Christopher, who allowed no one but Marc to call him Chris, rolled over in bed and rubbed his eyes.  He and his siblings had been tracking the prophecies back through source after source, moving through time talking to the writers of the ancient texts that Melly and Dia had pointed him to, trying to find the origin of them.  When he closed his eyes he could see them, winking in the soft lighting of candlelight and firelight as he'd placed them on the table before going to bed.

The bowls, all six of them, hand carved and traced in silver, had been a fixture in his life, occupying pride of place in the family room of the commune for as long as he could remember.  The bowls had never been off limits, though Tabitha had watched them like a hawk when they were handling them until she thought they were old enough to be trusted to not damage them.  And they'd always known, all of them, that the bowls belonged to them, that they each had one.

Come to think of it, he realized, no one had ever told them that, or said this one is yours Christopher and that one is yours Logan and so on down the line.  He'd always known which one was his, from the first time he'd touched them, just as the others had.  Now he was following their trail thousands of years into the past just so he could make sense of some overblown prose that seemed to be speaking about him.

He shoved the covers off of him and stretched.  Day before yesterday he invaded the mind of the king of Ur as he was presenting the bowls to David.  Then, he'd followed them as they'd been taken from the House of David and given into the keeping of a man he recognized by the woman who'd raised him.   Unable to bring himself to invade her mind he'd invaded Orsisus's instead, hating himself for it.  And now, on the strength of what he'd learned he and his siblings had headed millions of years into the past.

They were all asleep.  His awareness of them, a thing that had been a part of him since his first encounter with them, before they'd been born, that he'd only lost once, with Brenna and Neill, told him that.  They fit together mentally like no others he'd ever met.  Now, after so long, they were like his other selves almost.  He couldn't imagine being without them.

They'd been parted many times over the years, to go to school, to university, when Brenna and Neill had visited Marc and Dinah on Aaru, but the link between them had never wavered.  Not through partings, not through love affairs or quarrels or adolescence. 

They'd arrived late last night to discover that Marc and Dinah were here.  To say it had taken him aback was the understatement of the year, especially considering the ships in orbit and the information he'd been given when he and his siblings had zapped down to the planet.  On impulse he'd brought the bowls with him.  Another impulse had led him to fill them with flowers as greeting and an announcement and place them in the room that Marc and Dinah had been given.  Now, as dawn was breaking, he was wondering if it had been a good idea or not.  Marc was very testy when it came to the bowls.

He stood and pulled on his clothes, shoving his feet into his boots and straightening his shoulders he stepped out into the common room where breakfast was getting underway.  As the crew from Aaru saw him, they went still, silence spreading in an eddy until it was complete.  He grinned.  "Morning," he said, and got himself a cup what ever they were serving in lieu of coffee, exchanginghq greetings as he crossed the room.

He settled himself at the end of the table, responding to questions but otherwise focusing on his plate.  He knew, without looking up, the instant that Marc and Dinah emerged from their room.  He also knew that they weren't surprised to see him, so the bowls had done their job.  He hoped Dinah had liked the flowers, a kind of peace offering after their last meeting.  They had seemed made for the bowls when he'd seen them.

He met Marc's eyes from across the room, the corner of his mouth kicking up.

Marc's eyebrow rose a millimeter but that was all the acknowledgment Chris got in public. Marc made himself busy getting his own cup of pseudo coffee and handing one to Dinah. Then the two of them crossed the room.

Marc took a seat once Dinah had settled in one. Then he looked a question at Chris.

"Tracing the bowls," Christopher said.  "Definitely didn't expect to see you guys here.  What is it?  My magnetic personality calling to you, irresistibly, across time and space?"

"Dinah went off on a little excursion and I followed. And here we all are. Isn't that nice, Dinah?"

"Give it a rest," she said.

"You kids need to leave," Marc said, ignoring her.

Christopher raised an eyebrow.  "Now why is that?"

"Because we just got roped into fighting a war.  You aren't part of this, so I'd like it if you all leave."  Marc paused, then added, "Please."

"I heard last night there was a war on," Christopher answered.  "Kella and I had a long chat about the ships in space.  As much as you aren't going to like it, you're going to need me," he said.  "'Sides, I ain't here as a tourist."

"You aren't a fighter, Chris. And we can't afford to lose any of you. Please. Go home to our time."

"You know it always struck me as strange, some of the things Tabitha insisted we study.  She was almost rabid when it came to all things related to warfare.  Still, though, I can see where you'd say I'm not fighter.  This won't be hand-to-hand combat and my grasp of strategy and tactics, while both broad and deep is all theoretical.  On the other hand, my grasp of the nuances of creating mental matrices is way beyond yours."

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that. You haven't seen me set up an array for offense.  I was able to fend off hundreds of magnates, men and women every bit as powerful as I am. And you are.  It's the coercion factor I have. You lack that. We'll manage without you.  Leave before you can't."

"You need to learn to listen better.  You are without a doubt the expert at using an array, but I defy you to do a better job designing or managing one," Christopher said.  "I'll ask the others when they get up just 'cause, but I can promise you, we aren't leaving.  My father was Richard the Third of England.  He'd leave his grave to haunt me for the rest of my unnatural life if I did that.  And he'd sic Liliana on you."

Marc sighed and closed his eyes, leaning back in his chair. "Talk sense into him, Dinah, please."

"I think he's right," Dinah said.  "On the other hand, Christopher, he's got a point too.  If something happened to any of you..." She sighed.  "It would haunt him for the rest of his life and that would definitely not please me at all.  And my wrath, as you  know, is not something to take for granted."

Christopher ran a number of memories through his mind.  "True, it's not.  But we aren't leaving until we deal with why we came and we can't do that until that armada is dealt with."

"What did you come for?" Lev asked, obviously interested in the discussion.

Christopher shrugged.  "Looking for the origins of some blue bowls," he said.  "The last signpost said this was the place and this was the time."

"I can tell you exactly where they are. Take them and begone with you. Take Tabitha while you're at it," Marc muttered.

"I know where they are too," Christopher said, puzzled.  "I put them there.  I thought Dinah might like the flowers."

Marc exchanged a look with Dinah, then put his head in his hands. "I hate this, I really really do."

"That's what no sex will do to a man," Dinah explained conversationally.

"Really?" Laz asked.

"Really," Dinah affirmed.  "Take heed, is my advice."

"We will," Paul said solemnly. 

"So my little sugar donut, what's the agenda for today?" Dinah asked Marc, rubbing his back.

"And what's this about a war?" Lev asked.

"Yeah, and who talked us into it?" Anja asked.

"Sugar donut?" someone asked.

"You think sweet roll is better?" Dinah asked, considering it carefully.   "It does have a certain ring, but there's no real panache."

"Go ask Kalie all about it. I'm sure she'll tell you more than she told me," Marc muttered to Anja ignoring Dinah.

"The dragons aren't around," Paul said.  They flew out at dawn and haven't come back yet.  Even the ones Christopher and them brought with them."

"Guess that means you get to tell us then, lollipop," Dinah said, reaching for his hand under the table where it couldn't be seen and entwinning her fingers with his.  "I gather Kalie finally spilled the beans?"

Marc glared at Zaf who was leaning against a convenient wall.  "It was his idea," Marc replied.

Zaf's eyes went wide.  "Me? I haven't had an idea in a million years. Ask McGee."

"Don't ask me that," McGee protested.  "I've never known what goes on in what passes for his brain."

"But something happened last night, when Kalie started singing, didn't it?" Dinah asked Zaf.  "I saw your face."

"I had too much to drink is all," Zaf replied a bit defiantly.

"Poppycock!" Dinah snapped. 

McGee leaned forward, looking past Laz at Zaf, trying, obviously, to read his face.

"Why don't you tell us what Kalie said to you," Christopher suggested, in a tone that Dinah recognized as the one his father had used to get people to obey him when he asked them to do things they didn't think they could manage.  "Maybe that will prime Zaf's pump and he'll share what he knows.  If not," Christopher went on, his tone modulating in a way that had Dinah stiffening, "well, I'm sure he knows how important this is."

Thunderclouds gathered over Marc's brows. "Don't try that, son."

Christopher turned baffled eyes his way.  "Try what?  Appealing to his sense of...of....duty?  Doesn't he have one?"

"Use that tone to anyone," Marc said through gritted teeth.

"What?" Christopher said.  "What tone?"

Marc," Dinah said, touching his arm.  "He doesn't know."

Marc turned to look at her. He closed his eyes. "Right. Sorry, Chris. Your father was really good at using that tone to talk people into doing things they didn't want to do.  And at the moment I'm backed into a corner I don't much like so I got a bit defensive. Sorry."

"Oh," Christopher said, flushing.  "I'd heard, from Stephen that he could get anyone to do anything without ever raising his voice.  He just got more and more polite...usually, and when he did that it was like he'd taken your skin off a layer at a time.  I didn't know he...I'm sorry."

"I take it," Laz said, deciding it was time to get back to business, "that the corner is war?  And the war is the one here, and that Kalie talked you into it?  Why did she do that?"

Marc toyed with his coffee. "The Rift does not yet exist. The people we know as Old Ones are what is left of a race of Star Lords. Originating here. Another race of Star Lords followed them here to kill them all, and/or destroy the Earth. No pressure."

"And that's who's in orbit?  And who attacked last night?" Laz clarified.  "Why do they want to destroy them? Or Earth?"

"To destroy the genetics," Marc replied. "Incidentally killing all of us, of course."

"The genetics?" Dinah repeated.  Then her face altered.  "Are you saying...?"

"I understand we have to learn to defeat them here, so we can defeat them in our time on the Rim. And, incidentally, apparently, help to get the Rift put in place to protect us all."

McGee set his cup down carefully, his eyes on Marc.  "Put the Rift in place?  The Silka did that, without help.  Once they were..." He broke off running his hands through his hair, the gears spinning in his brain reflected in his eyes.  "It all makes sense now," he said to himself.

"Well, don't be shy. Explain it to all of us," Lev drawled. "If I'm going to get my ass killed in a war, again,  I'd like to understand what it is I'm supposed to be fighting for."

"The Silka," McGee said slowly, "were engineered from a pre-sentient race, that had reached a dead end, in such a way that over night practically they changed."

Dinah eyed him, her own gears shifting into overdrive, a fact obvious only to Marc.  She cut McGee off, not wanting to discuss genetics yet and said to Lev, "The Rift keeps the presumed bad guys out and us in.  It was put in place to give the races inside it time to evolve without interference or coercion.  In our time it's breaking down because the Silka are dying.  That's what Colin and Kal are working on.  Then a few days ago the dragons and Marc, McGee and I crossed the Rift to the other side.  The bad guys know that and that the Dragons, who are beloved by the First Ones are returning to the universe outside the Rift."

"And what was it you remembered, Zaf?" Anja asked the big fellow looking as if he didn't feel he was part of the group.

Zaf's eyes went to Marc. "That I set the mind trap that brought Dinah here."

Dinah, thinking about genetics, almost missed it.  "You what?" she asked, holding onto her temper with an effort.

"We orchestrated everything to get you and Marc back here for this battle.  It was Marc's design. I implemented it," Zaf replied. "What we didn't anticipate was that it would put you in danger."

She turned emerald fire on her lover.  "What's he talking about?" she rasped.

"No idea. What are you smoking, Zaf?"

Zaf shrugged.

"Wait," Anja said softly. "The children, pardon me Christopher but for us you are still four, are part of this as well?"

Marc frowned and shook his head. "I don't know what the plan was - is - Anja."  Then he swung his eyes around to McGee. "And what, Jack, do you remember or surmise about all of this?"

"That it's going to be one hell of a war and that we need Aaru and Ther'lin if we're going to fight a space battle.  And any other of Cephei who will come," McGee said. 

"Why would Aaru come? She's Azael's companion, not ours," Marc asked.

"Because we will ask her to," McGee said.  "If Earth is destroyed the ripples will spread far beyond a backwater planet with an insignificant yellow sun.  If the Old Ones are lost, if their genetics are lost, then the Awakened will never emerge, and those six children will never be born.  If they aren't born the Rift is never built and all the races that were able to live inside it and evolve in relative peace are at risk.  If the Star Lords win here their power outside the Rift grows and the Cephei have a stake in that as well."

"I still don't get why it's us all this is riding on. Why can't the First Ones do all this?  They're more powerful, wiser, and we're not Star Lords,"  Lev commented.  "And apparently whoever the bad guys are they're powerful enough to almost destroy another race of Star Lords."

"Because they are fighting on other fronts," McGee said.  "And, I'm sorry to contradict you Lev, but the Old One's decimated themselves.  The Star Lords in orbit are carrion crows, opportunistic pricks, feeding on what they think is road kill."

"But there's more, isn't there?" Dinah said.  "It's what I can do and what Marc can do, and what the children can do.  They knew, didn't they, that they needed to reach into the future for what they didn't have, because someone knew what happened here..."  She laughed humorlessly.  "Remember Marc, when Mac said I could destroy planets with my mind, that day on St. Michael's with Milt.  And what happened when I put that linkage in place between us."

McGee looked at Zaf.  "In almost all realities, all time streams, this battle was lost.  So the First Ones went back in time to before this battle,looking for a reality where it wasn't lost.  Once we knew how it was won, we began to put the pieces in place so that there would only be one outcome here, and time won't branch into different slipstreams from this.  It's a gamble, an enormous risk.  But the alternative is desolation."

"Like I said, no pressure," Marc added, with a weak laugh.

"So I guess we're staying," Christopher said.  He grinned at Marc.  "Hanging around you and Dinah was always more exciting than anything else ever was."  He raised his cup.  "I'm so glad I know you two.  You'd have driven my father crazy.  Here's to you two."

"Yeah, well, make damn sure I don't get your asses killed," Marc replied.