He had been created to be the saviour of two races. Floating in the warm wetness of his mother's womb, he had slowly become aware of the destiny that awaited him. Sliding into the harsh bright cold of the wider world, he had felt the weight of his mortality settle round him like a shroud, had realized that his time on this plane would be short. Ha'gel had not intended for this knowledge to surface so early; he had buried it in deep in Liam's genetic code for later use and then boldly lied to his son, claiming that Liam was the result of a biological imperative to continue the race. And Liam had sustained the illusion by pretending to believe, even as every cell in his body screamed the truth. He was the final avatar of the Kimera, born to die and through his death ensure the rebirth of the Taelons and the Jaridians. He was to redeem his race by correcting their eons-old mistake, substituting life for the slow death they had inadvertently inflicted on those they had tried to help. The Kimera had no conception of hell, but they might have profited from the human proverb about intentions and unintended consequences had time and space somehow conspired to send it back to them.

Liam had acquiesced to his intended purpose. Gasping with the pain of the first burning breath, he understood that no one else could do what needed to be done. Before he took his first step, he understood that he had a responsibility to his ancestors to make whole what had been broken, and so transform their legacy into one of growth rather than destruction. There had been no resentment on his part, no rancour even when he had grasped that no one would honour him for his sacrifice. No railing against unjust fate and heedless gods, just calm acceptance and a desire to see what he could of the universe before leaving it. Camus wrote that the body wants to live and he was right and so sometimes there were nightmares and cold sweats and quick, panicked breaths, but the mind can overcome the body when it needs to and Liam's mind had been mature before his body had finished forming. If he had sometimes been reckless in his pursuit of life, impatient with those who could not see the world as he did or find the courage to act, it was because the knowledge of his impending end had pushed him to get things done now, before it was too late.

It was only when he came to know more about his other half and the world into which he had been born that he had realized he was to be the saviour of three races, not two, and that the third would be the least grateful of all. Despite that, he found it comforting to be able to look around at the beauty and life and happiness and know that he would have a part in preserving them. Dying for high-minded, abstract ideals is all very well, but there's satisfaction in dying for a solid, concrete cause. In time, Liam could look around and attach faces to the shadowy figures that represented the multitudes of the future, silently naming them off as a mantra against the growing dark: generous Lili and eccentric Augur and courageous Renee and cautious Da'an. Even suspicious, controlling Jonathan and arrogant Zo'or made the list. They would live on after him, because of him. And so he was willing to do what had to be done. Despite betrayal after betrayal and lie heaped on lie, despite pain and turmoil and torture, he was willing to die that the others might live. For all his desperate efforts to cling to humanity, he was Kimera at his core, submissive to duty and fate and eternal repentance.

Things would have gone according to plan if the Taelons had been more like the Kimera. But of course, they weren't. That had always been the problem. They couldn't sense the larger pattern of the universe or the Kimera's intentions, weren't willing to trust in a fate that had torn down the mighty and driven to extinction more races than humans ever dreamed existed. But it had been Liam's own mistake--a character failing really, this inability to cut the biological ties that bound him to Sandoval, that drove him to his father's aid when Sandoval faced a death no mere human could hope to stave off--that had led to the downfall of the Kimera plan. Ha'gel had been willing to sacrifice his son; he had no understanding of the human emotional ties that might bind Liam to the chosen surrogate, leading him to intervene and so betray himself. Zo'or had seen an opportunity and acted quickly. And now Liam lay strapped to a table, staring upward and coolly contemplating the irony that had led Zo'or to eliminate his race's last chance at renewal in his frantic scrabble to save them.

Zo'or came to stand over him, blue eyes focused intently on his prisoner/saviour, streams of blue-white energy clearly visible beneath the barely-holding façade. He was speaking; Liam ignored him in favour of the ceiling. A few words slipped through the barrier and echoed in his mind: Kimera...fertility...survival... Liam smiled as images of chemical codes and spiralling DNA danced in his head. He knew what was to come; had seen visions of the child-of the children-soon after he was first taken. They had held him here for many weeks before deciding on a course of action. In that time, surrounded by alien technology, fending off the growing pressure of the Commonality, his carefully submerged memories had begun to surface. He could no longer claim he was mostly human; his new-found knowledge had wrought too many changes to his mind. Thought is our identity as well as our existence, and his thoughts were now of the infinite. Also the infinitely small. He wondered absently if the Taelons would understand if he explained to them the reasons for what he was going to do. If they would believe him if he told them it wasn't vengeance that drove him, but necessity.

Zo'or had finished speaking. Apparently he expected a response.

"You have me. I can't stop you from doing whatever you want to do," said Liam. Then, because his Kimera core--or perhaps it was his human heart--drove him to offer them one last chance, he added quietly, "I can still save your people, Zo'or." And the Taelon had smiled cruelly, delightedly.

"Oh, you will, Major. You will." And a cold hand slid into his and the façade slipped away entirely, so that he held onto a handful of energy, like trying to tame a lightening bolt. It had been Zeus, he thought distantly, who had wielded lightning like a weapon. His palm began to throb as his dormant shaqarava responded to Zo'or's touch, energy blossoming outwards before being drawn into the body of the Taelon next to him. A small part of his mind screamed in helpless outrage at the invasion, but the larger part was focused on the rapidly developing DNA of the new foetus.

The Taelons were at an evolutionary dead-end. They could not go on as they were, and they would never let him go to fulfill his destiny, never consent to the price of renewal. He was as certain of that as he was of the hour of his own death. The Taelons lacked the human will to survive at all costs. But what they were attempting here was merely delaying the inevitable. One more generation and the race would again face death, this time without the rabbit, without the last-minute reprieve. And in the meantime, what havoc they could wreak on the universe! He could not allow it. If the mistake of the Kimera could not be corrected, it could at least be contained.

Liam reached out and gently altered the delicate chemicals that were the blueprint for his first child. It was a simple act for a race as sophisticated as the Kimera in the art of genetic manipulation. Slowly, carefully, he strengthened the Kimera genes and minimized the Taelon influence, diminishing it until Zo'or's contribution formed but one subset of the whole, mirroring the relationship between Taelons and Kimera. Then he delicately wove a few human genes in among the rest, adding where he could and regretfully discarding the rest. The human race could survive and evolve on its own; would do so, as long as the Taelons and Jaridians did not destroy them first.

As he finished, he felt a new life flare, a new mind burst into semi-awareness, curious, probing. He reached out, exerting what influence he could, treasuring the precious few second he had before Zo'or realized that his efforts had been successful and withdrew abruptly from his grasp. Wordlessly, the Taelon stared down at him, then turned and stalked out of the room. He was pleased by his success, yes, but also angered that he had been forced to turn to his despised saviours-enemies help, even if he had been able claim that help by force rather than beg for it.

Zo'or was only the first, Liam knew. When they realized that the child would survive, that it could generate its own core energy, others would come. One by one, the desperate, dying Taelons would come to him and in so doing inadvertently pave the way for the rebirth of the race they had destroyed. The new children would be hybrids, of course, blending the traits of their parents, but the Kimera influence would dominate. The Kimera had never been afraid of binding themselves to other races, of widening their gene pool and sharing what they had. It was their inability to understand this fear that had led to their downfall. Perhaps the new race would do better than their predecessors. He wondered how long it would take the Taelons to realize that the children were drawn to the Commonality by choice, not necessity. Long enough, he thought, for the new race to grow strong. Long enough that the Taelons would be unable to stop what he had set in motion.

As he closed his eyes wearily in search of ever more elusive sleep, Liam found himself contemplating another irony. Joyce Belman had once offered him the chance to be the father of a new race, to reshape the world in his image and hers, and he had unhesitatingly refused. He wondered if she was aware of his predicament now, if she found it amusing that he had been forced into the position he had fought so hard to avoid. If she grasped his reasons for resisting. The promised destruction, though it had sickened him, had only been part of it. He had fought her because he knew his purpose in this universe and what she proposed was not it. Or so he had believed. He had known his fate from the moment of his birth. Walked the tightrope of that belief, fought it when he could, clung to it like a lifeline when he had to.

He had been created to be the last member of one race, and the saviour of two others. It seemed that, in the end, he was destined to be neither of those things.

FIN

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