Yale and Cameron licked their lips nervously as they eyeballed the dark open entrance leading into the sleeper ship. 

"Hey, Mr. Cyborg, are you glad we're not hooked into Zero's V.R.?  I'm glad we're not hooked into V.R., because we have no idea what Eve can do now that she's fully repaired." said the stout man, fingering his weapon's firing pin over and over again. "If it weren't for those food replicators in there, I'd've blown up the ship to smithereens days ago. Majority vote or not."

"With Devon Adair still interred inside?" Yale fired back, getting righteously angry. 

Cameron was frank. "She was dead meat as far as we were concerned. Even Julia said so." shrugged the watchman. "If I were in her shoes, and dying like that, euthanasia would have been a kindness."

"All life is sacred, Cameron. We have to respect that notion. Especially on G889."

"Oh, yeah? Tell that to Eve. She almost wiped the floor with you and the rest of us because of a little misprogramming."

"She was made by us and so she has our flaws." said the tutor.

"No. She was made by one single human being, acting on his own. Dr. Franklin Bennet decided to play G*d, so he created his monster just to tidy up." Cameron spat. "Doesn't that make you mad as h*ll? We almost died because of Eve."

Yale said nothing, thinking the unbidden. ::And we are still alive because of her.::  He rubbed his eyes in weariness, almost feeling the usual pulsing he knew was there in his biostat implant. ::Far away, yet tethered still to the Stations. Will we ever be entirely free?:: he wondered.

Zero's voice came over their hand held radio. ##I am picking up signs of movement. One biped.##

"What?!" Cameron interjected. "Someone got past us?! Impossible!" he said, lifting his Mag-pro to his shoulder to sight his cross hairs at the entrance.

Zero's flaxen soft voice modulator spoke again. ##I have it in range. 20.6 meters from the central core.##

Yale shouted a command. "Identify!"

##Lifeform is wounded. Body temperature is below ambient. There is no biostat signature.##

Cameron shot to his feet. "D*mn it, Zero. Is it Grendler, penal colonist, Koba or Terrian?"

## I am reading a second life form with cyborgnetic signatures. Standing approximately 3.5 meters high. Weighing...##

Cameron transmitted a message. "Danziger! Rally everybody! We've got a ZED and something else in the ship!"

John's voice snapped into being. ##Get out of there , A.S.A.P.!  Do not engage.  We've got ourselves a real can of worms here, too!##

Cameron toggled back. "We'll leave Zero as a distraction."

##Understood.##  came both John's and Zero's voice. ##Secure the airlock. It might slow it down.##

Yale and the watchman did so and scrambled backwards into heavy cover and got swiftly back to camp with fear as sharp as a wolf nipping at their heels.

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Devon Adair, narrating.  "As strange as it seems, I feel reborn. My son said he felt the same way after the Terrians cured him. Julia has given me a clean bill of health but I know my  troubles, internal and external, are far from over." 

Devon had propped herself up against a cabinet next to her cot as she nursed a hot tea made of tunnel fruit. As the others talked, she looked around and saw the remnants of shredded earth the treated Terrians had left behind once they had been freed from their boring incendiary worm bullets.  The ZED's body had already been burned to deactivate any tracing device Eve might have been using.

"How is she staying alive?" simpered Morgan, casting a careless hand back at Devon's bed. "I thought we needed biostat implants to keep us breathing on this godforsaken planet!"

"I don't know, Morgan." said Julia defensely. "There's a lot about G889 that I don't know."

"You sure knew a lot about the Council, and Riley. Enough to turn yourself part Terrian. Maybe you secretly know more than what you're letting on!" 

John intervened. "Martin, can it! That's old news. We voted on accepting Heller back into the group. That includes treating her like a human being when she's in the room."

"Is she human? Is she any longer?" Morgan rounded on the others, passionate in his fear of recent developments. "Just what in h*ll is this planet doing to us anyway! I feel like I'm dissolving---"

"...into something I'm not." said Mary, stunned, from her cot.  

The others were shocked into silence after she had spoken.

Uly knelt by her bed. "Mary, it's okay. I'm here. So's mom."

True smiled, too. "We'll find your mother. I promise." she told Mary.

John was more wary than nurturing. "Mary, are you connected to anybody right now?"

"I... do not understand." said the burn healing girl.

Julia raised her bioglove and performed a scan. "Only one set of brainwaves. She's entirely herself."

Devon smiled. "John, she's fine. She's just realizing that she's one of us. At last."  Wavering, Adair got up unsteadily and scrambled over to Mary's bed to hug her joyfully.  "Mary, it's okay. We'll take care of you. You're truly a part of our family now."

Cameron and Yale burst into the tent. "You fought a different ZED? We passed its corpse burning out there."

John grinned. "We didn't have to. The Moon Pool Terrians did all the hard work for us. We just had to euthanize it."

Yale and the watchman were not comforted by that bit of news at all as they took up places next to the others.

Danziger patted a crate. "Have a seat. I'll get you caught up. I already know what you found via Zero." he said, hefting up his radio.

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The decision was made to keep all V.R. gear inactive for the duration while ZEDs were being dreamscape reported by the Terrians as being in the immediate area, for safety.

"Eve can't track us through it, but they might." Danziger theorized. 

"So what does she actually hope to accomplish by interrogating the Terrians?" Yale wondered.

"I don't know. " Danziger answered truthfully.

Julia added more. "Whatever it is, it's a different goal than what the Council wanted with us."

Yale was thoughtful. "Everyone, I have a confession to make. While I was in the interface trying to access Bennet's cure for Eve, I saw something very odd in her database. I saw colonists, ones I didn't know, being slaughtered, one by one. And their murderers weren't of penal origin."

"Bennet spoke of losses in his Eden Project members. He just wasn't very forthcoming on any details." John surmised. "Who do you think they were if this was an accurate record?" he asked the tutor. "Were they human?"

"I'd have to say no." Yale replied, haunted.

"They weren't Terrian." declared Uly. "I know my friends. They wouldn't attack us."

Mary agreed. "They don't know how to...to end a life. "

Heller frowned. "That's true. Only the Others have tried."

"Grendlers." Morgan sighed. "They know how. Remember Commander O'Neill?"

John took in a long deep breath and let it out again. "So where does this leave us concerning Eve? Is she really being benevolent, or the opposite?"

"There's only one way to find out." Alonzo said.