Boston drew in her breath with excitement. Belden and Ms. Franklin did not know what this strange man might be talking about.

“Who?” Lockhart sounded curious.

“Lady Alice,” Glen said.

“Me?” Alice looked surprised, but Lockhart and Glen waved her off.

“I thought she was tied to Avalon,” Lockhart said.

“Not tied to Avalon exactly, but she is more contemporary than the Captain, in a way, and she is tied into the organic net. The change is not required, but in my brain, there would be some lag time in speaking, since the language would have to be filtered through my memory. She has direct access.” Lockhart shrugged. He did not quite follow that, but he smiled when Glen went away and Lady Alice stood in his place. Boston clapped. Ms. Franklin shrieked, but softly. Belden had his mouth open, and Alice shook her head.

“What?” Lady Alice asked her namesake in a voice as sweet as her looks, and Alice the lawyer thought this woman looked almost worse than the Princess. This one easily stood about five-ten with blond hair and medium, sort of light brown eyes that were piercing—not a description normally associated with brown eyes. What is more, that evening gown kind of a dress she wore showed off her slim body perfectly. Any supermodel would die to look like that, and it seemed that the dress itself enhanced this beauty’s movements in a way that appeared more than supermodel graceful. She might call it, sort of ballerina graceful, or even more graceful than that; and the woman looked very pale, like she never spent time in the sun. Lady Alice just finished kissing Lockhart gently on the forehead when Alice the lawyer wrote “Avalon” on her pad and spoke.

“So, you are, what? The Fairy Queen?” That summed things up nicely.

“No.” Alice of Avalon laughed a laugh as sweet as the rest of her and the other Alice thought this one is very different. She could see the Princess could be a great tease and that she had a bit of a bawdy side, but this one probably did not know what bawdy was. This one came across as totally innocent, like a perpetual virgin. What is more, the Princess had more, well, everything—the kind of sexy, attractive beauty that men might fight and even die for. This one seemed more the kind that could only be dreamed about and admired from afar.

“No?” Alice the lawyer found her handwriting fairy queen on her notepad and then felt amazed at what she heard.

“But I have perhaps been spending too much time with her of late. She is so enchanting and rather hard to resist.”

“Alice of Avalon lives in the real Wonderland.” Lockhart smiled and pointed at the Lady.

“Not exactly,” Lady Alice countered and she shook her finger at the man, like a schoolgirl might scold a little boy. “But near enough.” She dropped her hand, smiled that enchanting smile, and gave Lockhart another kiss on the head.

“Um.” Boston hardly knew what to say.

“Lovely to meet you, Boston, dear,” Alice said. “And Belden the brave, and Ms. Franklin too.”

The lawyer wrote on her pad, “and Toto too?” but Lady Alice had not finished.

“Now, I am sorry, but I am going to need some help with this work.” She held out her hand and a metallic circle appeared in her palm. Ms. Franklin held back the shriek this time, but Alice, the lawyer shrieked softly. She held the volume at bay by writing “magic” on her pad, though of course she had already seen the clothing and armor come and go.

Lady Alice stepped up to the window and picked up the microphone with one hand while she placed the circle against her throat with the other hand. She paused and coughed a sweet little cough to clear her throat, a sound so sweet, Alice the lawyer almost felt sickened from the sugar overdose. Then Lady Alice spoke in a deep male voice that sounded like gears grinding in a factory with some crashing of waves against rocks and jackhammers making those rocks into gravel. It sounded loud enough to make everyone cover their ears.

The Vordan immediately stood and answered in kind and he seemed willing to carry on a dialogue for a while, but soon enough, he shut his mouth and though Alice tried several more times, the Vordan clearly decided to say no more. Alice set down the microphone, backed up and sighed, and it came as such a pleasant sound after that cacophony of conversation, everyone sighed with her. Then she vanished. She took that little metal circle with her, and Glen returned.

“Not much information.” Glen said immediately, as if he conducted the interview himself, which Alice the lawyer was beginning to understand that in a sense he had. “This one is merely a soldier and I don’t think he knows anything, except this is not the place they had planned to come and he was not sure if his superiors know how to get home.”

“Great!” Lockhart threw his hands up, which said he thought it anything but great. “We may be stuck with them, and that could make them very dangerous. Don’t underestimate what desperation can do.”

“I need to check in and see what the lab has discovered about the equipment we captured.” Boston changed the subject. “We had better move fast on devising some countermeasures because it looks like we may have to defend ourselves again.” She smiled and kissed Lockhart on the head much as Lady Alice had done, and she patted him on the shoulder while she gave one, longing look at Glen like she did not want to miss anything, but she left.

“I need to arrange a trip to the White House in the morning, I guess.” Glen turned to Lockhart. “Would you mind helping with that, or do you have other duties?”

“Right now, you are my duty,” Lockhart responded. “And kid, when are you going to start telling rather than asking?”

“In my next life. No? Maybe the one after that.”

Alice looked up from her notes and picked them up along with her laptop. “I do need to start working on that treaty, though I don’t see how it will help.” The three of them left together as Belden turned to Ms. Franklin.

“I need a drink.”

~~~*~~~

Well into the night, things finally calmed down to the point where people thought of going home. Despite her prediction, Bobbi managed to wrap things up well enough by midnight so she could take a break for some sleep. The time got far too late to get rooms in town, so she brought Glen and Alice to the infirmary where there were beds, now that those in need had all made the trip to the hospital. They set up a partition to separate the boys from the girls. Glen, Lockhart, and Fyodor, who had a home but lived alone and so opted to stay with them, got one side. Alice, Boston and Bobbi took the other, and it looked like it might be a quiet night, until the women decided they wanted to talk. The men tried to ignore them, but the women did not talk long before Alice invaded the men’s side. She said she had too many questions to sleep, and Boston came because she did not want to miss any of the answers. Bobbi relented last of all and arrived to ask who brought the marshmallows.

“That is an interesting piece of clothing you have on.” Boston noticed. Glen wore what on a glance might have passed for a plain, white undershirt and boxers, but on closer examination, it had a sheen to it that no ordinary cloth would have. When the people brought clothes for them all to sleep in, and fresh clothes for the morning, Glen said, “Thank you, but I’ll just wear what I have.”

“Fairy weave.” Glen named the material. “It is what I wear under my armor and it is extremely light and comfortable, extremely tough and durable, and extremely versatile. I can change the color.” As he spoke, the fabric changed from white to blue to red and back to white again. “I can change the shape and make it appear thicker, more like real clothing.” The arms of his shirt lengthened to full length and his shirt took on a brown and fuzzy appearance, almost like a winter coat before it changed back to a white t-shirt. “It keeps me warm in winter, and acts like air conditioning in the summer, which is great when I’m in chain armor and leather and it is ninety or better outside, and humid.” Glen became introspective, but Alice was not about to leave him alone after that demonstration.

“Fairy weave,” she said. She had her steno pad with her. “You don’t mean real fairies, of course. After all that has happened today, that would just push credibility beyond the beyond. I’m assuming you mean some different sort of aliens, and that clothing is the result of some fantastic technology, no?” She looked around but no one said anything until Boston could not contain herself.

“I always dreamed of fairies when I was young. I wish I could see one someday.”

“Young?” Lockhart looked up from where he lounged in his bed. “You mean like last night?” At least Bobbi smiled. Boston appeared the youngster in the group. Glen imagined she could not have been over twenty-five.

“You know what I mean,” Boston whispered and stared at Lockhart, but that exchange got overshadowed by Alice’s outburst.

“You can’t be serious!”

“Can you think of anything that would mess up history quicker than a bunch of spiritual creatures running around loose in the world?” Bobbi offered the thought.

Glen protested quietly. “Hey! That’s my line.”

Bobbi turned to look at Glen. “As I understand it, he was given responsibility for what he calls his little ones when he was first born and he has had to bear that burden ever since.”

“I think after some six thousand years they have finally gotten the message, though,” Glen added. “They have no business interfering or even making remote connections with the human world. I had a few on my crew when I was a Privateer in the West Indies some years back, but really, in the past few hundred years it has only been incidental contacts.”

“Incidental?” Fyodor spoke for the first time.

“Apart from Lincoln’s wife,” Lockhart said, and to Alice he explained in a secretive whisper. “She’s an elf.”

“Was,” Bobbi corrected the man. “But she has been gone for a whole year now. I meant to ask, but with all that has been going on, it slipped my mind.”

Glen looked up at the ceiling, like he did on the plane at one point. It seemed as if he looked for something that only he could see. “The transformation on Alexis was very thorough, unlike Mirowen, not Doctor Robert’s Mirowen—she’s an elf, too—but you did not know the other Mirowen. Sorry. I’m not getting anything about where Alexis might be.”

“Lincoln spent a lot of time looking for her,” Bobbi said. “Maybe that was why the Vordan picked him up so easily.”

“Topic, people,” Alice interrupted, loudly. “We are getting off topic. I want to hear about the fairies.”

“Why are you surprised?” Fyodor asked.

Alice shook her head. “I don’t know anymore,” she said, flatly.

“Maybe a story would help,” Glen suggested, and the others were agreeable. “I would think with this campout, though, wouldn’t you all rather hear a ghost story?”

“No!” Bobbi, Lockhart and Fyodor all shouted in unison. Boston and Alice just looked at each other with yet more questions.

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

MONDAY

Pumpkin Seeds, the seeds of love and revenge. Merry Christmas and Happy Reading

*

Alice felt rather useless. “I don’t understand,” she admitted. Glen smiled for her as he explained.

“They send a ship into the Carolinas. I assume you had no trouble tracking it.”

“Easy,” Bobbi said. “We know they have two dozen or so ships outside the atmosphere, but normally we can’t track them at all. They do not show up on any of our systems. We only know they are there because of the night shadow effect.”

“Night shadow?” Alice asked.

“Call it the eclipse effect. They show up by blocking the incoming light of the stars; like the old witch flying across the face of the full moon. Anyway, this time they want to be seen to get Bobbi and her crew to follow in force.”

“We figured it was a set-up, alerted Washington, and prepared to defend ourselves for all the good it did; but Boston figured out who they were after so we had to go.”

“You?” Alice looked at Glen. “But you don’t die.” She felt she understood that much whether she believed it or not.

“No, but as a baby I would not be much of a threat to them, especially for the first nine months.”

“I see. Of course.” Alice gulped. “You mean I could be your mother someday?”

Glen lowered his eyes as he looked at her. “Right now, I could be your father, and don’t worry, I have no intention of dying any time soon.”

“I see,” Alice repeated herself. “So, if this outfit, organization or whatever…” She waved her hands to indicate the building and everyone in it. “If they don’t follow the Vordan ship, you get killed, but if they do follow, they take away a big chunk of their defensive capabilities and their headquarters becomes vulnerable.”

“That sums it up,” Glen said, but before he could add a thought, there came a knock on the door. Lockhart came in. His wheelchair had plenty of self-propulsion options, but it looked like he preferred to have Boston push him around.

“Interrupting, I hope,” he said.

“Director. You have a whole line of people waiting outside.” Boston spoke overtop.

“Shut the door,” Bobbi insisted, and turned quickly to Glen. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I need to get Alice started on her job,” Glen said. He leaned forward, took a clean page from Bobbi’s legal pad, and used his pen to write the words, Kargill, Reichgo and Zalanid on the paper. He handed it to Alice. “There are other spellings, but what you want is to corral the legal freaks in this place and get them all working on digging up whatever they can find on the Reichgo-Kargill treaty, terms and conditions, clause after clause.”

“Treaties.” Alice said the word and shook her head softly.

“Think binding contract. We need something we can use legally against the Vordan.”

“Will I be arguing in some galactic court or something?” Alice sounded uncertain about that prospect.

Glen laughed. “No, but here is the quick scoop.” He sat back down in his chair and motioned the others in close, as if he was about to tell the secret of the universe. “The second Reichgo-Kargill war is about to break out and they will spend the next hundred years or so fighting each other to a standstill. So, for the second hundred years, they gather allies, well, the Reichgo mostly get help. The Kargill does not like anybody much. It just barely tolerates the Zalanid, and, well, anyway…anyway. The Vordan enter on the Reichgo side, and eventually are given faster than light technology, but that will not be for a hundred and fifty years or so. Even then, when the Reichgo and Kargill are wiped out, and I mean they exterminate each other, and the third hundred years finds everybody fighting everybody, we do not run into the Vordan until long after the peace. You see? That is what I don’t get. The Vordan are so far away, at sub-light speed, it would take a hundred years to get here, but a hundred years ago they did not have the technology. What are they doing here, now? How did they get here?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Alice said. “But the technology seems pretty advanced if you ask me.”

“Uh-huh.” Boston agreed and nodded her head. This time Lockhart and Bobbi both looked at Glen.

“Believe it or not, on their home world they are not that far ahead of us, technologically speaking. They are war-like, and have ambitions since some fifty, or maybe a hundred years ago, their probes confirmed that there are not only planets around some of their neighboring stars, but a semblance of intelligent life in two places. They poured their resources into developing the means to reach and subjugate those poor alien races, and maybe that war-like drive is the reason the Reichgo took them as allies. I know that was the case with the Orlan and the Bospori; but at this point, they have simply driven themselves into space and into war. They are not concerned about saving their planet, or greening it, or making nice with everybody. Do you know what they do with a rogue state? Boom-de boom, boom. Hang the fallout. Problem solved.”

“Bospori? You mean Martok?” Alice asked. Glen nodded while there came another knock on the door. A head poked in.

“One more minute,” Bobbi shouted and the door shut quickly. “So, Traveler. What will you be doing? Don’t think I forgot the question. I’m not that old, yet.”

Glen shifted in his seat. “Yes, well. I want to get Alice started and then I thought I might go interrogate your prisoner.”

Alice shook her head in a definite no. “I mean, I don’t mind the legal work, whatever, but I’m not leaving your side. Don’t think I am going to miss talking to an alien.” Glen looked hesitant so she added, “Every accused person needs a lawyer.”

“We will read him his rights.” Lockhart laughed, and with a look at Boston, they turned back to the door. Alice rose. Glen asked a question of his own.

“And what will you be doing?”

“Me?” Bobbi thought that was obvious. “I’ll be glued to this chair for at least the next twenty-four hours. I sometimes wonder if you did me a favor.” Glen suggested she accompany them, but only with his hands. She shook him off. She knew her duty. “Go on,” she said. “Let me know what you find out.” And they left.

Legal was on the third floor, and pretty badly damaged by the look of it. Most of the files against the outer walls were unscathed, and the important stuff got backed up in the mainframe in the third basement—the bomb shelter. Alice met some of the others but hardly took the time to get to know them before she swooped up a laptop, a steno pad and a pen, and followed Glen and Lockhart. Boston showed her how to tap into the internal network so she could work while she watched, but she was not going to miss this. The pen and paper were for writing down questions she planned to ask when she had the chance, and she already had a couple of doozies.

The prisoner sat in an isolation tank. The tank had a bed, a table with three chairs around it and a fourth chair pushed against the wall. It also had a toilet and sink behind a short partition, but that was it for decorations. One wall had a mirror behind an unbreakable plastic partition, which, of course, became see-through on their side of the glass. Currently, the Vordan sat at the table with his back to the mirror, and Alice expressed surprise saying that she did not realize they could sit since they appeared to her to walk rather stiffly.

“Probably not as stiff as it would walk now,” Glen said. He noted that the Vordan had been bandaged in several places. The doctors went in there to take tissue and blood samples, but otherwise he guessed no one else had ventured into the room. He was wrong.

“Mister Lockhart?” The man, Belden, asked without asking before he answered Glen’s question. Lockhart merely nodded and Belden opened-up. The woman in that room, Ms. Franklin, stayed busy typing, taping everything the Vordan did, and recording every noise it made, but she watched the exchange between Belden and Glen as well, having some questions of her own.

“Actually, two security officers and professor Singh went in to see if they could communicate with the creature.”

“Person,” Glen corrected. “Just because he isn’t human, that does not make him less of a person. And I bet he rushed the guards.”

“It—he tried to,” Belden said. He looked again at Lockhart as if to say he now had a different set of questions in mind.

“Yes, well don’t do that again without permission. Being taken prisoner is a great shame. He will try to get you to kill him as penance for his sin, and then you will have nothing. Just think of the Japanese in World War II. One opportunity and it is hari-kari.” Glen stepped up to the glass but got interrupted when the phone rang. Belden answered it. He listened for a minute and mumbled before he held out the phone to Lockhart.

“Land line’s back working I see,” Lockhart said, without showing any interest in touching the phone.

“It’s for the Traveler?” Belden did not know what to do except cover the phone. Boston pointed at Glen.

“Who is it?” Glen asked.

“It’s the director, sir.” Belden held out the phone.

Alice mumbled as she wrote a note on her notepad.

“Tell her I’m busy,” Glen turned back to observing the Vordan. Unfortunately, the Vordan did not seem to want to do anything other than sit there. When Glen turned around a second time, he saw everyone staring at him with open mouths, except Lockhart, who covered his laugh.

“Oh, okay.” Glen took the phone. “Bobbi? Yes, I am busy. I was thinking of water boarding. Huh? No, just kidding… What? I don’t know anything yet, you interrupted the process… Calm down, you will know as soon as anyone… Huh? So, sit on them. Tell him to tell them… Tell them that for the first time in history we are all in this together, and now is the time, like no other, to support and help each other, not accuse each other. We need to let the experts do their job if we expect this threat to be neutralized… I don’t care if they don’t believe him… Tell him to tell them anything you like. Look, by the way, tell him I will be up there sometime tomorrow. There is something I need to get out of his office… A secret compartment… No, I am not going to tell you, oh, wait, that would be Lincoln’s office… Yes, Abraham Lincoln. I had to hide it in a hurry… No, I’m not kidding. I suppose that would be the Lincoln bedroom now. Just tell him to try not to push any buttons between now and then… Yes, that time I was kidding.” He handed the phone back to Belden with one more word. “Sheesh!”

“So?” Alice had to know even if no one else did.

“So, the President called. A couple of governments are making noises like the strike on their territories was an American plot.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Ms. Franklin expressed what everyone felt. Glen looked back at the Vordan again with a final comment.

“There is a lot to be said for Boom-de boom, boom.”

“So, what now?” Alice asked.

“So, now I have to be someone else.”

Bobbi looked at Lockhart. He pulled a bit closer before he locked the wheels on his wheelchair and began. “Glen is a person, a human being just like us, only he lived a number of lives in the past, and some in the future, and he can remember them, or some of them anyway, more absolutely than anyone else I ever heard of. If you already met Diogenes, you know what I mean. He calls it trading places through time.”

“But I saw him actually become another person.” Alice protested. “He just vanished and this other person stood right where he stood, or squatted, actually. Do you know what I mean? How can he do that?”

“It was not another person, exactly.” Lockhart began again, but Bobbi interrupted.

“Still him, just another one of his lifetimes. Diogenes was a first cousin of Alexander the Great way back when.” Bobbi noticed the slight reddening of Alice’s face. “He claims he was married to Aphrodite, the love goddess, toward the end of his life. I cannot verify that, but I think some of her may have rubbed off on him. What do you think?” Bobbi teased. It required no great insight to tell what Alice thought.

Alice could not seem to prevent the smile that came to her face. “Wait! You don’t mean a real goddess.”

“Later.” This time Lockhart interrupted. “For now, you will just have to accept that he has access to other lives like no one else does. He says since the genetic pattern is nearly exact, and since time has some small flexibility, or relativity if you prefer, he doesn’t disturb the timeline when he borrows a past or future life.”

“Wait.” Alice had another question, or several. “What do you mean disturb the timeline? Isn’t this like reincarnation or something?”

“Absolutely not.” Lockhart answered her. “He says his lives are because some mysterious friends, as he calls them, keep forcing him to be reborn every time he tries to die.”

“Sometimes he talks about himself as an experiment in time and genetics, like he is no more than a hamster on a treadmill with no way to get off.” Bobbi added with a touch of sadness in her voice. They all paused for a minute to look at Glen.

One of the men from the table took that moment to bring over a tray of coffee, tea, and snacks. They were at cruising altitude, not that any of them ever buckled a seatbelt.

“Wait.” Alice regained the floor even as she accepted a cup of tea. “You said future lives.”

Bobbi and Lockhart looked at each other again before Bobbi took up the explanation. “Yes. You must be a lawyer. And yes, he remembers the future, too.” She said that much, and then she paused to sip her coffee while she considered something. The others waited patiently, including the three at the table who were neglecting their work to listen in. “Let me just say this, his memory, I mean Glen.” She pointed. “It got toyed with at some point in his early years. Most of the time, he has no idea that he is the Traveler and he just lives a normal, everyday life.”

“Like a grocery clerk?”

“He is a minister if you must know. Mostly, though, he is the Storyteller. That is what his other lives call him, but he claims it is not an honorific, just a job description.”

“Anyway, he mostly lives as normal a life as such a person can live.” Lockhart interjected. “He says that even with his memory blocked, the past and future have a tendency to leak into his mind at the most inopportune times, but without the context to understand what is happening, he says it is very strange and makes him feel like he is living as a stranger in a strange land.”

Bobbi put her hand up to stop Lockhart from speaking further. She continued with the explanation. “Anyway, at times of crisis, the block on his memory is designed to come down and he remembers at least some of his past lives and usually one or more future lives as well. It is like actual memory, too; triggered by events and little things just like real memory. It is a lot to process, though, all at once like that.” Bobbi paused again to sip and reach for a cookie, bad as it was for her waist, but in this way, she gave Alice time to process her own thoughts.

“I’ve seen him like this before, some years ago.” Lockhart said to reassure Alice that Glen would be fine after a while. “He just needs time to straighten it all out.” Lockhart tapped his own head and stayed away from the cookies.

“So, he remembers the future?” Alice shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It is the only way to understand it.” Bobbi responded. “And another strong reason why his case is not like some kind of reincarnation.”

“I can see that.” Alice understood that much. “But now, Traveler?”

“Kairos, technically. Event time. An ancient Greek word.” Lockhart did the translation. “We might call him the god of history, though he prefers the term Watcher over history. The Traveler is just shorthand for the Traveler in time.”

“Time traveler? Oh, of course, Diogenes.”

Lockhart and Bobbi both nodded and a moment of silence followed before Alice spoke again.

“So now, who is this Princess?”

Lockhart and Bobbi passed another glance, but they were smiling. “She is a lawyer.” Bobbi said again. “She doesn’t miss much.”

Lockhart nodded and pointed at Glen. “He is the Princess.” Before Alice could respond, Glen lifted his head. He spoke, though it did not seem like he was speaking to any of them.

“What? Sure, that might help,” he said. He stood and vanished from the airplane and got replaced by an absolutely stunning young woman who looked twenty-something, around five-seven, with long golden brown hair that appeared so light it looked nearly blond, and eyes as blue as Glen’s; but her eyes flashed with life, youth, and health. Indeed, Alice could not see an ounce of fat on that perfect body. The Princess stood with a smile for Lockhart, and she turned once all the way around, slowly. She arrived in a dress that fell halfway to her knees but hid none of her figure. Alice wondered where the armor and weapons went, but she held her tongue as the Princess spoke.

“How do I look?”

“Beautiful, as always.” Bobbi spoke first.

“Gorgeous.” Lockhart confirmed as he matched the Princess’ smile, and then some.

Alice thought the word gorgeous was an understatement, but her mouth said something else as she watched the woman sit in Glen’s chair. The Princess kept her knees locked together as only a real woman would do. “So, you are the Princess? Wait a minute.” Alice’s thoughts caught up with what her eyes took in. “Do you mean he has lived as a woman?”

The Princess nodded. “Half of my lifetimes,” she confirmed before she turned to Bobbi. “There was so much memory coming all at once I was afraid my Storyteller might burn his little brain out. What? Oh, he says his brain is not so little.” The Princess laughed softly, and the laugh sounded as beautiful as the rest of her.

“But isn’t he still remembering?” Bobbi asked.

“Yes, but this way I get some of the pressure and he doesn’t have the distractions so he can focus better on integrating it all. At least I think that is what is happening.” She shrugged.

“All right.” Alice spoke and threw up her hands for emphasis. “I’m getting it, but not really. I think you better start at the beginning.” She looked straight at the Princess. “And I mean you, whoever or whatever you are.”

“Me? I was born in 228 BC.” The Princess said. She sounded a bit confused, like maybe she had trouble translating into English from her native Greek.

“Do you mean the Traveler?” Lockhart asked. “That would be around 4500 BC, near as we know.”

“I think she means just Glen’s life.” Bobbi tried, and Alice nodded and pointed at Bobbi.

“Like when did he first realize he lived all of these other lifetimes, and when did he first, what did you call it, trade places in time?”

“Oh yes.” The Princess liked the idea. “Talking it out might be the best thing to do.”

“Well…” Bobbi drew out the word as they watched the Princess vanish and Glen return. He came dressed in the jeans and shirt he wore in the market and, Alice noticed, he did not keep his knees together at all.

“That would be before my time,” Bobbi said. “Lockhart, you met him at that college in Michigan. What was he, seventeen? Eighteen?”

“Actually.” Glen got their attention. “I remember a time when I was four, or actually not quite four. Things do not usually happen that early in my lifetimes. Normally, I get the chance to develop my own personality and learn some things before time starts to open-up; generally, sometime during puberty; but this was a special case if I remember it rightly. Let me see…”

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

Monday

Glen remembers a time when he went to the Happy Hill Nursery School. Something is happening over the fence at Bell Labs. People are getting sick and Glen feels the need to do something about it, but what can a four-year-old do? Next time. Happy Reading

*

Glen looked down from his perch. He stood on an upside-down milk crate to adjust the butter, which would not fit correctly on the top shelf. The girl was blonde, very pretty, and about half of Glen’s age, which would put her under thirty, but not by much. Glen ran his fingers through his gray and mostly missing hair and felt very old.

“Excuse me.” The woman repeated herself and attempted a smile, though it seemed a very poor attempt. “I would like one of those,” she pointed. Glen tried not to sigh as he stepped off the crate so she could reach around him. She still tried to smile when Glen grabbed her. The butter landed on the old tile floor, the woman landed on the butter, and Glen landed on top of the woman.

She screamed. “What is wrong with you? I am a lawyer—” she growled but did not finish the sentence as the margarine above their heads exploded in a flash of blue-green light.

Glen grabbed the woman by the hand and dragged her around the corner, into the bread aisle. She still screamed but sat and watched as the old man in her face vanished and a well-built young man with a terrific smile appeared in front of her. He came dressed in chain armor that looked ancient, like something medieval, if not Roman, and he had the sword to go with it, slanted across his back, with the handle up above his left shoulder.

“N-no. Ex…” The young man tried to say, “Excuse me” in echo of her words, but his stutter got in the way, and he had other concerns. Keeping low was a big one. The young man peeked around the corner of the aisle and whipped out the long knife that rested across the small of his back. He sent it flying with his left hand. It entered—whatever it was—and the thing shrieked a thoroughly alien sound and collapsed.

“You missed.” The woman leaned over his shoulder, more curiosity than fear in her face. “My fiancé is a doctor. Heart is on the left.”

The man in armor shook his head as he stood. The—whatever it was—sprawled on the ground, its weapon having clattered across the dirty tiles. The young man pointed at the thing and then at the right side of his chest and smiled a smile that pierced the poor woman’s heart. Her heart on the left skipped a beat; but then the young man vanished and the old man came back. Curiously, he kept the armor, and in fact, the armor adjusted in size to fit the shorter man, belly and all. He took her hand to bring them close. The woman gave her hand without hesitation.

“Vordan have their heart on the right side,” Glen said. “But what on earth is it doing here… on Earth?” Glen cleaned and returned the knife to its place and picked up the alien weapon. He held it in a way that suggested he knew how to use it.

“Vordan?” The woman looked at the green colored creature on the floor. It looked like it might double for a swamp monster. “Vordan.” She repeated the name and looked at the old man. “I would guess it is not from around here.” She smiled a genuine smile for the first time.

“Come on.” Glen pulled on her hand to move them to the front of the store, but the woman balked and yanked her hand free. One side of her lip turned up as she spoke: not a flattering expression.

“Who the hell are you? You’re just a grocery clerk.”

“Actually, I work for a national merchandising company,” Glen said. He started to walk.

“But wait! What is with that chain mail get-up? Who was that other man?”

“Later.” Glen turned to walk backwards. “Are you coming or not?”

The woman did not hesitate for long. She had on a soft summer dress, and though Glen imagined jeans would have been a better choice, she had on running shoes instead of flip-flops so it took nothing for her to catch up. “Where are we going?” she asked above the screams that echoed around the supermarket.

 “To find the rest of them.” Glen thrust his arm out to hold her back while he let loose with a shot from that alien weapon. One was coming in the door, but it got distracted for a moment when the door automatically opened. The Vordan collapsed in the doorway and Glen rushed outside, right over the body. He kept low the whole way to stay below the front windows. He scooted up against one of the big columns in the shopping center and the woman stayed right on his heels. He pointed.

An alien ship about the size of a tractor-trailer sat in the parking lot, and three more Vordan hovered around the perimeter. One spotted him and fired. Glen turned and held up his cape between the woman and the blue-green energy beam—a cape that he had not been wearing a moment earlier. The shot hit the column, and while the façade melted, the steel beam at the center remained solid enough.

As soon as the enemy fire paused, Glen spun and returned fire. He did not appear to do any better than the Vordan. He missed all three and hit the alien ship instead. “Bad aim,” she said. Glen paused and looked at his gun as if something might be wrong with it.

“Communications array,” Glen responded, absentmindedly. “I don’t want them calling in reinforcements.”

“Too late.” The woman tapped Glen’s shoulder and pointed to the sky. An odd airplane-like vehicle looked to be closing in, fast.

“Cavalry,” Glen said, as he clicked something on the Vordan weapon and turned to fire again. The Vordan that had been creeping up close turned on sight of the oncoming ship. They ran back to their ship. Glen shot the mechanism that would delay their ability to open the door, and in a few seconds, the saucer vehicle came overhead. It emitted a greenish light that encompassed the Vordan ship and everyone around it for twenty yards. Both humans and Vordan in that section of the parking lot collapsed, and Glen grabbed the woman’s hand once more. “Come on,” he said, and this time she came without question.

After a few moments, the plane landed, but it had to crush one car to do it. The only thing the woman could do was gasp. The plane looked much bigger than it appeared in the sky. A door opened in the side and a ramp shot to the ground. A dozen armed people poured out and most headed for the Vordan and their ship. Three headed toward Glen and his woman follower.

“At least these look human,” the woman quipped, but Glen let go of her hand without responding. He reached out and hugged a big, African-American woman and she hugged him right back.

Glen smiled at the greeting but turned his head. “There’s another one by the butter,” he shouted toward the man who was examining the Vordan in the automatic door. The door kept trying to close but opened every time it bumped the body. Glen kissed the black woman on the cheek before he let go and turned to the blond. “You’re a lawyer?”

The woman nodded to the word but her eyes darted around. She gave the impression that all of this suddenly caught up to her and she might be feeling a bit overwhelmed. “Corporate contracts and such.” She managed to say that much.

“Good. My name’s Glen.”

The African-American woman pulled out a thin billfold. “Roberta Brooks, FBI.” She showed her I. D. but the woman lawyer shook her head.

“The FBI doesn’t have flying saucers.”

“Sanchez is with the State Department.” Ms. Brooks pointed at the man who still worked in the doorway. “Carlson here is with the ATF.”

Glen handed Carlson his car keys. “Glad you didn’t crush my car. It’s that silver Ford. Tell my wife I’ll be late for supper, will you?” Carlson looked briefly at the black woman. She nodded her head and Carlson smiled.

“I’m only sorry I’ll miss it,” Carlson said, as he headed toward Glen’s car.

Glen returned the smile as he once again took the pretty blond by the hand. He began to pull her forward as he and Ms. Brooks started toward the ramp and the saucer. “So, Bobbi, what are the Vordan doing here?” Glen asked.

“Vordan?” Ms. Brooks said the word as if tasting it for the first time. “We did not even know who they were. You tell me.”

“Mister Smith not around?”

“No, and that concerns us as well. There are three battleships on the dark side of the moon, and we only found out that much by accident. Normally, Mister Smith shows up with that kind of information, but no one has seen him.”

“Can’t be time for…” Glen stopped walking. Clearly, he did not finish his sentence. “Still, this is a Kargill planet by treaty. The Vordan have no business being here.”