

Government Men

By

Gary J. Davies

Published by Gary J. Davies at Smashwords

Government Men

Copyright 2014-2015 Gary J. Davies

Smashwords Edition License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free e-book. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial use without permission from the author. Quotes used in reviews are the exception. No alteration of content is allowed. With the exception of certain authorized library distributions, this e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own free copy.

This novel is a work of fiction about a parallel universe with characters, actions, places, and things that are products of the author's imagination and used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to places, events or locales is purely coincidental.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to my wife Susan, who puts up with my time consuming hobbies, to my book loving daughters Kristin and Kimberly, and to my favorite author James P. Blaylock for his enchanting early elven fantasy novels steeped with whimsical fabulism. Also I thank William Shatner for his inspiring writing efforts; for I have presumed that if he can write novels, so can anyone else. I thank my artist-brother Robert for his help with covers. Thanks also to Bill Gates and Microsoft for their spell-checker; which enables the formation of recognizable words even by engineers. (I accept full blame for word choice and order.) MUCH thanks Mark Coker, for creating Smashwords! Last but not least I dedicate this particular DOD Base Realignment And Closure (BRAC) motivated novel to Naval aviation and my compatriots of the Naval Air Warfare Center community: Naval and Marine Civil Service and supporting contractors, including those of NADC/NAWC Warminster Pennsylvania (closed in 1996), Patuxent River Maryland, Point Mugu California, China Lake California, and North Island California: patriotic dedicated Government men and women, all of them!

The BRAC closing of NADC caused me to imagine a world very like our own except that in it peace had broken out and militaries had been dissolved (The good news). And then the aliens attacked (Oops - the BAD news!). Fortunately in this fantasy world there are also mythic creatures, psychic-powered humans, friendly aliens, Trekkies, and above all a few dedicated DOD Civil Servants: Government men (and women)!

This re-release of Government Men is in response to a review comment and contains many editorial 'clean-up' sorts of corrections but is not a major rewrite.

Happy reading!

Gary Davies, March 2014; revised March 2015

****

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1 CRAB SURPRISE

CHAPTER 2 CONFUSION, FAST CARS, AND HOT WOMEN

CHAPTER 3 CORONATION

CHAPTER 4 POST-PARTY HONEYMOONING AND ASTRONOMY

CHAPTER 5 ON THE ESTABLISHMENT AND USE OF POWER IN THE OFFICE PLACE

CHAPTER 6 INTERLUDE: THE BIG DATE

CHAPTER 7 DATA BY SLUDGOMATIC AND VIP BY VISICOM

CHAPTER 8 CRISIS MANAGEMENT

CHAPTER 9 HER!

CHAPTER 10 HAVING DR. BARNS FOR DINNER

CHAPTER 11 VISITOR

CHAPTER 12 CUT TO THE CHASE!

CHAPTER 13 FLIGHT!

CHAPTER 14 CAR WASH

CHAPTER 15 THE 'B' TEAM

CHAPTER 16 HOME BASE

CHAPTER 17 THE NEXT BUS OUT OF TOWN

CHAPTER 18 A QUICK DC BUS TOUR

CHAPTER 19 THE RA REGROUP

CHAPTER 20 ALIENS AMONG US

CHAPTER 21 ENTERPRISE!

CHAPTER 22 ONWARD!

CHAPTER 23 ARIZONA REUNION

CHAPTER 24 WESTERN SHOOT OUT!

CHAPTER 25 PHOENIX GENERAL

CHAPTER 26 TWINKIES AND SWOLLEN HEMORRHOIDAL TISSUE

CHAPTER 27 GROUND ZERO

CHAPTER 28 THE CHIEFS

CHAPTER 29 DECISIONS AND COMMITMENTS

CHAPTER 30 MORE CHIEFS, UTAH BOUND

CHAPTER 31 BOSSED IN SPACE

CHAPTER 32 GOOD GRUB AND STRANGE TALES

CHAPTER 33 THE DREAMERS FROM AFAR

CHAPTER 34 THE LAND

CHAPTER 35 THE FALCON

CHAPTER 36 MCGREGOR AND FRIENDS

CHAPTER 37 AWAKENINGS

CHAPTER 38 BATTLE OF THE ONE TREE

CHAPTER 39 THE SKYWARD

CHAPTER 40 RA WOES!

CHAPTER 41 THE BLACK PIT

CHAPTER 42 CLEAN GET-AWAY

CHAPTER 43 THE TRAVELER

CHAPTER 44 FORGING THE KEY

CHAPTER 45 SOAP, SNAKES, AND BATS

CHAPTER 46 THE SLEEPER AWAKES

CHAPTER 47 THE FEATHERED SERPENT

CHAPTER 48 THE PLAN

CHAPTER 49 TRANSFORMATION

CHAPTER 50 JUNGLE RENDEZVOUS

CHAPTER 51 DANNOS

CHAPTER 52 EPILOGUE

About the Author and Other Publications

****

PROLOGUE

(A FEW YEARS EARLIER)

Dark One: raging, hateful, death bringer

Foul, cold, soulless, colorless, black abomination

Creeping out of time and space towards our light

To vanquish life and love and reason

Are you to steal the future,

And write fate in our dried, darkened blood?

\- The Traveler

The dark, mute, ancient asteroid, a craggy and pitted super nova-forged behemoth more than fifteen kilometers across, spun slowly and silently in the near-void chill of space. Once there had been millions of similar drifting objects of various sizes, shapes, and compositions in the Solar System that included Earth, building blocks for planets and moons, but after many eons most that ventured relatively near the Sun were gone: combined with planets or with the Sun itself such that their identities were forever lost.

As this solitary wayfarer passed near the Sun countless thousands of times, lighter substances were boiled and blasted from it, further purifying it, until what remained after billions of years was nearly pure iron, plus a small percentage of nickel and traces of other heavy, resilient elements. Against all odds it had for more than four billion years avoided merging with larger bodies orbiting the Sun, though its orbit had been altered by them many times. Someday, it would fatally collide with a body larger than itself and lose its identity, but given its orbit, that day would not be soon.

Then the spacecraft came. It deposited three small objects on the rogue asteroid before withdrawing, objects that soon exploded with the hellish fury of nuclear fission, vaporizing and blasting away a tiny portion of the asteroid's great mass, and changing its orbit ever so slightly.

The spacecraft soon returned briefly to make measurements of the asteroid's altered trajectory. After a few minute adjustments were made using the ship's own thrusters, the asteroid's final, deadly course was confirmed. The visitors left. The asteroid, alone once again, was now enlisted in a very ancient game, a conflict of dark, undying hate that even most of the pawns in the departing spaceship did not suspect.

Nor did the billions of Earth humans now menaced with near-term cataclysmic apocalypse yet realize their fate. Unsuspecting, they went on with their doomed, pointless lives.

****

CHAPTER 1

CRAB SURPRISE

Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.

\- Cicero

"Hot damn!" whooped Dr. Narbando Thaddeus Bates, joyfully fired up by his adventuresome driving, as his boss but decrepit old Chevy Nitro thundered forward and left with impossible acceleration, shunted awkwardly through a momentary gap between a sleek Nissan Thunderbolt and the tiny, mysterious looking, solar-panel shrouded Scandinavian Earth-Car that trailed it, and then streaked past the Thunderbolt with speed to spare.

Both of these newer cars had arrogantly whizzed past Bates only moments earlier, and ordinarily that would have been the end of it, but this Monday commute to work was very different. Something in Bates snapped, and he caught just a touch of road-rage. For the next couple of minutes at least, he wasn't going to let himself be pushed around.

On this peculiar Monday morning Bates was at last equipped with a vehicle capable of supporting a genuine berserker road-rage episode. Until a couple of days ago, the aging Nitro had simply allowed Bates to fulfill his commuting requirements in the Washington DC suburbs. His commuting had been an activity lacking in high adventure, for despite its explosive sounding name the old Nitro was woefully lacking in performance. When it was new, back when decent gasoline was available, the car had ponderous power, but that was a decade and a half ago. Lately its performance was downright lethargic. The Nitro couldn't even reach the legal speed limit, much less exceed it.

Then oddly enough last week Bates' best friends and most eminent Department of Defense scientist colleagues Mel and Oscar inexplicably and improbably developed a sudden interest in the Nitro and in auto mechanics. The pair made off with the car for a few hours the previous Friday, tinkered mysterious modifications into the old engine, and then presented Bates with the newly muscled-up Chevy and a special fuel additive to power it that they simply identified as Premium Fuel.

Engaging the new fuel injection switch on the dash-board caused minute quantities of the Premium Fuel to be added to the car's gasoline when it reached the engine, quadrupling performance. Mel and Oscar also added fuzz-busting electronics like most of the rest of the DC commuter vehicles had, which allowed Bates to break the speed limit without much likelihood of getting caught by one of the few police officers that patrolled the area.

Over the weekend, Bates discovered that when the Premium Fuel was used, driving could be a lot more entertaining than he had ever imagined. He wasn't a fan of racing or any other silly sport; their populist attraction eluded him almost completely. But this was different. This was something that he was doing himself for himself. He was having fun!

Too bad his buddies hadn't also thought to improve things like brakes, steering, and tires though, as higher speeds magnified numerous imperfections in the decrepit old Nitro such as poor suspension, bad wheel alignment, and lop-sided tires. The car vibrated and shimmied outrageously at high speeds, adding just a bit too much excitement of a bad sort to the adventure to completely suit Bates.

Driving a cruddy old primer-gray junker had never really bothered Bates in the least, even when it became agonizingly slow after good gasoline became unavailable, or so he repeatedly told himself. Never mind style or vanity; he was above such petty influences. He was after all a scientist, with more important things to worry about. Important Government things to be addressed by Government men and women such as him, including basic and applied physics research relevant to weapons development. Really important things!

Well, at least they used to be important things. With the end of the Cold War, the attention of humanity turned from preparation for war to the improvement of society. This admittedly had its good points such as world peace, universal healthcare, an end to most pollution, and the end of world hunger: wonderful things, all of them. But unfortunately for Bates and his colleagues, when American military forces were totally abolished so was funding for most basic and applied scientific research, as the work of the civilian arm of the Department of Defense was of course also presumed to be totally irrelevant. National defense was no longer an excuse to fund the quest for knowledge, and public and private funding for science largely dried up.

Fortunately due to institutional inertia and public apathy and unawareness more than anything else, a tiny remnant of the DOD Civil Service still survived at one last DOD research facility in the Washington DC suburbs, where Bates was lucky enough to still have employment.

Bates was convinced that totally dissolving the DOD was a huge mistake. In addition to the moral imperative that human civilization fund basic scientific research to better understand the universe, the USA might again need a military capability someday. These were the rational underpinnings of his views, when he tried to make sense of Government doings that probably couldn't be made sense of completely anyway. Bates remained steadfastly focused on science partly to escape such confusing and mundane considerations. Besides, understanding the origins and functioning of the universe was obviously a far easier and more pleasant task than understanding national and international politics.

After whipping past the first two cars, Bates could see only one more ahead of him, a sporty looking red one. It hadn't passed him, but he decided to go after it as a lark. This was badly needed, good, healthy, escapist action, Bates told himself. After all, his disintegrating career situation in recent years had been ravaging his meager self-image, and being 43 years old and still single hadn't helped a lick either. He was definitely suffering a mid-life crisis, though since his entire life was an unending crisis anyway, he barely noticed it. Rationally, what driving fast had to do with dealing with any of that was quite unclear, but right now it somehow seemed to help anyway.

"Whoopee!" Bates shouted. Though his accelerator wasn't even halfway down, the Nitro was moving seventy kph above the speed limit, and gaining rapidly on the speedy red car. Considering the kinematics of the situation, Bates estimated that he would have just enough space/time to pass it, if he could only keep the vibrating, shimmying Nitro on the road.

Meanwhile his mind hopelessly churned through his usual litany of personal concerns. How much longer the Base would employ him, he didn't know, but he felt that his termination would likely happen long before he wanted it to. On an emotional level, he felt betrayed by the disintegration of the DOD, and betrayed by his high school guidance counselor, his university, the DOD, Congress, that stupid old Reader's Digest story that said that science and engineering were good career moves, and especially by the dead-head, dead-beat taxpayers that let the DOD be dissolved. In particular he resented the yuppie snobs that shot by him in their fancy cars each morning as he nursed his old junker to his doomed place of employment.

Usually they drove foreign cars, he had noticed: shiny new expensive ones that actually ran smoothly though lethargically, as most of them were also powered by the weak bio-fuel mixture that passed for gasoline nowadays. They normally whizzed by him with impunity. This time, something in Bates snapped. Sure, his crappy old car was still a decrepit junker, but now it was a junker that could move like a bat out of hell: a clunky old bat, but an insanely fast one.

As he caught up with it, Bates could see that the red car was a sporty new Toyota Kamikaze. His timing was indeed perfect, for immediately after his Nitro cut in front of the Kamikaze, they both entered a single lane, no-pass zone with a lower speed limit. In defiance of fluid dynamic principles, road designers often narrowed roads and reduced speed limits at the same time, Bates had often noticed, leading to inevitable traffic jams. All one had to do to recognize the obvious design flaw was integrate over a road cross section the vector dot-product of traffic flow density and velocity with a unit vector perpendicular to the road cross section, but somehow such basic science skills had eluded civil engineers, or more likely, like DOD physicists, they were budget constrained by stingy tax payers.

Bates switched off the injection of mysterious Premium Fuel and savored his victory. Vibration and engine noise quickly dropped to more tolerable levels. Cruising at low speed, he watched in satisfaction as first the Toyota, and then the other commuter conveyances lined up behind his Nitro, bobbing, weaving and honking their horns in impotent frustration. At the moment leading this convoy of much newer, shinier cars heading towards God knows what few remaining yuppie jobs, he, Narbando T. Bates, was in charge, in his own, fully paid for, made in the good-old U-S-of-A domestic car. He was in the driver's seat, not the stingy under-taxpaying over-paid capitalists behind him. His grin broadened. He felt absofarkinglutely great!

Ignoring the increasing beeping of several car horns he slowed down even further to putter along well under the legal minimum speed limit, and fished out his trusty old unbreakable black plastic comb from an overcoat pocket. With great flourish he pretended to slowly comb his thinning hair, as if he had all the time in the world. He squatted down in the seat lower, to make sure that this defiant act could be clearly seen from the Kamikaze behind him. Let them see the DOD parking stickers on his rear bumper too, he thought, and know that they are being had by a Government man, one of the few, the proud: a U.S. Civil Servant.

He was momentarily distracted, and indeed nearly swerved off the road, when he glanced at his rear view video screen to discover that the red Toyota was actually 'manned' by a young blonde woman, and not by one of the legion of smug male corporate executives that he imagined populated most of the fancy new cars on the road each morning. He could only see her head, shoulders, and hands, and those only indistinctly through the tinted windshield of the Toyota, but that was enough for his imagination to do the rest. He somehow knew at once that she was truly stunning; quite possibly a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader or Penthouse model that happened to be driving this fine morning through the Washington DC suburbs.

Quickly his triumphal elation over beating out the Toyota faded, to be replaced by guilt and embarrassment. Why was he driving like a madman, anyway? This beautiful woman was probably an innocent, friendly, gracious soul, perhaps on her way home from driving cute innocent children to church school. Unthinking idiot that he was, he had mercilessly cut her off, at risk of life and limbs! Her limbs, which were probably fabulous!

What the hell would he have told the surviving orphans, if their mom and their flashy new Toyota had both been totaled when he treacherously cut them off simply to feed his worthless ego? To top things off, it was almost Christmas, too! He was clearly an idiot and a sludge bucket: a public servant gone completely loony-tunes! He shrank down even further in the seat, this time to escape being seen.

Turning off the highway and into the Base parking lot, old Hank (Did he have a last name?) the gate guard greeted him with apparent enthusiasm. "Hi Doc," Hank said, with a strong back-woods drawl. "How's it a-going?" Always the same question; you could depend on old Hank to bring things back to a sound, familiar, normal perspective. Bates felt a little better about everything already.

When he started working here at the DOD Headquarters Base nearly twenty years ago, Bates had been greeted on his very first day by Hank and his cheery 'Hi Doc'. Bates had been thrilled with Hank's apparent knowledge of his professional title, and was soon busting with self-importance. Think of it! Just hired that day and he already had become a recognized figure on the Base: Doctor Bates, PhD physicist!

It took Bates five years to realize that Hank cheerily greeted everyone as 'Doc'. For maybe the next five years, he felt animosity towards the guard, for having been taken in by the man. But gradually after that, he had actually come to look forward to Hank's greeting as something in his life that he could rely on. Dependable old Hank, the last remaining Base security man, was at his post in rain, snow, the hot Maryland sun, or whatever. A rock. A solid anchor in shifting times. A true professional. Today, less than two weeks before Christmas, old Hank was all decked out in his Santa outfit, but he still brandished his assault rifle smartly. What a guy!

Bates pulled the sputtering Nitro into his personal VIP parking space, turned off the ignition, and as the old car heaved laboriously through a few last engine cycles, he also breathed a deep sigh of relief. Just being on Base, he felt safe and secure, for he was back in his natural element now, a totally artificial environment. He could comfortably forget the goofy outside world for the next nine hours or so. Being a road warrior for a few minutes was fun, but it was almost too much excitement to face on a Monday morning. Thank goodness he lived only five miles away from work, such that the commute only took a couple of stressful minutes and then it was over-with, like sex.

He soon felt less guilty about cutting off the blonde in the Toyota. Before getting out of his car, he played back the last minute or so of his rear-view video to discover the woman, to her credit, prominently waving a certain long middle finger at Bates as he turned into the base and the unimpeded Toyota shot off down the road.

"Hokey smokes!" Bates muttered. What an attitude! So much for the sweet innocent mom hypothesis; Bates immediately re-stereotyped the blonde as a spoiled yuppie and probably a tax-evader to boot. Second generation yuppie, no doubt; and her old man probably bought her the car, with money made from selling American jobs to the Chinese or Irish or somebody. If she had any kids at all the poor waifs were probably stuffed away in one of those private military schools that still existed only to torment the young souls of the rich, as no militaries even existed anymore, while mom whizzed up and down highways in her fancy sports-car, terrorizing folks in slower vehicles. To top it off, she probably couldn't tell a complex factored quaternion from a confluent hyper-geometric attractor if her life depended on it. And it did, or at least it used to, before the Cold War ended and things started to fall apart at the DOD.

So all things considered, maybe cutting her off had been the right thing to do after all. Hell, maybe he'd do it again tomorrow!

He reached under the dashboard to retrieve the data disk that Mel and Oscar would be expecting, put it into its protective plastic case, and slipped it into a coat pocket. Then he tilted the steering wheel up to make more slide-by room for his ample belly, and by exerting a number of push/pull-wriggle/hop maneuvers he finally squeezed himself up and out of the Nitro. With any luck, strangling to get out of his car would be the most difficult feat that he would be called upon to perform all week.

After closing the car door he stretched his larger and pudgier than should-be self, buttoned his overcoat to keep out the chilly morning air, and smiling, paused to gaze fondly at the main Base building where he worked. Several beautiful birds flew gracefully overhead; pigeons, they appeared to be. Several smallish, furry, wild animals scurried through trash near the building entrance, probably rats. The DC suburbs were blessed with just about the right level of wildlife to suit Bates.

He opened a rear door of the old Nitro and dug through the car trash in search of his old black leather briefcase, while taking care not to let any rubbish escape out the open doorway and cause a politically incorrect littering incident. Even after a busy weekend of generating more empty fast-food bags, cups and napkins, he reckoned that the briefcase should be in a top layer of refuse and easy to locate. Sure enough he found it under the Sunday paper and two empty plastic garbage bags that he planned to use someday when the car trash situation became intolerable. He opened the briefcase to search through papers of all shapes, colors, and sizes, number-two pencils that fortunately needed sharpening and posed no danger to his searching fingers, dried-out or leaking pens, wrappers holding half-eaten candy bars, half-read magazines and paperback books with folded-back corners, and old paper-clips ensnared by disintegrating rubber-bands, to finally successfully discover his clip-on DOD ID badge.

He glanced appraisingly at the badge before clipping it on. A much younger grinning Bates, thinner and with more head hair, mockingly stared back at him. Good Christ, he thought; if he had only known then what he knew now he'd have taken up something useful and rewarding like selling surf boards in Hawaii or raising bananas in Honduras instead of physics, but now it was too damn late: his life was more than half over and it was a pathetic failure!

After closing and locking his car, he walked towards the building main entrance. The gray cloud cover broke momentarily and a beam of bright sunlight washed over the building entranceway, the scattering rats, and the ever shifting flock of pigeons. The lovely effect tended to obscure minor details such as cracked windows, peeling paint, crumbling mortar, uncut weeds, and stinking layers of dried bird poop. Over-all, Bates took it as a sign that a good day was in the offing, and his smile returned and deepened further.

After all, why shouldn't it be a good day? What could possibly go wrong? He had some interesting experiments to perform, and he was eager to get started. Mysteries of the universe would crumble before his relentless onslaught.

Weekends and blondes in Toyotas were entirely too unpredictable and incomprehensible anyway. He would X-ray a pizza maybe, if he wanted some excitement, and the hell with women that hopelessly disrupted any semi-rational thought that a man possessed.

Bates entered the main lobby, and immediately forgot about forgetting about women. "Morning, Margaret," he said, hopefully.

Margaret Crane, appearing as always both extremely competent and stunningly attractive (How did she do it?), gazed up from her desk. "Barns wants to see you A-S-A-P Narb!"

Bates never really liked his nick-name 'Narb' that much, except perhaps when a beautiful woman like Margaret said it. However, people had been calling him Narb for over forty years instead of Narbando, and he still had hopes of getting used to it.

He was on reasonably friendly terms with Margaret, but so far that's as far as it went. Frankly, Bates felt intimidated by Margaret. Actually he felt intimidated by everybody and everything, but especially by women in general and by Margaret in particular. After all, Margaret was definitely the most physically attractive woman on the Base. Currently that is; in the Good Old Days the front office area had been mobbed with attractive women; several well distributed metric tons of them he estimated. Nowadays there just weren't very many women of any description, or men either come to think of it, still working on the Base.

Right now one woman was quite distracting enough. Even behind glasses Margaret's eyes were the bluest blue, and on the rare occasions that he got up enough nerve to meet her gaze, those eyes seemed to see right through to his very soul. A leg man, he couldn't help thinking about hers, which were fabulous, though they were now completely hidden behind the counter. Even in winter, she usually wore mini-skirts, bless her.

He suddenly realized that by using the MX-84, his project equipment for the last decade or so, an observer could probably see those spectacular legs right through the heavy wooden counter with minimum radiation damage to Margaret, if it were done with sufficient care.

That would not be very practical though; the approach would be time consuming and energy-inefficient. It would be much easier to simply wait for her to get up and walk around the counter, or for him to simply ax a hole through it. Then of course, he didn't have an ax, but he did happen to have an MX-84.

Distracted visually by Margaret and absentmindedly occupied with calculations for the flux density it would take for the MX-84 to penetrate the oak counter, it took a few seconds for his bogged down brain to finally multiplex through to Margaret's verbal message. "Barns?" he managed to stammer at last. "You say that Barns wants to see me? Fudge Winkies!"

What on Earth could the Head of DOD want with him? Even after workforce reductions left precious little remaining staff, Bates had almost no direct personal contact with Dr. Barns. The DOD Head remained an enigma within the shrinking DOD enigma, and Bates was perfectly satisfied to keep it that way. After all, nearly twenty years as a Civil Servant had taught Bates to maintain a low profile, especially when only seven years from 'early' retirement eligibility.

Being called into the Head Office could only mean one of two things, he reckoned: (1) he was being canned, or, (2) he was being volunteered for something important and high profile. Either way it was a lose-lose scenario, and whatever it was, he wanted nothing to do with it. He simply wanted the next seven years to go something like the last seven: predictable, solid, and low-key. Well actually quite dull, but dull suited Narbando T. Bates quite well, thank you so very much.

"Sorry, I have no idea why he wants to see you," Margaret answered the unspoken question headlined across Bates' paling face. "Better leave the overcoat here though," she suggested, as she glanced up pointedly towards the lobby wall-clock.

Fudge Winkies thought Bates; ten minutes late again! So then, on further reflection there was a third possible reason for this unprecedented meeting. Could Barns somehow know that he was late for work again? After all, Barns was a consummate clock-watcher. Never mind that for years there had been no critical work to do or deadlines to meet once anyone actually got to their office, or that even without overtime pay Bates and many other staff members routinely worked well beyond normal hours on their projects anyway, regardless of a lack of interest in them by anyone else in the damn peace-loving world. No, employees still had better be at work by no later than 9 AM in accordance with arcane and obscure DOD regulations, or the bean-counting John Barns types would be there to admonish them for 'wasting taxpayer money', whatever the hell that meant. No doubt about it, walk into that man's office at 9:10 AM still in a coat, and any employee would be dead meat. Bates took off and handed his overcoat to Margaret along with his briefcase, and muttered thanks. Not even waiting to see if she was going to stand up and expose her legs, he started to slowly walk towards the Head Office.

Having a meeting with a bigwig like Barns would be damn risky business, mused Bates, as he inched slowly down the hall towards the Head Office. He had to quickly compose himself and prepare for this unexpected interview as best he could.

Perhaps he should try to put Barns into a good mood right off. He could tell him a joke maybe? He tried to remember a joke to tell, but came up totally blank. He liked to listen to jokes, but he simply wasn't the joke telling sort. He could only suppose that folks that told jokes took notes, studied, and practiced in front of mirrors every night and morning in order to pull it off, and he just didn't have the time for such shenanigans.

Besides, as poor a joke-teller as Bates was, Barns was completely humorless and an even poorer joke-listener. No, he clearly needed another strategy.

He should of course look professional. Executive types seemed to like that; who the hell knows why? He checked himself over. He wasn't wearing a suit coat, but at least he wore relatively clean and unwrinkled dress shirt, pants, and tie. His clever clothing ensemble today even featured similar green colors to fit the holiday season, and maybe they even 'matched', who the hell knew? His top two shirt buttons were missing, but that was no problem, as his tie adequately held his shirt closed.

He straightened the tie nervously. It was one of his best Christmas ties: florescent green, covered with dozens of red smiley faces wearing little silver colored Santa beards and hats. Unfortunately, the nifty tie was tied wrong again, which left the narrow underneath part extending down at least ten centimeters beyond the wider outer part.

No problem! He tucked the offending part of the tie into his shirt. That clever move renewed his confidence a little, and reminded him that he was after all a scientist: a born problem solver of near-genius ability.

Then he noticed that his shirt wasn't tucked into his pants. No problem! He tucked it in. Unfortunately, tucking it in made more evident the fact that he had forgotten to wear a belt again. No problem! He found that if he tucked in just the bottom edge of the shirt, the resulting lose shirt folds were long enough to cover the offending belt-empty area.

However, looking down over the bulge of his belly and past the bilowing shirt, he noticed that he was wearing his old beat-up running shoes (Not that he would ever actually _run_ in them!) without socks. Good gravy! Old orange running shoes probably weren't considered to be sufficiently formal office-place attire! Also, he seemed to recall a VISICOM fashion news brief a few months or years ago that stated that wearing socks was back 'in' again, and VIP executives like Barns probably kept up with that silly sort of stuff.

No problem! By pulling his pants down a few inches, his baggy pants' cuffs hid his knobby, sock-less ankles and grubby orange sneakers. Thank goodness bell-bottom pants had finally come back 'in' again about ten years ago, and he had the fashion sense to keep and continue to use every article of clothing that he ever owned. Luckily as long as he took little baby steps and slouched down a little, which was how he normally walked anyway, there was still enough spare shirt to hide the empty belt loops on the lowered bell-bottoms.

Now that all of his clothes fashion problems had been completely and effectively solved, his confidence was renewed, and his fertile mind began to churn again through the three possible reasons for the meeting with Barns.

It could mean that a reduction in force (RIF) was happening. But those were usually Base-wide, and typically proceeded by several weeks of rumors, mostly false, about who would get the ax, and how it would be justified, and what exit benefits, if any, were to be provided to the parting victims. Bates had heard nothing about RIFs for several months.

Of course, perhaps the remaining Base staff levels had dropped below some critical density value required to support the reliable spread of rumors. Alternatively, maybe rumors were predominantly a chaotic phenomenon that even with significant further study and conventional computer modeling couldn't be understood or depended upon for predictable timely information, regardless of staff density.

Bates had no idea, so his hopeless thought process moved on to considering the 'hot job' scenario, while at the same time he was attempting to find his hair comb. He must have left the comb in his overcoat, so he combed his hair with his fingers, and that was yet another problem solved! He breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. He was a born problem solver! After all this, he could probably handle anything that Barns could throw at him!

So then, what about the 'hot job' scenario? Upon further reflection, that didn't seem very likely. The DOD, as far as Bates knew, hadn't had real work in years, let along a 'hot' job to which additional researchers needed to be assigned. Even all of the mysterious secret 'black' projects seemed to be gone. Bates felt that he had at least vague ideas of what projects virtually all the few remaining Base scientists and engineers were working on, and he couldn't imagine contributing meaningfully to any of them.

Besides, their projects like his were winding down, and with the funding decreases that everyone faced, why on Earth would anyone want to add another researcher to their project? A mother in-law or an insurance salesman would be more warmly welcomed into most projects than would an additional fund-sucking physicist. Why, if he were to be added to someone's project now they'd surely riot, super glue his pencils to desks and ceilings, spike his hot cocoa with EXLAX, and shoot him up with rubber-band slung paper clips until he was driven off. Scientists are after all highly territorial, especially when under budget stress.

That seemed to leave only a third possibility: the late-worker scenario. Barns must have found out that he was late again, but how could he have known? After all, the Head Office windows faced away from the employee parking lot; Bates had researched that issue very thoroughly over the years. So then, it was therefore highly unlikely that Barns could know when he had arrived at work.

Unless someone else had told him. But who would do something like that? Who had the motive, opportunity, knowledge, capability, and so-forth?

Following a final twist of hallway, Bates suddenly found himself facing the answer to those questions. In the lobby outside the Head Office sat Ms. Sally Twig, also known less than affectionately by her coworkers as The Crab, head secretary for the Head of DOD. Over the rounded, bony, middle-aged shoulders of the diminutive but nonetheless imposing personage of the infamous Crab, Bates could see the big window behind her desk. And through that window he could see his old primer-gray Chevy Nitro, still smoking a little from its recent uninhibited tryst with the perky young red Toyota.

Things were starting to become very clear now. For some reason Twig must have it in for him. Everyone knew who really ran the Defense Department; certainly not Barns, his secretary usually did, of course. That's what head secretaries always did, and The Crab was certainly no exception. Now Bates realized that he was in very serious trouble indeed. "Fudge Winkies!" he quietly muttered.

Also present in the lobby was the immensely tall, incredibly thin, silent, and mysterious Renson. He was supposed to be some sort of staff specialist for Barns, but he seemed to always be quietly hovering around Twig like a great vulture. Currently, Renson stood perched in a corner staring blankly at the opposite wall, seemingly oblivious to everything. Great work if you can get it, reflected Bates.

Nothing escaped The Crab's notice, however. Twig arose from her nesting place and walked around Bates, strutting like a Marine drill sergeant, inspecting him with little prods and yanks to shirt, tie and hair. "Glad to see you could make it in at last, Dr. Bates," said The Crab. "And aren't you looking stylishly professional this morning!"

Actually Bates was reconsidering his appearance. Maybe instead of wearing greenish Christmassy colors he should have worn all institutional gray that matched the Base walls and floor, rendering him virtually invisible even to the snooping Crab. Too late now though. She had seen him and seemed almost happy about it.

Indeed there seemed to be some indefinable sense of triumph in her snide but unusually cheery manner this morning, as though his very presence and appearance had verified something in her favor. If it were in her power to smile, Bates felt that she probably would have. Not a cheerful, reassuring, Humpty-Dumpty sort of smile, but an 'I gotcha right where I want ya' shark kind of smile. If course she didn't smile, and in fact had never been known by anyone on the Base to smile. There was a long-standing unsettled bet between several prominent Base scientists on whether or not she had any teeth.

"Dr. Barns will see you now _,_ " Twig at last announced, for Bates had apparently passed muster. To his astonishment a slight, close-mouthed smile formed on her thin lips as she grasped his shirt sleeve in one bony, claw-like hand, and yanked him towards the door to the Head Office. Oddly enough, her bowlegged crab-like gate matched Bates' baby step, grubby-shoe-hiding-pace fairly well.

If he was going to panic and run away, Bates knew that this was theoretically the time to do so. Even if it meant taking long, ankle-exposing strides, he should probably vamoose now. Even he could probably outrun bow-legged Twig. However, though his larger than middle-sized frame towered over tiny Twig even when slouching, he had always felt powerless in her presence, though he could never figure out why. Just a look from The Crab and he was Jell-O. It wasn't just that she was a woman or at least purported to be one; there was an ugly something deeper and indefinable about her that chilled and paralyzed the soul.

Indeed, just now Bates felt like a helpless butterfly being forced into one of his biologist friend Oscar Oscomb's insect collections. Twig would now open the metaphorical lid of the bug-killing jar and throw him in. Barns would administer the ether. Then he would be properly skewered and hung out to dry.

All too soon even though he had been taking only extra-small baby steps, the heavy oak door/jar lid to the Head Office was opened by Twig, and Bates was shoved by her into the inner sanctum of what had once been the most powerful Department of the Government of the United States of America. She closed the door behind them and stood at a parade-rest stance in front of it, blocking any possible escape, while still sporting a slight smile as she watched him with her dark, beady little all-seeing eyes.

Behind a huge mahogany desk flanked by several flags and photos on the wall of recent presidents shown shaking his hand sat Dr. John Thaddeus Barns, the man tasked by Congress to administer an end to DOD, as quickly and as cheaply as possible, though strictly within regulations, of course. That Barns had indeed systematically gutted the DOD, but nevertheless for several years managed to actually stretch out its life, and consequently, his own well-paid position as well, was testament to his administrative and political skills. A world renowned scientist, a former U.S. Senator, and a well-known public figure, he was truly a great man.

Right now, the great man sat beaming up at Bates like an idiot. It was the first time that Bates had ever seen him smile at all. Even at Christmas parties with a few belts of well-spiked punch in him, Barns had never been known to crack even the slightest smile. It seemed to Bates that he had been saving it all up for now. It was not a pretty sight, and Bates felt his legs nearly buckle as he abruptly entered a state of utter terror.

"Ah, Dr. Bates," said Barns, smiling as he bounced his small roly-poly little balding self up out of his chair to greet Bates with a surprisingly firm and warm handshake. "It's so good to see you, Dr. Bates! Here, have a seat and make yourself comfortable."

Guided firmly by the Crab's pincer-hard grip on his shoulders, Bates sat down numbly, more than a little confused by this warm welcome from a man that had never before paid the slightest attention to him, while Barns, in an animated display of energy and apparent enthusiasm seldom seen at DOD in recent years, put on his much more familiar serious face, and started to pace the room rapidly.

"We shall both be having a very busy day today, Dr. Bates, so let's get right to it."

"Yes sir," croaked Bates weakly, surprised to find that he had any voice at all.

"Bates, as you well know, DOD is a dying department. There is nothing left of it now but this single, aging research base, and its aging, depleted staff. Oh, I've fought with Congress to preserve projects and personnel for as long as possible, but it's simply a losing battle."

Barns fought to preserve personnel? That's not what Bates had heard, but he prudently decided not to make an issue of it at this particular moment.

Barns continued, waving his pudgy little arms as he talked, as if he were conducting a symphony. A snappy Brahms movement, perhaps, thought Bates, loaded with drama. Meanwhile the Crab stood to one side watching and listening, smiling her scary-looking close-lipped smile. "We have good people here, some of the best in their fields, and we should do everything possible to carry on. However..." Barns shook his head and frowned. "Are you familiar with the MAPRA?"

"Yes sir," Bates managed to whisper. What Civil Servant wasn't? The MAn Power Reduction Act was said to define maximum permissible DOD staff levels, though of course in such unintelligible lawyer-addled politically charged language that nobody that Bates knew was quite sure exactly what the hell the document really meant.

"Good!" continued Barns. "Frankly, starting tomorrow Bates, we would be one scientific staff position over the MAPRA legal limit. I don't have to tell you that all hell would break loose if that was allowed to happen. Audits, RIFs, and God knows what!"

Bates could well imagine the 'what' scenario. Why, if the miserly taxpaying public at large were to find out that a hundred and fifty DOD workers still actually existed, the Government would be pressured to dissolve the entire group immediately!

Barns turned to stare straight down into Bates' eyes. "There's simply no way around it Bates, someone has got to go! Today!"

When his heart started up again, Bates, again imagining himself as a butterfly about to be gassed to death, could sense the ether coming. He slowed his breathing to a minimum, as that should offer some protection. He wandered if butterflies ever used similar stratagems. As a last, inspired, defiant act as a scientist, he started to take his own pulse. Later, if he ever recovered enough emotionally, he could graph the results and send it off to some journal as a technical short paper, probably his last, on the effects of terror on the pulse rates of scientists. He took a deep breath and held it as part of his last-ditch strategy. After all, he wasn't a butterfly; as a reasoning human being he could protect himself from the ether. He wondered why he hadn't thought to wear a gas mask that morning.

In the meantime Barns continued, after a suitable pause to let the gravity of the situation fully sink in. "I want you to know that I've worked really hard on this one, Bates. However, my position demands that I make some very hard decisions. Over the last few days Ms. Twig and I studied the personnel records of all remaining staff. You, Dr. Bates, are at best a scientist of very limited talents."

Besides being a mediocre scientist, Bates also wasn't very good at holding his breath. His face was already red and blotchy, his bulging eyes glassy and unfocused. Barns, displaying his usual lack of perception and absence of sensitivity towards humanity, appeared not to notice, while Twig continued to watch and smile, and occasionally nod in approval at what Barns was saying.

"Your performance has been satisfactory, of course, but simply does not meet the highest standards of Government scientific service. Your projects are low priority. In brief, as of this afternoon, your services here as a scientist will not be missed."

With an audible "pooh" Bates exhaled, then helplessly inhaled deeply. There had never really been any chance for his escape. He slumped panting in his chair; limp, numb and ready for skewering and mounting.

He was actually being fired! Over the last few years he had often envisioned what he would do and say if this happened, but right now he couldn't seem to remember any of those things, and he couldn't seem to do or say anything at all! He should at least tell Barns off, but he didn't seem to have any words, or voice, or coherent thought, and had completely lost track of his pulse, so forget about technical short papers.

It was as if his entire being had just been flushed down some cold unfeeling abyss. Everything, his work, his friends here, his cluttered but comfortably familiar desk and office/lab, his VIP employee parking, and any chances he had with Margaret: everything was gone! He was numb. If Barns were at that moment to also kick him in the shins and give him a noogie, he couldn't have lifted a single finger in his own defense.

Dimly, he was aware that Barns was still talking. He was saying something about having had a long talk with Mel and some of the other scientists about him. That he was confident that everything would work out. That the ceremony had to be that afternoon, because of the fishing trip/honeymoon. That there should be no retirement luncheon, perhaps just gifts for his Little Cuddles.

"Huh?" said Bates. Regaining full awareness was an agonizing process, with musty cobwebs and cotton candy still clogging up his mind, and the butterfly gassing and skewering analogy still further confusing things. His first lucid thought was that full scale insanity had finally struck him down while we wasn't really paying close enough attention.

Barns was by now again sitting behind his desk and staring across at him with that idiot grin again, but holding a spinning rod in one hand. On his head was a fishing hat, bristling with hook-laden flies, spinners, minnow-lures, and green, goggle-eyed rubber frogs.

Sitting on his lap was Little Cuddles, alias The Crab, hugging Barns with her thin spindly arms, while managing to still keep a respectful distance from the fish-hook laden fishing hat. She was actually smiling even wider, though it was still a closed-mouth smile that shed no light on the teeth issue. It was the most astonishing thing Bates had ever seen, and he could only sit gaping at them as open-mouthed and wide-eyed as a stunned mackerel!

"I said: we were married just this morning." Again, the expectant pause and idiot smile from Barns.

"Oh, of course; congratulations sir!" managed Bates, rising numbly for a moment to reach over the desk and shake Barns' hand, spinning rod and all. "And of course, congratulations to...ER...Mrs. Barns also." Twig actually smiled (With closed mouth!) at Bates. Perhaps she was marginally human after all!

"Now, Bates," said Barns, returning quickly to his no-nonsense business demeanor, "I want you to go clean out your desk immediately and be back here at 1300 sharp. We have some things to discuss before the ceremony is held in the auditorium at 1400."

Bates could only sit there like an idiot. Clearly he still hadn't pieced everything together yet. What ceremony, if they were already married? And what did Barns getting married have to do with him cleaning out his desk? Did they mean to see him kicked off the Base before leaving on their honeymoon? Two and two were still adding up to three or less, and Bates didn't like to be confused, even though it was his usual state.

"Ah sir, does there have to be a ceremony?" he ventured tentatively, staring at a big, bug eyed, green rubber frog that now threatened the right ear of Little Cuddles.

"Of course there does," answered Barns, in astonishment. "Just a little one as these things go though: not like in the Good Old Days of course. No time to plan a decent one anyway. But you can't very well take over as the new Department Head of DOD without some sort of ceremony now, can you?"

"Head of DOD?" stammered Bates, eyes agog even further and mouth gaping. "Me?"

"Now Bates, I know it's not science, just administration," Barns consoled, "but I think you'll find that the job has its rewards. Don't worry; I'm sure you will do quite well." Barns gave a little nod of his head that very nearly hooked Twig with one of the frogs, but still smiling, she ducked skillfully out of the way. "I'll leave you my VISICOM number of course, in case you need some advice getting started. I'm retiring, but I'll still be in the area. But we have every confidence in you, don't we Cuddles?"

"Yes of course we do, Lamby Pie," cooed Cuddles. Ignoring Bates, the lovebirds rubbed noses affectionately as they embraced and smiled at each other.

Bates suddenly felt sick to his stomach. The sight of The Crab being affectionate, and with Barns of all people, was simply too much to bear. As the couple was no longer paying any attention to him, he decided that it was time for him to quietly leave, while he still had some control over his breakfast. He stood up on unsteady legs, edged towards the door awkwardly, and opened it quietly.

"Bates!" called out Barns, as Bates was discretely shunting through the doorway. "Tell Crane to spread the word."

"Yes sir!" replied Bates.

He walked away from the office gingerly, while cautiously checking to see if gravity and other natural laws of physics were still in effect. Was he still in the same universe, or had he slipped through a worm-hole and stumbled into Never-Never Land or something?

While he wandered numbly past her counter, a concerned Margaret Crane asked Bates if he was OK. The dazed and pale scientist could only stammer something about having to clean out his desk, that someone had to leave the Civil Service today to meet MAPRA limits, and that she should spread the word about a retirement ceremony in the auditorium at 1400.

Working from such a poor batch of information, she naturally got the story slightly wrong. VISICOMs were soon abuzz across the Base. In minutes, the staff density still being quite adequate to support the chaotic spread of rumors, all the remaining meager resources of DOD were being brought to bear. At 1400 today, the friends of Dr. Narbando Thaddeus Bates would gather to respectfully say good-by and wish him well. Word was out that poor Bates was being canned!

****

CHAPTER 2

CONFUSION, FAST CARS, AND HOT WOMEN

Get the facts first. You can distort them later.

\- Mark Twain

A confused and anxious Dr. Narbando T. Bates sat quietly in his office, trying unsuccessfully to make sense of his morning meeting with Barns and Twig. His office was an accurate reflection of the man: colorful furniture, lava lamps and rubber chickens accented a sea of worthless trash and junk. The man himself relaxed comfortably on a well-worn recliner next to the motley mountain of old books, magazines, and papers that cleverly hid his ponderous, dull grey, standard issue DOD desk.

At the far end of his office a large space was cleared from his collection of old office furniture and accumulated trash in order to accommodate his experimental equipment, the MX-84, which consisted of a table and two equipment racks full of unrecognizable electronic boxes and wires, plus a wheeled tripod that carried a co-focused array of parabolic shaped emitters and antennas. The arbitrarily designed fire-hazardous ensemble was completed by a heavy-duly power cord that wound its way through junk furniture and trash to fed the power-hungry MX-84.

Now that Bates was back in more familiar and comfortable surroundings, the earlier strange encounter with Barns and Twig seemed less and less real. Traditionally the actions of management could only rarely be understood on any level by anyone, and this was certainly no exception. The prospect of being made Head of DOD just didn't make any sense at all. Why him? Other than the fact that both he and Barns had the same middle name, Bates could think of no reason whatsoever. After all most, or perhaps even all of his coworkers on the Base were higher ranking and/or more capable.

For example, what about Frank Melberg? Melberg was the Deputy DOD Head and in principle Barn's second in command, even though at times, like Renson, he seemed really to work primarily for Twig. What would his reaction be if Dr. N. T. Bates really was made Head of DOD? Bates smiled. He'd love to see old prune faced Melberg get that news; it would drive the man bonkers!

As he sat in his office recliner pondering events from this angle and then that, Bates feared more and more that he was suffering from hallucinations or worse. Narbando T. Bates as Head of DOD? Any way that he looked at it, this simply couldn't be happening. He decided that he needed to calm down, study, and resolve the entire issue logically. He was after all a scientist; he had the ability, need, and responsibility to look at things that happened in this universe and make some sense of them. He took another deep breath and tried to get his bearings.

Could it all be an elaborate hoax? Had Barns and Twig both suddenly developed a sense of humor? That seemed highly doubtful; despite his recent astonishing observation that both of them were capable of smiling. Being too lazy to abandon his comfy recliner to use the marker-board on his wall, Bates found an unbroken pencil with some lead showing and began to methodically sketch out some of the more realistic hypotheses on the scrap paper that profusely littered the mound of paper products that buried his nearby desk.

(1) Had he, Narbando T. Bates, gone totally crazy? At the moment, this seemed highly plausible. Indeed, it wasn't altogether uncommon for folks to declare him crazy. Was he simply imagining things to be the way that he wanted them to be? He was of course prone to normal daydreams about becoming rich or getting laid, but why the hell would he ever imagine that he was being made Head of DOD? What would be the point in it?

Still, perhaps he had somehow been psychologically pushed into this oddball notion. Maybe there was something that his long dead parents had done to him as a child, something that was suppressed and buried so deep in his subconscious that he didn't even know about it. Perhaps he really was being canned, and had hallucinated the rest as a defensive mechanism. He doodled a plump, pathetic, quivering little smiley face character on his paper, poised on a wood plank suspended above a dark pool full of big mouthed, sharp toothed shark-creatures. However, if he really was crazy, then he couldn't reliably conclude anything at all, could he? As this line of thought had unfortunately led to a logical loop or dead end, he went on to hypotheses #2.

(2) Was Dr. Barns crazy? This was certainly a more attractive hypothesis to Bates from a personal viewpoint. If so, who would be better as Head of DOD, a crazy Barns, or Narbando Bates? Bates wasn't at all sure, as even a loony Dr. Barns was probably still much more qualified than himself. And what about Twig? She had always treated him with utter disdain. How could she have possibly supported his promotion to become Head of the DOD?

Just what was the joint probability of _both_ Barns _and_ Twig going crackers on the same Monday morning, and both coming up with Narbando Bates as the ideal new Department Head? Vanishingly small, he supposed. As it was more dramatic than using scientific notation, he doodled a decimal point followed by zero after zero on his scrap paper, with no non-zero integer in sight, then added Twig and Barns eyes, noses, fishing hats, and glasses onto some of the zeroes. For the sake of completeness he drew a little line above the last zero to indicate that the zeroes continued infinitely.

Then of course, if he hadn't actually hallucinated the Little Cuddles/Lamby Pie business, maybe love was the explanation. After all, people certainly did do some goofy things when they were in love, and that whole love and sex business was incomprehensible to begin with. But the love hypothesis still wouldn't explain why Narbando Bates was the couples' particular choice to become the new Head of DOD! Besides, was love really such a destructive and chaotic force in the Universe? Bates certainly preferred not to think so. Love was incomprehensible and probably unobtainable, but hopefully not blatantly destructive. Hopelessly mired again, Bates moved on to hypotheses number three.

(3) Were they all crazy? This could certainly explain everything and anything from a purely logical viewpoint, but to any scientist worth his salt it simply didn't qualify as a viable hypothesis. He might just as well try to blame everything that happened in the universe on witchcraft, the commies, the KKK, fluoridated water, right-wing nut-jobs, left-winged-nut-jobs, lunar cycles, PMS, invading space aliens, etc. Bates steadfastly refused to be party to such intellectually bankrupt theories. After all, he still had his scientific principles, and clearly hypothesis number three abandoned those to chaos, madness, and despair. Besides, if they were all crazy, then he too was crazy, which seemed to lead him back to hypothesis number one, which had resulted in the conclusion that no conclusion at all could be concluded because he lacked the mental capability needed to reliably conclude conclusions. On his papers he tried hopelessly to capture all this muddled reasoning with logic diagrams that branched, looped, and go-to-ed far too much for human comprehension.

Thus his thoughts cycled impotently, potentially ad infinitum, until a half an hour and several pages of worthless logic diagrams and doodles later, he was interrupted by the timely appearance of his good friend Dr. Mel Guthery. On Mel's small thin frame hung a tattered, jelly stained, plaid flannel shirt, with buttons paired randomly to button holes. Perhaps by some fortuitous quirk of fate, the predominately blue shirt appeared to be color coordinated with the faded, patched blue jeans into which it was partially tucked. A pair of well-worn Indian moccasins completed Mel's workplace wardrobe.

In other words, at first glance, Mel appeared perfectly normal. To and from work Mel wore a formal gray three-piece suit, white shirt, bland solid colored tie, and black leather dress shoes, placed carefully on him by his wife Jane. She dressed the man for IBM in the seventies.

At work, Mel wore what he wanted. As Mel once explained to Bates, at a very early age he adopted what he called the Mr. Rogers Philosophy of Work Attire, though he had extrapolated the principle somewhat beyond sweaters and sneakers. The result was an informal appearance that probably didn't even meet lax Civil Service standards.

However even Barns and Melberg didn't dare say a word to Mel about his informal wardrobe. Being Dr. Melvin P. Guthery, world famous Nobel Prize winning physicist, had its privileges even in a stodgy outfit like the Federal Government. Of course, if his wife Jane ever found out, Mel was a dead man.

On closer inspection however, Bates could see that Mel was upset. His usual smile had been replaced by a deep frown, and behind thick eyeglasses, the usually intense, deep, brown, sparkling eyes were red and teary.

Mel sat down facing Bates in one of his two functioning, trash-free guest chairs. "I'm sorry Narbando, the news is all over the Base!" said the distraught, almost blubbery Mel.

So, thought Bates, the word was out, confirming that he truly was being canned! He circled the number 'one' on a logic diagram and sat smiling for a few moments, actually pleased with himself for solving a logic problem, until he realized that this particular solution implied that he was crazy, as well as fired. But then that meant that this whole business still could be nonsense, since if he really was crazy, he couldn't very well conclude anything, despite what he thought that Mel just told him, including concluding that he was crazy.

Regardless of the failed, twisted logic though, it felt as if he had just been slipped a mickey and punched in the gut, and Bates collapsed limply further back into the suddenly inadequate comfort of his old recliner.

Meanwhile, Mel continued. "And they did it even after I told Barns how valuable you have been to my work here."

He was valuable to Mel's work? Mel's theories of the universe were well beyond Bates' own limited understanding. Bates had gone into experimental physics instead of theoretical physics in recognition of his serious limitations in that regard. But then again, now that Bates thought about it, he realized that in a sense he did contribute to Mel's work, though certainly more through emotional and social support than through scientific insight. He wandered if Mel had told Barns that he had originally introduced Jane, later to become Mrs. Mel Guthery, to Mel.

In fact, over the last ten years, three women, after too briefly dating Bates, had each married one of his coworkers. So what if he was a poor scientist; he was a damn good match maker! That should have counted for something with love stricken Little Cuddles and Lamby Pie, thought Bates.

"What exactly did you tell him, Mel?" asked Bates, sitting up now, revived by curiosity. "Did you mention Jane?"

"Hah?" asked Mel, clearly puzzled. "Why on Earth would I mention Jane? I believe that my main point with Barns was that you are more an average sort of guy than some of the rest of us are." Mel smiled as he said this, clearly feeling that he had done his best to cast his friend in a positive light, though just being 'average' didn't sound awfully complementary to Bates. "I told him that you weren't so involved in your work that you didn't know about other things going on around you."

Oh great, thought Bates, Mel told the boss that he is just an average guy, not a very hard worker, and a nosy busy-body to boot! No wonder he was being canned!

"I told Barns that you weren't really so much a nerd; that you were a very nicely rounded individual," finished Mel, as he reached out to playfully pat Bates' well-rounded tummy.

Bates now really felt hurt. Not a nerd? Had his years of practiced eccentricity totally gone to waste? He knew he wasn't much of a scientist, but he thought that he at least acted like one pretty good.

Bates felt certain that Barns had negatively interpreted everything that Mel had told him. He would certainly not suggest this to Mel though; he couldn't let his friend feel even more upset. It bothered Bates greatly to see Mel so distraught. He tried to re-focus his friend's mind on something else. "How's your research coming?" he asked Mel. "Make any progress over the weekend?"

Mel looked confused for just a moment, but then actually smiled. "Well, my latest grand unified theory or theory of everything for the universe is about to be published. Wait until you see it, it's a real doozy of a GUT/TOE. It will shake the scientific community, what's left of it, to the very core. I think it will straighten up our understanding of quarks, cosmic strings, black holes, the big bang, dark matter and energy, and lots of other awfully confusing stuff. The string theory and loop quantum gravity folks had some good ideas, but not radical enough. Plus, I've been working on my technology transfer projects."

Base scientists were mandated to write papers that had actual practical applicability to society, 'transferring' technology to the public as part of the Base close-down process. Since Mel's field dealt with impractical things like the fundamental nature of the universe, he had to come up with unrelated side projects that could benefit mankind, including even stingy tax payers.

"Shed any light on the missing socks phenomenon yet?" asked Bates.

"Not a clue yet," confessed Mel, "though at least I have plenty of clean socks as a result of my empirical efforts. Not too many actual matching pairs of socks, of course."

"Of course not," agreed Bates. It was one of the reasons he had given up on socks himself. The damned things were always disappearing. Rather than claiming the phenomenon to be experimental evidence of black holes, Mel sought a more conventional explanation. If Mel ever cracked the missing socks mystery, he'd be a national hero. "What about spaghetti?"

"Trivial, at least in the preliminary stages, compared to the missing sock phenomenon. Early empirical results indicate that one mass unit of dried spaghetti cooks up to about 2.4 mass units of cooked spaghetti."

"Valuable information for spaghetti cooking folks, for sure," commented Bates.

"Absolutely! Of much more practical value than my grand unified theories, certainly. A gut theory instead of a G-U-T theory. Next I'll vary cooking times, spaghetti diameters, and so on. I may gain a little weight as a result, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for science."

"Thought much about quantum mechanics lately?"

"Oh! I just sent another refutation of the multi-universe interpretation of quantum mechanics to one of the science magazines again this morning. That should stir things up nicely!"

"That's always fun, though maybe things would be more interesting if there actually were a multiverse."

"There is a multiverse, but not so much through quantum mechanics. In fact I strongly suspect it to be the other way around: quantum mechanics is a result of the multiverse. Quantum mechanical uncertainty reflects how the multiverse constantly looks for and finds math solutions. The solutions that are picked make up the always emerging reality that we experience; a 'now' place where time and negative time come together."

"But you think that there are other realities?"

"Yes, but they differ radically from ours, with different laws of nature corresponding to different cohesive sets of mathematics. The quantum-driven multiverse idea would have us think that as well as radically different math-system-based universes there are untold trillions of worlds just like ours except for perhaps some less than subtle differences in history. For example in some of them Kennedy didn't get elected to a second term as president and end the Cold War. That would be both absurd and disquieting."

"Or maybe there are worlds where Mozart got sick and died young instead of living to be almost a hundred and writing over a thousand symphonies," Bates conjectured, getting into the spirit of what Mel was explaining. "I wouldn't have liked that. Mozart is my favorite, especially his final hundred or so symphonies."

"Or where Ralph Nader never founded a third political party and took power away from the nasty right-wing Republicans and weak-kneed Democrats and pushed through his consumer and green agendas. Or where VISICOMs were never invented and we still used simple telephones. Or where umbrella hats never completely replaced umbrellas. Or where they stopped making Twinkies or the New Coke or plastic bags with twist-ties, and so-forth. It could be a terrible nightmare," concluded Mel.

"And what if Star Trek had been cancelled after only a few seasons instead of lasting for five decades?" Bates ventured. "The possible horrors are endless! On the plus side though, those kinds of multiple universes would offer lots of science-fiction writer opportunities."

Mel shook his head, dismissing the absurdity. "For better or worse we're stuck in reality, Narb, not some goofy parallel universe fantasy."

"What are you working on right now, Mel? Are you making progress this morning?"

"Not a stitch. I haven't done any real work on anything at all today once I heard about your problem. The news about you has thrown my research all out of kilter."

Anger arose in Bates. Mel's time was simply too valuable to science to waste this way. Not that society as a whole paid much attention to basic research anymore, but the hell with society! Mel Guthery was probably the greatest living scientist of his generation, and his dear friend, and both science and friendship still meant a lot to Bates. He probably would have been perfectly happy to sit cowering in his office all morning merely thinking about what might have really happened earlier, but now that he saw that this whole thing was really hurting his friend Mel, he knew that something had to be done immediately.

He had to confirm once and for all what was really going on. He couldn't wait until his 1300 meeting with Barns, if indeed he had one. "Mel, don't worry about me, I'm just fine," Bates lied.

After further consoling Mel, Bates left him and headed for the Head Office again. He walked with steely strength and purpose now, with no thought to the exposure of ankles, sneakers, or even his missing belt.

As he passed Margaret's counter, Bates saw that his friend Oscar Oscomb was there and that he and she were talking in hushed tones that stopped awkwardly when they saw his approach.

"Chin up Bates!" boomed the huge, hairy, boisterous biologist. "They can boot the man out of the lab, but they can't knock the lab out of the man." Like probably everything else about Oscomb, his voice was simply tremendous. Oscomb gave Bates an affectionate pat on the back that the physicist would probably feel painfully for the rest of the day. "By the way, Bates," asked Oscar, in an uncharacteristically quiet tone, "do you have the data disk?"

It took a few moments for Bates to realize that Oscar was asking for the data recording from his Nitro. The previous Friday, when Mel and Oscar had finished the engine modifications, they had rigged sensors and a disk unit in the Nitro to record engine performance data on a standard VISICOM disk.

Bates had taken several uninhibited Premium Fuel aided romps in the Nitro over the weekend, in addition to the brief but adventurous drive to work that very morning. The resulting performance data was recorded on the data disk that he now remembered putting into the pocket of his overcoat: which Margaret still had, along with his briefcase. "Sure Oscar, it's in my coat pocket. Get my disk for him, would you Margaret?"

Margaret Crane reached under the counter to Bates' overcoat and retrieved the disk. Glancing at the title on the disk case as she handed it to Oscar, her eyes widened and she smiled in surprise. "Why, I didn't know that you guys were into Counter-Earth Reactionary Correctness!" she bubbled.

With puzzled looks on their faces, Oscar and Bates both looked at the disk case. On the cover was the photo of a stern, statuesque young blonde-haired woman wearing a semitransparent, skin tight, plastic motorcycle outfit. She leaned provocatively against a huge ancient Harley Davidson motorcycle that was apparently consuming massive amounts of irreplaceable hydrocarbons and shamelessly spewing filth into the atmosphere. In her arms she lovingly embraced a transparent plastic hydrocarbon guitar, from which brilliant, energy wasting, ozone-causing sparks appeared to emanate.

Many of the fiery sparks seemed to cascade fetchingly around her shapely right leg and into the ears of the head that was under her right foot. The head belonged to a man, well dressed in a conventional recycled business suit. He was groveling at her feet with a wild-eyed look of pain and ecstasy on his face. In the background, a logging scene showed huge ancient trees being cut down with smoking chain saws, while power plant smoke stacks blackened the horizon. The title was Waste It, by a group called The Fuming Right.

Bates and Oscomb looked at each other, speechless. What it all meant, they really had no idea, other than the blonde on the cover looked really hot. The 7-Eleven had simply been out of blank data disks, and Bates had picked out that one at random to be used to record the test data, while never considering any political or social implications.

"I should have guessed that from your car, hah!" said Margaret. "It's a gas sucking carb-burner, right? Is it really fast?" She smiled, looked at Bates, and licked her lips slowly in a way that canceled out any of his remaining rational thought process. "Could I borrow the disk sometime?" she purred. "I'm kinda interested in counter culture."

"Ah, oh sure," replied Bates. He would have to remember to buy another disk though, since this one was now hopefully filled with engine performance data, and not The Fuming Right. Though the thought that Margret might be a radical-right activist disturbed him, this was the most promising discussion that he ever had with her; too bad this breakthrough came at a time when he was on his way to the Head Office to confirm that he was both jobless and crazy.

Having reminded himself of what he was doing in this part of the building, though still reeling a bit from the enticing exchange with Margaret, Bates turned to go.

"Where are you headed, Narb?" asked Oscomb, as the big man pocketed the disk.

"Oh, I've got to settle a few things with the Head Office," Bates replied, marching off determinedly down the hall, leaving his astonished friends staring in wonder.

"What a guy," muttered Oscomb. "He's going to have it out with the top brass. GO GET-UM NARB!" he implored loudly, smashing a massive clutched fist thunderously onto Margaret's poor counter top.

"Fuming radical!" echoed Margaret.

Booming noise from Oscar's blow to the counter reverberated through the building. Oscar was a true force of nature. No doubt if he hadn't become a world famous biologist, he would have been an offensive tackle for some football team, if any team could find a uniform that was large enough for him. Turning to Margaret, Oscar asked her if anyone had made arrangements for the ceremony.

"Not that I have heard," replied Margaret, who was inspecting the counter for damage, and glancing appraisingly at Oscomb's massive frame with new interest, now that she suspected that the big man had a rebellious side.

"Leave it to me then," said Oscomb, as he rushed away. "A buddy like Bates deserves a good send-off."

Margaret went back to watching her morning soap on her desk VISICOM.

Arriving at his destination, Bates found the Head Office Lobby in disarray. Twig had apparently been cleaning out her desk!

Bates, eyes bulging and jaw hanging open like an ape that had just discovered a giant bunch of ripe bananas, walked to the nearest labeled box, and poked it and looked at it from several angles. It seemed real enough, and the words 'Mrs. Sally Barns' were written on it clearly in magic marker!

Sally Barns? But this was incredible! This was objective proof that the morning meeting with Barns and Twig hadn't been hallucination after all! It was all real! He looked around the lobby, and there at a rear window stood the lucky bride herself, staring out towards the long deserted Base air strip.

"Did you hear a sonic boom just now Bates?" she asked, once again wearing her stern Crab persona.

"Huh? Why no," he responded, deciding not to mention Oscomb's counter-smashing blow. The Crab already knew far too much about everyone.

She turned her full attention to Bates, but this time she was not gloating over him like a drill sergeant. She seemed to be treating him almost as an equal, or at least someone that for some reason she no longer cared to crush under-foot. "Come to check on your new office, have you?" She nodded towards the Head Office. Motioning him to follow, she crab-walked towards it.

'DR. BATES, HEAD OF DOD' was already painted on the half open office door! Through the doorway, Bates could see that the office had already been vacated by Barns! On the walls were several rectangular clean areas where now removed pictures of presidents had heroically protected the wall from dust and light. In fact, with the exception of a frog lure that lay smashed on the floor, nothing remained in the room but the huge mahogany desk and several massive steel safes. Bates wondered if the smashed frog lore had at last hooked Twig after all, and paid the ultimate price.

There was no further evidence of Barns himself. Of course, the man was so psychotically neat that he probably had very few belongings to prepare; he could have easily packed up and carted away all his stuff in ten minutes.

Bates stood in a daze, as the implications continued to sink in slowly. He actually WAS becoming the Head of the DOD! THEY were nuts, not him! Elated, he suddenly jumped up into the air and yelled "FUDGE WINKIES!"

Un-perturbed by the odd jumping and shouting, as she had been around scientists for several years, Twig/Mrs. Barns/The Crab/Little Cuddles returned to packing. After Bates' head stopped spinning, he managed to compose himself enough to finally answer Twig's question about why he was there. "I'm just here to check on some things," he explained vaguely.

"Well," she said, "as you can see, Dr. Barns has nearly finished moving out. Renson has been helping. I'm nearly through packing myself. You can start moving in now, if you like." She turned back to stare him in the eye again. Twig's eyes suddenly seemed unnaturally huge and unblinking, with big black pupils that seemed to bore into his own. Whenever she stared at him like that, Bates felt paralyzed, as if he were a small bird being stared down by a cobra. "I'm moving to Annex 3, and Renson is also," she explained. "Renson probably won't move everything today; but he'll get it all out by the end of the week. So don't panic when things continue to disappear after I'm gone. Everything is labeled." She went back to work on her boxes.

"Sure, but what are you going to do in Annex 3?" Bates didn't think anyone even worked there anymore.

She stopped writing her new name on a box and slowly turned towards him again. For just a moment she looked angry, as if his questioning anything was a resented surprise, but then her expression quickly neutralized. "Oh, Dr. Barns thought I'd like to get away from the bustle of the front office. He suggested that I work on sorting and archiving some old project data filed away in that big safe in your new office. He made the assignment as sort of a wedding gift, really. Boring work to some people, I suppose, but I don't really mind. So you will need a replacement for me here. A suggestion: perhaps Miss Crane would be suitable?" The hint of a smile formed on her thin lips.

The thought astounded Bates. Margaret as his own private secretary! He grinned, as unbidden, visions of Margaret in a semitransparent, plastic, Fuming Right motorcycle riding outfit flashed before him, although the effect was tempered somewhat by the actual sight of The Crab.

"Of course," Twig continued, "you will be our new boss; would you rather that Renson and I stay here with you instead?" She again flashed her closed-mouth smile.

Keep The Crab and Renson as his office staff instead of Margaret? Walking briskly two miles every other day a few years ago probably saved Bates from having a coronary on the spot. "No, no, no! It will be tough, but I'm sure that Margaret and I will get along together somehow," he managed to stammer. "Besides, you, err, certainly deserve a rest."

"Very well then," she said, returning to her packing. "We'll see you this afternoon." Clearly dismissed, and certainly well pleased with the confirmed status of things, Bates exited quickly.

This was turning out to be a truly remarkable day! He really was to become Head of DOD! There was a possible breakthrough with Margaret! Barns would indeed retire, and The Crab would vacate her lair! Many times in the past he doubted it but he had obviously been wrong; life was truly wonderful! What could possibly go wrong?

Margaret wasn't at her counter when he passed it, but he retrieved his coat and briefcase. Both items were old, cruddy, and beat up, he noticed for the first time; maybe he'd better stop by the K-Mart and buy flashy new ones that better matched his new VIP status.

When he got back to his office, Bates was so excited that he decided to start moving into his new front office at once, and he began to pack in earnest. He rapidly worked to divide his things between stuff to move and trash to throw out, though it was very difficult to decide which was which. He decided to ruthlessly throw out most things, as sorting through them carefully would be far too much work. Despite his hoarder tendencies, he was soon generating bag after bag of trash, which he dragged outside through a back door and tossed unceremoniously into a dumpster.

More than an hour went by as he worked, and his mood continued to improve. He resolved to turn that foreboding front office into a warm, welcoming haven right away by putting up a few posters and further dressing up the place with his lava lamps and a few rubber chickens, for starters.

By the time Mel and Oscar arrived, they found Bates merrily singing and dancing as he tossed office items into boxes and trash bags. "Narb, are you all right?" asked Mel. Mel and Oscar both stared at Bates in astonishment. They had expected to find a broken man, not a grinning, dancing one.

"We've seen this one before," Mel confided to Oscar.

"Right," agreed Oscar. "That's his funky-chicken dance. But I don't understand! He only does that when he's really happy!"

Bates danced over to Mel and Oscar, squawking and flapping his arms wildly. "Great news guys," he shouted, amid clucks and squawks, "instead of firing me, they decided to make me Head of DOD! Top dog! Emperor supreme! Tsar! El primo boss! High poombah!" He ended the dance with a flourish and an ear whacking chicken squawk.

The news didn't bring the expected response; Mel and Oscar continued to gape at their friend with shocked expressions on their faces. Oscar was first to recover. "Sure Narb, of course! After all, what else could they possibly do?" He turned to Mel and winked.

"Oh sure; right, Narb," said Mel, trying to hide the new worry that he felt for his friend. Maybe poor Bates really had lost a few more bearings, and he certainly didn't have any extra ones to spare. "Do we continue with what we came for?" he asked Oscar, quietly.

"I think that we have to," whispered Oscar, in return.

Bates didn't resume dancing; he was out of steam anyway. Adrenalin could only take a man so far. Besides, he was a little piqued that his monumental news was being taken so casually by his friends. Could they have even bigger news? "OK you guys, so what's up?" he asked them.

Oscar turned to Bates, and spoke seriously in unusually quiet tones: "Sorry to bug you at a time like this my friend, but we need to talk in private about your Nitro, Narb."

"Sure," said Bates. He was puzzled. Given everything else that was happening, why on Earth would they want to talk with him about his car? He plopped back down into his recliner to recover from his chicken antics and packing. He wasn't used to such intense physical activity. Mel and Oscar remained standing in the doorway to his office; neither friend moved to join him. Oscar looked uncomfortable when he again spoke quietly. "No, not here Narb, we need to talk with you in private!"

Bates sat up and looked around. He still only saw the three of them. The closest neighboring office still occupied was Mel's, and that was at least fifty meters away. "Isn't this private enough?"

"Just come with us Narb," said Mel, as he and Oscar each took Bates by an arm, rudely hoisted him out of his comfortable recliner, and marched him out of his office and down the hall.

"Sure guys," said Bates. "But is this any way to treat your future boss?"

Again the delusion! Mel and Oscar looked at each other and shook their heads sadly, but said nothing. Joke or psychosis, there was nothing they could do about it right now anyway.

They took him down several hallways and stairways to a vault door with several security locks that Oscar opened with his back to Bates. Bates didn't remember ever being in this part of the building before. If he had, he would not have paid any attention to the vault door; there were dozens of such doorways scattered around the Base. Each led to a 'secure classified facility' once used by above-Top Secret DOD projects. The massive steel door at last opened into a smallish room with a table and several chairs. Sitting there, to his surprise, was Hank the gate guard, still in his Santa Suit and prominently displaying a 9MM automatic pistol.

"Glad to finally meet with your acquaintance formal-like, Doc," said Hank, rising from his chair and shaking Bates' hand vigorously.

"Glad to finally meet you, Santa," returned Bates, smiling. "I've been a good boy and expect a very big promotion and a knock-out personal secretary for Christmas."

Hank, not cracking a smile, turned to Oscar and Mel. "This here is some serious business. You fellas sure he's up to it?"

"He has to be," said Oscar, with a shrug. "We have to straighten out our project business with Bates today, before he leaves."

In the meantime, Hank produced from his Santa Sack some sort of hand-held electronic device that he used to examine Bates as well as Oscar, Mel, and himself, by passing it slowly over them. He had Bates hand-over his VISICOM, which he turned off and placed into a metal cabinet before he resumed his electronic search of Bates. Apparently satisfied with the results, he returned the instrument to his sack. Bates glimpsed several assault weapons in the Santa Sack while Hank was doing this, mixed in with candy canes and other Santa gear.

"OK boys," sighed Hank. "No bugs or other prohibited gear; so let's get this over with. I got me a gate to guard." He handed several forms to Bates. "Bates, read these here forms and sign-um."

The forms were the standard oaths of secrecy required by the Government when one joined a super-Top Secret project. Bates was amazed. He hadn't thought that any of these projects still existed. It had been several years since he had worked on one himself. Personally, Bates had never been too wild about super-secret projects. They seemed to run directly counter to basic requirements of science for open inquiry. Besides that, there was all that sneaking about and winking between fellow in-the-know workers that had to be put up with. It was a lot like joining the Masons or some other secret, exclusive, silly club, he figured.

Bates would rather keep everything in the open and above-board, but he decided that he had better join their little group and get this business over with, whatever it was. He didn't bother to read the ten pages of legalese, but simply checked-off 'no' in all the boxes and signed all the forms. He knew from prior experience that the forms were basically oaths of secrecy, that he had certified that he wasn't a drunkard, druggy, communist, murderous suicidal Muslim jihadist, evangelical Christian jihadist, or other far-left or far-right anti-Government conspirator, and that he had just promised to stay away from foreigners and to not tell anyone outside the project anything about the project, including its very existence.

"OK partner, you're in!" said Hank, with a gap-toothed smile. The three of them shook Bates' hand and smiled, behaving as if being made a member of their silly project was actually a good thing. Then Mel and Oscar led Bates through another vault door into the next room, while Santa escaped out the front vault door with his sack of deadly goodies to return to his guard post.

The second room that the three friends entered was much larger. Filled with all manner of equipment, it seemed to be primarily a lab, but there was also a small conference area. Seated with her broad back towards them at the conference table was a robust, rotund woman of medium height and years: Norma Carbuncle, the famous inventor. Bates knew her, but had never worked directly with her on any projects.

She had always seemed a bit too intense and preoccupied with her work to suit Bates. Even now, she had headphones on and was staring at some sort of graphs that were displayed on a large viewing screen. As he watched, the graph evolved into complex curves and spikes. The graphs meant absolutely nothing to Bates, but Mel and Oscar were soon studying them intently, shaking their heads, and frowning. They must have also meant something bad to Norma, because she was cursing loudly, and darned creatively, Bates noticed.

Well, Bates wasn't too happy either. Even signing the security forms had seemed to him to be part of an elaborate gag. Until he saw Norma and her data he had still hoped that his friends were spiriting him away to a private rendezvous with a hidden bottle of scotch or a pizza or something else useful. It was very disappointing to find that this was apparently a real project.

Oscar cleared his throat to get Norma's attention. The rumbling sound echoed through the vault, but Norma remained entranced with the graphs. Finally the big biologist tapped her shoulder firmly.

Noticing them all at last, Carbuncle turned from the equipment to face Bates with a scowl. "What the hell did you do to our data, Bates?" she demanded!

"What the hell data are we talking about?" returned Bates hotly, instantly on the defensive. On this project for less than a minute, and they were yelling at him already!

"OK, OK," intervened Oscar. "Calm down Norma. First we have to brief Bates a little on what we're doing."

Norma had Bates sit down at the conference table in the chair opposite hers. The others sat in the remaining chairs. Then Norma began to more civilly explain things to Bates. "First of all, Bates, the less you know the better. After we conclude our business with you today we are going to swear you to secrecy and read you out of this project anyway, since you're being canned."

Bates had to struggle a bit to suppress a smile. By that afternoon, as DOD Head he would be officially in change of this silly project, whatever it was.

"A few weeks ago," continued Norma, "we decided that we needed a test vehicle for this program, which, as you must have already surmised, has to do with engines and fuels."

No, Bates hadn't surmised anything; he was as confused and ignorant as ever.

Norma continued. "Funding being what it is nowadays, we decided it would have to be a car privately owned by one of the project team members, but none of ours were suitable. Then Mel here mentioned your Chevy. That obsolete junk heap of yours has a big old engine, heavy duty drive train, lots of room under the hood, and other nifty obsolete features that make it simply ideal!" Norma smiled broadly as she said this.

Bates smiled too; he was not above a little pride of ownership. At least the woman appreciated a good American car.

"So, we contrived to put our prototype equipment into your car." She glanced at Mel and Oscar, who sat quietly with guilty looks on their faces. "Everything was going OK, but then came the bombshell this morning when we found out that you are being fired." Bates was about to point out that he didn't feel that being promoted to Head of DOD was quite the same thing as being fired, but he was distracted by Norma's next statement. "So Bates, now we need to take possession of your car."

"You need to WHAT?" exclaimed Bates! "No frigging way! I like that car! Anyway, I keep all my cars until they're just a pile of rust on my driveway surrounded by a set of worn-out old tires. It's a matter of principle."

Mel broke into apologies to Bates for getting him involved, but Norma persisted. "Now Bates, we would prefer to simply buy the car from you. That way we avoid paperwork that we would rather not bother with. But if we need to, we will impound your car for reasons of national security. All I need is one more signature on this paper and it's ours." She showed him the paper. Apparently all it still needed was the signature of the Head of DOD.

Bates smiled. Impound his car for reasons of national security? These people needed a reality check. He'd set them straight after he was made boss. "Tell you what. Give me until 2:30 PM today to decide. If by then I still haven't agreed to sell, go ahead and get the signature you need from the Head of DOD."

Norma didn't appear to be entirely pleased with his position, but was willing to accept it. "OK Bates, we'll leave it your way for now. But we'll have to settle up on the car this afternoon before you leave. Now let's talk about this data."

She turned the equipment back on. "We hoped that the data you gave us this morning would be enough to conclude this phase of the project. But Bates, the data contains too much noise! We've filtered out most of the engine noise, but some sort of rhythmic contamination still remains. What it could be, we're not sure."

Carbuncle began fiddling with dials on the equipment, which resulted in the display of data on the monitor, accompanied by odd sounds. "Oscomb told me you didn't even bother to use a new disk, but recorded it over some freaky rock music crap!" With distaste she pointed to the cassette cover on the table before her. Sure enough, there was his 'Waste It', by "The Fuming Right', now with additional labels on it that identified it as being 'Top Secret'.

Norma turned to Bates. She held up a second, identical 'Waste It' diskette in front of his face. "So we ran out and got this second disk, on the theory that some of the original sound track remains and has corrupted our data. For the last hour I've been comparing it with your data disk." Anger contorted her face. "DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO LISTEN TO THIS CRAP FOR AN HOUR!" She slammed the disk face down on the table. Bates would have responded that he didn't know what that was like, since he had never even heard of The Fuming Right until that very morning, but Norma continued. "It did no good. The disks don't correlate statistically. I've verified that there is no detectable trace of the original recording left on it. So the problem is caused by something else. The contamination is rhythmic, like music. It couldn't be a radio, could it Bates?" She turned to Mel and Oscar. "I thought that you two disabled his car radio!"

So that explained his radio problems lately! Bates felt betrayed, violated even, as he angrily confronted his friends in astonishment. "YOU DISABLED MY RADIO?" Mel simply looked down in shame, while Oscar made some lame excuse about it being in the line of duty.

This really crossed the line. Bates didn't really mind being part of some silly secret project mumbo-jumbo if it was responsible for improving his car's performance, but to deny a person their car radio was simply unforgivable. He wasn't sure if there was a Constitutional Amendment that covered it explicitly, but he felt certain that a car radio must be at least an implied basic right, like coffee in the morning.

Norma was still focused on the data problem, but she seemed defeated. "Well, if it's not the radio, I'm stumped," she said with a sigh. Her obvious disappointment quickly deflated Bates' anger.

"Wait a minute; could this interference be simply sound, and not something hooked up to the car electrical system?" Bates asked.

"Sure," responded Norma. "It's simply a matter of the sound coupling with the vibrational Eigen frequencies of the cheap analog recording equipment that we jury rigged into your car. That's one of the reasons why the radio had to be disabled."

"Besides the potential for electrical interference, of course," added Mel unnecessarily.

Bates looked thoughtful. "Could you play me back that data as audio in real time?" Norma worked with the equipment. Soon the room was filled with odd sounds that for the most part represented engine performance metrics. But in back of that sound was something else that mixed in with the engine data. Bates recognized it right away. "Mozart's thousandth symphony second movement is my all-time favorite tune, but that's Mr. Base Man," he said.

"WHAT?" responded Norma.

"You know," said Bates, "that moldy oldie song from the 1950's or 1960's or whenever." He started singing along with the disk. "Bah, bup-bup-bah, bup-bup-bah, ba-bah ba-bah." His voice was loud and terrible but the match with the recorded data was obvious.

Norma looked at Bates in shock. "You mean you were SINGING as you performed our experiments?"

"Of course," said Bates. "What else would anyone do without a radio? I normally listen to the all-Mozart station, but without a functioning radio Mozart wasn't available, and I didn't have earphones for my hand-held VISICOM."

"Sounds perfectly reasonable to me," boomed Oscar. Oscar was well known to have his operatic moments in the hallways on Base.

Norma looked thoughtful. "Bates, can you sing again for us everything that you sang in the car?"

"Sure," replied Bates. Norma smiled for the first time. Unlike Twig, her teeth were obvious.

Over the next hour Bates identified and sang nine tunes that were apparently obscuring engine data on the disk. They ranged from still popular 20th century 'oldies', to classic opera, all sung horribly. Norma was ecstatic. She was confident that she could now save most of the engine test data by subtracting out the super-imposed singing. At one point she even joined in with Narb and Oscar to produce a stirring rendition of 'God Bless America'. Her robust voice, as well as her rotund physical appearance, reminded Bates of the legendary Kate Smith.

It was nearly eleven-thirty before they escaped the confines of the vault. Bates was the hero of the moment, as well as a pitied RIF victim. The others all wanted to take him out to lunch, but Bates refused, saying that he had packing to complete. Turning down a free lunch was so totally out of character for Bates or any other Civil Servant that once again Mel and Oscar worried about the mental health of their friend. However, since he obviously wanted to be left alone for now, they decided to go along with it. After the dreaded RIF ceremony with Barns that afternoon, they would again try to cheer him up.

Right now, to their astonishment, Bates was already cheerful. For one thing, he had managed to acquire a reward for his efforts. At his request, they gave him the second Fuming Right disk that Oscar had purchased, the one that still contained the far-right anti- environment 'Waste It' stuff. He would lend it to Margaret and see what happened from there.

Bates rushed back towards his office, actually too excited to eat lunch, something that almost never happened. Swiping a push-cart that he found in a hallway, he began to enthusiastically haul his belongings to the Head Office. It never occurred to him that as the new big boss, he could have someone else do it for him.

Because it was lunchtime he saw almost no one, and he made trip after unnoticed trip to transfer his belongings to the Head Office. Since the cafeteria had closed three years earlier, most people left the Base for a long lunch. Those few people that he did encounter assumed that the doomed man was taking some personal stuff home. Many would miss him, but most were thankful that it was him being laid off, and not them. None realized that they were looking at the next Head of DOD.

****

CHAPTER 3

CORONATION

Enlarge the opportunity and the person will expand to fill it.

\- Eli Ginzberg

Before doing more work on his new office, Bates took a few minutes to clean most of the trash from his car. He even uncovered a couple of cans of air freshener, which he emptied by spraying the inside of the Nitro. Not for the first time he vowed that from now on he wouldn't let trash take over his car. This time he meant it. After all, with great power came great responsibility. Now that he was a VIP, he would regrettably have to curb some of his bad habits, he supposed, though exactly what was a 'good' habit as opposed to a 'bad' one wasn't yet altogether clear. Life was becoming more complicated, but hopefully an increase in his paycheck would make up for such complications.

In the Head Office, Bates was soon unpacking boxes of technical journals and stuffing them into the drawers of his massive new desk. As he unpacked them, he tossed anything over five years old onto the floor for later disposal. After all, as Head of DOD, he didn't want to make any important decisions based on old information.

At 12:50 PM insistent knocking interrupted Bates, and his new office door opened. Dr. Barns had arrived slightly early for their 1:00 PM meeting. Bates could see immediately that the older man still exuded the strange, new, transformed Barns persona of that morning, as he was still wearing the lunatic grin and the frog-laden fishing hat, confirming Bates' recent conclusions with regard to the man's probable lack of sanity.

Thankfully, there was no sign of his Little Cuddles. Bates didn't think that he could stand the sight of those two mooning about again; he was already feeling a little nauseated from a lack of lunch. The sight of just Barns was depressing enough; if it wasn't for the years of crap that the Base personnel had gotten from him, Bates probably would have actually felt pity for the man. It was simply amazing how fast and far the mighty could fall. World renowned scientist and ex-Senator one minute; running off wearing a frog hat to honeymoon with The Crab the next! Bates felt certain that there was a valuable lesson in life exposed there somewhere.

"Well Bates," began Barns, "making yourself at home, I see. Excellent!" He bounced in and sat down on one of the chairs that Bates had just moved into the office.

This startled Bates for a moment, until, based on the success of the results, he satisfied himself that since it hadn't collapsed, the chair that Barns sat in was not one of the damaged chairs that he had been meaning to fix someday.

Bates was a born pack rat, and this natural human tendency had of course been greatly reinforced during his years as a U.S. Civil Servant. Historically, one got furniture in the Civil Service either through persistent individual effort or completely by chance; need or planning seemed to have little effect. Fortunately, from a furniture standpoint, personnel cuts had resulted in plenty of leftover office furniture for all of the few remaining DOD employees. On the other hand, there had been very little newly acquired furniture in the last 20 years. As a result, decent furniture was as rare as hens' teeth, and often had to be creatively assembled using parts from several units of various designs.

As a natural consequence there was a sort of Base 'black market' in office equipment, which for the last several years had been dominated by a consortium of shrewd chemists on the third floor. The chemists, who happened to be in the 'coatings' R&D field, offered a variety of paint colors, textures, and other features with their 'reconditioned' furniture, including trendy florescent and advanced stealth coating options. Of course there wasn't much practical value to having a desk that glowed in the dark or was invisible to radar, but it was pretty nifty to have such furniture none the less.

Many other employees had more limited collections however, and Bates was quite proud of his own. Of course he had to bring his furniture collection with him, or his coworkers would have descended on it like a horde of ravenous locusts. Unfortunately, about half of his current motley collection of 17 chairs had dangerously serious defects. Fortunately, Barns happened to sit down in a chair with a complete set of functioning legs.

"Let's get to it, shall we?" said Barns, as he passed a stack of completed forms to Bates. "This is completed paperwork making you Head of DOD, effective immediately. So congratulations!" He reached across the desk to give Bates a hearty handshake. "I suppose that I'll give you a copy of this at the ceremony this afternoon of course, but that's just going to be public ritual."

Of course, thought Bates. The real power moves happened behind closed doors like these, not in public. He'd have to get used to that sort of thing, he supposed. Bates sat looking at the papers in his hands. They looked official enough, regardless of any question of Barns' sanity. They actually established him as Head of the DOD!

Barns continued. "I've COMed the White House to tell them too, though I wasn't able to get through to the President or her Chief of Staff." His smile disappeared briefly, to be replaced by a forlorn look. "I don't think the White House cares much about us anymore."

Hell, thought Bates, they probably don't realize that DOD still exists anymore! It's a good thing that Barns hadn't gotten through!

"Anyway," continued Barns, "here are some thoughts I decided that I'd leave you with. Hopefully they'll help you in the years ahead." With that Barns stood up and started pacing around the room and lecturing on his philosophy of management, the importance of the position, etc., while dodging around Bates' motley collection office effects that now swamped most of the room.

The place was just starting to look comfortable to Bates; it was amazing that he had been able to move so much wonderful junk into his new office in so short a period of time. It had been hard work, though. Tomorrow his pudgy, out of shape, middle-aged body would probably ache from head to toe. It was strange though, thought Bates; neatness fanatic that Barns was, he should have totally freaked out at the disorder of his transformed office, but he hadn't even mentioned it. It was still very puzzling how much Barns had changed.

While thinking of Barns' mental condition, Bates managed to blank out most of the actual lecture, which was a confusing jumble of management hogwash about 'empowerment' of 'total quality teams' that would 'transform' them into 'high powered organizations' and so forth, whatever the hells that was. Bates cocked his head, twitched his eyebrows and nodded his head frequently though, making out like he was both awake and paying close attention. It was a valuable skill, learned early in his Civil Service career.

Still, a few things that Barns said did catch his notice. At one point Bates completely lost sight of Barns when he stepped behind some empty file cabinets. The cabinets were part of Narb's current line of office furniture. Like several of the chairs they were spray painted in full spectral glory as part of his new 'rainbow' furniture line. "Bates!" Barns said loudly, interrupting his lecture, "is this the MX-84?" A green frog laden head peered out at Bates from around the cabinets.

"Yeah," replied Bates, "she's a beauty isn't she?"

"Yes, she certainly is," said Barns wistfully. "It reminds me of some of my lab work in the old days. Well, I hope you still find time to use it, but you may need to boost power and cooling for this office. It wasn't designed to be a lab you know!"

Good practical advice at last, thought Bates. On a piece of scrap paper he wrote a note to himself about power and cooling, as Barns resumed his lecture. Bates was always writing little notes to himself, though subsequently he usually either lost the notes or couldn't read or properly interpret them. Still, taking notes had always usefully supported his comforting self-delusion that he understood things and was somehow nominally in control of his life.

At another point in the lecture, Barns beckoned to Bates from behind a row of pink bookshelves, and pointed out to him several Top Secret security safes that Bates would now be responsible for. Barns told him lock combinations for him to memorize, which were fortunately identical for three of the safes: left to 1, right to 2, left to 3, and right to 4. This was a relief to Bates, who had a terrible memory for numbers, but reasoned that he should be able to remember 1-2-3-4. Still, to be on the safe side, he wrote the numbers on the corner torn from an old technical journal and slipped the scrap of paper into his wallet, which was of course a security violation, but what the hell. Classified material made him nervous, so he was relieved to be told that these three safes were completely empty anyway, since Barns only had them in his office to provide the proper 'atmosphere' for an R&D organization. Bates was surprised at this 'artsy' side to Barns.

The final and most massive grey steel safe had one of Twig's 'For Annex 3' tags on it, indicating that it was to be soon moved to The Crab's new office by Renson. "Bates, I ahhhhhh," Barns said, staring at the safe, then struggling with a strange blank look in his eyes and sound to his voice, as if he was just now trying to remember something. "I, ah, for the life of me I can't remember why this safe is here or what's in it!" Suddenly distressed, he sat down heavily on a box of journals. "There was something about it that I should tell someone about, I think. I think that's why I came here early! But why can't I remember?"

His eyes re-focused on Bates with a wild look. "But why the hell would I be telling YOU anything?" He looked around as if he were seeing the office for the first time, and then sprang up to demand of Bates caustically: "What the hell are you and all this junk doing here in MY office?" Though confused, Barns seemed for the moment to once again be the familiar old raving shit-head that Bates had caught unfortunate glimpses of over the years.

At that awkward moment The Crab appeared. Bates could have sworn that before transforming to the smiling 'Cuddles' persona, Twig momentarily wore an expression of intense hate and anger. "Lamby Pie! There you are!" she gushed. Pushing past Bates, she wrapped her scrawny arms about Barns, stopping him cold. She seemed to fish something out of her purse, but Bates couldn't see what it was.

Barns didn't seem terribly pleased to see his new bride. "What the hell is this?" he exclaimed, as he tried to push Twig away. However, strangely enough, though he must have outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds, he seemed to be totally helpless in the grasp of this scrawny, diminutive woman!

He suddenly jumped up and let out a loud squawk! Bates watched in amazement as the expression on Barns' face, now resting on The Crab's bony shoulder, changed from shock and anger to glazed incomprehension. Bates thought that he saw Twig slip a needle-pointed syringe back into her purse, but he couldn't be certain.

"Now, now, Lamby Pie, let's leave Dr. Bates to his unpacking," cooed Cuddles, as with amazing speed and impossible strength and ease, the skinny little woman rapidly half carried, half led a dazed Barns out of the room, pushing the office door shut as she went out. "Goodbye Dr. Bates, see you at 2 PM," she said as the door slammed shut.

All of it had surreally happened in seconds. What the hell was going on, thought Bates? What was happening to Barns before Twig showed up? Why had he suddenly reverted to the old Barns persona? Did he actually just witness a kidnapping? Did Little Cuddles just drug Lamby Pie and carry him off?

Getting over the shock enough to move his legs again, he rushed out into the hallway. It and the adjacent lobby were already empty, which seemed physically impossible. Where were Barns and Twig? Then he noticed an emergency fire exit in the lobby. The door was ajar and apparently led directly outside to the parking lot. Opening the door fully, he was just in time to see The Crab's black Mercedes rapidly pulling out of its space and zooming towards the Base gate. Only The Crab's bony little head and shoulders were visible; presumably poor Barns was slumped down in the front or laid out horizontally in the back seat or trunk.

Bates ran stiff-legged out into the parking lot, shivering in his shirt sleeves, as it was only ten or so degrees above freezing. What should he do? He looked around in a panic, desperately hoping that someone else had witnessed the abduction; someone besides himself that could take responsibility and actually do something useful. No such luck though; the parking lot was deserted; the Base staff was still out to lunch, probably, or hidden somewhere deep in the building.

This did not bode well for the kidnapped Barns, thought Bates; Narbando Bates would be one of the last clodhoppers anyone would want to have to depend on in an emergency! Then he noticed that Hank was in his guard shack. Bates ran towards him, yelling and waving his arms to get his attention.

In response Hank/Santa came out of his shack waving an assault rifle. That factor, and the fact that this was Bates' first 100 yard dash in 20 years, slowed and quieted Bates down considerably by the time he reached Hank.

"OK, Bates, so what the deuce is all this commotion," asked a grumpy Hank, who lowered his assault weapon when he recognized the physicist. There was a clean white napkin tucked in his collar, which was apparently well protected by the Santa beard, in which several gobs of catsup and a few curly French-fries were visible. Bates had interrupted Hank's lunch.

"She's got Barns!" managed a gasping Bates.

"Barns?" asked Hank.

"Dr. Barns!" gasped Bates.

"Our boss, THE Dr. Barns?" asked Hank, as he raised his rifle again, pushed his bifocals down further on his nose to facilitate better distance vision, and scanned the area for Fuming-Right jihadist terrorists.

This gave Bates a few seconds to catch his breath before replying. "Yes, him! Well, our ex-boss, anyway." He started walking back towards the offices, waving Hank to follow.

Hank's eyes got even bigger. "Ex-boss? You mean he's been done in?"

"No," replied Bates. "I mean, well, I'm the boss now, and Barns is probably still alive, but he's been kidnapped by The Crab!"

Long frozen moments later, a look of comprehension came to Hank's wide eyes at last, and with a sigh, he lowered his rifle, stopped scanning for terrorists, and turned his full attention to Bates. "So, let's see now, a great big crab run off with Doc Barns, and so now you're the new boss, are yeah? Instead of being laid off?" Hank was clearly having trouble maintaining a straight face.

"Yes, ah, no, well, not exactly," replied a by now exasperated Bates. "It was THE Crab that took him, the man's wife, not a big crustacean!"

Hank put a hand on Barn's shoulder and led him further towards the Head Office. "Now let's just take it easy now Dr. Bates, and we'll get this all straightened out. Now I happen to know that Barns ain't married, but let's go ask'um anyways. And if you see any more of them big crabs that marry fellas and run off with-um, let me know, and me and old Betsy here'll take care of um." As he gave his assault rifle a nod, Hank couldn't keep from laughing out-loud. His pillow enhanced Santa belly shook appropriately, and he tragically lost a curly fry or two from the beard.

The man is daft, thought Bates; they simply couldn't waste time this way! The Crab and poor Barns must be miles away by now! "Hank, they're getting away, you've got to call the police! Twig is dangerous, I tell you! There's no telling what she's doing to Barns."

Hank stopped laughing and looked Bates in the eye. "Now what's Twig got to do with this, Bates?"

Bates was near the end of his rope. "EVERYTHING!" he shouted. "That's what I've been trying to tell you! Look, Twig married Barns this morning. She's got him acting really weird. And a few minutes ago I think I saw her drug and drag Barns into her car and drive him out of here!"

"Oh," said Hank, with a thoughtful expression on his Santa-face. "OK, so far. I've had my own suspicions of ole Twig for quite a time. But what's big crabs got to do with it?" Hank asked.

"ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!" responded Bates, in exasperation. "The Crab is just a nick-name for Twig."

"Oooooooh," Hank said, as he paused to reconsider the story. "Good nick-name for that twisted little harpy, but your story still sounds just a touch far-fetched," he concluded.

"I admit that it does, but that's what happened. So the question is Hank, what are you going to do about it?"

But Hank was looking over Bates' shoulder at something. Bates heard car doors slamming shut. He turned around to see that Dr. Barns and Twig had gotten out of her car, which she had apparently just parked in her VIP space! The big, quiet running car must have driven through the gate and past both him and Hank without even being noticed! Barns numbly walked towards them, with Twig close behind. Even at a distance Bates could see that they were once again affable Lamby Pie and Cuddles, with big goofy grins on their faces.

Bates, followed by Hank, walked to meet them. "Dr. Barns," said Bates, "are you feeling OK?"

"Of course I am, Bates," replied Barns. "Why wouldn't I? Are you ready to go? It's nearly time for the ceremony."

"Ah, sure!" stammered Bates.

Barns turned to Hank. "Is everything all right here, Hank?"

"Yes sir," replied Hank. "Seems-like. Guess I'll just get back to my post now." He looked at Bates, shaking his head sadly, and turned to walk back towards the main gate guard shack.

"Come on now, Bates," said grinning Dr. Barns as he patted him on the back. "You don't want to be late for your own coronation, do you?" Bates was beyond speech again at the moment.

As Barns and Twig led Bates into the building and to the Base auditorium, he was still trying to reconstruct and rationalize the last ten minutes. Hadn't he seen Barns forcibly abducted? Or perhaps it was simply some sort of medical condition that his wife somehow treated, after removing him from view to avoid embarrassment? What had really happened?

They entered the auditorium and such questions were for the time being forgotten. It was a full house. That is, it appeared to Bates that practically all of the Base's remaining 150 employees were there, though they occupied barely half of the old, rarely used auditorium. Most of the audience was made up of balding, gray haired men past middle age.

In the back rows most of the science and technology junkies sat with their attention glued to paper tech-memos, VISICOM networked computer screens, or virtual reality visors, or talking with each other or to themselves about this or that new theory, experiment, technological breakthrough, or sexy new lab equipment.

In the middle rows were people aimlessly looking around, talking in small groups, reading newspapers, or dozing-off. These more laid-back people generally lacked the status or interest to sit in the front rows, and were also not so addicted to their work that they minded taking a break. Until today, Bates had belonged to this rather large, lackluster group.

In the front first few rows sat the Base power brokers and pretenders. This included thin stern Melberg, the assistant Head of DOD. Bates was still looking forward to Melberg's reaction to his being promoted above him. Like Barns and Twig, Frank Melberg was not known to have a good disposition to begin with. This would freak him out, Bates was certain, and should lead to some amusing theatre.

Also in front were Henderson and Smith, the powerful furniture barons from Chemistry. They were probably concerned about how Bates' office furniture collection, assuming it would soon be up for grabs, would affect the marketability of their own furniture. Also sitting in front was Joe Wigims, the man who single handedly maintained the building and controlled heating and cooling. Nobody outranked Joe. Also sitting near the front were several of the Base's most prominent scientists and engineers, including Mel, Oscar, and Norma.

Oscar grabbed Bates by the arm as he walked by. "Narb! Have you signed any release forms?" Bates shook his head. "Well then, Kruger here thinks you may have legal grounds for at least delaying this, but you have to say something publicly before you sign or publicly acknowledge any agreement to leave." He nodded towards Sandra Kruger, the thin, sharp featured, petite, bespectacled, middle-aged woman who stood dwarfed beside Oscomb's massive frame. She was known to be the Base expert on DOD employee regulations. Actually, she was an aeronautical engineer, but in recent years she spent much of her time on personnel matters, particularly after the last of the personnel department staff quit. It was easy enough for personnel office staff to find new jobs in the private sector, since unlike scientists they had valuable office skills.

Sandra handed Bates a piece of paper. "Just read this in front of witnesses, Bates," she told him, "before you sign any release papers."

Bates glanced briefly at the paper, which was in inscrutable legalese, smiled at the three of them, and returned the paper to Sandra. "Listen, thanks you guys, but believe me, I really don't need this." He hurried to catch up with Twig and Barns, leaving Mel, Oscar, and Sandra stunned and talking frantically among themselves.

"He's still delusional," Oscar's loud voice could be heard saying.

Most of the staff stopped talking as the odd trio mounted the stage. Bates was smiling! He still was very confused about the many things that had happened that day, to be sure, but this was going to be the public announcement that he, Narbando T. Bates, was in fact now the new Head of DOD!

Bates wished that his parents were alive to see this. Margaret was there in a middle row, though he wished that the one real love of his life, Janet, the woman who dumped him back in graduate school, could also see this. His dog Milo would also probably appreciate it as much as anyone; Milo loved to be with people, even stuffy old scientists. Too bad Milo wasn't here. However, despite such shortcomings, this was certainly going to be the high point of Bates' professional life to date.

It was probably the low point for Barns, as he was suffering through retirement and marriage to the Crab both in one day! But there Barns was, smiling that goofy smile again. The stunned audience had never seen Barns smile like that. In addition, even The Crab was smiling, and to the audience her smiling was totally unprecedented. In the third row, Dr. Filbert, one of the scientists in on the bet with regard to Twig's teeth or lack thereof, jumped up from her seat, and, hoping to at last solve the teeth mystery, moved to the front row and pointed a mini-VISICOM recorder with zoom lens at Twig, though Twig still kept her lips sealed tight.

Barns moved to the microphone. The Base personnel had seen this next part dozens of times. Typically Barns gave a one minute good-bye speech and then he and Twig unceremoniously whisked the unfortunate RIF victim out the door and then through the main gate.

Well, that wasn't going the happen with Narbando if his friends could help it! Just as Barns was about to speak, Oscar popped up from his seat to address the auditorium in his booming voice. "Excuse me everyone, before Dr. Barns begins, the good friends of the wonderful man who is about to leave us have something to tell him." With that, Oscar and Mel rushed up onto the stage. Barns, still grinning, seemed to be taking this interruption in stride. If anything, he was grinning even wider!

As Oscar started talking about how much everyone would miss their retiring friend, Mel, pulling Bates aside, whispered to him frantically. "Narb, you have to trust us. After Oscar is done, you simply have to read Sandra's legal statement into the microphone before witnesses!" Mel shoved the paper into Bates' hand and pushed it up in front of his eyes.

Bates skimmed the note. At first glance it appeared to be English but it was all mucked up with legal mumbo-jumbo. It might have had something to do with sufficient notice, union representation, and appeal rights, but those notions were all confused by language about this party and that party and this and that federal regulation. He handed the convoluted statement back to Mel, who handed it back to Bates.

In the meantime, Oscar was pulling something out of a big plastic garbage bag. He held up a huge plaque for the audience to admire. It was certainly impressive; it consisted of a large bronze plaque mounted onto a heavy, well varnished wood frame. The plaque was totally blank. "There was no time to engrave anything on this," Oscar explained to the crowd. "We'll have to do that later. But we do now want to present it to our dear departing friend with our blessings and best wishes and let him make a statement." At that point Oscar held out the plaque towards Bates.

As Bates wasn't departing, he stood immobile, but the grinning Barns stepped forward, snatched the plaque from the startled biologist, and stepped back up to the microphone. "Thank you all, my friends. This is a total surprise! In our retirement years my wife Cuddles and I will certainly honor this plaque." Then he reached out and pulled Twig close beside him, placing one arm warmly around her scrawny shoulders.

A hundred and fifty jaws gaped open gasping, and three hundred eyes blinked in disbelief. Newspapers, coffee cups, Cokes, and VISICOMs dropped to the floor from limp hands.

Reaching into a bag that Twig had given him, Barns pulled out the fishing hat, complete with goggle eyed frogs, and put it on his head. This brought more gasps and more than a few chuckles from the crowd. "Now," continued Barns, "it's time for Cuddles and I to hit the honeymoon trail for some fishing and, ahh, other things." He winked and gave Cuddles another affectionate squeeze, bringing still more gasps, moans and groans, 'yuks' and other assorted mutterings from the crowd. "And of course," he continued, "it's time for me to officially present to you the new Head of the DOD, Dr. Narbando T. Bates!"

Stunned silence reigned, as a smiling Bates stepped past his shocked friends Mel and Oscar to join Barns at the microphone. Barns shook Bates' hand as he handed him a copy of the paperwork that promoted him to Department Head.

"Thank you Dr. Barns and Mrs. Barns," said Bates. Disgruntled mutterings were heard from a dozen management personnel, whom, until that moment, had ranked several grade levels above Bates. Bates was disappointed however, to see Melberg actually smiling! Both he and Twig seemed to be greatly entertained by the proceedings.

"I'm deeply honored to accept the position of Head of DOD," continued Bates. "But we'll certainly miss you, Dr. Barns. The Head office just won't be the same without you two, and we all wish you two love-birds the best of luck." He paused when he saw Hank entering the back of the room. "And," he continued, "I hope that you can stay for the festivities."

"Hey Bates!" shouted Hank. "There's some guys out here looking for you with 'bout fifty pizzas and a mess of beer. Should I send-um in?"

"Sure thing, Hank, this is the place! My friends!" Bates shouted into the microphone; "LET'S PARTY!"

The audience erupted into cheers as men with Pizzas and beer kegs followed Hank into the auditorium. The situation had finally registered in their minds. No more Barns! No more Twig! And best of all to top it all off: free food and beer!

"Bates," asked Oscar over the noise of the crowd, "how much beer did you order?"

"Two kegs," replied Bates, grinning.

"Well, my friend, then we should have enough, because I ordered three, plus hoagies!" Oscar pointed to the door, where still more food and drink were entering.

Bates smiled. His friends hadn't forgotten him after all!

From that point on, the party developed rapidly. Most of the Base staff weren't regular drinkers, but they were regular eaters and all DOD Civil Servants, and as such, were always ready to accept hand-outs. After all, as DOD workers they hadn't had a pay raise in over a decade, and it had been a very long time since they experienced a party of this magnitude. While a few of the staff predictably celebrated by sneaking out and taking the rest of the day off, it wasn't golf weather anyway, so most stayed and gave a good account of themselves with the free pizza, hoagies, and beer.

Bates was a hero, and his friends were ecstatic. At several points during the party, Oscar erupted into opera. Mel was his usual cheerful self again, and then some. Norma tore up the Nitro requisition form and threw it over Bates as confetti!

A story circulated that when Bates found out that morning that Barns was firing him, the two of them had a big showdown, with absolutely incredible results. The story continued to evolve during the course of the party, until it was well established that Bates had strong Mafia connections, and that as a further humiliation, in addition to Barns having to resign and give Bates his job, the poor man was also forced to marry Twig.

Bates overheard the Mafia story, but didn't bother to deny it. Besides being a much more plausible rationale for the day's events than anything he could come up with himself, the rumor led to his being treated with a great deal of respect and deference by his fellow employees; including even the power brokers. Joe Wigims for example, assured Bates that he would actually have reliable heat in his office in the winter when it was cold and air conditioning in the summer, when the hot weather actually occurred. Bates would only believe that miracle when he felt it.

One of the engineers was polling the partygoers on the question of which was preferable, a quick death or marriage to Twig. The statistical results, which were not very complementary to the new bride, were displayed on the big auditorium view screen in both bar-graph and pie-graph form.

Bates noticed that very early on Barns and Lamby Pie had apparently split, unnoticed and without fanfare. Bates had meant to say good-bye to them, but didn't get the chance. By the time he noticed they were gone he was past caring anyway.

The party lasted late into the night and early morning. When they ran out of beer they sent out for more. The following day Bates would have a well-deserved hangover, a sore back from dozing in auditorium seats, and foggy, surreal memories of dancing an Irish jig with Norma and flinging an extra cheese pizza Frisbee-like across the auditorium as part of some sort of experiment.

This day was his, and he had a hell-of-a good time closing it out!

****

CHAPTER 4

POST-PARTY HONEYMOONING AND ASTRONOMY

Never say that a marriage has more of joy than pain.

\- Euripides

As Barns regained consciousness he was totally disoriented. He vividly remembered cockamamie dreams in which he had done totally ridiculous things like resigning his job and marrying, of all people, that skinny ugly witch, Sally Twig. Dream hell! It was a bloody nightmare! The absurd dreams had their silly side too. He clearly remembered making an obscure, inept, junior level employee Head of DOD! What was his name again? Bates?

Usually when he woke up his dreams faded away rapidly, to be replaced by stark reality. As a precaution he ran these very amusing dreams through his mind again, so that they wouldn't be totally lost to memory when he fully woke up. However, moments later, he began to realize that forgetting the dreams was not his biggest problem. He could still remember the dreams vividly, but couldn't seem to locate reality in his memory, such as what day it was, or exactly what was happening at the office. Despite waking up, he still felt very disoriented.

Also, he was cold, sore, and was apparently lying on his back on a cold and very hard surface. Had he fallen asleep on the kitchen floor or something? Had he suffered some sort of accident? No reason to panic though; he would simply open his eyes, wake up fully, and abracadabra, in a few moments everything would sort itself out in his head. Then he would rationally deal with whatever was going on.

He opened his eyes, and the view was so odd that he became more disoriented than ever. This wasn't his kitchen, or any other room in his house, nor was it like any other room or place he had ever seen or even imagined! On what seemed to be the walls and ceiling surrounding him, countless bright, multicolored, three dimensional, kaleidoscopic patterns pulsed, danced, popped and slid in and out of view. It was as if the walls and ceiling were one huge, continuous, multi-windowed VISICOM screen. Holographic three dimensional geometric patterns expanded and contracted in and out of the walls, seeming to nearly touch him.

As he watched, many of the patterns were replaced by 3-D scenes that were recognizable and familiar. It was a colleague of Earth and humanity. There were scenes from popular movies, art museums, wildlife refuges, and natural parks, from jungles and oceans, and from football games, the ballet, and backyard barbecues. From each scene a very low volume of sound was emitted also, but due to the multitude of scenes, most of the sounds blended to create a soft background noise. All the scenes were enshrouded in the shifting, multicolored patterns. Barns watched, transfixed by the beauty of the evolving scenes and framing patterns. It was much better than any 3-D virtual reality video that he had ever seen before.

One of the scenes enlarged until it filled the entire room with huge sharks that swam silently towards Barns with gaping mouths studded with sharp teeth. The air felt damp and tasted salty, as though the ocean surrounded him. It was then, when he tried to pull his feet up and away from the oncoming sharks, that he found that he was tied down. No matter how hard he tried to move his legs or arms, he simply couldn't! He watched helplessly as one of the sharks took his left foot into its mouth. That's when he also realized that he couldn't scream, though he was certainly trying to! Fortunately, despite the realistic appearance of the sharks, he felt nothing attacking his foot. The sharks were holographic flimflam!

As quickly as they had arrived the sharks shrank to guppy-size and withdrew, to be rapidly replaced by a tranquil scene in a redwood forest. It seemed as though he was actually surrounded by the massive trees, which reached upwards hundreds of feet towards a bright blue sky. Sounds of the soft rustling of branches in gentile breezes and a chorus of birdcalls added to the tranquility of the scene. He could feel a gentle breeze on his skin, as he breathed fresh forest air filled with rich evergreen smells.

A relieved Barns took advantage of the reprieve to assess his situation. He found that he could move his head slightly to look about. The rectangular surface he was on was smooth metal, perhaps stainless steel, and it was raised above the floor, assuming that there was an actual floor somewhere beneath the redwood forest. It seemed more like a table than a couch or bed. It felt like he was tied down with soft ropes, though no ropes were visible. As he tested once again those invisible bonds, he speculated that some sort of 'force field' was responsible, although such things were beyond any technology he knew of. He also noticed that he was wearing his blue suit. He couldn't remember wearing that suit for several years, although he remembered wearing it during the nightmare in which he got married.

His thoughts were interrupted by a voice coming from somewhere behind him. It sounded at times like Twig's voice, but it was speaking some sort of foreign language that he not only didn't understand, he couldn't even begin to identify! This was very unusual for Barns, who was fluent in six diverse languages. The most remarkable thing about this unknown language was the incredible, even impossible articulation and frequency requirements. Whistles and peeps in the upper frequency range of human hearing and perhaps beyond were interspersed with 'normal' and impossibly deep tones. It was the weirdest thing that he ever heard. It reminded him a bit of the voices of humpback whales and brown thrasher birds, but that wasn't quite right either.

Several times however, Barns clearly heard familiar English words and names mentioned, including Barns, Bates, Melberg and Renson. Straining to twist his head towards the sound of the voice, he finally picked Twig out, silhouetted against a redwood forest background. She was mostly facing away from him, and wearing odd red robes of some sort. He noticed that she seemed to be 'talking' to a door sized 'window' in the redwood scene, in which a dark figure appeared. Next to Twig stood the tall, thin, impassive figure of Renson. And there next to Renson was Melberg! They also each wore blood-red robe-like clothing. What the hell was going on?

Twig stopped talking and a deeper voice seemed to respond in the same strange language. Barns strained to make out the figure in the window scene that was responding to Twig. He could actually see some sort of thin humanoid figure quite clearly, but the features were so unusual it took a few moments for him to sort them out. When he finally did, he would have surely screamed again, had he been able to.

The abomination that was talking with Twig was definitely not human. It seemed to have the head and upper torso of a talking bat or pig with big, sharp teeth. It had pig-like snout covered in black fur, large dark eyes, and huge, forward facing, pointy ears, mounted on a hairy torso that wore the same sort of glittery, blood-red, robe-like clothing as the others.

For a terrifying moment the pig/bat eyes seemed to be looking at him; and then its voice abruptly switched to English. "So, this ugly one with the fat belly is Barns. Is he of no more use to us alive?"

"No, Master," responded Twig. "He was becoming too hard to control. The incompetent idiot who we replaced him with will reduce our risk in the final days."

The nightmarish bat/pig seemed to shrug. "Why bother with any of them, Twi'Na? They can do nothing to stop events now."

"True, Master Dow," she responded, "but even though they could do little, we want no unexpected inconvenience or risks. We still need to finish gathering in our harvest before we flee. Also, this one has been such an irritant over the years; I want him to know what is happening to him, and to the rest of his kind, before we dispose of him."

The bat/pig opened its mouth, exposing huge sharp fangs, and licked its lips with a long, pointed, blood red tongue. "I approve. And when," it asked, "were you planning on 'disposing' of him?"

"Thursday night," she replied, "after the rest of our Warren members have returned with their booty, Renson brings us the safe, and I've shown Barns what he has helped us to accomplish."

"Very well and proper, Warren leader," concluded the bat/pig. "Just be sure to save me his liver!" The two erupted in unholy laughter as the terrified Barns once again screamed silently.

As the bat/pig display window faded from view, leading Barns to conclude that it was some sort of communications device, Twig turned towards Barns and approached him. He again noticed that she indeed wore the identical sort of lose, shimmering, red, robe-like garment that the bat creature wore. She bent over Barns so that her face was scant inches from his.

"Hello, dear husband, are you enjoying our honeymoon so far?" Her smile and the look in her eyes were hideous; inhuman. He tried to speak, but could not form words with his lips and tongue; he was incapacitated as if he had been over-Novocained by a dentist, except that instead of numbness he increasingly felt pain everywhere in his body. What did the witch mean when she said 'husband'? That marriage business was surely just a nightmare, wasn't it? Wasn't all of this? It couldn't possibly be real, could it?

"No?" she continued. "Maybe you would rather be fishing, as our psychoanalysis suggested? Did you enjoy the shark sequence portion of our demonstration for the Master? Our far-flung Galactic customers will probably enjoy it and pay well to experience it." From somewhere she produced a battered fishing hat laden with dozens of lures. Barns recognized it at once as the one in his dreams. The cheery little frog-faces did nothing to quell his growing terror. Twig placed it gently on his head, and then, still smiling, yanked and twisted it savagely, driving several razor sharp fishing lure barbs deep into his scalp. Though he opened his mouth to scream in pain and terror, he still could not utter a sound.

Twig again held her face only inches from the terrified Barns, while on either side of her appeared the faces of Renson and Melberg. Melberg smiled menacingly like Twig. Renson had always appeared impassive, but his gaze now bore into Barns like a hot poker. There was something in that gaze, something elementally evil. His eyes were two cold, black, bottomless pits. Barns was suddenly more terrified of Renson than he was of Melberg or even Twig.

Barns hadn't noticed before this the striking similarity between the three of them. All three were thin and wiry, with narrow, almost pointy faces, piggish noses, and large, protruding ears. With horror he recognized the similarities between them and the monstrous bat/pig named Dow. "My God," he thought, "they aren't even human!"

"What's the matter Lamby Pie," taunted Twig. "Not in the mood for fishing? Then how about some bedroom sports?" She puckered her lips for a moment, and watched with amusement the expression of revulsion that her helpless prisoner gave in response.

"On the other hand," she said, glancing briefly at her two companions, "we're awfully hungry right now. Why should we wait until Thursday for our feast? Why don't we eat you right now, or at least a few parts of you?" For the first time, she opened her lips to smile, exposing rows of razor sharp fangs, and emitted a guttural snarl. Renson and Melberg did the same. Long, pointed, blood red tongues ran back and forth over razor sharp white dagger fangs!

Mercifully, this was all too much for Barns, who fainted.

****

Dr. Janet Garb headed towards her evening Astronomy 101 laboratory session at the off-campus observatory in a mountainous section of Arizona. This is what most professional astronomy had degraded to over the last decade: teaching introductory astronomy to a mere handful of kids that usually squeezed the course into their schedules as a mere afterthought.

Still, with the disappearance of most Federal Government funding for basic research, Janet knew that she was lucky to be employed in her profession at all. When she did have time for research, at least there was plenty of under-utilized equipment at the observatory that she could apply. She couldn't imagine how the University could keep funding the observatory, but they did. There were rumors of significant private funding by an undisclosed source; perhaps those rumors were true. Maintenance was a bitch though; keeping the huge facility going had become basically a do-it-yourself proposition.

Thankfully, some of her students were truly interested in astronomy, even if it wasn't considered practical or politically correct to bother with understanding things beyond the Earth's ecosphere. Even more than her own research opportunities, those few, well-motivated kids made her job bearable.

The underpowered, ecologically-correct auto she drove crept slowly up the Arizona mountainside. She anxiously checked her fuel gages again, and breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like her emergency hydrogen fuel cell would indeed get her as far as the observatory, where she could get both her primary and emergency fuel cells recharged. She cursed herself again for forgetting to reset her auto's solar/hydrogen fuel cell charging system to 'automatic' that morning. The Arizona sunlight would have at least partly recharged her primary hydrogen fuel cell, even in December, but yesterday she forgot to refill her water fuel tank, so she had switched off the automatic recharge-mode. Then today she remembered the water but forgot to turn the recharge-mode back on!

She recalled when driving a car was a much simpler proposition: you simply gassed-up and drove until you had to gas-up again. Morally, she was totally in favor of the efforts being made to preserve what little remained of the Earth's hydrocarbon fuels for future generations, but at times it led to bothersome inconveniences. She was certainly relieved that this time she wouldn't suffer the inconvenience of being stranded in remote Arizona desert country!

Arriving at last at the observatory, Dr. Garb was pleased to find that her lab students had already arrived, as evidenced by Tom Whitman's auto in the parking lot. Tom must surely have also brought the other two students of the class, Mary and Ellen. In fact, she was fairly certain that Mary was the only reason that Tom had signed up for this course. Mary signed up for it because she needed a science elective; any science elective. But Ellen was truly interested in astronomy. Bright and energetic, she would have made an excellent astronomy major, if such a thing were still possible at their University.

Inside, she wasn't surprised to see Ellen already at the manual controls of the 40 inch reflecting telescope. Also, she wasn't surprised to not see Tom or Mary. There had been other late night lab sessions in which those two obviously had experiments in mind other than astronomy. They were probably off together now in some secluded part of the observatory, enthusiastically exchanging bodily fluids. That wouldn't help their grades, but Dr. Garb decided not to make a big issue of it; she was their teacher, not their baby sitter. They were both over 18, and she still remembered vividly when she was herself a young coed in love.

She spoke to Ellen in a loud voice to give Tom and Mary a chance to produce themselves. "So, what's new in the cosmos tonight Ellen?" she asked, as she approached her prize student.

Ellen looked up from the eyepiece. She looked perplexed and frustrated, which was very unusual for Ellen. "Professor Garb, I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong. I've just concluded that I'm looking at a CTAO object that isn't where it's supposed to be."

CTAO stood for Centrally Tracked Astronomical Objects. The international computer net of CTAO capable facilities was a repository for astronomical observations that also disseminated information on the current expected positions for hundreds of thousands of astronomical objects. This was particularly useful for dynamic objects such as those comprising the local Solar System. The observatory tracking computers hosted a local CTAO software node-package that interfaced with both the local observatory software and with the rest of the world's CTAO systems via the VISICOM optical fiber network. You simply activated your observatory tracking computer with its CTAO package, picked any of the thousands of objects in the CTAO data base, and your telescope would automatically track the object.

The locally resident CTAO software even annotated the telescope viewing screen with pertinent measurement data that could subsequently be fed back to the CTAO system, so that new measurements could continue to refine the CTAO data base. There had been minor glitches, to be sure, but Dr. Garb, her students, and other astronomers world-wide were generally very pleased with CTAO.

"What object are you talking about?" asked Dr. Garb, as she turned to look at the telescope's digitally enhanced optical image, which was being projected onto the huge video screen. "Dannos 197," replied Ellen. Sure enough, a familiar looking, tumbling, irregular, rock-like object was evident in the center of the computer-enhanced video screen. Still a couple hundred million miles away, Dannos was due to pass within about 200,000 miles of Earth, just slightly within the Moon's orbit, in a little more than ten days, early on the morning of December 25. Though this would still be far away in terms of terrestrial scales of measure, it would be a very near miss in astrological terms. In fact, there was a lot of publicity associated with the event. A national news network was even planning to begin live VISICOM broadcasts of Dannos from this very observatory next week, to provide the public with nightly observations until Christmas on Friday.

Dr. Garb quickly checked the consistency of the information on the viewing screen. Separate windows to the right of screen center displayed Sun-centric and Earth centric views of CTAO projected paths for Dannos 197, compared with the latest actual observations made world-wide that helped project the paths. Everything agreed perfectly, just as it had on the several other occasions that she had viewed Dannos over the last few weeks. It was all evident on the video screen. Thousands of world-wide observations coincided perfectly with the projected path. A bright red line and dot indicated that their current telescope line-of-sight coincided perfectly with the current CTAO expected position, as indicated by a green circle. The covariance matrix that indicated tracking position uncertainty was tiny. Hundreds of CTAO users had for months been viewing Dannos and refining the tracking solution.

So what could Ellen be talking about? "I don't see any discrepancies, Ellen," she said.

Ellen looked up from the eyepiece she was using to view Dannos directly, and looked at the huge video screen. Maybe because she was a beginner or a purist or both, Ellen seldom yet used the big screen. She preferred to actually see the raw optical image, composed of light that had actually traveled across the cosmos, not a computer enhanced blowup of that raw image. She looked at the screen, and then at a piece of paper on which she had scribbled notes. "But that's the problem," she said, pointing at the screen "Dannos isn't where CTAO says it is."

"OK, Ellen," said Garb, with a sigh. "Why don't you explain exactly how you have come to that conclusion?" Ellen was such a good student that Garb sometimes forgot that she was still after all an amateur. She must have made some careless mistake. Unusual for Ellen, but everyone makes mistakes.

"Well," began Ellen, "first I made sure that Little Bob was calibrated." Little Bob was the pet name long used by everyone for the 40 inch reflecting telescope, by far the smallest of the three observatory scopes. Rumor had it that years ago the telescope was named after a certain male student named Bob who had acquired a reputation on campus for an unfortunate anatomical shortcoming.

As Ellen spoke, she again activated the tracking computer calibration function. Apparently, Ellen was repeating the precise process she had used. "Good," thought Dr. Garb, "I should be able to resolve where she made her error." In seconds, the calibration function confirmed that the frame of reference of the telescope was correct. Of course this was to be expected, since the telescope was evidently able to correctly point at and track Dannos.

"Next," continued Ellen, "I requested numerical coordinates for Dannos from CTAO at the terminal." This she also did again as she spoke. The answer, which coincided with the reading on the big screen, appeared almost immediately on the observatory small control terminal screen. "Then," continued Ellen, moving back to the off-line telescope observation station, "I entered the coordinates into Bob manually, like this, and instead of using CTAO I let the observatory computer point Bob using those coordinates."

Now controlled 'off line' from CTAO, the CTAO read-outs disappeared, and the screen blurred momentarily as the telescope obviously moved very slightly. "But there is no Dannos there!" Displayed on the big screen were exactly the same coordinates that CTAO had given for Dannos. But the small tumbling shape of Dannos was gone! There were only background stars and galaxies.

Dr. Garb blinked, but the Dannos-less view remained there on the big screen. Then she looked through the optical eyepiece. No Dannos. She checked computer readouts and back-up telescope position registers. Everything checked-out. What the hell was going on? Earth motion? No, she saw that the observatory computer was properly compensating for that, even without CTAO's help.

After pausing to give Dr. Garb a chance to convince herself that there was indeed some sort of problem, Ellen continued. "Next, I asked CTAO to point Bob at Dannos." As she spoke she efficiently called up the appropriate CTAO function and entered Dannos 197. Again the big screen blurred momentarily as the telescope obviously moved very slightly. On the big screen, Dannos appeared again, along with the other CTAO generated information. Again, CTAO displayed coordinate read-outs agreed with the values that moments before, when applied off-line from CTAO, had resulted in no view of Dannos! "Finally," concluded Ellen, "I recorded the non- CTAO telescope position read outs." She looked at Bob's manual read-out registers, wrote down the coordinates, and handed the piece of paper to Dr. Garb. The coordinates were different from those displayed by the CTAO system!

Dr. Garb was dumbfounded. The CTAO system, since it was instituted at least seven years ago, had been tested and re-tested by thousands of users world-wide. These discrepancies simply had to be some weird problem with Little Bob or some other observatory system. But how could that be? The observatory system had recently been performing flawlessly for her and her colleagues. Besides, how could the CTAO aided system find Dannos at all if it was screwed up?

Over the next hour she and Ellen re-performed variations of the experiment several times, with the same disturbing results.

They were so engrossed in the work that they barely acknowledged Mary and Tom when they finally appeared. Dr. Garb told the couple that class was called off because of equipment problems, and sent them home without Ellen. Ellen VISICOMed her roommate at the dorm to tell her that she would be home even later than usual. Janet Garb had nobody to phone; not since the twins went off to college last year. She had divorced her husband two years before that. Especially since those events, it was not unusual for her to spend long nights alone at the Observatory.

Dr. Garb and her young assistant worked through the night. They checked and rechecked calibration by performing observations of well-known objects. They ran diagnostic checks of observatory systems. They re-performed the experiment using 60 inch (John) and 100 inch (Big John) optical telescopes. They compared positions of Dannos with those of background objects. The results were always the same. Gradually, even a skeptical Dr. Garb became certain that Ellen had been right in the first place.

Their observations were correct; CTAO was wrong!

At 4 AM they entered all their own observations into the observatory system and recalculated Dannos' true trajectory off-line from CTAO. Taken by themselves, the observations they made this night were over too short a time/distance baseline to determine an accurate trajectory. Fortunately, she had raw data records of several observatory system measurements that she had made months and years ago that she could now correct and apply.

The results were horrifying. "Well Ellen," she said, "the good news is, I'm giving you an A+ for this course. The bad news is, after December 25th, there probably won't be a course. Or a University. Or life on this planet."

The newly calculated trajectory predicted with great accuracy that Dannos would collide with Earth early on Christmas morning! Despite this terrifying result, the two shocked astronomers were by then too physically and emotionally drained for the enormity of the results to fully 'sink in'. As they sat staring at the projected trajectory on the big screen, need for sleep was at last overcoming them.

There was still one more thing to do, however. Janet Garb sent VISICOM messages to several of her fellow astronomers around the world, and entered the new trajectory for Dannos into the CTAO system as a new track. Within hours she felt, all hell would break loose. She also sent a message to the University to cancel her classes for a few days. She planned on working in the observatory, sleeping, drinking, or rounding up her kids so that she could be with them, but not teaching, though right now she was far too tired to figure out exactly which alternative(s) she would actually be doing.

At least now she could finally drive herself and Ellen home. Turning to Ellen, she saw that the petite girl was comfortably sound asleep at Little Bob's observation station. At that moment she remembered that in all the excitement she had forgotten to recharge her auto's hydrogen fuel cells, and that would now require an hour-long procedure using the observatory's old recharging system before they could leave.

"Oh, screw it," she thought. She couldn't stay awake an hour while the cells recharged, and she was too tired to drive down the mountain anyway. As she had often done in the recent past, she cuddled up in Big John's comfortable, reclining observation seat. She finally slept fitfully, with the image of dark, cold, massive Dannos, tumbling through space towards Earth with destructive power greater than a nuclear Armageddon still etched indelibly in her mind.

****

CHAPTER 5

ON THE ESTABLISHMENT AND USE OF POWER IN THE OFFICE PLACE

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

\- Lord Action

About 4000 kilometers from Janet Garb's observatory, where she slept to recover from working most of the night and to escape the awful knowledge that the Earth would be destroyed in less than two weeks, and only a mile from a concealed alien base where a terrified Dr. Barns struggled to maintain his sanity, the new Head of the DOD was attempting to recover from partying most of the previous night.

Of the three, Bates may have had the worst of it. He awoke early in the morning moaning in abject pain and misery and found that he was lying across three auditorium seats in a position that could only have been accomplished without serious injury by a professional contortionist or a very drunk physicist.

On top of the pain from sleeping for several hours as a pretzel, he recognized immediately that he had a terrific hangover. He hadn't been quite this drunk in many years, not since his graduate school days. Whatever fun he had the night before simply could not have been worth the misery he was now suffering. He tried to move. He didn't really want to move, but he had to; he had urgent reasons to get to a bathroom pronto.

After struggling gingerly and moaning pitifully for several minutes, he found himself sitting upright more comfortably in one of the seats. He tried applying pressure to pain relieving acupuncture points at various places on his body, including the outside corners of his eye sockets and the bridge of his nose. He had read how to do so weeks earlier in an unreliable scandal newspaper while he was waiting in line at the supermarket. Much to his astonishment, though he suspected that his hands were too weak and shaky to really do it properly, the procedure provided significant pain relief!

Looking around him, he found that he was alone in the auditorium. Good, he thought, that suggested that none of his employees were irresponsible enough to drink themselves silly, and that none were on hand to observe their new boss in his current pitiful condition. Looking at his watch, he found that it was six AM, still an hour or two before most employees would start to arrive. Plenty of time to get himself together, he figured.

Despite his miserable state of health, he resolved to make his first full day as boss a meaningful one. Fighting pain and nausea, he finally stood up. He was dizzy for a few moments after accomplishing this monumental feat, and his poor head pounded like a base drum, but the pounding soon subsided to tolerable levels. Calling on inner reserves of strength that he hadn't tapped in years, he stumbled off towards the nearest men's room, dodging the empty pizza boxes, sandwich wrappers, and paper cups that littered the floor. Why the hells had he let himself drink so damn much beer? Getting drunk was a young man's game and required far more stamina than he had!

During the process of relieving himself, he remembered his dog Milo. Poor Milo! Had he left the doggie door open at his apartment? Milo would be famished by now, or forced to eat some of the tasteless kibble that was always left out for him. And when was the last time he fed his goldfish? He couldn't remember. Wincing with pain he stumbled out to the Nitro and zoomed out the gate, which as it happens, had just moments before been opened by Hank. Aided by Premium Fuel, the Nitro had him home in three minutes.

Fortunately Bates had indeed left the apartment doggie door open. He found that out when he opened his car door and a joyful Milo, all thirty-two pudgy pounds of him, launched himself into the Nitro through the driver-side window and onto Bates, assaulting him with muddy paws, wagging tail, and slobbering tongue. This of course, didn't bother Bates at all, since Milo was his closest and most faithful of buddies, and he was fully as happy to see his dog as his dog was to see him.

Milo was a basset hound, or maybe as much as half basset hound, according to the vet. What other breeds were involved, nobody could say. He was brown and white and black and short-haired, with great floppy ears, long snout, thick, well fed body, sad eyes, and friendly waging tail and licking tongue. Whatever his genetic background he was altogether a fine figure of a dog, Bates reasoned.

Bates felt slightly invigorated. The rush of adrenaline involved in hurrying home to check on Milo had flushed much of the remaining alcohol out of his system. Now although he still felt like shit, at least he wasn't as seriously incapacitated.

He resolved to make things up to his poor neglected pet. He stayed at his apartment only long enough to visit his bathroom, feed his goldfish, and fetch Milo's collar and other gear. Then he and Milo left together in the Nitro. He stopped at McDonald's to buy the two of them several Egg McMuffins for breakfast and visit the bathroom, and then drove back to the office.

Bates recalled reading an article on management years ago that advised new managers to 'take charge' immediately and decisively. So it was that when Margaret arrived at work, she was greeted by Milo and by Bates' first official directive as the new Head of DOD. From now on, pets of employees would be allowed on Base. Bates was sure that this bold new directive would show everyone that he meant business.

For the rest of the morning, his time was occupied by unpacking and by visits from a rather large number of coworkers. Everyone got along well with Milo of course, but many visitors didn't quite know how to treat Bates, now that he was the boss and an apparent mob figure. Many came only as far as the door, peeked in with astonished looks on their faces, shook their heads, and left without saying a word. Confirming that Narbando T. Bates was in the Head Office was much more astonishing to most of them than discovering Milo there. Many were convinced that the complete end of DOD must be near, if Bates could be made boss. Barns probably had inside information and had abandoned ship just in time, leaving the rest of them to rearrange deck chairs and sing songs while DOD sank into oblivion. But they kept such thoughts to themselves, and given his lingering hangover, Bates was just as happy not to talk with most of them.

As a favor to Bates, Oscar moved the remainder of Barn's and Twig's belongings to Annex 3, except for the massive over-sized safe in Bates' new office. That item was far too heavy even for Oscar to move. With Twig's stuff gone, the two men then helped Margaret move into the spaces vacated by Twig.

That afternoon Sandra Kruger dropped in to give Bates paperwork confirming that his salary was tripling. Bates was certainly pleased but he was also surprised and puzzled. He thought that all DOD salaries had been frozen by law, such that any promotions were essentially 'honorary'. Sandra informed him that though that was true, the Head of DOD still had the authority to 'move' a staff member into a vacated DOD position. Bates, formerly at level GS-12, had inherited Barns' highest level Senior Executive Service (SES) position and salary.

Even though still suffering from the hangover or perhaps because of it, the potential implications were immediately obvious to Bates. "Sandra," he inquired, "won't someone in the Government monitoring DOD notice when a person's salary increases?"

"I doubt it," replied Sandra. "They haven't in the past. They only seem to notice the total staff level. That's what the MAPRA limits, not salary."

Bates looked thoughtful. "And how many SES salaried people exist on the Base now?"

Sandra thought for a moment. "I'm not sure. Not many. Six maybe. Most left many years ago."

"And how many vacated SES positions does DOD have right now?" he asked.

"Well," she replied, "thousands, I imagine."

"Good," said Bates. "Is there overhead funding that can be applied to salaries?"

"Yes, there is plenty of that. Much more than we can spend, actually."

"Then let's move all remaining employees into vacated SES positions."

Sandra's jaw dropped. Stunned, she sat down heavily in the nearest chair, which was a mistake, since it happened to be one of the defective chairs. As she sat back in the chair, it simply kept going back and over. Chair and aeronautics engineer hit the floor with a loud thud. When he and Milo rushed to her aid, Bates was relieved to find her smiling widely as Milo licked her face. She grabbed the dog by his big floppy ears and hugged him, causing Milo to retreat to a safe distance from the too affectionate engineer.

"Christmas! Are you all right?" Bates asked, kneeling beside her.

"All right? Am I all right?" she gushed. "Boss! You're an absolute genius!" She grabbed Bates by both ears and shook and hugged him as she had done with Milo. Bates supposed this was a positive reaction, but like Milo, was glad when she finally let go. His ears were sore, but what struck him most about the incident is that she had actually called him 'boss' and she meant it. He stood then reached down to help her up but she was already nimbly getting to her feet.

"So," he asked her, as she brushed herself off, apparently none the worse after her spill, "do you think it could work?"

"I think so," she replied. "Just give me a few days to work out the details red-tape wise."

"Well," said Bates, returning to his reclining chair behind the desk, "if you can come up with the paper work, I'll certainly sign it, or whatever else it takes. And please do it immediately; this will be a great Christmas gift for everyone."

"OK, boss! You got it!" Still all smiles, she saluted Bates smartly, patted Milo on the backside and headed for the door.

Bates got a real charge out of being called 'boss' and he thought that the salute was a very nice touch. Maybe he'd ask all of his employees to do it. On balance, thought Bates, his first full day as boss had gone quite well. He had put into effect his first official directive, reversing a long standing injustice to pets, and employees were starting to call him 'boss' instead of Narb. Now if he could simply get everyone's salaries doubled or tripled before Christmas, that would really be something positive!

This job will be a snap, he thought. After all, what could possibly go wrong? And of course he never thought of Barns even once.

****

CHAPTER 6

INTERLUDE: THE BIG DATE

Beauty---the adjustment of all parts proportionately so that one cannot add or subtract or change without impairing the harmony of the whole.

\- Leon Battista Alberti

Dr. Barns writhed in pain, this time from application of a red-hot metal poker to his bare back! With Twig, Renson, and Melberg taking turns, the torture seemed endless. It was hard to tell, but by his reckoning it was probably Wednesday, which meant he was due to be eaten and killed (in that order!) the next day. Barns could only hope that he was sorely missed at the office, that his faithful employees had seen through the farce that had been enacted to fool them, and that they were even now all working diligently to find and rescue him.

****

The tumbling Sandra episode motivated Bates to rearrange his office furniture the first thing Wednesday morning, hopefully for the final time. It simply wouldn't do for visitors to his high office to be randomly falling to the floor out of chairs that way, so he moved most of his furniture collection out and into a nearby vacated office, keeping only a few of the better chairs and other pieces. Thanks to the Mafia rumors, he concluded that his belongings would be safe regardless of where he put them.

When he finished later that morning, the huge Head Office seemed almost bare. The desk, his best five chairs, his computer/VISICOM hutch, a couple of bookshelves, the mysterious safe of Twig's, the MX-84, and a few additional odds and ends occupied less than half of the big office.

As Bates put finishing touches on his new office, Milo laid claim to an empty box next to the desk, to Bates' recliner whenever the dog got there first, or, just as often, to the top of the desk, which was the least drafty. This suited Milo, for whatever canine breeds were part of his lineage, they did not seem to include anyone with thick fur. Having Milo on his desk suited Bates just fine, as long as the dog stayed away from his computer/VISICOM controls, since Milo just didn't seem to have a knack for high-tech.

The new emptiness of the office only served to emphasize the isolation that came with Bates' new status and location. Today he had hardly any visitors. His new office was too far removed from the offices of his friends Mel and Oscar. They came by once that morning to give Bates more Premium Fuel for the Nitro, but then they went right back to work on their projects. Bates knew that normally workers avoided the front office unless something went wrong and they wanted something, so he actually took the absence of visitors as a good sign. On the other hand, he was getting very bored.

He was lonely too. Bates had originally brought Milo to work with him to keep the dog company, but now he was finding that he very much needed his furry friend to provide himself company. At the moment though, Milo wasn't a very entertaining companion, for the dog was currently in his normal state: doggie deep sleep. He was lying on an empty pizza box on Bates' desk with all four legs sticking straight up in the air, snoring loudly. With the exception of cats, dogs are about the sleepingest animals on Earth, Bates observed, a trait that he admired deeply.

Around mid-morning, Bates suddenly remembered that Margaret was now his personal secretary. He tiptoed to the office door, opened it a crack, and peaked out to verify that this was not some crazy fantasy of his. Yes! There she was, sitting in the lobby at the end of the hallway outside his office, watching a morning soap-opera on her desk-top VISICOM. She was certainly a stunning improvement over Twig. Besides looking great she could probably even type using all of her fingers, and do other office sorts of things.

He decided to find out. He called her into his office to take dictation. In the 21st century office place, this was an unusual request, but as he explained to Margaret, VISICOM auto-dictation didn't work for him very well because of voice peculiarities. What luck for him!

Bates dictated several important sounding letters to fictitious people, including congress members. That probably impressed the heck out of Margaret, or at least that was the plan. Margaret certainly impressed Bates. She took the dictation wearing a micro-mini skirt, and the view of her legs was simply incredible.

He remembered to give her the Fuming Right disk he had been given on Monday, and was rewarded by a big smile. Damn she was cute!

By afternoon, Bates had used up most of his pseudo-plausible excuses to call her into his office, but he had already seen enough. Bolstered by his increasing confidence as boss of the Base, finally, after only thinking about it for at least three years, he asked her for a date. To his astonishment, she accepted! In fact, she didn't seem at all surprised that he had asked.

In anticipation of the evening to come, the rest of the day went by without much conscious thought, with the exception of planning the date. What was he going to do with Margaret? Dinner? A movie? A shopping mall? The library? The zoo? Bowling? Most evenings Bates usually read a book or watched the VISICOM, he really didn't know what the hell to do that would interest another person, especially a woman person.

That was one reason he hadn't suggested anything specific then he asked her for the date, the other being that it would have then been much too easy for her to turn it around with a response like: 'sorry, I just did that last night with my sister,' even if she didn't even have a sister. He'd seen that trick too many times before to be taken in by it, and he wanted to avoid the very possibility of it happening this time around, if at all possible.

The logical thing to do, he knew, would be to discuss date options with her, but he felt that would mar his new image as a dynamic leader. He finally decided that dinner, a movie, and a nightclub would be about right. For his last two hours at work, he used the VISICOM to research places to go, and finally established an itinerary that wasn't too pricy but wasn't too blatantly cheap either.

As Bates rushed home with Milo after work to prim for his date that evening with Margaret, the thought belatedly crossed his mind that for a boss to date his secretary was probably improper. However, he was able to logically refute that notion of impropriety with what he felt were several really good arguments, or at least arguments that were good enough for him.

First, he had only been boss for less than three days. He could claim ignorance of the rules; that excuse had worked for him before. Second, he had been working up to this date for years, and it was his private business. He couldn't let a little last minute change in status at the workplace interfere in his personal life. Such rules were probably unconstitutional anyway, or should be. Third, his love life was in dire straits; non-existent, as a matter of fact. Nothing much had happened in nearly twenty years. It had been a pretty serious lull.

His final argument was that the micro-mini-skirt provided him with such a good look at her legs that irresistible, primal forces of nature had been put into play. Biochemistry had taken over. No mere mortal man with functioning glands and proper gene sequences could have withstood those legs. Thus it followed logically that there was absolutely no way that this date could be avoided.

Perhaps it all added up to destiny. He wondered if a perverted form of this same force of nature had brought together Barns and Twig. That fleeting thought was notable only because it was the first and last time that Bates thought of Barns that day.

****

CHAPTER 7

DATA BY SLUDGOMATIC AND VIP BY VISICOM

Lose no time; be always employed in something useful.

\- Benjamin Franklin

It was Thursday, and Bates was bored, depressed, and again hung over. His date with Margaret the previous night had been simply disastrous, what little he could remember of it. When she found that he really neither knew nor cared anything about the counter-Earth cultural movement, she simply lost all interest in him. At least he theorized that was it; he wasn't altogether sure, since during the course of the evening he apparently had a few too many drinks, and he couldn't remember much about what happened after that.

Based on her manner towards him this morning, he was convinced that at least he hadn't behaved _too_ outrageously towards her the night before. She didn't seem mad at him, simply disinterested. She was wearing a longer skirt today too, he noticed, on the brief occasions that he actually saw her. He hoped that the long skirt situation wasn't permanent. Maybe colder weather was the cause, though he certainly didn't want to wait until Spring to see her legs again.

So, he had been disappointed again. So, what else was new? Thinking about it now, Bates concluded, as he had so many times before, that he didn't really care. Not _that_ much, anyway. Sure, he was attracted to Margaret physically, who wouldn't be? But Margaret wasn't really the cause or answer to his woman problems. As he had done countless times before, he thought again of HER. Not about Margaret, or about any of the others, but only about Janet, the one real love in his life from his college days.

He hadn't seen her in nearly two decades, and would never see her again. On the intellectual side, he knew that his continuing fixation on Janet was stupid and self-destructive; but he had found over the years that there wasn't much that he could do about it. With the exception of the times when he was totally immersed in his work, or when he was temporarily distracted by another woman as he had been by Margaret, Janet was still very much on his mind.

He immediately needed some new form of escapism, now that fantasizing about a date with Margaret was out, so he decided to read the news. Hopefully a few murders and financial disasters would temporarily get his mind off truly disturbing topics such as his love life or lack thereof.

While scrolling through the VISICOM news index, suddenly there SHE was! Janet! Her photo appeared in conjunction with a back page news story with a "Maverick Astronomer Attempts to Cause Panic" title. He recognized her immediately. She looked older, but still wonderful. His hands trembled as he keyed in a request for the full story.

The story was both disappointing and disturbing. It was disappointing because there were no more photos of Janet, and because the brief article was nearly totally devoid of personal information about her. The only notable snippet of personal information he garnered was that she was using her maiden name, though the reason wasn't disclosed. The video version of the news story first flashed a view of an observatory somewhere out West, and then a news commentator was shown. Who the hells wanted to see a news commentator, where the hells was Janet?

The commentator stated that Dr. Janet Garb had entered fabricated data into an astronomical data system and sent sensationalist messages to several people in an apparent attempt to cause a world-wide panic. The unlikely story concluded by stating that authorities were currently determining if formal changes would be brought against her. Bates ran the story a second and third time to make sure that he hadn't missed anything. But that was it; end of story.

The 'fabricated data' allegation in the news report was itself false, Bates was certain. Janet's capabilities and integrity as a person had been impeccable, at least when she was an undergraduate. Even though that was almost twenty years ago, he couldn't believe that she could have changed so radically. So the charges had to be false. The likelihood that serious false accusations were being made against her was very disturbing.

Even more disturbing to Bates was the remote possibility that the accusations were actually true. If she had truly done the things that she was accused of, it could only have been in response to some situation in her life too terrible to contemplate.

There were still other aspects of the story that didn't make sense. Just what was the 'world panic-causing data' she was accused of providing? The report gave no specifics. Obviously, that part of the story should have been the most interesting part to many readers, so why wasn't it in the news report if the data was false anyway?

Bates seriously considered VISICOMing Janet; but then every single day for nearly twenty years he had considered contacting Janet, and he had never once called her. He promised her long ago that he would never see or call her again, and painful though it was, he kept to that promise. He still wouldn't contact Janet, he decided; he could never break a solemn promise made to Janet. And he had long since given up any hope of her contacting him.

He decided to again try to forget about HER by immersing himself in his job. After all, this strategy had been at least partially effective for nearly two decades. But just what was his job now anyway, he asked himself for the thousandth time? So far, there was virtually nothing to do. What the hells had Barns done when he was here? He asked his friends what they thought he should be doing, but nobody seemed to know; none of them had ever been an administrator, nor did any of them ever want to be one.

He even tried to reach Melberg, only to find that the man had taken a sudden vacation. Melberg wasn't the vacation sort; perhaps he was more upset about the Bates promotion then he had let on. He couldn't contact Barns either, as the former DOD Head had neglected to give him a VISICOM number where he could be reached, as he had promised that he would do. Barns was probably living it up like a king someplace right now, leaving his bored replacement to slave on in his old office on his own.

Bates looked at his watch for the 23rd time that morning. Fortunately, he had won a temporary reprieve from having to figure out what work to do, for it was lunchtime at last. For lunch he sent out again for a Pizza, an extra-large one with everything on it. He wasn't that wild about the anchovies, but they were Milo's favorite topping, and Bates could put up with a few dead fish on his food for his buddy Milo. The pizza should help him forget Janet, the disastrous date with Margaret, and everything else that was depressing. It wasn't as effective as a few beers would have been, but it would do for now. He would do away with the Base no-alcohol directive next he decided, but not today. Possibly tomorrow. He needed some reason to come into work tomorrow, and that could be it.

As he sat back in his lounge chair, munching on Pizza with Milo and sipping a Pepsi, but still terribly bored and anxious to do something, both the mysterious safe to be sent to Twig and his MX-84 were sitting side by side in plain sight.

The safe bothered him. Why would Twig be sorting data from that safe? She wasn't even professional science staff, after all. And why had Barns freaked out when he saw the safe on Monday? What was inside it, anyway? State secrets? Diamonds the size of grapefruit? The Holy Grail? Jimmy Hoffa? As Head of DOD, didn't he have the right to know? More, didn't he have the duty to know? He tried the 1-2-3-4 combination that worked with the other safes, but it didn't work with this one.

He also thought about his work with the MX-84. After ten years, he had recently perfected the ability of the device to 'read' information media in practically any format. It could read information printed in books. It could read binary formatted magnetic tapes, disks, and cubes. It could read optically recorded data. Of course, other devices could do those things. But the MX-84 could read them all without direct physical access to the media. It could read stacks of books without opening them. It could scan and read file cabinets containing magnetic and optical media without even touching the cabinets. Access was achieved through applying a complex assortment of radiation, mostly electromagnetic, to the objects, and through tremendously complex post-processing of the three dimensional imaging data measured after it passed through the objects.

It suddenly occurred to Bates that he didn't have to open the mysterious safe that troubled Barns in order to find out what was inside it. With the MX-84, he could 'see' what was inside. Reading data inside a safe was definitely the next logical step in his MX-84 research anyway. The original inventors of the MX-84 had long since left DOD, taking with them precise knowledge of its intended use. Perhaps, Bates now realized, reading data in locked safes was exactly what the device was designed to do in the first place!

First though, as Barns had suggested, he had to solve a little power problem. Depending on the task, the MX-84 could draw over 200 Amps of 240 volt electric power. Fortunately, and for no reason that he could think of except that the building had been designed by the Government and was therefore not subject to normal rules of logic, he found that there was a suitable power receptacle in the lobby right outside his new office. The power receptacle was exactly where Renson used to usually stand, as a matter of fact. In minutes, Bates installed a super heavy gage power cord between the lobby and the MX-84.

In another half hour, he positioned the MX-84 radiating and measurement apparatus around the safe. Finally, he applied lead shielding to himself, the MX-84 post processing units, and Milo. As long as Bates arranged the lead foil so that Milo could continue eating his Pizza, the dog didn't seem to mind.

At last Bates was ready to go, and he powered up the MX-84. Milo, wrapped in lead foil, immediately abandoned his Pizza and started to bark, whine, and shuffle awkwardly around the room! Other than the dog barking and rummaging about, a low humming sound, and the fluctuating read-outs on the MX-84's control monitor, there were no indications that anything was happening.

Something was happening! First, a measurement calibration mode determined the exact position of the measurement devices through use of multiple, variable frequency signals. Then signals with various source points, frequencies, and strengths began to focus on the safe itself. Though metal, the safe was fortunately not an infinitely good conductor, nor was it grounded; if it were, the electromagnetic signals could not have penetrated. Finally, exquisitely calibrated resonance modes were established for the walls and inside areas of the safe. Eventually, tiny variations in signals and resulting signal returns allowed the MX-84 to form a 3-D mapping of the entire insides of the safe.

The strategy was similar to the pealing an onion. A mathematical model was formulated for the properties of the outer-most layer, the safe, allowing the next layer to be more properly measured and modeled. Safe shelves and books, reports, data cubes, and data tapes were identified, modeled, and strategies for further modeling and mapping their insides were determined automatically. It was an exceedingly delicate operation, requiring extremely small signal amplitudes, particularly with regard to magnetic media, and extremely massive and adaptive signal processing.

After several minutes the control monitor showed that two things were happening. First, tremendous amounts of signal data were being recorded. Second, power consumption was becoming unusually high. Bates attributed this to the heavy steel construction of the safe; the MX-84 was automatically compensating for this by greatly increasing its normal radiation signal strength.

The actual data measurement portion of the experiment was soon over. According to the MX-84, its data cubes now held hundreds of trillions of bytes of fairly raw data. This had to be structured into text. Over the next few minutes, this data would continue to be post-processed by the supercomputing assets of the MX-84, which was made up of multiple INTEL 999986 PC super-computing components that Bates had bought and paid for himself as a mail order from Intel, since there had been virtually no budget for the Government to buy such equipment for many years.

With the possible exception of the recording strategy, post-processing was the most complex part of the operation. A couple of decades earlier, this stage would have required rooms full of super computers and mobs of programmers; now it could be done by Bates and a hodgepodge of commercially available hardware components and free shareware utilities.

When the MX-84 control read-outs indicated that about 20 billion bytes of useful information were prepared, he had the MX-84 computer artificial intelligence (AI) utilities sort and group the information and develop an index and table of contents for it. He spot-checked the information by glancing at a few random pages. Much to his relief it seemed to be OK; at least it wasn't gibberish.

Though it was a massive amount of information, enough to fill several large bookshelves in old-fashioned hard copy form, all the information easily fit onto a single modern optical data cube. Bates removed the cube from the MX-84 and popped it into his pocket. He could read the cube using any standard VISICOM device. He decided to take the cube home with him to review its contents. Over the next few weeks, he planned to assess how well the MX-84 had performed its task of reading and arranging the data. The fact that the data was highly classified never even crossed his mind.

Curious as he was about the contents of the safe, he decided to 'clean up' the office a little bit before taking the data cube home and reviewing it, starting with the emancipation of his foil wrapped self. When Bates removed the MX-84 apparatus positioned around the safe, he happened to back up against the safe with his backside. "YOOOOW" he shouted, hopping around the room! The damned thing was hot as blazes! His pants were smoking! Milo, quick to join in on new games, though stuffed with pizza and hampered by the lead lined outfit that he still wore, shuffled over to Bates, barking, and playfully nipped his leg. This had the desired effect of leading to several more rounds of yelling and barking.

After finally calming and settling Milo down for another snooze, Bates measured the outside temperature of the safe and did a few quick mental calculations. He deduced that the contents of the safe must be super-heated sludge and gas! Oops.

"Damn," Bates cursed. He should have anticipated something like this, and proceeded more cautiously. There had been similar results in some of his earlier experiments, in which the MX-84 completely destroyed what it was reading. He thought he had solved that problem, but apparently reading data enclosed in a safe required further research. Analysis was perhaps successful, but it was destructive analysis. The MX-84 had transformed the safe into a super-powered microwave oven that converted its contents into super-heated sludge.

Someone was probably going to be really pissed off.

Hopefully he had at least preserved all the information that had been in the safe. He decided that instead of waiting until he got home he would spend the rest of the afternoon studying just what that information was.

However, before he could even retrieve the data cube from his pocket, Margaret informed him via intercom that he had a call from the White House! It was a shocked Bates that switched on the office VISICOM to receive the call. Bates stared at a man he knew that he had seen many times in the news, though he couldn't quite recall his name or position for a few moments.

It was an equally shocked and surprised John Ryan, White House Chief of Staff, that stared back at Bates. Ryan had expected to see Dr. Barns, an old and trusted friend, sitting in a dignified office setting. Instead, he saw an unkempt stranger in a disorderly room what couldn't possibly be the office of the Head of DOD. Instead of the stern, imposing, immaculate Barns, Ryan observed an extremely scruffy looking, balding, middle aged, slightly pudgy man who wore wrinkled clashing shirt and pants, no socks, old sneakers, and a Christmas novelty tie, as he sat back in a beat up lounge chair. The stranger was staring back at him with a shocked, blank expression on his face.

On the desk next to the man were old pizza boxes and empty Pepsi cans, scattered papers, and, sleeping on its back with its legs straight up in the air was a squat, nondescript dog wrapped in some sort of metal foil. He could hear the dog snoring. On the wall in the background was a poster sized photo of the man, holding a mug of beer in one hand, while with the other he shook the hand of a seedy looking Santa Claus that appeared to be carrying an assault rifle.

Ryan opened the dialogue, using a tone of voice that was clearly used to wielding authority: "I'm John Ryan, White House Chief of Staff. Who are you?" Ryan demanded. "I wanted Barns, the Head of DOD!"

"Well," replied Bates, shrugging, "instead you got Dr. Narbando T. Bates, new Head of DOD. Barns retired Monday. You should have recently received a memo from Barns to that effect. What can I do for you, sir?" Bates sat up straighter and tried to look professional, despite the unfortunate pizza sauce stains on his shirt.

If it wasn't for the current crisis Ryan would never have bothered to try to call Barns. The DOD and Barns were ancient history, but with the Dannos crisis at hand, every avenue had to be explored, no matter how futile. He had intended to level with Barns, as he had known him for many years. He quickly decided to tell this stranger as little as possible.

"Congratulations then, Dr. Bates, and please excuse the outburst. I have some, ah, routine questions to ask you. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes."

"DOD, what's left of it, is at your service," Bates responded, smiling.

"What's left of it? Yes, that's the very question Dr. Bates. You don't have any operational units, do you?"

Bates considered the question. Was this guy for real? "Do you mean military units?"

"Well, yes," said Ryan.

"No, Mr. Ryan, we're strictly civilian scientists and engineers here, though a few of us are ex-military."

"Of course," said Ryan. "Now what about equipment?"

"What sort of equipment?"

Ryan paused a moment. How could he phrase this one delicately? He couldn't. "Oh, things like guided missiles and nuclear bombs, for instance."

Bates had to think about that one a little more. There were plenty of odds and ends all over the Base, true enough, such as his MX-84, but as far as he knew, it was all research equipment, not weapons. "I really don't think so, Mr. Ryan. This Base has always been sort of a think tank, not an operational base or even a weapons development or test center. We tended to focus on basic research and its applications to weapons system components, and not so much on complete weapons systems. In the past we constructed working prototypes of some items, but certainly not operational prototypes of complete strategic weapons. That would break lots of treaties nowadays anyway, wouldn't it?"

"No space ships either?"

Bates struggled to keep a straight face. "No, sorry, not that I know of. Maybe you have us confused with NASA?"

Ryan and others had already called NASA. Even NASA didn't have a suitable weapons delivery system. Nobody on Earth did. And if they could find a delivery system, they didn't have a hydrogen bomb anyway. Nobody did. The last nuclear bomb had been dismantled with tremendous public fan-fare over ten years ago. The day was celebrated internationally as a legal holiday. Every school kid knew that! "OK then, Dr. Bates, just checking."

Bates had the distinct feeling that Ryan was holding something back. This was all public knowledge. Why was a VIP like Ryan asking these dumb questions? And he seemed serious about them too; Bates could see that Ryan was truly disappointed with his answers. Initially Bates thought that the man's attitude was arrogant. As the conversation went on, he came to believe that Ryan was deeply troubled and desperate. But whatever was going on, Ryan wasn't telling him.

"Was there anything else Mr. Ryan?"

"Just one more question Dr. Bates. Do you have a Dr. Frank Melberg working for you?"

"Yes," replied Bates.

"Is he in today, do you know?"

What was going on, thought Bates? Did Ryan want to deal with Melberg instead of him? "No," replied Bates. "As a matter of fact, he's taken a few days of vacation. He doesn't plan on being back until after Christmas."

For the first time, Ryan smiled, though grimly. "Yes, of course; after Christmas. That's not surprising, I suppose."

"Can I leave him a message?" Bates asked.

The smile faded away as quickly as it had appeared. "No, absolutely not. If you see this man before Christmas, make no mention whatsoever of this conversation. Bates, haven't you been contacted yet by the National Police about Melberg?" Bates could only shake his head no. Ryan continued. "I have some bad news then, I'm afraid. We have reason to believe that this man Melberg is an unstable and dangerous criminal."

It was the last thing Bates expected to hear. In his own opinion, Melberg was surely no prize, but unstable and dangerous? "What on Earth did he do?"

Ryan paused before answering evasively. "We don't want to reveal that until we have him securely in hand."

"But how dangerous is he? Should we detain him?"

"No. Absolutely not. But you are to call this office immediately. Or, better yet, call Peter Lund at NP headquarters. Incidentally Dr. Bates, what is that orange stuff in the tank? Some sort of experiment?" Ryan was pointing at something on his VISICOM screen, which of course imparted no useful information to Bates as to the location of the 'orange stuff' in question. Bates looked around at the shelves in back of his desk, and finally located among the odds and ends collected there an old ten-gallon fish tank full of 'orange stuff'. Actually, it was full of thousands of small something's immersed in an orange liquid.

"Oh! That's nothing important, Mr. Ryan. It's just some Styrofoam packing peanuts."

"Styrofoam's usually white. Why are these orange?"

"I'm dying them orange. They are immersed in orange dye. Styrofoam being fairly impervious to dye, it's taking a long time."

"Why?" asked a baffled Mr. Ryan.

"I really don't know. Inorganic chemistry is a bit out of my line."

"No, I mean why are you dying them orange?"

It seemed rather obvious to Bates. "Why, so they'll look like real cheese corn curls, of course. At some cocktail party, if I ever go to one, I plan to put them in several bowls and place them all around." Bates was smiling now, in a manner that he hoped was infectious, but Ryan was still staring blankly and morosely out of the VISICOM, as though the whole grand idea of fake corn curls at a party was completely beyond his comprehension. "You know, as a gag!" added Bates.

He was finally rewarded by two tiny nods of Ryan's head, which apparently signaled that no further explanation was required.

In the meantime, Milo woke up, and was soon staring at Ryan while attempting to scratch under his left ear through the lead foil.

Ryan shook his head sadly and sighed. "All right Dr. Bates, I guess that about does it. Sorry to wake your dog. Why is it wrapped up that way? Is it sick?"

"No, he's simply wearing lead foil as protection against radiation. Sir, is there anything else?"

Ryan sighed deeply and shook his head. "Thank you, but no. I've learned everything I needed to. Good-bye Dr. Bates."

"Oh wait!" exclaimed Bates. "There's one more thing after all." Bates didn't know what was bothering this man but he definitely needed cheering up. "Merry Christmas!"

At the mention of Christmas though, Ryan looked more distraught than ever. He forced a smile, however. "The same to you, Dr. Bates. Oh, and I'd use those fake corn curls right away, if I were you. Before Christmas." The VISICOM went blank.

****

CHAPTER 8

CRISIS MANAGEMENT

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?

\- Benjamin Disraeli

As his VISICOM screen faded, a tear ran down one of Ryan's cheeks. It was one of many shed over the last few days. Ryan had a dog when he was a kid, and he had promised his grandchildren a dog for Christmas. The sight of that man Bates and his dog set off his tears, plus the realization that he had just exhausted the last slim hope for the salvation of the World. He wiped his eyes, took a deep breath to compose himself, and VISICOMed the President. According to protocol, he should visit her in person, but he simply was too mentally and physically exhausted.

Elizabeth Wright, first woman President of the United States, answered. She looked exhausted herself, he thought, just as he himself and most of the staff must look. Events had occurred with surprising rapidity following the report from Dr. Janet Garb on Tuesday morning. Her observations and predictions were confirmed by that evening. Crisis teams and actions were started by midnight. By Thursday, initial analysis was complete. Now that analysis was being confirmed.

"Madam President," he began, "I'm afraid that I must report that none of our efforts has borne fruit. The situation remains completely hopeless."

Wright, like her Chief of Staff, was not a quitter. You don't become President by being a quitter. "What about NASA?" she asked.

Ryan looked grim. "As you know, the International Space Agency controls most launches, but NASA still performs most of them. Compared to the past, launches are of course very few and far between."

"Of course," interjected the President. As a senator and leading environmental advocate, she co-authored legislation reducing USA space programs to practically nothing.

Ryan continued. "As a result, very little launch capability exists. In fact, so far as we can tell, right now none exists at all."

"But Mr. Ryan, just last month there was a successful launch of an orbital satellite!"

"Exactly, madam President. But that means that the next launch is not scheduled to occur until summer. That launch vehicle is still under construction. NASA engineers estimate that it would take three months, as a minimum, to accomplish any sort of launch."

"That's the best they can do? What about using rehabilitated defense missiles?" asked the incredulous President.

"I'm afraid the three month estimate is already based on using a rehabilitated defense missile. And actually, in my opinion, that is better than they can actually do. I've been over their schedules with them, and they make a lot of optimistic assumptions."

The President sighed. "Understandable, under the circumstances, I suppose."

"Indeed," agreed Ryan. "But there are also other equally unsolvable problems."

"Such as?"

"Well, I just got the report from the UN international task force on what it would take to completely demolish the asteroid. They estimate it would take between ten and a hundred thousand megatons worth of hydrogen bombs."

"That sounds like a lot."

"It is a lot. Much more than we had at the height of the Cold War, I believe."

The President looked even more pale and grave. She was beginning to comprehend the implications.

"So," continued Ryan, "we would need the capability to immediately deliver thousands of nuclear devices, and we don't have the capability to deliver even one. Not that it matters."

"Why doesn't it matter, Mr. Ryan?"

"Because Madam President, there isn't a single nuclear bomb anywhere on Earth. Further, the International Energy Commission has ensured that there are no facilities available for their immediate production. They estimate it would take a minimum of a year to fashion a single fission triggered fusion device, and several more years to manufacture the required number of bombs."

"So in summary, Mr. Ryan," said the President, "you have concluded that the United States of America is as totally helpless as the rest of the world?"

Ryan wished more than anything that he could conclude something else. "Yes, I'm sorry Madam President, but that is the only conclusion that could be reached by us, just as it has been reached by the international agencies and the other nations involved in trying to address this crisis. We have been in contact with the UN, Russia, Japan, China, Great Britain, Germany, India, Brazil, and France. They all quickly reached very similar conclusions. Even our collective resources are totally inadequate by many months and many orders of magnitude."

"What about the other UN report, the one estimating damage?"

"I'm afraid the news there is not good either," said Ryan. "If anything, estimates of damage have been revised upward. The asteroid impact itself will have the explosive force of millions of megatons of TNT, much worse than what was threatened during the Cold War, even though most of the energy will be absorbed internally by the Earth within a few hundred miles of the impact point. They estimate that as much as 30% of the Earth's human population will die within hours. Most, and probably all others, will die within the following years. There will be massive world-wide earthquakes, tidal waves, fire storms that would cook most life, tornadoes and hurricanes of unprecedented ferocity, followed by toxic levels of atmospheric and ocean chemical pollutants and radiation, followed by months of freezing temperatures, disease, drought, torrential deluge, and world-wide plagues and famine.

"Most species of life on Earth will become extinct. The scientists call the scenario a 'great dying'; apparently such episodes have occurred on Earth with decreasing frequency and amplitude for billions of years. The last big one wiped out the dinosaurs. At best, though highly improbable, a few pockets of Homo sapiens might survive, minus most trappings of civilization. But that is felt by most experts to be highly doubtful. Some simple insects, molds, bacteria, jelly fish and so forth will surely survive but that's about it. Life on Earth will be set back by hundreds of millions of years."

It was not a pleasant thing to contemplate. After a long pause, the President brought up a new issue. "What about our efforts to contain news of the crisis?"

World leaders had decided to keep the Dannos crisis a secret. It was a position initially proposed and strongly supported by Peter Lund, Head of the National Police. It was felt that immediate panic, hysteria, and chaos would result if the impending destruction of Earth on Christmas Eve were to be made public.

"We are doing rather well on that one, according to all reports. All copies of the initial report by Dr. Garb have been tracked down and modified, adding phony information that is now being studied and refuted by the remaining scientific community. We have thereby discredited Garb and sent most researchers on a 'wild goose chase', so to speak. The deception is only temporary as they will soon collect data and come to the same conclusions as Garb, but that probably won't be seen enough to be a problem. We have quietly detained the handful of researchers that studied her original report. We will arrest Garb herself as soon as we find her."

"On what grounds are these people being detained?" the President asked.

"Oh," explained Ryan, "a variety of trumped up charges, of course. The whole cover up could only work for a few weeks, at most. Lund assures me that the National Police can keep things quiet for the next week. After that..." Ryan paused. There was nothing more to say. For a few moments, as he was describing what was happening with the cover-up, he had forgotten that there would be no 'after that' to worry about. Millions of kids would go to bed with visions of sugar plumbs dancing in their heads, and never wake up. The Earth's crust would be smashed open like an egg-shell hit by a BB.

"And the faulty computer system that masked the problem until now?" asked the President.

Ryan was glad to change the subject. "That's still under investigation, but we have learned quite a bit so far. The programming was done by a prominent scientist named Melberg when he worked for the NASA." The anger showed in his voice and on his face. "It had to be deliberate. For Dannos and only for Dannos, separate program logic is followed. It was apparently done quite cleverly. For the last seven years, astronomers all over the world have been fooled."

"Seven years!" mused the President. "But given seven years we would have had a chance!"

"Yes," said Ryan. "This man robbed us of the years we needed to save ourselves. It had to be deliberate."

"Have you found him?" asked the President.

"Not yet, Madam President, but we have leads. In fact, I'm told by Lund that the National Police have his home and workplace under surveillance right now."

"Find him, Ryan!" urged the President. "If there's nothing else we get done in the little time we have left, I want that man!"

"Yes, Madam President. You shall have him."

Wright knew that Ryan would get it done, if it was possible. He was the most competent man on her staff. That's why she had him heading up this whole Dannos affair. Peter Lund, the Head of the National Police, was also known to be very capable, but not at all personable, in her view. She instinctively did not trust him or like him. Ryan performed an important function as intermediary between her and Peter Lund, whenever needed.

"Anything else, Ryan?"

Ryan looked a little uncomfortable. "Well," he began tentatively, "there is one thing. Given the situation, I would like to give most of the White House staff time off for the next week. With the exception of those few working the Dannos issue, and a skeleton support staff, of course. I would tell them it's a Christmas gift from you." He wandered if Wright would understand, as she herself was such a workaholic.

She apparently did. "Excellent idea Ryan. Do it. And Ryan?"

"Yes Madame President?"

"Take a couple days for yourself. Visit those grandchildren of yours."

"Yes Madam President, thank you." He switched off the VISICOM and sank back deep into his chair. He felt very, very tired.

****

CHAPTER 9

HER!

Love is like a violin. The music may stop now and then, but the strings remain forever.

\- June Masters Bacher

Bates sat in shock for long minutes after his VISICOM with Ryan. What the duce was going on? As a rough guesstimate, it had been at least N (N>5) years since the White house had COMed the DOD. Bates remembered the incident because Barns bragged about it for months. It was surprising enough to learn that Ryan was aware that DOD still existed. On top of that, to then actually get a personal call from possibly the second most powerful person in DC was absolutely unbelievable!

Ryan had tried to sound casual, but Bates doubted that anything that Ryan ever did was casual. The man was obviously under enormous pressure. What national or international crisis was troubling Ryan? Why would anyone need missiles, bombs, and troops nowadays?

And, what did Ryan and the NP have on Melberg? He couldn't imagine that it had anything to do with Melberg's work here at DOD. Had the man been moonlighting downtown with the DC big-wigs and gotten himself into trouble? Perhaps. He had heard that Melberg was talented and ambitious, and that he would have gotten Barns' job if it hadn't been for politics, though why a man with both talent and ambition would stay on in the DOD was a mystery. Leading DOD people usually had either talent or ambition, but not both.

Strange doings were afoot, that's for sure: Barns and Twig were acting psycho, and Melberg was on the lamb. The Ryan VISICOM. Janet in the news. And of course there was also his own inexplicable promotion. All of it had happened within the last few days. There didn't seem to be a logical connection between these anomalous events; could it all be the result of astrology or biorhythms or something? Bates didn't believe in those. Such phenomenon could best be tackled by chaos theory, perhaps. But whatever the cause, the well-ordered and predictable world he enjoyed less than a week ago seemed to be a thing of the past. Bates didn't like so much excitement. He was even having trouble sleeping lately.

He had often suspected that the universe was much more complex, mysterious, and unpredictable than the dullness of his own life suggested, and that all the science and other knowledge that mankind had built up over the centuries didn't yet amount to a hill of beans. Maybe those suspicions were correct. Maybe the Earth had been in an unstable equilibrium state, but something had finally tipped the balance, popping all sorts of long hidden things out into view that had been hiding just under the surface for ages. Oddball things that didn't care about causing a man to lose sleep. What was it and where was it all leading?

Fortunately though, he thought, sighing and glancing at his watch, at least this day full of events was behind him. The workday was over, and he could go home with Milo. He opened his Pizza box and gave the last cold slice of everything-on-it Pizza to the dog. Milo gulped it down gratefully, anchovies and all. On the way home, they would stop at McDonald's for some quarter-pounders and fries. At least nothing else weird would happen today.

He was wrong. As he reached out to switch his VISICOM to auto-receive mode for the evening, it informed him of another call which he decided to take, despite conventional wisdom that argued against answering calls-as-you-went-out-the-door.

He received the biggest shock of the week when Janet Garb's face appeared on the screen. "Hello Narb," she said, after a moment.

Bates couldn't say anything. This had to be a fantasy. Wasn't it?

"Yes, it's me, Janet! It's been a very long time." She smiled briefly the smile he remembered in a thousand dreams.

Bates couldn't say anything. The universe had twisted into something unrecognizable again.

"I know its presumptuous of me to call you after all these years, but there has been some unexpected trouble."

Bates was still incapable of saying anything. But he realized on some level of awareness that from the way she looked and sounded, she was indeed deeply troubled. It was more than time that had aged her since they were lovers long ago. There was tenseness in her voice, a measured pacing of her words, and a downturn to the corners of her mouth that Bates still knew so well. It reminded him painfully of the previous time that they spoke; when she broke it all off between them. Yes, he sensed she was in trouble, but that thought was far in the background of his mind at the moment.

Totally overwhelming everything else was the exquisite experience of just seeing and hearing Janet again! He had nothing but memories of her for so many years. So many long, empty, wasted years, in which the more he tried to forget her, the more he remembered her. And now to simply see her again and to hear her voice was heavenly!

Her voice, even troubled, was like the most wonderful music that could ever be imagined. It was like recovering from decades of being deaf and blind, to rediscover symphonies and gardens and sunsets. It was rediscovering life, after simply going through the motions. He wiped the gathering tears of joy from his eyes.

And of course, he still couldn't say anything, or really listen to anything either. At some rational level Bates realized suddenly that he hadn't comprehended a single word that Janet had been saying. He struggled to pierce the vale of his emotions and to understand what she was talking about.

"I can understand that what I've told you comes as a great shock."

What part was that, he wandered?

"I'm truly sorry to have upset you Narb!"

Upset? Why would he be upset? This was the best thing to happen to him in twenty years!

"But I'm glad to have seen you again. We'll get by somehow, even if you choose not to come."

Who's 'we', he wandered? Get by? Get by what? Come? Come where?

"Of course, what does anything matter anymore anyway?"

Huh?

She looked at her watch, than back at Bates, sadly. "Good luck to you Narb."

"Ugh, hah-ah," Bates struggled to clear his voice.

THEN, SHE SIMPLY SIGNED OFF!

Bates stared at the blank screen for several seconds in total shock; then his practiced hands flew to the VISICOM controls in desperation. He immediately confirmed that there was no more signal; she really HAD signed off! He hit the VISICOM 'return last call' function. No good. There was no number in memory to support a return call. She had deliberately suppressed that function at her end.

Bates jumped up and screamed at the top of his lungs, causing a startled Milo to run around the room howling sympathetically. Whatever excitement was going on here, as long as he was a member of the Bates pack, Milo needed to be a part of it.

Bates began randomly pacing around the office and talking incoherently to himself. "Yea gods! Of all the addle-brained, nincompoop capers! I can't believe it! She was right there, and I didn't say a single solitary word to her! Worse, I didn't listen to her! She wanted my help and I don't even know what's going on! One chance in twenty years and I screwed it up! FUDGE FARKING WINKIES!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

Margaret come to the office door briefly to peek in timidly. He shooed her away, quieted himself and Milo down, sat down before his VISICOM again, took a deep breath, and hit the playback button.

Praise to the heavens, the VISICOM began to play back the call; apparently the record function had been on! Bates exhaled a deep sigh of relief, and turned his full attention to the recorded conversation. This time, not a single gesture or syllable would get by him. He would absorb it all. He would be a sponge, a vacuum, an anechoic chamber, a perfect blackbody, a shortstop: whatever it took.

On the left side of the screen Bates viewed the recording of himself, a pathetic balding, middle aged, pudgy, plain, pale, poorly dressed man, with a blank, shocked, demented idiot look on his face, surrounded in his office by Milo, pizza boxes, Pepsi cans, and other assorted trash. Except for Milo and the trash, it looked an awful lot like the photo on his driver's license: horrible! No wonder Janet had hung up on him!

On the other side of the screen was HER. She appeared to be calling from a public VISICOM booth someplace. Compared to his fond memories of a coed twenty years younger, she looked older of course, and worried, but still fantastic. He zoomed her window larger, and shrunk his own pathetic image down to wallet/driver's license size.

Janet's story was brief but totally incredible. Monday night, while he partied to celebrate his ascension to the position of Head of DOD, Janet and one of her students had discovered that the Earth would essentially be destroyed on Christmas Eve!

On the recorded replay, Bates' visible and auditory reaction to this rather astounding pronouncement was: NOTHING! Nothing at all! In the replay he still sat staring out at her with blank bulging eyes and open, gaping mouth. He looked like the stuffed catfish that Oscar had on his living room wall as a conversation piece. Bates didn't even like that particular catfish either, though as a rule, he had nothing against fish or cats either, for that matter.

Apparently the Government didn't believe Janet, or for some reason wanted to cover up the story, because the other astronomers she had sent the story started to mysteriously disappear, as did her students, and now she was on the run from the National Police herself. She had called Bates to ask him to meet her at a certain camp site in Arizona, a place known only to the two of them from long ago. She said that only then would he understand why she had called him in the first place.

She pleaded for him to come!

And in response he still had said absolutely NOTHING to her. For her it must have been like trying to talk to a wax zombie. Good grief, what must she have thought of him!

The rest of the recording was the ending that he had paid attention to before. Bates had certainly learned a great deal from the recording, but there was still no way to call her back, as she had left no address or VISICOM number. Sure, he could track down her home phone through directory assistance but that would probably be worthless if she was on the run from the NP. It could be less than worthless, if the NP was tapping her home VISICOM. He couldn't try to call her back. Bates again paced the room in frustration.

The only thing he could do is go to their old campsite in Arizona and hope that she appeared. He had revisited the place so many times in his memories that finding it should be no problem, even after twenty years.

He immediately made airline reservations on United Flight 210 to Phoenix leaving Dulles Airport in only three hours. Then he and Milo rushed out to the Nitro. Fortunately, it was loaded with Premium Fuel. The car shot out the front gate past a startled Hank and practically flew towards his apartment.

However, halfway home Bates realized that he had some preparations to make before he could leave for Phoenix. From his car he first VISICOMed Mel, who was still at work, to tell him he would be on Annual Leave indefinitely, and that he, Mel, was to be in charge of DoD in his absence. He wouldn't tell his startled friend where or why he was going. He had never told anyone else about Janet, not even Mel or Oscar, and there was no use in getting Mel involved now. Also, he arranged for Mel to take care of Milo. Despite a few hundred IQ points difference in their levels of intelligence, Mel and Milo had similar personalities, and got along very well together.

As an afterthought, Bates asked Mel to check on the trajectory of Dannos. Due to his cosmological studies, Mel had VIP connections in the astronomy community that he could tap.

Despite his faith in Janet and her capabilities, it was still a little hard for Bates to accept everything she had told him regarding Dannos. The destruction of the Earth was almost too extreme and serious a situation to even contemplate. To Bates, the whole idea was refutable on basic philosophical and psychological grounds. The philosophical principles of continuity and uniformity suggested to Bates that the world of today would pretty darn well match the world of yesterday and tomorrow, here and anywhere in the cosmos. That should be especially true over a time-span that was super-short from a cosmological standpoint, such as a person's lifetime, unless they were exceedingly unlucky.

Sure, the Earth could get clobbered by an asteroid. It had happened before, lots of times, and it would very likely happen again; that much was well established by science. But lately it only happened once in tens or hundreds of millions of years. So then, what were the odds it would happen this Christmas-eve? Tiny! This stuff just didn't happen in real-life. It was amusing as a pulp-science fiction topic, but in real life it couldn't be any more likely than encountering dragons, unicorns, ghosts or space aliens. Fortunately life and reality just weren't that damned dramatic.

Psychologically, Earth's destruction was simply too bad a thing to be real; denial was so much easier, and something that Bates was well practiced in. He felt that there simply had to be some sort of crazy mistake, and with Mel's help he would clear things up for Janet somehow.

Bates said good-bye to Mel. Then, remembering his poor appearance as recorded during the VISICOM call, Bates drove to a K-MART for new clothes and luggage. He wanted to look his best when he met with Janet.

He got lucky; he caught the tail end of their fall clearance sale of winter clothes. Another week and there would only be summer clothes everywhere. He hadn't kept records and couldn't prove it legally or scientifically, but it seemed to him that every year clothes sales in department stores shifted a little, until it had gotten to the point where basically winter clothes had to all be purchased in the summer, and summer ones had to all be purchased in the winter.

Why people put up with buying clothes months ahead of time when they were usually late with everything else was a huge mystery and a situation that Bates strongly objected to. He even wrote a technical paper once explaining seasons and mean temperatures, and sent copies to several department stores, without results. They were still screwed up. The only hope seemed to be that if sales slipped only a few months further, seasons and clothes sales would again match up.

Shopping was an effective means of reducing worry for Bates, and he felt better after he had finished. He tried to blank-out predications of the Earth's destruction, and worries about Janet's legal problems, and focus on the positive points. In balance, he could scarcely believe his good fortune. The bottom line was this: Janet actually wanted to see him! Compared to that, the odd doings at the office and even this new business about the Earth being destroyed in a week seemed like insubstantial irrelevant hooey.

****

CHAPTER 10

HAVING DR. BARNS FOR DINNER

Marriage is a noose.

\- Cerventes

After Renson saw Bates tear out of the Base, he left his panel truck and entered the administration wing of the main building. In minutes he would have the safe on the truck, off the Base, and in the small space ship that formed most of Twig's house nearby. Then, after emptying the safe and feasting on Barns, the Ra would leave this immensely dull and backward planet forever.

The Ca'Ra moved silently and gracefully like a great cat, savoring the excess strength that he enjoyed on this low-gravity world. He didn't think that he would have any real trouble getting the safe. For one thing, most workers left the Base even earlier than Bates. That clown Bates probably never even noticed that many of his workers were leaving work earlier and earlier since he became boss, often going out for lunch and not returning, when they bothered to show up for work at all. When the Ra chose Bates to replace Barns they chose well. The man had the intelligence and constitution of an Earth-worm, as he and even Twig had been able to sense whenever they encountered him.

Renson was actually a bit disappointed to reach the lobby outside Bates' office without seeing anyone. Throughout most of this mission on Earth he had been under strict orders from the Na'Ra that greatly constrained his normal practices and duties as Ca'Ra. If Renson were challenged while on this particular mission however, he had been given Na'Ra permission to capture humans for later consumption, or to immediately kill them.

He enjoyed killing humans immensely; he was after all a Ca'Ra, bred and trained in all means of inflicting death. But he was trained also in all means of preparing victims for ritual consumption by the Ra, and would probably opt for that venue. After all, humans were so weak and helpless, that killing one of them was much too easy a task to test his Ra killing skills, even though the Ra psychic aspects of his murderous skills were mysteriously blunted here on Earth.

On the other hand, though pathetic as prey, humans responded well chemically and emotionally to torture, and were very tasty when properly prepared. Barns was to be consumed that very evening, but one human barely fed the Warren. Another human or two to add to the meal would be welcomed.

As a precautionary measure the Na'Ra Masters wanted only limited Ra consumption of humans to occur, and Ren'Ca had complied, even though he would have preferred more opportunities to personally kill and prepare the inferior creatures, and feast on them in the Old Way.

As a Ca'Ra, it was usually not his place to question commands of the Na'Ra, as long as the mission planned by the Na'Ra Master and Warren Leaders continued to meet Ca'Ra needs, and as long as the cultural norms defined by the Ca'Ra were followed. However, if reasons developed for him to interfere, or to even assert his leadership over Na'Ra authority, he would not hesitate to do so. He was Ca'Ra. He would overrule any Na'Ra if necessary, to secretly serve the Black One.

Of course, the Ra could have simply opened the safe and taken its contents, and saved quite a bit of effort, but that approach lacked drama. The Earthlings would be more humiliated by the robbery of the entire safe. After all, there were proper ways to conduct mayhem, and it was the art of creating mayhem that the Ra appreciated above all else.

Renson decided to recharge his cyborg body before he moved the safe. Besides the tasty humans, energy was the other thing he would miss about this odd planet. Controlled energy here was so incredibly plentiful! Earth wasted resources at such a rate that had the Ra not intervened to arrange their immediate destruction by diverting the asteroid, the humans probably would have become extinct within a few centuries anyway. That was part of the argument that the Na'Ra used among themselves to rationalize the genocide of the humans. The Ca'Ra needed no such rationalizations. Humans and all other non-Ra were prey, period. Soon all of them would be exterminated.

Personally, Renson certainly felt no remorse for being part of the mission that was ridding the Galaxy of humans, but being Ca'Ra, he felt no remorse about anything. All Ca'Ra followed a much higher calling than the Na'Ra could comprehend.

When Renson arrived in the lobby, he was surprised to find a power cord inserted into the high voltage wall outlet. For the past five years that he and Twig worked in the lobby, use of this outlet had been reserved for the two of them. He had spent many hours standing silently along this wall, drinking in power from this outlet. Now a heavy power cord led from the outlet into Bates' office. The Ca'Ra unplugged the cord and inserted instead the two sharpened nails of one of his hands into the outlet. Power surged through him. In a short time his internalized robotics had the energy boost that he wanted. He had his own internal, long-lasting nuclear power sources of course, but using the human's own energy against them was much more satisfying.

He was disappointed, though not surprised, to find the heavy oak Head Office door ajar due to the cord. Human security was incredibly poor. He was able to simply walk into the Head Office of the Defense Department of what was still the most powerful country of the planet. He would have much more enjoyed breaking the door down; he had thought of doing that many times while that meddling fool Barns still occupied the office. The possibility of closing the door himself and then wrecking it anyway never even occurred to him; that would be neither rewarding nor a proper manipulation of the situation.

The safe was sitting right where he had placed it a week ago at the insistence of Barns. However, nearby was a peculiar apparatus of unknown purpose. Bates must have brought it here. It looked a little like a primitive disseminator, though he could not recall ever hearing that the humans had developed disseminators. Still, the humans were devilishly inventive; indeed, that was one of the characteristics that had made them a threat to the Ra. Thinking that the apparatus might be of interest to the Na'Ra, he recorded several optical images of the odd machine. Na'Ra scientists could determine later what the machine was. Perhaps, like the pirated knowledge already contained in the safe, such information would also have value on the Galaxy black market.

The Ca'Ra cared little about Na'Ra profit; he worked to much darker purposes. Profit did seem to improve Na'Ra morale and efficiency, however. It had motivated the Na'Ra to venture out into the Galaxy and infiltrate the League, something that the Ca'Ra made good use of.

Renson grasped the massive safe in his two long thin arms, and, augmented by cyborg robotics, lifted it up effortlessly, and walked out to the van with it. He didn't bother going back the way he had come; using the mass of the safe for momentum, he walked through the concrete and steel outside wall and directly out to the parking lot. A nice touch, he thought. He hoped that a tasty someone would notice and come running to investigate the noise, but he was again disappointed. The whole place seemed to be deserted.

As he carried the safe, he was puzzled to discover that it felt slightly warm, but he dismissed the observation as insignificant. In all likelihood, the safe had simply been located near a vent meant to heat the room. He loaded the safe into the van and drove to the gate. The gate was closed but unlocked. Even the old man usually at the guard gate was gone. Too bad; it looked like Barns would have to serve as appetizer, main course, and desert!

Arriving at Twig's home, he carried the safe straight in through the front door, the foyer, and through the hidden door in the false wall beyond it that led directly into the space ship that actually made up most of the structure. He found Twig, Melberg, and two additional newly arrived Warren members that had completed their Earth assignments. All were occupied with final preparations to leave Earth, and with tormenting Barns.

Twig stopped poking Barns with a red-hot metal poker and stepped aside to let Renson check on the victim. As Ca'Ra, food preparation of sentient prey was solely his responsibility; however, in this case he had agreed that Twig should participate, given her special relationship with Barns, and he even let Melberg help, since Melberg had been Barns' trusted second in command.

Barns lay whimpering on the table, naked except for his bloody fishing hat, and still restrained by force fields, as he had been for nearly three days. Renson first checked the victims' vital signs shown on an instrument panel next to the preparation table. Good; they hadn't over taxed him; he wasn't quite in shock. A victim had to be in the proper physical and mental state at the kill, otherwise ancient traditions would be broken, and tastefulness as well as tastiness would be impaired.

Renson activated a control lever that caused ice-cold streams of salt water to wash away three days of accumulated urine, feces, blood, and vomit from Barns and the table. The whole mess, like the foul odors that it no doubt caused, remained safely contained by the force field surrounding the table, and was suctioned away in seconds, leaving a cleaner but hardly more comfortable Barns. The helpless human shivered uncontrollably from the cold salt-water drenching and convulsed and screamed in pain as the salt burned the dozens of wounds covering his body. A brief shower of brown Ca fluid was then administered. The odor of the fluid was noxious to Barns, and it brought burning pain to his skin far worse than the salt, pain that occurred everywhere!

"He is ready?'' asked Twig, in the Ra language.

"Yes Na'Ra, at your command we feast." Usually emotionless and silent, the Ca'Ra's voice was deep and cruel. He turned off the table force fields and grasped Barns around the neck with one long, thin, clawed hand. The smell of the brown Ca fluid now flooded the chamber, and all the Ra breathed in the fumes deeply and grinned, growling and displaying their razor-sharp fangs.

Freed for the first time in days from the force field, Barns began to struggle, but it was like wrestling with an iron statue. Renson held him effortlessly, with an arm and fingers that didn't yield a single millimeter. Even in his current debilitated state, Barns clearly understood he was soon to die horribly, as he had been told this many times during the last three days and nights of horror.

The Ca fluid was a narcotic for the Ra; already the fumes caused them to begin to lose control. They all pranced around Barns laughing and snarling, showing razor sharp teeth and snake-like tongues. Once they started eating the Ca, all control would be lost to primal Ra killer instincts and emotions, and they would rip Barns to bloody bits!

How these creatures had ever passed for human was a question Barns could no longer formulate properly in his mind; he knew only pain and fear. His terror was delicious to the empathic Ra, who could psychically sense his mental anguish as clearly as they could see and hear it, even though the effect was mysteriously muted here on Earth. It was a combination of Ca and terror of the prey that they fed on today, as in the Old Times.

At a nod from Twig, Renson lifted Barns up by the neck and held him before the Na'Ra. It was accomplished with Ca'Ra skill, to avoid an inadvertent kill or unconsciousness. Twig's snarling face was only inches from that of Barns. "Well my husband, did you enjoy our honeymoon?"

Renson made his captive's head nod affirmatively in puppet fashion.

"Good! But unfortunately, Lamby Pie, I'm afraid that the honeymoon is over!" She stood with her face only inches from his, with a smile that again displayed rows of razor-sharp fangs. "In a few minutes, you see, we'll start to kill you. But we'll do it nice and slow. We will rip you to shreds slowly as we eat you alive, human!" She slashed his arms and body with her sharp clawed hands as he squirmed and moaned.

The Ra all laughed and snarled. Barns could only manage a choking sob when Twig had finished. She held up a clawed hand dripping with his blood to silence the other Ra.

"But first, I will explain to you the full extent of your betrayal and failure, human!" In front of Barns she displayed several data cubes. "Here is all that will be left of your puny civilization and planet. Data from your pitiful culture is recorded on these data cubes. Art, science, literature, data on biological life forms, and so on. We have been recording it for years, right under your very noses! And we gathered some of the most valuable data of all right under your nose, Barns!" She smacked his nose to emphasize her point. "With your own approval, we denied this information from your own people, by using your stupid rules on 'national security' and so-on. Me, and Renson, and your buddy Melberg; we put all the results in here." She moved aside a few inches, so that he could view the big safe from his office.

Suddenly it dawned on Barns what she was talking about. She was talking about decades of secret Government projects. Many of the best minds in the USA, dedicated to producing secrets; secrets all distilled to one remaining DOD Base. Secrets that his deputy Melberg managed, with Barn's own approval! So that space aliens could have them? Good God! They weren't Americans! They weren't even humans!

Barns recognized that safe. How did it get here? It was the 'problem safe' that Melberg had told him was 'jammed' shut. The one that Norma Carbuncle warned him about. The one that Melberg had assured him was empty. Melberg had casually suggested it be taken off-base to be disposed of. But Barns had known that would break basic security regulations. Also, he had never heard of one 'jamming shut'; those things were built to last forever. So, with Norma's suspicions in mind, he insisted that Melberg and Renson put the safe in his office until they could get it opened. But this had upset Melberg, and oddly, Twig also! That made Barns even more suspicious and curious.

After that his recollection of events got fuzzy, and his weird dreams began. The dreams, he realized, included dim memories of being here, on this table, several times in the previous week. But they weren't dreams, where they? All this crazy stuff was all too real! Barns stared at the safe. What exactly was in that safe, anyway?

As if she was clairvoyant, Twig began to answer his silent question. "Yes Barns, it's the safe from the Base. In that safe is the collected knowledge from all of your most secret DOD projects: thousands of projects executed over many decades. Your race is very creative, you know. Many very amusing toys are described; many, many things that will be of interest on the Galaxy black market! But first, we have to make all this information more valuable."

Barns desperately closed his eyes against the terrible information that Twig was providing him, and Twig slapped Barns sharply across the face. "Stay awake Lamby Pie; we're coming to the best part. Now, how do you suppose that any of this drivel from your miserable backward little planet will suddenly become valuable to beings with civilizations far more advanced than yours?"

Barns had no response.

Twig drew closer to Barns. "What happens to the value of art when a painter or author dies, Barns? When there is no chance of another thing like it being created ever again?"

A suspicion began to form in his tired mind; a thought so hideous to Barns that a new level of dread was reached.

The understanding and terror must have shown on his face, because Twig now smiled in triumph. "Yes Barns! You know what must happen, don't you? You poor Earthlings are about to be wiped out by a rogue asteroid! One that we nudged just a little bit a few years ago, just enough so that it will pulverize your planet only a week from now. On Christmas Eve next week every one of you humans will die, Barns! Every single man, woman, and child, Barns, not to mention just about every other living thing on planet Earth! But don't worry; it won't go to waste. After things have settled down in a few decades, we Ra will colonize it."

Tears that Barns didn't know he had left streamed down his face.

"And you helped us, Barns! You TRAITOR!"

The combination of Ca and the terror and horror of their victim was almost over-powering now to the Ra, Twig and the others were gasping and foaming at the mouth. Only with great self-control did Twig restrain herself from immediately attacking Barns. She turned away from him and walked around to the front of the safe. "Let me tell you what's going to happen now, Barns. I'm going to open this safe and get your last and best secrets for Ra use, human. And, when that safe opens, Renson is going to rip off your right arm. But don't worry; we'll cauterize your bloody stump quickly so that you won't bleed to death just yet. We're going to eat you piece by piece as you watch!"

Barns felt Renson's second steel clawed hand grasp his right arm at the wrist and squeeze it with near bone-crushing force.

"And that's just the beginning Barns! We are going to rip you up and eat you as you die! And you'll be pleasantly surprised at how long you live, dear husband. You'll have the Ca to thank for that. Your body won't go into shock, Barns, the Ca will prevent it! You'll be able to fully experience exquisite pain with wonderful clarity until you are completely dead!"

Despite the pain, Barns struggled weakly in Renson's unbreakable grasp. Renson was pleased. The victim was nicely terrified. All the Ra could easily sense his delicious terror. This, combined with the effects of the Ca, would reduce the other Ra to raging, hungry animals the moment Renson began to rip Barns to bits. Renson could feel the effects of the Ca and the terror himself, much stronger than did the other Ra, but he could easily maintain control of himself, for he was Ca'Ra. He hoped that Twig could also maintain control of herself.

Warren leader Twi'Na proceeded to unlock the safe. Only she and Melberg knew the combination. It took all of her self-control and concentration to apply that combination while under the influence of the Ca and the intoxicating fear exuded by Barns. After entering the combination, she was puzzled that the safe's latch was so hard to undo. Few humans could have unlatched that safe, but it was not too hard for her; her augmented strength was second only to that of Renson's, and she was impatient. She wanted blood! Fresh warm blood, raw living flesh, and Ca!

Renson was about to wrench off Barns' arm when the door of the safe shot open with an explosive bang that knocked all the Ra off their feet. A thick, choking cloud of black sooty smoke immediately filled the room.

Barns was dropped to the floor as Renson and the other Ra roared, coughed, crawled, and stumbled around in the pitch black smoke. As the human recovered, the Ra began barfing up ugly lunches and dropping unconscious to the floor.

On the floor in front of Barns' face were several data cubes; apparently the ones that Twig had shown him. Barns grabbed them, and then somehow found the strength and presence of mind to crawl, as luck would have it, to the doorway, which had been opened by Renson just prior to his collapse to the floor.

In moments, Dr. Barns, esteemed scientist and ex-US Senator, was stumbling through suburban Washington DC December night, cold, bruised, and bleeding, wearing only a fishing hat and a layer of skin-burning alien barbecue sauce. His one lucid thought was the imperative to simply put distance between himself and the terror of the Ra. Despite numbing cold and weakness, he ran and ran.

****

CHAPTER 11

VISITOR

Fish and visitors smell in three days.

\- Benjamin Franklin

At the K-MART Bates bought some top of the line things for his trip to meet Janet, including sexy new underwear for himself (Just in case!). He also picked up some dog biscuits for Milo and weeklong dissolving food blocks for his goldfish. After an additional quick stop at McDonald's for himself and Milo, they headed home at last.

When he parked in front of his apartment, it was already dark. Glancing at his watch as he rushed into the apartment building, he was astonished to find that it had taken more than an hour and a half to get home. He still had much to do; he would have to really rush to catch his flight!

When he entered his apartment and turned on the living room lights, several things happened at once. First, he realized that the door was already unlocked. Second, he realized that his apartment had been broken into. There were all sorts of his belongings strewn over the floor, and some furniture was overturned and even broken. Actually, it didn't look very much different than it usually did, but Bates identified specific differences immediately. Third, Milo started growling, which was very unusual for Milo. Forth, and most noticeably, from out of nowhere a filthy, smelly, screaming lunatic dressed only in a fishing hat sprung out and tackled him, knocking him to the floor and landing on top of him with jarring force.

Bates had only a moment to recognize in astonishment the face full of torment and rage that stared down at him as belonging to Dr. Barns, when Barns let out a piercing yell, lifted up and away from him, hopped awkwardly for a few seconds around the room in panic as he screamed in pain, and then fell heavily to the floor himself.

Attached firmly to a chubby left Barns-buttock was Milo!

Bates, who hadn't really been hurt, pulled Milo off of Barns in seconds. The usually amiable Milo then fled behind a chair whining and cowering, clearly upset and apprehensive after having committed the terrible sin of biting a human for the first time in his life, and began coughing and spitting, as if he had tasted something horrid.

Meanwhile Barns, who clearly had suffered the worst from the brief encounter, lay cringing, shivering, and whimpering in the corner where he had fallen. Bates approached him with caution, and then growing horror, when he got a better look at his former boss. Barns was covered from head to toe with what looked like unhealed cuts, scrapes, bruises, and burns. Blood ran freely from several of the wounds, including the fresh dog bite on his butt. There were also brown globs of something smeared all over his nude body, from which a strange, horrific stench emanated.

The fishing lures had evidently gotten their revenge on Barns also; around the edge of the battered hat, Bates could see that hooks from several of the lures were imbedded deeply into the poor man's scalp. It might take a surgeon to remove that hat from his bloody head! Further, though Barns was still chubby, Bates guessed that he had lost perhaps twenty or thirty pounds from his short frame. What on Earth had happened to the man? And what was he doing here in his apartment?

"Barns, it's OK," comforted Bates. He grabbed a blanket from the sofa and approached Barns warily with it. "You look cold; here, let me give you this blanket."

Barns flinched away from the blanket and started to crawl away from Bates.

"No! Wait!" said Bates. "Don't be afraid, I want to help you."

"No!" cried Barns. "I won't let you take me back there; let me die with everyone else!"

Bates maneuvered himself between Barns and the door, wondering what he should say or do next. "Listen Dr. Barns, I won't hurt you! It's me, your friend Narbando T. Bates!" He smiled uncertainly at his former boss. "We have the same middle name!"

Recognition showed in Barns' face. "You! You took my job! You're working for them! That's why I came here to get you! A quick death on Christmas Eve is too good for you!" Again he leapt at Bates, screaming. This time though, Bates was ready for him. He quickly wrapped the smaller man in the blanket, flipped him back onto the floor, and held him down. After a few minutes of squirming and cussing, Barns finally began to calm down, or to at least run out of steam.

"OK Barns, that's enough of that; can you simply tell me what's going on? What happened to you? And what are you so scared of?" As he held down Barns in his tiring arms, Bates realized that he was probably missing his flight to Arizona and Janet. He didn't have time for this crazy stuff!

Barns seemed to think for a moment. Then he started laughing and crying hysterically, while babbling semi-coherently something about man eating space bats with pig noses. In the meantime, Bates looked around his apartment. It was certainly evident that someone had been looking through all his things for something. Recently used stuff that used to be on top was no longer visible, and stuff he had forgotten he owned was in plain sight. At what seemed like a relatively calm moment for Barns, Bates asked him why he had ransacked his apartment.

Barns looked at him blankly. "It wasn't me," he claimed. "I got here just before you came!"

A coherent sentence! This was progress, thought Bates. "Well then, who was it that searched my apartment?"

"Who searched your apartment? THEM!" yelled Barns after a few moments, with sudden insight. "It had to be THEM!" He started to struggle again.

Bates held him securely. "Them who?" demanded Bates. "Who was it, Barns, and what did they want?"

Barns took a deep breath and looked Bates in the eye. "You really don't know, do you!" he said quietly. "Twig and Renson, and that dirty rotten sneak Melberg! They're all damned SPACE ALIENS! Man-eating bat-pigs in disguise! They want me. They want me bad! Oh! And they will want you too then, won't they? Yes, you!" Fear again filled his eyes. "Why the hell did I look up THIS address in that phone booth? Of all the places I could flee to this is the worst! Yes, of course they would come here. Even if you aren't one of them, you're their dupe! If I could find you, so can they. Hell, they already have found your apartment and could come back here at any time!" He looked around in terror. "What the HELL am I doing HERE?"

The man was completely bonkers, thought Bates. Twig and the others are alien cannibal bats? Kooks and weirdoes probably, they were after all U.S. Civil Servants, and maybe even cannibal Civil Servants, but space aliens? No way! Bates braced for another round of struggling from Barns.

Instead, Barns suddenly started to laugh. "I don't know how the hell you did it, but you did it, didn't you?"

"Did what?"

"The SAFE my boy!" exclaimed Barns. "You somehow vaporized the contents of that safe, didn't you? It was that gizmo of yours, wasn't it?" When smiling, Barns seemed more schizoid than ever.

"You mean the safe you left in my office?"

"Of course Bates, the safe full of goodies those aliens the Ra wanted!"

"Well," apologized Bates, "I'm afraid that I may have accidentally damaged whatever is in that safe with the MX-84, that's true enough, but the safe will have to be cautiously opened to find out for sure."

As though Bates had just told some hilarious joke, Barns started to laugh again. "Open it? Oh don't worry about opening it my boy! They already opened it! In their space ship! BARROOM! And you did it by accident, you say? That's marvelous! You should have seen them scatter and barf!" Barns laughed uncontrollably. "By God Bates we did it! You and me! Screwed them over royally! Why I even took Twig's precious data cubes too, though I must have lost them someplace between her place and here. Twig must be going crazy!" Barns looked at Bates fondly. "And you saved my life too Bates, when you rigged that safe to explode. I guess I was wrong about you Bates, you're all right!"

Bates was glad that he still had Barns under control in the blanket; at the moment he looked downright affectionate. Bates had witnessed Barns kissing Twig and wanted none of that.

But friendly now or not, the odor from the esteemed Dr. Barns was terrible. "Listen Dr. Barns, now that we have all that settled, why don't we just get you washed and take you to a hospital where they can get you patched up?" Bates hoped to at least get the worst of that stinking brown slime off Barns as soon as possible. Then he would get the man some professional help.

"What? Haven't you been listening? We can't lollygag around here taking baths! Twig and her crew could be back here any second! You don't want her to get her claws on you, believe you me! You can't hide from the likes of them in a hospital, either."

Bates didn't know what to say, and Barns suddenly understood why. "You don't believe me, do you? You think I've got a few screws loose, don't you!"

Bates tried to be diplomatic. "Of course not sir, but you have to admit it's a pretty bizarre story. Put yourself in my place, Dr. Barns. Would you believe you?"

Barns thought for a few moments, then sighed in resignation. "No, no I guess not, Bates. I'd think I was a raving lunatic. I can see your point."

"Well sir," continued Bates, "I actually do believe some of it. I do believe that something terrible has happened to you, and that Twig is involved. I might even believe in cannibals. But I don't believe in space aliens. Why don't we let the police sort this out?"

The suggestion clearly agitated Barns. "No, no, no, Bates, we can't do that! The DC area police? Are you kidding? I wouldn't trust that crew with a Twinkie, let along my life!"

Barns had a valid point there.

"Listen Bates, I tell you, they will be after us! They have already been here for you once. There's Twig, and what's even worse, there's Renson. He's some kind of samurai high priest robot bat-pig or something; hard as nails Bates, heart cold as a Klondike Bar and arms strong as a bulldozer. The DC police wouldn't mean anything to the likes of him, Bates. He'll be on our trail like some hound from hell, believe me! You just don't understand what these creatures are like!"

With his speech finished, Barns sank back in Bates' arms, apparently exhausted. Blood soaked through the blanket in several places. What had he really been through these last few days, Bates wondered? And what should be done now? He helped Barns up and walked him into his bedroom, where he had him lay down on the bed while he got him a Pepsi. He soon lay happily sucking on the bottle like a helpless hungry infant. All the while Milo nervously followed on Bates' heels, futility trying to figure out what was going on with his little doggie brain, while keeping a watchful eye on Barns.

Bates turned his attention to the bedside VISICOM. He decided to simply COM 9-1-1. The police, inept as they were, were still much more capable of dealing with this, whatever it was, than was he. As sincere as Barns seemed, his story simply had to be some sort of mixed up combination of imagination and reality. For instance, Bates knew for a fact that the safe was still in his office where he left it hardly two hours ago. And there was no real proof that Barns wasn't the one that searched his apartment, was there? If Twig or someone else was after Barns, they probably had no idea where to find him, right? As he reasoned this out, Bates began to breathe easier. After all, there was no real reason at all to believe that Twig or Renson or anyone else was closing in on his apartment, was there?

At that moment, Bates heard his apartment door squeak open! Milo tensed, the hair on his neck stood out, and he started a low growl. Barns sat up and stared at the bedroom doorway with a look of utter terror on his face.

There was no other exit to the bedroom. They were trapped!

Bates, looking frantically around the room for a weapon, could only come up with an overdue library book. It was Moby Dick, the large font, fully illustrated, unabridged, hardbound version; thank the fates, at least three solid pounds worth. Maybe it was an inadequate weapon to use against deadly cannibal space aliens or Civil Servants, but it was the best that he could do. Grasping it desperately in both shaking hands, Bates listened to the sound of footsteps passing through the front room, and steadily approaching the bedroom. Those sounds were nearly drowned out by the pounding of his own heart.

****

CHAPTER 12

CUT TO THE CHASE!

Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.

\- Aesop

Twig was furious. This evening was to have been a triumphant conclusion to years of work by her Warren. Instead, it had been a disaster. The toxic fumes from the safe, combined with the narcotic effects of the Ca, had nearly killed them all. The good news was that Renson, with his Ca'Ra strength, had managed to open the ship's main hatch before passing out, thus allowing the deadly mixture of fumes to eventually dissipate. This she had deduced from the position of Renson's unconscious body near the hatch.

But there was far too much bad news. Barns, apparently less susceptible to the effects of the fumes, had escaped. Further, no data remained in the safe. The paper documents, magnetic and optical disks and cubes, etc. were gone! The safe contained only noxious fumes and sludge! At this late date, the top secret DOD data that had previously filled the safe was irreplaceable. In fact, in most cases, there no longer existed any other copies of the data.

Things were rapidly getting out of hand. They learned only Tuesday that the humans had found out about Dannos, and used their influence to limit the spread of that knowledge. Now this!

Bates had done this to the safe, it had to be him! The thing to do now was to pursue Bates. He must have the data; he wouldn't simply destroy it; that would be totally idiotic. But how had Bates gotten into the locked safe and replaced the data with deadly chemicals? And how had he known to do it?

She had evidently grossly under estimated both Barns and Bates, especially the surprisingly treacherous Dr. Narbando T. Bates! To think that she had personally selected Bates to replace Barns! Had she actually been DUPED into doing so? Had the man merely pretended to be an innocent, incompetent fool for all those years? Was he some sort of under-cover operative?

Finally, Renson was still unconscious, and two other of her crew were dead. One of the dead Ra had most recently posed as a top Russian scientist, while the other had infiltrated Japanese industry. Together with Twig, Melberg and other crews that came before them, they had funneled sensitive data to the Ra for nearly a century. With Renson temporarily out of action, their loss left only herself and Melberg available on Earth to immediately pursue Barns and Bates.

Since at that point Barns was only a lost meal, while the treacherous Bates had killed two Ra, she and Melberg would first revenge themselves on Bates.

She left instructions for Renson telling him to track down Barns, when he recovered. She put the ship in auto-protect mode, to prevent entry by the police if Barns were to summon them. However, Twig wasn't very worried about Earth police; they had no weapons or influence that could much harm the Ra. Right now they would focus on finding Bates. He lived nearby, so Twig and Melberg headed for the Bates apartment first.

Bates wasn't home, and they could find nothing in his apartment that looked like data from the safe, but they remotely accessed his office VISICOM and were surprised to find a recorded message from a Dr. Janet Garb in Arizona. They realized immediately that this was the same Dr. Garb who earlier that week had determined the true trajectory of Dannos and exposed Melberg's CTAO software efforts.

Bates and Garb both behaved strangely in the recorded conversation. She acted like they hadn't talked in a long time, and he acted like a deaf mute. But that had to be a ruse; Bates must have suspected that they were being monitored. Perhaps they were communicating using some sort of code; Bates certainly made some odd facial expressions during the conversation. The only immediately valuable information in the recorded conversation was that Garb wanted Bates to come to Arizona right away to meet at a pre-arranged site.

The Ra had truly underestimated these humans. Garb and Bates must have collaborated against her Warren! Who were those two, really? Who were they working for? They had to capture Bates, question, and of course kill and eat him.

Since Bates wasn't at his apartment, he was probably already on his way to Arizona. Melberg, the Earth-computer expert of her Warren, quickly accessed local transportation computers by VIACOM and found that Bates did indeed have an airline reservation to immediately travel to Phoenix. So then, Bates did plan on joining forces with Garb in Arizona! Twig and Melberg raced to the airport, just in time for Melberg to get the last available stand-by reserve seat on Bates' flight to Phoenix.

As Twig drove back towards the ship she got more bad news on the COM. First, Melberg called to tell her that Bates wasn't even on the Phoenix flight! In fact, after he was on-board, Melberg accessed the airline reservations computer to locate Bates' seat, only to find that he was sitting in the very seat that originally had been reserved for Bates! Melberg was on a wild goose chase to Phoenix. The recorded phone message must have been deliberate deception.

Then Renson called with still worse news. After he revived, he discovered that all the data cubes Twig had shown Barns were missing! Twig didn't have them either, so they had presumably been taken by Barns!

Much of the Earth data that the missing cubes contained was public domain information that was easily retrievable from any COM net. However, Renson reminded a horrified Twig that the cubes also included Ra mission data that detailed much of their covert activities since arriving on Earth more than a hundred years earlier. In the hands of the Earth authorities, their cover would be blown!

Infinitely worse, if the news reached Galactic authorities it would be devastating for the Ra race. Even many years after the Earth's destruction, a light-speed Earth news broadcast exposing the Ra could reach Galactic League, damning all the Ra!

Finally, Renson told Twig that Master Dow, the Ra Group Commander, had minutes ago called on ship inter-net and requested a status update. Renson had told him only that he would pass the request on to her.

Status? Twig was terrified! By the gods, if the Master Na'Ra knew the true current status, as responsible Warren Leader, she would probably become dinner instead of Barns! She had to recoup, and fast. She had to find both Barns and Bates. She had to get that missing data. And after she did, neither Na'Ra nor Ca'Ra protocol would stop her from personally tearing both Barns and Bates into bite sized DOD Senior Executive Service nuggets! But first she had to find them.

Finally, she got a break. Sensors left at the Bates apartment were picking up voices. After fine-tuning the receiver, she was pleased to hear Barns spilling his guts to Bates. Wonderful! She was only minutes from them both. She inserted two fingers into the car charging outlet as she drove. By the time she reached them, she would have absorbed enough extra energy to easily crush them to bloody pulp! Then, Ca'Ra protocol be damned, she would eat their raw bloody hearts and livers!

Meanwhile, a fully recovered and recharged Renson left the ship to track Barns. A Ca'Ra of the First Order, he easily followed the trail left by the ailing human. The infrared images left by Barns of his bare feet on the cold December ground were easily distinguishable from trails left by the passage of other heat sources. In addition, the trail of Ca, blood, and tiny body parts such as hair and skin fragments, was easily followed.

The trail was erratic at first, suggesting panic, but then the route led under some bushes where the quarry had apparently lay for a short time to recover and perhaps decide what to do. Then Barns went to a public phone booth. From there the trail headed straight North through the sparsely populated DC suburbs, avoiding homes and lighted areas. Why? Why hadn't the human fled to the first home he could find? Instead, despite being naked in the cold of December and fleeing in terror, Barns was apparently headed someplace in particular.

As he trailed his prey, Renson considered the situation. Without doubt, his first priority was to retrieve the data cubes taken by Barns that implicated the Ra. This was a very serious protocol breach.

Though Twig was doubtlessly also very concerned about the potential for a security leak to the Galactic League, Renson was concerned about an even more serious matter. The data stolen by Barns, combined with the DOD data that Bates had recovered from the safe, could reveal the true objective of the Ra mission, an objective unknown even to Twig, Master Dow, and the entire Na'Ra hierarchy.

As far as the Ra Ca'Ra sect was concerned, death of all humans and the theft and sale of their cultural heritage was purely a secondary matter of little consequence. The whole scheme to wipe out humanity, monstrous as it was, was merely cover for the true mission objective, an objective that was much too monstrous and vital for the Na'Ra or other Ra to know, until the right time.

Many Na'Ra, most of the Ra populace, and the other Galactic League members thought that the Na'Ra ruled the Ra. They were wrong. As the Ra had manipulated events on Earth for nearly a century, so the Ca'Ra had manipulated the Ra for far longer, and for purposes far more sinister. Now there was a risk, however slim, that the true mission objectives would become known to the Na'Ra and the Galactic League, or, even worse, that the true mission would actually fail. If this were to happen, the consequences could truly be disastrous.

Renson's implanted relational processors informed him that the trail he followed was leading straight towards Bates' apartment. Moments later, a call from Twig confirmed that both Barns and Twig were now at that apartment. Renson ran swiftly and tirelessly directly towards his confirmed objective. He estimated that he would get there in only a few minutes, probably even before Twig. In any case, the Ra would soon have the troublesome humans.

Though outwardly expressionless, anticipation built up in Renson. This had become a true hunt, against deadly enemies of the Ra. Hunting and killing! This was what he was trained to do. Barns and Bates would not leave that apartment alive.

****

CHAPTER 13

FLIGHT!

The man who runs may fight again.

\- Menander

Barns and Bates huddled on the bed in far corner of the little room, cornered like pathetic defenseless rats, shaking with fear, as the sound of mysterious footsteps steadily approached.

Mel Guthery gave Bates his usual friendly little wave of the hand as he walked into the room. "Hi Bates," he said.

After expecting to see murderous bat-pig space aliens, or at least crazed cannibal Civil Servants, Bates and Barns both sighed in relief, and together collapsed down on the small bed, while Milo ran happily to greet Mel with his tail wagging rapidly.

"I'm glad I caught you before you went to the airport Bates, there are some really weird things happening!"

Mel then suddenly realized that someone else was lying on the bed next to Bates, completely hidden in a blanket. "Oh gosh Narb, I'm sorry, I didn't know you had company. It's just that I was really desperate to get in touch with you, and your COM doesn't work, and I saw your car outside!" Shocked and embarrassed, Mel started to back out of the room.

Bates sat up and motioned for him to stay. "No, no Mel! Don't be silly, everyone knows I don't have a love life. This is just Dr. Barns. He's exhausted and needs medical help and the police too, in my opinion."

Mel stared in amazement at the blanket-wrapped figure lying on the bed. "Dr. Barns? Really? Oh! I take it this means that the honeymoon with Twig is over then?"

Barns sat up wearily and faced Mel. "It was no honeymoon; I can assure you of that!"

"Good lord! What has happened to you, Dr. Barns? You look terrible! Smell awful too!"

Bates answered for the worn out Dr. Barns, who with a sigh lay back exhausted on the bed again. "He says that he was abducted and nearly eaten by space aliens, Mel." He couldn't help smiling.

"Oh?" exclaimed Mel, straight faced. "Most unusual behavior for space aliens, in my experience."

Bates laughed! This was rare humor from Mel. It was somehow reassuring that Mel also saw as nonsense the very idea of space aliens. Another few minutes alone with Barns, and Bates feared that he would have been converted over to the absurd space alien notion himself.

In the meantime Mel sat down in a chair near the bed, placed Bates' bedroom VISICOM unit on his lap, and quickly entered a few commands. The VISICOM responded with something on its miniaturized screen that Bates couldn't see. After pulling a screwdriver from a pocket, Mel rapidly started to take the COM unit apart. "I don't think that these particular space aliens are a laughing matter, Narb. Not if they did THAT to Dr. Barns. Besides, maybe they're the ones that took your safe," said Mel, in an off-hand manner.

"WHAT?" Bates shot up off the bed, his head spinning. "Come on now guys! Space aliens? Get real! And what the heck safe are you talking about Mel? And by the way, what the heck are you doing to my COM unit?"

Mel continued fussing with the VISICOM unit. "That's what I came here to tell you. I was working after hours on your Dannos problem at the Base when I heard a loud crash. It sounded like it came from the administration wing. By the time I got there it was evidently all over. What a mess! After looking things over, I tried to call you. But your COM's broke. Maybe I can fix it." The absent minded savant paused and mumbled to himself as he stared fixedly at the disassembled COM unit, and then started methodically sifting through the parts, further exasperating the unit's owner.

"OK Mel, if my COM wasn't broke before, it certainly is now! Please Mel, what happened at the Base?"

Mel returned to his story as he began to re-assemble the COM. "Well, first of all, I got paperwork from you and Sandra making me the Secretary of the Navy."

"Congratulations. You like going to the beach so I thought that you'd like the Navy."

"Thanks very much for the raise. Yes, I always liked the Navy, back when we had one. But that's not the biggest news. Your safe, Bates; you know, the big one in your new office that you were so curious about? It's simply gone! What's more, it looks like it was taken right out through the wall of your office, through a foot-thick, steel-reinforced concrete wall! There was a two-meter square hole leading through the wall and right out to the parking lot. Damnedest thing! No machinery tracks were evident, just a set of ordinary looking footprints that led through the rubble and over the soft ground outside. The footprints were sunk several inches into the soft soil, as if a great weight made them. All my observations are consistent with the premise that someone simply lifted the half-ton safe in his arms and walked out through the wall with it!"

"Renson, I'd bet," volunteered Barns, his voice shaking with fear. "Alien technology, of course: super strength!"

"I wouldn't doubt it," said Mel, shaking his head in agreement.

The story that Mel told about the safe fit perfectly with the story that Barns told; the one about aliens that Bates still didn't want to believe. Bates still had doubts, but he respected Mel's views too much to easily dismiss them.

"Extraordinary!" Mel had apparently already completed reassembly of the COM unit, and it was not immediately clear to Bates which thing his brilliant friend found to be extraordinary, the notion of Renson as a space alien who could walk through concrete walls, or the reassembled VISICOM. Either seemed equally improbable and extraordinary to Bates.

As to the COM unit, Bates knew that although his friend was a Nobel Prize winner in theoretical physics, he was far from being an expert in electronics. However, though Bates' head was spinning over the concept of real space aliens in their midst, Mel's current interest appeared to be focused on the COM unit. The VISICOM unit now outwardly appeared normal, suggesting complete assembly, but one small metallic disk remained in Mel's hand.

"What is this thing, do you suppose?" asked Mel, as he showed the little disk to Bates.

"I suppose that it's part of my bloody COM unit Mel!" returned Bates.

Mel shook his head. "No, I don't think so Narb. Not if I correctly remember my VISICOM circuitry basics. I studied the matter quite thoroughly a few months back when my own home unit went on the frizz. This seems to be a completely extraneous component. It was located right where the COM unit self-diagnostics I just ran said it would be."

"Heah? Let me see that thing!" Bates fancied himself a hands-on lab man, a bloke that dealt with high-tech electronics stuff like this every day. He sat on the edge of the bed, turning the small disc over and over in his hands. He had no idea what it was.

"It's a Radio Shack Mark 93 Viper," volunteered Barns, who had sat up next to Bates to also examine the object.

"A what?" asked both Bates and Mel.

"A bug, gentlemen. Good frequency response for sound, but only a short broadcast range. Cheap, effective, and made domestically. We used them extensively in the Bureau." Bates now recalled that Barns had been in charge of the FBI for a short time, back when there was a non-Chinese source of electronics and an FBI. Since then all national police groups had been consolidated to form the National Police.

Abruptly everyone froze, and stared wide eyed and silent at the tiny disk, acutely aware that someone was probably listening to them at that very moment. Alien eavesdroppers could be right outside the apartment now, waiting for the ideal moment to spring an attack!

Bates was the first to move. With amazing presence of mind, he cautiously laid the tiny disc on the bed. "Ah, men, this whole thing has exhausted us," he announced loudly, in the direction of the Viper, while winking at Mel and Barns. "So let's all take a nice long nap now. After a few hours of sleep, I'm sure that things will look different."

Bates next gently covered the bug with his thick down pillow. Then he tiptoed to his goldfish tanks and quietly dropped a two-week size block of slow release fish food into each one. He filled his pockets with Beef-Basted Milk Bones, put on a coat, picked up the bewildered Milo in his arms, and tip-toed towards the front door, motioning with a shake of his head for Mel and Barns to follow him.

They needed little encouragement. Barns, terrified and plainly near the end of his strength, leaned heavily on Mel as they followed Bates towards the front door. More questions and answers would have to wait. The primary thought on everyone's mind right now was to get the hell out of there.

Outside, the foursome looked about fearfully, but saw nobody approaching them in the dim moon-light, including killer aliens. They were still reluctant to speak aloud however, and even Milo remained silent as his master placed him into the shotgun position of the Nitro and Mel helped Barns into the rear seat.

Bates was pleased with the escape progress until Mel, instead of climbing into the Nitro, ran to his own car and opened the trunk. However, by the time Bates frantically motioned to Mel to abandon his tiny solar powered car for the bigger, faster Nitro, the physicist had already retrieved something and was already returning.

As Mel climbed into the back seat of the Nitro with Barns, Bates saw that he carried a strange looking apparatus. At first Bates thought it was some sort of weapon, though any weapon would be totally out of character for Mel. Then he recognized it as an electronic frisking apparatus exactly like the one that Hank had used on him earlier that week. Mel turned the apparatus on and passed it over himself, Bates and Barns, and all around the interior and exterior of the Nitro, as he softly whistled an old Beatles melody.

"Yes, we're clean," whispered Mel, as he finally turned off the bug detector and slid it under the seat. "Well, filthy, actually, especially Barns, but there are no electronic bugs here, or at least none that currently broadcast the usual frequencies. I had to whistle in case there were sound activated bugs to turn on."

"Well," commented Bates, "It's Been a Hard Day's Night was a really appropriate tune to whistle, Mel. It's been a tough one so far, that's for darn sure."

"We'll have to keep windows part-way open, Bates, despite the cold," added Mel, as Bates started up the Nitro and drove slowly out of the driveway. Though they had by now partly adapted themselves to the horrid smell emanating from Barns, inside the cramped Nitro they simply had to have some fresh air. Despite the December cold, they opened all the windows nearly half-way. Milo, sitting in his accustomed front seat position next to Bates, was able to place his head entirely out the side window. Suddenly, as the Nitro started down the street, Milo growled deeply and turned to stare intently at something behind them. The dog's hair stood on end as he began barking enthusiastically.

Glancing in his rearview mirror, Bates was astonished to see a tall slim pedestrian, well illuminated for the moment by a streetlight, running towards them and gaining rapidly, although they were already traveling at least 60 KPH. The short glance was enough for Bates to recognize Renson. He looked again just to be sure he hasn't seeing things, and saw that the shadowy figure was almost upon them, moving at impossible speed!

Bates suddenly believed in super-powered space aliens. He floored the accelerator, and the Premium Fuel powered Nitro exploded down the road, leaving a haze of burned rubber that overloaded some of Renson's more sensitive sensors for a few moments. Bates was far too busy keeping the vibrating, swerving Nitro on the road to look at any engine gages, but several audio systems were simultaneously warning him of excess speed, engine stress, tire ware, etc., while his human passengers screamed at him to slow down.

Bates soon realized that he had to let up on the accelerator or risk either tearing the Nitro apart or losing control of the vehicle as it shimmied dangerously down the narrow residential street. Even as he began decelerating, he had to swerve wildly to narrowly avoid a head-on collision with an approaching black sedan.

Screeching to a stop at the intersection with the main highway, he turned to look back, half expecting to again see a rapidly approaching Renson. The good news was that Renson had evidently ceased his amazing foot pursuit. The bad news was that Renson was climbing into the black sedan, which Bates now recognized to be Twig's Mercedes.

As the big black Mercedes quickly screeched through a U-turn, Bates launched the Nitro down the highway with tire rubber burning acceleration, and suffered another chorus of back-seat driver protests. These were quickly silenced when Bates pointed out that Renson and Twig were in hot pursuit and only a hundred or so meters behind them.

Evasive maneuvers were called for. They changed direction at the next two intersections that they came to, nearly skidding out of control. Bates was pleased with their progress. Even at less than half throttle, the Nitro was reaching well over 150 KPH in the straight stretches.

"Are they still back there?" Bates asked Mel, who now sat braced on the back seat looking out the rear window, while Barns lay cowering below him on the floor.

"They seem to be actually catching up!" answered Mel. Bates risked another glance at a rear-view mirror. Sure enough, the black sedan was only about 50 meters behind them and gaining rapidly!

They needed more speed. Bates turned onto a freeway access ramp and accelerated. Fortunately, traffic was very light. Even so, he could only safely push the Nitro to about 250 KPH, which was more than double the legal speed limit and 100 KPH faster than any other traffic.

The group was gratified to see the black Mercedes falling behind steadily. In minutes it was out of sight. They all remained in great danger though, as the vibrating Nitro almost constantly threatened to swerve out of control as it streaked through light traffic.

Bates at last slowed down to a more manageable speed and handed Mel his auto's portable VISICOM unit. "Is Jane at home, Mel?"

"Sure, I guess so," replied Mel. "I just COMed her before coming to your place, to tell her that I'd be home a little late."

"Well," said Bates, "you shouldn't go home at all. Tell Jane that we have an emergency, and to drop off the kids with your sister down the street and meet us in old clothes at the car wash at Blue and Sunnyside in 15 minutes."

"But why call Jane, Bates?" asked Mel.

"Two reasons, my friend," answered Bates. "First, thanks to the bug they know that you're with us, Mel. So when they lose us they may head straight for your place too. Second, Jane is a nurse, and we need someone to take care of Barns. Tell her to bring first aid stuff, soap, clean clothes, and towels. Oh, and something to kill odors too, please!"

Meanwhile the ailing Barns sat up long enough to reach over Bates' shoulder and grab some of Milo's Milk Bones from a shirt pocket. Much to the dismay of Milo, the man began to wolf them down ravenously.

"Oh, sorry Barns," said Bates. "Tell Jane a little food and drink would be appreciated by us too; Barns hasn't eaten since Monday, except for some dog biscuits."

"Or taken a bath either," noted Mel, who took another deep breath from his open window before starting his COM call.

It took tremendous persuasion by Mel to get his wife Jane into action, especially when Mel mentioned that Bates was involved. Though he overheard only Mel's side of the conversation, it was clear to Bates who generally instructed whom to go where and do what in their marriage, not that this was news to Bates. Nevertheless, Mel finally hung up the phone and announced that Jane would do what Bates requested.

As Bates whipped the Nitro off the freeway and towards the car wash, Mel started to tell him what he had found out about Dannos. However, at the mention of Dannos Barns astounded his companions once again by telling them what Twig had told him about the Ra, and how they claimed that they had altered the orbit of Dannos so that it would collide with Earth! How this basic fact could be concealed from Earth astronomers was a mystery to Barns, however. Orbits could be very accurately predicted using mostly Newtonian physics and numerical computer methods. Any changes to the path of Dannos should have easily been detected years ago.

Bates answered that question by summarizing the discoveries Janet had made earlier that week. Someone must have modified the CTAO software to conceal the true path of Dannos! This was confirmed by Mel. His astronomer friends had told him that although the Government was trying to cover it up, they expected that the news of the impending disaster would soon become public. Barns again contributed a critical piece of the puzzle by revealing that Melberg had worked on the CTAO software when he was at NASA. That, added Bates, explained why the NP was after Melberg.

All of the horrible puzzle pieces were starting to come together. Space aliens called the Ra had conspired to destroy the Earth! According to Barns, after the disaster human cultural remains that they had gathered would be sold to Galactic collectors at a huge profit.

For the moment however, further discussion and thought on such matters was curtailed, as they had at last arrived at the car wash.

****

CHAPTER 14

CAR WASH

A true friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else.

\- Len Wein

Fortunately, on this December evening the week before Christmas, only a few car-obsessed individuals were using the car wash. Bates was able to immediately pull into a do-it-yourself cleaning stall equipped with hot and cold high-pressure hoses.

"Question Bates?" said Mel, clearly puzzled.

"Shoot," replied Bates.

"Well, in the ten years I've known you, I've never known you to wash a car."

"True enough," admitted Bates. "It's a vain waste of water. I have my principles you know." He didn't have to mention that he was cheap, lazy, and enjoyed doing lots of things more than he did cleaning cars; his friend Mel already knew that.

"So what are we doing at a car wash now?" asked Mel.

"Well," explained Bates, "we need to clean and patch up Barns. If we go to a hotel in the shape he's in they'll call the cops. If we take him to a hospital they'll patch him up and have him committed to a mental institution, in his current state. But we can't afford to lose him; since he is the only one of us that knows much about the Ra. We can't take him home with us either, since that's where they'll look for us first."

"OK, but why a car wash? And how on earth did you even know there was a car wash here in my neighborhood?"

"Elementary, my dear Mel," replied a smiling Bates as he climbed out of the Nitro and motioned Mel to follow. They closed the doors gently so they wouldn't wake Barns.

"Remember last summer when I borrowed your charcoal grill?"

"Sure," said Mel. "Actually, you borrowed it three summers ago, and returned it last summer."

"Whatever," continued Bates. "The point is, on the way to your house to return it I remembered that I hadn't ever cleaned it. I didn't want more trouble with Jane, so I VISICOMed for the nearest car wash, and discovered this place."

Sudden understanding flashed on Mel's face. "That's why the grill was all wet when you returned it?"

"Sure," affirmed Bates.

"I wondered about that one for months," confessed Mel. "I speculated that it had to do with condensation. I even took the grill for a couple of test rides in the trunk of my own car to verify the hypothesis, with negative results. But that only explains the water. Even when it was dry, why did the whole grill smoke when we used it?"

Bates thought for a moment. "That was probably the coat of car wax I gave it. The car clean and wax process shined the grill up nicely, but I guess I should have skipped the hot-wax cycle."

Mel smiled, clearly pleased to have found the answer to another mystery of the universe. Now he thought that he understood his friend's reasoning at last. "You wanted to clean something, so you thought of the car wash where you cleaned the grill, correct?"

"Almost," replied Bates "I suspect that the smelly stuff on Barns is some kind of barbecue sauce. That made me think of the grill, which reminded me of this car wash."

This utterly pointless discussion was usefully interrupted by Jane parking nearby. When Mel walked over to greet her however, she got out of the car and stared at him in total shock. Then she attacked. The verbal abuse was loud and delivered in Jane's native tongue, Swedish, but the two men understood enough words and gestures to at last realize that in all the excitement Mel had left work without changing back into the three piece suit that Jane had dressed him in that morning.

Mel stood cowering, dressed in three layers of old sweaters that supplemented his raggedy jeans, sneakers, and flannel shirt. The Nobel Prize winning physicist clearly understood that he was in deepest trouble.

Bates finally stepped in bravely to save his companion. "Jane! Thank you for coming on such short notice. We have a very serious national emergency on our hands, and we do badly need your help."

She turned unsmiling from Mel to face Bates. She clearly wasn't buying this.

"And," continued Bates, backing up strategically a step or two, "of course we need Mel. But it's a messy job. That's why I made him take off his good work clothes and put on some old clothes that I had."

Jane looked at Mel, then Bates, then Mel again, while she tried to decide if the explanation Bates had given made any sense whatsoever. She knew Bates too well to take everything that he said at face value. A key factor, Bates now realized, was the fact that he was six inches taller and over seventy pounds heavier than his diminutive friend Mel. Could the clothes that Mel now wore possibly belong to Bates?

Fortunately, to be on the safe side, Mel always bought his casual office clothes several sizes too big. They hung on him loosely, with errant folds that threatened to trip or suffocate the thin scientist with every move. At an office party Mel once boasted that the probability that he would ever outgrow any of his favorite clothes was less than that of finding Schrodinger in a cat's litter box. This tremendously poor little joke went over well enough with the physicists and chemists at the party, but demonstrated once again that physics humor wasn't ready to be mainstreamed.

Mel looked like a homeless bum. Fortunately, that's exactly how Bates also looked when he wasn't at work; a fact that was well known to Jane. Jane suddenly grabbed Mel by his protruding ears, bent down, and kissed him.

Bates breathed a sigh of relief. She had bought it!

"I'm sorry Poopsy," she gushed. "I know this isn't YOUR fault." But her expression again hardened as she turned to face Bates. "So OK, Bates, what's really going on here?"

"It's a little hard to explain," began Bates.

"I'll bet!" interjected Jane.

"It's a matter of national security, and a matter of life and death," added Bates.

"Ours!" offered Mel.

It was not the right thing to say. "What?" roared Jane. "Someone IS threatening my Poopsy?" She cradled Mel's balding head lovingly, and gave him another kiss, but again turned her ire on Bates. "Why would you put my Mel in danger Bates? Don't you understand how irreplaceable he is?"

Jane was still unusually hostile, and Bates wasn't yet sure why. She released Mel and advanced on Bates again, with index finger leveled between his eyeballs. "It's cloak and dagger stuff again, right? Mel is again going places that nobody can be told about and doing who knows what? I thought that was over years ago! When Mel told me they had put YOU in charge of DOD I should have seen something like this coming. Why anyone would ever put you in charge over my Mel, I just can't understand!"

This last remark at last gave Bates the insight he needed. Of all the crazy things, she was jealous of his recent promotion to Head of DOD! "Well of course the Government couldn't sacrifice the valuable time of a world famous scientist like Mel to do the silly administrative duties of a mere Department Head! Mel's scientific work is far too valuable to disturb," Bates explained. And he meant it.

"Well, sure, of course it is!" Jane was forced to agree. Bates could tell by the way she said it that she hadn't thought of it in quite that way before.

Bates pressed his advantage. "But unfortunately, the price of fame is sometimes danger, and right now, you must help me save Mel!"

She looked frightened for the first time. "Mel is really in danger?"

"I'm afraid so," said Bates. "We all are."

"How?" she asked. "And from whom? And why?"

"Well, it's too complicated to explain everything right this minute; you just have to trust us, Jane. I promise that before the night is over you'll know every bit as much about what's going on as any of us. But right now we really do need your professional help."

"My professional help as a nurse?" she asked incredulously, much calmer now.

Bates led Jane over to the Nitro and pointed into the back seat. "Poor Dr. Barns needs to be washed and patched up by a competently nurse."

She opened the car door and looked in. "My God! What happened to him?" She lifted a fold of blanket, exposing more of the sleeping Barns. "He looks terrible!"

"Even worse than usual," agreed Bates.

"He smells much worse!" added Mel.

"What happened to his clothes? And why does he have a fishing hat on his head?" asked Jane.

From that point on Jane's nursing instincts kicked in. After they somehow convinced Jane that the car wash, not a hospital, was the place to take care of Barns, Jane, assisted by Bates, set to work bathing him in the carwash stall behind the Nitro, while Mel cleaned up the inside of the car and transferred supplies from his wife's car. In the meantime they gave her an abridged version of what was going on, though for the moment they didn't tell her that the bad guys involved were space aliens. She was especially sympathetic when they told her something of Barns' ill-fated honeymoon.

The chief obstacle to the Barns clean-up process actually turned out to be the fishing hat. They had to use scissors and wire cutters to first separate the blanket from the hat, before Jane expertly removed the cruel lure barbs from Barn's scalp. It turned out that during her years as a nurse she had removed dozens of fishing lures from scalps and most other parts of the male anatomy.

When Jane and Bates removed the fishing hat itself, half-a-dozen data cubes fell out! Bates realized immediately that these had to be Twig's cubes, the ones that Barns said that he retrieved from the Ra space ship. Barns thought that he had lost them during his flight from the Ra, but at some point, he must have had the presence of mind to secure them under the fishing hat. This was an important find. What secrets did these cubes hold, he wondered?

They didn't have time to find out right now. After making room by taking out a couple of milk-bones for a grateful Milo, Bates put the cubes in his shirt pocket, where they joined the cube containing the DOD safe contents, and buttoned them all in securely.

Even the cleaning and awful hat and hook removal procedure didn't wake the exhausted ex-U.S. Senator. With the hat and its terrible lures gone, the car wash apparatus actually did a good job of cleaning, cutting through dirt, blood, smelly brown sauce, and everything else that covered Barns from head to toe. A couple dollars' worth of warm soapy spray and fifty cents of clear rinse did the trick. Fortunately for Barns, they remembered to skip the hot-wax cycle. Bates held Barns up while Jane did most of the washing, but Milo got in a few good licks, in an attempt to atone for his earlier attack on the ex-Senator.

The cold was nearly as cruel to everyone as the lures. It was unusually warm for mid-December, perhaps fifty degrees Fahrenheit, but Jane and Bates were soon splashed wet and shivering themselves, while poor naked Barns was being sprayed clean by streams of icy cold water, before being patted dry by several towels that ended up so bloody and nasty that they had to be thrown away. Fortunately the ex-Senator, though thinner than normal, still had adequate layers of blubber to help keep him from freezing to death during the ordeal of his cleaning.

When Barns was at last expertly cleaned, bandaged and dressed by Jane, the administrator certainly looked and smelled much better. Bates had to essentially carry the shivering ex-Senator to the Nitro and prop him up in the rear seat. He wandered idly if Barns was the first U.S. Senator to shower naked in a public suburban Washington DC car wash in mid-December. Probably not, but at least Barns had the good fortune to essentially sleep through the entire rather undignified affair.

Jane insisted that she would go with them to take care of Barns for the next few hours until she was more confident of his recovery; she wasn't about to leave a patient at the mercy of Bates and her husband. So Barns ended up warmly wrapped and comfortably cradled in clean clothes and blankets and in Jane's arms in the back seat of the Nitro.

Frankly, it was an enviable position to be in, thought Bates wistfully, as he stared at Barns through the back window. Jane was a very attractive woman. Just then, a curious thing happened. Barns opened his eyes for a few seconds, glanced up at Jane and winked at Bates before closing his eyes again. He had a big smile on his face.

Bates chuckled as he climbed into the driver's seat. That old son of a gun! He wondered how much of the time Barns had actually been awake while Jane was taking care of him?

In the meantime, Mel and Milo competed for the front passenger seat. Mel tried to persuade the dog to get into the back of the Nitro, but Milo wasn't about to give up his seat so easily. They ended up compromising, with Milo on top and head out of the window, and Mel with lap, arms, and face full of wet dog.

Unfortunately, now that he was wet, Milo smelled nearly as bad as Barns did before he had been washed. Fortunately for Milo, the company determined that they didn't have the time or the quarters to also soap and rinse down the dog.

Bates started up the Nitro and pulled out of the car wash stall at last, but stopped the car when he reached the street. Should he turn left or right? Where should they go now, and what should they do? Bates realized suddenly that he didn't have any idea. He simply hadn't really had a chance to plan beyond this point. The Nitro sat idling noisily in the car wash exit as Bates tried to plan their next move.

****

CHAPTER 15

THE 'B' TEAM

One finds many companions for food and drink, but in a serious business a man's companions are very few.

\- Theognis

Twig could hardly believe it. Melberg had supposedly seen to it that their own vehicle was the fastest available on this pitifully primitive world; yet their powerful new Mercedes was clearly overmatched by Bates' decrepit old Chevy Nitro! They had underestimated Bates again!

The game was far from over, however. Once out of sight, the fugitives changed highways and directions several times, maneuvers that would have evaded most Earthly means of pursuit. Renson tracked them through detection of the residual cloud of Ca vapors that trailed after the fleeing Nitro. His cyborg-body was equipped with chemical detection and analysis abilities that could identify Ca molecular concentrations of less than one part in trillions. Though a faint breeze led the Ra to take several wrong turns, resulting in time consuming back-tracking and search patterns to regain the trail, the Ra gradually closed in on Bates and his companions.

As the Nitro sat in the car wash exit and Bates considered where they should go next, Milo suddenly started barking, and Bates' indecision was rudely jolted by the abrupt appearance of a jet black Mercedes blocking their forward path. Somehow avoiding total panic, Bates quickly backed the Nitro towards another exit, tires squealing.

Meanwhile, Renson leapt from the Mercedes and resumed his cheetah-fast foot pursuit. As the Nitro tore out onto the street, its roaring engine spewing clouds of exhaust, and its spinning, screeching tires stripping hot rubber, the bounding Ca'Ra grasped a rear door handle with a steel clawed hand. Moments later the cyborg's other hand effortlessly smashed through the door's window, and he started to pull himself into the back-seat of the speeding auto, head first towards Barns, who cowered in the arms of his equally horrified nurse.

Barns and Renson were suddenly locked eye to eye, faces scant inches apart, with the Ca'Ra snarling red, snake-like tongue flitting expectantly over cold white fangs, and the un-breathing human's eyes round with terror. For how long they remained thus, it could not be said. Temporally, it may have been only a fraction of a second, but for Barns time froze, as each of them, killer and pray, knew and realized, in that moment, that death had arrived.

The next moment, Renson was gone. To the occupants of the Nitro, some of whom were at that moment praying for divine intervention, it looked as though Renson had indeed been miraculously sucked back out the window by some unseen, providential force.

The actual cause was not immediately apparent. Later observation would determine that the rear door handle grasped by the Ca'Ra, which like most of the car was well rusted, had simply given away as the Nitro swerved and erupted down the street. Through the trailing cloud of exhaust smoke and burning rubber, tumbling Renson looked like an aggregation of discarded trash to Bates as he glanced at his rear-view mirror.

Still gathering speed, the roaring Nitro fairly flew up the access ramp and onto the nearby beltway. The Mercedes picked up Renson immediately and again gave rapid pursuit, but the Nitro was soon out of sight once again, leaving Twig seething and cursing in a very foreign tongue.

In the Nitro none of the shell-shocked humans said a word for a long time. It had been a very close call. Much too close. Bates continued to recklessly weave the roaring Nitro through the light evening traffic at breakneck speed long after they had lost sight of the Mercedes.

Finally Mel looked down at the speedometer. "Holy smokes Narb, slow down!"

Bates paid no attention; he seemed to be on 'automatic pilot'. Mel had to repeat himself and shake his friend's shoulder several times before he responded. "Huh?" he asked.

"Slow down, Bates," implored Mel, "you're destroying the engine."

Though solidly built and strengthened by Carbuncle, the Nitro simply wasn't designed for such heavy doses of Premium Fuel. The engine sounded unusually noisy, but appeared to be functioning well enough until they slowed down significantly. The car immediately started to knock, buck and further lose power.

Much of the lost motive energy expenditure seemed to now be transformed to noise. "My God, Mel, listen to that engine!" shouted Bates over the din. "They'll get us for sure now!"

Mel tried to calm down his friend. "Don't worry, Narb, we lost them miles ago. We got clean away."

"Oh yeah?" said Jane, who was still clutching a wide eyed Barns tightly. "How did they find us back there at the car wash?"

Narb glanced at Mel, and realization hit them both. "She's right," said Bates, "how did they find us?" Nobody had an answer to that question.

"Well," reasoned Bates, "the important point is that they can probably find us again!"

"So what are we going to do?" asked Jane.

Mel twisted around to look back at his wife. "Well, the first thing that I would recommend is that you let Dr. Barns breathe."

Jane abruptly realized that she had been squeezing her patient in a choke hold for all she was worth ever since Renson crashed through the window. Though Barns had occasional thoughts of eventually dying in the arms of a beautiful woman, this wasn't exactly what he had in mind. As Jane released her grip and examined Dr. Barns, his eyes were wide and his face was blue, but he gasped lustily for breath.

"This poor man should be in a hospital," she said.

Bates shook his head resolutely. "No way! That's too obvious a place for them to search."

"What?" shouted Mel. It was becoming increasingly difficult to carry on a conversation through the noise of the ailing Nitro.

"We need a new vehicle," said Bates, shouting back.

"And help!" added Jane.

"We need to figure out what to do about the Ra. And I still need to get to Arizona, fast!" added Bates. "I've missed my airline flight!"

"I just need some food and rest," moaned a revived but still very weak Dr. Barns.

"Row-e-ral, Row-e-ral," added Milo, after astutely recognizing that it was his turn to complain.

Jane fished some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from the supplies she had brought, and fed them to Mel, Bates, a very grateful Dr. Barns, and a joyful, waggle-tailed Milo. In the constricted quarters, Milo's tail was often swatting Bates in the face and sandwich, but he didn't much care. At least one of his friends was definitely happy. Too bad all of their problems couldn't be solved with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

"I've got it!" exclaimed Mel, who had been distracted for a few moments by the discovery that he and Milo were at one point eating opposite ends of the same sandwich. "Oscar has a really BIG car!"

Of course, thought Bates, a man his size had to! Oscar still had that big old Buick. Low powered, it wasn't a muscle car like the Nitro, but it would be faster than walking. "Try to raise him on the VISICOM," he instructed Mel.

Mel spent the next few minutes shouting into Jane's VISICOM. Over the sound of the failing car engine, Bates couldn't catch enough of the conversation to make any sense of it. Milo's yammering didn't help communications much either. The dog was obviously hoping for more peanut butter, jelly, and sweet sticky jelly-soaked bread. Jane was obviously beautiful and talented in many ways, but she didn't seem to know that jelly and bread needed to be separated by a layer of jelly-proof substance of some sort: usually peanut butter.

Finally, Mel turned to Bates and shouted in his ear over the noise of the failing Nitro. "Narb, do you know the Shady Grove Bar?"

"Sure," shouted back Bates. "The trick to that place is that it's nowhere near Shady Grove. What's going on there?"

"Oscar says his car broke down in Georgetown and he's been walking home for hours," replied Mel.

"The poor man!" said Jane, sympathetically.

"Poor us!" noted Bates. "It looks like his car isn't available."

"Well, he apparently plans on making the most of it," continued Mel. "He says we should meet him at the Shady Grove Bar in a few minutes."

"Hokey Smokes!" exclaimed Bates. "The Shady Grove? Ask him how many bars he's been to since he started walking!"

In a minute Mel had the answer. "He says seven. Is that bad?"

It was a larger number than Bates was hoping to hear about. "It's not too good. He's done this before; once last month when I was with him. It took me days to recover. I think it's why he keeps that car. It breaks down every couple months or so, then he uses the VISICOM directory to route himself to every bar along his path home. He drinks at least a pitcher of beer at each bar."

"I'm not an expert fellas, but isn't that a lot of beer even for a man his size?" asked Jane.

"Yup," replied Bates. "It is. I'm afraid that Dr. Oscomb is rip-roaring plastered by now."

There followed a spirited discussion on the various merits and disadvantages of adding a 170 kilo, drunk-as-a-skunk biologist to their already intimate little group. In the end the spirit of friendship won out over practical considerations, and Bates directed the ailing Nitro towards the Shady Grove, which as fortune would have it, happened to be very close by. Afraid that if he turned it off it might never re-start, Bates left the Nitro idling and ran into the cozy little neighborhood bar. Judging from the large number of cars parked outside, the place was very cozy tonight.

Bates rushed back out in a minute or two brandishing two six-packs of beer.

"What's this for?" asked Mel, as Bates hopped back into the car and handed the cold Bud to him.

"Bait," replied Bates as he gently coaxed the suffering Nitro for a short distance down the street before again stopping. "We beat Oscar here. We've got to catch him before he goes in, or we'll have a heck of a time getting him back out."

"Why, Bates?" asked Jane. "After all, he got out of several other bars tonight OK."  
"Several reasons," explained Bates. "First and most important, this bar has the cheapest beer around. Taken at face value that would mean that he would want to drink at least two pitchers of beer. Second, it has dancers. That means at least three pitchers of beer. Possibly enough to totally do the man in for the night."

"Dancers? What kind of dancers?" interjected Mel.

"You know Mel, entertainment! Scantily clad females that wiggle about enticingly."

Jane and Mel both looked back towards the tiny bar, incredulous. "You're kidding! In that little joint?" asked Jane.

"Yup. Extremely scanty clad," said Bates, with a wistful glint in his eyes. "But the clincher is this. I'm sure that the bartender recognized me when he handed me the six-packs, from when Oscar and I were in there last month. I think he's probably already calling the cops."

"Why, Bates?" asked Mel.

Bates hesitated before replying. "Don't ask. Well actually I'm not exactly sure. I was pretty drunk at the time, but Oscar told me later that we participated in a row of some sort, over a dancer or something. He told me the owner was all upset, and swore he'd never serve any more scientists in his bar. Anyway, where is Oscomb? He should be approaching from the South." He pointed down the street.

Sure enough, marching heartily over the next rise towards them was the enormous figure of their favorite Ph.D. in Biology, Oscar Oscomb. Even over the clanks and bangs of the ailing Nitro, the astonished passengers soon heard Jingle Bells being sung in a rich, tremendously loud, operatic base voice. The words were slurred.

Bates did a U-turn and pulled up alongside Oscar, who was so thoroughly and happily occupied with the joyous acts of singing and walking on a crisp, lovely Maryland evening that he did not notice them at first, despite the clatter of the Nitro. Mel's shouting and Milo's barking finally got his attention though, and he stepped over to the car as Bates brought it to a stop.

"Mel!" boomed Oscar. "What-ya doing here, lil' buddy? Oh yeah, that's right, weren't we supposed to meet in the Shady Woods? Well, let's get to it man! The night's a-wasting! Oh hey, is that Bates? And Milo? This is great! I'll bet that brunette you like is dancing there again Bates, if she's recovered." He did a double-take when he looked in the back seat and discovered a beautiful blonde already in residence. "Mel! You brought Jane with you to a strip joint? That's wildly progressive of you two! Say, who's that old guy she's making out with in the back seat?"

Oscar must have been confused by the extremely close proximity of the two riders in the back seat. In fact, though the Nitro was considered to be a large car for its day, it would be impossible for two people not to be fairly close together in the rear of a Nitro. Barns was half asleep and slumped comfortably against the buxom Mrs. Guthery.

"Oooh my Gawd! It's Doc Barns!" exclaimed Oscomb. "I figured he'd dump that old bat Twig, but hell's bells, Mel, I would'na figured him'n your Jane, not in a hundred years! Shit! Not in a trillion years!"

"Come on Mel!" Oscomb opened Mel's car door and extracted the thin little physicist bodily out of the Nitro, as Milo retreated to the back seat to lay atop Barns/Jane, and Bates grabbed the beer from Mel. "Let's go get us a drink buddy. Plenty of cheap Shady Trees ale in the pub right down this very street. You must need one almost bad as me. Who-da-hell would'a thought that your Jane would be taking up with old Barns!" Shaking his great, shaggy, bearded head, he started down the street again with one gigantic arm wrapped around Mel's thin shoulders. Mel offered token resistance, but Oscar didn't even seem to notice.

"Wait a minute Oscar, look here," cried Bates, as he dangled a six-pack in the Nitro's doorway. "Nice cold Bud my friend, just the way you like it!"

Oscar let go of Mel and started back towards the car. "Is that all you got Bates, just one little six-pack?"

"No," replied Bates, "don't be silly! Look, we have more!" He dangled the second six-pack in front of Oscar also, and then pulled all the beer back inside and out of Oscar's immediate reach. "Come on with us in the nice warm car," Bates implored.

Oscar was already chugging down the first can as he squeezed his massive bulk into the front passenger seat of the car. It was an extremely tight fit, even after the seat was slid back all the way, much to the consternation of the rear occupants. The car simply wasn't designed for triple sized people; Oscar ended up cranking down his window all the way to make room for his massive right arm and shoulder.

But it was still not as bad as the back seat, which, having only just come to terms with the addition of Milo, now had to accommodate Mel as well. They had to direct various arms, legs and heads out windows or over seat backs, but somehow they managed. Actually, Bates felt rather fortunate to have Jane's warm foot under his right ear. At least he thought it was Jane's. Soon the Nitro was laboriously moving again.

"But where will we go now Bates?" Said a muffled voice from the back. It sounded like Mel, but from a very great distance.

"Damned if I know," shouted Bates in reply. "I've really _got_ to get to Arizona, but first we probably need a bus to comfortably move this bunch." And with that, Bates launched into a quick brief of the situation for Oscar, focusing on the asteroid, the pursuing space aliens, and the Government cover-up.

When Bates finished, Oscomb, who had been pleasantly quiet while he chugged down his brews, suddenly came back to life. "EEE-HA!" he yelled. Then he shook himself, stretched as far as he could, and breathed deeply, as though to shake off some of the effects of the beer through effort of will. At last his thunderous voice resumed. "Better. OK, boss, let's get to it!"

"You have an idea about what to do?" asked Bates.
"Sure!" replied Oscar. "Well hell, man, to start with, we already got us an experimental vehicle that's bigger than this one! A damned fast one, too!"

"Watch it Oscomb!" shouted the muffled voice. "This isn't secure space!"

"Space? Did you say 'space' Guthery?" retorted Oscar, laughing. "So what the hell! Boil me in oil, because I said 'vehicle,' but then you had to go and say 'space'? Ha! Who's saying the no-no words now?"

What they could be talking about, Bates didn't have a clue.

Oscar paused long enough to finish can number six and grab the second six-pack. "Anyways Mel, all seriouslessness aside, what do-ya think? Come on; use that famous noggin of yours. I'm still too damned drunk to figure out everything!"

The conversation hung suspended for a moment in the crowded, noisy, windy Nitro, as Mel apparently thought about it, and somehow crawled up through the tangle of bodies so that the three of them could converse by means of only moderate shouting. "I think you are right my big drunk friend." said Mel, at last. "Bates, if you can get us as far as the Base, I think it's about time we formally induct you into the B-Team."

"The B-Team? What the heck is that?" asked Bates.

"Well, replied Mel, it's a select team of dedicated professionals that care about this country, and this planet."

"Aw hell Mel," interjected Oscar, "never mind the formal sounding la-la-la bull! The B-Team is me and Mel and some others, and you too, as far as I'm concerned. Government men and some women too. Knights of an old beat-up square table, that's what we Government men are. G-men. And you gotta be made a full-fledged member now."

"And Jane and Barns too!" piped up Mel.

"Oh sure," conceded Oscomb, following a loud burp.

"Wrowerl, Wrowerl," yammered Milo, sensing something momentous in the moment.

"And Milo too!" added Bates. "We're a package deal."

"Sure," said Oscar. "Why not? Needed us a dog anyways! We're it! We're all it! The B-team! Government men, women, and their furry friends, smelly though they may be! So let's see now, we got us a week or so to take on some space aliens, possibly the rest of the U.S. Government, and a giant asteroid that's about to clobber the Earth. Nothing to it! Not for the B-Team; not for Government men!"

He said it with such confidence and bravado that Bates was greatly encouraged. They all laughed. The whole little company was taken up with Oscomb's enthusiasm; the B-Team would take care of everything!

"But what does the 'B' stand for?" asked Jane, innocently.

"Damn good question beautiful lady!" responded Oscar.

"And one I'm afraid we can't answer, dear," injected Mel, "because it's tip-top-secret. Right Oscar?"

"Oh poppy cock!" responded Oscar. "If humanity will be extinct in a week or so what the hell's the difference? What's the big deal about not keeping a damn top-secret DOD project secret if it's going to be destroyed so damn soon anyway?"

Mel had no logical counter for that, but he always felt more comfortable following the rules. You simply weren't supposed to talk about top-secret matters unless you were inside the proper corresponding vault. That would be breaking the rules.

"So let's see now;" continued Oscar, "the 'B' couldn't stand for 'boss' or for 'Bates' or 'Barns', cuz just look at their faces, they don't know what the heck it is. And it doesn't stand for 'boondoggles', cuz unfortunately we just don't have the funding for those anymore. Since it's a tip-top Government secret, and to make Mel happy, let me just say the secret word only once and ve-ry softly. Friends, countrymen, lend me your ears." Several of the company leaned towards him, or attempted to under the impossibly crowded and chaotic conditions, in order to receive the secret word. "Well teammates, it stands for BUS!" shouted Oscar at the top of his lungs. Then he laughed heartily. "B-U-S BUS!"

"Bus?" asked Bates, disappointed. "It just stands for bus? This top-secret project is a bus? Hokey Smokes!" He sighed. For a minute there, he had been thinking of the B-Team as a tough gang like the CIA, or the GI Joes, or something else equally deadly: a competent commando group with a cache of secret weapons and mysterious psychic powers perhaps, that actually could take on space aliens and plunging planetoids, like any legitimate, genuine batch of Saturday morning cartoon super heroes. He had forgotten for the moment that of all the DOD, only their own pathetic Base remained: his own colleagues, a few aging scientists and engineers. Nerds, not heroes. Oh yeah, and a bus.

A bus development project certainly explained the experiments they had him perform using his Nitro. It all fit together now. Norma, Oscar, Mel and Hank were the dreaded B-Team, and they were trying to build a Premium Fuel powered bus. The intent was probably to make the planet even more 'green' than it was now and make the tree-hugging leftists that were in charge of the Government even happier. Big fat hairy deal, thought Bates! So now the bunch of them were going to turn their attentions from bus development for a few days to do some planet saving? Oscar and Mel at least hadn't lost their sense of humor. On the other hand, Bates didn't have a better plan.

Oscar seemed a little miffed at Bates' sudden lack of enthusiasm. "Well, you did ask for a bus, right?" said Oscar. "So we'll go to the Base and get the Bus and the rest of the B-Team!" He gave Bates a playful and painful poke in the ribs and chugged down the last of the beer. "Don't worry Bates; the B-Team will take care of things! And remember folks: ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country!"

"Well personally, I always felt that JFK had that one backwards," piped up Mel. "I mean, it flies in the face of 'by and for the People', doesn't it?"

"Damned if you aren't right!" agreed Oscar, after a few moments of beer-sluggished thought. "Mel, you and Lincoln have it all figured right, I'd say."

"And Kennedy thought about it some more too and fixed it during his second term," noted Bates.

"I've got several issues of that ilk," claimed Mel. "One of my favorites is the use of 'spring forward and fall back' to set our clocks for daylight savings time. Now doesn't 'spring back and fall forward' make just as much sense?"

"Damn, you're right again!" agreed Oscar. "Myself, I always prefer to fall forward, regardless of season, if I'm falling down drunk, so that I can catch myself without banging my head. But I've got another one. What about the wrong people calling themselves 'people of color' when they don't have no color? Anybody with even high school science knows that white is the brain's response to multiple wavelengths and black is a complete absence of light and color."

"Sure, that one always bothered me too!" agreed Mel. "And what about when folks say that something is ten times less than something else? Don't they know the difference between multiplication and division? Why don't they say that something is a tenth as much as something else?"

"That's a good one too!" responded Oscar. "And what about those zero calorie so-called energy drinks? That's always good for a chuckle."

"All of those demonstrate criminally ignorant science knowledge and resulting absurd misuses of language," agreed Mel.

"Guys, guys!" interjected Bates. "This is all fascinating, but right now we have to focus on a mission to save the Earth!"

"And save it we will," boasted Oscar. "After all, we're Government men." He broke into a rousing round of inspirational songs then, starting with 'Stout Hearted Men' while Milo, trying to help out, added some howling of his own. However, the words of the big man were slurred and scrambled and gradually becoming utter nonsense, and his voice was gradually losing its robust inspirational flavor. After running out of beer, big Oscar was finally running out of steam.

While it lasted though, the loud singing and howling at least helped inspire Bates to drive towards the Base at the top speed at which the ailing Nitro was still capable, which unfortunately was down to only about 50 KM/hr. The normal traffic was whizzing by them now, and Bates was afraid that the cops would stop them for driving too slow, or worse yet, that the Ra would catch them. As Oscar quieted down the Nitro got noisier, and Mel pulled Jane's VISICOM deep into the rear seat's tangle of sound absorbing bodies to make some COM-calls to the other B-Team members before dozing off.

Thankfully, Oscar because he was blissfully drunk, and Milo because he was both ignorant and sensible, also soon fell asleep, despite the noise and the cold and cramped accommodations. Hardly had Oscar stopped singing when the thunderous sound of his snoring was added to the din. Jane and Barns hadn't been heard from for a long time. Hopefully they too were usefully occupied somewhere deep in the tangle of bodies in the back seat.

Driving kept Bates awake. And worry. Could this group actually be the best hope that the world had? It was a sobering thought; that and the fact that they were all out of beer, and Oscomb was the only one of them that had gotten any.

****

CHAPTER 16

HOME BASE

For a man's home is his castle, & domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium: for where shall a man be safe, if it be not in his house?

\- Edward Coke

For the last few miles, Bates tried in vain to recall if he still had triple-A membership. Bates was by no stretch of the imagination a mechanic, but as a long-time owner of junkers, he had witnessed the untimely death of several autos, and he knew that the death of the Nitro was long overdue. Hesitation, vibration, and loss of power had gotten progressively worse, speed was down to under 10 km/hr, slow even for driving on the shoulder of the road, and the grinding, clanking, wheezing, squeaking, thumping, smoking, and thunderous back-firing was appalling. Black exhaust smoke surrounded the car. Though the Nitro was solidly built, the mysterious power of Premium Fuel was gradually tearing it apart. Soon their speed would be slower than walking. Then maybe Bates could wake Oscar and have him push.

As long as it still moved however, Bates was resolved to continue on in the Nitro. They had already made too many COM calls. Bates feared that a call to AAA, a taxi or to another friend could bring the Ra. After all, it seemed likely that Mel's earlier COM to his wife had been used by the Ra to locate them at the car wash.

The Base gates were open when the Nitro finally chugged in at about 3 AM. Bates prayed that opening of the gates at this late hour was the work of the other B-Team members and not the Ra. Through shouting he attempted to arouse the sleepy little company from their slumber, but only Mel and Milo immediately responded. Between yawns, Mel advised Bates to close the gates and to park the Nitro in the back of the main building.

As Bates coaxed the struggling Nitro past the front of the building, even in the dim moon light the huge, ragged hole in the outside wall was evident. He could see directly into his new office in the administration wing! "Crap," he muttered. "What a mess!"

He shuttered when he considered the strength required by someone to simply lift and carry the massive safe out through a steel-reinforced concrete wall. Renson almost had them at the car wash; he would have torn them to bits! He also recalled Twig's strength when she drugged and carried Barns to her car earlier in the week. For all they knew, all of the Ra could be super powered! Bates kept glancing around nervously, half expecting Renson to come rushing at them again from the shadows and dive into the sputtering Nitro.

If the Ra were to find them now the newly minted B-Team would have no hope of escape. Would the space aliens simply kill them, or save them to be ritually tortured and eaten, as they had nearly done with Barns? Fortunately, Bates was so exhausted and busy maneuvering the Nitro along the twisting road that led alongside the huge Base office building, that he didn't have the opportunity to consider in detail all of the gruesome possibilities.

Bates parked the Nitro near a doorway in the rear of the building pointed out by Mel, at last turned off the noisy engine, and simply sat there for a few moments, savoring the incredibly wonderful stillness and silence. Bates hoped that his ears hadn't been permanently damaged, but he was more concerned for Milo. The noise of the Nitro must have been particularly hard on Milo's super-sensitive dog ears. Bates climbed outside wearily, stretched, and then dropped down to the cold ground and kissed it, just as he did after all of his airline flights. It was just so terribly good to be out of the Nitro!

Milo bounded happily out of the car too, with tail wagging and nose sniffing, and urinated where Bates had just kissed. Milo's little dog brain wasn't sure why his master felt so highly of that particular spot, but he was willing to do his faithful best to also bless and lay claim to it.

"How about giving me a hand, Bates?" said Mel's voice from somewhere in the depths of the car. Bates went around to the other side of the Nitro, and saw that Mel had placed a coat over the jagged remains of the window that Renson had broken, and was endeavoring to climb out head first, without making much progress. The door handle was gone of course, thanks to Renson, and the door was jammed shut.

After Bates helped Mel out, the two of them roused the others. It was not an easy task, especially convincing Oscomb to leave the Nitro. However, after the huge biologist unsuccessfully looked for more beer, it was much easier to coax him out of the increasingly chilly car. The area remained relatively warm for mid-night in mid-December, perhaps in the mid-40's, but it was still far too cold to sleep outside.

Soon the entire little company was in the building, and walking numbly down dimly lit, deserted hallways. Barns, half asleep and still ailing after his long torturous ordeal with the Ra, leaned heavily on Jane.

Despite efforts to move quietly, the sounds of each breath and step they took bounced around through the long, hard, bare hallways long enough to be joined and rejoined by several similar instances of sound that followed, resulting in a weird cadence. It was a mildly interesting physical phenomenon, and in better times, Mel or even Bates might have considered modeling the fascinating acoustical properties of the echo-prone hallway.

Disembodied drips, buzzes, and clicks added further mystery. Any of the strange unidentifiable noises could indicate Twig or Renson lurking somewhere in the shadows, but hopefully the menacing noises were instead being produced by innocent heaters, plumbing, and other familiar apparatus: always present, but unnoticed in the noisy chaos of the day.

Between their current noisy transit through the halls and the noisy appearance of the Nitro, it had not exactly been a stealthy arrival. If the aliens were indeed somewhere on the Base, Bates and his group must surely have been detected.

Before long they reached a locked vault door, which Mel proceeded to open with practiced ease. Bates recognized this as the place Mel and Oscar had brought him to several days earlier on Nitro business. Even that stressful day was now regarded by Bates to be happier times.

As Mel pulled the door open, bright light streamed out from inside, momentarily blinding the little company. Framed in the doorway was the dark silhouette of a tallish thin someone pointing a gun of some sort at them, and beside that was the shorter silhouette of a small thin woman. Melberg and Twig?

"So yer here at last are yeah!" said the figure, lowering his assault weapon. "Can any of you rocket scientists explain why we're all here in the middle of this here cold December night, and what the deuce happened to the front office? There's a big damn hole in it!" The Government newcomers breathed a collective sigh of relief when they recognized Hank, the security guard, sans Santa Claus suit, and Sandra Kruger, sporting her usual, nervous, bird-like look.

Pushing to the front to confront the new arrivals was the stout, squat, scowling Norma Carbuncle. Ignoring the others for the moment, the robust inventor focused on Bates. "Bates, Mel said on the COM that you damaged our car engine. Let me make something clear. I don't care if you ARE the new head loon in this loony bin, this is MY project, and I simply won't have valuable equipment MISUSED!"

Her expression turned to shock and back to anger as she seemed to notice the others for the first time. "These two are UNAUTHORIZED people!" She was looking at Barns, who she hadn't yet recognized, and Jane, who was helping to hold him up. "Bates, Mel, Oscomb, get inside! The rest will have to leave immediately, including that ANIMAL!" She pointed at Milo, who appropriately took offense with her tone and retorted with a few sharp barks of his own in her direction.

Norma, who lost her temper easily and regained it only with difficulty, was gathering herself to dish out more when a loud, deep voice intervened. "Oh, put a lid on it Norma."

"Oh wonderful, Oscomb," returned the indomitable master inventor, who was not about to be cowed by anyone else, regardless of size, loudness, or gender. "So you're drunk again? Is that what this is about?"

With that, Bates finally lost his own patience. "Wrong, Carbuncle! That has nothing to do with what this is all about! And Oscomb is a damned lucky man to be drunk. I sure as hell wish I were drunk! But right now all of us are simply too tired and cranky to put up with any more of your crap!"

Bates drew up to his full height and glared down at Norma. "As of now, everyone here is totally 'cleared' for this project of yours. Period. By my authority and with no oaths or forms or anything else required. And right now we are ALL going into this vault and talk about what is happening. All of us, that is, unless YOU want to leave." His tone softened. "But I do hope you will give us your help Norma. We really do need it."

Norma was rendered speechless, at least for the moment, and stood impassively as the others started to file past her into the vault. Then her jaw dropped. "John? Is that you?" She had at last recognized Barns. The exhausted man paused and turned his head to return her gaze, giving her clear view of the bruises and bandages covering his tired, unusually gaunt face. "My God John, what happened to you?" Jane was already holding him by one arm, now Norma took his other arm and helped him stumble into the vault.

"You were right all along, Norma," said the exhausted administrator. "I should have listened to you sooner. It was Melberg, as you suspected, and Renson too, both working for Twig!" As the two talked the entire group entered and sat down in the vault while Oscar closed the heavy steel vault door behind them. The group from the Nitro all felt a little safer now that several inches of cold, hard steel separated them from any pursuit.

"Have they gotten the safe, John?" asked Norma. "I saw the hole in the building."

Barns breathed a deep sigh. "Yes. They stole it, as you warned me that someone might! And according to them, it was a one-of-a-kind archive that contained about every secret DOD ever had."

"Oh no!" said Norma.

But Barns, suddenly smiling, turned and put a tired, shaking hand on Bates' shoulder. "There is good news though. Somehow Bates here destroyed everything in the safe before they could get their hands on it! He left them nothing but poisonous fumes that helped me make good my escape from them. It was simply magnificent!" But a deep frown now formed on his tired face. "On the other hand, decades of work done by thousands of researchers was turned to soot and smoke, lost forever."

"Not quite," added Bates. "The MX-84 recorded it all as it destroyed it. I have all its contents right here in my pocket." Bates pulled the data cube out of his shirt pocket and showed it around. "Not to mention the Ra cubes that you hid in your fishing hat after you stole them from their ship." He pulled several more cubes out of his pocket.

"Bates!" exclaimed Barns, with a heartier smile than before. "You mean to say you actually saved the contents of the safe? And you found Twig's cubes too? I thought that I had lost those! That's the best news of the day!"

"Not by a long shot," said Bates. "Your escape and the escape of the rest of us is the best news by far. But we have plenty of bad news too."

Bates launched into his overview of events for Norma, Hank, and Sandra. This time though, he and the others filled in many details.

They sat in hushed astonishment as Barns told his part of the tale. Most of it was horrifying, but it had its lighter moments too, especially when he described his consternation when he realized that his nightmare regarding making Bates the new Head of DOD was in fact reality. They all had a laugh at that, including Bates, who in return for the first time revealed his own conclusions with regard to Barns' sanity, based on his unexpected promotion.

Finishing his narrative seemed to sap Barns' last strength, and he succumbed at last to sleep right where he sat. At that point Jane asserted her medical authority, and announced that her patient must be allowed to sleep the rest of the night.

They gently carried him to another room and lay him down on a cot. This time, Barns would hopefully sleep uninterrupted for at least several hours without having to flee from hungry space aliens, though he was probably likely to have disturbing sorts of dreams. Bates found some lab jackets and tucked them over Barns. Though based on years of prior experience he might always consider Barns to be a shit head, he certainly had to admire the man's performance in this crisis. Not many people would have held up this well.

After returning to the main room, Bates provided most of the remaining narration. Of course all were horribly dismayed by the prospect of Dannos; you can't learn that the Earth is about to be destroyed in about a week without having a strong negative reaction. Thankfully though, it was too big a threat to fully comprehend, and they were all simply too drained to get very excited about anything.

Bates got an additional shock when he revealed that his reason to go to Arizona was to see a woman named Janet Garb. "Oh, you mean yer old girlfriend from school, the astronomer?" asked Hank.

Bates was dumbfounded. He was sure that he had never told ANYBODY about Janet, and until earlier that week, he was positive that he had never exchanged more than polite greetings with Hank.

"Well it's about time," said Mel.

"You should have done it years ago!" added Sandra.

"Now wait just a minute!" Bates exclaimed, "I've kept Janet a total secret for almost twenty years! I never told anyone about her!"

Several people laughed.

"You know," said Mel, "I think he's actually serious. He actually doesn't remember! Narb, don't you know that every time you get drunk you babble on incessantly about Janet?"

"He certainly did when we dated!" added Jane.

"Every woman on Base has known about it for years," established Sandra.

"Even me," confirmed Norma.

"And the less fancy educated hired help too," added Hank.

"Why you even blabbed it to that stripper at the Shady Grove," concluded Oscar. "That's what started the fight."

"Fudge Winkies!" exclaimed Bates, in shock. Everybody has known the deepest secrets of his private life for all these years? In fact, they seemed to know more than he himself did! No wonder all the women he tried to date dropped him like a hot potato! If he lived out the week he'd have to try to sort this all out, though right now, he had to concentrate on matters even more serious than his own love life.

In closing, Bates told them that it would be best for all of them to spend the night in the vault. It provided some measure of concealment and protection from the Ra, and they were too tired to do anything else anyway. They would have to figure out what to do in the morning.

"OK, boss," said Sandra.

"We're all behind you, Bates," added Oscomb, yawning.

Norma even saluted Bates. Apparently, despite the revelations with regard to the circumstances of his appointment, the Team still regarded him to be their leader.

As a place to hold up for the night, they could have done far worse. There was a rest room and a refrigerator in the vault, with some food and soft drinks, and a couple of plug-in electric heaters that kept it from getting too cold.

Unfortunately though, sleeping accommodations were somewhat Spartan: Barns had the only cot. The others used lab jackets and their coats as bedding, and commandeered spots on the hard, cold floor of the vault to try to sleep as best they could. Norma turned off the lights, and the vault was plunged into total darkness. There were whispers and sounds of shuffling around for a few minutes, and then things quickly settled down, as the group set about the job of obtaining much needed sleep.

Though totally exhausted, Bates lay staring into the utter darkness of the vault further into the early morning hours, long after the others had fallen asleep. Bates was an accomplished worrier, and now he had plenty more to worry about.

Too much was happening at once. In a normal week, just the Nitro breaking down would have been enough of a crisis for Bates to lose sleep over. This week, there was an arm's length list of change and disasters that made the car breakdown virtually irrelevant in comparison, including a plea for help from the long lost love of his life, a continuing risk of his own murder by space aliens, and the destruction of Earth in about a week. It all made his head spin. It was a really good time to take up serious drinking, he figured, though the prospects for that were also problematic, since Oscomb had finished off all the beer.

Most terrifying of all, it looked like he, Narbando T. Bates, a man who on a typical morning couldn't be relied upon to find a shirt and tie that matched, was the person in charge and was expected to do something about all of it. OK, he had sort of taken charge at his apartment and in his car, but that was clearly his responsibility. He didn't know what the Constitution said about it, but as a rule, when in one's home or boat or auto, the owner is in charge. The king of the castle or captain of the ship, so to speak.

And OK, he had also sort of asserted command here at the Base too. But now that he had time to think about it, him being in charge of an effort to save the Earth was downright crazy. As he thought about it, several times he had to bite his lip, hit his head, and pinch his arms in the darkness to keep from breaking into hysterical laughter and waking the others. Scenes from the last few days, and especially the last few hours, replayed from memory when he closed his weary eyes, while problems and possible courses of action coursed through his mind in an ever more incoherent jumble.

Besides, Bates was used to reading himself to sleep every night. Fumbling around in the darkness, he located a VISICOM helmet and popped it over his head, and then inserted the data cube that the MX-84 had made from the safe contents. There was so much data that he focused mainly on the MX-84 created table of contents and on database queries to determine what was on the cube.

He was so tired that it took a while before any understanding of what he was looking at began to form. The information was fascinating, but very soon, thankfully, he was simply too exhausted to really think at all. Sleep would no longer be denied. He pushed off the COM helmet. All the dilemmas they faced required too much thought to remain coherent threats, and they simply slipped quietly away into jumbled nothingness. Paradoxically, his last feelings before sleep were of comfort and security. The lab jackets kept him warm enough, and the concrete floor seemed incredibly comfortable, much more healing to his exhausted body than a soft bed would be on a normal night.

His exhausted nervous system seemed to have magnified sensitivity. Real sounds, smells, and feelings vied with ghosts of past sensations and feelings. Fortunately, the warmth, and even the breathing, snoring, and odors of his nearby companions comforted him. They were friends, he dimly remembered. At least he was not alone, wherever he was. He was together with friends in a safe place.

He had to get something soft under his head though. Where could his favorite feather pillow have gotten to? Grouping around in the dark, he finally found something that would do very nicely.

The rest of the night, the measly two hours that were left of it, was instantaneous.

****

"Bates!" Someone was shaking him and whispering insistently into his ear. "Bates, wake up!"

It sounded like Mel. What was Mel doing here in his apartment? Bates was perfectly comfortable where he was. He buried his face deeper in his pillow and tried to go back to sleep, but someone was bodily trying to pull him up and off his wonderfully warm, soft pillow. He resisted by hugging the pillow even tighter to his face. Abruptly, he heard a familiar woman's voice cursing in Swedish, and the pillow itself started heaving about underneath him!

He suddenly realized that he was hugging a squirming thigh tightly with both arms, and that his face was pressed into the warm, shapely buttocks of Mel's wife Jane, who lay face down on the floor before him!

Bates de-tangled himself instantly from the squirming woman and popped off and away from her as if she were poisonous to the touch, with a horrified look on his face. "Fudge Winkies!" he exclaimed. With that, laughter echoed in the vault, and Bates looked around at smiling, laughing faces. He was enormously relieved to see that the laughing faces included those of both Mel and Jane.

The others were yawning, stretching, struggling to their feet, and making off color remarks. "I told you, Sandra," quipped Norma. "It's the quiet ones you have to look out for."

"It's a good thing I was wearing slacks," said Jane.

Norma and Sandra, pretending to be frightened, looked down at their own legs. They were both wearing skirts and panty hose. "I'm going to wear extra panty hose at night around Bates from now on!" quipped Sandra.

"I'm taking mine off!" returned Norma, laughing heartily, as she elbowed Bates in the ribs. This was a side to Sandra and Norma that was normally absent during their working hours as engineers, thank goodness, and it further embarrassed the dumbfounded Bates.

Despite the tension relieving levity, Bates felt that an apology was in order. "I'm really sorry Jane, Mel, it was an accident, believe me!

"Of course it was, Narb!" agreed Mel. "You should have seen your face!"

"Oh sure, an accident; I bet!" quipped Jane. "That's what they all say!"

Mel feigned shock. "What! Who's 'they' anyway? You mean this has happened to you before?"

"Sure," she retorted. "It happens all the time! Physicists just can't keep their hands off of me. One of them is after me every darn night!"

The playful banter was interrupted by the abrupt opening of the vault door. Though the assembled company feared the worst, it was only Oscar and Milo, who hadn't yet even been missed by the others.

"Morning folks!" boomed Oscar. "Milo wanted out to do some dog business, and you looked very busy with Jane, Bates." He winked at his buddy. "And guess what! We forgot to hide the Nitro last night! We left it sitting outside, plain as day. Anyway, I hid it in one of the empty hangar bays. It wouldn't start; I had to push it." He sat down in a wood chair that groaned under the strain of his massive weight. "So what's next on the agenda?" he asked, bringing everyone back to the serious business that was at hand, for which Bates was grateful.

"Well," said Bates, "I think first of all we should try to phone our Government and tell them what we know." Some of the others didn't think that was such a good idea, but Bates would not be deterred. After all, he reasoned, they were still Government employees, most of them, and this Ra business was clearly a matter of national security.

He first tried to COM the President. He ended up talking to a low level staffer who claimed that he never heard of Bates or the DOD. The man hung up at the first mention of a national disaster being caused by space aliens. Bates then tried to contact the Vice President, with similar results. Aided by Sandra's encyclopedic knowledge of Government structure and regulations, he continued further down the hierarchy to other staffers and congress people, with similar results.

Nearly an hour passed, most of it spent waiting while being passed on mindlessly from one nameless staffer to another. One after another, Government officials were 'unavailable' regardless of anything Bates said by way of persuasion. Finally, Sandra informed Bates that due to laws established years ago during the Cold War era, he himself was the next in the line of hierarchical succession: thirteenth!

"You're kidding!" said Bates.

"No kidding," she replied, "it's right here!" Her skilled fingers caused the appropriate legalese to pop up on a Lab VISICOM. Bates stared at it. "But wait a minute!" he said. "This is the line of succession for presidential powers in case of a national emergency!"

"Well," interjected Oscar, "doesn't the destruction of Earth by space aliens qualify?"

It was an excellent point. "Yes, I suppose so," conceded Bates, hesitantly.

"And haven't you tried to contact those other people that were ahead of you in line?" continued Oscar.

"Well, yes, but you can't be coming to the conclusion that I think you are!"

"Why not?" asked Barns, his voice still weak from his ordeals. "It's your right. No, what's more, it's your duty! Why we don't even know for sure if there is a President anymore! The Ra could be anywhere and anybody."

"But you signed over your position when you were drugged by the enemy, Barns," argued Bates. "So you're still in charge. Or the real President is, or somebody else! Certainly not me!"

Barns, who had been slumped in a chair all morning as he slipped in and out of sleep, shook his head weakly. "Give me a few days to recover, and maybe I'll make that argument myself, Bates. But right now we need a leader and you've been doing all right so far. So keep it up. That's an order, if you insist."

"And let's face it, Narb;" said Oscar, "we're it! There is nobody else. The rest of the Government has given up. From what we've learned, the Government has the police hunting down anyone who even knows about Dannos in order to shut them up. They've given up on stopping the disaster and only hope to avoid panic. Besides, they aren't very likely to believe stories about space aliens. So we're on our own. Plus, we are all that remains of the Department of Defense, so defense of America and the world is our job anyway."

Bates still had doubts. "But to top things off, you actually want me to declare myself to be in charge of the United States? And what if I did? Sure, I'd like us to try to work together to at least try to do something about the asteroid and the Ra, but CAN we actually do anything? I mean, I can sort of understand why our Government gave up. Obviously, to even try to do anything, you'd first have to have bombs or something to destroy a giant iron planetoid, and powerful missiles or space vehicles as well, and Earth hasn't had those in years."

On cue, Norma entered through a rear door carrying a large ratchet. Her hands, face, and clothes were splattered with oil, but she seemed to be in her element. There was a broad smile on her face. "The Bus is almost ready to go! Well, ready enough for local travel, anyway, in a few hours."

"Bravo Norma!" beamed Mel.

"She is an absolute wizard with a set of tools," Oscar explained to Bates.

Barns was staring at Norma with a look of rapture on his face. "What a woman!" Bates heard him mutter, under his breath.

"I'm sure that we're all glad that this Bus of yours is fixed," said Bates. "But what can we do with it? Should we all take a bus tour of Virginia during our last days? I have been meaning to get to Williamsburg for the holidays; it might be very nice to see all those Christmas lights and folks dressed up in colonial clothes."

Mel, Oscar, Sandra and Norma all looked at each other and laughed, while the others, including Bates, simply looked perplexed.

"Bates," explained Oscar, "we were thinking of perhaps going just a little further than Williamsburg. I think it's time that we showed the Bus to all of the newcomers."

Norma led the group out the back door of the main room, down a short hallway and through another heavy vault door that opened up into a large garage. The garage was dimly lit by a scattering of old-fashioned incandescent bulbs that somehow still functioned. In the center of the garage sat a white, smallish, rather plain, but oddly streamlined, Bus. What was so odd about it Bates couldn't immediately put his finger on.

Oscar put one huge hand on his shoulder and led him closer. "Come on, Bates, see if you can figure out for yourself what's unusual about the Bus."

"Well, the windows are smaller than usual." Indeed they looked more like ship or aircraft portals than normal windows. He reached up and tapped one with his knuckles. It was like thumping a boulder of solid granite. "And thick!" he exclaimed, truly surprised and puzzled. "And the wheels are very small and thin!" The wheels reminded him of those cheap, nearly useless emergency spare tires that had been put in the trunks of unsuspecting new car buyers for the last couple of decades. "These donut wheels clearly weren't designed to see much service. Very odd feature for a bus."

The sides of the Bus were milky white in color and slightly translucent. Looking more closely, he realized that the white color wasn't paint; it was the actual material that formed the hull of the Bus! He fished a nickel out of his pocket and tapped the side of the Bus. A dull sound resulted instead of a metallic clank. "Why, this looks like solid heat resistant Starlite Plastic! It must have cost a fortune!"

He stepped back a bit and scanned the Bus with renewed interest. In the front, there was no grillwork to allow air entry. Instead, there was an unscreened air intake on each side over a foot in diameter, just below the headlights. They looked like jet engine intakes. The headlights, if that's what they were, seemed also to be covered by thick, transparent, Starlite Plastic. At the rear of the Bus were what looked like large rocket engine outlets!

"Look inside," suggested Mel. The front passenger side door was also unusual for a Bus. The door latch was recessed and covered by a sliding panel of Starlite, large, as if made to accommodate a giant's fingers, very solidly constructed, and made of some material that Bates couldn't identify. Ceramics maybe. Once unlatched the thick door swung open on its own slowly and steadily. The doorway was wide but a bit low for a Bus; Bates had to duck low to step in.

The inside was like no Bus that Bates had ever seen. The passenger seats went only half way back, where his view was obstructed by a wall and door similar to the one he had just entered.

The rows of double seats on each side of the center isle were bucket seats, with numerous restraining devices for all parts of the body. It reminded him of the seats used in some of the more adventurous, gut wrenching rides in amusement parks. The seats also sported what looked like virtual reality helmets and other electronic gadgetry, as if these were actually crew stations rather than just passenger seats. Throughout the vehicle, little metal was evident. Most of the Bus seemed to be constructed of plastics and ceramics that were both lighter and stronger than any metal.

The biggest shock was in the driver's area up front. The seats here were even more elaborate, and there were three: a left and right seat with equivalent controls, and a center seat positioned a little in back of those which provided a full over-the-shoulder view of all the controls at the other two stations. The front seats faced numerous dashboard read-out devices, many of them labeled using glowing letters, and many dozens of control knobs and switches. Elaborate virtual reality helmets sat on the empty seats.

Extending from the dashboard towards each of the two front seats was a matched pair of devices that could not be mistaken, and which made it obvious that _this_ Bus was not designed for ground transport. Traditional pilot yokes identified this Bus as a FLYING vehicle!

Suddenly all the implications of the sturdy, heat resistant, wingless Bus hit him. This was not only a flying Bus; this was a SPACE Bus! "Fudge Winkies!" he exclaimed sincerely.

****

CHAPTER 17

THE NEXT BUS OUT OF TOWN

Green to green, red to red, all is well, go ahead. When in danger, or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

\- Sign on a sailboat

Bates left the vault's small side-office and rejoined the others. He had been alone in there most of the afternoon. "Quiet everyone, we haven't much time." All were present except Norma, who, after finishing with the Bus and talking with Bates, had slipped out a few minutes earlier. Hank and Sandra had earlier gone on forays for food and other gear, but were now back inside the vault. They reported that an apparently normal workday was occurring on the Base. The fact that several people, including the Head of DOD, had not come to work that day, didn't seem to have any impact at all on Base operations, which were nearly non-existent to begin with.

The B-Team members present gathered around Bates in the main vault room, giving him their full attention. "As some of you know, I've just written a message and sent it via electronic VISICOM mail to a dozen people in Government, and the National Police. This note should finally get through to them." Bates took a slip of paper from his pocket. It was covered with writing, a confused, cryptic jumble of cross-outs, re-writes, arrows moving words from here to there that only the author could possibly decipher, maybe.

"Here is what it says: This is official notification to you that having been unsuccessful in all attempts to reach the President or other appropriate ranking Government officers in a time of dire national emergency, and in accordance with The 25th Amendment to the Constitution and Statute 1352.7 Paragraph 5 of the Emergency Powers Act of the United States, I am as at this time assuming emergency Presidential powers of the United States Government in order to attempt to deal with the emergency. I am sure that I can count on your good will and cooperation and on the cooperation of the citizens of this great country, and on that of the world community as well.

"However, there being evidence in our possession that the Government of the United States has been infiltrated to an unknown degree by representatives of the Ra, the alien race responsible for the coming asteroid onslaught, the veracity of all claims to authority is currently in question. Thus far, we have identified only three aliens: our companions at DOD, Twig, Melberg, and Renson, but there are probably others. Therefore it is our intent, in the short time remaining, to act independently in our labors if necessary, and further, to not honor any attempts to restrain us from doing so. However, if there are any other similar efforts in progress of which we lack knowledge, please notify us, that we may fully collaborate.

"Personally, I don't think that we have a snowball's chance in hell, but in Drs. Guthery, Carbuncle, Barns, Oscomb, and Kruger, we have among us some of the finest minds in the world, and we will do our very best to save Earth. Besides, we don't have anything else better to do. God help us all. Dr. Narbando T. Bates, recently appointed Head, Department of Defense, and acting President of the United States of America."

There were a few seconds of silence. Then they began clapping; all of them! And shaking his hand, and patting him on the back, and even hugging him! Several saluted him and called him 'boss' or 'Mr. President', though they were laughing when they did it. Bates was touched: tears formed in his eyes. He thought they would support his decision, at least some of them, because they were all good people, and because it was the right thing to do. He hadn't really expected this outpouring of support and affection for him personally.

"Thanks everybody," he said. "That message should get their attention, but there's more to talk about, and we have to hurry. We've been lucky so far, but it can't last. Those of us going on this mission have to leave right away. Norma assures me that the Bus is ready to fly.

"So here's the big issue. This will be a very dangerous mission. In the first place, I've been told that this Bus has never actually been flown. That's obviously a gigantic concern. In the second place, the Ra and maybe the National Police will probably be after us. That's a really big concern also. And finally, we don't have a clue about where to go or how we can stop Dannos. We haven't even had a chance to think about it yet, but our chances appear to be something between nil and none. Put it all together what do you get?"

Bates had meant it to be a rhetorical question, but he wasn't the only person in the room who could add things up, especially when it amounted to adding up zeroes.

"It's a suicide mission," replied Mel.

"We could be flying right to the Ra, where we will be shish-kabob!" offered Barns, shuddering.

"It's nuts," added Sandra. "We don't know what the hell we're doing!"

"And there won't be any beer in space," lamented Oscar.

"Right on all counts," said Bates. "Objectively you could all more profitably either spend the remaining week in comfort with friends and loved ones, or raising hell in some bar." He glanced at Oscar, and visualized for a happy moment the scantily clad brunette in the Shady Grove. "Or, you can go with me, live in discomfort and terror for a while, and probably be killed much, much sooner. Maybe as soon as a few minutes from now, when we try to fly out of here." He looked around at the assembled company. The moment of truth had arrived. "So OK, who wants to go with me?"

Bates expected Oscomb and maybe Mel to volunteer immediately. But instead, they all just looked at each other. Mel and Jane were standing together, holding each other tightly.

"Who do you feel is needed?" asked Mel.

"Everyone," replied Bates. "Each of you has unique talents, and we don't know yet what sort of talents will be useful. There's plenty of room in the Bus for us all, at least so far."

"What do you mean 'so far'?" asked Oscomb. "Will there be others?"

Bates was a little sorry Oscar had asked that question. He was afraid that if they all understood as well as he did how shaky this whole thing was, he'd be on his own. "Well," he answered hesitantly, "my general plan is over the next couple days to pick up whatever help that we figure we will need. Smart people and high-tech equipment, I suppose. Last night and this afternoon I started looking at the data from the safe for ideas, and there are some interesting things that may help us. I'm not exactly sure what, but it's a start. If it gets too crowded in the Bus, we may have to re-think things, but for right now, I'd like to get as many volunteers as I can get from among you guys."

Bates was getting a little worried now. An image of himself flying the Bus alone into the Washington monument flashed through his mind. No, on second thought, that was maybe ten miles away, and he probably wouldn't get any further than the water tower across the street from the Base. No, on third thought, he might not even clear Hank's guard shack at the Base gate. "So what do you say?"

Mel stepped up to his friend. "We already decided while you were sending your message Narb. We all want to go."

Bates let out a huge sigh of relief. His head spun a little, but he avoided fainting. "Great!" he exclaimed, again overwhelmed. "I really don't want to get killed alone; I'd rather take my friends with me."

Oscar, anxious to get right into the thick of things after being a bit plowed the previous night, was still full of questions. "I must have missed something. Can you tell us more about who we might get to help us, besides your old girlfriend in Arizona?"

Bates struggled to formulate an acceptable answer. Frankly, what he had so far seen of the contents of the data cube didn't really provide very much hope. He had expected to find descriptions of powerful weapons. There were indeed such descriptions, but there was a total lack of actual weapons. Strategic weapons needed to deal with Dannos or even the Ra had been dismantled years ago. Ideas for new weapons that would take years to develop were of little value, since they had only about one week.

Technical help had to be ready-made, like some of the other things discussed by the data cube. Unconventional things. So incredibly unconventional and unlikely that he hesitated to identify them to the group. Actually, his plan was based entirely on an old western called 'The Magnificent Seven' that he had seen on the COM a few nights earlier. What was the name of that bald actor? His favorite part was near the beginning of the movie, when the bald guy scrounged the area for unlikely heroes that could be had cheap. Bates planned to basically fly around picking up more and more help, until they had enough heroes and so forth to save the Earth. Maybe it was a totally lame plan, but it was all that he had.

Bates was relieved of the necessity to formulate a ridiculously optimistic sounding answer to Oscar's question by the opening of the vault door. It was Norma returning, and she was out of breath and visibly terrified. "They're here, they're here!" she shouted, as she struggled to quickly close the heavy vault door. "It's the Ra!"

While Oscar finished securing the massive steel door, Bates questioned the frightened woman. "Where did you see them?"

"Out front; coming from your office maybe, both Twig and Renson. I ducked away. I don't think they saw me, but I'm not sure."

"Well," reasoned Bates, "they probably didn't see you or know to chase you, or they'd have caught you. Renson is as fast as a Cheetah."

"Unless," said Hank. Hank was usually a man of few words, but the group needed more than that.

"Unless what?" queued Oscar.

"Unless they let Norma be free," explained Hank. "So's they could follow her right back ta-us here, so's to get us all."

They all looked back at the solid steel safe door. At that moment a huge booming sound resounded throughout the vault, while the floor shook beneath their feet from a massive shock! They all realized immediately that the Ra had arrived, and were applying fantastic forces in an effort to forcefully break into the vault!

"Quick! To the Bus!" cried Bates, though not very loudly, as he had no idea as to the hearing capabilities of their pursuers. Bates was the last to leave the room. Glancing back at the massive steal vault door, he was astonished to see it glowing red and actually bending inward slowly, in response to incredible heat and pressure! Bates hurried himself and the others out to the Bus and closed the second vault door behind them. Mel threw a switch that caused the heavy steel garage door to open to the outside. Hopefully, all their pursuers were still behind them, and not outside waiting for them!

Bates sat down in the middle seat in back of the pilot and copilot positions. Everyone else scrambled into the passenger seats behind him, including Oscar, who had closed and latched the Bus door. Noting the emptiness of the pilot and copilot seats, Bates realized suddenly what the group had neglected one dire necessity. They needed a pilot!

"Say, who the hell can fly this thing?" he demanded. He got blank stares in response. "OK then, any aircraft pilots in the group?" He got shaking heads in response. "Bus drivers?" A dull crash and shock jolted the Bus. Bates reasoned that the first vault door had been breached. Now only the second vault door leading into the garage separated the Ra from the Bus and its terrified passengers!

In desperation Bates himself climbed into the pilot seat and stared at the controls. There were hundreds of them, finger sized buttons, odd shaped knobs, and scads of dials and display screens. They glowed softly, providing the only light within the otherwise darkened Bus.

He didn't recognize any of the controls; he didn't even know how to start the blasted engines! Suddenly there were hands pulling him back into the center seat, and Norma plopped herself into the pilot seat, while Sandra put herself into the copilot seat!

"Well, I designed most of this thing," said Norma, "so I guess I could try to fly it."

"And I flew it in the simulator once," said Sandra. "That was ten years ago, of course, and I wasn't very good."

What luck! Bates had forgotten that Sandra was an aeronautical engineer! "OK, OK, you're both hired!" he cried. "Let's get going!"

Norma and Sandra started throwing switches. Immediately, control panels and displays lit up, and muted engine sounds filled the Bus. Bates was looking through a side portal back at the remaining vault door. It was already glowing red and bulging outward, and the Bus shook from steady thunderous pounding on the vault door by the Ra. "We have to get going!" Bates shouted.

"I can't even see where to exit the garage!" responded Norma.

Bates looked at the windshield and saw pitch darkness. "What's wrong with the windshield?" he asked.

"Probably nothing," responded Norma. "I didn't design that part of it, but I know that it can darken up to protect against direct sunlight. We have to find the controls for it and make it transparent!"

Bates scanned the dimly glowing controls in panic, and finally noticed what he thought was a likely looking knob. It looked vaguely like the wiper-knob on his Nitro. As he reached for it, Sandra's hand stopped his.

"No, I think that's an attitude thruster!" she said. Let's try this one." She reached for an almost identical knob.

Attitude thruster? Gritting his teeth, Bates had visions of the white plastic Bus thrusting and bouncing around inside the steel garage like an oversized Ping-Pong ball!

Sandra had picked the correct knob. Dim light flooded the inside of the Bus, as in response to a weak electrical current the windshield turned transparent, revealing a clear escape path through the open outside doorway, to an open area outside hidden in the featureless gray shadows of dusk. A faint glow to the south-west indicated the direction of the setting sun.

As vibration from pounding on the vault door intensified the Bus rolled outside at a disturbingly leisurely pace, and stopped a few yards outside the garage doorway. The Bus was surrounded by a high wire fence. The only way out was up, but the good news was, they were in a FLYING Bus, hopefully. The bad news was it had never yet flown.

Norma threw a switch, and the heavy steel garage door started to ponderously close. As it was slowly closing, Bates saw the red-hot, crumpled remains of the second vault door fly across the garage, and Renson strode through the torn twisted remains of the doorway. A moment later, the Ra cyborg was running towards the garage door, but it slammed shut just in time. Bates felt more tremors in the Bus, and could hear muffled thuds, even though the Bus was virtually sound proof. The Ra were already trying to break out of the garage!

"Which way should we go, Bates?" asked Norma.

"I don't care," said Bates, "as long as up is part of it! Towards the setting Sun maybe? Who cares?" The Sun was just starting to set towards the West. "How about South-West towards the White House?"

Meanwhile, Sandra had produced some sort of list that she now started reading from. "Pressure equalizer on."

"Check," replied Norma.

"Fuel pressure normal."

"Check."

"Gyroscopic stabilization system on."

"Check."

The pre-flight check-out went on and on for long agonizing seconds that seemed like hours. In the meantime, Bates looked through the side portal at the steel garage door and saw Renson's fist come crashing through it, then though it again, though due to the growing whine of the Bus engines, he heard no sound. Looking through the portal was like watching a VISICOM screen with the sound off. But they all knew that the Ra were not mere images, they were terrifyingly real. Again Renson's fist came crashing through the steel door, enlarging the hole. Very soon, he would be through it and upon them! Bates could well imagine those powerful fists pounding right through the side of the Bus, despite its solid appearing construction.

Bates looked back at the other passengers. They were grim faced and silent, even Milo, who read the mood of his companions and went along with it, though he had no comprehension of what was causing all the distress. Hank, in the first passenger row, clutched his assault rifle tightly, although its effectiveness against super-powered Ra was highly questionable.

Oscar flanked the security guard. The big biologist was watching Renson's destructive progress with interest as he absent mindedly petted Milo, whom he had strapped in beside him. "Too bad we don't have a bottle of beer to christen this tub!" said Oscar, forcing a smile as he acknowledged Bates. In back of Oscar sat Mel and Jane, who, in spite of all the restraining straps, were still managing hold each other fairly closely. Finally, an exhausted Dr. John T. Barns sat across from Mel. His tired eyes met Bates' gaze with steely strength.

Seemingly oblivious to the Ra, Norma and Sandra continued the pre-flight check in a steady monotone. Bates lost track of what they were saying as he watched in fascination Renson tearing the hole ever larger with his bare hands! His hands glowed white hot, apparently softening the heavy steel so it could more easily be bent and ripped. Bates had imagined that the Ra used some sort of heavy weapons against the vault doors that they had already overcome, but he realized now that Renson had probably done it all with his bare hands! How could that be possible? Were they robots? Nuclear powered cyborgs perhaps? The technology required for such a thing was certainly far beyond what humans could do.

Renson was just stepping out through the ragged opening in the garage door when, in some corner of his mind, Bates heard Norma say 'liftoff'. Suddenly, he was compressed down into his seat and the garage and everything else seemed to drop away around the Bus! He had a last glimpse of Renson raising a glowing arm and pointing it at them. There was a bright flash and the Bus shuttered violently then for just a moment, as though it had been stricken by a mighty fist. Then the sturdy Bus continued on, up and up.

Bates looked out and down. For a few moments he saw lights of the suburbs below them. A few streetlights had just come on, and there were scattered headlights to mark the nearby Capital beltway. Then the Bus poked up into the gray clouds and there was nothing but gray, until they popped out above them. Thousands of stars filled the blue-gray sky, and the Sun was setting ahead and slightly to their right.

They had made it! Bates breathed a large sigh of relief. The Bus worked, and they were in competent hands. Carbuncle was evidently more of a pilot then she thought.

Sandra, apparently not enjoying the view as much as Bates, turned to Bates with utter terror in her eyes and simply asked "how high?"

Bates would have replied, but Norma Carbuncle suddenly raised other concerns. "Sandra, here's the Flight Manual. You have control." The stout inventor handed Sandra a small but thick book. Bates noticed the title, Space Bus User's Manual; Volume I of XXII, on the cover.

Norma's face was a pasty white color, and she was breathing rapidly, as she hurriedly unstrapped herself and staggered towards the back of the Bus. Sounds of retching could be heard moments later. Bates hoped that Norma had found a barf bag in time.

Looking back at the passengers, Bates noticed that several others were also looking a little off-color. "Anyone have some Dramamine?" he asked. It was clearly one of the more important issues of the moment. "What about you, Jane?" he asked.

"I'm a nurse, not a drug store!" she replied, clearly irritated to have to converse while she too was trying to focus on not losing her own breakfast.

Sandra sat frozen in a state of utter terror, rigidly clutching her newly activated co-pilot controls and staring blankly out into the gathering blackness of dusk. Bates called out her name and poked and shook her but received no response. He suddenly realized that nobody at all was flying the damn Bus! Sandra was completely out of action! Bates shouted and shook her violently, but she was a complete zombie.

As he desperately studied the control read-outs in a hopeless attempt to figure out their purpose and status, he noticed that one labeled altitude was displaying ever-decreasing numbers. He looked out the window. There were no more stars; they were again inside the clouds. Then suddenly they were below the clouds! Even as he watched, suburban lights on the ground below re-appeared and grew ever closer!

They were dropping like a rock. No, not quite, judged Bates, their flight-path was more like the trajectory of a thrown rock: they had considerable forward motion, but they were in a steep descent. Judging from the lights he saw far ahead and below, they would crash somewhere in downtown Washington DC! "Hokey smokes!" he exclaimed.

****

CHAPTER 18

A QUICK DC BUS TOUR

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

\- Oscar Wilde

In the White House Oval Office President Wright was just finishing a long, essentially useless day. Christmas was a week from today. Less than a week remained for humanity, a fact that made all other issues seem trivial indeed. She quite naturally found herself deferring everything until 'after the holidays', with every expectation that there would be no 'after the holidays'. The impotence of her office and herself in the face of the impending Dannos disaster was nearly impossible to endure.

Suddenly there was urgent knocking at her door and her excited Chief of Staff John Ryan came rushing in, showing surprising speed for a man in his seventies. "Madam President! Urgent news! Scan this incredible message, but quickly!" He handed her a sheet of paper.

She skimmed through the message. It was from a Dr. Bates, Head of the DOD. He was claiming presidential powers; he blamed the asteroid business on space aliens, and identified the fugitive Melberg and two others as space aliens called Ra!

"But this is fantastic..." began Wright, only to be interrupted by Ryan.

"Excuse me Madam President! Fantastic yes, but there is a very urgent related matter! Less than two minutes ago, the National Police reported an aircraft of strange design taking off from the DOD Base just north of here. White House Security has it sighted visually and on radar now, and it's headed this way! It should be here in about two minutes! Madame President, we aren't totally sure of this fellow's intentions, or if it even is him. This could be an air attack; we must get you to a safer place!" Ryan had already come around to her side of the desk and was pulling her up out of her chair.

"No, John!" She pushed him away. "We have a little time; let's see if we can see them coming." She went not to a window, but to her huge VISICOM screen. "Patch me in to White House Security for visuals of the aircraft," she ordered. In moments she was looking at the strange airborne object. The object had headlights like a land vehicle, plus red and green lights like an aircraft. A plume of light trailed along underneath it, suggesting some sort of rocket or jet engine propulsion. It was apparently headed straight for the White House.

"Assuming that it's Bates, what do you think he's up to, John? You talked to the man recently, correct? Is he coming here to move into this office or what? Is he dangerous? "

Ryan thought for a moment. "Harmless is the word I would have used to describe the man, or perhaps useless. He struck me as career desk jockey; not a man of decisiveness or action at all. Perhaps he's just trying to get our attention. Frankly, his massage had been sitting in my 'in' basket since earlier this morning. I saw who it was from and put it off as low priority. I only remembered it when I got the aircraft report from the NP."

"So then, he did get our attention, didn't he!" observed the President.

Ryan was distracted by a message on his headphones. "It's Security. They want to know if they should shoot down the bus."

"Bus! It's a bus?" asked Wright, staring at the screen more closely. The body of the vehicle was just barely visible in the fading sunlight.

"That's what it looks like," answered an equally incredulous Ryan. "Security has viewed it from several angles."

"John, is this Bates fellow attacking us in a flying bus? What's going on?"

The more Ryan considered the proposition that Bates was attacking the White House, the less sense it made. Judging from the message, his intentions were good, even if misguided. On the other hand, he just couldn't be absolutely sure. For all they knew, it could be that traitor Melberg coming to attack them, not Bates. "I don't know," said Ryan.

Ryan was again interrupted by his earphones. "I have a voice-only call coming through, Madame President. This man claims that he's Bates, and that he's flying in on a bus! I'll put it on speaker-phone."

****

As they were zooming in towards the capital, Bates suddenly realized that they were entering one of the few areas left on Earth that probably had some sort of military air defenses. Aided by Barns, he made another call to the White House, and was surprised to almost immediately reach Mr. Ryan.

"Mr. Ryan? This is Narbando Bates from the DOD Base. Remember me sir? We spoke earlier in the week. I'm speaking to you from a flying Space Bus that we just got out of mothballs, so it turns out that we did have a space ship after all! With me are several eminent scientists, including Drs. Barns, Guthery and Carbuncle." Ryan and Wright recognized those names. "Unbelievable as it may sound; we've just had to flee enemy aliens at the Base. Sorry to barge through this way, but we urgently request clearance to fly through the area. Close to the White House, as a matter of fact."

"What do you mean, when you say aliens?" asked Ryan.

"Space creatures. The Ra. Bad guys from another planet, like I said in my written message."

"Bates, or should I say President Bates, this is President Wright. Land at once and we'll sort all this out!"

"Glad my message finally got your attention Madam President, but we can't land to chat just now," replied Bates. "In the first place, we don't know how to land yet. We just figured out how to take off a couple of minutes ago in order to escape from the Ra!"

Oscomb was at that very moment pouring through the User's Manual, and yelling at both Sandra and Norma, urging them to take control of the Bus. He used some very creative English, but Sandra still sat frozen with fear and unresponsive in the copilot seat, and Norma was still barfing in the back of the Bus.

"In the second place," continued Bates, "there's nothing to sort out. We're determined to attempt to avert the coming asteroid disaster, despite the odds. In the third place, the Ra have been after us for the last 24 hours, and they probably still are. We simply don't have time to stop. We're on the run from them now!"

Bates glanced again at the altimeter, which indicted lower and lower altitude, and at Sandra, who still sat staring blankly out the windshield with hands frozen on the controls. Towards the back of the Bus, Jane was crying and being comforted by Mel, who was crying and being comforted by Jane, and Oscomb was now focusing most of his yelling at Norma, who could still be heard retching her guts out. Hank started singing some sort of country gospel, and Barns was either praying or cursing in several languages, Bates couldn't tell which. Milo, sensing serious trouble, was howling. What this all sounded like to the President and her chief of staff, Bates couldn't begin to guess.

"Are you having trouble up there?" asked President Wright.

"Nothing that a good Space Bus pilot, some Pepto, and a dog catcher couldn't fix," replied Bates, as he checked the controls. As near as he could tell, they were now only 1000 meters above Washington, and still gradually accelerating. The Washington Monument, Capital dome, and other landmarks were clearly visible and becoming closer by the second. When Bates had earlier suggested to Norma and Sandra that they set a course towards the White House, perhaps his words had been taken a bit too literally, for they were indeed headed directly towards the White House on a collision course.

"Listen, it's been an honor, President Wright, but I've really got to hang up now and try to keep this thing from crashing into you. Bye for now." Bates put the microphone down and started looking desperately through volumes of the User's Manual that Oscar had already abandoned. Oscar was attempting to wrestle stout Norma, barf bag and all, back up to the cockpit of the Bus.

"Ryan, tell Security that the Bus has clearance and to COM 9-1-1," said President Wright. "They could be coming down anywhere!" On the big VISICOM screen, the image of the bus had more than doubled in size. "Now, Mr. Ryan, let's get the hell out of here!" She popped out of her seat and ran unceremoniously for the inner catacombs of the White House, trailed closely by Ryan, who was shouting into his VISICOM as he went.

The situation in the Bus was growing more and more desperate. Flipping frantically through the User Manual's index, Bates found an entry titled 'Collision Avoidance System' that seemed to have some possibilities. In moments he located the corresponding switch on the control panel. Unfortunately, details on exactly what the function was supposed to do were in Volume VI, wherever the hell that was. Muttering a quick prayer he threw the switch.

The switch glowed more brightly; other than that, nothing seemed to happen.

Bates stared transfixed through the windshield, as the White House got larger and larger! It was all lit up for the tourists, including a wonderful seventy-foot Christmas tree. It was a truly beautiful sight. He noticed that this evening there were several tour buses visiting the White House.

Well, he thought, it's now or never. As frightened and as inexperienced as he was, he had to try something. He leapt into the pilot's seat and pulled back on and twisted the yoke!

Instantly the Bus banked up and to the right, missing the White House by 50 meters. A nearby office building appeared in front of them, so suddenly that Bates had no time to react. His lack of action allowed the Bus to become close enough to impact to at last activate the Collision Avoidance System. The Bus banked violently left, throwing Bates out of his seat and on top of Sandra, and bouncing Oscar and Norma back down the aisle. Fortunately, everyone else was still strapped in. The Bus shot towards and next avoided the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian Information Center, the Capital Building, the Lincoln Memorial and several less famous historical items in fairly quick order. It was like riding the inside of a large Ping-Pong ball that was taking a tour.

Finally, while they were for several seconds calmly shooting across the Potomac, Bates was able to regain the pilot seat, strap himself in, and grab the controls again. This time he very gently eased the yoke back and gained altitude. They had the luxury of entering Arlington at several hundred feet, allowing them to fly safely and comfortably over the Pentagon without any danger of collision.

This allowed them a wonderful view of the giant central glass enclosure and other recent additions made since the end of the Cold War. The Pentagon, which had essentially been turned into a shopping mall with a giant planter in the middle, was lit up spectacularly for the holidays. It was yet another colorful point of interest that the Bus passengers weren't currently in the mood to fully appreciate.

Bates continued to experiment gently with the controls, gradually getting a feel for them. The controls for the Bus reminded him strongly of the flight simulator VISICOM games he played at home and at work. Over Reagan/National Airport he had to dodge both a giant airliner that was taking off and a little puddle-jumper that was landing. He flew south for perhaps a few miles, and then cautiously turned south-west and flew deeper into Virginia.

After several minutes of continued life and relatively smooth flying, Bates was starting to feel more confident, and so was everyone else. The yelling, howling, cursing, praying and screaming had stopped, at least for the moment. Still, Bates couldn't see himself piloting the Bus all the way to Arizona or into space. "Isn't anyone fully trained to fly this thing?" he asked.

Mel moved up to occupy the flight engineer seat behind Bates and Sandra. "Only one person trained extensively to fly this thing, Narb: Mark Flood. I saw him just recently. Remember that VISICOM special on cosmology that I was in last year? Flood hosted it."

"Oh OK," said Bates, "I know who you mean now. He struck me as a good man."

"Top rate; an ex-Navy Commander. Anyway, Bates, I think we should get him if we can. Strangely enough, when we last talked, he even hinted to me that he would like to be flying in space again. Odd damn conversation as I recall; he talked with me as though I was looking to hire an astronaut! He works in Virginia, only one or two hundred kilos from here, so I guess he's our man."

"Sounds good, Mel," said Bates. "Why not try to raise him on the COM? Maybe we can pick him up right away. Maybe he can even tell us how to land this thing so that we can pick him up without getting killed!"

Mel went further back in the Bus to COM Commander Flood. Shortly he returned to Bates with surprising news. "I just had a really weird conversation with Flood. He says that he'll meet us in an hour, but not to COM again until we arrive, or we might be intercepted. We should maintain total COM silence. But here's the really weird part. He claims that he had been expecting our call!"

"No way," responded Bates. "How could he have anticipated our call?"

"I bet I know," ventured Oscomb. "Our little escapade in Washington is probably all over the VISICOM channels by now!"

"That was my guess too," admitted Mel. "But when I asked Flood about it, he claimed that his boss has been expecting us for months!" Jaws dropped open again.

"Well, his boss is known to be eccentric," remarked Oscomb.

"He can afford to be eccentric!" added Mel. "Is he also psychic?"

"Maybe you have a leak in your B-team," theorized Barns, who had just come forward to join in the conversation. Despite the rough Bus ride, his condition was continuing to improve. "He may have learned that there has been an effort to get this Bus ship-shape."

Mel as well as Oscar flatly denied any such possibility. "Well, I only met the man himself once," said Mel, "but he's an oddball, that's for sure!"

Bates wondered how eccentric someone had to be for Mel to consider them odd.

"Think we'll get the opportunity to meet him tonight?" asked Oscomb?

"I wouldn't be surprised," answered Mel. "The old man gets his fingers into everything at that place."

"Wow! Do you think they might give us a tour?" asked Sandra, who was coming out of her panic induced trance at last. Perhaps they could now pry her out of the copilot's seat.

"Well, I sure to heck hope so!" added Hank, who had come forward and was clearly also excited at the prospect.

Bates, as often was the case, still didn't know what everyone else was talking about. "All right, all right! I give up! Who the heck is Flood's boss, and where the heck are we going, and what the hell tour are you talking about?"

Hank turned to Bates with a snort. "Well now, it's just like I always figured. Some of you rocket scientists don't know much oh-nothing 'bout important things do yeah?"

"Bates," explained Mel, "the place we're going to pick up Flood is Enterprise City. If we had time, I'm sure they would give us a tour. Unfortunately, given the choice between a Trekkie tour and saving the Earth, I suggest we make our visit brief. Anyway, why tours are called 'Trekkie tours' will become obvious when you see the place. Oh, and of course Flood's boss is the man that built Enterprise City, the world's richest person: Ray Dave Jigs!"

****

CHAPTER 19

THE RA REGROUP

Things that are done, it is needless to speak about

things that are past, it is needless to blame.

\- Confucius

Master Dow'Na, leader of the Earth mission, furiously paced the bridge of the Mother Ship as it circled the doomed planet Earth in geosynchronous orbit. Increasingly, he feared for the mission outcome. They were already five Ra-days behind schedule, and every passing moment increased the risk that they would come under scrutiny of the Galactic League after the coming Earth/Dannos disaster. The Ra were supposed to have left this accursed system earlier; so that they would be light years away when the asteroid struck. The League was conveniently inept, but not totally so. There had to be no evidence that the Ra had ever been on Earth at all; the Ra could not afford to be blamed for Earth's destruction.

The other two Warrens had completed their missions successfully weeks ago and had already returned to the Mother Ship. Only Twig and her Warren remained on Earth; but they were the lead group. Twig, better known by her Ra name Twi'Na, was supposed to have reported when she obtained key data from the USA DOD. Without that data the mission would not be judged to be a complete success by the Na'Ra Hierarchy. The DOD data might bring almost as much black market sales profit as all the rest of the Earth artifacts put together.

But it was much more than just a matter of profit. Just as devouring a sentient meant much more to a Ra than simply eating food to satisfy physical hunger, stealing the artifacts of human culture including treasured secrets, and selling them to the highest bidders, was a psychologically necessary part of Ra's destruction of humanity. A foe had to be completely denigrated and consumed, not simply killed. That was the Ra way.

By now Dow's anger was even stronger than his fear for the mission. More than half an Earth day had passed since Twig was supposed to report. Instead, he had received a short encoded message from Renson that merely indicated that they were having trouble, and that the Warren Leader would report when she was available. When she was available? Unless she was dead, she was available to report to her Master! Such disrespect for the Mission Master was totally unacceptable!

The Ra were hot-heads by nature; it was both their chief curse and their principal virtue. It was a source of strength that allowed them to accomplish things that the more 'civilized' Galactic races found too distasteful or boring. The Ra often touted themselves to be the indispensable blue collar workers of the Galaxy. They were that, to some degree, but they were also the leading thieves and shysters of the Galactic League, and they always wanted more.

In particular, it was the Na'Ra Order of the Ra that wanted Galaxy-wide power and wealth. They considered themselves to be responsible for achieving the Ra's place in Galactic society. Without the Na'Ra, the populace of Ra might have been content to remain on the Ra home world and live in a perpetual state of chaos and poverty.

To compensate for the emotions that were always threatening the degeneration of Ra civilization into anarchy, the Na'Ra order of the Ra had established strict rules and a Ra-wide tradition of unquestioned loyalty to the Na'Ra Hierarchy. Without such discipline the Ra race would lose control of themselves, and lose their worth in Galactic society.

Ambitious, Twi'Na had often operated on the fringes of disobedience to command. She understood that to advance in the Hierarchy, one had to take chances. Also, her family was powerful, and she never hesitated to take as much advantage of that factor as she could. However, her ambition, connections, and free-wheeling attitude did not endear her to her immediate superior. Dow had advanced through the ranks by use of more honorable means than family connections, such as cunning, lies, and ruthless violence, including several well placed murders.

Dow responded to Twig's insubordination angrily with an order that Twig herself was to report immediately. This time she had gone too far. Uncle on the ruling Circle of the Na'Ra or not, she was in big trouble. Depending on how well she projected the appropriate subservience when she responded, and on how bad she was bungling the mission, this might be his opportunity to discredit or even permanently dispose of Twig once and for all. She was his most capable Warren Leader, but she was too much competition to bear within his command.

Perhaps Dow would order one of his other Warren leaders to take over Twig's duties, and to dispose of Twig in the bargain. All he needed was sufficient justification, and as the hours passed, that justification was gradually becoming overwhelming.

Then Renson sent a second message to the Mother Ship stating that he was personally monitoring progress. The meaning of the statement could not be mistaken. Renson was declaring this to be a Ca'Ra concern, and Dow was to keep his distance.

Renson was the wild card in this whole thing, and Dow hated the Ca'Ra Priest even more than he hated well-healed Na'Ra upstarts like Twi'Na. For uncountable millennia, the mysterious Ca'Ra, using drugs and brute force as well as controlling ideology enforced through brainwashing education, had been the undisputed masters of Ra lusts. They still offered the only culturally sanctioned channels for release of the powerful, primal, Ra emotions. Love and hate and everything in between had been institutionalized by the Ca'Ra.

Were the primal lusts of the Ra really still so strong? Dow suspected that for centuries such appetites and cravings were actually being perpetuated by the Ca'Ra. Without the Ca'Ra, and the use of such Ca'Ra devices as the drug known as Ca, perhaps the primal lusts of the Ra would moderate, as had occurred with many other races of the Galactic League.

When he was younger, Dow envisioned himself escaping the ancient power of the Ca'Ra by becoming a leader in the modern Na'Ra Order. He even had visions of Na'Ra reason and enterprise and greed at last breaking the power the Ca'Ra held over Ra society.

But that was long ago. Since then he learned that the Na'Ra only existed essentially at the convenience of the Ca'Ra. The Na'Ra Order was secretly the economic and political extension of the Ca'Ra. Though the Na'Ra openly ran the Ra Government and made routine decisions, policy and serious decisions were determined behind closed doors by the Ca'Ra. The Galaxy didn't know it, most of the Ra populace and many Na'Ra didn't even know it, but Dow was high enough in the Na'Ra Hierarchy to know it. He had seen it many times. Na'Ra known to oppose the Ca'Ra were not promoted, or in more serious cases, suffered unfortunate fatal 'accidents' or simply disappeared: probably cannibalized by the Ca'Ra. As much as Dow hated the Ca'Ra Priests, he feared them far more.

Dow had not been surprised when a Ca'Ra was made a part of his mission team. Often young Ca'Ra participated in Na'Ra-led efforts as part of their apprenticeships. But Dow immediately knew when he met Ren'Ca, known by the name Renson on Earth, that this Ca'Ra was no mere apprentice. His eyes were cold, dark, pits and he moved with fluid grace. That meant cyborg augmentation: which either meant lots of money, like Twig, or that Ren'Ca was a Ca of the Second Order, at least. In either case, Ren'Ca had to be taken very seriously. So Dow held his anger in check, and did as Ren'Ca asked, even though he seethed.

Worse still than Dow's anger, and fed by it as well, was his hunger. They were supposed to have dined on the human earlier, on that plump little toad of a bureaucrat that had caused Twig the delays. Dow would have to eat something soon or he would be in danger of blood lust. He signaled an aid to bring him food.

The aid appeared moments later with a common Earth vermin; what was it called? Oh yes, a rat. Quite tasty really; and he liked the way the body still twitched after he bit off the head. The skull was nice and crunchy, and the creature had a handy tail to hold it by. Eating a rat was not as good as eating a human, but since it wasn't sentient at least no bothersome Ca'Ra rituals were required.

He was in a hurry, so he simply swallowed the rat whole. It was a little hairy for his taste, but he was sure these animals would become a big hit with the Ra populace, particularly since they would soon be the only remaining Earth-life form in existence. He would have to take care that the crew didn't eat all the breeding stock before they reached home. Content for the moment, he sat down in the comfort of his command chair to await events and hopefully get some rest.

Hardly had his eyes closed when an aid came rushing to his side "Master! Something is happening!"

Dow opened his eyes and watched the main viewing screen. Radar and infrared scanners indicated that a vehicle had just left the planet's surface in the vicinity of the Base. It was climbing much faster than any Earth vehicles currently in use, though its forward speed was still slow. It had to be Twig's ship. But why weren't they reporting in?

Looking more closely at the readings, he had the answer. Reflective index, temperature, and flight trajectories were all wrong. It wasn't a Ra ship; it had to be some sort of Earth vehicle! While it was still well within the atmosphere, the craft began to lose altitude. It was headed straight for central Washington DC.

"There is a call from Warren Leader Twi'Na Master," announced an aid.

Twig at last! Now this should be interesting. At a nod of his head Twig's image appeared on the screen. Appropriately, she was bowed down in a position of submission.

In the background, Ren'Ca stood erect, but gave a slight nod of his head in a greeting of equals. It was a clear sign to Dow that they would proceed now with himself still nominally in charge, but that he should remain alert to the fact that at any time Ren'Ca may proceed on his own or even take command. Had the Ca'Ra made a submissive motion, it would have meant normalcy. No nod and Dow would have immediately deferred completely to Ren'Ca.

Dow'Na returned the nod to the steely eyed Ca'Ra, indicating he understood and would comply. The nod could not be seen by Twig, but he was sure that his senior staff saw it and also understood. Among the Ra, body language was an important and precise form of communication.

"Master, this unworthy one begs forgiveness and offers herself as no-class apprentice or slave, as the Master wishes," began Twig.

It wasn't a bad beginning, reflected Dow, and it suggested hope for her portion of the mission. If she had simply offered herself without mentioning demotion, it would have meant there was no hope for her mission, and he would have been inclined to immediately accept; meaning of course, that Twig would be their next meal. On the other hand, she had still given a very serious and submissive preamble, suggesting that there were some very serious problems indeed.

Dow could now immediately reject or accept Twig's offer, or he could let the decision to be made by the whole Mission Force after all testimony was given. This was similar to plea-bargaining in the USA court system, but with the Ra, the initial sentence was passed prior to any testimony, and prior to acquiring full particulars of the offense.

Dow decided to accept her offer immediately. Her insubordination alone was enough to justify such an action to the Hierarchy. Instead of the dishonor of slavery, he would choose to take her under his wing, so to speak, as his apprentice. That way he saved face for her powerful family, but he could still keep her under his heal. Like the humans said, keep your friends close but your enemies closer. "I accept your offer," announced Dow. "Rise, Apprentice No-Class Twi'Na, and give me your report."

A long hiss of relief escaped her as she rose. When Dow had hesitated, she feared that he would decline, leaving the matter of sentencing completely up to her peers, in which case death was a distinct possibility, as she was not well liked by the crew. But Dow had made the wise choice, as she predicted that he would. Her career was set back at least 5 years, but she would live. And, responsibility for the screwed up mission was now fully assumed by Dow, as he was the apprentice's Master.

It was a very good deal, Twig considered, as she began her report. "Yes Master. Your humble apprentice regrets to inform you that the Earth man Barns, aided by the treacherous Earth man Bates, has temporarily escaped us in a flying vehicle."

So far, this wasn't a biggie, thought Dow; they could always find another meal.

"Worse, in the process they killed two of the crew."

Regrettable, thought Na'Ra, but still not too important. But she wasn't done yet.

"Worse, the Earth men have escaped with all the data collected by the Warren."

Dow grimaced and snarled. This was terrible! This could reduce Mission profits by over 40%! Fortunately, profit was secondary, thought Dow. The primary objective was to wipe out the humans, and that seemed to be inevitable now.

"Worst of all by far," continued Twig, "the stolen data chronicles activities of the Ra Warrens on Earth over the last Earth-century, implicating the Ra in the changing of Earth history and in changing the asteroid's course."

Dow hissed in disgust. This could be utterly disastrous! If the Galactic League discovered this data, the position of the Ra in galactic society could be set back for generation! Worse, heads would roll, or rather be eaten, including most certainly his own!

Ren'Ca stood watching impassively. The Ca'Ra had even greater concerns. Much worse even than League reaction, the real mission, which was not even suspected by Twig or Dow or the entire Na'Ra Hierarchy, could be jeopardized. There was a small but finite probability that the humans would use the information in the cubes to save the real target of the asteroid. He could not take that chance. Barns, Bates, and their friends had to be stopped, at any cost.

Her report finished at last, Twig collapsed to the floor in an attitude of abject subjugation, as befit her apprentice status. But Dow demanded details, and Twig had to pick herself up to a crouching position again in order to properly provide them. Twig told Dow everything that had happened. At last she finished, leaving Dow to ponder a solution to the problem.

Should they leave Earth immediately, and simply take the chance that no harmful messages would reach the Galactic League? That would minimize further potential exposure to the humans. Or, should they immediately find and destroy the escaped humans and the sensitive data? Or, should they first try to retrieve the marketable data from the humans? By Twig's report, they had pursued the later course so far, without success. That strategy fit Twig's character; it was the highest risk, highest profit approach. Half the huge profit from the selling of the Earth artifacts would go to Dow and his crew, if it could be regained.

Dow had to consider the bigger picture. First of all, as far as the Hierarchy was concerned, profit from this mission was purely a secondary motive. The primary objective was to exterminate the humans.

Earth and humanity had been studied by Galactic League members for centuries. Many races participated. Despite secret efforts of the Ra to damage and discredit the human civilization, humans continued to slowly progress. Ten Earth years ago, the Ra Hierarchy found out that the Galactic Council planned to admit the humans at the next full council meeting, now only one Earth-year hence. As a result, the Ra strategy of chronic interference in Earth affairs was dropped, and replaced by the plan to totally wipe out humanity prior to League admission.

The Ra correctly saw humans as the greatest threat imaginable to their niche in Galactic society, for in many ways, humans were simply too similar to the Ra. Like the Ra, humans were one of the few races capable of physical violence. Like the Ra, they were emotional, adventurous, primitive, and corruptible.

After admission to the League, humans would be unstoppable. They would flock out into the Galaxy by the thousands. Once free to move about the Galaxy, humans had qualities that would allow them to compete very successfully with the Ra. Compared to the Ra, humans were certainly more creative intellectually, as evidenced by the fact that Earth science and technology had progressed orders of magnitude faster than that of the ancient Ra. Worse still, humans were more 'arty'. Already, many forms of Earth art were being promulgated in the Galaxy. Earth music and paintings were valued particularly highly. In fact, Galactic appreciation of Earth art was one of the stronger arguments for League admission.

Worse yet, as with the Ra, there was a touch of larceny in the human soul. Human criminals would flourish in the more gullible Galactic cultures, in direct competition with Ra criminals.

Worse of all, the human counter tendency to fight crime could prove disastrous. The Ra envisioned fleets of human Galactic League police sweeping star systems free of larcenous Ra. "It takes one to know one," as the humans said. Humans would understand all too well how to oppose Ra interests.

The Ca'Ra factor was another issue for Dow to consider ahead of profit. The Ca'Ra cared nothing for profit. Dow could only guess that a high-ranking Ca'Ra was added to this mission to insure that personal profit motives did not obscure the primary objective of human genocide. He looked at Ren'Ca and found cold hard eyes staring into his. The Ca'Ra lifted one clawed hand to his throat and made a slicing motion.

The message was clear.

"We will pursue the escaped humans and destroy them as quickly as possible," Dow announced. The sound of hissing filled the room. This choice was not popular with the crew. If the data were to be destroyed, bonuses would be greatly reduced.

It was certainly not popular with Twig, who had hoped to continue the pursuit and retrieval of the missing data. She also wanted to dispose of Barns and Bates up close and personally. Now they would probably be laser blasted from a distance. It would be a waste of good meat, as well as data.

But Dow was concerned with the opinion of only one crew member. With relief, he saw Ren'Ca nod his head in affirmation. He knew that he was on the right track. "All Warrens will pursue the Earth craft immediately. Ren'Ca, you are now in charge of your Warren, and in local command of all Warrens as they engage in the pursuit." Again, the Ca'Ra nodded his approval. "And you may have the services of my new apprentice if you wish. Good hunting."

At that point, Dow had intended to terminate the discussion. Ren'Ca however, continued it. "Master Dow, I would speak with you privately."

"Very well, Warren Leader," Dow replied. He gestured for his aids to leave, and noted on the viewing screen with some satisfaction that Twi'Na, a little miffed, was also leaving Ren'Ca's presence. It would take a while for her to fully adjust to her lowly position. Dow would enjoy helping her adjust.

Ren'Ca got right to the point. "There are two things you should additionally know, Dow'Na. First, I already personally tried to destroy the Earth craft with a force 12 laser-based plasma ray and failed. The blast had no apparent effect."

Dow swallowed hard. Personally? Force 12? That was nearly as strong a blast as a Warren ship could provide! What sort of augmentation did this Ca'Ra have? What was his true rank? Could he be a Level One?

What sort of protection did the Earth ship have? A force 12 blast should have easily destroyed any Earth craft. Destroying the human ship might not be as easy as he had assumed it would be.

"Second," continued Ren'Ca, "we are all expendable on this mission. It must succeed at all costs. Is that clear?"

Dow swallowed again. "Yes Ca'Ra," he replied, as a chill swept through him. This was a very serious and dangerous situation. But Dow didn't really understand the Ca'Ra's motivation. Of course the mission would succeed; he doubted that even the Ra Mother Ship could prevent the asteroid from striking Earth now. Was Ren'Ca worried about word of Ra activities reaching the Galactic League?

He had an idea on how to prevent that. "Ren'Ca, I suggest that we establish jamming to mask Earth transmissions until the asteroid strikes. We can disguise the jamming as sunspot activity or some other natural phenomena. We know that there are currently no other Galactic craft near enough to distinguish it as jamming." Dow smiled, showing his long sharp fangs. He was quite proud of the plan.

"But we must also leave this solar system soon in order to escape suspicion," objected Ren'Ca. "After we leave, the messages of the humans would get through. Or, if we leave behind jamming equipment, such equipment could later be discovered by the League.

Dow had already thought about that. "True, Ren'Ca, but what if we all leave, except for one volunteer to run the jamming station? If we place the jamming station on Earth at the impact point of the asteroid, all evidence of our presence will be conveniently destroyed when the asteroid strikes." Dow continued smiling. This was his favorite part of the plan! Such a suicide mission would traditionally be performed by the lowest ranked Ra on the mission. At this time, that happened to be Twig.

It was an elegant solution, thought Ren'Ca. Brilliant, as a matter of fact. It was a minimum cost and risk approach that solved the major problems as Dow knew them.

But there was one issue that Dow's plan did not address, and it was the only issue that really mattered. A Ra near the impact point, unless a skilled Ca'Ra, could alert the actual target and jeopardize the real mission. Ren'Ca and the Ca'Ra previously assigned to the Earth mission had seen to it that this problem was avoided; no Ra other than a Ca'Ra had ever visited the impact area. Now in order to avoid it happening, he would tell this Na'Ra more than he wanted to tell him.

"An interesting plan, Master Dow, but impossible. In fact, under no circumstances are any Ra, with the possible exception of me, to travel near the impact point. That is very important. Instead, we must see to it that the escaped humans are destroyed immediately, before they themselves reach the impact point, while the Mother ship accomplishes jamming. Nothing is more important than immediately destroying the escaped humans, including discovery of Ra efforts on Earth by the Galactic League. Is that clear?"

Dow's eyes bugged out and a loud hiss escaped from between his meshed fangs. It was Ra body language for extreme astonishment.

Before Dow could foolishly ask more questions, Ren'Ca continued. "The reasons are not your concern. Also, your plan and my influence on this mission are not subjects of record."

Dow nodded affirmatively in deference and sighed. The Ca'Ra was tying both hands behind his back, and there was nothing he could do about it, ever, except perhaps look stupid to his superiors when this mission was over. But of course looking stupid was better than being dead.

Ren'Ca judged that Dow was unusually competent, for a Na'Ra. He hoped he would not have to terminate him; his skills could be used in other Ca'Ra influenced missions. "Master Dow," consoled Ren'Ca, "do not be overly concerned with the Hierarchy's judgment of your performance. Other Ra of greater influence will know to judge you fairly. That will be seen to; you have my pledge."

Ren'Ca turned away from the Ra Master, terminating the discussion and communications with the Mother Ship. All of this talk was wasting time. He must pursue the humans immediately, before they passed on their information to others! That would require use of the Warren spacecraft that for many years had formed the insides of Twig's home in suburban Washington DC, only a mile from the Base.

There was no time for him and Twig to drive a human vehicle from the Base to the spacecraft. Their Warren craft and the others would converge at the Base, and pursuit of the Earth vehicle would begin there. With merely a conscious thought, the necessary orders were sent to the Warren Ship from his augmented body.

****

CHAPTER 20

ALIENS AMONG US!

Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think that we are not. In either case, the idea is staggering.

\- Arthur C. Clarke

Martha Cranson could kick herself. There she was, up on her roof-top deck scanning the sky at dusk as usual, when the strange object lifted off only a few miles from her home! Through her binoculars it looked cigar shaped, a classic UFO form. Actually, it looked more bus shaped, but that was ridiculous.

Unfortunately, she was too slow. As the object moved south it popped up into a cloud before she could trade her binoculars for a camera. After hundreds of lonely days and nights on that roof, she missed recording her only sighting! Now she sat with VISICOM in hand, and a full array of other cameras on the deck around her, ready to take photos and videos of the object should it return.

Not that a return was necessarily imminent. She had moved to this house because as near as she could figure, this was where, five years before, she had seen a real UFO land. She could still close her eyes and visualize that ship: the flashing lights, the deep, bone tingling humming sound, the darting movements, the crackling power that it exuded! But since then, over the last five years, she saw no more UFOs at all. Until today.

Five years ago she saw it while she was parked in a car and making out on a dead end street with that hunky moron, Rodney Wayne. Occupied with other things, Rod had never even looked up to see the UFO, or let Martha up to chase after the thing, like she wanted to do. Afterwards, the idiot had ascribed her sighting to his prowess as a lover! Ha! Fat furry chance!

She hadn't believed in or thought of UFOs before that night, but the sighting had been a life changing experience for her. Since then, she always carried a VISICOM or other camera with her, and spent every spare moment and every spare penny watching for the object's return from her roof. She vowed to record proof of UFOs on disc, then distribute it via disc, cube and VISICOM broadcast.

And now, after all this work, when she finally did see something, she muffed it! She sat dejected on her roof in the gathering darkness, surrounded by cameras, cursing herself while scanning the skies anxiously. Minutes went by, and she began to think that nothing else would happen.

Suddenly she felt, rather than heard, a low humming of immense power! For just a moment, she sat surprised and puzzled. The vibration was unusual, but still somehow familiar; what was it? Then she remembered. This is exactly what she had felt five years ago. A UFO! She turned on her VISICOM recorder function, determined to catch on disc everything else she was going to see this night.

But where was the UFO? She scanned the cloudy, darkening sky in vein; there was nothing to see. Still, the humming increased dramatically; it was by now very audible!

Cameras and other objects began vibrating and bumping around on her rooftop deck like living hockey pucks. Birds wintered in bushes and trees nearby for the night squawked loudly. Auto burglar alarms in the neighborhood went off. Street lights flickered and trees swayed in the still, breezeless air, while trash cans rattled and bumped. Cars stopped on the street below, powerless, and sounds of opening windows and doors, and of anxious and angry voices, could be heard.

She felt suddenly vulnerable and exposed there on the shaking roof. What if the roof were to give-way? But she convinced herself that her house was solidly built; after all, it and most of the neighborhood were only a few years old. It had been farmland and forest when the UFO visited five years ago.

She scanned the darkening sky again, up, down, all around; there was still absolutely nothing to be seen except clouds high overhead. Other whining sounds in all segments of the spectrum were added and intensified. Martha attached the VISICOM to her helmet, so that she could put her hands over her ears, though it didn't help much. Why hadn't she thought to equip herself with earplugs? More important, where the hell was the ship? It had to be super close! Was it invisible?

Suddenly she noticed glowing and pulsing light of all colors of the rainbow streaming, brighter than sunlight, out of all the windows of the house behind hers! She started to record the strange phenomenon, though she still cursed and scanned with her eyes the sky in search of the missing space ship. Loud crashing sounds filled the air, and vibration and noise increased tenfold.

Martha watched in amazement as her neighbor's house started to lift off the ground!

Only when the house-shell started falling apart and off the rising space craft did she realize that the UFO was actually inside the house! And the damn thing was too close; pieces of house were dropping all around her dangerously. Martha stepped back away from it, nearly stepping off her own roof in the process, and struggled to adjust the VISICOM's field of view to capture all of the UFO, which was becoming more and more visible as pieces of the house fell away.

There was now no doubt in her mind; it was the same one she had seen five years ago. The damn thing had been right there all along, hidden in that house only yards from hers, probably for all of the last five years!

Despite an increasing shower of debris, the possibility of serious danger to herself didn't receive much thought until a twelve foot four-by four fell practically at her feet. The thing speared through her deck, the roof, and the floor below it, leaving only a foot of its length exposed. A dropping roof shingle from the flying house caught her on the shoulder, nearly knocking her down, but she kept the VISICOM recorder rolling. She wasn't about to let a little danger put her off now. This was it! The moment she had been waiting for! A real UFO! Wait until Rodney, and her mother, and all the other doubters saw this!

When it reached perhaps a hundred meters altitude, lightning momentarily surrounded the rising spacecraft, burning off the remaining house. Instead of heavy house parts, a fine black ash now fell, obscuring Martha's view slightly. Then the saucer shaped ship accelerated away rapidly.

When it was perhaps a mile away, in the same vicinity as the cigar shaped craft she had seen earlier, it descended out of sight for less than a minute. Then it rose again. Tracking it as it rose, Martha was startled to find that suddenly she was viewing three identical ships! Two others had apparently dropped down out of the clouds to join the first one! All three accelerated in formation south towards the Capital, along the same route that the smaller, cigar shaped craft had taken earlier.

****

In the aftermath of the Bus buzzing, Washington was in an uproar. There were many thousands of eye-witnesses to the odd event. Hundreds had recorded it with personal VISICOM units, and COM news networks were jammed with recorded data and commentary. Nobody knew what the vehicle was, who was in it, or why it had careened wildly through the Capital before shooting away towards the south and west. Speculation ran from Martians to disgruntled postal workers. Already, several fringe groups were claiming responsibility, including even the IRA and several brands of Islamic jihadists, though they had both supposedly disbanded years earlier.

About twenty minutes after the Bus visit, the National Police and White House Security informed the White House that three additional flying vehicles were heading towards Washington. These didn't stop either, but flew straight over the capital at about 4000 km/hr. and a kilometer in altitude. Within half an hour, national and international VISICOM stations were exhibiting numerous recordings of both the Bus and the saucer shaped craft, including incredible close-up saucer footage taken by Martha Cranson, a librarian from near Colesville Maryland. The National Police were soon pouring over what was left of the Twig residence, and confiscating personnel files at the nearby DOD Base.

The White House decided to take Bates' story about space aliens more seriously.

****

CHAPTER 21

ENTERPRISE!

The future is hidden even from the men who made it.

\- Anatole France

Bates and Team approached Enterprise City Virginia from the east.

At least that's what they hoped they were doing. As the Team hadn't expected to fly the Bus for several months, they weren't totally prepared for this impromptu trip. Even autos typically navigated using compasses, computerized maps, and periodic driver input, but the only navigation equipment currently operational on the Bus was a tiny magnetic compass that Oscar had on his keychain. Since they had no idea what the magnetic variation was in the area, they didn't want to simply dead-reckon using a compass, as few degrees error in heading due to local magnetic variation could ultimately lead to many miles in final position error. Worse yet, they didn't have a map of any kind. They could have easily downloaded one over the COM-net, but as Flood had warned, further communications could reveal their position to the Ra. They were already concerned about Mel's brief COM with Flood.

As a result, the navigational method being used for Earth's most advanced vehicle was somewhat primitive. They navigated using what the Team remembered from past vacations. They ended up following highways from the air, usually by shadowing the tail-lights of earthbound vehicles. Traveling low and slow in the darkness would hopefully evade Ra detection. Also, by tailgating earthbound vehicles they were able to follow the contours of the land and maintain an altitude of less than 100 meters.

Mel headed up the navigation effort, but having a Nobel Prize winning physicist navigating did little to allay the concerns of the Team with regard to their actual where-abouts. Several of them had gotten hopelessly lost in the past while traveling with Dr. Melvin Phineas Guthery while he navigated. Bates remembered one business trip to Los Angeles in which it took him two whole days to drive across town to the airport with Mel navigating. Every street looked the same mile after mile: wide with palm and pepper trees and small houses, convenience stores, laundries, liquor stores and other miscellaneous structures. And of course being men they refused to stop and ask anyone where they were. It wasn't quite the Base record for longest time required to traverse LA, but it was still several times longer than usual.

In a short time the Bus travelers were lost. Mel had once described to Bates a concept for satellite based navigation that was scrapped when the DOD was dismantled. Mel envisioned that satellite based navigation devices could be used commercially, including by airplanes and cars, and perhaps even be made part of hand-held VISICOM devices. That would require multiple satellites, perhaps a couple of dozen of them if global coverage was sought, which would require multiple, ecologically dirty launches of expensive rockets. Bates doubted that the satellite-based navigation concept was technically feasible, but it was certainly politically incorrect such that global positioning via satellite would never happen anyway.

The situation became so desperate that they rolled into an EXXON station to get maps and directions, as well as junk food. Landing the Bus in a nearby field was pretty rough, but nothing appeared to be damaged. Take-off was easy.

Even with maps, the trip proved difficult. Several times, vehicles that they were following turned off the routes that they wanted to take, and Bates followed the wayward vehicles for several miles before the mistake was discovered. In several instances vehicles that they followed stopped, and the occupants got out to point, jump up and down, and shout at the Bus. Bates could well imagine doing the same, if he were in their place. In such cases, the travelers turned out the Bus lights, pulled away from the highway slightly, and waited for another vehicle to come along that they could clandestinely follow.

As they moved further West into the more hilly areas of Virginia, traveling became even more difficult. Occasionally, there were obstructions that endangered the low flying Bus, including bridges and high voltage electric wires. Also, roads twisted and turned so much that it was much more difficult to keep track of them. Several times they had to land and read road signs in order to get themselves back on track.

The biggest problem was keeping Bates alert. Though observational and navigational help was provided by the others, he was the sole pilot for over an hour. It required an enormous amount of concentration, which was becoming increasingly impossible for the worn out physicist to muster as the night wore on. Despite continual conversation, directions, junk food, and slaps in the face from Mel and Oscar, Bates was becoming dangerously exhausted. The sugar and caffeine kept his tired eyeballs open, but behind them his mind was mush.

Finally a well-illuminated, life-sized Brachiosaurus appeared by the side of the highway. Next to the gigantic dinosaur model was a huge sign that indicated they had only 29 km to go before reaching Enterprise City. A few minutes later, as they rounded a large hill that had obscured what lay ahead, the weary passengers were treated to the first view of their destination.

In a snug valley, an array of conventional looking street and home lights surrounded one of the true wonders of the world. Rumored to cost tens of billions of dollars, some of Enterprise City was similar in concept to Disney World's Epcot Center, but in addition to being a center for public enlightenment and amusement, it was also a true center for science, technology, the arts, and education, in which tens of thousands of people actually worked, played, and lived.

It was a truly spectacular sight. Huge intersecting spires, mounds, and cubes, awash with green plants, glowing lights, and glass enclosures, dominated the central complex. These buildings housed the dinosaur, space, and architecture exhibitions, amusement rides, convention center, information center, corporate offices, ecological research center, music halls, universities, and other points of interest.

The far end of the complex was anchored by a huge, ancient looking stone castle, complete with moat, massive walls, soaring towers, colorful banners waving in the night breeze, and tens of thousands of Christmas lights. The castle housed the Jigs Corporation head-office, and at the top of the tallest tower were the working quarters of the multi-billionaire himself. A smallish translucent dome next to the castle was rumored to contain Jig's luxurious private home, never seen by the press or public.

However, the dominating central structure is what immediately caught everyone's eye. Towering above everything else was an immense, full size, Galaxy Class Starship Enterprise. Though the Earth-bound Enterprise rested on immense pillars, the shiny-white structure was powered up, as evidenced by numerous lights, and appeared to be poised to lift-off.

"Fly up behind the Enterprise, Bates," instructed Mel, who was on the COM with Flood, "and we should see an open shuttle bay door. Flood says he'll meet us there when we land." It took a few seconds for the implications of Mel's statement to wake Bates.

"Good God Mel!" exploded Bates. "You don't expect me to fly this thing into that oversized toy!"

"It's hardly a toy Bates, it's actually a five star hotel," explained Mel.

"Well whatever it is, you have got to be kidding. I'm too damn tired to even think about it. Let's just find another big open field someplace."

Mel placed a VISICOM helmet on Bates so that he could talk with Mark Flood directly. Flood's voice was reassuringly confident. "Don't worry Bates; we have you on radar and video. We've modified Shuttle Bay Number Two to handle the Bus. I can explain how to put the Bus under our automatic control, and we'll take it from there. Your piloting days are over."

Flood was good as his word. In less than a minute, the Bus was flying smoothly towards the Enterprise under complete remote control. Bates was no longer flying the Bus. The B-Team members all breathed a huge sigh of relief, none more sincere than that of Bates.

The B-Team had time to relax and take in a spectacular view. Several of them had visited Enterprise City before, but certainly not from a vantage point high above the complex. Below them was a huge domed enclosure in which huge, life-sized robot dinosaurs could be seen roaming among huddled groups of astonished tourists.

Next they were flying over an open air-concert hall where a live concert, attended by many thousands of people, was in progress. Flood patched their music into the Bus. It was Star Trek the Sixth Generation theme music, being played to welcome the Bus. 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town' was the next tune they played, while Flood explained that as a cover story, the Bus had been identified to be part of the evening's pre-Christmas entertainment. Flood then requested that they all don space suits, except for Hank, who should dress in his Santa costume.

"Do we even have space suits?" asked Bates.

"I think so," answered Oscar, "I saw them in the back. But how would Flood know?"

"I'll hit yah with a better one'n that!" said Hank. "How'd he know 'bout me'n old Saint Nick?" He pulled a travel case from under his seat, opened it, and pulled out his Santa costume. "Hell's bells," exclaimed Hank, "I didn't even know myself that I had it, till just now! I musta brought it with me without no thinking, when we was running from the Ra!"

Unable to solve these latest mysteries, the Team retrieved the bulky space suits from the back of the Bus and with great difficulty put them on. Hank had a much easier time of it with his familiar Santa suit. Meanwhile the Bus circled over Enterprise City under Flood's remote control, above cheering throngs of tourists. When they were finished getting dressed, the Bus spiraled majestically closer to the Enterprise.

The closer the Bus approached the Enterprise, the more impressive it seemed. Bates remembered seeing it many times before on VISICOM, but it was much more impressive in person. He had seen huge buildings before, but nothing to rival this spaceship shaped one; it had to be well over a kilometer high and more than twice as long. Bright lights shining from and on it made it appear even more spectacular.

At last they saw their destination, a large opening in the rear of the spaceship with a platform that extended from it like a huge tongue. As they approached it, they saw that the platform was really an enormous net.

Automatically, the Bus gently landed on the net and de-powered. Immediately it was pulled in through the doors and gently placed on the shuttle bay deck. The operation went very smoothly; it was evident that the Enterprise Hotel was well prepared for their arrival. How was that possible?

As instructed, Hank, ho-hoing in his Santa gear, left the Bus first, followed by the others in space suits. Over a hundred cheering people were crowded into the shuttle bay to greet them. Thoughtfully, Hank left his assault rifle back in the Bus, as a gun-toting Santa could have added to confusion among the tourists; Hank was already the thinnest Santa that any of the onlookers had ever seen.

Astonishingly, the greeters all wore Star Trek uniforms or other futuristic clothing. Even more extraordinary, many appeared to be Klingon, Vulcan, and other alien species! It was fortunate that Oscomb was carrying Milo, as the dog became very excited.

"Are they COMing a movie?" asked Bates, using the space suit radio system to talk to the others.

Mel, who had visited Trekkie heaven before, explained. "No, it's like this here all the time. Most of these people are guests of the hotel. Trekkies. The really alien looking folks are mostly costumed hotel employees. Crew."

From around the far side of the Bus several of the crew appeared, carrying huge red bags overflowing with Christmas gifts. To the crowd, the gifts had seemed to come from the Bus. The crew carried the gifts to Hank/Santa, who handed them out to the hotel guests as he ho-hoed merrily.

In the meantime, the rest of the Team was escorted by several Vulcans away from the melee and into a quiet adjoining conference room. There, while the group struggled to remove their helmets and space suits, a middle aged, fit but average looking human with a familiar sounding voice introduced himself as Mark Flood.

"Well done!" said Flood, as he shook Bates' and Mel's hands firmly. "I think that all went pretty damn good! And Hank seems to be playing his part well also. The guests are certainly enjoying it!"

Oscar introduced himself and shook Flood's hand enthusiastically. As often as Bates had heard his big friend talk glowingly of space flight and astronauts, Bates was not surprised.

Norma and Flood, obviously old friends, exchanged hugs.

Milo seemed to take to Flood immediately. As Bates trusted the dog's excellent character judgment, Flood also had his immediate approval.

Just then another door swished-open for a moment, and a little old man dressed in blue jeans and red plaid flannel shirt came shuffling in, flanked by an immense, Oscomb sized Klingon. Everyone in the room hushed and turned their attention to the new arrival. "OK men," he announced, "everyone out except humans and dogs." The Klingon ushered out the Vulcans, leaving Flood and the B-Team alone with the eccentric multi-billionaire, Ray Dave Jigs!

Jigs went around the room greeting each of his visitors warmly, addressing each of them by name without having been first introduced, including Milo. This astonished the Team, since he had not previously met any of them except for Mel. He pulled a big beef flavored Milk Bone out of his shirt pocket for Milo, and was an instant hit with the dog.

Jigs saved Bates for last. "President Narbando T. Bates, I presume. Yup, that's you, all right!" He craned his head up to stare at Bates with piercing blue eyes behind thick wire-rimmed glasses. "Ordinary looking. Pretty much like I remember you, though I somehow thought you were going to be shorter and fatter. Sizes can be hard for me to judge."

Bates was amazed. "Sir, how do you know so much about me and the others? And how did you know that we were coming, even before we did?"

"Well," chuckled Jigs, "if I don't know, who would? Were you supposed to ask me that? Damned if I can remember anymore. I suppose I should have played this day through again for last minute changes, but I never seem to have the time for such things nowadays. Way too much going on, don't you know? Anyway, everyone can have a seat and relax." They all sat on comfortable chairs that surrounded the big conference room table.

"Let me explain what's happening and why we're here," began Bates.

"Don't bother," interrupted Jigs. "Waste of precious time. You're already a bit behind schedule and close to total exhaustion. I already know much more than you do, and Flood here knows as much as you planned to tell him."

Bates was overwhelmingly confused, and so tired that he was quite content with Jigs taking control of this visit. The old man certainly spoke with authority; it was probably a habit that multi-billionaires could afford, along with other things.

"First, I have some equipment that you will find useful," resumed Jigs. "Flood, go get those crates from my office and get to work. Dr. Carbuncle, I believe that Commander Flood could use your help."

While Flood and Norma left, Jigs made small talk with the rest of his guests. "You much of a Trekkie Bates?"

"I guess I used to be, many years ago. But The Fifth Generation series turned me off."

"I know what you mean," responded Jigs. "That was definitely the low point for all Trekkies. How the hell they could ever cast Michael Jackson as captain of the Enterprise, I'll never know. Poor man couldn't even moonwalk anymore, what with all that arthritis. It rejuvenated his career though, and reconnected him with society. Now his sister made a damn good Borg, that's true enough, but she couldn't carry the show. I should have bought the COM rights to it long ago, but even I can't own everything." He turned to Sandra. "Well young lady, aren't you glad I got you scheduled you for flight simulation class ten years ago? Came in handy, right? Otherwise, since Norma gets hopelessly air-sick, Bates likely would have flown you here by the seat of his pants!"

It was the first instance where Jigs definitely had wrong information. "I did fly us here by the seat of my pants. Well, most of the way anyhow!" revealed Bates.

"I'm petrified of heights," explained Sandra. "I blanked out for most of the trip."

Jigs looked disappointed and responded by talking to himself. "Amazing! That just shows again that you can't fool with it. Lord knows I've tried. Seems there's some parts you know, and lots of fuzzy parts you don't or can't, and plenty you're sorry you ever knew. But all right, there were several possibilities, and if Bates piloted the flight in, I think I know what sub-revision we're following for now." As Jigs ended this final strange statement, he was staring sadly at Oscomb.

Suddenly, Jigs seemed to remember something, and he put a wrinkled finger up to the bridge of his nose. Instantly his glasses turned opaque. Bates realized that the glasses were some sort of miniaturized VISICOM set that the oldster had been talking into.

"Well now," announced Jigs, "it looks like you'll be here for at least a few more minutes. Radar indicates our friends the Ra are over this area right now, as we expected, figuring out what to do next. So we might as well have some dinner while we can; I'm afraid you have another long night ahead of you."

He ushered the group to a room with tables and chairs. Then, putting a finger to his glasses, he uttered a few odd guttural phrases that Bates thought could be Klingon. This was confirmed by entry of Jigs' huge Klingon companion, who ushered in a group of Vulcan's, Andorians, and a Ferrengi bearing Pizzas and Pepsi. A Vulcan placed a huge everything-on-it Pizza in front of Bates, Jigs and Milo, and the trio dug in.

"Aren't you afraid the Ra will attack us here?" asked Bates, between bites of pizza. He resolved to limit himself to only one piece. He was much more tired than hungry.

"No," answered Jigs. "Actually, I expect and hope they will, because we have the fire power to blast them to heck, hopefully. But I don't know if we will for sure. I've seen it end up different ways; we'll just have to wait and see what actually happens. Multiple quantum induced possibilities and so-called free will is in play, you know. I could look and see what's going to actually happen, but when you're this close to it it's usually too late to do anything about it anyway. More fun and less confusing just to let it all happen."

Jigs had again mixed his tenses in this strange statement, but Bates was getting used to it, and had other questions. "You mean this building has real phasers and photon torpedoes?" he asked.

"No," laughed Jigs. "That's just pulp science fiction Bates! This is reality! No, we have good old-fashioned lasers, pulsars, and particle beam cannons, mostly, and a limited electromagnetic force field. Nothing exotic. In fact, my people and Norma are fitting your Bus with some similar weapons systems right now, along with fixing you up with improved navigation, more premium fuel, and some other odds and ends."

This concerned Bates. "Do they know what they're doing?"

"Bates," Mel explained, "these are the people that built the Bus in the first place."

"Quite right, Dr. Guthery," said Jigs. "One of my favorite and most difficult major plot changes. Between my folks and Norma, you need not worry yourself about the Bus. Oh! This is interesting!" His glasses turned opaque again. "Three Ra craft are approaching in attack formation!" He looked at his watch. "OK, I guess that's to be expected. In real-time things do seem to happen fast: lickity-split one thing after another, don't they? But do not panic, my friends! You Bus folks can continue eating while me and my crew handle the Ra."

Suddenly battle klaxons and flashing lights were signaling red alert, as the five-star hotel prepared for battle. A thousand guests and two hundred employees assumed it was just another mock emergency to play through; only a select subset of the crew knew better. In the hidden room next to Shuttle Bay Two, a group of weary travelers wolfed down more pizza and Pepsi, and watched the animated old billionaire run to a blank wall and talk to it in Klingon.

This strange act was rewarded by sliding movement of a portion of the wall. Behind it was another room, already manned by the big Klingon and two blue-hued Andorians sitting at control stations. The far wall was one huge, contiguous, viewing screen. Showing on the center of the screen was the 'bridge' of the Enterprise, easily recognized by most of the B-Team from its numerous VISICOM appearances.

It too was manned by a crew of mixed species, and, it appeared, also by several human looking teenagers; apparently hotel guests! Standing behind a rope barrier guarded by a pair of burly looking Klingons was a crowd of other hotel guests, apparently either waiting their turns to be part of the bridge crew, or, simply watching the drama that was now beginning to unfold. Sitting at the Enterprise Bridge, the Captain, a Captain Wesley Crusher look-alike, was instructing the crew to prepare to fire all weapons at attacking pirate space vessels!

Jigs shuffled into the hidden control room and motioned the others to follow. "My battle bridge, folks. Got some good gamers in these teenagers; enough to give us an edge over advanced alien technology, we hope. Bates, you and your crew might learn something, so watch carefully." Jigs sat down in a central command chair that looked identical to the one 'Crusher' occupied on the wall monitor. "Lieutenant Kra: situation report!" he commended.

The big Klingon responded. "Sir! The Ra are diving towards us in classic Romulan attack formation. Fifty kilometers and closing. We are at Red Alert with shields up!"

Jigs touched a button on his chair's armrest. "Captain Crusher! Are your young Top Guns in place?"

"Yes, Admiral. The girl at position three and the boy at position five each have superior test scores."

'Admiral' Jigs' fingers danced across his controls again, and half of the bridge scene disappeared, to be replaced by a black screen that showed stars and three brighter lights in the middle. As they watched, the lights grew larger and brighter. Soon three glowing saucer shape craft could be seen. It was the approaching Ra!

"Very well. Lieutenant, ID the targets and track them." Letters 'A', 'B', and 'C' appeared superimposed on the three targets. "Put weapons stations three and five in charge of gun emplacements three and five. Kra, you will control gun four. Put the others under independent computer control."

"Yes Admiral."

Bates had the definite impression that the crew had done this sort of thing many times before.

At Weapons Station three, Ensign Mary Johnson, age 14, watched the three approaching saucers on her targeting screen. Wow! They sure looked real! She fixed her laser's cross hairs on the center ship, and awaited orders to fire. If she won a Top Gun award, she would be the heroine of her 8th grade!

At Weapons Station Five, Ensign Bruce Newberg, age 15, was going straight to the use of particle beams, which he fixed on an incoming saucer with confidence. This was his fourth trip to Enterprise City in two years, and, he was sure, this would lead to his second straight Top Gun award. When he got his award, maybe he would ask the fox at the next station for a date. He almost looked her over again, but caught himself. He had to concentrate; this was an important game to him. Neither teenager ever dreamed that they were fighting real space aliens to actually help save the Earth.

Admiral Jigs began the attack. "Let's let them know we have them targeted; low level EM pulse, Lieutenant; fire when ready."

"Firing," stated the Klingon. Lights blinked once in the control room, and the Ra lights appeared to blink several times. But moments later, the Ra' opened up with blasts of their own: plasma flows like directed lightning flashed from the Ra craft across several kilometers to the Enterprise.

An invisible, bubble like transparent shape surrounding all of Enterprise City glowed for several seconds. "Electromagnetic force-field holding, sir!" reported the Klingon.

"Hot damn!" exclaimed the ecstatic billionaire. "Figured that would work! Now we'll teach them to fire on innocent, well-healed Earth tourists! All weapons stations, thirty percent power! Fire at operator discretion."

Beams of laser light, invisible except in a few places where they passed through wisps of evening fog, erupted from the Enterprise. Accompanying particle beams were totally invisible. "Direct hits on all targets," reported the Lieutenant. "They're taking evasive action."

The saucers started darting about randomly. Now many of the Enterprise's shots were clearly missing. "I read a fifty percent increase in broad-band emissions. Sir! I think they absorb our fire and radiate the energy!"

"As expected. Well, let's see how much they can take!" shouted Jigs. "Randomly phased EM pulse! Fifty percent power to all weapons! All stations concentrate fire on Target A." Nearly half of the available power from three underground fusion reactors was now focused on one saucer.

"Target A is absorbing more than it can emit now sir!" said Kra. "It's withdrawing." The saucer was glowing white hot, like a small sun.

The other two however, were darting in towards the Enterprise unimpeded. A plasma blast from the two saucers penetrated the force field, but struck the Enterprise's hull with no apparent effect, other than a sound like distant thunder and a slight vibration.

"Ha!" laughed Jigs. "Only 10**7 Joules! These guys are lightweights! Maybe they still think this is just some damn hotel!

"OK, we've pulled those two in close enough. Weapons stations three and five, track Targets B and C. Lieutenant, prepare to slave all batteries to stations three and five, bring all weapons to 100% power, and fire on my mark. Mark!"

Both kids hit their targets dead center. Two seconds later, both saucers blew up with huge, deafening explosions that shook Enterprise City with like earthquake-like tremors. Bright flashes slightly singed a few witnesses that were located outside the shield, and small bits of pulverized alien space craft began to rain down from the sky.

Meanwhile, Target A limped up towards space as fast as it could, apparently anxious to get out of range of the Enterprise's weapons.

In the Enterprise itself and throughout the City, onlookers cheered the victory and this evening's spectacular special effects, by far the most sensational they had ever witnessed. Mary and Bruce jumped up and down and then squirmed shyly, as teenagers often do, when they received the accolades of crew and audience alike. Both were declared Top Guns, received on-the-spot promotions to full Lieutenant, and fifty percent reductions in hotel rates for their families.

"Damage report?" commanded Jigs.

"No casualties or measurable damage from the saucer attack, Admiral. We've blown a few power circuits, but back-ups are fully functional. Target A seems to be operating with reduced effectiveness. I think we damaged it extensively."

"Excellent, Lieutenant! We have achieved our optimal likely outcome! Initiate repairs and maintain yellow alert until further notice. You have the COM."

Jigs led the group back to their pizzas, but Bates and Jigs were out of luck. They were greeted by a fat, waggle tailed dog standing on their table. Milo had clearly taken advantage of the situation. Not even a crust remained.

"Ha! I didn't see that one coming!" Jigs quipped. "You scientists and scientist dogs can sure pack away the pizza! I'll have a few more pizzas sent up from the kitchen that you can take with you. Smart dog, Bates. Bring him with you and we'll have a quick little private talk." Jigs turned briefly to the others. "Nice meeting you all, but it's back to the Bus with you! Take advantage of our little tactical victory over the Ra and get the hell out of here right away! They'll repair their ship and come after you again very soon. And please come back and visit us again as my guests when you have more time, assuming we survive the Dannos business of course." He walked up to Oscar and shook his hand. "Simply do what you have to do sir," he said cryptically. Then he turned to Mel. "Please wait here for Bates, Dr. Guthery. Bates will have something to ask you in a few minutes."

Jigs led Bates and Milo out and down a hallway filled with spirited Trekkies still excited about the evening's entertainment. Shortly they entered a small garden area. Two hotel guests were there with their own dogs. The primary function of the area was obvious, and Milo took advantage of it right away. The grass would soon be much greener where he personally treated it.

"Bates, you were going to ask me how I know so much," stated Jigs, as he was anxious to move things along. "Oh, and by the way, the Magnificent Seven actor you were trying to remember the other day is Yul Brynner."

"Exactly!" said Bates. "You just did it again! How did you know what I was going to say? Or what I was thinking about days ago and never even told anyone?"

"In a nutshell, and that's all that we have time for right now, I can see the future. Or, bits and pieces of what might someday become the present, anyway. I've been doing it all my life. I call it farsight, Bates. How else do you think I've done so well with the stock market? I've seen bits and pieces of this Ra and Dannos business for many years, and how it might be fixed."

"But that's wonderful!" said a beaming Bates. "You can tell me exactly what we need to do then!"

"Bates," replied Jigs, shaking his head sadly and choosing his words carefully, "I've spent a lifetime trying to use my farsight to practical advantage, and things just don't work that way. I'm afraid that I can't tell you very much specific information at all. If I did, you'd probably screw things up more than you otherwise would. You can't simply barge into a story that way and muck about with the plot. You'd probably change things so much that there would be no predictability to it at all, such that most of my accumulated insights would become totally useless. Besides, a lot of it is pretty fuzzy in my own mind, and I could even be wrong and mislead you. But I can give you some really good hints."

"So," reasoned Bates, "this information that you're giving me is kind of vague, like Gandalf instructing the Hobbits. You know a lot more about stuff, but you aren't goanna tell me diddle?"

"Excellent analogy!" responded Jigs. "That's it exactly! I'm going to give you some cryptic information that sounds like nonsense, and trust that you'll figure it all out later and save the Earth!"

A somewhat disappointed Bates sighed, but didn't argue. Maybe he was getting used to craziness and being manipulated, or maybe he was simply too exhausted. "Right. OK then, if that's the best you can do, shoot!" He pulled pencil and paper from a pocket in order to take notes.

Jigs began. "First. One word of advice. Plastic!"

"Plastic?" So far the farsight advice was a little disappointing, though it seemed vaguely familiar.

"Right. The plastic that the Bus and Enterprise are made of is not even your ordinary Earthly Starlite Plastic, which is fantastic, it is a special type not normally found on Earth. Where it came from isn't important in this episode, but try not to let it fall into the hands of the Ra. Got it?"

Bates nodded his head affirmatively.

"OK. That was the easy one. Too easy; I'm pretty sure that you'll forget it, so write it down. Anyway, number two is as follows: 'The reason and answer lies sleeping in harm's way.'"

"That's it?" asked Bates.

"That's it! Cryptic enough for you? Then you'll really like the next one; it's my favorite! Number three: 'The Traveler from the Black Pit summons the key.' Wonderfully dramatic, don't you think? You'll personally appreciate that one later." He winked at Bates, grinned, and poked him in the ribs with an elbow, as if the two of them shared some juicy secret.

"Not to be confused with number four: 'The Visitors from afar summon the Traveler.'" Jigs paused for a few moments while Bates scribbled the strange message, then turned and started walking back towards where Mel waited for him. "Ok, actually, that's just about it. Those are the crux of the whole thing. With that information you should be able to save the Earth, hopefully."

"But we only have less than a week before the asteroid clobbers us!" objected Bates, as he scrambled to catch up. "Can't you explain these things more?"

Jigs let out a deep sigh. "Not really. Listen Bates, I've worked on formulating this advice for many years. It's simply not that simple. Quantum-fuzzed causality and paradoxes and all sorts of stuff enter into it. You'll just have to take my word for it. If we stray too far from the plot, there's no telling what will happen! But I do have a couple more simple things that will help. Ready? OK then, write down this one too! 'Read what you wrought.' And the final one is this: 'Reverse the order.' Got all that?"

Bates wrote them all down word for word, hoping that his genius friends would be able to figure them out. It didn't seem like a lot to go on. "Don't we get a magic ring or lamp or sword or helmet or something?" he asked.

"Afraid not," replied the old man. "This is reality Bates, not some silly goof-ball fantasy. On the other hand, I'd keep an open mind about what reality can be, if I were you. You're in for some big surprises."

"Lots of times I like surprises, actually," answered Bates. "Anyway, I think I'm getting rather used to surprises, if that's possible. I'd be surprised if I stopped getting surprised, at this point."

Bates was glad to see Mel when he and Jigs returned; he was anxious to talk to the renowned physicist about farsight. "That sounds spooky," Mel remarked, after Bates told him about the farsight ability that Jigs claimed to have.

"Spooky as in ghosts?" a surprised Bates responded. He didn't think that Mel believed in ghosts.

"No, spooky as in quantum physics. You know that I've long preferred a transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics which includes the concept of negative time?"

"Yes, you've explained that too me a number of times. It helps explain that spooky action at a distance business and why apparent contradictions of special relativity are OK."

"So then, maybe due to negative time echoes of multiple futures can be observed here in the present," Mel speculated. "It might require adding a few more dimensions for the required mathematics, but perhaps it could help explain this farsight business. If he can see multiple futures though, that complicates things even more. It might require a combination of transactional and multiverse interpretations of quantum mechanics and infinite dimensions and solutions and corresponding realities! Holy crap, I certainly have a lot more work to do on my theory of everything then!"

"It sounds like a radical step, Mel."

"Surprisingly and excitedly radical; but if the farsight phenomenon really does happen, it's up to science to explain how it happens, and something pretty darn radical is clearly required."

"But bottom line, Mel, you think that farsight might be possible?"

"The bottom line is: we scientists don't use science to define the phenomena that can happen, we use phenomena to define the science. And since all basic phenomena in the universe have been discovered to strictly follow mathematics, we need to stick to that approach. Philosophically there will have to be a mathematics that the universe follows that enables farsight, or our whole basic scientific understanding of the universe would fall apart. That's not faith, Bates, that's the result of hundreds of years of experience by thousands of scientists dealing with the facts of how the universe works. Math is the key. The universe is one infinitely big math problem that resolves itself into an emerging solution that is reality. We experience the mathematical solution of the moment as our current reality in the present. But there are multiple solutions that work out as good as any other, the echoes of which perhaps propagate forward and backwards in time throughout all nearby realities."

"Was that a 'yes' answer to my question about farsight being possible?" Bates asked.

"It was a qualified 'yes' Bates. If you're asking me if humans can discover the mathematics that the universe follows to provide a farsight phenomenon, I have to say 'yes' as a matter of confidence in human ingenuity. Already I can see some broad directions for the research needed to find the mathematics, but it will be difficult. I'm not God Bates, I don't decide what the universe can do or not do. I'm a scientist. But if the universe does permit farsight, I have confidence that science will someday figure out the corresponding mathematics that God follows to allow it. In the meantime if the phenomenon happens it happens. Period. And the science needs to be developed to explain it."

It was too fuzzy an answer to fully suit Bates, but it was as good an answer as he could get out of Mel. He still wasn't a hundred percent certain that he wasn't being somehow flimflammed by Jigs, but then nobody in the universe enjoyed perfect certainty about anything.

The remainder of the visit went quickly. Jigs walked Bates, Mel, and Milo back to the Bus and handed them a couple more boxes of pizza before giving them final handshakes and farewells as they entered the Bus. The remaining crewmembers were already onboard, including an exhausted but smiling Santa Claus. Crew and guests waved as the Bus was moved outside the Shuttle Bay on to the net, which still held the Bus suspended hundreds of feet above a Jurassic jungle swarming with robot dinosaurs. Commander Flood, with practiced ease, powered the Bus up and it smoothly flew away from that magnificent five star hotel, the Star Ship Enterprise.

As they pulled away, Bates glimpsed a small bent figure in blue-jeans and flannel shirt, standing in the Shuttle Bay doorway, waving good-bye with his right hand. In his other hand he seemed to be holding a piece of pizza.

****

CHAPTER 22

ONWARD!

Airline travel is hours of boredom interrupted by moments of stark terror.

\- Al Boliska

It was yet another major disaster for the Ra. Of the three Warren ships, only the lead ship carrying Ren'Ca and Twi'Na had survived an attack from an Earth amusement park. The single remaining Ra Warren Ship, seriously damaged, was undergoing emergency repairs by the Mother Ship crew. Dow was pacing furiously around his debriefing room, attended by the seemingly emotionless Renson and two very nervous aids.

"This is incredible!" stormed Dow. "In the last Earth century of Ra intervention on Earth, we had not a single casualty! Now in two days we have lost more than two Warren! None have been revenged, AND we remain frustrated in our mission! WHAT IS THE EXPLANATION?"

"Perhaps we underestimated the humans," ventured an aid, tentatively. She should have known better. Dow strode over to the hapless female and stooped to place his snarling face nearly in contact with hers. Even without the enhancing aid of Ca, the hate emanating from the Ra Master psychically was felt in the entire Mother Ship. For the poor aid it was overpowering.

"Is that what you propose that I tell the Hierarchy?" he thundered.

The aid, suffering emotional overload, fainted. Dow spat on the fallen crewmember and again paced the room. "Does anyone else have a useful comment or suggestion?" he demanded vehemently, scowling at the remaining aid, and then, at Renson. After all, Ren'Ca had led the ill-fated mission, the mission that would surely be the downfall of Dow! Ca'Ra or no, Dow was incensed, and he now directed much it towards the Priest.

The Ca'Ra turned his head slightly and looked for a moment into the eyes of the Na'Ra Master. The tiniest cruel smile appeared on the human face he wore, and his black eyes flashed blood red. What was projected momentarily by that look, and the empathic message that accompanied it, was too dark to be called simply hate. It was the essence of evil, pure and strong. With it came a perfectly intelligible telepathic message. "You too are expendable, Na'Ra! I will instruct you now alone," ordered the Ca'Ra, cutting through Dow's mind with such intensity that he feared that the top of his skull had been ripped off!

Dow staggered back, away from the Ca'Ra. Any doubts that Dow had about whom and what he was dealing with were gone. Ren'Ca was a Level One Ca'Ra, there was no doubt! Dow had never felt such power before! He was certain that this Ca'Ra could easily kill him instantly with merely a thought. And, he also realized how dangerous it was for him to even know such a thing about such a one as Ren'Ca, for all Ca'Ra were highly secretive.

Dow quickly decided then that he wanted to continue living, somehow. To do so he would have to remember to pay the closest attention to the Ca'Ra that stood impassively before him. He struggled to shake off the pain and regain his composure, and then quietly dismissed the others by having Twig and the remaining aid carry out the aid that had fainted. They left gladly, having sensed the sudden fury and power of the Ca'Ra, and their Master's resulting pain and fear.

Now that he had put the Na'Ra Master in his place, Ren'Ca coolly presented his 'suggestions' to Dow. "The humans we seek have doubtless left the Enterprise by now, so revenge of our brethren on the Enterprise must be put aside, at least for now. All humans will be destroyed very soon anyway. The priority must remain with apprehension of the fugitives. From the Mother Ship we have not yet detected them, though we will continue to try.

"Since we cannot detect them, we need to anticipate their next moves. There are two places they may go that we know of. One is Arizona. Melberg is there already, looking for Janet Garb. He has paid human lackeys to help him. That must be sufficient coverage in Arizona for now, unless the fugitives are actually detected there.

"I will go alone to the second location and point of greatest ultimate danger: the asteroid impact point. In any case, when the fugitives are detected, all resources, including this Mother Ship, must be used to keep them from reaching the impact zone. They are to be immediately destroyed. And of course this ship and all Ra except for me must stay away from the impact zone." The Ca'Ra again fixed Dow with his icy stare. "Do you understand?"

"Yes Ca'Ra, I understand and will follow all your instructions to the letter!" He dipped his head low, indicating a position of full servitude relative to Ren'Ca. However, Dow was very confused on some points. "Ca'Ra, I have concerns that I feel you should know about. If the Mother Ship should have to engage directly in the pursuit, our jamming of Earth news signals may be disrupted, and the Galactic League alerted."

"That is a secondary concern, but one that I will soon remedy by establishing a jamming ground-station near the impact point, exactly as you cleverly suggested earlier," responded Ren'Ca. "Keep in mind however, that your primary concern is to stop the humans, and to at all costs prevent them and anyone else from visiting the impact zone. Period."

"Yes Ca'Ra!" Dow responded, as he again bowed low. Dow knew better than to press the point further. What he didn't understand, Ren'Ca was apparently not going to tell him. He had the uncomfortable feeling that Ca'Ra secrets that he didn't know would still probably kill him, but if he knew them himself he would be dead for sure. Further, he suspected that the longer the Ra remained on Earth, the less the chance that any of them would ever leave and return safely to the Ra home planet.

"I will leave as soon as the Warren Ship repairs are complete" said Ren'Ca. "Keep me informed." The Ca'Ra strode from the room.

He left a deeply troubled Na'Ra Master. Ren'Ca had clearly assumed full command, and yet now the Priest was immediately and inexplicably abandoning it to place himself, and himself alone, at the asteroid impact point. Why would the humans want to go to the Dannos impact point, and why would Ren'Ca want to prevent at any cost humans or any Ra other than himself from doing so? Dow had thought that the Dannos impact point was arbitrary, since impact anywhere on Earth would kill everyone. Somehow that assumption was not correct. Why, he didn't know, and he knew better than to ask the Ca'Ra.

****

In the Bus, the terror of a few short hours ago had been replaced by a new sense of hope and direction. The Ra had been dealt a heavy blow, and the Team had clues from an apparently legitimate psychic that would hopefully guide them on what to do. It wasn't yet enough, not by a longshot, but it was much more than they had before. Norma had motion sickness medicine that allowed her to function once again, and most of the others also benefited from the medication. Sandra proved to be a competent navigator, as long as she avoided looking outside the Bus. Plus, they had all been fed and entertained in remarkable fashion during their brief stop at Enterprise City.

As it had been designed to do, Enterprise City had in this instance strongly and positively influenced the spirit of the people that visited it. That such a place existed at all was overwhelming testament to human invention, industry, and good will. That the Starship Enterprise Hotel had stood up to the Ra, a race with supposedly superior technology, was utterly astonishing.

Jigs had also equipped the Bus with weapons, and a huge supply of Premium Fuel. Finally and perhaps best of all, in Flood they had a real Bus pilot at last!

Flood was utterly ecstatic at the turn of events that had taken place over the last few months and hours to make him a member of the B-Team. A pilot for most of his life and an aspiring but frustrated astronaut after space travel had fallen from fashion, Flood remembered the difficulty Jigs had in retaining him after the Bus contract with DOD had been canceled. Flood's strongest impulse had been to chuck it all and head West. A primitive little cabin in the Rocky Mountains would have suited him just fine.

But Jigs had at last persuaded him to work for him at Enterprise City. A hub for remaining limited unmanned space operations and research, Enterprise City was a suitable haven for many scientists and engineers interested in space exploration. However, for Flood it was slow death. At Enterprise city he only talked about Space Flight! Flood was no desk jockey; he needed to actually fly.

There were no more astronaut jobs, or fighter pilot jobs. Flood was used by Jigs more for social functions than anything else, as part of his futile attempts to lobby Government and industry for more space efforts. There was a certain value to having a genuine astronaut on such occasions; and Flood was the last American astronaut to be in space. Still, there were many people on the Jigs staff more capable of lobbying than Flood.

Yet Jigs had gone to absurd extremes to keep Flood. Why? Until now, Flood hadn't been able to fathom it. Jigs lavished cars, vacations, airplanes, bonuses, and endless promises of future astronaut opportunities on Flood to retain him. Flood was like a pet tiger being kept at bay with catnip and toy mice. That could only work for so long with a man like the Commander. Sooner or later, he would have to show his stripes, if not as a pilot, then in some other way.

Six months ago Flood was again all ready to head for the Rocky Mountains permanently when Jigs called him to his office. Flood expected more bonuses and vague empty promises, but was instead astonished by what the eccentric billionaire told him. Jigs told him that he would be piloting the Space Bus before Christmas, that he would go into space on a vital mission not long after that, and that they should immediately begin to prepare for the Bus's arrival. This was certainly not the first time that Jigs had made predictions of specific future events and usually he was right. So he wasn't loony; the old man had either uncanny insight or was an authentic psychic.

Flood still had serious doubts. He saw no evidence that space exploration would take hold once again in his lifetime, despite efforts by Jigs. He liked the Old Man, as he was affectionately referred to by his employees, but he feared that Jigs was deluding himself. Still, Flood decided to stay on until Christmas.

And now here he was, actually on the Bus, piloting it on the most urgent mission in human history! He supposed that within the next few days, he would actually pilot the Bus into space, to meet his destiny: the oncoming Dannos! He hoped that by that time this batch of whiz-bang scientists would have a way to stop the damn thing. Personally, he didn't see any way in hell that stopping it was possible.

At the moment, they were off to Arizona, which involved some pretty impressive piloting, relative to the low standards that had been established by Narbando T. Bates. Using flying skills and automated capabilities that Bates even in his desperation had no hope of acquiring earlier that night, Flood flew the Bus low and fast to Richmond Airport, where he intercepted a transcontinental supersonic flight to Phoenix. They were now flying unnoticed by the aircraft they shadowed, and hopefully, unnoticed by the Ra, slightly below and behind the airliner, easily matching its speed of over 4000 km per hour, at an altitude of 15,000 meters. They would be in Arizona in less than an hour.

For most of the brief flight the Team members either napped, or pondered the riddles provided by Jigs. The 'plastic' one was obvious, and it seemed clear that the 'reverse order' one reversed the order of the preceding riddles.

Assuming reverse order, then the riddle to really worry about first was the 'read what you wrought' one. After some discussion they were pretty certain that item one referred to the data cubes stolen by Barns or made by Bates with his MX-84. But the reading of the cubes should obviously be done in the context of all the riddles, so they first proceeded to briefly consider all the others.

Who were the 'Visitors from afar', and who was the 'Traveler' that the visitors should summon from what 'Black Pit'?
"Well," reasoned Norma, "the Ra are certainly visitors from afar."

"Maybe we should ask for their help with black pits and travelers!" ventured Sandy. A very subdued round of forced laughter followed.

"Wait," said Bates, still waking from his nap. "There may be something to this! Mel, I've been meaning to ask you about something you said yesterday. When I told you that Barns claimed that space aliens were involved you spoke as though you already had knowledge of aliens!"

Mel sighed and looked a little nervous. "This is another tip-top secret. Are we truly beyond such things now?" He looked at his friend Bates quizzically.

Bates knew what his friend wanted him to do. "By the power invested in me as supreme leader of this outfit I hereby grant Dr. Melvin Phineas Guthery absolution and order him to blab everything he knows here and now, regardless of prior oaths, etcetera, e pluribus unum." He crossed himself.

"Thanks," said Mel. "It was about ten years ago, I guess. I was visiting Los Alamos Laboratory. It was being shut down, and I was looking to salvage anything of value that I could, when I got a call from General Therman of the Air Force."

"The last General of the Air Force, Mike Therman? He's an acquaintance of mine! Good pilot, even if he wasn't Navy," interjected Flood.

"The same," continued Mel. "He was also closing up shop. That was the year the Air Force, Army, and Navy were abolished." The listeners grimaced. Bates thought he heard growling sounds emanating from Flood's direction. It had been a sad time for the DOD.

"Anyway," continued Mel, "Therman wanted me to visit a base in Utah I had never heard of before; he wouldn't tell me why. He even had an Air Force jet fly me there. Therman took me into a conference room where the two of us met with two very strange visitors indeed." The little physicist looked around at the gathered Team as he seemed to search for the right words.

"They were both definitely space aliens, but of different races. One was a little, thin, gray skinned fellow shorter than Sandra, with a huge head and big slanted eyes. You know what I mean, you've seen his likeness for years on supermarket news stands and in movies."

"The little bug-eyed gray guys are for real?" asked Bates.

"For sure! This one was, anyway. The other one was quite different. He was about twice the size of Oscomb, was covered with green scales, and had a short tail and a head about half-way between a man and a turtle."

"Hot damn!" commented Hank. "Now that there's an alien!"

"That was my first reaction too," said Mel, "but Therman and I had meaningful conversation with them for half an hour and they both seemed to be highly intelligent and very friendly."

"What did they say?" asked Bates.

"Actually nothing much, verbally. They communicated with us mostly through mental telepathy. Weird. Anyway, in that fashion they 'said' some strange things. The small one said his people were reducing their visits, and they might not be back again for several decades. He said they had finished their studies of us for now. And then, strangely enough, the big one asked us if we knew of other visitors from space. The General then about knocked my socks off by responding that they had known of visits by the small gray folk for many years, but no others. The big one said there could be others, and if there was, he wanted to find them. Unauthorized visitors, he called them."

"Lord!" interjected Barns. "What if he was talking about the Ra?"

"It fits!" exclaimed Bates. "Other aliens came here looking for the Ra! Authorized aliens looking for unauthorized aliens!"

"Police from space?" proposed Oscar.

"Perhaps," said Bates. "If so, they could be the allies that we badly need! Maybe they even have the technology to stop Dannos!"

"What else did they say?" asked Oscar.

"Well, I'm afraid that was about it. It was very late and we quit for the day. The next morning the General told me the visitors had to leave suddenly. He said they left no forwarding address. I was sworn to secrecy and sent home. End of story."

"Damned unsatisfying end to that story," remarked Norma.

"Indeed it was," said Mel. "I've thought about the incident many times since then. The most exciting and potentially momentous event imaginable, reduced to a short secret encounter that left more questions than ever. I felt strongly that I was a traitor to humanity, by keeping the encounter a secret. Anyway, that was ten years ago, and as far as I know, nothing ever came of it. Sorry Bates."

Moving on, the Team next resolved to review all data cubes as soon as possible, including those obtained by Barns from the Ra ship. Those who weren't napping went right to it, using personal and shipboard VISICOM units.

Right now however, they were approaching Arizona, and Bates found that there was only one thing he could think about. Of all the things that had happened to him in the last five days, he still regarded seeing Janet Garb again the most momentous prospect by far.

Bates hoped for a warm welcome in Arizona.

****

CHAPTER 23

ARIZONA REUNION

There are no illegitimate children - only illegitimate parents.

\- Judge Leon R. Yankwich

Peter Lund, Head of the National Police, paced restlessly in the Phoenix Hilton Lobby. He wasn't used to waiting for people in Hotel lobbies anymore. In fact, he hadn't done field work of any kind in several years, but the man he was there to meet promised to pay him very well.

The lobby door opened, and his employer of the moment finally arrived. Frank Melberg, immaculately dressed as always in a black suit, strode past him and motioned him to follow. Only when the elevator doors shut did they speak.

"This better be important Melberg, all hell is breaking loose in Washington and I've got to get back there pronto. Further, since I'm supposed to be hunting you down, this meeting probably isn't a very good idea. How can I keep my own NP operatives from finding you if you travel all over the country this way? You said that you'd be in Washington!"

Melberg wasn't about to be talked to that way by a human, especially one that he employed. He placed both hands on Lund's coat lapels and casually lifted him off the floor. "I'll tell YOU what's important Lund! I'll talk and you'll listen!" he hissed menacingly. Then he dropped Lund onto his butt in a corner, pulled a thick wad of thousand dollar bills from his pocket, and dropped it in Lund's lap.

Even after several years of dealings with Melberg, Lund was taken by surprise. Melberg was a skinny scientist. A ruthless shit head, certainly, but he had never been violent before. That he could easily lift a man twice his size was a revelation. It was also an indication that he was really worked up over something! Still, first things first. Lund pocketed the cash and stood up.

"Sure, Melberg. I hear you. Haven't I always come through? But this is the big time. There's heavy pressure, right from the very top. They aren't saying the real reason why, but they want your hide, and they want it bad."

Melberg could read between the lines. He dug a second thick wad of cash out of his pocket and flipped it into Lund's waiting hands.

Lund stopped complaining. "Exactly what do you want?" he asked.

"Did you bring agents with you that you can trust?"

"Sure," replied Lund, flipping through the second stack of thousands. "As long as you keep supplying this."

"How many operatives?" Melberg asked.

"Thirty-three, plus myself."

A small army, thought Melberg. Still, Arizona was a big state, with thousands of square kilometers of camping spots where Bates might be headed to meet Garb. This would take more than just a few Earth-bound agents. "What about equipment?" he asked.

"My operatives raided an old Marine camp in New Mexico. I've got two F-39 Fighter aircraft, and two H-99 jet attack 'copters, with air and ground radar and infrared detection gear."

"Armed?" asked Melberg.

"To the teeth! Air to air missiles and air to ground anti-tank stuff too, just like you asked for."

"Excellent!" responded Melberg! "And you know what and who you are looking for?"

"Sure," replied Lund. "We have videos from Washington and Enterprise City of the Bus, Bates, and Barns, plus the other suspected conspirators. I have men at Dr. Garb's home now, looking for clues."

Melberg took yet another thick roll of bills from his pocket and handed it to Lund. "I want them all dead, Lund!"

"Certainly. We'll get them, don't worry."

The elevator opened and Lund left the Hotel. Smiling, Melberg went up to his room to report to the Mother Ship. He enjoyed paying Earthmen to destroy their only hope for salvation, using paper that would be worthless if not ashes in less than a week! For the Ra it wasn't just the ends that were important; the means counted too. This had been a very satisfying evening.

****

Cutting power, the Bus stealthily dropped away from the aircraft when it reached Arizona airspace. At treetop level, the Bus completed its trip to the coordinates Bates determined from the detailed maps of Arizona now accessed by the Bus navigation computers. If Jane was at the campsite, he didn't want to scare her with the Bus, so they landed almost half a kilometer from the campsite.

The passengers were happy to be on firm ground again, and some were amazed by the glimpse of Arizona revealed by the Bus's lights. It looked just like a cover from Arizona Highways magazine, minus sunshine.

"Where's the sand?" asked Sandra.

"Where's the beef?" asked Oscomb, patting his big stomach.

"Where's the Injins?" asked Hank, sweeping the area with his ever present assault rifle.

"Take it easy everyone," said Bates. "This isn't quite desert country, or cattle country, or American Indian territory, though don't be surprised if you see all of that stuff tomorrow. This happens to be forest." Indeed, the Bus sat in a clearing surrounded by scrubby looking pine trees. Rugged, red rock hills surrounded them, and there seemed to be the silhouette of mountains in the distance, though the moonlight wasn't strong enough to be certain.

"And is there a Wawa or something? We have a problem!" said Flood. "We're almost out of fuel."

"What!" exclaimed Bates. "But we just stocked up at the Enterprise!"

Norma explained. "We have plenty of Premium Fuel concentrate, but we're out of liquid to add it to. You see, the concentrate has to be thinned out, or it will rip the Bus apart! Actually, it takes very little additional liquid. We flew across the country on about three ounces of Premium Fuel concentrate and two gallons of liquid. A couple quarts of water would get us through local travel for the next day or so. All we have right now is a few ounces of water and a can of un-cola. Also we stuff to drink for us humans."

"What will work besides water and soda-pop?" asked Bates.

"Practically anything wet, but as it turns out, cold beer works best," said Norma.

"Cold beer?"

"Yup," said Flood. "And we did stock up on it, but it appears to be all gone! I put it in the refrigerator myself. I don't understand where it all went!"

Norma, Bates, and several others turned to stare at Oscomb.

"OK, so I got thirsty! It was Bud for Christ's sake, my favorite! How the hell was I to know it was the Bus fuel!" said Oscomb.

"OK, it was an honest mistake. Don't we have anything else that we can use?" Bates asked.

"No. The Pepsi is gone too. We desperately need just a couple quarts of something!" said Flood.

"Will used beer work?" asked Bates.

"Used beer? You mean piss?" asked Flood, incredulously.

"I suppose so," Norma nodded in agreement.

The group again stared at Oscomb.

"Well Oscar, have you got a couple of quarts of used beer that you can contribute?" Bates asked.

The big man shrugged. "Sure. I was going to water that dried out pine tree over there, but if my country needs it somewhere else, that's fine by me." He went back into the Bus with Flood and Norma. When they returned, they were all smiles.

"You folks need any more?" asked Hank.

"Nope, not right away," said Norma. "The big fellow gave us enough to blast us hundreds of miles."

"OK then," said Bates. "Let's get to work. Most of you better stay with the Bus. Keep Milo on a leash, I don't want him running after jack rabbits or getting eaten by coyotes. Flood, man the radio and radar. A Ra ship could show up at any time. Oscar, Mel, and I will go look for Jane while the rest of you set up camp. Before we turn in we'll scout for more supplies. This is the USA, so there's bound to be beer of some kind within easy driving distance. That's probably mandated somewhere in the Constitution."

The trio, armed only with flashlights and innocence, walked through some bush and onto a trail that Bates recognized after twenty years, even at night.

They were close. A flood of the most incredible memories assaulted Bates as he walked through the darkness. The sounds and smells, just the over-all feel of the place, was hauntingly familiar, even though in the past he had mostly been here in the summer. It was a disorienting experience, like waking into a dream. It just didn't seem that this could be real.

At the same time, he was comforted. He knew this forest, this trail, and the campsite just ahead. Twenty years ago the three weeks that he and Janet spent here together were by far the happiest in his life.

Actually, he didn't very much like roughing it in the country, even then, especially with snakes. But making love with Janet much of the time made up for a heck of a lot of inconveniences. Now it almost seemed that he had gone back in time to those weeks; that he had been out for supplies perhaps, and was now returning to the campsite. Returning to Janet.

But no, of course he knew that wasn't true; not in the sense that he had so frequently fantasized. Too much water under the bridge for that.

In a few minutes they noticed the glow from a campfire. The fire was farther than it seemed to be, but finally, stepping into a clearing, they at last approached the camp itself. It was located exactly where Bates and Garb had camped almost two decades earlier.

"You should go on in alone, Bates," whispered Mel.

Bates had actually forgotten that Mel and Oscar were with him. Alone, he approached the fire apprehensively. His heart sank. He could make out three people, so it probably wasn't Janet. "Hello there!" he called, when he got closer. "Campers! I'm looking for someone." Out West it still wasn't a healthy practice to simply go walking into somebody's campsite without warning and invitation. Many folks still packed guns.

"Narb? Is that you?" a woman's voice asked. HER VOICE!

"Janet?" he replied, his own voice sounding strange.

One of the shadowy figures walked towards him. In moments there she was, just like in the VISICOM! But real! She stopped just out of reach. "Narbando, I knew that you'd come! It's been a very long time."

She looked great, he thought, but he wasn't capable of speech!

"I have someone here for you to meet," she said. "The reasons why I called you."

The two others also left the campfire and were walking towards him. At first Bates couldn't see them clearly, because of the glare of the campfire behind them, but finally they were standing next to Janet in the light of his flashlight. He stared at them in shock. One he could have sworn was the Janet he knew twenty years ago. The other was a duplicate of Narbando T. Bates, only younger. It was like looking back into time. He was trying to make sense of it, when the apparitions simultaneously spoke!

"Hi Dad," they said simultaneously.

Bates, unconscious, promptly crumbled to the ground with a thud, as limp and senseless as a sack of potatoes.

****

Narbando T. Bates woke to the sound of several voices in conversation, speaking so softly that he could only make out a word here and there. Reassuringly, most of the voices sounded familiar. But there were also other, less familiar sounds too, crickets, owls, and even a coyote. Coyote? He forced his eyes open with the distinct feeling that he wasn't in Maryland anymore. He saw stars, more stars than he could remember seeing for many years. Good place for astronomy, he thought; just like where he went to grad-school. Then he remembered where he was, and what he had last seen and heard!

"Fudge Winkies!" he exclaimed. The background conversations stopped, and in seconds he was surrounded by several figures, and flashlights were shining in his face.

"I told you that's what he'd say!" said Mel.

"Hokey smokes!" exclaimed Bates.

"And that was my first choice. But you win, Mel," said Oscar, as he handed a five-spot to Mel.

Suddenly, Bates' face was being licked; including the inside of the mouth he had left gaping open. He sat up and hugged Milo around the neck, and wiped his face on the blanket he found wrapped around himself, just as Carbuncle came puffing into the camp. "There he is! Bad boy Milo! Sorry Bates, he got away from us. Squirmed like a pig."

"OK, let's leave these two alone," said Mel. Bates thought at first that Mel meant him and Milo, but then someone was lifting the dog up and away from him.

In moments there were only him and HER, for even in the dying light of the campfire, he recognized her features. "I'm sorry, Narb!" she said. "I realize that this is a terrible shock, but it is years overdue, and this was my last chance. And their last chance; and yours."

Over the last couple of days, Bates had run this meeting through his mind a hundred times, and he thought he had prepared himself for anything, but nothing he had imagined came even remotely close to this. He was more confused than he had ever been in his life. And he hurt. He hurt bad. He closed his eyes and wrapped the blanket tighter around himself, but her words kept coming anyway.

She told him how her domineering father had insisted that she marry John Williams, a rich attorney from a prominent Arizona family, instead of staying involved with a nobody science student like Bates. Her parents asserted that it would be better for her future, and that she would soon get over her summer fling.

That much Bates had suspected for years and could have accepted, but even after finding out that she was pregnant, she went ahead with the marriage to John, while knowing that she was carrying Bates' children!

Bates had been a father all these long lonely years, and he had never even known it! She had taken not only herself from him, but his children as well. His parenthood! Tears streamed down his cheeks. How many times had he dreamed of being a father? How could she be so cruel? It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense any more at all.

He wasn't aware what she said after that or when she left his side. He just eventually became aware that he was very alone. Knowing that something was deeply wrong with his master, Milo was suddenly there again too, quizzically, tentatively, licking Bates' hands and face. Good old Milo! For several long minutes Bates just sat there petting Milo, and looking up at the distant uncaring stars.

After a few minutes, Mel sat down beside them. "We've been talking to Janet, Narb. All these years she had convinced herself that you had gotten over her, and were living a happy life somewhere with someone else. We told her otherwise. That, loaded on top of the guilt she's felt all these years about the kids, and about leaving you for John...well, she's pretty upset. She had hoped that you and the kids might get to know each other over the next few days, the last days we have on Earth. Anyway, that was her agenda, but I think we need her on the Bus. After all, she knows where Dannos really is. But you're taking all of this pretty hard, aren't you?"

"I always thought she loved me Mel, deep, deep down, no matter who her father made her marry. We loved each other so much that summer Mel! I'd swear it was real! But to find out that she could do this! Crazy, stupid me, I thought maybe she really felt something for me." He shook his head sadly. "My own children are grown up and strangers."

"Sure Bates, and she feels rotten and you feel rotten. You were right; she says she did love you and made a stupid mistake by breaking things off with you. But you lost that battle years ago. And I don't see where you've lost anything else now."

Bates sighed. "Mel, I'm a father, and she never even had the decency to let me know!"

"True," argued Mel. "But you lost that one too when she left you in the first place. Now you even have an opportunity to get a little something back. But the kids aren't what's really bothering you, are they?"

Bates was becoming more than a little exasperated with his friend. "OK, Dr. Guthery, I give up, what is really bothering me?"

"Pretty much the same thing that's been bothering you for twenty years, Bates. You never gave her up, did you?"

"Well, sure I did, Mel!"

"Bull shit, my friend! You've just gone through the motions. You made some halfhearted attempts at new relationships, but if any other woman threatened to get close, you drove them away. You enshrined that one magic summer in your mind, Bates, made it so attractive and made yourself so dependent on just the sweet memory of it, that no real woman had a ghost of a chance. You have never really faced up to losing her so that you could get on with your life, have you? Too busy feeling sorry for yourself?"

"She left me Mel!"

"Right Narb. She gave you excellent reasons to feel hurt; but that was twenty years ago. You did the rest, to yourself! She's not perfect and made a big mistake, Bates. But guess what my friend, nobody is perfect; certainly not you! You wasted your own twenty years, not her. You could have had a wife and kids if you really wanted to. Instead you've been screwing up for twenty years, convincing yourself you still love her and she still loves you, even though she married somebody else. Until now, am I right?"

"How did you get so damned insightful all of a sudden Mel? OK, you're right; I guess you're right about everything. Now I'm not even so sure that I love her anymore." There, he said it! And he meant it. He took a deep breath.

"Believe it or not, that's a positive step, Bates. Maybe you never can love her or anyone else again the way you did twenty years ago, but that's life. And you're right, your kids are strangers, but it doesn't have to stay that way. No matter how you feel about Janet, they're the innocent victims of this business. And they still are your biological kids."

Bates took another deep breath and looked towards the campfire. His head was still spinning. Too much was happening, too fast. It all seemed like some sort of crazy dream. His grown up son and daughter were sitting by the fire, talking to each other quietly, while on the other side of the fire, Janet was talking to Norma. The twins looked like good kids.

The massive form of Oscar Oscomb materialized out of the darkness. "Flood says he's picked up unusual aircraft search radar and a lot of radio chatter. He says we better beat it, pronto."

Bates sighed, stood up, quickly folded the blanket, and gave each of his good friends Mel and Milo an affectionate pat on the head. He was exhausted and confused, but he knew that the Team had to move on, and so did he. There just wasn't any time to work out his personal problems now; probably there never would be. He wiped his eyes and took several deep breaths, then on unsteady legs walked over to Norma and the Garbs, who were still gathered around the fire.

"We have to get to the Bus right away," he announced.

"Narb," said Janet, "I had hoped the four of us could spend a few days here and get acquainted."

Bates looked as resolute then as his friends had ever seen him. "Sorry Janet, we just don't have time. We have a mission."

Janet's face was lined with strain. "Dr. Guthery says you need me to provide you with astronomical information on Dannos?"

"That's right Janet. We really do need you." Their eyes locked, and for a moment Bates' stern demeanor crumbled into despair, but he looked away quickly, salvaged a smile from somewhere, and turned to his son and daughter. "And I need you two also. At least for this part of our mission, we have plenty of room to spare. Come on, you're all going with us! The three of you have about two minutes to pack up."

Smiling, the twins ran excitedly to their tents and threw stuff into duffel bags. Thanks to modern tent technology, the tents were packed as well in seconds. Janet stood watching them, a tear running down one cheek.

"Don't you have things to pack, Janet?" asked Mel.

She shook her head, smiling. "No, I think I have about everything I need." She was carrying a large purse-like bag.

Bates put an arm around the shoulders of each of his kids and walked them towards the Bus. "We'll have to do this family reunion on the fly, pun intended. You guys ever been to space in a bus before? By the way, what the heck are your names, anyway?"

****

CHAPTER 24

WESTERN SHOOT OUT!

It is in the interest of the commonwealth of mankind that there should be someone who is unconquered, someone against whom fortune has no power.

\- Seneca

Half way back to the Bus the little group heard the sound of engines rapidly approaching. Soon they saw lights in the sky, coming in low. Oddly enough, none of them actually knew what the Bus sounded like from the outside, so at first they thought it could be Flood. As it got closer however, there was no mistaking the sound of the beating blades of a helicopter of some sort.

"They must be looking for the Bus!" said Bates. "Mel, Oscar, Norma, what's the radar cross section of the Bus, anyway?"

"What do you mean?" replied Oscar. Biologists aren't big on radar.

"You know, how big does the Bus appear to be to radar? The size of a car? A bread box? A sparrow? A pinhead?"

"The size of a bus, I imagine," said Norma. "There was no thought at all to stealth in its design. It is a bus, you know! Of course there isn't a lot of metal, and that probably should help enormously, but the Bus isn't shaped to attenuate radar reflections or coated to absorb radar signals."

"Dandy!" Bates remarked.

Suddenly ahead of them, fiery streaks leapt from the helicopter towards the ground where Bates and company supposed their Bus to be. Instantly a dark shape shot up from the ground, and then a huge explosion lit the area under the rising Bus. "Good lord! They're shooting at the Bus!" exclaimed Mel.

When Flood saw the helicopter approaching on his radar, he quickly got Hank, Barns, and Sandra on board and strapped in. His smile broadened with the helicopter's approach, and he started humming 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' softly. Flood was in his element. A fighter pilot for years before joining the space program, nothing got his juices going more than air-to-air combat. He put on his virtual reality helmet, and his fingers danced over the control keys. All systems powered up and passed diagnostic self tests. The helicopter launched missiles at them and the Bus shot up and away. They had attacked and now Flood was fully prepared to attack back.

Attackers of the Bus would get some nasty surprises. Though designed to be a space transport, the Bus had Premium Fuel and nuclear fusion engines of tremendous power compared to those of the aircraft attacking it. Though it lacked conventional lift, control, and stabilizing wing surfaces, the Bus relied on powerful gyroscopes and computer controlled raw rocket power. The primary Bus performance constraint was the inability of its human passengers to tolerate high-G forces.

Because of the less than perfect aerodynamic properties of even a 'streamlined' bus shape, the Bus would normally do better at higher altitudes in little or no atmosphere, were it not for another unique design feature. When the fusion space-drive engine was activated, a field could be generated around the outside of the Bus that was similar to the electromagnetic one containing the actual fusion reaction. The field could be shaped and modulated to greatly improve the aerodynamic properties of the Bus.

In addition, after the Enterprise City visit, the Bus was now a fighting machine. More than a decade ago the Jigs Corporation had made subtle changes to the original Government Bus design that allowed rapid Enterprise crew installation of hardware and software that supported a true fighting capability. The Starlite Plastic forming the outside shell provided improved heat resistance, a highly reflective laser defense, and excellent physical battle armor.

The force field could deflect changed particles, electromagnetic waves including radar pulses, and iron-containing weapons, and could also project disruptive electromagnetic pulses (EMPs). Several laser and laser/plasma cannon provided additional offensive punch. Software additions provided control of the weapons, sophisticated battle tactics, and flight control within passenger safety tolerances. And last but not least, Jigs had provided Flood, an expert pilot highly trained to be as lethal as he had to be.

The Bus easily avoided the initial barrage of air to ground missiles fired from the attacking H-99 helicopter by automatically shooting straight up a hundred meters at the last possible second.

Then it was Flood's turn. "OK," said Flood, "let's see what this baby can do!" Norma, strapped in the copilot chair next to him holding a few precautionary barf bags at the ready, barely had time to grasp the arm rests even tighter before the Bus again shot up and forward with tremendous acceleration, and then loop-de-looped around to dive straight down at the helicopter, which by comparison, seemed to be standing still. Flood fired an EMP pulse and laser blast as he flew by. The laser blast penetrated the H-99 causing only minor damage, but the EMP fried all the electronics in the aircraft, which lost control and crashed to the ground within seconds.

Flood turned the Bus upward again to face two F-39 jet fighters diving at them at over 1500 km/hr. Targeting them using his virtual reality helmet, he fired several laser blasts without effect; the F-39 had reflective surfaces to deflect most of the laser energy. A flock of air-to-air missiles from the F-39's were rendered blind by the Bus force field and evaded by violent maneuvers, then rendered mindless and harmless by EMPs. Meanwhile, steel sheathed bullets were deflected by the Bus force field.

As the vehicles closed at over 3000 km/hr, it became apparent that collision was the greatest threat. Flood smiled grimly. He was banking on two things. First, that his opponents were relative amateurs and would become unnerved in an honest game of 'chicken', and second, that the automatic collision avoidance system of the Bus would save the Bus from collision regardless of what moves were initiated by either him or his opponents. He defiantly turned on the Bus's head lights and accelerated towards the oncoming 'air superiority' combat fighters with the confidence of a man that had seen this situation simulated in virtual reality training many times.

These fighter pilots had some previous experience in attacking helpless air and ground targets, but had never experienced an antagonist like Flood or an aircraft like the Bus. Soon their primary concern became to escape collision as the Bus swept by them and destroyed their avionics systems with another close proximity EMP. The fighters had been designed to withstand EMPs caused by distant nuclear detonations, not to withstand directed high intensity bursts delivered at close range. With their computer control fly-by-wire systems toasted, the helpless fighters soon crashed into the rocky Arizona hillsides below.

While the Bus battled the jet fighters, the final helicopter used detection of infrared from body heat to close in on Bates and the rest of the team that was still on the ground. They took cover behind a 5-meter tall boulder, but the helicopter repeatedly swept over the boulder from one side to the other, spraying the ground with deadly machine gun fire, driving the desperately running group around the boulder again and again.

Echoing sounds of the noisy helicopter seemed to come from every direction at once as it varied the direction and timing of its maneuvers, such that the rapidly tiring Team had trouble determining which way to run. Bullets missed Bates' daughter Elizabeth by inches in the last pass.

In the dim light Bates was shocked to see Oscar leap away from the shelter of the boulder to tackle a nearby Aspen tree. After pushing it over and breaking some of the roots, the big man applied his huge strength to rip the entire tree out of the ground. Suddenly the scene was awash with light from the helicopter, and bullets rained down around the big biologist.

With a mighty grunt, Oscar heaved the entire tree, including a good-sized root-ball, up towards the hovering helicopter.

As the tree left Oscar's hands, Bates saw Oscar's body thrown back in a hail of gunfire. Bates knew what had happened even as he told himself so very desperately that it couldn't possibly have happened, as Oscar fell to the ground in what seemed to be slow motion.

"No!" shouted Bates, running towards Oscar. Meanwhile, the amazing airborne Aspen struck the main helicopter blades. The stricken helicopter shuttered and shook, but managed a controlled crash landing nearby.

Bates reached his unmoving friend's side in moments that seemed an eternity. Kneeling beside him, his hands touched something warm and wet, and he realized it could only be blood, a conclusion that was horrifyingly confirmed when floodlights from the downed helicopter illuminated the grisly scene. It was bad, really bad, so bad that Bates couldn't tell if Oscar was still barely alive or already dead. Nor could he leave his friend's side, even as more bullets whizzed around him, and Mel screamed at him from the cover of the boulder to run for his life!

The ground shook once, then again, as the two fighter aircraft slammed into the ground only a few hundred yards distant. In the direction of the helicopter, three figures carrying rifles were illuminated by the blasts. Startled, they looked around at the burning wreckage for a few moments, probably wondering, along with everyone else, what had crashed. Was the Bus destroyed? Then Bates heard one of the gunmen shout. In the light from the crashed fighters Bates could tell they were looking right at him! They brought up their rifles to shoot. Bates couldn't move. He couldn't leave Oscar.

Bates knew this was the end. Then a terrible and extraordinary thing happened that he would never forget. The three gunmen were suddenly enveloped in bright light and lightning-fire; and then they were simply gone! Then the beam of lightning moved upwards and hit the helicopter, and it blew up!

Soon the Bus was landing nearby with its headlights trained on Oscomb and Bates, while the rest of the group already on the ground came out from behind the boulder to discover what had happened. The next thing Bates knew, Jane was next to him, examining Oscar and digging into a first-aid kit she always carried.

"That's it Bates," she said. "Just keep applying firm pressure." Jane had placed big gauze pads in his hands and pushed them back to where they had been.

"Huh?" asked Bates, coming partly out of his stupor and struggling to see through the haze of tears. He found that somehow in his bloody hands he was holding pads over both entrance and exit wounds, while Jane was working frantically with rolls of gaze and clamps and tape to affix them to Oscar.

A shocked, shaken Mel knelt next to Bates. "They would have gotten more of us for sure if Oscar hadn't done what he did," said Bates. "He's a hero. Maybe that should help, but it doesn't."

"Hurts like hell!" croaked a pitifully weak voice.

"He's alive!" shouted Mel jubilantly.

"Well of course he's alive, Mel," said Jane. "Why do you think I'm bandaging him up?"

Hank and Barns were suddenly there with a stretcher, and Jane directed the Team in moving Oscar to the Bus. Bates found himself struggling side by side with his son Don and his daughter Elizabeth as they all carried the heavy biologist into the Bus. Still dazed and bloody, Bates sat down in the Engineer's seat behind Flood and Carbuncle, who were soon busy at the Bus controls again.

"Everyone is on board and all hatches are closed," reported Mel, his voice trembling.

"All systems go!" announced Norma.

Flood turned to Bates. "Where to, Bates?" he asked.

"The nearest big hospital is Phoenix General," added Janet.

"That was the NP attacking us! I could tell from their radio chatter," warned Flood. "Phoenix could be crawling with them."

There was no choice to be made, as far as Bates was concerned. "Phoenix General it is," he said.

"Yes sir," responded Flood as the Bus lifted off the ground. "Do we take it fast or covert?"

"Fast but smooth," responded Bates, looking back at Oscar stretched out on the floor near the rear door, attended by Jane. The Bus accelerated smoothly up into the clear, crisp Arizona sky, a billion dollar ambulance.

Several minutes later a strange looking bus pulled up to the emergency entrance of Phoenix General and discharged a wounded man on a stretcher carried by several ragged looking men and women.

Oscar was in shock but still lucid. As he was being carried in, he lifted a hand and gestured to Bates to move closer. "You have to leave me now," he whispered.

"I'm not going to leave you, Oscar," he answered.

Some of Oscar's old strength seemed to return for a moment. He reached out and grabbed Bates by his bloody jacket with a huge hand and pulled him to his face "GET OUT NOW!" he commanded, and pushed Bates back with such force that the six burly hospital attendants that had just assumed the job of carrying the big biologist had to scramble to keep from falling down.

Bates stumbled back and found himself caught and supported by Jane, Mel, and Janet, who had been following closely. He started towards Oscar again but Jane held him back firmly and turned him around to face her.

"He's right," she said. "You all have to go. The Team has to continue. I'll stay with him. This is medical work. You just take care of my Mel." She turned to Mel and they exchanged a quick hug and kiss. Then she ran through the hospital doors after Oscar, leaving Bates, Mel, and rest of the Team standing outside.

Bates took off his glasses with one shaking hand and tried to rub the tears from his eyes using his jacket sleeve, but just ended up smearing Oscar's blood into his eyes. Someone was suddenly there wiping his face and then his hands and arms with a clean damp cloth of some sort.

It was Janet. "Come on, Narb. We've done all that we can."

Bates looked around and saw that everyone else was walking quietly back to the Bus with heads bowed low. He didn't think he could walk anywhere. He never in his life felt so tired and empty. Janet took him by the hand and resolutely pulled him towards the Bus.

It would be some time later before the significance of that action registered with Bates. It was the first time that he and Janet had touched in twenty years. But this was a day when all other events were placed in clearer perspective and soured by the terrible thing that had happened to Dr. Oscar Oscomb, expert biologist, loud singer, Bud drinker, B-Team-mate, hero, and dear friend.

****

CHAPTER 25

PHOENIX GENERAL

I'm not afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens.

\- Woody Allen

Peter Lund sat in his Phoenix hotel room staring at the morning newscast displayed on the VISICOM display, trying to fathom what was happening. Years ago, early in his FBI career, he had been content to simply follow orders blindly, without knowing or caring what was behind them. Later, he became fascinated with the behind the scene motives and maneuvering that orchestrated the secret worlds of espionage and power politics, especially when he found out the leverage it gave him with people in power.

Now, as Head of the NP, we was himself a person of great power, not even so much because he was Head of the most powerful police organization in the USA, but because of the twisted web of secrets, lies, and inside contacts he had built up over the years in getting to that position.

His business with Melberg had gotten way out of hand. It started out little, with small bribes for small favors. Then some heavier duty stuff: ruin a career and perform an assassination now and again. Still perfectly normal illegal things, though by now Lund had figured Melberg was just a go-between for somebody higher up inside or outside of Government. There were too many occasions when Melberg had to consult with someone else before he would make commitments.

Then came the fiasco of last night, when Lund's best men and equipment were lost! Besides the loss itself, Lund was upset that the whole business was far too brash and noisy. Lund liked things hidden and quiet. The money was still excellent, especially since now he also got all of the pay-off money that would have gone to his ill-fated comrades, but the cost and risk had been far too great. The equipment and men could be replaced; there were hundreds of mothballed airplanes and ex-military men to be had for cash. But investigations were sure to follow this latest episode. Already, the Arizona police were downright belligerent in their questioning of him over last-night's battle. They had a hotshot Governor that arrogantly assumed jurisdiction regardless of Lund's threats.

Worse yet, after all these years Lund still didn't have a handle on Melberg. At first he hadn't been concerned. Going in he had confidence that sooner or later he'd get the goods on Melberg. He had played similar games with dozens of people, and sooner or later he had always found the skeletons in their closets.

Until Melberg. Even after ten years Lund still didn't know even basics about Melberg, such as who he really worked for or why. Hell, he couldn't even find out where the man lived or where he came from! How did a middle-aged office jockey like Melberg manage to elude his best men and technology? As a consequence, in their interactions, Melberg was still in control, not him. It was infuriating.

Things really became convoluted a few days ago when Ryan, the President's Chief of Staff, told him that Melberg was the 'most wanted' person in the country.

Well screw them! Melberg was paying him plenty! Melberg told Lund that he had a deal breaking that would 'change things' totally after the holidays; all that Lund had to do was keep the NP from him for a couple more weeks. Lund had his NP look for Melberg all right, but he gave it a very low priority. Of course he reported to Ryan that the whole NP was working overtime to find Melberg.

Yesterday, while he was on his way to Arizona with a hand-picked team of his own agents to meet Melberg, Ryan COMed to tell him that alien saucers were flying over Washington and that Melberg was now believed to be a space alien! Minutes later, his own Washington office called to tell him the same thing. Since then the news stations were flooded with videos of what they described as flying saucers. He was watching one now on the COM.

Of course the space alien business had to be nonsense; it was fully as ridiculous as that asteroid business that recently caused near panic in the White House. He still didn't believe in flying buses either, though something had certainly demolished his Arizona task force. All of his men were dead and his aircraft were destroyed.

No, there was more to this business. This administration was after Melberg and was going to ridiculous lengths to discredit him. Why? Political power, sex and/or money had to be at the bottom of it all somehow, it always was. The rest was sanctimonious bullshit. But why the crazy news reports? What were they trying to gain by that? For perhaps the tenth time he watched the video of a flying saucer hatch from a house in the DC suburbs and fly away.

He laughed at the reaction of the news media and others. They actually believed it! It certainly looked realistic; it must have taken big bucks to fabricate that video. Computer graphics, undoubtedly. But why? What was really going on? What was the angle? When he figured it out, he would use it, like he used everything else. Whoever did this would then be his to control. Maybe it would be that leftist bitch of a president, or her over-the-hill lap-dog Ryan!

This cheerful train of thought was interrupted when his VISICOM automatically displayed an additional window with a flashing border in one corner of the screen. It was results from the NP computer back at his office in Washington. A few hours ago, one of the people that Melberg sought had been admitted to Phoenix General Hospital. Lund smiled. Big Brother was watching, and Peter Lund was Big Brother!

There was a knock at his hotel door. It was Melberg, and he wasn't happy. "Lund, judging from news reports and what you COMed me, your pitiful NP has botched things but good!"

Lund was incensed. He had a loaded X-909 pistol in his pocket and for a moment considered using it then and there on Melberg. But no; instead he better find out what else the conniving scientist had to say. "You told me those DOD folks were unarmed civilians Melberg! Then they destroyed all my aircraft and killed my best fighting men! Well, now I want to know what the hell is going on!"

Melberg met Lund's tirade with what had always worked for him with Earth people like Lund. "What's going on is you won't get more of this until I see some results!" Melberg reached into a satchel he was carrying and pulled out a huge stack of thousand dollar bills, and poked Lund in the ribs with, it. It did indeed work wonders, just as the Ra training course for Earth operations had explained that it would. Earthers were so dumb! They deserved to die.

"I just got a report that a Dr. Oscar Oscomb has recently been admitted to Phoenix General Hospital just a couple kilometers from here," Lund said, as he reached out his hand for even more money.

Melberg handed him yet another stack of money. Then they headed for the hospital.

****

At a Wawa North of Tucson the B Team was getting breakfast and supplies and making COM calls when Mel phoned the hospital and received the worst news imaginable.

He was told that Oscar had not survived the night.

Mel didn't have to say a word about it to the B-Team assembled around him; they knew immediately from watching him and by listening to the pain in his voice when he asked to speak to his wife.

Jane could not be located. This immediately caused concern, but unless they went back to the hospital, there wasn't really anything they could do. They all agreed that to return to Phoenix would be simply too dangerous. Besides, they had to go on with the mission. There were now less than six days left until the destruction of Earth!

First though, Bates had another call to make. When he reached Ryan, the Chief of Staff was smiling. "I'm certainly pleased to hear from you Dr. Bates, we feared you were dead!"

"Most of us are alive, no thanks to you!" replied Bates angrily.

"What do you mean?" asked Ryan.

Bates struggled to provide an answer. It was almost too painful to talk about. A teary eyed but angry Bates told Ryan about the NP attack and Oscar.

Ryan seemed to be genuinely shocked. He assured Bates that the NP had not been following White House orders, but understood when Bates tactfully replied that they couldn't take any chances, and then cut off the call.

Ryan was furious. He had never liked or trusted Lund, and now he was sure that Lund's unexplained trip to Phoenix was not simply coincidental with the attack on the Bus. After a brief talk with the President, he phoned White House security, NP Headquarters, and his friend the Arizona Governor to request that they arrest Lund. The conversation with NP Headquarters was particularly interesting.

****

Arriving at the Hospital, Melberg and Lund were told that Oscomb was dead, and that his friends had left in a bus. Lund showed the receptionist in charge his NP ID badge and told them that he and Melberg had to see the body.

While they waited in the lobby for the receptionist to arrange an escort, Lund got a call on his mobile VISICOM. It was Kirby, his right hand man in Washington.

"Pete, the White House has just ordered several agencies to arrest you, including this one. Court orders to that effect are on the way. If I were you right now, I'd take advantage of your current proximity to Mexico."

Lund remained cool. He had always known that something like this would happen sooner or later. "OK, Kirby. Message understood. You clean up there and I'll meet you in two. Lund out."

Over the next several hours, Kirby would be destroying what he thought were Lund's records. Lund had been in tight spots with Presidents before, but always had enough clout with them to wriggle out. However, with President Wright and her equally squeaky-clean stooge Ryan, he had no leverage. His investigations of them proved fruitless. They actually seemed to be honest, and so far he hadn't been able to fabricate anything solid to use against them. Much as he hated to do it, he was playing his 'Kirby card' now.

Lund COMed Ryan. "Ryan, I've just finished investigating NP actions in Arizona and have come up with some really surprising and shocking news. I've found that someone high up in the NP organization has been paid off by Melberg. Further, I've just heard from my office in Washington that the traitor is destroying evidence right now! If you hurry, you should be able to catch him red handed. It's my deputy, Jack Kirby."

On the COM Ryan smiled at Lund the whole time. "That's very interesting Mr. Lund. But not surprising in the least, I'm afraid. In fact, it's exactly what I've been told you would say, isn't it, Mr. Kirby."

Ryan moved to one side and another man stepped into view. Even on Lund's tiny ten centimeter fold-out wrist-VISICOM, Lund could easily identify Jack Kirby!

"Hi Pete! Guess what! I discovered a month ago that you were keeping a doctored set of books with my name all through it. So I decided to turn state's evidence. I just needed the right moment to do it, and this is it! Sorry buddy!"

Ryan moved back into view. "A short time ago I supplied him with the moment he needed, Mr. Lund. Oh, and I'm afraid you can forget about Mexico. The Hospital you are in is surrounded. And I wouldn't try any hostage stuff either, Lund. Remember, you're in Arizona, land of the braves. That's all, Mr. Lund. See you in court, if you live that long!"

Lund's face turned white. The land of the braves! Arizona now had its first law-and-order Apache Indian Governor. Hostage taking was one of several crimes that were punishable by being staked out spread-eagled on top of a fire-ant mound at high noon! If the offender survived that, worse punishments followed. Understandably, crime was plummeting rapidly in the Grand Canyon State. The murder of Oscomb and the attempted murder of the other Bus folks would certainly be punishable by death or worse. Lund had to get out of there!

He turned towards the main entranceway. A solid line of Arizona State Troopers carrying shotguns was marching towards the front door outside. A big red-skinned man wearing war paint and full-feathered headdress, and carrying a tomahawk, led them. It was Chief Latanna himself; the famed Law and Order Governor!

But there had to be a way out; there always was. Glancing around desperately at the lobby that minutes ago contained a dozen other people, he suddenly realized that it was empty except for himself and Melberg! He suspected that under-cover police had been quietly spiriting people away for the last several minutes, while he was occupied with the COM call.

"Is something wrong, Lund?" asked Melberg. Melberg, looking perfectly relaxed, had that smirky, closed-mouth smile on his face that Lund always hated.

"Wrong? You idiot, can't you see that this place is surrounded by police? It's a set up! We'll both soon be spread-eagled on an ant mound! What the hell are we going to do?"

Melberg casually strolled towards the elevator, still smiling. "I'm going to take the elevator Lund. What you do is entirely your own affair."

The elevator doors opened. Inside it were two State Troopers with six-shooters drawn. Almost casually, Melberg slashed out with incredible speed, knocked both guns away, struck both Troopers unconscious or dead, and yanked them out of the elevator. It was a stunning display of speed and strength. Melberg calmly stepped into the elevator, and Lund leapt over the sprawled Troopers and dove through the closing doors just in time. Lund noted that the elevator was headed for the top floor, number seven.

Melberg calmly stood there watching him, still with that stupid amused smile on his face. "Something worrying you Lund? Oh, maybe you want paid again. Here, you've been a good boy, inept but obedient. Take it all." He tossed the satchel to Lund. It was full of money! There had to be millions!

For just a moment, Lund was elated. Then he realized this money was worthless to him! It was worse than worthless; it was hard evidence against him that the police would no doubt confiscate anyway! Even if they didn't, he couldn't spend it in jail or on an anthill! But even knowing all of that, Lund still hugged the satchel to his chest tightly anyway, powerless in the grip of its attractive force.

The elevator stopped and Melberg walked rapidly out the elevator doors and down the hallway, with Lund running after him.

"Is there something else you wanted, Lund?" Melberg asked.

"Yes, damn it!" Lund screamed. "I want a way out! You have one, don't you!"

The hospital lights went out, and a low throbbing sound filled the air. A few emergency lights flickered on and off, and some light still entered the hall through a few open doorways that led to outside windows.

"My way out would be costly for you, Lund." Melberg walked without hesitation through the darkened hallway, ignoring the shouts and screams of frightened patients and staff. The floor and walls vibrated rhythmically to the throbbing humming sounds that were growing in volume to impossible levels.

"I'll pay you, Melberg, anything you want! Here, take back the money for starters." Melberg turned into a pitch dark stairwell and started up towards the roof, and Lund scrambled to follow.

"Money is of no use to us anymore, Lund. But I suppose that there is something else you could do for us."

Lund stumbled up the stairs behind Melberg, wandering how the thin scientist ahead of him could find his way so well. It was almost as though he could see in the dark. Further down the stairwell, he could hear the pounding of rapid footsteps and the voices of the police. Looking down and behind him, he saw that light from cop flashlights was already shining up the stairwell. He judged that they were only two stories down and closing rapidly! "Anything at all is yours, Melberg. Money, power, women, drugs, anything at all, you name it. Just take me with you!"

At the top of stairs Melberg opened the door and turned towards Lund. Strange, blinding white, pulsing light flooded the stairwell through the doorway. Sound throbbed and shook the stairway so violently that Lund feared that it would collapse around him. The thin dark silhouette that was Melberg replied. "I'm sure that I could arrange that with my friends, Lund. In fact, they will be quite pleased to see you, I'm sure! And the price is so simple, a trifle really." He reached out and grabbed Lund by the wrists in a grip so strong that Lund felt powerless as he was pulled out onto the roof.

Lund, who expected to see a helicopter or another vertical take-off and landing craft of some sort, was stunned by the sight that met them. A pulsing flying saucer, easily as large as the big hospital, filled the sky above them! Lund's knees buckled but Melberg kept him from falling. The satchel full of money fell unnoticed to the rooftop. Melberg pulled Lund towards a big transparent tube that hung from the bottom of the saucer and reached down to the hospital roof, and they stepped into an opening on one side of it.

Immediately they were enclosed within an elevator-sized bubble. Inside the bubble it was deathly quiet. Finally over being stunned, and well on the way to being terrified, Lund started to struggle, but it was far too late. Melberg effortlessly held him powerless as the tube rose with the bubble in it, lifting the pair towards the saucer.

"The trifle is this, Lund: we want you to join us for dinner." Melberg smiled, this time with his mouth open wide, showing rows of razor sharp fangs. A blood red, snake-like tongue darted over the fangs. "As the main course."

As the tube disappeared completely into the belly of the saucer, the big Apache Chief of Police/Law and Order Governor and his men ran out onto the roof. In their report they later wrote that through the whine of the departing flying saucer, they clearly heard the unholy sounds of hideous laughter and a man's terrified screams.

****

CHAPTER 26

TWINKIES AND SWOLLEN HEMORRHOIDAL TISSUE

Things are not as bad as they seem. They are worse.

\- Bill Press

On Saturday morning it was a Space Bus full of dismal and weary travelers that left the Wawa. Oscar's Bus seat remained painfully empty, except for a couple of crushed Bud cans that nobody could bring themselves to throw away. The Team tried to keep themselves busy, but still couldn't help thinking frequently of their lost friend Oscar.

Even junk food didn't help. Bates sat with a pocket full of neglected Slim Jim's, next to Mel. On Mel's lap sat an untouched bag full of Hostess cream filled chocolate cupcakes. Even Milo was off his feed; the dog had eaten only half the microwave pepperoni pizza that was on the seat next to him. Across the aisle Barns was actively devouring a pile of Twinkies, but it had to be considered that he was still making up for three days without any food at all.

When they were out of sight of the Wawa, Flood drove the Bus a few inches above the pavement, which saved on tire wear and allowed increased speed. In the daytime the small plume of fiery exhaust under the Bus was almost invisible; there was no indication that the other few travelers encountered on the highway noticed. If they did, they probably thought that the Bus was one of those power-sucking air cushion vehicles that were once more common.

They made good time. However, for the first time in nearly two days, they were in no real hurry to get anywhere in particular. Despite their grief, they had to make plans.

They pulled off the main highway and entered the first mountainous, forested area that they found, flew the Bus into a secluded valley, snuggled it under the cover of a stand of pine and aspen trees watered by a small stream, and powered down most of the Bus systems for the day.

Closing his eyes and visualizing a smiling, robust Oscar Oscomb that would have raged loudly against the current addle brained inertia of the melancholy Team, for the hundredth time during the last few hours Bates said a silent prayer for his friend, and gave thanks for having had the honor of knowing the man. However, in spite of their loss, they still had no time to waste. Bates reminded everyone that there was less than six days left until the end of the Earth, and called the whole Team to the front of the Bus for a meeting, with the exception of Milo, who was detailed to guard duty and jack-rabbit watching at the door of the Bus.

"OK folks," announced Bates, "we need to get organized and get to work. I'm going to assign tasks and responsibilities, but I want you to all think about what we're doing and make suggestions that you think might prove helpful. First, as you all know, our goal is to save the Earth. Is there any disagreement or discussion on that point?" He didn't expect any.

"Yes," said a perceptibly rehabilitated Barns. Food and a good night's sleep had gone a long way towards rejuvenating the whole Team, Barns in particular. "I think that an alternative mission should be seriously considered."

Bates and the others were completely surprised as Barns continued. "Let me begin by asking all of you a question. Do any of you have the slightest idea how to stop Dannos?" It was the central issue that had been nagging at each of them from the moment they had first found out about the problem.

"I had hoped," replied Bates, "that we might find some ideas in the data cubes, in accordance with our interpretation of the Jigs riddles."

"Of course," said Barns. "The riddles and cubes are interesting to academia inclined professionals such as us. But based on what we can conceive of as actual science-supported possibilities for actions, does that even make any sense? Do you know what we are talking about here? After decades of trying we can't even control an Earthquake or a thunderstorm, and that's child's play compared to stopping Dannos. And we only have a few days, not years!"

Barns turned to Mel. "Well Dr. Guthery, can we blow it up?"

Mel shook his head sadly. "From what Janet has told me, it's an iron-core asteroid at least ten miles across. I doubt that Earth ever possessed the arsenal that could blow it up completely. Perhaps if some of the nuclear arsenal of decades ago could have been applied to it earlier, that would have been enough to destroy or divert it."

Barns turned to Norma. "Dr. Carbuncle, do we possess an arsenal?"

"Well, no," she replied. "We had a small one, but it's missing. That's what I was checking on just before we left the Base. Annex 10 is empty! I'd probably have brought it up earlier, but I've been busy throwing up most of the time since then."

She went on to explain that the celebrated, historic public dismantling of the 'last nuclear bomb' a decade ago had been a hoax. The DOD had preserved three 'emergency' nuclear devices in Annex 10. This was shocking news to Bates and the others. Equally shocking was the fact that the supposedly nonexistent bombs were now actually missing.

"How powerful are they?" Janet asked.

"Not very. Each equivalent to fifty kilo-metric tons of TNT. They used to be considered mere tactical weapons," Norma replied. "Why?"

"Because," replied Janet, "a hundred fifty kilo-tons is exactly the size of the explosion that some of my colleagues calculated would have been needed to change the course of Dannos seven years ago!"

"Fudge Winkies!" snorted Bates. "The Ra!"

"How could something like this happen?" asked Janet.

Barns had the answer. "I'm afraid that only three people at DOD knew about the bombs hid on the Base. Myself, Norma, and Melberg."

The assembled Team groaned. Melberg again! It was clear to everyone that the Ra had used mankind's own bombs to put Dannos on its deadly course!

"But why bother?" asked Mel. "I can't believe that a society as advanced as the Ra had to depend on human technology to divert Dannos."

"True enough," explained Barns. "But it seems to me just the sort of irony that the Ra would appreciate. It's the way they think. They like to put something over on their enemies. Hidden agendas and so forth. Trick somebody into shooting themselves with their own gun, and they would probably be twice as happy about it as shooting them outright with Ra guns. But the main point is that nuclear bombs were our only conceivable approach, and we simply don't have any."

"OK," said Bates, "so we still don't have any bombs. We've known that all along, so what's the point of your point?"

Barns was pacing the Bus isle, as he launched himself back into his lecture. After a couple days of food and rest he seemed more like the old Barns. Bates sort of liked the tired, helpless, terrified Barns better.

"My point is this, we can't save the Earth. I'm sorry, but we simply can't. That's a hard thing to face, I know, but we shouldn't waste our time on fantasy. Instead, we should try to do something valuable that we have a good chance of accomplishing."

"And what's that?" asked Bates.

"Well, let's look at what we could do with this Bus," said Barns. "We can put a small group of humans in orbit for several months, with data and tools to rebuild a civilization, plus some seeds and maybe even a few small animals. After the worst of the disaster is over, we could land and start re-populating the Earth."

"I see some technical problems," said Norma. "This Bus is a short range transport, not a space station. It's simply not designed for voyages of more than a few weeks, tops, with a small crew. Less than that, if you carry the crowd that you'd need to replenish at least several species of plants and animals."

Bates breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like Norma was going to scuttle the Barns agenda.

But Norma wasn't through talking. "Instead, I would propose orbiting only a few breeding age females and sperm banks. We should also add some additional equipment to provide better air and water recycling."

"And I would suggest that we establish supply deposits in remote areas on Earth out of the direct impact zone," added Mel. "We wouldn't have to put heavy tools, data, food, and seeds in orbit, at least not right away. They could be recovered after the impact, but before the destruction spreads to them."

Barns sat nodding his head and smiling. "That's a start. There isn't much time to do the job, but I think we have a pretty good chance. Do we all agree?"

Bates had sat quietly, his mood growing blacker by the moment. "Never!" he erupted. "I will not simply abandon the rest of humanity that way, or the American public. I'm a Government man, a servant of the people. What you propose would be just like a crew abandoning its passengers on a sinking ship. I know that from a logical scientific standpoint my plan seems totally hopeless, but sometimes you have to make decisions based on other things.

"I confess that right now I don't know what will stop Dannos. Maybe it won't be science; not human science anyway. I think we have to look for the visitors from afar, like Jigs said, and take it from there. It sounds like a crazy long shot, I know. But this other plan of yours, I'm sorry; I want no part of it. I wouldn't want to be the one to pick what species to save, and what breeding females have to survive to see everything else destroyed. And I wouldn't want to be sitting up there in orbit with the Ra for even just several days, either. The Bus would be a sitting duck in space. More important, I won't sit up there safely in space and watch Earth get smashed and everything and everybody die. And finally, I'm just not going to let the Ra get away with this, period. This is our planet, damn it! All or nothing!"

Bates had done his best, but there was no immediate supporting response at all from his companions, as he had hoped there would be. Instead, several of his silent friends avoided his gaze. Barns sat gloating. Frustrated and disappointed, Bates suddenly felt compelled to simply get away from the others. He got up and walked to the door. "This is too important a decision for one person to make," he said. "You know what my vote is. Why don't the rest of you hash it out. I'm going to take Milo for a walk. If you decide to go with the Barns plan, just leave a few days rations for Milo and me. This would be as good a place as any to spend the few days that are left. Even with snakes." Then he and Milo walked away.

After a moment's silence, heated debate began.

An hour later Mel went looking for his friend. He found him and Milo a short distance away, in a small grove of Aspen next to the life-giving stream that wound through the valley.

"Hi Mel," Bates said. "I was just thinking of how I met Milo. Did I ever tell you that story?"

"No," replied the physicist.

"Well, a few years ago I decided that I wanted a dog."

"Sure, why not," remarked Mel.

"So I went the library and extensively researched the subject."

"Of course."

"Essentially, I studied breeds and assigned values to each characteristic, then determined what I wanted in a dog and assigned values to those."

"Then you of course numerically integrated the product of the two sets of numbers, said Mel.

"Naturally. Anyway, the best breed for me turned out to be the Australian Shepherd, with a score of 0.86, after normalization."

"Milo's an Aussie Shepherd?"

"I haven't the slightest idea what the hell Milo is. A couple weeks after my study, I bought an everything-on-it Pizza at Tony's. When I came out, there was Milo. He followed me to my car and jumped in and got into my pizza. The rest is history." He patted Milo's head affectionately.

"It was fate," suggested Mel.

"It was a hungry dog and the smell of good Pizza. But the point is, Milo and I couldn't be a better match, and research and planning had nothing at all to do with it. Sometimes you just have to follow your instincts and go with the flow. Now, logic might tell us that Barns' approach' is best, but there's too much that we'd be losing."

"I was just thinking that we'd lose these forests," remarked Mel, looking around them.

Bates leaned against a young Aspen trunk and ran his fingers across the hard, smooth bark. "Did you know that Aspen propagate through their root systems? This whole grove could actually be a single tree, much more ancient and massive than the biggest Sequoia, and in a week it could be gone. Because of us. Because a race we never even knew existed hates humanity and wants to wipe us out. If we humans weren't here this Aspen would be safe." He sat down next to Milo so that he could vigorously pet and scratch the grateful dog. "Not to mention dogs. I've grown sort of partial towards dogs. I wonder if Barns would have us leave all the dogs behind to die?"

Mel sat down beside his friend. "And cats too. You know that my house is full of cats. One of my cats is expecting kittens in about a month, Bates, and there's nothing cuter in this universe than kittens. Then there are my kids and a billion other kids to consider. And here's another little thing that will be lost, Bates. Without civilization we won't have any more of this!" Mel pulled out a small yellow tube that he had bought at the Wawa that morning.

Bates recognized it immediately. "Excellent stuff," he said.

"Have you ever read the ingredients?" asked Mel.

Bates read the tube. He had to take off his glasses to read the small print. If he lived past next week, he would get bifocals, he told himself. There were operations and contacts what would do a better job, but he was a glasses man, through and through. Tradition. More important, they were cheaper. He finally located the list of ingredients. "Yeast cell derivative and shark liver oil!" he exclaimed in amazement.

"Yep," replied Mel. "Now how long do you suppose it would take humanity to re-discover the fact that those particular ingredients shrink swollen hemorrhoids?"

"Oh, I don't know," replied Bates, "someone could find it out quite readily by accident I suppose." They laughed as they visualized the improbable juxtaposition of the items required. Ouch!

"Only if there are any sharks and yeast left," said Mel. "Anyway, that was one of my arguments to the Team for your plan."

"That's the best argument that you could think of? The potential loss of hemorrhoid cream to humanity?"

"Well, you already used up the best ones," explained Mel.

"You know Mel, I've been thinking about Barns. While he was recovering and sort of out of it I was actually beginning to like the guy. Now he seems to be reverting to form. Maybe it's all those Twinkies he eats. Maybe it's been the Twinkies for all these years!"

"A reasonable hypothesis my friend" agreed Mel. "In retrospect that's when the trouble started; after he ate about ten Twinkies."

"Well," reasoned Bates, "I've never seen anyone affected that way by Twinkies before, but then I've never seen anyone eat ten Twinkies at once either. So anyway, I've seriously considered taking the man's Twinkies away from him, like the Ra did. That would obviously test my evil Twinkie hypothesis."

"And?" asked Mel.

"I've rejected the idea based on moral principles. A man has a right to his Twinkies. That's probably in the Constitution someplace. Besides, they're the best damn things I've ever eaten, bar none, artificial flavoring or whatever and all." Having exhausted that irrelevant subject, Bates got right to the main point. "So Mel, how does my position fare?"

"Not too well," admitted Mel. "But you have some strong support. Hank, Flood, and Elizabeth, certainly."

Bates sighed. A gate guard, a pilot and a coed. No scientists? "What about you, Mel?"

Mel couldn't bring himself to look at his friend. "Most of us are undecided, Narb. I'd say my heart and gut are leaning your way, but my intellect is leaning the other way. But I argued mostly on your side, this time."

Bates took a slow deep breath. Even Mel was leaning towards the Barns plan! "So then, was anything decided?"

"Yes. A compromise, of sorts. We decided to spend the rest of the day on your plan, and then vote again the first thing tomorrow."

Just like the Government, thought Bates. Delay a decision and do a study. But at least it gave his plan, what there was of it, a little more time.

As they walked back to the Bus, Bates wandered if Mel's tube of hemorrhoid cream or Barns' Twinkies would end up saving the Earth, or dooming humanity. It seemed amazing how the little things can change the course of history. On the other hand, he supposed that the unmeasured cumulative effects of hemorrhoids and sweets on human history had probably already been enormous for many thousands of years. Maybe hemorrhoid cream and Twinkies had already saved humanity several times over without anyone even noticing.

****

CHAPTER 27

GROUND ZERO

What they are yet I know not, - but they shall be The terrors of the earth.

\- Shakespeare

Renson approached ground zero slowly and cautiously from the South. He would protect against the worst case scenario by waiting for the humans at the Dannos impact point. He would also confirm that the prime target was actually where it was predicted to be, based on research carried out by the previous Ca'Ra who supported Earth missions.

No Ca'Ra had been in this region of Earth in decades, and certainly no non-Ca'Ra member of the Ra race had ever been permitted within 300 km of the predicted target position. Due to the remote nature of the site and self-protection abilities of the target, it was not likely to have been visited by humans either. But if the humans he was concerned about managed against all odds to both survive and put the puzzle together, they might well attempt to visit the target, so that's where he had to wait for them.

Ren'Ca would be going much closer to the target than any Ca'Ra had attempted in the past. Still, though he was going where no Ra had gone before, he had the utmost confidence in his ability to do so successfully. Decades of training, and in particular mental training, had prepared him well for this mission.

Worried that the saucer itself could alert the target, Ren'Ca was walking the last 20 km. It was incredibly rough terrain, choked in tropical jungle. Of course with a single thought the saucer could be at his location in seconds, but he hoped that would prove unnecessary. He carried strapped to his back among other equipment a powerful laser cannon with an auxiliary power unit. It was the most powerful portable weapon in the Ra arsenal, even more powerful than his internal cyborg weaponry. With the laser he hoped to quickly destroy the humans with as little psychic disturbance as possible.

That was the key. Disturbance to the target, physical or psychic, could not be allowed. The target had to stay where it was, where in fact it had been sleeping for four Earth centuries or longer, until Friday, 1:15 AM, Eastern 'Standard' Time. This assassination had taken many decades to set up. If it failed, what the Dark Master would do to him could not even be imagined by the naive creatures in this particularly mundane universe, including even the ruthless Ra.

The humans would never even get close enough to the impact point to be blasted by the laser cannon, thanks to another weapon that he carried with him into the jungle. To protect the impact point Ren'Ca would soon unleash the deadliest, highest-tech weapon in the Ra arsenal; a set of deadly robotic nanite-based devises that would rapidly grow, multiply, surround, and guard the impact site. Other than Ra, no ground-traveling intruder would be able to get past the relentless nanobots.

Nanite weapons were highly illegal from a Galactic League standpoint, but the 'trust approach' was used to 'enforce' most Galactic League rules. Most Galactic League members didn't even understand the concept of lying, and were incapable of comprehending Ra motives and behavior. It was easy for the Ra to continue to clandestinely develop, manufacture and use illegal weapons. Since this area of Earth would soon be completely obliterated by Dannos, this was a perfect opportunity to use advanced nanite weaponry.

As he walked towards the target, vague feelings of foreboding began to assail him. Snakes and jaguars and insects meant nothing to the Ca'Ra. This section of jungle looked no different from thousands of square miles of other jungle, but it felt different. On a psychic level it felt dangerous and foreboding. It was part of the defense of the target. However Renson's Ca'Ra training allowed him to easily overcome the empathic assault. So far.

A dozen kilometers from the impact point it was time for him to release the nanobots. He retrieved the cigarette-pack sized metallic canister from his backpack and cautiously twisted off the cap. Inside were a couple of dozen pea-sized metallic spheres. He poured them into his hand and using his cyborg abilities accessed their status and their instructions. Satisfied, he unceremoniously dropped them to the ground, where they immediately appeared to dissolve and sink into the loamy jungle soil.

Each sphere was a cohesive colony of millions of nanites. They would consume minerals and energy while they rapidly multiplied and moved into position around the impact point. Depending on the threat, each colony could attack as a single large unit, as multiple macroscopic units, or as swarms of smaller units. Given a few years they could wipe out all the humans, but that would be detectable by the Galactic League. For now they would form an impenetrable ring around the impact point such that the target would not be approached by land. But if needed Ren'Ca could reprogram their mission.

Ren'Ca continued on through the thick jungle. When he was only ten kilometers from his objective he was seriously attacked psy-wise. Despite the strong mental shields he had erected since beginning this quest, images and emotions of fantastic strength bombarded his mind. Creatures living and dying, distant suns, violent battles, hate, rapture, fear, pain, came crashing into his mind like great dark waves!

Following Ra instincts, he would have slashed back empathically, had it not been for his training. It would be like an ant attacking an elephant, but it could possibly waken the Great One from his slumbers. Instead, Ren'Ca dropped to his knees and focused fully on shoring up his collapsing mental shields. Gradually he was able to attenuate the signals to barely bearable levels, but it was taking every bit of his skill to do so.

Then, as abruptly as it began, the mental bombardment subsided to almost nothing. But Ren'Ca had found out what he wanted to know. Visual conformation of the target would not be necessary. There was no doubt at all now that the target remained at the Dannos impact point. But he still had to get closer anyway, to better stand watch against the humans.

He stood up and started walking again, towards the target. He was not yet fully recovered from the attack. Instead of being smooth and sure, his movements were jerky and mechanical. For the first time, he experienced doubt that his skills would be equal to the task ahead. The strength of incoherent psychic thoughts from The Great One, such as those that he had just witnessed, invariably followed an inverse square law with respect to distance from the source. How strong would such thoughts be at the actual target site? Could he cope?

How frequent did the target dream? For that certainly is what the attack had been, a dream. His Dark Master, the Black One, had said that this had occurred on many other worlds where a Great One slept. The dreams were by creatures of almost unimaginable power. The Great Ones dreamed so powerfully that evolution and behavior for entire planets was profoundly affected. Fortunately, it also made the Great Ones detectable, and hence vulnerable. The Ra discovered that a Great One slept here more than a century ago, and reported it to their Dark Master. The Dark Master already knew this, but hadn't known that sentient beings called humans now on Earth, and might wake the sleeper. That would be unacceptable. This Great One would therefore soon die, as had all the others. Merely as a bonus, the humans would all die also.

****

Bates had the whole Team explore the data cubes more fully. The Team could not help but be amazed at what they found. The cubes Barns stole from the Ra ship included mostly human works, but they also chronicled sporadic visits by the Ra on Earth over several millennia, including especially the last century.

Oddly the information was in the form of several prominent human languages which various members of the Team knew. "Perhaps the information is more highly valued in its human form," Barns speculated.

It turned out that the Ra had enormous influence on human history, all of it bad. How else could Rome fall? How could a Hitler rise to power? How could the cruel tyranny of communism last so long? How could senseless racial and ethnic hatred linger on in so many corners of the world? Who really sponsored world-wide terrorists? How could a race of supposedly intelligent beings wage wars against their fellow human beings and against their own environment? How could superstition be preferred over science? How could radical political and religious differences possibly be so strong that human progress again and again was halted in favor of ignorance and continuing misery?

Human nature itself was of course was the primary cause, but not the only one. In many instances the Ra stirred up trouble in order to slow human progress. At times the Ra had as many as a hundred secret agents on Earth. Ruthless Ra agents escalated dangerous situations, made false accusations, sponsored the irrational, and neutralized the sensible. They usually didn't themselves assume political leadership positions. Instead they preferred to manipulate events from behind the scenes. They were worse than the CIA. Sometimes of course, they were the CIA. The last few years had been very disappointing ones for the Ra, since despite their worst efforts humans had undeniably made progress.

"Look at Book 73 Chapter 22 Section 3," exclaimed Norma. "According to this, about half of Hitler's staff was actually Ra!"

"Ha!" exclaimed Bates. "Those thin, bat faced, sourpuss Nazi creeps! We should have known!"

"So much for racial purity," quipped Sandra. "But how about Section 6! The Japanese wouldn't have invaded China if it weren't for the Ra!"

"Look at all the American Ra in Chapter 20!" added Bates. "Guess who really started the Great Depression!"

Barns suddenly became goggle-eyed and open mouthed as he stared at his VISICOM screen.

"What did you find?" asked Bates.

"A sort of preface to much of the Books, I think. Look at Chapter 1 in Book 73.

Bates found it quickly and read it aloud to the group. 'This latest and most ambitious mission, which we begin in Earth year 1913, is designed to again obstruct further human progress, after numerous past failures over many centuries, the most troubling being the shocking resurgence of the human intellect and spirit known by humans as the Renaissance. Operations are bounded, however, and extreme caution is expected to be required, given the increased frequency of visitation by others, in particular the Haspa."

"Wow!" exclaimed Mel. "Aliens have been around for a really long time! The whole last century is just considered to be their most recent mission! Their activity seemed to actually decrease over the last century, though, or at least they seemed to get more cautious."

"The poor dears; I hope they got some leave to go home once and a while. But who are the Haspa?" asked Janet.

"I found information on them too, Mom," said Don. "Book 74 Charter 5. It looks like they have studied Earth animal and human biology and psychology for a long time. Yuck! Here's a picture of one!"

Bates and Mel looked over his shoulder. The alien was a small, thin, gray skinned creature with huge head and big slanted eyes; to Mel it looked exactly like the one he had met a decade ago. "Hey, I think I know that guy!" he said.

Don continued to report on what he had found. "In summary, this indicates that until about ten years ago, the Haspa visited Earth frequently. At that point, according to this, they completed their mission."

Bates whistled. "Any more on the Haspa?" he asked.

"Not in this section," replied Don.

"OK, good work, Son! But now let's find our visitors from afar. Focus on aliens now everyone, with the exception of Janet, Mel, and Hank. Janet and Mel, I want you to figure out exactly when and where Dannos is coming, and when and how this Bus might intercept it. We might have actually less than five and a half days to stop it! Hank, you're in charge of security. Maybe you and Milo should look around a little."

Hank left the Bus with his assault rifle. He looked relieved to get away from the scientists and their VISICOMs, and back to his own profession. Milo was of course happy to join him for a walk outside.

As they looked through the data Norma suddenly laughed, and continued laughing.

That was quite unusual for the serious minded inventor, thought Bates. "OK Norma," he said, "what have you found that's so amusing?"

"Well, I've been studying the index to the cubes," she explained. "At one point I saw a reference to ghosts. So I asked the VISICOM to search for sections on ghosts. Guess what: there are hundreds! So I tried witches, and giants, and dwarves, and even dragons. Guess what: there are entries on all of them too! The only thing I can figure out is that the Ra have trouble differentiating between human fiction and reality. They have apparently wasted a lot of time on fiction!"

"Maybe they don't have fiction in their culture," suggested Bates.

"We're wasting our time on past history!" complained Barns. "I admit that under a different setting this would be fascinating material, ladies and gentlemen, but regardless how or why Dannos was pointed our way, or what strange interests or effects the Ra may have had with regard to our culture, we have less than six days left to live! I suggest that we file these cubes away and forget about them until after Christmas. Then the survivors of this holocaust can study them at their leisure, if there is any practical value to ever doing so."

"And you may be right," acknowledged Bates. "We all know that this is a long shot. But we're going to keep trying until tomorrow morning when my time is up. That was the deal. So let's find those aliens!"

"I think aliens might not be the answer, Father," said Elizabeth.

Bates smiled, as he had been doing every time one of the kids called him Dad or Father. At least he had gotten over fainting. "What do you mean, Elizabeth?" he asked.

"Well, ghosts could also be considered to be visitors from afar, couldn't they?"

"That's not the point," interjected Barns. "Ghosts don't exist. And even if they did, they'd be irrelevant."

"Well I happen to know that they do exist," replied Elizabeth.

"You can't prove it!" asserted Barns.

"Can so!" she replied emphatically. "And it shouldn't take more than an hour or two."

An argument ensued.

"Hold it!" said Bates. "She just might be right. Maybe Jigs' visitors from afar aren't space aliens. But Elizabeth, exactly what shouldn't take more than an hour or two?"

"Well," she said, "it should be easy enough to contact the spirit world, if you can find a place where it is active. According to the DOD data cube you made from the safe contents, there's a documented case of an ancient Indian spirit being contacted at a site only a hundred kilometers from here. The medium that researched the site may still live in the area. We just need to get there and have him or her try it again."

"That would be time wasted," objected Barns.

"Not really," answered Bates. "We can still be researching the cubes as we travel. And anyway, it's still my time, and I say we go."

It was settled. They packed up and brought the Bus engines up to minimum motive power. Soon they were back on the highway and heading Northeast towards Apache country. Elizabeth tried to contact the ghost researcher on the COM but was unsuccessful, though the on-line COM directory at least provided his address.

"Wait a minute," said Barns. "What if this researcher isn't available? And also, shouldn't we have our own psychic medium to help do this!"

"You've got one!" stated Elizabeth proudly. "Me!"

Bates looked at his daughter in disbelief, but Janet was nodding her head in conformation. "It has been her hobby for years."

Bates clearly had a lot to learn about his long-lost kids.

****

On the Mother Ship, Dow was not a happy Master. While the humans had sayings about bad things coming in threes, or going from the frying pan into the fire, etc., the Ra had a similar one that had to do with free falling backside first into a planet's atmosphere without the advantages of a space ship or flight suit. The saying had applicability to the current situation. In the last few days they had failed to retrieve valuable Earth data, lost two Warrens of Ra and their ships, and 'blown their cover' Earth-wise, which could well lead to blowing their cover Galactic League-wise. And it all happened under his command; or at least that's what the records would show.

If he ever returned home from this mission, the Na'Ra Hierarchy would bust him to apprentice, if he has lucky, or, more likely, have him for lunch. Despite Ren'Ca's reassurances he had very little confidence that the Ca'Ra would intercede on his behalf. But it seemed to him far more likely that he wouldn't survive the mission itself anyway. Ren'Ca had told him just enough so that he could carry out his orders, but not enough for him to understand what the hidden Ca'Ra objective for the mission was. Even so, he reasoned that he knew too much insider Ca'Ra information already, and would probably not be allowed to survive this mission. He had a growing suspicion that Ren'Ca would survive in the remaining Warren ship, while he and the others would conveniently be destroyed by either the asteroid or by Ren'Ca himself.

The failures had all happened out of his control; that's what really bothered him most of all. First there had been the inept actions of Twig's Warren. After that, Renson was essentially in charge. It was Renson who ordered the Washington Bus chase and led the ill-fated attack on the humans of Enterprise City. And now it was Renson that was tying up the one remaining Warren Ship near the Dannos impact point, requiring the Mother Ship to be used inappropriately in operations within the Earth's atmosphere. He had been a full Group Master for 20 Earth years, and was used to giving orders. Steered this way or that by a Ca'Ra occasionally, yes, but not managed like an apprentice!

He had learned to fear and obey the Ca'Ra Order, and certainly he feared Ren'Ca. But he hadn't literally clawed his way up through the Na'Ra ranks just to be fodder for some secret Ca'Ra plot.

So he began to think the unthinkable. Was there a way to turn this mission around, and for his own protection do away with Ren'Ca in the process? It was an interesting problem, and the solution was bound to require cleverness and deceit, but those were traits that he had in abundance.

As he sat in the Mother Ship command seat, monitoring the effort being carried out to locate the Bus, but mostly working on his Ca'Ra problem, his disposition improved dramatically. Doubt and despair changed to genuine enjoyment of the challenging task at hand. Out of the myriad range of possibilities a viable plan started to form in his mind, and a wide grin broke on his face, and he gave a loud snort.

The emotions in the room, which were dominated by Dow and felt empathically by his assistants, suddenly shifted to confidence and vitality. The two assistants in the control room exchanged knowing glances, and also smiled. Each had been extremely apprehensive about the way the mission was going. Now they snorted in resonance with the positive feelings emanating from Dow. Obviously the Master had a plan!

****

CHAPTER 28

THE CHIEFS

Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

Be though a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou com'st in such a questionable shape

That I will speak to thee

\- Shakespeare

While Flood was driving the Bus in accordance with Elizabeth's directions, the others were continuing to research the cubes.

"Eureka!" shouted Bates. "Mel, look in Section 11.1.3 of the DOD cube!"

When he did, Mel found that he was looking at a group picture of himself and Air Force General Mike Therman, standing side by side with two very odd looking companions. The two strange creatures were clearly the space aliens that Mel had described to the Team earlier. The little short one was a dead ringer for the Haspa illustrated in the Ra cube, while the big one looked a bit like a heavyset bipedal turtle, sans shell. To their disappointment, however, the text that went with the photo told them even less than Mel had about the intent of the alien's visit, and stated that the aliens left Earth shortly after the photo.

In the meantime however, the Bus had arrived in Clifton Arizona. "This is it," declared Elizabeth. "According to the report, this town developed at the birth place of the Indian whose ghost we are seeking."

Besides a few houses along the highway, there were of course a bar, a 7-Eleven, a church, and a gas station. Actually, it was more civilization than they had seen in one area for most of the afternoon.

"What now?" asked Bates?

"According to the VISICOM directory, the man who did the research for the DOD still lives here, though for some reason, the COM directory lists a few other names for the man besides Chief Winnebago. Turn right onto this next side street."

It was an exaggeration to call this a street, thought Bates. To him, the term 'street' connoted a city, or at least a town. This place would hardly qualify as a truck stop, at least by Eastern standards. The so-called street was nothing but a deserted, dusty, dirt road. "Who's spirit does the report say this Chief Winnebago guy contacted?" asked Bates.

"Somebody named Goyahkla," replied Elizabeth.

"Sounds Indian, all right," said Bates. "Anybody ever hear of him?" Everyone shook their heads no.

To the amazement of all, after winding around a small sandy knoll they discovered a lone house, a surprisingly upper middle class looking colonial home at the very end of the street. An automatic sprinkling system watered a well-manicured lawn and numerous eastern looking shrubs. In fact, the whole thing looked Eastern. There were no horse shoes nailed over the doorway or rattle snakes painted on the mailbox. It was as if someone had tried to create a little oasis of Eastern USA suburbia here, surrounded by desert.

Elizabeth verified the address. "This is it," she said. "The home of Chief Winnebago."

"Is he a real Indian chief?" asked Bates, as he, Mel, and Elizabeth walked to the front door and Milo did his best to contribute to the greenery in the front yard.

"Let's ask him," suggested Mel. They rang the bell and knocked several times.

"What the Hell do you want?" asked a grumpy, disembodied, male voice from the other side of the unopened door.

"We just want to talk to Chief Winnebago, alias Jake Tioga, alias John Smith," said Elizabeth.

"Who the heck are you guys?" asked the voice, in a sleepy, Brooklyn accent.

By now Mel had located and pointed out to the others an overhead speaker and video camera. "We're from the Federal Government," answered Bates, speaking up at the camera, smiling and waving.

There was no reply, nor was there any response to the subsequent door pounding, bell ringing, and vocal admonitions of the group. However, perhaps a minute later, the sound of a motor vehicle engine cranking-over was heard from somewhere in back of the house.

After several struggling, coughing tries, the engine started up raggedly, and very shortly thereafter, with its motor roaring and backfiring, a huge, battered, rusty old recreational vehicle came hurdling down the curvy, shrub-surrounded driveway, which happened to be totally blocked by the parked Bus, much to the surprise of the RV driver. The driver applied squeaking brakes and the RV slowed somewhat, but it had no hope of stopping in time, and was clearly destined to slam into the ill-fated Bus.

At the last second a blue-white, bubble like translucent surface appeared to surround the Bus and cushion the impact, such that the RV came only within about two meters of the Bus before bouncing back several more and coming to a full stop. At the same time, bright beams of laser light flashed from below the Bus's right headlight, and the RV's front tires popped and disintegrated into black cinders and smoke.

The Bus's automatic protective capabilities had been triggered by the charging RV. Whoever was in the RV was fortunate that the Bus software decided that destruction of merely the front tires was a satisfactory defense strategy.

The Bus itself had been pushed back and sideways several feet by the impact with its force field, but was apparently unharmed. Moments later Hank came storming out of the still open Bus door brandishing his assault rifle, followed by the others, who though apparently unharmed, were definitely startled and unhappy. "All right you, geit out-o thet there Winne-bay-go, NOW! I see yah in there! So come on out with yer hands up, red skin!" shouted Hank, with his rifle trained on the RV.

In response a short middle-aged man with long graying hair tied together in the back came out with his shaking hands raised high. He wore loose fitting, contemporary, obviously expensive leisure clothing. Other than reddish skin and pony tail, he didn't fit any of Bates' expectations for an Apache Indian chief at all. Of course, he had never met a real Apache Indian chief, so maybe his corresponding stereotype needed a little work.

"There must be some mistake officers," the man began, but then he noticed his RV tires, or rather their absence. Oblivious of Hank's assault rifle, he rushed to inspect the damage. "Holy Moses! What the hell did you do to my tires? They're gone! Warrant or no warrant, you people aren't going to get away with this! I want your badge numbers. I want my lawyers! I'll COM my Philly lawyers, that's what I'll do!"

In response, Hank poked him in the back with the rifle. "Tires be hanged! After fix'n to ram us with that rust bucket yer lucky I don't pepper yer red ass with hot lead!"

Bates and the others who were at the front door of the house had by now rushed to the scene. Bates noticed the famous Winnebago logo on the side of the vintage RV, the same name as the man they sought. What a coincidence, he thought. "Take it easy Hank," he said. "After all, our Bus was blocking the driveway." He carefully deflected Hank's gun barrel down and away from the red man. "Who are you?" asked Bates.

"Who are you?" answered the man. "You don't act like cops, except for the old fart with the blunderbuss." He pointed at Hank.

"We asked you first," returned Bates.

"Who wants to know?" rejoined the man.

"Oh, all right!" said Bates, in exasperation. "We're Federal Government folks doing an investigation for the Government. We need to talk to a 'Chief Winnebago' about some work he did for the Government 20 years ago."

"You mean you aren't here to arrest him?" asked the incredulous man.

"Why would we do that?" asked Bates. "We're not police, we're scientists! Is Winnebago wanted for something?"

"Well, you never know these days, do you?" the man replied, visibly relaxing and smiling. Then he was staring at Mel. His smile disappeared, replaced by genuine astonishment. "Scientists! You're Dr. Melvin Phineas Guthery, the Physicist! I've seen you on PBS! Where's the three piece suit, Doc? I almost didn't recognize you! Hey, wait! You're the guys with the flying Bus! HOLLY SHIT!" The man was suddenly extremely excited.

"How do you know all that?" asked Bates.

"Are you kidding?" the man answered. "You're all over the VISICOM! You guys are an absolute sensation! You're worth millions!" He looked with critical interest at the Bus. "Plain as hell, isn't it! You guys don't know what you're doing at all, do you? Nobody on the COM seems to know either, but you should play up the alien rumors." He slapped himself on the forehead. _"_ That's why you guys looked me up! Well, you came to the right guy." His cheap smile returned. "The Chief can get things going for you fast, big time. I've got all the connections you need! Ever hear of Bradley Green? The Bradley Green, PepsiCo Assistant vice-president? He and I are golfing buddies. We're like this." He held up a pair of fingers, twisted tightly together.

"A Pepsi logo on this Bus of yours will get you five-mil, minimum, and that's just for starters! We'll do a couple of local gigs, and then set up a world tour and sell tee shirts, ball-caps, VISICOM cubes with interviews and out-takes of your next movie, and other collectibles." He walked over to Barns, who was looking at him with open disgust. "You'll need some new threads, pops!" he said, tugging at Barns' soiled and torn jacket.

Barns pushed the Chief away from him. "This is a complete waste of our time! I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going back to work." Without a backward glance, he climbed back into the Bus, followed by Norma and Sandra.

Bates, shaking his head, once again approached the 'Chief'. "No, no, that's not what we need from you at all, and we aren't interested in money." Winnebago, if that's who he was, made a sour face. "But we do need your help, if you're the Chief Winnebago that did a report for the Government on contacting the spirit world twenty years ago."

The slippery Cheshire cat smile had disappeared. "Hey! That was a long time ago! I can't be held responsible. You Government types signed off the official Government DD250 form approving payment. Now you probably want your money back, or you want something more from me for nothing! I know you Government guys, you're as cheap as hell, every last one of you! No way! Twenty years ago is past history. It's dead and gone, no pun intended, like the Old West. But come on inside and let's talk you future will aliens and your Bus, OK? I can't stand the heat and sight of the desert." He started towards his front door with his arm around Bates' shoulder, followed by Mel, Elizabeth, and Janet.

On the way, Bates introduced himself and the others. "Mr. Winnebago, you don't understand. We liked the report!" explained Elizabeth. "Your experiment contacted a real spirit!"

"We want you to help us re-do it today, right now, so we can talk to that spirit," concluded Bates.

Winnebago's jaw dropped open, he turned several shades lighter, his knees buckled out from under him, and he would have collapsed onto his sidewalk if Bates hadn't grabbed and supported him. He and Mel helped him to the shade of his front steps where they sat him down.

"What's wrong?" asked Mel.

"No, no, NO!" the Chief exclaimed, shaking his head vigorously. "No way! Call Goyahkla's spirit on purpose? Are you nuts? No way, Jose! And it wouldn't pay anyway, believe me, I've tried it! It's a losing proposition all the way!"

"Can't you do it anymore?" asked Elizabeth.

For the first time he seemed to take a good look at Elizabeth and Janet just then, because he visibly regained more of his composure. Beautiful women often tend to effect men that way. "I can still do lots of things Liz, including contacting Goyahkla, but that just ain't a wise thing to do. Stick to flying busses and saucers; that's the big money stuff!"

Winnebago got up and herded Bates into the house, continuing to shake his head negatively. The inside of the house was nothing short of spectacular. Expensive looking paintings and furnishings filled the rooms. Several paintings were of New York City, while others were of what may have been the Poconos and Atlantic City. Window drapes were pulled, shutting off any view of the desert outside. They entered the living room and sat down on the extremely contemporary furniture.

"I'm still confused, let's start all over again," said Bates. "Is your name Chief Winnebago?"

"Not really," said the Chief.

"Twenty years ago did you call forth the spirit of a long dead Apache named Goyahkla?" asked Bates.

"Not exactly," replied the Chief.

"Could you do so now?" asked Bates.

"Maybe, well sort of," replied the Chief. "But I certainly wouldn't want to try!"

"Could you explain those answers so we know what the heck you're talking about?" asked Bates, exasperated.

"OK, listen, I'm trying to be straight with you guys. You seem like nice folks, for Government types. The Government doesn't pay much, does it? It's not fair; you really have something here, so you really need me. But first off, you've got to forget the ghost angle and stick with flying busses and saucers; then I can really help you out." Again, Winnebago gave Bates a pat on the back.

For just a moment, Déjà Vu struck Bates. This man and this circumstance reminded the scientist of a regrettable incident years ago when an insurance salesman somehow slipped in to haunt his own living room for an entire torturous afternoon. Bates had somehow forgotten the rule against inviting vampires or insurance salesmen into the home. The memory was unsettling, but Bates assured himself that this time escape through use of a flying Bus was only moments away. He simply had to be firm and stick to his agenda.

"OK," conceded Bates, in his most resolute tone of voice "I promise you that we'll talk about that, but first, I must insist that we tackle the questions we just went through."

"Oh sure. OK! You're the boss! I work for you. I'm your man! Anything you say." He patted Bates on the back yet again, and then tried to pet Milo, but Milo dodged him.

"The mutt's house broken, I assume? OK, that's cool. The Chief Winnebago thing is the name the locals came up with for me when I moved here from the East. It probably doesn't still show, but my folks moved from the reservation to New York City when I was little. After I grew up, I came back to find my kin. A 'roots' kind of gig, get it? Thought I could teach these folks a thing or two, move them into the twenty-first century, and maybe make a few bucks for myself along the way. Hah! Little did I know that they're poor as church mice. They admire me of course, so I am actually sort of an honorary chief. And I lived in the Winnebago when I first moved out here; hence the nifty name."

"You were named after that old rusty RV?" asked Bates.

"It used to be newer," he explained. "Now about that report I wrote. I had contact with Goyahkla all right, but it was all his idea."

"But the report says that you called him!" interjected Elizabeth.

"Well, OK, so I slanted things just a little bit in the report. The Government liked callings better than hauntings, so I gave them what they wanted, that's all. It made everyone happy. That's just the kind of guy I am."

"You lied!" retorted Elizabeth.

"I was young and corruptible back then," explained the Chief, smiling. "Now I'm fully mature and completely one-hundred-percent reliable."

"So you can't call Goyahkla?" asked Bates, disappointed.

"Well," admitted Winnebago, "I've actually been trying for twenty years to not call him. The sick bastard wouldn't leave me alone. But I have figured out ways to avoid him. I haven't seen him in three years now. But he's still around; I can tell! We've simply come to an understanding."

"What's that?" asked Bates.

"I don't piss him off, and he leaves me alone," explained Winnebago.

"What angers him?" asked Janet.

This seemed to be a sore point with the Chief. He stood up and started pacing the floor. "Plenty! If I make a deal with whites, that's OK! If I deal with Indians, he's on me! If I try to perform an Indian ceremony for some tourist money, he's on me! If I even look at an Indian woman, forget it, and there aren't many women out this way of any kind, believe you me! If I try an exorcism to get rid of him using witch doctors or priests, he has a fit! If I try to leave the area, he's on me until I come back! You think anyone in their right mind would want to live out here in this desert? So try to figure!"

"So you've stayed here for twenty years due to a ghost?" asked Bates, incredulous.

"Yeah. Whoopee. Twenty-three years in Apache territory. This is where he hangs. It's like he wants to keep me here so he can torment me. I haven't been to a city in twenty-three years. Not even to Phoenix, which doesn't even qualify as a real city in my book. Isn't that a pisser? He won't let me near anything but empty desert. But as long as I stick to ancient Apache territory and keep my nose clean, I'm OK."

"So then it's a curse on you personally." exclaimed Elizabeth. "It's not the haunting of a place."

"Tell me about it, Liz," admitted Winnebago sarcastically. "So you guys can see why I don't want to encourage this guy. Sorry, but the last thing I have in mind for a Saturday night is to spend it with that crazy bastard!"

"You'd be advancing science," said Mel.

"No way!" he replied, with a laugh.

"You'd be helping your Government," added Bates.

"You've got to be kidding!" he replied.

"We'll pay you," suggested Janet.

"How much?" he asked.

The Team members all looked at each other, recalling that their last 7-Eleven stop that left them all nearly broke. "How about 10% of our advertising and movie net income?" asked Elizabeth. "Assuming of course that someday we have some income."

"How about 20% of total gross?" he countered.

"Sold!" declared Bates.

To their amazement, Winnebago went to a VISICOM terminal and had a contract printed out in two minutes. They all signed it. If by doing this they could survive Dannos, they should be able to tolerate this guy for a little while. It seemed like a reasonable trade-off at the time. The important thing right now was to show some progress so that the effort to save Earth had a chance of continuing.

Winnebago went to a closed door and unlocked it. Inside was stored all manner of authentic looking Indian paraphernalia, including clothing, head dresses, beads, blankets, weapons, and pottery. He carried armfuls of the stuff back into the living room and began placing the objects all around.

"This really gets him going," remarked the Chief. "He seems to object when I try to make use of any Apache stuff." Winnebago produced an ancient looking pipe, shredded a filtered cigarette and stuffed it into the pipe, and then lit it using a flashy gold cigarette lighter. Then he put on an elaborately feathered headdress. "All right, let's all sit on the floor in a circle the way they did back in the old days," the Chief said. "I'll do some authentic chanting while we all pass the good old peace pipe around."

"A-toy-oat-ta is dog-gone-nice, won-ton-soup be toooo-hott, sisss boom ba," the Chief's voice droned on and on in gibberish, for all Bates could tell, but then what did he know about Apache? Whatever it was, it was pretty annoying, and Bates could see why the guy might deserve to be haunted by ghosts, if there was such a thing. Except as necessary to pass the pipe around, the others in the circle, Elizabeth, Mel, Janet and Chief Winnebago, had their eyes closed and appeared to be concentrating, on what Bates didn't know. Maybe they were just trying not to up-chuck on the white rug, thought Bates; the pipe and its smoke were really disgusting; almost as bad as the inane chanting.

Minutes passed with no results. Bates yawned but kept his eyes open in an effort to stay awake, and checked his watch for perhaps the tenth time. The chanting did seem to slow time; maybe that was a sign they were getting somewhere. Still, if concrete results didn't start happening soon, they would have to give it up. God that tobacco smell was terrible!

"Tee-nee-wee-nee chili-beanie, shish-ka-bob unt un petite weenie, plop-plop, fizz-fizz," chanted the Chief.

Suddenly Milo, who had been lying on the floor next to Bates munching a Milk-Bone, sat up and started howling. At the same time shimmering wisps of mist started to form over the center of the circle, and an unidentifiable voice was heard! It seemed to be in Spanish and in something else even more foreign sounding, neither of which Bates understood, but in any language it was clearly an angry voice, and it grew louder and louder, as did Chief Winnebago, until Winnebago and the spirit seemed to be simply yelling at each other at the top of their lungs, with Winnebago cursing in Brooklynese!

At the same time, the mist solidified until a perfectly solid Apache brave appeared to be sitting cross-legged on the middle of the table, facing Winnebago. The apparition was an above mid-sized, well-muscled, Native American clothed, middle aged, fierce eyed warrior that waved a rifle menacingly in one hand and a large knife in the other. This was enough to cow the wide-eyed Winnebago, who shut up and crab-walked back and away in a hopeless attempt to put significant distance between him and the spirit. The spirit abruptly stopped yelling and laughed mockingly at Winnebago.

"Is that him?" asked Bates. "What's he saying?" The fierce warrior turned to face Bates. He certainly looked real, aside from the blazing red eyes; and definitely unfriendly!

"That's Geronimo all right. But how the hell would I know what he said?" replied the white faced Winnebago. The ghost snarled at him. "I don't understand his Apache or Spanish gibberish; this is twenty-first century United States of America for Christ sake!"

The spirit said something to Bates in Spanish. Bates sat dumbfounded. He had enough trouble with English; through careful planning he had managed to totally avoid learning any other languages.

"Elizabeth and I know some Spanish," said Janet. "He just called Winnebago a foot licking son of a turkey vulture! And he advises all white men to run in terror and shame from this land."

"Wait just a minute, Winnebago," said Bates, "a minute ago you called him Geronimo!"

The apparition snarled at both Bates and Winnebago. Winnebago paled even further. "I did? No, no, I'm sorry Goyahkla; it was a slip of the tongue. That's his Spanish name, people! Don't use it! He hates the Mexicans! They killed his family!"

Geronimo? "Fudge Winkies!" muttered Bates; sitting before them was the ghostly spirit of most feared Indian in white-American history!

The fierce warrior then looked rather closely at Elizabeth and Janet and said something else in a much friendlier tone. "He says the white women can stay!" interpreted Elizabeth, with a little smile.

"Talk to him, Elizabeth!" said Bates. "You're a medium! Tell him the Earth is in danger! Tell him the Earth is about to be destroyed and we came here for his help!"

Goyahkla started laughing and laughing. Finally, he was able to pause long enough to explain the joke in Spanish. Oddly enough, he reached out towards Milo as he talked, and the dog came to him calmly to be petted and scratched. This greatly impressed Bates, as Milo was an excellent judge of character.

Elizabeth translated. Apparently Goyahkla thought it was a good joke, for whites to ask him to help prevent the destruction of the white men's world. Then he said something about the Ghost Dancers being right, and started laughing again, as Elizabeth finished translating, and as he suddenly faded away to nothingness.

The witnesses were left sitting on the floor, staring at each other. "Well at least he has a sense of humor and Milo liked him," commented Bates. "He didn't appear to be very cooperative though, did he?"

"Cooperative?" said Winnebago. "He probably hates your guts, though not as much as he hates mine. On the other hand, he liked the ladies and the dog. That was the friendliest I ever saw him! He didn't even knock me silly or hang me by my ankles over a smoking fire or anything! And he actually talked to you in response to what you asked him! He even seemed to respond to your English! What a breakthrough! Cooperative? That's too strong a term; but hey, he didn't even slime me or anything, did he? Look at me everyone, did he turn me purple or cause my hair to fall out or anything?" He stood and turned himself around in front of the others, and a quick check-up revealed no apparent physical damage.

"What did he mean by Ghost Dancers?" asked Elizabeth.

Winnebago had the answer. "That was a religion the Peyote came up with around 1870. It was embraced by some desperate Apaches and their prophet Nakaidoklin during the wars with the whites around 1880. Later the Sioux and others took it up, but most Apaches shunned it. The basic idea was that the whites would die or vanish, and that the red men would return from the grave and inherit the Earth that the whites had lost."

"Apaches didn't like that idea?" asked Janet.

"Apaches didn't like the part about the dead returning from the grave. So Goyahkla might figure that if the Earth gets destroyed, that's what happens. The Ghost Dancer prophecy might not look so bad to him as a dead person though, so he might be rethinking his religion right now. Maybe that's why he was so mild with me; you confused him. By the way, that destruction of the Earth stuff you guys are into is a loser; I'd drop it. It will just get people scared and conservative with their money. Stick with the space alien story and we'll make us some big bucks. Within six months we'll be rich!"

"What is his religion?" asked Mel.

"Good question," answered Winnebago. "It's said that he actually became a Christian later in life, but his spirit reflects his whole life, and he wasn't particularly religious for most of it, in my opinion. Hard to be subject to senseless killing by the whites and do all that killing yourself in return and still be strongly religious I suppose, except to be a wild-eyed, zealous, medicine man like him. On the other hand, if he embraces characteristics of the late Ghost Dancers, it could improve his disposition."

"How so?" asked Bates.

"Well, they actually preached for peace between all people."

By the time they finished talking, it was mid-evening. When Bates thanked Winnebago for his help the Chief told them that he wanted to join the Team immediately to protect his investment, even if it brought on further contact with Goyahkla. Hopefully, the Team could again persuade the spirit to refrain from harming him. In the meantime, Winnebago wanted to get them started on several money-making schemes.

Bates could only tell Winnebago that if the Team voted the next morning to follow his plan, they would return to get him.

After leaving Winnebago's home, they drove the Bus to a nearby remote spot for the night. Despite their success in contacting the spirit of a famous dead Indian, what any of the Goyahkla business had to do with stopping Dannos wasn't apparent to Bates. As far as he could tell, they had just wasted most of the day, and there weren't many more days left.

****

CHAPTER 29

DECISIONS AND COMMITMENTS

The die was now cast; I had passed the Rubicon. Swim or sink, live or die, survive or parish with my country was my unalterable determination.

\- John Adams

It was another unusually warm night. Bates stood outside the campsite, listening to nature's night sounds and trying to unwind. He carried a flash light, but didn't have it turned on; a crescent of Moon illuminated the area effectively. In a Team meeting an hour ago, he and Barns had each made arguments for their very different plans for the Team.

Despite the interesting information discovered from the Ra cubes and their experiences with the ghost of Geronimo, even Bates couldn't argue that they were really any closer to solving the Dannos problem. They had some fuzzy leads to follow on aliens, but there was nothing concrete. With such limited progress to show, Bates wasn't optimistic about how the Team vote in the morning would come out.

Bates heard someone approaching from the camp and turned to see Mel. "Bates! There you are! Look what Elizabeth found just now!" Mel was holding something. Bates shone his flashlight on it, then jumped up and back about three meters. It was a big fat rattlesnake, perhaps a meter and a half long. Mel held it behind the head and further down its body, which still left about half of it to freely squirm and twist. The snake was almost as thick as Mel's thin arms, Bates noticed.

"Sorry to startle you that way, Bates," apologized Mel.

"That's OK, Mel, I'll survive. I just haven't seen one of those things in years. It's not even the right time of year for them. Where did you say you found it?"

"Elizabeth found it in your sleeping bag. You know, the one you were laying down in a few minutes ago. She showed me how to hold it. It's an excellent specimen, according to her; she was pretty excited about it."

"Not as excited as I would have been to find it myself!" replied Bates. So much for romantic notions about roughing it under the stars, he reasoned. The Bus floor would be fine with him. Did snakes like nice warm busses though, he wandered?

"I wanted to talk with you privately about some things Narb." Mel took a step closer to Bates, who took an equal step away from him.

"Mel, could you get rid of that thing first? Reptiles and I never got along."

"Oh sure!" agreed Mel, as he stepped away from Bates and the camp. In the moonlight Bates could see the snake twisting, trying to break Mel's grip.

"Do you know what you're doing, Mel?"

"Never did this before, but it seems straight-forward," replied Mel. "Elizabeth explained the basics to me." When he was about 30 meters away, the little scientist tossed the snake gently to the ground and away from him and ran back to Bates rather rapidly. "Elizabeth was quite explicit about the running part at the end," explained Mel, in the midst of some heavy breathing.

After he caught his breath, Mel came right to the point. "Business first. Your son Don says that while we did our little séance, Barns made some persuasive arguments with the people left in the Bus."

"Well, I suppose that was to be expected," said Bates, "though everyone, including Barns, is supposed to still be doing my research assignments."

"Also," continued Mel, "I've been talking to Janet about Dannos and to Flood about Bus performance and working out rough flight trajectories."

"OK, Mel," asked Bates, "so when would the Bus have to leave Earth to match trajectories with Dannos?"

"About two weeks ago," answered Mel.

"I was afraid of that," sighed Bates.

"Also," added Mel, "we would have to either totally obliterate Dannos, which would require perhaps a hundred thousand megatons TNT equivalence, or divert its path, which would require a hundred megatons now, and more as time goes on. But such large charges could also bust Dannos into big pieces, some of which would still impact Earth with devastating effect. In fact, damage could actually be increased by breaking the asteroid up. It would be rather like getting hit with hundreds of shotgun pellets instead of a single high powered bullet. Not to mention the fact that those pellets would now perhaps be radioactive."

"In summary then," concluded Bates, "it's too late to think of nuclear devices anyway?"

"Yes, Narb. A well-placed megaton a year or two ago would have worked out perfectly fine to divert it away from Earth. But if we took off at top Bus speed today with the required multi-megatons of bombs required for diversion, and collided them with the asteroid, such a device could also be enough to blow it into big dangerous pieces. Many pieces would still strike Earth. At this stage it simply can't be diverted. That's why its total destruction using even more megatons would be the only conceivable bomb-based solution."

"Well Mel," said Bates, "we don't have any such devices anyway, so I guess it's academic. But thanks for the analysis."

"Now for the other subject, Bates. I've been talking with Elizabeth. She says she's disappointed that you and her mother aren't hitting it off better. Don said something similar."

"I haven't seen the woman in twenty years Mel, what can they expect?"

"Basically, I gather that they hoped for an improvement over their other dad. He and Janet divorced about three years ago, you know."

Bates hadn't known. He hadn't even asked. It was obviously yet another case of his addled brain underperforming.

"I've been talking to Janet about this too, Bates, and piecing things together. Apparently, her marriage had actually decayed far earlier, but was kept in place until the kids were mostly grown up. In retrospect, Janet thinks that was probably a mistake, since her husband was never that close to the kids anyway."

"Did he know I was the father?" Bates asked.

"Strangely enough, not until they were about twelve, according to Janet. The kids found out five years later, and their reaction astounded Janet. She says they were actually relieved. They apparently had always felt that something was wrong. Something besides the guy that was supposed to be their father being an a-hole, I mean."
"Since then, they pestered Janet for information about you. Janet hopes that they might get something from you that has been missing in their lives for a long time."

"What do the kids say?" asked Bates.

"Elizabeth says they want to get to know you, but that they mainly hoped that you and their mom would get back together for a final fling."

"A fling! What does Janet say about that?" Bates asked. A fling before being killed by the asteroid sounded pretty good to him right now. Not that he had much time or energy for such a thing.

"I didn't ask her Bates. I think that's for you to find out."

Bates sighed. "Thanks Mel. I'll take it from here. But please! I want you to focus on Dannos, not my ex-love life!" He patted Mel on the back and walked back towards the camp. He had dreamed about reconciliation with Janet for twenty years. But now that he had that chance, he just couldn't afford to even think about it. There was simply no time. Not for him, or her, or Mel, or anyone. Dannos was coming!

Janet was sitting alone by the campfire. Bates sat down next to her. "Janet, I know this wasn't what you had in mind when you called me a few days ago, but we all just have to make the best of it. Right now the mission has to be the most important thing. More than anything else, I'd like to get to know the kids, and I'd even like us to get to know each other again, if possible. But there just isn't time."

Janet opened her mouth to speak but Bates wouldn't let her. "No, we can't even try to work anything out this week. There is simply no time; I'm all booked up. Earth to save, you know! And I need you to help us. And the kids, too. I need all of us. But I do find that there is something that I must ask you now Janet. Remember where we talked about going twenty years ago? Why don't we all go there after the holidays?"

"You mean Scotland?" asked Janet?

"Yup," answered Bates. "Loch Ness. I heard it's still a pretty place. If we survive this lets all go visit Loch ness together." He held his breath.

"OK then, it's a date!" she replied, after a few moments of thought. She reached over to give him a friendly kiss on the cheek, but he happened to turn his head towards her at the last moment. The kiss turned out to be lip-to-lip and far friendlier than she expected. When it ended, they both stared into each other's eyes for what seemed to be a long time, but may have only seemed long because of the intensity of the moment. Then they mumbled good nights awkwardly and left the scene with more on their minds than the Ra or Dannos.

Early the next morning Carbuncle took it upon herself to preside as everyone gathered inside the Bus. "I believe everyone should be given a few minutes to say what they wish. Then we will vote. She passed out a small piece of paper to each person. Bates?"

Bates stepped before the others. "Yesterday I think we got off to a good start. Geronimo may not have been the ideal spirit to contact, but the results do lend credibility to the notion that the data cubes do hold good information, and can be used as the key to finding the help that we need. I suggest that Elizabeth continue that line of inquiry, assisted by Chief Winnebago, who has kindly volunteered his services."

"Humph! Especially when he found out that we were leaving the state!" interjected Barns.

"Elizabeth assures me that they will be able to consult his spirit independent of geographic location, which leaves us free to pursue our second and still primary line of inquiry: that of locating space aliens other than the Ra who may be disposed to helping us. The Galactic League Mel mentioned sounds ideal, but right now, any non-Ra alien contact is sought. I suggest we fly to Utah as soon as possible to try to pick up on any leads we can salvage from the visit Mel was involved in. At the same time, we will continue to analyze the cubes for other leads on friendly aliens. They might have the technology needed to stop Dannos and the Ra.

"Well, that's the plan so far. I won't repeat last night's arguments, but let me close with an antidote. I heard on the news this morning something interesting about Web Woodrith, the famous jazz musician and song writer. It seems that a lot of his fans and friends got together and decided to pay tribute to him by getting musicians to serenade him with some of his most famous musical works. So yesterday morning they surrounded his house with a hundred and fifty musicians, rang his doorbell, and started playing."

"Must have surprised him!" commented Mel.

"And his girlfriend too!" continued Bates. "In a minute the two of them came running out the door dressed in bath robes yelling obscenities at the serenaders, with Web waving a shotgun and shooting it up into the air.

"Anyway, this seriously disturbed the concentration of the musicians, and they screwed up the tune they were playing quite a bit. That and the sight of a hundred fifty jazz musicians scrambling for cover from the shotgun finally got to old Woodrith, and the next thing you know he was rolling around on the ground laughing."

Several of Bates' listeners were smiling now, glad for a happy ending.

"Unfortunately, he then had a massive heart attack and died on the spot." The smiles disappeared. "But as he was laying there on the ground dying, he whispered to those gathered around him 'Thanks, that was a good one!' right before he died! End of story."

Most of the group was puzzled now. "What a tragically sad story," commented Sandra at last.

"And totally pointless," added Barns.

"Well, it doesn't fit our situation exactly, I suppose," replied Bates. "But don't you see the parallels? Web Woodrith was 80 years old, and he died from having a sense of humor and a twenty-three year old girlfriend. He went out kicking. And in the end he appreciated the efforts of his fans, even though their little serenade didn't end up quite how they figured it would."

Everyone was staring at him blankly.

"Well, I thought it was inspirational," Bates maintained. "We just can't quit, even if the whole thing goes sour. We still have to try! Saving a hand full of people would be unsatisfactory, even if it were possible. We would still lose too much: our culture, our friends and loved ones, and our self-respect. So we still have to try! And I need as much help as I can get. But if any of you really feel there is no chance at all and aren't willing to give 110% to our mission, maybe you should quit now. I want no slackers." He thought it was a pretty good finish. He sat down.

Barns, clapping, rose to take his place. "Not bad, Bates. But then a man hand-picked to be Head of DOD should be inspirational shouldn't he? Oh, sorry, I forgot, you were actually hand-picked by the Ra weren't you? Why, I wonder? So that you could lead us on a wild goose-chase after ghosts and missing space aliens, while we lose our only chance to preserve something of humanity?

"Let's face facts, people: in less than five days from now this planet will be a burning cinder. And four and a half days from now, if you follow Bates, you'll still be chasing ghosts and other nonsense. Now does that make any sense? Many of you are scientists and engineers. Is there any conceivable way to stop Dannos? No! There isn't! That's been obvious all along!"

"But, is there a way to save humanity? Yes, there is! If there was any chance at all to save Earth, I'd be in favor of trying it, damn right I'd be, but there just isn't. So let's cut our losses and do what we can do to save humanity. No one here hates the Ra like I do, but they have won this round and the war altogether if we don't save some of us. I salute the courage and good intentions of our friend and colleague Dr. Bates, but we've wasted enough time on riddles and fantasy."

Barns sat down. Bates looked around. Most people still wouldn't make eye contact with him. That wasn't a good sign, Bates realized. Barns had sound reasoning on his side; Bates had an anecdote about an old man who died laughing. He had the sinking feeling that he had lost the argument.

"Any more discussion?" Norma asked.

To everyone's surprise, Flood, who had been silent until now during the debates on this subject, stood up while glancing at his watch. "People, I have three points that should help you decide this issue once and for all. Please turn on your VISICOMs to any channel for the first point." Flood said something into his VISICOM transceiver.

On everyone's screen, the face of the White House press secretary appeared. "We interrupt your regularly scheduled programs for an emergency public announcement from the President of the United States," he announced.

The stern face of President Wright appeared on every screen. "People of the United States and the world, I bring you dire news. In recent days there have been sightings of unusual flying objects over our country. I regret to inform you that these are spacecraft of extraterrestrial beings known as the Ra. Further, I regret to inform you that these Ra are enemies of Earth that would do us the greatest harm.

"However, though the Ra have an advanced civilization, elements of the Ra have recently been successfully engaged and defeated by brave Department of Defense forces of this nation. The Ra are by no means invincible or infallible.

"Be assured that your Government is doing everything possible to ensure public safety. In that regard, I wish to announce that a Team of dedicated Government scientists is at this moment preparing to defeat the plans of the Ra. Doctor Narbando T. Bates of our Defense Department, by order of his Commander in Chief, is to lead his talented Team on a mission to protect all United States citizens and our world. Proceed with all speed, Dr. Bates, our fate is in your hands.

"There is evidence that in attempting hostile acts towards Earth, the Ra are acting in defiance of a confederation of races known as the Galactic League. We have enemies in space, but we also hopefully have friends. The United States of America hereby formally and urgently requests immediate assistance from the Galactic League to stop the destructive activities of the Ra.

"Finally, I want to talk briefly about what you, my fellow citizens, can do to help in this emergency. First, and perhaps most important, on this critical Sunday morning in our history, I urge you all to pray in your places of worship. Second, I urge all citizens to remain calm and maintain your normal routines. I have every confidence that our Team of scientists will find a solution to this problem. Take heart, my fellow Americans."

The view of the President disappeared, to be replaced by an array of flabbergasted news forecasters, whose job it was to now paraphrase, confuse, and obscure the rather clear message that had been just been given by the President. It was a job that required more comprehension than they had at the moment. The events at hand were simply too momentous to fathom.

Flood turned off all Bus VISICOMs using a master control at his pilot station, and turned to face the rest of the Team. "OK, listen up troops. That was your Commander in Chief talking. So now we all have official marching orders. Last night I took the liberty of calling my commander in chief, and that announcement was the result."

"You COMed President Wright?" asked Bates.

"No," responded Flood, "I called my boss Jigs. Then I imagine that he COMed Wright. I still have two more points to make. Jigs confirmed my orders. I am to do anything I can to see that Dr. Bates' mission is successful. Vote or no vote, that's my marching orders. Period."

"You mean to say that regardless of the outcome of our vote, you would not pilot my mission?" asked a flabbergasted Barns.

"Not only that, sir, but I would stop you, using any means at my disposal." Looking at steely eyed Flood, the company could not doubt his commitment and ability to carry out his word. "Anyway, direct orders from the President should nullify the need for any vote." Flood looked around at the Team, most of whom were nodding affirmatively. Even Barns looked uncertain.

"Final point," continued Flood. "Last night I also COMed General Therman, and he assures me that key aspects of the report in the data cube on the two extraterrestrials are false. He thinks the extraterrestrials may still be on Earth and that if they are, he thinks he knows where they are right at this moment. We are to fly north to meet the General this morning in Utah. After we collect Winnebago, of course. That is, if Dr. Bates agrees. He is in full charge."

"I agree with everything you said, Commander, with just two minor exceptions," said Bates. "After thinking more about Goyahkla, I think that before we pick up Winnebago, we need to pick up one more crew member."

"Who?" asked Flood.

"The Governor of Arizona," replied Bates. Exclamations arose from the assembled Team.

"Why, Bates?" exclaimed Mel.

"Actually, it's Don's brainstorm," admitted Bates. "Why don't you explain it Don?"

Don, a little nervous, stood and spoke. "Well, we need someone that Goyahkla will respect and listen to, so I naturally thought of Governor Latanna. If he can convince Goyahkla that the Indians already have inherited the Earth, or at least Arizona, maybe Goyahkla will help us try to save it!" There were murmurs of approval, and Don, smiling, sat back down. Latanna was probably the most respected and influential American Indian in recent history.

"Well I for one don't see the point of continuing to court ghosts, now that you apparently have a strong lead on the aliens," said Barns.

"It's called hedging our bets, Barns. Frankly I don't know what if anything will work, or who might prove helpful," said Bates.

"Finally, Team," concluded Bates, raising his voice, "I still want a vote."

It was certainly the last thing that Barns expected to hear. "Why?" asked Flood.

"For lots of reasons," replied Bates. "Because this is too big a decision for a president or even a billionaire to make for us. Because Barns' idea has a great deal of merit, and deserves very serious consideration.

"But most of all because I want any uncertainty put totally behind us. I want every Team member one hundred percent committed to accomplishing this task from now until Christmas, without exception. No hidden agendas. No more alternatives. No more bickering. No more votes. No turning back. If we go down trying, then that's what happens, we go down defending our world."

He motioned Norma Carbuncle to pass out her slips of paper. They were quickly returned and counted by both Norma and Mel. "The Bates plan is adopted!" announced Carbuncle. "Unanimously!"

They all looked at Barns with surprise. The scientist shrugged and explained. "Bates is right. Whatever we do decide to do will require full commitment. I could see that my plan wasn't going to happen. Besides, I just can't bring myself to disobey our President, even if she's not a Republican." Bates reached over to Barns and the two smiling men shook hands firmly.

"OK then, Commander," said Bates, "let's head back towards Phoenix for the Governor. Quick but stealthy. The Ra are still out there somewhere."

"Yes sir," responded Flood, as he powered up Bus systems. Bates gave Flood a pat on the back. After ten years without a US military force, it certainly felt good to be working with a military officer again. On the whole, he had found them to be damn good and capable men and women and patriots to the core, and Flood was certainly no exception.

"Sandy, aren't President Wright and Governor Latanna close friends?" asked Bates.

"Affirmative," she responded.

"Then get me the President on the COM ASAP," ordered Bates. As long as the Bus was Earthbound, it was determined that it was safe to use the COM, though only for vital calls. Meanwhile, the Bus lifted a few inches off the ground and headed towards the Governor's mansion in Phoenix.

****

CHAPTER 30

MORE CHIEFS, UTAH BOUND

When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white man came, an Indian said simply, "Ours."

\- Vine Deloria, Jr.

The addition to the Team of the Law and Order Governor of Arizona, Chiricahua Apache Chief Latanna, was an event not soon to be forgotten. Everyone had seen him on VISICOM, of course, but he made an even stronger impression in person. An Arizona State University football hero who turned down millions of NFL dollars to become a Harvard Law School graduate, he was already a legendary figure before he embarked on his meteoric political career. As a County Sheriff, as State Attorney General, and even as Governor, he thrilled the public with his continued hands-on involvement in law enforcement. Thanks largely to him, Arizona now boasted the most severe criminal sentences and the lowest crime rates per capita in the nation.

The B-Team received unaccustomed VIP treatment from the Governor. After sneaking around between 7-Elevens and WAWAs for a while it was a welcome change. Minutes after COMing the President, elements of the Arizona State Police located and escorted the Bus towards Phoenix.

The B-Team never got to see the Governor's famous Mansion featuring Apache decor, however. In another half an hour a motorcycle patrolman wearing an Indian war bonnet signaled the Bus to pull to the side of the road, where a helicopter sat. It was jet black, with the words 'Super Chief' written on the side. From it issued the imposing figure of Chief Latanna, who ran lightly to the Bus and knocked on the door. He was bearing a knapsack and four gut-busting buckets of The Colonel's original finger-licking-good chicken!

"Dr. Bates I presume?" said the well-mannered gentleman in his mid-thirties. Bates introduced the Governor to the Team. He was an enormously impressive specimen, as evidenced by the reactions of the entire Team, the women in particular. He was over six feet, three inches tall and of solid, athletic build, with strong chin, piercing eyes, and handsome features. His jet black hair was shoulder length and held in place by a blue headband that matched well his unadorned policeman's uniform. He moved smoothly with grace, and without a wasted motion, like a great cat.

But much more impressive than his physical attributes was his electrifying personality. He was an imposing presence, but at the same time immediately likable. He spoke with a deep steady voice; each thought that he expressed seemed to be carefully considered. He exuded self-confidence and determination, but not arrogance. Rather, perhaps because he was such an attentive listener, the strongest impression he gave was one of a human being with overwhelming interest and concern for issues, but even more for people. He was charisma personified.

On top of that, Milo and the Governor also immediately hit it off very well, which once again was a good enough recommendation for Bates, who knew enough not to trust his own instincts. And finally, and not least, there were the four buckets of deep fried chicken. Chief Latanna was an instant hit.

"The President and Jigs both briefed me, Dr. Bates. I gather we are to pick up Winnebago and then head for Utah."

"That's right, Governor. But just call me Bates; it's easier than Narbando."

The Governor smiled broadly. "Sure, and just call me Steve. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Yes," said Flood. "But first please pass me a couple drumsticks. Original recipe, if you have them. Wow, thanks! Sir, can we fly under your chopper for cover? We aren't sure of the cloaking effectiveness of our force field relative to the detection capabilities of the Ra, and they may have spacecraft in the area. So far we've avoided flying extensively except under an aircraft."

Steve got on the COM and in less than a minute they were flying East under the black helicopter. It was a jet powered craft and was able to sustain over 300 km/hr.

In fifteen minutes they were parked outside Winnebago's home. This time Winnebago immediately came running out of his house towards the Bus carrying a small suitcase. He was in the Bus and yammering at Bates before he even noticed Steve.

"Let's split boys, that's the Arizona top cop's chopper! Holy Shit! I've been had!" He stared bug-eyed at The Law and Order Governor for a moment, then dropped his suitcase and shot back towards the door, only to find that it had been closed and that the Bus was already lifting off the ground. He leaned with his hands up against the doorframe and his feet spread apart.

Steve resisted the impulse to frisk him, and instead shook his hand. "Relax, Winnebago," he said. "Our investigation of you still isn't complete. I'm here in a strictly unofficial capacity. As your assistant."

Winnebago was dumbfounded.

"Why don't you take a seat towards the back, Winnebago, and we'll talk about it in a few minutes, after I've talked with Dr. Bates," said the Governor.

The helicopter headed North with the Bus flying along closely underneath it. The Governor, fascinated with the Bus, sat behind Flood, and looked over his shoulder to watch the pilot at his work while Bates filled him in on the mission. After only a few minutes, they were intercepted by a much faster fixed wing jet aircraft of the Governor's, which took the place of the helicopter. Soon they were traveling North at over a thousand kilometers an hour at a slightly higher altitude.

At this rate, they would be in Northern Utah in another 40 minutes. They had already passed over the Navaho land that occupied much of Northern Arizona. It was a shame in a way; beautiful countryside flashed by much too quickly to fully appreciate on this bright, sunny, crisp morning.

The only landmarks that Bates recognized were Glen Canyon and Lake Powell, but other spectacular red-rock canyons, cliffs, and mountains were always visible in one direction or another from their altitude. He told himself that he was overdue for a long vacation out West, despite the rattlesnakes and other nasty aspects.

He certainly wouldn't want to live here. This was the Colorado Plateau, in which there was plenty of desert and shrub land, though there were scattered forests in high valleys and on jagged mountainsides that at least suggested water to support life beyond snakes, insects, and sagebrush. Rabbits and coyotes, probably.

To the West stretched the beginnings of the Great Basin, an even less hospitable, lava scarred wasteland. And, he noted, winter was arriving, though it was later than usual. Global warming, thought Bates. Even drastic ecologically sound measures taken world-wide hadn't stopped the now inevitable climate change. Still, bright patches of snow were everywhere, particularly in the mountains, the further North they went.

Steve had something on his mind. "You said that you suspected that the Ra may be in the area, Commander. Have you not seen the VISICOM report on the incident at Phoenix General Hospital?"

"What incident?" asked Bates.

"Saturday morning? The flying saucer? Melberg and Lund?" asked Steve.

"Melberg? In Arizona? Do you mean Peter Lund, the NP Head?" responded Bates incredulously. "Please tell us about it."

The Governor related the Hospital incident to the Team, including how he and his police failed to apprehend Melberg and Lund on the roof, and the laughter and screams heard from the huge departing spacecraft.

Bates in turn explained to Steve the probable fate of Lund, based on the experience Barns nearly had with the Ra as an evening snack. "It's not a fate to wish on any person," mused Bates. "But since he was apparently responsible for the NP attack on us the previous night, I'm afraid I can't shed any tears over Mr. Lund."

"Oh, that reminds me," said Steve. "I'm supposed to pass on some messages from Enterprise City. Dr. Guthery, your wife sends her love and word that her patent is in stable condition and recovering well."

"WHAT?" shouted Mel, popping up and rushing forward. "You say my wife is in Enterprise City?"

"And what patient is she talking about?" asked Bates, hoping against hope.

"You don't know?" replied Steve. "Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't realize that. We evacuated Jane and Oscomb before Melberg arrived. Flew them straight to the Enterprise City Medical Center."

"Oscomb is alive?" asked Bates.

"Yes, and doing fairly well, apparently," said Steve.

A cheer went up in the Bus, and hugs and high-fives were exchanged!

Bates collapsed into a Bus seat, took off his glasses, and wiped tears from his eyes. "But I don't understand!" he finally exclaimed. "When Mel COMed the hospital, he was told that Oscar had died!"

"A deception for consumption by the Ra and the press," explained Steve. "And it worked; at least Melberg didn't get to your people. I'm sorry that you were deceived also."

"But how did you get involved in this to begin with, and how did you know what to do?" asked Bates.

"Jigs COMed me before you arrived," explained Steve. "I've known Jigs for some time. He's an odd character, but he sometimes seems to have an uncanny sense of what's going to happen. Besides, he contributed lots of money to my last political campaign, with only one string attached."

"What's that?" asked Bates.

"To help you people and this Bus. He described it all to me."

"When did he do this?" asked Bates.

"Three years ago, during my last election campaign."

"Fudge Winkies!" muttered Bates. "Did he tell you anything else about the Ra, or us, or about riddles?"

"No, not really," began Steve, but the conversation was suddenly interrupted by exclamations from the back of the Bus and by Elizabeth, who came running wide eyed to the front of the Bus.

"Governor, Winnebago needs your help! It's Goyahkla!" She ran back, followed by Bates and Steve.

A strange sight greeted them when they arrived at the back of the Bus. Apparently, the Bus had left Apache airspace, for the Goyahkla curse was active once again. Winnebago, bound and gagged with rawhide strips, was floating five feet above the Bus isle. In the middle of the isle under Winnebago was a huge pile of dry sage brush, pine boughs, and antelope chips. Before this sat Goyahkla, chuckling to himself and rubbing two sticks together by means of what looked like a small bow loosely fitted with a leather strap that was wrapped around a stick. As he pulled on the 'bow' the leather strap spun the stick rapidly against a second stick. Already, smoke was rising from where the twirling stick was rubbing the dry pine bough.

"Stop that!" yelled Bates, as he reached out to untie Winnebago. But something invisible pushed him strongly back, and he ended up sitting on Norma's lap a few seats away, shaken but unhurt. Meanwhile, Janet and Elizabeth were talking to the ancient war chief in Spanish, with no apparent effect.

Suddenly, a commending voice riveted everyone. Chief Latanna walked towards Goyahkla, speaking authoritatively in Apache. Goyahkla rose and faced him, his eyes blazing. They exchanged heated words first, then sat down facing each other and talked for about ten minutes. Finally, they both laughed, got up, and each put a right hand on the other's shoulder. Goyahkla abruptly disappeared along with all he had brought. Winnebago fell whimpering and cursing to the floor with a heavy thud.

"What did you say to him?" asked Bates.

"Only truth," replied Steve. "That I am a Chiricahua chief. That I have Winnebago under my heel and will keep watch over him myself. That Indians have more power than ever, and that I am the leader of a state that includes millions of whites. That destruction of Earth would destroy all that the Apache and other Native Americans have fought the white man to achieve. And finally, I told him that we his children will need him soon, and that I will have Crooked Tongue call him when we are ready to talk with him again."

"Who?" asked Elizabeth.

"Crooked Tongue. It's the name that was given to him by the Apache Tribal Council. He is also known more affectionately by some as Chief Winnebago."

"OK, so I've had a few minor misunderstandings with the Council," said Winnebago.

The conversation was interrupted by an order from Flood for everyone to sit down and fasten seat belts. They had arrived over the Uinta Mountains, and would be dropping in on General Mike Therman's ranch house.

Soon the Bus was plummeting into a wooded valley ringed on three sides by jagged peaks. They landed in the driveway next to an exquisite log house, where they were soon greeted by Therman. He was a robust black man in his mid-sixties, of average height and build. He was accompanied by a strikingly beautiful, tall, athletic looking black woman perhaps in her late twenties. Both she and the General were wearing western garb that protected them from the cold of a crisp December morning at over two kilometers altitude.

****

CHAPTER 31

BOSSED IN SPACE

Half the truth is often a great lie.

\- Benjamin Franklin

On board the Mother Ship, a rejuvenated Master Dow had bolstered the spirits of his crew. Confidence exuded from him empathically, in his tone of voice, and in his every gesture. So far, nobody but Dow himself even knew why, exactly, but the crew knew Dow. The boss had something in mind, something that would make things right again, even though the mission had been going very badly.

Thanks to subtle hints and remarks by Dow the crew was also beginning to more strongly associate their bad fortune with their absent Ca'Ra confederate, Ren'Ca, known as Renson by the primitive Earthers.

Shifting all blame to the Ca'Ra wasn't difficult for Dow to do. The Ca'Ra always set themselves above and separate from the other Ra, even the Na'Ra, despite the success of what appeared to be Na'Ra leadership. Without ruthless Na'Ra control over society, anarchy would reign. Without the Na'Ra, the Ra would be home-planet bound like the Earthers. It was the Na'Ra who took the Ra into space, who negotiated entry into the Galactic League, and who led all the dangerous and difficult missions required to bring wealth to the Ra Home World.

Yet somehow the Ca'Ra always continued to insert themselves into everything, and the least of the Ca'Ra priests were still deferred to even by the greatest of the Na'Ra. The Ca'Ra controlled Ra lusts. The Ca'Ra and only the Ca'Ra were permitted to perform the bloody rituals that still stirred Ra souls. Who knows what other pleasures they secretly kept to themselves? The Ca'Ra were envied, feared, and hated. All Na'Ra led crews resented and distrusted all Ca'Ra.

As far as the Dow-led crew was concerned, this Ca'Ra of theirs, Ren'Ca, was no different. He had recently been arrogantly interfering with the mission, in areas where the Na'Ra were the experts. He had, after all, led the ill-fated attack on Enterprise City, which sacrificed Na'Ra lives, and then he prevented traditional Ra retribution. He didn't even seem to care if uniquely profitable human data was destroyed along with the Bus, nor did he order the replacement of those portions of the lost data that could easily be replaced. Meanwhile, Ren'Ca was himself mysteriously engaged at what would soon be the asteroid impact point, on mysterious Ca'Ra business of some sort that didn't seem to relate to either profit or to wiping out the humans. As far as Dow and the crew knew, the asteroid impact point had been arbitrary. Why then did the Ca'Ra insist on going alone to the impact point? Whatever was happening, Dow now had some sort of plan to fix things, the crew members were all sure of it.

"Apprentice Twi'Na! Report to the Situation Room!" ordered Dow.

Twig smiled. This is what she had been waiting for. Despite her newly acquired, lowly rank, she was the only Ra with commend experience left, other than Dow. Whatever he was planning, he would need her. With success, that could mean promotion out of apprentice class very soon!

She entered the Situation Room to find Master Dow, alone, sitting in the ornate Command Chair and scanning multiple views of the Earth far below. The views were of the American South-West, where the strange human built Bus was still suspected to be. Air radar was tracking all Earth air traffic in the area. Ground-scan radar was searching thousands of acres an hour, identifying millions of objects. So far no luck, but they were confident that the Bus would be found, and then it would be soon destroyed!

"Sit down, both of you," Dow said, as he turned away from the scanner views to face them. Melberg, who had been until then unnoticed by Twig, moved forward from the back of the room. Twig exhaled sharply in disappointment. Maybe this wasn't yet the scheming session she had hoped for. There was an old Ra saying: 'scheme of two, both can do, scheme with three, one should flee _._ ' Two could freely scheme, knowing that the word of one could not convict the other of wrongdoing. Scheme with three and two could too easily betray the third.

"Melb'Na, how would you assess our current mission status?" asked Dow.

After a few moments of thought, Melberg provided a diplomatic answer. "We lost much valuable data, but we still have much on board. The Mother Ship and the ground station are together successfully jamming Earth messages that would damn the Ra with the Galactic League. I have growing confidence in our success."

The Master waited a few moments for more analysis, but it soon became apparent that none was forth-coming. He turned to Twig.

"Very well. And what is your opinion, Apprentice Twi'Na?"

This was it, her chance! She would rely on her instincts and her knowledge of Dow. "The mission is a disaster," she announced. "We have lost too much: too much data, and too much equipment and crew. Though our Ca'Ra doesn't seem to be too upset by these events, the Na'Ra hierarchy will not be pleased. Additionally, if we vacate the region too soon, and the Earthers knock out the ground jamming station, the Earther broadcasts, unjammed, will damn us completely with the League. Still, if we vacate the area too late, we risk detection by the League, as the Dannos collision will certainly receive their attention quickly."

Dow, expressionless, had been leaning over the table towards Twig, closer and closer, staring her straight in the eyes. "And how should we address this situation?" he demanded.

Twig hadn't thought it through any further until that moment. "We must stay as long as possible," she proposed. "Someone has to stay behind to block signals."

"Right!" responded Dow. "That is certainly part of it. It would be better that even more Ra parish than Ra actions on Earth be exposed to the League."

"Is that Ren'Ca's plan? Is that why he waits at the impact point?" asked Melb'Na.

The Master shook his head. "Have either of you ever heard of such a thing? Of a Ca'Ra making such a sacrifice? No, I believe that he plans to stay at his post until the Bus reaches him, or until the last moment if he has to, and then escape the asteroid impact in the remaining Warren ship. It is small and swift enough that it may escape the area undetected by the League. Then, far from Earth, he would rejoin the Mother Ship, or so he says. So far as it goes, it's not too bad a plan. I should know, as I devised much of it."

The Master's face became grim. "But then, one of two things will happen to us. The first possibility is not good. We would return home in disgrace to face demotion or worse, though our Ca'Ra friend would escape blame, of course. That would be bad enough, but the second possibility is even worse. Somehow this is all Ca'Ra business, and that fact could be revealed by any of the crew after we return home. In addition, though officially the Ca'Ra would escape blame, unofficially, the crew's opinion of who was largely at fault would leak out anyway. That would not make the Ca'Ra look good. But I think that our Ca'Ra comrade may well choose to avoid such problems."

"Master," said Twig, "are you suggesting that Ren'Ca may want to get rid of us?"

"That's what I would do in his place," answered Dow, frankly. "But then you two have worked with him more closely then I have. What do you think he will do?"

Melb'Na and Twi'Na looked at each other, shock and fear showing clearly on their faces. They both knew what Ren'Ca was capable of! Master Dow smiled his most terrible smile. So far, this was going better than he could have imagined. "But there is another possibility. A better one, I think, but one that is perhaps even more dangerous. What if I told you there is a way that we can all come out of this alive, as heroes, and with regained Earth data to make us rich? Melb'Na, weren't you due a promotion? That is, if it hadn't been for the unfortunate occurrences of the last few days? And Twi'Na, wouldn't you like to become a full master?"

Twig was almost speechless. "But Master Dow, an apprentice cannot become a master!" It was impossible. Now that she was starting over as an apprentice, she was a full five grades from being a master. By law, that meant she was a minimum of five Turnings, or about six Earth years, from the master grade. And the usual rate of advance would take over four times that long.

"An apprentice cannot become a master directly," acknowledged Dow, "but a warren leader can, especially if that warren leader receives a superior rating from her master. We save our records on the ship's computer. Melb'Na, you're the computer expert. Can we not change our recorded history?"

"Of course it's possible, though it's punishable by death!" exclaimed Melb'Na.

"Correct," laughed Dow. "But you will agree that there are no technical difficulties. So here is what I propose. Twi'Na, your demotion never happened. The performance of both of you, and the rest of the remaining crew, has been exemplary. Melb'Na, we will drop you off on Earth to re-collect data from the VISICOM fiber net of the humans. We also will leave you Earth-side, Twi'Na. You will immediately travel to Guatemala and retrieve your Warren ship from Ren'Ca."

"What if Ren'Ca objects?" asked Twig.

"He won't know about it," replied Dow, smiling. "He is on foot many hours away from the ship and the jammer. We'll rig a Class-2 Probe in orbit to simulate the Warren ship and its interface with the Mother Ship. Meanwhile, the Mother Ship will pick up Melb'Na and then leave the Earth area after destroying the Bus of the humans. Twi'Na will leave Earth in the Warren ship and eventually rejoin the Mother Ship. With a small Warren ship, you should be able to avoid League detection."

"Without Ren'Ca?" asked Twig.

Dow smiled even more widely. "I fear Ren'Ca alive far more than I fear the consequences of his loss. I'm sure that he will himself choose to remain at the impact site until we tell him that the Bus and crew are destroyed. Of course, though we will actually accomplish that as soon as possible, we will tell him that the Earthers continue to evade us. Our records will show that he, along with our two lost Warrens, stayed to stave off human attack and assure that the jamming would continue. A necessary and heroic sacrifice!" explained Dow.

"What about the crew? Will they go along with this?" asked Melb'Na.

"There are only six others left, besides you," explained Dow. "Regaining some of the lost data for profit will appeal to them. Promotions and not-dying will also appeal to them."

But Twig was shaking her head. "These are big secrets to keep Master. Too big, I fear. Won't someone blab eventually, if it benefits them?"

"You remain ever the astute pupil, Warren Leader. Melb'Na, how is our guest from Earth doing?"

"The Earther Peter Lund? He remains in stasis as you ordered." Lund had been given a temporary stay of execution due to the cultural imperative that a Ca'Ra presides over the ritual killing and consumption of all sentient beings.

"Revive him!" ordered Dow. He opened his mouth in a sneering smile, exposing razor sharp fangs.

Melberg stared at the Master in shock. "You propose the Black Rite?" he asked, in a quivering whisper.

Twi'Na simply returned the hideous smile of Master Dow with one of her own. It was an outrageous proposal, but she liked it. The Black Rite, codifying the Scheme of Many! There were rumors throughout the Fleet of rebellious Na'Ra daring the wrath of the Ca'Ra by performing ritual sacrifices to consume sentient creatures without Ca'Ra sanction. Performing this forbidden rite with the whole crew would seal their undying loyalty to Dow and each other. And, if done correctly, using sufficient quantities of ca, it would actually 'brain wash' the crew, changing the crew's actual memory of events to coincide with a new history.

"Ren'Ca will not be easy to deceive, Master," said Melberg.

"Normally a Ca'Ra would know any lie, that is true," conceded Dow. "But I won't be communicating with him face to face, it will be voice-only transmissions. Besides, for now I can truthfully report on most matters. He will get only part of the truth, of course."

By the time Dow finished explaining details of his plan to Melb'Na and Twi'Na, he had received their pledges of full support. After all, he had convinced them that the most probable alternative was death.

Dow felt confident that he had considered everything, but there were still many elements of risk. With a little luck, he could control events on his end. Just what was going on at Ren'Ca's end he wasn't sure, but hopefully the Ca'Ra was well occupied; Dow certainly didn't want his plan discovered by Ren'Ca until it was too late. As long as he stopped the humans quickly and gave Twi'Na time to retrieve the Warren ship, it should all work out. Too bad they would all be long gone when Ren'Ca called the Warren ship to him and only a Class Two Probe responded! Dow would have enjoyed seeing that.

****

Deep in the jungles of Guatemala, at the mouth of a vast cavern adjacent to the massive ruins of an as-yet undiscovered Mayan pyramid, Ren'Ca stood watch over ground zero: the asteroid's impact point and the Great One's hidden resting place.

It had not been easy to find. Despite his Ca'Ra training, he had initially traversed the area several times without finding the pyramid or the cavern below it. Some sort of thought-warping psychic control was in effect that made approaching it virtually impossible, and the mental control required for him to finally reach the site required excruciating concentration.

Feelings of confusion, revision, and fear had coursed through his mind. He must leave this place, he was told over and over. Now that he had finally found the accursed place, he dared not leave it: he didn't know if he possessed the strength to return a second time.

On the other hand, he wasn't sure that he had the strength to stay, either. To help keep himself from being driven away he fastened himself securely with strong Plexi-steel cables to a huge tree that helped hide the cavern opening, but several times over the last day and night the cables had awoken him from a stupor when he was apparently in the midst of unconsciously walking away. He regained control of his actions just in time to prevent himself from breaking the cables and leaving.

Even worse than the constant, nauseating, chaotic, mind numbing commands to leave were the strange dreams of the Great One, which seemed to come every few hours at irregular intervals. At this range their power was beyond description. His was bombarded with a kaleidoscope of visual images, hate, fear, music, love, smells, joy, physical sensation, noise, despair, voices, and so on. It all had to be dealt with. Ren'Ca was exhausted from shielding his mind and fighting to control and shield his own thoughts. How long he could maintain this regimen, he wasn't sure.

At least he had evidently arrived before the human Bus did. But he was the last level of defense. Hopefully the Mother Ship would destroy the Bus, and do it soon, long before it approached him at ground zero, so that he could leave this terrible place before he went totally mad.

It was time to contact Dow again and ascertain progress. Communication with the Mother Ship was also designed to minimize Ren'Ca' s detectability by the Great One. He spoke very softly into a very low powered radio to the Warren ship via a relaying device ten kilometers from the cavern. The Warren ship relayed messages to and from the Mother Ship with higher-powered transmissions.

"This is Master Dow, Ca'Ra," answered Dow.

"What progress, Dow? Are there any signs of the Earth ship?"

Dow could sense urgency, pain, and exhaustion in the Ca'Ra's voice. He would have to be very careful with the inflections of his own voice when talking with Ren'Ca, but since it was a voice-only conversation, he allowed himself a wide smile. "No signs of the vehicle yet, but we are sure they are still in the area that we survey. It is only a matter of time. I am sure that we will stop them long before they reach you, Ren'Ca. But we do have a problem. Our measurements indicate that your ground-based jammer still isn't at full power. Can you check the equipment?"

"Not currently. You will maintain Mother Ship jamming until further notice."

"Of course. Is everything well with you?" asked Dow, with feigned concern.

"Things will only be 'well' when this business is concluded, Dow. Keep me informed. Good hunting."

"Good hunting to you Ca'Ra," concluded Dow, ending the transmission.

Dow laughed long and hard. How good it was to hear the Ca'Ra in pain, and to deceive him. Throughout the ship, the crew sensed Dow's pleasure and confidence, and were re-assured. With the exception of Melberg. Melberg had seen Ren'Ca in action to many times to feel comfortable about crossing the mighty Ca'Ra.

****

CHAPTER 32

GOOD GRUB AND STRANGE TALES

One cannot conceive of anything so strange and implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.

\- Rene Descartes

As he was the only individual who knew both all the B-Team members and the Thermans, Flood performed introductions as the Team exited the Bus. The attractive young woman with the General turned out to be Kay Therman, the General's daughter. She immediately received the young Governor's attention, not only because her striking looks, but because she greeted him speaking Apache. When he tried to converse further with her in that tongue however, she confessed that she knew only a few Apache words, though she was fluent in Ute. This suited Latanna, who was also fluent in Ute, and a private conversation ensued.

To the shock of the Bus Team members, Goyahkla emerged from behind the Governor, looking quite solid and alive, shook hands with Kay, and politely asked her questions in Ute. Kay, not suspecting that she was talking to a man that had died more than a century earlier, answered him cheerfully, while the rest of the Team stood frozen by the scene and by the weather, which was quite chilly in mountainous Utah compared to Arizona. Suddenly Goyahkla abruptly laughed and faded away before the startled eyes of Kay and the General.

"Who or what the hell was that?" demanded the General.

"Sorry about that, folks!" explained Bates. "That was our new associate, a spirit by the name of Goyahkla."

"THE Geronimo?" asked Kay, after she had gotten her breath back. A snarl echoed in the Bus.

"Please use only his Apache name Kay, he's a little touchy about that," explained Bates.

"Fine by me," she said, as she returned her full attention back to the Governor. It was possible that even on this isolated ranch she had previously heard of Governor Latanna, identified by single women between the ages of 18 and 50, according to several pollsters, as one of the ten most desirable bachelors on Earth.

Steve had in return been watching Kay closely, while he hardly took any notice of Goyahkla, or anyone else, for that matter.

"Is Goyahkla your chaperone, Governor?" she asked him.

"Do I need one?" returned Steve Latanna.

Suddenly there was so much high voltage electricity between the General's daughter and the Governor that several of the others looked around as though seeking cover. The two silently stared into each other's eyes for several long moments until the spell was broken by Winnebago, who demanded to know what his nemesis Goyahkla was up to, and by Flood, who continued with the introductions by passing both Winnebago and Latanna off to the General and acquainting Kay with Drs. Barns and Carbuncle, who were next to emerge from the Bus.

While the General and Mel exchanged warm greetings Bates pulled Steve aside anxiously. "What did Goyahkla say to Miss Therman?"

"In short, Goyahkla told her he had never seen a black Ute before, and she explained she wasn't really Native American. He also asked about her marital status. She's single. This apparently met with his approval."

"Approval for what?" asked Bates.

"Association with Winnebago. Remember, Goyahkla won't allow a Native American woman near him."

"That's all he said?"

"No," answered the Governor, smiling. "He expressed some complements and made some indelicate suggestions, which Kay of course politely declined.

"Actually, he seemed rather spry for a man of roughly two hundred," noted Kay, as she rejoined the Governor.

They all went inside the ranch house and were warmly greeted by lunch, which awaited them on a long table with room to seat the entire Team. There was hot sliced beef and freshly baked homemade bread, baked potatoes, and a huge tub of baked beans and molasses, along with coffee, tea, and spicy hot apple cider. Kay gave Milo his own bowl of chopped beef. It wasn't an everything-on-it pizza, but it certainly made the always hungry dog quite happy. Between this meal and the chicken of an hour or so ago, this was the best eating that the Team had experienced since Enterprise City.

As they ate and drank, a grizzled old man that looked and sounded astonishingly like Roy Rogers' old movie side-kick George Gabby Hays clambered around the table and in and out of the kitchen, refilling food and drink containers faster than the assembled Team could empty them.

Everyone seemed pleased except Winnebago, who was clearly disturbed by the Western decor and food. "You don't have a kosher knockwurst with sauerkraut or a BLT, do you? How about soft pretzels and mustard? Or maybe just a lousy bagel with cream cheese for crying out loud?" he asked, without success. But the Gabby Hays character had a good laugh.

Between bites, Bates, aided by the others, told their tale to the General and Kay. The Thermans seldom used a VISICOM and had no idea of the strange events of the previous days. Nevertheless, they seemed to take it all in stride; it was as though their life in this remote mountain valley had somehow prepared them for any challenge, including unlikely battles with alien flying saucers and run-away asteroids.

This puzzled Bates, until the Thermans began to speak of their own strange experiences. Echoing much of what Mel had already told the group, the General first spoke of his vivid recollections of the incident involving two alien visitors a decade ago. After he and Mel had warm conversations with the aliens he had acted under orders and turned the strange visitors over to the ranking DOD representative present, and afterwards they just seemed to disappear. According to the General, that DOD official was none other than Dr. Franklin Melberg, Assistant Director of the DOD!

The company groaned at that news. Melberg again! That certainly explained the incomplete report contained in the DOD data cube, and the ordered hasty departure of Mel from the scene. This did not bode well for the two missing aliens. Surely Melberg had long since disposed of the two unfortunate representatives of the Galactic League.

Evidence to the contrary came from a completely unexpected quarter: Kay. Ten years ago, the evening after the two visitors from afar met with the General, Mel, and then Melberg, an even stranger visitor met with Kay. The young teen had been alone gathering stray cattle in the high country only two days away from the house by horse when her sleep was interrupted by what she described as a 'voice in her head' that told her not to be afraid.

Naturally she was terrified. Opening her eyes and putting on her glasses, she was astonished to see, revealed in the soft light of a full moon and the glow of her dying camp fire, an exquisite, shimmering, glowing white horse-like creature that continued to speak to her, apparently through thought alone. The long spiral horn that extended boldly from its forehead identified it immediately as a unicorn.

The creature told Kay that the telepathic thoughts of a stranger had recently gotten its attention. The thoughts were not those of an entity that the unicorn referred to as the Dreaming Great One, but of another, much closer entity. The thoughts were unusually strong, strong enough to be heard faintly despite the noise made by the Dreaming Great One, Kay was told, although who or what the Dreaming Great One was wasn't explained.

The unicorn told Kay that the stranger's thoughts were very odd; thoughts of great glowing machines traveling in empty blackness, and of establishing friendly relations with a new race. Most of these thoughts were very human-like, mortal concerns, things that she, a unicorn, perhaps did not fully comprehend, but could repeat from memory.

And yet, the unicorn could tell that the thoughts were not human. This the unicorn knew for sure, for she had long studied to understand human thought patterns, though with only partial success.

The unicorn told Kay that the thoughts of the stranger continued strongly for only a few hours. She had paid little attention to them, as they were human-like and somewhat incomprehensible. She shut most of them out, as she did the noise and nightmares of the Great Dreaming One. After all, Kay was told, that was a unicorn's greatest power.

Then, related the unicorn, an even odder thing happened. After a period of a few short, frantic seconds, the psychic thoughts of the stranger were cut short, though not by death as mortals knew it, or the spirit would have been heard from.

Instead, almost complete silence had come to the previously noisy stranger. Not sleep, yet not death; the unicorn did not know what it was. However, in the last moments before final silence the stranger desperately attempted to communicate with a human known as General Mike, Kay's father, but had been unable to, as the General was deaf to all such voices.

The stranger's last desperate thoughts that had reached the unicorn were clouded in fear and agony; the thoughts were a plea for rescue from a dark place described as being near General Mike. So desperate was the plea that the unicorn, who usually shunned the affairs of outsiders, took pity and sent a return thought of comfort to the stranger, along with a pledge that the message would be passed on to the General, and that further aid would be rendered of an undefined nature also by the unicorn.

As the General, like the stranger, was at the time in a place of humans that the unicorn could not comfortably abide, the stranger's message was passed to his kin, Kay. When finished with its story the unicorn struck a nearby Aspen sharply with its horn, and told Kay to return to the Aspen with the stranger when he had been found, and help would be given to the stranger as promised.

Finally, the unicorn said that so she and her father would know that the message was truth, a sign would be given. As Kay sat on her bedroll unable to move, the unicorn walked to her. Its motions were all grace and bespoke fantastic power, yet its footsteps made utterly no sound. Though helpless, Kay felt no fear as the unicorn curtsied by kneeling with its front legs and lowered its great, sharp, glowing horn to ever so gently touch her head. At that point the girl blacked out.

Kay woke at midday, feeling wonderfully refreshed but disoriented. Where was she, and why was she here? Then she noted her faithful horse grazing nearby, as, oddly enough, also were all of the stray cattle that she now remembered that she had been searching for. Starting down the mountain towards home, she felt marvelous, though she still retained a feeling of apprehension, whenever her thoughts turned to the strange and vivid dream of the night before.

Hours later as she came out of her daze more completely she finally realized that she wasn't wearing either her special glasses, or her hearing aids. Since the car accident 10 years before, both her hearing and eyesight had been seriously impaired. Since she was a small child she depended upon powerful glasses to aid her one remaining functioning eye, and a sophisticated hearing aid to boost her hearing towards normal. Until now. Now, if she could trust her senses, she could hear and see perfectly well without use of any aids!

In her knapsack she found the glasses and hearing aid, right where she had put them the night before. No, not the night before, because there also was her watch, which indicated that two more days had passed than she could account for! The gift referred to by the unicorn became clear at that point, as did the reality of the creature's strange, dream-like visit.

Cattle forgotten, she raced back up the mountain to her campsite. When she reached it, she was astonished to find that all traces of her campfire were gone, as were all footprints, though the ground was soft and moist as though from recent rain. While walking towards the Aspen touched by the unicorn horn in her dream, she looked behind her and saw that the footprints she was now making also disappeared magically in seconds! When she reached the aspen, she found that it had doubled in girth, and that all its leaves were incredibly green and perfect for so late in the season. She explored the area for another hour, without finding any other signs of the unicorn, before finally turning again for home.

When she reached home the two ranch hands in attendance were stunned and joyous at her new appearance. They COMed her father at the Base, but were so incoherent that the General rushed home by helicopter in panic. The phone call and his subsequent trip home reminded the General far too much of the nightmarish incident ten years earlier, in which his wife was killed, and Kay, his only child, had been maimed for life.

When his Air Force helicopter touched down on his front yard this time, it was a healthy and joyfully glowing Kay that ran to great him! The General at first had some difficulty believing his daughter's story, but he could not deny that a miracle had taken place. Of course his own experience of a few days previous, in which he met and spoke to two space aliens, had already enlarged his own perspective of the Universe somewhat.

Therman tentatively identified the 'stranger' referred to in the unicorn's story as Krog, the larger if the two aliens, who had repeatedly referred to him as 'General Mike'. The story confirmed the misgivings he had felt after turning over the two friendly extraterrestrials to Melberg, an instantly dislikable individual. Though Melberg had reported that the aliens had departed the Base, the unicorn's story suggested otherwise. So Therman returned to the sprawling Air Force Base to search for the aliens, but without success.

General Therman also contacted Melberg, who told him, in effect, that he, the General, was threatening National Security. Shortly thereafter, the General was contacted by Peter Lund, Head of the newly established National Police, who told him much the same thing. Lund didn't even seem to know what the secret was, but he informed Therman that it was a Government secret that needed to be kept secret. It was a Government matter of National Security, and the retiring General was no longer part of Government. This angered Therman greatly, but he was a man who believed deeply in Governmental and Military authority. So, against his personal judgment, he kept his silence.

For several years thereafter, he told himself that the President would soon announce the historic contact with the space beings. It would have been a momentous occasion. But that day never came, and as time went on, the General further lost faith in the Government.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that the visit of the aliens was much too important an occasion to be kept a secret by any Government. Perhaps the greatest event in human history since Christ, kept secret by a Government that derived its powers from its people? No way! They had no right to keep such a secret, and every obligation to make it public. Period.

Further, Therman realized that he was himself a part of the dastardly cover up. But what could he do? Go to the press? If he did, he'd probably end up incarcerated in a funny farm. No, first he would need proof.

And so, three years after the aliens' visit, the General decided to again take matters into his own hands. With a team of trusted ex-service men, he broke into the now abandoned Air Force Base and again searched for signs of the aliens. After two weeks of searching, again nothing was found.

In the meantime, his daughter had no success in again contacting the unicorn. She returned to the unicorn Aspen many times, and watched its continued amazing growth with awe; but the unicorn itself was not to be found. In the meantime she read all that she could find about unicorns, but what was fact and what was fantasy of what she read, there was no way to tell.

Her experience seemed to agree with legend in several respects, however. For example, the unicorn horns of legend were said to have healing powers, in agreement with Kay's miraculous recovery of sight and hearing. Also, the steel fences surrounding the Air Base should indeed repel unicorns, if as in the legends, iron troubled them. That could explain why the unicorn described the Air Force Base as a place that it didn't want to go.

The General led two other break-ins and unsuccessful searches of the Base in the years that followed. As more years went by however, Kay and the General thought less and less of the strange events of years ago, and even came up with rationalizations to explain them away. Ranch life kept them too busy to do otherwise. Life anywhere in the Great Basin region of the continent was harsh, even in the relatively lush Uinta foothills.

Then they heard from Flood.

So now what? The Team discussed what should be done next, and quickly agreed that they must search the General's old Base again. "But how can strangers hope to succeed, where the General and his men, all familiar with the Base, had repeatedly failed?" Barns asked.

"I don't know; let's go find out!" said Bates. The Team, joined now by the Thermans, piled into the Bus carrying several days of trail rations.

As they flew off, Bates mulled over the bizarre events of the last few days, and what was happening to his outlook on things as a result. First there was the asteroid and the space aliens, and then a ghost, and now there was a unicorn with magic powers!

Until he was forced into this current adventure, he had been naively living life with blinders on, while unnoticed, mysterious and marvelous things had all along been going on in the world around him. All his life he had apparently been looking at only the surface of things, and forcing a twisting, squirming, kaleidoscopic reality into easy, comfortable, but trivial shapes and dull hues. It was as if he had been contentedly studying static, colorless abstract spheres and cubes, while behind the scenes the actual world romped about like hula dancers wearing fluorescent grass skirts. Now reality was bursting out from all confining boundaries and revealing itself to him, its beauty as well as its terrible secrets.

He was scared shitless, but exhilarated.

****

CHAPTER 33

THE DREAMERS FROM AFAR

Up, sluggard, waste not life; in the grave will be sleeping enough.

\- Benjamin Franklin

The Base was not far from the Thermans' ranch, according to the Thermans, but of course the General and Kate were accustomed to traveling hours to get anyplace at all. For urban Easterners like Bates, a couple hours' drive was a significant trip.

Travel time to the secret base was lengthened because without an aircraft to provide cover, the Bus did very little noticeable flying. Although they did take a few off-road short cuts that involved floating over streams and driving off cliff tops, they generally flew within inches of a road surface in order to stay inconspicuous to the Ra. After all, if the enemy aliens were indeed hiding something at the Base, they could be routinely monitoring the entire area. Sandra actually drove much of the way, and as long as the Bus stayed essentially Earth-bound, she did fine.

Still worn out from the events of the last couple of days, Bates resolved that he would rest up a bit while he digested lunch, but he found napping to be a difficult proposition. First the Thermans, astounded by the Bus, felt obligated to convey that fact several times to Bates. He couldn't blame them. It's one thing to see a flying bus, and quite another to be flying in one yourself.

Next Winnebago, who still wasn't very impressed by the Bus, came up front to wake Bates again with his complaints. "What did you guys pay for this Bus thing? Millions, am I right? You Government geeks got took! Look, I have a buddy in Flagstaff who customizes vans and RVs. For twenty or thirty kilo-bucks he could make this thing livable. Carpeting all around, sofas, holographic VISICOM with surround-sound and state of the art virtual reality, vibrating fold-a-beds, built-in bars, Jacuzzi, the works. Just tell Big Luke that I sent you and he'll cut you a special deal."

In response, Bates told Winnebago that Barns was shopping for whole-life insurance. Winnebago went looking for Barns immediately. It was a mean trick to pull on Barns, but it got Winnebago to return to the back of the Bus.

Bates dozed off again, but awoke minutes later to the sound of a discussion being held behind him in some sort of Indian language. Turning to look at the row of seats behind him, he was startled to find Kay sitting with Steve on one side and Goyahkla on the other, carrying on a three-way conversation, presumably in Ute.

Steve looked up at Bates and the two exchanged shrugs, signifying acceptance of the situation. Apparently the Team would just have to get used to Goyahkla popping in and out on them whenever he felt like it. The ghost seemed to feel like doing that much more often since Kay had arrived. The spirit's visits focused less and less on Winnebago, and more and more on the women on board, and to a lesser degree on Latanna.

As long as he wasn't massacring anyone or levitating them above burning dried antelope chips or something like that, Bates reasoned that his ghostly visitations were all right, he just wished that right now they were quieter. He went back to the more important business of nodding off, but all too soon it was mid-afternoon and the Bus had reached the Base boundary. After the Bus 'hopped' the wire security fence, Flood parked it in a stand of scraggly looking pine trees. A still tired Bates gathered the Team to plan their efforts.

"General," said Bates, "could you tell us more detail about the visit by the two aliens, and why, besides the unicorn's message, you feel that they may still be on the Base?"

"Absolutely," replied the General. Indeed the General seemed happy to at last tell the story to someone besides his daughter. "It was early one summer morning about ten years ago that it happened. It was the last days of the Air Force. I had about ten people left to help me shut down the Base. I was cleaning out my desk, when the aliens simply knocked on my door, opened it, and peeked in."

"That must have been quite a shock," commented Bates.

"I damn near soiled my shorts, son. I had heard of UFO sightings before, of course. I even met a Colonel in an O-Club once that swore that a UFO tailed his jet fighter through all the maneuvers he could muster. I told him he was full of shit. Generals used to dress down Colonels all the time, they expected it. But I was wrong. The damn things are for real."

"Anyway, the two of them just came shuffling into my office babbling 'can't we all just get along,' or some such, and asking if we had seen other aliens. It was a giant scaly green one and a little gray-skinned one, from the get-go obviously authentic off-planet folks."

Mel produced the photo of himself, the General, and the aliens on VISICOM.

"Right! There they are, that's them all right, Krog and Wink, the odd couple. Friendly enough folk though, I liked them." The General smiled. "By that afternoon I had Mel Guthry with me, and things were going fine, but then a few hours later Melberg took charge. I didn't like it, and I didn't like Melberg, but he had the credentials and I had my retirement papers.

"Melberg had a tall thin, quiet, sullen, zombie sort of guy with him; his Ra friend Renson probably, based on what you told me today. The four of them simply walked off towards another part of the Base. I saw Dr. Guthery off myself, and when I returned a half-hour later, Melberg was back in my office. He told me that the visitors had gone home, but they had left a message that he, Melberg, would relay to the President personally.

"My men and I were to keep the incident Top Secret. My own helicopter flew Melberg to Salt Lake City Airport. One of my men told me later that he saw a UFO take off while I was talking to Melberg. Other than that, my men and I didn't see any of the others leave. But there were only a hand-full of us remaining and this Base is a big place, so about the only thing we knew for sure was that both Melberg and a UFO left. We search the Base top to bottom and found nothing of Krog or Wink. No trace of Melberg's tall thin companion either."

The General pulled out a detailed map of the Base and they started to discuss the previous searches. He expressed great concern over the enormity of the job that faced the Team, as the Base consisted of hundreds of buildings spread over hundreds of acres. Bates wanted the search to be completed in less than twenty-four hours, using a search Team a fraction of the size of the ones the General had previously used to accomplish four searches that each required two entire weeks!

The General's previous investigations had been conducted by assigning each member of his search party to individual areas and structures of the Base. Base maps and building floor plans were used as the basis for assuring that every location was searched. They first focused on the buildings in the general area where Melberg and the aliens were last seen, and after that failed, the effort was expanded to include the rest of the Base.

The Base was so huge that it would take the B-Team a month to simply duplicate one of the previous searches, but Bates was undaunted. He'd seen and heard enough these last few days to believe that anything was possible. "We'll simply have to use our heads, as well as our eyeballs," he told the Team. "The General believes that he and his men have already looked everywhere. Then we'll have to try something different. Any thoughts?"

"Assuming they haven't been moved," reasoned the Governor, "we shouldn't have to search where the General's men searched before."

"Excellent point," agreed Bates. "If we begin with the premise that we don't have to repeat what has already been done, we're already at least a month ahead in our search, instead of months behind! That's definitely the spirit, but we have to get more specific. We have to reason this out in detail."

"I think we should assume that we are looking for the aliens themselves, and not just clues, and we need to assume that they are alive," said Mel.

"OK," responded Bates. "That's consistent with our whole philosophy of assuming a winning strategy. Besides, dead, they could be unrecognizable atoms and impossible to find or identify, and of no use to us, except to end a useless search. But if we assume they are alive, then that connotes certain characteristics that could help our search. For instance, we know we're looking for something larger than a bread box and probably smaller than a Toyota."

"That big guy Krog seemed as big as a small Toyota, close up!" remarked Mel. "Even Renson would have had trouble sneaking off Base with him under one arm."

"That's what we're counting on," said Bates. "We assume they are still here."

"A living thing has needs, like food and warmth," added Don.

"Good point, Son," responded Bates.

"But that would suggest power use," added Carbuncle. "Even if they are drugged or frozen, there would probably have to be machinery to preserve them through the seasons."

"But why bother to hold them or save them for later?" asked Winnebago. "Why wouldn't the Ra have just wasted these guys right away?"

"I have a theory on that," interjected Barns. "I can't claim to fully understand them, but I suspect that for them to kill members of the Galactic League would be a very serious step. Just to do away with me seemed to require some sort of ceremony, and humans aren't even League members. So maybe to begin with, they would have tended to keep them alive, at least until they figured out what to do with them. And remember, the Ra do missions that last for centuries, so stashing guys for ten years might be no big deal for them.

"If so, they still could have been murdered years later, with Dannos to finally complete the cover-up of the crime next week. Maybe the unicorn's message no longer holds and this rescue is too late. Or, maybe they are still here alive, and are supposed to parish with Dannos when the rest of us do. It's just impossible to know."

"Exactly," said Bates. "We can't know, but we will proceed as though they are alive and here. But they aren't out in the open or they would have been found ten years ago. They have to be well hidden within something; maybe in something that uses power. General, how is this Base powered?"

"It isn't," replied the General. "All power was shut off when we closed down."

"What about solar power, or other on-Base power sources?" asked Carbuncle.

"Most were removed. What little remained checked out as turned off in our previous searches."

"Yet there has to be power utilization, if they are alive!" said Bates. "If they're alive and not frozen, they must need to be kept warm. If they are being kept frozen so that they don't decompose, their temperatures would still need to be regulated, and that would also require power. Power consumption and heat production, that's our best bet. Can we look for it somehow with the Bus?"

"We can do an infrared scan with the Bus," said Flood. "It's nice and cloudy today, so the Sun isn't heating everything up. Humidity is low enough, so air UV absorption should be low. Over-all sensor sensitivity should be pretty damn good. But it would require that we fly over the Base for quite a few minutes, and that could make us visible to our friends in space."

"Couldn't you just drive around ground-bound?" asked Bates.

"Not as effective," said Carbuncle. "It would probably take days, and the heat from the Bus, even at low power, could obscure the heat source that we're looking for."

"I've got it!" said Sandy. She held out her copilot helmet.

"Of course!" said Flood. "Pilot and copilot helmets have self-contained infrared scopes! Not as sensitive as the main Bus sensors, but pretty good!"

"Especially when tied in with the digital image enhancement capabilities available in virtual mode!" said Carbuncle. "The helmets have built in massively-parallel image processing."

"Yuck," said Flood. "I've been trained to pilot that way, but I never liked moving around and climbing things in virtual mode. I guess we could do the climbing part with our visors up though," said Flood.

"Climbing?" asked Bates.

"Of course!" said the General. "The water tower. That should allow coverage of most of the Base."

Twenty minutes later, Flood and Latanna were climbing the 60 meter tall water tower. When they reached the top they put down their visors and switched their helmets to full virtual mode. Electrical currents passing through molecule-thin conductive layers in their visors re-aligned polarity of the material, causing the visors to become light-opaque screens onto which computer enhanced imagery could be projected, using input from helmet-top infrared and visual cameras.

Two hours later, they were climbing back down again, shaking their heads. They had spotted several heat sources, but none that seemed very promising. For the rest of the afternoon, the 'hot spots' were checked out, without success in terms of locating space aliens. All of them turned out to be animal 'nesting spots'; birds, rodents, rabbits, and a pair of upset coyotes were found.

It was starting to get dark. After an encouraging morning, it had turned out to be a very disappointing day. It had been interesting work however, for those members of the party interested in wildlife.

"I was kind of disappointed that we didn't find any snakes though," remarked Elizabeth, as they walked dejectedly back towards the Bus to regroup.

"Not me," said Bates. "That rattlesnake in Arizona was plenty for me."

"Aren't there any snakes on the Base?" Elizabeth asked General Therman.

"Ha!" responded the General. "Wait till summer young lady, if there is one next year, and I'll show you some snakes! Rattlesnakes as fat as a man's arm all over this damn place! Found one under my desk once. Damn near got me. Lizards too, a half meter long. The Utes and other Shoshone especially like those roasted; food can get pretty scarce in these parts. The lizards are tasty I'm told. Taste like road-runner, which of course taste like chicken."

"Of course. But why didn't we find any then?" asked Elizabeth.

"They're endotherms, and probably hibernating too," explained the General. "So the infrared didn't pick them up."

Bates and Mel Guthery, who had been walking behind Elizabeth and Therman, and not paying much attention to their conversation, stopped in their tracks and looked at each other knowingly. "Fudge Winkies!" exclaimed Bates.

"Exactly!" agreed Mel. They picked up their pace towards the Bus.

The others weren't entirely thrilled with the implications of Bates' latest hypothesis. But the hypothesis was collaborated by Barns, who told the Team of watching the Ra revive rats before eating them alive. The Rats were in some sort of stupor that the Ra ended by using some sort of drugs on them. It made sense for space traveling carnivores to have such a system. The Team hypothesized from this that the Ra may have also used stasis-inducing drugs on the missing aliens.

"There's a big problem with that," said Carbuncle. "If there's no machinery to keep them warm in the winter, they would surely freeze while in their stupor."

"And that would irreparably destroy body tissues," agreed Bates. "But we don't know the chemistry of their bodies and the drug. Maybe they wouldn't freeze."

"OK, if they are hibernating on drugs or something, and essentially endothermic, that explains why our infrared sweeps haven't found them. And, if they haven't been frozen, that's great. But then how are we ever going to find them?" lamented Sandy.

"The Bus infrared has better sensitivity and post-processing," said Flood. "Maybe it could still pick them up."

"That's still a high risk proposition," said Bates, shaking his head. "If only we had another sensor!"

Just then Winnebago, who had gone to the back of the Bus while the rest of the Team discussed strategy, came up front to confront the others. He was wearing polka dot covered pajamas and carrying a toothbrush. "Hey, what gives, can't a guy catch some Z's around here?" he complained.

"It's only seven PM, Winnebago!" pointed out Latanna.

"You mean nine PM," retorted Winnebago, "Eastern standard time. That's what I go by!"

"Sorry we're keeping you up," said Barns, sarcastically.

"Oh no, it's not you guys! It's that bloodthirsty heathen that you guys were supposed to help me with. I can't get him out of the John."

"The ghost is in the privy?" said Therman.

"You mean he's in the head?" said Flood, revealing his Navy up-bringing.

"Yep. Whatever you guys want to call that valuable little room in the back, he's taking a shower in it."

Led by Chief Latanna, a Team contingent went to the back of the Bus, and indeed did discover a naked two century old savage in the shower, lathering up with Zest and singing Apache words to what sounded amazingly like an Irish air. Goyahkla's voice wasn't half bad. He exchanged a few words with Latanna, then got out of the shower.

Goyahkla had an interesting way of drying off. He put his clothes on in the shower, and then walked out through the shower wall, stepping into the main Bus isle perfectly dry. A puddle of water collected on the inside shower stall wall from him and his clothes as he walked through it. He ended up standing in front of a startled Bates, to whom he handed a dry bar of Zest. "You stink bad; you next," Goyahkla said, and sat down in one of the Bus seats. "Can't sleep here."

Bates was taken aback. "Did you hear what he said?" he asked.

"Don't feel too bad," said Mel, "a lot of us are a little ripe. A quick shower is a good idea for all of us. Save some of the Zest for me."

"No," said Bates. "Not that! First of all he spoke English!"

"Oh sure," explained Latanna. "He just avoids using it around Winnebago. It's part of the curse."

"OK," replied Bates, "but what is he doing sitting here in our Bus again? If he wants to sleep or whatever ghosts do, shouldn't he easily be in happy Spirit Land or someplace?"

"No," said Latanna. "He says he can't sleep because of all the noise."

"What noise?" asked Bates. "Us?"

Goyahkla replied, but in Apache, as Winnebago had returned. Winnebago took the Zest out of Bates' hands and headed for the privy without a word, while Latanna translated Goyahkla's response.

"Not us. He says we are deaf, as he was when he lived. He says there is a powerful dreaming one nearby, whose dreams cry out day and night."

Bates and Mel looked at each other. "Fudge Winkies!" said a voice that sounded very much like Bates, and they both turned to stare in astonishment at Goyahkla, who was nodding and staring at the two of them with an amused look on his face.

"Barns!" said Bates. "Get me that pipe and tobacco you bought at the Wawa. Elizabeth, Kate, stand in back of me in sight of our friend the great medicine man and war chief Goyahkla. Hank, keep that idiot Winnebago in the bathroom for a while longer. Chief Latanna, would you do the honors?"

Bates handed Latanna the pipe and tobacco, which he had just gotten from Barns. It was still wrapped in heavy plastic, which Steve began to struggle with. Even a powerful man like the Governor was going to have a tough time getting off child-resistant plastic. But Goyahkla reached over and casually pulled the plastic off the pipe and off the tobacco package, without opening the wrapping, leaving Steve holding just the pipe and tobacco!

Mel whistled. "Wow! He did it again, just like he did for himself and the soap. He moved the pipe and tobacco right through the plastic! Amazing trick!"

Steve lit the pipe, took a few drags, and passed it to Bates. Bates drew in some smoke, and managed somehow to keep from throwing up. He quickly gave the pipe back to Steve, who passed it on at last to Goyahkla. The warrior spirit inhaled pipe smoke and then let the smoke blow out his ears. The fellow had a good sense of humor for a dead guy, at least.

Goyahkla stared at Bates' with his piercing eyes. Bates met his stare. It was time to talk turkey. "I think you already know what this is about Chief. Whatever feelings of pain and hate you have from your long hard life, you are certainly intelligent and perceptive. We all need your help. The white man, the yellow man, the black man and the red. If you don't help us now, and keep on helping us, in a few days there won't be any white men to hate, or Apaches that act like white men to haunt, or good people like Latanna here that now have the respect of men and women of all colors. We'll all be in the spirit world, if there still is one. Along with elk, deer, antelope, coyotes, horses, and practically every other living thing on Earth. Everything will be dead and gone forever.

"I'm not a great leader of people like you or Latanna. I'm just trying to lead a brief mission that will be all over in a few days. Then I'll be finished. So the way I see it, I have an easy job, compared to the life that you and other true leaders have had. But ordinary guy or not, somehow I've gotten a pretty tough job to do, leading this talented group of weird people. Please chief; we need all the help we can get. Right now, we want you to help us find the two missing visitors from space. Can you do that?"

Goyahkla bit the end off the pipe handed the remainder to Bates, and then spit the end out, hitting Bates in the face. Then he said a few words in Apache.

"That seems to me to be a mixed message," remarked Bates, rubbing a sore nose. "What's going on?"

"It is a mixed message," Latanna agreed. "The great Goyahkla will help us, but he still isn't terribly pleased about working with white men."

Goyahkla looked up at Janet, Elizabeth and Kate, smiled, and said something else in Apache.

"But he doesn't mind the ladies," translated Bates for himself.

"Right," affirmed the ghost, with a smile.

Goyahkla stood up and motioned the others to follow him. "I take you now to loud sleeping strangers," he announced. Then he simply stepped outside. He did so by walking right through the side of the Bus.

Moments later the rest of the Team members went scrambling outside through the main hatch, but could see nothing in the utter darkness until Hank and Flood arrived with flashlights.

"It's freezing out here, let's go back in the Bus and get our coats," said Sandra.

"Do that and we'll lose the red skin ghost!" said Hank, who was already dashing off with Latanna and Milo in the direction that they had seen Goyahkla take.

"Flood," said Bates, as he grabbed the pilot's flashlight, "you get to your Bus instruments; I don't want to be surprised by the Ra in the middle of this. The General and I will go on. The rest of you get your coats and ours out of the Bus and follow as quickly as you can."

Bates and General Therman ran off in the direction taken by Hank, Milo, and Latanna, who had all passed from sight around a nearby building. Rounding the building, there was no one in sight. Bates turned the flashlight to the ground hoping to find footprints in the dust, but saw several sets of human footprints leading in all directions: products of that afternoon's chaotic animal survey.

Fortunately Bates and General Therman heard shouting and barking from ahead and saw a faint light shining up and reflecting faintly off the low cloud cover overhead. It had to be Hank and Milo, trying to signal the Team. From the same direction they also heard a coyote howl. As they ran around the next building they were just in time to see Hank disappearing behind the next one.

This area of the Base was like a maze, and all of the buildings were nearly identical. They would have to rely on each other to keep on the trail of the elusive ghost.

Very soon Bates was out of breath and freezing. This chase was far too much activity for him, in far too cold an environment. Twice he fell down and was helped up by the General, who was breathing a little rapidly, but seemed to be bearing up quite well compared to his younger but flabbier couch-potato companion.

"Take it easy Bates," admonished Therman. "It's the altitude; you're not acclimated to it."

Bates realized he was right. Added to the fact that he was an overweight, confirmed couch potato to begin with, the high altitude was a killer.

They heard another coyote call just ahead, and more barking from Milo. Bates had read somewhere that coyotes were actually small members of the wolf family, and had been known to attack people if sick or cornered. But it was Milo he was really worried about. Coyotes were known to often make meals of domesticated dogs. Bates reasoned that a plump Pizza fed cream puff like Milo would be a welcome addition to the diet of most coyote families, especially at the onset of winter.

At last they caught up with Hank, who was also showing the negative results of the thinner air and too many years of city living. He was bent over with his hands on his knees, catching his breath. Though exhausted, the plucky old security guard gave Bates an 'OK' sign, handed his flashlight and ever present assault rifle to the General, and pointed in the direction they had been traveling all along.

Bates and the General went on, but their pace was slowing. A stiff breeze had developed that was chilling them both to the bone. Soon more energy was going into shivering, than into useful locomotion.

Just when Bates was so cold and tired that he felt that he would have to stop, the pair rounded a building, and there were Latanna and Milo, trying without success to enter a very large building through a padlocked steel door. The Governor let loose with a piercing coyote wail, which was answered from within the building by a faint answering cry. It had been Apache signals that they had been hearing all along, not real coyotes!

Bates was relieved that Milo wasn't in danger from coyotes, but the dog looked cold and winded. Latanna must have been in phenomenal physical condition though; he seemed to not even notice the cold, and wasn't the least bit out of breath.

"Oh, good," said Latanna, when he sighted Bates and Therman approaching. "He's in there. General, do you have the key?" Therman pulled a ring from his pocket with about three pounds of identical looking keys on it, and started fumbling around with the door lock. Like Bates, he was shivering so hard that he could barely function.

In the meantime, Hank had caught up with them. "Damnedest thing I ever saw!" he panted. "That Goyahkla fella walked right through them there buildings like they wasn't nothing! Had the deuce of a time figuring if he was staying in any one of um, or just passing through."

It took the General several minutes to find the right key. Meanwhile, Kay, Elizabeth, Janet and Don arrived with coats and blankets. Soon everyone was warming up, including Milo, who Bates held in his arms as he sat on a fold of blanket. Not for the first time, Bates was thankful for high dog metabolism. He reminded himself to give the dog a bath in the near future, however.

Everyone came to their feet when the correct key was found and the door was at last opened. The group entered the huge dark cavernous interior bay of the old aircraft hangar. From the parts strewn on the floor revealed by several flashlights, it became clear that the hangar had once housed helicopters, but was now nearly empty. Though it was a dark, deserted, spooky place, having already been haunted by Goyahkla for several days took a lot of the edge off that aspect of it for the Team. Thus after an initial period of apprehension while flashlights searched the dark interior, the hangar quickly became a welcome haven for the Team. Besides sheltering the group from the wind, the building still retained warmth from the day and from warmer weeks in the past.

Latanna gave another coyote call, and it was answered in kind from the right side of the hangar. They walked to the hangar wall. There were two doorways along the outside wall leading into rooms that surrounded the hangar bay. The doorways were about 20 meters apart. Goyahkla's answering calls seemed to be coming from behind the wall, midway between the two doors.

The General led a group into one room, while Latanna led another group into the second room. As there was no sign of the missing spirit Chief in either room, Bates had each group knock on the wall that separated the rooms. When knocking could not be heard by the people in opposing rooms, the sizes of the rooms were paced off. It became clear that the rooms were separated by a space of about two meters.

"Look, Dad," said Don, "doesn't this look like the outline if a door?" Bates and son had been examining the steel hangar wall between the rooms. Don shone his flashlight around what seemed to be the outline of a metal doorway that had been welded smoothly shut. Waist high there was a lumpy spot just within the outline that could have signified a latch or doorknob. "Look!" said Don. From the floor a few feet away from the wall Don retrieved what was left of a metal latch handle. The door end of it looked like it had been melted away.

"Well, all that melting of metal could be Renson's handiwork, all right!" said Bates. "Let's see if anyone is home." He knocked on the hidden door using the old latch.

Immediately a hairy head popped through the door in front of him, with a loud "BOO!" It was a grinning Goyahkla, having a little fun. Bates and Don each jumped back with a shout that brought the rest of the Team running, while Goyahkla, laughing, disappeared fully again behind the door. Bates hoped that he too would still have a sense of humor after being dead for more than a century.

Soon they were all studying the door outline. "No wander my men missed this," said General Therman. "This was just a storage closet, like those others." He directed his flashlight light-beam along the long hangar wall to point out several short, wide doors of a shape that matched the one outlined by the weld. Several were standing open. "That's a pretty damn good welding job. I'd like to know how they did it, since all the welding equipment had been removed by then."

Bates and Mel described to the General some of the feats that they had seen Renson accomplish. They theorized that the visitors had been drugged off by Renson and Melberg and then sealed in the storage closet by Renson. Unhindered, Renson then flew away in the visitor's space craft to dispose of it, and Melberg returned to the General, leaving the two alien victims hidden in the hangar wall.

"OK," said Bates, "how are we going to open this?"

Several of them knocked on the door and surrounding wall, including Norma, the master engineer of the Team.

"That could be a bit of a challenge, without proper welding equipment," said Carbuncle. "Flood could doubtlessly cut it open with the Bus lasers, but that would require partial power to the main engines and a nasty heat signature that could possibly be detected from space even through the hanger roof. Besides, it would be delicate work. The aliens, if they are in there, could be blown to smithereens or toasted to charcoal. However, with hand tools, if we had any, it will take many hours."

"Yow!" shouted Sandra. She had been standing with her back almost against the sealed door, when a thin gray arm, ending in a hand with absurdly long, delicate fingers, protruded through the steel door and tapped her on the shoulder! There was a sound of ghostly laughter from inside the sealed closet.

"It's one of the aliens!" said Mel. "Goyahkla is putting him right through the door, just like he does himself!"

"Of course! Like he did with the soap in the Bus! He carried it through the wall of the shower with him. This is his soap trick!" exclaimed Bates. "Quick, let's help him!"

In moments, Bates was gently holding a thin, gray, delicate alien in his arms. It was obviously the small alien named Wink from the photo, or one just like him, one of the beings referred to in the data cubes as a Haspa, the race that had for many decades been studying Earth biology.

The body was cool and slightly stiff, but seemed perfectly preserved. It certainly should have been decomposed if it had been dead for ten years. They lay it on a blanket and examined it more closely.

Milo was curious but not apprehensive. Bates took that as a good sign. No heartbeat or breathing could be detected. Either there wasn't any, or it could not be detected by the Team, none of whom had any medical training. Bates wished they had the services of Oscar or Jane.

"Here comes the other one!" shouted Latanna, as a huge, green, scaly arm emerged through the door. It took the combined efforts of all of them to handle Krog; he must have weighed at least three hundred kilos. Bates sent Don running back to tell Flood to bring the Bus; they obviously weren't going to move Krog very far on foot.

They checked the big green alien's vitals. He also showed no sign of reviving, and displayed no detectable signs of life. In summary, both aliens seemed not dead, but not alive either.

In fifteen minutes they were all in the Bus and driving out over the Base gates. "What now?" asked Barns. "The nearest hospital is probably hours away."

"What hospital? We're going to look for Kay's healing unicorn horn!" said Bates. "Flood, head us back towards the Ranch, pronto!"

"Right Boss," answered Flood.

As the Bus lifted off, Winnebago came staggering out of the bathroom. He looked terrible. He managed to stagger up the isle to Bates, totally ignoring Goyahkla and the two aliens. "What the hell kind of shower is that? You guys trying to kill me?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Two minor little problems, that's all. Well, first of all, this shampoo was in there, so I used it, before I realized what it was!" He held a bottle out to show it to Bates. It was dog shampoo.

"Oh! That's mine and Milo's. It's great on dandruff, and kills fleas to boot! Sure, go ahead and use it if you want to."

"You use this on yourself?"

"Sure," replied Bates. "Why should I bother to stock two kinds of shampoo? What's your other problem?"

"Well, when I turned off the water, the damn thing locked me in and started spinning! It could have killed me!"

"Oh, that's just the automatic spin cycle!" explained Norma. "In zero gravity there has to be some way to mop up the water before you open the doors. Otherwise, we'd have shower water floating all over the Bus."

"For crying out loud!" lamented Winnebago. "This place is nuts!" He walked to his seat, plopped down, and reclined it, apparently determined to get some sleep.

As the Bus moved through the cold December night, Bates looked back towards the rear of the Bus, where the two strange visitors from space were still stone cold dead or undead. They reclined in seats next to each other, the huge, green, turtle-headed individual actually occupying two seats.

Goyahkla was doing some sort of dance and chant in the isle next to the aliens, but this was having no apparent effect. Whatever powers the spirit of Chief Goyahkla had, restoring life to stunned aliens was not one of them.

Perhaps they really were dead, and had been for years, but their bodies were indigestible to Earth micro-organisms that caused 'decay'. Or perhaps they had just died or were now dying because the Team had disturbed them. In any case, Bates had the feeling that if they were not revived soon, they never would be.

Peering through the windows, a few snowflakes appeared in the light of the Bus headlights. More and more came down, and the wind picked up, until a venerable blizzard was buffeting the Bus.

"This must be that storm that was supposed to pass to the North of us," said the General. "Looks like the weather folks were a few hundred kilometers off again."

"How well will the Bus hold up in this kind of weather?" asked Bates. Flood and Carbuncle didn't know. Weather was simply not a consideration in the Bus design. They were certainly in no danger of freezing, nuclear and 'conventional' Premium Fuel power, even at low power levels, would prevent that, though that would make them more vulnerable to detection by the Ra. Thankfully, they could barely hear the shrieking of the wind outside the Bus. They did have windshield wipers, though they hadn't ever been used yet. For now, Flood had adjusted the windshield defrost system to blow freezing cold air across the inside of the windows. So, far, the dry snow was bouncing off the ice-cold windshield.

But visibility was still terrible. They quickly gave up trying to follow roads by seeing them; the roads had simply disappeared. Traveling off-road across a landscape strewn with boulders, canyons, escarpments, and other features would be dangerous. To avoid such obstructions they were relying on navigation systems to stay on the road, and on a minimum powering up of the radar to drive the collision avoidance system.

More serious, the auto pilot system they had been relying on to fly inches from the road surface was inadequate in the buffeting, gale force winds. The Bus was weaving all over the road, and due to the instability, its wheels were often striking the snow covered pavement violently. Riding in the bouncing, weaving Bus was becoming increasingly uncomfortable and dangerous. To the Team, and especially to Flood, each mile seemed like ten. Flood tried manual control, but that produced little improvement and required an expenditure of piloting effort impossible to sustain for longer than a few minutes at a time.

"This is becoming unsatisfactory. We'll have to do something soon," said Flood. "Besides the wild ride, navigation is difficult. The roads are becoming invisible, and the inertial navigation system doesn't have enough accuracy to keep us centered on them."

"What are our options Commander?" asked a worried Bates.

"First," replied Flood, "we could set down and wait this out."

"These things usually last a couple days!" interjected the General.

"We just don't have those days to spare," said Bates. "What else is there?"

"We could fly above it, but we'd probably be sitting ducks for the Ra. Still, that way we could make the trip in minutes. Or, we could stay low, a few meters above ground level at most. We could power up the shields. That would improve our aerodynamics and stability. Our driving speed would improve considerably. Arrival would be in under two hours. But our increased power might be detectable. Bulling our way through the storm at a medium altitude would take even more power, though it would take less time. Not to mention it would still be a hell of a ride in this wind. Half an hour or less transit time. Finally, we could drive on the ground relying on our tires, slowly but surely, with a minimum power signature. I recommend we try that alternative first."

"Go to it then, pilot!" said Bates.

They immediately had problems. The narrow, slick tires gave little purchase on the slippery road, and they still had to rely on thrusters for stability and motive power. They had gone from being a skeet ball floating on a cushion of air to a careening, skidding hockey puck on a bumpy surface. In short, it was no improvement.

Hoping they could transit the relatively short distance in so brief a time that they wouldn't be noticed, they finally elected to fly above the storm. In seconds Flood powered up all systems and the Bus shot up through the clouds. It was a wild ride, but the turbulence was brief; in half a minute they popped up through the clouds and were shooting towards the unicorn meadow. They turned off the radar to be as inconspicuous as possible, but over a hundred thousand horsepower was being expended, resulting in a trailing fiery plume that could probably be seen from the moon. But so far, there were no Ra! As the minutes went by they began to gain confidence. They were almost there!

Suddenly without warning a huge, glowing, saucer shaped space ship appeared directly in front of them! "Oops! Bates remarked needlessly."

The Governor shouted that it was the one he saw at Phoenix General, or one exactly like it! It was orders of magnitude greater in size than the ships that had attacked Enterprise City; it was obviously a Mother Ship of the Ra! As Flood's fingers raced across Bus controls in desperation, the entire Saucer flashed brighter than the Sun, and exuded a fiery blue/white tendril of lightning that shot towards the Bus!

The protective force field of the Bus flashed and coalesced at the point of energy beam impact, but the brilliant plasma stream easily cut through it and struck the middle of the Bus, which shuddered violently. For an awful moment the Plasma stream speared through the Bus, cutting a fist sized hole through upper and lower hulls and decking, and through seat 7c, which fortunately was unoccupied at the time. Mel, in 7b, was singed red on the right side of his face.

The automated protection system of the Bus shot a comparatively weak laser blast back at the Mother Ship, with no apparent effect, and the Bus dropped like a rock into the storm clouds below. The Mother Ship followed for a few seconds, then was left behind. A second, parting blast struck out from the Mother Ship, but the power of the stream seemed to dissipate rapidly over the increased distance, and the Bus also dodged violently away, such that just a glancing blow to its force field resulted, without the beam striking the Bus itself. But the first blast had already direly wounded the Bus, which, despite Flood's piloting heroics, went into a careening spin as it fell.

With a loud whooshing sound the Bus was also rapidly de-pressurizing. Only Flood and Carbuncle had pressurized helmets on, everyone else was soon breathing hard and deep with little positive effect. Gasping passengers couldn't even effectively scream. Between the spinning free fall and the air rushing through the punctured hull, any objects not tied down were flying all over throughout the Bus, endangering all occupants and hampering the flight crew.

The Bus dropped like a rock through pitch darkness, tumbling down towards the ragged Uinta Mountains and death.

****

CHAPTER 34

THE LAND

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.

\- Robert Frost

As the Bus fell rapidly towards the rugged peaks below, Narbando T. Bates, strapped in the engineer's seat behind pilot and copilot, was again facing death as a very near term prospect. The Bus, inherently unstable aerodynamically to begin with, now seemed to be spinning end-over end, though frankly, it was impossible for Bates to tell precisely what exotic kinematics were being executed, or to even care. Not when terrified people were screaming in terror, or attempting to, in the breathless, low air pressure environment, and being spun and yanked about wildly.

People were strapped to their seats, but nothing else was. Papers, pens, Twinkies, dog biscuits, shoes, Pepsi cans, coats, and other loose objects flew about throughout the inside of the Bus. This is what riding the inside of a clothes dryer must be like, Bates thought, or one of those amusement park rides that his stomach hadn't been able to endure for the last 20 years. Something hard smashed into his face and was gone again in an instant, before he could even guess what it was.

This was like being in one of those rock-tumbling stone-polishers that the gemstone fans used, he reflected. He had one once that he used to try to smooth a rough quartz crystal. He accidentally left it turned on for a couple months longer than the recommended period, and ended up with just gritty, mushy paste that was totally unsuitable for jewelry use. He had managed to create sand. He knew that very shortly a similar fate was in store for the B-Team. Something needed to be done, but trapped in his seat by strong centrifugal forces, he was completely helpless. Help would have to come from elsewhere.

With great force of will, he turned his head a little to the right and glanced at Norma in the copilot position. In the dull glow of emergency lighting he could see that she had removed her helmet, and was barfing profusely into one of the bags that she always carried 'just in case'. She finished, but the bag then slipped from her hands and flew off over Bates' head towards the rear of the Bus. Bates could tell that she wouldn't be much help.

He heard laughter, and saw something out of the corner of his eye even further to the right. Turning his head he found himself face to face with Goyahkla, who was crouched next to him, staring into his eyes, and laughing with glee. This ride apparently seemed like some sort of wonderful joke to him. At least somebody was enjoying this, but it didn't look like help would be forthcoming from the spirit world either, except perhaps to soon welcome new members.

The Team had failed. He had failed. As a result, Earth and billions of people would die in a few days. But by now he was too sick and dizzy to think much about failure and the fate of Earth; fewer and fewer cogent thoughts ran through his aching head, and those few that remained were mostly prayers, and the names and faces of those that he loved.

Then, very faintly, he thought that he heard 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic'. Forcing his head back to the left, Bates could see Flood whistling as he went about his piloting work, reading displays and gages, throwing switches with one hand, and struggling with the control yoke with the other! His efforts must have taken super-human strength and will.

The Commander took the yoke controls with both hands and started moving them in a complex pattern that seemed to somehow compliment the rhythm of the Bus spin. The gut wrenching spinning slowed, then gradually stopped completely! "Landing in ten seconds," Flood announced calmly over the inner-COM. Bates looked out the windshield. The Bus headlights reflected back glare from the swirling snow. Suddenly the flakes thinned out, revealing snow covered trees and cliffs that reached up slowly towards the descending Bus.

The Bus gently settled down on solid ground, and Flood switched all thrusters off. A pathetically weak but highly emotional cheer arose from the Team. The lack of motion was simply wonderful to experience! The somewhat thicker air was awfully nice to breathe too, though at the moment, it stunk to high heaven. Norma's barf bag hadn't gone nearly far enough, wherever it had gone. But they had landed safely, and amazingly enough, they had landed right on target, for in the headlights a dozen meters in front of the Bus rose the trunk of a gigantic tree.

It took a few seconds of further recovery before anyone spoke. "Hey!" exclaimed Kay at last, "that's my unicorn tree!"

Bates got up gingerly and patted Flood on the back admiringly. "That was fantastic Commander" he said. "How did you manage to get us right next to the tree?"

"Damned if I know!" answered Flood, enigmatically. "Just as I regained control of our dissent the snow thinned out in this direction and I had to only make a slight adjustment to end up here!"

Bates was so pleased to have landed safely, and anxious to get out of the Bus, that he immediately threw open the hatch and stepped out in his shirt sleeves, fully expecting to be buffeted and frozen by a gale force blizzard, and to be up to his kneecaps in snow. Astonishingly, he found that the temperature outside was 'room temperature', about 20 degrees Celsius! Instead of standing in snow, the light from his flashlight revealed that he was standing in a field of green grass! "Hey everyone, come on out, the blizzard is over! It's summer out here!"

"Not so," said Mel, who had followed his friend out. "Look towards the back of the Bus!"

Bates swung his flashlight around to where Mel's was pointed. Perhaps five meters in back of the Bus an impenetrable curtain of swirling white rose as high as they could see with their flashlights. Mel pulled a thermometer from his pocket, and, putting the thermometer in a gloved hand, walked to the white boundary and thrust his arm through it, thermometer included.

"Yikes! Cold!" The snow was falling so thick that the thermometer, his hand, and most of his arm were completely lost from view. A minute later, when he retrieved them, they were encased in a layer of snow and ice, which he shook and batted off as he read the thermometer. "Minus 10 degrees Celsius," he announced. "Actually darned reasonable for a blizzard in December at over two kilos altitude. Mild, even. What we are currently standing in however, I would have thought impossible."

The others, who had also left the Bus, were similarly amazed at what they found. Milo wasted no time in laying claim to this hospitable territory in doggie fashion; in a few spots the lush green carpet would soon be even greener. Even Flood came out of his beloved Bus to see what all the fuss was about, or perhaps mostly to get some fresh air.

"Is the Bus force field doing this, Flood?" asked Bates.

"No way our force field could do this," responded Flood. "Besides, it's turned off; we're covert. Everything except battery powered diagnostics and lights are turned off."

"It's the unicorn tree," explained Kay.

The Team soon confirmed this by surveying the strange 'warm zone'. They spread out along the periphery of the zone and confirmed it to be a circle about fifty meters in radius, with the huge, unicorn-blessed aspen at the center. The diameter of its smooth, gray-white trunk was nearly three meters, about the size of the biggest Northwest Douglas Fir or Western Cedar trees, and as big as most Coast Redwoods. This aspen was many hundreds of times as big as a normal aspen.

"Holy smokes!" exclaimed Bates. He had elevated his flashlight's light beam to shine on the tree above the trunk, expecting to find the beginnings of a leafless, fractal network of winter branches. Instead, he illuminated layers of healthy green leaves, of tremendous number and size, that stretched up into the sky far beyond the capabilities of the flashlight. The leaves seemed to twinkle a little, but that could have been a trick of the lighting.

Doubts harbored by most of the Team members about Kay's unicorn story were by now of course totally gone; the tree was obviously magical, whatever that meant. Mel and Norma, curious about this amazing place, were even now dithering about with thermometers, voltage meters, infrared sensors, and other scientific instruments that they had quickly retrieved from the Bus. Everyone else was still simply gaping in wander at the tree, with the exception of Milo, who was joyously claiming territory all about the patch of green. The small plump dog seemed to have an endless supply of urine.

"To work everyone!" said Bates at last, after several minutes of gawking had elapsed. "Flood, Carbuncle, you better work on the Bus."

"Maybe the rest of us should bring the aliens out to the tree," suggested Elizabeth.

They did just that, though moving Krog required quite an effort, mostly contributed by Steve, Don, Kay and Bates. Krog and Wink looked strangely natural, propped up against the base of the tree trunk. Whatever magic was present in the tree did not wake them, however.

Carbuncle came out of the Bus to give the good news and the bad news, accompanied by Flood. "Fortunately, no critical systems were destroyed," she anounced. "The control lines that got hit had redundant backups that finally cut in, which is why Flood was finally able to regain control. We can patch the holes in the hull easily with our spare Starlite tiles. However, that ray, whatever it was, cut clean through the Bus far too easily. Recall that the Hotel, with its own Starlite Plastic, easily stood up to similar weapons. We wandered why. Flood, demonstration time!"

Flood was carrying two Starlite tiles and a hammer. Each small tile was about a hundred square centimeters in size. He placed them both on one of the large boulders that were scattered around the area. "I used plates like these to repair one of the holes," he explained. When I tapped the first one into place, this happened." He tapped a tile rather lightly with the hammer, and it not only shattered into pieces, it disintegrated into a fine white powder!

"Crime-in-nee!" exclaimed Hank.

"Maybe you hit it too hard!" ventured Don.

"No," said Flood. "Watch. This is what should have happened." This time he used both hands to deliver a tremendous blow to the second tile. The tile seemed completely unharmed. Flood picked it up and handed it to Bates. There wasn't a scratch on it, Bates noted. "The first tile was part of the original equipment delivery about twelve years ago. The second one was part of the newer equipment taken on in Enterprise City."

"The first tiles were defective?" asked Bates.

"No, not originally," explained Carbuncle. "Twelve years ago we subjected all of them to rigorous testing."

"The problem seems to be some sort of molecular instability," explained Flood. "Jigs warned me about this, but he said he didn't know exactly when disintegration would begin. Probably even the newer tiles will have exactly the same problems in another ten years or so."

"But why does the stuff lose its strength?" asked Bates.

"Frankly," confided Carbuncle, "we haven't figured out yet what gave it its strength in the first place."

"I think Jigs knows more, but won't tell anyone," said Flood.

"That I can believe. The bottom line though, is that we are traveling around in a vehicle that could turn to dust at the slightest provocation," noted Bates.

"Or even spontaneously," clarified Carbuncle.

Flood, ever the practical man, looked pretty grim, but Carbuncle, having thought through and clarified a technical issue, seemed quite pleased with herself.

Bates took off his thick glasses and rubbed his eyes. What else could go wrong, he wondered. "That sounds just great!" he finally remarked, sarcastically.

"Curious beings you are, to travel in a conveyance of which you know so little," said an unfamiliar, strange, clear piping voice. The Team members looked at each other and all about, without discovering the source.

"That sounded like my unicorn friend!" exclaimed Kay.

"Just so, small one. I will speak to you today using sound, which is the way of your kind. Greetings, friends of Kay," said the voice, as sure enough, a large shimmering white shape similar to that of a thoroughbred racing horse materialized next to Kay facing Bates. As it materialized, other non-horse-like features besides sentience became apparent. Most obviously, a meter long, glowing, spiral horn jutted out prominently from the creature's forehead. A long silver-gold mane flowed down the back of its neck, and similar hair formed prominent eyebrows and tufts about erect, forward facing ears. The tail was also made of the stuff, in the manner of horses. The silver-gold hair also accented the slim ankles above too-small silver hooves that didn't appear to sink into the soft ground at all.

Perhaps the most striking feature was the white coat that covered most of the creature. It was simply whiter than white, and seemed to actually glow, though not as brightly as the horn. Bates reasoned that the coat somehow created its own light, as it was simply too bright to be simply reflecting it.

But what really captured Bates' attention were the unicorn's eyes. They were set forward far enough to support binocular vision, which was evidently directed straight at Bates. The eyes themselves, if that's what they were, consisted of large, round, black pits, like the empty eye sockets of a skeleton. They contrasted incredibly with the white and silver that surrounded them.

The over-all effect of the creature's appearance was disarmingly unearthly, to the degree that even the likes of Wink, Krog, and Goyahkla though somewhat odd seemed as commonplace as the strange set of neighbors that always manage to live next door to anyone. The unicorn seemed utterly flawless and impervious to its surroundings.

Bates had certainly never seen anything like it, and he struggled for long seconds before finding his voice to reply. "We thank you for your greeting. Yes, communicating using sound is definitely preferred, thank you. As to our Bus, in our world, things as complex as this are developed by hundreds of people. None of us that are here now are experts in this particular plastic material."

The beast produced a strange snorting whinny. "None in this universe are expert in that particular material human," replied the unicorn mysteriously. "But we may perhaps speak of this later. First please introduce yourself and your companions." Bates introduced each of the Team, except Goyahkla, who was nowhere to be found. The unicorn as yet gave no name for itself, but acknowledged each Team member with a nod of its head and horn. When introductions concluded with the unconscious aliens, the unicorn walked over to them, and rested its horn on the brow of each of them for several seconds.

"They have life, yet they do not live," pronounced the unicorn. "I have not before seen mortals in this state. They dream in deep sleep, the large one quite loudly. I can perhaps waken them, but only safely if I take them into my home realm, where my powers and the powers of my friends are strongest. You must carry them there, if this issue is to even be considered. All that are here must come, or none."

"Why all of us?" asked Barns.

"All of you are jointly dedicated to this quest, are you not? Then to help even some of you, all and the quest they follow must together be considered. But I give dire warning that thus will you each and all risk yourselves also. You risk your very lives." The unicorn looked at each of them with its cold dark pits-for-eyes.

The Team members looked at each other nervously.

"We come this far," said Hank, with the fatalism of age.

"I say we go for it!" said Don, with the exuberance of youth.

"This may be a good time for everyone to reassess their life insurance needs," said Winnebago.

"We'll all go," stated Bates, flatly.

"But I should stay and stand guard over the Bus," protested Flood.

"There is no need as long as it remains near this great tree," replied the unicorn, with such authority that its word could not possibly be doubted. "It is well hidden here and protected." So Flood joined the rest of the Team as they picked up the aliens.

Meanwhile the unicorn had turned towards the stand of normal-sized aspen that grew beyond the great tree, and walked towards it, beckoning the Team with a gesture of its head and great horn. "Come then mortals, if you dare!" it said. The Team followed, struggling under the great weight of Krog.

They expected to be stepping out of the warm area and into a blizzard, but the bubble of warmth that sheltered the giant Aspen reshaped to accommodate the movement of the party, even pushing all snow out of their path as they went. They walked behind the prancing unicorn through the stand of Aspen, straight towards a nearby towering granite cliff-face. The party was mystified as to their destination as they approached the mountain-side, which certainly appeared to be an impassable wall of solid rock.

"I recommend that you hold tightly onto each other, mortals," advised the unicorn. "It would not do to become lost where we now go."

As they approached the cliff, a narrow section of the solid rock mountain side seemed to partly fade. Into this new cleft the unicorn strode without hesitation, followed by the Team, many of whom were so busy struggling to dodge the huge form of green scaled Krog through the Aspen maze, that they never even noticed when they began walking through the translucent mountain of granite.

Once inside the mountain, all was pitch black except for the unicorn, and a dully-glowing tube as thick as a person's body that seemed to be below their feet. The tube stretched in back of them towards the tree and ahead past the unicorn as far as they could see. Bates tried his flashlight, but it didn't appear to function. Sound was also totally impossible, as he discovered when he tried to talk with the others. However, the whole Team was still joined together by holding onto Krog, Wink, and each other; so at least touch between them seemed possible, despite all the other contradictory violations of basic science and logic that were happening.

Bates had first thought that they had merely entered a tunnel of some sort, and that their entrance into the rock cliff had been some sort of optical illusion. He now strongly suspected that they weren't in a tunnel at all; they were actually passing through the rock of the mountain itself. How could this be possible? How could rock feel like cold, damp air? How could they breathe? And if they could breathe, why couldn't they speak? Bates had no idea. In any case, whatever was happening was fantastically strange and frightening, and Bates was very grateful that the Team was at least able to somehow hold on to each other.

Bates pulled and pushed to keep everyone close behind the unicorn, as it wouldn't do to lose their guide while they were somehow inside of a mountain. While positioned so closely behind the gracefully prancing creature, Bates confirmed Key's notion that it was female, though with so unfamiliar a species he couldn't be totally sure.

His proximity to the rear quarters of the creature also led to a concern that the creature shared the equestrian habit of liberal defecation. Would unicorn poop glow in the dark, he wondered? Would they just pass through it anyway, as they were doing with the solid rock? He didn't really want to find out, but at least thinking about such things kept his mind busy and away from more frightening thoughts about how strange and dangerous this entire experience was.

Then Bates noticed something really weird. He stopped walking for a just moment and found that it didn't make any difference at all! He still moved along with everyone else, or at least they all seemed to be moving; he wasn't totally sure anymore, as the only evidence of progress was the motion of the unicorn's legs and apparent motion relative to the glowing tube that stretched below them. He concluded that the unicorn was magically moving all of them. Bates and the others had been moving their own legs for nothing!

After traveling through the darkness for several long minutes, the Team suddenly burst out onto the open, onto a field of knee-high grass. Looking around, Bates found that the whole Team was still together. They laid Krog and Wing down in the soft grass, so that they could more easily openly gawk at their surroundings and rejoice their release from the strange silent depths of the mountain.

The whole area was dimly lit, to about the level that would be provided by a full moon, although no glowing lunar orb was visible. Rather, a dim glow seemed to emanate from the entire sky, or roof, or whatever was overhead. Stands of trees loomed everywhere in the faint light, with many of the individual trunks every bit as large and vigorous looking as the one near the Bus. Other trees, bushes and great boulders also loomed about the Team, but it was impossible to identify most objects very well in the near-darkness. The air was comfortably warm with a slight breeze, and it smelled wonderfully of life, as if it were late Spring rather than early Winter.

"Where are we?" asked Kay of the mystical creature that they had been following, who had paused for a time to let the Team acquaint themselves with their new surroundings.

"This is our realm, Kay, a land of the Fairy, I have heard it called by our human friends; one of only a few such places that remain. We simply call it The Land."

"Were you driven out of our world by human-kind?" asked Sandra.

The unicorn did its odd snorting whinny again, which Bates by now was sure was laughter. "No child, your fables over-estimate the role of humans in this matter. Our primary difficulty, and yours to a degree that you are as yet unaware, is The Sleeping Great One."

"That must be who we are looking for!" exclaimed Bates. "We are supposed to waken a Great One that dreams, and somehow save the Earth!"

The strange legendary beast turned to stare at Bates. "Then you are on a most dangerous quest, human. Impossible and deadly, under most imaginable circumstances. Your knowledge of the dreaming Great One both fascinates and disturbs me, as does the strange material that makes up your vehicle. Also, it is odd that one of your human dead awaits you outside the boundaries of this realm. But I will discuss these things no further on this night. I would instead call a full High Council meeting of The People in the morning, that you may explain it to all of us."

"After that, will you waken my sleeping friends Wink and Krog?" asked the General.

"Perhaps," replied the unicorn. "I am pledged to help them, but the form of that help is yet to be determined. First the circumstances of your quest must be discovered, so we of the Council may decide your fate. Follow me now to a place where you may rest."

Once again, the Team picked up the unconscious aliens and followed the unicorn. On the way, Bates sketched out the entire Ra and Dannos situation to the unicorn, who gave no response, other than an occasional snort or a nod of her horn. Bates had no idea if he was even understood by the strange creature, who seemed to know English perfectly well, but certainly came from a vastly different environment then did the Team. Hidden away in this strange place, could creatures of mythology possibly conceive of space ships and asteroids? But it was important that she and this Council of hers understand the situation. What had she just said about deciding the Team's fate?

"I don't understand," ventured Bates, "exactly what is it that your Council must decide?"

The unicorn stopped walking and turned to face Bates again, fixing him with twin bottomless black pit eyes set in glowing white. "I gave fair warning human, as is our custom. In addition to considering the merits of your quest, it must be determined if any of you will ever be permitted to leave this realm alive."

****

CHAPTER 35

THE FALCON

The time is out of joint; O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!

\- Shakespeare

Detection of the Bus had ultimately proved to be a simple matter for the Ra. They used imaging radar to identify all aircraft detected in the South-West United States, and finally one shaped like a small bus dramatically appeared.

Melberg recognized the significance of the location of the Bus immediately and reminded Dow that this was the general area of Utah in which Twig's Warren had incapacitated two Galactic League members ten years earlier. It couldn't be assumed to be coincidence; it had to be interpreted as confirmation that the humans had possession of the Ra Data cubes, and were using them.

When the Ra then attacked, their very first plasma blast fully penetrated the Bus and sent it tumbling Earthward into a raging snowstorm. They dared not follow, as the storm could interfere with their efforts to jam Earth news broadcasts that the Galactic League might detect. They fully expected their radar to confirm the demise of the Bus, but the Bus's radar image disappeared very suddenly, when the Bus was still several hundred meters above the mountains. At the same time, no explosions were detected by radar or by radiation or infrared detectors, suggesting that the Bus was still intact.

Thus the Ra Master's moment of triumph had been short lived, and he paced around the control room furiously. "But that simply isn't possible!" he screamed at his 1st Aid. "How could they completely disappear?"

"Perhaps the storm obscures the wreckage," ventured one of the Aids, a comment that resulted in a loud snort of dissatisfaction from Dow, and a reduction in speculative statements by his crew. They all knew that any objects larger than a pencil should have been detectable by the powerful Ra tracking radar, even in an Earth snow-storm.

They replayed the recorded radar images again and again. "Observe Master," said the 1st Aid. He pointed a bloody finger at the imaging screen, which was set to re-play at one-sixteenth speed. "The vehicle appears to be stabilizing itself." Sure enough, scant seconds before disappearing from radar, the Bus stopped spinning and began to slow its decent.

As they studied the screen, the 1st Aid licked the last human blood from his fingers. Detection of the Bus had cut short their Black Rite somewhat, but not before it was essentially complete. The bellies of all crewmembers were full of Peter Lund, and their minds still rang with his last terrified thoughts. The minds and hearts of the entire crew were one now, as never before, for they shared a dark, intimate secret that could destroy them all.

Strangely enough, rather than being burdened by this, they actually felt liberated. What mere mission hardships, or threat of death itself, could possibly compare with what they had just dared, in defiance of the Ca'Ra? Each had put their ultimate trust in their fellow crewmembers. No matter what happened, the nine of them were comrades for life, and even beyond, if the old Ra beliefs were true.

Though the Black Rite had improved the crew's outlook, too many things about the Bus and its most recent disappearance bothered Dow. How had the Bus gotten from the Phoenix area to Utah in the first place without being detected? However they did it, could they now be doing that same thing to escape the area completely? Not even Ra technology could have accomplished the disappearance of the Bus from radar that occurred a short time ago.

Could this imply that the humans had somehow already revived the League members and received their technical assistance? Could humans and Galactic League members be streaking south towards Ren'Ca even now? Or perhaps they were heading out into the Galaxy towards a League planet, sending messages about the Ra and Dannos as soon as they escaped Ra jamming!

Or, nearly as bad, what if they were cloaked and non-detectable but too badly damaged to proceed? What if the humans delayed traveling south, or even never headed south towards Ren'Ca! Dow's crew would then not be able to detect and destroy the humans immediately, as required for their desertion of Ren'Ca in Guatemala to work.

Of course, Dow had no idea why anyone, including Ren'Ca, had any interest in Guatemala to begin with. What was at the Dannos impact site, anyway? He again cursed Ren'Ca and all Ca'Ra. That he, Master of record for this mission, was denied such vital information was insulting. Besides, it interfered with his ability to plan how to get rid of Ren'Ca.

The more he thought of the possibilities, the more he was convinced that the Bus was still on the Utah mountainside where it disappeared from radar. He was certain it was destroyed or at least badly damaged. What the Ra should now do was obvious. They must wait for the weather to clear, and hope that they would then be able to either confirm the accursed Bus to be already destroyed, or find it again and destroy it. It had to happen soon enough for the Mother Ship to vacate the planet and evade League detection, while Twig covered for them in the Warren Ship, keeping Ren'Ca at the asteroid impact site, waiting to intercept the humans that would never come. The storm would continue for at least several hours more.

In the meantime, the weather was clear enough to the North and East for the Mother Ship to make a very quick side trip to nearby Salt Lake City, all the while continuing to jam Earth news signals and to blanket the area where the Bus disappeared with radar. From Salt Lake City, Twig could travel to Guatemala, while Melberg collected some of the cultural data that they had lost when Barns escaped. Meanwhile when the weather cleared sufficiently the Mother Ship would travel to where the Bus disappeared from radar, find it, and destroy it once and for all. Then they would pick up Melberg and leave this cursed planet.

Perhaps it was primarily the effects of the Black Rite, but despite the uncertainties implied by the inexplicable disappearance of the Bus, Dow felt more in control of the situation than ever. The more he thought about it, the more he convinced himself that the Bus and its pitiful human crew would never leave Utah.

****

Thousands of kilometers to the East, an impatient multi-billionaire fitfully paced his private office at the top of the tallest tower of the Medieval castle that he often called home, when he was here in this his home universe. He looked out over his marvelous Enterprise City and remembered the horror of his initial farsight visions of the Dannos incident. All the possible futures had been terrifyingly disastrous and vivid when he first experienced them more than twenty-five years ago.

Fortunately, Earth's destruction was now slightly less likely to become reality. That is, there were several new 'plot-lines' to the Dannos episode that he could farsee, and although most still resulted in the Earth's destruction, a precious few now resulted in the Earth actually being saved. The possibilities were changing all the time though, due to such things as both classical and quantum mechanical randomness, the strange behavior of chaotic phenomena, and the exercise of what was perceived to be free will, including Jigs' own attempted manipulation of events.

Jigs documented his different visions as best he could, at one point even formulating one as a 'fictional' novel, and although his writing was a pale shadow of his vision, and littered with fiction needed to fill in 'holes' in his visions, it served its purpose. The Traveler read the Government Men novel, as Jigs had foreseen, and come to find him, marking the beginning their long association. As it turned out, the Traveler was always on the lookout for individuals with useful talents, talents that could be applied to oppose the ultimate forces of evil that threatened the Multiverse.

Earth surely needed help. For the last twenty-five years Jigs felt a bit like a driver during an auto accident, sitting tightly strapped in and helplessly watching as his vehicle crashed through a guard rail, shot out over a gigantic cliff, and nose-dived towards the dark, jagged rocks below, with the whole thing happening in adrenaline induced super-slow motion, as painfully inadequate efforts were made in equally super-slow motion to prevent what appeared to be inevitable disaster. Manipulating breaks and steering wheels while falling off a cliff was hopelessly futile.

Any conceivable means of surviving Dannos seemed downright absurd, but with the advantages of farsight, he could see that there was hope. Using farsight, a plunging car could be manufactured ahead of time to sprout a parachute, or a lake of Jell-O could be manufactured and placed at the cliff bottom.

The problem of an asteroid made of trillions of tons of iron that was due to strike Earth at Mach 140 was much tougher, even for a billionaire that could see bits and pieces of possible futures. He certainly hadn't even been able to avoid the Dannos problem from developing in the first place, even though he had seen it coming and desperately but unsuccessfully tried to stop it.

The next few days were the last chance for Earth. Despite all Jigs' efforts on the Dannos problem, all that he had managed to do was to give Earth one final, improbable opportunity. Even he still didn't and couldn't know how it would all come out.

He still spent endless days and nights trying to better recall this aspect or that of this or that farsight vision, trying to determine what else might be done to improve the odds. He had been over everything so many times, and 'seen' so many different outcomes, that he was by now confused on many points. Besides, what was actual farsight vision, and what was just normal thoughts or dreams that later distorted his recollection of those visions?

"Show me Rev-3 pages 302 to 310 again" he stated. Instantly, the computer controlled four-meter wide VISICOM screen changed. "OK, window in my raw notes, page sixty four." The full screen view of several pages of text from the first published version of his novel Government Men shrank proportionally to accommodate what looked like the random scribbling of a child. On closer inspection, words and phrases could be found scrawled between pipe-cleaner doodles of spacecraft, aliens, Indians, buses, unicorns, and other odd figures. He closed his eyes and tried to bring it back. But it was no good; he couldn't even remember creating these notes, let along interpret them now. His visions and the resulting novel were too blasted complex! There were far too many characters, for example.

"The hell with the notes and revisions!" he shouted at last, and settled back into his recliner with his eyes closed. Shutting out farsight was so automatic for him now, he had to actually concentrate just to let it happen.

Off his id went, at first plunging and tumbling along some arbitrary path in space/time. He could travel loose and free and pause to see and hear arbitrary future scenes virtually without effort, but then he would end up staring at the roof of a house, an ant climbing the branch of a tree, the top-side of a cloud, the surface of the moon, the inside of the Earth, empty space, or some other irrelevant scene. Arbitrary farsight usually wasn't even good entertainment.

Instead, with the skill obtained through years of excruciating practice, he performed feats of multi-dimensional gymnastics, cutting across the ebb and flow of space/time towards the near-term future of the top of his desk. Shortly past dawn the next day, the morning newspaper appeared, and he watched his future self read it, and then hold up the paper for past selves to also read it. He had learned years ago that this was much easier than traveling all over space/time to farsee actual future events. First he checked the date on the paper. Then he read the places in the paper that his future self pointed to. Finally, he checked the desk to see if he had/would write any notes to himself. In a few minutes he was done. Exhausted, he let himself slip back into the present.

He has left with the usual migraine headache; the price that he paid for controlled leaps through space-time. He picked up a hand COM. "Lieutenant Kra, situation report." A meter-square window appeared in the middle of the huge VISICOM screen where Jigs was staring. George Krazinski, alias Klingon Lieutenant Kra, stared back at him.

"Still no sign of them, sir," reported Krazinski.

"Of course not. They're somewhere in a damn mountain or parallel dimension, if revision 3 of my novel Government Men still holds, and according to my farsight, it probably does. What about the Falcon?" asked Jigs.

Krazinski shrugged. "We still haven't found the problem. The countdown is still on hold."

Christ, thought Jigs, it was probably just faulty diagnostic software again! That's what they got for relying too much on testing against virtual reality simulations and not testing against real avionics hardware! Plus, he had probably made the classic mistake of hiring too damn many engineers. They were down there now bumping into each other and undoing each other's work. Why hadn't he farseen that? Was this 'supposed' to happen?

No, that was thinking about it wrong. He was convinced that there wasn't any one 'reality' that was going to or supposed to happen, driven by fate or whatever. His alternative visions of the future were indistinguishable from one another in terms of legitimacy. What 'really' actually happened depended on chance, free will, and a lot of other non-predictable things. Or perhaps all possibilities actually happened, with chance and free will just helping to pick which paths would be followed by each bit of reality.

"I want that ship UP THERE George! JUST GET IT DONE!" he ordered, too loudly. As he signed out he chided himself for being so hard on George. He was a good man, from good stock. A second generation Trekkie, George took to the Enterprise Hotel skits like a duck to white bread. George didn't even seem surprised when real aliens attacked the hotel in real flying saucers. He was as nuts as some of the rest of the Jigs crew, and a damn good pilot and engineer to boot! And a hell of a nice guy and friend. Jigs would hate to lose him, if it indeed came to that.

Jigs scanned through his messages. There was one from his daughters; they controlled most of his financial empire now, thank goodness, but they still tried to get his OK on some of the more important decisions. This was possibly due to the fact that they knew he could still see into the future even better than they could.

'Dear Little Daddy, should we buy the rest of Dow Chemical or another bank with the corporate winter investment funds? How do you SEE it? And what should we tell Gates and Jobs about their latest technical ideas? Love, Kris/Kim.' Jigs smiled, checked his Dow Chemical stock records for the next five years, and scribbled an answer into digital memory. Not that he needed another chemical company to address any of the on-going plot lines that were becoming reality, but felt good to deal with the trivia of the office sometimes. Gates and Jobs headed up his VISICOM and computer industries. In other possible histories they were multi-billionaires themselves, but not in this one, though he paid them both very well. He responded negatively to their ideas about moving his manufacturing plants to China. "Not on my watch!" he muttered.

Not for the first time, he thought of abandoning this whole business and taking his family to someplace more remote from the asteroid impact site. They could survive; he had the bucks to do it if he wanted to. "NO!" he told himself resolutely. Not after all he had been through! This plot-line would work out. It simply had too!

He settled back in his easy chair and switched the VISICOM to a view of the Millennium Falcon. It looked good, even with an army of clumsy engineers swarming all over it. Several times the size of the earlier designed Bus, the Falcon was designed specifically to combat the Ra. But it was supposed to be flying months ago; that would have coincided with Rev-5 of his novel Government Men, which over the years had become the version he had hoped would come to pass.

Simply wanting Rev-5 to happen didn't make it so; nor did his many manipulations do much good. They had slipped into Rev. 3. The Falcon wasn't doing Bates and his Team any good here in Enterprise City. Of course he pretty well knew it would be late, no matter what he did; he had seen that much in the vision that became Rev-3.

What was it, which tended to keep visions of momentous events on course, no matter how hard he tried to change the outcomes? Was there actually something called fate, or perhaps a personal god? Or, like the Traveler explained it to him once, was farsight really just a psychic reflection of causal interface eigen-solutions to multi-phased parallel universes that were holographic projections? He wasn't enough of a physicist to understand even vaguely what that meant, and the Traveler either didn't know more, or wouldn't tell. If they survived until next week, maybe he could get Mel Guthery and Bates to work on it. There was no time to think about it now. They were all running out of time, fast.

With completion of the Falcon so near, it was time to talk to the Falcon crew one last time. He called them to his office, and in minutes all three of them arrived. George, Karen, and Mark; his very best people and his close friends.

They were all made up as Klingon warriors, as expected per-Rev-3. Jigs was damn proud of all of them!

"The Falcon is almost ready, as you are ready. You have trained for years. You have all read Rev-3. You know what is expected of you. You also know what I was trying for in Rev-5." They all nodded. They had all been through this, again and again. They knew that the old man had wrestled with fate about the Dannos event for over twenty years, and that he had apparently not gotten everything that he wanted, despite his farsight gift, power, and wealth.

The twisted paths of probability that made up the actual future could be nudged here and there, but could not easily or predictably be turned. Rev-3, or something close, was becoming reality. Rev-5 and the others were now simply wishful thinking. The question now was, which sub-version of Rev-3 would come to pass? There were still many possibilities, with most of them still leading to complete failure and the death of most life on Earth.

"Anyway, I want you all to have one last chance to pull out. I'm only your employer; I'm not God, or any sort of military or police commander. All of you are smart people, so of course you thought I was loony when you first hired on, and again, when you learned what I needed from you. When you agreed to it originally, you probably didn't think it would ever be real, despite what I told you. Do you all believe it now?"

They all nodded in the affirmative. It had all become terrifyingly real. The aliens were national news; they had even attacked Enterprise City. The Bus and its mission were real, and so, as evidenced by recent headlines in the news world-wide, was the asteroid Dannos. Despite unexpected Government cover-up efforts, the coming asteroid collision with Earth was now the number one news story.

Fortunately, the massive public panic feared by world Governments did not take place. There was limited panic, but mostly there was either quiet resignation or total denial and disbelief. Churches were full. Radio and COM shows addressed Dannos. Aspirin sales were up 300%. Beer sales were up 1000%. But the problem was too damned big and serious to say or do anything useful about it, and the public generally understood that, at least the ones that weren't in a state of total denial.

"George, Karen, Mike," continued Jigs, "this has to be your decision."

George stepped forward. "I'm going, sir," he stated, simply and firmly. Karen and Mike also stepped forward and confirmed that they would also go.

"You all have family and friends!" said Jigs.

"That's why we have to go," explained George.

Jigs nodded sadly and shared a hug with each of them, a strangely non-Klingon gesture of friendship, and the trio returned to the ready room, leaving Jigs to stare the door that closed behind them. He wiped tears from his eyes. Bates and the others on his Team felt imposed upon and concerned with the grave responsibilities that they now shouldered, but Jigs had been saddled with such responsibilities since he was a child, responsibilities that came as one of the prices of his unique psychic farsight capability.

Tragedy was no stranger to Jigs. Many times he tried to change what he farsaw would probably happen, and nearly as many times he had failed. Sometimes he even made things worse instead of better, for those issues he found time to try to address. For most issues there wasn't time for him to try to 'fix' them at all. He couldn't afford to fail this time, but he was painfully aware that at this point, there wasn't much more that he could do personally. For the most part, the fate of Earth now was in the hands of Bates and his friends. Plus three folks dressed as Klingons in a new, untried ship. Plus others that weren't even part of the Bus Team yet, and would not become Team members unless the Team managed to survive this troubled day.

****

CHAPTER 36

MCGREGOR AND FRIENDS

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.

\- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Narbo, lad!"

Narbo? Bates thought that he recognized that voice! Someone used to call him that, in years past. He started to open his eyes. It wasn't easy; he was having a comfortable sleep that he was reluctant to leave. Besides, the light was too bright. It would be much easier just to go back to sleep for just a while longer. But his eyes focused on something close by that kept him from doing that.
It was Janet, his Janet, lying next to him in sleep. Several alternative fantasy lifetimes involving himself and Janet flashed through his mind for a few moments until reality all came crashing in on him, a reality far more bizarre and demanding than anything he could have even imagined just a week earlier.

For as he now recalled this was Monday morning, exactly one week after this business all started, and less than four days until the destruction of Earth, a cataclysmic disaster which he was responsible to stop though he still had absolutely no idea how to do so. Further he was in some sort of magical land, lying on a straw mat in a sort of hut to which a unicorn had led them all the night before. No wonder he felt momentarily disoriented!

"You lazy Government free-loader! And this, a work day you'd be sleeping through at that! As an ex-tax payer, I object."

Now Bates definitely recognized the voice, and he looked up to see that a blurred image stood in the doorway. "Gus? Gus McGregor? Is it really you?" Bates sat up, put on his glasses, and saw a thin, gray-haired, spry little old man standing in the doorway. It certainly looked like Gus! After a week of this business he didn't think that anything could surprise him, but this certainly did!

"Well sure and it's me, Bucko; you're sleeping on me floor, so who'd yea expect to see?" The little man entered the hut taking quick, sure steps that suggested energy and an impatience to get on with life. His head was a mass of twisted gray hair with small openings for sharp, clear dancing brown eyes, round little red nose, and grinning mouth with thin lips and flashing white teeth, perched on a short thin body clothed in kilt, hiking boots, and worn brown work-shirt. His hairy, spindly legs didn't look as though they could support even such a small man, much less propel him with such energy. Gus hadn't changed a bit!

"What? You mean that this is your home, Gus? You actually live here?" Bates was astonished. He hadn't seen Augustus McGregor since the man retired from Government service maybe eight years ago and moved to Florida. Finding him here seemed as unlikely as traveling to the Moon and happening upon a brother-in-law or a long-lost cousin.

"These past four years it's me home Narbo, me lad! But living is too mild a term to use for life in this place. Isn't it grand? But wait, you haven't seen it yet in the light of day, have you?"

In three nimble steps Gus was reaching down to give Bates a surprisingly strong hand up and towards the door. Bates only had time for a quick look around the single room cabin. He was reassured to note that the rest of the Team was still there in the cabin, in various attitudes of repose, on floor, bed, and chairs, somehow still sound asleep despite the ruckus he and Gus were making. Krog and Wink were lying in a corner apart from the others, as motionless as ever. On the plus side, at least the comatose, hardly breathing aliens didn't snore like many of the others.

Unnoticed in the darkness of the night before, cabin walls were lined with shelves cluttered under dried leaves, flowers, and mushrooms, odd colored rocks, animal bones, old wasps-nests, feathers, notebooks, and other naturalist paraphernalia. Gus lived here all right!

"Come on Narbo lad, we'll let your friends sleep just a wee bit yet, while you and me get reacquainted." With that Gus pulled Bates outside.

Bates started to follow Gus along a stone path that led into nearby woods, but got no further than the first couple of steps. Then he could only stand gaping, overwhelmed! What had been in large measure hidden by darkness and weariness the night before was now exposed in the brilliant splendor of day. He tried to take it all in: sight and sound, smell and touch. "Holy cannoli!" he exclaimed. The world outside was impossibly bright, green, and alive!

A few steps from the path on which he stood, a small brook of clear cool looking water bubbled by. As Bates watched, some sort of large fish leapt out of the water. While trying to see it better, Bates noted a beaver swimming down the brook, and a raccoon with its babies along the stony shore.

Around the path and across the brook spread fresh, green, grassy meadowland, decorated in blue, orange, red, and gold by rampant patches of wild flowers. Deer and elk grazed the meadows, and calling birds flew here and there in great profusion. To either side, forests of enormous trees towered, some of a size that would dwarf even the largest redwoods and sequoia trees in the outside world.

A gentle breeze caressed his cheeks and hands and tugged gently at the clothes that only seemed to distance him from these wild and vital surroundings, and brought a million odors of forest life and death to him: sweet and pungent, musty and musky. The cool morning air also carried a chorus of life sounds to his ears; chirping, croaking, chattering, grunts, coos, whistles, and other such songs as old as time and as fresh as life.

Then there was the light. Like the dim lighting of the previous night, the light of day, if that's what it was, was also diffuse; it seemed to come from the entire, light blue sky, rather than from a single point, for the Sun itself was nowhere to be seen. How could it be so bright, with a cloudless sky but no Sun? It was as if the light of the sun was being scattered as it passed through a translucent covering of some sort; a notion that he dismissed at once, when he realized the engineering demands of such a huge structure. This Land appeared to be at least several miles across, and yet there was no sign of any supporting structure for so gigantic a 'roof'.

Logical speculations about the sky however, were overwhelmed by the emotional effects of the panorama now spread before him on the ground. Bates wasn't an outdoorsy sort of guy, but he was a sucker for the splendor of nature, as long as it wasn't biting, freezing, or frying his ass.

As he looked closer, he realized that this was nature as he had never before seen it. Everything seemed to be spectacular in terms of size and profusion, but even more amazing, it seemed to also be entirely perfect. Every nearby blade of grass was green and whole and perfect, every flower was without wilt or fade, every tree leaf was without chewed edges, and without dead or broken branches.

The stone path he stood on was not encroached upon by any growth trying to reclaim it. It was as if everything in the Land had its established properties that were understood and respected by itself and every other thing. A sort of Plato's garden turned on it's head, if he correctly recalled his study of philosophy, as here perfect instances of everything actually existed.

"A bit overwhelming lad, is it not?" asked McGregor, who had been standing quietly studying Bates, as Bates studied his surroundings.

"It's perfect!" answered Bates.

"Aye, that it is. But you seem troubled by something Narbo. Come sit and tell me." Bates followed Gus perhaps fifty meters from the house, to the edge of the great forest. There the little old man sat down on a root of a gigantic tree that stretched up too high to see, and he motioned Bates to sit on a similar one.

"Well," explained Bates, "it's just a bit too perfect. It's unnatural."

"Not so, Narbo. You have a sharp eye lad, but you are a bit free and loose with interpretation. But we can talk about that later. I talked to Pru. They'll be coming for you soon to take the lot of you before the High Council. Now I'm still considered to be a newcomer here, Narbo, but my voice does carry some weight. If you'll tell me what this is really about, old friend, maybe I can help you."

"Thanks Gus, we can use all the help we can get, but who is Pru?"

"You need my help indeed, if you don't even know that Pru is the name of the unicorn that brought you here. But then she's a bit stingy with her name, especially with strangers."

Gus reached out and gave Bates a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Well then Narbo, what is it then that you're really after? Gold? Diamonds? Fame? All are here, me-Lad."

"What on Earth are you talking about Gus? Didn't Pru explain anything to you?"

"Not about what you really came for, lad. She told me some nonsense about saving the Earth, that's all. We aren't the first or the last humans to come here, you know. It won't be easy, but I can help you, Narbo, and help myself in the bargain. I've been planning this for years, but I needed help to pull it off. Imagine diamonds bigger than your fist, lad! And knowledge! Stuff that will turn the scientific community on its ear! We'll be more famous than Einstein! And we'll live like kings, all of us!"

Bates was shocked. "Gus! Are you crazy? None of that matters at all! Surely, living here in this wonderful place must have shown you that! We don't care about diamonds or gold or money or anything like that. We need to revive the aliens and try to find the Traveler in the Black Pit! And then after that we have to find the Sleeping Great One. It's our only hope to save the Earth from the asteroid and the Ra!"

"Oh yes, the asteroid. Pru told me about it. Quite a wild story, that. A little extreme Narbo lad, though it may distract the Council well enough. But you can be straight with me my old friend. Where did you get the strange material for your Bus though? Is that why you enlisted the Ra to help you?"

"What? Help us? Gus, the Ra have been trying to kill us! The Bus material is something that Jigs came up with, and that's about all we know about it. Jigs said to keep the Ra away from the stuff, but I don't think they have anything to do with it."

"Narbo lad, aren't the Ra the ones that made you DOD Head? Come clean! We'll need the Ra to fly us and our goodies out of these God forsaken mountains!"

Bates had about enough. "Gus, you're welcome to leave here with us in our Bus, if you want, but not with any stolen goods. Maybe we can drop you off in Salt Lake City, if that would make you happy. I'll lend you some money, if you need some. But the Ra are still trying to hunt us down, and we might not make it. Last night they nearly killed us again! I don't know how long our luck will hold!"

"Narbo me friend, you know you can trust me! Tell me the truth lad, and I'll help you convince the Council that this crazy story of yours is true. I still want you to help me get some stuff out of here, just a few diamonds for us. They have tons of them, they'll never miss a few handfuls. Here, take some!" Gus pulled a handful of glittering diamonds out of a kilt pocket and held them out to Bates. Some were as big as golf balls!

Bates shoved them away. "The truth is Gus, we just don't have time for this nonsense. That asteroid will be here in less than four days, and we still haven't the slightest idea how to stop it! And here you are, talking about stealing diamonds! What's happened to you Gus?"

"Come on, how about just a few diamonds Narbo? You'll be rich! With these and the knowledge of this place, we'll have it made!"

Bates shook his head resolutely. "No Gus. And I take back my invitation to you to travel out with us. I haven't seen much of this place yet, Gus, but what I've seen so far looks far more remarkable and valuable than a mountain of diamonds. And to keep it that way, it has to stay a total secret. If you don't feel that way, I think you better stay here. I'm sorry Gus."

Bates reached out to pat his friend's shoulder, but Gus moved away. "If you don't help me lad, I'll see that you stay here forever. You and your Janet and your twins, trapped here forever!"

"Wait just a minute!" exclaimed Bates. "I never told our unicorn friend anything about Janet and the kids having anything to do with me! And furthermore, the Gus McGregor I knew for several years would never leave a wondrous place like this for diamonds or fame, or betray his friends or the world! You look and sound like McGregor all right, but you just don't think like McGregor! Who are you, and what the deuce is going on here?"

"He's invalidated the trial!" claimed a voice.

"Nonsense, it was over with anyway. Fen just doesn't know when to quit," said another voice.

"Or when to keep his mouth shut!" exclaimed yet another, followed by the laughter of several voices. Bates twisted this way and that, trying to discover the sources of the mysterious voices. They seemed to be coming from all around him, and only a few feet away, yet there was no visible sign of anyone other than himself and Gus.

"Who's Fen?" he asked, in the direction of the voice that had said the name.

"I'm afraid I'm Fen," said Gus. But it wasn't Gus. Suddenly the form of Gus was indistinct and wavering, like a reflection on a rippling pond, and then it re-solidified into a pointy eared, hairy little man with little goat horns on his forehead and shaggy goat legs and backside, as well as hooves instead of feet.

Bates jumped back about three meters, rather athletically for a pudgy man of 43.

"Sorry for the deception, Doctor Bates, continued Fen, but we had to be absolutely sure. Pru is an excellent judge of character, but this is a rather unprecedented situation. We have direct dealings with several humans but trust was established with most of them over many years, not overnight."

"Is this more unicorn magic?" asked Bates. "Is Pru in on this?" Instantly a tree stump a few feet away shimmered into the reclined form of the unicorn, which rose and pranced over to Bates. "I am," she said.

"I am her mate, Baldor," said a deeper voice. A great tree root transformed abruptly into a magnificent unicorn, taller and of heavier build than Pru.

I am Malgandro," said a very deep voice indeed. To Bates' astonishment, the root on which he had been sitting transformed into the form of a griffin, with massive lion body and huge eagle wings and beaked head.

"I am Thela, human," said a soft, sexy female voice, as another form seemed to step out of the trunk of a massive tree. This one appeared to be very human, and so startling in her nude beauty that Bates could do nothing but rudely stare. She stepped away from the tree, and the two huge white wings attached to her back became visible. As startling as that was, the human beauty of her naked form still monopolized his attention.

"I am Sheara," said another female voice. Bates turned and found that his eyes were navel level to another nude female form, this one definitely and captivatingly human from the navel up, and horse for the rest of her body. Both parts sported striking reddish hair.

"AND I AM GOR" said a voice so deep and loud that the Earth seemed to tremble. Bates watched for a moment in amazement as a giant at least ten meters tall stepped from the trunk of the huge tree. That naked Gor was male was quite obvious, despite a profusion of body hair.

Unfortunately, it was all too much for Bates, who fainted and fell to the ground like a rag doll.

"So that's the hero that wants to save Earth?" said Malgandro sarcastically, flapping his wings lightly in disgust.

"I think he's cute for a mortal," said Thela. "Or at least he would be without all those rags he wears. They're probably suffocating him. Why don't I take them off the poor creature and try to wake him? I can think of ways to wake him that he'd surely enjoy."

"Forget it Thela; we will put him back in the hut and question more of the others," said Pru.

"What about our human friends on Goth Mountain?" asked Fen. "Should we contact them? As humans they probably have special insight into these strangers and their story."

"Not quite yet," answered Pru. "We'll interrogate all the strangers ourselves first."

"AS YOU WISH, WISE PRU," said Gor, and the giant lifted Bates and gently placed his sleeping body inside the hut. "WHO NEXT?" he asked.

"How about that good looking Indian?" said Thela. Gor reached through the hut doorway and pulled out another sleeping Team member. It was Winnebago. "That's him!" said Thela, smiling. "The cute one!"

Pru softly whinnied. It was going to be a very long morning. She concentrated on the human's image, and then used it as part of an inquiry that she sent into the spirit dimension. The response was almost immediate this time, and came from just outside the Land! In a short time she learned why the spirit of Goyahkla sought entrance to the Land. It was useful information, but Goyahkla was not the right spirit for Winnebago to confide his secrets to. No matter, there would be someone else from the spirit world that Winnebago would talk to openly. With humans, there always was.

****

CHAPTER 37

AWAKENINGS

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

\- Shakespeare

Bates opened his eyes to rather bright light. In the log cabin sleeping next to him on the straw was Janet. Besides some strong hormonal reactions, he felt déjà vu, followed by clear recollection of meeting his old pal McGregor, and the Scotsman's strange friends.

No, he remembered, it wasn't really McGregor; it was a little guy in fur pants and hooves, even stranger than the real McGregor! He looked around the cabin, which he hadn't been able to see when he arrived in the darkness of the previous night. It was exactly as in his dream! "Janet?" he said, "Mel? Steve? Hank? Norma and Sandra? Elizabeth and Don? Kay? General? Flood? Winnebago? Wake up everybody!"

They all woke up and looked around anxiously, as if half expecting to see someone who wasn't there. Hank looked a little put out. He had intended to 'stand guard' all night, but had immediately fallen asleep like the rest of them. Over his long career as a security guard falling asleep on the job had never happened to him before.

"Wow, did I have a weird dream!" started Elizabeth, and she went on to describe walking with a friend in the woods around the cabin. Her friend asked her a lot of questions about why they were there. It seemed like a cheerful enough story, but then her tone became pained. "The disturbing part was the fact that my friend Shella is dead," confided Elizabeth. "She died a year ago in a car accident. But it all seemed so real!"

"I had a similar dream," said Steve, "but it was of my dead sister."

"I dreamt of Mom, Daddy," said Kay. She began to cry softly, and the General comforted his daughter as best as he could.

It turned out that they all had similar dreams. Bates was the only one to see mythological characters, but he was also the only one to strongly doubt the identity of his 'visitor'. Like Bates, Mel also dreamed of McGregor, otherwise, they all dreamed of different people, and those people were all dead. From this Bates and Mel sadly concluded that McGregor must have also died. After all, they hadn't heard from Gus in years. The thought of vital, vigorous Gus McGregor quietly dying alone and unnoticed in some Florida retirement community was very depressing.

"How can you conclude that!" objected Janet. "They were just dreams." She was visibly disturbed. In her dream she had seen her father, the old tyrant, and it was not a very pleasant experience.

Bates put his arm around her in an attempt to comfort her. "You're right, Janet. Let's try to find out if they really were just dreams," said Bates. He went to the door and looked out. The view was exactly what he remembered, though the light now seemed even stronger. The meadows, the animals, the stream, the forest, the path: every amazing thing was there. Milo ran out and immediately fertilized the grass nearby, then sat looking in astonishment at all the wild-life, not able to decide what to chase first or if the wildlife intended to chase him instead. The others all stepped out of the hut and remarked that the surroundings perfectly matched their dreams also.

"I'm afraid it was all probably real then," remarked Bates. "Not dreams, that is. But from my experience I suspect that the dead people in all our dreams were somehow all being 'played' by the strange folk that inhabit this place."

"Ha!" laughed Barns. "You mean your little pan-friend, and giants and griffins and the like? Really Bates, wasn't that fake unicorn enough?"

"Fake unicorn?" retorted Bates. "But you saw Pru with your own eyes! We all did! She brought us through solid rock to get here!"

"Cockamamie flimflam for the feeble-minded. I protest that we have no scientific proof of any of this," said Barns.

"Nonsense," said Bates. "All experimental science comes down to the practical use of the senses, and we all sensed Pru!"

"I'm merely suggesting that we apply proper scientific judgment!" maintained Barns.

"Go ahead and suggest it," retorted Bates. "But we don't have time for it! I merely stated a working hypothesis to get us through the day."

Elizabeth, Don, Hank, Steve and some of the others, who had previous to this particular episode already concluded that herding along with scientists was very often a waste of valuable time and terribly boring to boot, were already wandering off on their own to examine the immediate area.

While most of the party gawked goggle-eyed at what they saw, Winnebago, totally unimpressed by natural wonders, again tried to sell accident insurance to Steve Latanna. "Look at this crazy joint, Governor! Who the heck knows what could happen to you here? As a friend, I'd be only too happy to help you reassess your insurance needs."

Meanwhile, Bates and Barns continued their little argument, with both men becoming crankier by the minute.

"IF YOU GENTLEMEN ARE THROUGH WITH THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL DISCUSSION, THE COUNCIL WOULD LIKE YOU TO BRING YOUR SLEEPING FRIENDS TO THE COUNCIL CHAMBER!" thundered an impossibly deep voice. The Team all looked in the direction of the voice. Directly in front of Elizabeth was the little forest clearing in which Bates in his dream earlier spoke with not-McGregor, and witnessed strange beings transfigure themselves from inanimate objects. As the Team watched, it all happened again, very quickly. In a matter of seconds, there were unicorns, a griffin, and angel-winged woman, a pan, a centaur, and a giant waiting in the little clearing, which was apparently the High Council Chamber.

Poor Elizabeth, suddenly finding herself standing in front of a host of strange beings and several meters closer to the bellowing of the giant than the rest of the Team, followed her father's earlier example and fainted dead away! Maybe it was an inherited ability. Janet ran to her side, while Bates angrily marched past them to confront the High Council. The others hung back, particularly Milo and Winnebago, who were competing to see who could cower furthest and most inconspicuously to the rear of the Team.

"Your behavior is uncalled for!" said Bates angrily. "You may be magical or at least absurdly paranormal by our standards, but that doesn't excuse upsetting people with visions of friends and loved ones that they have lost, or scaring a young lady that way! Plus, you have threatened to keep us prisoner here. I think that you owe all of us explanations and apologies."

There was a motionless moment of silence that seemed to last for a long time. Then Fen, the goat-man, clapped his hands and laughed in delight. "Well done! Why we haven't seen such an expression of pompous indignity in ages! Nothing like a few humans to liven things up, I always say!"

Pru turned her empty black eye sockets to gaze fully on Bates as she spoke. "Relax Dr. Bates, for we have already decided that you may all leave here. Actually, we were undecided with regard to Mr. Winnebago, until a certain spirit known as Goyahkla waiting outside our borders pledged to keep close watch over him for all eternity."

Groans and cursing in a Brooklyn accent could be heard from somewhere to the rear of the Team. Seeming not to notice, Pru continued. "And, you will also receive some partial explanation of our actions, though we do not apologize for what we are, or what we have to do to protect ourselves. You have each been interrogated by a Council member that has assumed the appearance and manner of one of your own. Someone you would trust. We searched your memories and what you call the 'spirit world' to find the proper contacts and become acquainted with them. Preferably someone each of you had actually cared for deeply when they lived. It puzzles us that some of you found the experience so disturbing.

"However, the spirits themselves could not be trusted to do the actual interrogations. After all, a human is a human, alive or not. Most of us can easily disguise ourselves as rocks or roots or other primitive objects, as a protective adaptation. But fortunately, there is one among us who is more highly skilled at impersonating others."

Fen bowed. "I could have made it big in Hollywood" he boasted.

"How do you know about Hollywood?" asked Elizabeth.

"I told him, lass," said a voice familiar to Bates, Mel, Sandy, Hank, Norma, and Barns. Hobbling towards them on a stone path was none other than Augustus McGregor III!

Bates looked at Fen, then turned to McGregor. "Gus! Is it really you this time?"

"Bates? Narbando T. Bates?" said McGregor, clearly overjoyed but dumbfounded. Looking at the others, he saw several familiar faces. Milo, though he had never met McGregor, ran waggle-tailed to great him doggie style. "What in the name of DOD are yea all doing here? And what do yea mean, is it really me, THIS time? Has me little buddy Fen been playing his shape-shifter games again?" The old friends of McGregor surrounded him. There followed several minutes of laughter, back slapping, hand shaking, and hugs.

"THE HIGH COUNCIL..." began Gor, in his thunderous deep voice.

"Knock it off, Gor!" shouted back the feisty McGregor. "Can't yea see I'm busy with me old buddies here? Rest a wee-bit while we sort things out, will yea Pru?"

Several of the Council didn't appear to be very happy with McGregor and his disruptions, but Fen was trying to calm them down, and they all deferred to Pru's tolerant attitude. Pru didn't seem angry with McGregor, but she did have a practical objection. "Augustus, we do have urgent things to do."

"I have a suggestion for Dr. Bates and the Council, since our mission is truly an urgent one," announced Steve Latanna. "To save time, those of us not acquainted with Mr. McGregor could immediately help carry our sleeping alien friends to the Council."

Bates responded with a thumbs up sign, while Pru nodded her head/horn in agreement, and Steve, Flood, Janet and the kids, the General and his daughter, and Winnebago went to the cabin to fetch the aliens, followed by Gor, who covered the distance in a few colossal steps that caused the ground to tremble.

Kay all by herself carried the little gray skinned Haspa Wink, while the others struggled mightily to move his massive companion Krog. They managed to half carry and half drag the big Kronan a few meters to the outstretched hand of Gor, who reached in through the cabin door. From there Gor effortlessly carried the green scaled alien back to the High Council's clearing in one gigantic hand, as though massive Knog was a small rag doll.

In the meantime, Bates gave McGregor a quick run-down on events. In turn, McGregor told him that he had been living here in what the inhabitants called 'The Land' for over six years. He had gotten bored with retirement in Florida almost immediately. He was in Mt. Rainier Park in Washington, trying to track down a family of Sasquatch, when he ran into Fen, who was in Mt. Rainier Park trying to track down a family of Sasquatch.

Fen was disguised as a forest ranger at the time. The two hit it off immediately, and Fen eventually sort of adopted Gus and took him home with him as the first human to live in The Land in several centuries. Wanderlust being a key element of Sasquatch psychology, the Sasquatch family visited in The Land for only a few weeks before feeling the need to traipse off again.

"There are several other humans that visit The Land regularly nowadays," Gus told his old friends. "There are the Goths and the Simples and a great Indian Shaman that should be able help sort out whatever you're after here."

"Who are they?" Bates asked.

"THE HIGH COUNCIL WILL RECONVENE!" announced Gor.

The whole Team, joined now by Gus, entered the little clearing next to the big tree, and Pru began at once. "May we now continue, Mr. McGregor?" Gus opened his mouth to reply but the Unicorn continued on. "The Council has decided that we of The Land will support your quest, but only if you will allow our representatives to join you."

"We would be honored and grateful," said Bates. "We do have significant room on the Bus, though its capacity has limitations." Bates looked up at the huge hairy face of Gor, who returned his stare with a wide toothy smile and thunderous laugh. Bates estimated that the Giant weighed at least twenty tons; much more than the Bus itself, surely!

"Worry not, Dr. Bates. Though the spectacle of Gor in flight would indeed amuse, I had in mind representatives somewhat less massive," said Pru. "Specifically, Fen and myself will go, and if they agree, two of our human friends that live nearby will also go." Pru's mate Baldor gave a loud dissatisfied sort of snort, but otherwise kept silent. "We each have certain capabilities and knowledge that we feel may prove helpful to you," explained Pru. "And, though we feel that we could protect our Land as long as it is not at the actual asteroid impact location, we have certain reasons of our own for going on this quest of yours to wake the one known to us as The Sleeping Great One."

"And I'll be going too of course," stated Gus.

Pru looked crossly at the little old man. "You have pledged to stay within the confines of The Land and Goth Mountain, McGregor. Does your solemn oath mean so little?"

"True enough it is," said Gus. "And an oath is an oath, that's sure, and not to be taken lightly. But this is a corker of an emergency, if ever there was one, and an emergency to my friends and kin. And, it will be recalled that my original pledge was required of me when I was the only human living in The Land. Yea will take note that some few things have since changed." He pointed to the crowd of visitors. "The Earth is as much my home as anyone's, and I have a right to help save it if I can. Maybe I can't do as much as you, but I can do a little. And maybe that little bit can make a difference."

After a moment, Pru replied. "Very well Augustus, if it meets with the approval of Dr. Bates."

"Sure," responded Bates, "I think we can find room on the Bus for him too." In reality though, he was becoming a little concerned, as five more folks would now be flying in the little disintegrating Bus, and one was as big as a horse. "Welcome to the B-Team then, all three of you." Bates and the others on the Team came forth to shake hands, hooves, and paws, pat backs, horns, and so forth. What of the other two folks that you mentioned?"

"Baldor will immediately fetch Johnny Goth and Dooley Simple from Goth Mountain, stated Pru. The big unicorn stallion, ran away so quickly that it was a blur.

"I thought that Goth Mountain was near the Pacific Ocean," remarked Barns. "That's a long way from Utah."

"Not for a unicorn," responded Gus. "He'll have Johnny and Dooley back here within an hour or two."

"Besides, what makes you think that we are in Utah, human?" remarked Pru, as they reached the Council meeting place. "Now we will attend the sleeping ones." The unicorn turned her long spiral horn, and the attention of all those gathered, towards the two still figures that reclined silently among the roots of the great tree that sheltered them. Perhaps it was the pastoral setting, but now they both truly appeared to be merely sleeping. Pru walked over to the little Haspa and touched her great, glowing horn to his over-sized head for several seconds. Nothing happened.

"I suspected such. This task will require healing power beyond what I myself possess, if it is to be done with speed," she said, and she stepped aside to make room for Gor, who sat down in front of the little Haspa. The giant reached down ever so gently with his immense right hand, completely covering the tiny little alien. Then he took a great deep breath and closed his eyes.

His brow wrinkled in concentration. Unbidden, all present knew to keep their silence. Even the wild creatures in the surrounding forest seemed to hush. Soon all that could be heard was the slow deep breathing of Gor. His immense chest rose and fell slowly, then gradually faster. Suddenly Gor took one final, titanic deep breath and held it! The muscles in his gigantic body and face tensed and rippled, and huge wet tears ran down from his eyes and into his great black shaggy beard!

Then, after long silent, frozen moments, Gor suddenly relaxed, and exhaled a great sigh. As he opened his eyes a big smile formed on his face, and he lifted his hand away from the Haspa. There, sitting wide-eyed and alert on a big tree root, was the little gray alien!

Wink gibbered a few frightened words in an unknown language at the giant, and then General Therman came forward with his hand extended in greeting.

"Hello again, Wink, remember me?"

The Haspa definitely was relieved to see a familiar face, and he shook the General's hand eagerly! "You are General Therman, our first point of contact on Earth!" he said in a soft, high pitched sing-song voice. "What has happened? You appear to have aged! I last remember encountering Ra disguised as humans!"

"We guessed as much. Don't worry, you are among friends now, Wink," said the General. "Our new friends here just revived you from some sort of deep sleep induced by the Ra ten years ago." Wink had a gazillion questions, but the General hushed him and pointed to his still sleeping companion, Krog the Kronan. Gor placed both his enormous hands over the big green Kronan, and began to concentrate once again.

As arduous as the giant's labor to revive little Wink had been, it was clearly very much more difficult to re animate Krog. For perhaps half an hour those gathered watched in awe as the giant struggled mightily to wake the Kronan. Sweat and tears ran down his body, which quaked and shook with effort. His huge face contorted in concentration.

That the giant would struggle so long and sacrifice so greatly to save a total stranger told Bates and his Team more about the character of The People of The Land than anything else had or could. Finally, a meter-wide smile slowly formed on the giant's face, and then he ponderously lay himself down to rest.

At first Bates thought that the giant had indeed failed, for the Kronan still lay motionless. But then he noticed the steady rise and fall of the big green-scaled chest!

Wink apparently noticed it too. He walked over to his traveling companion's side, kicked him in the side with a webbed foot and then began shaking him. "Come on, you big lazy shirker! You aren't going to leave me to do this mission alone!"

Krog opened his eyes. "Why do you speaking English-Earther, and how long sleeping have been I?" he asked in a deep raspy voice, and then he yawned and closed his eyes again.

"About ten Earth years," said Bates. At that, Krog sat up wide eyed and looked around at a couple dozen strange faces. Then his brow knitted in anger. "I remember now! That Ra disguised as a human did to us something! To us, official League representatives!" he exclaimed in disgust.

At that point, introductions all-around were made, and Bates gave a quick overview of the situation. This was something that Bates had a lot of practice doing by now.

The two Galactic League members seemed genuinely shocked at the revelations about the activities of the Ra on Earth, though Krog still seemed to be even more disturbed by their treatment of him personally. They were both very anxious to get their hands on solid evidence and take it back to League headquarters.

"We have copies of their data cubes on the Bus that you can use as evidence against them," said Bates. "But I don't know when you'll get a chance to do anything. We need to get on with our mission." And, thought Bates, these two will need to join the Team and help summon The Traveler from the Black Pit, and try to wake The Great One!

"We gladly accept your invitation to join your Team in opposition to the Ra. However, nothing we know of summoning one named Traveler from a place named Black Pit, nor know we of one you call The Great One!" protested Krog.

Now, that was odd! Bates hadn't yet voiced what he wanted the two visitors from afar to do. And, he could have sworn that Krog's lips hadn't moved.

"Of course! Telepathic I am human! But you are of also telepathic, though only weakly!" stated Krog. "In addition, on your world is difficult for reasons not known to use telepathy, for even Kronans! How is it than, that now we thus do so converse freely _?_ "

"Did you all hear in your minds what he said?" Bates asked everyone. Many had 'heard' Krog's side of the mental conversation, but not anything Bates had thought!

_"_ You very weak telepaths are, and unskilled, I can barely hear or understand, _"_ complained Krog. "But now can I at the least hear some of you, including both the General and one Mel Guthery, who had no ability such as this when first we met, or it was masked by powers unknown!"

"And you, Krog _,"_ pathed Pru, "are perhaps the strongest individual telepath we have ever heard, except for the Great One, of course _."_

The Kronan puffed himself up smugly. "Among my people even, I be a telepath of talent unusual _,_ " pathed Krog.

"You of The Land are also telepaths?" asked Bates in amazement.

"Yes," pathed Pru.

"Me too _!"_ pathed Gus, nearly as strongly as Pru. "Mine developed since I've lived in The Land."

"That's very interesting," inserted Bates.

"It is a result of being sheltered from the Great One while in The Land _,_ " pathed Pru. "In our Land many other humans would recall that ability and other abilities too, in time."

"It is one of things I was sent to Earth to study, this strange issue of the Earther lack of telepathic and other psychic capabilities _,_ " pathed Krog.

"Our biological studies suggest that many humans should indeed be telepathic," pathed Wink. _"_ Yet they are not. _"_

"The solution to that mystery is The Great One _,_ " pathed Pru. "While the Great One sleeps such abilities are very difficult on this world. It is a protective mechanism of his. Only in a sheltered place like The Land can natural mental ability flourish _._ "

"Are you suggesting that humans will become telepathic if we wake up this Great One character?" asked Bates, astonished.

"Not all, but many, to varying degrees, and even more over a period of years and generations. And there are of course other useful mental skills that will probably become apparent," responded Pru. As the Team watched, Pru floated upwards about a meter off the ground, and then faded from view completely!

"Fudge Winkies!" exclaimed Bates, when he realized the enormity of what had just been explained and demonstrated. What if many humans around the world did have such capabilities? The remaining humans on the Team were too astonished to say anything at all. For the moment, Winnebago even stopped trying to sell life insurance.

****

CHAPTER 38

BATTLE OF THE ONE TREE

The soldier, above all other men, is required to perform the highest act of religious teaching - - sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death he discloses those divine attributes which his maker gave him when he created man in his own image.

\- General Douglas McArthur

Led by Pru, the return to the Bus began with a pleasant enough walk through an incredible portion of The Land along a well maintained network of stone footpaths. Other than the limited views from vicinity of the cabin, this was the best opportunity that the Team had to view the Land's wonders in daylight.

Despite experiences on many other worlds, even Wink and Krog were astonished by what they saw. At several points an excited Wink gibbered incomprehensibly in what was apparently his native tongue, while the equally demonstrative Krog gave out great, bull-frog like croaks.

Their path followed a shallow valley lined with grass and flowers of every description, through which the little stream they had first seen near the cabin flowed. Gigantic, magnificent trees rose on each side of the glen on gently rolling hills, and the entire vibrant Land was teeming with wildlife. Colorful insects and chattering birds filled the air, and mice, squirrels, raccoons, deer and other animals went about their business, while totally ignoring the humans.

The Land was seen to abound with sentient People also, now that the Team had been accepted by the Council. Dozens of them gathered along the path to get a look at the Team as they passed. There were People of all the races represented on the High Council, including several huge giants, but there were others too, including winged horses, short, heavily muscled dwarves, tiny, winged faire folk, and one massive individual of unsurpassed hideousness that simply had to be an ogre. Many gave warm greetings to the visitors, sometimes telepathically, but others greeted Pru respectfully and simply stared at the Team members.

"We seem to be something of an attraction," remarked Bates.

"Well," explained Fen, "you are rather odd and unusual, by our standards. Other than Gus and our friends from Goth Mountain, you are the first humans to enter The Land in many centuries. And of course Krog and Wink are even more extraordinary. Besides, understand that very few inhabitants of The Land ever leave it to see the outside world. Shape shifters like me and some unicorns are unusual in that respect; most would not dream of ever leaving The Land, even temporarily. They aren't used to the unusual."

"What is Goth Mountain and who are the people that are being fetched from there to join our party?" Bates asked Pru.

"That is a question with a complex answer, human, but one that I will answer now in part," replied the unicorn. "Goth Mountain is a very special place where live very special humans that are friends and allies of The People and The Land. They will have heard of some which you have told us and will doubtless wish to help thwart the plans of the Ra."

"Wait!" exclaimed Mel. "Goth is the name of that amateur physicist from Oregon Mark Goth who came up with remarkable physics theories only a year ago! Is there a connection?"

"There is indeed," replied Pru. "Mark is father to Johnny Goth, who will be with us shortly, along with his good friend the shaman Dooley Simple."

"It's a small world after all," noted Bates. "I remember now! There was a news story out of Oregon a year or two back, about the Goth family and their tribal friends saving their Goth Mountain trees from being cut down. It was all over the COM for maybe a week."

The unicorn snorted. "There was more publicity than we wished, but fortunately the story was vague and faded away quickly."

While they continued to walk, outgoing young Elizabeth took the initiative in asking Pru, Fen, and Gus many more questions. Most of the rest of the Team, and in particular the scientists, hung on every word of the exchange. "That's not the sky up there, is it? What is it then? Is it something magic?" Elizabeth asked.

Pru gave a little whinny/laugh that reminded her listeners of a host of bell chimes ringing in the breeze. "One people's magic is another's everyday experience, little one. From what Gus and our Goth Mountain friends have told us of the scientific capability of your people, you humans might perhaps one day soon explain how we manage our Land better than we, after only a few decades more of study. A long answer would involve a discussion of force fields and multi-dimensions. The short answer to your question though, in terms you can more readily understand, is that what you see is a magic dome over the Land that lets in only sunshine."

"What powers the magic?" asked Elizabeth.

"All sentient residents of the Land take turns contributing psychic energy as they can," explained Pru. "It is collected using the One Tree root system."

"Unicorns of course ultimately channel the energy collected by the One Tree," added Fen, as if he were stating something obvious.

"I don't understand the physics," stated Mel. "The science of our world does not seem to support what you are suggesting."

Pru whinney-laughed. "You are correct; it isn't understandable from a single universe standpoint," human. "Within each universe the rules are strict. Your job as a scientist is to discover those rules. But using certain structures and behaviors other universes can be reached such that the usual rules can be broken in one's own dominant universe. The result is what you humans call magic or psychic phenomena. In this case The People have learned how to acquire the energies needed to maintain the dome and a slight dimensional separation from your world."

This prompted questions from Norma Carbuncle. "But you and the other citizens don't even seem to be thinking about the dome! How is this magic force maintained and controlled when the contributing sentient People go about their other business?"

"After long years we all contribute to our permanent energy collection system almost habitually," explained Pru. "The People routinely focus on the One Tree. Unicorns take turns controlling what is done with the collected energy. Much of the collected energy is directed by them to maintaining the dome."

"Is it the dome that protects us from the Great One's dreams?" asked Elizabeth.

"Yes, small one, though the dome also protects us against things such as prying eyes, intruders, winter cold, and summer heat. It is we unicorns that provide shelter from the Great One's dreams. That is perhaps our greatest gift. Without unicorns there could be no Land."

"Why can you do it, and not others?" asked Elizabeth.

"It is because like the Great One, unicorns too are a far more different form of life than other life on Earth. Gus and the Goths call us elementals. We are different from others in The Land, far more different than we appear to be judging from appearance alone."

"Aye, lass," interjected Gus. "And that's an understatement. Of all the unusual folk here about, the unicorns are indeed the strangest, and the most wondrous by far. So you've been bit with the curiosity bug have yea? Lass, I can tell you things that'll turn yer notions of what's what upside down, inside-out and topsy-turvy! I've started a study, you know, with the collaboration of my human friends the Goths and the Simples!"

While the discussion was going on, several of the Team members were looking about for evidence of a power collection and distribution system, but saw nothing. There were no visible power lines or antenna. In fact, other than the rudimentary cabin they had spent the night in, the Team had seen no evidence of technology of any sort. "What is the energy distribution system that you spoke of?" asked Norma.

Just then a strange thing happened. Several of the largest trees in the grove nearest the group suddenly shook as though from a great impact, and dozens of leaves fluttered to the ground. At the same time, a low moaning sound seemed to erupt from all directions, as though the whole Land itself was in pain! Moments later, the Team members realized it was not actual sound, but telepathic or empathic thought that broadcasted pain so great that even the humans sensed it.

"THE ONE TREE IS UNDER ATTACK!" pathed Pru, loudly. She snorted and stomped her hooves aggressively, and looked all around.

Several nearby citizens of the Land rushed to Pru's side apprehensively. "Who? Where?" asked Fen. "The One Tree has not been attacked in millennia!"

"Exactly what is the One Tree?" asked Bates.

"It's the interconnected giant Aspen that lives throughout The Land," explained Pru. "It provides the path through which we project the dome and shelter our Land, and it provides paths to the outside world as well." The One Tree shuddered again, and seemed to sag, and the 'dome' above their head 'blinked' out of existence for just a fraction of a second, revealing the Sun and a clear blue sky!

"The sky is clear! The snow storm is over already!" exclaimed Steve Latanna.

Bates had a very bad feeling about all of this. "Is the Aspen sheltering the Bus part of the One Tree?" he asked.

"Yes, of course, human," said Pru.

Bates and Mel looked at each other. "The Bus!" said Mel.

"It's the Ra!" cried Bates. "The Ra must be attacking the Bus! And your One Tree!"

The tree(s) shook again.

"THE DEFENSE COMMITTEE WILL REPORT TO ME _,_ " pathed Pru, so loudly that many standing nearby grabbed their heads in pain. "ALL OTHERS IN THE LAND ARE TO FOCUS POWERS INTO THE ONE TREE _._ " Citizens of The Land in view of the Team rushed to the trunk or root of the One Tree nearest them and placed hands, hooves, or whatever against it. Even in the light of day the light colored Aspen bark seemed to take on a glow, and the branches lost some of their sag.

The Team, joined now by an Ogre, another unicorn, and several fairies, rushed towards the towering solid granite rock-face that marked the boundary of The Land. Without a pause, they all plunged into the solid rock. The Team was whisked along rapidly through the rock by their powerful friends.

The thick glowing tube they had followed the night before through the mountain was now almost too bright to look at as they streaked along it towards the outside world. It was only at this point that Bates realized that the tube was actually a gigantic root of the One-Tree, along which now surged enormous energy from The Land.

For one terrifying moment the root blinked as the dome had earlier, and they all seemed to freeze motionless in the darkness. Bates could feel the rock of the mountain solidifying around and within him. It was a frightening sensation, accompanied as it was by the realization that they could easily all end up dead and frozen permanently inside the mountain. A moment later however, they were once again whisking through the mountain with desperate speed.

Only a few seconds after their strange trip began, the group abruptly popped out of the rock near the trunk of the big Utah Aspen that they all now knew to be part of the One Tree.

The air was hot and tinged with smoke, and singed leaves fell to the ground all around them by the thousands. Looking up, the entire sky seemed to be filled with the titanic Mother Ship of the Ra. The ship glowed and throbbed like a huge, overpowered florescent light bulb as it hung motionless in the sky. As Bates watched, the air around the ship suddenly shimmered and a five-meter wide plasma beam shot out from the ship towards the Bus, which still sat as they had left it, apparently unharmed. When the beam reached a scant dozen meters from the Bus it suddenly began to fragment and spread out over a momentarily visible barrier that extended over both the tree and the Bus.

The noise of this artificial lightning was so defining it knocked Bates and his fellow humans off their feet, and a new shower of singed Aspen leaves fluttered to the ground under the Tree. A continuous plasma beam now struck down towards the Bus, a beam that surged a-periodically with, bright, thunderous blasts.

"What should we do?" shouted Mel.

"We can't lose the Bus!" Bates shouted back. "We'd never manage the mission without it. Flood! Can we fire back at them?"

"We can try," said Flood.

"To the Bus!" shouted Bates, and the Team ran towards the besieged Bus, while Pru and her people remained huddled around the Tree.

The Team must have been seen by the Ra, because now another plasma blast struck down towards those that were running towards the Bus. This beam was also stopped by the barrier from the One Tree, but the impact of the blast against the protective force-field still knocked Team members off their feet.

Not counting Milo, Flood reached the Bus first, and he immediately began to power up all Bus systems. "Our shields are up," announced Norma. "But that's just emergency back-up for what the Tree is providing. I don't think that our Bus shields or deteriorating plastic armor would last for a moment in that Ra plasma beam."

"When can we fire on them?" asked Bates.

"I'm not sure that we can," said Norma. "The Tree's shield might prevent it."

"I'll ask Pru," said Gus. The little ex-biologist closed his eyes in concentration. Bates 'heard' nothing in his head; maybe he was too far away from Pru, but Gus seemed to actually communicate with The People.

"Norma is right," announced Gus, after a few seconds. "If you fire now, you'll just be helping the Ra to blast through the Tree's shield. But if Pru drops the Tree's field, with the Ra's beam still on, we'll all be cinders in seconds. Oh, and Pru asks if we know how long the Ra can keep this up. Pru thinks that the Tree's field can hold for another 10 or 20 minutes tops."

"I have no idea," said Carbuncle. "I don't even know how their ship is powered."

"We know," said Wink, standing next to the nodding Kronan. "Based on our knowledge of the usual Ra space craft design, Krog and I estimate that the Ra ship could continue this attack continuously for approximately sixty Earth years."

Bates started to say 'Fudge Winkies', but just then another plasma surge from the Ra ship burst over the Bus and everyone was knocked off their feet again.

"What if we just make a break for it?" asked Barns.

"Wink!" said Flood. "How fast can the Ra ship travel in the atmosphere, and how well can it maneuver?"

"It can probably travel only ten times the speed of sound when in your atmosphere; and it can accelerate to that in perhaps five of your seconds."

"Damn!" responded Flood. "That's out then! We can't out-run them, but we can't just sit here either and wait for them to burn through to us!"

"Not only that, lad," added Gus. "It's not just the Bus and its mission at stake. Perhaps that ship could turn its ray on The Land itself and turn the whole thing to cinders once they overpower the defense of The One Tree."

"Well then," said Bates, "we somehow have to go on the offensive, it's our only hope."

Pru and her countrymen must have came to the same conclusion, because suddenly the Ogre stepped away from the tree, picked up a huge boulder, and flung it at the Ra ship! Amazingly, it struck the ship with enough impact to actually disrupt the Ra attack; the ship shuttered slightly, and the plasma beam stopped. Those in the Bus and under the Tree cheered, but the disruption was only momentary. When the attack resumed, only a small beam was directed at the Bus, while the major beam was now directed at the One Tree. The Ra had correctly deduced that destruction of the Tree would ensure destruction of all else.

The ogre heaved a second boulder up at the attackers, but this one was blasted to bits by a separate plasma beam before it could reach the ship. Several others stepped out from the tree, including Pru, who pointed her horn at the ship. At first, nothing seemed to happen. But then the Bus onlookers noticed that the barely visible surface of the Tree's protective force field seemed to be reaching out towards the ship like a gigantic hand! Sure enough, the ship suddenly lurched away by several hundred meters, as though it had been given a mighty push. At the same time, the Ogre hurled a third boulder. This one got through and struck the ship. Once again the effect was only temporary, though it was several seconds before the Ra resumed their attack on the Bus and the One Tree.

"I've got an idea!" said Bates. "We need to coordinate our attack with that of Pru. If they can get the Ra to stop the plasma beam for a few seconds again, Pru could drop the One Tree's field that protects the Bus for a few seconds while we fire. Gus, could Pru use telepathy with Flood to coordinate an attack?"

"Yes Dr. Bates _,"_ pathed Pru. This time, Pru, the Ogre, a Giant, and the Bus struck almost simultaneously. However, the laser and plasma blasts from the Bus were pitifully weak compared to the attack of the Ra, and appeared to do no damage at all to the massive space ship.

They repeated their coordinated attack again and again, each time only delaying what increasingly seemed would be inevitable defeat. Three ogres and two giants were now hurling boulders, but the Ra ship was simply too powerful; most of the boulders were blasted to dust before they reached the ship, while the few that got through appeared to do no lasting damage.

Meanwhile, the Ra ship attacked tirelessly. Blackened leaves by the thousands rained from the One Tree, and The People grew weary providing energy, directing the protective shield, and throwing boulders. The Ra plasma blasts were starting to break through. The Bus's shield was strong enough to stop the weakened beams that struck it, but the top of the Tree actually caught fire!

A huge blast suddenly struck Pru, who was standing apart from the others. She was surrounded in glowing plasma for several seconds. However, when the blast was at last contained by the One Tree field, Pru still stood as before, white and flawless, apparently completely unharmed. The onlookers marveled. Elementals are certainly sturdy folk! Suddenly a blue beam of light shot from the unicorn's horn and struck the Ra ship a mighty blow, blasting it back several meters and causing it to shutter. Pru had apparently absorbed some of the energy from the Ra ray and shot it back at them! Perhaps in response, the Ra redirected all attentions to the Tree and Bus.

The giants threw great handfuls of snow at the fire in the Tree in a desperate attempt to extinguish it. Soon the flames were out, but the tree still smoldered, filling the air with choking black smoke, and the plasma blasts once again were forcing their way towards the top of The Tree. Flood flew the Bus up next to The Tree top and reshaped the Bus shield to protect it as well as the Bus, while Pru reinforced the One Tree's protective field. As a result, the plasma blast was pushed a few meters further from the Tree. But everyone knew it wouldn't work for very long.

"We have no choice," said Bates. "We have to try to make a run for it. Maybe they'll simply chase us and at least let The Land survive!"

"Take Fen and myself with you," pathed Pru. "We can help protect the Bus." The Bus landed and opened its doors, and Pru and Fen leapt aboard. Though the unicorn appeared immaculate as ever, Fen was covered with soot, and the foul air that came aboard with them was hot and smoky and smelled of death. They each positioned themselves in the isle behind Bates. Under Pru's silent direction several giants jointly threw a gigantic boulder at the ship. The Ra tried to blast it, but it was protected by an extension of the One Tree's protective shield until it reached the ship. With a crash that was heard even inside the Bus, the great Mother Ship was rocked by the blow, and the plasma streams stopped once again.

At that moment, Flood started humming The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and the Bus shot up past the wobbling Ra space ship at full throttle. As they swept passed it, the Bus blasted away with lasers and plasma beams at the point that had just been struck by the boulder, and they were rewarded by an answering flash; perhaps an internal explosion.

They had wounded her! Bates would have shouted for joy, but the breath had already been knocked from him by the Bus's acceleration. However, he did hear someone shout 'Geronimo' loudly, and turned his head to find a grinning Goyahkla perched by his side! The famous Indian warrior seemed to be thoroughly enjoying this terrifying experience. And why not? He was already safely dead.

Flood had the Bus at full throttle for the first time. Everyone was knocked back in their seats, helpless, with the exception of Flood, who continued humming, Goyahkla, who was now chanting in Apache and beating tom-toms that had materialized in his hands, and Pru and Fen, who stood unaffected in the isle, as though ten-G acceleration was the most natural thing in the world to them.

They leveled off at 4000 meters and shot east towards Colorado. Flood hoped to lose their pursuers among the jagged peaks of the Rocky Mountains, and soon they were dodging through ragged snow-capped peaks at breakneck speed.

"Bandit at nine O-clock high," cried Carbuncle, who had remembered to take her motion sickness pills and was in fighting form. Sure enough, there was the Ra ship, trailing a thin stream of smoke, but still out-flying the Bus as it closed in rapidly for the kill. Flood banked right sharply around a towering granite peak, but the Ra ship shot over the top of the peak and reappeared in front of them.

Flood flew straight at and then under the Ra ship, hoping to get in too close for it to fire, but the tactic failed. The Bus windshields darkened instantly, but the brief plasma blast that swept them still nearly blinded everyone in the Bus. The Bus was rocked but was still flying. Bates looked in back of him and saw that Pru and Fen were both glowing bluish for a few moments. Exactly what they had done, he wasn't sure, but they must have absorbed some of the blast themselves, somehow helped to deflect it, or both. In any case, with the help of Pru and Fen the Bus had evidently just survived a full plasma blast.

Flood popped off his visor. His VR visor capability was gone; the plasma blast had destroyed the optical and infrared detectors that fed it. He would have to pilot using raw visual. And pilot he did, whipping around another icy peak at impossible speed!

Suddenly, the Ra ship was beside them. Flood tried to shoot up over it, and he let loose a laser blast that hit it dead center. But the feeble Bus laser again had no apparent effect, and the Ra ship matched their maneuver almost perfectly as it shot another massive plasma blast of its own.

As before, the singed Bus was rocked but remained flying. Pru and Fen again glowed brilliantly, but this time the little Pan goat-man sunk to his knees, and even the unicorn was unsteady on her feet. Somehow they were protecting the Bus, but were reaching the limit of their powers.

As Flood dove through a narrow canyon, he stopped humming and turned to look Bates in the eyes. Bates didn't need to be telepathic to know what he was thinking. Another blast or two and they would all be dead.

There was only one thing to do.

Bates nodded his head grimly. "Let's take them with us if we can, Commander," he said. Flood resumed his humming as he blasted straight up one more time at full acceleration. As he anticipated, the Ra were taken by surprise; the Bus was kilometers above them by the time they turned upwards in pursuit.

Bates turned and twisted around in his seat to look back towards the row of seats behind his. Returning his stare were Mel and Janet, his best friend and his once and only true love. He slipped his left arm out of its restraints and reached back towards Janet, who reached forward to grasp his hand tightly in return.

A thousand thoughts were rushing through his mind. How he and the Team had failed the mission. How he had failed at his life. How he had failed all life on Earth. The Earth as they knew it would come to an end in less than four days, but within moments they, the last hope for Earth, would die. They would try to take these Ra with them, but that would be an almost meaningless gesture. Earth would still be destroyed by Dannos.

Strangely enough though, with the entire Earth facing destruction, what he regretted most at that moment was not being with Janet these last twenty years. Lost, wasted years. And looking now into her sad eyes, he thought that he sensed that she also had regrets, though he couldn't be sure.

Then, incredibly, he watched her silently mouth the words 'I love you'! The amazement must have shown on his face, but she nodded her head, squeezed his hand tighter, and actually smiled!

And Bates smiled back. Nothing could negate this moment, he knew, not even death. His had been a good life after all!

Aided by gravity Flood started his power dive towards the rapidly rising Ra ship. He would try to surprise the Ra one last time. He wandered if the Ra had learned the game of 'chicken' during their study of human culture. If not, he would teach them now.

Suddenly, a motion to the left of the Ra ship caught his eye. It was another ship, large compared to the Bus, though small, compared to the great Ra Mother Ship, closing on the Ra! As he watched, a powerful plasma blast from the newcomer flashed through the sky and caught the Ra squarely!

The Ra ship shuttered, but continued up towards the Bus. Flood continued his power dive, but by now had already changed his tactical plan. Instead of trying to ram the Ra ship, he would blast it as he swept by it! Meanwhile the newcomer paced the Ra, blasting away as it went. The blasts appeared to be very powerful, much like those that the Ra ship itself produced.

As the Bus drew nearer, Flood confirmed the identity of the new ship, and got on the radio. "George? Is that you?" he asked.

"Affirmative!" came the reply, over the radio. "This is Millennium Falcon, at your service, Commander!"

This time Flood himself yelled 'Geronimo', as he dove into the attack!

Bates, though he still held on to Janet's hand, returned his attention to the battle after hearing the unexpected exchange over the radio, and was amazed to see a new ship blasting at the Ra, a ship that bore a striking resemblance to one that had appeared in an old science fiction flick of several decades earlier. Seconds later, as the Bus swept past the Ra and sent out a blast of its own, he saw a thick plasma blast strike the Falcon squarely, but it seemed to do no harm. He wondered if the newcomers also had a unicorn on board.

However, the Ra ship was also not seriously harmed by the weapons used on it, for it still mostly ignored the Falcon, and was rapidly gaining on the Bus! As it came closer, it blasted the Bus from behind. The Bus shuddered, and Pru, dazed and glowing brightly, dropped to her knees on the floor next to Fen. She had contained the blast, but just barely!

With or without Pru's aid, one more blast would do it. Flood maneuvered violently, but the Ra ship stayed with his every move. Another blast from the Falcon struck the Ra ship, but with no apparent effect.

Bates held his breath. Any second now! One more blast from the Ra and they would all be toast. It would soon be all over. He again squeezed Janet's hand tightly.

Abruptly, the Ra ship disappeared from the rear-view screen of Flood's console. "Shit, George!" swore Flood uncharacteristically, as he rapidly swung the Bus around.

Bates didn't understand what he was seeing at first; everything was different. Where was the Ra ship? Where was the Falcon? Outside, explosions lit the sky and rocked the Bus, and the air was filled with smoke and many flaming pieces of something falling towards the ground far below. "Was that the Ra ship?" he asked Flood.

"Damn it!" replied Flood angrily again, as he stabilized the flight of the Bus. Then he let out a deep sigh. "Yes, it was the Ra ship. But it was also the Falcon."

Flood replayed the recorded rear-view in slow-motion, while everyone on the Bus had their eyes glued to a VISICOM. Sure enough, there was the image of the Falcon, barreling into the Ra ship, closing with it at Mach two or more. The Falcon had done exactly what Flood had planned to do only a minute earlier, and paid the ultimate price.

After a few moments of silence, Flood took another deep breath, wiped a tear away, and turned to Bates. "Where to, boss?" he asked in a quiet voice.

"Back to the One Tree for a short rest-stop, Commander," replied Bates wearily. "Then we'll be moving on. We have a mission to complete."

****

CHAPTER 39

THE SKYWARD

While there's life, there's hope.

\- Cicero

The Bus's a brief stop at Kay's Aspen was short but memorable. At the scene of the recent great battle, the Bus Team was greeted by a throng of jubilant People that had been informed telepathically by Pru of the victory over the Ra. As different from humankind as The People appeared to be physically, they celebrated in ways very familiar to their guests. There was hugging, backslapping, handshaking, singing, dancing, laughing, crying, prancing, whinnying, howling, roaring, and flying; just as might be expected. The Bus Team was much more sedate, due to the loss of the Falcon.

Some People of The Land combined celebration with damage repair. Two giants stood hugging the ravaged Aspen. Elizabeth was delighted to discover and point out to the rest of the Team that Blackened branches were visibly healing with new bark, and broken limbs were sprouting back, including fresh buds that promised new green leaves.

The Team was startled when two humans abruptly stepped out of the solid trunk of the big Aspen itself, accompanied by the prancing unicorn Baldor. The two young men looked at Pru and nodded, then walked purposefully towards Bates. The shorter of the two was nearly as tall as Steve Latana and just as clean-shaven and handsome, while his thin, bushy-headed companion was half a head taller and sported a huge silly grin.

"Dr. Bates, I am Johnny Goth and this is Shaman Dooley Simple from Goth Mountain. Baldor told us about you and we've seen some COM news stories about you. We are at your service, sir."

The two newcomers shook hands with Bates firmly. "Just call us Johnny and Dooley," Goth requested.

"Just call me Dooley," clarified the tallest, hairiest, young man. "If you was to call me Johnny too like Johnny says to do I'd get all confused."

"And call me Bates, gentlemen. Your help is of course welcome, but Pru never mentioned what your skills might be."

"Far less than those of Pru, of course," replied Johnny, "but far greater than most humans."

As he spoke face to face with Johnny, Bates suddenly became aware that his own feet were no longer touching the ground. He looked about to find that he and Johnny were floating a meter off the ground! "What the heck?" he muttered.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, Bates," Johnny apologized, as he and Bates settled gently back to the ground. "That was just a little telekinesis demonstration."

Meanwhile Dooley was looking around at the destruction that the Ra had caused and shaking his hairy head in disapproval. He walked to the slowly recovering gateway Aspen, rested his thin hands on it, and began to mutter what sounded like gibberish to Bates. Immediately tree re-growth was so rapid that it reminded the Team onlookers of time-lapse photography. New bark, braches, and leaves soon covered the tree. He stepped away from the still rapidly healing tree sporting a huge grin.

"Dooley is a forest shaman and I am a forest protector," explained Johnny.

"That tree healing was easy to do," said Dooley. "This is just a little bitty part of the One Tree, like the one we have at Goth Mountain. All of the forests where the One Tree lives helped make this one part better."

Dooley reached down to touch the burned out grass that the Team stood on and all around them new green grass began to sprout through the burnt remains of the old.

Led by Elizabeth, several of the Team took off their shoes and socks so that they could actually feel the new green grass grow beneath their feet and between their toes!

"Welcome to the B-Team," Bates announced loudly, as he smiled and again shook the hands of Johnny and Dooley, and then introduced them to the rest of the Team.

The Team enjoyed all of this thoroughly, but they had to continue the mission. The victory over the Ra Mother Ship and the sacrifice of the Falcon would turn out to be a hollow indeed, if Dannos still pulverized Earth in three and a half days. After provisioning, hasty repairs and cleanup of the Bus, the Team was off again, leaving a crowd of new friends that waved hands, hooves, horns, and wings as they flew away.

Based on timely written communications received from Jigs, the Bus headed towards the East-coast in search of the mysterious 'Black Pit'. As there could still be more Ra, Flood expertly flew the Bus directly under an airliner, as he had done for the Phoenix to Utah trip two days earlier. The flight would last several hours; long enough for the Team to fill their bellies with chili provided by the People, and for more thoughts and discussions about the mission.

Bates and Mel outlined what was happening to both Johnny and Dooley, though Baldor had already told them most of the basics. They didn't seem to be very surprised or amazed by anything that they were told. Goth Mountain must contain some unusual secrets itself, Bates surmised.

Later, after Team discussions and the meal, Bates picked up the dirty dishes, sat them on a Starlite Plastic tray on the counter next to the kitchen sink, and directed the floppy-nozzle of the Sonicvac at it. Even at full power, the hand held unit that they had picked up at a 7-Eleven in Phoenix was challenged by the tenacity of the dried-on chili. He had to admit, the People from The Land brought with them a several day supply of the best damn chili that he had ever tasted, though he had no idea what was in it, and was afraid to ask. It took several seconds for each dish; perhaps Bates had not waited long enough for the chili to totally dry and become brittle. As he watched, the last remnants of pulverized meat, beans, and tomato sauce disappeared from the plate into the Sonicvac nozzle. The powerful vacuum was supplied by a hose that ultimately led to the outside of the pressurized Bus.

Bates didn't really mind taking his turn at clean-up duties in the little Bus kitchen area. The humming and sucking noises of the Sonicvac effectively shielded him from responsibility for conversation with other Team members, while the cleanup process itself occupied his mind with trivial issues unrelated to asteroids, hostile space aliens, and the like. For a few minutes, there was a much-needed opportunity to escape. He was still a shy, introverted man at heart, thrust by events into a starring role that was terribly uncomfortable and taxing for him. He was very much more comfortable doing dishes than leading efforts to save the Earth.

Despite the welcome distraction of his 'busy work' and his revived thoughts of Janet, he still found himself doing some serious thinking about the mission. Guided again by the Jigs riddles, they were now looking for a place called the Black Pit in order to find the mysterious Traveler. Why, they didn't really know yet. Bates didn't know exactly why they needed Krog and Wink along either, or for that matter why any specific member of the Team was needed. Was Krog to 'call' this Traveler character telepathically, or call him using his deep, loud voice? Or, would Wink or Goyahkla or even Pru be the ones to contact the Traveler? Or maybe Johnny or Dooley? If they did find the Traveler, what 'key' would he then supply to them?

Why shouldn't they just head straight for the Sleeping Great One somewhere, since that was apparently their final destination anyway? And finally, the Team still had no idea how to stop Dannos. What could this 'Great One' if woken do about the asteroid Dannos? Could even a Great One stop an asteroid? Could anything in the universe stop Dannos?

Bates put the last dish away and made a last sweep of the forward compartment for trash. Following the cleanup at Kay's tree, the Bus was cleaner than it had been in days, and Bates resolved to keep it that way. As he retrieved a couple of Twinkie wrappers from under the seat of Barns, the thought also crossed his mind that he still had no idea of the elimination habits of unicorns, so he was very careful of where he stepped. He hoped that if Pru eliminated in the manner of horses, it happened during someone else's clean-up watch. He looked down the aisle, noting the large size of the unicorn, and then felt embarrassed when he saw that she was looking straight right back at him!

"Worry not, Dr. Bates, I can hold it in," she pathed, as she blinked a dark eye at him.

Damn, Bates thought! She read my mind! Pru gave her whiny-laugh, then went back to her conversation with Mel and Steve.

Earlier they had full Team discussions on the issues, with particular attention paid to input from the new Team members, including the unearthly and the nether-worldly. Krog and Wink couldn't shed much light on the Black Pit mystery, but it was interesting to hear their story nonetheless. Ten years ago the duo was supposed to hold secret discussions with leaders of key Earth nations in order to pave the way for actual Earth membership in the Galactic League. They were also supposed to investigate rumors that the Ra were interfering with Earth.

Finally, as a side mission, the pair were supposed to investigate the odd lack of 'paranormal' phenomena on Earth. Earth had long been a mystery in that regard, as humans, dolphins, and many other species examined appeared to have the requisite physiological structures, but little, if any, actual telepathic capability. There was something on Earth that disrupted even the normal telepathic capability of investigating League scientists that visited the Earth.

This was Krog's first time on Earth. Wink, an experienced Earth researcher specializing in human cultures, was essentially Krog's guide and cultural interpreter. Krog was supposed to use his expert telepathic capabilities to flush out the Ra, if they were on Earth, and to begin to study the strange 'telepathic noise' phenomenon. He was amazed to hear Pru attribute the telepathic noise to some sort of great sleeping being.

Compared to the Ra, these two space aliens certainly seemed to Bates to be nice folks, though Krog seemed a touch uppity. Both were highly intelligent, but they also seemed very naive and vulnerable. Crime and dishonesty were practically unheard of in their species. Bates tried to imagine a Galaxy full of innocents like Krog and Wink policing the Ra. Fat furry chance! Here on Earth, the Ra had put Krog and Wink out of commission in less than one day.

As to the Traveler, the Black Pit, and the Sleeping Great One, Krog and Wink offered no information, other than an old Kronan legend about some sort of gigantic super-being that was supposed to have inhabited Kronia thousands of years in the past. In fact, several League members had similar legends. Such beings, if they ever really existed, seemed to have disappeared long ago throughout most of the galaxy.

Pru and Fen also had useful information, particularly Pru. However, she often seemed to enjoy talking her way around answers cryptically, rather than heading straight to them. It reminded Bates a little of trying to fish information out of Jigs. Perhaps she didn't want to tell outsiders everything, or perhaps there were just such wide gulfs between human culture and The People of The Land, that communication was difficult, even though the unicorn's English actually seemed to be better than his own.

"What else can you tell us about The Sleeping Great One, Pru?" Bates asked directly.

"That I should be the primary one to deal with him. It isn't likely that he will communicate with others."

"Why not?" asked Mel.

"He will not be happy to be disturbed. Typically he consumes those who do so."

"That's just dandy," Bates noted. "Maybe that's why we're supposed to find that Black Pit place first, like the Jigs riddles say, even though time is growing short. We need a more solid itinerary. Where is this Great One sleeping, anyway? How long will it take us to get to that site? Is it near here, Pru?"

"No," replied the unicorn. "It is far to the south. I believe you call it the Yucatan Peninsula."

"Bloody hell!" Barns exclaimed, though it was barely audible above the groans, intakes of breath, and other reactions from the Team.

"But that's where Dannos is supposed to strike!" noted Elizabeth.

"That can hardly be a coincidence," said Johnny Goth.

"No more a coincidence than what happened at Goth Mountain not long ago," said Pru.

"The Evil was after you that time, Pru!" said Dooley.

"Such that I wouldn't still be around by the time Dannos struck," said Pru.

"But you are still around!" said Bates. "What kind of trouble was it? Were the Ra involved?"

"No, not the Ra," said Johnny. "But there was a nasty demon. We won, with Pru's help, but that's another story."

"A related story," said Pru, "though the details aren't relevant to the current threat. But it is certain that the Great One sleeps at the Dannos impact point."

"Does this mean that the Ra target this Great One being, and not humans?" asked Wink.

"But that doesn't make sense!" said Barns. "They would have said something about that when they were preparing to eat me! But all they talked about was killing humans! Could that have been all theatre played for my benefit?"

"Maybe not," said Johnny. "Pru, you told me when we were attacked on Goth Mountain that not even you were the ultimate target, and that the demon that we fought probably didn't even know what part he was playing. Maybe the Ra don't know either. Maybe the Great One is the target for Dannos but the Ra don't even know it."

The unicorn whinnied her laughter. "You again show wisdom, young Goth."

"What more can you tell us about the Great One, Pru?" Bates asked.

"I can tell you no more at present," Pru replied, and would say no more about the mysterious Great One. "My knowledge of the Great One could prove dangerous to others."

As to the Black Pit, Pru did admit that her People knew of a strange means used long ago by Great Ones to travel between different worlds. She speculated that perhaps this is what the Black Pit was.

The location of 'Black Pit' had been narrowed down somewhat, to a mere million square kilometers or so, by astounding written information sent from Jigs in yet another VISICOM message. The good news was that Jigs actually admitted to being at The Black Pit with The Traveler several times over the last twenty-five years. The bad news was that: (1) its location shifted by tens of kilometers each month or so; (2) he didn't know where it was now for sure, other than it was likely to be somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains of the Eastern United States; and (3) he had dozens of investigators looking for it for the last several years without finding it. However, the investigators recently discovered several possible 'leads' that were included in the VISICOM message from Jigs, including recent news reports of odd happenings. If the most promising new leads actually panned out, they had a chance of finding the Pit almost immediately.

As to what exactly they should look for, Jigs was quite vague on that point. Apparently the Black Pit featured strange characteristics that made it practically impossible to find. People could walk by it without seeing it, or forget what they saw if they had seen it. When someone approached it, they tended to become very confused and forgetful.

Bates wandered if by visiting the Black Pit several times, Jigs had been permanently damaged himself, or if the strange old man was just dithered by old age. Did he really know more than he was letting on, or less? Was this all just a wild goose chase based on an old man's crazy imaginings? Unfortunately, the fate of Earth rested on the answers to such questions.

The latest Jigs VISICOM message also indicated that he had booked the Team rooms for two nights at the Skyward Lodge in the Great Smokey's National Forest in North Carolina. While this was very welcome news for the Team in terms of their personal comfort, the time factor worried them immensely. Only about 80 hours remained before the destruction of Earth. Two nights at a vacation resort just didn't seem to fit into their schedule.

The biggest surprises awaited the Team at the Skyward Lodge. As the battle weary Bus and B-Team dropped into a strangely vacant parking lot, a dozen well-armed people in trench coats emerged from the wooded surroundings. Flood recommended taking off again, but all fears disappeared at the appearance of a familiar looking little old man in the midst of the armed personnel who smiled and waved eagerly at the Team.

"Holy shits!" exclaimed Flood. "It's the Boss himself!"

Sure enough, Ray Dave Jigs was the first to greet Bates as the scientist stepped from the Bus. A waggley tailed Milo returned the greetings of the billionaire, and the dog was rewarded with a big tasty dog treat that Jigs pulled from a jacket pocket. "There you go, Milo," said the billionaire. "That will have to hold you until we get you to your pizza."

"What's all the security about?" asked Bates.

"Oh, that? Don't worry about it!" said Jigs. "It's just some of my security team. Mostly they are here to control the press, the public, and various government officials."

"Press, public, and government?" exclaimed Bates, looking about in alarm; but there was nobody in sight except the security people and the billionaire.

"Sure," explained Jigs. "You guys are world news now. When word leaked out that you were coming here, a few hundred press and thousands of other folks headed here too. Naturally, with elections coming up at some point, all the federal, state, and county government officials wanted to get in on it also. But don't worry; we have it all under control. Except for the immediate press conference, my people will isolate you and the Team from this circus. The reception will essentially be private and then you will get a good night's sleep."

Bates jaw dropped open further. "Press conference and reception? That's nuts! We have a mission to do, and we're running out of time! Show him, Flood!"

Flood stepped forward and the billionaire shook his hand vigorously. "Good job, Mark," said Jigs. "We're all very proud of you. And of course, the crew of the Falcon."

The smiles disappeared. "Yes sir. We'd be cinders now if it wasn't for them. But it's not over yet, and we're all concerned about the time that this stop will take." Flood showed Jigs a special wristwatch that was adjusted to count down the hours left before Dannos would strike the Earth's surface. It indicated only 79 hours, 10 minutes.

"Yes Mark, and you should indeed be worried; that's one of the reasons I gave you that watch in the first place. But you all have to trust me. You're still on schedule. This stop may seem a little out of place, but some highly critical things will happen here." He winked, smiled knowingly, elbowed Flood, and gave a little nod of his head towards Bates. What the hell that meant, Bates and Flood had no idea.

Jigs went on to greet the others. As he had done previously in Enterprise City, he again perplexed the newest Team members by knowing who they were before being introduced. Jigs seemed to already know about ghosts, unicorns, little shape shifting goat-men, Goths and Simples.

Pru however, didn't seem to be surprised. "You are the far seer?" she asked.

"Yes, I have been called that by the Traveler," admitted the billionaire.

"There are none such among The People at this time," she said, "but there have been a few, in times long past. It is a curse as well as a great gift."

Jigs informed Winnebago that sadly, he didn't need more life insurance. Goyahkla walked right through the billionaire, obviously seeking to startle him, but the old man only laughed. Latanna and Jigs embraced warmly; they were obviously old friends.

Dooley was star-stuck. "I ain't never met up with a billionaire before this," the hairy young shaman noted.

"And I've never had the honor of meeting a forest shaman, Dooley," replied the billionaire. "I have assembled some wonderful berry pie for you and Johnny in the lodge, Dooley," he added, as he shook Johnny's hand. "It's an honor to meet you Johnny; I think that you'll be able to help Bates learn some skills that you already have. And of course this is Janet and the twins!" he exclaimed, as he turned his attention to the next Team members to emerge from the Bus.

The last new Team member to exit the Bus and meet Jigs appeared to be a second Jigs. The billionaire laughed heartily as he shook the hand of his doppelganger and the doppelganger laughed at him in kind. "Fen the shape shifter! You will particularly enjoy meeting the Traveler."

"Listen everybody," announced Jigs, "go to your rooms and freshen up, and we'll do a short press conference in half an hour. Then there will be a reception with some great food."

"But we can't leave the Bus out in the open like this, there may be more Ra!" complained Bates.

"Don't worry!" assured Jigs. "My people will take your Bus to a well hidden cave only half a mile from here, and we have people and equipment set to spot space craft that enter the area. I've been setting this up for years and can handle most plot variations."

As the old man led the Team around the back of the lodge, the sound of many voices was soon heard. Rounding the corner of the building, the group stopped as one, stunned at what they saw. There were hundreds of shouting people, many holding cameras, struggling against a too-thin line of security personnel. As the Team watched, they were obviously seen and recognized by the crowd, because as a massive wave of humanity, the unruly mob broke through the security line and came crashing towards them! The Team was being charged by the press!

"We have to get inside the lodge!" exclaimed Bates, as he diverted the group to the nearby lodge wall, which was made of massive logs. "Pru," he said, "can you get us all through this?" In answer, the unicorn pranced nimbly through the wall, followed without hesitation by Johnny Goth, Dooley, Fen, Gus, and Jigs, who were all apparently quite used to walking through things. The others paused uncertainly until Gus stuck an arm back out through the wall and motioned for them to follow.

The pursuing national and world press, and subsequently the people of the world, were therefore treated to the odd sight of Jigs and the Bus Team walking through a solid log wall. Several reporters tried to follow and suffered minor injuries to valuable equipment and stubborn heads.

Inside the Skyward Lodge, the Team trooped through the men's room that they found on the other side of the wall, startling several lodge patrons, and then out into the lobby. The lobby was empty except for a big man in a wheel-chair being pushed by a strikingly attractive blonde woman.

"It's about time!" boomed a deep base voice that was immediately recognized by most of the Team. "Jigs told us that you'd probably arrive through the men's room. Damned if you didn't, women included!" The man tried to rise, but the resolute woman with him pushed him back into the wheelchair then ran forward herself to wrap her arms tightly around Mel and kiss him passionately, actually lifting the slight physicist up off the floor in the process.

"Oscar! And Jane!" exclaimed Bates joyfully, as he rushed to vigorously shake the biologist's huge hand.

"Ouch!" complained Oscomb. "Take it easy, Bates! That's my bum arm!" Bates looked more carefully at the big biologist. He appeared battered and exhausted, though very much better than when the Team had left him at the hospital in Phoenix. Bates immediately began introductions as the Team continued to file out of the men's room, though some members lagged behind for a few minutes to take care of other pressing business.

When Pru was finally introduced, she immediately lowered her great horn onto the big man's head. The horn glowed brighter than usual for several seconds, as did Oscar. When she finally lifted her horn away from him, the biologist took a deep breath, shook himself, and wide eyed, rose slowly from the wheel chair! Jane tried to push him back down again but he reached out, grabbed her under the arms, and lifted her high into the air as though she were weightless. "Hot damn, I'm cured!" he shouted joyously.

"You induced some sort of rapid tissue regeneration, Pru?" Bates asked.

"I merely helped; Oscar actually did most of the real work," explained Pru. "You humans are far more capable than you yet imagine."

"Thank you!" Oscar told the unicorn.

"Well, however it was done, it's wonderful!" said Bates. "We are again in your debt, Pru."

"If yea think that's something, wait till I tell yea what's what in terms of the Biology involved, Oscomb!" said a voice that Oscar hadn't heard in years.

Oscar was actually more amazed to see his old mentor Augustus McGregor than he had been to meet a unicorn, a ghost, and two space aliens. "Gus! How the hell did you get involved in this? And where's your Florida tan?" Oscomb patted his old buddy Gus on the back so affectionately that the spry little old man would have taken a tumble, had Bates not been there to catch him.

Things got even stranger when a second Augustus McGregor stepped out of the men's room! "Tarnation Fen! You little stinker!" stormed the second McGregor. Oscar stared agog at the two McGregors! Pru tapped the first McGregor on the head with her horn and in moments his image blurred and then reformed into that of the mischievous goat-man!

Gus started to introduce Johnny and Dooley to Oscar and Jane, but at that moment a yapping herd of reporters, slowed but not fully stopped by a wall of security people, stampeded into the lobby. Governor Latanna, the only one of the group used to dealing with reporters, stepped up onto a coffee table in the path of the oncoming horde and with loud voice and authoritative body language, stopped them dead in their tracks by essentially giving them what they wanted.

"QUIET EVERYONE, AND WE'LL START THE NEWS CONFERENCE RIGHT AWAY" he announced. The crowd hushed in expectation and pushed to form in front of him. "The leader of our Team, Dr., Narbando Bates, will introduce the Team and make a brief statement. Then he'll answer questions. Here now is Dr. Narbando T. Bates."

"Sorry about this Bates," Jigs told Bates, as he shoved him towards Latanna. "You were supposed to get a few minutes of rest and coaching first, but that's the breaks. Break a leg!"

Latanna stepped down and all eyes and cameras in the room turned to the terrified Bates, who would have stood frozen next to the table indefinitely but for the insistent guidance of Oscar and Mel, who forcefully propelled their friend atop the table just vacated by Latanna. Oscar reached up and gave Bates a strong pat on the back as encouragement to get him started, nearly knocking him back down off the table.

Bates first introduced the whole Team starting with the humans, as he intended leave the introduction of the most sensational members for last. Unfortunately, the reporters were so astounded and attracted by the space aliens and the People from The Land that they pushed towards those most unusual folks and started asking them questions directly, ignoring Bates. The press conference was rapidly deteriorating until a blood curdling yell was heard and Bates soon found himself floating in the air several feet above the table while the sound of beating tom-toms filled the air. Goyahkla had creatively shifted their attention back to Bates.

After the drum sounds stopped and Bates was lowered gently to the table, Bates finished with quick introductions and gave the reporters a quick overview of the situation. He had never done this sort of thing before, but had seen many press conferences given by Government officials on the VISICOM. Therefore he knew to be very vague and to give no particulars. Instead, he provided a greatly edited version of what he had been telling new Team members when they joined. Certainly no details about the rest of the quest could be revealed to the press; this unruly bunch could easily be as disruptive to the mission as the Ra.

When he completed his narration Bates began to take questions. He had no previous experience with the press, so at first he feared he would be hit with probing, insightful inquiries that would pry from him the details of their mission. But this was the press, so of course most of the questions turned out to be irrelevant.

Q: "What do the aliens eat?"

A: "The big one eats whatever he wants. Chili, so far."

"OH! And Twinkies," pathed Wink.

"And Twinkies," continued Bates. "On the other hand, we have reason to believe that the Ra sometimes eat humans."

Q: "Have you seen them eat anyone?"

A: "No, but one of us barely escaped alive, covered with barbecue sauce."

Q: "What does the Bus use for fuel?"

A: "Beer now, mostly, new or used, plus a secret additive that I'm not at liberty to describe."

Q: "Can you people really walk through walls?"

A: "Only when we're in a hurry to get to a press conference."

Press: Laughter.

Q: "Why has the existence of the DOD been hidden from the public? Does Congress know that the DOD still exists?"

A: "We haven't been hiding from anyone, we've just become too small to be noticed. Congress has been funding us less every year, but they have been funding us, so I suppose they know about us to some degree. Maybe you press people just haven't been paying attention."

Bates' confidence was growing. Then the questions became more annoying, though still irrelevant.

Q: "Is this whole thing a hoax?"

A: "No; of course not!"

Q: "Can you prove it isn't a hoax?"

A: "No; but then we don't have time to anyway. Fortunately world opinion about the reality of the threat apparently isn't relevant to the accomplishment of our mission."

At that point Jigs motioned to Bates that he had something to immediately tell him. While the press threatened to get rowdy again, Bates bent down and the old billionaire whispered a few words to him.

A: "I stand corrected," Bates resumed. "It is imperative that the people of the Earth understand the reality of the threat to them; that is the primary reason why we're holding this press conference."

Q: "Is this hoax supposed to result in more DOD funding next year?"

A: "Again, I don't know anything about any hoax, or how someone would go about getting more funding. This mission is to save the Earth. If we don't succeed, there won't be a next fiscal year to fund. None of us will live even long enough to get paid even next week."

Q: "Is it true that the man responsible for the incorrect tracking of the Dannos trajectory is a DOD employee?"

A: "No. Well, yes and no. That is, a few days ago we found out that Melberg is a Ra, not even a human. Yes, recently he has worked for the DOD, though he was apparently working for NASA when he sabotaged the system that is tracking Dannos. He's probably still officially on the DOD payroll, but if I ever see him again, I promise to fire him on the spot, once the shooting stops. No, on the other hand why wait? Wherever Melberg is, his DOD employment is hereby officially terminated, effective immediately."

Q: "Where is Paul Lund?"

A: "Who is Paul Lund?"

"That NP guy I saw get carried away by the Ra ship in Phoenix!" Governor Latanna whispered to Bates

A: "Oh yeah; sorry. Lund is probably scattered over half of Colorado, from when the Ra ship blew up today."

Q: "So you confirm the rumors that an alien spaceship has been destroyed?"

A: "Yes, a huge Ra spaceship has been destroyed by three brave employees of Mr. Jigs who lost their lives to save ours. I understand that Jigs already provided that information to the press so I won't repeat it here."

Q: "Will that action save the Earth?"

A: "No, but it saved us, so that now we can go on to try to save the Earth."

Q: "But what does the Jigs corporation have to do with this? Isn't this really a military operation?"

A: "His company manufactured our vehicle and provided our wonderful pilot, Commander Flood. But no, this isn't a military operation; the U.S. military hasn't existed for a decade. The founding nucleus of our Team is a DOD civilian scientific team working under direct Presidential orders to address the Dannos crisis."

Q: "Why has the U.S. Government been covering up the Dannos problem?"

A: "Have they? You'll have to ask the administration. But I do know that most of us have only known about the problem for a few days, and Dr. Janet Garb originally discovered the problem less than a week ago. So the news has actually gotten out pretty fast. But this issue, like most of your questions, is completely irrelevant to us at this point. Now we have to focus on the mission to stop Dannos."

By this time Bates was getting tired of the press conference. However, he has relieved that they hadn't asked the probing questions that he feared, and feeling pretty good about the way things had gone, until the next question, when he realized that his last statement had moved the questioning in the wrong direction.

Q: "How do you plan on stopping Dannos?"

A: "Good question."

Q: "Do you have a good answer?"

A: "Not a good one, not yet. We're still working on the details."

Q: "But there are only about three days left!"

A: "We're working on it. That's all that I can tell you about it now."

Q: "But Dr. Bates! Do you or don't you have a plan to stop Dannos that will work?"

A: "Yes, we do indeed have a strategy that we hope will work."

Press: sighs of relief.

Q: "How sure are you that it will work?"

A: "We aren't sure. We simply don't know yet. But we do know that while we are doing this press conference we are making no progress at all. So let's have one final question please!"

Q: "What is your relationship with Dr. Janet Garb?"

A: "I'm totally in love with Dr. Garb, and if we live past Christmas, we have a heavy date planned. And now, I'm afraid that's all we have time for today."

With that, Bates stepped off the table and gave Janet a hug, though she didn't seem overly receptive.

"Heavy date?" she whispered somewhat acidly. "Is that what I am? Did you have to say something like that to billions of people?"

Bates staggered, almost fainting. Billions? He hadn't thought of that! He had been nervous enough to speak before a room full of reporters! For some reason, the possibility of countless viewers across the country and the world hadn't even occurred to him. Janet returned his hug in order to keep him from sinking to his knees, but she still wasn't smiling. Cameras flashed. By next week, if there still was one, Bates figured that he could walk into any supermarket in the country, if there still was one, and see blurry pictures of that moment plastered all over the covers of half a dozen newspapers specializing in sensationalist trivia.

All during the press conference, Jigs security personnel had quietly filed into the room until they actually outnumbered even the press. Finally they whisked the Team into an adjoining room while the reporters yelled and pushed to no avail. Thankfully, heavy doors closed, shutting off sight and sounds of the scuffle.

The adjoining room was empty of people except for Jigs and another person that Bates recognized immediately.

"Mr. Ryan! It's an honor and pleasure to meet you in person at last, sir!" Bates stepped forward to shake hands with the President's Chief of Staff.

"The honor and pleasure are mine, Dr. Bates! The President sends her congratulations, her warmest regards, and her greatest encouragement. We have followed your rather unusual exploits as closely as we could. Mr. Jigs assures me that so far you are doing as well as he expected." From the expression Ryan made when he glanced over at Jigs, Bates had the impression that Jigs had been explaining things to Ryan, but that Ryan wasn't totally satisfied with the information that the billionaire provided.

"Your press conference was very well done," continued Ryan. "You managed to not tell them very much at all, but it was reasonably reassuring and professional. But the time remaining is so short, and our information on your effort has been rather sketchy," complained Ryan. "I must ask you point blank Dr. Bates, how do you assess your actual progress, and exactly what is your strategy to stop Dannos?"

"Progress? Well, err, sure," mumbled Bates. "We've learned quite a lot about the riddles."

"Riddles?" asked Ryan. His jaw dropped.

"Yes. Didn't Mr. Jigs explain it to you?" asked Bates.

The two of them looked over at Jigs. The eccentric little old billionaire had shuffled over to the big banquet table in the middle of the room and was stuffing big, pink, ice-chilled shrimp into his mouth as he handed out plates full of the things to members of the Team.

Jigs looked very happy. He had mentioned to Bates on the way in that he himself had defined the menu, and that it included only his favorite foods. The result was a perhaps unusual assortment that included fruit, leaf-spinach, nuts, steamed and stir-fried broccoli, Brussels sprouts, eggplant, corn meal mush fried golden brown, over-easy eggs, buckwheat pancakes, an assortment of Wendy's burgers, and a wide variety of sea food and pasta dishes. Now Jigs happily turned his attention to pilling heaps of various foods onto a big plate, culminating in a slice of everything-on-it pizza draped over the very top.

Bates licked his lips.

But Ryan was pale. He had lived mostly on yogurt for the last decade, and couldn't imagine anyone eating what the billionaire had put on that plate!

The full Team, including its exotic members, was also gathering in the harvest. Goyahkla hung suspended above the table. Various foods floated up to hover before him, and then lined up and took turns popping into his mouth. Unfortunately, he was apparently unable to actually eat it, as it all passed through the back of his head and floated back around to the front of his head to rejoin newly arriving food.

Pru commandeered a huge bowel of fresh spinach for herself, although it was unclear that unicorns actually needed food at all. At the moment, Krog and Oscar seemed to be engaged in a pig-out contest. Krog was popping whole steamed lobsters into his mouth, while the rejuvenated Oscar focused indiscriminately on anything and everything. Wink, Gus, and Fen apparently all had a passion for fruit, as they were consuming surprising numbers of oranges and bananas. Johnny and Dooley were happily gulping down elderberry pie alamode. The General, Sandra, Carbuncle, Winnebago, Barns, Flood, Janet, Elizabeth, and Don had quickly dished up their food and retreated to other, quieter parts of the room. Steve and Kay moved off to a corner all by themselves, and seemed much more interested in each other than in the food.

Distracted by the rather unusual scene, and afraid of what more he would learn from Bates, it was long seconds before Ryan finally answered Bates' remark about riddles. "Well", said Ryan finally, "Jigs did tell me some crazy business about some visions that he had over twenty years ago, is that what you mean?"

"That's it exactly!" replied Bates, nodding his head. "Strange as it seems, following his visions and clues is the strategy that our mission is based on."

Jigs was looking around the room for something. He finally spied Milo sitting to one side of the food table, watching wistfully as his taller, more privileged Team mates filled their own plates and stomachs with food. Jigs shuffled over to Milo and put the plate of food on the floor in front of the grateful dog, who went right to work, starting with the everything-on-it pizza.

Pleased that Milo had been fed, though concerned at the alarming rate that the food was disappearing without having gotten any yet himself, Bates returned his attention to Ryan, to try to wrap up their conversation.

Ryan was just recovering his composure. "This whole thing is based on someone's visions of the future? You can't be serious!" said Ryan.

"I'm very serious," replied Bates.

"But you're a scientist, Bates! Surely you can't believe that it's possible for anyone to actually see the future!" Ryan was clearly very disturbed that the fate of the world hung on some sort of physic vision by an eccentric old man, even if he was the richest person on Earth.

Bates considered then answered. "Believe me Mr. Ryan, eight days ago I would have probably felt the same. But since then I've been inexplicably promoted to be Head of DOD, chased by evil space aliens in flying saucers, met a ghost and all manner of magical creatures, walked or floated through mountain rock and a log wall with the help of a unicorn, experienced mental telepathy with friendly space aliens, battled flying saucers, and discovered that I'm a father. And, though there is much that we still don't understand, both I and other members of the Team have a sense that the pieces of a giant puzzle are starting to fit together. Continuing to follow the Jigs riddles we plan to next find the Black Pit and then wake the Great One, but we don't have details about those yet. Right now we just have to keep going and hope for the best." Bates shrugged. "And that's pretty much the whole thing in a nut-shell."

Ryan remained dumbfounded and disturbed. "Dr. Bates, you've been very busy for the last few days, so I don't think that you fully appreciate the situation. We kept the Dannos situation secret for as long as we could, but right at this moment news of hostile aliens and Dannos threatens to cause widespread panic all over the world. What I had hoped to be able to do is to bring a message of real hope back to the President, one that she could use to calm the people. But what you tell me doesn't give me much confidence at all."

"Mr. Ryan, from a purely analytical viewpoint, based on current human science and philosophy, I'm afraid that I would have to wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. Objectively, the situation seems to be totally hopeless. On the other hand, at this point, I'm honestly beginning to believe that almost anything is possible. I find that my own view of the Universe and mankind's place in it is changing rapidly. As a result I'm actually much more optimistic now than I was last week when I first learned of Dannos and the Ra. We have humans and non-humans on our Team that have incredible talent and knowledge, and we have a strategy and we're following it. Believe me, that's a lot more than we had when we started, and it's also the best we can do."

"I'd like to feel your optimism Dr. Bates, but I'm finding it very difficult," said Ryan. "World scientists assure us that what Garb discovered is absolutely correct; Dannos will strike Earth on Christmas Eve. You tell me that you still don't know how to stop it, and that's what I'll have to tell the President."

"In the meantime Mr. Ryan, we better eat, before Krog and Oscomb finish off everything!" suggested Bates. Ryan sighed and started towards the food table with Bates, shaking his head. But Jigs met them halfway with two trays of food. The food that Jigs gave Bates was exactly what he gave Milo, but tripled in quantity. Over the years man and dog had cultivated similar tastes in food.

To the astonishment of Ryan, Jigs handed him a tray that held a container of strawberry yogurt, a black coffee, and buckwheat pancakes covered with strawberry preserves. It was exactly what Ryan had decided to get for himself, only moments earlier. He found a chair off to one side of the room where he could sit quietly, eat, and think. How the hell had Jigs known what he wanted to eat before he did? He looked at Jigs and at precisely that moment the smiling billionaire looked back at him and winked.

Later, the Team was introduced to the county sheriff, the park's head game warden, and the mayors of several of the closest towns. The politicians were wearing their fake smiley faces; it was hard to judge what their true reactions were to the Team. They were definitely disappointed that there was no press to record their encounters with the now world famous Team, but were pleased when Jane pulled out a Kodak COM-CORD and took some shots that she promised she would COM to them later, assuming that there would be anyone left alive on Earth later to send or receive anything.

It was nearly midnight when the weary Team was finally shown their rooms. In the rooms were clean new clothes for members of the Team that used them. Bates was most intrigued to find that he and Milo had been given a room next to Janet. Was the pairing by chance or design? Later, he was astonished to realize that they actually had adjoining rooms! After a quick and much needed shower, he put on the nice warm flannel pajamas that had been provided and collapsed on his bed, exhausted, but soon found himself staring restlessly at the door that separated him from Janet. Earlier, there had been sounds of drawers, doors, running water, and so forth from the direction of her room. Now it was quiet; she was probably sound asleep by now.

He regretted that he hadn't had a chance to talk with her. Ryan and then Jigs had totally dominated his time for most of the evening. Ryan kept fishing for answers that Bates didn't have, and Jigs briefed him on the clues that his men had gathered regarding The Black Pit. The Team would search for the Pit in the morning. Perhaps they would find it; perhaps they would never find it. Perhaps the Ra would find them first, if any remained. Maybe this would be their last night alive before they were all killed while performing this crazy quest!

But he thought of none of that now. He was exhausted, and the Dannos business was all too confusing and out of control to make any sense of it anyway. Right now he found that he could only think of one thing: the woman sleeping on the other side of that door! The woman that even though physically absent from his life, had still dominated it for the last twenty years.

But no, not her, she wasn't responsible for his problems, he corrected himself. Mel was right, it was all him. It was his obsession with her that messed up his life. Was she really mad at him for his 'heavy date' remark to the press? He should try to do something about that.

By now Milo was laying on his back in the bed next to Bates, snoring loudly. Fortunately, Milo was a heavy sleeper, so Bates easily avoided waking him when he got out of the bed and crept over to the door that led to Janet's room.

His hand formed a fist. He reached towards the door. But then he stopped, unsure of himself. Would she be even madder at him if he woke her now? He had better be careful to say just the right thing to her; he didn't want to blow it again. But he was so tired that he couldn't think straight. He lay back down on the bed for a minute to try to better formulate what he would tell her. Something perfect. Something that would propel her into his arms again at long last, perhaps this very night!

This was it! This would be the night that he had dreamed of for twenty years.

Then he fell asleep.

****

CHAPTER 40

RA WOES!

Coward: A man in whom the instinct of self-preservation acts normally.

\- Sultana Zoraya

By Monday evening, Melberg was in the Brigham Young University Library filing VISICOM data cubes with Earth culture. He could have downloaded the data at any remote link, but he chose the Library for several reasons. First, because the Library was an actual node for the national information grid, all the data he wanted was stored locally, and could be directly accessed using COM terminals in the Library. If the Earthers were looking for unusual activity occurring over the net, they would be disappointed.

Second, security in Universities was notoriously poor; so he had no trouble getting into the Library physically or in breaking the Library computer's security codes.

Third, it was late evening and the building was virtually deserted. Anyone who did see him probably thought that the thin, distinguished looking, middle-aged, gray haired gentleman was an eccentric professor working late.

Finally, the download process here at the node was very fast, and would take only a few minutes. With a few simple commands, tremendous amounts of data on Earth culture began to fill the cubes. The results wouldn't be nearly as complete or as theatrically palatable as the data that Barns had taken but it would do nicely. On the flight back to Ra there would be plenty of time to restructure it into a more commercially viable product for the Galaxy black market.

The last comprehensive data sample that the Ra took was assembled twelve Earth years earlier, and it had taken months to develop. Now the new improved VISICOM net of the humans made the process fast and simple. It pleased Melberg greatly to use human technology against them. But the human technological growth implied also demonstrated how dangerous the humans were becoming. Despite Ra meddling for many centuries, the humans continued to flourish. Now the Galactic League wanted Earth to join them!

While the cubes filled, Melberg caught up on human news. This was the first chance he had to do so since the Mother Ship dropped him and Twig off early that morning outside a small Utah town. Since then, things had not gone smoothly at all. He and Twig planned to use public transportation to get to Salt Lake City. After spending many years on Earth, they should have known better. When it turned out that there was no public transportation, or car rentals, or any other option, they ended up paying double or triple what it was worth for a used car at a wretched place called Uncle Phil's Used Cars, the only car dealer in town.

The damned piece of Earthier-junk broke down half way to Salt Lake City. Melberg made a mental note. If he ever returned to Earth after Dannos got through with it, he would to try to locate Uncle Phil's remains, and curse and scatter them in a special Ra ceremony of grave desecration that he was particularly fond of, if Twig didn't do it first. The last time he saw Twig, she was easily as angry as he was; she almost missed her flight to Central America due to Uncle Phil. Come to think of it there were many annoying humans that he wanted to personally kill, but unfortunately there just wasn't time.

The first COM news network that Melberg tuned in was showing an outside view of some sort of hotel constructed of logs. An indignant commentator was talking about the press being expelled illegally from the building. The subject matter seemed totally irrelevant and he almost changed the station, but then the newswoman said something about re-showing a news conference held there earlier with the Space Bus crew!

With the Space Bus crew? On a Library VISICOM screen Melberg was suddenly looking and hearing Narbando T. Bates! Melberg's usually bland, mocking face erupted into a hideous snarl that exposed razor sharp fangs and nearly exposed his alien identity to nearby human library users.

As he watched Bates ineptly describe the Ra situation, Melberg's mind raced through the possible implications. How had the accursed humans escaped the Mother Ship? Just before he and Twig had been dropped off, they had successfully attacked the Bus over Utah. After he was dropped off he watched the Mother Ship speed away to search for the wreckage of the Bus, and he was certain then that he would never hear from his fellow Civil Servants again. Yet here Bates was again, damn him; the very same inept individual that Twig arranged to replace Barns! How was it possible?

Bates then mentioned almost casually that 'the big Ra ship' blew up today!

Melberg was stunned. Blew up? Impossible! How could such a thing happen? Then again, they had previously lost two Warren ships over Enterprise City. The humans seemed to be full of surprises lately.

Still, he reassured himself that the story was highly unlikely; the Mother Ship was equipped with the latest technology that the Ra had been able to steal from other members of the Galactic League. He continued to watch the Bates interview, including a laughable sequence in which Bates fired him. Melberg almost laughed aloud at that meaningless gesture.

The news report then switched to VISICOM footage apparently recorded from the Bus. Melberg soon watched the destruction of the Mother Ship by a second Earth ship called the Falcon!

His mind reeled. This changed everything. Master Dow and his plan were gone. The Mother Ship was gone. Of the Ra on this mission, only he, Twig, and Renson remained.

Worst of all, his way home was gone. The Mother Ship was supposed to pick him up tonight. The only serviceable Ra ship that remained in which to escape this doomed planet was the single Warren ship hidden in Central America by the Ca'Ra, and Twig was already en route to sneak it away.

Then another shocking realization hit him. Earth news broadcasts were no longer being blocked by the Mother Ship! Though Ren'Ca had set up a ground based jamming system, as far as he knew, it hadn't been fully powered up by Renson, probably as a ploy to keep Dow and the others from betraying him and leaving Earth without him on the Mother Ship. What if jamming wasn't fully effective?

Earth news broadcasts could soon be intercepted by the several League sensing devices that were operational in this solar system! If so, all hell would soon break loose on the home world, and in the League! The Ra's Galactic League membership would be threatened, and the Ra leadership would surely declare that Dow and his entire crew were renegades operating against Ra orders. If any Ra now on Earth escaped destruction by Dannos, they would probably become galactic fugitives, hunted by both the Ra and the League.

By now, Twig had probably also learned about the fate of the Mother Ship. What would she do? Would she spend precious hours rescuing an otherwise doomed shipmate, when the Earth was only a few days away from destruction, and the Galactic League may already be alerted and on their way to Earth? Highly doubtful!

He cursed, put the now completed data cubes in his pocket, and rushed out of the library. He didn't have a moment to lose. He had to get to Central America fast, and get to that Warren ship and steal it before Twig did.

****

CHAPTER 41

THE BLACK PIT

We can't all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.

\- Will Rogers

Early in the morning Bates was buzzed out of bed by a wake-up call from Latanna, who told him that most of the Team was already gathering in the Lodge restaurant for breakfast. Bates mumbled a reply of some sort. Then, in a daze, he tried to figure out who, why, and where he was and what he was about. Suddenly remembering his failure to see Janet the previous night, he cursed and kicked a solid wood chair leg with his bare foot. Then he hopped in pain to the windows and looked out.

It was beautiful weather for a December 22 in the Appalachian Mountains, sunny and already well above freezing, based on the thermometer thoughtfully mounted outside his window. Surveying the area in daylight, it became apparent to him for the first time that the Skyward Lodge was perched very advantageously atop a high mountain ridge, for from his window he looked down upon miles of forested valleys shrouded in mist, punctuated by other neighboring mountain ridges that rose into the clear blue skies. He noted to himself that this was yet another part of the country that he'd like to visit someday under less hurried circumstances, if he lived long enough and it wasn't all soon destroyed.

There would be no time for sightseeing today. There were less than three days left to save the Earth, and he, the leader of the rescue effort, still didn't have the foggiest idea how to do it, other than to continue somewhat willy-nilly on the current Jigs-based quest. Ryan was right to be worried. This morning the situation felt much bleaker than it had seemed last night, when free chilled shrimp and beer were in play.

After running cold water on his injured foot for a few minutes, Bates quickly dressed. Milo, still stretched out comfortably in the middle of the King sized bed, was less than eager to begin another adventure. Bates finally had to promise his companion an Egg McMuffin in order to get him up. Hopefully the Lodge restaurant had something comparable to Milo's favorite breakfast. After obligatory stretching, yawning, and scratching, both Bates and the dog were finally ready to go.

Leaving his room, Bates knocked on Janet's door but received no answer, so he concluded that she must have already left her room. His window of opportunity to see Janet privately was now confirmed to be totally gone. Instead of seeing Janet, Bates had to settle for a brief but necessary walk outside with Milo before they were ready to join the others.

For breakfast the Team had their own separate room, complete with an army of Jigs security people that turned away non-Team intruders. Bates was glad to see that the entire Team was up and about and busily fueling up for the day. Breakfast consisted of a well-appointed buffet that pleased everyone, human and non-human. After filling a plate for Milo, Bates circulated among the Team as he munched down mouthfuls of scrambled eggs, pancakes, cornmeal mush, and sausage. Krog was consuming mountains of hard-boiled eggs, shell and all. He and Wink assured their concerned hosts that they could get along quite well for several weeks on Earth food before beginning to feel and any ill effects.

After eating, the Team was outfitted at the Lodge Sports Shop for hiking in rough terrain. Jigs brought the Team an assortment of hiking gear, including sturdy hiking shoes. The shop even had custom made shoes for Wink and Krog. Johnny and Dooley were already wearing Goth Mountain-needed hiking gear and acquired nothing from the shop, but they helped outfit the other Team members. Breakfast and hiking preparation took less than an hour, for there was an unstated sense of urgency and apprehension that even food and clean new clothes couldn't dispel.

Finally the Team set off on foot with John Gibs, Jigs' lead Black Pit investigator, to interview Jake Whitcome, wilderness hermit and witness to the suspected location of the Black Pit. Jake was something of a legend in this part of the country. Jake claimed never to have slept under a roof or to have anything to do with store-bought goods of any kind since he was a small child. As he had to be well over seventy years old, that was an impressively long time to be 'living off the land' in the Eastern United States. Bates couldn't decide if the man sounded like some sort of hero or a complete idiot.

As Jake would have nothing to do with civilization, he would come no closer to the Skyward than a small glade a kilometer to the south and totally out of sight of the Lodge, roads, and everything else that even hinted of civilization. That meant that talking to Jake first involved the Team hiking through rougher country than Bates had experienced since he was much younger, and he and a few of the others were already a little done-in as they finally approached the rendezvous point. Bates fervently hoped that Flood would be able to fly them in the Bus most of the remainder of the day, otherwise he didn't think that he would last until noon.

Whitcome was suddenly in their midst; he seemed to materialize out of thin air. He was a tall, thin, shaggy, hawk-nosed older man, dressed in animal furs and carrying a long hiking staff. "Jake," said Gibs, "these are the folks I told you about." Despite Jake's outlandish appearance, he immediately reminded Bates strongly of someone; but he couldn't quite place who it was. Bates stepped forward to introduce himself with his hand outstretched.

The mountain man evaded Bates' reach, and with a look of disgust on his face quickly sized up the pudgy scientist and his entourage. "You didn't say it'd be a whole dag-gum mob of city folk, Gibs! I can't deal with the likes of them!" He started to briskly hike away.

"Won't you stay a bit and talk with kin, Uncle Jake?" asked a voice.

The mountain man stopped dead in his tracks. "Who's that claims to be my kin?" he asked, without turning.

To the surprise of the others, Hank stepped forward. Now Bates realized why Jake Whitcome looked so familiar. Add a decade or two, a foot of head hair, and a fur outfit, and Hank would be a dead ringer for 'Uncle Jake'. Also it explained why both men had the same last name. "It's the Hankster, Uncle Jake!" exclaimed Hank.

Jake faced his younger double with a big, tooth gapped smile on his face. "The Hankster? Hank Whitcome? Jim's boy? Where the hell you been keeping yourself?"

The two men exchanged hugs and a few playful bats on the head, and then sat down on a nearby log and talked for several minutes. Bates could hear much of the conversation, but had some trouble following it. Mostly it seemed to address what this or that cousin, brother, or sister was up to and where.

Hank finally persuaded Jake to help the Team, though Jake insisted that he lead a party of no more than a dozen or so hand-picked individuals on foot to the suspected Black Pit site. Bates was severely disappointed that they would have to hike further, but Jake insisted that flying busses were out of the question, as far as he was concerned.

Exactly who would go to The Pit was resolved by a few minutes of haggling. At first, it seemed that Bates himself might not be acceptable to Jake. The lean mountain man looked Bates over critically, pinched his fat cheeks, patted his plump stomach and behind, and shook his head. However, Jake and Milo immediately took to each other, which helped smooth things for Bates, even though both man and dog were obviously soft city slickers. "I reckon I can put up with this feller if'n his dog can," reasoned Jake. The Pit- party was at last reduced to Jake and Hank, Bates and Milo, Latanna and Winnebago, Krog and Pru, Johnny and Dooley.

After confiding with Bates that 'the Boss' told him that they should, Commander Flood was insistent that Janet and the twins Elizabeth and Don also go. Why the billionaire wanted them to go, Bates couldn't imagine, but it was agreed to anyway. Besides, once the issue was raised, Jake seemed enthusiastic that the women go. Apparently women were scarce in the Smoky Mountains.

The final Team member to be added to the party was the spirit of Goyahkla. Jake didn't even flinch when Goyahkla materialized for a few moments so that they could size each other up; in fact he didn't seem to be at all spooked by the unusual make-up of the group. The mountain man remarked that over the years he had met with lots of unusual folk in the mountains, including space aliens, kin to Fen and Pru, and a wide assortment of American Indians and ghosts.

Just a week earlier, upon hearing such a claim, Bates would have dismissed Jake as a complete crackpot. Now he had to wonder at the limitations of his own background, which had apparently been quite narrowly defined by a life that centered on his apartment, his job at the Base, fast-food restaurants, and a few other 'normal' 21st century influences. He had long understood that the world was filled with wondrous things; that's why he had become a scientist. Now he was finding out that there were wonderfully quirky things and people that defied conventional expectations and stereotypes.

As the rest of the Team started back towards Skyward and the Bus, disappointed but at the same time relieved to have themselves escaped the Black Pit quest, Jake took charge by laying out some rules for the remaining hikers. His two-dozen or so rules could actually be summed up as two: (1) keep quiet; and (2) don't damage the forest. As to keeping completely totally quiet, Jake conceded that it would be impossible for this big motley group; however, he did ask that talking be as subdued and as infrequent as possible. Bates approved of Jake's thoughtful, reverent attitude towards the forest. He could never understand why some folks liked to loudly and destructively rip through forests on ATVs or motorcycles.

To minimize forest damage, Jake insisted that they walk single file. He led, followed by forest-savvy Johnny and Dooley, Krog, Bates, Janet and the kids, Latanna and Winnebago, and Hank. Pru soon melted away into the forest, in the way of the unicorns, and Goyahkla appeared only occasionally. Bates could only hope that they would both re-appear if and when they were needed.

Milo ranged all along the line of hikers, stopping frequently to literally stick his nose into anything interesting. Bates never did understand why Milo felt compelled to smell every whiff of urine and pile of poop that he ran across; it was evidently a 'dog thing'. At least the canine Team member was enjoying himself.

The group steadily traversed incredibly beautiful but inconveniently rugged country. Once brilliant fallen leaves were mostly brown now, but there was still plenty of rich green evergreen growth. Bates was amazed to find that this included large patches of bushy, green leafed Rhododendrons, which he had always thought of as delicate, domestic plants of a sort only to be found in select yuppie yards. Apparently he had them all wrong; they were much tougher than they looked. This mountainous terrain was evidently their natural habitat. He found this comforting, as that was exactly what the B-Team would also have to be; soft city folk for the most part, who were tougher than they looked.

Bates also observed a remarkable directness and a relative ease of passage in their route through the mountains, compared to the Team's relatively short hike to the rendezvous point with Jake. Not that the hiking was easy, but their route seemed to avoid most major obstacles, though at the same time it was phenomenally direct. Elizabeth explained to her father that they were following deer trails, and now that he knew to look for them, an amazing network of deer trails became evident, as paths marked by fall leaves that were crushed to corn-flake size, footholds carved by sharp hooves into steep slopes, and openings stubbornly pried through otherwise impenetrable brush. The trails the creatures made were remarkably straight. Evidently the sensible creatures also traveled single file, because the trails were also very narrow.

On and on they went endlessly, with hour after hour marked by periods of ascent and decent for hundreds of meters. Bates became so tired that he couldn't tell and didn't really care what was actually 'up' and what was 'down'. He didn't give a crap any more about nifty plant-life, or deer trails, or anything else; there was only the next step and the next deep breath, and the seemingly endless struggle to keep up with Krog well enough such that the big alien remained in sight.

His backpack, which was only five kilograms in mass, felt more like fifty. Its initially soft, padded straps bit into his shoulders with numbing force, and it seemed to shift his entire center of gravity tremendously, such that each step was distorted and awkward, causing exercise of forgotten muscles much more accustomed to lounging around an office at this time of day. The hiking boots which hours before were incredibly light and comfortable were now leaden weights that crushed his poor sore feet unmercifully.

At first, Bates had been 'gentlemanly' and lent Janet and Elizabeth a helping hand in traversing the more difficult slopes, ravines, and fallen logs. He now feared that they would soon be helping him, an event that would deal a severe blow to his manly pride, what little was left of it. He envisioned himself soon being dragged or carried along by Janet and Elizabeth like an infant or a decrepit oldster, but he vowed that he would drive himself to complete collapse before he would let that happen.

Just when Bates had determined that he could not possibly last another minute, old Jake stopped his long, effortless strides at last, and announced that the clearing just ahead was the Black Pit. The group gathered around Jake to catch their breath and get a look at the infamous 'Pit'.

After the big build up and long hike, the suspected 'Black Pit' area was, at first sight, a major disappointment to Bates. It appeared to be simply a relatively flat, open glade in the forest about forty meters across, covered in green, knee-high grass. It wasn't black, and it wasn't a pit. Geologically speaking, maybe it had been a pond at one time but had gotten filled in over the years.

For the moment anyway, Bates didn't care. He gratefully fumbled off his backpack and plopped down flat on his back, an action that the rest of the group interpreted as a call for rest and lunch. Soon they were sprawled about on boulders and fallen tree trunks, and pulling sandwiches and soda-pop out of their back-packs as they eyeballed the alleged Pit area.

Jake pulled some nasty looking hardtack from a leather satchel that he carried in his backpack, and offered some to Hank. "I'll trade one'a ya some critter jerky for one'a them-there Cokes," he announced. "I ain't had me a Coke in five, no, six years."

After a drink and several minutes of rest, Bates was fit enough to sit up and examine the area ahead. It seemed to him that they had previously passed through several very similar glades. "Mr. Whitcome," he asked, "what makes you think this is the Black Pit?"

Jake sat aside his third Coke for a moment to reply. "Well young fella, you folks are calling it that, I ain't. All I know is it just ain't normal. So my guess is it might be yer odd-ball Pit place you want to find. Or maybe not. There's always odd-ball places here and there in these here mountains of this sort and that. You-ens can take a look-see and figure out if this be yer fancy Pit or no."

"What's abnormal about it? It looks just like several other places we passed through earlier," Bates remarked.

"It's definitely abnormal; I can't sense anything there," said Johnny Goth. "It seems like a hole in the universe."

"Not to me," said Don. "It looks perfectly normal."

Jake laughed. "Well young fella, it sure does look that way to city folk, don't it? But look closer and maybe you'll notice that the deer trail we been following don't go through it."

Sure enough, the Team noted that the deer trail veered sharply away from the glade.

"It's the kind of place where deer would like to be in, if it were a normal place, with plenty of nice tall green grass to eat and lay down in and hide," remarked Dooley. "But the deer don't like it one bit."

"Dooley and I can see the grass but we can't feel that it's there at all, added Johnny. It's a weird place; that's for sure." Indeed, it reminded Johnny of space/time disturbances near a mysterious object back home on Goth Mountain.

"We need to walk into it for sure then," concluded Bates.

Everyone in the spunky group volunteered, but based on their heightened enthusiasm and woodsman experience it was decided that Steve Latanna and Hank would make the first exploration, while linked to the others by two stout lengths of nylon rope.

Steve reported back to the rest of the group as they slowly walked into the suspect area. "Five meters. Nothing strange so far!" he reported. "Ten meters. Nearly half-way in, I estimate. Everything is still normal, I think." But there was a tinge of uncertainly in his voice. "I just feel a little dizzy."

"Hey you two, you're veering too far left," admonished Bates. Sure enough, for the next few steps the pair had changed direction, and were now walking at right angles to their intended path.

"But we haven't turned at all!" complained Latanna, though he followed the shouted instructions of the onlookers.

"Once yer finally started in, head down-hill," advised Jake, as he chuckled at the antics of the group. "The center is at the lowest spot."

The pair made continued to make turns as directed, though they protested they were on course when their companions redirected them. Despite corrections they repeatedly exited the area entirely.

Dooley sat watching, grinning, and laughing at their antics. Bates had to keep reminding himself that this was deadly serious business to keep from laughing himself.

After four tries, the pair finally appeared to the onlookers to be headed to the center of the area. Latanna called out that they were twelve meters along, by his reckoning. To Bates, Chief Latanna looked and sounded much farther away than twelve meters. As he sat watching in astonishment, it also seemed to him that the two men were slowly vanishing, simply fading away as though they were stepping into fog, though there was no fog to be seen!

"Shunshu, katana!" Steve's shouted something in Apache, sounding very far away indeed. Then there was total silence. Except for the tall grass, the mysterious glade appeared to be empty. The two men had totally faded from sight.

****

CHAPTER 42

CLEAN GET-AWAY

The only thing we have to fear on the planet is man.

\- Carl Jung

Twig cursed profusely in several languages as she bit the head off another snake that hissed at her from the jungle foliage overhead. What kind of snake it was, she didn't know or care in the least. Whatever it was, the species would be extinct in a few days anyway, and good riddance.

She was traveling alone, having eaten much of her Guatemalan/Mayan guide earlier that morning. Though it was satisfying to hear and feel the man scream and wail in terror and pain as he slowly died, it hadn't been as satisfying as she hoped it would be. Her physical hunger was satisfied, but the act fell far short of filling the need that she felt to make humanity suffer.

She wanted revenge for her comrades and for herself! Dannos was too quick and kind a fate for Bates, Barns, and their companions. Still, she was glad that she ate the Mayan guide. After all, he was probably the last human that she would ever see. Today she would be leaving Earth for good, and deserting the hated Ca'Ra. She and the rest of the remaining Ra would desert Ren'Ca and flee carrying high-value human treasure. It would be a clean get-away with rich rewards. They would be heroes. With a strong Dow'Na recommendation, maybe she would even be promoted to a group-leader rank.

She was relieved when the probe that she carried at last indicated that she had reached the Warren Ship; for she had begun to feel strangely confused and disoriented over the last hour or so. She found the ship covered with tree branches, but didn't immediately attempt to enter it.

She first placed the probe near the Warren Ship, and activated programming to completely replace the Warren Ship's functions electronically. This included simulating the communications of the Mother Ship. Hopefully, Ren'Ca would never know that he was talking to a computer simulation of Dow'Na when he next called the Mother Ship. The actual Mother Ship would leave Earth and Ren'Ca unnoticed.

Searching the area, she soon found the equipment that was supposed to be jamming Earth news signals. As she expected, it was set to only half power. Apparently Ren'Ca was not completely oblivious to the possibility that his fellow Ra might try to leave Earth in the Mother Ship without him. Only when Dow was sure that Earth newscasts were jammed would he consider leaving. With the ground based jammer at only half power, the Mother Ship would be obliged to stay near Earth until Renson returned.

Twig rigged the jammer to indicate half power status regardless of what its true setting was; that way Ren'Ca could not know that she had now adjusted it to actually jam at full power. She wondered if any Earth news-casts had gotten through to the Galactic League monitoring equipment while the jammer was set at only half-power and the Mother Ship was busy chasing the humans. If so, she would not receive a very warm welcome when she got back to Ra.

She entered the Warren ship and began to reprogram it, then sent a message to the Mother Ship that she had successfully completed her mission. She received no reply. Perhaps Dow'Na decided that a reply might be sensed by Ren'Ca.

She tuned to a human COM news broadcast and soon found out that the Mother Ship had been destroyed! She would have collapsed in shock, had she not been sitting in the Warren Ship pilot's seat. Dow and crew were dead and gone! That left only herself, Melberg, and Ren'Ca on Earth!

She had to consider the Melberg situation. Without doubt, by now her Warren-mate was on his way here to commandeer the last remaining Warren Ship himself. Was she better off with or without Melberg? She had to think about that question more, but at the moment she couldn't think of any compelling reason not to let him die here with Ren'Ca.

And what about the humans? Would they come here? When? Was the Warren Ship a match for their Bus? A day earlier and she would have laughed at such a consideration; but that was before the Mother Ship had been destroyed. In addition, what was the big secret here in the jungle that everyone was so interested in? Was it also dangerous? Or, even more intriguing, was it valuable? Was it a prize that the Ca'Ra order coveted for themselves that she could obtain and sell to the Na'Ra or on the black market?

Twig decided not to stick around Earth-bound, waiting for Melberg, the humans, Ren'Ca, and whatever mystery was compelling everyone to come to Guatemala. That could be far too dangerous. She powered op the Warren Ship and in less than a minute the sleek saucer lifted out of the jungle and up into space.

However, she didn't go very far. Not just yet. She put the ship into geosynchronous orbit above Guatemala, then sat back to watch what would happen next, and to ponder her next move. Destruction of the Mother Ship had thrown all previous plans out the window. She needed time to re-assess things, and she judged that she had some time to do so. Even if Earth broadcasts were on their way to alerting the Galactic League, it would take several more days for any League response. By that time Earth would be struck by Dannos and direct evidence of Ra involvement would be destroyed. Perhaps there was even a chance that somehow she could still pull off more of the mission after all, and get all of the credit and riches for herself.

****

Melberg arrived deep in the Guatemalan jungles just in time to see the Warren Ship lift off without him. However, the event hardly caused him to pause. After all, it's what he had expected. Twig had indeed gotten here first. He immediately continued on deeper into the jungle towards ground zero. His only hope now was to solve the mystery of whatever was to be found at ground zero, or to perhaps commandeer the human's primitive Space Bus, if and when it arrived on the scene. He still had valuable data cubes in his pockets, enough to make him rich on Ra. He would try to contact Twig, and buy passage home with her.

Knowledge about the Ground Zero mystery might also prove to be valuable. In pursuing that venue however, he would have to avoid Ren'Ca, as such an encounter would surely serve to hasten his demise. Hopefully, the mystery would keep the Ca'Ra too occupied to detect the presence of his old shipmate. Removing his shoes and socks to free his long grasping toes, he easily climbed a towering jungle tree to reconnoiter the lay of the land in the direction of the Dannos impact point.

When he tried to look in the direction of the impact point however, he felt strangely nauseated and filled with foreboding. He recognized immediately that he was being influenced to avoid further progress towards the impact point by incredibly powerful empathic signals, similar to those employed by Ra when hunting and incapacitating prey.

What was the source, however? The signals were far too strong to be produced even by any Ca'Ra, so the source wasn't Ren'Ca. Yet, no artificial means were known to be capable of producing empathic signals, so the source had to be living!

Melberg climbed down the tree and resumed his stealthy advance towards the impact point. It felt good to be away from human cities and stench. This jungle reminded him of the Ra home world, except that the creatures in this jungle were far less deadly and interesting. Some of them were very tasty, however.

Ahead he saw a glint of something metallic that slithered along the ground like a snake. He couldn't sense it empathically, so it wasn't alive; he couldn't imagine what it could be. When he got closer he realized that rather than being one object it was a collection of thousands of insect-sized objects that clung together as it slithered and surged forward in waves of smaller pieces of itself. As thick as his thigh, it stretched to the left and right tens of meters and further until it disappeared in the green of jungle; he could see no end to it in either direction.

He hissed in surprise when he finally realized that it had to be an enormous colony of countless nanobots. It had obviously been deployed by Ren'Ca. Each insect-sized part of it was in turn made up of millions of microscopic robots. Now that he was closer he could see that countless thinner parts of it reached down into the soil like roots, doubtlessly to obtain materials for the growth of more nanites. A few tendrils led to trees and twined about them, tapping into tree-generated sap and carbon-based cell structures and consuming them.

The nanobots weren't there to simply grow however, they must be programed to protect the impact point against intruders. He had just decided that they could pose a danger to him when he felt something on his leg. He tried to step away but found that he couldn't move either leg. Both his legs were firmly encased in a tangle of pencil-thin nanobot tendrils that in seconds had sprouted up from the ground without him noticing.

He resisted his initial impulse to struggle and strike out at them. It was already far too late for that. His only hope lay in its programming.

The coils around his legs grew and surged over him until they covered his entire body, but they still hadn't harmed him. If he had been assessed to be an enemy he would already be dead and consumed, so they still hadn't decided if he was friend or foe. That they were even bothering to make such an assessment was a hopeful sign. They obviously hadn't been programmed to kill everything that they encountered. They now covered everything except his face, however. They could constrict and crush him in an instant, or burn him to a cinder and make use of his charred remains as building material for more nanites.

Could they hear sound? He didn't see obvious ear-like structures but he spoke a few words in Ra, identifying his name and rank. Immediately they stopped swarming over him. He felt a pin-prick on his left cheek. Several long moments later the nanobot tendrils rapidly flowed down and off of him. In seconds they had disappeared into the Earth, where they would resume eating and growing and waiting for intruders.

They were programmed not to harm Ra. Greatly relieved; Melberg more cautiously resumed his hike towards the impact point. He simply stepped over the thick coil of nanobots, carefully avoiding stepping on any parts of it that were visible. He was confident that as long as he didn't attack it, it wouldn't trouble him again.

He was startled when he noticed that he now wore a narrow shiny metallic bracelet around one of his wrists. The nanobots hadn't completely left him. They had tagged him as not being an enemy, but probably still tracked his movements. Melberg smiled. He could reprogram these nanobots if it suited him; he could reprogram them to make himself virtually invincible, if necessary, even from Ren'Ca. Long ago he was one of the inventers of the Ra nanobots. That could come in handy when he found Ren'Ca.

Ren'Ca had somehow managed to obtain highly illegal nanobot weaponry, but that could backfire on the Ca'Ra.

****
Ren'Ca continued his mental struggle with The Sleeping Great One. By now he had fallen into a rhythm. During quiet periods of the Great One's slumber, the weary Ca'Ra got precious minutes of rest. Then a mental barrage was sure to follow. He estimated that he could put up with this grueling regimen for only a few more days, but that would be more than long enough. The Great One and the humans would die.

During one of the more 'quiet' periods Ren'Ca called the Mother Ship. Though Dow reported that the Bus had still not been found, Ren'Ca felt relieved to hear the voice of another Ra. Still, something bothered him about their brief conversation. Dow seemed just a bit odd, in some way that he could not quite place. He wanted to think about it more, but The Great One chose that moment to dream.

****

Across America and around the world, Dannos and the Ra were on the lips and minds of nearly all of humanity. Most of the VISICOM channels were full of replay and analysis of the Bates news conference, of the saucer sightings and the destruction of the Ra Mother Ship, of unicorns, aliens and ghosts, and especially of Dannos.

There was a resurgence of science. Long forgotten astronomers, physicists, geologists, weapons experts, and other scientifically and technologically competent people were wrenched from retirement homes, schoolrooms, and Burger King grills to assess what would happen when Dannos struck Earth. Hundreds of VISICOM channels and other conveyances of information were replete with views visual and abstract of Dannos tumbling through space towards its deadly rendezvous with Earth.

Scientists were having almost as much trouble as laymen conceptualizing the exact effects of ten-million-million tons of iron slamming into the Earth at roughly a hundred thousand miles an hour, but the unprecedented consequences could be understood in general terms by all. Dannos would easily punch through the Earth's crust, pulverizing and vaporizing it, and shattering the Earth for many more miles.

The shock would be tremendous, causing world-wide quakes of magnitudes never before experienced in human history. Thousands of cubic miles of Magma would shoot up from and then seep from the Earth's open wound, as well as from volcanoes shook into activity, while atmospheric debris and water would rain down in deluges that would bury entire continents in meters of dust and mire. Firestorms and deadly gasses would ravage the globe. Giant ocean waves would inundate much of the land and strip it down to bedrock. The energy released would melt the polar ice-caps in the short term, while the blanketing effects of fine particles in the upper atmosphere would then bring world-wide Arctic temperatures that could last for years or even centuries. An ice age would result.

Both because of and despite all the media hype, the reality of the coming planetary catastrophe was slowly sinking into the consciousness of many, while just as many denied the whole business on grounds that were religious, philosophical, totally irrational, or some combination thereof. Many people went on with their normal routines, though most were just going through the motions. Others quit jobs or spouses that they had hated for years and went on last 'flings'. Top corporate executives and other VIPs could be found at fishing holes, bowling alleys, and brothels.

But the mass panic, rioting, and suicides that governments feared simply didn't materialize. Instead, packed Churches stayed open twenty-four hours a day, and vacations, marriages, and the sale of toys and luxury items shot up several hundred percent, as people rushed to complete their lives in record time, hang the expense.

Jigs Airlines was a flurry of activity, but not with vacationers. All Jigs commercial flights were halted, and dozens of aircraft were ordered to stock up with camping supplies, prepare for long flights, and to simply stand-by at airports across America and much of the world. Where they were going and why was a complete mystery, but compared to the other strange things happening this was back-page news.

The hottest news of all was of a small team of people, ex-people, and non-people somewhere in the Great Smokies National Forest in North Carolina that were reported to somehow be working to save the Earth. Armies of reporters, denied access to the Smokes by stubborn cops and Jigs pseudo-cops, descended on relatives, friends, and anyone at all who knew or claimed to know Latanna, Barns, the Thermans, Winnebago, Hank, Mel and Jane, Oscar, Norma, Sandra, Janet, Elizabeth, Don, Gus, Johnny, Dooley, or Geronimo. B-Team members were becoming household names thanks to VISICOM.

The very hottest name of all was that of the mysterious Team leader, Narbando T. Bates. Interviews of his landlady, barber, dentist, insurance agent, coworkers, grade-school teachers, and others suggested that Bates had kept his full talents well hidden until now. There were also subtle hints of scandal from an exotic dancer in the DC area, and from a convenience store operator who claimed to have recently sold Bates politically incorrect, counter-reactionary music by The Fuming Right.

Of greater concern to the public and to world leaders was the growing issue of how Bates and his Team planned to save the Earth. Nobody seemed to know how Dannos was to be stopped, with of course the exception of Bates and his Team, according to President Elizabeth Wright and John Ryan, her Chief of Staff.

The President and Mr. Ryan continued to reassure the public while skillfully evading the issue, by telling the press that the Team's plans were top secret. Thus they avoided revealing to the public the real secret. Government leaders didn't have the slightest idea how Dannos was to be stopped, and worse yet, Bates and his Team didn't either.

****

CHAPTER 43

THE TRAVELER

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

\- Eden Phillpots

"Where are they?" Bates demanded of Jake repeatedly, as he and the others looked in vain for Steve and Hank in the area surrounding the Pit, and he and Krog pulled frantically back on the ropes that were hopefully still attached to their two companions. The ropes came back all too easily. In seconds, the unoccupied ends of both ropes were in their hands. One rope end looked like it was cut, the other looked like it was melted.

"Now how the deuce should I know where they are?" replied Jake. "You folks was suppose to be the experts on this here pit thing! Guess that ain't so. But don't you worry yourself none; they'll be out di-rectly. I done the same thing my own self three times. They just gonna be a little con-fused to start is all."

Sure enough, after a few minutes a haggard looking Steve Latanna suddenly materialized in the clearing and bounded straight into Bates! The two of them tumbled to the ground, but Steve bounced right up again and continued running. Milo, thinking it some sort of wonderful new game where folks got to knock down his master, joined in the festivities by knocking Bates down again when he was half way back up.

"Steve, wait!" shouted Bates, from a safer, prone position.

Johnny Goth bolted towards Steve with impossible speed and tackled him to the ground. The stunned governor offered no resistance when Johnny and Dooley helped him up and walked him to Bates.

"Steve, are you all right?" Bates asked him.

The blank look on the governor's face suddenly registered recognition. "Steve! That's my name, isn't it?" he asked.

"Sure it is!" reassured Janet. "You're our friend, Steve Latanna. Won't you tell us what happened? Where is Hank?"

"I am Steve Latanna!" he said, the tension draining from his face for just a moment. "But who's Hank?" He sat down heavily on the rough rocky ground, shaking his head slowly, trying to remember more of the millions of memories that helped him define himself as the others gathered around him.

"What happened, Latanna?" asked Bates, after giving him a few more moments to catch his breath and gather his wits.

"What do you mean?" replied Steve. "Did something happen?"

"What did you see when you walked into the Black Pit?"

"Pit? Is that where I was? Say, am I an Apache Indian?" He was looking at his dark, reddish tinged hands.

"You're an Apache Indian Chief even, not to mention Governor of Arizona to boot. But Hank is still in there somewhere, and we need to know if he's in danger. What were you running away from just now?"

Steve took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and sat silently in concentration for long seconds before replying. "Confusion mostly. I was confused. Still am a bit confused. Couldn't even remember who I was! I think that caused some panic. It's like my mind's been scrambled; shuffled like a deck of cards. But I'm starting to remember more things. You're Bates aren't you? And now I remember Hank too; he was with me.

"We were entering a dark place, as though we walked from day into night, and it was a deep place, for the ground sloped steeply down. In a way, it was like stepping under some great mountain; it was cold and silent, like being inside an ancient grave. Then I looked around, and Hank was gone! I spoke his name, but I couldn't even hear my own voice!

"I decided to go on alone; after all, how far could it be, to get through? It was really only a small clearing, after all. So I went on, feeling my way using outstretched hands and feet. The grass was gone. My feet trod first on rock, then stones, and finally sand, and it grew still colder and darker. I went for perhaps a hundred meters that way, far enough to cross the clearing many times over. How that's possible, I don't know. As far as I could tell I was walking straight, but it was becoming more and more difficult to tell; one direction seemed pretty much like another, except for the downward slope I followed.

"At last I reached the bottom; for as I walked around, I could feel that the sand sloped upwards from that spot in all directions. Still there was nothing to see or hear, and I mean nothing! It was pitch dark, and silent as death. Worse yet, I was feeling very strange. Confused. I began to wonder where I was, and why I was there.

"Then I thought that I could hear voices in my head, very strange voices. It was almost like making contact with spirits. I couldn't understand the voices, but it wasn't merely a problem of language. Some of the thoughts felt very strange and frightening.

"By that time I couldn't even remember my own name! I suddenly wanted to get away from there, as the place was disturbing and I couldn't think of any reason to be there in the first place. I was afraid that I was losing myself forever. I have vague memories of running, falling, and getting up and running again. Up, towards the light. And then I found myself in the midst of you people. And since I didn't even recognize any of you, the best thing seemed to be to keep right on running."

"How long would you say you were in the Pit, Steve?' asked Bates.

"Fifteen, twenty minutes tops," said Steve, looking at his watch. "Oops. Looks more like nine or ten, by my watch.

"More like only three and a half, by mine," said Bates.

"Right," said Janet. "Three and a half minutes by mine too. It couldn't have been nine!" The group muttered their agreement.

"Damned interesting!" exclaimed Bates, as the group compared watches. "Space and time distortions. A wormhole maybe? Laws of nature as we know them gone ca-fluey for sure! It could be some sort of gateway to another universe perhaps. I wish Mel was here, maybe he'd have some better scientific ideas about this. It could be dangerous though, I should think." He stared with renewed concern at Steve. "Maybe someone could come out of it with their ears on their backside, or worse. Who knows?"

"I believe I do, human," said an instantly recognizable voice. Much to the relief of the Team, Pru was walking out of the Pit, with a grinning Hank riding high on her back.

"You all right, nephew?" asked Jake.

"I'm just fine, Uncle Jake," Hank replied with uncharacteristic joviality, as he climbed nimbly from the unicorn's back. Unlike Steve, Hank didn't appear to be affected at all by his encounter with the Black Pit.

"Do it now, or I'll do it for you!" snorted Pru angrily, as she turned to face Hank with lowered horn!

Before anyone else could react, the form of Hank wavered and flowed, and suddenly there stood Fen in his place! "Ta-da!" he said, with a flourish, grinning broadly.

He found himself looking down the barrel of Jake's deer rifle. "Where the hell's my nephew, goat breath?" demanded Jake.

"By now he's with the others at the Lodge, whisker face," replied Fen good naturedly. "During the hike to meet you I talked him into switching places with me. He knew that I'd be of more use. At least he knows talent when he sees it!"

"How did you know all them things about Hank, goat face?" Jake demanded to know.

"I sometimes do a little mind-melding with those I copy, human," Fen explained.

Jake suddenly found that he was pointing a floor-mop at the goat man instead of a rifle, but he wasn't about to be put off so easily. "Now I'll just bet this here mop's loaded, goat man!" he said, and held the end of it to Fen's chest. The resulting expression on Fen's face suggested that the old mountain man was indeed right. What appeared to be a mop must still actually still be a rifle.

"Now hold on there, Whitcome," interjected Bates. "Is that mop loaded? You better put it away before you hurt someone!"

"Allow me!" said Pru. There was a flash where the mop/rifle had been. The rifle now floated several feet above Pru's head and Jake was empty handed. "We waste time we have not," said the unicorn. She turned one black eye towards Jake. "This matter is closed human. What punishment this one deserves it is my place to render." She turned black-pit eyes to stare for a moment at a cowering Fen, and then towards Bates.

"This place is indeed the ancient instrument of travel and communication between distant worlds that we of The People knew very long ago. It is how we elementals originally came to this world. But I have not seen its like since the early days of Earth."

"Do you know how it works then?" asked Bates. "Can you have it bring the Traveler here? And if so, would the process be safe?"

"I do not believe it likely that it would do its users physical harm; you need not fear for the misplacement of ears or other organs. Its design would prevent such harm, assuming that the machine remains intact after countless millenia. But the process of use may be difficult, especially for an undisciplined telepathic, with results dangerous in some other ways. Alas, the precise art of its use is lost to me. It has been far too long since I have used this device for me to be of much use now."

"We do have some clues though, I believe," said Bates, who thought that Pru was giving up far too easily. Perhaps because the unicorn was so used to being able to do things easily, trying to do something new or long forgotten was difficult. "Sound apparently doesn't work in there, but telepathy might. And humans get brain-scrambled in there, but not folks like Pru and Fen. Pru, if you were to simply call for the Traveler telepathically, perhaps he would hear and come."

"I took the liberty of trying that already, human, when I explored the space/time portal minutes ago," said Pru. "I asked for the Traveler. Many voices I heard, as even the Governor did also, but none responded to my summons."

Bates looked from person to person, considering each of them.

"Pru is a much stronger telepathic than either me or Dooley," noted Johnny Goth. "So I doubt that we could do the required summoning any better."

"Well then," pathed Krog to everyone loudly, "Pru and I shall together go in and produce the call in greater volume telepathic as is required!"

The unusual duo, unicorn and Kronan, walked into the Black Pit and quickly disappeared from the sight of their companions.

Whereas the Pit had seemed desolate and deserted to Steve Latanna, it was not so for Krog and Pru. Instantly, they were bombarded by hundreds of thoughts. Some were the perceptions of others, as sounds, sights, or sensations of touch that were clear and strong for several moments. Many were feelings, ranging the gamut from fear and hate through longing and love.

But the dominant thoughts were apparently communications in the form of speech or song, which could not be understood through the barrier of language, but could still be identified by their rich complexity of structure. Nor was the Pit totally dark in the presence of the unicorn, as she glowed to dimly illuminate her immediate surroundings, especially her horn. Light was somehow consumed in this strange place however, for even the unicorn light dissipated over an unusually short distance.

The 'voices' that had confused and frightened Steve did not trouble either Krog or Pru, who were both used to dealing with the din produced within communities of many telepaths. Mental telepathy was in fact one of the more common means of communication in the Universe. The duo could sift through the incoming thoughts the way that a human did with sights and sounds, isolating and focusing on individual sources at will.

Now they both chanted in unison the single human word 'Traveler' again and again. Then they waited and listened. They repeated this procedure several times without apparent result.

"Perhaps we must be at the very center?" pathed Pru, as the glowing unicorn, followed by the Kronan, walked even further downhill to the sandy bottom of the Pit. To find a sizable area of sand in a mountain glen would be extremely odd, but Pru suspected that wherever they were they were no longer actually on an Earthly mountain ridge or anywhere on Earth at all. Here the mental 'voices' they heard were much louder. Again the two chanted their message in unison and again they waited.

Suddenly they both sensed another presence, and turned to face a black shrouded individual that had materialized close to where they stood! The individual appeared to be a human wearing a black hooded robe: a man of medium height and age, with pale face, long prematurely graying hair, and deep blue eyes. However, both Pru and Krog could immediately tell that they were in the presence of a powerful telepath, while Pru perceived that the being they faced was certainly not human..

"You are Pru, the elemental," pathed the newcomer, in perfect American. "Fascinating. And of course your companion is Krog, the loud shouting telepath."

_"_ You are the one known as The Traveler? _"_ Pru asked in reply.

"Yes, certainly. Nice to meet you both. But now you must take me to the humans immediately. My urgent business is with the one called Bates. _"_

"But you too are an elemental! From what world do you come? I must know!" said Pru, who turned a dark eye towards the stranger.

_"_ Ordinarily I would be very happy to explain what I know, but you catch me at a very busy time. Unfortunately I must return to other worlds almost immediately, so we will have to delay for an indeterminate time our talk of such things. However, let me assure you that I am not the Enemy, nor are you and I related except by happenstance of similar basic composition. Now then, where are Bates and his family? _"_

The unicorn snorted but nodded in agreement. Led by the glowing unicorn, the trio walked rapidly up and out of the Black Pit, where the remainder of the company greeted them with relief.

"I was just about to go into the Pit to look for you!" said Fen. "You've been gone nearly an hour. Hey! Is this guy in black the one we wanted? Interesting look." Fen's shape wavered, and in moments a second Traveler stood facing the original.

"You have an interesting gift," said the Traveler, in a clear tenor voice. "It is one that I also share." His form wavered also, and in moments assumed the normal form of the goat man!

There followed for the next minute an extraordinary, dizzying display of this strange talent, in which each of the two practitioners of the rare art of shape shifting paced around the other while changing form rapidly, from beast to human, to plant, to rock, etc. Nothing was sacred. Team members, People of The Land, lions tigers and bears, mice and men, dogs and cats, women and children, Haspa and Kronan, in poses dignified, comical, ludicrous, and even lewd, faced each other as they paced around in a circle.

After a short while it was quite impossible to tell which one was which. Finally, they ended up as two laughing copies of the black shrouded Traveler, who through some trick of telepathy, managed to turn simultaneously to face Bates and speak to him in chorus.

"Well, this has really been quite amusing, but we simply must get on with the business at hand. You are of course Narbando T. Bates?" said the Travelers in unison.

Poor Bates held out his hand in greeting to one of the Travelers, but Pru tapped that one on the head rather sharply with her horn and that particular Traveler transformed back into the grinning little goat-man Fen!

"Oh, sorry!" said Bates, turning at once to shake the real Traveler's hand. He noticed that the Traveler had a six fingered hand, but otherwise appeared human, in so far as he could be seen, which wasn't far, as the Traveler was shrouded by a black hooded robe so perfect in its blackness that it reminded Bates of Pru's black pit eyes.

"Quite understandable," replied The Traveler, smiling. "I myself thought for a moment that he was me. I'm pleased to meet you at last, Doctor Bates, but I'm afraid we haven't time to chat or play more shape games. You have your very urgent asteroid problem, as described to me by Jigs in years past, but I've got several other worlds in equally dire need that I must attend to immediately."

"Can you save us from the asteroid?" asked Bates.

"Not directly," replied the Traveler. "That's not really my line of work. It's out of my swim lane, some of you would say. That sort of thing is what Guardians do. Saving planets is usually a do-it-yourself deal, and this is no exception. As your folk would also put it, I'm not typically a 'hands-on' individual; I'm more of a behind the scenes sort, much like our mutual friend Guardian Jigs. You'll have to do the real work, Dr. Bates, you and your fellow Guardians, and your talented friends of course. Johnny and Dooley, you have already realized your full potentials and will in the not too distant future have things to do associated with Goth Mountain, according to Jigs. It's time for Guardian Bates to step up to the plate, so to speak."

"What's a Guardian?" asked Bates. "And why are you calling me one?"

"Because that's what's needed here, and you happen to be the candidate of choice. It must be by your own choice, by the way; you have to want to be a Guardian! It's a sort of rule that I insist upon."

"Want to be one? I don't even know what it means!" said an exasperated Bates.

"Quite right. Sorry, I'm in such a hurry that I'm muddling this a bit. Call it fate or whatever, but you Dr. Bates, are destined to be a Guardian for Earth, this galaxy, and neighbors in parallel universes. And your family too!"

"But I'm not a family man!" exclaimed Bates.

"Ah-hum," said Elizabeth. "I think he might mean your new family, Dad! Am I right, Mr. Traveler?"

"Exactly, young lady, quite insightful. Elizabeth, isn't it? Although your father here will be the immediate Guardian of record, in this case the job will need to be passed on from generation to generation of the Guardian's family, along with the special talents of the Guardian."

"But I don't have any special talents!" said Bates. The assembled Team surrounding Bates nodded and mumbled in affirmation.

"Well of course you don't!" agreed The Traveler. "That's why I'm here. And there, and everywhere else, popping in and out of hundreds of worlds, some much like this one, all the while talking to confused folks like yourselves and looking for potential talent. For you see, my own greatest talent is the power to take the raw potential in other beings and make it real. And believe it or not, Dr. Bates, you're full of unrealized potential. Why, your whole race is packed with under achievers, among whom you tower!"

"Thanks, I think," said Bates, who was having a little trouble taking in the cosmic sweep of what the Traveler was trying to explain. "So what exactly is involved in this Guardian business? If I agree, how would you make me realize my unrealized potential? And exactly what is my potential?"

"So many questions! You are indeed a race of the curious! Most beings would be satisfied, grateful even, simply to receive what I am offering, without getting into the gory details. But OK, you asked for it. Have you heard of gene splicing?"

The humans nodded.

"Well this is something else altogether. You don't have words for it yet, but gene slicing and dicing, juggling, mixing and melding is about as close as I can come to it using your limited science vocabulary. As to what potential you will realize as a result, frankly, I'm afraid that I don't know. Improvement results from the process though, usually. It's a special knack of mine. You might achieve similar results through normal mundane evolution, but that could take millions of years. You clearly don't have time for that."

Bates felt faint; Steve Latanna had to prop him up to keep him from collapsing. "You've got to be kidding! You want to scramble my genes, and you don't even know what the results will be? Have you done this before? Did you do it to Jigs?"

"I didn't have to do it to Jigs; he has been scrambled since birth and his talent came naturally. But I've done it many hundreds of times to others. Not to humans, but most life forms that I've done it to are similar enough to yours for me to feel reasonably confident that the results will probably be OK."

"Reasonably? Probably be OK?" Bates exclaimed.

"Sure enough to give it a shot," said the Traveler. "I've gotten pretty good at this sort of thing."

"Pretty good?" Bates again whined.

"Yes. Do what you're good at, that's my motto. But there's more to it than that. You have to first promise to use your talents for the good of your planet and others in the struggle against evil."

"What evil? You mean the Ra?"

"They're a part of it, certainly. But they are mere agents of much worse evil. There are much darker forces behind the Ra. Sorry, I shouldn't give you details."

"But this is all so fantastic!" said Bates. "I don't know what to think! Still, I do know that I'm not too keen on getting my genes scrambled!"

"It's all rubbish!" said a deep, authoritative voice. Krog, who had been silent throughout the entire exchange, had clearly been developing a viewpoint that he now expressed with authoritative vigor. "Compost, pure, it is! Why, a senior member am I of the Galactic League Board of Exploration, and I have heard not a thought of any of this sort of rubbish! Guardians? Gene scrambling wholesale? Beyond our capabilities that is, and beyond the capabilities of member races that are more advanced even than are we in such matters! The resulting creature of such a scramble would likely not live a minute, let along be improved.

"Further, your concept of 'evil' is nonsense arcane. Mischievous the Ra are, this is true, and not to be trusted, but are dark forces of true 'evil' behind them? I don't think so! Further, this device by which you arrived is also unknown to us completely, and highly suspect. And lastly, I am not convinced that trusted you can be. If there _is_ evil true, perhaps you are it!"

Bates was amazed by the outburst. Apparently, all this business was bizarre even for the supposedly advanced and sophisticated Kronan, who was beginning to remind him of Dr. Barns.

"I agree with my colleague," stated little Wink. "What you describe falls far outside the realm of our experience, and is hence highly suspect."

"And do you plan to also scramble the genes of my children?" asked a disturbed Janet Garb. An alarmed mom is a force to be reckoned with, even when facing cosmic events and a bizarre cast of mysterious, powerful beings.

The Traveler, shaking his head sadly, chose to completely ignore both Janet and the space aliens. "Well then! Enough irrelevant idle chatter and pleasantries!" he said, clasping his hands together impatiently. "I'm afraid there is no time for more. Nasty events are unfolding in other realms as well as this one and I must leave very soon. Dr. Bates, the time has come for you to decide. Am I to perform my function and you yours to save Earth? Or are you simply wasting my time? What's it going to be?"

Bates stopped pacing about and pulling on his thin hair, before abruptly turning to face The Traveler. "Yes. Sure, I want to be a Guardian," he said suddenly. "And I promise to be a multi-universal good guy. I say let's get on with it!"

"Narb!" said Janet. "Are you sure?"

"What choice do I have? As things stand now I certainly don't have the foggiest idea how the hell to save Earth! Do any of you?" He looked around at the others. They were silent. Even Krog of the great Galactic League, and Pru of the mighty People had no plan that would stop the destruction of Earth.

"You are right," agreed Steve Latanna, thoughtfully. "This is your path, Bates, to know and to follow. Like you, I believe this is our only hope."

"Trust in Pru, Bates, that's my advice," said Johnny Goth.

"Whatever happens, human, you will not be alone in your quest," said Pru. "And I tell you now that I do indeed trust this strange elemental in black. He tells you the truth as he knows it, as is MY power to know." Pru turned a dark eye towards the Traveler and was met with his smile and knowing stare. "I strongly advise that you submit to what the Traveler wants to do to you."

Hearing this from the great unicorn and the others helped with Bates' resolve greatly, though he was still terrified. But what about his new family? He was suddenly frightened for them more so then for himself. "Traveler, must my, ah, family be part of this?"

"It's up to them of course, but I would recommend it strongly. You will receive the bulk of the change, but they would receive some also. Guardians of the Multiverse are hard to come by, even fledgling apprentices like yourselves."

"I'm game!" said Elizabeth. "I've always wanted to save planets and so forth."

"Sure Dad!" said Don. "If Elizabeth does it, I'm in too."

"Well I think I have something to say about this!" said a still disturbed Janet.

Bates pulled her aside and talked quietly with his long lost love. "Janet, remember, we'll all be dead in two and a half days if this doesn't work. If it does, maybe we have a chance! Liz and Don, and me and you, as well as humanity!"

"All right!" Janet said at last, and turned to face The Traveler. "I'm in. We all are. So what do we have to do?"

"It's about time!" said The Traveler. "This isn't the only troubled planet or universe you know! Bates stand before me, with the family standing around you closely and holding on to you tightly. That's it. Just stand still for a minute. This probably won't hurt much at all, especially after you lose consciousness."

"Hurt? Lose consciousness?" asked Bates anxiously, but The Traveler already had both of his six-fingered hands on his shoulders, and suddenly time stood still as everything went black.

****

CHAPTER 44

FORGING THE KEY

He gave her a look you could have poured on a waffle.

-Ring Larder

When Bates woke, innumerable strange sensations assailed him. He tingled and ached all over strangely and was lying butt up, thrown over something massive that was swinging back and forth rhythmically. His ankles were grasped firmly by something, but his arms, head, and torso were hanging and swinging freely with the rhythmic motion. Opening his eyes, he saw rugged terrain passing by, and what could have been thick green legs that moved in rhythm with his own swinging, but all was very blurred, since he wasn't wearing his glasses. At about the same time, he realized that whatever he was thrown over was alive and huge, perhaps a horse or a camel.

"Where the hell am I?" he asked loudly.

"You have the honor extreme to being borne by this member of the Galactic League High Council, human," came the immediate reply, so loud that it seemed to bore directly into his head, while at the same time the swinging walk stopped and he was lifted off the massive shoulder of Krog and sat down gently onto a surprisingly soft stretch of leaf-covered ground.

"Bates! Are you all right?" asked a familiar voice, and Bates was relieved to recognize the blurred face of Mel, along with those of Jane and Oscar, bent over him.

"I feel sore, tired, and I'm hungry as hell, but I'll do," he replied.

"I'll be the judge of that," said Jane, feeling his forehead and pulse. "Pulse is strong and normal. Temperature's about right too. If anything, I'd say he looks better than he did this morning, if I'm any judge of man-flesh."

"And she is!" attested Mel.

Johnny Goth knelt next to Bates and placed a hand on his forehead. "He still appears to be perfectly normal and healthy," he announced, after a few seconds.

"The life force in him is now super strong," added Dooley, "like with Johnny."

"Does anyone have my glasses?" Bates asked.

"Sure buddy," said a relieved Oscar, as he put the thick specs on his friend.

Looking around, Bates saw that the seven of them were alone. "Where is everybody else? And where did you guys come from?"

"I'll bring you up to date," said Mel. "We arrived a few minutes ago in the Bus after Johnny came and got us. He told us that you, Janet, and the kids were unconscious and needed to be cared for."

"Pru and I checked everyone over first, and we could find nothing wrong with any of you," explained Johnny. "We would have done healing, if any healing was necessary. I thought that you'd like to be with your friends, so here we are."

"Are Janet and the kids OK?"

"They appear to be just fine, aside from aches and cramps," said Oscar, bending over his friend. "You seem to have gotten the major dose of whatever the Traveler dished out. You've been out for an hour, but the others woke up in minutes. They're already in the Bus, eating everything in sight. By the way, that includes Milo."

"They're eating Milo?" Bates asked in alarm.

"No, wise-ass!" Oscar laughed. "He's eating away our food supply too! He was standing among your legs when the Traveler blasted all of you; his genes or whatever must have been scrambled too. Not as much as yours though, you were out cold. Jane wanted to call in doctors for you, but according to Johnny if he and Pru couldn't fix it, it couldn't be fixed, or it doesn't need fixed.

"Our unicorn friend's been by regularly, poking with that horn of hers all of you that got scrambled by the Traveler, and she's been reassuring everyone that everything is all right, though she hasn't elaborated. Apparently she doesn't want to disturb whatever was done to you folks, though she's been damned curious about whatever that Traveler character did."

Bates nodded. "That reminds me, Johnny; I've been meaning to talk to you about Pru. I have some questions."

Johnny sat down cross-legged beside Bates. "What do you want to know?"

"Well, you have apparently known Pru for a long time."

"For as long as I can remember. She is very special to the Goths, the Simples, and the Tribe."

"Tribe?" asked Oscar.

"The Indian Tribe that lives at Goth Mountain. Dooley and I are Tribe members. The Tribe has been associated with Pru for thousands of years."

"Pru is thousands of years old?" Mel asked.

"Pru is millions of years old," Johnny stated.

"Millions?" Bates responded.

"Pru is very special," Dooley added.

"And she has something to do with the Sleeping Great One, apparently," noted Bates. "Has she ever explained exactly what her relationship with the Great One is?"

"No," said Johnny. "I've asked her but she says that it's too dangerous a secret to tell anyone."

"That doesn't sound good," remarked Oscar.

"I have confidence that if and when we need to know she'll tell us," said Johnny.

"You trust her completely then?"

"Absolutely," said Johnny.

Bates shook his head and sighed. Pru having big secrets was par for the course. On paper he was leading the effort to save Earth and should probably know everything about everything, but he was actually a puppet of Jigs, Pru, and now the Traveler. It all came down to trust, he realized; trust in old friends and in people that he just met, even non-human people. Earth was due to be wacked by an alien redirected asteroid but Earth was hopefully about to saved by other aliens. Was it all some sort of balance in karma thing maybe? "Thanks for the input Johnny. Now we need to get going. We have a mission to complete."

Come on, Bates," said Oscar, "the Bus is in a flat glade right on the other side of this next hill. Can you walk?"

"Damned if I know. Let's find out!"

Oscar and Mel helped their friend to stand up, but Bates was still too weak to walk and he tumbled to the ground promptly. He ached and tingled all over. Krog hoisted him back onto his huge shoulders, and riding while sitting upright this time, Bates was carried back to the Bus with his head more than three meters above the deer path. Aside from being swatted by a few branches, the arrangement worked quite well. "What about the Traveler?" Bates asked from his lofty perch.

"Traveling, so it seems, if moving through multi-dimensions can be termed as such," pathed Krog. "When he finished with you humans, to the Pit he returned and disappeared."

"He hit the road," said Mel. "And so did Hank's Uncle Jake. Apparently he's seen enough of civilization for a while."

"Did the Traveler say anything else before he left?" asked Bates.

"He asked that we tell Jigs that he will meet him as is planned, and then he said good-by," pathed Krog.

"I don't know," said Mel. "I wasn't here yet. Perhaps you should ask that green, big shouldered friend you're sitting on."

"He already told me," said Bates, bewildered.

"Who told you what?" asked Oscar.

"Krog said that the Traveler said to tell Jigs that he'd meet him as planned, and then he just said good-by and disappeared into the Pit," replied Bates _._

"When did he tell you that?" asked Mel.

"Just seconds ago!" said Bates. "Didn't you hear him?"

"No. The big green guy's been quiet as a mouse," claimed Mel, "aside from his big, stomping feet."

"Most of your friends can't telepath, Bates _,_ " pathed Krog.

"And I can _?_ " Bates pathed back.

"Yes. And I wish you to be more disciplined in your thoughts _."_

"Sorry!" said Bates, out loud.

"About what?" asked Mel. "Hey! What's going on, anyway?"

"I'm strongly telepathic!" said an astounded Bates. "I've just been carrying on a two-way conversation with Krog about it."

"You'll get used to it," pathed Johnny.

"Astonishing!" remarked Mel. "Since many of us still aren't telepathic, the capability must have been induced by the Traveler!"

"Also," pathed Krog, "only when in the proximity of the unicorn, as this fact of unicorn proximity seems to better allow the use of telepathy. Though we see not the unicorn, doubtless she is near."

They had reached the Bus, and were warmly greeted by the rest of the Team, except for Janet, the kids, and Milo. "They're all inside stuffing themselves," explained Norma. "They haven't stopped eating since they got here."

"Well I hope that they saved something for me," said Bates. "I'm starving too."

They helped Bates inside the Bus and sat him down next to a huge pile of food that had been prepared in anticipation of his arrival. Bates dug right in. Chile, chicken, Twinkies; it didn't matter to him what it was, he shoveled it down like he hadn't eaten in a week. He hardly noticed when the Bus took off, or when it landed at the Lodge. He did notice when he was bodily removed from his food, but his friends pacified him by promising him that there would be as much food as he wanted inside the Lodge.

In the Lodge, Bates, and to a much lesser degree Janet, Don, Elizabeth and Milo, ate for the next three hours, pausing only occasionally to rush to the rest rooms to make room for more. Finally the fully stuffed apprentice Guardians were too exhausted to continue, and had to be helped to their beds, though it was only eight PM.

When Bates woke up three hours later, he felt perfectly rested. In fact, he felt more fit and full of energy than he could ever remember being. The aches and cramps were gone, and only a slight tingling remained. But it was a good tingling; he felt as if he was a spring coiled to erupt.

He took a quick shower, which turned out to be a very strange experience indeed. The body that he discovered was his body all right, but it was changed somehow. As his hands spread the soap, they encountered much more lean muscle than Bates could ever remember having. There was more hair too, much of it in places where he actually wanted more hair!

Quickly leaving the shower, he courageously examined himself in the full-length mirror that hotels always have, whether they are wanted or not. Normally he avoided such mirrors, for these unforgiving reflective surfaces tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about a person's body, something that Bates had been avoiding most of his life.

Now he was astonished at what he saw. There were no spare tires or other unsightly layers of fat! He struck several 'muscle-man' poses and was rewarded by ripples of muscle everywhere, including many muscles that he thought were only theoretical as far as his particular body was concerned. Thankfully, the muscles weren't grotesquely huge, like those of an over-done body-builder, but were more like those of a dancer, gymnast, or swimmer.

He might have stood admiring himself further, were it not for the sudden sounds of the shower being turned on next door. Janet was taking a shower, and like last night, he was again standing only feet from a door that led right into her adjoining room! The thoughts that then suddenly coursed through his mind activated other body parts that had also been further endowed by the Traveler induced metamorphosis.

Still, like last night, he was scared. Whatever the Traveler had done to him physically, his fundamental lack of self-confidence hadn't been transformed. As he heard the shower stop, his knuckles, though now bigger and stronger, again paused inches from the door. "I love you Janet, and I want you so bad!" he thought.

"So what's keeping you, Narb?" pathed Janet in return. "I want you too. And I'm curious about that new body you've been admiring in the mirror!"

"You can read my thoughts?"

"Sure can! Well, lots of them anyway. So, are you coming over here or am I going over there?"

Bates grasped the door knob and twisted. It resisted, so he twisted harder. With a loud snap, the knob and stem broke off in his hand.

"Damn!" he exclaimed. "I guess we should have unlocked it first!"

Janet unlocked and opened it using the knob on her side, much to their relief. At last the two long lost lovers faced each other, each filled with more passion then they had ever felt, except for perhaps that magic summer so long ago that they spent together as students in Arizona.

Janet was even more beautiful than he remembered, and his own appearance astounded Janet at least as much as it had astounded him. And if appearances astounded, there were no suitable words whatsoever to adequately describe the effects of touch, and smell, and taste, or, even more incredibly, the telepathic thoughts that cascaded back and forth between them, growing and ebbing with their cycles of love making, tearing through to their very souls.

In their brief periods of rest they shared even more: hopes and fears, regrets and guilt, anger and sorrows, embarrassments and proud, happy moments. By morning they were bonded, perhaps as no two human beings had ever been. Had they lived the last twenty years together, they could not have been closer.

Janet insisted that they get two hours of sleep in the morning, which required that they separate and return to their own rooms; otherwise, they would have never gotten any sleep at all. A little afraid that Bates would start their love making all over again when he woke, and gone on with it right through the destruction of the Earth, Janet woke first and quietly went down to the Lodge restaurant alone.

Most of the Team was already there eating breakfast, including Elizabeth and Don, who assured their mother that they were feeling fine that morning. Indeed, the two already fit youngsters also looked more fit than ever. Janet waved at everyone else, and then sat down with Jane and Mel.

"You and the kids look great!" said Jane in greeting. "Janet, you look radiant! Not even any circles under your eyes!"

"You and Mel look lousy!" replied Janet. "Didn't you sleep well?"

Jane and Mel looked each other and laughed. "Our room is right next to yours," Mel explained.

In a moment, Janet's face was beet red. "I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed. "I guess we got a little carried away."

"Don't be sorry, dear," said Jane. "More couples should get carried away like that! It reminded us of our own honeymoon in Vegas." Now it was Mel's face that turned red.

"I do request that you humans be more desecrate telepathically when you do your coupling," pathed Krog, staring at Janet with his big turtle eyes from across the room. "Learned I have during this previous rest period rather more of human mating than I wished to know! And repeatedly! Most species civilized mate only once and then have the proper grace to die!"

"Sorry!" pathed Janet in reply, as her face reddened again. It was bad enough to be heard by friends in the neighboring room but now she realized that their lovemaking had apparently been telepathically broadcasted to all the telepaths in the Lodge!

"Don't sweat it," pathed Johnny Goth. "My wife and I had the same thing happen to us with our honeymoon. You'll work your way through it."

"Yes, they'll learn better telepathic control and focus in time," pathed Pru.

"I doubt it," pathed Fen. "They reminded me of myself when I was a youngster of eighty. A wild, unstoppable force of nature. Refreshing. Perhaps there is hope for humanity yet."

"Humph!" snorted Krog.

"Do not pay attention to our friend the Kronan," pathed Wink. "He is just jealous. He has always been jealous of species that mate repeatedly and without death as a consequence. Like the goat-man, I found last night's performance quite refreshing and interesting. In the interests of advancing the biological database of the Haspa, I would like to provide suitable medical instrumentation and examine the two participants before, after and during their next encounter."

In the meantime, unaware of the ensuing telepathic discussions and the fact that Janet's face was redder than ever, Jane was fussing with her toast and making small talk with Janet, working her way towards delicate questions. "Purely for the medical viewpoint Janet, I was wondering what you could tell us about Bates' physical condition. You yourself certainly look fit. Still fit, I mean, since you looked pretty fit before, whereas Bates was perhaps not in so perfect shape when the Traveler started this business yesterday. So would you say that his physical condition has improved?"

"Incredibly!" replied Janet.

"In what way? Has his muscle tone improved for example?"

"He's an Adonis," replied Janet.

"And his stamina?"

"Much improved. He could probably take on several hikes like the ones we had yesterday without even breathing hard."

"But his endurance? I mean, it seemed to us that sustained activity last night was for rather long periods. If it's not too personal a question, I mean, purely from a medical viewpoint of course, how was his endurance sexually?"

Janet's reply, if she had one that she cared to give, was postponed indefinitely by the arrival of Bates himself, who came striding powerfully and confidently into the room to sit at the final remaining place at the table with Janet, Jane, and Mel. A perky Milo followed happily at his heals.

To the awkward dismay of red-faced Janet, most of the Team erupted into cheers and hoots, in a display that erased from Janet's mind any doubt whatsoever that what she and Bates had shared together the previous night was by now fully public knowledge. Dooley displayed an even bigger grin than usual, she noticed.

Bates assumed that all the cheers were because the Team was glad to see him recovered and even improved. And indeed, that he had been physically transformed by the Traveler was rather obvious, as what were loose fitting clothes the day before were now filled out by wider shoulders, deeper chest, and thicker arms and legs. After ordering a huge breakfast from a young waitress who dumbfounded Bates by winking at him and smiling suggestively, Bates rose to address the Team.

"Thank you for that warm welcome, my friends! But let us eat quickly now and be on our way south. There are less than two days left to save Earth! Flood, Norma, is the Bus ready?"

"All fueled, provisioned with food, and ready to go," answered the Commander. "Plus, there's a jet flight in Philly ready to take off and provide cover for us."

"Do we still need that? We haven't seen Ra saucers for days," noted Barns.

"True," replied Flood. "But there is at least one Ra ship still unaccounted for. We destroyed a Mother Ship and two smaller ships, but I'm concerned about that third small ship that escaped at Enterprise City. Perhaps it was within the Mother Ship when it was destroyed, but perhaps it wasn't. And perhaps there are still other Ra ships that we don't know about. Do we know exactly where we're going next?"

"I believe so," said Bates. "You will recall that the next riddle to solve states that the reason and answer lie locked sleeping in harm's way. In addition, Pru has said that the Sleeping Great One lies to the south. As it just so happens, Janet has calculated the Dannos impact point to be in Northern Guatemala, and that has been confirmed with our Government. Pru has indicated that the Great One is also in Guatemala. Therefore, we may assume that the Sleeping Great One lies sleeping at the impact point, directly in harm's way. Our next move will be to find the Great One, wake it up, and find the answer to our Dannos problem."

"That sounds logical, but can we be sure?" asked Barns. "It all seems like a very flimsy pretense to travel thousands of miles. I would have hoped that by now a more scientific basis for our efforts would be established."

"I that concern also echo," stated Krog. "In the view that is mine it is not conclusively established the identity or motives of the Traveler being, nor ascertained are the effects of his actions on the human Bates and his brood. Also, I deny still that one can the future see as does your Mr. Jigs claim. It follows then by logic that the riddles you follow are nonsense."

"Those riddles saved your big scaly butt," pathed Elizabeth, with strength and clarity that surprised the other telepaths.

"Aptly put! I just love human speech!" exclaimed Fen, as he munched on a piece of jam-covered toast. The smiling little goat-legged man turned to face the huge stern Kronan. "I suppose that you also deny that anyone could do this?" Fen's form wavered for a moment, to be suddenly replaced by that of a huge Kronan that was the mirror image of Krog.

Krog's features hardened. "Other shape shifters there are in the League, goat man, but none would dare assume the form of a Kronan that is of The First Rank!"

The Kronan and pseudo-Kronan soon stood facing each other angrily, for Fen had unwittingly committed an act so repugnant in the eyes of the scaly alien that his usual argumentative but civilized nature had been stripped completely away. The two huge green Kronans stood snorting beak to beak, strutting about in a circle, with clenching fists, apparently preparing to unleash titanic blows. In a few moments it was quite impossible to tell which one was which.

Bates stepped between the two, and displaying some of his newfound strength, pushed the two behemoths apart. "You two wouldn't hit a man with glasses, would you?" he asked.

"You aren't wearing glasses!" said one of the big reptiles, probably that wise guy Fen.

Bates felt his face. He wasn't wearing glasses! Apparently he didn't need them anymore! He hadn't even noticed that he wasn't wearing them.

Ignoring the diminutive figure of Bates that stood in harms way between them, the two behemoths squared off again for a tussle, but Pru promptly stepped between them. The unicorn glowed brightly, and the two Kronans were invisibly pushed several meters away from each other. One turned instantly back into mischievous little Fen.

"That's enough discussion," announced Bates authoritatively. "We'll be leaving as soon as possible. When would that be, Commander Flood?"

"Fifteen minutes, if I call the Philly Airport immediately."

"Do it! The rest of you will pack, eat, go to the bathroom or whatever you have to do, but be outside and ready to leave in fifteen minutes."

The next fifteen minutes were a blur of activity, culminating in Bates leading the Team out of the Lodge to the waiting Space Bus.

Bates was not surprised to find Jigs standing next to the door of the Bus, waiting for them. Bates stepped next to the grinning old man and the two of them watched the others file on board.

"Well," asked Bates of the old billionaire, "we are progressing satisfactorily, I trust?"

"Seems like it. Found the key then have you? And figured out where to go next?" Jigs winked at Bates with an amused smile.

Bates countered with his own questions. "I'm probably the key in your rhyme, and the Sleeping Great One is at ground zero of the Dannos impact. Care to confirm that would you, my fellow Guardian?"

Jigs laughed. "What would be the point? No, you're headed in the right direction Bates, and I don't want to screw things up by telling you too much."

"Of course not! But I still don't understand that part of it, sir."

"And perhaps you never will. It took me half a lifetime to learn how to apply my farsight properly, so why should you figure it out in a week's time? No, Dr. Bates, I'm afraid you'll have to continue to play the cards as they are dealt to you."

"You seem to be the dealer."

"Ha! Not really, Bates! Let's just say that I can occasionally tilt the gaming table just a bit. But it's a delicate and dangerous game. If I tilt the table too much, at the wrong time, I could very well cause all our cards and chips to slip off the table by mistake. In that case, we'd all find ourselves playing a different game so to speak, on a different time-line, and all my farsight visions and advice would be totally useless. It's an art and not a science you see, and the game is far too complex to predict the outcome at this stage. The book is still being written, you might say, and the conclusion to the story is still unknown."

"You mean that we could still fail?"

Jigs laughed again. "Absolutely! Very easily! Did you for one moment forget that there is an iron asteroid with kinetic energy equivalent to perhaps 300 million megatons of TNT due to pulverize the Earth in about forty-two hours? You're Earth's only hope, and you don't know how to fix that little Dannos problem yet, do you?"

"But you can see the future, right? So you know what's going to happen! And haven't you been saying that we're doing OK?"

"Not quite," explained Jigs. "I see bits and pieces of several possible futures, but I don't know which of several possible outcomes is actually going to happen. Or perhaps they will all happen, along with the Universe constantly splitting into parallel universes, according to some philosophical interpretations of quantum physics. I don't know; I can't know because it isn't experimentally confirmable, and frankly I don't really care. But I do know without doubt that if you don't get going soon, this Earth in my universe will get clobbered for sure, according to all the possible courses that reality could be taking. So good luck and get cracking!" He held out his hand to Bates.

"Mr. Jigs, Flood thinks that there's still least one more Ra space ship to worry about. Can you confirm that at least?"

"Nope."

"You knew Oscar was going to get hurt before it happened, didn't you? I saw the way you looked at him in Enterprise City. Will we be OK? What should we look out for?"

"Sorry!" The stubborn old man still held out his hand. "Just stick to your plan and there's a slim chance of success, but much will still be due to dumb luck. That's the way the universe works for us all; no exceptions."

Bates shook the billionaire's hand and then quickly climbed aboard. In seconds the Bus was airborne, and in minutes it was tucked under the protective wing of a Boeing 888 flying South at 20,000 meters altitude at Mach-3. Flood and his copilot Sandra performed their functions effectively and competently.

In the next row a worried Bates sat and fretted. World governments, his own science Team, creatures of legend, people with powers, space aliens, a visitor from other universes, and the scrambling of his genes still hadn't solved the Dannos problem. Could it be that there was no solution? No, he couldn't allow himself the luxury of thinking that. There simply wasn't time.

****

In the relative emptiness of space five million miles from Earth, twenty times the distance to the Moon, Dannos, the primal iron hammer of the Ra forged in a great star gone super nova billions of years before there were humans, sped towards Earth with a closing speed a hundred times greater than that of a rifle bullet. Kinetic energy being roughly a quadratic function of speed, Dannos packed ten-thousand times the energy of a rifle bullet, multiplied by more than a trillion-trillion bullet masses.

The iron surface of Dannos was rough and pitted, from boiling in low gravity and other cosmic forces, except for one shiny area a few hundred meters across that was polished and melted smooth only seven Earth years earlier by the final remaining nuclear weapons of Earth. Its greatly elongated orbit around the sun was more typical of comets than asteroid-like iron bodies. In previous journeys around the Sun, Dannos had been melted and partly vaporized when it traveled well inside the orbit of Mercury. This would not occur again, however. In less than two days it would strike the Earth with such violent force that itself and many cubic miles of Earth would be vaporized as it bore through the Earth's crust.

****

On the home world of the Ra, Jun'Ca, High Priest and Ca'Ra of the First Order, entered the hidden heart of the Forbidden Temple, and called respectfully for his Dark Master. The dark empty center of that vast vaulted cavern became darker still, as it became filled with mist and the malevolent presence of the Dark One. It wasn't just the Master's hidden and possibly formless appearance that was frightening, it was the thoughts of hate, and the hunger for death and destruction that bombarded Jun'Ca's mind that most disturbed but also most intrigued him. He could sense somehow that his Master was the very anti-thesis of life. Despite a lifetime of training, Jun'Ca had to fight the impulse to run or to cower. Of course that would be useless anyway, since there was no place in the Universe that was beyond the reach of the Dark Master.

"SPEAK!" thundered the Master.

"Word from Ren'Ca, Master. The deed is soon done. In one Ra sleep time your great enemy will die, and the humans will also parish."

"THE HUMANS ARE INSIGNIFICANT, AND THEIR DESTRUCTION AT THIS TIME INCIDENTAL, FOR THEY WOULD HAVE PERISHED ANYWAY IN A SHORT TIME, ALONG WITH ALL THE OTHERS. IS THE PLANETOID ON A PATH TO STRIKE MY ENEMY DIRECTLY? ONLY THROUGH A DIRECT HIT WILL HE PARISH."

Jun'Ca shuddered. What kind of being could only be destroyed by such a weapon? Decades ago the Ra had proposed using the nuclear weapons of the humans on the sleeping enemy of the Dark Master, and the Black One had laughed at the notion, and said that a much more powerful weapon was needed. "The planetoid is exactly on target Master; this has been confirmed by our agent Ren'Ca."

"IS THAT ALL NOW, JUN'CA?"

"Yes Master."

"Inform me when this deed is confirmed as complete."

"Yes Master."

"And, Jun'Ca?"

"Yes Master?"

"Do not fail, or that failure will be upon the Ra!"

Thankfully, the mist disappeared, and trembling Jun'Ca was again alone.

****

CHAPTER 45

SOAP, SNAKES, AND BATS

A snake lurks in the grass.

\- Virgil

As the Bus flew steadily towards Guatemala, Bates and the Team were alert and busily studying Ra cubes and socializing. Steve spent a lot of time with Kay, and Elizabeth spent a lot of time with shy Dooley, Bates noticed. Bates purposely avoided Janet, as every time he thought of her his thoughts were greatly diverted away from the Dannos problem. He slipped a few times, and his thoughts returned strongly to thoughts of last night with her; which led to a few loud snorts from Krog and knowing winks from Gus and Fen.

Bates was deep into a discussion on the Dannos problem with Johnny and others when the disturbance happened. Nobody had a solution to the Dannos problem in mind, or even a faint shred of a wild and crazy notion on how to save Earth that was thereby set back by the incident, but the occurrence was upsetting to the Team anyway.

"Yooowww," came a high pitched scream from the bathroom, and seconds later a wet naked Indian from Brooklyn erupted screaming from the tiny room and ran through the Team. A few moments later, Goyahkla emerged through the shower wall wearing a towel and carrying a bar of Zest. He had again performed his favorite trick, for he, the towel, and the soap were perfectly dry, though the sound of the shower spray could still be heard.

While Steve Latanna discussed the need for quiet with the ghost of the great Apache medicine man and war chief, and then discussed the need for wearing clothing with Winnebago, Bates mused about the trick. "Damn! I wonder how he does that!"

"Why simply wonder, human?" asked Pru.

"What do you mean?" responded Bates.

"Why do you not simply _do_ it?"

"You mean walk through a wall? I can't do that!"

"It is agreed that at this time yesterday, you could not. However now this is no longer so certain. As is well within my powers as a unicorn, I have been shielding you and others here from the sleeping power of the Great One, so that you may determine of what you are newly capable. You have discovered already within you the ability to perform what you call telepathy. To walk through a wall may indeed also be well within your new powers."

"But I'm not a ghost like Goyahkla or an elemental like you! I'm an ordinary material being, even if my genes have been scrambled a bit!"

"Now wait a minute Bates," said Mel. "Maybe Pru is right. How do we know what you can or can't do?"

"You need not be an elemental to perform such feats, Bates," said Johnny Goth. "Watch." The bar of Zest flew from Goyahkla's hands, around Johnny and the ever grinning Dooley, then through a wall and back into the shower stall. Johnny could do Goyahkla's soap trick too!

"That's amazing, Johnny, but you've probably had years to learn how to do that," said Bates. "However my main point is that it's immaterial, even if I _could_ do it. Walking through bathroom walls isn't going to stop Dannos! So let's get back to work." He returned his attention to his VISICOM and resumed scanning the Ra records. He hoped that everyone else was also working on the problem and that someone would soon come up with the answer to the Dannos problem. After all there were two dozen of them now; the original core B-Team of Government men and women had expanded substantially over the last few days. The small Bus was loaded with incredible talent and knowledge, both human and non-human.

So far, they apparently still didn't have enough talent and knowledge. By the time they approached Guatemala, the Team seemed no closer to a solution for the Dannos problem than they were a week ago, before they had started. In less than two days the Earth would suffer its greatest cataclysm in hundreds of millions of years. It was a maddening prospect. Fortunately, right now the Team had something specific to do that might also lead to solving the Dannos problem. They were going to find and wake The Great One.

"Straight ahead, you say?" Flood again asked Pru, who stood directly in back of him as he piloted the Space Bus.

"Yes human," responded Pru, using her human-voice. "Straight ahead and not far."

`"I concur. To a great psychic disturbance we are getting closer," said Krog. The massive Kronan stood in back of Sandra Kruger, who sat at the copilot position. Bates squeezed forward to sit in the engineer's seat between the big unicorn and the Kronan to get a better view of their final approach to the lair of the Sleeping Great One.

They were flying slowly over the jungles of North-central Guatemala. They wanted to get as close to the impact point as possible using the Bus, to minimize jungle hiking distances. Bates for one hoped that no hiking through jungles would be required at all. Jungles were beautiful and fascinating viewed from a distance, but even nastier than a desert if you were in one.

Bates thought that he 'heard' something ahead and below, psy-wise. It seemed like confused babbling to him, amongst which he could occasionally discern specific visions of various long extinct beasts and other strange objects and places. Bates was beginning to already not like this place. He felt a very strong impulse to simply turn the Bus around and fly away. Far away.

"Steer straight ahead human!" implored Pru.

"Hah?" responded Flood. "I am!"

"You deviate left!"

"I can turn even further to the right, if you wish," said Flood. Coming right from 92 degrees to 110 degrees true."

"But you still turn left!" said Pru.

It actually seemed to Bates that they were circling to the right, but looking down at the jungle, everything seemed to be spinning in several directions at once! He felt very disoriented, and he had a strong feeling of hideous revulsion. His stomach had also soured. What were they doing here anyway? Shouldn't they be someplace else? Where? And why? He couldn't seem to remember.

He felt nauseated; he stood up and headed towards the back of the vehicle to find a barf bag, but was having trouble even navigating down the aisle. What the hell kind of an airline was this, anyway, he wandered? And where the hell were the flight attendants when you needed them?

Flight attendants? He remembered that when he was a youngster undergoing the dramatic transformation of puberty he went on his first aircraft flight. One airline had long legged stewardesses in hot pink mini-skirts. Those were the days, though he couldn't afford that airline then and probably still couldn't afford it now. But right now he'd trade all the frequent-flier miles he ever had for beautiful young stewardesses in hot-pink mini-skirts. Instead of stewardesses, this flight had a talking white horse with a big glowing horn sticking out of its head, and a giant talking reptile of some sort that looked like a turtle in need of a shell. OK, he was on an airplane that definitely lacked hot stewardesses in pink but where was he going? He couldn't remember! Everything was all very confusing to him.

He walked past other passengers that looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't remember their names. Some were using barf bags. They were shouting things at him and at each other, nutty things that didn't make any sense at all. Some seemed to be blaming all sorts of things on him, including the end of the world, and others were shouting instructions to 'Bates' and 'Flood'. Who on Earth were Bates and Flood? He couldn't seem to quite remember.

Some of the passengers wore impossibly odd costumes. Behind the huge reptilian-looking being up-front sat a little grey-skinned guy with a huge head, muttering alien-sounding noises. Was some sort of sci-fi flick being shot here? Was he dreaming some sort of crazy nightmare?

He just couldn't walk any further, so he sat down in the next available seat, which happened to be next to an attractive young black lady that seemed to be speaking in some sort of Native American language. Actually, she seemed to be cussing him out in some sort of American Indian language.

But he couldn't pay much attention to what was going on around him, he was too busy trying to work out his own problems, such as remembering his own name. He closed his eyes and concentrated. It seemed to him that there was something going on in his mind that didn't belong. He experimented, 'pushing and pulling' at an elusive, noisy, difficult to identify, unwelcome presence. Suddenly, he perceived the problem clearly as a particular alien presence that he forcefully ejected from his mind.

Immediately he was 'waking up' from what seemed like a bad dream, but reality was perhaps worse than the dream. All around him, nauseated friends in distress were babbling nonsense in panic. Milo was sitting in the isle howling; if he had also been affected or was simply lamenting over the distress of the others, it was impossible to say.

Looking towards the front of the Bus, Bates saw that tall Dooley was standing over Flood and was grasping the Bus controls himself, while Pru was touching Flood with her horn, and Johnny Goth had his hand on Sandra's shoulder. Soon the flight crew was properly attending the controls again, and the Bus, which had been flying erratically, suddenly stabilized. "Stay calm folks," said Flood over the intercom. "We're going to safely land soon."

Pru and Johnny were working their way from the front to the back of the Bus, healing other Team members as they went. Dooley spoke calmly and chanted softly to each recovering person after Pru or Johnny helped them. Pru touched her glowing horn to Steve Latanna, who looked about wide-eyed as he regained his senses. It took perhaps half a minute to heal each person, however. At the rate that Pru and Johnny were progressing, it could take them several more minutes to reach everyone.

Around Bates towards the back of the Bus, several of his frightened friends remained both very uncomfortable and/or irrational. Some of it appeared comical, like watching drunken folks make fools of themselves, but it was still very disturbing. McGregor was frantically dancing some sort of jig. Oscar was singing. Elizabeth seemed to be speaking in tongues. Bates worried that someone would get hurt.

"Give it a try, Bates," pathed Johnny Goth. "Help them push the confusing thoughts of the alien presence away. You did it for yourself, so you should be able to help them."

Bates put his hands gently on Kay Therman's forehead. She seemed not to notice, but kept cussing him out in Native American. Closing his eyes, he focused on Kay, her thoughts and feelings. In a few moments he located the alien thoughts, and expelled them. As he continued to focus on the disturbing thoughts, he sensed that he was in the center of a 'bubble' in which he nullified the hostile telepathic signal. So far, the 'bubble' enclosed only himself and Kay, but he decided to push the bubble larger. Slowly, it expanded, enclosing more and more of the Bus passengers as he touched each of their foreheads and spoke to them calmly.

Looking forward, he was now able to 'see' that a similar, larger bubble surrounded Pru and Johnny, and that they gradually expanded it as they made their way slowly through the Bus. They could have expanded the bubbles much faster, he reasoned, but each victim also benefited greatly from the calming words of their rescuers. Within a couple more minutes, the protective bubble of Bates joined with theirs, and all the passengers were protected and in advanced stages of recovery.

"Very well done, human!" pathed Pru. "You see, you do indeed have powers that you have only to discover. You need only to seek them out. You may find that there are yet more _._ "

"How can I possibly discover powers given to me such as this one? They are too strange! The Traveler should have explained them."

"You and only you can and must discover them for they are your powers, not those of the Traveler _,"_ explained Pru. "They are the heritage of humanity and of Earth life that has evolved for billions of years; the Traveler's power was merely to release to you what is your Earthly heritage, and mine is to release you from the psychic damping effects of the Great One. The rest is up to you!"

"Damn, Bates!" complained Oscar. "What the hell happened? Where are we?"

At about that time, the Bus sank down slowly through the thick jungle canopy, and landed gently on surprisingly level ground. "We're here everyone!" announced Bates. "Not quite at our destination but as close as we dare travel by air. I believe that Pru and the Commander are about to recommend that we walk the rest of the way."

"Yes sir," confirmed Flood, "that's exactly what I was going to recommend. This seems something like that field that surrounds that Black Pit place back in Carolina, but much larger and stronger. Not only are Team members effected by the target, it looks like all our navigation instruments are useless in this area. Compass, inertials, ring-laser gyros, and all navigation processing associated with those sensors has all gone bonkers. And I'd be willing to bet that there's some kind of moss growing on the north, south, east, west, top, middle, and bottom of every damn tree out there in that jungle, not that moss on trees would work very good for air navigation anyway. Finally, I don't have the equipment to navigate by sun or stars, not even a working chronometer. Everyone look at your watches."

Watch dials and digital times were static. All watches had stopped. The Black Pit had slowed watches, but this place totally stopped them.

"OK, then we'll hike on foot from here," said Bates. "Only necessary personnel should go; a bunch of us better stay with the Bus, but I don't know yet how we can do that. I can shield a limited area, and so can Pru and Johnny, but we three should go on the hike. Yet we can't leave folks at the Bus unshielded."

"I can't make protection bubbles around other folks, but I'm OK myself," noted Dooley.

"You need to come with us anyway, Dooley," said Johnny.

"I can stay and shield the Bus crew," volunteered Fen. Sure enough, it was found that multi-talented Fen could shield a very small area about three meters in diameter. The Team members who remained in the Bus were going to get to know each other very well indeed.

Barns pulled Bates aside to speak to him quietly. "For the love of God, Bates, you've got to take Winnebago with you! He's driving some of us nuts with his insurance sales. He's a hundred times more annoying than his ghost friend. I know he'll be a useless addition to your group of misfits, but perhaps you could somehow lose him in the jungle?" He winked at Bates.

"Alright, he'll go with us, Barns," Bates conceded. "We'll have to take a bunch of folks anyway, since most of us that can do the shielding need to go. But you owe me one."

Bates, Oscar, Mel, Pru, Krog, Wink, Janet, Elizabeth, Don, Johnny, Dooley, Winnebago, and Gus at last set out for the lair of the Sleeping Great One. That left ten of the Team on the Bus, which was the maximum number that Fen reckoned that he could protect. Milo wanted to go with Bates, but Bates decided that this venture was too risky for his canine friend. Jungle snakes and insects could make short work of the naive inquisitive domestic pet. Not to mention dog-hungry jaguars.

Actually, Bates feared that the jungle would also make short work of him. Suburban Washington D. C. was wilderness enough for Narbando T. Bates. Arizona or North Carolina mountains were tolerable to briefly visit, though for sure he wouldn't want to live there. Guatemala was a living hell, as far as he was concerned. Every step or so revealed a new horror that crawled, slithered, darted, or flew away, often fast enough to escape identification, but slow enough to briefly reveal terribly gruesome features such as many legs or no legs, bulging eyes, scales, and so-forth.

Throughout the trees, vines, and loamy soil everything was alive, strange, and threatening. There were busy finger sized ants, ambling hand sized beetles, slow, slimy rainbow colored slugs, testy mosquitoes the size of dragon flies, strange squeaking rodents and other unknown small scampering mammals, annoyingly loud and opinionated though colorful parrots, goggle-eyed lizards with painted faces and tree clinging feet with stickers or claws, and slithering snakes of all sizes, colors, and dispositions. In the not-far-enough-away-to-suit-him distance Bates could hear the roars and grunts of larger creatures that he didn't want to meet or even think about.

Oscar, Gus, Dooley, and Elizabeth were particularly thrilled to be in a jungle. For the first hour until they began to tire, they were almost constantly commenting on this or that animal or plant, and passing around specimens that they snatched up as they went. This activity was in time hampered by Pru's strengthening shielding style, which repelled creatures away from the Team, after the unicorn finally realized that the teeming jungle wild life bothered several of her human companions.

On a positive note, the jungle did serve to keep Winnebago's insurance sales efforts in check. His constant complaining about the jungle was considerably less annoying than his usual insurance drivel.

Bates initially tried to share shielding duty with Pru, but though he experienced limited success he soon found that it was easier to just let Pru do it. Keeping up telepathic shields was a taxing exercise in concentration for Bates, but virtually automatic and effortless for Pru, who had apparently done it for all her life in the Land. The only difference was that here her shield had to be many times stronger. Also, although Bates, Krog, and even Wink, Janet, Elizabeth, and Don could sense the general bearing to take, the directional sensing abilities of Pru and Johnny were much more precise

Though the Team carried several machetes discovered to be part of provisions thoughtfully provided by Jigs, they were not much needed. The jungle simply opened up for Pru; vines, bushes branches, snakes, insects, and everything else gently pulled to each side, creating a green tunnel through the jungle that stayed open until after the entire group had passed.

To the astonishment of the others, the jungle also made way for Johnny and Dooley. "Dooley controls the jungle plant life and I address animal life and Great One vibes," explained Johnny. Working together Johnny and Dooley took turns with Pru in leading the group through the jungle. Whenever Johnny and Dooley led, Pru disappeared into the jungle for several minutes at a time, scouting ahead. When that happened progress slowed somewhat, as it was difficult for even talented Johnny and Dooley to simultaneously push a path through the jungle and protect the group from the mind-numbing thoughts of the Great One.

As an added annoyance, the bad vibes coming from the Great One fluctuated in intensity, such that Johnny and Pru had to constantly adjust their protection efforts. Despite the excellent efforts of Pru, Johnny, and Dooley, the way forward was difficult. The jungle heat and humidity were almost unbearable and the footing was difficult for nearly everyone, even though the plants were laying down where they walked.

Nevertheless, they made steady progress through the thick jungle for kilometer after tiresome kilometer, hour after tiresome hour. The hikers were becoming too weary to even complain much, though Dooley talked more and more about wanting berry pie.

They were making particularly good progress during a period of relative Great One quiet when the first unexpected serious trouble struck. "I must return to the Bus," announced Pru, stunning the rest of the party. "Fen calls me. He tires and his shield is failing. I will return after he has rested." In a blink, the unicorn was simply gone, leaving Johnny and Bates to hastily erect protection for the group. They weren't quick enough. Several of the group began babbling nonsense and wandering off into the jungle in all directions except forward. Bates, Johnny and Dooley had to chase them down, help them recover, and bring them all together again, losing perhaps ten minutes in the process.

Just when everything seemed to be back to 'normal' the psychic disturbance of the Great One increased and Johnny and Bates had to together increase their shielding efforts. However, led by Dooley the group was finally beginning to set off again towards the impact point when the young Shaman abruptly stopped.

"Something's coming." Dooley he announced. "I don't know what it is, but it ain't good. It eats everything but it ain't alive itself."

"I don't see anything," Bates said, though his sight of what lay ahead was mostly blocked by jungle.

Johnny floated up to several meters above the thickest man-tall jungle growth to get a better view. "Jungle animals flee whatever comes," he announced, "but I don't see it yet."

"If it were Ra I would sense them," claimed Krog. "I sense great fear from Earth animals only."

"The plants fear just as much." added Dooley. "They just do it more quiet than animals."

"I still don't see it," said Johnny, from high over-head.

"The thing that comes stays under the dirt, mostly," said Dooley. "Mostly it moves like snakes. It eats roots and eats soil and makes its own roots and it climbs up some of the trees and eats them too."

"How do you know all this, Dooley?" asked Mel.

"Mostly the trees tell me," Dooley responded.

"Astonishing!" Remarked Oscar. "I thought that I knew just about everything there was to know about trees!"

"Who gives a rat's ass how he does it?" muttered Winnebago, causing Bates to again regret that he agreed to bring the urbanized Native American along with the advance party.

"Let's try to raise an alarm with Pru," said Bates.

"I have already tried doing that," said Johnny, "but there is no response. The loud ranting psychic noise of the Great One drowns out our voices."

Krog snorted, then closed his eyes in concentration and shouted Pru's name telepathically. Even Bates, standing only a few feet from Krog, barely 'heard' the telepathic outcries of the big Kronan.

"I am linked with Pru through much stronger means than telepathy, Kronan," said Johnny enigmatically from a few meters above the big alien. "If I can't reach her nobody can, except perhaps other unicorns that are her close kin."

Krog snorted again but said nothing.

"It's coming towards us," said Dooley, his hands resting on the trunk of a massive nearby jungle tree.

"I see something!" exclaimed Johnny. "Something dark, climbing up a tree trunk up ahead, covering it. Twisting around it like a great snake, and then breaking up and spreading over it like a great swarm of insects."

"It's not bugs, Johnny," said Dooley. "I'd know if it was live bugs. These are metal, and they keep coming together and coming apart and making more or less of themselves."

"That sounds like an army of nanites," said Wink. "Some nanites can combine to form functioning units of various sizes."

"Yes, but those be much illegal for Galactic League members such as the Ra, unless sanctioned by the League for peaceful purposes, and used with League oversight witnesses," noted Krog.

"The Ra are law breakers many times over," Bates remarked.

"I better have a closer look, Bates," said Johnny from above. "In the meantime you better gather the others close around you to shield them while I'm gone."

"Bloody hell!" Bates exclaimed, as Johnny flew ahead through the jungle a dozen meters above the densest undergrowth, dodging the taller trees and hanging vines. The others heard what Johnny said and rushed forwards to bunch themselves around Bates as the invisible protective bubble that surrounded the group shrank drastically. They all fit within what remained, barely, but the mental strain on Bates was enormous.

"Wink is right; it's not insects, it's microscopic robots that work together," they heard Johnny shout from fifty meters away. "They're made of metal and flow over things like a thick carpet or push under the soil like snakes or roots. And great batches of them are headed straight towards you!"

Johnny watched in fascination as what looked like dark metallic grey liquid flowed up and over a huge forest tree's trunk, the vines that covered the trunk, and the base of any branches that were encountered. A long ridge formed in the substance and a thick rope of it separated from the main flow and abruptly shot out towards Johnny, who was at the time floating only five meters from the trunk. Johnny dodged away but the attack was too swift; it would have struck him like a whip had he not with the speed of thought punched and deflected it with a mental push. The whip shattered into tiny bits but some of the bits struck Johnny's right pants leg as he flew back towards the Team.

Halfway back to the group Johnny paused in flight and tried to wipe the nanites off his pant leg, but that only spread them to his hand, where they began to dig into his skin, eating as they went. Distracted by stinging pain, Johnny didn't see the thick tentacle that rose swiftly from the jungle below him to wrap around his leg and yank him downward. Johnny and the tentacle disappeared into the man-tall tangle of ground-level jungle growth.

Dooley started towards his fallen friend but moments later Johnny shot up from the undergrowth free of the tentacle, and was once again flying towards the group. A second tentacle shot up to grab him but it passed right through him as if he wasn't there. It was the 'soap trick' again, Bates realized; Johnny had escaped the nanobots by passing through them!

He landed among the group, but some of them backed away from him fearfully. "No worries," he reassured them. "I'm nanite free. But they're headed for us and I can't protect everyone the way I protected myself just now; not everyone at once anyway. Time for your shaman powers, Dooley. See if you can slow them down while the rest of us try to figure something else out."

"Ok, Johnny," said Dooley.

Dooley pulled out a big hunting knife from where it had been hidden under his shirt. It startled some of the Team to see that soft-spoken, seemingly gentle Dooley carried such a formidable looking weapon, and it was also unclear what any such weapon could do against swarms of tiny robots. Holding the knife handle tightly in both hands, he sat down cross-legged with his back against a huge jungle tree, and the flat side of the knife blade pressed against his chest. "I need to become one with the forest," he told the others of the group. "If you see me become part of this here tree don't worry none."

He closed his eyes, and began chanting something that was unintelligible to the others, but drew the spirit of Goyahkla to appear beside him and chant along with him. The knife blade began to pulse and glow, as if generating strange powers.

Barely perceptible at first, the trees, vines, and other jungle growth around them began to stir, swaying and shaking their usually inanimate forms. The disturbance spread in all directions out from Dooley, including towards the jungle hidden nanobot armies. The jungle was waking.

Beneath the soil, formerly passive victims of the advancing nanobot horde suddenly actively opposed their attackers. Tree roots twisted around and enveloped nanite roots, and tree branches swatted at the blankets and tentacles of nanites that enveloped them, crushing countless millions of insect-sized nanite units.

Many microscopic nanites that made up the insect sized structures were also broken to bits, but most survived to rebuild those that had been broken, and to rebuild the larger structures that had been ripped apart. Caustic plant chemicals erupted from bark and fruit, and from insects and tiny microbe bodies, to chemically dissolve more countless billions of the microscopic metallic nanites themselves and encase their chemical remains in living material that slowed their reclamation by surviving nanites. It was a war of attrition, with nanites struggling to gain material and reproduce, and opposing biological agents struggling to destroy them and remove the material that they needed to grow.

"Oh my God!" exclaimed Janet, as the jungle only fifty yards ahead of them erupted into a tangle of animate trees and vines that battled oncoming nanite tentacles. Billions of jungle termites and ants attacked their nanite counterparts, using insect mandibles to tear at nanite-formed structures, and insect created formic acid to dissolve and disrupt nanobots. On a microscopic scale, the battle was even more ferocious, as countless legions of mold, algie, bacteria, and viruses were recruited by Dooley to battle the invading scourge of robots even smaller than themselves.

The noise of the deadly battle was deafening. It sounded most like a tornado as trees were shredded and bits of jungle and nanobots thrashed about and ripped each other apart.

The carnage on both sides was horrific, but it was soon apparent that the durable metallic nanites had the upper hand. Biological carbon-based cells designed to live and thrive in a relatively peaceful environment were no match for the metallic robots designed to destroy them. Trees were shred to bits from top to bottom by their nanite adversaries, and living soil was likewise gradually killed and consumed. At a terrible cost the nanobots were being greatly slowed but not stopped. Despite considerable destruction they multiplied faster than they were destroyed, and they advanced slowly towards their perceived enemies, actually fed by the flow of life that gathered to try to stop them.

But the Apprentice Shaman of Goth Mountain was not so easily defeated. Dooley's usual smiling face was transformed disturbingly by the strain as his muttered chants became shouts that grow in volume to far beyond human capability. He drew additional strength from local jungle life within hundreds of miles, and from the forests of Goth Mountain thousands of miles to the north.

On Goth Mountain itself Great Two Bears, the great Tribal Shaman of Goth Mountain, gathered life forces from the gigantic trees that thrived there as he chanted words of shaman power in synchronization with those of his distant Apprentice Dooley. He gathered strength also from the One Tree that stretched from The Land of The People to Goth Mountain. Clutching the great unicorn-forged hunting knife that matched the knife of Dooley, he sent the gathered life forces to help fight the distant battle.

The jungle battle raged on but once again had changed. Within the soil life renewed itself as fast as it was being consumed. Trees and vines repaired themselves and battled on. Nanites were being destroyed as fast as they were being created. For now the nanite advance was halted, mired down by the life forces that surged against it.

"Dooley fights them to a standstill for now," Johnny concluded, "but we need to find a way to destroy them, not just slow them down. And it's not just the ones we see here; I can sense that these things stretch for many miles, ahead and to either side of us."

"These nanites could be as destructive to Earth life as Dannos," Wink said, "if they continue to spread."

"I can destroy local batches of them," said Johnny, "and Dooley can even more effectively have the jungle kill and fight them to a standstill for a while. But we need something more, and we need it quick. Ideas?"

"How is Dooley doing what he's doing?" Bates asked. "Maybe we could do even more of whatever that is."

"Unlikely," said Johnny. "Dooley is no doubt already using all the life forces that are available to us. All available biological brute force and life-generated chemicals are already being used. We need something else."

"They self organize into structures that behave together with purpose," noted Mel. "It must take billions of them to form even an insect-sized robot, and countless trillions to form a big root or snake-like tentacle. How does that happen?"

"They are programmed to do whatever they do," Wink explained. "These seem to be programmed to go out of their way to destroy life. Across the Galaxy nanites are used for many different purposes, but used very carefully and never to exterminate life in such a way."

"I don't understand how they do that," admitted Oscar. "Life has a built-in proclivity to propagate and grow: these Tiny nanobots are individually much more simple than even microscopic life-forms but they apparently do many of the things that life does. How?"

"It has to be programmed into them somehow," reasoned Bates. "And if it can be programmed in maybe it can be programmed out."

"That's it!" exclaimed Johnny. "We're combatting them now only with brute force. We need to somehow reprogram the little buggers to self-destruct or something."

"Some sort of computer virus?" Bates asked?

"Something along that line," agreed Johnny, "but not exactly."

"I concur, human," added Wink. "They are not computers as you know them, Earthlings. Collectively they do form a primitive sort of consciousness, but it is decentralized. Billions of them can form a sort of consciousness that can at most be only crudely programmed."

"Are they programmed as such or do they merely follow dictates of their primitive structures?" Mel countered.

"Ha!" exclaimed Oscar, "you raise the often debated nature Vs nurture question!"

"Their basic molecular structures must contribute to effective fractal formation of larger self-organizing structures," reasoned Mel, "the way that liquid water and crystals do, but it must take many of them together to form units capable of even primitive logic, and yet larger groupings of those groupings to manage complex behavior."

"Maybe the insect-sized structures are the smallest structures capable of supporting primitive behavior, and accepting instructions from larger structures," Don added.

"Then we need at least an insect-sized colony of them to experiment with," concluded Bates.

"And we should determine how extensively that they have established themselves also," Oscar said. "We have to devise strategy and tactics adequate to destroy them all."

"Give me ten minutes to scout them out and capture lab specimens," proposed Johnny."

"OK Johnny," agreed Bates. "For that long I can protect the rest of us from the Great One, and hopefully Dooley can protect us from the nanites. But stay out of their reach this time."

"For sure," agreed Johnny, as he again lifted off the ground and flew away, this time much higher, to several meters above tree-top level.

The next ten minutes were long ones indeed for the group. Bates shifted everyone to huddle more closely around Dooley, minimizing the area that he and Dooley needed to protect. Winnebago somehow managed to place himself in the center of the group, where he sat whimpering and cowering in fear. The others were much more composed, especially Dooley.

The young shaman had ceased his chanting but still sat cross-legged with his eyes closed and his back pressed against a great jungle tree. He seemed to be in a self-induced trance. Bates watched him closely to make sure that he was still breathing.

A mere thirty meters away the horrific battle raged on. Countless squirming metallic tentacles wrestled with countless great roots and vines, tearing each other apart, renewing themselves, then tearing each other apart again, over and over. One side or the other surged forward a few meters before being pushed back, neither side gaining ground. However the robotic nanites completely surrounded them now; there was no escape.

Elizabeth sat next to Dooley. "Is he alright?" Elizabeth asked her father. "It there anything we can do to help him?"

"I don't know," Bates replied honestly.

As he and Elizabeth watched him, the young shaman's image began to waver and fade, to be replaced by a Dooley-sized bulge in the tree trunk and roots. Dooley was indeed one with the tree!

Elizabeth gasped and with concern reached for what had been a Dooley hand, only to encounter a hard solid tree-root instead. A smiley face formed on the bulge of trunk where Dooley's head had been however, and one of the smiley face eyes winked whimsically at Elizabeth as a hand-shaped root sprouted and gently enveloped her own hand.

"He's alright, Dad," Elizabeth soon reassured Bates. "He's better than alright! He's one with the forest, and it's wonderful, even though the forest fights a terrible battle." She shut her own eyes than, and sat quietly smiling with Dooley as the great battle near them raged on.

Johnny Goth returned, gently landing next to the huddled terrified group. A glowing, apple-sized ball of light floated two meters above him. In it what looked like dozens of insect-sized nanobot colonies swarmed, trying to escape. Bates breathed a sigh of relief when he sensed his protective bubble being reinforced by one produced by Johnny. "Bad news and good news, folks. The nanobots ravage many square kilometers of jungle, centered at the impact point. Even with all our resources we are fighting only a small part of them to a standstill."

"Hopefully that was the bad news part," Oscar remarked.

"The good news is this," Johnny continued. "I have captured samples of them to study." He pointed at the glowing ball that floated over his head.

"Swell," Bates remarked with sarcasm, but the others seemed encouraged as they studied the ball of glowing light that floated above Johnny.

"Using your controlled sample we can hopefully figure out how to kill them," Oscar noted. "Good work!"

Over the next hour Johnny, Bates, Mel, Oscar, Krog, Wink and Don worked together on the problem. It so happened that Don was seeped in knowledge of human nanite research and computer science. Mel knew much about of game theory and molecular structure. Oscar identified useful analogies with living systems. Bates excelled in the area of experimental methodologies. Most amazing of all, Johnny contained, probed and studied the captured nanites themselves, and provided observations of their behavior to the Team down to even the molecular level. How the hell he could do all of that amazed and confounded the rest of the Team. His ability to confine, observe and probe the nanobot sample seemed limitless.

Through it all Johnny tightly held a gold pocket watch in one of his hands. It glowed like Dooley's knife, Bates noted. At one point a great nanobot tentacle reared up out of the Earth only a few meters from the huddled group and Johnny calmly pointed at it with the hand that held the watch. The watch pulsed with power as lightning struck out at the nanite tentacle, disintegrating it totally as Johnny calmly returned to his experiments as though nothing had happened.

A breakthrough occurred with the discovery of specific electrical signals transmitted repetitively through colonies of nanites. Aided by suggestions from the others, Johnny was soon bombarding the colony with signals of his own, produced through the power of his keenly focused mind. Some of the signals appeared to alter subsequent transmissions produced by the nanite colony itself. They were on the right track, the Team soon felt.

Meanwhile Janet monitored Elizabeth, who monitored Dooley, who kept the attacking nanobots at bay. Alarmingly, a massive fifty-meter tall nanobot with squirming two-hundred-meter long tentacles arose and stepped and slithered ponderously towards the Team, while still growing every second. The jungle border that it approached also grew dramatically. Giant trees and vines sprouted thicker and taller, and became far taller than the robot.

"That's it!" exclaimed Johnny, as he abruptly sprang into the air and flew towards the approaching giant nanobot. The bubble that had held the captive nanobots dissolved, and a small cloud of harmless looking powder drifted away from it.

"That's what?" asked Gus.

"The thing that will stop the nanobots, we hope," explained Bates.

The group watched anxiously as Johnny flew above the trees towards the approaching giant nanobot, until he hovered high above the great robot itself.

For several long seconds nothing seemed to happen; the giant bot and the thousands of smaller bots around it continued to grow and battle the green tide that opposed it. Then a curious thing happened. The glistening metallic tentacles of the giant bot seemed to turn upon itself and the smaller bots that surrounded it. Thrashing tentacles ripped each other apart and collapsed into fine grey inanimate powder. In minutes there was only a great pile of metallic powder where once the great giant nanobot stood.

The bots around the pile did not collapse, however, but continued to thrive and even expand themselves as they consumed the powdery remains of their fallen comrade.

Johnny wasn't smiling when he flew back to rejoin the group. "OK, there's good news and bad news again. The good news is, my attack worked against a single gigantic colony of nanobots. The bad news is, at the last minute I had to fine-tune the self-destruct message that we devised to fit the specific colony, and my destruct message only worked for that one colony."

"So a different destruct message has to be concocted for each large colony of nanobots?" Mel asked.

"Yes, it appears so. That could prove to be problematic. There are many thousands of bot groupings just within sight of us here. In addition the remains of a fallen bot is perfect food for the remaining bots and is quickly recycled to grow other bots."

"But to get back to the good news part, though it is no panacea, we have another powerful weapon to use against them," concluded Bates.

"And perhaps with usage even better destruct messages will be found," added Johnny.

"I suggest you attack in collaboration with Dooley, Johnny," said Bates. "Maybe the combination of Johnny power and Dooley power will work best. Give the Team safety and a clear passage towards the impact point, that's the first priority."

Johnny knelt briefly next to the Dooley root-bulge and whispered a few words to him before marching off towards the nanobot/jungle front-lines. He was soon again lost from sight. Minutes later, the tornado-like sounds of battle began to slowly fade, and soon the Team could no longer see metallic tentacles and vegetation thrashing about in battle.

This seemed to the rest of the Team to be a good sign, but that wasn't confirmed until the human form of Dooley reformed at the base of the big jungle tree and the grinning young shaman stood and spoke.

"Thanks for keeping me company, Elizabeth," he first told the girl that still held his hand. "I was never joined one with the forest with someone else before."

"That was the most wonderful and amazing thing that ever happened to me," she said excitedly in return, as she smiled up at him. "You're super amazing, Dooley Simple!"

Behind hairy beard and mustache Dooley's grin was enormous as his face blushed red as he held Elizabeth's hand even more tightly.

"Right, right," Bates intervened impatiently. This was no time for holding hands and making google-eyes. "What is happening with the nanobots?"

"Johnny has them break up, fight each other, and die, and I have my jungle friends quickly eat what's left of them," explained Dooley. "That makes it lots harder for the remaining bots to eat them themselves, so that the jungle comes back healthy again instead of more bots. Its Johnny power and Dooley power working together. We still got us a big job ahead to destroy the rest of them little robot things, but the path ahead for the Team is open."

"That's wonderful news Dooley!" Bates told the hairy young shaman, as he gave him a hearty hug in gratitude. Soon the others were patting him on the back and shaking his hand.

Thankful congratulations continued when Johnny returned, and the group was further elated by the sudden appearance of Pru among them. The unicorn wasn't surprised to hear about the nanobots and the successful Johnny/Dooley war against them. "I decided to scout ahead and around the impact point before returning to you," she said. "I encountered and incinerated many of the nanobots, but many more grew back to take their place. Then the jungle surged against them and fought them to a standstill. I surmised it to be the work of a certain amazing forest shaman that I have the honor of knowing." She turned a black eye to regard the grinning Dooley.

"Weren't nothing," Dooley remarked shyly, as what little showed of his hair-covered face blushed red again.

"You saved us all, Dooley, along with Johnny and with help from the rest of us, and that's a fact," Bates added. "But now what?"

"More good news and bad news," said Johnny. "What remains to us is a war of attrition that I believe that Dooley and I can win, perhaps with occasional Pru help, though it will take many hours to complete. Dooley and I can work our way through the thousands of bot colonies, acre by acre, but it will take time."

"It has to be done though," noted Oscar. "Those things could spread to the whole Earth, like Wink said."

"If they have time," added Bates. "Like us, they have less than two days before they get clobbered by Dannos. But before that we need to protect the Team from them so we can do our mission. As long as any of the nanobots remain, the mission will be in jeopardy. The bots must be destroyed."

"Me and Johnny can do it," said Dooley. "With maybe some help from Pru, like Johnny says."

"I can protect against the Great One only for a few minutes at a time," Bates noted. "So destroying the nanobots will have to be mostly Johnny and Dooley, with Pru spending most of her time with the rest of us."

"Yes, and I also must be with you when we reach the Great One." added Pru.

"Me and Johnny better finish off them bots before night time too," added Dooley. "Plant power will drop off when the sun's down."

"Agreed!" said Bates. "Let's all get to it then!"

Elizabeth reluctantly let go of Dooley's hand, and the young shaman strode off into the jungle with his friend Johnny to do more battle against the nanobots. The jungle plants opened a path before them, and then sprang closed behind them, such that very quickly the amazing pair were out of sight. Bates shook his head in wonder. That humans were capable of such powers was truly extraordinary. Maybe there was hope for humans and Earth after all! Then he glanced at his watch and realized that the Earth was due to be pulverized in less than forty hours. There was no time to simply stand around in the jungle gawking. "Let's go!" he announced.

Pru caused the jungle to open for the Team, and protected them from the psychically noisy Great One ranting. When they were only a few dozen meters along, they entered devastated jungle that had been razed to the ground by nanobots for as far as they could see, though life was already recovering rapidly. Plants erupted from the scarred soil all around the hikers, growing so fast that their growth was perceptible to the Team, though it was still less than a meter tall and hardly needed to be pushed aside by the unicorn. In terms of obstructing plant life they had relatively easy time for the next several kilometers, though it was still almost unbearably hot and humid.

"Dooley is doing this, I can feel him!" Elizabeth said, as she watched the jungle recover. "Dooley is all around us!"

"He remains one with the forest to heal it," confirmed Pru. "He has a very special connection with life. I sense that he has a special connection with you also, young Elizabeth; one that you have welcomed."

"Is he married?" Janet asked. It was a very timely mother question, Bates thought.

The unicorn whinnied shrilly with what had to be unicorn laughter, the Team realized, before she replied. "He is not paired with a wife; he has only his father and many good friends at Goth Mountain and a nearby human town." She turned a dark eye towards Janet. "Dooley is a wonderful and amazing man, in the view of all who know him, both human and non-human."

"But he does seem to be a bit simple minded," Janet noted.

"Some would say such," said Gus. "Simple in some ways perhaps, but not in the ways that matter most. There is no better man that ever lived than Dooley Simple."

The trees seemed to sprout more quickly right along their path; several great trees were already half grown, and the astonished Team watched them sprouting new leaves in a matter of seconds. That Dooley was directly involved in the rapid rejuvenation of the jungle was further confirmed when it was noted that each new tree that they passed was covered with bark that formed thousands of silly smiley faces. "That's Dooley's touch again," Elizabeth exclaimed.

"Yes, Dooley is nearly as fond of smiley faces as he is of berry pie," confirmed Gus.

Further along the group left recovering jungle and again plunged into virgin jungle. "The nanobots are positioned in a ring around the impact point that we've moved inside of now," explained Pru. "We might not encounter more nanobots , but I should search the area to further confirm that to be the case, and assess the progress of Johnny and Dooley."

Bates hastily constructed a protective field around the Team as the unicorn left them. But he hadn't yet mastered the trick of clearing the way of plant and animal life, so machete work was needed. Krog, with his psychic prowess to determine proper direction and his great strength first led the way using his machete. Despite his powerful efforts, the progress of the group was far slower compared to what it had been with Pru. After an hour, even Krog's great strength was waning, and Oscar took a turn at point. For half an hour, he did nearly as well as the Kronan. Finally Don, strengthened significantly through the encounter with the Traveler, gave a good account of himself for a quarter of an hour before he too was exhausted. When Mel, Gus, Winnebago and the women had to take turns, progress slowed to a mere crawl.

The sudden appearance at eye level of a huge snake caused Bates to lose concentration on his telepathic shield . As he tried to reassure himself that the creature was harmless and more scared of him than he was of it, the snake, which was only about two feet from his face, struck out at Bates with amazing speed. As if it were in slow motion, Bates watched in terror as the snake's mouth opened impossibly wide, revealing enormous poisonous fangs that flashed towards him, fangs that were already dripping with venom. Even with his improved agility, it was evident at once to Bates that the snake's fangs would in an instant strike him in the face, that deadly venom would quickly reach his brain, and he would very soon be dead.

Then a strange thing happened. The snake's head just seemed to pass right through Bates harmlessly, as though either he or it wasn't real at all! The rebuffed and probably confused snake then slithered away harmlessly. "Damn!" thought Bates. "The ghost Indian's soap trick comes in handy after all!" In the heat of the moment, Bates had somehow caused himself and/or the snake to 'fade', just as Goyahkla had done with himself, the towel, and the Zest, and as Johnny had also demonstrated. Bates would have explored his newly discovered talent further, but he noticed that the rest of his Team was wandering off into the jungle in all different directions muttering to themselves in confusion while under the influence of The Great One. It took twenty minutes for Bates to gather and treat them all.

Just when they were ready to set off again Pru returned to again lead the reassembled group, much to their relief. The unicorn reported that Johnny and Dooley were making good progress against the nanobots, though occasionally a unicorn-powered attack on the nanobots was also very helpful.

For several minutes the group again made steady progress, but after what seemed like too short a time to Bates and the others, the unicorn again set off to help Johnny and Dooley battle nanobots, leaving the remainder of the Team to fend for themselves. Then Pru returned again. As the day wore on this cycle was repeated several times.

The Team's struggle through the jungle seemed endless. Whenever Pru was gone, Krog, Oscar, and Don ended up alternating the lead position for shorter and shorter periods, while Bates struggled to shield them all. The heat and humidity and every step forward sapped their strength, and their short breaks to drink water and eat snacks became longer, more frequent, and less effective.

Finally, a long twenty minutes after Pru last left them, Krog paused for a breather while he and Bates got their bearings. The interference was much stronger than when they started, particularly in the direction of a huge mound just ahead. "This could be it," said Bates, with a smile. "Perhaps we should wait here for Pru."

Suddenly from out of nowhere a breadbox-sized bolder came crashing down on Krog, instantly knocking him to the ground either dead or unconscious.

"This is indeed 'it' Bates!" said a familiar, mocking voice. "It's the end of the line for you and your friends!" Grinning Renson stepped out of the shadow of a huge vine shrouded tree, holding what appeared to be a rifle of some sort that he pointed at the Team.

"Renson, why are you doing this?" asked Bates. "What have humans done to harm the Ra?"

"Nothing yet, and you won't either, because there won't be any humans!"

What happened next seemed to be in slow motion to Bates. Renson took aim with the laser cannon and was about to incinerate him when the Ca' Ra detected sound as well as movement out of the corner of his eye. Oscar had ducked into the overgrowth at Renson's appearance and was now attacking the Ca' Ra with an immensely powerful blow of his machete.

It was a blow that no human could have avoided or survived, but Renson's reflexes were Ca'Ra fast and his strength was super-human as he blocked the blow with the laser cannon barrel. The blow, though blocked from harming Renson, badly bent the cannon and broke the machete in half. Moving so fast that he could barely be seen, Renson struck Oscar's jaw with a stronger than steel fist, knocking him out instantly. The big biologist hit the ground about the same time as the mangled Ra cannon.

Janet, Elizabeth, Wink, and Winnebago instinctively backed further away from Renson, while the others ran towards the fray. Bates was already rushing at Renson with his own machete when he saw Oscar's attack. He too was hoping to also catch the Ca' Ra off guard, but the Ca' Ra had disposed of Oscar so quickly that by the time Bates' own blow struck, it was easily stopped by a steel clawed hand that caught the machete by its blade and twisted it away from Bates, while the other hand grasped the human by the neck and lifted him effortlessly off the ground.

Renson stood motionless, staring at the struggling figure that he held at arm's length, while Bates struck at the Ca'Ra repeatedly with fists and feet, without the slightest effect. Bates tensed his new powerful neck muscles as much as possible to both support his weight and resist Renson's grip. Despite the excruciating pain Bates struck out strongly at Renson again and again. The blows would have struck down any human, but Renson hasn't human or even an ordinary Ra, but a Ca'Ra of the First Order, and much stronger than a dozen men.

"Strange, you seem much stronger and faster than the Bates that we Ra made Head of DOD, but it will do you no good human, nor will your cowardly Galactic League friends!" Ren'Ca showed his bat fangs to Bates in an evil smile. He had only to close his powerful hand then, and Bates would be destroyed.

Bates wandered if this was one of the futures that Jigs had seen. What was next? Was this alien monster now going to tear him limb from limb and eat his still living flesh, as he had nearly done to Barns? But then, if the Ca'Ra simply wanted to kill him, he would be dead already.

"I have decided to kill you last and very slowly Bates, as you have been the one to lead this pathetic band. I'll just break both of your legs now, and then you can helplessly watch me butcher your companions. In the meantime you can explain to me just how you evaded our Mother Ship and how you have been able to function in this zone of mental anguish and evade my nanobots. If you are extremely cooperative, perhaps some of your friends will die quickly with a minimum or suffering."

A heavy wood branch suddenly broke over Renson's head, and another solidly struck the arm holding Bates. Neither appeared to harm the Ca' Ra Master, and his free hand darted out with impossible speed to place a second struggling human in his deadly grip.

"What is this? A second, younger Narbando Bates? A son perhaps? You are indeed a human of many surprises, Bates!" He held Don by an arm, while an enraged Janet continued to beat on Renson with the remnants of her club. Gus, Mel, and Elizabeth were now also rushing into the fray, followed by tiny Wink and even cowardly Winnebago. If they hoped to overpower Renson with their numbers they were badly mistaken, as the alerted Ca' Ra swung poor Don like a great club to mow them down! Soon they lay unconscious or moaning in pain all around the Ca' Ra.

"You're pitifully weak, humans, but you'll taste good. I may save a few of you for my ship-mates to dine on, but most of you are going to start to die now!" hissed Renson.

"What shipmates are you expecting, Ra criminal?" asked Wink from where he lay. "Your Mother Ship is destroyed! You are alone!"

"You lie, Haspa! I have just contacted the Mother Ship to tell them of your arrival! I don't know how you escaped them, but you will not escape me!"

"You know that Haspa do not lie, Ra!" retorted little Wink. "The humans have out-fought and out-smarted you! Your Mother Ship was destroyed days ago! Whatever you contacted isn't your Mother Ship."

Ren'Ca's expression was terrible to behold then, for it was clear that he knew the truth in Wink's words. Earlier, he sensed something odd about his communications with the Mother Ship. Dow seemed too mechanical in his responses. It all fit. It was a computer simulation that he had been speaking with, not the real Dow! Up until then, the Ca' Ra had been clinically dispassionate; even his deadly looking snarls were actually well practiced and controlled. Now he was truly enraged! He swung Don again, striking the tiny Haspa hard enough to send him flying several meters and strike a nearby tree with a deadly thud. The little gray skinned space alien sank lifeless to ground.

"You will die next, son of Bates!" snarled Renson. He threw Don's battered body to the ground and held Bates' face down next to his son. Don was still alive and moaning weakly as Renson held a steel clawed hand above the young man's bare, blood stained chest. "I'm going to eat your son's beating heart now, Bates, while you watch!" With that, he drew back those deadly claws and plunged them deep into Don's heaving chest! He drew out in his clawed hand, which held . . . nothing! Don was unharmed! Renson stared dumbly at his empty hand, not comprehending what had just happened.

Remembering how he saved himself from the snake earlier, Bates had finally learned to control Goyahkla's soap trick, and saved his son.

Renson found that his other hand was empty also; Bates was on the ground next to him and crawling away! With a shout he reached out with both hands to grasp and shatter both of the scientist's shoulders, only to reach right through him!

"What trick is this, human?" demanded the Ca' Ra.

"No trick at all," replied Bates, as he stood up painfully and dusted himself off nonchalantly, then slowly backed away from Renson, seeming to pay no attention at all to the Ca' Ra. "Simply an alteration in quantum coupling probabilities, I should think. Basic quantum mechanics; I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner."

"Well let's see you de-couple this!" shouted Renson, and he pointed both arms at Bates, from which issued thunderous twin plasma blasts so brilliant that onlookers shielded their eyes and cried out in dismay, for nothing that lived could possibly survive such power. Green jungle in the direction of Bates disappeared in a vortex of fire and smoke that obscured the scientist for long seconds after the blast, but when the smoke cleared, there stood Bates, or rather there he floated, for he appeared to be suspended at ground level above the two meter deep, smoking pit that had resulted from the Ca'Ra's blast!

"Is that the best you can do?" asked Bates." No wonder you hide yourselves as humans!"

The enraged Ca' Ra reached up to his head with both hands and ripped his human face away, revealing a red eyed, white fanged, bat/pig like face covered in black fir! A moment later, the steel clawed hands reached down to rip away human clothing also. In seconds instead of the thin human Renson, an apparition from out of a horror movie stood snarling before the Team. It was even thinner than the human Renson, with bat-like wings that sprouted out from its back to a five meter width!

"Ca!" it screamed, as it sprang towards Bates. Bates felt a sudden shooting pain in his head, and tumbled unceremoniously down into the smoking pit. Dimly Bates realized that he had been stunned by a powerful empathic mental blast from the Ca' Ra; likely this was the primitive hunting method of the Ra!

Hardly had Bates landed at the bottom of the pit when the Ca' Ra dove down on him with ripping steel claws! Barely conscious, Bates could no longer fade or fly. He watched helplessly as Ren'Ca's fangs approached his exposed neck.

Ren'Ca suddenly stood up and turned, as though responding to an attack from behind. His head still groggy from the Ca' Ra mind blast, Bates didn't understand for a moment what he was seeing. A growling, furry beast of some sort seemed to have attached itself indelicately to the Ca'Ra's hind quarters! Bates blinked, but still he saw what he saw. It was Milo! The plucky little dog must have escaped from the group at the Bus and followed Bates all those miles through the jungle!

The tactic that had worked so well against Barns almost a week earlier worked only for a few short seconds against Ren'Ca. The enraged Ca' Ra spun around so swiftly that Milo was flung away and high up into the air! As Bates still fought to fully regain his senses, he watched amazed as the dog's rapid flight slowed to a smooth floating motion that ended when the dog landed gently in the arms of a grinning Goyahkla. At the same time, Ren'Ca himself floated up and away from Bates, until he hung suspended three meters above ground level, before a magnificent, white, horse-like creature.

"You are a being without honor," said Pru. "Your terror will end now!"

From his position above, the Ca' Ra let loose another powerful plasma blast, this time directed at Pru. The unicorn never even blinked as she was enveloped in blue/white flame. When the blast ended, the unicorn still stood untouched; impossibly white and magnificent. This time however, there was no damage at all to the surrounding jungle. A huge green moth still fluttered unharmed over the unicorn. Bates, now rising from the smoking pit, took note of the feat. He had the feeling that he could learn a lot from the unicorn!

Pru was staring intently at the struggling Ca' Ra with her infinitely dark, deep eyes. "It was this flame that your kind directed against the One Tree and The People. Do you deny it?"

"I don't know of any such attack, and I don't know of your People!" spat Ren'Ca.

"In this you speak truth Ca'Ra, but it is also true that you hide many dark secrets. Why do you seek Earth's destruction?"

"The humans must die! They are too much like us!"

"In this you speak part truth only, Ca' Ra. There is a deeper, darker truth that you would try to hide even from me! Do you know what lies sleeping here in harm's way of Dannos, Ca'Ra? Is not the Great One your true target? Why? Who is your true master, pawn of evil?"

Ren'Ca struggled to point a plasma blasting arm at Pru again, but found that could not move either of his arms in that direction. But he managed to point an arm at Mel and let loose a horrific blast. Old Gus sprang in front of Mel, and though Bates and Pru both tried to block the hot plasma mentally, some of it got through. It was only a tiny fraction of the original blast, but it was more than enough to blacken the two men and send them tumbling lifelessly to the ground.

Bates cried out in impotent anguish and rage, and Pru's white body glowed brightly, while her horn throbbed brighter than the sun. The Ca' Ra now faced the wrath of both the elemental unicorn and the human apprentice Guardian. A brilliant white light erupted from the unicorn's horn then, and swept up and through the spot where the Ca' Ra had been. The Ca' Ra was not there because the Ca' Ra no longer existed, for apprentice Guardian Bates had done something terrible to him. Just exactly what, even Bates didn't know, but several witnesses thought that they saw the snarling image of the evil Ca' Ra rapidly expand to gigantic proportions, becoming more and more insubstantial as it did so, until it simply dissipated and disappeared.

****

CHAPTER 46

THE SLEEPER AWAKES

Never give in, Never give in, Never give in, Never, Never, Never, Never.

\- Winston Churchill

With the Ca' Ra gone, for the moment there was only one thing on the minds of the Team: their fallen friends.

Pru rushed to where Gus and Mel had fallen, and found the spare physicist bent sobbing over the still, prone form of his old friend Augustus. The remains of the little old biologist could scarcely be recognized as human, as most clothing, hair, skin, and underlying flesh was completely burnt away. Already the horrid stench of burnt human flesh hung heavy in the still, humid jungle air.

"Did you see that stubborn old coot?" sobbed Mel. "He jumped right in front of me and took the blast! Can you help him, Pru?"

Pru lowered her horn to gently touch the blackened figure, but lifted the glowing spike away after only a moment and shook her head solemnly. "I am sorry, but this fallen hero is lost to eternity. Great are my powers, Mel Guthery, but they do not include raising the dead." But she lowered her head again, this time to touch the blue-glowing horn that was the focus of her immense powers to Mel's shoulder. "You are another matter Mel Guthery."

Indeed, the little physicist was himself in shock and actually shivering despite the jungle heat. Though Gus had blocked most of the weakened plasma blast and paid full measure, burns of all degrees still covered half of Mel's body, underneath the smoldering rags that hung from his thin form. Even as Pru began her efforts to treat him, the stricken scientist sank weakly to ground in shock with a sigh, next to the body of his dead friend.

Mel wasn't the only wounded hero. None of the Team present totally escaped injury, but of the four human apprentice Guardians only Don was seriously injured. Bates knelt next to his unconscious son Don, along with Elizabeth, Janet, and a mournful Milo. Don's breathing was shallow and labored, and several of his broken limb bones protruded out through torn, bleeding flesh.

Bates held his hands on the young man's head and chest, with his tear-filled eyes closed in deep concentration. He could actually feel the trembling, weakening life of his son; his pain, and his terror. He felt too that he might have the power to help, but he didn't know how! It wasn't fair. He had known his son for less than a week. Would he be taken away so soon?

"He's in shock," said Janet.

"We need Pru!" said Bates. "Pru?"

Pru was a few meters away, still bent over Mel. "There are too many for me alone, human _,_ " the white unicorn pathed. "You also must help!"

Bates looked around. Mel, Wink, Krog, Oscar, and Don were definitely very badly hurt, and Winnebago was down also! They could all be dead or dying right now! Pru was right. "But I don't know how! Show me!"

"I'll help you, Bates," said the suddenly present Johnny Goth. "My mother is much better at healing than I am, but I can quickly get you started. Then you will help Pru effectively."

"Mostly you must teach yourself _,_ " pathed Johnny. "It is easiest to start with your own body. Heal yourself first and you will be strong and able to heal others."

Bates looked at his own hands. They were a mess. They were both bruised, bloodied, and skinned, and multiply fractured, in part from hopelessly beating on the steel-reinforced cyborg body of Renson, and, he suddenly realized, they were quite painful. His feet were similarly sore. There were strains and sprains and bruises all over his body! He felt his neck, and realized that there he was terribly bruised, strained, sprained, and whatever! His chest ached most of all; probably he had cracked or broken ribs and ruptured internal organs. Yes, he too had very serious injuries. Even fatal ones perhaps, if left untreated.

"I could heal you myself," pathed Johnny, "but then you would not learn how to do it."

If friends and family members weren't dying around him, and the Earth wasn't due to be destroyed in a day and a half, and he wasn't personally on the hook to save it, Bates might have preferably took a couple of months off from everything else to lounge around a hospital or his apartment and recover the old fashioned way, but he realized that he didn't have that option. He had to learn human body repair immediately.

"But Don could die while I'm working on myself!" protested Bates.

"I'll watch him and make sure that doesn't happen," assured Johnny.

Bates looked at Janet and Elizabeth, who clearly were expecting him to perform another feat of 'magic' that would help Don. They were both staring back at him. "We heard Pru and Johnny too," pathed Janet. "You can do it Narb! Physician heal thyself."

"Do it, Daddy," pathed Elizabeth. "We'll try to stay with you, then maybe Mom and I can learn how to help too. _"_ Janet and Elizabeth moved closer to Bates and each took one of his hands in their own. Johnny stood above them, with his hands on the shoulders of the Team leader. Bates immediately felt Janet's familiar presence, and Elizabeth's similar but different one also, as well as the stronger psychic presence of Johnny Goth.

"Close your eyes and open your mind to see yourself," pathed Johnny.

Bates closed his eyes and other 'normal' senses to the outside world and opened his mind to his body.

"Good," pathed Johnny. "Now look inside yourself. Move your conscious self through your body, and see how it works and what is broken that needs fixed."

Bates first let his conciseness wander through his body slowly, on a sort of inspection run. Initially, it was like stumbling blindly through a pitch dark forest. Then he began to perceive things; dimly, as if finding that a dark forest is only in near darkness, and that nearby trees and grass can be seen dimly in the moonlight after all, and that by paying attention to the intricate sounds of night life, the gentle touch of webs and breezes, and other things usually ignored in the glare of day, there is a whole new world to explore. Only this wasn't a forest, it was an even more complex and wondrous place: his own body!

He wasn't using any of his 'normal' external perceptive senses, this was something as new and different as telepathy. He also took note that he was not alone, but that Janet and Elizabeth were there with him. Johnny was there also, a nearby and closely watching presence.

"Learn how your body works, Bates," instructed Johnny. Together, they could actually sense the different parts of his body as he focused on them. He noted what he interpreted to be consumption of food and oxygen, growth, sensation, and dozens of other things! It was all there for the trio to 'see' and learn!

Beyond that, there was generally a feeling of 'rightness' of structure and function that he couldn't attach any scientific notion to, and a feeling of 'wrongness' in certain places. He could somehow tell when things were damaged and not as they should be, and he could also sense corrective processes within him that were slowly trying to set things right.

"Yes, it is those natural healing processes that you need to nurture and strengthen," coached Johnny. "Through your will, help your body heal itself. Your body and subconscious mechanisms know what to do, you just need to help them."

Sped by his conscious encouragement, the 'right' pattern for his body began to rapidly heal and re-assert itself. Gradually, the 'wrongness' began to subside. He then showed what he learned to Janet and Elizabeth. Janet could do it, though not nearly as well as he could, but Elizabeth was quickly able to match her father's skill.

For several minutes, the trio roamed Bates' body, patching it up as they went. As they did so, their skills greatly improved. Gradually, they found that they could address larger and larger areas, until at last they were applying their new-found skill to the entire Narbando T. Bates entity.

"That will do it for now, thank you _,_ " pathed Bates at last. He looked at and flexed his hands. They were still bloodied and dirty, but underneath that, they felt perfectly whole and well again, as did the rest of him!

"That's all there is too it," said Johnny. "But now I need to return to help Dooley, There are still thousands of nanobot colonies to deal with. Good luck!" At that Johnny flew away.

The Bates-led healing trio turned quickly to Don. He looked horrible; his pulse and respiration were weak, and his skin seemed to have a bluish tinge to it. Bates didn't know exactly what that meant, but he figured that it couldn't be good.

Placing their hands on Don, they all concentrated. It took a few minutes to 'know' their new patient, but then things proceeded rapidly. After only a few more minutes, they could all sense that the emergency was past. Don would live!

"Narb," pathed Janet, "Elizabeth and I can finish with Don from here. You better help Pru with the others."

Bates withdrew from Don and opened his eyes. He was relieved to find that even using only his normal senses, he could tell that Don was improving. The young man was breathing normally, his color had improved, and his limbs looked whole again. Looking around, he saw that Pru was applying her horn to Wink. Krog has sitting up and holding his head with one huge hand, so he was apparently also recovering. Winnebago was actually standing up, limping about, and cursing brilliantly in Brooklynese, showing a promising return to his old form.

Oscar however, lay moaning softly, perhaps because Milo was licking his face, but more probably because he was in intense pain. Bates went to him and laid his hands on his heaving chest. The big biologist seemed to have only a broken jaw and serious concussion. No problem! In a few minutes Oscar was recovered enough to join Mel and Bates in grieving for Gus.

Yet they also knew that they had to proceed with the mission. The survivors first thought to simply bury Gus in the trench blasted by Renson, but Pru insisted on a ceremony of The People. After all, Gus had spent his last years with Pru and the others of The Land. After both Oscar and Pru said a few words about their departed friend, the gathered company watched as what remained of Augustus McGregor slowly sank under the ground and out of sight. Bates, with his new senses, found that he could 'see' and recognize how the unicorn lowered Gus through the ground. It was essentially Goyahkla's 'soap trick' yet again; the same thing that saved his skin when Renson grabbed him!

Perhaps, thought Bates, it was appropriate that the life-loving old Biologist was laid to rest in this jungle, with thriving life all around. Then he remembered that in a day and a half, this entire area would be pulverized to atoms by Dannos. On the other hand, what if he were to stay here and use the soap trick on the gravesite area? Wouldn't the comet pass right through this patch of Earth without touching it? No, he figured that it still wouldn't work, because the surrounding area would still be pulverized.

"HOLY SHIT!" shouted Bates. He started jumping up and down. It was not very appropriate language or demeanor for a funeral, and most of the others looked at him like he was crazy. "I've got it! I've got it! It's NUTS! It might just work! JESUS H. FARK-ING FUDGE WINKIE CHE-RIST!" He started doing his stupid little funky chicken dance, and became so excited that he was totally incoherent.

Some of the Team were staring at him awkwardly in embarrassment, figuring that the man was beyond all hope, but his closest friends recognized this display to be normal Bates behavior when he had a fantastic brain-storm, and judging from the extent of the display this was one hell of a brain storm!

"OK Bates," said Oscar, holding Bates still by the shoulders with his huge powerful hands. "Calm down and tell us your idea."

"Dannos! We'll soap it! We'll McGregor it!" sputtered Bates excitedly. The others stared at him blankly. "You know! We make it insubstantial like Goyahkla's Zest, or like Pru did to Gus just now, and I did with Renson! It's the soap trick! Here, I'll show you! Observe!" Bates found a fist sized rock, which was not in itself a simple thing to do in a place where everything is covered with vines, roots, and black soil teeming with insects, worms, and other yucky creatures. At first he held out the rock in his hand, but immediately it levitated up into the air where it hung suspended about twenty feet above him. After a few moments, it fell straight for his head! A couple of people cried out in fear for Bates, and a few actually lunged towards him as if to deflect the heavy rock, but they were all too late, and the rock fell right into Bates. And through Bates! And into the ground, disappearing! Bates stood smiling. "Ta-daa! See! If we can do the same thing for Dannos, we're home-free!"

The others weren't smiling. "Bates," said Mel, "we understand what you're suggesting, and it's a marvelous idea, but that was a one-kilogram rock, traveling at a few meters per second. Dannos is about ten million billion kilograms of iron moving at about fifty kilometers per second. As much as we are amazed by your powers, Bates, I for one question your ability to handle Dannos like you did that rock!"

Bates' smile faded. Mel was right. A million Narbandos probably couldn't do the job! "Fudge Winkies, you're right Mel! Why, it would take a mind of fantastic power to pull it off!"

"Speaking of minds of fantastic power, Bates," asked Mel, "why haven't we been going bonkers from the Great One lately? While battling Renson and healing us you and Pru haven't also been shielding us, have you? So why haven't we all gone bonkers?"

"No, of course we weren't shielding anyone," responded Bates, taken aback. "I totally forgot, and Pru's been busy with other things too! I hadn't even noticed the mental silence. So then, the Great One is perfectly quiet. What can that mean?"

The discussion was suddenly interrupted by Pru. "All must stand close to me, so that I may shield you better!" she shouted in alarm.

Everyone moved closer to the glowing white unicorn. Meanwhile, the ground was beginning to tremble and heave, as though the Earth itself were awakening. "What is it, Pru?" asked Bates. "An Earthquake?"

"The Great One is awake, that is why our shielding has not been needed! But he now stirs his great body, and reaches out with thought!" replied Pru. "Get close to me everyone; I must focus on a mighty shield for us!"

They held on to each other tightly, as much for reassurance as to steady themselves physically, as the Earth shook more and more violently. Without Pru firmly anchoring them, by now they would have probably all been tumbling and bumping about the jungle like arcade pinballs.

****

CHAPTER 47

THE FEATHERED SERPENT

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

\- Alexander Pope

"Xanatholen, HETh LartwenZorg?" pathed something incredibly loudly, followed by silence.

To Bates, it felt like the top of his head had been ripped apart! He sank to his knees, as did Janet, the kids, and Wink, while poor Krog collapsed totally and seemed to be unconscious. The other humans remained standing, but were holding their hands as if they were also in pain to some extent. Milo hid whimpering in the middle of the Team, joined by a whimpering Winnebago, who shared the dog's talent for trying to avoid danger. Pru however, still stood tall, her eyes black pits, her golden mane flaring, and her horn glowing brighter and brighter! A glowing shield could be seen forming around the Team.

"Thrixitwaldaanthj; jvrgfirty753nng8bakny8 THULGew?" pathed the something, much quieter this time; the thoughts now partly muffled by the unicorn shield. Bates and the others, except for poor Krog, stood up again, though unsteadily, due to the continuing earthquake.

"What the hell is that?" asked Oscomb, pointing at the large jungle covered hill just ahead. The big hill was lifting up and breaking apart, as though something monstrous was rising up from underneath and within it. Hundreds of tons of trees, huge boulders, and soil were being flung up and to all sides. Bates realized with a start that the boulders were rectangular-sided blocks; obviously shaped by intelligent agencies, presumably the work of Mayans, Aztecs, or some other ancient humans of the region. Some of the blocks were landing with crushing force quite near the Team, and Bates feared for their safety, until one huge block actually hit their Pru's protective shield dead center and bounced off of it harmlessly. The Unicorn's protective shield was immensely strong.

Another block that landed nearby drew the attention of the onlookers because of its unusual shape. It was not rectangular like the others. It was bigger than most, ten or twenty tons Bates supposed, and shaped like the head of a huge serpent or dragon. Bates recalled something about a feathered snake-god of the Aztecs named Quetzalcoatl.

"The Great One comes!" said Pru.

For just a moment, Bates thought that he was seeing a gigantic stone snake-god head rising above the hill, one that seemed to be staring right at the Team. Then, as the hail of stone blocks and trees cleared, and the scale of the head and the supporting creature below it became more apparent, the Team members were simply too shocked and terrified by the sight to even mutter exclamations.

The human Team members felt like they were extras in a Godzilla movie. The size of the creature was simply too huge to comprehend; the terrible head itself had to be at least a dozen meters long, while the creature it belonged to _was_ the hill itself! The exact shape of the rest of the creature wasn't readily apparent, though there was an impression of coiled loops of tail, folded wings, and four titanic limbs centered by an immense body. Immense spikes jutted up from the top of its head and its neck, back, and tail, which ended in a great triangle-shaped tip. The whole thing was generally various shades of green, with the exception of the head, which was multicolored and ringed at the neck by what appeared to be huge multicolored feathers. The eyes were each a meter or more across and blood red, and from the mouth gigantic white fangs protruded.

The thing suddenly lifted its head towards the heavens, opened its cavernous mouth, and roared. The resulting deafening sound was much like the deep roar of a tornado despite the shield around the Team, and it caused a sharp Earth-shock that threw everyone but Pru to the ground again. Though the Team hadn't understood its language, there was no mistaking the tone of its voice, the violence of its emergence, or the outrage of that roar. The Great One was REALLY pissed off!

Bates was terrified. Snakes had always bothered him, and this snake-looking thing was worse than his worst nightmares.

Without taking a single step, the head, supported by a neck at least a hundred meters long, moved towards the Team, and in seconds was hovering above and before them. It was much bigger than Bates had at first thought.

"LEN, HSRIC, BIEUCCXWTHL; JNYUB HETH LARIUN," it said, and the thoughts and sound were defining, even within Pru's protective shield. The Team felt exposed and vulnerable.

Then the unicorn's shield simply disappeared!

Bates, who had gotten up to stand next to Pru, looked at the unicorn, who simply shrugged and shook her head. The disappearance of the shield was clearly not her idea. The great head of the serpent-dragon hung above the Team, apparently waiting.

Bates, as Team leader, felt that it was up to him to try to speak to the immense creature. "Greetings great Quetzalcoatl!" he pathed. "We come as friends, to warn you of a great danger that would destroy you! Our common enemy the Ra want to kill you."

In response, the great beast opened its mouth wide enough to expose rows of teeth larger than men, while a red forked tongue as thick as a giant tree trunk ran across them!

That was more than enough for terrified Winnebago, who suddenly bolted from among the Team and went running for all he was worth away from the scene, along the jungle path by which the group had arrived. Quick as thought, impossible lengths of dragon's tongue darted out to twist around the running Indian's waist and haul him away kicking and screaming to be held suspended a few meters in front of the dragon's head!

"Fudge!" shouted Bates, as he mentally made ready to strike a blow at the dragon, but he was reproved by Pru.

"Wait, human," the unicorn pathed. "Violence against the Great One is impossible! His tone is threatening but I understand his words, and right now he seeks merely to communicate with you humans directly _._ "

So the Team watched helplessly for long minutes as a now silent Winnebago hung suspended before the giant reptilian face, high above their heads. Their friend seemed to be unconscious, or was he already dead? What was the dragon doing to him? Was he to be eaten? There was simply no way to know.

Suddenly the tongue released him, with seeming distaste, and utter disregard, as the now fully conscious Winnebago was left to fall screaming onto the Team, where he was fortunate to be safely fielded in Oscomb's big arms.

"SHIT!" roared the dragon, with Winnebago's voice, only incredibly loud. "SO YOU DAMN WELL BETTER EXPLAIN IT TO ME YOU GUYS, AND MAKE IT GOOD, NOW THAT I UNDERSTAND THIS PRIMITIVE APE LANGUAGE YOU CALL AMERICAN! WHY THE HELL DID YOU WAKE ME UP? THAT ONE'S PUNY MIND IS STUFFED WITH CRAP ABOUT INSURANCE AND CONTRACTS, AND OTHER CRAP THAT I DON'T UNDERSTAND AND DON'T WANT TO UNDERSTAND!

"WHAT THE HELL IS A BAGEL WITH CREAM CHEESE THAT HE KEEPS THINKING ABOUT? THIS PLANET IS STILL OVER-RUN WITH YOU STINKING LITTLE APES, BUT YOU BOTHERED TO WAKE ME UP AGAIN ANYWAY? DIDN'T I TELL YOU NOT TO DO THAT? DIDN'T I HAVE YOU BUILD ROCK THINGS OVER ME TO KEEP ME HIDDEN? THIS BETTER BE GOOD!

"STILL, YOU'RE NOT ALL APES THIS TIME ARE YOU? I AIN'T ATE ME A UNICORN IN A LONG DAMN TIME! I BEGAN TO THINK THEY MIGHT BE ALL USED UP!"

"Great One, we are sorry to disturb your rest," shouted Bates. "But the disturbance was a battle between us and our common enemy, the Ra. The Ra are trying to kill you, and us."

"YEAH!" replied the dragon. "YOU SAID SOMETHING LIKE THAT ABOUT A MINUTE AGO, NOW THAT I UNDERSTAND IT. BUT AS YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY FIGURED OUT, I AIN''T TOO DAMN SUSCEPTIBLE TO BEING WASTED. SO WHAT'S THIS 'GREAT DANGER' YOU WANT TO WARN ME ABOUT? AND WHAT THE FRIG IS A RA ANYWAY?"

Apparently the knowledge that the dragon had obtained from Winnebago had a lot of gaps, many of them probably reflecting gaps in Winnebago's knowledge and interests. So Bates explained, as he had done by now several times before, about Dannos and the Ra, though this time he omitted many of the details of what had happened over the last couple of weeks. After all, why would a dragon want to know about a high speed chase on the Washington beltway, or buying Twinkies in WAWAs?

Besides, the more detail he tried to tell the Dragon, the more he had to painstakingly backtrack and explain. Although the creature had Winnebago's voice, vocabulary, and a few memories, the depth of its understanding was poor, and it had an irritating intolerance of the idiosyncrasies of the 'American' language!

"NOW WAIT JUST A SECOND BATES, YOU SAID EARLIER THAT A BUS IS A GROUND TRAVELING MACHINE THAT DOESN'T FLY, BUT AIRPLANES ARE MACHINES THAT FLY. BUT THEN YOU SAY THAT YOU HAVE A BUS THAT FLIES, BUT IT'S NOT AN AIRPLANE! SO WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME?" A fifty meter long plume of blue-green flame shot out of the dragon's nostrils, searing the air just above the Team.

A trembling Bates tried to calm the Dragon and explain as best he could. "Right! Sorry to confuse you! My fault entirely! Our special Bus is really more of a space ship, but we call it a bus because it's shaped like a bus, and it looks like a bus, and carries a lot of people like a bus."

"BUT WHEN YOU PUT IT THAT WAY, IT REMINDS ME OF SOMETHING FROM THE MEMORY OF WINNEBAGO ABOUT LOOKING AND QUACKING LIKE A DUCK. HOW CAN THAT BE LOGICAL AND RELEVANT? DUCKS ALSO FLY, CORRECT? WHAT IS A DUCK, AND IS THE BUS A DUCK?"

"No, I don't think so!" replied Bates, trying to explain, but at the same time diplomatically trying to not be too critical of the dragon's logic.

"WELL THEN, WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPACE SHIPS AND AIRPLANES? IS IT THAT FOR AIRPLANES THERE'S LIFE INSURANCE THAT YOU BUY IN AIRPORTS? AND ARE YOU SURE THAT DUCKS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT? I SENSE A DUCK THAT SELLS INSURANCE."

And so it took several long hours for Bates to explain the basics of the situation to 'Quetzal', as the dragon agreed to be called. Fortunately, though the dragon had the disadvantage of Winnebago's confused and largely irrelevant memories, he was evidently highly intelligent. Finally, after Bates was finished, the dragon chose to verify the Dannos part of the story by an amazing feat of mental powers. In the sky above and to the East, a great opening appeared in the clouds; then a thin white cloud appeared below it. Finally on the thin white cloud, the image of an irregular, dark, tumbling object appeared. It looked like a huge image of Dannos, projected onto a screen-shaped cloud!

"Is that really Dannos or only how you imagine Dannos to be?" asked a curious Mel Guthery.

"THAT'S THE REAL DANNOS, RIGHT WHERE YOU APES SAID. A LITTLE TOUGH FORMING AN OPTICAL VIEWING APPARATUS OUT OF COMPRESSED ATMOSPHERE THAT STRETCHES TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE PLANET THOUGH!" replied Quetzal. Even as Great Quetzal spoke, the image faded away.

"OK, I'VE GOT TO ADMIT, THE DAMN THING PROBABLY WOULD HAVE KILLED ME. AND IT REALLY MAKES ME WONDER ABOUT THAT LAST ONE THAT DAMN NEAR GOT ME BUT WIPED OUT NEARLY ALL OF MY NIFTY DINOSAURS EXCEPT THE LITTLE FEATHER COVERED ONES. MAYBE THAT NEAR-MISS WASN'T AN ACCIDENT EITHER! BUT YOU SAVED MY BACON THIS TIME, WHATEVER BACON IS, SO THAT'S ONE I OWE YOU.

"SO OK THEN, IT'S SETTLED! AS YOUR REWARD I PROMISE THAT I WON'T EAT ANY OF YOU, EVEN THOUGH YOU WOKE ME UP. THAT SEEMS FAIR ENOUGH. CONGRATULATIONS! I PROMISE TO EVEN PASS ON EATING THE UNICORN!" The great head withdrew up towards the body, from which a pair of impossibly large feathered wings unfolded, and started to flap! "GOOD-BYE FOREVER, LITTLE APE CREATURES!" The dragon was apparently making ready to leave!

"Where are you going?" shouted Bates in alarm!

"I'M GETTING THE HELL AWAY FROM HERE, THAT'S FOR DAMN SURE! ASTEROID COMING! PLUS, I'M HUNGRY. GONNA EAT ME SOME FAT WHALES BEFORE THEY'RE ALL COOKED AWAY WHEN THAT ASTEROID STRIKES!"

"Wait cousin!" pathed Pru loudly! "There IS more to discuss!"

"SO!" replied Quetzal, "YOU UNICORNS DO STILL CLAIM TO REMEMBER OUR KINSHIP!" The big dragon folded its wings and settled Earthward again to regard the unicorn. The tone of its voice was definitely not friendly, and fire snorted from its nostrils and mouth!

"It is you that through your very acts have denied kinship!" claimed Pru. "But as you know, even for the sake of that kinship I do not claim special privileges of safety thereby, since you long ago pledged yourself to consume and ruin me! Well I knew long before this quest with the humans began, that through the act of seeking you, my freedom or very existence could be forfeit, as it has been in ages past for all my brothers and sisters that have sought you out. I do not seek to renew the feud between us, Great One. But now as we have indeed saved your life and you have granted my freedom, perhaps this is the opportunity that I have long sought to redress our old wounds."

The Earth shook! "REDRESS WOUNDS? ME? YOU'VE GOT IT BACKWARDS! REDRESS YOURSELF FIRST! PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, THOSE PARTS OF YOU THAT REMAIN! THEN WE'LL HAVE SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT, UNICORN!"

"We have something to talk about now!" replied Pru. "You said a minute ago that you wouldn't eat me, but you've been eating me already! For even in your own view, my brothers, sisters, and I are one. Therefore I ask that you keep your word and return what you have already eaten of me."

"CONVOLUTED UNICORN LOGIC. YOU HAVEN'T CHANGED, NONE OF YOU!"

Bates and the others had been following the Great One's conversation with the unicorn with great interest and very little understanding. What feud? What was going on? Why would returning eaten unicorns do anybody any good? Bates sensed that the argument that he was hearing was vitally important to their quest to save Earth, but without understanding it, he could only stand by hopelessly. "What is all this, Pru?" he asked the unicorn quietly, so that he would not be overheard by the dragon.

But the dragon did hear him. "YEAH COUSIN! WHY DON'T YOU EXPLAIN TO YOUR APE BUDDIES THE REAL REASON YOU JOINED THEIR QUEST? EXPLAIN WHY WE AREN'T TALKING ABOUT DEMATERIALIZING COMETS AND SAVING LITTLE APE LIVES! IT'S BECAUSE YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THAT, ISN'T IT UNICORN?"

"On the contrary, I hoped to save them also," protested Pru.

"WHY? I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THEM TO DIE OUT AND MAKE ROOM FOR SOMETHING BETTER FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. I STILL HAVE PLENTY OF DINOSAURS STASHED AWAY FOR A RAINY DAY, OR I COULD KEEP ON TRYING WITH THE WHALES OR WITH OTHERS! I SAY GOOD RIDDANCE! HUMANS? OF WHAT USE ARE THEY TO SUCH AS YOU, OTHER THAN TO USE THEM? YOU HELPED SAVE ME FROM THE COMET, AND YOU SAY NOW THAT IN GRATITUDE I SHOULD RETURN YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS! THAT'S IT ISN'T IT?"

"They still exist. You cannot mask from me the unicorns within you. Return them, or you have eaten me and broken your word!"

"THEY ARE NO LONGER YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS."

"And they are not you; they are us! They are unicorn! Release them to me, or you break the Law as well as your word."

"MORE CONVOLUTED LOGIC! IT'S NOT ME THAT BREAKS THE LAW! I'M JUST TRYING TO SET THINGS RIGHT! WHEN I HAVE YOU ALL, I'LL RELEASE YOU INTACT AGAIN, AS YOU WERE IN THE BEGINNING! THAT'S MY PLEDGE!"

Pru's voice was stern. "That past existence I have forsaken! It was my choice, and mine alone! I may have broken the Law, but your interference breaks the Law anew and more greatly!"

In answer, the dragon turned his head skyward, and a tremendous blinding plume of flame shot thunderously at least a kilometer into the air, as the Earth shook in return! The mortals in the Team shielded their eyes and ears and turned away from heat of the blast.

"There is one more thing to consider, if your anger does not blind you to all reason!" said Pru to the dragon in her piercing, clear, sing-song voice. "As your existence is entwined with mine through eternity, so is ours entwined with these humans. A human with farsight has seen it. You are a Great One, you too dream among the many future paths! Have you seen nothing of this in your own dreams?"

The dragon's head drew much closer to the group and looked them over, Narbando, Elizabeth, and Janet in particular. "YOU ARE RIGHT! THESE I HAVE SEEN IN MY DRAGON DREAMS!" Suddenly its red tongue snaked out of its mouth and wrapped around Janet! Bates was terrified that the tongue would pull her away and rough her up as it had Winnebago, or worse, but instead, it seemed to merely circle her body gently for just a moment, and then withdraw.

"THIS ONE BARES THE TWO THAT ARE MOST KEY TO MY FUTURE!"

"What does he mean?" asked Janet, when she had caught her breath.

"Twins!" explained Pru.

"Liz and Don?"

"No, the twins to come," explained the unicorn. "Since last night. You've probably been too busy to notice, Janet. You're pregnant again with twins!"

Bates and Janet looked at each other in shock. "Fudge Winkies!" she said.

Bates fainted dead away.

****

CHAPTER 48

THE PLAN

If I'd known I was going to live so long, I'd have taken better care of myself.

\- Leon Eldred

Bates woke a few minutes later surrounded by nearly two dozen familiar faces. Johnny and Dooley had evidently finished with the nanobots, and had the Bus flown to the impact point. The whole Team was together again!

"Bates, you've got things screwed up again, as usual. The _woman_ is supposed to be the one to faint in these circumstances, and not for several months," said Jane. "He's all right everyone, only fainted, just like Liz and Janet said. Some super man he turned out to be! Get back now everyone; give the stud some breathing space." She shooed most of the onlookers back while Mel and Oscar helped Bates to stand.

"Janet and the kids? Are they OK?"

"They're fine, Bates," said Mel. "Just cleaning themselves up in the Bus, I believe. Showers and fresh clothes, I would imagine, which is something that the rest of us could use also."

Bates looked at Mel's clothes, which were hanging from him in tatters. What should have showed of Mel in terms of skin, and what remained of his shirt and trousers, were covered in blood and soot, much of it probably from poor Gus. Bates' and Oscar's clothes weren't in much better shape. Bates made a mental note to himself to explore the possibility of using his new mental powers to heal clothing, if and when he got the chance. Right now, he had to get on with business. There was a very conspicuous absence that he noticed right away, a huge one. The dragon!

"What happened to Quetzal?" asked Bates, disturbed.

"Lit out just as we come in with the Bus," said Hank. "Damnedest sight I ever saw, and I seen plenty, these last few days!"

"After you fainted, he and Pru talked alone briefly, or should I say argued, then he flew off in a tiff," explained Mel.

Bates could hardly believe it. He was supposed to be leading this mission, but he had a disturbing habit of being unconscious at the most critical moments! "What did the dragon say?"

"Not much. Basically he said we were on our own, roared fire again, and took off," explained Oscomb.

Their hoped for savior was gone! Bates was devastated. "Now what the hell do we do?"

"First I believe that we should parlay with our unicorn friend and determine exactly where we stand with her and her dragon kin," said Mel.

"Right on!" seconded Oscar. The three friends, joined by the others present, walked to where Pru stood silently with Fen, waiting for them.

"We need to discuss some things Pru," began Bates, sternly.

"Like where your ungrateful 'cousin' that there dragon went!" said Hank, brandishing his assault rifle.

"And what relationship you have with that creature," added Krog, in his deepest voice.

"And then there's that little matter of how to save the Earth!" added Barns.

"We only have about thirty hours left!" noted Steve Latanna.

"Rowel, rowel!" added Milo, for emphasis.

"I blame you not for being upset!" pathed Pru. "In truth, I have not told you the full story of the People and the Great One. I did not feel that it was yet your business to know."

"You were wrong, and as a result you've lost our confidence!" pathed Bates. "You blind-sided us! As a result, we couldn't really participate in persuading the dragon, because we didn't know what the hell was going on! And we still don't. Explain please. And speak aloud so that all of us can participate. We've had too many secrets. _"_

"Everyone to the Bus!" Bates announced, without even waiting for a response from the unicorn. "Pru has some things to tell us, and we need to plan our next move." Plus he was tired of being in jungle and much preferred the luxury of being in the critter-free Bus, he didn't bother to add.

In the Bus, the air was filled with murmurs of concern, fear, and uncertainty from those gathered. The Team had gotten this far on luck and hope, and on confidence in Bates, in the Jigs riddles, in members with outstanding minds like Mel's, in the clearly astounding powers of Johnny and Dooley, and especially in the beautiful, magical unicorn with the terrible dark pits for eyes and glowing horn.

According to the Jigs riddles, at this stage in the quest they were supposed to have found 'the answer', which everyone had presumed would involve the help of the Great One. Instead, the huge creature had flown off in a huff, though not before it raised doubts about the motivations of their most exotic and powerful Team member, Pru. The group hushed as Pru moved to the center of the Bus to face Bates.

"The story is a long one," started Pru, in her clear, piping voice.

"Then you better give us the abridged version," remarked Bates.

Pru turned her dark-pit eyes to stare at each and all of the listeners. "It began long ago, after the beginning, when life started on many worlds, in many universes. It was a time of life and death, of trial and error, in which most trials to establish lasting life failed, for only a few of the many attempted patterns for life tried were truly self-sustaining. On Earth, over billions of years your format of short lived individuals that propagated through two sexes finally became the dominant pattern. It was and is an elegantly simple solution to the problem of randomness that though required for life also threatens the structure and process called life. But other life forms also survived the crucible of the long ages, and some developed intelligence long before humans walked the Earth."

"Ours was one of those forms that found self-awareness in the early universe. We were a single being, far different from Earth life. On Earth, complex life forms are actually colonies of billions of interdependent cell units. Our form was that of a single unit that we now call The One in our memories. Whereas complex Earth life generally followed the path of multiple units of two sexes that exchange, refine, preserve, and renew a multitude of species, the dominant life on our planet consisted of a single gigantic being, many millions of years old, that was itself self-refining and self-renewing.

"Though you humans would find this life concept odd and perhaps abhorrent in appearance and manner, the form of The One had advantages. The One passed everything on to itself, without your need to start over again each generation as weak and tiny infants. It developed an increasingly massive, powerful, flexible and malleable body, with ever more impressive physical and mental skills.

"Whereas your progress is now through what you call civilization, and the tools of civilization that you call artifacts, ours was totally self-contained within The One, which could manipulate matter and energy at will, including the form of its own body. This life form also had inherent disadvantages, which we will discuss shortly. Still, for countless millennia, The One was what you humans would term stable and content.

"Then an event occurred that had tremendous impact on The One. Non-intelligent life of other types had existed for a time on the world of The One, but had been consumed by The One long before it had evolved very far, so that discovery of another life form of any level was a significant event for The One.

"Totally unexpectedly, intelligent life arrived from space. The One consumed the visiting intelligent life, but not before observation of and interaction with these creatures so different from itself revealed things that The One could never have even conceived of previously. These creatures were multiple, mobile, independent, creative, communal, and INTERESTING! So much so, that The One actually missed the aliens after they had been irreversibly consumed. For the first time, The One was discontent, perhaps lonely."

"Quickly, the situation progressed from being discontent to existential crisis. The One actually segmented its own intelligence to simulate and examine the multiple entity community that it observed in the aliens. But once this critical step had been taken, differing opinions and feelings developed throughout and within The One. The resulting instabilities threatened the One's very survival and existence. Some of the segmented intelligences tried to recombine, but the change was to a great extent irreversible, since many of the independent entities refused to rejoin and actually began to attack one another in an attempt to gain control of The One!

"Just as you humans have experienced strife amongst yourselves, so The One for the first time experienced strife within itself. In the maddening chaos that followed, much of The One destroyed itself. Finally, many of the surviving intelligences established a truce of sorts, and determined a solution. What remained of The One divided itself into hundreds of separate entities, most which pledged to abide by a set of agreements called in your language 'laws'.

"Essentially, it was agreed that each entity would go its own way and not interfere with the others. That way, perhaps each could separately regain the tranquility and contentment of The One. When The One split up into a multitude of individuals, each became known as a 'Great One', though each was but a tiny imitation compared to The One from which they had issued.

"Perhaps as a result of the efforts to simulate the aliens that visited them, it was agreed as part of The Law that the Great Ones would outwardly assume the physical form of the intelligent beings that had visited it: dragons. The Great Ones however, instead of being communal like the true dragons, would each live alone, sleep much of the time, and would otherwise spend most of their time meditating on how to regain and propagate the contentment of The One.

"Before it divided itself up, The One formed a transportation system for travel between worlds by the Great Ones. This was used to spread the Great Ones among hundreds of planets in this and parallel universes. It was hoped that restrictions such as the dragon form and lethargic lifestyle, and the physical dispersal across many light years, would bring lasting stability to each elemental Great One.

"It actually worked for many millions of years, but eventually the flaws in the approach began to show. First, not all elementals joined the original pact. These rogue elementals went their own way. Some even stayed on the home world. Second, even those that had joined the pact found over time that they could not keep to all of the agreements. Foremost, many dragons ultimately found solitary existence to be unacceptable, and they formed relationships of various types among each other, and with other life forms. We who are now unicorns took the radical step of dividing our self up further and emulating the life patterns of Earth creatures."

Bates, who along with the others had sat in quiet awe during the unicorn's incredible story, gasped out loud. "You mean that The People of The Land used to all be part of a dragon?" he asked.

"Only the unicorns, human. The others are conventional Earth life, more or less, though they evolved in an environment so different from most of Earth that they may not seem so to you. They are for the unicorns our link to this Earth, for it has always been our goal to assimilate ourselves with Earth life."

"But why does Quetzal behave so hostile towards unicorns, if you are fellow elementals?" asked Elizabeth.

"Quetzal strongly opposed our division into unicorns, and pledged he would gather and recombine us."

"He wants to change you unicorns back into a dragon?" asked Bates, incredulously.

"When he has gathered together enough of us, yes."

"How many unicorns does it take to make a dragon?" It sounded a lot like the classic nonsense philosopher question of how many angels could sit on the end of a pin, but in this situation the answer could well mean life or death for seven billion humans and the rest of life on Earth, for Bates reasoned that if they had a second, more cooperative dragon, they stood a chance with the comet that was due to pulverize earth in less than thirty hours.

"The answer is Quetzal's, human, for a small dragon could of course be formed by a single unicorn, as could a multitude of tiny ones, for that matter."

"How many unicorns does he have?"

"Thousands, but he wants all of us."

"Why? What difference does it mean to him if he misses a few?"

"He wants back the same dragon that was lost, not something formed of his own self, or from only some of the unicorns," explained Pru. "That is why I am sure that the unicorns that he has consumed are still completely intact. If he destroys a single one of them, or forces them to reform before he has all, his cause is lost."

"I'm still lost as to the motivation behind this," remarked Janet. "Why is it so important to him that this particular dragon be restored to its original form? Is it a matter of the Law?"

"The Law has nothing to do with it," stated Elizabeth, surprising everyone. "It's love, isn't it Pru?"

In response, the unicorn stared at Elizabeth, with an unfamiliar expression that could have been surprise. "You are wise beyond your years, young one!" she said.

Everything came together at last for Bates. Of course! The two Great Ones were companions, perhaps even lovers of some sort, but at some point maybe they had a serious tiff, and one dragon divided itself up into unicorns and went native on Earth. Quetzal, for who knows how long, has been trying to get him/her/it back together and patch things up! That's why they were all here on Earth! And the unicorns had just as stubbornly resisted, though they sent representatives to parlay with the dragon; representatives that were consumed by the angry dragon. "Then for a long time Quetzal has been after you unicorns to get you to turn yourself back into the dragon he used to know? How long has this been going on?"

"About three hundred million years."

The listeners, eyes all agog and jaws dropped open, not daring believe what had just been said, looked at each other. "Did you say three hundred _million_ years?" asked Mel.

"He's very stubborn," replied Pru.

"And patient!" remarked Janet.

"Hard up!" said Elizabeth.

"A nut case!" said Winnebago.

"That makes him fifteen-million times worse than you, Bates, when it comes to mooning over a lost love," noted Mel.

"Well, it finally paid off for me. Love finally triumphed!" said Bates. He smiled, put an arm around Janet, and gave her a big squeeze. The act was theater for Pru's benefit, as much as anything else. It seemed to Bates that saving the Earth now hinged on solving the dragon/unicorn rift over the next twenty-nine hours or so, though that seemed to be somewhat improbable, given that the problem had defied solution for three hundred million years. But he had to try. What else was there to do? "Are you unicorns really so dead set against the idea?" he asked Pru.

"As might be imagined, that question has been subject to considerable discussion among unicorns for three hundred million years. Over time, individual opinion has differed and evolved. However, I have always have been against it, and mine remains the majority opinion."

"For three hundred million years? Are you really that old? You are immortal?" asked Elizabeth. She had grown quite fond of the unicorn, and especially after the development of some powers of her own, had felt a growing kinship with the beautiful white being. But Pru's revelations made her realize that the unicorn was much more exotic and different from human-kind than she had ever imagined.

"It is the essence of our life type to not renew ourselves in your way, and thus we must persist for long periods of time indeed. But we are not truly immortal, that is reserved for the All-Creator. It is true that in some shape and manner and persona, I have lived for far longer than three hundred million years. But we do renew ourselves in ways other than birth and death as you know it, and evolve when we care to, and we can with difficulty be killed. What I remember or care of life as a dragon is dim and lost far in the depths of memory indeed, compared with life in recent centuries. Yet it is true that I and my brothers and sisters remember some bits and pieces of those long lost times well and often fondly."

"Fondly? Would some unicorns like to reconcile with Quetzal and become a dragon again?" asked Bates, hopefully.

"Some wish it, but it avails them little, as all are pledged to remain unicorn regardless."

"How many wish to reconcile?" asked Elizabeth.

"A minority," stated Pru.

"We assumed that!" said Bates. "But by what percentages, at latest count?"

"You humans put too much store in numbers. Those are lost to memory. But that is of little matter, as the outcome is not. The majority oppose recombination to dragon form."

"Then there has been no recent vote?"

"It was quite recent. Three million years past, I believe."

"Holy smokes! You haven't even brought up the issue for three million years? Is there any way you could vote again right away? Today?"

"Possibly, human, especially since Quetzal no longer blocks such things as telepathy. Most of my kin are within the dragon however, which makes communication with them problematic indeed. Also my kin are no less stubborn than Quetzal. I know why you would seek this, human, but it is impossible. I will not change my mind, though I know your arguments and sympathize with your situation. My kin, strangers to you, would be no less stubborn."

"You would rather see Earth destroyed than change back to a dragon?"

"You don't know what you ask, human. If we did that, I and my kin and fellows would individually cease to be. Also, places like The Land could not exist without unicorns. The People would be no more. We value our freedom and individuality as do you humans. And besides, you exaggerate the danger from Dannos. There have been many other great dying events before the one that will be caused by Dannos, which we have seen and endured. One such occurred only sixty five million years ago. When such events happen many die, but many also live."

"That's easy for you to say!" said Steve Latanna. "You aren't facing extinction, we are!" There were nods and other affirmations throughout the Team.

"We have thought of that, human, and are not without compassion. I discussed it with the People before leaving The Land. It is already agreed that should your quest appear that it will fail, several hundred humans may be sheltered in The Land, along with much of your culture. Your species and many other species great and small will assuredly survive Dannos!"

There were exclamations and cheers among the Team. "Why this is wonderful!" proclaimed Barns. "This is better than orbiting in the Bus! Much better!"

"If it is agreed that the quest is lost, Narbando Bates, I will path word to The People," said Pru. "By tomorrow, humans can be sheltered in The Land!"

Bates stood looking at Pru, and the others. Was this truly their only choice? Was this the answer promised by Jigs? It didn't seem like it; but what else was there? He was out of ideas. Without the power of the dragon, what hope remained? It was all too much! Dragons, aliens, unicorns, and Dannos! His head was splitting! Why the hell had they put him in charge?

"No!" he said firmly at last. "There has to be a way! We still have what? Twenty eight hours? There just has to be a way! We can't give up." The others just looked at him.

Suddenly, a woman's scream filled the air. It seemed to come from the other side of the Bus. They all ran towards the sound, Bates frankly a little relieved to be able to put off deciding what to do about Dannos for the moment.

They found Sandra Kruger laying on the ground moaning. "What is it?" asked Jane, who had been whisked to the front of the crowd to examine the slight, be speckled aeronautical engineer. "Snake bite?"

"No," replied Sandra. "I fell down. I think that both of my legs are broken!"

"Yes!" said Pru, who had lowered he horn to rest on Sandra's shoulder. "Several broken leg bones. I can heal them now, if you like."

Sandra agreed, and Pru got to work, as the others watched. Many of them had not yet seen this kind of healing in action.

"Wait a minute!" said Norma. "There's no place to fall from around here. There's nothing taller than the Bus for a hundred meters. Besides, the ground is soft here."

"She's right!" agreed Oscar, looking around. "There's nothing more than a couple meters high; she just couldn't have broken those legs by simply falling down."

"Sandra!" asked Norma of her friend. "Tell us what happened. Exactly how did your legs get broken?"

"I'm not sure. It's crazy!"

"Tell us! Was it the Ra?" asked Bates.

"Not Ra. All right, I'll tell you, but don't laugh. I fell out of the air." She paused and looked around at the faces of the others to gage their reactions.

"Just tell us more, Sandra," implored Norma.

"Well, you know that I fear heights."

"That's so," remarked Hank. "You damn near killed the lot of us trying to fly that there Bus!"

Bates elbow-poked the harsh old geezer in the ribs, as Sandra continued. "Well, you all probably think I hate flying. But it isn't so; I think about it all the time. Why do you think I became an aeronautical engineer to begin with? Well, when I want to escape everything for a few minutes, I like to go off by myself, close my eyes, and fantasize that I'm flying. With all the talking and arguing about Dannos and what to do, I just had to get away, so I did! I came here to be away from everyone, closed my eyes, and thought about flying."

"But this time it felt real; too real. I became frightened, and opened my eyes. That's when I screamed."

"But why?" asked Norma.

"Because it was real! I was at least ten meters up in the air! Scared me to death! And when I wasn't thinking of flying anymore, I fell like a rock."

"That's nuts!" said Winnebago.

"But how else do we explain the broken legs?" said Oscomb.

"Bates was flying when he fought Renson. We saw him!" noted Winnebago.

"But Bates was transformed by The Traveler; Sandra wasn't," Oscar pointed out.

"She didn't have to be transformed," said Bates. "She could already fly. Her skill had simply been suppressed by the sleeping Dragon."

"Of course!" agreed Mel. "Just as Gus developed telepathic powers while he was in The Land and sheltered by the unicorns from the Great One! It's what Pru explained to us when we were in the Land! We may find that we all have some sort of powers to some degree, now that the Dragon isn't masking them!"

"Right!" said Bates. "And I don't have any abilities that other humans don't have. Mine have just been concentrated by the Traveler. Can you do it again?" he asked Sandra. "Fly? Just a few feet up, so you won't get frightened or hurt?"

The group watched in amazement as the engineer concentrated for a few moments, and suddenly floated slowly up into the air a meter or so above the ground! There she hovered for about ten seconds before she again became frightened. This time however, she gently lowered herself to the ground, where she stood grinning ear-to-ear. "I can fly! I can actually fly!"

"Let's see if any others have new abilities," said Bates.

Over the next half-hour, everyone else had their chances to try such things as telepathy, telekinesis, and flying. Based on this brief exam, it looked like about half of the humans had some sort of 'gift', though their powers were not as strong as those of Bates, Janet, Elizabeth, or Don. Kay Therman and her father the General could telepath to each other and to no others. Steve Latanna could perform the 'soap trick' and levitate small objects. Mel was mildly telepathic. Oscar could levitate his big body, but only when he sang Wagner. To their disappointment, Norma, Barns, Hank, Jane, and Winnebago didn't seem to have any abilities. Never the less, Bates was encouraged.

"Don't you see?" said an excited Bates. "There are probably billions of humans all over the world with powers now! Maybe we don't need a dragon! Even if only one in ten humans can do the soap trick, that would be seven hundred million people with the talent that we need to pull-off the soap-trick on Dannos!"

"But they're scattered all over the world, they're completely untrained, and they don't know what we want them to do," noted Mel.

This brain storming session was getting depressing again, thought Bates. It had been a hell of a day, and everyone was exhausted, especially emotionally. This day had more ups and downs to it than the stock market! And right now, even with lots of extra IQ points courtesy of the Traveler, he didn't see a solution to their problems. But they hadn't come this far to give up now. "Maybe none of that matters," he stated.

"What do you mean?" asked Barns. "We're boxed in a corner here!"

"Let's think it through one problem at a time!" urged Bates.

"There may already be an answer to all of these problems," stated Norma, drawing exclamations from the rest of the Team. "Think back to The Land and its Aspen power grid and shield. I doubt that The People all have the same psychic abilities either, nor are they always focused on sustaining shields or whatever other specific things have to be done in The Land. The People all feed their psy-power to the unicorns, who then control it. Am I mistaken Pru? Isn't psychic power something that an elemental unicorn is uniquely equipped to handle?"

"You are correct, human. We elemental unicorns are uniquely capable of controlling energy, psychic or otherwise. Further, the type of capability that the donor has is indeed irrelevant. It can all be reformed and redirected by an experienced elemental."

"Fudge Winkies!" exclaimed Bates. "Can you do it Pru? Can you direct the psychic energies of millions of humans? And would it be enough to pull the soap trick on Dannos?"

"You humans are creative thinkers indeed! For a brief time I could direct such energies, perhaps. Will it be enough to allow Dannos to not harm the Earth? I know not. It may in fact work, even though Dannos is iron and the Earth also is iron. But there is another problem as well."

"You're the expert on this stuff, Pru," noted Bates. "What is the problem?"

"We have no global Aspen root network to help transmit the energies, human. But on this issue there is that which you would term the good news and bad news as well. The energies need not have a network for them to be transferred to me and directed to Dannos. For example you saw Dooley receive life energies from distant forests to battle the nanobots. That was possible, but only because Dooley and his knife already held a great deal of power. In turn, Dooley's knife and Johnny's watch are small parts of me that support them only because they already have great powers within themselves.

"In sum the bad news is that we need much greater power to originate here where Dannos would strike, and I must stand to direct the energies of all. Only if much power is already sourced here can the power of the others be so received."

"So then we need to bring people with powers here to the jungle?" asked Bates. "How many?"

"Not many," snorted the unicorn. "Several thousand would serve. But they need be the most gifted that can be found. Some of my People need come here also, while still others need seek out humans in other parts of the world and help them to focus on me."

"How the hell will we get folks here by tomorrow night?" asked Bates. "It took us all morning to get here ourselves by Space Bus!"

"I know how!" said Flood. "Jigs told me that he has dozens of his airline's aircraft waiting to support us, but he didn't say exactly what they would do!"

"It still sounds like a logistical nightmare," remarked Bates.

"Leave that to me and Flood," said General Therman. "Logistics using aircraft was my specialty in the Air Force."

"And I'll get in touch with the President to set up communications with all the people of the world," said Latanna. "We'll get the ball rolling on letting the world know our plans. But what will we tell them? What must people do to transfer energy to you, Pru?"

"Those across the Earth will simply need to concentrate on my image, and seek within themselves the power that will be focused here in me. I shall redirect the power to Dannos."

"That may be tricky, even for you, Pru," said Mel. "Janet and I have worked out some of the kinematics involved. Remember, Dannos will strike at night, won't be that easy to see, and is coming at enormous speed. About three and a half minutes from impact, it will appear to be about the third of the diameter of the Moon. Up to then it will be an ever more apparent spectacle, but at that point it will plunge into the Earth's shadow, and disappear from our view."

"Won't it trail a comet tail?" asked Don.

"Not enough to notice." explained Janet. Dannos is solid iron, not a dirty snowball that emits gasses and dust like the comets that can easily be seen.

"Won't it glow when it enters the atmosphere?" asked General Therman.

"Yes," agreed Mel, "but it will go through the thickest part of the atmosphere in about a half of a second! So don't blink, or you'll miss it. That is, if you don't already miss it because of cloud cover. And don't count on moonlight either, there isn't going to be any."

"Pru, do you have to see Dannos to make this work?" asked Bates.

"Not in the sense of human sight. My sight will not be much hindered by darkness or by puffy wisps of moist air. Still, it would be preferable to clearly see Dannos. However, the minor trick of clear weather can be arranged by me, you need not worry of that, humans."

"Well," said Bates, "that's it then! We have a plan at long last! Or at least the outlines of one, so let's get cracking. Steve and the General need to get things rolling right away by COM. I for one intend to take a shower. I suggest that after we kick things off tonight we all get some rest. Last day or not, tomorrow is going to be one hell of a busy day."

****

In the jungle not far from the Bus, the last Ra on Earth climbed down from his observation tree and was soon swiftly working his way away from the impact point. He moved steadily through the jungle; his infrared vision and ultrasonic soundings were effective even on this dark, moonless night. Melberg wasn't a Ca'Ra, but he was still a Ra, and the dangers and hardships of the jungle were merely a minor inconvenience to him.

He estimated that he would be back to the jamming pod by morning. Then, if his suspicions were right and Twig was still hanging around to see how things turned out, he would be able to use the pod radio to contact her. With his ultra-sensitive senses Melberg had seen and heard enough to be of great value to her: information that could perhaps buy his way off this planet and out of trouble with at least the Na'Ra Hierarchy. If he could get Twig and the Warren ship involved, they could together also foil the crazy plan being put into place by the humans and their friends. Humans with psychic powers would be ten times as dangerous to the Ra if they joined the Galactic League. They had to be wiped out now!

All he and Twig had to do was disrupt the precarious plans of the Bus Team and Dannos would do its job on the humans. They would have to be careful though; he had seen the powers that this odd group had, and how they had defeated even the mighty Ca'Ra.

If he infiltrated their camp to disrupt them while Twig attacked with the Ship, the mission might yet be salvaged. It would be dangerous and timing had to be perfect, but it was probably his only chance to get off Earth alive. He and Twig could satisfy most mission goals, at least the ones that he knew about.

Besides his plan being a long-shot there was another serious concern. Not long after Ren'Ca was defeated the absurdly huge dragon appeared! A real live dragon, like in the Ca' Ra legends! This one was mostly green, not black. So it was not the right color, but it was a dragon none the less. He could hardly believe it! Try as he might, he couldn't figure out the implications of the existence of this dragon. Did Ren'Ca know about the dragon? He must have! What did it all mean? He wasn't certain, but perhaps his knowledge of the dragon would give him even more leverage with Twig.

****

Before going to bed, Mel and Janet took Bates outside for a look at Dannos. Though barely twenty-five hours away, its distance from Earth was still ten times the distance to the Moon. Janet was able to find it with a pair of binoculars and point it out to Bates. With his genetically perfect eyesight, Bates was probably able to see it even without the binoculars, but even with a lot of descriptions and drawings from Janet he still wasn't sure which of the dim points of light was Dannos. Stars, planets, or asteroids, they all looked the same to him.

"Why is it so dim?" asked Bates.

"Why don't you use your newly Traveler rejuvenated brain to figure that out?" asked Mel.

"OK, given its size and distance, the Moon is several million times brighter, and even Venus would be thousands of times brighter."

"Right!" said Mel.

"Well, we'll get a much better view of it tomorrow night for sure," Bates noted.

"Afraid so."

****

Later, as Bates took his shower, a million things were flashing through his mind. He levitated his bar of Zest for a few moments, disembodied it, and directed it to fly unimpeded through his own body a few times. It seemed too much like a special-effects parlor trick that he saw on stage at the Virginia Disney World a few months ago. Would it really work with Dannos? It seemed too easy. Were their assumptions correct? Were humans world-wide even now discovering psychic powers?

****

CHAPTER 49

TRANSFORMATION

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-spilt clouds, -- and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of -- wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through the footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark nor ever eagle flew --

And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

\- John MaGee, Jr.

Six-year-old Sara Myers was having a flying dream again, a really good one. This time she was flying around town with Santa, helping him make deliveries. This pleased her very much, since, as she explained to Santa in the Mall the week before, she had wanted to fly ever since she could remember, even if Mom and Dad said that she couldn't.

Not being able to fly simply wasn't fair, she reasoned. After all, her older brother Jimmy collected model airplanes and wanted to be a pilot when he grew up, and Mom and Dad approved of that! She didn't like clunky, noisy airplanes; she just wanted to fly herself, without an airplane or balloon or anything. That seemed to her to be a much simpler thing than using airplanes, but for some reason her parents didn't think so. Several times a day her parents explained to her that people didn't have wings and needed airplanes or some other type of machine to fly. And Jimmy was always teasing her.

At least Mom and Dad did approve of her interest in birds, butterflies, and other flying creatures. That's why her room was full of books, pictures, and models of flying animals of all sorts. Her parents didn't let her have models of flying horses or people though, even though the people on the VISICOM said that there were some strange flying People out West that scientists found, along with unicorns and giants and other wonderfully strange creatures. Her Mom and Dad said that those weren't real though, and that people shouldn't believe everything that they heard and saw on the VISICOM.

Such things were just stories they said, like all the talk about space aliens and the big rock named Dannos that was supposed to smash the Earth for Christmas. Sara didn't like the big rock part of the story either, especially because it seemed to upset Mom and Dad so much. Every time Mom and Dad heard the word 'Dannos', they got all sad. They tried to hide it, but she knew that something was very wrong. She even suspected that the rock story had something to do with why she and Jimmy had been kept home from school all week.

Still, Sara's parents couldn't stop her from thinking about flying, or from dreaming about it, and that's just what she was doing now. Only now the dream was over, and the Santa of her dream was gone and she was yawning and trying to open her eyes. The dream seemed so real this time that she felt like she was still flying. She fought to keep that flying feeling in her head.

She was surprised and pleased to find, when she finally opened her eyes and looked around, that she really was flying! Actually, she was floating about four feet over her bed, next to her model of an owl that hung from the ceiling. She was so surprised and pleased that she wasn't thinking about flying for just a moment. In that moment she started to fall, but just like in her dreams she knew exactly what to do: she had to think flying thoughts! In an instant, she was floating steadily again!

Just floating was great, but it wasn't enough, so she tried to fly around her room. Just like in her dreams, it wasn't easy, and she couldn't fly very fast, but then of course she was just starting out. She remembered seeing young ducks learn to fly on the VISICOM, and they had to practice a lot too, before they were very good at it.

She couldn't just stay there in her room practicing though, because this was going to be a very busy day. This day was Christmas Eve, and Mom and Dad announced a few days earlier that they would open their Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas morning! This seemed to be a very strange thing to her and Jimmy. She and Jimmy still had their presents for Mom and Dad to wrap, and Aunt Elizabeth was coming to visit.

Wouldn't everyone be surprised when they saw what Santa brought her! She had asked Santa for a Julie Doll, like she saw on the VISICOM, but what she really secretly wanted was to fly, and that's just what she got! Somehow, Santa must have learned of her wanting to fly, and learned that he should come one night early too, and be in her dream.

Should she wait until later in the day to show everyone, or do it now? She decided that she should wait, but she just couldn't. She had to show everyone! She decided to show that know-it-all Jimmy first. She flew to bedroom door, opened it, and then across the hallway to her brother's room. She knocked before she went in, because Jimmy would yell at her if she didn't, but then she flew right in.

Margaret and Bob Myers were determined to sleep in. According to the VISICOM, this could be their last opportunity to ever do so. Dannos would come the next night. Besides, they needed their rest, because it would be a big day. Like millions of other families, they planned to hold Christmas Eve celebrations and prayers. They weren't sure what, if anything, they would do about the newscast that they heard late the previous night. They liked President Wright and that Latanna fellow, but their story about a dragon and about human psychic powers that must be used to save the Earth was difficult to believe. So far, they had not seen anyone suddenly gain psychic powers; at least not in their own family, where everything was perfectly normal.

Suddenly, they heard screaming. Both Margaret and Bob woke to that terrible sound, but Margaret was the first to realize that it was Jimmy screaming. For a terrifying moment, she thought that it was Dannos already. She sprang out of bed and was running to her son's room before Bob could complete his question to her about what all the noise was.

Bob was still yawning, stretching, and otherwise trying to wake up when he reached Jimmy's room. He found his wife Margaret sprawled on the floor in the doorway, unconscious! As he kneeled over her limp form he looked up at Jimmy, who wasn't screaming anymore; he was just staring up at the ceiling in bug-eyed astonishment. He also heard his daughter giggling, but looking around the room, he didn't see her anywhere. Finally, he followed his son's upward gaze.

Floating above him was his little daughter Sara!

"Hi Daddy," she said. "Look what Santa got me for Christmas! Now I can fly with his reindeer! Make Mommy wake up so she can see too."

He stood and reached up for her, but she quickly flew out the door and down the hallway, still giggling.

****

Joe Mark shifted the long handled, six pound sledge hammer from one hand to another. It was a rotten job, but someone had to do it, and the pay was pretty good. It bothered him for the first week or two, but he'd been at it for seventeen years now, and he didn't really even think much about what he was doing any more. That was the key, not thinking while you did it, and not thinking about it at any other time either. Joe was pretty good at not thinking.

He put on his heavy apron, hip-boots, and goggles, and entered the slaughter house. The stench of death and filth filled the air, despite the fans and vents, and the countless cleanings, but he was used to that too. He'd better be, for in a short time he'd be covered from head to toe with the blood, sweat, and excrement of his victims.

Their desperate, terrified cries filled the air even now. Somehow they knew. They always did. From the noise he knew there were a few pigs and many cattle this time, even before he even saw them.

He'd do the pigs first. They were the worst. He remembered reading someplace that they were smarter than dogs, but he didn't believe that. He had a dog once, and pigs couldn't be that smart; these were all just dumb farm animals. Besides, it was his job, just a job. If he didn't do it, someone else would. Big Macs and bacon had to come from someplace. He was used to it. It didn't bother him anymore, he told himself yet again.

He walked over to 'death row'. Marty had all the animals lined up with their heads firmly locked in place and sticking out into the isle. Marty himself was nowhere in sight. He and Frank would come back in when it was quiet, to help Joe with clean up and butchering. Closest to Joe, seven big pigs were squirming and screaming, but one killing blow of the sledge to each skull and they would all be quiet forever.

For some reason, the animals this morning were much louder than usual, especially the pigs. He put his hands over his ears, but it didn't seem to do any good. It was as if the sounds got right into his head some other way! Sound got in, and raw terror. He could actually feel their terror somehow! He decided that he needed to take some time off from work real soon, assuming that the Earth wasn't gone by tomorrow like those crackpots on the VISICOM had been predicting.

Right now he knew exactly how to stop the sound of those pigs. He would work his way down the row quickly. In less than a minute they'd all be silenced forever by his hammer. He approached the first one, a huge spotted sow with big brown eyes that were looking up at him in terror. He raised the hammer.

"No hurt! Man no hurt! Pig live! No hurt!"

Joe heard it, as plain as anything! The damn pig talked!

_"_ No hurt! Joe man help pig? Feed pig corn? _"_

The sledge hammer dropped from Joe's limp hands, and he ran screaming from the slaughter house.

****

Hoops Jones got to the basketball court early that morning. He got to the court early every morning. Wintertime, summertime, in season or not, Christmas, the end of the world, or whatever, it didn't matter to him. There was still going to be a next season, as far as he knew. He had to practice his long jumper. That was his bread and butter shot; it was the thing that still kept him on the team. What did his agent call it? Mar-ket-a-bil-i-ty! The rest of his play was marginal and always would be. He wasn't big enough or quick enough to ever be a top player in the NBA.

He didn't mind being a 'role player', but last year he averaged only eight minutes of playing time per game. He had to get his playing time up to ten or twelve minutes, or he was in danger of being cut. And to do that, he needed an even better long jump shot.

He started by dribbling out to the foul line for a few warm up shots. From there he planned to gradually increase the range, trying jumpers from all over the court, until he was deep into three-point territory.

He concentrated hard, and made his first shot. And his second! He increased the range, and still made his shot! Again and again there was nothing but net! Soon he was making three pointers. Damn he was hot! He couldn't miss! Too bad this wasn't a game.

It was when he was retrieving his shots that he first suspected that something was very strange. The balls seemed to somehow just come to him when he wanted them to! And now that he suspected something odd and watched the motion of the balls more closely, it became clear that something really weird _was_ happening. Balls curved this way or that so that his shots scored, even if they appeared to be a little off the mark to begin with! Then they bounced right back to him, if he wanted them to!

For the next hour or so he experimented with this newfound talent of his. He found that regardless how good or how poor the physical shot was, what mattered was his level of concentration during the 'follow through' while the shot was making its way to the target. If he concentrated on the ball going in, it did. Every single time!

It even went through if he threw the ball towards the stands, or towards the opposite goal. For those shots he at first followed the ball's motion out of the corner of his eye, while he mentally concentrated on the basket. Otherwise he would miss the shot. Then after some more practice, he found that he could make the ball float wherever he wanted it to by staring directly at it. He could make a ball fly in weird spirals, or he could make the motion look quite 'natural'.

Didn't the COM that morning say something about some people having psychic powers? He should have paid more attention.

By the end of his strange practice session, he was sitting in the stands sipping a Coke, while through mental concentration alone, half a dozen balls flew all around the court, scoring at both goals.

Hoops figured that he would be having a damn good season.

****

OK, so it went too far again thought Rick Morando, as he got on the 34th Street Bus. It wasn't his fault; that bitch asked for it. He would play it cool, and everything would be fine. Nobody would ever know that he was the one who murdered Tanya Landers. Nobody even knew him in this part of town, and nobody paid any attention when he left the bar with Tanya last night. Besides, it had happened a couple of times before, and he had gotten off clean. Murder was no big deal. In fact, he really liked it. He closed his eyes for a minute and played back the rape and murder of Tanya through his head yet again. It was great! The bitch got just what she deserved.

The Bus was crowded, and he had to stand. Too bad the dumb shits sitting there comfortably in their seats didn't know what a bad dude he was; maybe the wimps would give him a seat like he deserved. He looked around at his fellow passengers. They sure were an odd, spooked bunch; lacking the usual day-before-Christmas spirit, though a lot of them were carrying packages. Probably they had swallowed that Dannos bull-shit, and thought this was their last day on Earth. Dumb shits! He didn't have the Dannos scam figured yet, but it had to be one.

"The one that just got on, he's a murderer!" he suddenly heard. But no, it wasn't exactly the same as hearing; it was more like someone talking directly into his head! He looked around discretely at the other passengers, trying to find the source. Several people were staring back at him.

"Yes, I heard him too _,_ " said a second 'voice'. "The victim's name was Tanya. And the moron thinks that we're the dumb shits!"

How could they know that? Despite the cold December weather, Rick broke out into a sweat. He looked all around openly and desperately at the others on the Bus. By now practically everyone was staring back at him!

"He choked her to death. During sex, the pervert! Her body is in a dumpster in an ally off 43rd. Hey! Look at him! He can hear us!" said the first 'voice'.

"That makes it four people in about forty on this bus. About ten percent with full telepathic powers, same as at church this morning _,_ " replied the second 'voice'.

"Yeah, this is great! I wish I could fly like my Uncle John though. I'd fly after this creep. You can run but you can't hide, buddy! You're gonna fry!" said a new 'voice'.

"Quiet son _,_ " said the first 'voice'. "Leave this to the adults."

"Leave shit to the adults! You don't know nothing! You can't!" shouted Rick loudly, as he pushed his way to the front of the bus and demanded to be left off.

"Good-by, Rick Morando _,_ " said the first voice, as Rick leapt out the Bus door. "See you in court _._ "

****

Father Ridalzo kneelt in shame before the alter and again fervently prayed that whatever was happening to him would stop. At first he thought that he had been blessed, but now he felt certain that he had been cursed. When he finished praying he started back to the rectory. He felt too unclean and unworthy to stay in the Church and at the alter, in a place of God. He decided to leave. He would isolate himself in his room and pray until his problem went away, or the world was destroyed by Dannos, whichever came first.

On the way, he passed Monsignor Kurtz. "Bless you my son _,_ " said the Monsignor.

"Thank you Monsignor" replied Father Ridalzo.

"I beg your pardon Father?" asked the Monsignor.

Father Ridalzo immediately realized his mistake. He had accidentally 'heard' the Monsignor's thoughts, and mistaken those thoughts for speech. This sort of thing had been happening to him all morning. He mumbled some sort of nonsense and hurried off again towards the Rectory.

He 'heard' her thoughts before he saw her. _"_ You aren't avoiding me, are you Father? _"_ She stepped out from behind the Oak tree next to the Rectory, where she had apparently been waiting for him. She was still wearing the rather short skirt and tight top that started him thinking forbidden thoughts earlier that morning. Maloney Trask was by far the youngest and most attractive receptionist that the parish ever had, or that Father Ridalzo could imagine having. And right now he could well imagine having her, in the biblical sense.

_"_ Why thank you, Father! That's sweet!" she replied _. "_ But don't be ashamed of your thoughts. Those thoughts are only natural, and I like them. Do you like mine?" Her thoughts came streaming into his mind then, much as they had earlier. Thoughts of things that she and he could do together, things that he had pledged not to do, so that his service to God and The Church could be complete. A soft moan escaped Maloney's lips!

Yes, he did like the thoughts that they were both having, and they both knew it! This whole thing was just impossible! He turned away from Miss Trask in terror, and though he was no longer a young man, ran back towards the Church as fast as he could. He would try again to find the answer there, some way to defeat the evil curse that was torturing him.

Monsignor Kurtz was near the alter, talking to a small boy and his mother. Father Ridalzo recognized them as parish members, but couldn't remember their names. He overheard both their troubled conversation and thoughts as he approached them. He noticed that he received the thoughts clearly at a far greater distance than the corresponding speech. He stopped about three meters from them, close enough to hear and see, while not overtly imposing himself on what he took to be a private discussion.

"Yes Monsignor, he just started doing it this morning," said the woman, in hushed tones. "I just didn't know what to think! Show him, John."

The boy took a small red ball from his pocket and held it out towards the Monsignor in his hand. When he pulled his hand back into his pocket, the red ball remained suspended motionless in the air, defying gravity!

A flood of discordant thoughts came from the Monsignor then, while John and his mother shrank away in fear and apprehension. Father Ridalzo watched the older man closely for his reaction. Monsignor Kurtz had seen much in his long life, but this was something new and confusing. It was clearly taking him a while to arrange his thoughts. The Monsignor seemed mesmerized by the ball, which was slowly spinning and slightly bobbing a meter or so in front of his face.

Something occurred to Father Ridalzo now that he hadn't suspected earlier when he discovered that Maloney too had a strange 'power'. This wasn't just some sort of curse visited on him personally, it was something that was happening to Maloney, and young John, and possibly others!

Meanwhile, the mother was now fervently praying. Little John, only five or six years old, was clearly terrified. The ball dropped to the floor. The boy had at first thought that what he could do was wonderful, but his mother changed that perception. In John's thoughts, Father Ridalzo caught glimpses of things that the boy's mother had told him earlier after he showed her what he could do. About devils, or evil things that he must have done, things that had confused, hurt, and terrified the child.

The innocent boy then looked up in fear at the crucifix behind the alter. "Please don't hurt me, Jesus _,_ " the boy thought clearly!

The boy's thought stunned Father Ridalzo. The young child's fear of The Savior was the most disturbing thing that he could imagine! Disturbing, and wrong. It was not only wrong for the boy, he realized, in a sudden rush of insight, but exactly the same sort of thing that he had been doing to himself. He had been fearfully blaming himself for his human weaknesses and denying God's help.

Father Ridalzo could sense that the Monsignor's thoughts on the matter were at last beginning to come into focus. From some amalgamation of Old Testament and St. Thomas texts, a view was forming in the Monsignor that would verify the worst fears of the child and his mother: something about sin and evil! The monsignor's thoughts weren't malicious, he was just trying to reach a logical conclusion; but he would still probably greatly traumatize the child.

Just then Sister Ann came rushing in through a side door. "Excuse me, Reverend Fathers," she said excitedly. "Have you heard the news? It's a miracle! On the VISICOM it's reported that all over the world, millions of people have developed fantastic powers of the mind! Some people can move things with the power of thought! Others can read minds. It started only last night! The President says it has to do with the Government's effort to save the Earth from Dannos!"

The Monsignor, who had been about to speak to the boy, paused in confusion. Sister Ann continued. "Monsignor Luke just received word from the Bishop that the Arch Bishop himself has been blessed with an ability to read thoughts!"

The old Monsignor sat down heavily in the nearest pew, mumbling to himself.

"Not only that," said Sister Ann, excitedly. "Our own Sister Marie can fly!" She pointed towards the door that she had just entered, which was still standing open to the open courtyard next to the church.

As if on cue, Sister Marie, a huge hulk of a woman, went floating past the door, smiling and waving at the astonished onlookers as she passed up and out of sight! "Praise be!" she shouted, "I'm the flying nun!"

Father Ridalzo's suspicions were confirmed. It wasn't just himself and Miss Trask that had been changed over the last day. It had happened to millions of people, including innocent children, and even to the Arch Bishop! It surely couldn't be a curse then. Maybe it was even a blessed miracle!

In any case it was certainly a challenge, and one that he had not fared well with so far. The implications were simply mind-boggling. If even as a priest he was having difficulties, then there were many others that needed help this day, frightened people like John and his mother. People struggling with exposed feelings like himself, and with the temptation to use newfound powers to unfair advantage, like Miss Trask.

He consoled John and his mother first. They were greatly relieved to hear his assurances that John was not possessed or cursed by evil. They were astounded, as were Sister Ann and the Monsignor, when he actually acknowledged that he had himself had developed a capability to read thoughts.

After prayers of thanks, he next went to find Miss Trask. Sure, he was attracted to her, that couldn't be helped, but his life was pledged to God. With His help, he would first provide guidance to Miss Trask, and then look for others that needed aid. With this business on top of the pending Dannos crisis, he had the feeling that it would be a long, busy day.

****

Nurse Catherine Jiwitski shifted in the bedside chair in an effort to relieve her crinkled back, aching shoulder, and sore backside, but she didn't let go of little Jimmy's hand. All through the night she had been there for him, and, despite exhaustion, she was as determined as ever that the boy would never be alone.

After months of struggle, Jimmy was on the verge of losing his long, torturous, hopeless battle against cancer. Yesterday morning, Dr. Morse predicted that the boy would probably not live another day, and Dr. Morse was seldom mistaken about such things. So Nurse Jiwitski began her death vigil, as she had done so many times before for so many patients.

Ironically, when she entered nursing thirty years earlier, it was to help save lives, not to help them slip away. But she soon realized the limitations of medical practice to delay the inevitable, and learned of the stark and desperate need of many dying patients to have someone there to simply provide emotional support at the end of their lives. When family members and friends didn't exist, were unwilling, or had simply exhausted their own abilities to provide such comfort, Nurse Jiwitski made it her business to be there. For her patients in the 'death wing' of the hospital, she was often the last human being they saw or spoke to or held hands with.

Most of the hospital staff purposely maintained a professional distance emotionally from their patients. They simply couldn't let themselves get too close. To do so would not only impair their ability to provide aid, but would also destroy themselves emotionally. They remained concerned, but they got 'used to' disease and death. Largely to protect themselves, many even seemed 'cold' and unconcerned to their patients, even though they were devoting their lives to providing treatment.

Nurse Jiwitski couldn't do that with her patients. The sharing of the death experience was a highly intimate thing. She took exactly the opposite approach. In the short time that she had with her patients, she tried to get to know each of them, and to become as close as possible. As a result, the passage of each patient was a terrible, shattering ordeal for Nurse Jiwitski, but it was something that she just had to do. For how could she possibly ignore such need?

She remained something of an enigma to much of the hospital staff, who over the years viewed her efforts with contempt, envy, astonishment, and every other possible feeling. Still, most recognized her enormous value to her patients.

For her devotion to her calling she had paid an enormous price. Her two marriages had fallen apart, and she never had children of her own. Her apartment was not a home, it was merely a place to eat and rest. Her work was her whole life, a life in which she continually made friends who then died. It was a life that required unimaginable strength.

Patients like Jimmy were the worst. Six months ago, the seven year old had been a healthy, happy child. Now his thin pale body was near the end of its strength. Yet he was still hanging on to life, she could tell from the warmth in his hand, and the slow steady rise and fall of his chest as he slept. The boy hadn't given up; his body had.

Neither could she give up. For the dozenth time since she met Jimmy, she sat with her eyes shut and 'meditated'. She first focused on herself, and then tried to mentally project well-being and health into Jimmy. She had been doing this for years, after reading in a magazine about people who claimed that they could heal others that way. She wasn't sure that it was impossible, so she did it. She didn't really think that it helped her patients, but it made her feel a little better, knowing that she had at least tried.

Strangely enough, since the previous evening, it seemed to her that her ability to concentrate mentally had improved. Her thoughts and her sense of self were somehow stronger and clearer than ever before. She felt that she could actually sense her own life force and project it into Jimmy. She also felt that she could sense the bad, alien life in him, and help him destroy it. And, even more strange, she imagined that she felt a growing strength in Jimmy!

A squeeze from Jimmy's hand brought her out of her 'trance'. This meant the end, she thought. Death often came as a few final convulsive movements.

"Mrs. Bryson!" she said loudly, even before she opened her eyes. The boy's mother, Amy Bryson, and his father, George Bryson, snapped awake where they had sat cradled in each other's arms through most of the night. Exhaustion, dismay and terror were etched on their faces. All three adults fully expected to then witness Jimmy's death.

"I'm hungry," said Jimmy loudly, as he sat up on his bed. His color was normal, and his eyes were bright and clear. The adults could only stare at him in astonishment. "Can I please have some Cheerios?" he asked. "In chocolate milk?" It was his favorite breakfast, and Jimmy hadn't eaten anything in several days.

His mother, crying, hugged the boy, while his father, sobbing also, hugged them both. The boy still clang to Nurse Jiwitski's hand. "Nurse Cathy helped me feel better, Mom," he said. "I'm not sick anymore." He gave her hand one final squeeze before letting go of it to hug his mom and dad.

"How do you feel now?" asked Nurse Jiwitski, still disbelieving. "Do you feel any pain?" In the last two weeks, his pain had grown beyond the control of medication.

"I feel great! I'm just real hungry and thirsty, Nurse Cathy," replied Jimmy. "I'm all better. Can I go home now?"

"I don't know, Jimmy. We'll have to ask Dr. Morse. I'll go to find him." She rushed out of the room on unsteady legs, tears streaming from her eyes and her head spinning, not daring to hope that the boy was truly cured. Yet somehow, she knew that he was fully cured, and that she had helped to cure him!

Two hours later, Dr. Morse found Nurse Jiwitski sitting with Mary Losh, another terminal cancer patient. They sat motionless, grasping each other's hands, with their eyes shut tight, as though they were concentrating together.

"Catherine," he said, though he felt it awkward to interrupt them. "The lab results on the Bryson boy are back. It's just incredible! Complete remission!"

Nurse Jiwitski and Mary didn't move.

"Do you hear me Catherine? I said, it's complete remission! The boy is completely cured! He's on his way home now!"

Nurse Jiwitski opened her eyes, but otherwise didn't move. "Yes, I knew that this morning, Doctor. And I think that I'm getting better at it! Please test Mr. Curtis next. Then Mrs. Andrews. I'll be another fifteen minutes or so with Mary." She closed her eyes again, smiling, tears of happiness streaming down her worn but joyful face.

Dr. Morse couldn't believe what he had just heard. Had the pressure finally gotten to his favorite nurse? But he felt that he had better check in on Mark Curtis. Fifty-three year old Mr. Curtis was bed-ridden and failing rapidly, and probably wouldn't live to see a new year, if there was going to be one after Dannos struck, that is.

Dr. Morse knocked and entered Mr. Curtis' room to an astonishing sight. Mr. Curtis, fully dressed in his street cloths, was sitting in a chair finishing off a large breakfast as he watched the VISICOM. Sitting on the floor next to him was his suitcase, evidently packed and ready to go. On the COM, a news commentator was in near hysteria as she babbled on about people flying, reading minds, and doing 'the soap trick', whatever that meant! Meanwhile, on the COM screen a dozen kids were shown flying hand in hand with Mickey Mouse over Epcot Center. But it wasn't an advertisement made with special effects; it was supposed to be real! Morse stared at the screen, then back at Curtis. He couldn't comprehend it all. What the hell was going on?

"Well it's about time, Doc," said Mr. Curtis. "How about signing me out of this joint? Hey, watch this, Doc." Curtis suddenly floated up into the air! He reached the ceiling and kept going, poking his head through the ceiling for a few seconds. Then he floated back down to face his doctor. "Pretty good hah Doc? I think I'm Guatemala Material. But first things first. I'm still starving, and the food here is terrible. Say, isn't there a Bob's Big Boy across the street? Maybe I'll just fly on over."

****

CHAPTER 50

JUNGLE RENDEZVOUS

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

\- Theodore Roosevelt

Bates woke too early on the morning of what was probably the last morning of the last day on Earth. He woke as he lay on the floor of the Bus, with Janet sleeping at his side and Milo licking him in the face to wake him. That part of things was great, but he had wanted to dream something odd and amusing. Bates loved to sleep and dream, but last night dreams seemed to completely elude him, and he felt cheated. Now it was too late; there was no more time for any more dreams, not for him or the billions of other humans and other creatures that that had completed their last night. There remained only the last day and evening, a day and evening of events that would either save Earth or lose it to eternity.

He got up quietly, taking care to let Janet and the others on the Bus sleep just a little while longer; maybe long enough for them to enjoy their own last dreams. The Bus was packed full of his sleeping friends. It was a truly wonderful thing he realized, to have so many friends, and if he was to die tonight, he would perhaps be comforted by that, if he could somehow ignore the brutal fact that they were all dying too. With his new senses he could hear them breathe and even hear their heart beats, steadily counting down to the end of the world.

Milo poked his leg again, reminding him that his dog friend had urgent business to do and needed to get outside. It was very inconvenient that the Bus didn't have a doggie door. Why hadn't Jigs far-seen that need and had one built? But not even Jigs could think of everything, that's for damn sure. Jigs might know the broad outline of what might happen, but all the messy details that made up reality were up to chance and other laws of nature, brutal laws that didn't care if a happy ending would result for Earth and Earth life including humans.

At the front of the Bus the pair encountered Norma vigilantly studying Bus systems that constantly searched for the Ra. She quietly saluted Bates and Milo, then got back to work.

Bates unlatched and opened the Bus forward hatch, and Milo scrambled out. The early morning light illuminated a jungle full of life. Dandy if you liked that sort of thing, Bates mused, but in this case both man and dog nearly let out a scream when both noticed that a gigantic anaconda lay only a few feet from them, regarding them with its little reptilian eyes.

The snake shimmered for a few moments before resolving itself into much less frightening form of Fen, the shape-shifting little goat-man. "Morning Bates, Milo!" he said. "General Therman has me patrolling the camp for snooping wild-life. The snake form tends to scare other critters away, but the General wants the entire area cleared of critters large and small. That's mostly a Johnny and Dooley job for sure, but after breakfast maybe you could pitch in too?"

So an hour later Bates was walking slowly through the jungle, deep in concentration. Dooley was showing him a new trick. Hundreds of snakes slithered slowly in front of him, in response to Bates. Despite his newly acquired familiarity with their limited but surprisingly placid psyche, he still feared and hated snakes, and wished that there was a better and faster way to temporarily clear the jungle of wildlife, but he couldn't think of any. There would soon be thousands of people here, and he agreed with Therman that it would be better for both people and wild creatures if the two groups didn't meet. The jungle could be reclaimed by its proper inhabitants the next day, if everything went as planned. If it didn't, there would be no jungle to reclaim or critters to reclaim it.

"That's it, Mr. Bates!" exclaimed Dooley in delight. "You keep on moving these snakes on this side of the camp, and me and Johnny will handle the critters on the other sides!" With that the lanky shaman trotted off, grinning as usual.

Oscar accompanied Bates, taking notes and COM footage. He said that he planned on doing a biology paper on the snakes later. As both scientists and snakes would in all likelihood be pulverized to atoms shortly, Oscar's efforts seemed ridiculous to Bates, but ever since the Team had come up with their plan to 'soap trick' Dannos and save the Earth, Oscar's optimism had taken on absurd proportions. When they started this project earlier Oscar identified and lectured on each snake species that they encountered, but Bates made him stop. He didn't want to know what their Latin names were or which ones were poisonous; he just wanted them all gone! At least this part of the operation was going well. Snakes by the hundreds slithered away.

Mel came plodding through the jungle to catch up with them, probably with more bad news. Bates surmised that it must be something important this time, or Mel would have simply 'pathed' information instead of walking all that way through the steaming jungle. Bates refused to carry a COM, and gladly took on the animal clearing job to get away from the hubbub going on at the Bus, where Therman was managing the logistics of the encampment, Flood was air-traffic controller, and Latanna was handling the press over the COM. So far, only a hand-full of other people had arrived at the camp. Soon the first big aircraft would arrive with tons of reporters, and all heck would break loose. Bates felt more comfortable dealing with snakes.

"Good news!" started Mel. "The passport and visa problems are solved!"

"What passport and visa problems?" asked Bates.

"Well, ours! We left the USA in a bit of a hurry, you know. Illegally! And then we entered a foreign country illegally. Passports are required. Usually if you work hard at it, it takes days to do all the paper work needed to get one, even if you can find your birth certificate and Social Security card."

"I wouldn't know. I haven't seen my birth certificate or my Social Security card in years, and I never left the States before this, unless you count Niagara Falls."

"The Canadian side counts."

"Well I was only on that side for about a minute, then I walked back across the bridge. I like the American side best, there's less crowds and tourist traps."

"I love tourist traps!" Gus said. "But crossing the bridge into Canada still counts being in a foreign country, in my book. Rules are rules. Anyway Bates, the Guatemala officials got here almost an hour ago to deport us."

"Deport us? Holy shits! Don't they know that we're trying to save their hides?" roared Oscomb.

"Probably, but paper work is paper work. They're just fellow civil servants doing their job. Red tape and associated bean counting are this planet's biggest industries, you know. Actually, Krog and Wink do have passports, though they were probably made off-planet. So they're legal, according to the Guatemalans."

"You mean to say that Krog and Wink are OK, but _we're_ the illegal aliens?" exclaimed Bates. He was having trouble controlling the snakes and carrying on a conversation at the same time. If he were also trying to chew gum, the three of them would have been buried to their arm-pits under a thousand snakes by now. "Anyway, you say this problem was solved?"

"Yes. With a little pressure from President Wright, the Guatemalans agreed to hold off deportation for one day!"

"Hooray for our side!" exclaimed Bates. Actually, though he was glad to hear that a problem had been solved, he was even gladder that he had nothing to do with it. "But that's _good_ news Mel. You wouldn't have walked all the way out here just to announce good news. Am I right?"

"I'm afraid so. Bates, I've been studying the physics of what's going to happen, which I don't claim to fully understand, but I'm very concerned. First, Dannos will strike us at night, invisible to us, and moving at about thirty miles a second. This soap trick will have to be done with really good timing."

"I talked with Pru about that," said Bates. "She says the other unicorns will be on hand to make Dannos visible, so it can more easily be located by her as well as us. Also, she says that she'll start the process a half-minute or so early, so that it will be in place for sure when Dannos gets here. That way, timing doesn't have to be that precise."

"Good enough," agreed Mel. "Lots of us humans have synchronized our watches to the correct time, so we can tell her when to start. Unicorns don't wear watches, you know! But her starting early only aggravates the second problem. I have estimated the amount of energy that I think is needed to pull this little trick off, and it's monumental. Now we've both seen Pru in action, and she's an extraordinary being, but I can't believe that she'll be able to handle this job for six minutes."

"Six minutes? I thought that it would be over in seconds, or a minute, tops. Dannos is traveling nearly thirty miles a second, and the earth's crust is only about thirty miles thick, isn't it?"

"Close enough; actually it's thinner under the oceans and thicker under the continents. But I've been thinking about the collision, and talking with some folks at Cal- Tech about it. While we all agree that we can greatly reduce damage by allowing Dannos to pass through the crust unhindered, we also agree that Dannos materializing within the Earth would still cause tremendous damage and loss of life. After all, many cubic miles of material would still be vaporized when the kinetic energy of Dannos is transformed into heat, and a great deal of momentum would be transferred. The resulting world-wide quakes and volcanism would still be pretty disastrous. Millions of people would die."

"Would California have 'the big one'?" asked Oscomb.

"Definitely. So would every place else along the tectonic plate boundaries. Volcanos and perhaps super volcanos would also erupt. But that can all be avoided by keeping Dannos immaterial the whole time that it passes through the Earth. The kicker is that unhindered passage through the entire Earth by Dannos would take about four and a half minutes. With at least a half minute margin added at each end, that means that Earth humans and Pru would have to do the job for at least five and a half minutes, six to be on the safe side. Then of course there's the worst case scenario to consider."

"Which is?"

"Re-materialization of Dannos shortly before it pops back out of the Earth somewhere in North Australia. Instead of an entrance wound, Dannos would create an even more enormous exit wound. Hundreds of cubic miles of crust would be blasted out into the atmosphere, with results even worse than if there were no interference by us at all!"

"So you worry most about a weary Pru dropping the ball a few seconds before Dannos has exited the Earth, resulting in this worse-case scenario?"

"Actually, I don't think that she'll last even that long."

"She might surprise you!" said a new voice at their feet. Bates looked down to see the biggest damn snake that he ever saw, curled up on the ground right next to him, and regarding the three startled scientists with cold, emotionless eyes. Bates jumped about two meters up, and remained there floating, while the snake's image shimmered for a moment, and then reformed as Fen, the mischievous little goat-man! The little stinker had been doing his anaconda impression again! "Sorry, I couldn't resist!" he said, after he finished laughing.

"You're lucky I didn't blast you away!" said Bates, as he settled back on the ground. Bates still didn't know what he had done to Renson, or how to control it. The thought that he could have just now reflexively done the same thing to Fen shook him up pretty bad.

"You better tend to the real snakes, Bates!" said Oscomb, pointing. A thousand or so snakes were slithering off in all directions, including towards the four onlookers. In seconds however, Bates had them turned around again.

"I suppose you've got problems to tell me about also, Fen!" said Bates.

"Not really," replied Fen. "Just thought that I'd let you know that our folks will start arriving soon. They should be able to finish this little wildlife effort of yours easily Bates, so that you can get right to your press conference."

" _What_ press conference? Steve is supposed to handle public relations!" The thought of a news conference was a bigger fright to Bates than Fen's snake trick!

"He is. He's been on the COM for hours, and so has President Wright, Wink and Krog, and even Pru for a short time, which amazed me, that's for sure. But you're our mysterious leader, and the press and public are clamoring for you like crazy. The first big VTOL airplane is due in ten minutes, and it includes about three dozen media folks from all over the world."

"Fudge Winkies!" conceded Bates. "I guess I'm in for it then!"

"Not necessarily," said Fen. "Are you forgetting my own little talent?" Fen's form wavered for a moment, and there stood a second Narbando T. Bates, identical in appearance to the real one, clothes and all.

This is why it was Fen who brought the news, thought Bates. This was the goat man's big chance to perform in front of the billions of people! Bates was tempted, as his knees were jelly already just thinking of another news conference. But what if Fen screwed it up, or if everyone found out about the deception somehow? The Team's credibility would be shot to hell! He just couldn't take that chance.

"No! Sorry Fen, but I better do it myself." Judging that the snakes had been moved far enough away, Bates set off for the camp, followed by the others.

"OK, so you want that part for yourself," concluded Fen. "I don't blame you one bit. But then can I play Milo?" In moments, two identical dogs were trailing after Bates, one of whom was very confused and was preparing to attack the other.

The VTOL airplane with the press wasn't the first aircraft to arrive. To the amazement of onlookers, a huge, non-VTOL Boeing 888 approached rapidly, slowed impossibly, and finally floated gently down into the jungle near the Bus. The unlikely flight pattern of the 888 was explained by the identity of its passengers. The big rear cargo doors opened first, and out bounded Pru's mate Baldor! With him were two other unicorns. Baldor and Pru met in seconds, and were soon snorting and rubbing each other's horns, which glowed brilliantly. Next the huge giant Gor came crawling out, and then stood yawning, scratching, and stretching as dozens of griffins, ogres, centaurs, and others came spilling out of the cargo hold after him!

One of the passenger compartment doors opened and the unmistakable, unclothed, extraordinarily feminine form of Thela came flying out using her huge white wings, hand in hand with a small human girl, who seemed to actually be contributing to the art of flight! A big stern nun was flying right behind them.

"Greetings friends!" Thela announced, smiling. "I bring you Sara. She wants to help." The little girl laughed, and after pulling away from Thela, flew down to land in front of the unicorns, followed by Thela and the Nun.

"Is one of you the good unicorn that needs help?" asked diminutive Sara, who floated back up into the air a meter so that she could face the towering unicorns.

"Yes, that would be me, small one, though all unicorns are of course good!" replied Pru.

"And I'm Sister Marie!" said the nun angrily, as she landed next to Sara. "And if you want my help or Sara's, you better get some clothes on these subjects of yours!" The stout Nun pointed at Thela, and at several others of the People that had human looking body parts, none of whom ever had any use for clothes.

Apparently the clothing issue was one of several unresolved disputes that erupted when the People suddenly arrived at Salt Lake City Airport, asking for transport to Guatemala. Despite Presidential assurances, declarations, orders, and decrees, the People were not universally welcomed into the several communities world-wide where they suddenly appeared. They were after all aliens. Naked aliens.

"Maybe she's got a point!" said Janet, who was watching Bates. Along with every other human male in the vicinity, Bates was watching Thela's every voluptuous move. It was also very evident that smiling Thela knew and enjoyed the effect that she had on men.

Pru stared back at the Nun with her black-pit eyes. "Trouble can indeed result from beauty, if those who view it are lacking. But why do you, Sister, who are pledged to do service to the All-Father, fear something that is clearly good, such as natural beauty? He who founded your order has seen Thela's beauty and not found it objectionable."

"Who do you mean?" asked the startled Nun.

"Why, your Jesus of course; or his spirit, at least. A quite remarkable being. Despite interference from The Sleeping Great One, in life and in after life he has been able to heal and perform other services to human-kind."

Sister Marie stared wide eyed at Pru. She had expected the People to be ignorant heathens, as far as God and Christianity were concerned, or worse yet, in league with The Devil. "You claim to have met with our Savior?"

"Several times. It is through meeting such extraordinary humans that we were persuaded to allow limited communication with humans."

This remarkable conversation, which at the very least forestalled Sister Marie's campaign to clothe the People, was interrupted by the arrival of the next VTOL, which landed noisily and immediately discharged dozens of swarming reporters, along with a couple hundred additional gifted humans. General Therman sat prominently on Gor's huge shoulders holding a megaphone, and directed the gifted humans into groups to be briefed by Team members and to be trained in psy skills by the People. In the meantime, most of the reporters were being briefed immediately by Latanna.

So it was that Bates, when he arrived back at the encampment, managed to go relatively unnoticed among the hubbub, until he had nearly reached the sanctuary of the Bus. At that point a dog fight suddenly erupted next to him and ended almost immediately when a screaming goat-man appeared with a dog hanging from his furry backside. A reporter recognized Bates when the Team leader refereed the brief scuffle and removed the dog from poor Fen, and most of the reporters were on him in a flash. As he had done at the Lodge, Latanna quickly established order, but soon Bates was standing in front of dozens of cameras and microphones, answering questions.

Q: "Is this plan of yours really going to save the Earth Dr. Bates?"

A: "That's the whole idea. But for it to work, everyone on Earth has to help. As many as possible, anyway. The role of the press in this is of course absolutely vital."

Q: "What exactly do you expect the press to do?"

A: "Let me be frank, ladies and gentlemen. Without your strong cooperation, our plan WILL fail, and we will all be dead or well on the way to being dead in about fourteen hours. We need the cooperation of virtually all the people of Earth, and that has to be communicated immediately to everyone on Earth by you news people.

"Everyone has to understand what's happening to them, and not be afraid. We suspect that perhaps half of all people on Earth are currently discovering that they have psychic powers. These are powers that they had already, but up to now they've been masked by the sleeping dragon Quetzal. To help us save Earth tonight, these people first have to immediately begin to discover and exercise their powers, and learn how to transmit that power to Pru. They have to be prepared to transmit powers to Pru here in Guatemala at one-fourteen AM, Eastern Standard Time, and sustain their level of concentration for six minutes. Even people who don't have powers, or think that they don't, should help their friends that do, or perhaps better yet, try to send some psy energy anyway, just in case they have some capability that they haven't even discovered yet."

Q: "How would you describe these psychic powers?"

A: "They're a set of natural capabilities that will revolutionize our lives here on Earth, mostly for the good. Most people that have these powers seem to have one or two capabilities, but a few people have more. What those capabilities are specifically is what you've been reporting today on the VISICOM net. They include flying, dematerializing objects, telepathy, and so on. And I think that's only the tip of the iceberg. Over the next several decades science will be busy discovering and trying to understand these and other capabilities. But right now, we all have to focus on immediately applying them to the Dannos problem."

Q: "What about the Ra? Are they still a threat?"

A: "We don't know. We'll just have to remain vigilant until we are sure that the Galactic League has neutralized the Ra."

Q: "We've had isolated reports of a huge dragon, presumably the one you call Quetzal, flying over the Pacific. Is there any hope that Quetzal will help us with Dannos?"

A: "We don't know. We can't discount it, but we can't depend on it either. We have to try to save ourselves."

After that, the press conference got redundant and trivial, and was over in half an hour, after which Bates joined the psychic training sessions that were starting to take place around the camp. It was an odd sight. Humans of all descriptions sat with People and Team members, to demonstrate and practice their psy powers in preparation for Dannos, while VISICOM cameras transmitted the sessions around the world.

A flood of people was arriving from the whole Western hemisphere, and a several flights even arrived from other parts of the globe. There were people from every continent and nearly every country, most gathered by Jigs corporation people and taken to aircraft scattered world-wide. The Jigs company helped to ensure that each of the participants had sufficient psy capability and motivation for the Guatemalan effort.

Thanks to advance preparation by Jigs, the VTOL aircraft brought food and camping equipment in addition to people. A big shipment of Porta-Potties and toilet paper was particularly well received.

World-wide, humanity struggled to adjust to the emerging psychic powers that the day before were not even believed to exist by most people. Of course, given the impending doom of Dannos, it would not have been a normal day anyway. However, the psychic power phenomenon provided much added chaos, particularly in the period between Wednesday evening and Thursday afternoon, during which many people had not yet heard the correct explanation for what was happening. In some cases, abhorrent behavior, injury, and even death resulted.

Through it all however, a stabilizing thread of sanity and hope emerged and strengthened as Thursday wore on. There _was_ a rational though fabulous explanation for recent occurrences of human psychic powers. There _was_ a world-wide 'call to arms' by the American president and other national and world leaders empowering the citizens of Earth to actually try to save themselves from Dannos, instead of just hopelessly standing by and letting it happen. There were indeed space aliens that wanted to destroy Earth, but there were friendly space aliens also that wanted to save Earth. There _was_ continuous news coverage of the project in Guatemala to save Earth that featured lessons on psy powers from mythical creatures, friendly space aliens, and humans, and practice sessions with Pru that caused the unicorn to glow brilliantly from the power she received from the host gathered in the camp and world-wide. Throughout the world, most of Earth's people listened and/or watched VISICOMs, fascinated. As encouraged by the VISICOM, they gathered in churches, schools, homes, and bars, to practice their fledgling psy skills. By evening, there _was_ increasing hope!

Meanwhile, there continued to be scattered reports of a great dragon raging about Earth. More troubling, there were unconfirmed reports of a flying saucer in the vicinity of the encampment in Guatemala. There was some good Ra news, however. A Ra jamming device near the Guatemalan camp was located and destroyed by a Guatemalan banana farmer that was looking for his missing brother, who had recently guided someone into the jungle.

Through it all Bates managed to keep busy, and thereby avoid major bouts of anxiety. But in every spare moment his newly invigorated mind efficiently ran through all the permutations of things that could go wrong, and all the terrible consequences.

This was it; the culmination of nearly two weeks of incredible lunacy that transformed his dull but orderly and comfortable existence into a confused and deadly adventure.

One way or another, it would soon all be over.

****

CHAPTER 51

DANNOS

O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,

Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse

Without all hope of day!

\- John Milton

The tumbling, irregular shape of deadly Dannos was by now a familiar sight to most of humanity. As the asteroid sped towards the hapless inhabitants of Earth with a closing speed of approximately a hundred thousand miles per hour, it became increasingly easy to see with the naked eye, though it appeared tiny and insignificant. Several astronomical observatories had been providing daily reports and smallish, indistinct photos of Dannos for more than a week. Currently several VISICOM channels carried continuous feed from orbital and Earth-bound observatories that provided stunning, full screen views of the careening iron behemoth. With only half an hour to go, Dannos, which was only one-fifth as far away from Earth as the Moon, was already by far the brightest object in the night sky over Guatemala. The light from Dannos was nothing like the familiar, reassuring, steady glow of the Moon, it was more like the menacing, flashing, chilling glint of a thrown knife or a spinning metallic hammer.

In the jungle encampment, all was in readiness. The B-Team, ten thousand talented, psy-capable humans, and three hundred psy-experienced inhabitants from The Land gathered in groups centered around the huge jumbled mound of stone blocks that marked the former resting place of Quetzal. Several hundred reporters were also scattered throughout the camp, still transmitting live VISICOM feeds to every part of the world.

At the very top of the jumbled mound of stone blocks Pru stood, surveying the scene with her black, pitted eyes. Pru's magnificent white body glowed only slightly, but her horn flashed brighter than a lighthouse, a beacon of hope for the camp and the world. Most of the light for the camp however, was provided by landing lights of the Bus and the several VTOL aircraft that remained, and by lanterns and flashlights. A few meters down and away from Pru stood her mate Baldor and the two other unicorns that had come to the site, along with Bates, Mel, and a camera crew.

Around the world, billions of people gathered around VISICOMs and prepared to engage in the psy exercise that would attempt to save Earth, but support was by no means universal. Many people still didn't believe that the recently reported events were real. Others thought that Dannos was God's retribution, and that opposition was at best futile, or at worst blasphemy. Still, support was growing. The widespread fact of human psy-powers led credence to the whole business. But there was no way to tell in advance if support would be great enough.

At Camp Bates, as the media had dubbed it, darkness finally came. The last day was over and the last evening began. Soon Dannos would strike!

"Go through it one more time, Mel," requested Bates. The unicorns were the central elements of the plan, and they had the approach down cold; the repeated 'dry runs' were mostly for the benefit of the camp members and anxious viewing participants world-wide. Bates wanted everyone to be totally familiar and comfortable with the plan. So cameras and microphones were once again thrust in front of the small slim physicist.

"Very well," said Mel. "As you all know, from here on in, Dannos will rapidly appear ever bigger and brighter. Soon we'll be turning the camp lights down, and we'll all see it even better. We lucked-out on the weather; it's expected to stay clear." Actually, Mel strongly suspected that the unicorns had arranged that to be the case. "Three and a half minutes before impact, Dannos' diameter will appear to be a third that of our moon's. But at that time it will move into the Earth's shadow. It will be eclipsed and disappear from our view almost completely. There will still be a small amount of light from the Earth's illuminated edges and so-forth, but that won't be enough. Light from the Moon will also be completely shadowed by the Earth at that time. Fortunately, Baldor and his two unicorn friends will be on hand to get Dannos to glow just slightly, so that Pru can more easily acquire focus on it. They will also help Pru control the psychic power, if she needs help."

"Our image of Dannos will continue to grow in size rapidly, dully glowing against a backdrop of dark sky and stars. One minute from impact, we will signal the people of the world to focus their powers on Pru, who will begin the job of asteroid dematerialization. A minute later, at 1:15:20, Dannos will strike. It will pass through us here in the camp in a third of a second; a dully glowing shadow. But concentration must be maintained for five more minutes. After only four and a half of those minutes, Dannos will exit the Earth, but we want the dematerialization to continue an extra half-minute more as a safety margin."

Bates and the others stood quietly and listened to Mel, as did billions of other people around the world. Hopefully like him they were excited but at the same time a little bored; this scenario had been reviewed dozens of times. In addition, many 'practice runs' had been carried out, in which groups at the site and around the world had focused their power to Pru. In some of the bigger dry runs Pru had glowed brightly, while Bates and others watched nervously.

Despite the success of trial runs that involved millions of people, there were still grave concerns about Pru's ability to handle the power of billions, and equal concerns that even the full power of billions wouldn't prove to be adequate to dematerialize Dannos. But at least at this point, everything that could be done was being done. Around the camp, lanterns and other light sources were being turned down or off, so that Dannos could be seen clearly. There was nothing left to do but sit quietly and wait.

Suddenly, a murmur arose in the crowd below. "What the hell is that?" Bates heard someone shout. "Look up in the sky!" someone pathed, in response to hundreds of inquiries verbal and sub-verbal.

When he looked up, Bates at first saw nothing. Then he realized that he should be seeing stars, not to mention Dannos. Something huge, a cloud perhaps, was blocking the view. Hadn't Pru promised clear skies?

"Quetzal!" pathed Pru, before Bates could make sense of what he was seeing. "The Great One comes _!"_

Sure enough, when it at last came into range of the few lights that still remained on, the great creature was seen circling over the camp on gigantic wings, which churned the still night jungle air to swelling, gale force gusts. Tents and a variety of lose objects were suddenly whipping through the camp, while frightened campers ducked and screamed.

"Fudge Winkies! I think your old boyfriend's coming in for a landing, Pru!" shouted Bates. "Everyone off this rock mound!" Bates started climbing down over the jumble of stone blocks with the camera crew and Mel , which would have been slow and dangerous, especially in darkness and buffeting winds, until he remembered that now there were faster ways. With the speed of thought, he, Mel , and the three camera crew were flying through the air towards the base of the mound far below, protected from the wind and objects in it by the will of Guardian Bates. The four unicorns must have had faster means of travel still, for they were already standing at the base of the mound when the five humans landed next to them.

Moments later thousands of tons of titanic dragon settled down softly on top of the rock pile. The dragon covered the entire mound. One immense portion of the creature, presumably a foot, ended up only a few meters from Bates.

"UNICORNS! YOU GOTTA BLOW THIS JOINT PRONTO!" roared Quetzal in a voice that this time sounded much less like Winnebago, despite the choice of words. The dragon's huge fanged head hovered over the group. "THAT ASTEROID WILL BE HERE IN A FEW MINUTES!"

"We remain to help the humans and the other life of this planet," replied Pru.

"WHY? YOUR TRICK TO GET ME TO SET YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS FREE HAS FAILED. WHEN YOU RAN OUT ON BEING A DRAGON LONG AGO, YOU SHOWED THAT YOU CAN LEAVE EVEN YOUR OWN KIND. YOU ABANDONED ME! WHAT CAN THESE LITTLE APES MEAN TO YOU?"

"They mean life! Still after all these years you don't comprehend, for in your undying anger you refuse to listen and spurn the understanding that I have tried to bring to you. Self is not enough; existence must be more than that! The dragon approach of isolation was wrong, the solitude of The One, or even of the few, will never again be tolerated by us. These humans and those we have gathered about us in our banishment by you from open existence on this world are truly vital life, and worth saving. We unicorns would preserve such life for its own sake. And what of your dreams of these humans? Are not their destinies now tied with yours?"

Fire snorted from the dragon's nostrils. "TO HELL WITH DREAMS, I DON'T NEED HUMANS, AND YOU DON'T EITHER! NOW YOU DARE SAY THAT SOLITUDE IS WRONG? YOU WEREN'T ALONE WHEN YOU WERE WITH ME! WE HAD EACH OTHER!"

"No! You had me. You were the strong one, far too strong, oh mightiest of dragons, for you used your love and power to constrain me to your solitude. Your possession was destroying me. You would have made me one with you, destroying me in the process! This I foresaw, in my own dragon dreams."

"LIES! I NEVER WANTED TO DESTROY YOU! I STILL WANT TO SAVE YOU!"

"By destroying what I want and need and am! By destroying me! What you seek is not even possible, for I am no longer what I was. The sum of the parts would not make the same whole. The parts have become wholes unto themselves, and those parts are unicorn, not dragon."

"YOU'RE LYING TO YOURSELF, UNICORN! AMONG YOU THERE IS AT LEAST ONE THAT REMEMBERS BEING A DRAGON. AND SOME OF YOU UNICORNS STILL WANT TO BE A DRAGON! SOME OF YOU THAT I HOLD TOLD ME THAT! ADMIT IT!"

Pru's voice hardened. "We decided to be unicorn!"

Bates, like everyone else, had been quietly listening to the exchange. He looked at his watch every few seconds with growing alarm. Just a few minutes ago, everything had been ready. The folks here were becoming more and more confident, as were people around the world. Now most of the humans in the camp were cowering in fear around collapsed tents. He glanced around and saw that the news cameras were still broadcasting. He shuttered to think what the public at large was making of this dragon/unicorn soap opera. He had to DO something!

"OK, knock it off!" he interjected, with such forcefulness that the attention of both dragon and unicorns was drawn to him. "We just don't have time for this now. Three hundred million years wasn't enough for you to straighten this out. Dannos is due in about fifteen minutes! Why don't you two just agree to pick this up again, in say twenty-five minutes or so?"

"He is right," said Pru. "Stay and help us, or leave now."

"COME WITH ME!"

"We stay, Great One. You have granted me my freedom."

The dragon unfurled its great wings, again blotting out the stars. "YOUR FREEDOM ONLY. NOT YOUR FRIENDS." With that, all three of Pru's unicorn companions including Baldor suddenly were pulled up off the ground. In moments, as everyone stared in horror, they disappeared down the huge open mouth of the great dragon, screaming as they went!

"YOUR LAST CHANCE. COME WITH ME!" demanded the dragon.

"No Quaxantos. I stay! Even though you would abandon me and your future. I decided to be unicorn when I was dragon. I decided to embrace the life of many. I loved you then and even love you now, but I have not changed my mind, and never will."

At those words the dragon seemed shaken. Dragon and unicorn stared at each other for a few seconds frozen in time, and then the dragon raised its head into the sky and roared long a sound so deep, thunderous, and mournful that the camp inhabitants were thrown to the ground. Worked up more than ever, he looked at Pru one last time, as flame shot from his nostrils, and his great eyes glowed blood red. "GOOD-BYE PRUECENCE," he said, almost softly. Then the great unfurled wings stroked downwards a single time, and the dragon shot rapidly up into the air, leaving whirlwinds to buffet the camp.

Looking up, Bates thought that he saw a great dark shape moving off to the south with incredible speed. Around the camp, more lights came on and there was a great commotion as everyone tried to sort things out. Pru stood alone, quietly staring up into the night.

"Pru, I'm so sorry about Baldor and the others," Bates said. "But why did you call each other Pruecence and Quaxantos? Something about what you said seemed to really shake him up!"

The unicorn turned to face Bates. Her horn and skin had lost their glow, her normally proud bearing had wilted, and the look of her eyes didn't seem as sharp and piercing. She looked almost mortal as she spoke softly. "Those were our old dragon names from long ago, Narbando Bates. This is the first time those names have been spoken in three hundred million years. Yes, it did appear to startle him. For at that moment he knew that among thousands of unicorns I am she whom he truly seeks, and that he has lost me forever."

"What do you mean?" asked Bates.

"When an elemental divides into multiple individuals, only one of the resulting entities retains most of the memories and personality of the original being. I am the unicorn that was in fact once the dragon Pruecence. His Pruecence. When we exchanged true names a minute ago, he realized that."

Bates looked at his companion with renewed awe. Pru had been a dragon, and was countless ages older than even her three hundred million year old unicorn companions. "So that means that the one unicorn that he wanted the most, he has pledged to leave free. And now he's left you in harm's way!"

"Correct. I had hoped that this might yet persuade him to help with Dannos."

"Nice try, but it didn't work. He seemed really pissed."

The unicorn shook herself in resignation, and began to glow once again. "The mighty are not easily manipulated. But now I suggest that we prepare for Dannos. Your plan is now truly our only hope."

By the light of Pru's horn, Bates looked at his watch. It was seven minutes after one. Only eight minutes to Dannos! He looked up in the sky. There was Dannos, about one-sixth moon size, coming at them from slightly west of vertical. He looked around at the camp. People and non-people were walking about fussing with equipment and talking in worried tones. Milo, also shaken by the Dragon's visit, put his front paws up on Bates, seeking reassurance from his master. Bates talked to him and petted him, then looked at his watch again. Seven minutes to Dannos! All that he had accomplished in one of Earth's last eight remaining minutes was to comfort his dog! It was worth it though, he decided. Nobody could ever have a better friend than Milo.

"Pru! Can we still do it without Baldor and the others?"

"We can but try, Narbando Bates. But without the others to illuminate Dannos, I should establish a link with it even before it enters Earth's shadow. And to do that I will need the power of hundreds, if not thousands, within three minutes!"

Bates looked around desperately. The camera crew that was with him on the mound had disappeared. "I need media people at the mound with Pru and me NOW! And loudspeakers! And Gor!" he pathed, so loudly that a few close by folks grabbed at their heads in pain! For the longest time, there seemed to be no response, but then Bates heard a commotion from the direction of the Bus and was relieved to see in the dim light of the camp the ten-meter tall form of Gor walking towards them, stepping over tents and people that were in his path. As the giant rapidly drew closer, Bates saw that he carried in his arms and atop his huge shoulders at least a dozen people, some carrying cameras!" GOR COMES, HUMAN!" thundered the Giant, in a deep voice easily heard above the noise of the camp.

"Get back to your position on the mound, Pru; I'll get you the power you need!" said Bates, but when he turned around towards the unicorn, she was already gone. A moment later he saw her glowing form high on the mound, her horn pointed defiantly towards glowing Dannos.

Gor suddenly stood next to Bates, lowering his passengers to the ground. Bates grabbed a live mike and megaphone and flew himself up atop the towering giant's shoulders. He could have hovered on his own power, but he knew that Gor was an even better attention-getter. "Are the cameras rolling? Good! Gor, get the attention of the camp!"

Gor clapped his great hands together, stamped his feet and shouted, which did indeed capture the attention of many, as evidenced by the light from dozens of flashlights that now were shining on the giant and Bates.

"NOW HEAR THIS EVERYONE!" announced Bates with the megaphone. "DON'T LOSE HEART, EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL AGAIN, AND WE'RE STILL GOING TO PULL THIS OFF! BUT THE PLAN HAS CHANGED JUST A LITTLE BIT. THOSE OF US IN THE CAMP NEED TO START PROVIDING PRU WITH POWER RIGHT AWAY. SHE NEEDS TO LINK UP WITH DANNOS WHILE SHE CAN STILL SEE IT. NOTHING ELSE HAS CHANGED. SHE'LL NEED FULL POWER FROM THE REST OF THE WORLD AT FOURTEEN AFTER, JUST AS WE PLANNED IT BEFORE! WE HAVE TO STICK TO THE PLAN!"

The people of the camp, or at least those that he could see in the immediate vicinity, were quieting down and re-forming their focus groups. As the groups came 'on line', they began to send Pru power, power that made up for loss of the other unicorns. Bates looked up at Dannos. It was a third the moon's apparent diameter, but already beginning to disappear in shadow along one edge. In a short time it would vanish completely. Pru was glowing a little brighter, but was obviously still not getting the power she needed. Only the groups in the immediate range of his voice were responding; the rest hadn't heard him! What happened to the camp COM links?

Johnny run through the camp to Bates. "Bates! The COM network is down! You can't be seen or heard by most of the camp, or by the world! Nobody knows what the hell is going on!"

Bates focused his thoughts. "THIS IS BATES! EVERYONE IN CAMP MUST START GIVING POWER TO PRU NOW! TELEPATHS SPREAD THE WORD, AND GET YOUR FOCUS GROUPS ON LINE A-S-A-P!" he pathed. He looked up at Dannos. It was mostly gone, but Pru was finally starting to glow brightly. Bates added his own considerable power, and felt Johnny and Gor do the same. Pru's horn suddenly blazed blue-white, and a like-colored beam of light shot out from the horn, straight at Dannos.

Powered by thousands of hand-picked People trained humans and their teachers, the beam shot up with the speed of thought until it disappeared from view high in the sky, but evidence of its success appeared a moment later, as Dannos, which had just disappeared behind Earth's shadow, reappeared as a dully glowing pebble of the same color as Pru's horn and beam.

Pru had established her link with Dannos! She nearly lost it moments later when a cheer went up around the camp and concentration was lost, but everyone saw Dannos flicker and realized their error, and soon re-established full power.

Bates looked at his watch. Three minutes to impact! The world was to power up in two minutes, and the COM has been knocked out for the last ten, at least! He had to get on VISICOM, and he had to get Pru on VISICOM!

He wasn't the only one with those thoughts. The media people that he had with him were going nuts with frustration. The two commentators were screaming at their technicians, who were dutifully ignoring them as they went about trying to get their cable link with their Boeing 888 running again. "It's no go!" one of them told Bates. "If we had a radio transmission link-up we could be on the air in a minute or two; but we stopped using them hours ago when the cable network went on line. The equipment we need is back at the 888!"

"I've got one! I've got one" shouted a familiar voice from overhead. Bates and company looked up to see Mel Guthery flying towards them in the arms of shapely Thela! With them flew the little girl Sara, Sister Marie, and an older gentleman. All carried electronic equipment in their arms. Mel proceeded to introduce the gentleman as soon as Thela set Mel down gently in front of Bates. The action resulted in Thela being fully frontally visible to the little group of mostly male humans, which slowed useful thought processes considerably.

"This is Mark Curtis, Bates. Among other things he's an electrician and he'll have me and Pru on the air here in a minute. But he examined the damage to the COM net and has something else to tell you!"

Curtis and the two COM technicians had grabbed the equipment that was just flown in and started fussing with wires and knobs. "It was sabotage Dr. Bates, that's for certain!" said Curtis. "Someone got to your COM equipment and demolished it good! It was fused together like it was in a fire!"

"Holy shits! The Ra!" exclaimed Bates.

"Probably," said Mel. "But we don't have time to think about it. Curtis and I will take care of things here, Bates, and give you an image of Pru on the COM. In the meantime you get back to the Bus. Latanna's broadcasting world-wide via Flood's link with the White House. You've got to help reassure the public and get them to send power to Pru!"

Bates was looking at his watch. Two and a quarter minutes to impact!" Right! I better fly then!" said Bates. No sooner were the words out of his mouth when he was airborne and flying rapidly through the camp. For just a moment he thought that he was doing all the flying himself, but he quickly noticed that he was being held by someone whose soft warm body was pressed tightly against his.

"Try to relax, handsome," pathed Thela."You're in the hands of a professional _._ "

There wasn't a chance in hell to relax. Bates twisted and looked up into the sky. Dannos was more than half moon-size now, and closing fast. In the meantime, he was being flown through the night in the arms of a beautiful naked woman, whose hands seemed to wonder about his own body much more than was necessary just to carry him. By the time they reached the Bus, Bates was still anything but relaxed. Thela dropped Bates off next to the Bus, where Johnny, Janet, Oscar, Latanna, and others waited with a camera crew.

Janet read his mind or body language. "You needed _her_ to fly you here?" she asked.

"She's a professional," explained Bates. He turned to the media people. "Cameras on? We're live? Good." He stared into the camera. "As has probably been explained, we've had some minor difficulties here, but now we're ready to execute our plan. Our unicorn friend Pru has already established a link with Dannos and is causing it to glow so that it can be seen." He looked at his watch. One minute to impact! He glanced up at Dannos. It was less than two thousand miles away now, and approximately moon-size. He could actually see it tumbling as it came!

"The time has come, ladies and gentlemen of Earth, when we need your help to save Earth. You've been training since this afternoon, and know what to do. Now you must all join together in your groups and focus on Pru. Search her out with your powers, and you'll sense her! She's already blasting away at Dannos with lots of power. We need six full minutes of concentration from everyone starting now! Mel? Are you ready? Take over!"

"Just came on line, Bates," came the voice of Mel over the COM. "Here's Pru folks! Focus on her! NOW!"

On nearly all VISICOM channels on nearly all screens over all the Earth, a sharp image of Pru appeared, thanks to telephoto lens. She was glowing brighter than ever as she stood tall and proud, high atop the mound of ancient stone blocks, with her horn directing a solid beam of psy energy up at Dannos! A few channels carried Dannos itself. Though it had been very visible to the naked eye all over the world over the last hours and nights, now it filled wall size VISICOMs with its sharp and terrifying image! It was about ten miles across, but not really spherical. It looked more like rounded potato, with pits and bumps that covered it all over. It glowed a bit blue from the unicorn directed psy, but there could be no doubt that it was indeed iron, as a dark metallic luster could easily be detected. It could have perhaps been called beautiful, but for its terrible destructive power.

world-wide, in homes, in schools, in shopping malls, in churches, in football stadiums, sports-bars, and everywhere else where mankind dwelled and gathered, images of Pru and Dannos now dominated the thoughts of humanity. This was the big test for human-kind! Would their psy powers be enough? Could humanity maintain the required concentration on Pru for six minutes? Or, would human thoughts wonder too much about death, or regret, or fear, or anything else? If they did, Earth was doomed!

At the base of the mound, a worried Nobel Prize winning physicist watched a being whose structure and powers he could only speculate about, apply forces that had never been identified by science, to accomplish a mysterious phenomenon known only as 'the soap trick', to a tremendous chunk of iron that was still over a thousand miles away. So far, she seemed to be doing all right. He put on thick sunglasses, and looked at her through binoculars. She hadn't budged an inch, though she was glowing brighter and brighter! Was it working? There was simply no way for Mel to tell.

At the Bus Bates, Janet, the twins, and most of the rest of the Team stood huddled together, holding on to each other tightly and focusing on Pru. They would weather this together. Bates spoke into the microphone again. "That's it! Everyone focus on Pru. Everyone! Each person counts. Young and old, rich and poor, black, or white, or red, or yellow, or giant, or unicorn, or whatever. And don't stop for at least five and a half minutes more, no matter what happens! Even if we lose our transmission again, just keep it up! Don't stop for anything!"

As Bates talked, he watched Dannos appear to grow ever more rapidly, its size appearing to double with each halving of the distance from impact. Soon it was the size of two moons. Ten seconds from impact, it was the size of four moons. He pathed a quick 'I love you' to Janet and the kids, and 'heard' many similar messages bouncing around the group. Then he held his breath and focused on Pru.

Dannos grew more and more rapidly, until it filled the whole sky. Then there was a brief moment when everything around them was dark, blue, cold, and silent as death, but just as suddenly it was gone. It worked! Dannos had passed through them! But instead of cheering, the Team struggled to maintain concentration. It wasn't over yet!

At the mound, Mel hardly even noticed the passage of Dannos. He did notice that the beam emanating from Pru's horn pointed down instead of up; he didn't recall seeing the change, however. The unicorn still stood tall, but her image was shimmering, and actually blinking in and out of view rapidly, as though she was vibrating between this universe and somewhere else. And didn't she seem to be just a bit less tall? How much energy, psy or not, did it take to alter the quantum probabilities associated with a ten-mile across iron and nickel asteroid? How did the thing hold itself together if it was dematerialized? How did the Dannos iron atoms know the difference between its own atoms and the iron atoms of Earth that they passed through? But of course these were the same sort of questions that arose when the unicorn took the Team through solid rock to reach their hidden Land, so Pru was performing a familiar activity. It was indeed the 'soap trick' again, but on an enormous scale!

If iron caused problems for psy-energy, how much harder was it to dematerialize Dannos? Not only was Dannos iron, so was most of Earth, through which Pru was now directing the psy energy to get to Dannos. Mel didn't know the answer to such questions. He could only watch the unicorn in amazement, and hope that things worked out.

Relief was soon replaced by worry. The sabotage incident meant that the Ra were still around! Bates looked at his watch. Three and a half minutes to go! He half ran, half flew to the Bus to see Flood. It was reassuring just to see the Commander at the Bus COM controls. At times like this, he wished that he had more steely-eyed ex-military folks around. "How's it going, Flood?" he asked.

"Good, Bates. We have solid COM link with humanity. But I'm really worried about the Ra!"

"Are you still scanning for Ra saucers?"

"Damn right, I never stopped! Not that it will help much."

"What do you mean?"

"All the psy energy is driving the radar nuts! I won't detect a Ra saucer unless the bastards pass close enough to my window to wave!"

"Shit! You figure they know that?"

"You better believe they do! And they could mount a ground attack too."

Bates sent several of the People to search the camp, but most he directed to guard Pru. Pru couldn't be disturbed. He remembered what Mel told him. Major Earthquakes would still result if Dannos materialized deep in the Earth, and a total disaster would result if Dannos materialized just before leaving Earth! He glanced at a VISION screen. It showed Pru still standing at the top of the mound, glowing like blazes. So far so good! Good old Pru! At least something was working! He had to keep things in perspective. As long as Pru and the people of Earth kept it up, they would be OK!

Then he got a call from Mel. Bates put it on intercom for the others of the Team that were there. "Bates! I think that Pru's tiring! I can't explain it, but I think something's very wrong. Maybe it was the iron of Dannos. Remember, Pru mentioned a few times that iron bothered unicorns? Maybe that's why the iron weapon we call Dannos was directed at the dragon! Now we know that dragons and unicorns are made of the same stuff! We've got to figure out now if we should pull the plug right away to avoid the worst case scenario, or take a chance with her to last through the whole thing!"

Bates put on a 3-D COM helmet with digital zoom and looked more closely at Pru's blazing, blinking form. Mel was right; she did seem to be sagging a bit. He zoomed in further. She was also perfectly motionless. Was she supposed to be? His fingers flew across the controls. Fortunately, the Bus computers were equipped with some of the same standard analysis tools that he had worked with for many years.

In seconds, Bates had the answer that he didn't want. He zoomed on her eyes, and then her white coat, and tail just to be sure. She just didn't look right, and a cold fear suddenly gripped him. "Oh no!" he sobbed, and ran out of the Bus, startling his companions.

He flew to the top of the mound faster than Thela could have; how, he couldn't have explained. How he looked at Pru so closely without burning out his own eyes, he couldn't have explained either. As he was stumbling back down the mound on foot a worried Mel finally caught up with him.

"Bates! You've been with Pru? Can she make it? What did she say? Is she all right? It's only a minute and a half to the exit of Dannos! If were doing to pull the plug while Dannos is still deep in the Earth to avoid the worst-case scenario it has to be done now! What should we do?"

Bates sighed. "Nothing. We're too late Mel. If I'm right, Pru can't turn off the dematerialization."

"Sure she can! She's the focus point!"

"I don't think she can change what she's doing. I did a quick motion analysis on the COM disks, Mel. She hasn't moved since a few seconds after Dannos struck. Not a twitch on a strand of hair. And look at her eyes."

Mel looked. "They aren't black anymore! They're white like the rest of her! That's what was different! I couldn't place it!"

"She looks like a hollowed out statue, Mel, just a frozen in place shell! Nothing is left but some sort of energy conduit!"

"You think she's dead?" asked Mel, shaken.

Bates could only nod his head as he fought back tears. Mel had finally said the thing that he couldn't bring himself to say. It was somewhat of a relief to him that someone else knew, but it was a massive blow to hear those words.

"It's probably too late to COM the world population to stop the psy power anyway, Bates. It's too close to break-out time. I guess we just hope that whatever's left of Pru will hold up long enough." He looked at his watch. "Forty seconds Bates! I think we're going to make it! Actually, it's those last five seconds or so that we really have to worry about."

"Ra!" came a voice shouting from somewhere in the darkness. Bates and Mel turned around, and there, hovering above and next to the mound was a glowing Ra Warren Ship, just hovering there, waiting.

"It's going to blast Pru to get the worst case scenario!" shouted Mel.

Though most of the camp was concentrating so strongly on Dannos that they didn't even notice the silently hovering Ra ship, several People providing guard over Pru now attacked the space ship. Huge stone blocks were flung up at the saucer by Gor and two huge ogres, and some sort of energy beam shot out from the eyes of several griffins that circled the saucer, but everything just bounced harmlessly off an invisible Ra force field. Worse, the ship began blasting away at People, humans, and everything else in the vicinity with powerful bolts of plasma. This time there were no unicorns or One Trees to project protective force fields, and the carnage was immediate and horrible.

To Bates, it was a situation not unlike his earlier battle with the Ra, in which powers suddenly came forth from himself that he didn't really even expect understand. Suddenly there was a protective field around Gor that shielded the giant from what would have surely been a killing blow.

"Ten seconds Bates!" came a faint voice. It was Mel, who was hidden behind a nearby smoldering tree-trunk. "Seven!"

A saucer blast shot out at Bates, nearly catching him off guard, but it passed through him harmlessly.

"Six!" cried Mel!

A huge beam shot out of the saucer and struck Pru full force.

Of course, thought Bates, that's where he should have had his protective shield all along! He reached out mentally to put one around the top of the mound, but it wasn't holding; the saucer must have been saving its most potent blasts for Pru. Terra watts of plasma state elementary particles streamed over the unicorn!

"Four!" shouted Mel!

Shit! What happened to five? And where is zero already, thought Bates!

Pru's body suddenly seemed riddled with dozens of cracks and holes that multiplied as he watched, from which streamed thin streamers of blue psy-energy! Most still emanated from her horn, but more and more was 'leaking' from the holes. She was being blasted to bits!

"Three!"

Suddenly, the saucer's beam was cut short, and Bates heard a terrible crunching, like dozens of auto crashes at once!

"Zero!" shouted Mel, 'two' and 'one' having been drowned out by the crunching noise!

Bates looked around to see the crushed saucer in the massive jaws of hovering Quetzal, like a dog with a little squeeze toy! With a jerk of his head, the dragon flipped what was left of the saucer high up into the air. Then he exhaled, with the sound of a tornado, blasting a massive column of brilliant blue-green flame at the Ra space ship. Except for a few shed chunks of it that flew off into the darkness, he saucer seemed to simply disappear. If it did explode, the explosion was so insignificant compared to the dragon flame that it wasn't noticeable to the onlookers.

Meanwhile, a second conflagration was occurring on the mound, as what was left of Pru shattered to bits, and the enormous psychic energy that had been concentrated and directed to and by her shot outwards in a brilliant silent flash!

Mel emerged from his hiding place and ran to Bates, his COM phone pressed against his ear. "Reports from Australia and Indonesia, Bates. We did it! Dannos passed all the way through the Earth without even noticing it! The Dannos threat is over!"

Bates nodded in acknowledgment, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He flew up to the top of the mound. Several of the People were already there, with mournful heads hung low, tears, and sobs.

There was nothing left of Pru but a section of horn and scattered charred bits of white fur. The horn and fur were dull and dirty, without a hint of life or magic. Johnny, Dooley, and Fen were already there, openly crying. Moments later, the onlookers on the mound scattered, as two titanic feet settled down at the base of the mound. The huge multi-colored dragon head lowered, and stared with enormous eyes for long moments at the charred unicorn remains.

Bates held his breath. What would the dragon's reaction be? Quetzal could be more dangerous than Dannos and the Ra put together!

The dragon raised its head to point straight up, and a tremendous column of multicolored flame shot out of its mouth for at least three full minutes, miles into the dark night, towards the distant stars, as a mournful roaring cry shook the Earth! At the same time, an empathic feeling of pain and despair was unleashed that echoed through minds and souls around the globe. To billions of COM viewers, what had happened was as clear as it was to the survivors in the Guatemalan camp. This was the end of a love story hundreds of millions of years old; it was a despairing mate saying good-by forever to his lost love. Mel, who had climbed the mound to join his friend, stood arm in arm with Bates and they cried like babies, and they weren't the only ones. The loss of Pru was devastating.

Quetzal stood silently when his despairing roar at last ended, his unimaginably huge body towering high over the scene. Suddenly from the huge, multicolored belly of the dragon a mass of white erupted! Bates had trouble comprehending what was happening until the distant struggling white forms resolved into individuals, which came gracefully floating down towards the peak of the mound. It was then that Bates saw that the white objects were unicorns! Hundreds, no, thousands of white unicorns!

It was Pru's long-lost brothers and sisters, released at last from the massive body of their grief stricken dragon captor. They landed and in a seemingly unending stream, then filed slowly past Pru's remains, each pausing reverently with proud head dipped low, to peer briefly at the broken, lifeless horn. One particularly large and stately stallion dropped down to that hallowed ground and lay down by the horn. It was Baldor! He lowered his horn to the ground and it glowed brightly, as if he was somehow desperately trying to bring back his mate. But there was no miracle; Unicorns are immensely powerful, but not gods.

Bates looked up and saw that the massive dragon was watching everything with its huge, infinitely deep, all-seeing red eyes. Suddenly, as if this was all simply too much for him to bear, Quetzal looked away, shook himself, unfurled his gigantic wings, and with a single graceful sweep that barely caused a breeze, his impossibly huge form lifted into the air and flew gracefully up and away slowly in an ever widening spiral.

Meanwhile, as the last unicorns filed past, Baldor looked up at them with his black pit eyes. Some sort of communication seemed to occur among the circling unicorns then, though even the telepathically gifted humans and People 'heard' nothing. The gathered unicorns suddenly were milling about among themselves, shifting and re-shifting in position. Bates noticed that they were forming into groups, until at last each unicorn had joined one of two groups. The slightly larger group encircled Baldor and the remains of Pru, covering the top of the mound, while the other group converged at the base of the mound.

Within the second group two unicorns suddenly charged violently into each other, merging with a flash of light into a single larger unicorn that reared up on its hind legs and cried out shrilly. A third unicorn charged and merged with that one, and the other unicorns quickly followed suit by the hundreds and thousands, until at last one gigantic unicorn more than a hundred meters tall was formed!

It turned one huge dark eye-pit towards a small, goat- legged being among the thousands of astonished onlookers. "WATCH, FRIEND FEN, AND LEARN!" said the mega-unicorn, before it voiced an ear-splitting whinny-laugh.

The form of the unicorn was suddenly indistinct and wavering, until it resolved itself into its new form. It was a blazing white dragon perhaps a third the size of Quetzal, with black-pit eyes, and with silver spines along its neck, back, and tail that blazed with energy!

High above them, still circling slowly, and suddenly glowing dull green in the darkness, Quetzal roared thunderously in approval. Its wings suddenly beat faster and with greater force, as the gigantic dragon circled more rapidly above the mound.

The white dragon roared in answer, unfurled its own huge wings, and soared effortlessly into the air, its graceful motions followed by a half-dozen flood lights from the camp below, though the creature was glowing on its own anyway. When the luminous leviathans met, they butted heads and entwined necks and limbs in what was obviously a warm greeting, and glowed brighter white and green, as lightning danced over and between them. Then both dragons, flying side by side, swept majestically still higher and faded out of sight into the darkness of night.

Meanwhile, the remaining thousands of unicorns were suddenly everywhere in the camp, administering aid to casualties of the final battle with the Ra. Bates looked towards Baldor and the remains of Pru, to see if there was anything further to be done. But both Baldor and the broken horn of Pru had vanished.

It suddenly struck Bates that they were finished. It was finally all over! He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Well, Bates," said Mel, patting his friend on the back. "I'd say it has been a hell of a day! Hell of a week and a half, actually. Hopefully we'll get overtime and hazardous duty pay for all of this. What do you say to us all heading home, before those Guatemalan Civil Servants deport us?"

"Rowel, Rowel!" seconded a waggedy-tailed Milo, who had finally located his master again among the thousands of folks in the camp, and reared up to push doggie nose and muddy front paws against his legs.

A relieved Bates picked up Milo and gave him a big hug. As much as anyone else, the little dog had definitely helped to save the Earth. In the end it was love and teamwork between folks that triumphed over the Ra and Dannos, including dog love. "Sounds good to me, Mel. Of course, I'll have to work out where home is with Janet."

"Then of course there's the press, your kids, the President, the Galactic League, the unicorns, and so forth to deal with," Mel added. "Oh, and I almost forgot. Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas to you, Mel," said Bates, as he gave his friend a hug. Christmas? He hadn't even had time to think of it until now, though here and there he had found time for quite a bit of hasty prayer. Maybe if there were more Christmas trees to be found in Central American jungles, he would have been reminded sooner. What was it that Pru had said about meeting Jesus? Something about the goodness of Jesus persuading some of the People to interact with humans? Pru must have been talking about herself, obviously, and without Pru helping the humans, Dannos would have demolished Earth.

But that meant that Jesus had been in some measure responsible once again for saving mankind, as well as the dragon, snakes, and everything else living on Earth! Of course he wasn't forgetting the contributions of Twinkies or hemorrhoid cream either, and the many that had died, including Pru, Gus, the Falcon crew, and a bunch of folks here at the impact point. Death was a terrible thing, and ultimately it seemed to be inescapable, but there was also wondrous life in the world! Life that in this instance had collectively triumphed over death!

In the last few days Bates had discovered unicorns and ghosts and space aliens and powers within himself that so far defied scientific explanation. There was certainly a lot more to existence than he had ever imagined, but maybe there was even more. Maybe it wasn't Jigs or blind fate pulling the strings. Maybe he was still just seeing the edges. Maybe there were patterns and meanings that even with his increased IQ he would never be able to pluck from the blurry chaotic complexity that was existence.

"Fudge Winkies!" he remarked, as he held Mel and Milo and flew the three of them over a wildly cheering crowd towards the Bus where Janet and his kids waited for him, along with most of the rest of the Team. Flashlights and floodlights followed the progress of the trio, and several more flying friends escorted them, screeching, roaring or shouting in excitement. "I was hoping we'd just stop someplace for burgers or pizza and quietly go home. Life has certainly gotten complicated in the last couple of weeks."

****

CHAPTER 52
EPILOGUE

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

\- Albert Einstein

Despite all the positive benefits that accrued from the sudden unleashing of miraculous human psychic powers, the two and a half years following the Dannos incident were certainly among the most arduous and tumultuous in human history. How could they not be? Inter-personal relationships were being redefined, and social norms, ideologies, and institutions, many of which had developed over countless centuries, were set on their ears.

Numerous technologies, jobs, and economic structures became obsolete almost overnight, and new ones painfully emerged. Stock markets went crazy. Family secrets became public. Religions struggled with the ability to communicate with the spirits of their founders. Most doctors and nurses lost their jobs to psychic healers that cured practically everything. Divorce and marriage rates skyrocked. Gigantic scandals erupted constantly over the unscrupulous conduct of gifted psy practitioners, for acquisition of psy powers bore no relationship to moral character or fortitude. In short, life on Earth teetered on the edge of chaos. But it was 'a good chaos' agreed most people, as positive changes far outnumbered the bad ones.

Bates and the Team were treated as heroes, especially initially. Congressional Medals of Honor and numerous other accolades were lavished on him and the other Team members. Billions watched and cheered the Bates/Garb wedding, which was attended by an exotic variety of People, space aliens, and VIP humans. Even in the newly emerging social order, it was novel for a bride to be 'given away' by a unicorn, and for the happy couple to be flown by a gigantic white dragon to Scotland to honeymoon.

Reenactments of the Team's adventures filled the COM-ways, and an overjoyed Fen got to play many of the parts. Plastic models and toys of the Bus, Team members, People, space ships and aliens, including Ra bad-guys, sold by the hundreds of millions. Winnebago became rich beyond his wildest dreams from royalties, but surprised many acquaintances when he used most of it to benefit his people, the Apache.

This, as well as Winnebago's actions in the Dannos incident, apparently appeased Goyahkla, for although he still visited Winnebago occasionally on friendly or at least amicable social calls, the cruel haunting of his descendant at last ceased. Winnebago was at last free to return to New York City and other eastern points, but much to his own surprise found that he now preferred Arizona Apache reservations.

Norma and Sandra returned to the DOD Base, which got a new lease on life and new research missions associated with psychic phenomena, space travel and defense, and the study of space aliens and elementals. They had to actually hire hundreds of scientists back from McDonalds and Wal-Mart. Barns got an official annulment from Twig, married Norma, and went on lecture tours, but spent much of his time happily fishing. Hank persuaded his Uncle Jake to accompany him on an extended fishing trip to Montana, and they hadn't been heard from for over two years.

Steve Latanna left his beloved Arizona to become the first Earth ambassador to the Galactic League. He was perfect for the job, since in addition to his political skills, the Justice organization of the League needed Earth police skills to help begin a crackdown on Ra activities that were suspected to be illegal. Steve took Kay with him as his wife, and General Therman, Commander Flood, and Mark Curtis as his aids. Curtis went along as a living example of powerful Earth psy skills, while Flood finally got a chance to pilot in space, though not the Bus. Along with the Nitro, the actual Bus was inducted into the Smithsonian, though the physical deterioration of its strange, unearthly armor continued.

Don went back to college. As the Traveler's transformation had bumped his IQ by at least fifty points, he was now breezing through his classes, and had time for other pursuits. For one thing, with his new celebrity status, he certainly enjoyed popularity with women that his father never dreamed of when he was in school.

Elizabeth joined Oscar, Mel and Jane in The Land, where they together resumed the research that Gus and his Goth Mountain friends had started. To nobody's surprise she soon became the wife of joyously happy Dooley Simple, who along with his best friend Johnny Goth resumed their lives on mysterious Goth Mountain. Johnny's wife, also named Elizabeth, as well as Johnny's parents, became her closest friends, and her new father-in-law Professor Simple was delighted to gain a daughter. Much to Dooley's delight, his Elizabeth soon mastered both the art of having trees grow smiley faces in their bark and the even more valuable art of baking berry pies.

In addition to studying The Land and its People, Mel pursued a scientific understanding of the Black Pit, which was soon renamed the Earth Nexus Portal. He quickly concluded that an understanding of the Portal would require deeper understanding of not only our own Universe, but of the ensemble of universes that apparently comprised what the Traveler had termed the 'Multiverse'. Each unique universe presumably operated according to its own solution to the grand unified theory, or 'GUT', featuring its own self-consistent set of physical laws and fundamental constants, which apparently left each universe mathematically incompatible and hence invisible with respect to each other. The Team's adventure with the Traveler and the Portal suggested to Mel that multiple universes not only existed but could actually be somehow reached via a Nexus Portal device.

Like hundreds of scientists before him including Einstein, Mel continued to the elusive TOE or grand unified theory. The GUT learned from Aliens closely matched his, but they were much further along in deriving consequences and finding supporting observational evidence. It was messy work, involving difficult mathematical relationships between various fundamental particles and the evolution of the cosmos from the instant of creation through billions of years of relative stability to the present, for our Universe as well as for the other stable, so called 'flat' universes of particular interest that might exist. Mel also hypothesized that the GUT would ultimately shed light on psychic abilities, spirit worlds, faster than light-speed communications and space-ship propulsion, and even the Jigs farsight ability.

In brief, Earth scientists were both overwhelmed and overjoyed by the scientific knowledge of other members of the Galactic League. However, although in most ways the scientific knowledge of the League was far advanced of that of Earth, elemental beings and Nexus portals like the Back Pit were new and fascinating phenomena to even the League scientists. Several science missions from other planets were now stationed on Earth, where first hand observation of these phenomena was likely. Unprecedented scientific progress was being made Galaxy-wide, but there was still had a long way to go. An infinite way to go actually, as the hunger for scientific knowledge in thinking beings is endless, with every hard-won morsel of understanding only leading to new cravings, spurred on by ever deepening questions that demanded still further answers.

Despite searches conducted by many, the particular Earth Nexus Portal used by The Traveler could not be physically relocated. Perhaps the Portal didn't always exist on Earth. However, though Jigs wouldn't admit to knowing where/when it was, it was reported that he sometimes disappeared for days or even weeks at a time, accompanied by a mysterious black robe wearing man with six-fingered hands.

In addition, the two dragons disappeared in the region where the Portal was suspected to be, shortly after Quetzal announced to Baldor that they would return to Earth after they had toured the area, whatever that meant. Perhaps they would be gone for millennia. Many interpreted this outing of the dragons as a honeymoon, but whatever relationship had developed between the two behemoths was clearly regarded by them to be their own affair.

Despite the over-all satisfaction and feeling of security that resulted from the successful conclusion of the Dannos incident, disquieting things began to turn up as time passed. Phil of Uncle Phil's Used Cars in Utah was found dead and partly eaten a few weeks after the Dannos event. This only became significant after investigation of centuries of Ra activities on Earth linked one of Phil's used auto sales to possible sightings of Ra in the Salt Lake City area. Were there still Ra on Earth? There were also growing reports of monstrous beasts rising up from the sea, and of deadly creatures emerging from deep within the Earth. The waking of the dragon had evidently unleashed many Earthly wielders of power besides humans.

Bates was not involved in mankind's struggle to come to terms with psychic powers, with Earth's entry into the Galactic League, or with addressing the strange new problems that were now sweeping the globe. After the wedding of Narbando and Janet, the Bates family successfully ducked out of the limelight. The newlyweds honeymooned in Scotland along Lock Ness, and basically liked it so much that they simply stayed there.

With the onset of increasingly disturbing events, a fearful cry went up around the world urging the re-establishment of the Team that once before had wielded great powers to save the Earth. In particular, the powers and wisdom attributed to Dr. Narbando T. Bates by the public had reached near mythical proportions, but the esteemed scientist refused all requests to come out of his self-imposed retirement.

So it was that a delegation of renowned friends and acquaintances of Dr. Bates was at last commissioned by newly re-elected President Wright to travel to Scotland and seek out the help of the world-famous hero.

****

On the home world of the Ra, Jun'Ca, High Priest of the Ca'Ra of the First Order, waited alone nervously in the heart of the Forbidden Temple, outside the hidden Hall of the Dark Master, waiting for the Dark One's command to enter. Jun'Ca was actually relieved to be called into the presence of his Dark Master; it had been more than a hundred days since the last such call, and the Ca'Ra were in dire need of The Master's guidance.

Since the failure of the Earth mission, Ra was in turmoil. The Ra had managed to barely retain their Galactic League membership through a proliferation of talented lies and deception, but they were put officially 'on probation'. Their operations were now hampered greatly by the red tape implied by this form of second class Galactic citizenship.

Even worse, the Galactic League was cracking down on illegal Ra operations all over the Galaxy, aided by Earth police methods and personnel. The damned humans already had full League membership, and were suddenly everywhere! With their psy talents, the humans were an even worse threat than the Na'Ra had feared.

Of even greater concern to Jun'Ca at the moment however, was the odd reaction and behavior of the Dark One. The High Priest was usually able to predict the Master's reactions to some degree; that's how he had remained alive as the top Ca' Ra for so long. Still, he was glad that he was wrong about his expectations with regard to the failure of the Dannos event. The Dark One didn't kill him outright when he brought the news of the failed Earth mission to him. In fact, Jun'Ca had the strangest impression that The Master already knew of the failure.

Then there was the mysterious appearance and disappearance of Twi'Na to consider. A year after the Earth mission failure, a Gorag freighter coming from Earth had discovered a small Ra Warren ship escape pod orbiting the Earth, and demanded an exorbitant fee for its secret return to Ra. Everyone was picking on the Ra nowadays, even the fat, placid Gorag.

The pod contained a single Ra, preserved in stasis. Once revived, Twig would have been promptly executed by the Na'Ra, had it not been for her insistence that she had valuable information for the Ca'Ra. The insolent Twig then proceeded to talk her way up the Ca'Ra ranks all the way to the High Ca'Ra, Jun'Ca! When the impudent Na'Ra refused even to talk to Jun'Ca, other than to demand an audience with The Dark Master, Jun'Ca nearly killed her himself. How had a mere Na'Ra learned of the existence of The Master? That information alone would ordinarily be a death sentence. But ultimately, just as the lower echelon Ca'Ra had done, Jun'Ca passed her along to the next and only one higher in rank: The Dark Master himself!

Jun'Ca remembered well Twi'Na's entry into the Dark One's Hall. Twig carried with her several items that she had retrieved from Earth, including recording devices and a piece of what looked like white plastic. Jun'Ca had fought back laughter. Did this fool think that such trinkets would save her? Twi'Na should have herself demanded that the first Ra she encountered kill and eat her outright! None but the highest in Ca'Ra rank had ever seen the Master and lived, and Jun'Ca rather looked forward to the spectacle of The Master tearing this young fool Na'Ra to pieces.

But then the impossible happened. The Master took one look at Twig and dismissed Jun'Ca from the hall. When Jun'Ca was at last bidden to re-enter a few minutes later, Twig was gone! There were not even any remains to clean up.

"She has been called to other duty!" stated the Master enigmatically. "You will be told more when the time comes!" That had been more than an Earth-year ago, and Twi'Na hadn't been seen or heard of since.

"Come to me now, Jun'Ca!" came the Master's voice from the formless dark mist in the huge cavern. "Rejoice Jun'Ca, for this day brings a new beginning! No longer will the Ca' Ra control the weak Na'Ra from the shadows, or slink away from the Galactic League and their new champions, the humans! I have prepared the way to strike the humans on their home world, for I have now sent there the first of my new Dark Knights, the one once known to the humans as Twig, to seek vengeance!"

Jun'Ca was overjoyed to hear that vengeance would soon be carried out against the humans, but confused on many matters. Exactly what was a 'Dark Knight', how had Twi'Na become one, and how had she then gotten to Earth?

"When my other Knights have been put in place and I have at last destroyed my rival Quaxantos, your Galactic League and all the Multiverse will be at my tender mercy. You, Jun'Ca, will now have the honor of being only the second Ra to ever see your Master's true form, and of becoming the second of your Master's Dark Knights! Tell me Jun'Ca, do not the Ra have myths and legends of The One? And about great beings called dragons that descended from The One? And of one black dragon greater than the others called The Destroyer? _"_

As The Master spoke, the mists began to clear, revealing a gigantic reptilian head, black as pitch, held up above the midst of the cavern on a titanic black neck! Jun'Ca stood in shock as the head came closer and closer to him, staring at him with red eyes, held aloft by what seemed to be an endless neck! Then the huge jaws opened, and from between black teeth shot a dozen meters of black tongue thicker than the Ra's body. In moments, terrified Jun'Ca was grasped by the great tongue and pulled screaming into the dragon's mouth.

****

"No way guys! I'm retired!" Bates paced around the expansive sunroom in agitation, while Milo, after he had finished licking Oscar's big hairy face, tried to sleep on the biologist's lap, and Mel casually inspected the toddler twins, Mike and Sara.

Oscar and Mel had discovered Bates and Milo soundly sleeping on a comfortable lounge chair when they arrived at his home in Scotland to visit him. The pair weren't surprised that their friend appeared to have gained more weight and lost some muscle since the last time they saw him; since the Dannos adventure Bates was slowly reverting to his natural couch-potato form.

"Tell that to President Wright!" responded Oscomb. "This isn't our idea. We were getting along just fine studying The Land and its inhabitants, with Elizabeth's help. And by the way, that young lady of yours has been invaluable. She's got some pretty mean psy powers of her own that have been helpful, and instincts and intelligence to boot. But even more, she's a damn dynamo! She spends a lot of time with her husband Dooley, of course, but that can't be helped."

"Frankly, she has pretty much taken charge of our efforts, Bates," admitted Mel. "She has an amazing affinity for understanding the strange new types of life that we are trying to study. She's a chip off the old block I suppose, a born scientist and leader."

Bates smiled.

"Yes, she does certainly take after her mother," continued Mel. "Of course that suits us just fine. But to get back to the point: some weird and dangerous stuff has been happening Earth-wide! After reviewing the evidence, we agree that you're needed, Bates."

"And that's not just human opinion, Bates," said Oscar. "The unicorns have been scouting some of this out, and they seem to think that something dreadful is afoot that could use your help. They've been encountering some pretty weird and dangerous life-forces that have been set lose by the awakening of the Dragon, but they think that there's even more to it than that. It's not random anymore. Patterns are becoming evident: strange beasts running off with folks, Earth tremors, weird weather and the like. Things are getting all stirred up again."

Bates nodded. "Baldor showed up here a week ago and pretty much told me the same thing. But I feel that whatever is happening, the unicorns can handle it, including weird beasts. And weather has always been weird."

"Not normally as weird as tornadoes that call out obscenities and pelt folks with toads and snakes," responded Mel. "But the monster attacks are the most worrisome aspect. It's setting lots of humans against the People."

"I can't believe that the People would be behind it," said Bates.

"Of course not," agreed Oscar. "In fact, the People are being attacked too. Even the unicorns themselves!"

The conversation was interrupted by Janet, who ushered in a surprise guest into the sunroom and then disappeared again. She was giving her husband time to be alone with his friends.

"Mr. Jigs!" exclaimed Bates, as he, Mel, Oscar, and Milo warmly greeted the old billionaire. "This is an unexpected pleasure!"

"Not really, Narbando," said Ray Dave Jigs, smiling, but shaking his head negatively to indicate that all was not well. "You should know by now that seeing me isn't necessarily the best thing that can happen to you. Actually, I'm here to warn you to watch your step. Dangerous times are coming!"

"Wait a minute!" protested Bates, as he ushered the old billionaire onto a comfortable chair and then plopped himself down on his own trusty old recliner. "I thought this Ra business was mostly over with. Steve has sent word that the Galactic League is really fixing their wagon."

"As a danger to the galaxy the Ra are just getting started actually, but that's just a superficial plot line, Bates. You have worries much closer to home; you have to look at the deeper plot."

"Look at what plot? Your Government Men novel's been out of print for years, if it ever was in print at all, but I saw the VISICOM adaptation of it, and what we've already done is all there is to it. The Earth gets saved from Dannos and then we all live happily-ever-after. The End. Well, this is the happily-ever-after part!"

"You can't go by a sleazy COM script, Bates," admonished Mel. "They're more into melodrama and special effects than historical fact. Besides, they always cut out all the good parts to fit in the commercials!"

"That last mini-series about the Dannos affair wasn't half bad. I thought they finally picked the right guy to play me," retorted Bates.

Oscar and Mel broke out into laughter. "Yeah right! Of course an actor famous for his James Bond roles is just perfect to play you!" said Oscar.

"The point is that it's not all over," said Jigs. "You need to re-read the Government Men epilogue. A sequel to that novel is emerging. Though of course as usual I can't tell you the details about what's going to happen, you're soon going to be heading back towards Uncle Jake's old stomping ground and using what people now call the Nexus Portal. Or perhaps you will go to Goth Mountain instead. Or perhaps both. That part is unclear to my farsight. That also assumes that you will be able to go anywhere, of course. You might not live that long."

"Now wait just a minute!" objected Bates. "Before you start spouting riddles and nonsense about why you can't tell me more, I don't want to hear any of it! Haven't I done my share? Haven't we all? Right now I just want to live a normal life with my wife and kids. Hell, I don't even want to go back to Maryland, let along travel through some sort of space-time warp to other universes! I'm retired! Whatever game is afoot, I refuse to play."

"Nope," retorted Jigs. "Sorry, Bates, but your tenure as a Guardian has just started and you're stuck with it. Yes, you did carry through with that Dannos business, but that's just a small piece of it; I'm afraid that there are plenty more challenges to come!"

Bates shook his head in disagreement. "I don't see it that way. The DOD is making a strong come-back, and Latanna is giving the Galactic League police force teeth to handle the Ra. And here on Earth there are millions of folks with strong psy powers now, and thousands of friendly unicorns with more powers than I will ever have. Regardless of what's happening, I'm redundant. I figure that I can stay here in Scotland for the rest of my life, and hardly anyone will even notice."

Jigs was shaking his head. "Wrong again! You're unique in your powers; you just haven't discovered them all yet. You've been too busy sitting on your butt here eating pizza. And I wouldn't count on the Galactic League for help; they're soon going to need help themselves! As to the importance of your role in all this, didn't you ever watch It's a Wonderful Life, where the angel shows Jimmy Stewart how lousy everything would be if he was never born? You can't just wimp out on the world and expect someone else to take up all your slack."

"I can try!"

"Your President doesn't agree!"

"I quit the Civil Service over two years ago; I'm not a Government man anymore. I didn't even vote last time, not even by absentee ballot."

The old man shook his head. "I'm afraid that you're doing to be dragged into what's coming. We all are. I'm just here to warn you to keep on your toes, that's all. I've got other places to go and things to do, so saving Earth is mostly up to you and yours, Guardian Bates."

"Fudge Winkies!" exclaimed Bates.

"That's just the way it is."

"But why me? And don't tell me that you have no control over events, Jigs, there were just too many coincidences in our recent Dannos adventure. Such as me suddenly heading things up in DOD, while at the same time the woman I happened to fall in love with years earlier just happened to discover the Dannos problem. And then there were your advance preparations for us in Enterprise City and around the world!"

"Truth be known, that's just the tip of the iceberg, Bates. There's a list of things like that a mile long. Such as Jake and Hank being related. Such as the fact that I've been subsidizing a certain observatory and university in Arizona by millions of dollars each year. Also, there was the matter of your friend Gus encountering Fen at Mt. Rainier and preparing Pru to work with you humans. Now, that one really took some doing; Gus actually rather liked his retirement in Florida, you know."

"Do you mean Gus would still be alive in Florida if it wasn't for you?" asked Bates in sudden anger.

"No, actually he could have died in a car accident in Florida years earlier, and Mel could have died in Guatemala instead of Gus," responded Jigs. "So yes, I confess! Shall we just say I tweaked the plot until there was greater hope that it might work out reasonably well and the Earth would be saved? It was my life's work, though a work far from perfection. But it's not over yet, not by a long shot! What's ahead is a lot worse than we've been through so far. Frankly, I don't know enough about it to give you advice the way that I did for the Dannos business, so you're basically on your own this time."

"That's all that you've seen with your gift? What do you call it? Farsight?"

"Farsight is as good a name for it as I've found. Frankly, so much happens so soon that I can't figure it out. I've seen bits and pieces of several possible futures, and I simply can't put it all together. It's a bloody mess though, I can tell you that much. Your life as a Guardian has only begun, and other members of your family will be greatly involved too."

"Not if I can help it! I don't care about your visions, or dragon dreams, or goofy novels! My wife and kids are going to lead perfectly normal lives. As you've explained it, your farsight only sees things as they might become. Well, you're barking up the wrong tree this time! I'm living life in the slow lane here, and that's the way I like it. There will be no more strange adventures for me or for my family!

"Sure, I remember my Guardian pledge, and if anything cosmically nasty does pop up, I'll live up to that pledge, though without involving Janet and the kids. But I'm certainly not going to go off looking for trouble. Right now it seems to me that there's just a lot of confusion resulting from everyone adapting to psychic powers and entering the Galactic League. In time that should sort itself out, and then people can take it easy for a while, like I'm doing. You're looking at a simple ordinary human being and his simple ordinary family, who all lead simple, ordinary lives. End of story."

Jigs laughed. "You aren't the one writing the stories Bates. Anyway, watch your step and good luck to you all." With that the multi-billionaire departed, leaving Bates, Mel, Oscar, Milo and the twins to consider his dire warning.

"Yow! Bates! What's that?" shouted Mel, as he scooted hastily away from an outside window through which a horse-sized reptilian head was emerging on a long thick neck.

"Oh. That's just one of those darned 'nessie' things; the lake's full of them. Pests, if you ask me. I don't know why this lake's so popular, with those things around all the time. They seem to have taken a liking to the kids. This one keeps visiting Mike, and there's another one out there someplace that can't seem to get enough of Sara."

Mike, who had been quietly been crawling around in his crib and making faces at the visitors, giggled with glee, flew out of the crib and over to the big 'nessie', and poked it playfully on the snout, as Mel and Oscar watched fearfully. The creature was certainly big enough to gulp down a child with no problem at all.

Bates however, seemed unconcerned, as did his dog Milo, who was still trying to take a nap on Oscomb's big lap.

Oscar and Mel looked at each other in astonishment. The established norm was for kids to develop their psy powers between the ages of six and thirteen. They had never heard of a flying toddler. Nor had they ever heard that Loch Ness 'monsters' were actually real!

"Aren't kids a handful?" complained Bates, as he still relaxed calmly in his recliner, watching the nessie give Mike a ponderous but gentle return poke. "They smell like dead fish though, don't they? The nessies I mean, not so much the kids. Worse than my damned goldfish tanks ever were! Mike! Send it away! It can come back and play later, after my friends have left."

Little Mike, though not yet two years old, appeared to fully understand his father. The child shot Bates a sour look and then gave the huge nessie creature another pat on the snout, and the huge head and neck slowly withdrew. Through the window, the visitors saw a gigantic, whale-sized, rounded body with thick tail drag itself ponderously towards the nearby lake using what seemed to be a cross between feet and flippers. There was a tremendous splash and some ripples in the water, then it was gone.

Mike flew back to the crib, and sulked there with his sister Sara.

"Anyway, as I was saying gentlemen," continued Bates, "all you have is unsubstantiated rumor and public hysteria, while what I have here in Scotland is simple, normal, safe, and ordinary. Dull even. No surprises; and I don't expect any. As far as I can tell, everything is right with the world, and I like it that way."

As Bates was talking, his astonished visitors watched the two twins behind him in the crib. They were simply sitting there together staring at their Dad and smiling, but from the way they were doing it the onlookers all sensed that the little beggars were up to something. Suddenly a huge glass pitcher full of what looked like water came floating through the wall behind the twins, sailed over them, and stopped directly above Bates' head.

Bates kept talking, but everyone else lost track of what he was saying, as the pitcher suddenly dumped its water! Instead of landing on the man's head however, the water split into a dozen or more streams that shot off into different directions all over the room. Now it was the twins as well as the visitors that watched in fascination as the water furiously twisted and turned like agitated snakes through the air all around the room, before returning to the now upright pitcher. Pitcher and water shot swiftly out through the back wall again and were gone!

Bates sat up smiling and turned to face his two beloved little munchkins. "You'll have to do better than that, you little stinkers," he laughed. He held out his two arms and Mike and Sara, grinning, flew across the room to him for a big hug. Whether they flew by his powers or theirs, it was impossible for the onlookers to tell. Bates relaxed in his recliner with the happy twins sitting on his lap. Milo left Oscomb and hopped up onto Bates' recliner and Bates also, and began licking the trio, as the giggling twins pulled and poked at their proud father, Milo, and one another, while Bates once again reiterated his position.

"Janet has ordered pizza and drinks for us all, my friends, so just relax now and prepare to stuff yourselves silly. Fudge Winkies, you guys worry too much! From now on, life is going to be a snap! What could possibly go wrong?"

The End?

****

About the Author and Other Publications

If you enjoyed Government Men, please return to the Smashwords site or an affiliated E-book distributer to discover other novels and short stories by this author (Gary J. Davies/Ray Dave Jigs), including the Government Men prequel Secrets of Goth Mountain.

Born in Erie PA and currently residing in Southern Maryland, I am a recently retired engineer with degrees in physics. I took up writing as a hobby over two decades ago, for no practical reasons that I can think of.

My first published novel is Blue Dawn Jay of Aves, a traditional science fiction story of a distant planet inhabited by giant song-loving sentient birds that is being colonized by humans. It was written in response to my appreciation for birds, birders, music, and song, and my desire to write something purely science fiction and off-Earth. In honor of my wonderful wife and daughters, I created a strong woman heroine to team up with Blue Dawn the jay.

For a fun quirky tale about a private detective dealing with ultimate shrinkage, elves and other nasty visitors from a parallel dimension, and with the mob and a talking mob-cat, read the noir-tinged fantasy/detective novel The Shrinking Nuts Case.

As already noted, Secrets of Goth Mountain is the prequel to Government Men. It is based on two short stories in my published short story collection, a diverse collection of twenty Twilight-Zone-like fantasy and science fiction short stories titled: There Goes the Neighborhood; Earthly Fantasy/Science Fiction Short Stories.

In the current novel Government Men the unlikely hero is an inept DOD civilian scientist who leads an effort to save Earth from an impending alien-induced apocalypse. The plot reflects the fact that when I started writing this novel I was myself a DOD civilian engineer working at a base undergoing closure. Astute readers familiar with the concept of anagrams hopefully noticed that the large cast includes an unlikely reincarnation of the author as Ray Dave Jigs, and still more unusual, that the novel is also included within itself. Like reading, writing should be fun.

Several additional plot-focused fantasy and/or science fiction novels and short stories also exist or are gradually being written. My published EBooks are mostly of full-length novel size, but I am currently slowly creating and releasing a series of related shorter works called Fun With Global Warming that will someday (hopefully!) be converted to an epic novel.

I generally avoid graphic depictions of sex (that's been done before!) and violence (too depressing!) and also tend to steer towards positive outcomes. Escapist fiction should generally be fun and positive. I also insist that stories be plausible, though magic and other agencies unproven by science can often be made reasonably plausible. The other thing I insist upon in each work is closure. Though my works often strongly hint at more adventures to come, all of them are self-contained and reach substantial closure within one volume.

I also enjoy doing my own covers, even though that is not recommended by experts that know better. See my Profile Interview on Smashwords for more on my e-book cover philosophy.

Thank you very much for your support. Happy reading!

Gary J. Davies; Mechanicsville, Maryland, March 2014

Revised March 2015

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