We decided to give them some of the answers they were looking for. It was still not the ones they needed to hear, but it was something. The impact was immediate and so exactly what we had expected. This experiment is teaching us more in a few days than we had learned in years alone in this camp.

They walked back to the camp silently, hand in hand. Max had waited until their bodies had calmed down a bit and then gently and lovingly fastened her sweater. His eyes drank in each disappearing inch of bare skin as his fingers completed their task. He had helped her into her jacket and hugged her fiercely before they started for home.

Stopping outside her tent, he told her earnestly: "You are the most beautiful thing in my life, Liz Parker." He stepped closer, leaning his forehead against hers in an action that was becoming characteristic of their gentle moments. "I don’t want to feel like I’m just having an affair with you. Like you’re my mistress or concubine or something. I want you to feel like your… special." He pulled away slightly and took a deep breath. "To feel like… like my wife."

Liz’s eyes grew large, staring up at him in shock. He was watching her anxiously, as if waiting for her to deny what he had just said. "Your… your wife?" Liz could barely get the words out. This was turning into one of the most wonderful nights of her life!

"Yeah. I know its… soon and we’re really young, but I want that, Liz. I want to marry you some day… I don’t know much about who I am and what’s going to happen to me, but I’m sure of this one thing. You have to be a part of the rest of my life!"

Liz interrupted his impassioned speech by flinging her arms around his neck and pressing her face to his. "Yes! I want that too. I want you to be mine forever."

Their kiss sealed this promise and it was a long time before Max could get himself to leave Liz and go back to his tent. His heart was singing with joy and tomorrow… tomorrow he would put an end to this destiny lunacy forever.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Tess waited until Max was gone and Liz safely back in her bed before coming out of the shadows from where she had been watching the nauseating scene. Time to put her plan in action…

~*~*~*~*~*~

Max cornered Maria after breakfast the next morning. "Where’s Liz?" he asked worriedly. "She didn’t come to breakfast."

Maria gave him an innocent look. "Hmmm, I don’t know? Could it be that she is worn out from late night excursions into the desert? Or from the dreams she had the rest of the night during which her moaning kept ME awake?" She laughed at Max’s embarrassed look. "Yeah, and you two used to say Michael and I were bad! Well Mr Leader-of-an-alien-race, what did you do to her last night?" Her eyes grew when a thought hit her. "You two didn’t…, you know!"

"Calm down, Maria! Everything is fine!" Max steered her further away from any onlookers. He didn’t want his sex life, however little that meant right now, to be overheard by the rest of the camp. "Could you just make sure she’s all right, please? I have to meet with Nick right now and I’m getting a weird sense from Liz right now."

"Excuse me! A ‘weird sense’? What the heck are you talking about?" Maria’s voice was rising.

Max sighed. He loved Maria, but she was really too much sometimes. "I can’t really explain right now, but I can ‘feel’ her sometimes." He went on when Maria opened her mouth to ask more questions. "I don’t know how it works either, so just trust me and GO, will you?" To help her along, he gave her a push in the direction of their tent.

Then he went to find Isabel, Michael and Tess. "We need to meet. With Nick. Right now." The others looked at him in surprise. They were getting used to Max using a tone of voice that brooked no argument, but the urgent note was new.

They found Nick waiting for them outside the breakfast tent. He always seemed to know where to be at what time, and Max wondered about that for the umpteenth time. He was even more surprised when Nick just quietly led them to the tent where Liz, Maria and Alex slept their first night in the camp. Once inside he turned to Max and waited.

Max took a deep breath and sent up a small prayer that this wouldn’t turn out to be the worst day of his life. "I need some answers about the things we saw in the orb transmission." Both Michael and Isabel gasped and focussed on Nick. The answers to Max’s questions meant a lot to them too. Tess just folded her arms.

Max started with his most important problem. "The orbs… it said I was sent here with my ‘young bride’. I want to know exactly who that is and how it can all still be true if I’m a completely new and different person here on earth?"

Nick saw the anxiety Max was trying to hide. "Yes, Max you were sent here with your bride from your previous life. And I think you already know the answer to your first question." His eyes went to Tess, seeing the satisfied grin on her face.

Max felt like a huge fist was squeezing the air from his lungs. "You mean I’m still married to her? Right now? How can that be? I’m seventeen! I had no choice in the matter!"

Max was starting to yell and Nick held up his hand. "I didn’t say that."

The silence following those four words was deafening. Max had to stop himself from running over to Nick and shaking the truth out of him. When he spoke, his voice was soft, but Michael and Isabel knew that this soft tone meant Max was very angry. "Then what are you saying?"

"I’m saying that you were all sent here with your genetically-coded mates from a PREVIOUS life."

"So we’re not… married in this life?" Isabel’s voice was tremulous.

Nick seemed surprised that she had spoken. This had been a silent duel between him and Max up to this point. "You need a ceremony for that. A ceremony to make it official in this life. When you’re ready, it will be performed." He waited for their reaction, his eyes coming back to Max once again.

"What will happen if we marry someone else?" Max heard the small gasp from Tess. "Will it impact on the war? On our race?"

"Yes, it will." Nick said, an unrecognizable emotion creeping into his voice.

Max still wouldn’t give up. "How?"

Nick stayed silent, causing Max to step closer to him, his hands clenched in fists at his sides.

"HOW?"

"I can’t tell you that right now."

Max was losing his temper. "Why not?"

"Its not the right time," was the enigmatic answer. Nick gave them one final look, his eyes lingering on his young leader the longest. He could see the war going on inside Max. Then he stepped out of the tent.

Max swung around to Michael and Isabel, running his hands through his hair in frustration. "What is such a big secret about all this? Why will they not tell us anything about our planet?"

Isabel stood up and put her arm around her brother. "We have to be patient, Max. I’m sure there’s a reason. And at least we know one more thing for now." She squeezed him and smiled. "No bride."

Max couldn’t stop a goofy grin from spreading across his face. "Yeah. I… I have to go."

Michael and Isabel watched him leave and turned to each other. "So, we’re still family right? Brother and sister?"

Michael hugged her. "Yeah."

"So go tell her!" Isabel rolled her eyes. Did she have to think for these two idiot brothers of her all the time?

~*~*~*~*~*~

Max ran into a breathless Maria as he came tearing around a tent on his way to Liz. "Max, she won’t wake up! You have to come help her!" Maria sounded panicked.