posted 06-11-99 01:39 PM ET        

Newly-built, the edifice stood on still-raw ground, its portals facing determinedly east, toward the rising suns. At its apex, in the door of what appeared to be a temple, stood a lone woman.

Long, wild hair of deep auburn swirled to her hips; a silver ring glinted from where it pierced her left nostril. Dark eyes studied the horizon, and she stood almost motionless, immersing herself in memory�

When Lady Deirdre Skye, the Gaian faction leader, refused to grant permission for the biogenetic engineering of Terran fauna for potential controlled release into the Centauri ecosystem, the lead zoologist had become very dissatisfied. She had not wanted to work with mindworms; she found their simple biology tedious for all their psionic capabilities. How could she focus on a mere invertebrate when the songs of Terra-the song of the lark, the whoop of the hyaena, the coughing growl of the jaguar-still rang in her memory? Here, all was red fungus and gray mindworms. No higher animals yet joined Planet�s song, and it galled her.

And so, denied permission to pursue her purpose, she took matters into her own hands. Quietly, carefully, she sounded out each member of her staff and found that most of them shared her frustrations. The zoologist was also a woman of faith; she was Wiccan-a Witch-and was High Priestess of a large coven. These people, as well, opted to follow her.

They crossed the forbidding, pitiless Great Dunes; they wished to place at least one natural barrier between themselves and the other factions. Deep in the terrible desert, they found an oasis; a place where the aquifer had been tapped and moisture touched the sand with green. From fused sand and native stone, the great step-pyramid was raised; beneath it, where the underground river cooled the caverns, lay the new base. Underground, like the Human Hive, yet full of the sensual comforts loved by the Gaians, the headquarters of the new faction thrived.

And with them, Earth lived on in the memory of Her chidren-both human and otherwise. The zoologist had brought with her the genetic samples that were her life's work and had initiated a breeding program for the higher vertebrates. It would take great care and an unbelievable amount of effort, but the zoologist felt she would prevail; perhaps even in her lifetime, the great predators would hunt the wild herds, and the sky would ring with the wingbeats of great avian flocks...

Behind the zoologist, there was a sound; a low yip. She turned, and smiled; in the doorway of the temple stood a huge, spotted hyaena-her personal guardian and companion, one of the first animals brought from the tanks. The great beast was more than that as well; she was the zoologist's personal symbol. She had even abandoned her former name; the zoologist was now known only as 'The Hyaena'.

The Hyaena walked across and crouched down, caressing the big predator's rounded ears. "Hello, Kial�, my treasure," she purred. The hyaena leaned into the caress, gazing at her namesake with adoring eyes. "Shall we go below?"