Over the past few months, Marc had been staying busy upgrading his CE rig, which he'd installed into Aaru almost the first moment they'd decided to visit the Rim. He hadn't actually tested all the enhancements live, at least not with him hanging out in space in the Rig and actually setting up a metaconcert utilizing the new features he'd added. He'd also revamped the dead-man switch so there was no calling him back if he didn't want to be, but that was between him and the rig and no one else's business.

Cal had happily helped, since Aaru was extremely low maintenance, and this was primarily why Cal had even come along, was to play with new and different technology and up until now he'd not been tested in any way shape or fashion. This though, when Marc went into the guts of the CE Rig and amplified this and tamped down that and they'd run simulations and tests and dress rehearsals, well, Cal had been in his glory.

"So, it's for real," Marc finished, outlining what he had in mind to Cal.

Reno stood in the background frowning as he listened. He wasn't any tech wizard but he had learned a thing or two about operating the CE Rig in the past and it sounded to him like mostly what Marc had done was remove nearly all the governors that stopped the bloody thing from frying his brain. Instead Marc would control it and could, in essence, burn his own brain into a supernova with the power he'd added to the arrays.  And, Reno was willing to bet, Dinah didn't know a thing about the added risk to Marc when he got into it this time.

Not that the last time hadn't been dangerous. Even so....

Marc and Cal had their heads together over the control panel, Marc giving last minute directions regarding his current worries and what to do if things went bad.

"I'll run through the complete test set before I attempt to begin to create the metaconcert," Marc said to Cal. "Then, if all lights are green, it's a go."

Cal nodded.  "And if something goes wrong?  How do we get you back?"

"Same as always. I'll activate from the rig."

"What he means is," Dinah said from the doorway, "what if you're not functional and we need to do something to get you back so I don't die from the loss of you?"

Marc turned around and met her eyes. "Not gonna happen."

"Since when did you become able to predict the future?"

Marc's lips sent into a line and his jaw began working. After a moment spent getting his emotions in order, which Dinah saw clearly through their bond, he said, "If I'm non-responsive you should be able to get me back using the bond."

"Should be able?" she repeated.

Reno looked like he badly wanted to get the hell out of there.

"I'll give you the code to activate the return switch. It's to be used only if I'm non-responsive and you don't sense me through the bond as being aware. All right?"

"Thank you," she said softly. 

He nodded to her and went back to the countdown they were doing. He already wore the one-piece pressure suit with all the leads.

Reno glanced over at Dinah, giving her a worried look.  She raised an eyebrow, signally delicately her willingness to be confided in.

The two of them slipped out of the room and neither Marc nor Cal noticed. When they were a safe distance away, Reno said, "He's disabled all the safeties, Dinah. Well, not so much as disabled as removed them. The Rig is a bunch more powerful than it was before. Granted, with the genetics he has now, he's more powerful, but still. And knowing Marc, I'm thinking he's planning on using the damn thing full power."

"When this is over," she said, "he's a dead man."

"Crap. So am I when he finds out I told you," Reno said miserably.

"When I get done with him you'll have nothing to worry about," she said. 

"So you say. He'll look at you and you'll melt," Reno groused.  He paused. "They're powering up now. He'll be climbing in. If you wanna wish him well we better get back there."

"Thanks for telling me," she said and went back in, waiting until Marc turned around again, her eyes owlish.   She stepped closer and said, "Good luck."

"Thanks, luv. Don't worry. It'll be fine."  He kissed her tenderly.

She sighed and stepped back.  "I'll be here," she said.

He climbed into the Rig and Reno and Cal helped hook him up to all the leads. They ran a quick systems check then the coffin closed over Marc and all three stepped well back as the Rig shuddered for a second then disappeared.

Dinah let out a breath and closed her eyes for a moment before taking a seat where she could see the control panel but was out of the way.  Then she focused inwardly on the bond between them and settled back to wait.

Chris, back at the Refuge, was the first to sense Marc's mental invitation. He giggled and sent his mind racing across the distance of time and space to snuggle into the place Marc had made for him.

Other minds, those of the Refuge and some from Aaru, began joining them one by one.  Christopher watched as each one was added, doing what he always did, weaving them into a joined pattern that maximized the individual potential of each within the array as a whole.  The last two were McGee and Zaf.  Christopher slid into McGee's mind and stopped at the total strangeness of it.  Then, wriggling with fascination, he started to look around, mapping the topography of, probing as he did so, identifying what each part of it did.  It was the most complex mind he'd ever entered. 

The normal human brain is made of two hemispheres each comprised of lobes or areas.  McGee's was constructed more like a soccer ball with vaguely hexagonal sections taking the place of the hemispheres.  Each section was highly specialized as Christopher discovered.  But as he descended deeper he found that beneath the section was an intricate array of joinings, coupling the sections together, one to one and in daisy-chained arrays but also in a variety of other configurations depending on the function of the section, while other joinings from a section disappeared into some other...space.  As he absorbed instinctively the ramifications and purposes the wiring, as it were, he discovered that it wasn't hardwired as a human brain was, requiring some outside agent like himself to rework the connections.  McGee's brain seemed to be doing it on its own in response to some sort of signal.  In effect it redesigned itself on the fly choosing a more optimal configuration for a given situation.  Christopher watched with delight as it rearranged itself in response to the metaconcert, finding a matrixed array that optimized McGee's contribution to the whole.

The last mind to join was Zaf's. His was closer to human but was still new and different and Christopher again chortled with glee as he poked it and prodded it and tested it and fit it in to  the last spot in the array.  As he did so, power began to flow upward toward where Marc sat at the top of the entire construction.

Both McGee and Zaf could see that they were subordinate to his great mind. Marc could have forced his way into their minds, but instead he turned his attention and powers toward the great ships. Marc sent a signal to both creatures, and then, faster than the blink of an eye, the array pulsed power and the two ships disappeared from where they'd been, reappearing in orbit above Tyvek.

There was a moment, and only a moment, when Marc drew in even more power. Power enough to reach to the end of the Rift, to test the reaches, to send behind the known and perhaps even jump into the unknown, but then the power from the minds in the array began to lessen and Marc signalled to Chris to begin to unravel the array.

Christopher pouted, making it plain he didn't want to.

Marc turned the light of his mind on Christopher and showed him a vista beyond all of the known with a promise to explore it.  But not today. Undo the array, Marc instructed again.

Christopher pouted and did so.

Marc's laughter filled Christopher's mind as the array began to unassemble itself, individual minds dropping out in the opposite order from which they'd been added. At the end it was just Christopher and Marc and the two of them looking into the abyss. If anyone else had still been connected they'd have been hard pressed to figure out which mind was the one most eager to step off into it.  Then, with a mental hug for Christopher, Marc cut the connection to the child and sent the CE Rig back down to Aaru.

Dinah felt the temperature drop as the rig reappeared and she slumped back in the chair in relief.

The cold of deep space made the Rig pop and crack as it settled, but Cal was grinning broadly and Reno looked relieved. Ing came into the room then saying, "In synchronous orbit around Tyvek.  We left our shadows far behind," he added, grinning broadly.

"Well let's not linger here," Dinah said, "just in case.  Let's pick up some water and Darin and get out of here."

Ingev saluted and set off to get the wheels in motion to accomplish that. The CE Rig cracked open and Marc lay there waiting for the leads to retract and free him from the coffin. Then, when the helmet rose from his mind, pulling the needles out of his brain and leaving a line of minute holes all with blood droplets marking them, he sat up, grinning.   "I've missed that," he announced.

"Jack ass!" Dinah hissed and left the room.

"What'd I do this time?" Marc asked Reno and Cal.

"Dunno boss. Maybe you better go make up. But not til after you get that smelly gunk off you. Why does it smell so bad still," Reno muttered as he and Cal helped Marc out of the Rig and caught him when his knees gave way for a second.

Cal handed Marc a towel when he was upright again.  "I suspect it's a matter of you enjoyed it and it scared the tar outta her," he offered and then went back to play with the hardware.

"Reno," Marc threatened.

"What? I didn't say a word, I swear!"  He got Marc into the shower and then, dressed and sent him off toward Dinah.

Meanwhile, all three of the Darroch kids arrived along with Chola. Darin had the water.

Ingev found Dinah on the bridge and gave her the news.  "Okay," she said.  "Let Ther'lin know she's in charge."

Ingev had Aaru and Ther'lin arrange things and the two ships took off, Ther'lin in the lead, and Aaru not far behind.

Marc had gone back to their quarters and laid down on the bed, hungry, but too exhausted to do anything about it.

Dinah found him there, food and scotch in hand.  She set the tray down and sat on the edge of the bed.  "Do you want food or sleep first?"

"His brain, Dinah, what a thing," he replied struggling to sit up, his eyes alight. "Christopher loved it."

"Christopher's brain?" she asked, pushing him back against the pillows.

"No, McGee's. It's not even remotely human. Zaf is different too, places of darkness he can't reach. Very odd."

"That Christopher can't reach?" she asked, passing him a sandwich.

"Not sure. We didn't really look," he replied between bites.

"What did you see?" she asked, pouring him a drink.

"I think we had enough power to go beyond the Rift. I could see it's rough outlines, or at least that's the best way I can describe it. It seemed... it wasn't in our dimension.  The edges show in ours but goes where I can't see. Even so, with a metaconcert like that I think I could take it down. It was tempting..." he added soberly.

"Tell me why you get to decide that?"

He looked over at her surprised. "Decide what?"

"Whether to take it down."

"I didn't," he replied, frowning at her.

"I know you didn't," she said.   "But you say it like you will, eventually."

"Did I?" He asked, casually. "What are you saying?"

"That maybe before you decide to take it out, you find the gate and check out what's on the other side," she said, offering him the plate of sandwiches.  "In spite of your dislike of it, it may be that it really is a good thing for the billions of lives on this side of it...you being demonstrably and wholly unique, what's good for you might not be for them."

"Good point. I'm glad you made it," he said taking another sandwich.  "Although, I suspect someone will be coming through to check us out before we get a chance to find the door. I attracted someone's attention."

"Oh?" she said.

"Hmm," he said as he fortified himself with the scotch. "We kind of lit up the mental sky, you know."

"Oh?"

"Well, I needed power to move these ships. I had it. And somebody cast a mental eye on us. Not sure what species. But it was there for a second. Maybe it winked at me," he added with a grin.

"Oh."

"Oh. I do something extraordinary and you say 'oh.'  Okay," he said, sounding slightly miffed.  "I wonder what McGee thought of it."

"I am impressed.  I'm just trying to absorb the implications.  And wondering who it might have been," she added after a pause.  She smiled at him and offered him another sandwich.  "Had enough food? Can I put the plate down?"

"Yes, put the plate down and lie here with me until I fall asleep."

She smiled again and snuggled up against him.  "Darin brought Dara, Dermot and Chola with him."

"Dammit. We're supposed to be secretive," Marc muttered as he shifted to make them both more comfortable.  "Darin I think is reliable but Dermot... Sheesh."

"You like Dermot," she reminded him.

"I do. But I don't trust him further than I'd trust myself. He's as bad as I am about getting caught up in something and forgetting the big picture."

"We can put them off somewhere.  Maybe having Darin along isn't worth it?"

"No, I think he's indispensable. Well, Laz will keep an eye on Dermot. What else?"

"How are we gonna keep them aboard if the Silka don't want them there?" she asked.

"We have to hope they want all of us there. I'm thinking the fact we broke McGee free will be a point in our favor, don't you?"

"Maybe," she said.  "Is it Tabitha who's coming?"

"Tabitha?  What's she got to do with anything?"

"If we need another healer," she said.

"Oh. Hmmm. I really figured ours could handle it. But do you think she'd want to?"

"I don't know.  It's just there's only Kal and I think you should give it some thought just in case.  Just like I think you should give some thought to what your back up plan is if the healers can't help them."

"Hmmm," he replied, as his breath began to even out.

"One more thing before you head for the land of Nod."

His eyes fluttered open and he smiled. "What?'

"You're my life.  I'd be grateful if when you decide to start playing dice with yours you let me know."

"You worry too much, my love," he replied.

"Do I?  I could say the same of you every time I think of Anja."

He met her eyes.  "Ah. I see. Pick on the man when he's weak and tired and he can't defend himself."

She leaned over and kissed him.  "Sleep well."