Science Fiction

Avalon 9.7 Revolution, part 2 of 6

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

At Colonel Morgan’s insistence, the travelers moved out front with the colonel, Captain Price, and a half-dozen colonial officers who had horses of their own.  It was a pleasant day even if being surrounded by soldiers put a damper on the conversation.  Katie and Tony got Lincoln and the others to agree that certain topics were off limits.  Some things they were allowed to talk about, mostly things in the past, but they needed to limit their conversation to Colonel Morgan, and maybe Captain Price if they could.

When the party neared the Hudson in the late afternoon, Colonel Morgan explained his reasoning.  “The British out of New York City came north up the Hudson.  They captured several forts up to Newburgh.  They have scouts, mostly from the five nations up to Poughkeepsie.  They sent a ship and soldiers to Kingston, the capital of the New York Colony.  They burned a bunch of houses and buildings, including the government house, but then they withdrew.  The people of Kingston are back rebuilding. We will cross the Hudson there…”

He stopped speaking and pointing.  They heard rifle fire and saw three of their scouts racing back to their position.  Elder Stow stepped forward and pressed a button on his screen device.  People heard a couple of trees or rocks snap, but mostly he accounted for the flora and fauna.  He called it a Decker Wall and waited for the scouts to get behind the line before he threw the switch.

“After all this time, I finally started to anticipate what might be on the horizon,” he said.  “It only took me six thousand Earth years or so to figure that out.”  He set the screen device and held it to the ground as the leading edge of Native warriors ran up and smashed into the wall.  They mostly bounced off, though some appeared to hurt themselves. Some stopped and fired their flintlocks at the soldiers and travelers they saw so conveniently crowded together on horseback, but the travelers ignored them, so the colonials waited, nervous but patient.

Katie noticed something and trotted up to the wall, Lockhart and Decker following.  “Mohawk,” she shouted.  “You are on the wrong side.”  Sukki and Nanette came up with Colonel Morgan.  The Colonel told the others to stay where they were, and the others held back the foot soldiers.

Some Mohawk helped their fellow warriors back from the invisible wall.  Others put their hands to the wall to gauge its strength and size.  A few listened and one responded.

“You colonials are on the wrong side.  This is native land, and you keep taking more and more without compensation.  Soon, there will be no land left for our people.”

“And you think the British will treat you differently?”

“They have promised,” the Mohawk said, which triggered some laughter from both Decker and Lockhart.  Katie quieted them before she spoke again.

“We walked with Louis, a Mohawk chief, and friend.  We walked with him in the days of Moonwalker of the Lenape who you may have heard of as the Big Swede.”

One man pushed to the front and shouted.  “Louis was my grandfather.”  The man’s eyes got big as he realized what he was seeing.  “He often told the story of the people from the future and their great and powerful magic.  I know the invisible wall.  The flood waters came, and the wall laughed at the flood.  The whole side of the mountain came crashing down, great stones and big old trees, and it just slid off the wall and fell in the river.  I know the stories.”

“Did he get home with his horse?” Nanette asked.

“Yes.  We have many horses now from that first one.”  The man smiled for Nanette and Sukki.

Lockhart looked over at Sukki.  “Would you mind floating up about ten feet and taking aim at the tree, the big one there that looks isolated from the other trees around.”

“The big oak?”

“Yes,” Katie answered for her husband.

“I’ll tell you when to turn the tree to ash, and hopefully we won’t set the whole forest on fire.”  Lockhart turned back to the Mohawk, all of whom were now listening, especially when they saw Suki take to the air.  “Choose your side carefully.  That is up to you.  But for right now, these colonials are under our protection.  You need to let us pass in peace.  We will be crossing the river and headed toward the Delaware River, so out of your territory soon enough.”

“We have been friends with the Five Nations.  Please do not make us your enemies,” Katie added.

“Sukki,” Lockhart said, and Sukki let the power flow out of her hands.  The stream of white light, visible in the daytime, looked bright as the sun.  It put a hole right through the tree mid-section and the tree made a great Crack! sound, like it got struck by a bolt of lightning.  The top half of the tree teetered before it fell to the ground.  The Mohawk scrambled to get out of the way.

Four men jogged up to the front, but one held the other three back.  “Now is not the time to start a firefight,” he seemed to decide.  He tried to say that without undue attention, but Decker, Nanette, and Colonel Morgan all heard.  The man had to push down one of the flintlocks one soldier wanted to point at the Mohawk.

“Now is not the time, William Talbert,” Colonel Morgan scowled at the four men.  Talbert, the leader of the four did not appear to disagree, though he stared mostly at Decker and Nanette, and did not appear surprised when Sukki floated back down to her horse.

At the same time, Lockhart noticed one of the Mohawk wave off and shake his head at Talbert and his crew.  Lockhart got the impression the native dressed man and the actual native knew each other.  He thought it odd that they would be on opposite sides.  He would have to think about that.

“Come,” Talbert said, and they wandered back to get lost in the crowd of foot soldiers and riflemen.  One of those men said, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” and he said it with enough volume, so everyone heard.  The travelers looked at each other and wondered at the cliché being so easily mouthed, but decided that far in the past, perhaps it was not a cliché yet.

“Come,” the chief of the Mohawk said to his people, and they all headed off to the north where they vanished among the trees.

“About sixty or seventy in the war party,” Decker guessed.

“At least,” the colonel agreed.  “More than we could see.”

“So, who is this Talbert and his men?” Decker asked, casually.

“Green Mountain Boys,” Colonel Morgan responded.  “They don’t follow orders well.”

Katie and Lockhart went to where Elder Stow stared at his scanner.  “My Mother.  My Father.” Elder Stow acknowledged them with a word.  “They appear to be leaving, but I recommend twenty or thirty minutes before we lower the wall and move.”

“Colonel,” Lockhart called for Morgan.  They all dismounted and came to where Elder Stow stood.  He called up a holographic image of the area.  It covered a wide area, so it was hard to distinguish the blob of yellow dots moving away from them.

“Blue is for the colonials. Red dots for us,” Elder Stow said.

Colonel Morgan looked at the image and swiped his hand through it before he said, “This is the river?  Closer than I thought.”

“It is three-forty,” Katie said with a glance at her watch.  “I suggest we move at four o’clock as long as the Mohawk do not turn around to come back.”

“They appear to have stopped,” Lockhart pointed out.

“They have some injured,” Katie said.

Colonel Morgan agreed.  “Give them the twenty minutes, to be safe.”  He looked at the travelers but spoke to Katie and Lockhart.  “As I thought, it is best to limit contact with you folks, no offence.”

“None taken,” Katie said.

Avalon 9.7 Revolution, part 1 of 6

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After 1755 A.D. Valley Forge

Kairos lifetime 117: Michelle Marie Lancaster

Recording …

People walked through the streets despite the cold weather.  The town square appeared full of revelers.  They had plenty of guns in the street as well.  Men shot at targets or just up into the air making a loud bang every so often.  Booths held all sorts of food and beer.  And music sounded like an undercurrent to the revelry.  A dozen-piece orchestra played, and a choir sang on the steps of the church.

Katie grabbed one woman’s attention to ask what it was all about, but before she could frame her question the woman shouted, “Happy New Year.”

“What year?” Katie asked instead.

“Seventeen seventy-eight, of course,” the woman said and hurried off on her errand.  The sky looked overcast, like it might snow in the frigid weather, but for the present, the people were out in the square celebrating the turn of the year.

Lincoln, having read up on the subject, carefully asked two men what colony they were in.  He mentioned they had been traveling through the wilderness for some time.

“The great state of Massachusetts,” the man said.  “We are smack in the corner with the wilderness of New York in that direction and Connecticut below us.”  He pointed to the west and south to show what he meant.

“Connecticut is always beneath us,” another man interjected, slapped his friend hard on the shoulder, and laughed, like he made a great joke.  The first man rubbed his shoulder as they walked off.

“Where are you headed?”  A different man walked up and asked as he eyed them suspiciously.  The man wore deerskin clothes and a bearskin coat.  It made him appear Native American, though he was clearly European.

“Pennsylvania,” Lincoln answered.  Katie and Lockhart began to pay attention.  Tony spoke up to get between Lincoln and the questioner.

“We heard General Howe and the British took Philadelphia.  General Washington is going to need all the help he can get.”

“I don’t imagine your black boy and his woman will be much help,” the man said, pointing at Decker and Nanette.  Nanette had to put her hand out to keep Decker from responding, though she could not prevent Decker’s growl.

“None of your concern, William Talbert,” yet another man said as he entered the conversation.  He shooed off the suspicious one and turned to the travelers.  “Colonel Daniel Morgan,” the man, dressed in something like a uniform, introduced himself.  ‘My regiment of four hundred riflemen, are camped east of town.  We are always looking for new recruits.  I see you have some unfamiliar weapons.  Are they any good?   Are you any good with them?”

Lockhart looked at Katie and she nodded in a kind of permission, like she knew this colonel by name and knew he was one of the good guys.  “Decker,” Lockhart said, knowing Decker had some steam to vent.

“My pleasure,” Decker responded.  He lifted his rifle and aimed at the clay pots men had set up on a fence rail with a barn wall twenty paces behind it.  Decker sat on his horse so he could see and aim over the heads of the men.  He sat about a hundred yards further away than the line the men used for their rifle practice.  He considered getting out his scope, but it was not that far.  One shot, and a clay pot busted to pieces.  He shot three more times without reloading, and the three other pots on the rail broke.  Two got knocked off the rail.  The third cracked in half.

“Huzzah,” Colonel Morgan said in his surprise.  He turned to Decker and said, “That is a remarkable rifle.  May I see it?”

Decker shook his head.  “Not allowed,” he said, and looked at Lockhart to explain, or not.

“That rifle comes from about three hundred and thirty years in the future,” Lockhart said honestly enough.  “It is not our intention to change history.”

Katie spoke up.  “But we are headed to Valley Forge in support of General Washington if you are going that way.  There is safety in numbers and maybe we could share some thoughts with you privately on the road.”

“The future you say.” Colonel Morgan looked at Lockhart and took a minute to look at the others as a new uniformed man jogged up to join the group.  The new man looked carefully at the travelers before he spoke.

“Your rifle demonstration was most impressive.  May I see the instrument?”

“Not allowed,” Colonel Morgan said as he introduced his subordinate.  “Captain Price.  General Washington sent him and his men to fetch us from the Northern Department after Burgoyne surrendered.  George, I need you to move a few of your tents to make room beside the headquarters tent.  These people have valuable information, and I don’t intend to let them far from my sight.”

“Colonel?”

“An order.  Run.”  Colonel Morgan turned to the travelers who dismounted to walk their horses.  He waited until Captain Price was out of earshot.  “The future you say,” he repeated.

“You seem easily convinced after one simple rifle demonstration,” Lockhart said, some old police suspicion creeping into his voice.

Colonel Morgan nodded and confessed.  “Before I took the rifle company north to join Gates, I had a long talk with Missus Lancaster, General Washington himself sitting right there, listening to it all, not blinking an eye at a word she said.  She said she had friends from the future that might show up in time for what she called the Battle of Saratoga.  She did not explain what she meant by that, but she said lately you have been showing up at critical points in history.  I understand basically what she meant by Saratoga now, and how important to the war effort the British surrender is.  But now I wonder why you are here… now.”

“Michelle Marie Lancaster,” Lincoln interrupted.  “The Kairos in this day.  Her husband is gone.  A Shawnee raid in the western territories out by Fort Duquesne, that’s Pittsburg.  Just before the start of the Revolution.  Sorry.”  Lincoln honestly tried not to say too much.

“She is a beauty, and French besides,” Colonel Morgan said with a smile spreading across his face.  “I imagine she can have any man she wants.”  He coughed and looked serious again.  “She did say to look for you, and described you a bit, just in case.  And you are from the future?  She said the dark man was a colonel?”

“Lieutenant colonel, sir,” Decker said.  “And it is African American.”

“So she said,” Colonel Morgan answered.  “She did not explain that either, though it was a designation I never heard of.”

Katie butted in. “Like Polish American or German American.  Like Asian American or Native American.”

“So you say.  I would guess as many as one out of twenty, maybe one out of ten men in Washington’s command are African American.  Some are free men.  Some are slaves fighting for their freedom.” Colonel Morgan shrugged. “I understand the darkies, being men, wanting to fight, especially if they are fighting for their freedom.  What I don’t understand is how a woman becomes a major, and marine besides.”

“We work with the navy,” Katie said.

“I know what a marine is,” Colonel Morgan said.  “I know some ship captains who believe it is bad luck just having a woman on board.”  He paused before he said, “This way.”  He began to walk, and the travelers followed.

“We learned a few things in the future,” Katie said.  “Times change.”

“They must,” Colonel Morgan agreed.  “Don’t get me wrong.  Though I only spoke with her a couple of times, I don’t imagine there is anything Missus Lancaster could not do if she set her mind to it.”

“You would be surprised at some of the things she has done,” Lockhart said.

“I am sure I would,” Colonel Morgan agreed, and slowed as they came to the place where the road left the town.  “I don’t suppose you might tell me how this war turns out.  Missus Lancaster appears to be working hard for the patriot cause, so maybe that says we get something out of it.”

“Can’t tell,” Katie said.

“Dare not tell,” Lockhart echoed.

Colonel Morgan nodded again.  “She said I was not supposed to ask, but I thought it was worth a try.”  They came to a stop at the edge of a camp where three men were taking down a tent to move it.  Some tents were in among the trees.  Most of the tents were spread across a field, no doubt a farm field in winter.

“This is more than enough room,” Tony said as he brought Ghost to the front and people got their tents to set up the camp.

Colonel Morgan had to think a minute before he spoke.  “We travel roughly twenty-five miles a day.  We might make thirty on our own, but sometimes we hardly do twenty because of the wagons and the women.  I suppose your women can travel with the wagons…”

“We need to stick together,” Elder Stow interrupted.

“We carry our own tents and necessities,” Tony added.

“But we can maybe share a cooking fire in the wilderness.”  Katie suggested., “Along with the stories and things that we are allowed to tell you, if you want.”

  Colonel Morgan agreed, and on his own he decided it would be best to limit contact between these people and his riflemen.  He watched Sukki put her hand over the fire that had been allowed to dwindle while the men moved their tents. The fire sprang up almost too much and too fast, but Sukki managed a couple of logs before the whole fire became ash. He watched Nanette toss a cloth ball at the ground and say the word “tent.”  The cloth ball expanded and shaped itself into a tent for two, and Colonel Morgan went into his own tent thinking, Yes.  Limit contact.

Avalon 9.6 Earth and Sky, part 6 of 6

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Lars and the travelers had a long talk with the Englishmen while Nanette and Sukki bandaged as much as they could.  Only one could not walk, and might never walk again, but he could sit on a horse.  They got their own horses.  Most of the rest of the horses were used to carry the dead.  It seemed the English wanted to expand their farms and spread out in the fertile land of what would one day be called the Garden State.  They wanted the land for their children and grandchildren.  They imagined killing the natives was the quick and easy way to that end.  The Lenape had not been allowed to trade for guns, so the English retained that technological advantage.  The Susquehannock, however, had been supplied guns by the French fur traders and they overran the Lenape in the sixteen thirties.  By the sixteen-fifties, the Lenape were tributary to the Susquehannock, and later the Iroquois of the Five Nations took over.  It was all about the beaver trade.

By the time Lars was born in 1690, and certainly by the time he turned ten, when his parents were killed, the Susquehannock and Iroquois control of the Lenape had eased, but now a new master had come to the Delaware delta area.  Lars got adopted into a Lenape tribe, while the English in Philadelphia kept pressuring both the Lenape and the Susquehannock for more land.  When Carteret and Berkley allowed a land swap, and so many quakers and other nonconformists moved out of central New Jersey and headed for new homes in Pennsylvania, the pressure became acute. Some Lenape, who eventually came to be called Delaware, already moved to the upper Ohio valley.

“The English will be back,” Lars said, as they watched the English ride away.  “They will not quit pressing for the land regardless of what they promise.”

“A cynical view.”  The old man who stood beside Lars, the one Lars called Uncle Buck made his assessment.

Lars shrugged.  “Even if we use the Delaware River as a boundary, and the ones out of New York become satisfied for the time being, the ones pushing up from Philadelphia have no such convenient line.  The Lehigh River will not hold them.  I’m afraid the land east of the Appalachian Mountains is lost to us.”

“Cynical and defeatist,” Uncle Busk said.

Lars did not argue. He took Uncle Buck, Lockhart, Morharala, Decker, Tony, Lincoln, another Lenape chief, and Louis, and they all sat around a fire smoking a pipe and talking peace.  Commander Takar observed.  He tended to stay away from the fire being essentially made of wood.  Elder Stow and the women set the camp, and Louis got to sleep one more time in that miraculous tent.

In the morning, Lars removed all distinguishing marks and equipment from the two horses he saved from the Englishmen.  Spoils of war, he called them, along with all the English guns and powder.  He gave one horse to Louis with thanks for guiding the travelers safely to him.

“I think your friends are true people of power and could likely go wherever they want, with or without my help,” Louis admitted.

Lars and the travelers said thank you all the same, and Louis rode back north happy and with his prize.

The other horse went to Uncle Buck.  The travelers discovered that Uncle Buck was a member of the Susquehannock people, an Iroquois speaking people like the Mohawk, not Algonquin speakers like the Lenape people.  Of course, it did not matter to the travelers what language anyone spoke since they heard everything in English.

“I am setting small hamlets, like observation posts all along the Delaware from the Lehigh River all the way up to where the east and west branches of the Delaware join to make the river,” Lars told the travelers.  “Those are the lines we hope to hold.  The Lehigh against the Philadelphians and the Delaware against the New Yorkers.  How long it will hold, I cannot say.  We have become so few, we might not be able to hold anything, even with Susquehannock help.”

After breakfast, everyone crossed the river to the Pennsylvania side and waved good-bye to Louis. They waited there, and an hour later, a massive spaceship landed in an open meadow.  Commander Takar promised there would be no more incidents.  Lars knew that was not true.  Takar was not the captain of the ship, and the captain would insist on a survey of the planet before they left.  Most of that would happen from the edge of space, but they would set down once again, briefly in the Gobi Desert. At least they would take great pains to land where no people cold watch them, a protocol that almost all subsequent visitors to the earth would follow.  The Reichgo were already warned about being seen.

When the prison ship set down, a whole family of sanguar escaped into the desert.  The sanguar had tunneled through the metal walls to right near a door, which when opened, allowed the sanguar to escape into the sand.  The Ahluzarian police eventually found and plugged the hidden hole they escaped from, but that happened after they were back in space and half-way to their destination.  The captain refused to turn around and do the right thing.

Fortunately, for the human race, the sanguar died out after two or three hundred years, and never expanded beyond the desert lands.  Whether they died out from too much atmosphere, too cold winters, or too much inbreeding was hard to say, but during those two to three hundred years, they terrorized certain places in the Gobi—places that the human population learned to avoid.  Apparently, when Elder Stow mentioned the Gobi Desert as a likely environment, he was speaking from knowledge he gleaned from his own database.  He just did not spell it out.

After the Ahluzarians were on their way. Lars said good-bye to the travelers.  “Maybe in my next life it will be better to stick around and relax for a week or so.  Right now, I have too much to do, though I thank you for taking care of Doctor Miller.  I suspected him, but I had no proof.  Sadly, his vials of diseases have hardly been needed, or maybe he spread a bunch among the native population before you stopped him from spreading more.”  Lars looked sad and shrugged.  “Anyway, Uncle Buck will guide you safely through native land to the next time gate.  I expect you to keep him safe if you go through Philadelphia.  My wife is down around where Wilmington will be located, not far from the original Fort Christina.  If you get that far, give her my love and tell her I am fine.”

Uncle Buck proved to be a quiet man.  He said very little, but he also missed very little, observing everything.  He rode up front with Lockhart and Katie, and for a week, Lincoln had to keep his mouth shut as he dared not talk about the future.  Finally on the last night before the time gate, Uncle Buck said good-bye and rode back to the small village that grew up around Lars’ home.

The next morning, when they headed toward the time gate, Lockhart finally had to ask. “What?”  Everyone noticed Lincoln’s impatience through those days.

“Lars’ wife is killed and the whole village burnt down only a few years from now,” he said.

“What?  She seemed such a nice girl,” Nanette said from behind.

Lincoln nodded.  “Apparently, when the French and Indian war starts, most Lenape fight with the French.”

“Most?” Katie asked.

“The ones who already moved into the Ohio valley and have to deal with the French traders and some French villages take the English side.”

“What about Lars?”

“Believe it or not, he ends up helping the Virginia militia.  I guess the Lenape and Virginians were far enough apart, so they did not bother each other.  He guides a twenty-two-year-old Major George Washington to an early victory.  Of course, the general over Washington is a moron and loses the main battle, but Washington gets a good reputation for the future.”

“Interesting,” Tony said as he rode beside Nanette in the rear, Ghost trailing out behind.  He saw Sukki coming back to the front and guessed they were near the time gate.  “What I want to know right now is where we are going.  Who is next?”

Lincoln did not even need to look in the database.  “Michelle Marie,” he said. “She is French.  We might end up in France, or in this general area depending on when we arrive,”

“You never know,” Lockhart said as Sukki reigned to a halt and Decker and Elder Stow came in to join the group as they prepared to go through the time gate.

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

MONDAY

Revolution episode 9.7 The travelers join a military group headed toward General Washington and Valley Forge and they figure out that the Kairos Michelle Marie is probably there. Until Monday, Happy Reading

 

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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

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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

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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

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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

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

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

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

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.