 them, and she leaned down and kissed him tenderly. Good morning, she sent with a grin. Welcome to the outside. How do you feel?_

_A little groggy from that anesthetic, but otherwise fine, he answered. How long was I out? What time is it?_

_Morning, a little after seven, she answered. Everyone, Jason is awake, and he's just fine! Jyslin sent in a way that would allow the non-telepathic humans to hear her. Now, I'm going to take you home, and I'm going to give you a home-cooked breakfast, she winked. I've already been warned that I can't feed you too much. It might make you sick. So, we'll go slow at first, and then once your body gets used to it, we'll get you a proper meal._

_Sounds good to me._

Jason was basically accosted all the way home, as everyone rushed from whatever they were doing and saw him, shook his hand, welcomed him back, and asked if he was feeling well. He took it well enough, but the medicine they'd been giving him to curb his hunger was fading fast, and he was _starving_, so his greetings became a little shorter as time went by, until he finally asked everyone to just clear the way and let him go eat.

When he got home, Jyslin pampered him outrageously. She put him in a comfy chair in front of a TV that they'd hooked up so Jason could watch anything he wanted, his panel was brought back from the lab and set on a stand beside him, then Jyslin spread a blanket over his lap and pulled a TV tray up to him, and then she put a plate of scrambled eggs, a slice of rye toast, and a piece of a ham steak in front of him, in very small portions. There was also a glass of what looked like orange juice, and a small glass of milk. _Eat it slowly,_ she warned. _Yohne already explained how I have to do this. You have to eat little by little to give your system time to adjust after being empty for so long. She also told me it's imperative that you drink both the juice and the milk. When you finish what's here, we wait a little while, then I'll make you something else. So, eat._

That was a command he had no problems following. It was hard to eat slowly when he was so ravenous, but on the other hand, the odd feeling in his stomach when the first mouthful hit it told him that he'd damn well better eat slowly, or he'd throw up. He worked his way through the meal as slowly as he could make himself eat, drank the juice and the milk, then leaned back and watched INN while his body wrapped itself around the task of dealing with the first food to hit his belly in nearly a month. As always, he was looking for any coverage of the Terran rebellion on INN. Usually, they ignored the rebellion unless he'd just executed a large-scale or brazen attack. His attack on Orbital One _definitely_ made the headlines, and the various things he'd done to torment the Baron of North America had also been pretty high up in the news cycle.

The Imperium had a very odd position on Jason and his rebellion. Of course, he was listed as a terrorist and an enemy of the peace, but instead of vilifying him the way they did after the explosion that destroyed Chesapeake, they treated him like some kind of enigmatic anti-hero. He was a bad guy, oh yes, a wanted criminal that would be attacked on sight. But, INN also portrayed him in an eerily _romanticized_ fashion, like some kind of dashing buccaneer, a lovable rogue that you loved to hate. It had to be because of the Faey love of games and jokes. Had Jason simply been going out there and blowing things up and killing people, they'd probably be portraying him as a monster that ate the raw livers of babies. But some of the things he'd done showed more than just a need to destroy. His various attacks on Washington displayed a warped sense of humor, and that was something that the Faey could appreciate... at least the ones who hadn't been subjected to those attacks could. It was hard to fathom, though. Though Faey and humans looked alike and had some similar traits, they _were_ an alien species with a very different culture, and some parts of it just made little sense to him.

That could be it, though. He wasn't just a faceless enemy; he was an enemy that had displayed traits of _personality_. And another thing was his declaration that he was only after Trillane. The rest of the Imperium could sit back and enjoy the show, watch Trillane fight an ever-more-futile battle against Jason Fox, watch them get flustered, watch them squirm while they were repeatedly confounded by what seemed to be a single human and his armada of clever little toys. The other noble houses would probably think less of Trillane had Jason also not managed to confound and outsmart a crack division of Black Ops that had been sent there to stop him. That was common knowledge in the Imperium now, and Jason had even dug up a rather cheeky interview that some reporter had done with Myleena Merrane, about how she was going to go down to Terra and nab the elusive Jason Fox. Then there was another interview after Orbital One, where Myleena wasn't even half as amused. Her pushing the camera out of her face as she stormed down a passageway told everyone just how angry she was.

That single act had changed quite a bit, changed the very nature of this dangerous game. The success of the marbles had reached too far, had made it seem less like an upstart Terran annoying Trillane for the amusement of the Imperium, and had turned him into a real enemy, one that could do real damage. He still had that roguish appeal to the rest of the Imperium, but the Imperial government was going to take him seriously now. He might have some rather dark popularity with the common population of the Imperium as a buccaneer with a strange sense of humor and the willingness to show it off, but to Trillane and those in the Imperium trying to stop him, he wasn't funny anymore. Half the reason for the scale back after Orbital One was to give them some breathing room, to lay low and come back into this more carefully now that Myleena Merrane was righteously pissed off and was looking for blood. The fact that she hadn't even tried to call him since right after the attack was all the indication he needed. Myleena was lurking out there, and he'd better take her very seriously.

He rested for a while, then ate another very small meal, and then rested a bit more, pondering Rann's declaration. Though it was absolutely impossible to even consider, Jason did have to admit, it did fill certain holes missing in most other explanations. So, what Jason needed to do was think maybe along those lines. Maybe the alpha ancestors didn't just spontaneously develop talent. Maybe they were part of a group exposed to some kind of common mutation, or were part of a splinter group of the human species, kind of like how the Cro-Magnon and the Neanderthals co-existed, two branches of the human race living side by side, different sub-species but part of the same race. That splinter group was absorbed into the human race, but passed down their unique genetic abilities to those descendents.

Jyslin crawled up into his lap and cuddled with him for quite a while after his third meal, and he was quite content. Weeks of separation had left him starving for her touch, starving for the feel of her and the intensifying nature of their communion when they touched skin to skin. Touch amplified telepathic ability, but between couples, it was more than that. It was a tactile sensation of love, for when he touched her, he could _feel_ her love for him. They kept no barriers up against one another, allowing them to share their thoughts and feelings freely, and it was that intense communion that so marked the difference between human concepts of pairing and Faey pairing. The union they had formed would last all their lives, for so long as they loved each other, their communion would make that love self-reinforcing.

_Jyslin had looked over Rann's suppositions in his mind and injected her own opinion into it. I rather doubt you're a descendent of a Karinne, but the idea that you might be the descendent of a Faey certainly carries some weight, she thought, a thought that Jason could hear. I remember hearing Yohne and Songa talking a month ago, and that was one of the things that they considered while they were researching human telepathy. The similarities were just too similar, Songa thought, but Yohne stubbornly kept declaring Gora's Law. She thinks it's the sun rising in the morning. Songa's a little intimidated by Yohne, so she didn't really debate it any further._

_Why is she intimidated?_

_Yohne's about three times older than Songa, and Yohne's been a doctor longer than Rann and Songa have been alive, she answered. Haven't you noticed that she always gives the orders? She has much higher rank in the medical service. So, we have to look into it, but I think it'll be easy._

_How so?_

_Well, we have four faces to track down, she answered. When we find them, we see if their families are all from England. If they are, then the location of the alpha ancestor is certainly known. Then it's just a matter of looking through the mythology of the area._

_Mythology? Don't you mean history?_

_No, there's no mention of the Faey in your history. But I'll bet that if there were Faey here, they'd turn up in your mythology. We just look for any myths about blue-skinned people with pointed ears. If we find them, and those myths are prevalent in the area your ancestors came from, then we have enough circumstantial evidence to at least conclude that it's possible, don't we?_

_Damn. That's just clever, love._

_Thank you. I'm more than just a pretty face, she told him, giving him a grin._

_And a nice rack._

_Well, that you can appreciate, she thought, and then her breath caught a little. I'd love to, baby, but are you strong enough?_

_Let's find out._

_If I get you sick, the docs are gonna kill me._

_I won't tell if you won't, he offered as he slid a hand sensually up her leg and over her hip. I can just lay there and let you do all the work, he added with a naughty image of his intent._

_Deal,_ she agreed, leaning down and kissing him.

                                        * * *

Jyslin's idea was certainly a smart one, and it was now the highest priority for Jason.

After getting a clean bill of health from the doctors to resume his normal routine, Jason basically left the work of setting mines and other traps to Luke, and he, Molly, Tim, and Songa got to work preparing to go out and meet those four faces they had. Tim used a little trick that Kiaari set up for him to hack into Trillane's facial recognition protocols, and they had names for those faces. Ten minutes later, they had addresses. Three of them lived in London, but the fourth, the redheaded man named Seamus Macgregor, he was from a small town named Dumfries, which was in Scotland. Since Dumfries would be a much safer place to try to land and approach this man, it was decided that he would be first.

Molly had more or less wormed her way into this part of their work, and Jason didn't really mind, because she had a firm grip on English history. So, it was to her that Jason assigned Jyslin's idea as a task. He set her loose with his panel on CivNet and told her to dig up _any_ myth or legend that might hint that the Faey had visited Earth in the past. He told her to look for any physical descriptions that might match the Faey, any instances of "beings from heaven" coming to Earth, and so on. He was surprised to see that she knew her way around CivNet, able to fully use its search functions to dig up the data stored in the old Internet portion of the network. She'd done much of her family research after the subjugation, and she used CivNet.

He left her to that task as they bent to the logistics of this trip, which required research. Before they made the initial appointment, Jason searched the area using Trillane's cameras, looking for a place to hide his skimmer... but it wasn't a good place. Dumfries was an old, old village, filled with ancient buildings and narrow, twisting streets, and the terrain was relatively flat. There were no warehouses, no bridges, nothing large enough and with enough space either in it or under it where he could land the skimmer and keep it hidden from the space-based cameras. So, they had to be dropped off. Once that was determined, they drew up a schedule for it, where and when they would be dropped off, what they'd do when they were, and where and when they'd be picked up. Jason dug up one of the cell phones he'd been storing since he left New Orleans, and it would be their emergency contact means in case something went wrong. Jason studied the area and memorized the layout, and determined where they'd go in case something went wrong. He also identified the public transit stations that they could use to get to London if it came down to it, so he could get back to where there were Faey so he could use his master key to steal a skimmer to get back if they got stranded.

Their movements would be carefully scripted. At 5:30 a.m., just before sunrise, they'd be dropped off. After the drop-off in a pasture just outside the village, they'd go to the train station and make it look like they came by train, by arriving and slipping in just as the first train arrived at the station at 5:45 a.m., then leaving the station. From there, they'd go to a local pub that served breakfast that opened just after the first train arrived, which served to feed some of the people that would get on that train when it left at 6:30 a.m. on its way to Devonshire. They would linger in that pub as long as they could until the village public library opened, where they would look up possible myths and legends and talk to the librarians about it. Their appointment with Seamus MacGregor was at noon, and it was their intent to stay in Seamus' house until sunset. If Seamus refused their offer, they would return to the library and wait there until sunset, when they would leave and go to the same pasture just outside the village where they were dropped off and wait for pickup.

Once they hammered out all the details for this dangerous expedition, Jason and Songa made contact with this Seamus MacGregor, Songa making the call and arranging a meeting with him at his home for another made-up reason. She told him she needed to interview him, that it wasn't anything serious, and she would come to his residence to conduct the interview so as not to inconvenience him. The man agreed, and the plan was finalized.

But what he thought would be a simplethough dangerousmission of two people evolved quickly. It became a mission of four, and it was an odd pair that was coming along. Rann decided he wanted to accompany Songa on the trip, both to spend time with her and see how they approached the humans in case he had to do it. But with two non-combatants and only one guard to protect them, both Myra and Meya decided that someone else was going to go, someone to help keep an eye on things and back Jason up if something went wrong. Meya and Myra argued over who was going to get the honor, until they played some obscure finger game to decide who was going. Meya won that contest, and so Meya was going to go. Jason and Meya had to endure a little make-up magic that Yohne put on them, the fake nose and beard for Jason to throw off the facial recognition in the cameras, and Meya had her cheeks widened and her eyebrows reshaped just enough for the facial recognition software to not recognize her.

What surprised all of them was when they gathered for the mission, for Meya arrived wearing armor. "Babe, I'm your _guard_," she told Jason simply. "Guards wear armor. End of story. And don't even _think_ of telling me to go change."

"I'd never dream of it."

"Here. Let's hope you don't need this," she said, offering him a small, evil-looking plasma pistol, one of the smallest he'd ever seen, that would easily fit in his pocket.

"I can agree with that," he said, pocketing the weapon.

The trip out wasn't just them either. Luke took the dropship, and he had three students with him when they set out, as well as cargo to deliver. Four mines were in the cargo bay with three workers there to start them up and deploy them. All four were space mines, and the idea was to go up into orbit and deploy the mines, then drop them off just before sunrise in Scotland and then rush back to Cheyenne Mountain before sunrise in Colorado. Because of all the people in the cockpit, the four of them sat on benches down in the cargo bay, as Jason taught Songa, Rann, and Meya how to play spades to pass the time of the trip.

After a few hours, they landed in a pasture just by a dark, deserted road just outside of Dumfries. It was 5:45 a.m. local time, and it was a decidedly nippy October morning. "Remember, if you have any problems, just call," Luke warned from the ramp as he came down to see them off.

"This shouldn't be very hard," Jason told him, shouldering his panel's strap. "Our biggest issue is going to be getting to the train station and making it look like we arrived from there."

"Good luck."

"You too."

Meya put on her helmet, completing the appearance that she was a personal guard of the two unarmed Faey. "Alright, follow me," she announced.

The first stage of the operation went easily. With Meya leading them using her night-vision enhanced sight, she took them to the train station, and to Jason's delight, the train _just_ pulled in as they rounded a corner of the quiet town. They scurried up to a gate separating the platform for the trains from the rest of the town, hovered there a few minutes as Meya used her talent to sweep the building, then they slipped in through a service gate in the fence whose lock Meya skillfully broke off with a wrench of her armored, strength-augmented hand. They slipped in and climbed up a few steps to the platform, then walked out upon it casually after Meya ensured there were no cameras on the platform to catch their appearance that Jason might have to use his panel to try to hack. That seemed odd to Jason, but then again, this wasn't a big city. This was a modest town on another continent, a place where Jason figured the Faey didn't worry too much about security.

Now that they looked to be here legitimately, Meya led them through a waiting room that looked like a throwback to the 1940's with its old furniture and fading posters on the walls, and a schedule board that was the old slotted kind where the attendant had to put up the little letters on it by hand. It showed that the first train out was to Devonshire, and that it would be leaving in about a half hour.

_There aren't any Faey in this whole town, I think,_ Meya announced, then repeated it after elbowing Jason and tapping her forehead, for he had had himself completely closed off. _No need to close yourself, babe._

Jason decided to risk a personal sweep, using the technique that Jyslin had taught him in their training sessions, sweeping out away from him with his power and listening for any "echo" that marked a sentient mind to the probe. It was almost like telepathic radar, a sweep that told him that there were quite a few human minds around him, but none that were different enough to be Faey. Both Jason and Meya were very careful to search the area carefully, looking for any mind that might be trying to hide among the numbers of humans, using them as a shield to hide itself, but there was no such sense of it.

_Possibly,_ he answered. _Let's get down to that pub and get some breakfast. I'm hungry._

The pub was a small, rather ramshackle building with fading whitewash, and a stained sign hanging over the door showing a mule's head in a yoke. The interior was just as anachronistic as the rest of the town they'd seen so far, an old, grungy-looking room with a heavy wooden bar on the right wall, a series of old booths with faded cushioned benches on the left, and about ten small circular tables scattered in a random-seeming pattern throughout the open floor. Old war-era posters, a tapestry showing some old castle, and several sections of different colored plaid cloths were hanging on the walls. The room was populated with six people, one old woman behind the bar, a younger woman carrying a tray of biscuits and what smelled like sausage to a booth where four older men were seated, all of them wearing earth-colored clothing, and what seemed odd to Jason, all four wore different kinds of hats. Every eye in the place was glued to them the instant they came in. "Let's go get a seat," Jason told them, pointing to the booth nearest the bar.

"Mornin'," the young woman said rather nervously as they seated themselves, with Rann and Meya on one side, and Jason and Songa on the other, with the doctors on the inside. "What can I be getting' ye this morn?" she asked in Scots brogue, which Jason found almost mesmerizingly interesting.

Songa kicked him in the shin lightly, and he blinked, glanced at her, then looked to the pretty young girl, with dark hair and green eyes, which was an odd combination. "We just need some breakfast, please," Jason told her. "What do you serve?"

"We have eggs any way ye want 'em done, sausage, potatoes, ham steaks, biscuits, an' porridge," she answered.

"Porridge? What is that?" Songa asked.

"Kinda like oatmeal," Jason answered.

"I think I'd like to try that," she mused.

After all four of them ordered breakfast, the girl looked them all over and seemed to hover, then blurted it out. "What business do Faey have in Dumfries?" she asked, then she blushed.

"That's quite alright, sweetie, we realize we're a little out of place here," Rann told her with a light smile, which made her blush deeper. Rann _was_ a handsome fellow, blue skin notwithstanding. "Truth be told, we've come to interview a few of your townsfolk concerning the history of your area, and look through your town library. We're researching a few historical matters, and it's always best done on site."

"History, ye say? 'Tis an odd thing for a Faey to be interested in, if'n ye don't mine me saying so. Our history, I mean."

"Well, some day we hope that humans will be just as interested in our history as we are in yours," Songa said mildly.

"To be honest, ma'am, I dinna' think that'd ever happen here. I'd be a poor hostess if'n I didn't warn ye that you'll not get a warm reception here. Scots don't take too well to the new system, ye ken."

"We'll keep that in mind, young one," Rann told her. "And I assure you, we'll be discrete. The last thing we wish to do is upset your town. We'll conduct our research and be on the train back to London by dinner."

_The meal they were served wasn't exactly spectacular, and Jason had the feeling that whoever cooked it intentionally overcooked it because it was being served to Faey. Several more people came in, saw the Faey in the corner, and then immediately left. Jason saw the scowl on the old woman's face behind the bar, so he made the others finish eating, got the location of the town library from the serving girl, then he herded the others out. They walked down to the library, and found that it wouldn't be open for another hour. Well, now what? Songa asked, a little irritably. It's a bit cool out here, Jason, and that pub was warm at least._

_Let's just walk around while we wait. If we stayed there any longer, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd have put nails in our water or something. That old woman seemed to tolerate us until we started costing her her morning business._

They walked around the town waiting for the library to open, taking in the medieval architecture of the place. It was clear that some of the buildings here were very, very old, maybe two hundred, but the street pattern, so narrow and crooked, had to be a throwback to the middle ages. They'd rebuilt the buildings over the years, but had done so while leaving the town's layout unchanged. Several of the larger buildings were clearly very old, like what looked like a town hall, and a chapel they found near the center of town looked positively ancient, with vines growing up on side of the building and an old slate roof. It had a single stained glass window over the front double doors. Though the Church of England was the predominate church in Britain, this chapel looked to be from the era before that, for the stained glass window was an image of the Virgin Mary, or at least what he thought was Mary. That meant this small stone building, showing signs of many patches and repairs, had to be nearly six hundred years old.

Sure enough it was... or at least almost. There was a historical sign by the gate in the fence surrounding the little chapel, saying that it was built in 1437, and had been partially destroyed twice and rebuilt, both times by fire; the first in 1789 and again in 1892. Neither fires completely destroyed the building, however, allowing them to rebuild and restore the building to its original appearance and condition. Though the building itself wasn't really that old because of the rebuilds and renovations, the stained glass window was a "faithful recreation of the original window" according to the sign, and the foundation of the building was that of the original building. Because it had been rebuilt exactly as it had been originally constructed, it was considered to be a historic landmark.

_Well, Jason, there's your first piece of evidence backing me up,_ Rann sent smugly, pointing at the stained glass window. _Look at the shoulder._

Jason did so, and saw a red triangle on a white background. That was the insignia of the Faey Medical Service.

_That might just be a coincidence,_ Jason scoffed. _I'd hardly call that proof._ He did, however, unshoulder his panel and turn it on, then he took a picture of the window and stored it in memory. He closed the outer cover and slung it back over his shoulder, which caused it to go into dormant mode.

They returned to the library just as it opened, and got a rather chilly reception from the two librarians that worked within. Rann went to work on them, unleashing his full charm on the two middle-aged women as Jason and Songa started looking through some of the books that the two women suggested. Jason read through a book of old myths but read nothing he hadn't read before, but Songa seemed a bit engrossed in the book she had in her hands. Jason looked at the title and saw that it was _Beowulf_. There'd be no help in that book, but Songa, an adherent of old literature, was already involved in reading the story. She'd be no help to him until she was done.

While Jason was flipping through another book, Rann came up with both librarians, and he looked almost insufferably smug. "Alright, Rose my dear, tell him what you told me."

"Aye. Well, if ye be lookin' at old stories and myths that might hint that the Faey visited before, I think ye'd find two of them ta' be yuir best bets. The first is the old story of Tir Na Nog, a land that only appears every hundred years. The other is the old legends of the Faerie Folk. I'd say that yon Faey does look like an elf, and we have quite a few myths and legends about the Faerie Folk here in Scotland. Here, I'll show ye which books to look through about that."

"Aww!" Songa complained, closing the book she was reading.

"Tir Na Nog?" Jason asked, sitting back and tapping his chin. That word sounded eerily like _Terinango_, which was an old Faey word for _hamlet_ or _village_. "Songa?"

"_Terinango_?" she asked curiously, and Jason nodded.

"It does sound similar, doesn't it?"

"Excuse me?"

"My human friend here is actually our resident expert on Faey linguistics," she explained. "He's deeply versed in our language, much more than the rest of us. That word, _Tir Na Nog_, it sounds much like a Faey word, _terinango_, which means small town or village, but it's a word that isn't used much anymore. Was this Tir Na Nog place a town?"

"The story calls it a land or realm, not just a town," the librarian, Rose, answered. "But there was a town of the same name within the realm."

"Faerie Folk, I'm not sure about that. I thought fairies were supposed to be little winged things."

"Och, laddy, that's just one interpretation," the other librarian said. "The Faerie Folk are the elves of old folklore, ye ken. They were said to be tall, graceful, handsome folk with pointed ears. The legends said they lived in the land of Arcadia, a magical realm outside the bounds of our own world."

"That sounds promising," Rann mused. "Any words you can think of?" he asked Jason.

He shook his head. "Nothing comes to mind. The Faey words for _realm_ or _home_ aren't even close. The closest word that even relates I can think of is _arcideinne_, but that's, ah, not exactly an appropriate word."

"Why, what does it mean?" Songa asked innocently, but he saw the wicked glint in her eye.

"Prostitute, generally," he answered, giving her a short glare. "But it's not a very nice word. And you're on the list," he growled, pointing at Songa.

She broke down into delighted laughter, then winked at him.

"I dinna' ken," Rose said.

"She knew what that word meant. She just wanted to make JaJack say it, that's all," Meya told them from behind her helmet.

"Ah. I didna' think that Faey had a sense of humor."

"Oh, we do. It's just not quite the same as a human's," Rann told the woman with a grin.

The books they were sent to read were interesting, and Jason learned a bit more about the legends of the Faerie Folk. They were just as the librarian described tales of elfin beings that lived in a magical world called Arcadia, who crossed over into the human world. There were stories of humans and the Faerie Folk interacting, both peacefully and in conflict, and dark tales of humans abducted and spirited away to Arcadia, a magical realm of pristine forests where the Faerie Folk dwelled. Jason read that over the years, the term _Faerie_ became more attached to traditional fairies, while the term _Sidhe_ or _elf_ had come to represent an appearance more Faey-like. But the librarian was right; in Scotland, the concept of a _faerie_ was not a diminutive winged creature, but a tall, elegant, regal, beautiful human-like creature of refined bearing and gentle mannerisms, often richly dressed. They had similar legends in Ireland, where they were called the _Sidhe_ (odd that a word spelled that way was pronounced _shee_, but the word was Gaelic in origin), but the _Sidhe_ and the _Faerie_ were basically two names for a similar