Author: M G Kizzia

Avalon 9.6 Earth and Sky, part 5 of 6

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

The Lenape warriors secured their prisoners without hurting them unnecessarily.  They knew how to take prisoners in times of war.  Of course, when they took native prisoners, they got assimilated into the tribe.  These Englishmen would not.  But damaged people were likely to be more of a burden than a help to the tribe, so they were naturally careful, even with the wounded men, even knowing that they would eventually go back to their English settlements.

Lockhart still held the sonic device.  He stepped up to the riverbank and spoke across the river.  His voice carried like a man speaking into a public address system, so more than well enough.  “Lars.  All settled here.  You can bring your people over.  You need to decide what to do with your prisoners.  Some are wounded.  Unfortunately, Doctor Miller can’t help them.  He was a servant of the Masters—Mister Muller from Hans’ day, so he got shot.”

Lockhart’s wristwatch communicator went off and interrupted his thoughts.  “Should we bring the horses down or stay here?” Lincoln asked.  “Nanette wants to know if there are wounded people that she and Sukki might help.”

“I don’t have my magic,” Nanette interrupted.  “But I can help.”

“I don’t know if we will be permitted to help.  Sometimes, the Kairos says the chips have to fall where they will.  Anyway, come on down, and bring Louis and Commander Takar with you.  I better say something about the commander.  Out.”

Lockhart picked up the sonic device when there was already movement on the far bank.  “One more thing,” he got to say before a scream and death wail went up from the other side of the river.  Something rose out of the mud on the far bank and swallowed a man’s whole leg.  It did not bite off the leg at first.  More like a snake than a worm, the mouth began to grow wider.  The worm wanted to swallow the man, whole.

An energy beam of some kind came from the rise in the path—a good shot.  The worm bit down and began to squirm, flinging mud everywhere.  Another, much stronger beam of power came from Elder Stow’s weapon.  The top half of the worm turned to ash.  The dead worm, the leg inside, fell into the water and began to float downstream on the surface.  The man on the shore also caught a bit of Elder Stow’s weapon, but the burns hardly mattered.  He had already passed out and would be dead in a minute without ever regaining consciousness.

Lars and his people, after some arguing and yelling, fetched the worm out of the water and dragged it up on the riverbank where the travelers and the prisoners waited.  Lockhart met them there and a tall, blonde, young man said, “Just one, I hope.”

“A sanguar,” Lockhart identified the worm.

“How did it get here?” Lars wondered.

“Lars?”  Sukki asked.  The young man nodded and hugged her but kept his eyes on Lockhart.

“Commander Takar from a Kargill prison ship stopped here to make repairs.  He said one escaped.  He said only the one.  He is an Alzarian and should be here shortly.”

“Ahluzarian,” both Sukki and Lars corrected him, and Lockhart continued.

“The commander said this world was marked no-go but also a sanctuary planet.  What do you mean, sanctuary?  When did we get that designation?”

“Since Elizabeth and the formation of the Men in Black, though really it goes back to Catherine of Aragon.  You remember the Galabans from Galabar.  They really were refugees, but they tried to take advantage of that status and plant a colony here.  When you met them, they already had supply ships and more colonists on the way, hoping to plant a second colony.  Catherine—Alice diverted the ships to a new home world and found transport to take the ones off the Earth.  People caught in a war, especially innocent bystanders, are welcome here temporarily, like in Hideko’s day.  There is no fighting allowed on this world, or in the atmosphere, or in orbit.  In fact, there should be no fighting in this solar system.  If the people are discrete, they may come until we find a new world where they can hopefully be safe.”

“You worked this out with the Kargill?” Lockhart asked as Lincoln and Commander Takar walked up.

“Basically,” Lars hedged. “I pretty much told the Kargill this was how it had to be.  He needed to send Mister Smith, the Zalanid, to contact the nearest Men in Black office whenever an alien intrusion was detected, and he had to help the Men in Black deal with it; refugees, friendly visitors, hostiles, or whatever.  The Kargill raised no objections.  The Kargill honestly prefers peace and letting people develop as they will in their own way without interference.  The Reichgo interfere with everyone, which is why I am glad the Kargill has two Genesis planets and the Reichgo have none in their area of space.”

“Lars?” Lincoln asked.

“Moonwalker,” Lars said and finished his thought with Lockhart.  “Jax had to deal with one group in the early nineteen-eighties, just before he retired.  You might not have been privy to that.”  He turned to the Ahluzarian and spoke bluntly.  “You do not belong here, and you have no business being here.  You need to mark in your records that if repairs are needed, you need to go to Mars or one of the moons of Jupiter, or even Earth’s moon, but not Earth.”

“It is much more difficult to make repairs on a planet without some sort of atmosphere,” Commander Takar said.

“It is,” Lars agreed. “So, make sure you don’t need to make repairs around Earth space.  The Kargill police and the other Kargill forces I won’t name don’t belong here.  We have no need for interstellar police and certainly no penal or prison ship should ever come here.  Earth does not need to be overrun with nasty, evil, or dangerous people and creatures. We have enough of our own.”

“I will make a note,” Commander Takar said.

“For all the good it will do,” Lars said without explanation.  Still, he seemed satisfied and turned to Lockhart. “So, where is Katie?”

Lockhart turned away from the river and the others followed.  “She found two vials on Doctor Miller’s person.  I think Elder Stow is analyzing the contents.”

They only waited one minute to hear Elder Stow’s report.  “Really quite remarkable given the age and the available technology.  Bacterial suspension.  Really quite virulent and contagious if you have no immunity.  I imagine one drop in food, soup, even water, especially water would be sufficient to start, and the disease would spread naturally from there.  The viral suspension is even impressive.”

“What are we talking about?” Katie asked before anyone else could ask.

“Ah,” Elder Stow held up the vials.  “The C is for cholera, a particular nasty bacterial disease if, as I said, you have no immunity.  The S is for smallpox.  That is quite well done since as you may know, all pox and pox-like diseases are alien in origin.  Measles, chickenpox, smallpox, and all.  Smallpox is a virus and quite deadly.”

“Hardly needed,” Lars said.  “There are enough natural carriers among the English and French, the Dutch and so on that have come to these shores.  The native population has already been through several episodes of these diseases, and other diseases, and been devastated.”

“I guess the Masters were not satisfied with letting nature take its own course,” Lockhart said.

“Is there a way you can make the diseases inert?” Katie asked.

“This time we can’t just throw it in the river,” Elder Stow said as he nodded.  “That will just spread it like wildfire, but there is a way we can kill these samples.  I will start working on it.”  Elder Stow paused.  “You know, my people have tried again and again to resettle this planet—to remove you sapiens or enslave you in some fashion, but even in our worst, I don’t know anyone who ever suggested biological warfare.  It takes real evil to consider using disease in that way, and despite what you may think, even the worst among the Gott-Druk would not stoop to such evil… Well, there was the Spanish Flu…”

“The Masters don’t appear to have any such compunction,” Lincoln said.

“Makes me wonder what planet the bubonic plague came from,” Sukki said, offhanded.  She still had nightmares from Prudenza’s day.

“Actually,” Lockhart got everyone’s attention.  “The Masters are noted in the Men in Black records as spreading the plague at several key points in history.”

Katie turned to Sukki.  “While you were melting cannons outside Constantinople, we were dumping that doctor’s vials of pneumonic plague in the sea.”

“Oh yes,” Sukki said.  “I had forgotten.”

Avalon 9.6 Earth and Sky, part 4 of 6

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Louis rushed forward in the face of the Lenape warriors, getting in front of Commander Takar and the travelers.  “Wait,” he shouted.  “Cousins.  Listen first.  These people are friends of the big Swede.  They are outsiders, not English or French.  They are not your enemies.  We heard the guns and are coming to see if we can end the fighting.”  He turned to Lockhart.  “Yes?”

Lockhart shrugged before he spoke.  “We are strangers here.  We are not your enemies.  We will see what we can do to help.”

Decker spoke to the men.  “I assume you came upriver to cross over and come back down this side to fall on your enemy.”

“Brother Moonwalker said to signal when we are ready, and he will keep the Englishmen busy while we attack their rear.”

“Good plan,” Decker said.  “I am sure Lars would not mind if we added our guns to the effort.”

“Decker…” Lockhart began.

Katie interrupted.  “Sometimes we have to,” she said, and took his arm.

Lockhart knew he was outvoted.  “Let’s at least look first,” he said, and turned to the men in front who had clearly relaxed.  “I’m Lockhart.  This is Katie, Decker, Commander Takar, and Louis…”

“We don’t like Mohawk in our land,” one of the men said, and turned to Lockhart.  “Morharala.  Come.  We will show you.”

They moved up the trail and Louis explained to Lockhart and Katie.  “Morharala is Big Bird tribe.  They are Turkey Clan.”

“Big Bird?” Lockhart said and looked at Katie.

Katie grinned. “Don’t start.”

When they reached a rise in the road, they were still relatively far away. They could hear the occasional shots from the flintlocks or matchlocks, and sometimes see the puff of smoke the black powder produced, but they could not see the people well with the eye.  Morharala wanted to move them to a side trail where they could circle around the enemy, but Lockhart made them pause.  “Look first,” he reminded them.  He and Tony got the binoculars.  Katie and Decker got the scopes for their rifles, and Decker snapped his in place.

Tony let Lincoln take a look, before he helped Louis see.  Lockhart shared his first with Morharala before he turned to Commander Takar, but it seemed the Commander had his own spyglass of a sort, and Morharala wanted to share the glasses with the rest of his crew.

“Visual line of site helps,” Lockhart told Commander Takar.  “You know, I worked as a police officer for nearly fifty years, though much of that was with the Men in Black.”

Commander Takar stopped spying on the people in the distance and tapped the spot on his neck before he smiled.  “A good long time,” he said.  “About the same for me.”

“My father,” Elder Stow stepped up.  “Two things. First, the sanguar is somewhere down by the river edge.  I can pinpoint the spot in a minute.  First… or Second…” he called up a holographic image of the men in the trees down below.  His scanner turned the trees to ghost-like images so they could be seen, but the men in yellow stood out.  “There are twenty, mostly by the riverbank and spread out down the river a bit, wherever they can shoot from cover, I assume.  There are three more behind, holding two dozen horses.  The natives, including the ones with us are in red.  Sorry, I can’t say which one is Swedish.  We are in blue, and I have taken the liberty of presenting Commander Takar in green.”

“Morharala,” Lockhart called, but they were already staring at Elder Stow’s projection.  “Colonel?  Major?”

Decker glanced at Katie before he spoke.  “Katie and I are the best option.  We will take out the horse guards and make sure no one escapes.  Tony and Lincoln can stay here with the rifles, scopes, horses, and Nanette who is presently our healer.  No good if she gets injured.”

“Decker.  I can help.  I am not a porcelain doll.”

“My wife,” Decker told the Morharala.  They smiled, and Commander Takar laughed when he got the translation.  “Lockhart, you need to take Elder Stow and Sukki with you, for your own protection, as you say.  Take the Turkeys.  Take Elder Stow’s sonic device and offer the English a chance to surrender.  You know, use your best police stuff.  If they refuse to surrender, we may have to fight.  We can use this place as a redoubt.  Commander Takar and Louis should stay here, and Commander Takar, see if you can get a better spot on your lost prisoner.  Humans squabble all the time, but we don’t need alien worms eating people.”

Katie snapped her scope to her rifle and handed it to Lincoln.  “Ready sir,” she said, offering no additions or corrections to the plan, but Lockhart spoke to Morharala before he pulled his shotgun.  “We are going to get the English to surrender.  If any of you run out ahead to attack the English before they surrender, you may be accidentally shot or badly burned.  We are dealing with powers here you cannot understand.  I’m sorry, but that is the way it is.  I will say if we have to fight.  Elder Stow, please take off your glamour and Sukki please put yours on.”

“Yes,” Suki said.  “I mostly forget I can do that.”  She appeared as a Neanderthal girl and Elder Stow appeared to be her real father.  Elder Stow handed her a disc as Commander Takar shouted.

“Gott-Druk!  Suddenly, it makes sense that you have equipment way beyond what the Kargill was able to supply us with.  My scanner is just a relay.  It sends information to my ship’s computer to analyze and returns to appear on my grid.  I imagine your vastly superior equipment is self-contained.”

“Up Sukki,” Elder Stow said, ignoring the Ahluzarian.  Sukki and Elder Stow rose about ten feet in the air before they disappeared.  “We will go with you, but unseen if you don’t mind,” Eder Stow said, and he got out his now invisible screen device to set a Decker Wall a few feet in front of them when they stopped.

Lockhart gave Decker and Katie five minutes before he pushed through the woods toward the main river path and the river.  He stopped at the edge of the path.  The English were all closer to the water, hiding behind trees and bushes, hoping to catch a native sticking his head up on the other side of the river.  He had to wait a minute for Elder Stow to finish setting his screen device, and then he handed Lockhart his sonic device set to broadcast his voice.

Lockhart spoke and his voice echoed through the woods.  “Throw your weapons down and put your hands on your head.  You are surrounded and cannot escape.  Surrender and no harm will come to you.”  He waited.  Several guns fired but the bullets did not stand a chance of getting through Elder Stow’s wall.  Lockhart heard guns fired back by the horses and knew Katie and Decker were busy.

He spoke again.  “Throw down your weapons and come to the path through the woods, hands on your head.  You cannot escape but if you surrender you will be treated fairly.”  He waited again.  Two men came to the path.  They had guns and fired them at Lockhart and his group.  Lockhart returned fire with his shotgun.  Both men went down.  Guns went off by the horses and from the hill.  Men began to fall all around the woods.

“Last chance,” Lockhart said.  “Surrender and you will live.”  Men began to come to the path and guns got thrown in the dirt.  Some of the men were wounded.  Most were not, but they had enough.  Elder Stow became visible, his glamour of humanity back in place.  He showed Lockhart his scanner projection and Lockhart spoke.  “You two hiding in the bushes by the river.  Come out now and surrender or die.  Your choice.”  One started to get up, but the other shook his head.  “Both of you, now,” Lockhart said, and Elder Stow turned his weapon on the tree beside the men.  The tree burst into flame and Lockhart repeated, “Both.  Now.”  They came.

“That is all of them,” Elder Stow said, and he made Sukki visible, her glamour removed so she looked human again.

“Morharala.”  Lockhart turned to the natives behind him. “Please collect the weapons and keep the men on their knees for the present.  No killing, understand?”  The natives were not going to argue after what they saw.

Decker and Katie brought four more prisoners from the horse area, two being wounded.  They killed five men there.  Tony and Lincoln killed two from the hill and wounded three others.  Lockhart killed two.  There were seven uninjured prisoners, until Katie arrived.  She looked at them carefully and called to Lincoln up on the rise.

“I have a man here that looks familiar,” she said.  She grabbed the man’s chin and turned the man’s head even as the man tried to hide his face.  As Lincoln responded, the man broke free and turned to run.

“Mister Muller from Augsburg,” Lincoln said.  Katie shot the man.

“Doctor Miller,” one of the men protested, but he dared not move in the face of such firepower.  Katie searched the dead man and found two vials.  One had an ‘S’ on it.  The other had a ‘C’ scribbled in crayon.

Avalon 9.6 Earth and Sky, part 3 of 6

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

The alien paused as they approached.  He looked up at them but showed no hostile intent.

“This is a genesis planet,” Lockhart began.  “The Kargill has been given permission to reside here under strict non-interference conditions.  The Reichgo have been given permission to visit only with the provision that they do not interfere with the human race, the natural inhabitants of this planet.  The elder races born on this world are allowed to visit uder the same conditions, but you do not belong here.”

“I work for the Kargill,” the man said.  “Who are you?  And how is it you speak Ahluzarian?”  The man tapped something near his ear.  Probably a translation device which was not needed.

“We are the Men in Black and work for the Kairos,” Lockhart said.  “And again, you don’t belong here.  Only the Zalanid Mister Smith is allowed here to speak on behalf of the Kargill.”

“You work for the Kargill?” Katie asked, but the man needed a minute.  He pulled a different device from a pocket—probably his version of a database.  No doubt he had to look up Kairos and Men in Black.

“Perhaps you can help,” the Ahluzarian put his device away and attempted a smile.  “I am Commander Takar of the Ahluzarian police.  Our job is to keep the space ways and planets of the Kargill free of criminals and pests.  My ship is a prisoner transport.  There are three worlds well beyond this one at the very edge of the galaxy where prisoners and invasive species are deposited.  The Kargill does not allow us to practice genocide as an option.  The space lane goes past this system along the Reichgo-Kargill border.  I have this system clearly marked as a no-go zone.  But one of the prisoners managed to disable a portion of our navigation controls, and we noted this world is also marked as a sanctuary world.  We thought to pause here while we made repairs.”

“Help?”  Lincoln said as the others came up to listen.  “What do you need help with?”  Lincoln did not sound happy.

“Why are you not at your ship making the repairs?” Katie asked.

Commander Takar looked embarrassed if Katie read the expression correctly.  “When we landed, a sanguar slithered out of the hold and escaped the ship when we took down the screens to replenish our air and water supplies.”

“Sanguar?” Lockhart asked, not liking the sound of something escaping from a prison ship.

“An invasive species, not intelligent, but very clever,” Commander Takar said before Elder Stow interrupted.

“My father.  This one, for want of a better word, is a walking tree.  No blood to tempt some of the alien people we have encountered in our journey.”  He cleared his throat like a man about to read a report.  “The sanguar are worm-like creatures, one of the few survivors from the Agdaline world after they ripped the atmosphere off their world in their ill-advised gravity experiments. They arose on the same world as the dragons.  They are often red colored, grow roughly three of your feet long, have no eyes or ears, but a mouth with plenty of sharp inward pointing teeth.  They live and move underground, like worms, but are sensitive to vibrations on the surface.  When something edible walks overhead, they spring out of the ground spewing an acid-like venom.”

Commander Takar nodded that whole time, which suggested that bit of body language translated well between the species.  He took up the explanation.  “Only one escaped. We counted.  One cannot reproduce, and this environment does not seem suitable.  It should not be too difficult to detect.”

“What environment would be suitable?” Lockhart asked Commander Takar but looked at Katie.

“Consider a world with little atmosphere,” Elder Stow responded.  “Most species and ground cover would die off, leaving a desert-like world, maybe like Mars.  If the planet has any wobble, they might still have seasons, so a hot-dry summer and a cold-dry winter.  Think Gobi Desert.”

“Where are you parked?”  Lockhart asked as the question entered his mind.  Commander Takar pointed to the top of the mountain.  Everyone guessed he walked down, following whatever trail the sanguar made.  “My people are presently repairing the ship and doing guard duty.  I volunteered, thinking this sanctuary planet would pose no threat.”

“Not something you should assume,” Lincoln said.

“Shale mountain,” Katie repeated herself.  “It might be hard for such a big worm to dig through.  If it traveled downhill on the mountain surface, it might have gotten caught in the mudslide.  If it got caught in the flash flood, it might be well downriver by now.  Elder Stow?”

“So, it might be behind us?” Lincoln asked and looked.  Sukki also looked and she did not look happy.

“No,” Elder Stow said.  “I had the scanner set for life forms and it would have picked up a sanguar, even if it was ten or twenty feet underground.  I saw a black bear, but it avoided us.  The rest recorded deer, squirrels, birds and such.  My guess is it is ahead of us, and possibly washed downriver.”

“Commander Takar?” Lockhart turned to the man.

“My scanner is set for Sanguar.  I stopped here because I lost the trail.  It is not nearly as sophisticated as your own, but it will tell us when we get close, and it has a small grid to better pinpoint the location.”

“Commander Takar,” Lockhart frowned at the man, and he seemed to get the message.  “You better ride with me.” He turned his head back to look at Tony since they were at the back of the line.  His words came out in English, though he did not mean to speak in that language.  “Tony.  Did you and Louis get all that?”

“Yes,” Tony responded.  “I assume we are going worm hunting.  Louis says he does not want to even imagine giant worms with teeth.”

“Me neither,” Sukki said, commiserating with the man.

“Maybe hold on to my shirt,” Lockhart suggested, and reached his hand down.  Commander Takar did look essentially human, but he could not be sure.  In the back of his mind, he remembered the stick people they met at the beginning of their journey.  The Kairos warned him not to shake their hands because they were like petrified wood.  The spindly little stick people would crush his hand before they ever realized what they were doing.  Commander Takar’s hand had a flesh and blood feel to it.  He did weigh more than a human, but not by that much.  Lockhart’s horse did not complain, much.

Commander Takar and Elder Stow both kept their scanners on as they moved out of the water gap and on to a well-used trail.  They still followed the river, which everyone felt would bring them to the sanguar, but after a short way, they felt it best if they got down and walked the horses.  Louis did not want to get down.  All he could imagine was the worm springing out of the earth, spitting venom, and bighting his leg off in one gulp.  He did not really understand how scanners worked.  Sukki got him down with the promise to walk next to him.  He had seen her shove whole trees off the path.  That was a power he could at least understand.

Katie stopped everyone after a short way.  She heard sporadic cracking in the distance.  Decker, who had wandered out on the wing away from the river, came riding up, rapidly.

“White men on this side of the river,” he reported.  “Indians on the other side.  They appear to be trying to kill each other, but neither looks willing to risk a charge across the river.”

“We are not here to interfere,” Lockhart said.  “History needs to play out in its own way.”

Sukki had her amulet out and interrupted the thought.  “The Kairos is probably with one of those groups.”

“The Lenape group,” Louis said.  “I heard the big Swede married a half-English, but otherwise he has no use for the English.  They killed his parents and burned his home when he was young,”

“So, we need to contact the natives up ahead and find the Kairos.  We will ask if there is anything we can do.”  Lockhart looked determined, but less than twenty minutes later, they came face to face with a Lenape war party of a dozen warriors.  They looked mean, but at least they did not start fighting right away.

************************

MONDAY

The travelers get into the middle of a firefight between the English and Algonquin, and of course they watch out for the giant worm with teeth. Until then, Happy Reading.

*

Avalon 9.6 Earth and Sky, part 2 of 6

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

The travelers moved three days through the storms and chilly spring rains.  They found the Delaware River and followed it, left the Catskill Mountains behind, and headed for the Poconos.  Louis took them to a small Mohawk village where he got some winter squash and beans to go with their protein-rich diet.  They moved slowly, mostly on foot as Louis had no horse.  He reluctantly got up behind Lockhart, Lincoln, or Tony several times, and once tried to ride Ghost, but both Louis and the mule quickly agreed that was not going to work.

Louis explained some things while they traveled.  “The five nations have greatly benefited the people of all the nations.  By making peace and uniting our interests, we drove the Mahican from the Eastern River and controlled the fur trade with the Dutch and later with the English.”

“Last of the Mohicans?” Lockhart said, half joking.  Katie smiled and shook her head.

“Mahicans,” Louis said, not understanding.  “Yes?”

“Algonquin tribe,” Lincoln spoke up from behind.  “Traditional enemies of the Mohawk, remember?”

Louis continued.  “We spread our influence south over the Susquehanna and Lenape people, and west over the Erie and all down the Alleghany River and into the Ohio territory.  The Shawnee are stubborn, but we have prevailed.”

“Lincoln?”  Katie asked as she saw him move out of the corner of her eye.

“Just looking something up,” Lincoln said.  “As a kid growing up watching all those western movies, I thought the Shawnee were a western tribe, like from Kansas or Nebraska territory, or something.”

The following day, the river turned from flowing southeast to a southwesterly direction.  Lincoln announced, “Port Jarvis.  We are entering the Poconos.  We are headed toward the Delaware Water Gap, though we won’t get there today.  Probably late afternoon tomorrow.”

“I will leave you there,” Louis said.  “We are already in Lenape land, though the English are pushing in from the east and up from the south.  Soon enough there will be no more Lenape land.  Some have already moved west to the Ohio territory.”

The travelers fell silent then and wondered if there was anything they could do to improve matters for the natives. Sadly, each in their own way concluded what the Kairos often said.  They had to let history play out the way it was written.  They were not allowed to interfere.

The rain came hard that night.  It rained hard all that morning as they moved along the narrowing path to the gap in the mountains.  The Mountains themselves seemed to move in closer and closer, pushing them toward the river.

“Blue Mountains.”  Katie pointed to her right before she pointed across the river.  “Kittatinny Mountains.”  “There is a ridge that connects the two, but there is a gap the river flows through.  Louis says there is a trail our horses can go, but I suspect it will be narrow.”

The rain slackened off at lunch.  Elder Stow set a screen around the camp so they could eat relatively dry and in peace.  Louis marveled at the technological wonder, which he imagined was some sort of magic.  But he had heard and seen enough in the past four days not to question these strangers.  He would do what he could for them in the hope that they might bless him.

As they began to clean up to move on, they heard something like thunder behind them.  Cannons?  Thunderstorm?  People asked, but Elder Stow settled it with a glance at his scanner and a word.  “Flash Flood.  Stay where you are.”

Everyone looked behind as Elder Stow stabilized his screen device against the impact.  In the twenty-first century, they might have imagined some dam upstream broke wide open.  It looked like a wall of water, even if it was only a couple of feet high.  Maybe just a foot high, but it rose higher behind the wall.  The water broke the banks of the river and given how narrow the way between the mountains had become, it would rise rapidly.

Louis shrieked, but the water hit Elder Stow’s screen and went around.  The thunder echoed a bit off the mountain walls.  Another sound echoed back.  After so many days of rain followed by the downpour, a portion of the side of the mountain gave way.  The mud poured down in front of them and over them, though the way behind looked clear enough.  They had to wait for the water to go down.

“Well,” Lockhart said.  I guess we are stuck here for a while.  Maybe the water and mud will be finished by morning.”  He turned back to the campfire.  Sukki and Nanette were already stirring it up again.  He turned to Katie.  “What were you saying about Otapec’s daughter whose name I can never remember?”

“Ixchel,” she said.  “And I was talking about her pet dragon in Ozma’s day.  The Agdaline andasmagora that guarded the city.”

Lockhart nodded.

Louis fell to his knees and wept.  He escaped certain death, twice, and these people never even blinked.

In the morning, the water had receded enough for the travelers to move on, though it still topped the riverbank in a number of places.  The mud from the side of the hill that did not wash down into the river proved thick in places.  Louis had to ride behind Tony through most of it.  In one spot, Elder Stow had to get out his weapon and use it on a very low setting to quick dry the way ahead so they could go over the top of it.  They had an early lunch in that spot and waited for the hardened mud to cool off.

They used Decker’s rope and the horses to move some bigger trees out of the way.  Sukki, who went back out on the point, picked up some small and medium sized trees and shoved them into the river.  They only had a couple of boulders to contend with.  Katie said the mountain appeared to be shale which meant it was not the best at holding the topsoil, but it did not make granite boulders.

Louis shrieked to see Sukki lift a whole tree and turn it to the side so the horses could go through.  He seriously shrieked when Elder Stow had to fly overhead to heat the water in that one section, to harden the mud so the travelers could ride over top when the ground cooled.  They rode over that section with some speed, thinking that even after two hours it might be like hot coals under the horse’s hooves.  Several horses and Ghost complained, but the wet mud on the other side of that section felt good and cooled them.  The travelers stopped and checked their hooves to be sure none got burned too badly.

Not long after, they moved through the actual water gap.  As Katie suspected, the way got very narrow.  They could see the land flattened out after the water gap.  It would be farm fields in the not-too-distant future, but for the present it looked filled with trees.  Before they could get there, though, they all had to halt.  Sukki stopped and pointed. Someone stood in the gap.

The man did not look anything like a native, but he did not look like a European, either.  He appeared dressed in a dull red uniform of some kind, and he seemed to be looking into a box, much like Elder Stow looked when he got out his scanner.  With that thought, Elder Stow got out his scanner and Lockhart and Katie moved up to join Sukki.  Up close, they could tell the man, though human shaped and with a human enough looking face, was nevertheless not human.

Avalon 9.6 Earth and Sky, part 1 of 6

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After 1690 A.D. Delaware Valley

Kairos lifetime 117: Lars of the Lenape

Recording …

Elder Stow found a trail that headed generally toward the south.  It was not exactly a road, certainly not made for horses, but it was a trail well used by the local natives, so not in bad shape and not hard to follow.  Elder Stow stayed out front, one eye on his scanner in case the trail petered out or brought them to a cliff or to a native village.  Sukki took his place on the wing, but she did not ride far from the group.  The trees in the forest grew too close together in places, making her movements difficult.  Besides, she did not want to wander through the dark places.

Decker somehow managed to vanish out on the other wing.  Nanette looked for him now and then, but he disappeared among the trees.  Behind her, Tony kept quiet and brought Ghost along slowly.  He seemed to be contemplating something, so she did not disturb him.  Lincoln in front of her tried to read from the database, but the trail was such that he mostly had to pay attention to where his horse was going.    When they reached a spot where the trail crossed an open meadow, she spurred her horse to get in front of Lincoln.  Lockhart and Katie were up front and had some sort of conversation going on.

“So, Elizabeth knew all about Bishop what’s-his-name,” Lockhart said.

“Peter Cameron,” Katie said.  “She said settling the Earth’s place in the Reichgo-Kargill conflict took the priority, not to mention dealing with whatever Wolv might be running around tearing up people.”

“It was interesting putting a new crop of Men in Black through basic indoctrination.  I guess the first crop.  Of course, some of the things like communications and such did not apply.”

“No,” Katie said.  “I needed that for myself.  And Lincoln helped with the orientation.”

“So, you definitely want to work for the Men in Black when we get home?”

“Robert!  I go where you go.”  Katie looked back and saw a grin on Nanette’s face.  Nanette took that opportunity to enter the conversation.

“One question.  I did not know—no one knew about so many aliens.  I mean, in 1905, no one even imagined such a thing except maybe Mister Wells.  But we have found and been confronted by so many aliens in our travels.  Why is that, and how is it that nothing ever made the history books?”

“Well. the Kairos is usually somewhere around where the aliens tend to arrive,” Lockhart explained.  “The Kairos can make sure things don’t get written down, and even erase some memories, if necessary, I suppose.  I think the Men in Black got started at this time because the encounters become more frequent as time goes forward.  The Kairos can’t be everywhere.”

“Maybe since Catherine of Jaca’s day,” Katie suggested.  “When the Masters sent a signal into deep space inviting aliens to invade the Earth.”

“The Masters is another question,” Nanette said, quietly.

“In the twentieth century, reports start coming in from all around the globe.  You know, UFOs, lights flying in the sky, sightings from airplanes and eventually space shuttles, and so on.”

“You mean weather balloons?” Katie said with a grin.

“But the Masters…” Nanette dd not finish her thought.

“They are the real problem,” Lockhart said to acknowledge Nanette’s concern.

“They are subtle,” Katie agreed.  “They are not like the Aliens flying around in obvious spaceships.”

“The Masters seem to be everywhere, hidden in the ordinary human population, trying to destroy things.”

“Trying to change history,” Katie said.

“I think they are demons,” Nanette said.  “Or demon possessed people.”

“That covers two theories. There are other ideas,” Lockhart admitted before he came to a stop.  The path wandered back into the thick woods, and Elder Stow stopped, so Sukki moved in beside Nanette and everyone stopped.

“We have company,” Elder Stow said.  Katie and Lockhart saw the movement in the trees and only paused as they heard Decker’s rifle in the distance.

“Colonel?”  Katie got on her wristwatch communicator.

“Be right there.”

“We have company.”

“I know.  Out.”

Lockhart called to the trees.  “You might as well come out.  We mean you no harm.”

Three natives came to the path in front of them.  They wore buckskin leggings and vests against the early spring chill in the air.  The one who spoke wore a collar of claws and shells and appeared to have some scarlet die in his hair.  He expressed some surprise.  “You sound Mohawk.  Why do you not speak English or French?”

“Because you are Mohawk?” Lockhart responded, making an obvious guess.  “If you were English or French, I would speak to you in English or French.”

“We should remove these people from our land,” one of the men behind said in French.

“Hold that thought for a minute,” Katie said.  Her words came out in French, though she made no conscious effort to speak the language.  It all just sounded like English to her, as to the other travelers, though it may have all sounded like Gott-Druk to Elder Stow.

Katie pulled her rifle.  She sat on her horse, the rifle relaxed in her arms, but she saw something and quickly drew up the weapon, looking down the site at a dozen or so deer that warily crossed the path in the distance.  Katie squeezed the trigger and one of the deer fell.  The rest scattered and Katie turned to the natives.  “Join us for lunch.  Making friends is better than making enemies.”

“Trouble?”  Decker’s word came through the communication wristwatches in English, so Lockhart answered in English.

“Katie just shot a deer and invited our guests to have lunch with us.”

“I’ve got a second deer, if there are many of them,” Decker responded.  “Be there in a minute.  Out.”

Lockhart looked at the natives and his words came out in the Mohawk language.  “How many for lunch?”

The head man with the red hair waved and shouted.  Six more men came from the trees, making nine natives in all.

“Where should we build the fire?” Elder Stow asked the red head.  “My name is Elder Stow, if you are interested.”

“Louis,” the native gave a French name and led them to a small clearing a stone’s throw from the path.  Men began to gather wood from the forest.  Louis got out his flint, but Sukki arrived and placed her hand over the wood.  The wood burst into flame as she controlled the power inside her.  It did not turn instantly to ash.  She had been practicing.

Decker and Lockhart cut the various parts of the deer, expertly at that point.  They had not only been cutting deer for a number of years by then, but they also learned from people over six thousand years of history.  They learned how to prepare much of the meat so they could eat over the next couple of days, and how to cut some thinner, tenderloin steaks for immediate consumption.  Several Mohawk had suggestions, but they were mostly surprised by the knowledge and skill of the travelers.

Lunch took about three hours.  They had to take their time with fresh kills.  Normally, they hunted in the afternoon so they could cook and fix the meat overnight for travel, but in this case, the deer presented themselves and they took advantage of that.

Nanette and Sukki did the cooking with Lincoln’s help.  They found some greens to boil, and the Mohawk added some beans to the pot.  Nanette also boiled some water for the elf crackers.  Just a couple of hot drops of water turned the crackers into loaves of warm, fresh, like just baked bread.  The Mohawk were amazed by Sukki being a firestarter, and by the bread, but they appeared shocked when Lincoln changed his fairy weave clothes into something similar to the Mohawk clothing.  One man screamed and two others had to hold him to keep him from running away.  Elder Stow and Decker stuck with what they had, but Lockhart followed Lincoln’s suggestion, to appear less like a colonist who might not be on the best terms with the natives, and Tony joined him when he came in from seeing to the horses.  The women kept their riding pants and loose tops, not having seen any native women to imitate.

“Who are you people,” Louis asked.  “I think you are not English or French.”  Louis was the only one who spoke to the travelers, other than a few words and grunts here and there.

“We are travelers,” Lockhart answered plainly enough.  “Right now, we are looking for a particular person, and after we find him, about a week later, we will leave this world altogether.”  Louis just stared, stuck somewhere between surprised and not surprised by what Lockhart said.  “Lincoln,” Lockhart continued.  “Who is it we are looking for?”

Lincoln looked reluctant.  He had gotten in trouble in the past for blurting out information like that.  This time, he prefaced his words.  “The Mohawk are Iroquois speakers, from the five or six nations.  The Lenape are Algonquin speakers, traditional enemies.”  He took a breath.  “We are looking for Lars of the Lenape.  He was Swedish born and came to be adopted with the name Moonwalker.”  He stared at Louis, looking for a reaction, but Louis just nodded.

“The big Swede,” he said.

“Do you know him?” Katie asked.

“Only by reputation,” Louis said, and he seemed satisfied by something.  That these very strange strangers would be looking for the Swede, of all people, made sense with some of what he heard.

Overall, it was a pleasant lunch, though the Mohawk stayed on one side of the fire, mostly talking among themselves, and the travelers stayed on the other side.  They had Louis as a go between.  The travelers told some stories, mostly from the ancient days, and the Mohawk listened and appreciated the events described.  They even laughed at the appropriate places.  Decker and Lockhart tried some jokes, and the Mohawk thought they were funny, though some did not translate well.

When they finished lunch, the Mohawk took the lion’s share of the remaining deer and left, all but Louis.  He volunteered to lead them safely though the territory and to Lenape land.  Lockhart shared his unused tent with Louis when the stopped that first evening so he would not have to sleep outdoors.  It was spring, but early enough where the nights could be cold, and it began to storm from that first night.

Louis only seemed mildly surprised when Lockhart threw a wad of cloth at the ground with the word, “Tent,” and the cloth shaped itself into a tent.

Avalon 9.5 Men in Black, part 6 of 6

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Elizabeth felt sorry for the Wolv.  If his cryogenic chamber malfunctioned in some way, he may have spent the last five or six hundred years slowly dying.   “Lockhart.  Please remind the Wolv that he does not belong on this planet.”

Lockhart had to think about it.  After a moment, he made some sounds that the Men in Black did not know a human could make, but the Wolv appeared to understand.  It made some similar sounds, and then said one thing plainly in English or Greek for all to hear.  “Kairos.”

Diogenes objected.  He did this already, once before, in the future…  He agreed and came to stand in Elizabeth’s place, the armor adjusting automatically to his shape and size.  He pulled Wyrd from the sheath across his back, said, “God forgive me,” in the Macedonian dialect.  He chopped the Wolv head off in one clean sweep.  He went to one knee, holding tight to the sword like a cross and prayed for forgiveness.  Several of the men, and Bram who had caught up with them, went to their knees with him, not doubting his intentions.

When Diogenes stood, he traded places immediately with Elizabeth, who returned in her dress and quickly pulled it up out of the muck at her feet.  “Boots,” she said, and her lady boots were instantly replaced by the boots from her armor.  They came up to her knees and would keep her feet much warmer.  “Good,” Elizabeth said.  “Now we can get on with the business we came here for.”

“You mean, this is not why we came here?” Sir Leslie asked.

“It was first, but there is more important work to attend to.”

“What on Earth might that be?” Conner O’Neil asked.

“The lights flying through the night sky,” Jack said, having figured it out.

Lockhart and Decker laughed, and Katie spoke.  “Welcome to the world of the Kairos.  There is always something more.”

A half-day’s ride down the loch brought the travelers and Men in Black to a scene that Elizabeth both expected and prepared for.  When she stopped short of the event, and all eyes turned to her, Elder Stow turned on his screen device.  One of the aliens they confronted tried his handgun.  It did not even register on the screens, but Elder Stow and several of the travelers looked at Elizabeth.  She spoke to everyone and pointed.

The ones with the big heads, big eyes, holes for a nose, and no lips are Reichgo.  Their genesis planet was the Pendratti world, now devoid of life and ready to be swallowed as their sun goes red giant.  The Little circular metal box floating over there is the Kargill.  No one sees the Kargill.  The one in the middle is the Zalanid.  His home world has been destroyed by the war between the Kargill and the Reichgo, but the Zalanid have taken it upon themselves to negotiate a peace between the two sides.”

“Is that an insect?” Duchamp asked, like he might have a phobia for wasps and such.

“Not really,” Elizabeth offered.  The Zalanid looked human enough in his arms, hands, legs, and head.  His feet did look a bit insect-like and his waist was skinny as a wasp.  Plus, his face looked normal enough, but like he dipped his face in acid, or got hit in the face with several buckets of ugly.  He was hard to look at, but he smiled for the crew, his natural disposition, and already the people were thinking he might be a nice person.  “The Zalanid and the Kargill were made on the same planet—a third genesis planet closer to the galactic center.  Of course, they do not know this, but it may be why the Kargill can relate to the Zalanid where the Kargill doesn’t want to even talk to us or the Reichgo, or any other species for that matter.  The Kargill is very private.  Now, I must go.  You all need to stay here.”

Elizabeth got down from her horse, traded places with the goddess Danna, and phased through Elder Stow’s screens to confront the aliens.  Sure enough, the same Reichgo that tried its weapon against Elder Stow’s screens fired on Danna.  Danna did not even break her stride.  She said, “This meeting is being broadcast on the Zalanid planet where right now the Zalanid are trying to negotiate a peace between the Reichgo and the Kargill.  They will see and hear everything.”

Danna raised her hand and every Reichgo weapon or what might be used as a weapon vacated the Reichgo hands and pouches.  It all appeared in midair, and as Danna closed her hand, the weapons squished together into a little ball of metal before it disappeared.  She snapped her finger, and the trigger-happy Reichgo appeared before her.  “That is not permitted on this world,” she said and snapped her finger again.  The Reichgo vanished.  He appeared on the planet of the Zalanid, millions of light years distant, but she did not tell the Reichgo that.  She began again.

“This is a Genesis planet where intelligent life is created.  It is one of only a half-dozen planets in the galaxy.  Other worlds may develop life, but intelligent life is special, unless you behave stupidly.  Now listen very carefully and hear what Helen has to tell you.”  She did not say who Helen was.  She just reached back to Sherwood Forest and traded with the girl she had once been.  Danna left an aura of protection around the girl in case someone got incredibly stupid, but Helen came, not in the armor of the Kairos, but dressed in her own dress and smiling her own smile.

“By right of discovery and first landing, this planet is a Kargill planet.  The Reichgo may visit here, but only visit.  They are to limit all contact with the native population, and in no way interfere with the natural course and development of the life on this planet, intelligent or otherwise.  That is the law, spoken.”  Helen, a thirteen-year-old girl, turned to the travelers and got a big smile.  “Hello friends.  It is wonderful to see you again.  I have to go now.  I think I have to marry the miller’s son.  Goodbye.”  She blew a kiss and waved, and Danna returned.  It took a second to wipe the smile from her face before she could turn again to the aliens.

“The law has been spoken.  The Reichgo need to leave and leave this world alone.  The Kargill may park at the bottom of the lake for the moment.  You may keep the Zalanid in suspension as long as he is willing.  I will need him for the moment.  When I return him to the lake, you may send a shuttle for him.  Then you must park in the depths of the ocean where you will not be seen or found.  Henceforth, you must send the Zalanid to tell my Men in Black when this planet is in danger of an alien intrusion.  Those native to this world may be permitted to visit, but all other outsiders do not belong.  You may watch and listen, which I know is your inclination.  It that clear?”

The floating metal box blinked a light once.

“Good,” Danna said and turned to the Reichgo.  “There will be no fighting on this world.  This is a genesis planet and a sanctuary world, now, begone.”  She waved her arm and the Reichgo vanished from that place.  Only a few moments later, the travelers and Men in Black saw a ship take to the sky.  The metal box dove into the lake where the Kargill ship had already parked, as Danna knew.  The Zalanid looked at Danna, willing, though not without some trepidation.  Danna waved her hand once more and the Zalanid became clothed in a full-length jacket and some fine-looking boots.  “This world is made up of nation states and many different cultures.  But all the people on this world are human.  When you are sent among us, you must be clothed to appear as human as possible.”  Danna changed to Elizabeth in her dress.  Elder Stow took down the screens and Elizabeth continued speaking as if she was the same person as Danna, which in a real sense she was.

“You will be called Mister Smith among the humans.  It is a very common name.  I am Lady Elizabeth Stewart MacLean of Gray Havens.  Allow me to introduce the Men in Black who belong in this time zone.  It is the custom in this place to shake hands when introduced.”  She took the Zalanid’s hand and shook it to show what she meant.  Then she took the Zalanid’s arm like a lady might take a gentleman’s arm.  She introduced Sir Leslie and Jack Horner as the founders of the London branch of the Men in Black.  They looked reluctant but shook the offered hand only to find it felt human enough.  Mister Smith was a fast learner, and he laughed before he objected.

“You say men in black, but this one is dressed in red.  And I see much red, green and blue, unless my translation device is malfunctioning.”

“Men in Black is an organization title.  I am sure in time they will dress in black, but meanwhile the one in blue is Jean Duchamp.  He is French and works from the Paris office…”  She continued from there, introducing DeWindt, David Wallach, MacDonald and Campbell as founders of the Scottish office, and Conner O’Neil as their man in Ireland.  “Now, let me introduce the Travelers from Avalon.  They are time travelers come back from three hundred and sixty years in the future.

“You cannot travel in time,” Mister Smith said, but then considered Elizabeth and changed his mind.

Elizabeth spoke candidly.  “I am the Traveler in time, the Watcher over history who is tasked to make sure it comes out the way it has been written.”

“And how do you know the way it is written?” Jack Horner asked.

“I have lived in the future.  I read the book,” she said.  “But you must pay attention because Lockhart is the assistant director of the Men in Black in the future.  He can tell you some real stories, some of which you might not want to hear.”

“But say,” Sir Leslie interrupted.  “How did you know that the Reichgo and Kargill… and Mister Smith would be here right now?  That could not have been coincidence.”

Elizabeth looked up at the nearby tree.  “Heather,” she yelled, and the fairy fluttered down to say hello to the travelers before she landed on Elizabeth’s shoulder as far away from Mister Smith as she could get.

“Oh yes,” Sir Leslie said.  “I had forgotten.”

************************

MONDAY

The travelers find a Mohawk to guide them through hostile territory to the big Swede, Lars of the Lenape in episode 9.6 Earth and Sky Until then, Happy Reading.

*

Avalon 9.5 Men in Black, part 5 of 6

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The Buchanans, Lady Elizabeth, and the Men in Black examined the escape pod.  Clyde and his father hauled it up on shore.  It had been there, underwater, for as long as anyone in the clan could remember.  People ignored it, not knowing what it might be.  Elizabeth explained the basics.  Jack Horner, David, and DeWindt seemed to grasp things well enough.  Duchamp took notes which he said he did not understand.  MacDonald and Campbell gave up arguing and started telling jokes which Conner O’Neil did not find nearly as funny as their arguments.  Bram and Clyde Buchanan explained their part in this fiasco.

“Clyde heard the wolf.  So did his mother.  Between them, they pinpointed this old Roman thing.  We always thought it was some old Roman thing.  The wolf was not seen in the nearby wetlands at this time, as it had been in the past, but we got the men of our family and neighbors to help us drag the thing to shore.  It took all day, and we gave it a rest.  We feasted in Bramwell Hall, my home, but young Clyde, being a curious boy, stayed to examine the globe more closely.  He found the door.  Then he found some buttons which he just had to push, and for which he has been rightly whipped.”

“Come and see,” Elizabeth called to the men, and they squeezed into the pod as well as they could.  She began to point out things against the wall.  “The power gauge.  It is about half-charged since it came out from the water and is getting the light, even if it is just the poor light of a Scottish winter.”  She moved her hands along the wall in that place and console pushed out from the wall.  She studied it for a second before she made her pronouncement.

“There are six sleep chambers in this pod.  Three have been emptied.  Three still have Wolv inside, but the life signs are gone.  To be blunt, they are dead.  My estimate is these have been here since the incursion into the Black Forest around a thousand AD, only about six hundred and fifty years ago.  The Romans left long before that.  These arrived about the time the Vikings began to attack the shores.”

Elizabeth pushed a button to uncover all six sleep chambers at once.  Several men screamed at the sight.  Three chambers were empty as she said, though they all showed residue as if they had been used.  Three held Wolv.  One Wolv looked long dead, like melted in some way so it was hard to distinguish the form and features.  One looked like a soldier at attention. All the men recognized that when they stopped screaming.  One, a female, might have been a queen.  She stood tall and looked proud, in so far as they could read Wolv expressions.

“This is the distress call.”  She turned it off.  “There is a short in the system besides.  But basically, this and all the other systems function under full power, but when the power level drop below a certain point, all the systems get shut down except the life support system designed to keep the occupants alive.  Underwater, the pod had filtered Scottish sunlight at best, which probably charged things slowly.  It might have taken years to charge up enough to turn the systems back on, and even then, the distress call would have flickered and might have been off for most of the time.  Bram.  Are there any legends in the clan about livestock going missing or being shredded, or maybe people?

Bram appeared to be thinking hard.  “Around the time you mentioned, some six hundred or so years ago, lots of things happened and I always imagined the stories got blended together, somehow.  “We had reports of wolves seen around the lake.  We had reports of a monster in the lake.  Mostly, the stories talked about the big jaws and teeth, but it was like a monster that would suddenly appear and then disappear just as suddenly.  We had reports of Vikings.  Some came to the loch.  They got blamed for most of the shredded livestock and people.  There was a great wolf hunt in those days, and the wolf got killed, but then there have continued to be reports now and then of a wolf being seen around the lake.”

“Probably picked up by a small number of people sensitive to such things,” Elizabeth said, partly to herself.  “The other earth is out of phase right now, so there are no actual, active witches presently.  But back seventy-five years and for all those years before, anyone sensitive to the magic might have picked up on the distress call.”

“What do you mean, there are no actual witches?”  Jack Horner sounded more surprised than offended.

“Later.  I promise,” Elizabeth responded to him before she talked to the rest.  “At least one of the Wolv got out when the escape pod crashed.  It probably could not figure out how to get the pod up out of the water without help.  But then, it got hunted down, so you see they can be killed.  Now, we have one or two Wolv on the loose.  They will require some careful hunting.”

“People have been eaten,” young Clyde Buchanan spoke up for the first time.  “And livestock has gone missing as you said.”

“I have littered the woods with traps,” Bram said.

Elizabeth shook her head.  “I would be surprised if a Wolv stepped in one.  They might step on a well disguised landmine, but a trap would just bloody them without holding them.  They would get out of the trap and be extra angry.  Trust me, they are naturally mad.  You don’t want to make them extra angry.”

“My friend Ella’s grandmother got shredded in her bed,” Clyde said.  “Ella went to take some treats to her grandmother’s house in the woods and found the old woman half-eaten.  It was terrible.”

Elizabeth grinned, though there was nothing humorous in the story.  “Let us go up to the house where it is warm to plan our attack and have a bit of lunch,” she said, and people began to walk with her.  “I will tell you all a story from Bavaria in the Germanies.  The story is called Little Red Riding Hood.”

David perked up.  “I have heard that story.”  He smiled before his expression turned sour.  “I never imagined it might be a true story.”

Two days later, with plenty of Buchanan help, Elizabeth and her Men in Black backed the Wolv into a marshland beside the lake.  Plenty of bushes and trees littered the area, but the ground had turned mostly to slush in the winter—ice mixed with freezing rain.  Even the spots that appeared frozen over might crack and cover the foot with ice-cold water.

“It won’t be easy getting them out of there,” Sir Leslie admitted.

“Normally, I do not recommend backing dangerous people into a corner.  Some tend to lash out when they feel trapped,” Elizabeth said.  She looked carefully left and right and figured only the Men in Black would see.  She called for the armor of the Kairos, which replaced her dress faster than a blink.  She imagined the sword called Salvation, which she used in the past, worked out with, and knew she could lift, but she found Wyrd, her biggest and heaviest sword at her back.  She pulled Defender, her long knife, and saw Clyde slide up to the group.  He came with a message but could not resist commenting first.

“Lordy-lordy!  Where did you get that armor?  You look great.”

Elizabeth smiled.  She knew she was not the prettiest girl.  Far from it.  But she appreciated the compliment, in part because she got so few of them.  “We have to be extra careful.  You have a message?”

“Yes,” he began, but people all stopped when the group next to the Men in Black got suddenly attacked by the Wolv.  They had seen it twice in two days.  One time, a man said he got a shot off and swore he hit the beast.  Now, they all saw the caked on and frozen blood on the beast’s shoulder, but only for a moment as the blood there went everywhere. The three men there did not have time to draw their knives, much less fire their guns.  The Wolv appeared to be making a way of escape from the trap, and it looked like he would make it before they all heard a gunshot, followed by several gunshots in rapid fire.  Finally, a streak of power hit the Wolv, and the upper portion of the Wolv burst into flame.  The Wolv collapsed and Elizabeth heard Sukki in the distance.

“Sorry.  Sorry.  I hope none of the people got burned.”

Soft words got spoken in return, and the travelers rode up, the locals getting well out of the way, given the power they just saw.  Elizabeth alone was not surprised.

“Lockhart.  Good timing for once, but I think there is another one.”

“Elizabeth?” Lincoln asked.

“No.  I just look exactly like her and borrowed the armor on a whim to show off my legs,” she said in her sarcastic best.  She might not be pretty, but she had nice legs.  She opened her arms and called for Sukki.  As she hugged the girl, she said kind and very motherly things to her.  Then she had a request, and Sukki was willing.  “I need you and Elder Stow to fly invisible over the swampy area and see if there is another Wolv hidden in the bushes.  You need to let us know.  Then let Elder Stow become visible over that spot, because he has a personal screen, but you need to stay invisible in case the Wolv has a handgun.  We will come to that spot, but you need to keep us appraised as to what the Wolv is doing.  Can you do that?”

They did that while Nanette, Tony, and Lincoln patched up the one Buchanan that would survive and gave what they had to the other two to make their last moments more comfortable.  The rest of the travelers with the Men in Black moved as soon as Sukki found the Wolv.  The old, gray haired Wolv never moved, and when they arrived, they saw why.  Its rear legs looked shriveled and useless, and it looked old enough to where some of its fur was missing, showing bald patches of skin.  The Wolv looked at them and growled, but there was no strength in the sound.  It looked old and tired and ready to end life.

Avalon 9.5 Men in Black, part 4 of 6

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Elizabeth and her Men in Black ended up staying three days in Glasgow.  Elizabeth spoiled her children.  Erin and the children’s nursemaid did their fair share of spoiling as well.  Sir Leslie was very generous.  Jack Horner said something about sparing the rod and spoiling the child.  MacDonald and Campbell argued most of the time about stupid things, like which clan made the best haggis.  O’Neil, the Irishman laughed a lot.  Duchamp and DeWindt made peace with David, and found they had many things about which they could relate, not the least their all being from the continent and wanting nothing to do with haggis.  James and John watched over the women and children, but then, everyone had questions. In the evenings, Elizabeth did her best to answer the question she could.

Our Earth was formed about four and a half billion years ago.  The creation of the universe was more than twice that many years ago.  There are star-suns that have planets that are twice as old as Earth.  Some planets are just now forming around some star-suns.”

“What is a billion?” David asked what many wondered.  Elizabeth went through the numbers.

“One, ten, one hundred, one thousand.  One thousand, ten thousand one hundred thousand, one million.  One million, ten million, one hundred million, one billion.  One billion, four and a half billion when the earth was formed.  She showed with her hands and arms.  The universe was created more than ten billion years ago.”

“Good Lord,” Jack spouted at the incomprehensible number.  “But look.  The Holy Book tells us the age of the earth is six thousand years old.”

“The age of modern humans.  There were many ages before that.  In the beginning, in our beginning, a darkness was on the face of the earth and the Spirit of God moved across the waters.  The whole earth had been flooded.”

“Noah?” DeWindt asked.

“Not yet,” Elizabeth said and struggled to find the best way to explain it all.  “The Earth entered a cold spell and much of the land became covered with ice.  The seabed lowered.  It is a long story, but basically, the ice all melted at once.  A moon, not our moon and not Venus, bumped the earth roughly on the north pole and set it to wobbling.  The Earth cracked and erupted if you know what a volcano is.  The ice all melted at once and the sky filled with steam, ash, dust, and smoke, so the world fell into darkness.  I mean dark as night, not an evil darkness, though it may have been that as well.”

“Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light,” Jack recited.

“The sky cleared,” Elizabeth continued with a nod.  “And some men were saved through that flood, though I am not at liberty to say how.  The other people who were made on this world were taken off world to planets of their own.”

“Wait…” Sir Leslie wanted to object but Elizabeth held up her hand.

“This is a Genesis planet, one of only half a dozen in this galaxy—in this area of space.  You know what Genesis means.  I should not have to explain that.  But in four and a half billion years, many people have been made here.  After the meltdown, flood, and let there be light, only humans remained, mostly.  People built a world-wide culture, all speaking the same language.  It was a garden-like existence, for sure, but the people screwed it up.  You know, like Adam and Eve.   The earth began to freeze over again until the asteroids, some comets trailing after the little moon that hit and glanced off the north pole, caught up with us and smashed into several places, notably Greenland.  Everything melted suddenly again.  That was Noah.”

“But the age of the earth…”  Jack was not for giving up.

“Six thousand years ago, or a little more, there was another change event.  Nimrod the moron built a tower.  In Scripture it is called the Tower of Babel, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.  And God said he would never again destroy the Earth by waters of a flood for as long as the Earth abides.  Let me say, the ages represented in the Bible are correct, only there is some missing information not meant for the general public in this day and age.  Basically, after Noah, people stopped living for eight hundred years and eventually started living eighty.  But that was gradual, and there are scientific reasons for that which I am not prepared to go into.  A narrowed population will do that.  But consider this, all the men mentioned in the Book of Hebrews trusted God, though they never witnessed the promise when the Messiah walked among us.  They lived faithfully, though they did not know the whole story.  So, let me just say the languages became confused after Babel, marking the beginning of modern man, and I was first born under that doomed tower to try and keep track of it all.”  She paused to let them digest that bit of information and was not disappointed by Jack.

“Good Lord.”

###

The travelers reached Perth on one of the few sunny days.  The road to Sterling would be a push if the weather turned, but they figured they might make it in a day.  It would be another day after that to reach Glasgow, which appeared to be where the Kairos settled.  Lincoln read about the alien encounters and the Men in Black that began in 1649, but as usual, he was not sure what it was safe to say until certain events played out.  He understood both Katie and Tony were past their era of expertise.  They would not necessarily know more than the others.  He wondered if it was safe to mention that Charles I, King of Scotland, England, and Ireland would be beheaded at the end of the month.  He would have to think about that.

Katie and Nanette noticed and confirmed a familiar face among the patrons in the inn.  The man sat with friends at a nearby table.  They confronted the man over supper in the big room, and Katie named the man.  “Bishop Pierre Cauchon.”

The man looked up from his seat.  They saw his face and imagined his mind raced through a hundred ways to deny what they called him, but in the end, he smiled and said, “You got me.”

“Lord Peter?” one of the men seated with him wondered what these women were talking about.

“It is Lord Peter Cameron, actually, and being a good covenanter, we will leave the bishop part in the past.”

Nanette remembered Joan of Arc, that lovely young girl they met so briefly in that day, and she spoke.  “Condemn any innocent young women for witchery lately?”  Her voice sounded hard and full of anger.

“Not lately,” the man said in a voice that suggested he may have used the charge of witchcraft at some point or other.  “I have been busy with my assignment, helping Scotland shatter to pieces.  We have Montrose, royalists, covenanters, engagers, clans fighting clans, and Argyll the stubborn fighting everyone.  I’ll admit, the battle of Sterling did not turn out the way I wanted.  I was hoping for all-out war, but we take what we can get.”

Lockhart and Decker came up to fetch the women to their table, and Katie spoke.  “Why would you want Scotland divided?  Though I assume the Masters would not want peace in general.”

Lord Peter smiled some more.  “Invasion,” he answered.  “Most of Scotland will stay home when the invasion comes.  They will not take up arms to fight alongside people who they count as enemies and traitors.  Scotland will fall to a military dictatorship, and it will happen centuries before Hitler.  And the Scottish will not rebel, so there will be no reason the greatly improved army should not invade the continent.  Soon enough, the army on the continent will make a pact with the Vassas and the Hapsburgs to fight the Ottomans, and we will have the First World War two hundred years ahead of time.  Of course, the Masters hope they beat each other senseless, but one can only hope.”

“Cromwell is not that kind of man,” Katie said, as Lord Peter stood and got his men up from their meal.

“A push here.  A whisper there.  Men are malleable,” he said, and marched for the door, his men following.

“What was that about?” Decker asked.

“Why did that man look familiar?” Lockhart asked.

“Bishop Pierre Cauchon who killed Joan of Arc.  Now, Lord Peter Cameron planning to turn Oliver Cromwell into Adolph Hitler and bring war to the entire continent and beyond.”

Lockhart looked at the door and reached for his handgun.  Decker ran to the door, but the man was not to be found.  He cursed when he returned.

“You should have killed him on the spot,” he said.

“Decker?” Nanette asked what he meant by that and only partly protested.

“Servant of the Masters and a repeat face that is not one of the good guys.  That is an enemy combatant.  You should have shot him immediately.”

“Decker?” Nanette asked again, not knowing what to ask, but Katie spoke.

“Yes.  I should have.”

###

Elizabeth said goodbye to her children in the morning and sent them on the way to Gray Havens.  In the afternoon, Sir Leslie and Jack Horner came up with another question.  Jack quoted the scriptures.

“It is appointed a man once to die and after this the judgment.”

Sir Leslie added, “I assume that goes for women, too.”

Elizabeth nodded.  “But that is just it.  God won’t let me die.  Oh, I feel all the pain and loss of death.  It is hard every time.  I get right up to the point of going over to the Heavenly shores, and my spirit gets stuck in another womb, like it or not.  I have no say in the matter, and nine months later, I get born somewhere new on the planet.  As a baby, I have no idea I ever lived before.  Those thoughts don’t occur to me until I am twelve…  Ten?  Thirteen or fourteen?  It varies.  But then I discover things are happening that will throw all of history off track unless I act.  So, we are acting.”

“That must be hard,” Sir Leslie said in his most sympathetic voice.  “To die again and again and never be allowed to go to heaven.”

“Who?” Jack asked, but she knew what he was asking.

“I call them friends in the future.  They may be angels deciding where I need to go.  In any case, they could only do such a thing under God’s watchful eye.”

“Assuredly,” Jack said.

Elizabeth stopped the group in front of a big house in the country.  She pulled a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes, before she got down and said, “The home of Bram Buchanan.  His son, Clyde evidently set the Wolv free.”

Avalon 9.5 Men in Black, part 3 of 6

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“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.

************************

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

*

Avalon 9.5 Men in Black, part 2 of 6

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“First, let me introduce the clan.   Please be seated.  Jack Horner, I believe there is a seat back in the corner, if you don’t mind.  Sorry. Only cake.  No Christmas pie.  Christmas was several weeks ago.”  Elizabeth smiled at her own joke which no one else understood.  She cleared her throat. “You may know James and John, my retainers.  Erin is my maid.  You gentlemen will see plenty of her over this next week.  The three big men seated behind are Conner O’Neil, an Irish Catholic, Duncan MacDonald, a royalist, and Stephen Campbell, a covenanter, who you may note are not killing each other.  In this group, there must be peace and petty squabbles are not allowed.”  She pointed at the three men.  Only the Irishman responded.

“You have my word.  I will not bother the Englishmen.”

“All right,” Elizabeth continued.  “The three in front are our guests.  Charles deWindt is Dutch Reformed.  Jean Duchamp is French, Catholic, and works with a few people in Paris.  David Wallace is German and Jewish.”  She paused to let the word Jewish sink in.  “David’s family took the name Wallach, but here in Scotland, Wallace fits better.  All three of these men have either experience in what we are facing, or stories from their parents or grandparents, or both, so they know something of the truth of what we will be facing.  We will leave for Loch Lomond in two days.  You may wish to question these men and hear their tales.”

“None from the Mediterranean, either Iberia or Italy?” Sir Leslie wondered.  The question was not entirely sarcastic.

“I have a small group in Jamaica, another in the Alps, and a group working in Toledo, keeping their eyes open since the 1490s, so they have several generations of watchfulness. I have a couple of small groups in East Asia, in Japan and China.  You get the idea.  Where we are going is not in the history books, and it needs to stay out of the history books.  What we will be doing is not for the public.  I am inviting you men and fully expect your wives to join the most secret society on earth.  You will be my Men in Black.  Eventually, I will have to set up small groups in southeast Asia, India and central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, north and south, as well as the Americas.”

“But what exactly would you have us do?” Sir Leslie asked, this time without the sarcasm.

Elizabeth fought the urge to grab a piece of cake.  She swallowed and came out with it.  “We will mostly watch and investigate what is strange and unusual.  We will be defending Planet Earth from people—aliens who are not native to this planet.  We will send them away in peace wherever possible.  Some we may have to fight.  Some we may have to call on Cromwell’s New Model Army.”

Jack stood in the back.  He was not the tallest of men, but Elizabeth noticed and paused to let him speak.  “Mister Cromwell mentioned something about that.”  He sat as Elizabeth nodded.

“One of those two times of supposedly saving his life was from the aliens I have dubbed the New Exterminators.”  She paused to get her thoughts in order and decided most questions could wait until tomorrow.  “We will meet here again the same time tomorrow.  You will have questions, and I will answer what I can.  For now, lest you think I am just making things up, or perhaps mad, let me share some evidence.  Erin.”  She reached back and Erin handed her something that the men recognized as a rifle of sorts.  Where Erin got it from, they could not say.  “Please follow me out back.  I would not want to fire this weapon indoors.”

When the men gathered around to watch, they saw a typical target set up some yards away.  It was the kind used for musket practice with which they were all familiar.  Elizabeth said nothing.  When she felt ready, she raised the rifle to her shoulder and spied down what functioned as a sight.  She slowly let her breath out like one used to firing a musket, though the rifle she held had no kick to it.  She squeezed the trigger and a red streak appeared.  It burned a hole through the target before the target exploded.  The metal sheet she had set up behind the target began to melt before she stopped firing.  James and John ran out with buckets of water to douse the flames and cool the metal, and Elizabeth spoke.

“The rifle was taken from the New Exterminators who were banished from this planet and will stay away if they know what is good for them.  Think on it.  Any of you who cannot keep your mouths shut in the general public, or who do not wish to be part of defending the Earth, you must decide now.  You may leave without penalty.  Tomorrow at this time, I will share some information which is not ever to be shared except between you and God in the privacy of your prayers.  Some may feel the need to share in confession, but even there I warn you to guard your tongue.  Once we leave for Loch Lomond, you will be committed for life, and not only you, but you will carefully have to select the next generation to follow after you.  Pray that you may spend your lives in watchfulness and investigating dead ends.  Given communication in this age, you will be mostly on your own for the next two or three hundred years.”

Erin stepped up to whisper.  “Lady.  I hear the children fussing.”

Elizabeth looked up at the second-floor window and nodded.  “Leslie, Sir Winthrop.”  She had to call him twice to get his attention.  He had to close his mouth.  “Jack Horner.  You will have to bunk in the barn with the big men.  No fighting.  Be nice to each other.” she shouted and turned to Leslie.  “Come.  I will take you to your room. We have three rooms that are serving as guest rooms.  DeWindt and Duchamp are sharing one.  David has one.  No one will room with him for fear that they might get Jewish cooties or something stupid.  You get the third.”

“Children?”  Leslie asked.

“Young Robert is six.  Bridget is nearly four.  That is what she will say.  Nearly four.”

“Makes you sound human enough.  But say, how did you ever get mixed up in this strange adventure?  And now I am afraid to ask what may be happening at Lake Lomond.”

“Loch,” Elizabeth said.  “Tomorrow.”

When tomorrow arrived, Elizabeth introduced the men to the Kairos.  She made Sir Leslie and Jack Horner hold her hands in an age-old tradition, and traded places with the Contessa Catherine of Aragon.  Leslie let go and shrieked.  Several men made noise. Jack held on because he promised, but he seriously began to sweat.

Catherine told about how in 1470, a servant of the Masters broadcasted a message into space.  That took some explaining, but basically the message invited aliens to come and invade the earth.  “That message is still echoing among the stars,” she said.  “It is time humanity had a group of people prepared for that.”

She changed to Hans and told some things about his day, including his experiments in chocolate.  He changed to Captain Hawk who winked at Charles DeWindt and spoke some in Dutch.  He confessed to being the Flying Dutchman and then told them about the spiders on Hispaniola.  He scared their stockings off, as any good pirate would in telling such a tale.  Elizabeth was not happy, but he said he did not want the men to misunderstand what they were signing up for.

When Elizabeth came back, she introduced Erin once again.  The men all said what a lovely young woman she was.  Then Elizabeth removed Erin’s glamour and reintroduced her as her elf maid.  Erin folded her hands in front of her dress, looked at the floor, and her face turned pink while her pointed ears turned red.  Elizabeth restored Erin’s glamour of humanity fairly quickly and was pleased to see no one jumped up and ran from the room, screaming.

“I have had the grace to have several elf maids over the millennia, all volunteers, and all lovely.  And I love Erin, dearly, so you men better treat her right or you will have to answer to Captain Hawk, or worse.”

“And I love my lady,” Erin whispered.  “Even when you embarrass me.”

“Millennia?” Sir Leslie could not resist the question.

“Yes,” Elizabeth said, but did not stop to properly answer him.  Instead, she looked up.  “Heather.  Please come down and sit on my shoulder.”  They all saw a streak of light come from the ceiling.  It hid in Elizabeth’s hair and Duncan and Stephen both spouted.

“A wee one.”

“Don’t usually see them until I’ve had a keg.”

“I should have said that,” Conner the Irishman protested while rubbing his beard, and all three men laughed.

Elizabeth was not finished.  “Lord Roan.  You have a report.”

Another fairy fluttered down and put his back to the men.  Then he surprised them all when he got big and looked like a well-dressed Lord.  He reported.  “The Wolv has got free.”

###

“It looks miserable out there,” Lincoln said.  “Can’t we just wait until Spring?”

People ignored him.

Angus set them up with three men who were merchants in fine woolen tartans.  Ewan and William Mackenzie and Graeme Grant would take the coastal road all the way to Perth.  They had two wagons full.  One for the Duncan clan, and the other had kilts for Hay, Lindsay, and Macduff.  The plan was four days to Aberdeen and three more to Perth.

“Three more days from there, through Stirling to Edinburgh,” Katie said.  “I checked the map.”

“That is nearly two weeks just to reach the Kairos,” Lockhart said, sounding like Lincoln complaining.  “I hope it is not another two weeks to the time gate.”

“We might move faster, but in this weather, it is not recommended, and who knows what weather obstacles we may encounter.”   Katie tried to be reasonable.

“Weather obstacles is what I am talking about,” Lincoln griped.

“I like all the travel and all the places we have been,” Nanette said.  “I never imagined doing that sort of thing before.  Taking a steamship to Rome was the most exotic and unexpected thing I ever did.”

Tony countered her thought.  “The thing is, the closer we get to home, the more impatient the men are becoming.”

“Amen to that,” Decker said.

Elder Stow added, “Ditto.”

“I agree with my sister,” Sukki protested.  “I am learning so much about history—about being human.  Lincoln lets me read about the places after we leave, and he is so nice to help me with some of the words.”  Lincoln shrugged.

“I love the adventure of it all,” Nanette agreed.

“If it wasn’t so cold,” Lincoln mumbled.

“The same guy who complained about Cuba being so hot,” Lockhart said.

“I would never retire to Florida,” Lincoln admitted.

Ewan stepped up as Katie finished the conversation.  “Ready to go?”

“William and Graeme have the wagons,” Ewan said.  “We are ready.”

“Lead on, Macduff,” Lockhart said.  “I always wanted to say that.”

“Ha,” Katie said, without laughing, and they headed out into the cold and wet.”