The BLTS Archive- Out of the Ether
by J. A. Toner (jamelia116@aol.com)

---

Spoilers for:  "Demon," "Course: Oblivion," "Timeless," "Disease"

Disclaimer:  I borrowed a little of the dialogue from
Paramount/Viacom's "Star Trek: Voyager" series, along with
the characters also belonging to them, in order to revisit the
episode "Course: Oblivion." It was a sad episode, but I ended
up liking it. I know this all belongs to Paramount, though.

Archiving:  OK to ASC, BLTS, PTCollective, and PTFever.
All others, ask.

Feedback:  Please!

---

"What would Captain Janeway have done?"

Seven hesitated for a moment as Harry Kim's command resonated
within her consciousness. She knew what their late captain
would have done. No matter what the risk, if it were the only
chance of succeeding open to them, she would have done it. In
as firm a voice as she could manage, Seven declared:
"Computer, prepare to eject the warp core. Authorization:
Seven of Nine, omega phi nine three."

::::Warp ejection systems enabled.::::

"Eject the core."

The concussion from the ejection shook engineering, where
Seven was standing; shook the bridge where Harry Kim stood;
indeed, shook what was left of the ship called Voyager which
the crew had called their home for a long time now--not that
many were left of that crew. The violence of the vibration
banished any expectation of success. Seven did not need to
glance at the controls to know the situation. The battle had been
lost. She shouted through the comm link to the bridge, hoping
her message was getting through to their one remaining senior
officer. "We've lost attitude control and shields. Hull integrity at
19%."

The acting captain was not yet ready to give up. ::::Reroute life
support! Hell, reroute everything we've got left to the
containment fields.::::

Seven punched in his commands, but any spark of hope she may
have harbored that by doing so she could delay destiny was
quickly extinguished. Her instruments told the tale. Further
attempts to slap the controls on the console into compliance had
no effect. "Hull breaches on decks nine, ten and eleven," she
reluctantly announced to Harry. It was time to acknowledge the
obvious. "Captain Kim, we must abandon this deck. All hands,
vacate engineering!"

In seconds, the isolation door to the corridor was lumbering
down, shutting off the vacant engine room from the rest of the
ship. Of the handful of crew who still survived, virtually all
stumbled downwards towards the nacelles rather then risk
heading up, where more hull fissures were splitting into the hull.
There was no safe place to go anyway. All of them knew that.
The only thing left to do was to find a place to prepare for the
inevitable, alone or gathered together with the handful of
shipmates that remained, as their lives as members of the crew
of Voyager came to an end.

One person, however, was willing to risk a trip upwards from
Deck Eleven. She yanked open the cover to the most central of
the Jefferies tubes that snaked through the ship and negotiated
ladders that wavered underneath her feet. The handrails were
also flexible, as if they were molded from latex rather than the
alloys originally used in their construction. In the few minutes
remaining before the process of disintegration was complete,
Seven of Nine was going to ascend to Deck One, if possible, to
assume her post on the bridge one last time.

---

::::Hull breaches on decks nine, ten and eleven . . .:::: There was
a hiss through the comm system, then ominous silence. Harry
called out desperately, "Seven. Seven!" There was no answer.

Grimly, the acting captain of Voyager called out, "Computer,
how long until we're within hailing range of that ship?"

As the computer struggled to answer, he that was made in the
image of Harry Kim knew there was no way for the true
Voyager to reach them in time. He glanced around at each of
the bridge stations, envisioning those who should have been
manning each one.

No B'Elanna at the engineering station. She had been the first to
die. Tom's spot at the navigational controls was also empty.
Embittered by the loss of his wife and the knowledge that he
was only an imitation of the "real" Tom Paris, the helmsman had
not even tried to fight for his life when his body began to break
down. The last words he'd ever uttered had been to Harry: "I'm
glad it's over. Now B'Elanna and I can be together forever."

Neither Tuvok nor Alaya stood at tactical. The science stations
were all vacant. Harry Kim stood where Captain Janeway and
Commander Chakotay always did. Even Neelix was no longer
around to try to boost morale with a joke, even the self-
deprecating kind he'd always told on himself.

Harry had wanted to have a command someday, but not this
way.

The computer's struggle to answer the acting captain ended
wordlessly, with several clicks and an eruption of static.
Striding to his own station at Ops, Harry examined his
instrumentation. There was nothing he could do. The computer
core was gone--or its connection to the rest of the ship was. It
hardly mattered which was the case; the end result was the
same.

Rather than return to the captain's spot, Harry chose to move to
the center console above the command chairs, the position on
the bridge Seven of Nine habitually took from the time she'd first
came aboard ship. He pictured her as last he had seen her: her
beautiful face disintegrating as the stuff that had been sculpted
into her being returned to its natural state, that of the wondrous
silver compound that once had formed pools on a desolate
world, ready to be introduced to sentience by visitors from far
across the galaxy.

He wished he could see her again, one last time, drooping face
or not. His own face looked pretty bad now.

To the rear of his position, Harry could hear a whistling whine
issuing from out of the captain's ready room. The viewport
must be giving way. Pinging and popping sounds began to
surround him. He looked upwards as a defect in the shields was
announced with a hiss. He became aware of a creaking sound
issuing forth from the hatch of the Jeffries tube which emptied
onto the bridge.

The creaking sound changed to that of a door opening. Rushing
over, Harry grabbed the handle and pulled hard enough to rip it
off its hinges. Offering his hand to the one emerging from the
tube, Harry helped her stand. When he was face to face with
her, however, he wondered if Seven's neural pathways still
functioned well enough for her to know who he was. She stared
at him without any sign of recognition. It didn't really matter to
Harry. The very thought that she would even want make that
terrible climb to be with him now was enough.

He put his arms around her and held her close, comforted by
her presence. At least he wouldn't be standing here alone with
only memories of his friends at the end. One friend would still
be here with him. The dearest one, if he dared admit that to
himself now.

---

When her eyes were able to focus again, Harry's face was there.
His arms were around her, steadying her. She was pleased she
had attained her goal, but there was one thing more she had to
say to him before words became impossible.

"I sent a message through my Borg neural implant. If the other
Seven is on that ship--and if my implant still operates
adequately--perhaps it will reach her."

A ghostly smile graced his lips. "I knew you'd find a way to
contact them."

"There is no guarantee of success."

"I don't need guarantees. The best we can do is try--and hope it
will be enough."

Seven leaned into Harry's embrace, resting her melting cheek
against the sagging skin of his, and sighed deeply. The ship's
tortured shell was breaching all around them now. The
shrieking of space as it displaced the air of Voyager assaulted
their ears.

It was strange, but at that moment a memory slipped into her
awareness. Only a few short weeks ago, she had caught
Lieutenant Torres' wedding bouquet. As the old superstition
went, Seven would be the next to marry. Unfeasible now. With
her last second of life fast approaching, she thought of
Lieutenant Torres' question about who might constitute a
suitable mate for Seven, just before they discovered the first
evidence of the disaster that was now coming to a conclusion.
"How about Harry Kim?"

Monogamy. She had sneered at the very thought when the chief
engineer mentioned it. The idea of restricting herself to seeking
sexual satisfaction from only one man had seemed absurd to
her. Seven had not hesitated in telling this to the newly-wedded
lieutenant who had promised to live a monogamous life with
Lieutenant Paris. That had, indeed, turned out to be her destiny,
for within days, Lieutenant Torres had perished while her
husband looked on helplessly. She had experienced only one
day of wedded bliss before her life had melted away.

Even that one day of monogamous life Lieutenant Torres had
enjoyed seemed preferable to the fate Seven now faced, she
realized. The man whose arms encircled her deserved a fate
better than this one, too. He had always been a steadfast friend
to her--a warm and loving friend. She'd rejected what he offered
because she knew he would want monogamy.

She had been taught by the Borg that regrets were irrelevant.
She no longer thought so. Seven bitterly regretted she had never
explored the full sensations of shared bodies with Harry Kim
when their lives could have been stimulated and enriched by the
experience. Too late now. This body would never enjoy such
intimacies, in a monogamous relationship or otherwise.

Seven eyes met Harry's and read in them feelings that she had
never had the chance to fully experience for herself. That no
longer mattered. At least a small measure of sexual satisfaction
might be achieved. She could still share a little of herself with
Harry Kim. His breath was warm on her cheek as she moved
close enough to touch his lips with hers. As he responded
passionately, pulling her into the tightest of embraces, she
closed her eyes and lived only in the moment for those brief
seconds of awareness left to her. To them.

As their universe dissolved away, Harry Kim and Seven of Nine
melted together in a first, last, and eternal kiss.

---

"Try hailing again."

"No response," Tuvok replied to Captain Janeway from his
station on the bridge of Voyager.

Harry fiddled with the controls of his console, trying to clear
away interference. Finally, he had enough information to say,
"Captain, I've found the source of the distress call. It's coming
from a vessel." Something was strange about that distress call,
Harry realized, but he would need time to analyze it. Satisfying
his curiosity wasn't a priority at the moment. They were within
400,000 kilometers of what was obviously a heavily damaged
ship, and the nature of the distress call wasn't essential to their
rescue mission. Afterwards, he'd have time to figure out what
seemed off about it.

From her command chair, the captain crisply ordered, "Drop to
impulse. Are the rescue teams ready? Bridge to Sickbay: stand
by for casualties."

"In visual range." Tuvok worked his own console's controls,
bringing the viewscreen to life. Harry looked up to see the
vessel they were approaching.

"Onscreen." A galaxy of glittering frozen silver droplets hung
jewel-like in the vastness of space, shining with the reflected
light of the stars. Already, the drops were beginning to drift
lazily apart as each one took its own trajectory into the void.

"Where's the ship?" Janeway murmured.

"No sign of it," Harry replied. A yawning chasm opened in the
vicinity of his stomach. Those fragments once must have
constituted a ship. If it had sent out a distress call, it was likely
that living beings had been traveling in it. No more.

"That debris . . . that couldn't be all that's left," Chakotay said.

Tuvok's calm voice answered, "I'm detecting residual
deuterium, anti-neutrons, traces of dichromates. If it was a
vessel, it isn't anymore."

"Scan for life signs, escape pods." The captain ordered, not
wishing to give up hope.

"None," Tuvok replied.

A short moment of silence passed before Captain Kathryn
Janeway took the only course of action still available. "Make a
note in the ship's record--we received a distress call at 0900
hours and arrived at the vessel's last known coordinates at
2120. The ship was destroyed. Cause unknown. No survivors."
Turning to her silent helmsman, she added, "Mr. Paris, resume
course."

"Aye, sir."

Harry sighed resignedly. //And sometimes, the bear eats you,//
he thought, as he glanced behind the captain, towards the
station Seven manned when she was on the bridge instead of in
Astrometrics. To his surprise, Seven was staring at the
viewscreen, her usual cool, detached demeanor nowhere in
evidence.

Rather, Seven looked like she'd seen a ghost.

---

Sobered by her statement, Harry exhaled slowly while he
considered her hypothesis. "You may be right, but I still have
trouble believing Voyager could have been duplicated so
exactly that it could get out here. The ship didn't have to be a
clone of Voyager. Maybe somebody else stopped on the planet
after we left and picked up some of the clones. I could see that
happening. Did you find any collateral evidence to substantiate
your theory?"

"I have," Seven declared. Taking the PADD from Harry's hand,
Seven activated a file. "You will see a table displaying the
compounds found in the debris field, comparing them to the
biomimetic gel on Demon as recorded by our sensor records."

Harry read down the file, shaking his head sadly when he
came to the end. "And the volume of that debris field is
what we would expect to find if a cloned object the size of
Voyager--and its contents--were to be destroyed."

"Yes."

Harry looked over the file for several seconds more, but he
could find nothing amiss. He wanted to find a flaw in her logic.
He could not. "So this is why you were so shook up on the
bridge?"

Seven glared at him with a raised eyebrow, and Harry steeled
himself for a lecture about it being impossible for a Borg ever to
be "shook up." The eyebrow descended rapidly, however, and
she admitted, "I was already disquieted before I reached the
bridge. I had partially decoded the first message--enough to
recognize the sender was identifying herself as one of the
Demon clones. When Commander Tuvok recited the
composition of the debris, it confirmed the possibility . . ."

Her thought hung unfinished in the air as she stopped speaking,
her eyebrow raised now from furrowing of her forehead rather
than pique with Harry.

" . . . the possibility that the sender of the message was one of
the Demon clones," Harry finished for her. "Your clone."

"Yes, but that was not why I was . . . 'shook up.' That occurred
when I received the second message." Seven stood up and
walked over to the windows then, facing the stars and
searching deeply into space, as if she were seeking to find an
answer to an unspoken question.

Harry glanced down at the PADD he was holding and searched
the index for the second message. "Did you put the second one
in the same file as the first, Seven? I only see one message
here."

"The second message was . . . difficult . . . for me to describe."
At the haunted quality of her voice, Harry looked back at her.
Silhouetted against the window, her body backlit by the dim
light of the stars in the partially lighted mess hall, Seven stood
with her arms clasped around herself, as if she were holding
herself together.

Laying the PADD down on the table, Harry stood and
approached her. He didn't know quite what to say or do to help.
Before he could speak, however, Seven turned to face him, her
arms still crossed around herself, saying, "It was less a message
than a set of images and sensations. I believe it was sent
inadvertently. I suspect her neural implant was no longer
functioning properly."

He looked into her eyes and saw pain. Without thinking, Harry
put his hands on her arms and drew her close to him in comfort.
Gently, he asked her, "What kind of 'images and sensations,'
Seven?"

She replied, in an even softer voice that he had used, "I could
see flashes of what she saw. Everything seemed to be melting.
There were explosions. The shields were failing. And then,
she . . ." Seven searched his face for a moment, as if looking for
something she couldn't find. " . . . and then she saw you. The
clone of you, to be precise. They were standing in front of each
other, as we are now. Then I felt arms holding me. Holding her.
Perhaps it would be preferable to show you rather than tell
you."

He waited expectantly for a few seconds, but he was still
surprised when Seven released her hold upon herself, slipping
her arms around his torso instead. When she leaned in towards
him, he stared at her in amazement. He was even more stunned
when her lips touched his in a cautious, experimental kiss.

Stunned or not, Harry could not resist her. His lips responded
to hers as if by their own volition, returning the kiss she had
initiated. Friendly when it began, the kiss quickly turned into
something warmer, much closer to the kisses he'd shared with
Tal than one of the friendly pecks on the cheek "Uncle Harry"
sometimes gave to Naomi Wildman.

Breathless, Harry broke off first, expecting to see anger in
Seven's eyes. Instead, he saw even greater pain. He started to
murmur an apology when Seven said, " . . . and then there was
nothing. There was nothing. The message terminated . . ."

Harry closed his eyes. "They died? You felt it?"

She nodded her head ever so slightly. "I know the sensation. I
have perceived it before, when drones of the Collective ceased
to function. But then, the Collective as a whole survived . . . "

"Seven! I'm sorry," Harry gasped, pulling Seven more tightly
into his arms and hugging her closely. Tightening her own hold
on him and burrowing her face into his shoulder, she made no
attempt to pull away. Any thought Harry may have had that this
was a dream come true was suppressed by his knowledge of
how deeply she had been affected by this totally unexpected
blow. To Seven, in that split second that the message ended so
abruptly, surely she felt as if she herself was dying.

So engaged in mutually comforting each other were they that
neither of them heard the mess hall doors opening, nor did they
hear the footfalls of the pair who entered. The first time either
of them knew they had company was a female voice's admiring,
"Way to go, Harry!"

Harry whipped his head around to see the laughing faces of
B'Elanna Torres and Tom Paris. He started to jump back, but
Seven clutched at him tightly, keeping him in close contact
with her. When he looked down, he saw her head was averted
from Tom and B'Elanna. The light from the stars shining on her
face might even have reflected more brightly off her right
cheek than her left. Surreptitiously, Harry raised his hand and
rubbed a bit of moisture from Seven's cheek with his thumb. His
amazement that he was performing that particular act for this
particular woman did not show on his face. Later, he would
wonder over it. For now, he had to figure out how to minimize
the damage--and the amount of betting that all the gossips on
board would be doing once this got out.

Tom cleared his throat. "So, uh, are the two of you
demonstrating assimilation holds, or something? Or did we
interrupt another courtship rituals discussion?" Harry didn't
have to see Tom's face to detect the smirk that had to be lurking
there.

"Tom!" said B'Elanna.

"Ouch, B'Elanna. You've got a really sharp elbow, you know
that?"

Harry grinning at that, looking over at his friend, who was
rubbing his side vigorously. Stepping back, he released Seven
from his embrace, although his hand still rested on her forearm.

Seven faced the couple and stated coolly, "Individuals hold
each in their arms for purposes other than single cell
reproduction, although doubtless you find that difficult to
believe."

"Nah, I know that, Seven. I just prefer the single cell
reproduction purpose. How about you?" Tom inquired,
keeping a wary eye on the location of B'Elanna's elbow.

"I was demonstrating to Ensign Kim the manner in which I
comforted Naomi Wildman when the rest of the crew was
entranced by the space creature that attempted to consume
Voyager. You interrupted us when I was preparing to lift him
bodily from the floor to carry him out of the mess hall." Seven
turned to Harry, adding, "Another time, perhaps, Ensign?"

"No problem, Seven." Harry smile broadened.

"Oh, please. They really *are* in the middle of some sort of
strange courtship ritual! Let's get our fruit, Tom. Leave the
lovebirds in peace!" B'Elanna swung around, physically
dragging a protesting Tom towards the kitchen.

As the chief engineer and helmsman bantered their way into
Neelix's domain, Harry examined his companion. Her eyes
were dry, and she was composed again. No sign of her recent
distress could be detected on her face.

"Do the two of you want some fruit? It's really good. Seven?"
Tom called out from the kitchen.

"No, Ensign Paris. Ensign Kim has already provided me with
one."

The purplefruit he'd come to the mess hall to seek out still sat
forlornly on the table next to the PADD. Seven walked to the
table and retrieved both the fruit and the PADD. Handing
one purplefruit to Harry, Seven cleared the PADD of the file on
display and sat down in the chair she had been occupying when
Harry first saw her. He took the seat next to hers. B'Elanna and
Tom, carrying a tray laden with fruit, four glasses of water,
and napkins, sat down across from them.

"Looks like the two of you really whipped up an appetite,"
Harry commented archly. "Whatever have you been doing to
get so hungry?"

Tom only grinned and bit into his fruit. The lush flesh released
a stream of juice that dribbled down his chin. "Umm," Tom
mumbled as he chewed. "I think we're going to run out of
napkins." Smiling suggestively at B'Elanna, he added, "If we
run out, think we can find a more creative way to clean up?"

B'Elanna rolled her eyes, but Harry couldn't miss the affection
in them for Tom. Glancing over at Seven, who had yet to take a
bite of the fruit in her hand but was staring at it intently, Harry
observed, "We should all have followed Seven's lead. In that
purple outfit, no one can see any dribbles."

Seven raised her eyebrow and took a napkin. Hesitantly, she
opened her mouth, finally taking a delicate bite that oozed juice
from the side of her lip despite the small scope of the bite. She
quickly fastened her mouth on the same spot, stanching the drip
from her lip with a finger while sucking the fruit to keep more
juice from dribbling down.

"Harry, close your mouth," ordered B'Elanna.

He laughed, realizing that he probably had been a little too
interested in Seven's eating technique. He took a bite of his
own luscious, sweet purple confection. The four of them
slurped over their snacks, with the first verbal comment coming
from Seven when she'd finished. "This is a most inefficient way
to obtain nutrients."

"But it tastes really good, doesn't it?" Tom asked.

"It is acceptable."

"Uh, huh," said B'Elanna, dryly. "So, if I may be so bold, what
*were* the two of you doing in here when we came in?"

"Seven told you. We were discussing the ways people comfort
each other."

"Uh, huh," said B'Elanna. "Fascinating. And how did
'comforting each other' come up?"

Tom's expression grew somber. "I don't think that's hard to
figure out, B'Elanna, after what we found today."

"No, I guess not," agreed B'Elanna, her hand lightly brushing
against Tom's. After a pregnant pause, B'Elanna added in a more
reflective tone of voice, "You know what I thought about when I
heard Tuvok read off what was in that debris field? I thought of
that Y-class planet. You know? Deuterium, dichromates. The
silver blood was made from those materials. It's odd that stuff
was out here. I wonder where it came from?"

"Hard to say," Harry said neutrally. Carefully, he looked at
Seven. She was still calm, but her eloquent eyes met his.
Through her complete silence, Seven conveyed to Harry that
their conversation about the messages from the destroyed ship
were to remain confidential, not to be shared with anyone
else--particularly not that last, inadvertent message. Even the
captain would never learn of it, Harry vowed. He lowered his
head slightly, just enough to let her know he understood.

"I hadn't really thought about the clones since we left
Demon. I wonder what they're up to?" B'Elanna continued,
oblivious to the subvocal communication between Harry and
Seven. When Harry stole a glimpse at Tom, however, he saw a
quizzical, thoughtful look on his friend's face, with Tom's eyes
flickering between Harry and Seven, as if sizing up a situation.
Harry held his breath.

Finally, Tom said, "Oh, they're probably very busy
reproducing. You know--making more clones. Duplicating
themselves, using the replicators we left to make more of them.
Some of them may even be making more the old-fashioned way
and doing a little baby-making."

"There you go with the sex talk again, Tom," B'Elanna said, not
sounding at all displeased.

"Just stating the obvious, B'Elanna."

"Tom, do you really think they might have duplicated
themselves the way they duplicated us?" Harry asked.

"Sure, why not? If they wanted to populate that world, it would
be the fastest way."

"Making perfect copies from copies in generation after
generation is improbable, Ensign Paris."

"True. They might do it for a couple of generations, though, to
increase the population and help protect against mutations and
genetic problems."

"So you think there could be four or five Tom Parises on
Demon right now?"

"Why not, B'Elanna? And at least four or five B'Elanna
Torreses, too. One for each of the Toms." He grinned, eyes
brimming with affection as he gazed at his lover.

"I hope you are correct, Ensign Paris," Seven said softly. Harry
heard the mournful undertone, but Tom and B'Elanna did not.
Their eyes were busy sending communiques of a much
different nature.

After a lengthy pause, Tom said, "Well, B'Elanna, I think it's
time to leave our lovebirds alone so they can talk about
comforting each other again. You had enough to eat?"

"For the moment. And you're right. I think it's time for us to
go."

Harry and Seven remained seated while the other couple
whisked away the tray, littered with soaked napkins and the pits
of the devoured purplefruit, to the recycler. B'Elanna said her
good-byes as they walked towards the door, but Tom pivoted
around before exiting.

"Harry?"

"Yes, Tom?" Harry said resignedly, awaiting the humorous but
barbed comment that was sure to issue forth from Tom's lips.

"Just promise me, Harry. No nervous breakdowns tonight. I've
got plans."

Harry shook his head and laughed. Waving good-bye, Tom
threw his arm over B'Elanna's shoulders and strolled out of the
mess hall.

"Nervous breakdowns?" Seven asked.

"It's a long story. Another time." He smiled gently back at her.
"Are you going to be okay now?"

"I believe so, Ensign Kim," she answered, after a short pause.

Harry caught the hesitation. "You know, I'm not really tired. I
wouldn't mind having a little company. May I sit here a little
longer with you? As long as you don't mind, of course."

"I do not mind."

Harry dimmed the lights, which prompted another raised brow
from Seven. He made no move towards her, however, instead
settling back into the chair while staring out the window at
space.

Seven looked at Harry's profile for a few moments before
turning her attention back to her own view of the stars
streaming silently by.

Within the mess hall, it was equally silent.

---

Voyager had left the silver fragments far behind. Only two
beings on that ship truly suspected the truth.

The fragments tumbled through the soundless, endless night of
space, gradually scattering apart as their separate trajectories
carried them in different directions.

The frozen silver chunks were of many different sizes. Some
sections that had once constituted parts of a ship were quite
large, although the force of the breaching of the shell had
tended to keep most rather small. Others were tiny, even
microscopic in size.

One of the sizable pieces had once been two forms standing
together on the bridge. At the moment the infinite cold of space
surrounded their bodies, they had been tightly wound together--
in fact, they were in the act of melting together at the moment
of death. Thus, that which had once been two separate beings
was now wedded together, with but one shared trajectory
through space. Whatever fate one of these formerly separate
beings might have, so would the other.

Did these two beings ever have souls? It was hard to say. If
they did, then those souls may have already flown into eternity,
together, when molecular cohesion failed to hold their vessel
and themselves together.

As for the sentience that had lived in the silver blood,
prompting the creation of the beings from the templates that
had been the crew of Voyager--in the smaller bits, it died. In
other, larger pieces, however, it only slept. If a passing comet
or meteor or space vessel chanced to pick up any of those
larger fragments, the silver blood could be transported, perhaps
to another place which awaited new life. Within the frozen
chunks not yet completely broken down when the freezing
occurred, some strands of DNA still might lurk.

Could new life--and, eventually, intelligence--be carried to
another world when the silver blood melted, releasing DNA
fragments and seeding a new world with the beginnings of life?
The laws of probability made the chance minute, yet even a
slight chance is better than none at all. Just as even a brief life
may be better than none at all.

It was hard to say.

In the here and now, however, the silver droplets floated
majestically through the empty, dark silences.

Waiting.

--

The End