When they arrived on Tamare homeworld, trial over M-taran was almost over. They were just in time for the sentencing. All M-taran brood-children were required to be present and this included Mtak, who was still serving his sentence for the attak on Ames in a penal colony in the outskirts of Tamare space. He had been flown to homeword in chains specially for this occasion.

The sentence was harsh. All M-taran brood-children were banished from homeworld and would never fullfill their breed-purpose again in Tamare space. M-taran was sentenced to fruitless flowerings and withering alone. Her seedling would be tended to by a Seedling-tender from another brood selected at random if no volunteer came forward.

Ktak was disturbed. There was nothing harsher one could do to a Mother than separate her from her children. But she did see the reasons for it. When Ktag stepped forward to volunteer the K-maran brood to tend to M-taran seedling her soul was eased. It was both kind and right thing to do.

As the M-taran brood children were lead away Ames ended up face to face with Mtak. He could not resist the temptation and put the instruction he had received on their homeward jouney directly to use. It nearly earnt him a torn off head. Mtak was so enraged that he ripped his chains and had a second go at Ames. Ktak was luckily close enough save her husband for a second time but now, having been married for a while he got a lecture about behaving in public instead of a date and a kiss.

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Ktak's brood-mother was now almost completely dormant, but she seemed be aware when Klia and Kleo were hugging her and whispered soothingly.

Simeon passed his consort ceremony just as perfectly as Ames had and settled into K-maran brood-home with Ktag.

The X509 had left for it's next tour without them, but they were amazed to find that almost all of the human crew and the Tamare, surprisingly many Ktak found, who were granted permision by Command had stayed on homeworld to await their return. There were rumours that Commander Ktak would get a new command on return and they all wanted in on it.

When the assignment finally came Ktak had to read it twice. She was getting the command of a brand new ship. Straight out of the shipyards and twice the size of X509, the freighter and passeger liner mix was to tour between homeworld, Earth and four other sentient homeworlds and could do whole tour faster than her old ship could do single roundtrip to earth.

All her old crew had a place on it and many more. As a passenger liner, it would have it's own school and other amenities that were required for transporting people so kids of the crew could look forward to more organized lives as well.

A very specific honor came with receiving the command of a brand new ship. She could name it.

Investigator Oran was traveling with them again to return to his retrirement home. He was watching the new ship maneuver to dock at the orbital station with curiosity. As sunlight struck the ship he could finally see what he had been waitng for - the ships name written in scripts of all sentient races on it's tour path.

"Jonas K-maran"

--End--