Most folks and all the dragons were mesmerized by the scrolling text that lit the cavern in the eerie light it gave off, compounded with the beauty of the glow from the walls themselves. So the dark pool of water at the base of the cavern hadn't caused much notice at all. When Marc and Darin talked there, with Rolf and Cola beside them, and Darin said he'd had hallucinations from the water, Marc reached out to take a sample of the water, thinking there might be something in it worth investigating.

He held out a small vial and filled it, the water cool and clean feeling on his skin. When he sealed the vial he brought a finger to his nose to smell of it. A drop fell on his lips.  It took only a second and Marc was keeling over sideways. Darin lunged for him to keep him from landing in the water itself. Cola's reaction was at first startlement but then she let out a low keening, which was matched by Quinn, who dropped to the floor of the cavern, Dinah still aboard him, but also suddenly unconscious.

Darin, seeing this, jumped to help her off her dragon and he laid her gently next to Marc.

It was only then that the others noticed something was wrong. Well, there was also the fact that the texts and the lights in the cavern suddenly went dead and they were all in pitch blackness.

At first it was a murmur of voices in the background and she ignored it.  Instead she focused on the link between her and Marc.  One minute she had been trying to talk to Quinn and the next the link took on a life of its own, and her head exploded. 

When she could think again she was following Marc along the link through space, stars streaking by like the sparklers she'd played with as a child.  Then they were falling downward, through a gravity well, then an atmosphere and finally slowing almost to stillness and were set gently on the ground.   Dinah blinked and reached out for Marc, her hand groping its way into his, her fingers entwining with his.

The murmur of voices rose, became distinct, an argument carried on in ominous tones.  An argument about them she realized as she moved closer to Marc, her hip brushing his while the link, the cable like joining between them that had emerged in Milton's laboratory expanded and grew, drew power from both of them and then filled her mind with Marc, every place and part of it.  And as it did she realized that the voices were arguing over the link, unsure about it, surprised by it.  By it and by her and Marc. 

They stopped speaking abruptly and it was as though she were being scrutinized right down to the atoms that made up the molecules that made up her.  She cringed under it, feeling invaded.  "Marc?" she finally managed.  "Marc?"

"We seem to be causing a bit of a stir," he replied, a hint of amusement coming through the link to her. He gave her hand a slight squeeze of reassurance, and then stepped forward the two of them moving as one.

Marc looked around but there wasn't much to see. It was as if they were in a heavy fog, the voices and shadows of movement, by others with them, veiled and distorted in some way as if they did not choose to be seen.

"Who are you?" Marc asked.

The question filled the fog and sent it swirling as if the sound waves had become visible and tangible.  When it stopped two figures emerged, human like and middle aged.  "Your soft palate is unable to enunciate the linguistic encodings that comprise my name and its sounds occur at a frequency beyond that accessible to you," the male said.  "So there is no point in articulating it."

"Oh, bon Dieu, I've heard all that nonsense before," Marc replied with a disgusted sigh. "I could care less what your name is. I want to know where we are and why we're here, and most importantly what you've got up your sleeve."

The woman laughed.  "I take it you mean that figuratively.  The last part anyway.  Physically you are still in the cavern, by the pool.  You are unconscious and your companion -- Darin? -- believes you to be hallucinating as he did."

"You are here mentally, in what might be referred to as an out of body experience," the man said. "What you see is an image created by your senses that allows you to orient yourselves in such a way as to avoid a cognitive collapse."

"Ah. So then we should treat you as a bout of indigestion brought on by a piece of undercooked meat. I see."

The man's brows drew together.  "No.  Not at all.  We wished to meet you and to speak with you.  This seemed the most expeditious means of doing so."

The woman laid a hand on the man's arm, stopping him.  "It would be better to be direct," she said to him and then turned back to Marc and Dinah.  "We are those whom you call the First Ones."

"Ah. Well perhaps you can tell us how to read the information we just activated in your cavern," Marc suggested.  "How about a Rosetta Stone?"

"You won't need one," she said.  "We have waited a long time for the dragons to find the cavern.  We want to know if you will help them."

"I beg your pardon?" Dinah said.

The woman waved a hand and a table and chairs appeared.  "Please, sit.  Or at least do so mentally,"  she said, as she and the man did so.

Dinah looked at Marc and shrugged.  "This is too...but alright.  I'll play along," she said and took a seat.   When Marc had taken one as well she said, "Okay help the dragons?  What does that mean?  And why us?"

"You are the Maelcom's heir," the woman said.  "And please, let me explain before you say anything.  All that means is that we thought he would be the one to do this, only he died.  So we are hoping that you two will in his stead.  We think..."

"We think," the man said, taking over, "that that is the reason you acquired the abilities you did when his DNA was grafted onto yours."

"Which particular abilities are we discussing," Marc asked. "She's got a boatload of 'em. And I'm a bit confused as to what you were on about when we first got here. You seemed surprised by us. Yet it is you who brought us here."

"Because we were surprised by you, by her."  The woman gestured helplessly.  "We aren't gods, though at times we've played at it and even when it seemed expedient, pretended to be.  We didn't expect you, either of you, not the link you share nor what she calls the DNAdar.  Most especially not what you can do together through the link using the DNAdar."

The man laughed.  "By now you would think we'd have learned to not be surprised by evolution.  And still we always are, because it's always so unpredictable but always elegant in the solutions it finds, the pathways it chooses to follow."

Marc frowned. "Wait. Back up a bit. You didn't expect us... And both the link we have and her DNAdar is a surprise. Why is that?  What do you have to do with either, and what is it you are saying about evolution?"

"This is where it gets so hard to explain," the man said.  "Imagine for a moment, if you will, having billions of years to roam non-created reality, to explore it.  And during those years finding so many possibilities for life, sentient life...but only possibilities.  Or finding the most amazing things in species who will never become sentient because they're at an evolutionary dead end.  Then imagine wanting to give those possibilities every chance, every opportunity to evolve into what they have the potential to become."

"If you can imagine that," the woman said, "then you are imagining us millions of years ago.  And now much of that is coming to fruition, beginning with the dragons.  They were our companions like they are yours now.  That's how we engineered them.  But when we left we couldn't take them with us, they weren't ready.  And they knew, just as we did, they weren't ready.  But we promised them that when they were, what they needed would be there for them, to allow them to take the next step."

"I can imagine it easily enough," Marc replied. "Only I was trying to bring one species up to operancy. And not quite as ambitious as you apparently are. I seem to have aimed a bit low. What do you mean by non-created reality? The term implies there is a created reality.  Created by whom? You? If so, how?"

"The implication is accurate," she said. "What you know as the unimensional worlds, the multiverses, the multi-dimensions, the Rim and the Rift beyond were created.  How is irrelevant.  Within it we placed all the potential we found, all the possibilities."

The man nodded.  "You two...you actually know.  Using the link you share you can actually see those possibilities.  Using her DNAdar and your own particular gifts, when they come together through the link you can see the possibilities.  And you can see the one single path that a species has open to it to reach sentience.  An evolutionary leap beyond anything we ever imagined."

"So," Marc said after a moment, "we're an experiment. Your experiment. All that we know, from Earth to the Rim an experiment?"

"No, not in that sense," the woman said.  "All we did was create a place where what might be had a chance to become.  A safe place, where you could work out the first part of your evolutionary path as a species, unhindered by anyone else, and where you wouldn't become pawns to be used by...by others.  It is true that there are species there with you like the dragons that we created, wholly or else engineered in one way or another.  But for the most part you, meaning life there, are a result of life expressing itself in one of an infinite variety of possibilities without our interference.  There are hundreds, thousands of pre-sentient species still waiting in the wings there, standing on the cusp.  We don't know if they'll make the leap or not, nor what they will become if they do, anymore than we knew with you.  But we wanted you to have the opportunity to make it and decide for yourselves."

"So we've been protected for eons. From whom?  And why were the dragons put inside this bubble. Forgive me, if I seem a bit dense. It's a rather new concept to my mind."

"Bubble," she said.  "That's a very good image, actually."

"The dragons were engineered from a non-sentient species to serve a number purposes," the man said.  Their ability to traverse the time-space continuum for one thing.  They wouldn't have been able to survive the crossing to outside the 'bubble' as you call it as they were when we made them and the 'bubble'.  That ability is in fact the evolutionary leap each species inside will have to make.  But the dragons, they were, and are, very special to us.   They're the only ones who remember those days.  They pass those memories on to their offspring."

"That's what the Maelcom discovered," the man said.  "And when he did he appropriated that part of their genetics and grafted it into his, acquiring their memories in the process.  We expected that would happen eventually because the fact that genetically that was feasible was the sign we were waiting for that the dragons were ready.  Only they can't do it alone, on their own."

"So we're here now, having this pleasant little out-of-body chat, because you want us to help the dragons reach their potential?"

The woman nodded.  "Yes."

"I've no objection to that. Although I'm not sure how to go about it."

"Part of what you need is in the cavern.  And it will tell you where to go next," she said. 

"After that, we don't actually know ourselves.  I wish," the man said, "it was as simple as a bit of genetic manipulation but it's never that easy."

"No, nothing ever is," Marc agreed, in a voice and with a tweak of their bond that made Dinah look around at him. He had something else entirely in mind - something far beyond what he was saying.

"So none of you," Dinah said, "stayed behind.  You just put us in there and then left us alone.  Except for keeping tabs on the dragons of course, because they're special."

"We left, yes.  To stay would have been...unwise.  But we didn't abandon you, any of you," the woman said.

"Thank you for agreeing to help," the man said, standing up.  "Trust the dragons.  They have grown into so much more than we ever imagined.  And they have grown up."

"Thanks for all the help," Marc replied dryly. "So, uhm, before you send us back, care to explain how it is you didn't abandon us?"
 
They both smiled.  "No," the man said.  "I'm sure you'll figure it out all by yourself.  Just as you'll find the way out of the bubble.  It's in your nature, in your genes.  But when you need us, we'll know."

"Just keep in mind," the woman said, "that the way out is a function of genetic evolution and evolution is about change which no one can predict, not totally, not even the two of you."

"But we look forward to seeing you there," the man said.

Then Marc was coming back to consciousness in a cavern on Tyvek. The others had gotten torches by then, and Darin sat with the two of them, stopping anyone from moving them.  Dinah was stirring too.  "Well that was fun," Marc commented.  Cola looked worriedly down at him, as Quinn watched Dinah's eyes flutter open.

Darin grinned. "Welcome back."

Dinah blinked.  "Yeah."

Marc looked around at the now darkened cavern. "What stopped the lightshow?" he asked.

Darin shrugged. "No idea."

Marc reached over to touch Dinah. "You all right?  Got any bright ideas?" he asked frowning at Cola.

"Yeah I'm fine."  She looked at Quinn and then at Cola.   "I think breakfast," she said, "and then maybe a heart to heart with Kalie."

"Sounds like a plan I can go with."

Several hours later, everyone having breakfasted, Marc and Dinah walked out into the field and called down the dragons. They came, all of them, including the Darroch dragons. They arranged themselves around Dinah and Marc but left an opening for the others off the Aaru to join them if they chose.

Once everyone was settled, Marc looked at Kalie. "So, sweetheart, spit it out."

"You talked with them?" she asked, eagerness shining in her eyes.  Behind and around her the dragons stirred and settled again.

Dinah grinned.  "Yes, I suppose you could say that."

"It wasn't what you might call a complete conversation," Marc added. "But they did have good things to say about you dragons. And they want us to help you evolve."

Kalie and all the dragons did the dragon equivalent of the happy dance and sang the dragon equivalent of The Song.

Marc's lips twitched as he waited patiently for them to settle back down. "Of course we have no idea how to do that. Can you help us?"

"We aren't sure," she said sadly.  "We thought that the cavern would tell us.  We are sure that they left it for us, in part anyway, like they left other things for others.  Can you read it?  What came alive with the key?"

"Well, we've got it recorded and Colin and Melly are working on it. I'd hoped there might be something you knew that we don't that could help."

"We know it's a process," Kalie said.  "And that they promised us everything we'd need.  We also know they left a Watcher."

"A Watcher," Marc repeated. "How interesting."

"We've never known who it was," Quinn said.  "We're pretty sure we will.  It's one of the signs we're ready.  Like finding the cavern and the Heir."

"Ah, and you will know who it is because of what? Just recognizing him or her? Or is there a physical sign or something we can look for too?"

"He's like they are, his mind I mean," Kalie said.  "We wondered about McGee, because of the stories we've heard about him.  But no dragon has ever met him, not in all the millennium he and we have lived."

"And yet here he is aboard Aaru where there are a bunch of dragons. I think we should facilitate a meeting, don't you?" Marc asked, a gleam in his eye. "And Zaf too, I think. Or have you met him?"

"We've met him," she answered.  "He is not the Watcher but there is something...we don't know.  We were their companions for so long but they did not tell us things about the others.  They said each race had it's own path, it's own choices to make.  Perhaps Aaru or Ther'lin can say.  They are older even than we."

"Yes, perhaps they can," Marc agreed. "Cola, when we get back up to Aaru, why don't you turn your kids loose in the main part of the ship. Let's make quite sure McGee can't avoid a meeting this time."

"Ah, I knew there was a reason I loved you," Dinah said.  "It's that devious mind of yours."

Marc grinned. "Who can ignore a baby dragon. It's a plan."

"I think you should warn Aaru," Kalie said.  "She has strong views on where the babies belong and where they don't."

"Okay, I'll sweet talk her into it," Marc replied with a grin and a wink at Cola.

Dinah decided that the main common room was where to get the best view of the show to come so she picked up a book and went to settle there, leaving Marc to work his wiles on Aaru.  Laz, Anja, Paul and Natha were shooting pool over in the corner.  She had no idea where Ingev was.  Collin and Melly were working on the script in the library.  She grinned to herself and sat back, waiting for the show to begin.

Marc sauntered in chatting with McGee.  Zaf followed them, looking bored. He'd obviously been suffering having gone too long without a brawl to raise his spirits.  Kalket and Max, free of patients weren't far behind them and headed straight for the drinks tray.

"So you've no idea at all about the Cavern?" Marc asked McGee.

McGee shrugged.  "No more than you I suspect.  It must have been quite a sight this morning."

Marc nodded. "Got conked out too which was weird. Had this weird dream sort of thing. You'd have liked it."

McGee laughed.  "Why's that?  Filled with beautiful, scantily clad women?"

"No, I'm sorry to say. What's that?" Marc said looking around toward the corridor. There was the sound of scrambling feet in the hallway and suddenly two baby dragons were flying into the room, bouncing off first one wall then the other.

"Uh oh," Marc said. "Somebody's gonna be in trouble."

McGee froze. 

Dinah set her book down and clucked her tongue at Ivy and Igor.  They giggled back.  "Where's your mama?" she asked.

They gave the dragon version of a shrug and looked around the room.  Then they waddled over to Marc.  "Hullo," they said almost in unison and turned topaz-colored eyes on McGee.  "We haven't met you yet," Ivy said.

"How odd," Marc commented. "Ivy, Igor meet Mr. McGee. McGee, these are Cola's babies. Aren't they adorable? I'm a proud granddad."

"They certainly are," McGee said steadily.  "Absolutely beautiful."

The two babies preened.  "That's our job," Igor said.

"To be adorable," Ivy explained.

"Well you certainly do it well," Dinah said, wandering over.  She rubbed Igor's nose while Ivy nudged McGee's hand with hers.  "She wants you to rub her nose," Dinah explained helpfully when McGee didn't respond.  She tilted her head at him.  "You don't look so good all of a sudden.  Are you feeling okay?"

McGee, thus spoken to, gave a start.  "I'm sorry, I was distracted there for a moment.  I'm fine."  He glanced down at Ivy, who resumed nudging his hand.  He gave it a rub in reply.

"Aaru, be so good as to open the wall over there so Cola or Kalie can come and get the kids. I think McGee might be allergic or something." 

As he said it the wall changed and went transparent and then disappeared and two adult dragon heads appeared there. Both of them looked straight at McGee.

Zaf raised an eyebrow and moved over to stand beside McGee.

McGee looked back calmly.  "I'm not allergic."

"Oh good.  That's Cola, on the left," Dinah said helpfully.  "Kalie is the one on the right.  Ladies, meet Jack McGee."

Kalie bobbed her head.

"Kalie this is Mr. McGee," Marc said. "And that's Cola, mom to the two youngsters here. Say hey to our guest, ladies."

"Mr. McGee," Kalie said.

"Hello," Cola said, lifting a claw to corral her children.  She bent and whispered something to them and they pouted but obediently headed back to their lair. 

McGee sighed.  "Hi," he said. 

"Well now that we've covered all that," Dinah said, "Maybe we can move on to words of two syllables."

"We've wanted to meet you for a long time," Kalie said. 

"I know," McGee said. 

"So now that we all know you're here from the First Ones to keep an eye on all of us, want to fill us in a bit more?" Marc asked, handing McGee a drink.  "Don't bother to deny it. We were told someone was here from them and, well, it almost had to be you."

"You make it sound like I'm the babysitter," he said and downed the drink in a single swallow and poured himself another one.  "But since you staged this little show I can assume you already know most of it."

"Well, enough to know we're asked to help the dragons evolve and we're hoping you can give us a bit of help figuring out where to start with that," Marc replied easily.

"It's a question of being able to cross the Rift unchanged.  It's something akin to a tear through space and time, hence the name."

"We've been told the first part is in the cavern but we can't read it," Dinah said.

McGee tossed the second drink back and set the glass down.  "No, I don't imagine you can."  He eyed her.  "I knew as soon as I saw you walk into that bar you were going to be trouble."

"Can you read it?" Kalie asked, uninterested in the byplay.

McGee looked at her and Cola and his face softened.  "I listened to you sing the night they left, listened to you sing them on their way and I couldn't understand how they could do it."

"How we could do what?" Marc asked.

"He does not mean you," Kalie said.  "He means the First Ones.  He is talking about the Last Days, and about Last Night.  I did not know you were there," she said to McGee.

"Ther'lin and I were both there.  It's where we met.  They asked her to help me and she agreed, God knows why.  We go back every year just as you do.  She insists."

"Ah. Last Night. I see," Marc said thoughtfully. "So does Aaru go back too?" Marc asked. He got no answer from the ship however.

"What does the relic Dermot stole off Sutta in the last moments unlock?" Zaf asked.

Marc turned to look at him. "Good question. We'll try it in the cavern too, but from what Darin said, he has two already and only one works in this cavern. And that only partially."

"As Darin has surmised," McGee said, "they left other repositories.  Portions of them are keyed to each species.  They were also practical enough that they built redundancies into things.  Fail safes."

"And can you give us a key to help us translate what we've found here?" Marc asked.

"I probably can," McGee said. 

Dinah poured herself a drink and curled back up on the couch, her legs tucked under her.  "What is it exactly that you do for them?"

McGee met her eyes and sat down across from her.  "I'm part of the fail safe system.  I'm here to make sure things don't go crazy.  That a species doesn't start destroying everything, that sort of thing.  Or that the machinery, as it were, that keeps all this in place doesn't break down. If I need to I can contact them.  They felt you should be free to become what ever it was you could and would become.  But they also knew that nothing is simple and things happen, unexpected things.  You, this place was a secret that they knew they couldn't keep forever.  Not all the Star Lords are like them, just as not all of the species here are like you.  Nor are all of the members of your species like you personally."

"Star Lords?" Marc asked.

McGee shrugged.  "Evolution is, in a sense, what determines the pecking order.  The First Ones are called that because they evolved first.  There are others who evolved after them.  They are all the Star Lords.  It's complicated.  New species, new races can alter that, upset the balance of power.  Become things to be used.  It's why they did this."

Marc frowned and said, "Actually it makes perfect sense. I my own world .. one I used to inhabit, we had a similar sort of pecking order based on which species went operant first. And a convoluted sort of Council to attempt to stop others from interfering with emergent species. I didn't much like it then. Well, I started a war over it if I'm perfectly honest about it. Still..."

"You started a war?" Anja asked.

"Long time ago, in a Galaxy far far away... Of no consequence now," Marc replied.  Then to McGee, "You must have felt terribly lonely stuck here watching over us all those eons."

"Yes," McGee said.  "As you must have, waiting and working all those eons to put things right.  Time is an amazing thing, is it not?"

"Yes, and a heartless beast too. Well, McGee, you're not alone any more. So there is that. And you Zaf, how do you fit in to all this?" Marc asked.

"Not sure. Just know I'm supposed to hang around, even when I don't want to. Tends to make me a bit short-tempered."

McGee laughed.  "The Watcher and his babysitter."

Zaf made a face.

"Well, we all need a companion," Marc said, looking over at Dinah.

McGee looked at Dinah and then Zaf.  "Wanna trade?"

Marc laughed. "Don't tempt me. She's a pain in the ass."

Dinah kicked him.  "Don't imagine you're any prize either, toots."

Marc grinned entirely unrepentant. "Okay girls," he said, looking over at the two dragons patiently watching. "I think we've got things under control. Thanks for your help."

Kalie shook her head.  "It is we who will be forever in your debt," she said.  "You do not know; you can not know.  But we thank you."

"Will you all leave when we do whatever needs to be done?" Dinah asked.

"We will have to chose," Cola said. 

"That is really what it means when we say the dragon chooses," Kalie said.  "They did not want us to be lonely.  So they gave you to us.  Some of us will stay until you can go with us."

"Well, maybe some of us will get to go along.  We'll see..." Marc said with a gleam in his eye.