Liz pressed Max's fingers more tightly around the crystals. He closed his eyes, and he reached out with his mind. Instantly he felt, not a touch exactly, but the sensation of someone standing very close to him, close enough that the edges of their auras blended. It wasn't Liz, Isabel, Alex, or Maria. He knew the feel of their auras almost as well as he knew his own, and the aura touching his was unfamiliar… but somehow comforting.

Another presence moved close, its aura touching Max's, too, mixing with his, mixing with the aura of the first presence, until a single shared aura formed around the three of them. He felt none of the brain-shredding pain he'd experienced when he tried to connect to the collective consciousness without the crystals. This time connecting was like stepping into a tropical ocean, with the warm salty water surrounding him, making his body light and buoyant, rocking him with gentle waves.

The ocean was made of auras. Not just the two blended with his, but thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands of them. Maybe more. Maybe millions. Max stretched out and out with his mind and could find no end.

He heard a single word from the two presences closest to him. The word wasn't spoken in English. It wasn't actually spoken at all. It was as if the essence of the word washed over his brain, needing no translation. Son.

Son. The word swept through Max again and again, filling him with emotions not his own. Joy and grief. Pride and longing. Love.

My parents. No. It can't be.

Yes, they answered without words. Yes, son.

But his parents… his parents were dead. They died when their spaceship crashed in the desert-the so-called Roswell Incident. They had been dead more than forty years when Max and Isabel broke free of their incubation pods.

So that meant he wasn't only connecting with all those who lived on his home planet. He was connecting to the spirits of the dead as well. Max felt his eyes start to burn. This just blew him away. His parents. He was actually communicating with his parents. He never thought… never even hoped…