* * * MARS – MARY (Parthia) * * *

Mary stepped through the new portal, and grinned happily at Hawai’iloa. « Hi, how are you finding Mars? »

« Too cold. But it is beautiful. And I was the first sapient from Earth to step on its surface. » Hawai’iloa bounced on his toes and looked around like an excited schoolboy. « Is this valley to your taste? »

Mary glanced around and spread her influence. Soon the upper valley was hers. Then she steepened and reinforced the slopes. She raised a dam at the end of the claimed area. While she was doing this a score of her crabmen were fetching the pieces of two large mirror satellites through from her dungeon on Fragatta.

Hawai’iloa moved to see the correct stowage of the orbital mirrors to be. Mary for her part saw to the erecting and strengthening of the clear dome over her valley.

A minor change to her portal and the relocation of the opening on Fragatta turned it into the source of a massive jet of water complete with some bewildered and battered sea creatures.

Hawai’iloa observed the arrival of the torrent of seawater that very slowly started to fill the upper valley.

Mary waited until the overloaded Far Voyager lifted sluggishly and left her valley before she finished growing the reinforced transparent cover that formed the dome to keep all the air and water from evaporating. She watched impassively as slowly the upper valley filled. Next she called a second portal into existence and watched as a howling gale poured into her newest dungeon extension.

Now that she owned the largest – and only – liquid water lake on Mars she felt more comfortable. ‘Better. But it’s still too small. It needs to be much bigger yet,’ she mused as she eyed the rest of the valley beyond her dam. ‘Gonna be hard, lucky the gravity is so weak. Guess I need something the size of lake Superior. Well, got time yet.’ And she grinned.

* * * EARTH – HOUSTON * * *

The watchers in the mission room watched with bated breath as the exoskeletal aliens proceeded with their maintenance of their Mars orbiter. The mission controller breathed a sigh of relief as his instruments told him that the orbiter’s tanks were once again fully charged. The old batteries had already been replaced, as had the old computer. The new programming had booted up and the orbiter was now going through its self-test routine.

“No problems sir, she’s all ready to go,” said Bailey from his station.

The mission controller mentally wiped his brow. He had been extremely dubious when he had been told someone in the white house had come to an agreement with the aliens for them to fix and update this old orbiter. But it seemed that against all his expectations the aliens had done their part. He wondered what they had been promised.

They waited until the aliens left the vicinity of the orbiter and returned to their bizarre looking starship before they started nudging their renovated orbiter into a new orbit. It was time to see what else the aliens were up to.

* * *

“Holy Shit!” exclaimed someone as they came into sight of the massive satellite in stationary orbit over what looked like a water filled valley. It looked flimsy in the extreme, but it was just a massive mirror that was being used to focus sunlight down on the valley.

The aliens ignored them as they worked on a second five kilometre wide mirror.

“Sir! Check the other camera. There are people down on the surface. They look like humans!” stated an agitated Bailey.

“What! That’s ridiculous...” said someone else.

The mission controller tightened his lips; the image was good but not that good. Human sized bipeds. Yes that he was willing to accept. “The image isn’t that good Bailey. But it does look like there are other aliens down there. What I’d like to know is why almost the entire area under that dome is water.”

* * * EARTH – SOMEWHERE IN THE PACIFIC * * *

The scientific ship Galileo was barely moving as it recorded the huge thirty meter long fish that were ploughing through the rapidly diminishing accumulation of floating plastic waste. The fish had been growing turtle-like shells out of an organic plastic.

Samples taken when the fish had been tagged confirmed the scientist’s original supposition that they had evolved from whale sharks.

Red, his shaggy greying shoulder length hair blowing in the wind, was currently watching the mid sized cargo ship that was heading straight towards their subjects. He was somewhat concerned that it had come over the horizon and not deviated in its course. Red dropped his binoculars to hang around his neck and made his way to the bridge.

He found the captain watching the bridge’s radar repeater. “What do we know of that ship captain? Have you warned them away?”

“We have established contact Red. The ship is the Panamanian registered Ocean Harvester II. It belongs to Ocean Clearance and Salvage Inc. They claim they are here to both relieve their harvesters of their shells, and check their health. They claim one of their harvesters has pups that need to be freed.”

The captain looked at the stunned looking scientist. “Fred’s been checking. Ocean Clearance and Salvage exists. It’s a Hawaii corporation and it sells mercury and other metals they collect from the sea. They use genetically engineered creatures.”

Red glanced at the shelled fish that were continuing to plough through the waves. “Ridiculous. How can they possibly expect us to believe that?”

“They gave us a frequency and a challenge. Those fish are all tagged and wired. They can be probed. We did. It states they are the property of Ocean Clearance. Also each has a serial number with a date of birth.”

Red watched in impotent fury as the ship he was watching slowed. Then about a dozen naked people dove into the sea from its deck. Red’s mouth dropped open when the individuals changed, some in the air and others after diving into the sea. A dozen dolphins went frolicking amongst the modified whale sharks. Some changed back to being human again and scrambled onto the big shells.

Red left the bridge of the Galileo and hurried to gather some of his team. He gave them a brief explanation as they prepared their inflatable. Not long after Red and four of his colleagues were heading towards the harvesting team and their subjects.

One of the dolphins spotted them and moved to meet them. When they slowed the dolphin changed and was replaced by a man treading water. “Hiya, well met ladies and gents. I’m Rupert Taxis.”

Red fumed internally, “I’m Dr Simon Weismann of Institute of Marine Science from the University of Auckland. I’m in charge of the team currently studying these unique fish.”

Rupert grinned, “Unique is correct mate.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, “Those monsters belong to Mother. She made them after all. She’s pissed at the state of the oceans on this planet and has decided to do something about it.”

“They’re fish. Not monsters,” insisted Red.

“About sixty percent whale shark admixed with leatherback and squid. All that plus some plain crazy divine inspiration. They’re monsters, and you better believe it. Unlike the whale shark they are both capable of, and willing to defend themselves.”

“You can’t claim a fish. And what are you?”

Rupert laughed, “If they see us as their masters or partners, that’s all that matters, right? And we are weredolphins. Free wanderers upon the oceans, always ready to help Mother.”

Red glared at him while a couple of his team filmed everything they could see.

“Feel free to study our monsters Dr. I’m sure Mother will appreciate your papers. Just don’t get too intrusive or you might regret it. They are monsters, and they will defend themselves if they perceive they have been attacked.”

Then Rupert changed again and took off with a series of leaps and bounds and rejoined his pod.

In just over an hour the big fish were swimming freely, one now accompanied by two young and the discarded shells were being swung aboard the Ocean Harvester II.

* * * EARTH – ARENA OF BLOOD * * *

Olivier Broussette or Olli as he was known to his friends was back. He had spent the previous month researching dungeons, and to be brutally honest he had been extremely frustrated. The information available was scanty and inconsistent.

He had decided to err on the side of caution given this dungeon’s name. So now here he was watching as the forest spirit he had summoned some hours earlier moved – reluctantly into the dungeon. The endless chorus of frogs ceased the moment his spirit entered the dungeon. And once again Olli saw:

{ You have found a dungeon: The Arena of Blood }

As ordered his spirit hovered just inside the boundary of the dungeon, ready to bolt. There was a rustling in the dense grove and a sharp-toothed angular dryad emerged to confront the spirit. She looked beyond his spirit and regarded Olli with flat black eyes.

Olli stiffened his spine and stepped forward until he was just one step away from the terrain claimed by the dungeon. “May I speak with you or whomever is responsible for this marvel?”

The dryad just stared at him, Olli started to feel uncomfortable. After what seemed like an endless wait while several frogs emerged to watch the intruders, both on the ground and in the trees. Then there were further rustlings in the undergrowth, and a burly shaven headed man moved to stand beside the dryad.

Olli jerked his attention back from the blowpipe carrying frogs. “Good morning, I was hoping we could get along. I am extremely impressed with what you achieved here. I was hoping you could help me with some other blighted areas.”

“I have nothing against getting along. You can call me Frog, most do.”

Olli opened and closed his mouth a few times. “What’s with the frogs... Sorry, but while I know about dryads, I’ve never seen frogs with weapons before.”

Frog laughed. “Mother gifted me with them, they’re not as flexible as her man-rats but they share many of their abilities, and I like them better.”

“Um, do you want to sit in my car while we talk, the air-con works well.”

“No. Sorry but I’m not as reckless as Mother. I have no intention of leaving my domain.”

Olli blinked, he looked round and sighed, “Does that mean you can’t help me?”

“Not necessarily,” replied Frog as he produced his smart phone. “Let’s exchange numbers and I’ll get back to you after I’ve spoken to a few people.”

* * * EARTH – MARY * * *

Mary watched her new acquaintance out of the corner of her eye, there was something familiar in how he held himself. “So tell me Roy, you in the army?”

Roy looked insulted, “No, I’m a marine.”

Mary hid her grin and reclaimed her chair, “Hey Susie, this is Roy, a new friend. C’mon grab yourself a chair Roy.”

Roy hesitated for an instant, before receiving a quick prompt via his miniature earbud radio. So he smiled at Susie and her friends and dragged up an empty chair and sat next to Mary.

Jay was quite obviously irked. Mary couldn’t help grinning again. She could almost see the cogs go round in his head. He now knew he had made a fool of himself with some of the idiocies he’d been spouting.

“So what is Roy, isn’t he a bit old?”

Mary restrained herself; then she forced herself to relax slightly. “Roy is a journeyman ranked Warrior. Roy the guy with the big mouth is an apprentice ranked Jock named Jay. With him are Chris and Logan, both of them are apprentice ranked Minions. My sister is as yet unranked and she’s called Susie. Lacy and Kitty are likewise unranked as yet. Logan has the bonus ability Dangersense and I suspect that’s why he’s being so quiet.”

Roy noted that his teammates bantering had ceased. He felt a shiver of apprehension.

“So what are you? You said I was an apprentice ranked Minion, what are you?” asked Chris.

“Me? Why I’m a minor goddess,” answered Mary with a giggle.

Once again Roy felt his truth reading ability accept that statement as truth.