***Tirnanog, Hochberg***

***Astra***

“I am fascinated by how you two developed this new ability. All just thanks to observing a wild animal. Maybe we should have you seek out more creatures which use electricity. I believe there is a particular type of lightning bird living on the northern coastline above Clan Vier,” My mother commented while I showed off once more the new plasma technique by creating a small ball of plasma above my palm.

“It surely holds a lot of potential,” I agree. “Second Sight allows us to copy a creature’s ability easily enough as long as there is just electricity involved. Though, I find it unlikely to get so lucky a second time. It was simply an application neither of us had considered.”

Mom raises a warning finger before I get too eager about the prospect. “Though, I believe we should keep the other ‘thing’ a secret for as long as possible. The other elders will have to know, but we should keep everyone else out of the loop for as long as possible. Your personal teleport won’t do anyone any good at this point except for yourself and transporting information. We will have to see to setting up some secret locations you can use in relative safety.”

I nodded. “I thought the same. It will give us an invaluable advantage in case a conflict with the Thich becomes unavoidable. At the very least it will even the odds with their communication devices. Magnus was worried about how many they have. Them giving it out to some diplomat on a delaying mission doesn’t bode well for us.”

“Thankfully, we have little need of using you two as messengers at the moment,” Teresa pointed out. “Nonetheless, I believe some show of force will be necessary, knowing those Thich brutes. We always had to use some force in our negotiations with them. There is no love lost between our clans, but they at least recognize open warfare isn’t in their best interest.”

I didn’t allow myself to show any sign of disbelief in my mother’s statement. Going by what Gaia had revealed to us, an armed conflict might be unavoidable. But trying to convince Teresa of this fact wouldn’t change anything at this point.

We entered Gilbert’s workshop where we found the elder with his team of trusted workers. They were very focused on working on some strange artefact. Only a few spared us the briefest of glances.

Magnus was crawling on top of the large machine which looked like one of Giger’s nightmares. At least that’s what Magnus had called this particular type of combination between machine and living design when he talked about the Thich’s communication device.

If we ever reopened a connection back to Earth, I would have to take a long look at all the things my partner liked to reference so much. Magnus and I had a good thing going, but sometimes not even Thalia managed to explain some of his more exotic colloquialisms, which I found quite vexing.

“Astra!” Magnus called out as soon as he spotted us. “What took you so long? We sent for you two hours ago!” He slid down from the top of the machine where he had been inspecting something.

“Yes!” Elder Gilbert came around from the other side of the machine. “This is important business! Nothing to be delayed unduly!”

“Without offence.” I forced myself to smile. “But while you two have been playing around with this… thing… Thalia and I spent the afternoon informing the council of elders about the recent events with Clan Hochberg and the incident with the Thich delegation. It was quite exhausting.”

“Come to think of it,” my mother joined in. “I think your presence was requested too, Elder Gilbert Kline.”

I waved a hand at the machine. “So, instead of complaining, you might as well tell us why this is important enough to cut our meeting with the council short.”

Magnus came up to me and pointed at the machine. “Astra! This is a miniature wormhole generator! Taken out of the innards of a worm! And Gilbert might’ve gotten it to work!”

My mother whistled softly. “So this is why you neglected your duties? For once your absence might have a good reason. Will it be as useful as I hope it will be?”

“Pah! You can’t tell me my expertise is necessary for inane administrative work! My time is best spent inside my workshop and not overseeing the failings of others.” Gilbert waved a hand dismissively and shrugged.

Teresa didn’t deny it. It was a well-known fact that the council ignored Gilbert’s absence and allowed his wife to take over his duties instead.

The elder craftsman gestured at the artefact. “It certainly isn’t comparable to the ones Earth has access to. But we might be able to entertain a semi-permanent connection between the fleet and Mount Aerie. My people can’t interfere with the control system linking the two generators without the risk of breaking the controls. But even that much would be invaluable. Our fleet is fast, but the possibility of resupplying the flagship instantly can’t be ignored.”

“And we need you to switch it on because there are two control circuits and I can’t power them on at the same time,” Magnus explained. “One controls the power generator which is a quite ingenious fusion collider. The other controls the wormhole generator. Problem is, there is some kind of fail-safe detection which powers one control circuit down if it doesn’t detect the other at the same time.”

I frowned. “How did you figure out the controls for the core?”

He pointed at a metal tub with rocks in it. “Gilbert brought some babies. They look like snake-maggots! The creepy thing really didn’t like it when we opened it up, but we got what we needed.”

I pulled a face, knowing very well what figuring out a creature core’s workings entailed. Magnus had tutored me on the subject, but so far I managed to leave the exploration of this ability to Gilbert and him. “Do I have to shove my hand into a worm’s guts?”

Magnus shook his head. “No. I can teach you the stimuli you have to apply to start up the controls. Unless you are willing to have a first-hand experience? Reading the control codes directly out of a creature’s guts is certainly faster.”

I sighed in relief. “Oh, thank the goddess. Don’t misunderstand, but I find this particular application of our abilities questionable.”

He wagged his eyebrows. “You know, the faster we get this baby to work, the faster we can go back to the mountains and have a look at how the eggs are doing.”

The eggs!?

By Gaia! The eggs! How could I forget? I am a horrible mother!

I blanched as I looked at the metal tub with the specimen inside. “Where do I have to shove my hand in?”

***Tirnanog, Mount Aerie***

***Mary Frost***

“Isaac, stay still and allow aunty Kiera to have a look at you,” I pleaded with the boy, totally exhausted after days of looking after a hyperactive toddler who was far faster than a child of his age had any right to be.

The scuttling sound of running footsteps zipped past me and Isaac disappeared beneath the living room’s table while the doctor’s fingers grasped the empty air where the child had been just a moment earlier.

“Isaac!” Kiera called out and searched the room, surprised at the child’s disappearance. She sounded just as frustrated as I felt. “Come here. You can have some ice cream! Come here little one.”

When Isaac didn’t come out of his hiding place beneath the table, Kiera turned to me. “Tell him to stop running away. I need to check how he is doing.”

“I have been after him the entire morning already,” I said, leaning back on the sofa. “I am not just tired, I am exhausted. Give me a damn break for once.”

The last few days had been… trying. To say the least. But I could proudly say I had kept calm the entire time. Except for when disciplinary measures had been unavoidable for Isaac’s safety. The colony was as safe as possible in this world, but safe for an adult wasn’t the same as safe for a child who couldn’t tell what was dangerous and what was not.

Treemonae were guarding the estate’s exits, some mildly poisonous plants in the garden, an armoury to sneak in, and likely a hundred other things Isaac had no business meddling with.

I had to be after the boy every waking minute or he would find a way to get himself into trouble. Just yesterday, he had somehow managed to sneak into the estate’s molerat pens.

And while the animals weren’t particularly dangerous to enhanced adults, I was sure they wouldn’t say no to snacking on a toddler. Thankfully, Isaac was fast enough to avoid the molerats. His presence in the pens had nonetheless caused a minor riot among the estate’s staff.

Since then, I had him strictly confined to Astra’s quarters and the staff was informed to keep the doors closed at all times.

I ran a hand over my forehead, hoping the people I had tasked with finding a suitable nanny would come back with positive news. Though, I acknowledged the complications with the special proficiencies such a person needed. The clan didn’t have a lot of people who made it their profession to look after kids in the first place.

Finding someone experienced with kids who was also trustworthy and loyal wasn’t the real problem, but taking care of Isaac required the abilities of a speedster. A very good speedster, judging by how lost Kiera was with the boy.

Someone like Kiera couldn’t even touch Isaac if the boy wasn’t in the mood to listen. She couldn’t look after the kid even if she wanted to.

“Do it again!” Kiera commanded. “You are the only one he listens to – sometimes!”

She finally spotted the boy beneath the table and decided to even the odds by closing the door to the living room.

I rolled my eyes and employed one of the darker educational methods I had access to. “Isaac Frost! Get here, right now, or the next meal will be stew!”

A sound of disgust came from beneath the table and Isaac crawled out in a defeated manner, complaining with the limited vocabulary he had already picked up. “No stew!”

“Then stay still while aunty Kiera has a look at you. You can play catch with her later.” I took the toddler and pulled him onto my knee.

To make sure he wouldn’t run off again, I held him at the fluff of filaments which began growing along his neck. Then I asked the doctor, “Are you sure his development is normal?”

I placed one of the puzzle toys in Isaac’s hands to occupy him, so he wouldn’t fidget around while the doctor was checking him over. Judging by the way the child was behaving one might think holding still for even a minute was torture for him.

When two mutated humans had a child, the offspring received a random set of mutations from his parents, amounting to what an unpaired person could hold without risk. From what we figured out so far, Isaac had inherited his parents’ speed, as well as the filaments and some mental enhancements. The starfish mutation was also a given, which was likely the source of our current troubles and his quick development.

He hadn’t displayed any other abilities so far, but I dreaded what would happen if the boy would begin to play with lightning.

I wasn’t willing to test him for other potential mutations. Poisoning a child or trying to drown him was too extreme for my tastes to confirm the only two mutations which could easily be tested for.

The rest would have to wait until Isaac’s vocabulary grew enough to make himself understood with more complex topics.

“You are asking me impossible questions.” Kiera stepped up and placed a hand on the child’s chest while closing her eyes. “Can anyone be sure with a new type of post sapiens? Isaac is the product of a union of mutations which I haven’t encountered before.”

I sighed, still worried about Isaac’s development, but at least it looked like he was as human as could be reasonably expected. That took at least one worry off my shoulders.

“He is just learning so fast,” I pointed out. “It has been just a few days. Will he keep growing at this rate forever?”

When Isaac hatched, he barely looked like a normal child. He was more like a gangly, slightly creepy baby a bit too large and developed for the baby fat displayed on his cheeks. But after some cleaning up and a few healthy meals, Isaac was now more like a toddler. A very sturdy, muscular toddler too fast and mobile for his own good.

“I don’t think so. From what I gathered over the last few days, his physical growth seems to be linked to his nutrient intake. A phenomenon we have already observed with other children inheriting a starfish mutation. We should be able to manage this aspect of his development well enough. As for his mental growth, that is another matter.”

She hummed. “His parents were very vague on the true nature of their mental abilities, but it is safe to assume Isaac inherited some mental improvements as well, which is why he can already communicate at this age. I wouldn’t worry about it too much right now. The only thing I am unsure of is how we should handle the matching of his mental and physical growth. I never had to face a situation such as this one. It’s a moral conundrum. Should we try to slow his growth? Match his physical maturing with his mental development? My gut instincts tell me allowing him to grow up too quickly would do him a disfavour. I can only speak to the medical aspect. Not how we can ensure he would become a functioning member of our society.”

I didn’t believe it to be that complicated. There was a thing called life experience which everyone had to gather in order to grow. No matter whether the child was considered normal or a prodigy.

Kiera opened her eyes and let go of Isaac. “Thanks, Isaac. You can run and play now.”

I set the boy down and he zipped over to his other toys, a set of wooden building blocks. “How do you explain him calling for his mom right from the moment he hatched? Or that!” I pointed at the castle which was rapidly taking shape beneath Isaac’s blurring hands.

Children at his development stage liked to topple things over and it was no different with the boy. Only, he also built the castle before he toppled it. And it was by no means a simple one. It had watchtowers and balustrades… everything one would expect of a medieval castle.

This wasn’t something the child could possibly know about, having spent his entire life up until now within the family’s underground estate.

Kiera studied Isaac’s beginning siege battle as the now-finished castle was bombarded by an improvised catapult. Isaac had commandeered a spoon from his breakfast and fashioned it with other wooden blocks and rubber bands into a functioning siege toy.

She shrugged. “Genetic memory most likely. We have records of it happening with the parents having a mindflayer mutation.”

Our discussion was interrupted when the door opened and Teresa entered the room together with Astra.

“What?” I asked, surprised by their sudden appearance. Weren’t they supposed to be in Hochberg? Did the fleet turn around?

The two of them were followed closely by Magnus and Etan.

Teresa surveyed the room until her gaze stayed stuck on Isaac who had only eyes for Astra. “I see there have been developments on your end too.”

“Mom!”

The boy rushed forward until he slammed into Astra’s shin where he stayed stuck while rubbing his cheek against her knee and hugging her leg like something he had been deprived of all his life.

The young mother was frozen in shock for a whole two seconds before she slowly raised her foot with Isaac having no trouble holding onto it. “Who is this?”

I got to my feet and walked over to Astra, careful not to step on any of Isaac’s toys and not to trip over the castle. Then I gestured at the boy and introduced the two of them. “Astra, this is Isaac, your son. Isaac, you already figured out this is Astra, your mother. And that gentleman over there is Magnus, your father.”

“You named my son Isaac!?” Astra asked, sounding slightly outraged. “Who gave you...”

I glared at her, daring her to make a scene. It wasn’t like she had left me with the intended names for her eggs.

She bit her tongue upon remembering who I was and swallowed whatever she wanted to say. “Isaac is a good name. Thank you for choosing it.”

Astra bent down and picked Isaac up. For the first time since I knew the boy, he seemed content with staying silent and still while he simply enjoyed the hug of a true parent.

“What about the other two?” Magnus asked.

“His two sisters are still developing,” Kiera informed them. “They don’t seem to have the starfish mutation which made Isaac grow far faster and hatch earlier.”

“If you excuse me.” I shooed them out of the way with a gesture. “I will go and sleep now. Tomorrow, you can update me on how you got here.”

I was kind of leaving them hanging and running away, but I had agreed to look after three eggs. Presumably, a fairly easy and relaxing affair – not considering the assassins. Isaac hadn’t been a part of the deal.

Leaving quickly, I fled Astra’s quarters and went to my private section of the estate where I locked all the doors behind me and went to bed immediately.

“Never again. I’ve reared enough children for two lifetimes.”

As soon as my cheek touched the bedsheets, I was out like a light.