"Ding dong, the monsters are dead. They're dead! And you'll never believe it, and that's good, because maybe it means I can take a break—"

"Hey, I haven't been pushing."

"No, but now everybody else has the bug. Okay. Go ahead and worry.

There are going to be nightmares, sure, and we'll get over it sometime. Me, I'm finished," Hendrick said. "I finished my calibrations on Geographic's antenna. I have some long-overdue fishing to get in, and I'm taking the weekend off."

"Sure. Alone?"

Phyllis sighed. "I've got a ton of work. Any volunteers?"

"None." Hendrick said, kissing her cheek. "So it's just me and Boogie Boy. He never gets nightmares. Zack okayed it."

"Fine. Go. I went, and it patched me back together. If I knew a cure for nightmares I'd use it on Mary Ann. Take your break, man!"

Hendrick nodded. He hoisted his rucksack over his shoulder and walked away across the dock. He left an awkward silence.

Sylvia gazed at her husband suspiciously. "Ah-ha! So what was all the giggling about? Or can't you tell me?"

"Sure, I can tell you. I just can't tell the military arm."

"What is it?"

"Close your ears, Weyland. Mary Ann deliberately faked Cadmann out and had a girl. We're going to arrange a marriage for our hapless children. We figure our grandkids will have the best genes in the Colony and end up ruling the world. We can look forward to a comfortable, secure old age."

"Ah ha."

It was late. Jessica was six days old and out of the camp's communal nursery with all tests completed. She lay sleeping in an elaborate hand-carved thornwood cradle in one corner of the biology lab. Mary Ann, Sylvia, Marnie and Zack's wife, Rachel, shared a pot of coffee.

"Cassandra!" Sylvia shouted. "Oh, damn."

"Problem?" Rachel asked.

"No more than usual. The computer's got holes in its head. Cassandra: Background search. Reproduction cycles. Search all for match to terrestrial forms.

"That gives her a hobby. Now. Speaking of reproduction," Sylvia said over her shoulder, "that leaves you and Marnie."

"Jerry and I are trying..."

"I think I'm too old," Rachel said wistfully. "Thirty-seven now. Zack and I have just about given up on children."

"Need positive thinking," Mary Ann said. Her face suddenly lit. "Psychiatrist, heal thyself." She clapped her hands, delighted with the joke.

"Cassandra," Sylvia called. "Find all on reproductive cycle emulations. Joes and pterodons." She bit her lip nervously. "The way Cassie was bunged up I just don't know how much we can expect, but let's see."

A few seconds later, FILE NOT FOUND flashed in the air.

Sylvia sighed. "I'll find it. At least they're in there. Now all I have to do is figure out the file names."

Rachel frowned. "I thought Cassandra could find anything—"

"That was the general idea," Sylvia said. "But the first grendel trashed part of Cassie's memory, and the worst is we don't know which parts. She's got holes, the way—"

"Of course. I'm sure you'll find it. Is it really important?" Rachel asked.

Mary Ann took out a worn notebook and thumbed through its pages. "There was something I heard once. I keep trying to remember. I thought about it during labor, so you know how much it must have hammered at me."

"You'll think of it," Rachel said.

"What is it?" Marnie took the notebook and browsed in it.

"I don't know, dammit. I just don't."

Sylvia said, "Nothing on this planet looks quite right. They're aliens, not Earth life forms. We found ducted glands in the samlon that hold stuff that swims around like active sperm, but they might be phagocytes of some kind. There's an embryonic set of what might be a uterus and an ovary. They're squashed flat across the intestinal wall, not much more than a pigment. And just when we were making progress, the grendel mushed up the labs! The only thing I can be sure of is that we're not sure of anything."

Mary Ann watched her with big, trusting eyes. How much had been lost from that brain? Like Cassandra, Sylvia thought. What might be triggered by the right words? "The grendels all appear to be female. They might be parthenogenic, but we don't have the equipment to be sure there isn't something like testes. The pterodons all seem to have both sets of sexual organs, but the Joes—"

"They mate like rabbits. Like we do sometimes." Mary Ann was wrestling with something, face wrinkled as if in agony, and Sylvia was only moments away from prescribing a sedative.

"Listen," Rachel said soothingly. "Stop trying so hard. Close your eyes for a moment. Stop being so serious."

"I can't help it."

"All right, what do you see with your eyes closed?"

"Joes and samlon and grendels chasing each other. I don't like it, Rachel."

"All right. Now pull back. See yourself watching that scene in a holo theater. Make the picture flatfilm. Black and white. Get some emotional distance."

Mary Ann's face calmed. "Better."

"Play circus music in the background."

Mary Ann laughed, clapping again. "That's it, it's perfect. Now they look like wooden animals on a merry-go-round. I hear a calliope in the background."

Sylvia sat back and grinned in admiration. She had never had a chance to watch Rachel work.

Rachel nodded. "Now. Open your eyes. Good. What did you have for breakfast this morning?"

"Juice and a chicken omelet. Cadmann made it. He's a good cook, good as me. I never knew."

"Good. Close your eyes again. What do you see?"

"Samlon and grendels and... frogs." Her eyes flew open. "That was really weird."

"Something Freudian, Rachel?" Marnie asked. "She might be telling you to jump in the lake."

"Maybe. Does that mean anything to you, Marnie? Any connection between Joes and frogs?"

"Behaviorally? Reproductively? Ecologically? It's probably some kind of pun."

"No, it's real," Mary Ann protested. "Something—diamonds?"

Marnie giggled.

"Oh, I just don't know." Mary Ann sat and stared at the wall.

"Sylvie—"

Sylvia's eyes were unfocused. "Damn," she said softly. "You're right. It strikes a chord. Frogs. There was a special kind of frog. Something I read once. Cassandra," she said. "String search—frogs. Cross reference: Joes, samlon, grendels."

"Ladies—" Rachel yawned—"Zack has nightmares without me to hold his, uh, hand. Ahem. I'm calling it a night."

"Make it two," Marnie added. "Sylvia, Mary Ann, till morning. Are you going back tomorrow?"

"Yes," Mary Ann said uncertainly. Her eyes were still fixed on the whirring space above the holo stage. "Now I want to stay with Sylvia. Cadmann will be back for me."

There were hugs all around, and Rachel and Marnie left the lab.

Sylvia watched the fluxing holos, occasionally freezing the images.

There were visions of tree frogs and giant African frogs powerful enough to knock a man down. Pictures of frogs as they fed and mated and were spread out under the dissection knife.

Sylvia felt something cold and nasty in the pit of her stomach. A frog with nasty habits. She hadn't believed it the first time! But it did work, it did make sense. Oh, shit!

"Mary Ann," she said hoarsely, "I want to talk to Cadmann. Would you find him, please? Bring him here."

Mary Ann backed away from her, eyes wide and frightened. "Is something wrong?"

"I don't know yet. Maybe a chance in a hundred. I hope to God I'm wrong. Because if I'm right..."

With timing that was surreally precise, Jessica woke up, and began to scream.