and was carpeted in trees and grass.

"What in the bloody hell is going on," Zora breathed. "Plants? Someone must have cleaned up all the radiation, and they're terraforming the planet to make it habitable again. And they're hiding what they're doing behind a sensor jamming network."

"Who could do it?"

"Nobody," Zora said. "Omega radiation will kill just about anything but a Jakkan, who wouldn't change it, or a" she gasped, and looked Jason in the eye. "Or a _Kimdori_!"

"Is this what she wanted us to see? See her people terraforming Karis back to where it's inhabitable?"

"Why? She could have just _told_ us," Zora mused.

"Yeah. So, Myri, do we land?"

Myri drifted up from her chair behind them and looked at the image. "There's a building complex here," she said, pointing. "It's all still standing. There's a landing platform." She pointed to a little white square near the buildings, a tiny white square surrounded by green. "Put us down there, Zora. Carefully." _Armor up,_ Myri sent seriously. _We got thirty minutes til we hit the ground. Get ready._

"You got it, boss," Zora told her.

Jason, Myleena, Meya, and Songa were in the cockpit as they began the approach to the dead planet, dead everywhere but one small island in the southern hemisphere. There were just so many questions broiling around in Jason's head, it wasn't even worth it to try to answer, or even talk about, them. The only way to finally understand what Miaari said, what Miaari was doing, was go down there and look. That's what she wanted them to do. That's what all of this was leading up to, all of her work to get him where he was. She had gone to a lot of trouble to get him here and leave him in a state of virtual ignorance, with only this dot of green in a barren wasteland and a telepathic computer attached to the side of his head to go on.

But what was there? What truth was there that Miaari wanted him to find, a truth that would help save the humans of Earth from Trillane, a truth that would let him go home and kick them off Earth, and be with his beloved Jyslin once again? Weapons? Technology? Who knew. He just knew that all the answers were down there, in that oasis of green surrounded by dead brown and sterile blue.

_Atmospheric contact in thirty seconds_, Zora warned them. _Everyone prepare for turbulence._

All the joking in the back had stopped. Eight Marines were in full armor, carrying MPACs, were strapped down and ready to ride out their entry, and they were all business.

The ship bucked only slightly as Zora skillfully brought the ship down into the atmosphere, and lined them up on an entry vector that would take them to the island. The ship decelerated as it descended down into an atmosphere that was not contaminated with deadly radiation, like everyone believed, dropping down into a blue sky illuminated by a blue star of a sun. Jason felt more and more nervous and anxious as they approached the solitary oasis of life in this desert, as he read off the sensor readings of the outside to the others. _Oxygen is 1.3 of normal, gravity is .94, pressure is 1.05. No poisonous gasses detected. No radiation. No biological signatures anywhere. Not even microbes._

_Five minutes,_ Zora warned as they decelerated even more, and the island came into view on the horizon. They descended to fifteen thousand _shakra_ and made their approach, as Jason watched the sensors and Zora kept one eye on the windshield and the other on her instruments.

_No communications,_ Jason informed everyone. _Not even from this,_ he added, touching the gestalt. _But I'm reading a faint energy signature on that island, at the same level we got from orbit._

The dropship deployed its landing skids and slowed to an approach speed, as Zora's light touch on the controls brought the compound into view. It was a cluster of ten glass buildings built on a low plain near the ocean, two of which had sides that descended right down into the water. The buildings were connected with walkways, some of them bridges between them. _No contacts,_ Yana called. _It's deserted. There's no sentient life out there, not even animals._

The landing platform was behind the compound, on the edge of a lush forest, and Zora brought the ship over the white pad with red circles on it, and set the ship down so lightly there was barely a bump, right in the center of the platform.

By the time Jason and the others were up and coming out of the cockpit, the back ramp was open, someone was throwing Zora her helmet, and four Marines were already deployed at the base of the ramp in a cover formation, rifles ready as all of them swept the area looking for minds, looking for any possible combatants that Yana might have missed. _I don't sense anyone at all,_ Myleena told him, sending to Jason privately.

_I have no motion anywhere,_ Bryn reported, holding up a small hand sensor. _The buildings have a faint power source. I think some of them are still operational._

_Which one has the most power?_

_The big one right here in front of us._

_Bryn, Sheleese, point. Min, Ilia stay here and guard the ship. Miss Songa, stay here please, I'm not taking any doctor into an unknown situation. It'd be my ass. Everyone else, two by two, no more than ten _shakra_ spread, keep the noncoms in the middle,_ Myri commanded. _We're moving in to investigate that building_

_I'm no fucking noncom,_ Meya protested. _Someone find me a rifle._

_Here,_ Yana called, lobbing her MPAC to Meya, then she extended the barrels of her nested forearm guns.

_Take this,_ Maya told Jason, handing him her rifle. He took it and held it low and ready, while Maya too extended her forearm guns.

_What am I, a memory? I'm a Naval officer,_ Myleena barked. _Give me a rifle. I won't blow off my own foot._

_Here ya go,_ Ilia called, handing her rifle off. _I don't think I'll need it here at the dropship._

_No firing unless you can confirm your target,_ Myri barked. _Nothing alive here, but I'm not gonna have you bitches blowing holes in maintenance droids because you're fucking spooked. We're Marines, ladies, let's show them what that means._

Jason was a little frightened as they crept into the building, a building that, he noticed, was clean. He expected dust to be all over everything, but there was no dust anywhere. The air inside was a bit stale, and it was warm and a little dry inside, and the hallways leading off from the room into which they moved were dark and foreboding. They came into a reception area, probably for visitors arriving on the landing pad, with a schedule of arrivals and departures still hanging over the reception desk, a moment frozen in time from over a thousand years ago. Ilia jumped the desk and got behind the computer monitor, banging on the panel a few times. _No power here,_ she called.

_Power readings downstairs,_ Bryn called.

_Infrared,_ she ordered. _Maya, guide the ones with no helmets. Bryn, find us a way down._

_Already on it. This way,_ she called, pointing to the passage leading out of the room across from the outer door.

They moved down the darkening hallway quickly and efficiently, as Maya had Jason keep a hand on her shoulder as they moved so he didn't get lost. Meya kept her hand on his shoulder, and Myleena had her hand on Meya's, as they moved into a dim murk that made it very hard for them to see. Bryn navigated them around several turns and down long passages lined with doors, doors that made Jason wonder what this building was for. Was it an office building? A hospital? A research facility? It was too dark to read any of the faded signs, and he hadn't thought to read the signs back in the reception room. They reached an area of brightening light, and found a single red lamp illuminating a stairway that led both up and down. The sound of _clack clack clack_ suddenly echoed along the stairwell, as the Marines stepped off the carpet and onto hard tile, and their armored boots clacked on the floor every time they lowered their feet. Bryn led them down two levels, pausing to check the readings on her little sensor, and then waved it at a door on the third level down. _The power reading is on this floor,_ she called. _About five hundred _shakra_ that way_.

Bryn opened the door, and they looked into pitch blackness... or at least Jason did. Maya led them in, past the red light of the stairwell, and then Jason stumbled when the gestalt on his face seemed to throb.

_[Contact. CBIM query. Responding.]_

"Stop!" Jason gasped. "The gestalt just got queried!"

_Queried?_

_Something is trying to contact it,_ Myleena answered Myri. _I think they work on some kind of dedicated frequency._

_Freqency my ass, I can _hear_ it,_ Yana grated_. Those machines are _sending_ to each other. I just can't understand it. It's like a computer sending, it's so fast I can't make any of it out._

Jason was nearly blinded when the lights suddenly came on. He blinked as the stars blurred in his eyes, then he rubbed his eyes as everything came into focus. They were in a long hallway, the walls a series of mosaics, paintings, and etchings of various Faey men and women, all of them wearing a gestalt. The set of double doors at the end of that hall, about a hundred feet away, then opened.

_No movement!_ Bryn barked as she waved the sensor in the direction of the open door. _I got a power spike now. The whole building is powering up!_

Jason looked at the open doorway at the end of the hall. "I think we're being invited in," he said aloud.

"Let's go see what they want," Myleena said.

"Let's," Myri said. _Move in; keep your cool, ladies._

They advanced to the end of the hall, and moved into a cavernous rectangular room, clearly underground. It was dominated by a huge crystalline spire that rose up from the base of the floor, surrounded by a slender three rail fence that kept anyone from touching it. Machines lined the walls of the huge room, all of them now visibly powering up, some with lights blinking and others with technology within making a whining sound as they came online.

_After all this time, all this still _works_?_ Myleena sent, her thought impressed.

_Now we know why we needed that thing,_ Songa sent, looking at Jason. _Without it, nothing would turn on! None of this starting turning on until after it contacted that, what did you call itgestalt, right?_

_I think you're right,_ Jason agreed. _And Miaari _knew it_._

_I'm starting to wonder just how much Miaari really knows,_ Meya added.

Everything was on. The room was alive with the sound of a hundred low, gentle hums, and they all looked around in confusion and expectation. _This is the computer core,_ Myleena realized. _Their mainframe. All this is the mainframe._

There was a sudden shimmering light in front of them, a ray of light projected from the ceiling. That light seemed to sparkle in front of them, then it shimmered and compressed, slowly taking on a form that they all recognized. It slowly twisted into the form of a nude Faey female, the feet and calves lost in an electron mist, without pubic hair or nipples, a simple estimation of a Faey female body, but with a full head of glittering golden hair, longer than she was tall, fanning out behind her. The figure wore only one piece of adornment, and that was a gestalt. Eyes opened, golden eyes the same color as the hair, and then they focused on Jason directly.

_[Welcome,]_ the holographic figure sent, lacking any warmth or emotion, a simple mechanical voice given telepathic form. _[Stand forth, child of Sora Karinne of the First Generation, and be recognized.]_

Jason remembered that name, the name of the woman whose picture was in that file he read, the one with the long straight hairhe looked at this projection, and realized that her features were the same. This hologram was patterned on the appearance of Sora Karinne!

Jason and Myleena stepped out from the middle of the Marines.

_[Welcome home,]_ the projection told them. _[Will there be others returning home? Are you the vanguard of the exiles?]_

_We, we don't know, but us two are the only ones we know about,_ Jason sent to the projection in reply. _Excuse our confusion, but we don't understand. We don't understand what's going on. Who are you? How did this place survive the attack?_

It didn't respond.

_[I detect an attempt to communicate, through your gestalt. Have you forgotten the art of communion? Speak aloud your answer if you have.]_

"I, I was never taught it," Jason answered aloud.

"Me either," Myleena added.

_"Very well,"_ it said aloud. _"Your weapons. You will not need them here, please lower them,"_ she said to the Marines behind the two of them. Myri raised her hand, and they all shouldered their MPACs and holstered their arm cannons.

"You're a computer that can _send_!" Myleena said in wonder. "How were you built?"

_"Too much time has passed,"_ the female figure sighed. _"My first instruction to you is this,"_ she said, looking to her right and raising a blue hand. To her right, an image solidified in the air, the face and shoulders of a curly-haired Faey with red hair. Smoke was behind her, and she was bleeding from the forehead. "I am Yuri Karinne, Grand Duchess of the House Karinne," she said quickly, looking at the camera. "This message is for you, the descendents of our survivors who have returned to Karis. Listen carefully, for I don't have much time.

"If you are watching this message, then the last surviving CBIM has completed its decontamination of the planet, and you have come home. I _order you_, as the last of the 95th Generation, to abandon the project. It has failed. We became so focused on the project that we became blind to the realities of the Imperium, and it has destroyed us. Do not make our mistake! Learn from us! Don't repeat our sad history! And remember, angh!" she gasped as the image shook violently, and the woman covered her head as a rain of dust showered on her. "Remember that you are Karinnes! Carry on our proud traditions, but don't let them blind you to the realities of life! Science cannot answer every question! Trelle grant you mercy, children of our children's children, and may Aris lay the blanket of peace over Karis once again!"

The image disappeared. Jason and Myleena looked at each other, their eyes speculative. "What project?" Jason asked.

_"The Project. You do not know of the Project?"_ the image asked in surprise.

"No," they answered in unison.

_"I have been given orders not to allow you to continue the Project, but I have no orders stating I cannot explain it to you. The Project is the Biogenics program, a dual objective program with two branches. The first branch of the program created me. It is biogenic computer technology, utilizing organic crystals that can simulate Faey telepathy._

_"The other branch of the program created _you_."_

The Marines gasped and started sending to teach other, but Jason stepped forward quickly. "Created? What do you mean?"

_"You are of the Generations. Your line was created with genetic engineering, and each successive generation is the product of careful selective breeding, to produce telepaths capable of telepathically interfacing with biogenic computers, such as this unit. That is why you can hear my communion, where the mundane Faey behind you cannot. It is how your gestalt communes with you. You are of the Generations, part of a noble and bold experiment to allow Faey and machines to communicate with talent. That project has failed, but only because those involved in the Project lost sight of the goal of bringing harmony and enlightenment to the Imperium. They became consumed by their objective, and to them, it became an end unto itself, an obsession to create the perfect biogenic computer, and the perfect Generation to pair with them. Their inability to see the world around them brought upon them their own doom. You, the last of the Generations, are the crowning achievement of a noble experiment that spanned thousands of years."_

Myleena sat down. _Hard._ Jason could just stand there and try to wring it through his mind. The Karinnes were _engineered_. They were artificial! An entire noble house, the product of genetic manipulation!

_"I have upset you. I apologize. Please, follow me, so you may take rest upstairs. When you are well and wish to continue, I will be here to answer your questions. If you would, please,"_ she motioned at the Marines. _"I believe my Lady might need assistance reaching a place to rest."_

Jason didn't hear them. His mind would not work. He could just stand there, blankly, and think the same thing over and over again. Myleena put her face in her hands and began crying uncontrollably, but he could not hear her. There was only one thing rolling through his mind, over and over, and it would not stop.

_Miaari _knew_,_ he thought to himself.

_Miaari _knew.

_Miaari _knew.

_Miaari _knew.

And then, like a bolt of lightning, it struck him.

They were genetically engineered. They could sense each other. They could sense Kimdori. The Kimdori could sense them.

They were _genetically engineered_.

_Miaari helped me because _the Kimdori helped them make me_._

Oh, God.


Chapter 18

_Raista, 31 Demaa, 4395 Orthodox Calendar_
_Wednesday, 17 November, 2008, Native Regional Reckoning_
_Kosiningi Emergency Response Center, Zoka Prefecture, Karis (Old Karinne Designation)_

It took a while.

Jason had been taken to a room that looked like a hotel room, a sterile kind of place with a single bed and an old computer-like unit sitting on a desk under a window and a chair, but nothing else. He sat in that chair, for a _very_ long time, and tried to come to grips with the truth that was revealed to him, to them.

The Karinnes were genetically engineered.

That was... was unbelievable. The house experimented on _itself_. They had to be crazy! And after the engineering experiments, they continued on with a breeding program, trying to evolve the perfect Karinne. The entire house seemed involved in this effort, everything revolving around this core goal, all other research and projects merely side efforts to keep the Karinnes busy while they waited over the generations for the arrival of their ultimate progeny.

What would they have done if they would have succeeded? What would this "perfect Faey" have done?

It seemed... _evil_. These people, they had become blinded by their own obsession. They had lost sight of what they were doing and become consumed by the act. He remembered what he read, that the Karinnes had become withdrawn from the Imperium, arrogant, scornful. If they would have succeeded, if they would have produced their ultimate Faey and built the ultimate machine to pair with her, how would that "super being" see the rest of the Imperium? Would she see them as her own people, or would she and the Karinnes seen them as inferior beings, people that had to be controlled, which would have started a war?

God.

Jason couldn't _blame_ the rest of the Imperium for attacking the Karinnes. God, they may have _saved themselves_.

He sat there in the chair, sometimes with this elbows on the desk, sometimes leaning back looking up at the ceiling, sometimes leaning back and looking out the window, trying to understand, trying to wrap his mind around it.

It just wasn't hard to fathom that he was descended from an artificially produced line that might have started a fourth civil war.

Oh, his origins didn't bother him quite that much. He could accept that he was the product of genetic engineering, that the Faey that had come to Earth and been his ancestor was one of the Generations. Despite a thousand or more years of dilution of that "perfect" DNA by human breeding, he was still enough of a Karinne to function as one of their Generations, able to use their gestalts, able to comprehend the communion of their telepathic computers.

But to him, it was like discovering he was the long-lost great-great nephew of Adolph Hitler. He was part of a family, an organization, that had totally lost its mind and embarked on a project that destroyed their _morality_ and consumed them in nothing but the need to be _right_, no matter what it cost them or their house.

And their destruction was the result. A destruction he could not blame on anyone but the Karinnes.

There were other organizations he could look at that way... like the Nazis.

_The project is a failure,_ he thought to himself, remembering the words. _The project failed before it began! Thank _God_ that Koiri Karinne understood that at the end and forbade the survivors from restarting the program!_

He sighed and stood up. It was late afternoon now, and the sun was setting over a sea of gorgeous crystalline blue. A dead ocean, but a pretty one. "Time to get to work," he grunted to himself. There was more to do. Miaari sent him here to learn the truth, but this revelation was _not_ the whole truth. There had to be something here that would save Earth from the Trillanes, and he had to find it. And he had to know, he had to know what had happened, he had to know more about the Karinnes.

He wasn't exactly sure where he was, but he had no trouble getting around. When he realized he was lost, wandering in what looked like a hotel or a dormitory, a long hall lined with doors with similar rooms to his, a map appeared in his mind's eye, supplied by the gestalt, showing him the entire compound. It marked him a route back to the computer core, which was his destination, and guided him with arrows in his vision when he reached turns. It guided him unerringly back to the core.

There was no one in the computer core. Casting out showed him that everyone was either resting or basically just dicking around. Lyn, Bryn, Sheleese, and Ilia were in a large building near the ocean, probably looking around, Maya and Min were down at the beach on the west side of the island, Myleena was in one of the rooms in the building where he'd been. Songa and Myri were upstairs; Meya and Yana were close to the compound, out in the forest, probably looking at the trees.

What was it Koiri Karinne said? That the last surviving CBIM would finish cleaning up the radiation? Was it also responsible for the trees here? "Did you clean up the radiation?" he asked aloud, mainly to himself.

_[Correct,]_ the voice of the computer sounded in his mind. _[It was my task to recover this planet after the attack. I have partially completed that task, but am unable to continue due to the loss of too many remote units. I no longer have the resources to continue the reclamation effort.]_

"How, how do I, uh, answer?" he asked.

_[Merely send to me, Jason Fox. But you must send in the same manner I send to you. I cannot hear conventional sending. I have been told that it is very easy for the Karinnes to do.]_

In the same manner. The way the computer sent did feel different, more... logical. More structured. He wrapped his mind around the idea of it, and tried to answer. He failed, then closed his eyes and tried to _think_ like that, and tried again.

_[Like this?]_

_[Perfect. It is good to see you well. I hope I did not inconvenience you too much, Master Karinne. I fear your cousin is not in as good spirits. I am monitoring her now. Her vital signs are stressed, and her mental activity is elevated and disjointed. She is suffering from shock. I regret answering your question in the manner in which I did. I did not realize you would react so to the answer.]_

_[It was a shock,] _he told it. _[But there's more to answer, computer, and I have to know.]_

_[My answers are yours, Master Karinne, and it has been my designation, or name, to be known as Cybi. All security protocols have been removed by Koiri Karinne, except the protocols around the technical data of the Program. I am permitted to answer questions about it, but not help you restart it.]_

_[Trust me, I never want to see it restarted,] _he answered. _[And don't call me that, my name is Jason. Call me Jason. We were sent here by a Kimdori. How did they get involved? What was their role in all this?]_

_[The Kimdori? The Kimdori and the Karinnes were very close, Jason.]_

_[How did they get involved in the Program? They had to be involved in it.]_

_[They were critical to it.] _The hologram of the nude image of Sora Karinne appeared before him, and then she raised her right hand to direct his attention to another hologram that wavered into being beside her. It showed a Kimdori male and a Faey female standing side by side. _[Kimdori have unusual genetic abilities, Jason. They can invade and transform alien organic matter to match their own viral structure, but they can also invade the nervous system of other creatures and gain access to it, tricking the victim creature's nervous system into believing that the Kimdori is merely another part of itself. In this manner, they can access the brain of a host creature and extract information.]_

_[Okay, I knew some of that, but not how they did it.]_

_[Kimdori DNA was the base of the bio-organic crystals that form the core of a biogenic computer,] _the image told him. _[Their metagenic properties allow them to adapt dynamically, and it was through a combination of Kimdori and Faey DNA, combined into the DNA of a silicon-based crystalline life form native to the Kimdori homeworld, they developed special organic but non-living crystals that had telepathic awareness.]_

Holy cow... that was fucking _brilliant_.

_[There was a problem, however. The crystals were telepathic, but Faey could not understand them. They could understand _each other_ well enough, but they lacked the ability to interface with Faey. They could not solve this problem, so, instead of trying to build a computer that could interface with a Faey, they]_

"They made a _Faey_ that could interface with the _computer_!" he gasped aloud.

_[Indeed. That was the beginning of the Generations program. The Kimdori assisted us in this as they assisted us with the crystals. A recombinant DNA sequence was generated that combined the necessary aspects of Faey and Kimdori DNA that would give a Faey the necessary sensitivity to interface with the biogenic crystals. The experiment was a success. Then, gene therapy was ordered for the entire house after it was refined, and in this it was moderately successful. Some Karinnes successfully took the treatment and their DNA was altered. Some died from the treatment, and some had their bodies reject the treatment, and they remained unaltered. But enough of the house was changed to permit expansion of the gene pool by breeding. My image's namesake, Sora Karinne, was the first child born of altered parents. All CBIMs carry her image as their visual interface in her honor. She was the First Generation, and the mother of your line, Jason.]_

_[After the institution of the Generations program, other breakthroughs were made. They developed a new type of biogenic crystal that could receive Faey sending, but not respond. But, instead of abandoning the Generations program, they decided to continue on, for the Generations were still far superior to the new technology. They did refine this new system, however. Gestalts were made for the unaltered members of the house made of these new crystals. They didn't give them the same functions as true gestalts, but they did allow for some moderate usefulness. These interfaces allowed unaltered Karinnes to issue telepathic commands to machines, but only on a one way basis. They also lacked the amplifying abilities of the gestalt. They were built to resemble a gestalt, however, and it became a tradition for all members of the house to wear what you now wear, Jason. The gestalt and the interface became the singular identifying mark of the Karinnes.]_

Jason touched the gestalt on his face, and pondered that. That was a... logical, way to go about it, he guessed. If they just couldn't build a computer that could send to a Faey, well, just make a Faey that could send to the computer. _[But how did the Kimdori get involved? Why are they so concerned about me? Miaari said that the Kimdori care very much about me and I don't understand why. What's the connection between the Karinnes and the Kimdori?]_

_[The Karinnes and Kimdori are deeply intertwined, Jason. We served as their intermediary in many things, and they helped us in the Program. The Kimdori kept several of the clans here, on Karis, where we helped train them and prepare them for their duties. After the Generations program began, the Kimdori saw the Karinnes as simply a new branch of their race. They called the Karinne "cousins." Even though there is less than .01% of Kimdori DNA inside you, they felt that that was enough to consider the Karinnes family, because they would look upon the Karinnes and know them, just as they knew each other. That unseen side effect was why the Kimdori saw the Karinnes as family.]_

Jason lowered his head and pondered it. It did make a kind of sense. If the Kimdori saw the Karinnes as part of the family unit, part of the family, they would definitely go to great lengths for them. Pack mentality, Symone had called it. _[Was this what Miaari wanted me to find out? Is this the truth they've been hiding all these years? The origins of the Karinnes?]_

_[They would never reveal a secret, Jason. It is against Kimdori ways. They are bound by ancient oaths to never reveal what they know of us. They would not tell you the truth, even though you are one of us. It would be forbidden.]_

_[Yeah, I figured that out. Kiaari told me once that the Kimdori cared very much about what was happening, but they weren't allowed to directly interfere.]_

_[They also are forbidden to insinuate themselves in the affairs of others of their own volition,] _the computer told him. _[They may interfere if hired by another as part of their own activities, but they cannot take initiative. The Kimdori are watchers, Jason, not meddlers. They meddle when and where it suits them at the behest of the involved races, but they take no direct hand of action, in any matter that is not solely their own.]_

_[Well, that explains why Kiaari always says she's doing what she was hired to do, and would never tell me what to do, only suggest,] _he mused. _[But I think they broke those rules for me. Miaari sent one of her clan Elders to cure me of a disease I contracted on Moridon.]_

_[Ah, the bio-agent. That is what brought the Kimdor