The School had been years in coming, but its doors were finally open.

Since many sciences and technologies required infrastructure that still did not exist, it had been decided to build a school where at least the basic knowlege would be preserved. The School was actually two schools: the Basic Education Center, and the Higher Education School.

So many children had been born in the last 24 years since the people had first arrived on Neuerde, it wasn't practical to educate them in one facility. The Basic Education Center was essentially a school board office. Policies and curriculae were set, teachers were certified, and standard tests were originated there, while the actual teaching took place in the individual towns.

The Higher Education School was a centralized residential university. Wherever possible, the top expert in the respective science and technology fields represented on Neuerde were appointed as professors.

Daniel Klein had been appointed professor in Biology. (This was quite a come-down for a man with degrees in Microbiology and Biochemistry, and who had made major advances in genetic engineering and viral delivery systems, but he was the most qualified person for the job. He only hoped he would be able to get back to his research on a counteragent for Nathan's condition.

Though he was getting along in years, he pretty much knew his son was not. While Nathan's normal healthy cells were immune to the toxin the virus created, any cancerous, diseased, or mutated cells were not. So far, Dan had also determined that the toxin interfered with adrenaline, and broke down Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and testosterone.

Unless Dan could re-create the cure that was taken from him when he was sent here, Nathan would stay nine years old for a very very long time.

Though Nathan occasionally called through the family G-phone, he had not been seen since he left 15 years before.

(Apparently, he had found a way to hack the Ghanstone network. His calls had never come through the local switchboard. From what was understood about the Ghanstones themselves and their subcrystals, anonymous calling shouldn't be possible. All the subcrystals of Dan's stone were in the village itself, except for a subcrystal from each half, which were in the Capitol City main switchboard.

Yet somehow, Nathan was able to call directly. There was no way to trace the call without the switchboard rounting information. The crystal ID number Nathan used was 12345678, which Dan suspected was not a valid number.)

Though Nathan clearly didn't want to be found, Dan was sure that once he succeeded with the cure, Nathan would show up.

Today's challenge however, was impressing on his first-year students that Biology was a legitimate subject of their individual attentions.

And it would be nice to stop them from calling him 'Dr Frankenstein' behind his back. (His hearing was better than they thought.)