Ptah looked at Weret. “I noticed, but I was being polite not saying it.” He looked at Wadjt, but she ignored his look.

Wadjt stepped over to the trembling Captain in the middle and spoke softly to him. “I am keeping my word. I am staying out of it, but I would leave Weret alone if I were you. She has too many friends in high places, if you know what I mean.” Wadjt vanished, but Weret was ready to explode. She looked at the Bluebloods beside her, and this time her angry face had some teeth in it before she vanished. Amun Junior came to stand there with the same angry expression, but his was truly a frightening, teeth filled expression. Sakhmet roared again with the appearance of her younger-older brother.

“You explained the rules to your Captain like I asked?” Junior squeezed the words between his teeth.

“Absolutely,” the Blueblood female swore. “Of course. Just like you asked. In great detail.”

“Liar!” Junior yelled, waved his hand and the female no longer had a tongue. “I want every male responsible for impregnating a female and every female who has planted her egg in a human to be in the cafeteria. He jumped to the cafeteria, and so did Ptah, Bast Sakhmet and Boston. There were twelve males and seven females together in that room, and three of the females still carried their egg, not yet having found a carrier.

Junior yelled a second time. “The Captain and any senior officers not already here, be here, now.” Four males and two females appeared. Junior double-checked. They were clean. “Stand and watch,” he said, and that group had no choice.

Junior extracted the embryos from the three females by making them disappear and reappear in the woman’s hands. He explained, though for the most part the embryos were too small to be seen.”You are now holding your children in your hand, children that will never be born. If you have trouble washing your hand clean after today, too bad.”

Then he went one by one through the others. He found in their minds the one they had touched and he brought that woman or girl to the room in a state of suspension. He extracted each embryo the same way and placed it in the offending hand. Then he sent the woman back to the place she came from with her never knowing that anything untoward happened.

Last of all was the man from Abydos who implanted his seed in Boston. Boston froze and was released again when the deed was done. She later said she did not feel a thing. The man had his hand out like the others. He wanted to protest but was not allowed to speak.

Junior reached out to his home on Avalon and called for his armor and weapons. They fit themselves around him perfectly, and he immediately drew his sword.   “You were told the rules and have no excuse,” he said and in one sweep of his sword he cut the man’s head off. There would be a blue blood stain on the floor that would not easily come out. Then he turned to the Captain and his officers.

“Go home,” he said. “Go home and tell all of your people this world is off limits. There will be no breeding here, not now, not ever. I was merciful this time. Next time you can expect no mercy.” He waved his hand once more and he and Boston were back outside, well away from the ship. Ptah, Bast and Sakhmet followed.

Bast, in human form, came up to Amun with a tear in her eye. She kissed his cheek gently and went home. Boston sat down beside the lioness and did not think twice about putting her arms around Sakhmet’s neck. Sakhmet gave Boston a great big lick, a lion kiss that made Boston go “Ew!” and laugh.

Ptah, as was his way, said something. “That was merciful indeed. Not many of the gods would have shown such restraint, considering.”

“I thought getting the message out was more important in the long run than giving vent to my anger. One killing was enough.”

“And one tongue from a liar.” Junior nodded while Ptah stepped over to his lioness daughter who seemed to be licking a poor giggling Boston to death. “Daughter, you will drown that poor girl. Get dressed. I believe Weret will need her Sakhmetet soon.” Ptah sighed and vanished.

Junior made a tent appear in the wilderness next to the Place of the Lion. “We stay until the ship leaves.” He looked up at the stone lion for the first time since his arrival at the place of the lion, and he saw the human face there. “I see they finally re-carved the face into the image of Osiris. And just in time for Horus to become King of the gods.”

“No.” Sakhmet said as she made circles with her thumb and fingers and put them to her eyes. “Horus wears glasses,” she said. She went into the tent. Boston followed. Junior sighed and left that place so Weret could come home Junior took the armor so Weret could have her dress back. When she went into the tent, she ignored the roast cooking on the smokeless fire in the center. She waddled to a cot and laid down. In fact, she continued to lie there the whole time they camped.

The Bluebloods did not actually leave the planet until just after lunch on the next day. Weret reluctantly got up and Sakhmet had the honor of reducing their tent to a hand-sized package. Then she took the three of them to where the rest of the travelers were moving lazily down the river. There were a number of riverboats alongside and several thousand soldiers moving across the land and trying not to tromp down any newly planted fields they came to.

“Boston!” Alexis noticed first.

“Boston!” Lockhart tried to sound like the Kairos.

Boston went straight for her horse, Honey, who was trailing behind Roland’s horse. Roland complained. “Your horse got the first kiss.”

Boston leapt up on Honey’s back and leaned over to Roland. “You get the rest,” then she paused and said, “Did I tell you I got pregnant?”

Weret went straight to Lockhart, made him and Katie dismount and follow her to a quiet spot. “You have to be more careful,” she scolded. “You were right not to show them weapons and to discourage the horse idea. But you gave them clean water for the journey. Now Narmer will show up with six or seven thousand men ready for battle instead of the usual four thousand men and three thousand doubled over with diarrhea. In this case, history tells us that Narmer succeeds, but you could change the outcome of an entire war with such a simple thing.” She wagged her finger at them and made a concerned face which was just as cute as the rest of her faces.

“I understand,” Lockhart said.

“We discussed that very thing earlier,” Katie confessed and lowered her eyes.

“No harm,” Weret said and she smiled her beautiful smile, and then she moaned and doubled over.

“Drinking the water?” Lockhart kidded.

“Not funny,” Katie pushed him back as Alexis came rushing over.

“My water broke,” Weret said.

“Her water broke,” Alexis shouted for the others.

“Don’t tell Narmer.” She grabbed Lockhart’s arm. “Don’t tell Narmer,” she shouted.

Sakhmet came rushing over. “Is it time?” She turned to the others. “We are going to have a baby boy.”

“What are you going to name him?” Boston shouted.

“Menes,” Sakhmet answered.

“Let me get this straight.” Sakhmet was being coy. “You want me to transport you and me and Boston and this shuttle with the five Bluebloods and all of this material to the Place of the Lion in a heartbeat?”

“Please.” Weret was tired and feeling exceptionally heavy. She was beginning to think what Alexis said might be true, that she was off in her calculations and the baby might come any day.

“Okay,” Sakhmet said, and they were there. “I wouldn’t want you to go into labor on my account.”

Weret simply stepped up and gave her older-younger sister a kiss and a hug. Boston, who was no stranger to being transported by the gods, allowed a bit of time for the Bluebloods to get over their dizziness, confusion and total sense of disorientation before she spoke.

“Now, you need to call your Captain and your workers to pick up this material. Then you need to dock your shuttle and prepare it to be dismantled if necessary, as agreed.” She wanted to go outside and scope the landscape, but she knew she needed to eavesdrop on exactly what these Bluebloods told their Captain. She did not trust the man or the woman, the ones who did the talking the night before. She couldn’t say about the other three. They never said anything.

“Orders failed. Commander dead.” It was the woman who talked on the communication device. “Results. Three prisoners who claim they can fix the navigation system. One prisoner is the concubine of the White King and carries his heir. Recommendation. See what they can do with the equipment before selling them to the Red King. Work scow needed to pick up—”

“Ouch!” Boston felt a drop of blood and put her finger in her mouth. Somehow, the Blueblood male got behind her and scratched her. Boston already had reason not to like the guy. As Weret would say, he was not helping his case, and of course he said nothing to apologize, no excuse me or nothing.

Boston turned back to the woman on the communicator, but she had already signed off and was coming to the shuttle door. “Captain said ride in on the shuttle. It will get us through the ship’s screens and we can better guide you to the array from the inside.”

“I smell rats,” Weret said. “You going to visit Wadjt while Boston and I spend the day doing boring things?”

Sakhmet shook her head. “I owe father a visit. I think he is about ready to surrender Memphis, but the King in Buto is fighting.”

“Don’t be out of ear shot,” Weret said, and then she chided herself in her cheekiness for telling a goddess what to do.

As Boston helped Weret up into the shuttle, she whispered in High Elf, what she knew of the language. Roland was teaching her. It came out, “they make us captive,” rather than “they are calling us prisoners” but Weret got the gist of it.

They sat in the back of the shuttle so when they landed, Weret made the Bluebloods wait while she traded paces through time with Martok, the Bospori, the mathematical engineer, a life she would live impossibly far in the future. Martok simply said, “now we go,” and he let the Bluebloods off before he and Boston followed.

By two in the afternoon, they had everything repaired but one circuit, and neither could see any reason why that circuit should not work. Boston was very upset and frustrated with the whole convoluted thing by then, and the fact that they were not offered lunch irked her terribly.

“Wait!” Martok roared. “Let me get out first. Let me get out.” He had his head and tools inside the cabinet and Boston was getting out her wand. Boston waited, but barely. She waved her wand and shouted at the machine, and suddenly it sprang to life.

“It is a wonder you didn’t blow the whole thing to smithereens,” Martok said.

“I know,” Boston admitted, but she was glad that it worked.

“We’re done!” Martok shouted and Boston held her ears. A Bospori shout could be uncomfortably loud. Several Bluebloods came over to begin testing the equipment. Both the man and the woman who did the talking in Abydos came to escort them out.

“Bad feeling about this,” Boston said. Martok simply took and patted her hand like a kindly old grandfather, though currently he was no older than thirty.

When they reached the ramp to exit the ship, they saw three groups of men, each having twenty or more warriors, and three captains standing at the bottom of the ramp, arguing.

“Time for Weret to come home,” Martok said, and he gave Boston’s hand one more pat before Weret was there to let go of Boston’s hand and take her arm instead for support. “Let’s see what we have here.”

Weret and Boston barely reached the bottom of the ramp before Ptah appeared. While a third of the men fell to their knees before their god, he stepped up and gave Weret a kiss on the cheek. “Sakhmet has told me all about you,” he said. “And you must be the irrepressible Boston. I recognized the red hair.”

“Sir.” Boston did not know what else to say.

“So I take it these are locals, from Memphis,” Weret pointed to the men on their knees with their eyes turned to the ground.

“Indeed,” Ptah said with a sharp look at the Blueblood male and female. “And they have no intention of turning you over to the Red King.”

As he finished speaking, a woman appeared and a second third of the soldiers fell to the ground.

‘Mother Bast,” Weret hugged the woman. “So these are yours, from Bubastis.”

The woman simply kissed Weret’s other cheek and transformed into a house cat. She went straight for Boston and wanted to be picked up. Boston loved cats. She was delighted and a bit scared as well. This was one cat she did not want to rub the wrong way.

The captain of the center group called out, and there was plenty of fear in his voice. “Set! Set!” He did not know that Horus was given the whole of the Nile back in Junior’s day and Set was driven out. Set could not come, so the man tried another name. “Wadjt.”

Wadjt came, and Sakhmet was with her. Sakhmet immediately transformed to a lioness and roared at the frightened men in the middle. They had gone to their knees before Wadjt, but fell to their trembling faces before Sakhmet.

“We were playing a game, and I was winning,” Wadjt complained. “Hello Weret, Blueblood trouble? Why look, your friend is pregnant too.” She reached for Boston as Bast got down from her arms. “Just pregnant I would say.”

“No,” Boston looked confused. “I’m still a virgin.”