Kristy was wandering, distractedly pensive, in one of the countless palace gardens when Team Paris found her. Hugs and smiles and greetings were exchanged, then Becki handed a wide-eyed baby over to Kristy to be properly gushed over.
Lenka Leannan smiled too: situated neatly on a bench the other side of the hedge near which the Terra Group agents were standing, pretending to read a book Bertie had lent her, she could hear every word they said, and if (when no one was nearby on her side of the hedge to see her) she put her face up close to it, she could even see them a little.
"You are a cutie, aren't you, Wee One?" Kristy said.
"Raymond's convinced she gets it from her mother," Becki chuckled. Lenka's ears pricked up at that.
"Oh?" Kristy answered. "I don't know . . . she does kind of have her hair. Hard to tell from the NRI holo in the briefing, though. Did you guys ever get a better glimpse of Cheriss?"
"A better holo, at least," Vickie said. "Here--you hold it just right, and it turns into a projector. . . ."
Lenka would have turned to peek through the hedge just then, but a gardener passed by, glancing at her without curiosity but not without the potential for it if he should see her burying her nose in shrubbery. As soon as he was out of sight she did turn to look, but caught only the fading of a holoimage as Kristy handed something small, with the glint of metal, back to Vickie. What had been in the image she could not see, and she scowled at her luck.
"Yeah, you can see the resemblance," Kristy was saying. "Mama's hair for sure. Now, the nose--that must be Daddy's. Wish we had a holo of him to compare it to!"
"That's your job!" Josh reminded her. "Putting his picture together from her genes."
"Right. I need to get some things set up in the lab and then we can start." The voices started to move away then, and Lenka strained to hear. "And while I'm setting up, you can tell me all about Paris!"
"I thought Vickie already told you all about Paris," said Josh, an odd tone in his voice, it seemed to Lenka.
"The basics. Just enough to make me curious! It sounds like I really missed some action."
Lenka thought at first they'd finally wandered beyond her range of hearing, given the silence that suddenly fell. But then, faint but still distinguishable, Josh's voice echoed back: "Er--well--nothing much. Nothing worth telling, really. . . ."
Hearing no more, she frowned, pocketed her book, and headed back to the palace to try again.