“When you say Wolv, I assume you don’t mean an ordinary wolf,” Sir Leslie said as he rode up beside Elizabeth.  It stopped raining for the time being, so Erin pulled her horse back to make room.

Elizabeth grinned.  “They can run on all fours, but their front paws can function like hands.  When they stand on their hind legs, they are maybe six or seven feet tall.  Their mouth is like something between a wolf and a bear—maybe a snub-nosed wolf, and the teeth are like daggers.  They are constantly hungry and strictly carnivores.  They eat people.”

“Sounds bad.”

“Oh, it is worse,” Elizabeth continued.  “They are intelligent.”

“They are clever?  Very clever?”

Elizbeth shook her head.  “Intelligent,” she said.  “They have a language and talk to one another, share ideas and so forth.  At one time, they had access to a technology more advanced than anything you would understand.  This one has probably been asleep for more than a thousand years.  It is a special kind of sleep where they don’t age.  The problem is the material they sleep in begins to break down and degrades after a thousand years or so.  Think of it like old bread that starts to get moldy, or milk that goes sour.  If the Wolv has been set free from rancid material, there is no telling what condition it may be in.  Mad, certainly, but that might be hard to tell from normal Wolv behavior.”

“And how did you get wind of this?” Sir Leslie asked before he shook his head.  “Of course, the fairies.”

“Not exactly,” Elizabeth said.  “There have been reports of wolf scares around the lake going back for centuries. That suggests an escape pod from a ship.  Something like a longboat with sailors needing rescue from a sunken ship.  The pod has an automatic distress signal limited only by the rechargeable power source.  Needs sunlight.  Not a problem in space.  It notes who is in stasis and projects that information in the distress.  It almost guarantees Lord so-and-so will be picked up by someone, and even if he is then held for ransom, at least he is alive.  Anyway, my guess is the projector malfunctioned in some way and it projected on the wetlands around the lake like a ghost image.”

“I had not heard of that,” Sir Leslie said.  “I heard of a monster in Loch Ness, but not Loch Lomond.”

“The projected image probably did not last long, and it would stop and take time to recharge, maybe decades, before it could send the message again.  That suggests the pod is buried or more likely, underwater, stuck in the mud where it gets at best very filtered sunlight.”

“But now the Wolv has gotten free.”  Jack Horner spoke from behind where he moved up next to Erin.

“Do we need to capture it?” Sir Leslie asked.

Elizabeth shook her head again.  “Sadly, there is no way to send it back into space, and some species are too dangerous to be left running free.”

“So, we hunt the Wolv and end its days,” Jack said.  “My powder is dry.”

Sir Leslie looked back at the man with a thought.  “But I have a feeling this is not all we are looking for.”  He turned to Elizabeth.  “Something you said.  What more is there?”

Elizabeth hesitated because she did not know what to say.  Finally, she came out with it. “Lights in the night sky.  Moving lights seen even when the sky is clouded over, and no stars are visible.  It clearly indicates something is up there flying around, checking us out, looking for a place to set down.”

“I don’t understand,” Sir Leslie admitted.  “What do you mean, set down?”

“Land,” she answered.  “Probably attracted to the distress call.  Listen, I have already used the ship at sea image.  Consider it a ship, but instead of floating on water, it floats on the air.  When a ship at sea makes landfall, they reach the shore and sometimes sail off the coast for a time looking for a good place to come ashore.  It is honestly no different with spaceships.  They fly close to the earth but stay in the air until they find the place where they want to land.”

“I see that.  It makes sense,” Sir Leslie thought about it.

“But what are these alien people looking for?” Jack asked.

Elizabeth shrugged.  “What does the Englishman want with the natives in New England or Virginia, or the Africans along the Gold and Ivory coasts?”

Sir Leslie grumbled.  “Gold and Ivory.  Every precious thing the people have.  Land, and most of all, slaves.”

Jack countered.  “We bring them civilization and the true faith.”

“They have their own civilization,” Elizabeth said.  “It is just different from our way of thinking.”

“They have slaves of their own,” Jack responded.  “Some of them are headhunters and cannibals.  I heard the natives in New Spain practiced human sacrifice.  They cut out people’s hearts.”

“And the celts used to build wicker cages for their enemies in order to sacrifice them to the flames.  The Romans used to crucify their enemies and criminals.  To this day, Moslems go to war in order to impose their prophet on the whole world, and we fine Englishmen, when someone won’t agree to our way and believe the way we believe, we chop their heads off.  What is your point?”

Jack fell silent, but Leslie had a thought, and another question.

“Basically, there is no way we can know what these alien people might want.”

Elizabeth shook her head once again.

“But say, where do these aliens come from?  You have not made that clear.”

Elizabeth had to think again as they climbed a hill.  She stopped at the top where the wagons and the others could go around.  They saw a village in the valley, and would stop there for the night, though at this rate it might take them three whole days to reach Glasgow, and maybe another two days to the loch, and another three for the children to reach home in Gray Havens.  Finally, Elizabeth spoke.

“Look down into the village.  There, in the center square.  What is that?”

Sir Leslie squinted.  He might need glasses.  Jack hesitated before he spoke.

“A tree.  Maybe an Elm.”

“Yes,” Sir Leslie nodded.  “A tree.  I can’t claim Elm.”

“It looks so small and hard to see because it is so far away.  It is no different when you look up into the night sky.  On a clear night, you might see some small lights in the sky, but you know, being educated, that a few of those small lights are actually planets, like the Earth, only they look small because they are so very far away.  We call them Venus, Jupiter, and Mars.”

“You are not suggesting these aliens are from Mars, are you?”

Elizabeth smiled.  “Martians would be too rich, but no, they come from much further away.  Do you know what the stars are?”

Sir Leslie nodded.  “I understand they are like sparks of the sun, or like the sun in some way.”

“They are suns.  Some are bigger than our sun.  They only look small to our eyes because they are so very far away, like the tree.”

“Good Lord,” Jack spouted.  “The distance must be enormous.”

“Indeed,” Elizabeth said.  “And it is only natural to assume those distant suns have planets of their own; planets like Earth where life exists and where some of that life has learned to fly, and even fly between the stars.  Some of the people from out there look like us, or similar to us, or like things that we have some familiarity with.  Like the Wolv.  Some look very different from us.  But here is the key point.  People come in both good and bad, and even some of the things that they may consider good for us, like civilization imposed on us primitives, may actually be violence against us.  Some may want to hunt and eat us like we hunt the deer in the forest, not thinking of deer as intelligent and worthy of respect.  Some may wish to enslave us, or experiment on us, or gather us and take us to their home world as exotic specimens.  Pray that they are good.  Some may encourage us, like a parent might encourage a child.  Some may want to defend us from other intruders, but that might be dangerous in itself.  Think of the English and Spanish fighting a pitched battle over a village of little or no consequences.  The village will probably be burned to the ground, and many innocent people, men, women, and children will be killed.”

“So, we can’t know ahead of time what they want, what they intend to do, or even how they think,” Sir Leslie mused.

“They may look like us, or not at all like us,” Jack added.  “People do come in all shapes and sizes, and all manner of good and evil.”

Elizabeth agreed.  “The main thing is they don’t belong here.  Our job will be to encourage them to leave this world alone, whatever their intentions.  We may ask them to leave.  Some we may have to force, but that will be difficult since they will have contraptions and greater power and weapons than we can imagine.  Think of native people who first faced artillery and muskets.”

“I get that idea,” Sir Leslie said.

“We are, in a way, much like children,” Elizabeth agreed. “We deserve a chance to grow in our own way and see what we may become.  But keeping intruders from interfering will be difficult.”  Elizabeth saw the wagon with her children pass her by and she added, “Speaking of children.  I must see to mine.  We will stop the night in the village below.  It looks like it may begin to rain again.  We will rest here, though at this rate it may take us a week to reach the Loch.”  She waited for the wagon to pass.  “You gentlemen can see how big the tree is up close when we arrive. Erin,” she called to her maid, and they moved in to follow the wagon.

###

The merchants found an inn on the road and took one of the two available rooms for the three of them.  Lockhart let Decker and Nanette have the other room, while he and Katie stayed with the rest of the crew in the main room downstairs, at two-thirds the price, paying only for supper and horse feed.

“I don’t mind,” Katie said.  “They are still like newlyweds.”

“It has been a while since the days of Helen and Robin Hood,” Lockhart said, but he nodded.

“My Father,” Sukki spoke up.  Both Elder Stow and Lockhart looked up, but in this case, she spoke to Lockhart.  “I checked the amulet several times today.  The Kairos is moving west.”  People understood, but they committed to the lowland road until Perth.  Then they would see.

The sky cleared that night, and everyone piled outside to see the northern lights, which looked spectacular, until it got interrupted.  Something distant and glowing shot across the sky.  Katie almost called it a shooting star, but it stopped overhead for a minute before it sped off to the south.  “A UFO,” Lockhart named it.  Lincoln frowned.  He would have to get out the database to see what mess the Kairos was into now.  Elder Stow got out his scanner, but the UFO had already moved out of range.

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MONDAY

Elizabeth and her men will confront the aliens around Loch Lomond, and the travelers will arrive there, maybe on time. Until Monday, Happy Reading

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