I make a few final adjustments to her systems.  The damage isn't
so terrible anymore, but my daughter has been unconscious for nearly a
day.  Slowly, I bring her out of it.

	"Ryouko."

	"Whhaaaaassssss gooooooinnnn oooonnnn?" she asks.

	I make another adjustment to her speech centers.  "You were
injured in yet another fight with Ayeka," I tell her as I do so.  "Badly
injured."

	"I can't move."

	"Of course not.  I turned off your movement center."

	"Wanna tell me why?"

	"Because if I hadn't you'd go running off the minute I brought you
back online, aggravating your injuries or adding to them when and if you
found Ayeka.  Call me a nutso mad scientist --"

	"Nutso mad scientist."

	I make a mental note to do something about her sense of humour and
continue.  "-- but I don't want to see my hard work going to waste."

	"Ah yes, Guide forbid that one of your pet projects gets broken."

	I pause in my efforts.  "I wasn't aware that you were a Guidist,
Ryouko," I say slowly while I formulate my real question.

	"It's just a figure of speech," she answers dismissively.

	"And what do you mean, 'pet projects'?  You're my daughter, and
I'm --"

	A snort ensues.

	"Daughter, believe me or don't, but I do care about you.  I --"

	"-- want the man I want."

	I pull my hands back from the keyboard, and it vanishes.

	Why did you have to fall in love with that one, of all beings,
daughter?  I sigh.  Why did you have to fall in love at all?

	I created you to be ... not a *replacement* for my first child,
lost all those many years before, but a way to prove *his* family wrong.
To demonstrate that a child that I raised would be as "noble" as any blood
could make her.

	But now ... now I begin to see how great a mistake I may have
made.  I wonder if she even realizes that she cannot give him children.
I have denied my daughter the chance to know the pain and sorrow and joy
of a child, because I have known it too much, and could not bear it.

	I could fix it, of course.  I could do so right now.  The
technology involved is available in its infancy even on this backwater
world, and a suitable artificial womb is located only a few jumps away.

	Grandchildren?

	I replace my hands on the keyboard.  "My feelings for Tenchi are
not an issue, here."

	"It's true, isn't it?"

	"It doesn't --"

	"KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS AWAY FROM --"

	"Cancel simulation," I say angrily.

	Her voice dies abruptly.  I stand up from the terminal, and turn
to look at my daughter, lying on a table a few feet away.

	I can bring her back.  I can repair her mortal injuries.  I can
give her a way to have children.

	But in over a day of personality simulations, I have not found a
way to tell her how much I care about her, how worried I have been for
her, how sorry I am that I am compelled to love the one being in all this
universe that she loves.

	The most genius scientist of the galaxy is stumped.

	"Bring her online," I say wearily.  Enough simulation.  A
pointless exercise.

	Her eyes flicker open.  She turns her head to look at me with a
vague, confused expression.

	"Momma?" she asks.

	My heart skips a beat.

	Her eyes clear.  "Wa.  Washuu."  She swallows.  "What happened?"

	"You were injured ..." I say, dizzily.

	"And you fixed me?" she asks.  She pauses, completing an internal
diagnostic.  "Thanks."

	This skipping a beat thing is inconvenient.  Perhaps I should get
a backup.

	She pushes herself off the table.  "Right," she mutters, "now
where *is* that little --"

	"Don't!"  I say sharply.  "You're still not at a hundred per cent.
It would be too much exertion for you right now."

	She glares at me.  "Like I need to be at a hundred to give Her
Supreme Annoyance what's coming to her.  And another thing, who the hell
are you to tell me what to --"

	I close my eyes, and clench my lips to keep from screaming, "I'm
your mother, you ignorant little twit, do as I say!"  It really is
pointless, no matter what happens, she'll never --

	"All right ... get me back up to specs SOON."

	Definitely need a backup.  I open my eyes and see that she is
slumped against the table, her face grey.

	I move to help her.

	Afterwards, I know, she'll be ashamed of her weakness.  I know
that feeling well.  It is one I have borne myself.

	But I know also that moments like these are meant to be kept close
to the heart, becoming golden as the years and eons turn past.

	She thanked me.

	She called me mom.

	If I'd only gotten it on tape, everything would be perfect.


Author's Notes

	This one is dedicated to Michael Borgwardt, for obvious reasons.

	You'll note that there wasn't a lot of description in this story
... well, that's because I've nowhere nearly enough jets to describe what
goes on in Washuu's laboratory.  My visualization is imperfect and
imprecise.

	(Washuu:  Enough with the E.E. Smith references, you fanboy!)

	They are appropriate ... Hayashi has stated that much of his
inspiration for both Tenchi Muyou and El Hazard comes from old pulp
science fiction.  Certainly the Souja is something of an homage to
Skylark of Valeron ...

	The next one will probably be Sasami, but I don't know when it
will be coming out.  This series, even more so than my others, is a work
that writes itself.  When it's ready to be written, it comes out in a
flood.

	The characters of Tenchi Muyou were created by Hiroki Hayashi and 
Masaki Kajishima, and brought to North America by Pioneer LDC.  This
story, while incorporating aspects of this motion picture held under
copyright by others, is copyright 1997 by Chris Davies.

	Nobody sue me, okay?

Chris Davies, Advocate for Darkness, Part-Time Champion of Light.
"Damn it all, how am I supposed to sit here and wallow in self-pity and
disgust with all this racket going on?" -- Yuusaku Godai, Maison Ikkoku.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~cdavies/hmpage.html