The Lambs: Part 3 (3/11)     
by Lamia (AKA so kiss me goodbye) 
                                        
Rating: PG-13 (violence, strong language)
Category: S                             
Spoilers: Seasons 1-9, Fight the Future           
Keywords: William; Colonization              
Summary: Liam van de Kamp's life changes the day two 
FBI agents kidnap him and his parents.
                                   
Author's Note: The Lambs is a three-part story plus
epilogue.  The prologue and Parts I (Chapters 1-10)
and (Chapters 11-31) were completed between 2008
and 2015, and posted on FFN.


Chapter 34 

December 21, 2012
New Mexico 

Liam tried talking himself into calmness. A rhythmic 
hiss whispered overhead and scratching noises rustled 
in the walls. 

"So far, so good. Everything's okay. Nothing to be 
scared of." 

A boom fell in the darkness in front of them. The 
supersoldier powered through the gloom. As she moved, 
little lights traveled just ahead of them like a guide. 

"See?" he said to himself. "Must be normal for here." 

The tightness in Liam's chest eased. The sound hadn't 
harmed him. 

"It's so noisy out here." His voice came out squeaky. 
"Is it like this all the time? How does anyone sleep?" 

The supersoldier marched on. 

Liam raised his voice. "Does Ellie have a quiet room 
like mine? Do you know Ellie? Will you take me to see 
her?" 

If he kept pestering her, how long before she broke? 

The path keep curving. 

"There's not much to look at. Don't you get sick of all 
this gray?" 

The walls were sleek and gave nothing away. Liam didn't 
notice the curious etches on the floor at first. The 
pattern emerged as they strode on. The marks were all 
different, but spaced at regular intervals. Many of the 
shapes seemed no more than scribbles, but some were 
recognizable. Arrows, circles, parallel lines, crosses 
- even common letters from English and from other 
alphabets. 

They stopped on one, and the supersoldier squeezed his 
hand, making him look at her in surprise. A tube of 
light rose around them. His stomach clenched like he 
was falling. 

When the movement stopped, they were in a new, wider 
corridor. 

It could have been a different ship. 

*What if it is a different ship?* 

"Where are we? We're still on earth, aren't we?" 

Signs of construction jumped out at Liam. Rivets, 
joins, bolts, a patchwork of metal sheets formed an 
interminable progression of squares stretching in front 
of him. Like looking at a mirror in a mirror. 

This corridor was straight. 

"That blue light - did it just take us here? Was that 
some sort of elevator?" 

Long thin tubes and rods ran the length of the 
corridor. Metal cabinets hulked in the shadows. They 
might be useful to hide on if an opportunity arose. Not 
that he might need to hide if he did escape. There 
didn't seem to be anyone to hide from. 

"Where is everyone?" 

She looked at him without speaking then pulled him 
along again. Guide lights sprang up as they walked 
forward. 

"Don't you live on the ship?" He might as well keep up 
the one-sided conversation. "There aren't many rooms. 
Lots of walls, but no doors. You're not big on doors 
around here, are you?" 

This corridor was as gray as the last one and the 
scratched marks, which were evenly spaced here too, 
came every fifth step. Liam started counting them. 

At twenty they hit a juncture bisecting the corridor. 

They stopped and another funnel of light enveloped 
them. When the brightness fell away, they were on 
another curved passageway. 

The supersoldier pulled him to the right, his socks 
sliding on the slippery concourse. In a moment of 
rebellion, he braced his feet and waited for her to tow 
him along. He risked giving her a cheeky grin when she 
turned a bemused glare on him. 

Perhaps she read his mind. She let go. 

She let him dash and slide, dash and slide around the 
sweeping corridor. She stopped him only when the echoes 
from his yells got sharper and a rush of warm air 
breathed into his hair. 

The supersoldier caught up with him and took his hand 
again. 

Green light licked the left hand outer wall, and all of 
a sudden the wall on his right gave way to a large 
railed-off opening. 

A stink assailed his nostrils. Liam stopped and stared 
out on the expanse. 

A broad black column rose from a sea of green goop and 
went all the way to the top. From it, reaching out like 
giant wings were two bejeweled walls. Hundreds of 
bright green pods on rods lined them in a grid. 

He was on the edge of a spectacle, looking down on a 
grand stage. 

"Is that the center of the ship?" 

It had to be. It was so vast a space, it would fit 
nowhere else on the ship. Liam was willing to bet if 
they walked in a circle, they'd pass seven massive 
wings just like the two in front of him, all radiating 
from the middle. Everything in this ship seemed divided 
up like pizza. 

The column was too black to make out any detail, but 
the pods shone. Each one was a shiny cocoon dangling on 
a vine from a rod. 

"It's like a tree. The rods are branches." Perfectly 
aligned branches going from top to bottom. No tree in 
nature would ever grow like this - not without careful 
cultivation. 

The walls weren't solid. Both had at least twelve 
stacked rods. And through the gaps, Liam could make out 
the green of more pods. 

"What are they?" 

Dark spots marked where pods were missing, breaking the 
precise arrangement. 

One twitched. Within its green sheath, dark lines 
folded over one another. The casing was semi 
translucent and a curled up human shape pressed hard 
against it. 

"What's in them?" He had the uncomfortable feeling he 
already knew. Liam shivered as tingles crossed his 
body. "This is how supersoldiers are made, isn't it?" 

He peered over the rail. 

The green luminescent pond steamed. A black line - a 
path - ran between the wings to the column like a 
spoke. 

Breath caught in Liam's chest when a group of people 
strode into view below him. The group halted by a low 
hanging pod which was darker than the rest. The pod was 
jumping and writhing on its vine. 

Without warning the sheaf split, releasing a gush of 
goo that splattered and steamed as it dripped into the 
glowing pond. 

Liam squinted to see better, then recoiled. 

Tiny pale dots wriggled around the slit like maggots, 
ripping it wider. A wrinkly leg poked itself out. 
Seconds passed. A scream tore through the cavern and a 
slimy figure heaved itself from its egg-sack and leapt 
to the path. 

When it rose from a crouch, one of the waiting figures 
held up a scanning device and ran it over the naked 
form. 

The scan complete, it stepped into formation. 

Liam froze as the group turned. If they looked up, he 
would be seen ... 

Even after they walked away without a single glance in 
his direction, Liam didn't dare do so much as blink. 

*Are they going to do that to me?* 

A crackle to his right brought him back to attention. A 
red light blinked above a cocoon. A sound like a 
charging pulse started up and suddenly the pod 
blackened, spat electricity, and popped. Ash showered 
the pods beneath it, leaving an empty space in the row. 

"What happened?" 

The supersoldier's reply was unexpected. "Defective. 
More and more this is happening." 

Liam looked at her in shock. 

Slowly, the supersoldier tapped her index finger on her 
arm at the point where a vaccine needle might go in. 
Then her arms dropped to her side and she stepped past 
him. "Follow." 

Had he understood her right? Was she telling him 
something about the vaccine? 

He gripped the rail and shook his head. He couldn't 
form any more words. If ever there was a time to run, 
it was now. 

He shot a look at the tunnel they had just come down. 
He launched himself into a getaway. Before he had gone 
one step, she had clawed his t-shirt. 

"Please," he whispered. 

He tripped over his feet when she yanked him along. 

Instead of staying on the same flat path which circled 
the massive chamber, she dragged him on a parallel path 
veering off it. 

They were spiralling down. Periodically they passed 
more viewing platforms. 

Finally the path hit a dead end. A small inverted 
triangle pointing into the wall ruined the otherwise 
perfect smoothness of the floor. 

There was nowhere else to go. 

Liam expected the supersoldier to open a portal for him 
as she had at the room. He was surprised when she stood 
there. 

Seconds ticked by. 

A little bravado crept into his voice. "Are we waiting 
for something?" 

Her gaze on him was steady when she spoke. "Are *you* 
waiting for something?" 

Liam frowned. 

The shake of her head was almost imperceptible. She 
looked back at the wall and it flashed and winked open. 

Bile flooded his mouth and tears sprang into his eyes. 
The stench of rotten eggs and charred flesh hit his 
nostrils. Green goo frothed and glowed through the 
metal grill platform at his feet. 

A high-pitch drone and sporadic gurgles echoed around 
the chamber. 

They were at the bottom of the cavern beside one of the 
gargantuan wings. Unconsciously Liam put his hand out - 
he could just about touch the lowest pod nearest him - 
but snatched it back when the row twitched and a spark 
jumped at him with a crack. 

They stood on the platform at the edge of the room. A 
black path led right over the goo into the middle. To 
the black column. 

"We wait," the supersoldier said when Liam looked at 
her. She let go his hand with a warning and a glance at 
their feet. "Be careful." 

There was nowhere for him to escape. He could either 
run in an endless circle along the outer edge or head 
to the column. Neither option appealed, and with one 
false step he'd end up falling off the platform into 
the green stuff. 

*That does not sound like a good idea.* 

He made the mistake of looking down. 

Translucent human bodies lay in the goo beneath him. 

Liam clutched his stomach, trying to control his dry 
heaves. He could see through their skin. Could see pale 
veins and tissue. 

Green vines coiled through the substance and into their 
upcast mouths. Lips sucked clear as see-through 
jellyfish. Their heads were tipped back. Liam found 
himself staring into the glassy, empty gaze of one. 
Seconds later a slurp of suction pulled the body along 
in a slow motion swirl. Like water creeping down a 
drain pipe. 

"Who are -?" 

"No one." 

Above him, the cocoon pods on the lowest rod slowly 
closed up a blank spot. At the far end, where the rod 
emerged from the column, a new green pod popped out. 

Liam traced the journey with his finger. "They get 
sucked up into a funnel in the center ... and come out 
in a cocoon." 

The supersoldier touched his forearm but shook her 
head. "They are joined but not the same." 

His heart rate sped up. Joined by the green vines. He 
blinked back tears caused not by the stinging vapor 
rising from the slush, but from realization. The bodies 
below were feeding the bodies in the pods. 

He gave his sweater a fearful tug. He needed to send 
his nerves somewhere. "Where are you taking me?" 

The bodies below appeared to be a mix of men and women, 
but interspersed among the obvious adults were smaller 
ones. Children? 

He broke away from the woman, hurrying down the center 
path, peering at every upturned face. "Is Ellie here?" 

She was none of them. He turned to confront the 
supersoldier, wobbling on the narrow platform. "Who are 
they? What's happening to them?" 

His heart thumped again when another hand clamped down 
on his shoulder. Liam twisted around. A man stood over 
him, lips stretched over teeth like a mummy face. He 
pinched Liam's chin between his thumb and three 
fingers. 

Dread petrified Liam. He had never forgotten that face 
- or the terrifying escape from the field in Wyoming. 

One Arm let go and flicked a grin the woman's way. "I 
will take him." 

Liam wanted to argue, but his mouth seemed fused 
together. His feet started moving. His whole body 
betrayed him as he was herded to the black column. He 
battled hard to conquer his terror. The green substance 
at his feet shimmered and the burn of sulfur hit the 
back of his brain. 

*I don't have to be afraid. They* want *me to be their 
commander.* 

That didn't mean he wouldn't end up getting rinsed in 
the green goo cycle though. It seemed so stupid. All 
this time he'd heard stories about the aliens 
conducting advanced medical experiments. How funny 
would it be if all they had to do was push him in the 
soup, or seal him up? 

He blinked away the ridiculous thought and forced 
himself to straighten. 

Whatever happened, One Arm would not kill him. Why 
should he cower? Liam squared his shoulders. "You got 
your arm back." 

One Arm snorted. 

"Pity about your finger." 

They stopped dead in front of the broad column. It was 
so wide there was nothing in Liam's field of vision but 
black. But he was close enough to see the column wasn't 
smooth. A black lattice grill covered parts of a solid 
metal funnel. 

Quicker than a click, a portal glimmered. Liam stumbled 
through and found his nose hard up against another 
barrier. 

They were stepping through layers on their way to the 
center of the ship. 

As before, they waited - seconds, maybe. 

The longer they stood, the harder Liam fought to keep 
his confidence from draining away. He looked down at 
his shaking fists and legs and saw a glow crawling up 
the wall like paper being eaten by embers. 

The glow made him draw back. Electricity had sizzled 
and jumped from the defective pod - but this light was 
contained within the wall. The air across his nose and 
cheeks was cool even as the ember line leveled with his 
face. It continued its climb until it disappeared over 
his head. 

It revealed nothing - at first. There was nothing but 
darkness. 

But a faint flicker, like a faraway candle flame, made 
Liam squint. He reached out - and winced when his hand 
struck a solid surface. One of those invisible walls. 

The tiny light fluttered, then, without warning, it 
intensified, illuminating a rounded wall behind it. 

This was the circular room he had been waiting for. The 
room around which the ship had been built. 

The light bobbed like campfire flames in the middle of 
the room, and rising up from its center was another 
pillar. 

Rough hands shoved him. Liam braced himself, expecting 
to smack into the invisible wall again. He stumbled 
forward, arms wheeling. 

The wall was gone. But when he turned back, it was 
solid again. 

One Arm turned and strode back to the goo chamber. The 
portal shut, cutting off the green glow. 

"Hey!" Liam cried as he banged on the solid air 
barrier. 

He had been abandoned. Again. 

Hand on the wall for the second time in days, Liam 
walked the perimeter of the circular room, hoping for 
an exit. 

There was none. 

He was trapped. 

The room was a temple: cool, pristine, and perfectly 
round. 

The floor dipped like a saucer. It was the color of 
pale clay and was covered with thousands of tiny marks. 
The pitting reminded Liam of black drawings of thorns 
he had seen in fairytale books. Everything else - 
walls, domed ceiling - reflected the dancing light 
coming from the bottom of the pillar - but the floor 
was dull. 

The marks whispered in Liam's memory. They were like 
the symbols on the artifact - or in the cave ... 

Recognition shot a shiver through him. 

A tiny shimmer in the pillar caught his eye. The glossy 
white sheen on it seemed to stir as if clouds were 
beginning to shift inside. 

Whispering got under his skull, enticing him into the 
room. He crouched and spread his palms against the 
symbols to test the floor - and wished he hadn't. 

Was it his imagination, or was the floor gently rising 
and falling? 

"Hello?" 

There was no answer, and Liam told himself not to be 
stupid. 

"It is not breathing," he said and forced himself to 
step onto the marked surface. 

The whispering grew louder. And the clouds in the 
pillar began to sharpen. 

*There is nothing here that can harm me.* 

A shadow darkened from within the pillar. 

Liam grew cold. 

Long fingers unfurled against it. Pressed for escape. 

-o0o- 

He left the hand in the pillar hanging in a petrified 
high five. 

There was no way he was touching it. 

That's what it wanted. 

Liam had scooted back to the wall, but when he touched 
it the whispers burst into a clamor of voices which 
only lessened when he came back into the room. He 
squeezed his eyes shut to avoid looking into the 
pillar. 

"I am in a room. The floor dips like a bowl, the room 
is round and I will not look. Talk, Liam. Talk." 

They were waiting for him. "You are *not* getting in!" 

Even with his eyes closed he could sense pulses of 
light. 

He huddled on the floor, pulling his sweater over his 
head to keep out any intruder. "I will not watch, I 
will not watch. I will find a way out." 

Hand in the pillar, heartbeat in the floor. He was not 
alone. 

Liam shivered himself into darkness. A band clamped 
around his head. Unnatural sleepiness overtook him and 
he felt himself slipping until he could no longer 
determine if he was awake or dreaming. 

In his mind, tiny black droplets rose around him from 
the pitted floor. They quivered and hovered awaiting 
command. 

He came to with a gasp and found his cheek pressed 
against the slippery wall. He had no recall of 
standing, let alone moving. He must have sleep walked. 
When he drew his hand back, black blots in the shape of 
his fingers stayed behind. 

He leaped away, but when he tipped his head back, he 
shrank. 

Large written words and symbols in his own italics 
stared down at him. But they weren't his own words, and 
the layers were so dense he couldn't make sense of any 
of them. 

Liam scrubbed his hand against his thigh, desperate to 
remove the black substance coating it. At his feet, 
tiny black filaments, thin as lashes, disappeared, 
seeping into the clay scratches. He knelt, unwilling to 
believe what he was seeing. 

He ran a finger along the floor and checked the tip. It 
came away clean. 

He jumped to his feet again. "Who *are* you?" 

In the end, all he could do was watch. 

Plumes of smoky clouds started to swirl beneath the 
surface of the round wall. The swirls smudged the words 
he had written. Images materialized like the wall was 
some crazy Magna Doodle board. 

Liam yelped when crude baby faces - born with rage and 
hunger - snarled at him from the smoke. Images trapped 
in the wall, they dared him to follow. He had to walk 
the wall with them to keep up with their unfolding 
story. 

***No way to know where They are born, or from whom, 
but They crawl from whatever womb expelled Them and 
scrape a path on all fours until a hand falls in the 
darkness, pinches Their necks and hoists Them to Their 
feet. 

Daylight dawns and They see Their own ugliness. They 
clip Their talons and file Their teeth. They slough 
Their juvenile skin, becoming smaller, sleeker, less 
dangerous - and more. 

Creatures of the roads, both greater and lesser, merge 
with Theirs, in bright sunlight. Sometimes They share, 
often They do not. 

Those who can not survive the road are dust and memory. 
Where others grind themselves down upon the road, They 
forge on. 

The road has not ended, so neither can They. 

The sun beats on. 

Each step extracts its toll. Each footfall claims its 
chip. 

Every creature dreams of sleep. 

They fashion Themselves new limbs to walk on, new arms 
to reach with, new bodies to carry Themselves. 

They call Themselves the Navigators but fear They will 
be last to arrive. 

But the road is the promise of a destination only the 
worthy can reach. 

Night and Their Mother wait for the worthy. *** 

A pang of sadness hit Liam as inky footsteps outpaced 
him. He couldn't say how, but he knew they could never 
stop, and they walked too fast for him to catch them 
now. 

And they were alone. 

These were the Grays. Who they were. Where they came 
from. This was what they wanted *him* to know. 

They were trying to make him feel sorry for them. It 
made him want to stamp his foot. 

"Disney called," Liam yelled into the room. "They want 
their screen back ..." 

The last footstep faded away. 

Liam stared at the wall. The smoke stilled. If their 
story *was* true, why didn't they just share it? It 
wouldn't get them off the hook for all the terrible 
things they had done, but if people knew, maybe there 
was some way they could help? 

Jeremiah had said, a long time ago, that the Grays 
thought of humans as nothing better than cattle. That 
they didn't understand what humans were saying. 

"Why tell *me*?" Liam asked. 

The smoke shifted again. The vision putting words in 
his head he could not account for. 

***Once, a Star was stolen from the Navigators.*** 

Smoke tendrils formed the outline of a woman plucking 
the star from the day sky. 

***The woman swaddled the Star in her arms and kept Him 
warm. She called herself Mother, invoking the power of 
the word. 

Knowing she had done wrong, fearing He would be taken 
from her, she hid the Star in the night sky - a place 
the Navigators could not reach. 

But by Himself the Star grew cold and lost. 

Because she had abandoned Him, the woman was cursed 
with longing. Every night she would gaze at the sky for 
the chance of seeing Him. 

Knowing the power of a mother, the Navigators stayed 
close to the thief, waiting for the time she would pull 
down her Star again. 

They could make Him shine again - and when He did, He 
would lead Them to the night and They would be 
worthy.*** 

They, too, would find Their mother. 

Feeling shot through his heart. Liam took a step to 
where the image of a child folded in loving arms 
disintegrated. 

"You don't know where you came from," he said to the 
wall. "And you don't know where you're going. And that 
hurts. But how can *I* help you?" 

The light shimmered and the room whispered at him. 
"*Shine* ... " 

Liam glanced at the pillar and shivered. The fingers 
within it spread a little wider. 

"How?" 

"*Reach out* ..." 

Liam held up his palm. 

"*Remember* ..." 

All he had to do was reach out. That's what they were 
telling him. No scary experiments. No operation to 
drill holes in his mouth or implant chips in his teeth. 
Reach out to them. If he did, they would give him the 
power to remember. 

What harm could it do to remember? 

Liam felt himself tearing in two. 

He had steadfastly refused to think about his past when 
he was younger because his parents were all the world 
he needed - and, maybe, he had known the futility of 
wishing for something which could not be. 

But they were offering him a chance now. A chance to 
know his mother - his true mother - not his adopted 
mother or the woman who should have been here by now to 
rescue him. A chance to know the mother who had 
abandoned him eleven years before. 

It was tempting ... 

But it was too easy. 

And besides ... how would his memories help them? 

As if they had tapped into his thoughts, the smoke in 
the wall started to shift again. 

Sparky came alive in the smoke. And Jerry. And hands. 

There were other things - simple images which carried 
explanations greater than they themselves could convey: 
Save Jerry. Save Sparky. Be who he was born to be. It 
would be as easy as reaching out ... 

It wasn't just his memories they were offering: The 
power to re-order the universe with his mind and his 
hands. A feeling of rightness flooded him - just as 
much as a feeling of wrongness. 

What they offered wasn't natural. 

Liam gave a strangled cry. "I won't." 

It didn't come out as strongly as he wanted. 

Their offer was tempting and they knew it. 

"I won't." He forced the conviction into his voice. 

He sat again and ducked his head. He wouldn't watch 
anymore. 

Beware a free gift. 

The light faded and the walls went transparent, picking 
up the green of the glow from the outer chamber. One 
Arm appeared at the edge of the room. He said nothing 
but Liam knew it was time to go. 

Liam was returned to his cell in silence. 

When they stopped on a scratch - an X - Liam lifted his 
gaze to study the supersoldier. The man's face gave 
away nothing. 

The portal opened. Liam stepped through - and 
discovered he was not alone.