Krelian frowned slightly, staring across the table at the girl called 'Emeralda'. The name was eminently suitable, fitting her wild, jade-gren hair and the faceted impression her irises gave as they refracted light.

And she stared back, expressionless, just as quiet as her namesake might have been, had it possessed vocal skills or life in the smallest amounts.

She was a smart child, far more intelligent than he would have given her credit for, under other circumstances. But even with her advantages, she still learned like a human child. And the last thing he wanted -- or needed -- was a human child. She was here strictly for research; once her usefulness came to an end, he would begin to experiment with ways to destroy her. Even nanomachines were not invulnerable, after all. Not if one had the right knowledge...... And the will to use it.

She was beautiful, though...... her face, her body, her eyes, her hair, everything that made the little child who she was smacked of absolute perfection. There was such skill apparent in her construction it nearly filled him with envy, and Krelian desired that skill and knowledge more than he could believe of himself. To create a perfect, living being......

It was the culmination of his hopes, his goal...... to create a perfect being, a god, that would listen, and share its knowledge with the wayward human race......

Knowledge Krelian would share, before any other being. He craved understanding the way dying men crave water while crawling through the unforgiving desert sands. He needed those answers, needed to know......

Was life meaningless?

Were humans capable of the singular perfection he had witnessed in the angel that was Mother Sophia?

Were they...... loved? Was...... he...... loved?

Or was it all an illusion?

"Ka..... Krelian......?"

Krelian focused on the girl again, drawn from his thoughts by her soft, broken pronounciation of his name. Her brow furrowed for a moment as she searched for her next words. He waited as patiently as he could, grateful she knew at least part of the surface language after her lessons. But the process was dreadfully slow.

"I...... I ready...... try again."

He stared a moment longer, wondering if he really wanted to carry the lesson on. Shouldn't someone else be teaching her such simple things as language? He never went through such pains for his other subjects.

But this one is different.

"Then tell me......" he searched his mind for a simple question, one the child could understand with both her limited language skills and her lack of experience. "Tell me...... who were your parents? What were their names?" Perhaps a name would yeild more information from the records taken from the old lab.

She hesitated, mouth working silently. Comprehension was there, Krelian saw to his relief, but finding the words still seemed to be difficult to her. "Names.......? Hara... ma......." She trailed off a moment in thought, then said, "No...... parents."

Krelian blinked. No parents? She had to have come fromn somewhere; his preliminary tests had indicated the presence of human DNA in her mechanican "genetic code". There had to be something. A guardian, perhaps? A creator? "Who took care of you, then? Who put you in the nanoractor?"

Emeralda looked at him, a hint of confusion in her eyes. "Care......? Care......" Her voice became softer, grief-stricken. "Kim...... Kim..... care...... me...... El......"

"Kim? Your...... mother?" It seemed a safe assumption - the name was rather feminine.

She shook her head. "Kim...... he not....... mother. He......" Again, she seemed at a loss for words. Krelian mentally cursed the language barrier, watching her carefully. Sometimes she managed to show what she meant through pantomime - if she didn't cause more confusion in the process.

Nothing seemed forthcoming, so he continued his interrogation. "He was......? A creator?" She tilted her head to the side. Krelian pressed on. "Was this 'Kim' your creator?"

Another hesitation. Then she nodded once, decisively.

A name...... at least he finally had a name. But he didn't recall seeing it in his own records...... he supposed it would be something else to decipher from the strange Zebonese alphabet this child had introduced to him. "And the other person? Who was the other person?"

Emeralda shrugged. "I...... she...... mother......." The word seemed to come strangely to her. Perhaps they really hadn't been parents, more than simply caretakers.

"And what was her name?" Krelian asked softly, feeling like he was making some actual progress. She understood what he was saying. It was a start.

"El......ly. ...... Elly."

Shock clenched his stomach like a dragon claw. The name...... It was silly, but...... Miang did say she...... No, it was impossible.

But his first fleeting impression of the girl intruded again, and he stopped to look -- really look -- at the girl in front of him. Upturned nose, thick, unruly hair...... the way her eyebrows arch over the eyes, the way the bangs fall...... Krelian sat back in his chair, a strange, almost longing feeling passing through him as his mind latched onto the bitterweet revelation. ...... Real? Was it real?

"Her name...... Elly."


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