Toxic came over to the table and looked at Bluebell. She asked, "Can I sit here? Is this a family thing? If you're talking about privates I can come back. Is that ROSE? I'm use to her looking all robot like, not a sexy Cyclops babe! Wow, Lime did a bang-up job. Sorry I got your man all patterned." Rose waved a hand and said,"Sexy? Huh--sit down. I always meant to ask, but when a Four Sister can influence a ' Probability Transformation', how much control do you have?" Toxic sat down and looked a little lost. She finally responded, "Hard to say. Depends on the circumstance. I was dead for four years, so the pressure was about to pop. I stuck a pin in it and POW! I got Thistledown turned from a robot looking guy into someone you can have sex with, and a bunch of stuff for the ship,too." Thistledown chuckled and reached for his water glass as Rose said, "Bunch is right! One HUNDRED SEVENTY-FIVE TONS of stuff! All the material that was intended for this ship but had NOT been loaded--YET! It's almost like it's from the future!" "We...haven't tried the sex part ,yet." "OH NO!" Toxic exclaimed. "The Four Sisters are FORBIDDEN from time-travel. That is BAD to do! It can only be used IF the human species GOES extinct! It said so in the edicts of attunement when I became a Four Sisters member! Besides...how do you time-travel?" Rose looked at Toxic, "How could you cause fires by thinking of it?" "When the system worked, I KNEW how. Now it's like I have amnesia. I forget. Who is you?" She was staring at the brown skinned boy eating a leg of animal flesh and laughed. Rose laughed, "You wouldn't know him to see him, but that's..." "RIVER-PRINCE! DUHR! How did you turn into a boy?" Toxic almost shouted in surprise. Bluebell said, "You must have sensed him, right?" Toxic nodded. Prince ate steadily and held a hand up while he chewed. Bluebell said to Rose, "Toxic can feel things in a way that is defined as some kind of ESP. Her perceptions are not easily quantifiable." While the Prince chewed, Rose asked Toxic, "By the way, can you read?" Toxic looked embarrassed. "No. Jin taught me some, but I don't know most words to see them." Rose smiled, "We can't have THAT! Snowflake is teaching Sunshine and Lime, I'll ask her to teach you and Prince here." Prince exclaimed, "I'd like that! When I ate that mean old Plague guy I learned how to look like him, before he got all gross looking!" Toxic said suddenly, "I want to go down to the planet. The moon thingy, Hel! Bluebell is going, so I want to go, too." Rose said, "Toxic, you don't have any skills, can't read, and the Four Sisters are off-line, so you don't have any powers." Toxic thought for a moment and said flatly,"I beat the Althan-Krommium woman, Izkabell without using any Four Sisters powers! If I DON'T go, everyone down there will be killed by what's coming." Conversation died as Rose asked seriously, "WHAT is coming?" Toxic shook her head. "Dunno. Something. Like what's on the planet, right now. Something's happened and gotta be fixed." Rose looked at Bluebell. Bluebell said, "If she needs to go,SHE GOES then. Toxic never makes arbitrary demands. Except for cookies." Toxic tore into her dinner, with a nod. The intercom chirped, then addressed Rose, "Commander, We have an update from the surface. The gun-fire detected near that shuttle seems to have been your daughter, Slicey-Dicey and Perro trying to get the MilSciDev android to a safe distance before it self-destructed. They encountered MilSciDev security robots and there was a firefight." "They lost the android in the jungle. T minus thirty-five minutes until it blows up. Slicey says it has a kilogram of metalized hydrogen in it's pelvis." Bluebell said, "That's half a kiloton explosive yield! Mom, we need to go, NOW!" Toxic stood up, "Finished! Right in TIME! Let's go!" Rose nodded. --TO BE CONTINUED!--