'Why must there be suffering?’ Gideon demanded.

  'How should I know?” retorted Brel. ‘I only work here. I'm guessing it's one of those Higher Purpose thingies the Boss adheres to. So what's it going to be?'

  Bronte considered her plight. Her friends, family and lover were dead and gone. The world she had known from a hatchling was to be irrevocably changed and she would not survive the transition in the guise of a Thunderfoot. What had she to lose?

  'Okay Brel, do what you have to.'

  'And such enthusiasm too!’ exclaimed the Greyling. ‘A grand choice, if I may say so, my dear. I'm all for making me look good in front of the Big Guy.'

  'Just one thing,’ Bronte said first. ‘Why me? How come I was picked to be one of the Chosen?'

  'You were selected by the same process your branded cohorts and the ape over there were. Lottery.'

  Gideon exploded. ‘What!'

  'Your names were drawn out of a cosmic bag, so to speak,’ Brel elucidated in a condescending manner. ‘Did you think you were all something special?'

  Gideon gave the Greyling his sternest glare. ‘Your beside manner leaves something to be desired.'

  'I'm not here to be popular, ape, just efficient. Let's get started, shall we?'

  'I haven't got my Energy Dome,’ bemoaned Gideon.

  'You do have rather a high opinion of yourself, don't you?’ Brel was having a great deal of fun deflating Gideon's ego. ‘You've merely been a courier, my boy, delivering the message of hope and your vital genes to this offbeat little planet. Only the Big Guy has the real power to create proper life. Don't think for one minute he didn't notice your lot tinkering with robotic and artificial intelligences—shame on you for playing God. He wasn't too impressed with the Tsor bioengineering either, but at least some good is going to come from their experimentation. Now can we please get underway? I'm on a tight schedule.'

  'I'm not sure I want to continue,’ said the Berranian.

  Brel sighed loudly. ‘Having doubts, ape?'

  'Resurrecting the Tsor, even partially, troubles me. They weren't exactly a friendly species. I'm not comfortable with using them as a springing board to launch humankind anew, now that I know the full story.'

  'It's a package deal,’ Brel reminded him. ‘Take it or leave it.'

  Gideon glanced pointedly at the hulking Killjaws. ‘I'm concerned that some of their nastier attributes will rub off.'

  Brel consulted his digital diary. ‘According to the Big Guy's blueprints, the new humans should have simian intellect and compassion coupled with saurian robustness. A perfect trade-off, I think. Satisfied?'

  'I guess so,’ Gideon sullenly replied.

  The Greyling waved away his notebook and ostentatious timepiece before clapping his hands. An aura of that same bluish light he had emerged from enveloped Brel's hands and arms, although there was a reddish tinge around the edges now. There was an ominous rumble from above and he glanced peevishly up. ‘No, I haven't forgotten to say the words, lame as they are.'

  Lightning forked across the murky, ash-laden sky.

  'Alright, don't get in such a tiz. I'm just suggesting you hire a new speechwriter. This holy book you've got planned ain't going to be a bestseller if it's badly written.’ Brel cleared his throat. ‘We have gathered here this day to witness the union of this ape and this lizard, blah, blah, blah.'

  Alphie dived from Gideon's lap as arcs of purple fire shot out of the Greyling's palms, one each striking the Berranian and the Thunderfoot squarely in the chest. Gripping his ends of the streams in either hand, Brel tied them together in a knot, joining Gideon to Bronte, the link flashing from blue to green then yellow in rapid succession.

  'All yours, Boss,’ Brel called up to the heavens.

  Bronte had the queerest sensation of being enfolded by the power of an immeasurable presence. She could literally feel herself infusing Gideon's essence, swept forward into him on the crest on that vast omnipotence. Her eyes glazed over unseeingly, although images paraded before her vision. She was privileged to be viewing the Berranian people through the explorer's recollections and schooling as a distraction from the radical transformation her body was undergoing at the cellular level. The animalistic cow was dunked headfirst in a technological culture and her giddy mind swam from the immersion.

  Bronte found herself standing in a forest of steelcrete aboard one of the cylindrical floating cities in orbit high over Berran, crushed by an interracial multitude going about their daily business. Next instant she was being transported by shuttle sphere to the planet's regenerated surface, wasted after centuries of pollution and environmental neglect, but bearing the fruits of a millennia-long restoration program which cleansed the dirtied oceans and replanted vast tracts of deforested woodlands and rainforests. Cities bustling with human life abounded planetside, metropolitan areas purposefully designed and built to blend in with and enhance their natural surroundings, rather than detract from their environs with callous architectural brutality. Bronte was suddenly shot through the starred heavens and visited a dozen or so alien worlds, each teeming with exotic flora and fauna too bewildering and bizarre to describe. It was a dizzying roller coaster ride across the galaxy and back again that was both exhilarating and daunting.

  Going against her better judgment, the impressed Thunderfoot actually found herself liking humanity. To be sure they exhibited faults, but they had worked cooperatively to remedy as best they could the damage caused by ignorance and indifference, pestilence and conflict. Bronte was finding the sense of adventure in the irrepressible, if egotistic, human spirit to be infectious. She dwelled on what it would be like to share in that roving quest to learn all that is knowable and began forgetting the simpler ways of the Thunderfeet and her promised heritage as Matriarch.

  Gideon's ride was not half as fun. He was subjected to a montage of reptilian experiences, ranging from unnerving sensations of primitive quadrupeds living with the constant fear of predatory attack in uncontrolled environs where the weather dictated life choices, to blurry impressions of higher saurian life in a distinct warrior caste where the infamous Tsor arrogance was drawn from overwhelmingly strong racial pride. The Berranian was numbed by lizard resolve, a commitment to cause and belief that overrode even common sensibilities, so that with every second of exposure a sliver of his self slipped away to coalesce with that inhuman tenacity. Gideon felt oddly cheated.

  Alphie poked his nose around the trunk his human seat rested against. Gideon was still linked to Bronte by that fiercely glowing cord of pulsating energy, a faint, purplish aura wrapped about both. He looked at Brel, now as much a bystander as he, noting the intense concentration on the Greyling's repellent face. Without warning the stream of energised light shattered with a loud bang and the startled Treefur squeaked in alarm.

  Gideon slumped to lie on his side before the cottonwood, unbreathing, while fragments of glowing yellow swirled about in the air over his body like a swarm of fireflies, before abruptly being drawn to Bronte as if metal to a magnet. The Thunderfoot was encased in that cloud of glittering light from snout to tail, shimmering now from one colour to the next as it reproduced all the hues of the rainbow in rapid succession. Those particles were not the only thing being transformed. The Thunderfoot's massive frame, outlined by her multicolour coat, was changing shape, steadily decreasing in size like a balloon losing air. Her titanic form shrank faster and faster, her slimming neck and tail shortening, her stout legs becoming slender and elbowed. The mutating cow's overcoat of blinking lights fused into a single flash of blinding white light, then there was a vivid, soundless explosion of colour.

  Brel murmured his approval. ‘The Boss is a sucker for a glitzy finale.'

  The staring Treefur simply refused to believe his eyes. Bronte, last Matriarch of the Thunderfeet, was now a ten-inch long, shrew-like placental mammal that held the distinction of being the world's earliest primate. The Transformation had worked!

  Alphie edged over a protruding root for a better glimpse of the rejuvenated dinosaur. Large, innocent eyes looked along an elongated muzzle up at the curious marsupial inspecting her. Soft, luxurious grey-brown fur adorned her upper body, becoming cream on the underside from her cheek pouches and swollen belly to the base of her amazingly bushy tail. Bands of black fur around her eyes lent the prosimian a cheeky look and she fidgeted unsurely with her five-toed feet.

  'She's gorgeous,’ admired Alphie.

  'You've got to hand it to the Almighty,’ Brel fondly remarked, ‘whenever He creates something, He does it with style. The changeling is indeed exquisite.’ The Greyling's notebook began bleeping urgently and he retrieved it from the empty air, scanning the text compulsively. ‘That comes as no surprise. She's pregnant.'

  'How?’ Alphie blurted out.

  'Not by Immaculate Conception, that's for sure. According to my updated dossier, she was with calves prior to her mutation. It seems her bull was quite a virile boy and fathered a clutch on the first go. Anyhow, it spared the Big Guy the trouble of impregnating her from scratch. He merely had to rework the saurian eggs into a litter of foetal changelings.'

  'When is she due?'

  'Within a day or so.'

  Alphie looked over at the stilled Killjaws and their backdrop of slowed time. ‘What happens now?'

  'It is time to wake the dead,’ the Greyling announced. ‘The ape hasn't quite completed his task.

  Brel walked jerkily over to the unmoving Berranian and gently placed a blue-glowing hand on his back. Gideon took in a great gulp of air and sputtered back into life. Brel blew out the nimbus surrounding his hand with a sharp puff of breath and whispered in satisfaction, ‘The Hand of God.’ He helped the revived explorer back into a sitting position. Gideon literally looked like death warmed over.

  'Is it finished?’ he croaked.

  'See for yourself,’ instructed Brel. The wobbly Greyling stepped aside.

  A faint smile crossed Gideon's parched lips and his bleary eyes lit up when he viewed the cute ball of fur. ‘Thank God,’ he murmured.

  'You'll be seeing the Big Guy soon enough, then you can thank him in person,’ said Brel. ‘Meantime, we've got to wrap things up before you do. The changeling needs to get away from here to a safer place.'

  'Transportation's arrived,’ Gideon wheezed, indicating his parked starsphere with a roll of his eyes.

  'She is need of a guide, somebody to look out for her.'

  Gideon gazed blankly at the prompting Greyling.

  'The conception of the reborn Chosen One was a traumatic experience,’ Brel explained, ‘and so, in order to muffle the shock, her mind was numbed then wiped clean. All memories of her former identity have been erased. She lacks now even basic survival skills and therefore requires a teacher who'll show her the mammalian ropes. Know of any volunteers?'

  The aliens looked as one to the gawking Treefur.

  'Hold your horseflies,’ said Alphie. ‘I've just spent my days minding Bronte as a Thunderfoot.'

  'He has job experience,’ Brel confided to Gideon.

  'And now the pair of you are conniving to make me into her minder full-time.'

  'Would you rather stay here and play happy families with the Killjaws?’ Gideon bluntly asked.

  The Treefur balked at that suggestion. ‘On second thought, it'd be my pleasure to chaperone Bronte some more.'

  Brel was pleased. ‘How good of you to offer. Now that's settled, I can finally be on my way.’ An insistent rumble from above interrupted the Greyling's closure. ‘What? Oh, you've got to be joking!’ he moaned to the broody sky. ‘I'm booking in overtime for this.’ There was a second, sulkier rumble.

  Gideon watched Brel's fingers dance over his notebook and heard him mutter something about ‘hating last minute additions'. ‘What's wrong?’ he frowned.

  'The Boss has sprung a surprise on me and it's rather a doozy. He has directed me to transform the Chosen Killjaw also.'

  Berran's sole remaining expatriate was horrified. ‘Whatever for?'

  'Simple math. Good needs a standard to be measured against and that can only be a degree of Evil. The Big Guy's thinking is to introduce a reshaped, though strictly limited, element of badness into the future of this world. Maintaining the cosmic balance, that sort of thing.'

  'That'll put a smile on old carrion-breath's muzzle,’ remarked Alphie, glowering at the statutary Rexus. ‘What's his son going to be changed into?'

  'Nothing flash,’ revealed Brel. ‘He'll stay reptilian.'

  'Why won't he show himself?’ Gideon suddenly asked, ‘or speak aloud. God, I mean.'

  The Greyling was perplexed for a moment. ‘Oh, the rumbling cloud thing. He's camera shy. The Almighty may be omnipotent, but he's awfully bashful and self-effacing.'

  Brel dropped the matter and raised a glowing hand, clenched tightly in a fist, in the direction of Luthos. A bolt of red light shot forth to strike the immobilised Killjaw Prince after the Greyling extended his arm. The struck predator abruptly became animated, writhing noiselessly while being buzzed by the many-coloured lights. He shrank incredibly fast in size and form, so when the flash of light ending the sequence of mutation had faded away, a legless reptile, perhaps six and a half feet long, lay twitching in place of the heir-apparent to the Killjaw throne.

  Alphie regarded the sinister-looking creature nervously. ‘What is it?’ he asked in a quavering voice.

  Reading from his invaluable notebook, Brel supplied, ‘The Boss calls him, sorry her, a snake.'

  Gideon laughed weakly. ‘Rexus got his wish after all, though I think he'll be displeased. You not only changed Luthos into an ignominious reptile, you re-sexed him to boot. He won't take too kindly to having a daughter now.'

  The Greyling continued to read from his digital text. ‘Be warned, rat.’ Alphie listened worriedly while Brel quoted,’ “The serpent will prey chiefly upon the changeling and her kin. Thus it is deemed, so that she may draw courage from the constant danger posed by the evilness the limbless lizard represents."'

  The Treefur studied hard the reformed Luthos, red-skinned with darker bands striping the back down to touch her cream belly like ragged scratches. ‘She doesn't look especially dangerous,’ he supposed.

  Brel chuckled in his musical voice. ‘Trust me, this mutated Killjaw's bite is far worse than her bark.'

  'I take it she's heavy with cubs as well.'

  'Any heavier and she'd sink into the ground. It is easier creating life in an egg than a womb.’ Brel again shelved his notebook in the nothingness. ‘That concludes our little session. I have reams of official forms set out in triplicate to wade through resulting from this add-on and had best get on with them.'

  'I have a question,’ Alphie put to Brel.

  'Make it fast,’ consented the Greyling.

  'If small and furry wins the day, no-snout, how come we Treefurs couldn't whelp these precious hu-mans of yours? Why go to all this trouble of remaking a longneck?'

  'That's two questions, my forward little rodent.'

  'I never could count. Well?'

  'You won't like the answer.'

  'Let me guess—we were too small?'

  'Not in the slightest. Wrong genes. Have yourselves a good life all of you, whether in the present or the hereafter.'

  Brel snapped his fingers and the blue aura he emerged from shone into being at his back. Alphie and Gideon watched the Greyling turn, step into the nimbus and say in parting, ‘Remember to always keep the faith,’ before vanishing. The bluish cloud dissipated like wind-blown smoke.

  The celestial rain eased off and stopped completely as the background haze began to recede.

  'We haven't a moment to lose,’ gasped Gideon.

  'You're telling me,’ agreed Alphie. He noticed one of the Killjaw king's stunted forearms quiver. The stoppage of time was wearing off.

  Gideon meant otherwise, but lacked the stimulus to dispute the issue. His immediate death and the incoming asteroid seemed somehow trivial. ‘Vai, are you functional?’ he radioed.

  There was a heart-stopping pause before the cybernate responded. ‘All systems up and running, honey. That's funny. My universal clock must be acting up. Shipboard instrumentation records a time discrepancy. I'll run a quick diagnostic to...'

  'Forget that,’ rasped Gideon. ‘Lay in that course for the far north and power up. You have two passengers to transport.'

  'Two?’ queried Vai.

  Gideon spoke hurriedly to Alphie, his voice dying into a whisper. ‘Take Bronte in my ship and get as far from here as you can.’ With a nod of his lolling head the flagging Berranian gestured to the starsphere, splitting in half to reveal its couched interior. ‘Don't be afraid. Vai will take good care of you. Go quickly now, and Godspeed.'

  The Treefur scurried over to the opened spaceship and paused beside the shiny hull, his whiskered nose twitching furiously as he came up on his haunches. The changeling, drawn to the one beast she had an affinity for, copied the wary marsupial. He looked back at the stricken alien, who smiled kindly at him. Taking a running jump, Alphie leaped into the innards of the alien craft and the changeling followed.

  'Monkey see, monkey do,’ Gideon murmured with his failing breath. The mother of all mammals was in good paws.

  'Aren't you coming, sweetums?’ There was a catch to Vai's synthesised voice.

  'Not this ... trip.’ Gideon forced the halting words from his numbing mouth. ‘My ... time is ... up.'

  'Computers aren't programmed to love,’ Vai proclaimed, ‘but I'm a learning processor. Over the ontwas I've developed a genuine affection for you, Commander, which transcends my programming. It is has been my honour to serve you, my sweet.'

  The exobiologist was profoundly touched by Vai's declaration. That made his final command to her even harder. ‘Thank you ... Vai. After ... delivering your ... packages ... execute ADS one-zero-one ... authorisation ... Gamma Sigma sixty ... confirm.'

  'Acknowledged,’ she said sadly.