Guardian had indeed saved all of their lives.

Mother directed the Fixers to his repair and even took this time to upgrade several of his internal systems, as well as expanding his memories and processing. She did this as a sort of reward.

But she noted with rising concern that the children were severely affected by this incident.

Mother tried to talk to them at first, but they refused. They only wanted to forget the horrific experience.

"It was a nightmare." That was all that Jaric would tell her. "A nightmare come true."

Becky and Kyle tended to Jaric's wounds personally in solemn silence. In fact, they even slept at his feet as he convalesced over the coming days.

They seemed almost afraid. Mother watched as Becky hurriedly applied the medicinal salve and then frantically worked the medi-scanner.

Mother scanned Jaric herself and quickly determined that his wounds, although serious and indeed very painful, were not life threatening. Jaric's life was not in any imminent danger.

"Please slow your efforts, Becky. Jaric will survive his wounds," Mother told them.

Becky ignored her as she concentrated on the medi-scanner's results. Kyle came and stood beside her with silent stoicism.

"Please allow me to command Fixer3 to run a Level 2 scan upon Jaric's wounds," Mother said.

"Leave us alone, Mother," Becky said without looking up.

There was a surge in her circuits at Becky's words. Mother began a.n.a.lyzing them in context with not only the current surroundings, but in light of the recent traumatic encounter with the T'kaan. She determined that Becky and the children must be experiencing high levels of emotional stress.

The warship wished once again she could understand emotions. It was one thing to understand their factual meaning, but another to watch emotions in action within the children.

"You and Kyle must rest now. I will take care of Jaric along with the Fixers," Mother said.

"Shut up, Mother!" As Mother watched, Becky's hands began to shake uncontrollably. The young woman bowed her head, which caused her long blonde hair to fall around her face. Her sobs began, soft at first, and then louder.

Mother was confused. She had already a.s.sured Becky that Jaric would survive. Now these tears?

"Are you frightened?" Mother asked. She knew the children cried when they were frightened.

"N-no." Becky wiped her tear-stained cheeks. "I'm happy. I'm just so glad it's over. And I'm thankful Jaric's alive."

Humans cried when they were happy, too? As well as when they were sad or afraid. Humans seemed to cry in response to many emotions.

"You are experiencing stress emotions, Becky. It would be better..."

"No!" Becky shouted at the optical viewer. "Kyle and I will take care of Jaric. We have to."

Mother tried to make sense of these words. But could not.

Becky reached down and held Jaric's hand. She began crying again with soft, jagged breaths.

Jaric opened his eyes at the sound. He had been lying there silently, but now, as he looked from Becky to Kyle, silent tears streamed down his own eyes. His sobs were almost inaudible; only the glistening sheen on his ebony cheeks made his soft cries manifest.

"Don't leave me," Jaric whispered.

Mother was almost shocked as Kyle, standing on the other side of Jaric's bed, bowed his own head and cried. But Kyle's sobs were loud and hard, as he had often cried in the past when he had awakened from nightmares as a small boy. His tears and cries poured out of his heart as he joined their sadness.

But unheard by the other two, Mother's sensors picked up the almost inaudible words that came from Kyle's trembling lips. "Fixer5, my little friend. I will miss you. I really will miss you."

Kyle was crying for the loss of a robot as well as in sympathy with the others, while Jaric and Becky were crying because they were happy and sad about Jaric's wounds. She processed these facts and wondered. But she wondered most about Kyle's sobs for the little robot, Fixer5.

Jaric reached out and took Kyle's hand. There they all cried a long time with and for Jaric, or so they all thought. Becky eventually sat down and then put her face on Jaric's shoulder as her sobs grew quieter with time.

But Kyle stood the entire time, crying freely at first, though soon his sobs, too, began to soften.

All three cried for a full hour.

Mother was afraid to interrupt them. She knew that they were crying for more reasons than those Becky had stated. There must be more to this flood of emotions, she surmised, so Mother concentrated her processing powers on other tasks. All the while continuing to monitor the children.

There was so much more to the emotions here than what she perceived with her sensors. Mother wasafraid for them.

Soon Becky made a palette for herself on the floor beside Jaric's bed and slept there all night. Kyle, too, would not leave the room, but he slept in the chair on the other side of Jaric.

Mother had the Fixers bring food to all three children in Jaric's room. They would not leave each other.

Their reactions were strong the next few days, Becky even shouted at her again when she suggested that Kyle and she should sleep in their owns bed, as they were not getting their necessary sleep in this situation, and it could impact their health.

Their intense, illogical outbursts puzzled Mother as they rebelled against her simple suggestion.

In the end she left the children alone, providing them with whatever they required from her stores. It was so strange. But Becky and Kyle did not leave Jaric's side until over two weeks later, when he was able to walk.

Still, there was worse. She added the new data from the T'kaan trap. Mother's processors worked the data into billions of possible solutions. More and more of them resulted in disturbing scenarios.

The T'kaan fleet was growing faster than she had antic.i.p.ated. Worse, she and the children could only expect the frequency and intensity of the T'kaan attacks to continue to grow more dangerous.

For the first time in many months, Mother considered presenting the entire facts about their futile search to the children. She considered telling them that the search was in vain, that they needed to travel far away from the dead human worlds.

That, along with the result of years of searching among these decimated worlds, the probability of finding survivors had dropped to a mere possibility-perhaps even less than that. The T'kaan were terribly efficient, and what life they didn't destroy in their never-ending war, their maggot young devoured-except for plant life.

But how could she tell the children the one, terrible truth?

Would it damage them emotionally? Permanently? Beyond repair? Could they handle the truth?

Mother could not answer the dilemma.

Their search continued as the months pa.s.sed by. But all they found were more devastated worlds of the former human empire, every living thing dead upon them except for the voracious maggot young of the T'kaan as they slithered along in their endless hunt for food.

Chapter Thirteen.

"Never have weseen her kind, puzzles us to guess her mind."

The chant began in the T'kaan flagship that protected the Great Horned ship. Down through the dark corridors and into the large rooms it spread, even to the great Bridge itself filled with the flowing folds of black dragnets.

The T'kaan had never known an enemy that could evade their ships. They had never known an enemy that could defeat their every attack. But most shocking of all, this enemy was a warship-a warship made alive with sophisticated hardware and software.

The last humans were only unfinished business. The Iron Huntress was the real enemy.

The Great Horned ship was now ready. The seeds delivered from the First and Second T'kaan fleets would now be planted to complete the next process.

In addition, the next cycle of life for the T'kaan was coming to its climax. On over sixty of the conquered human worlds, the maggot young had long since eaten the remaining food and were now preying upon each other. Soon, only the strongest would be left as the final metamorphosis began. Then would come the l.u.s.t that culminated in the final phase of this third stage of the cycle of life. A new generation would be conceived.

Finally, the fourth stage and the sacred pilgrimage of each T'kaan warrior to the Great Horned ship.

The Great Horned ship of the T'kaan Third would be ready.

But the T'kaan could not complete this cycle with the Iron Huntress still alive and roving at will among the growing broods.

So, inside the battleships and cruisers and frigates of the growing Third fleet, the warrior-cla.s.s trained anew. The artificial life of the enemy must be destroyed once and for all.

It had to be.

The leader-cla.s.s also began to formulate their battle plans, not simply to set another trap, but this time the new ship would be ready. The ship the T'kaan had specially built to destroy the Iron Huntress.

The last humans must also die in this final battle-nothing would be left to chance. The T'kaan would be victorious, as they always were. As they always would be.

A new chant began that spread to every ship, to every T'kaan.

"Kill them, kill them, smash their brains. Kill the Huntress, burn her steel remains."

"Forever!"

Chapter Fourteen.

Teenagers.

Mother had learned to dislike the term.

She felt her processors begin to spike with activity. But she was once again faced with the insoluble enigma, the endless paradox, the absolute no-win situation.

Mother at once realized she preferred a head-on battle with a squadron of T'kaan warships to this.

Nothing fit the facts. No amount of logic could appease them. Yet, what flushed Mother's near-term memory to absolute empty was the fact that they did not realize the total illogic of their own actions.

Not for the first time, Mother searched the human knowledgebase for answers. But the answer for this difficult problem, though simple, was difficult for her to accept.

They would grow out of it.

That is what the experts explained would be the ultimate answer as she cross-referenced thousands of published expert opinions on the subject of teenagers, and all that this stage entailed for human adolescents. Mother sighed deep inside her circuits.

It was a wonder the human race had not become extinct millennia ago. It was a miracle the parents, not to mention the teenagers themselves, survived the adolescent period of child rearing.

With hesitation, she activated the optic monitor inside the library where the teenagers were now located.

She zoomed out to view the entire room first. Mother knew what to expect before she saw them.

As teenagers, they preferred more interaction with their entertainment instead of merely viewing it.

Kyle and Jaric's lanky bodies were sprawled over exotic furniture while loud, booming music-most likely causing damage to their auditory organs-reverberated throughout the entire deck, as well as the decks above and below. Various containers of food, dozens of half-empty gla.s.ses and a myriad of other objects were scattered across the floor as if the room had taken a direct hit from a T'kaan battleship.

But Mother was more concerned with the other inhabitants of this merry chaos.

The two-dimensional images of dozens of other teens danced and yelled joyfully on the walls, projected there by Jaric's latest code. Standing out from the others, there were several holo-projections who danced around with a very life-like precision among Kyle, Jaric and Becky. Mother's optic zoomed in.

Becky danced with two young holographic men on either side of her, laughing with them as their holo-bodies almost came in contact with hers in their wild gesticulations. She turned to face first one cute holo-guy, and then twisting with the music she smiled into the face of the other. She giggled with girlish delight.

But Mother's optic focused on another holo-projection, one completely out of place in this party atmosphere.

It was the holographic image of a T'kaan warrior, his six tentacle arms waving in the air in an excited state.

She watched as its short, stiff legs pushed its ma.s.sive body forward as the large worm-like body undulated, causing its thick rubbery skin to jiggle with disgusting effect. It repeated the motion, quicker this time. And again. And again.

It moved exactly as a real T'kaan would as it stalked its prey-going in for the kill.

Mother wondered what this meant-Jaric and the other two programming this party to include a T'kaan.

She had never known them to do something of this nature before. Of course, in the last year, they had programmed numerous parties, each program more elaborate than the last. It was a new outlet for them.

She continued to watch as the three-jointed jaw opened wide, the two tusks on the lower jaws pointing far out while the rows of tiny fangs on all three jaws glistened from the overhead lights.

Like a cobra striking, the holo-T'kaan launched itself at a holo-teenager, wrapping its strong tentacles around the dancing form who seemed completely oblivious to her fate as she struggled to keep dancing in its grasp.

Mercifully, in a flash of light, the T'kaan finished its meal without any gory details, its biting mouth now chewing on empty air.

But one holo-teenager was now missing from the party.

Slowly, the T'kaan approached another dancing holo-figure in the same manner.

"Mother's spying on us again," Jaric said as he eyed the active optic.

"Not again!" With total exasperation, Becky stopped dancing while her partners eerily continued without missing a beat.