John's finger itched to pull the trigger. But Devon slowly shook her head. ::Not yet.:: "We don't know enough." she mouthed silently, her eyes frightened and angry.

Zero's finger lifted and pointed suddenly, following a thread of programming that was in place to preserve life. "The second set of biological life sign readings have disappeared off my sensors. They are no longer at their previous location six meters from the door." he reported.

The group startled, looking back the way they had come. The space behind them was empty, save for the night outlined open hatch.

Yale whispered in sudden shock. "That's right. He did say that there were two. I had forgotten it. I am so sorry." whirling around nervously.

John sank lower down in the protective shadow of a bulkhead. "If the second's not the ZED. What and where the h*ll is it?" he said, hugging his Mag-pro to a cheek to keep down out of Eve's sight. Finally deciding enough is enough, he shouted out the order. "Zero! Terminate monitor!"

"No, wait!" shouted Eve as the robot reached out and operated the control that turned off the rotating computer screen that was projecting Eve's image.  Her awareness flicked out.

Gasping with stress, Danziger dropped his head in relief for a few seconds before hypervigilance kicked in again. "It's time you obeyed your new masters. Shut up for a while." he told Eve's blank screen.

"Good move, turning her off for now. We've got clues enough. We'll puzzle out the rest of Eve later." Devon added. 

John nodded. "Everybody spread out! Let's see if we can find that other source Zero detected."

Nobody moved from their hiding places. 

Danziger flicked on his strapped on head and arm lumalights and shot to his feet confidently. "Don't worry, guys. She's muzzled." he promised. "I am a mechanic, aren't I? You can trust my work on Zero. He knows what he's doing around Eve."

The Eden Group turned on their light sources and rose to their feet in pairs, back to back instinctively at first, with either weapons or scanners, or infrared viewers in hand. Then one by one, they began to probe and cover the darkness of the ship.  Uly and True were kept inside the circle of ourward facing men and guns as they moved along, inch by inch. 

Alonzo moved closer to the physician. "Anything showing up on your glove past this stinking pile of cyber meat?" he said, keeping his weapon at the ready as he nudged the Koba claw sedated ZED at their feet.

Heller frowned, punching buttons on its control. "Not yet. I'll walk around with a stronger scan."

John chuckled. "These bulkheads were made to mask an awful lot. Gotta love those paranoid Council appointed engineers. They realized they had enemies everywhere."

Devon raised an ironic eyebrow. "And you don't?" she teased.

"I'm from the Space Stations." he mocked sarcastically, grinning back. "Ships are my friends."

"Not this one." scoffed Baines, taking relish in overturning pieces of leftover, half a century old debris surrounding the cryosleep bay as he searched for footprints in the dust.

"Hey, take it easy on the evidence." Morgan motioned. "We might need to scan that stuff."

"My eyeballs are good enough to find any trail." he snapped at Martin. "That's the only thing left we need to find."

True suddenly tugged on her father's jacket. "Dad, we're in an electronic dampening field, right?"

Danziger cocked his head. "That's about the size of it. It's blended into the alloy, a passive EM scrambler."

"Then we need a better tracker. I've got an idea." The little girl suddenly darted out of the circle. True didn't stop. She was outside in seconds.

"True! Get back here!" John roared. "We don't know where that second bogey i-." he broke off as she disappeared. "D*mn. I hate adolescence. Cameron, go after her!" Danziger ansed, torn between protecting the group and going after his daughter.

"Right." said the man, shouldering his Mag-pro so he could run.

Seconds later, the watchman ran almost pell mell and straight back into her when she suddenly reappeared at the entrance, holding something.  With a sick jolt, he saw that she was carrying a newborn yellow eye stalk fern in both of her palms on top of a cradle of slimey gray sand.

"True?" Bess cautioned. "Watch out touching that."

Devon agreed. "Bess is right, True. We don't know what else our new food can do to us."

"It's all right. I'm being careful." True said triumphantly, holding the delicate plant tenderly, like a butterfly. "It let me take it."

Uly suddenly spoke, concentrating. "It's okay, mom. She's doing what it wants."

Devon eyed up her son. "A-all right. I'll stay back." she said uncertainly, but trusting, swallowing dryly.  Suddenly the eyestalk fern shrank back and recoiled into a ball when it fell under the beam of Devon's lumalight.

True backed up quickly until it was in shadow again. "Turn out your light, Devon. I think it's hurting it." she said.

"Hurting it?" John retorted.

"It's not sunlight. It's artificial." Julia surmised.

"Light is light." Cameron said. "What's the difference?"

"It may be the wrong kind. Like air can be for us." Heller clarified. Then she directed her attention to the boy. "Uly, uh... does it have what it needs?"

"Yes. It was just looking for a way to move from the ground." he said confidently.

True giggled. "We're perfect for that. We've got hands."

They all watched as True stepped cautiously around in a circle, holding out the eye fern like a dowser with divining rod. 

The eye stalk finally settled, pointing determinedly at the row of cyrosleep beds along the wall. 

"What th-?" Baines gaped, when he noticed. "Wasn't Devon the last one to be in one of those things?"

Julia whistled low in her throat as she held out a probing web of spread fingers that were attached to her diaglove. "Oh, boy." she sighed softly. "I'm reading organic mass over there in one of the pods. I don't know why I didn't notice this before."

"It's the field." guessed True. 

All the men raised their Mag-pros and aimed it the same way the eye fern was looking. 

John turned to their robot. "Zero? Getting anything on that?"

"I am reading only Eden Project signatures and one deceased bioform which identifies as--"

"The Z.E.D.'s not dead you brainless bucket of bolts. He's just rodent mickeyed for a few days." Morgan spat.

Cautiously, Danziger reached out with a spanner hook he snagged from a nearby dusty table top.

He tapped the door button and it opened.

Frozen fog gushed out and the cubicle spot light went on, searing the eye fern in True's hands instantly to a shrill sounding, screeching death.  The girl screamed and dropped what was left of it, cradling her hands to herself protectively.

Distracted, the adults didn't notice when Mary rushed forward from the midst of them and began to trill in distress at what she began to sense. Uly took up her cry and immediately understood what Mary had discovered."It's Mother-By-Choice! She's the one in trapped inside!" he shouted, moving to Mary to put a soft hand on the girl's head in kinship as she dropped to her knees and began to keen in sadness and mourning.

"TheTerrian who adopted Mary?" Martin asked.

Coughing, John Danziger used a piece of console sheeting to wave away the vapors of suspended animation.  Then his mouth flopped open.  Mary's Terrian mother was wearing an implant and a hologrip device on temple and hand that was at once both very familiar and sickening. Poorly installed human devices were crudely violating the bonded alien being; the trademark machinations of a tutor class cyborg.

Yale gasped. "Those are exactly like mine!" he whispered in horror. "Oh my, G*d. Does that mean that Eve made me?"