Title : Genesis
Author: YS McCool
Rating: PG
Date  : 14 June 1999
Series: Upgrade # 27
Summary: Jim discovers a relative he knew nothing about.
Warnings: AU

Disclaimer: I do not own The Sentinel characters, nor do I
make a claim on them.  Established characters are the
property of Pet Fly Productions and UPN.  Original
characters are the sole property of the author.


                          Upgrade #27
                            Genesis
                          By YS McCool


Maxine Rosenberg turned off the rowing machine after
completing the crossing of the English Channel.  She had
compromised with the official worrywarts in her life--
husband, in-laws, parents, grandparents, big brother, and
brother-in-law, by making the settings for a calm day.

Since she had discovered that she had a Riverworld genetic
background, Maxine had been pushing herself to see what she
was capable of physically.  Not much new had shown up.  What
she had always attributed to "lucky genetics", now could be
attributed to "planned genetics".

Her twins kicked her from opposite sides.  Hard.  "Really,
ladies," she addressed her twin daughters, "what kind of
manners is that?"  Maxine rubbed her tummy.  "Look, Blair
and Jim are back so whenever you're ready to arrive it's all
right with me."

Her parents and grandparents were living with them so they
could be in residence when Robert and Maxine's twin
daughters arrived.  The only missing family members were
future uncles Daryl, Blair, and Jim.  Jim and Blair had
arrived very late the previous evening, but Daryl was still
at the Liverpool Institute for testing to become a civilian
cadet member of the Space Corps.

Maxine was anxious for the twins to make their debut.  She'd
had an exceptionally easy pregnancy, but patience had never
been her strong point when all she had to do was wait.  And
wait.  And wait.

The nursery had been finished for over two months.  Her
pitiful attempt at knitting had cost the lives of six pairs
of innocent knitting needles.  Instead she had sculpted.

Gifts had poured in.  The thank-you notes had been written
and sent.  All she needed right now was the babies.

Rosenberg wiped her face and sat down on the lounge chair. 
Actually what she needed now was a drink and something to
eat.

Robert strolled into the exercise room with a tall pitcher
of juice and a hot pastrami on rye with spicy mustard.
'Bless him.'

Best of all, her daughters were already besotted with their
father, and his touch to her tummy would calm and reassure
them.  Unlike her, her daughters were psychic, as so many
Rosenbergs tended to be.  

"Mmmm," Maxine purred as she chewed the savory sandwich. 
"Which deli is this?" she asked after swallowing.

Robert smiled in triumph.  "It's a new one, called Joseph's
Place, that has opened just across from my office.  I've
added it to the 'list'."

The 'list' was a compilation of kosher restaurants, delis,
soup shops, and grocery stores that Simon had gathered
during Helaine's pregnancy.  He had the personal phone
numbers of the owners, business hours, delivery schedules,
and names of personnel as well as the menu.  When Maxine's
pregnancy was confirmed, Simon solemnly passed the list on
to his son, Robert.

Now that Blair and Jim had returned from their trip, Robert
would be passing the list on to Jim.  It was a new family
tradition.

Robert gently rubbed his wife's tummy and cooed to his
daughters.  Maxine wished, and not for the first time, that
she could contact her babies that way.  The girls settled
down.  The RO looked down at her tummy and sighed.  'I wish
I could tell you so that you could understand how much I
love you.'

"It's okay, love," Robert said softly.  "You'll *show* them
how much you love them the way parents have been doing for
millennia.  They'll know."

Many people didn't understand them as a couple.  Robert was
an engineer and professional problem-solver.  Maxine was an
RO.  But together they filled in the empty places for each
other.

Robert expanded her mind and opened a thirst for knowledge
she had never known existed.  Maxine had pulled the normally
introspective Robert out of his shell.

"How was work today?" she asked.  Rob was working overtime
until the twins were born, then he would take paternity
leave for one year.  At that point he would work half-days
from home until the twins were in school.  It was the way he
wanted, no make that *demanded*--that it be.

"We had a puzzle dropped in our laps," Robert responded as
he followed Maxine into the dressing room.  

The RO stripped down and stepped into the shower.  "What
kind of puzzle?"

"An asteroid miner discovered some refined metals within
Saturn's rings," Robert announced.

"An old explorer ship, perhaps?" Maxine proposed.

"No, the metals aren't found on Earth or any nearby planet.  
Judging from the age of the debris attached to it, it's a
good guess that the fragments have been circling Saturn for
at least two million years.  We'd be hard-pressed to make
the material now."

Maxine stepped out of the shower and purred as her husband
toweled her down.  "Could someone be pulling a hoax?"

Rob cocked his head to the side, a sure sign of a 'big
think'.  "I don't see what they would have to gain.  The
miner only wanted an analysis and was hesitant to surrender
her find to us.  It was the puzzle of the composition that
sent it from a small lab in Providence, Rhode Island, to our
facility in Cascade."

Maxine kissed her husband's pouting lips.  "You'll figure it
out, honey," she encouraged.  "You always do."

###########

Jim had spent the morning in spoiling splendor--a *huge*
gourmet breakfast, followed by a massage from Simon, a big
man with big strong hands, then cuddles and snuggles from
Claudia.  It was good to have family.

He shamed himself out of bed, dressed, and went to his
office.  Despite having been shot and the chaos of those
terrible minutes, Jim had managed to keep possession of his
two new maps.  Hopefully, the clues to the location of a
site prominently mentioned in his ancestor's journal would
be revealed.

Hawthorne whisked in with herbal tea and sandwiches.  "Sir,
will you be coming down for dinner?" he asked.

"Yes, I will.  I can't let them have all that fresh bread
you're making."  He smiled at the butler's puzzled
expression.  "I can smell it rising," the sentinel
explained.

Hawthorne nodded.  "Of course you can."  He raised his hand
to his salt and pepper hair.  "Sometimes I forget about your
abilities."

Jim smiled.  "Good."

"The furniture you were expecting from Paul Rosenberg has
arrived at the gate.  They're rolling it our way," Cecil
announced.  Paul Rosenberg was Helaine and Naomi's younger
brother.  While his older sisters were highly focused
professionals, Paul had drifted from job to job until Orion
V opened up.  He's settled there, opened a big ranch, and
bravely started rearing horses for use by the local
population.  Horses did not adapt well to other planets, but
seemed to have settled fine on Orion.  The planet had both a
longer year and a longer day than Earth, but that didn't
seem to bother the herds.  

One of Paul's previous occupations, before coming to Orion
V, had been a highly profitable salvage operation.  Helaine
had teased that Paul had foolishly started a moneymaking
venture and had needed to vacate it as soon as possible. 
Jim didn't see it that way.  Paul had done the job he didn't
care much about in order to save enough money to begin an
operation he truly did love, raising horses.

The salvage operation was still running, as starting a big
project like a horse ranch required regular infusions of
cash, and members of the family often benefitted from the
items Paul came across.  Books were often fought over when
they arrived on Earth from Paul, but furniture in need of
restoration, naturally and smoothly came to Jim.  Once they
restored, the fight was on as to who truly "needed just this
very thing" in the family.  Jim looked forward to devoting
his full attention to furniture making and restoration when
he retired to Orion V.  He planned on being an auxiliary
police officer and only going out during emergencies.

"Great," Jim said enthusiastically.  "I can't wait to see
what goodies he's shipped my way."

Hawthorne slipped away, leaving Ellison alone to peruse his
maps.  The names of places changed, artificial boundaries
changed, even geological features could change.

One big change he had noted was the river had moved over
fifty meters south-southwest of its original bed.  The town
they were looking for was now under fifty feet of water.

Jim had *no* idea how much an underwater expedition would
cost, how they would receive permission to do the work, or
how they would make sure that they could retain possession
of the artifacts once they were brought up.

Terra had been one of the first human deep space, or at
least deep space to his ancestors, colonies, but it was
still one of the most lightly populated.  Ore-rich Terra had
an erratic weather pattern that could not be controlled by a
satellite system.

Plants, animals, and buildings needed to be able to cope
with wide swings in temperature, too much rain, drought, and
high winds.  Sometimes in the same month.  Most settlers
left as soon as they could afford passage to another planet.

Already well into their middle years, Frederick and Damien
had started a metal collection business.  The ores were
removed from the river.  Their processing methods were very
kind to the environment and were still the model for
planetary mining operations.

This was near the beginning of their "second bachelorhood"
phase.  Their wives, Octavia and Jessica, had died together
when the ship they were passengers on collided with a
derelict ship.  

Their children were all grown and on their own.  Most people
would have expected the two older men to languish in
retirement.  Instead, sentinel and guide had gone on to
explore the newly budded Human Sphere.

In researching this early sentinel, Jim had become
fascinated with the two men.  So much of their lives
paralleled what Jim and Blair went through as they settled
into their guide and sentinel roles.  With some notable
exceptions.

Before he turned to the mines where he extracted out a
meager existence, Frederick had been a professor of English
Literature at a small college on the east coast of North
America.  A corporation purchased the institution and fired
the entire staff.  Less than a year later, the college was
bankrupt.  

That's when their true plans emerged.  As long as the
college was making money, it could not be touched.  Once the
management had bankrupted the college, they were free to
turn the buildings and grounds to a gated enclave of multi-
million credit homes, with exclusive shops and two golf
courses.

Jim traced the river with his gloved finger to the site of
his ancestor's mine.  It was almost in the middle of the
river's new route.  He ached to hop one of Robert's fast
ships and arrange a dive.  The planet's satellite system was
a joke, and he had no useful images from space.

But leaving now was out of the question.  Maxine was due to
deliver at any moment, and he couldn't miss the arrival of
the twins.  Twins!  

Robert had been strutting around like a peacock with an
extra tail since that became known.  Not that Jim blamed
him.  He was working on his own peacock tail over Claudia's
pregnancy.

With the most probable location marked, Jim scanned the
satellite images they had been able to collect from 
Terra.

He left the computer chewing on the data while he showered
and put on some clothes.  

He extracted two Guardian pups from the laundry basket and
brought them downstairs.  How they got up the stairs on
their own was a mystery.  The babies protested this abrupt
end to their mission.  The towels had been subdued by these
eight-kilo miniature warriors, but Jim's white socks
remained defiant.

Once the back door was opened, the protests ended as the
little guys made a beeline to where some of the neighborhood
children were playing in the yard.

Ellison felt the presence of his guide, then the sound of
his voice as Sandburg walked up the driveway.  "I'm home,"
Blair announced from the foyer.

Jim followed his guide's voice to the library.  Blair was
soberly dressed in tight black jeans, a soft powder blue
short-sleeved shirt, and black tennis shoes.  With his hair
pulled back tightly, his friend looked more like a college
student than a department chair.

'I'd better never get fat,' Jim lamented as he looked down
at his own clothes--a slate blue jumpsuit.  Claudia liked to
show him off, and this outfit *definitely* showed his
physique off.  "Hey, Chief.  I thought you were taking it
easy for a few days," Ellison said as he accepted a parcel
with his name on it from Blair.

"I am, but it's time to replenish my stock of cheap
researchers.  I just needed to interview some poor
unsuspecting grad students."  Blair smiled as he placed a
second parcel in Ellison's hands.  "Look what arrived at my
office while we were away."

Jim opened the package carefully.  Inside was an authorized
duplication of the township papers to Cleopatra's Palace. 
That fed Jim's lust for the ironic.  Like the original, the
town of Cleopatra's Palace ended up underwater.

Every building had been built on raised and reinforced
footings, but when the river moved, there was no stopping
the water.

"You okay, Jim?" Blair asked as he touched the taller man's
shoulder.

"Yeah, just trying to imagine losing all this to a massive
earthquake followed by an almost biblical flood."

"Actually, it wasn't an earthquake, but a meteor strike that
caused the earthquake."  He opened his datapad.  "See this
lake?  It's called The Punch Bowl.  It was formed by a
meteor weighing almost three tons."

Jim whistled.  Such a strike on Earth or any other inhabited
planet would be devastating.  "Amazing," he muttered.

"It contributed to the strange weather pattern."  Blair sat
down on the couch and tapped the cushion beside him. 
Ellison sat down.  "I've had my advocates going over the
land laws there.  With the river being the sole source of
fresh water in the basin, we'll never get ownership of the
land back."

Jim hadn't imagined that they would.  "So what are our
options?"

"We can claim full salvage rights though," Blair explained. 
"A diving expedition with force domes and full ship support
would work."

Ellison was overwhelmed with the mind-boggling costs of such
an endeavor.  "Blair, we'd never find anything down there to
cover the cost of such an operation."

Blair sighed impatiently.  "I know that, Jim.  But I still
think we should do it, because the historical value of the
items will make it worthwhile."

Ellison puzzled.  "How many underwater recoveries have you
done?"

Blair frowned.  "Including this one...  One."  He smiled.

"Chief!"

"We get experts to handle this."  Blair put his arm around
the larger man's shoulders.  "It'll be a great adventure for
us."

"When would you want to go?" Jim asked.

"Not for a while," Sandburg answered.  "Your child should be
at least four months old, so he can travel with us."

"You want to take a baby underwater?" Jim gasped.

"No!  Jeez," Blair said exasperated.   "They'll be at base
camp.  There will be plenty of work for everyone to do."

"A family operation?" Jim asked, intrigued.

"Sure, who would be more interested than us?" Blair asked.

Jim settled back into the cushions.  "Who do we ask?"

"Everyone."

###########

Daryl spun sharply right, leapt up to the rail just above
him, grabbed the hot metal, and swung.  His long legs
wrapped around his patient and lifted the injured woman off
the buckling deck.  Hand over hand, Banks moved them out of
the damaged area.

At the doors, he deposited his patient just on the other
side of the doorframe and swung down after her.  He closed
the doors and carried her to the escape pods.

The exercise ended.

"Congratulations, Mr. Banks," the instructor called from
behind the protective glass.  "You and your patient
survived."

The patient got to her feet.  "That's only the second time
I've been rescued this week," she remarked as she removed
her simulated injuries.  "Thanks."

"No problem," Daryl remarked.

"Banks," the colonel called.  "Time for your debriefing."

Daryl went down the corridor and immediately contacted the
buzzing resonance that told him that he was being jammed. 
Actually, it wasn't powerful enough to block him if he
wanted to read their minds, but the occupants of the room
didn't know that, and there was no reason they should.

"Yes, Ma'am?" he addressed the training director.  She was a
middle-aged woman, who seemed to be composed of all sharp
angles.  In that, Colonel Autis reminded Daryl of Jim's
mother, General Ellison, except that once you got past that
level on Catherine, she had a creamy interior.  Colonel
Autis was unburdened by a soft side.

She wore her silver-streaked black hair pulled tightly back. 
Her face was unmarked by cosmetics that would have lessened
the space pallor that was so obvious on her pale skin.  Her
brown eyes were wary.

"You didn't use any of your mental skills, why?" she asked.

Daryl had been expecting this.  Most people seemed to think
his skills meant that he didn't even wipe his own butt in
the conventional manner.  That just wasn't true.

"Actually, Colonel, I used my mind to think my way out of
the situation," Daryl responded.  "I find that always
relying on telepathic or telekinetic abilities only weakens
me when they cannot be used."

The colonel attempted a smile but obviously needed more
practice on this skill.  "I like that kind of thinking,
Banks.  Congratulations, you've made it into the Far Space
program."  She shook his hand.  "We expect great things from
you, Daryl Banks."

"I won't disappoint you, Colonel Autis," Daryl said gravely.

"See that you don't, Cadet Banks.  Your academy training
will begin as soon as you finish your medical courses."

"Thank you for the opportunity, Colonel Autis."  For the
first time in his life, Daryl Banks saluted.

###########

Blair Sandburg, proud new uncle, stepped out into the
waiting room and the crowd immediately hushed.  "Family,
Jordan Gail Rosenberg and Barbara Suzanne Rosenberg,
weighing in at little over six pounds each, have arrived
safely.  Parents and children are doing well."

The room erupted into cheers and hugs.  The two new
grandmothers started to cry, and soon there were quite a few
tears in the room.  For now, the family could enjoy this
good news in peace.  Soon enough, the media would know that
healthy twins had been born on Earth.  An event that hadn't
happened for almost seventeen months.

Blair had just hugged new Grandpa Simon when one of his
colleagues, Doctor Penny Yarborough, interrupted him. 
"Doctor Sandburg, I've got a sentinel in withdrawal in the
solitary care wing.  They shipped him here because this is
your hospital."

Sandburg went into doctor mode immediately.  "Tell me about
his case."

"He was picked up on Trinary about five days ago.  According
to the young man, he had been shipwrecked there for over six
months."  She passed the datapad to Blair.

"Any sentinel senses noted before then?"  Blair asked as he
accepted the datapad.

"That's the weird thing, I can't get his records,"
Yarborough reported.  "Every inquiry I've made has come back
with a 'classified' attached to it.  I heard that you were
here already so I thought that I would consult you right
away."

Blair didn't like the sound of that.  The last thing he
wanted to do was run afoul of the military.  Sandburg wasn't
exactly on their list of favorite people after breaking into
the Pentagon and all.  Not that they could prove it.

"How old is he?" Sandburg asked as they changed levels.

"We estimate that he's between nineteen years, four months,
and nineteen years, seven months."

That let out the military, the kid was too young.

Blair stepped into the patient's dimly lit room.  The young
man turned toward him and looked at him through Jim's eyes.

If Sandburg hadn't been made of sterner stuff, he would have
fainted.  Blair had spent a long time going over Jim's life
with a fine-tooth comb.  This young man was Jim's very image
from when Ellison was this age.  The hair was longer and
sun-streaked, and his skin was deeply tanned, but this was
what Jim had looked like at this age.

"Hello, I'm Doctor Blair Sandburg.  I'm here to help you." 
Blair stepped closer and was pulled into the kid's arms. 
The guy clung to Blair with all he had.  Sandburg gently
patted the taller man's back until the guy stopped shaking. 
"What's your name?"

"Byron Plummer," the young man responded.  He gathered some
of Blair's hair in his hand and sniffed.  "You smell so
calming."

"Believe it or not, other people have told me that very same
thing," Sandburg answered.  The younger man scooted over,
and Blair sat down.  "Okay, now that you're settled into
your calm zones, why don't you tell me about yourself?"

"Not much to tell," Byron said, keeping his face partially
buried in Blair's hair.  "I was born on Camelot, and I was
heading to Orion V for a construction job when my transport
ship went down.  I escaped in a pod and was on my own for
months."

"Who found you?" Blair asked.

"A scientific expedition was there to study the sea life. 
They gave me a lift to the Haskell Rings Station.  I sort of
flipped out there, and they brought me to Earth."  This
report was made without emotion.  The words were casual, but
the style was strictly military.

"Why don't you have any medical records?" Blair inquired,
using his teacher voice.

Byron stiffened slightly and recovered his casual stance,
but Blair still noticed it.  Studying Jim's body language
had made his observations much keener.  "I don't know."

It was a lie.

Blair pulled back.  "You can trust me, Byron.  I'm asking as
your doctor and that is a sacred trust.  Now, why don't you
have any records, and why is the military blocking access to
the records you do have?"

The young man began to fidget and fuss with his long brown
hair.  His chin was classic Ellison, along with the mouth
and nose.  Blair had met and fed enough of Jim's family to
be very familiar with the traits.

"I escaped from a military training facility," he said
sadly.  "I'd been there as long as I can remember."

Blair sighed.  There was no telling what dark military
secrets were associated with this kid.  Sandburg tried not
to smile.  Nineteen and Blair was calling him a kid.

"Don't worry, Byron.  There's no one in the Human Sphere
tough enough to take you back there."  Sandburg pushed the
stray strands of hair off the younger man's forehead.  "Do
you know anything about your parentage?"

"Just my mother's name," Byron reported.

Blair pulled out his pad.  "What was her name?"

"Carolyn Plummer."

Blair decided that the name was just too common for it to be
the same woman, Jim's "one that got away", but he scanned
the kid anyway.  A quick comparison with Jim's DNA was all
he needed to see.

"Byron, I have some things to take care of.  One of which is
to move you to my home," Blair announced.  "If they come
looking for you, they'll have to get through me first."

Plummer smiled.  "You must be tougher than you look."

Blair gave Byron a stern look that would have made his
ancestor Damien proud.  "Kid, you don't know the half of
it."  Sandburg stepped into the hall.  "Penny, I'm taking
over this young man's care right now.  Do not send any
follow-up inquiries about him to Central Records.  There's
some cloak-and-dagger stuff going on, and I want to control
it."

"Yes, Doctor Sandburg," Yarborough agreed, obviously
relieved to have the difficult case in more experienced
hands.

Blair rushed back over to the birthing area's reception
space and yanked Jim and Simon out of the line, but not
without protests on the larger men's parts.

"Blair, I was only two people away from holding the twins,"
Ellison complained.

"This better be good, Sandburg," Simon growled.  "Carl
Tate's already kicking my butt in the Grandfather game.  I
am so outclassed."

Blair cleared his throat for silence and got it immediately. 
They were in his territory now, and the other two men
instantly acknowledged that.  "There's a young sentinel on
the next level.  His name is Byron Plummer, son of Carolyn
Plummer."

Simon and Blair turned to look at Jim.  

"What?" Jim inquired.  "I was reversibly sterile when I was
with Carolyn.  We have no children."

"Jim," Blair began slowly, "Byron isn't your son."

"See, I wouldn't do that to a kid of mine," Jim said
vehemently.

"Sorry, Jim," Simon apologized.  "You're right, you wouldn't
abandon any child.  I don't know what I was thinking."

"Jim," Blair interrupted again.  "Byron isn't your son, he's
you."

"What?" Simon gasped.

Blair touched his Shield's arm.  "Byron is Jim's clone."

Ellison bristled like a porcupine waking up on a hot plate. 
He took off down the hall like the place was about to
explode.  Unerringly, he took the right level exchange and
went straight to the young man's room.

Blair came to a halt just inside the room.  Simon had
already entered and was blocking his view of the two
sentinels.  Sandburg stepped around his uncle.

The two men's eyes were locked onto each other.  Blair could
plainly see the man the boy was to become, and the boy the
man once was.  It was eerie.

"Holy--" Banks began.

"Simon," Blair admonished.

"Doctor Sandburg, who is this?" Byron asked.

"Byron Plummer, this is Jim Ellison your genetic--"

"Father," Jim finished.

Actually, the word was blueprint.  But the vast emotions
pouring off his Shield told Blair that Jim didn't want the
kid to think of himself as a copy--something less than fully
human.

"You must have been my age," Byron said to Jim.

"How old are you?" Ellison asked as he maneuvered the young
man back to the bed.

"Nineteen."

"Then I would have been 25 when you were born."  Jim hugged
the younger man.  The kid was slender compared to Jim, but
showed all the potential to be as strongly built.

"You didn't know, did you?" Byron asked.

"God, no.  I wouldn't have... you've got to know we would
have been a family," Jim swore.

Blair stepped out into the hall where Naomi, Helaine, Jet,
and Claudia were waiting.  The three men's disappearing act
must have immediately raised the alarms with the ladies. 
"This is a tough one, so I won't sugarcoat it.  They brought
a young sentinel here to the hospital so I could look after
him." Blair paused.

"His name is Byron Plummer, and he's nineteen-years-old.  He
escaped from a military facility on Camelot and was picked
up after his ship crashed.  He's Jim's clone."  He passed
his datapad to his cousin.  "Obviously, Jim knew nothing
about him.  He wants the kid to think of himself as Jim's
son."

Now he needed the women in his family not to let him down. 
They did not disappoint.  

"Of course, he's Jim's son," Claudia said firmly.  "That
makes me a stepmom."

"The dirt has really closed the air vent this time," Jet
noted with her arms crossed.  That was her 'ready for the
nasty fight' stance.  Blair was glad she was on their side.

"Poor child, he needs mothering," Helaine said firmly.

"He needs protection more," Naomi corrected as she flipped
open her datapad.  "Those goons will be stomping our way to
take him back."

Blair knew he got his passion for helping others from both
his parents.  While his father had his own strength, it was
his mother who always inspired action.

###########

Gentle Breeze carefully pulled the large children's book
from the lower shelf without using her claws.  Using claws
on a book was punishable by having *no* stories read to you
for three *whole* days.  She couldn't risk that.

With the book on the floor, she could *persuade* one of the
humans to read it to her.  Breeze ignored Strong of Heart,
or Victoria as the humans called her.  She could not read
yet, but she did give excellent hugs and would groom you
bald if you were not careful.

As luck would have it, Breeze caught the scent of the
Vigilant One or Jim--a wonderful reader of stories.  She
nearly passed the young human when she realized that the
scent was coming from this man.  Intrigued, she sniffed
around his feet.

"Hello, pretty one."  The young man got down on all fours
and almost pressed his nose to hers.  "You're a Guardian. 
My, you're beautiful."

Breeze sat on her haunches and puzzled.  No two humans
smelled alike.  It was a rule.  But this human smelled like
Jim, except for very small differences.  Those differences
were probably all about grooming.

This human was almost Jim, but smaller and younger.  Humans
only got older, and rarely smaller.  This was also a rule.

Victoria walked over and not very well.  She did fine on all
fours, but insisted on trying to do it with only two feet. 
It just made no sense to Breeze.

"You're a sweetheart," the not-quite-Jim man said as he
picked up the little girl.  "Now who are you?"

"That's Victoria," real Jim announced.  "She's my
goddaughter.  Her mommy is on Mars for some special space
medicine training, and this little lady is staying with us
when her dad's on duty."  Jim kissed Vicki's cheek.  He
touched Breeze's head.  "This is Gentle Breeze, future
scholar and lover of stories.  I see she has a book out and
is expecting one of us to read to her."  He scooped Breeze
up and snagged the book.  

Breeze lay comfortably in Jim's lap while he read to her.


Byron could not get over finding his father.  They looked so
much alike it was hard to deny each other, and his father
was also a sentinel.  Unlike Byron, his father's senses
hadn't come online until he was an adult.  Byron's senses
had been fully activated since he was a child.

His earliest memories were of tests and games to sharpen his
skills.  He did very well with them until he realized that
if he wanted to leave and explore the universe, he would
have to lose those senses.

Maybe his father would think that made him a liar and a
cheat.  Better to tell him the truth right away, than for it
to come back to haunt him later.

Breeze bounded out of Jim's lap after he finished the story,
and Vicki tried to catch up with her.  The french door
closed automatically, and the little girl was forced to
watch through the glass while the Guardians continued
through the conservatory and out into the backyard.

"My senses were never really gone or diminished," Byron
admitted suddenly.  "I just let them think they were so they
wouldn't watch me so closely.  Then I ran away."

"That was pretty smart of you," Jim said proudly.

"Not too smart," Byron lamented.  "The ship I boarded was so
old I thought they were going to ask us to row, but it was
headed for Orion V, and the military couldn't touch me once
I was there."

"Did anyone search for you on Trinary?" his father asked.

"Yes.  Two military search teams came looking for me, but I
stayed hidden," Byron responded immediately.  He resisted
the urge to salute.  "There was an underwater cave I used. 
It had some really heavy metals in the walls.  I emptied my
air tanks in it and stayed there every time they got close."

"They trained you too well," Jim remarked.  "They also
believed you'd rather go back than stay on Trinary by
yourself."

Byron smiled.  "It really wasn't so bad.  There was plenty
to eat, not a lot of land predators, and I was making it." 
He paused as he remembered hearing a civilian shuttle coming
down.  "Then I found the scientists.  That's when I realized
how much I missed people."

Jim moved closer and sat down on the couch with Byron. 
"What happened on the station?"

"It was so loud, everything smelled, and I was blinded by
all the artificial lights."  He shuddered.  "The doctors
didn't know what to do for me.  They said there was an
expert on Earth, and that he would pay for my transport and
care."

Jim nodded.  "That's how you ended up here.  Blair is the
only sentinel expert on Earth."

"Is that why you live here?"  Byron indicated the grand
surroundings.  Sandburg must have been as rich as Will Doors
had been.

"No, I live here because this is my home."  Jim paused. 
"Come on."  He rose from the couch and picked up Vicki. 
"This story is a long one and requires food."

It had only been two hours since breakfast, but Byron was
ready to eat again.  "Okay," he agreed.

They set up in the breakfast area off the kitchen.  Vicki
was happy to mangle an orange while sitting in her throne
chair.  His father made omelets, and they talked.  Actually,
his father did the talking, and Byron listened and avoided
offered bits of drooled-on orange.

His dad had quite a career, both in the military and as a
RO.  If he was holding anything back, Byron couldn't imagine
what it could be.

"What do you want to do with your life now?" his father
asked.

No one had ever asked Byron what he wanted to do with his
life.  That had always been planned for him.  Now his life
was at least nominally in his hands, and he didn't know what
to do with it.  What could he do if he spent the rest of his
life looking over his shoulder waiting for Colonel Brackett
to show up and take him back?

Byron looked at his father.  Surely the man could fix this. 
That's what fathers did; they fixed things or turned them
over to the mother to fix.  "Can you get them to stop coming
for me?" he asked hopefully.

Jim nodded.  "Count on it, kid.  Count on it."  He smiled. 
"In fact, phase one is on her way up the street."  His
father walked to the front door.

Byron cleaned up Vicki.  By the time she was presentable,
his dad had returned with his guest.  She was an older
woman, around thirty, with brown hair and dramatic hazel
eyes.

"Byron, this is Doctor Joyce Vecchio," his father announced. 
"She's the engineering kind of doctor and a good friend."

Byron shook the woman's hand.  "Nice to meet you."

She smiled.  She had a lovely smile.  "And it's wonderful to
meet you, Byron."  She waved toward the table.  "Shall we?"

Vicki waved her arms excitedly and got a tight hug from
Joyce.  "Joy, Joy," the little girl chanted.

"I see you have a fan in Vicki," Byron remarked.

Vecchio smiled.  "Actually, I'm her humble fan."  The
engineer kissed the little girl on the lips.  "You taste
like orange."  Vicki offered a bit of the rind.  "No thanks,
sweetheart."  Joyce sat down.  "It wasn't easy, but I have
what you need."  She reached into her purse and passed over
a datapad.

Jim accepted the device and read the screen.  Byron didn't
need to lean toward his father to read the words scrolling
there.  "Lieutenant Carolyn Plummer, volunteer, died shortly
after giving birth to the clone of James Ellison."

Clone?  He wasn't a son, he was a clone.  Eeeewww.   What
did that mean?  Was that why they could keep him in that
facility without ever letting him go anywhere?  Was he
property?  Did Guardians have more rights than he did?  Was
he real?

Would the military storm this beautiful house to get him
back?  Would they hurt all these nice people?  Could anyone
stop them?   Would anyone stop them?  Where could he run
now?                                         

Byron pushed back from the table, but was prevented from
leaving by the steel grip of his father.

"Byron, you are my son and that's that.  Children get half
of their genetic makeup from their parents.  You just got a
little more from me."  Ellison's blue eyes gazed steadily
into the younger man's face.  

There were so many emotions there that Byron had no idea how
to interpret them.  But one thing was clear, the older man
didn't want him to leave.

Byron sat back down.  Where did he really have to go?  It
wasn't his fault his mother was dead or that he had been
cloned from his father.

"It says that Byron died a few hours after Carolyn," Jim
read.  "He's sitting right here."

"I found another death certificate for Byron," Joyce
explained.  "The last one was issued about three months
ago."

"Is Carolyn really dead?" Jim asked.

"No.  She was transferred to a new base after 'losing the
baby'," Vecchio said.  "She doesn't know Byron's still
alive."

"If she does and she never went back for him, then she's not
the woman I knew."  Jim lowered the pad.  "So they had his
real records, the records they showed Byron, and the records
they showed Carolyn."

"How did you find out all this?" Byron asked Joyce.

"I can make a security system sit up and beg like a puppy,"
Vecchio explained.  "It was my pleasure to get this
information and build you a real file."  She smiled.

"I have a real file?" Byron asked surprised.

"Sure," Joyce said confidently.  "It's all accurate and
legal."

Byron read his new file.  He existed.  He was real.  He was
the fully recognized first born son of James Michael Ellison
and Carolyn Andrea Plummer.  His new legal name was Byron
James Ellison.

The young man stroked the screen to see if the lights that
formed those fantastic letters, which said for all the
universe to see that he was a free, legal man, were warmer
than the blank part of the screen.  They weren't.

Tears splashed on the screen, and Byron realized that they
could only be coming from him.  Two chairs scooted across
the floor, and soft footfalls left the room.  He must have
shamed his father.

Strong arms encircled him, and Byron lowered his head on his
father's shoulder.  "It's okay, son.  I'm crying too," Jim
whispered.  "I'm crying for all the years we've lost."

                      -- End Chapter 27 --