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“I know, Dad. It wasn’t great timing. But this is really important. Incredibly important,” Jace stressed.

“So things really are good down here then from that smile of yours,” Jack said.

“Oh, oh, yeah! It’s great! Fantastic really!” Then Jace shook himself. He and Khoth were awesome, but he was certain it was going to be hellish when others got ahold of them. “And it’s terrible or potentially terrible.”

His father blinked. “O-okay.”

Jace shook himself again and urged his father to walk down the gangway. Khoth, like a normal person, was waiting by the canceaux, appearing his handsome and martial self though he must have been nervous. They went over to him.

Khoth inclined his head. “Flight-Commander Parker.”

“Commander Khoth,” Jack said with a salute.

Jace wanted to tell them not to use titles and no military salutes, especially considering that they were alone and what they now were to one another. But there was no sense that either resented using these formalities. Both men were soldiers and likely more comfortable with them than Jace would ever be.

“I appreciated the report you sent to me,” Khoth said.

“That you’ve already had a chance to peruse it makes me glad I did it right away. The Osiris filled me in on what happened down here,” his father said. “It was a hard fight.”

“It was a hard fight that you had as well,” Jace said, shifting from foot to foot. Not even mention of the terrible battles was totalling draining his excitement and nervousness to tell his father this other news. “And it’s the first of many.”

Jace’s shoulders slumped this time and his feet were settled on the ground as he thought of what was ahead of them. His comm was blowing up though he had silenced it. The Osiris was filtering these messages to him, sometimes only the sender’s information, so that he was aware vaguely of who was pinging him. Half a dozen species had already requested meetings with him. He had Osiris answering those and arranging a space. He truly wished Gehenna was there to handle this. She had a better touch with people than the Osiris did.

Gehenna, where are you?

He sent out a thought tendril, but while there might have been a faint response it was hard to tell if it wasn’t just a wish. Davies, Thammah and Matzen were already entering the labyrinth after her. They would find her and bring her back.

“So are we going to talk here in the space port–not that I mind–or did you have somewhere more intimate in mind?” His father grinned.

Jack snapped back to himself. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’ve got a lot on my mind. But I know that you do as well and I pulled you away from your duties. Yet the moment we get back to the Moturin Compound we’re bound to be hounded by a bunch of people.”

“Yes, I have received over a dozen messages from Typhon, his sister, my father, my mother and the Council,” Khoth remarked dryly.

“Well, I love ships more than anything and…” His father turned in a slow circle as he took in the spaceport and the alien, yet familiar, buildings all around them, “this place feels strangely familiar to me. But I’ve never been on a different world–except for the moon so–maybe it always feels this way.”

Genetic memory, Osiris mused as they both took in his father’s half smile and relaxed shoulders.

He remembers this place. It feels like home to him, doesn’t it? Jace realized.

Yes, how interesting. The original Pilot’s family was from this planet, the Osiris answered.

Wow, okay, well, maybe this is a way to tell my dad something about me and himself, Jace said.

“Dad, you feel like you’ve been to Haseon before?” Jace asked, or more like confirmed.

His father nodded. His forehead was furrowed again as he pointed towards a domed building whose top was just within view. “I know it’s crazy, but that building feels like… I’ve been inside it. More than that.” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it.”

That building was the home of the original Pilot’s family, the Osiris answered. At the current time, it is being used as an art gallery and garden.

Interesting. Okay, here goes nothing, Jace said.

“Dad, what if I tell you the reason that this all feels familiar is because it is,” Jace said slowly.

His father’s gaze zeroed in on him, focusing sharply. “What do you mean? Were we kidnapped by aliens and probed? Because I think I would have remembered that?”

He was kidding, of course, but Jace wondered if what he had to tell his father would be easy or harder to take.

“No, the aliens didn’t have to take us, because… We’re the aliens, Dad,” Jace said. “We’re Altaeth. Or, at least, I’m fully Altaeth after what the Osiris did to me. But you and Mom are partially so.”