Chapter 42

***This article contains spoilers.***

## Summary

Captain Farley's pirate frigate tried to escape but Calara disabled it. When she asked John what he wanted to do about it, he gave the kill order: "*They knew the consequences when they turned to that kind of life*."

The team transported their passengers to Port Cadmus. The man with the girl thanked Rachel for avenging his wife.

Rachel tells the team about her mother. On a shopping trip she was ambushed, her guards killed, and she was kidnapped. They demanded 20 million for her release thinking easily pay it, but apparently they didn't know how stubborn Henry Voss was. They never found the kidnappers, so Rachel asks if they can look into it after the Maliri trip.

Rachel presents her findings from before they were side-tracked into rescuing the cruise passengers:

* John’s third strand was almost completely inactive in his sample taken as an 18-year-old. At some point between then and her recent sample, significant sections of the third strand of DNA have been enabled.

* This was likely his body's reaction to feeding Alyssa semen on the Fool's Gold. His Progenitor genes were activated, instinctively thinking he was getting her ready to breed.

* John's semen massively boost the girls' telomeres, structures that constantly repair DNA. John's DNA as an 18-year-old has normal Terran telomeres. Now they are "super telomeres," working on overdrive.

* He won't revert to an 18-yead-old, since his "template" was taken from the time his Progenitor genes were activated. Calara notes that it's good he made the deal with Alyssa now, rather than waiting until he's 80.

* The entire Progenitor species has been genetically modified in their third stand. John's ears, enhanced hearing, and "equipment" are examples of this, but they've always been innately psychic.

* Jade's Nymph species is a genetic construction made exclusively by the Progenitors. They seem to have drawn in and melded different genetic traits together, using a form of feline DNA structure as a base, but that parent structure is so massively modified it’s a tenuous genetic link at best. This explains why Jade is genetically compatible with John, but not other species. Her aversion to using guns could be due to Progenitors not wanting them to use weapons. However, the reason they were left on Lenarra is unknown. Since the last known Progenitor in the area was 10,000 years ago, it'd make Jade at least that old. "*At least I have a great ass for a deca-millennial.*"

* Base Terran DNA shows no Progenitor tampering. However, Rachel's current DNA is covered in John's Progenitor fingerprints "like a piece of paper with a toddler's first efforts at finger painting."

John explains what he currently knows about the mysterious Maliri:

* The Maliri Regency and Terran Federation have been at peace for centuries

* They’ve always been pleasant and cordial with John, but they have a zero-tolerance policy towards unwanted encroachment into their territory. Any unauthorised incursions into Maliri Space are dealt with swiftly and lethally, as evidenced from "The Warning" on the way to the trading post.

* For trading, the Maliri prize luxury goods over anything else, but they tend to be mostly interested in exceptionally rare items from alien civilisations that are further afield. Delicacies, exotic beverages, perfumes, spices, gemstones, are all in very high demand.

* In addition to laser weaponry, the Maliri have also developed sophisticated electronics.

* They wear ornate full-body armour, and people have made all sorts of guesses as to why their faces are hidden, ranging from hideous plagues, to them being so horrifically ugly that they were ashamed to let anyone see what they really looked like. Even that they were actually a race of intelligent robots who pretended to be organics, so they could study and kill Terrans at their leisure. John himself doesn't know the real reason. He has a great rapport with a Maliri merchant called Ceraden, but the real reason they wore the armour wouldn’t be a well-received topic of conversation.

After John told Jade he planned to repopulate the Nymph species by knocking her up repeatedly for decades, the mosaic of Jade in Alyssa's mind changed dramatically: Jade was gazing at the depiction of John with an awestruck expression on her face, and she now stood next to him, rather than kneeling at his feet. The tiny stones that made up the mosaic, depicted John placing a protective hand on the Nymph’s belly, his caring face full of love as he looked down on her.

The team sees "The Warning": a 2000-meter-long merchant ship that had been hit by hundreds of laser blasts, showing catastrophic weapon damage to the armour plating.

Upon arrival at the Geniya Trading post, Alyssa telepathically talks to an Ashanath, who recognized her, and a Bolon, who calls her "Bright One."

Rachel notes there there aren’t many mammalian humanoid species. On the way to Ceraden's office she realizes the Maliri are all male. Female humanoid mammals typically have a larger hip-to-waist ratio than men to aid with childbirth. This changes the gait, so that a man walks differently to a woman.

When they arrived in Ceraden's office, there was an armored Maliri named Irillith sitting behind his desk. Ceraden, clearly annoyed with Irillith despite his civil tone, asked Irillith to use another room. Irillith snorted with contempt, rose, picked up a sinister-looking black device from the desk, walked around the desk, and when she finally looked up at them, she suddenly stumbled, gasping in shock. The decide fell and shattered, and Irillith sprinted from the room.

Rachel whispered to Dana that Irillith was definitely female. Ceraden confirmed this, saying, "*She can be a real bitch.*”