching out to wave a hand over the airlock cycle panel in front of him.

Immediately the pod's atmosphere was pulled into a storage tank and replaced with environmental air. That made his HUD light up with alarms, including high ambient radiation levels. However the shell was made to withstand orders of magnitude higher without being affected so he let the cycle finish. Then the holographic displays inside the pod winked out as the front part of the landing vehicle opened and lowered ramp-like to the ground.

"Landing ramp successfully deployed. I am disembarking from the pod." 'Hope this trip is worth it,' he found himself thinking as he stepped forward.

As expected, there wasn't much to see beyond the cloud of irradiated dust his expeditionary phased particle shield now held at bay. His probes had already reported the arid, burnt conditions on the surface. But somewhere out there was DNA, floating around in the radioactive soup that passed for atmosphere here. And he intended on finding it so he could confirm or deny whether this planet was truly dead and therefore available for colonization.

That was the Prometheon Protocol: any trace of organic molecules like DNA and certain hydrocarbons could indicate that life was about to start. If that was confirmed, then the planet was marked off limits to all Combine enterprises for perpetuity.

However, if the planet was in some sort of end stage, then colonization would be approved and a new beginning could be made on a dead world. Providing it's star was stable, of course.

The protocol was the ultimate test to see if colonization was go or no go. Hence it's importance to the overcrowded worlds of the Combine.

"Autonomous Assist," he said out loud and a small panel on the side of one of the rectangular landing struts opened and a small, eight-legged creature about the size of his head and resembling a marine arthropod quickly skittered into view. It raced towards him, its legs working in smooth coordination to easily navigate the rocky surface, coming to a halt beside his metal foot.

"Autonomous Assist is now available," the small automaton said in a tinny voice.

"Take the test kit and mark out a circular perimeter with a five hundred meter radius from the lander," he directed as he looked around, letting his artificial vision cycle into the infra and ultra spectrums in an attempt to penetrate the fog that surrounded them. "Once your perimeter is established, work a grid search and obtain as many samples of organic molecules including, but not exclusively any DNA that you can detect. Once the grid is completed, return to me. Are these instructions understood?"

"Affirmative," the little bot replied. "Retrieving the test kit then establishing the perimeter." Then it was on its way.

Merakith watched it for a moment to make sure the small robot was doing what it was told. Then he turned back to the pod. There was a number of secondary devices that he needed to unload from storage niches on the pod then set up before he could continue the protocol's requirements.

It would be the last normal thing he would do.

Merakith had the second of the devices out of storage and setup when a soft audible alert went off down by his ankles. Curious, he looked down. And he found himself looking at the autonomous assist unit, the sample kit sitting on its back.

"Were your instructions not clear?" he asked, puzzled as to why the little robot had returned so quickly.

"They were clear," the unit replied. "The perimeter has been established."

"You aren't fast enough to have searched that entire grid in this amount of time," Merakith insisted.

"That is correct," the unit confirmed.

"Then why are you not searching the grid now?"

"The search was curtailed when the sample chamber was completely filled."

The explanation would've made him frown in confusion, if the shell had a moveable face. Fill a molecular sample chamber? That was virtually impossible!

"Are you malfunctioning, autonomous assist unit?"

"Negative. All systems are operating within acceptable parameters."

"Is the test kit malfunctioning?"

"A diagnostic has yielded no discernable malfunctions in the test kit," the little robot quickly reported. So the unit's AI was powerful enough to realize how unusual it was to fill a sampling chamber, at least, and had already run a diagnostic of the kit's systems.

He glanced over at his partially assembled lab. A quick scan of the sampling chamber would quickly yield whether it was truly full or not.

"Insert the test kit into the molecular diffuser to catalogue the samples."

"Affirmative," the little unit replied and wheeled to make for the molecular diffuser, a cylindrical piece of equipment that he had set up first. The diffuser would separate all the contiguous molecules from each other before running an analysis on each.

The kit easily slid into the receptacle designed for it, settling into place with a soft click. Accessing the diffuser via his shell's internal control interface, Merakith quickly powered the diffuser up and initiated the first scan. And just as quickly he was stifling a gasp of surprise as literally millions of molecules, segments of larger chains, and whole molecules both, began to stream past in his HUD.

"That's ... impossible," he muttered. A silent command through the interface ran a sort and identification sweep. The results were equally astonishing.

DNA. Segment after segment, making up over 90% of the organic material sampled.

"Ikon, are you seeing this?" he asked out loud.

"Affirmative, sojourner," the Song's AI quickly replied. "That concentration of DNA can only be found in a living system." 'Or one that was once living,' Merakith silently added.

The question now remained: did the DNA belong to a long dead species, turned to dust by time but preserved somehow by the radiation? Or did something more violent happen here, like a celestial event of some kind like a solar flare, or something less natural like war, that wiped out all life and turned the atmosphere into a toxic soup?

A second command through the interface got the diffuser activating an assembly algorithm. If the fragments were remnants of a time long lost, their ends would be worn and tattered, no longer capable of matching another fragment. If they were violently shattered, however, ...

A soft chime from the diffuser interrupted his thought and forced him to call up the result.

"By the Cosmos!" he breathed, almost unable to believe what his internal HUD was telling him. Yet there was no denying what the bundle of intertwined double helical strands meant.

This was a completed DNA chain, one that represented an actual individual from the species that once lived here. Or, in the least, was visiting when they left this completed genetic profile here.

"Analyze and extrapolate," he curtly ordered, pushing aside his astonishment. He had a job to do here, and every second was precious. He couldn't afford to waste a single one.

"Affirmative," Ikon replied, the much more powerful AI stepping in to take the analysis over from the diffuser.

Still hanging in his HUD, the tangled mass that was a complete DNA chain quickly grew a crop of marker points as the algorithm identified mappable features and correlated them to existing database entries. The markers then shifted in location and color to match up features that weren't in any Combine database. The difference was slight enough that Merakith mentally frowned.

Whatever species left this chain behind, it wasn't one that the Combine had previously catalogued.

"Analysis complete," Ikon reported. "There is a 57% correlation to a number of known species, which is insufficient to categorize this species as recognized." Confirmation of what Merakith had just thought.

"Sequencing," Ikon then reported and he watched the chain light up, codon by codon, as the AI determined which built what. "Extrapolating."

The HUD image split in two, the left hand side displaying the sequenced chain and the right, empty space. It didn't stay that way, however. With a scan of light, a skeletal structure appeared, followed by internal organs. Muscles were after that, then an epidermis, complete with body hair. Once it was completed, the image slowly began to rotate so Merakith could see it from all sides.

"Warm blooded?" he asked as he looked at the upright biped, male, if the parts functioned like they looked like they looked like they were supposed to.

"Affirmative. Two sexes, male and female, with the females carrying the young internally over the gestation period. The females also appear to have externalized glands for child rearing purposes."

Merakith slowly nodded. There were a number of analogous species in the Combine, live birthing and nursing their young. So why wasn't there, ...

Another audible alert advised him the the phased particle shield protecting the encampment had just been impacted. Curious, he called up the emitter feedback logs and quickly located the strike. Oddly it was directly across from where the diffuser was located.

Merakith quickly looked over at the spot. And he was just in time to see the shield flare from another strike. Now what?

***

The shield flared twice more in the same exact spot as Merakith strode towards it.

"Are you seeing this, Ikon?" he asked, swinging through several spectral filters on his shell's vision to see if he could spot anything.

"I am registering the impacts on the shields, but the pod's sensor package isn't picking up anything outside of the ambient radiation," the AI quickly replied.

Merakith would've frowned at that yet again, if he could. Instead, he watched the shield flare directly in front of him as he came to a halt a pace away. Lifting his eyes away from the impact point, he thought he saw movement.

"Ikon, run a displacement scan of the area just beyond the impact point," he directed.

"Scanning," Ikon reported. A few seconds later: "There is no displacement that can be detected, sojourner. However, the scan revealed a definite shift in the local radiation patterns."

Merakith glanced back at the pod at that. Shifting radiation patterns? Was such a thing even possible?

"Can you isolate those patterns and map their shifting, Ikon?"

"It is possible, sojourner," the AI replied after a slight pause to consider the question.

"Proceed, then."

"Affirmative," Ikon replied. "Isolating and mapping local radiation patterns."

This time there was a much longer pause before the AI reported the results of its efforts,during which Merakith witnessed no less than eight separate strikes against the shield, always at the same spot. Enough of a trend that he found himself looking back at the nearest piece of his equipment, the diffuser. Which, as the situation would have it, held a massive collection of local DNA fragments.

Was it coincidence? He was starting to have his doubts.

'Time to test,' he decided. Turning towards the diffuser, he picked it up and carried it five meters to the south. Then he turned towards the shield to watch.

Almost on cue the shield reverberated with a strike, the spot now five meters from the original strike and once again opposite the piece of equipment. Nodding, he picked the diffuser up once again. This time he moved it nine meters to the west, away from the shield and closer to the center of the compound.

Again it didn't take long for the shield to reverberate, this time from multiple strikes, each equidistant from each other and opposite the piece of equipment.

"Sojourner, I have isolated several patterns but mapping their movement was interrupted twice during the scan," Ikon chose that moment to report. 'That's because I was moving the source of their interest,' Merakith thought. Ikon's report had verified his suspicions: the patterns were somehow connected to the DNA samples.

"Show me the patterns," he directed without looking away from the shield, which was now shivering with almost constant strikes from multiple directions. Then his HUD was lighting up and he felt a chill pass through his essence at what he saw.

They were people. Or, at least, they were in the shape of people. Humanoid bipeds, just like the DNA extrapolation suggested the inhabitants of this planet once were. Blessed Cosmos, could they be the trapped essences of those that once lived here??

"Ikon, search these parameters and determine the level of probability: bio-energetic essence being trapped by high levels of radiation in the event of a physical form being destroyed by a cataclysmic event."

"Searching," the AI replied. Nodding, Merakith turned back to the diffuser, thoughts whirling.

If Ikon managed to confirm his suspicions, that the Prometheon Protocol was voided. The planet wasn't abandoned, nor had its former inhabitants died out naturally. He glanced over at the spot where the shield was taking the greatest amount of abuse. And, for the briefest of moments, he thought he could see an arm and a clenched fist as it swung out of the radioactive fog before it hammered into the shield and shattered into dust.

Cosmos take him, they were still here!

A quick dance with metal and plastic fingers over the diffuser's interface and he started a physical reassembly of the fragments inside the sample container.

"Query, sojourner," Ikon spoke inside his head. "The diffuser had reactivated and indicates that it's running a reassembly algorithm on the DNA fragments in the sample chamber. What are you attempting to do?"

"If you confirm my hypothesis, Ikon, then we have a grave duty to perform," Merakith replied without stopping. "The inhabitants of this world were obliterated in some sort of cataclysm. Yet I suspect that they weren't released by death to return to the Cosmos as most of us mortal creatures are."

"Science has confirmed the presence of bio-energetic essence, sojourner, which is the sum energy required to animate living tissues. But it has not confirmed the existence of a soul," the AI quickly pointed out. "You are moving from the scientific to the philosophical, addressing metaphysical matters that cannot be proven by method and testing."

"Maybe so," the determined sojourner replied. "But if I'm right, and those patterns that you detected in the radiation fog are, indeed, the souls of the lost, we have an obligation to help them. Either through finding a way to release them." He keyed in the final sequence and watched on his HUD as several DNA chains began to appear out of the heap of fragments in the chamber.

"Or bring them back to begin again the life they had interrupted!"

"Sojourner Merakith, I am obligated by protocol and programming to point out that it isn't our mandate to engineer the recovery of a lost species," Ikon began. "We are on a pathfinding mission, to locate new worlds for the Combine to colonize."

"Yet, if we abandon these poor creatures to their fate, then we deny the very reason Humanity created the Combine 10,000 years ago: to protect and nurture sentience throughout known space." He looked skyward to where he knew the Star Song was hanging, Ikon at her virtual helm.

"The inhabitants of this world had no protection against whatever destroyed them. But if we can return them to life through whatever means possible, then we must." He looked back at the diffuser and nodded in satisfaction to see that two complete chains had been formed, with a third halfway assembled.

There was silence on the commlink as the AI pondered what he was saying. Then:

"Have you considered the possibility that these beings brought about their own destruction?" it asked. "Or, in some way, their destruction saved countless others from their aggression?"

Merakith paused. No, he hadn't considered that possibility.

Yet, hadn't they already been condemned to a radiation-filled limbo for at least five thousand years, and likely much longer? Wasn't that payment enough for whatever crimes they may have committed as living beings?

"That's a chance I'm willing to take," he said, determination filling him. "If they were destroyed for their crimes, then they've suffered enough, being in a radiation-filled fog for over 5,000 years." He quickly made his way to the storage slot on the pod that held a 3D printer. A tap to unlock the slot's hatch then he was pulling it free.

Quite deliberately he then set it up close to where the shield was seeing the most activity. No more waiting for the AI's probability report. He had to act, and he had to act now!

"Ikon, please enter the following notation into my official log," he said as he quickly connected a portable power supply to the printer. "Having been advised of the possible negative consequences of bringing a destroyed species back to life, and reminded of mandate and protocol, I have decided to press forward with my efforts to revive the species that was destroyed here. I do so of my own free will and as a matter of conscience, authorizing the use of Combine resources for this task, while declaring the original Prometheon Protocol no longer valid."

The printer began to hum softly as it drew power enough to begin initializing. He then extended it's assembly bay to full. Originally designed to craft replacement parts for damaged systems, the printer was constructed for heavy industrial use. But, with the proper adjustments and a supply of organic compounds, it had the necessary detail to craft living systems. Like a body.

Again, using philosophy versus scientific method, he now reasoned that a living body was an empty vessel. One that waited for essence to fill it in order to become truly alive. So if he were to craft a body, then one of the essences now clamoring beyond the shield could fill it, restoring that person to life. At least, his line of reasoning was leading him to believe that. Ironically it would be scientific methodology that would confirm or deny his illogical leap of faith.

A mental command wirelessly connected the printer to the diffuser after he had completed the adjustments to the printer's matrix core. Calling up the diffuser's sample menu in his HUD, Merakith then selected 'assembled molecules' from the list and nodded in satisfaction when five completed DNA chains appeared in the selection window. He then called up the printer's interface and went to the patterns menu. From there, and using the commlink now established between the two devices, he selected the first of the completed chains as a pattern. Then, after the slightest of hesitations, he selected 'print'.

Instantly the printer spun into furious action. First it brought it's energy to matter converter online. To assemble a large biped body, significant amounts of both organic and inorganic trace elements were required. Since the planet's surface had been blasted into oblivion, rendering any of those elements hard to obtain, it would need to manufacture them from scratch in order to begin the construction phase.

Merakith nodded in satisfaction as his HUD, now slaved to the printer's readout, showed the levels of building blocks beginning to climb. He then watched as the printer, adjusted to 'read' the DNA chain like a blueprint, scanned the selected chain, interpreting the genetic code codon by codon. It was about halfway through when the converter signaled that it had sufficient material to begin printing.

The printer must've had enough information by that point to begin as, as soon as the converter signaled ready, it extended a trace lattice made out of holographic light. Then the curved extruder arms with their thousands of microscopic sprayers, extended out from the printer's stubby shape. Moving on invisible lines of electromagnetic force, they then began to carefully weave around the lattice, the sprayers filling in the pattern with the necessary components, building each cell protein by protein, and each tissue, cell by cell.

Up the extruder arms went, weaving the skeleton first. Down they came, spinning in the organs and internal structures. Then up again they spun, creating the musculature. A final pass to create the epidermis then the arms were drawing back.

Merakith gazed at the body as the printer ran a diagnostic to confirm it was fully operational and only awaiting bio-energetic essence to actually come to life. It was a male, humanoid but not human with its lack of a nose, three fingers instead of four along with its opposable thumb, broad shoulders, lean, muscular body, and standing digitigrade with a heavy ankle claw. 'Are the thoughts that would go through that brain equally like a human's, yet not?' he wondered.

Then a particularly hard strike on the shield drew his attention there. The phased particle barrier now pulsed with the constant impacts from the energy patterns beyond. 'You know I've made a body in here, don't you,' he thought as he stared at the pulsing shield. "Are you drawn to it? Like metal to a magnetic field?'

The greatest question, of course, was: would it fill this body and give it life?

"Enable energy transfer conduit," he said out loud and watched the readout in his HUD report that the conduit was ready. "Extend to the shield where the highest number of impacts are taking place."

Like a snake, the conduit extended from the printer, quickly reaching out to plant itself against the spot where the shield literally pulsed from the impacts.

"Secure transfer head." And the diamond-shaped plate at the end of the thumb-thick conduit flared with light before the readout indicated it was secure. "Prepare to open the shield at the transfer site."

"Sojourner Merakith, again I am obligated to counsel caution with regards to your course of action," Ikon spoke up to say. "Your actions may have far reaching consequences across the Combine itself, if not known space as a whole."

"They are prisoners of fate, Ikon," he immediately retorted. "Whether by their own hand or another's. I am merely freeing them to continue on whatever course the Cosmos wills for them. If their destruction was an end, this moment is their new beginning! Open the shield!"

The conduit jerked as if pulled by an invisible hand. Then the readouts were spiking. Seeing the energy levels leap into the red, putting the printer in danger, Merakith quickly pulled up the emergency shutdown with a thought. But, before he could activate it, the body held erect by a force field inside the printer's arms, suddenly jerked as if shocked. Then it was throwing back its head to utter a primal scream of pain and release.

"Ikon!" Merakith barked. "Language induction protocol, now!"

There was a sharp flash of light as an energy tendril carrying Combine language protocols reached out from the printer to slam into the top of the creature's head. It also served to abruptly interrupt the creature's scream.

"What? I live? How??" he began in a stammer, his voice low and throaty as it spoke the language of the Combine. Then he was turning wide, human-like eyes onto Merakith's shell. "You have freed me, whoever you are, from a thousand lifetimes of agony. For this, ..." He sank to one knee, putting a clenched fist to the ground as he bowed his head.

"I thank you."

"You can thank me later, friend," Merakith said, pulling coveralls from a supplies cache. He then stepped forward to offer it to the kneeling being. "I'm not entirely sure how much radiation my shield is holding out and we have much work to do if we're to bring more of your people safely back."

Taking the offered clothing, the being stood with a confused frown.

"More of my people?" he repeated. Then he was turning to look at the pulsing shield that Merakith was pointing at. "Blessed Mother, ...." he breathed in astonishment.

"Precisely," Merakith said, gently pulling the being out of the printer so it could start crafting a second body. Unresisting, the creature let the sojourner pull him from the machine.

"I, I have so many questions," he began when Merakith let go of his arm.

"And I will give you answers at the first opportunity, my friend." The sojourner would've been breathless with excitement, if the shell needed to breathe.

It had worked! It had actually worked! Against all odds and known science, he had rescued a trapped essence from the cloud, giving them a new lease on life. It was exactly the beginning he wanted from this crazed effort to rescue an entire species. A beginning for their new beginning.

Then he was pushing aside his exultation to order the printer to begin creating another body, a female this time. He would need to give his new friend a partner so they could truly have a new beginning. The rest of their people would then follow, but not without considerable effort and resources.

Time to go to work!