Roswell Fanatics

The Night The Dreams Died



The Invasion Of Roswell, Part I
The Tide Turns

Chapter 30

XXX



Max rushed to position himself where he could catch Liz if she fell. But as the moments passed… she remained standing.

Liz looked at her feet then at Max… then at the sofa she had been sitting on. For a moment, it seemed as though she might sit back down, but instead she lifted one leg… slowly… and placed it in front of the other. Max reached out for her, but Liz shook her head.

“Don’t help me.”

Without realizing it, Max stopped breathing. Liz lifted her other leg… slowly… methodically… placing it in front of the first leg. Then she set her foot down on the floor. She had taken her first step.

Max suddenly realized that his lungs were aching for air and reflexively took a deep breath… If the truth were told, it was difficult to tell if Liz’s first step had been more stressful on Liz or on Max. Max was a conflicting mass of emotions, his face covered in a broad smile, yet scarcely daring to breathe.

“You walked! Liz! You really did it! You walked!”

Liz lifted her left foot and placed it in front of her right foot again, then placed her right foot in front of her left. It was easier this time. Her legs were beginning to tire, though. She took three more steps, falling into Max’s arms as she reached him.

“Are you okay,” Max asked breathlessly, holding her in his arms.

Liz smiled. “Yeah. I’m just tired, Max. My legs haven’t had to support any weight for a long time.”

“Are you sure that’s all? You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?”

Liz shook her head and kissed him. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. And I walked, Max! I did it once… I can do it again.”

“Her legs will have to adjust to bearing weight again,” Rahn said… “but it looks like that will not be a problem for Liz. She’s already done the hard part. She took the first step… the first several steps, in fact. She has walked.”

Max ran his hand over his eyes, still apparently trying to convince himself that what he had just seen had actually happened and that he had not merely dreamt that Liz had walked again, as he had so many times before.

“I don’t know how to thank you, Rahn. I could never begin to thank you for this.”

Rahn seemed embarrassed. “It was the right thing to do.”

“Is she healed now?”

Rahn shook his head. “Liz is still exactly as she was… What I did has not changed that. What will change is that she will be able to use shape-shifting to reconstruct her spine at will in order to walk again… or anything else she wants to do. She will just have to hold it that way with her mind.”

“You mean… she’ll have to keep thinking about it all the time?” Max was clearly concerned. “Won’t that be taxing… constantly having to hold a… a ‘repaired’ form?”

Rahn shook his head. “It’s not as hard as it might seem. Once the brain has been prepared, holding a shape is like breathing… well, maybe more like walking. You don’t consciously think about it all the time. You don’t say, ‘Okay, now I have to put the other foot forward’ or ‘Now I have to take a breath…’”

“Maybe YOU don’t,” Max said, telling himself to take another breath as he realized that he had started to hold it again from the excitement of seeing Liz walking.

Rahn ignored the comment and continued seriously. “Somewhere in your subconscious, maybe you tell yourself to walk or to breath… but you don’t think about it when you do it. I have held an alien shape, without changing back, for as long as ten years. Once she is used to it, Liz should have no trouble holding the repaired form whenever she is awake… but she will probably revert back when she sleeps.”

“But that’s not the same as being healed,” Max said.

“After she becomes accustomed to holding the shape, it will almost be the same,” Rahn replied. “It’ll be like getting out of bed and walking. She’ll just have to make a slight adjustment before she stands up. No one would notice.”

Liz nodded. “It’ll be fine, Max! I’ll walk again. I can do anything I ever did before! How many people get that chance?”

“I know,” Max admitted. “I am grateful, Rahn. I want you to know that. I owe you a lot. I just care a lot about Liz, and I want her to have a normal life again.”

“Well… maybe normal isn’t my thing, Max,” Liz said scoldingly. “I already told you. I made the decision to live my life with you… and that means with all the consequences that that might include. It was my decision. I would never go back to normal again… even if I could. Normal would be so boring now anyway.”

Max smiled. “Well, for better or worse, Elizabeth Parker, you’ll certainly never be bored with me. I can promise you that.”

“I know,” Liz said, returning his smile.

Standing nearby, Max’s double from Antar looked over at Michael… “I think we need to bring the rest of the guests up to the bridge now.”

Michael raised his eyebrows a notch and smiled. “The more the merrier. I’ll round up the rest of our crew and get them in here, too, and we can have a game of who’s who… or doubles… or something. It should be interesting.”

Michael left and went to the recreation room at the end of the hall where most of the sleeping quarters were. That was where the “guests” had been taken by the droid. Michael and Max had decided earlier that the group brought up from earth would be divided into “guests” and “hostiles” for future reference. Though not locked up, Edmonds and his unit, along with the fighter pilot who had been brought onboard earlier, had been placed in a separate area that was more securely monitored, and they would not be joining the others now.

Michael returned to the bridge after a few minutes with the earth “guests,” which at that time included his counterpart, Michael from earth, Maria, Jim, Amy, Gray Hawk, Little Fox, White Feather, Angie Lee, Kyle, Isabel, Alex, Diane, and her assistant and cameraman, Glenna and Jeff. The gang of rescuers from Antar was already there, having been paged to come to the bridge as soon as possible. They included Jim, Alex, Isabel, Maria, Tess, and Rayylar. Both Maxes, both Lizzes, and Varec, had already been on the bridge, as had Michael of Antar before he went to get the others. Fortunately, the bridge of the New Granolith was large enough to accommodate everyone present and quite a few more, but it was beginning to have all the atmosphere of a party already with so many people present.

As the guests entered the room, Gray Hawk immediately noticed Tess and seemed to be confused by what appeared to be another Angie Lee. He knew that the real Angie Lee had transported up with him. But even if she hadn’t, he still would have been able to pick her out. The faces might be the same, but there were still the cultural differences. In some unexplainable way, they were clear to Gray Hawk. This other one was a dead ringer for his Angie Lee, but she wasn’t the one he had raised. Seeing the look on Gray Hawk’s face, Angie Lee hugged him. Gray Hawk looked at her then smiled and wiped a tear from the cheek of his weathered face.

Amy spotted Maria… both of them… and ran to them, hugging them both together. She knew, of course, which one was hers, but it appeared for a while that she intended to simply take them both. Maybe it was a mother’s instinct.

“Uh, Mom,” Maria said cautiously. “I’m the one. I’m your daughter.”

“I know,” Amy replied, hugging Maria again. “But how often do I lose my daughter, think she’s dead, then get two of them back? Huh?”

“I don’t think you can handle two of us, Mom.”

Amy smiled.

After giving Maria a hug, too, Jim walked up to his double from Antar and looked him over… then he nodded.

“I’ve held up pretty well for an old man.”

Jim’s Antarian double’s mouth dropped open. “There’s only about five years between us… seven tops.”

“Really? The local Jim said. “I guess I’d better start taking better care of myself then.”

“Well, when you’ve hunted in the Nan-Torel and faced off a wild pawgor come back and we’ll have somethin’ to talk about,” the Jim from Antar replied. Both Jims looked at each other for a few moments, as though sizing each other up, then they smiled and slapped each other on the arm.

“Okay, you’re me alright,” the local Jim said. “I don’t know what a wild pawgor is, but I’ve faced a few wild FBI special agents. That’s gotta be good for somethin’!”

“Pretty close,” his Antarian counterpart said, nodding. “I’d rather face off the wild pawgors, to tell the truth.”

“Did you ever get remarried,” the local Jim asked.

His counterpart from Antar nodded. “Yep… to Kathleen Topolsky.”

The local Jim’s eyes opened wide. “Topolsky? The Agent Topolsky? No! You’re kidding, right?”

Jim’s Antarian double shook his head.

“Is she here… with you?”

“No. She stayed on Antar to help watch the kids.”

The local Jim shook his head. “You know Topolsky’s one of those wild FBI agents I was talking about.”

“But she’s pretty,” the Jim from Antar said with a wry grin. “Anyway, I tamed her.”

The local Jim nodded. “Yeah… she’s pretty… pretty dangerous! But you’re right, there’s no denyin’ she’s a looker. I’ll give you that. Damn, man! There’s more to you than I thought.”

The Antarian Jim smiled. “How ‘bout you? Did you get remarried?”

“Yeah… just recently… to Amy.”

“Amy DeLuca?” the Antarian counterpart exclaimed. “You talk about me livin’ dangerous! Now there’s a woman that’ll take more than a little tamin’!”

“I don’t plan to tame her,” the younger Jim said. “I decided to take her just like she is.”

Jim from Antar smiled. “Well, that was smart… and you made a good choice. If I hadn’t fallen in love with Kath because of circumstances that put us together and all, I might have wound up with Amy myself. But I’m happy… and so’s she. She married Varec.” Jim motioned toward the mysterious, good-looking alien.

“An alien?”

“Well… we both got married on Antar, and he’s the Antarian… so I reckon he’s the one that married the alien. Anyway, she likes him.”

“Go figure,” the younger Jim said. “Amy always was a bit of the rebel. Funny thing is, I can see her going for someone like him… I mean if I weren’t around. I wonder how he deals with her, though… her being an alien to him and… and being Amy, too! She’s pretty feisty.”

The Antarian Jim grinned. “I’d say they get along pretty well. They’ve got a little girl, Liz-Jolee z’Varec. Kath and I have a boy, Danyy. He can talk to pawgors and other animals.”

“I wish I could meet him,” the Jim from earth said. “Danny, huh?”

“Yeah. We spell it with one n and two y’s. It’s more like the spelling of his Antarian name. I wish you could meet him, too. Danyy’s quite a boy! But he’s in a different dimension right now. I doubt we’ll ever have the chance for all of us to be together with the kids and all. This was kind of a one-time rescue mission. We didn’t bring the kids. We weren’t really sure what we would find on this trip.”

As Jim and the rest of the group got acquainted with their doubles and met those they didn’t know onboard the ship, Liz called Max over to her. Both Max’s came running.

Liz looked at her Max… then she looked at his double from Antar…

“Max… I know we’re safe here on this ship, but… I need to know if Mom and Dad are okay. They’re still in danger down there. And there’s something else…”

“What’s that,” Max asked.

“I want them to be the first ones to see… you know… what Rahn helped me do… well, the first ones except for you and Michael and the ones who were here when it happened, of course.”

“You aren’t going to tell anyone else?” Max asked.

“Not yet. You understand, don’t you, Max? I’ll just sit here on the sofa and talk to everyone. They don’t have to know yet. Will you keep my secret?”

Both Maxes smiled and nodded. “I think there’s something we can do about that,” Max from Antar said. “It’s about time we took a more active role in this conflict anyway. Jim told me that your mom and dad and some of the others are waiting at the entrance to the Reservation. I was thinking they might be willing to accept a ride… if they knew that you were here. What do you think?”

Michael looked at Max. “We can do that. We can transfer them all up to the ship… as long as they’re not too close to anyone we don’t want to bring up.”

“Varec,” Max said. “Let’s take the ship down all the way. It’s time people got a good look at us.”



**********


Outside the Mesaliko Reservation, Liz’s parents, Jeff and Nancy Parker, Max and Isabel’s parents, Phillip and Diane Evans, and Alex’s parents, Charles and Gloria Whitman, were still waiting at the entrance. The fact that they were not inside the Reservation already was due only to a steadily growing contingent of soldiers armed with AK-47’s keeping them out. The moment the first house had been blown up and the parents had seen the smoke, it had been almost impossible for the soldiers to keep them from rushing in, and more guards had quickly had to be called.

But as the day had worn on, the parents had become only a small part of the soldiers’ concerns. Unknown to anyone inside but the army, the scene had become almost as chaotic outside the Reservation as inside it. Since Diane’s newscast, a huge throng of screaming people, many with protest signs, had descended on the Reservation trying to get in and demanding an end to the attack. In addition, at least a dozen other news teams were now present outside the Reservation, each fully equipped with extension cameras and the latest satellite broadcast equipment. The contingent of armed soldiers had been increased several times, as people continued to show up in cars, on motorcycles, and by almost every other possible means. The continuing explosions and smoke coming from inside the Reservation only served to send many of those outside the entrance into a frenzy, and it was almost a miracle that, up till now, no one had been shot and the soldiers had managed to keep everyone out. But that was all about to change.

It will probably never be known who was the first to see it; many of those in the crowd looked up at the same time, as did the soldiers who were guarding the entrance. At first, it had only seemed to be a cloud passing in front of the sun; but soon it became very clear that it was not. The object approaching from the sky in the east was enormous and seemed to have no end. As far as anyone could see in that direction, nothing else was visible. It appeared to have a classic saucer shape, but that was hard to tell for sure, because at this point, no one could actually see the other end of it. The noise level among the crowd diminished to a stunned hush, and for several long moments, no sound was heard except for the soft whisper of the wind blowing around the ship as it drew nearer.

The eerie silence was broken when one of the soldiers guarding the entrance suddenly began firing his AK-47 at the approaching ship. Apparently taking this to be an invitation, the other soldiers began to fire, too, but their bullets had no effect. They simply disappeared into the air.

The ship slowed… then stopped, hovering above the soldiers and the crowd for a time like a huge low cloud, the lights around its outer lower rim flashing continuously but nothing else happening.

Onboard the ship, Max pointed at the view screen. “Do you see that, Michael? There must be several thousand people down there. How are we gonna get the ones we want without bringing a whole lot of others onboard with them?”

Michael shook his head.

Max turned to Varec. “Can you refine the transporter beam, Varec… enough to pick out the ones we want and not get any others?”

“I can refine it… but not that much,” Varec replied. “If they’re closer than four feet… maybe three… to anyone else, that person will come up, too.”

“They’re all closer than that,” Max said, looking at the scene below.

“Well, there’s another way to do this,” Michael said. “Varec, we still have those transporter tag pins in storage, don’t we?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have about six of them at least?”

“Yeah.”

“Give ‘em to me.”

Varec went to the storage area underneath the console and brought out a handful of tag pins, special tags that would stick to a person’s clothing and identify them, and only them, as the ones to be transported. Michael took the pins from him.

“I’ll be back shortly… after I hand these out.”

Michael left the room and took the ascension chamber to the cargo bay. Then he went to the room where his bike was stored.

“Looks like we’ve got at least one more ride left to do while we’re here,” Michael said to the bike, as he rolled it to the bay doors. Climbing on and putting his helmet on his head, Michael pressed his remote, and the bay doors opened slightly, just enough for a bike to roll down the ramp and out, falling into the air below. Michael twisted the throttle on the right handlebar, and the motorbike disappeared suddenly into a rift in the air. Several seconds later, another rift opened up, this time behind the crowd below. Michael’s bike shot out of the rift, and the rift closed back up with an explosive BOOM that shook the ground and knocked several people off their feet. The crowd hurried to get out of the path of the oncoming bike, though the bike slowed to a more normal speed once it had emerged from the rift. Michael quickly rode through the crowd and handed the tag pins to a stunned Jeff Parker.

“Each one of you put one on… you and Mrs. Parker, Mr. and Mrs. Evans, and Mr. and Mrs. Whitman. Sorry I don’t have more time to explain. Just do it… quickly. I’ll keep the guards over there distracted.”

Indeed, the guards had been trying to get to Michael, but they didn’t want to stray too far from the entrance to do it. If they did, the crowd might get past them. And they didn’t want to shoot into the crowd with so many witnesses present. After handing Jeff Parker the tag pins, Michael turned the bike around and quickly headed back out of the throng. Once he was a short distance away, he turned the bike back around and faced everyone again. The crowd parted, instinctively making room for him. Michael twisted the throttle on the handlebar, and the bike shot forward. The soldiers saw it coming and prepared to fire as the bike passed them, but they never got a chance. The air opened up, and the bike rushed into the rift as it passed, surging forward suddenly at an incredible speed and disappearing as it had come… with a tremendous BOOM and a scream like the engines of an F-16 passing by. Culpepper’s soldiers, who were standing nearest to the rift, were thrown through the air, most of them losing their weapons as they tried to break their falls. Then the crowd and TV news vans surged forward over and around the soldiers, who could do nothing now but protect themselves from being trampled.

Moments later, the bike came out of a rift below the ship, and the transporter beam caught it and transported it into the ship’s cargo bay. Michael removed his helmet, then he put the bike back in its place and hurried to contact Max on the intercom.

“They’re ready.”

Max looked at Varec, and Varec nodded. With the tag pins on, the individuals that they wanted to transport up could be picked out of the crowd as long as they weren’t actually touching anyone else. Varec moved his hand over a sensor on the console, and somewhere in the surging crowd below, six people disappeared and reappeared onboard the New Granolith… to find Michael already waiting for them.

“Welcome to our little ship,” Michael said, with a touch of obvious understatement. “I know you’ve got a lot of questions, and I’ll be glad to answer all of them for you, but right now someone’s waiting to see you.”

Michael turned around and headed to the ascension chamber, and the six parents followed without a word. At the moment, no one quite knew what to say anyway. When the ascension chamber came to a stop, everyone stepped out to find Varec waiting to accompany them to the bridge with Michael.

The first thing they all noticed was the huge window at the front of the bridge. They could see the entire town of Roswell from up here. They could also now see quite clearly the ghastly destruction that had been wreaked on the Mesalikos’ homes. But as they walked into the room, they saw something else… the reason they were here.

Diane ran to Isabel and hugged her, with Phillip right behind. Charles and Gloria Whitman spotted their son, Alex, and both of them ran to him at once, with Charles trying to check him out to make sure he was okay, as Gloria held him fiercely in a mother’s hug. Jeff and Nancy looked around the room and spotted Liz. Well, actually, they saw two Lizzes, but they had no doubt which one was theirs. Both Jeff and Nancy started toward the sofa, but Liz held up her hand and smiled. Jeff and Nancy paused. Liz knew that nothing in the world would make them stay there in that spot for more than a few seconds. She would have to act quickly.

Liz put her weight on her feet then stood up and walked… not very fast… but she walked… to them. Jeff and Nancy both threw their arms around Liz and held her tight, as tears ran down their cheeks; and Liz hugged them back, smiling victoriously, as she wiped the tears from her own eyes.

“Max healed you!” Jeff exclaimed, finally finding his voice.

Liz shook her head. “He tried. Both of them tried. I think it helped. I felt stronger afterwards. But it took something a little more radical to help me walk again.”

Jeff looked at Liz. “What did they do to you, Lizzie?”

“Rahn did it,” Liz said, motioning toward Rahn.

“The roadrunner,” Jeff said, extending his hand to Rahn with a smile. “I didn’t know you could heal people, Rahn.”

“I can’t.”

“Then how did you…” Jeff turned to Liz… “What did he do to you?”

“Nothing too drastic, Dad. He sort of taught me how to alter my injury through shape-shifting.”

“You can do that?” Nancy asked, incredulous.

“I thought you had to be born a shape-shifter to be… you know… one of them,” Jeff added.

“Well, Dad, I haven’t turned into a bird or anything. I think that’s a little beyond my meager abilities. But I CAN adjust my spine so that it functions normally again. I didn’t really want to be a bird anyway.”

“That’s good,” Jeff said. “I don’t think I would be able to explain that to people. My daughter, the roadrunner!”

“And I couldn’t hug a roadrunner like this,” Nancy said, squeezing Liz tightly. Liz squeezed her back then hugged her Dad.

Nearby, the Whitmans were still doting on Alex, somewhat to his embarrassment, but he didn’t seem to be complaining. Meanwhile, Phillip Evans had one arm around Max’s shoulder, as Isabel tried to tell them everything that she and the others had been through this day, which was starting to seem like a week already. Jim and Amy had already had their reintroduction to Maria, having been transported aboard with the first group earlier; but even so, Amy didn’t seem to be finished holding onto Maria or hugging her, and Maria was beginning to think that her Mom might have to be declared an appendage. For now, though, Maria was clearly enjoying it. It was hard to tell how Amy and Maria could understand each other. They were like one body with two heads talking at the same time, but they obviously had the method down to a refined art. It certainly seemed to have the potential to reduce the time needed for a conversation, but in their case, there always seemed to be more to talk about. Perhaps that was why they both talked at the same time… It was the only way they could ever hope to get everything in.

Nancy had noticed the other Liz, too, the moment she had walked in; and though she had never had any doubt as to which one was “hers,” like Amy, she felt somehow compelled to hug the other one, too. It was a mother’s instinct. And they WERE, in a real sense, both hers. She was Liz’s mother, and both of them were Liz.

There were also two Michaels, two Marias, two Isabels, two Alex’s, and two Jim Valenti’s. Nancy made a mental note that this had the potential to become very confusing, and she determined that she would have to do something about it if it started to get out of hand. That didn’t take too long…

Amy, who had been talking with Maria, called Jim over, and both of them came.

“I meant my husband,” Amy said, smiling at the two Jims. Jim of Antar turned and instinctively called Varec over… then suddenly remembered that this Amy wasn’t married to Varec; she was married to his counterpart. Varec, not knowing yet that this Amy was married to Jim, but knowing that his Amy had not come with them, smiled and appeared a bit embarrassed, unsure what to say to Amy. She was, after all, his wife… albeit in another dimension… but this one was not HIS wife. The fact that his counterpart from earth seemed to be a bit too “friendly” with Amy in this dimension, when as far as Varec knew, he was supposed to be married to Kathleen, seemed out of place to Varec… especially when it was with his wife… even if she wasn’t HIS wife.

Eventually, Jim did explain to Varec that, in this dimension, he was married to Amy. Varec understood better than anyone the fact that different dimensions might not follow the same courses. He had been the one who had said so in the first place. But this was his wife… even if she was not HIS wife. Seeing her holding onto Jim and kissing him was going to take more than a little adjustment to his emotional thought processes if nothing else.

Over the course of the next twenty minutes, it became obvious that whenever a name was mentioned, at least half the time, either the wrong one came or both of them came. Isabel from Antar had already offered to settle the matter of which Alex was hers by just taking them both, but her counterpart from earth didn’t care much for the idea. Every time either Liz said Maria’s name, both Marias would answer or show up, and even Max and Michael seemed to have trouble making it clear which one they wanted to speak to when they spoke to each other. Nancy had had enough…

“Stop!”

Everybody turned and looked at Nancy, who blushed slightly as she realized that she had just made herself, Nancy Parker, the center of attention.

“This is giving me a headache. There are two of so many people here that no one knows who they’re talking to… at least I don’t.” Nancy lowered her voice and said more calmly, “We need to do something about it.”

Max shrugged. “I didn’t really notice. It doesn’t bother me.”

“Me either,” Isabel from Antar said, pretending to be absolutely serious… “I already offered to take both Alex’s back with me… but miss spoil-sport over there doesn’t want to solve the problem.”

Isabel’s double from earth knew how to play this little game as well as her Antarian counterpart did, and she gave the Antarian Isabel a look that reminded her of just one of the reasons she had once been called the “ice princess.” Probably no one but Isabel could have called herself that now and got away with it, but both Isabels knew that they were playing a private game… and no one else would have dared to enter into it for all the money on earth and Antar put together.

“Max,” Nancy said, reclaiming everyone’s attention. Immediately, both Max’s answered.

“See what I mean?” She looked at Max from Antar. “Max, what do they call you on your planet?”

“My friends call me Max. Most everyone else calls me Zan.”

“Alright… then you’re Zan.” She looked at his counterpart from earth. “And you’re going to be Max.”

”What are you called on your planet, Michael?”

“Rath,” Michael said cautiously, knowing where this was going.

“Okay, then you’re Rath,” Nancy said. “And you’re Michael,” she said to his counterpart from earth.

“What is your name on your planet, Isabel?”

“Vilandra,” Isabel said, not seeming terribly happy with being pegged with that name, though there were those who still called her that on Antar.

“So we have Vilandra, and we have Isabel,” Nancy said, indicating the two of them. “Jim…” She looked at the Jim from Antar. “You can be James.”

Jim wrinkled his nose slightly.

“Don’t you like that name,” Nancy asked.

“It sounds… formal,” Jim said.

“Well, what do they call you on Antar?”

Jim smiled. “To my face or when I’m not around to hear it?”

“What do you prefer?” Nancy asked.

Jim shrugged. “To my friends, I’m just Jim. Antarians who know me only by reputation or from TV call me a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

“Jim –ee- pa’ ogor, Jim –ee- Eluymer, Jim-Shta’ –ee- Genz’ah… and maybe some other things.”

“What does all that mean?” Nancy asked.

“Well, the first one means ‘Pawgor Jim,’ or literally, Jim the Pawgor man.’ It’s a long story. The second one means ‘Jim the earthman,’ the third one, preferred by a lot of Antarians who watch my show, I’ve heard, means ‘Jim, that crazy alien guy.’

Nancy raised her eyebrows and smiled. “We can just use the ‘Jim –ee-‘ part. You can be Jimmy.”

“Can I still be James?” Jim asked. “Now that I think about it, I kind of like James.”

Nancy nodded then looked at Tess.

“Are you Angie Lee, too?”

Tess shook her head. “I’m Tess.”

“Oh. Okay… well, that won’t be a problem. She looked at Alex.

“Alex!”

Alex winced.

“Your name is Charles, isn’t it?”

“Yeah… but Dad’s is, too.”

“Do they call you anything on your planet?”

“Not when Iz is around,” Alex said, joking. Nancy looked at him seriously, and Alex sighed.

“No. I don’t have any cute pet names like Jim…”

“Like James,” Nancy corrected.

“Yeah… I meant James… Anyway, I’m just Alex to everybody. Maybe ‘Alex –ee- Eluymer.’ That just means Alex the earthman.”

“Maybe we can make you ‘Alex E’ then, and your counterpart here can just be Alex.”

“Alex –ee-,” Alex repeated. “That would kind of mean ‘Alex the Man…’ kind of like ‘I the stud.’ I guess that’s cool.” Alex noticed Nancy’s look of confusion. “Never mind. It was just a password I once used on my computer.”

“Maria,” Nancy said, turning to Maria’s Antarian counterpart. “What can we call you?”

“Well, I’m kind of partial to Maria,” Maria said. “But if we’re changing everybody’s names, just call me Marisol.”

“Marisol? Is that alien… what is it… Antarian?”

“No, it’s Spanish. I just always wondered what it would be like to be a Marisol.”

Nancy nodded then looked at her own daughter’s Antarian counterpart, Liz from Antar.

‘Zan’ smiled.

“Uh uh!” Liz said. “Nobody is calling me Queenie! Don’t even go there, Max!”

“Zan,” Nancy corrected.

“Zan, Kingy, whatever… I’m not going by Queenie.”

Nancy smiled in spite of herself. “Okay, what can we call you that will set the two of you apart, honey? I can’t call you my ‘earth daughter’ and my ‘alien daughter.’”

“You can call me Elizabeth and her Liz.”

Nancy nodded. “Okay.” She looked around. “I think that covers everyone. Now maybe we can keep everyone straight around here.”

‘Zan’ looked at ‘Elizabeth’ and whispered, “Why do I think it’s not going to be so simple?”

‘Elizabeth’ smiled and gave him a kiss. “Give her a day… maybe two… She’ll forget all about this silly name stuff. She’s my Mom… I know her… even if she is from another dimension.”



tbc


Coming up: Culpepper makes a fatal mistake when he pulls a “Star Wars” stunt to try to destroy the New Granolith, and the Mesaliko Reservation comes under attack again, this time by a unit of the National Guard and by thousands of irate citizens… but they are not interested in killing aliens or blowing up Mesaliko homes.

The Night The Dreams Died



The Invasion Of Roswell, Part II
Judgment Day

Chapter 31

XXXI



Onboard the Antarian mothership, all the anguish, uncertainty, fears, and hardships of the last six months, since graduation day, and of this past day in particular… had finally and conclusively turned to long overdue joy. Families and friends were finally reunited, and some of those onboard were having the additional pleasant, even if confusing and somewhat eerie, experience of getting acquainted with their own doubles from an entirely different dimension and planet. Below the Antarian mothership, however, on the Mesaliko Reservation, the situation was beginning to heat up again. After the soldiers guarding the gate had fallen when Michael blasted by them on his motorbike, the crowd outside had surged ahead. There literally had been nothing the soldiers could do to stop it. Even if they could have found their guns in time, among all the charging bodies, and had fired them continuously, they still would not have been able to stop most of the surging crowd from getting in. The best they could do was to protect themselves from being trampled to death until the stampede passed.

And the situation on the Reservation was no longer strictly a local phenomenon. Diane’s earlier broadcast had now been seen by millions – more likely tens or even hundreds of millions - as it was played and replayed by station KUVA all morning long and then picked up by the Associated Press and broadcast worldwide throughout the afternoon. The stream of vehicles pouring into Roswell since Diane’s first broadcast had increased steadily throughout the day and had begun to take on all the atmosphere of a circus in the last few hours, with everyone from the expected curiosity seekers, protesters, and UFO and conspiracy buffs to lawyers showing up in droves. For some reason that no one seemed to know, two vans from Greenpeace even showed up.

If the soldiers who had been trying to keep the crowd out of the Reservation were having a bad day, though, they weren’t the only ones. In Washington, D.C., a three-way conversation was going on at this very moment among the President, a General Otis Kingsley in Texas, and a National Guard Unit Commander, Colonel Alvin Brighton, in Alabama.

“Your name is on the papers signing off on these maneuvers, General Kingsley. You approved them.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

“What exactly is going on down there in Roswell, General? I have a man with me in my office right now, an Agent Daniel Klein, who is part of the Special Task Force down there, and he brought me video and other evidence suggesting an ongoing massacre on the Indian Reservation; yet General Haggerty and General Hawkins, who are in Roswell, both maintain that it is a training mission and that the Mesaliko Indians are in no danger. They maintain that the Mesalikos have gone along with the training exercise and are being paid for the use of their Reservation.

“Yes, sir, Mister President. The papers were hastily prepared, I know, but the plan was submitted through the normal channels… though it was expedited a bit along the way because of the importance of the maneuvers.”

“What were the special circumstances, General?”

“According to the situation briefing that I received, this training mission was to be a simulated preemptive strike on a terrorist network in a remote desert location. The situation briefing said that it was in response to a perceived threat from terrorists on the border of Afghanistan who are believed to be planning an attack on our nation with chemical or small nuclear weapons.”

“I’ve seen the briefings on these cells, General… but I was unaware of this training mission before Mr. Klein informed me of it. Why was I kept out of the loop on this?”

“Training exercises do not require presidential notification, Mr. President, with all due respect, sir.”

“Of course not, General. But exercises that involve special circumstances do… and destroying homes on a reservation strikes me as a very special circumstance, doesn’t it to you?”

“Uh… yes, sir, it does. It would have been General Haggerty’s responsibility to submit the briefing to you, sir, but I understand that this mission was put together quickly to simulate the need for a quick response. It’s possible that you haven’t seen it yet, Mr. President.”

“I HAVEN’T seen it, General, and I have no briefing regarding it. Are you aware that right now the A.P. is broadcasting footage of this mission worldwide?”

“No, sir!”

“Are you aware that most of the houses on the Mesaliko Reservation have been destroyed in this so-called training mission?”

“No, sir!”

“Are you aware of the claims that are being made by the Associated Press that this is a grudge mission… put together by the head of the Alien Task Force in Roswell, a special agent who goes by the name Culpepper, and is actually retribution against the Mesalikos for hiding an… uh… alien?”

“No, sir. An alien, sir? From what country?”

“Not another country, General… an alien alien… from out there somewhere. That’s what’s being reported by the A.P. They’re quoting a local newswoman who made the claim earlier in the day and who has since disappeared along with her entire news crew. I want you to find out immediately exactly what IS going on on that reservation; and Colonel Brighton…”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“I want YOU to get a fighter squadron ready… in case we need it to end this… uh, situation quickly and we have to convince General Haggerty or this Agent Culpepper that it’s not merely a request we’re making.”

“Any particular squadron, sir?”

“I had one in mind, Colonel, yes.”

“I’ll have them ready, Mr. President. Do you think that will be necessary, sir… against our own people?”

“I think we need to assure the peace on that reservation, Colonel… whatever that involves or requires. I’m hopeful that no force will be necessary, but if what is being reported is even partially true, we may need to show at least the resolve to use force if required in order to convince Generals Haggerty and Hawkins and their special agent of our intentions. Haggerty, in particular, has been known to be a bit… let’s say, obsessive in the past, and from what I’m being told, this Special Agent Culpepper from the Task Force is even more so. And General Hawkins was involved in an attempted cover-up of an incident two years ago in which one of his units caused some minor damage in a civilian area. We will need to get a team in there and check out the Reservation to determine to what extent the reports might be true… if they’re true… and I do not want General Haggerty or General Hawkins or this Special Agent Culpepper destroying or altering any of the evidence before we can get in there. We may also need to protect the reservation from unintentional damage by well-intentioned people. Have you seen the news?”

“No, sir. I was in a meeting all morning, Mr. President.”

“Well, watch it, Colonel. Both of you watch it. Be aware of what we’re up against.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And General Kingsley.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Get an AWAC plane up over that area STAT. I want recon photos of anything unusual going on there.”

“Yes, sir.”



**********


As fate would have it, at the same time as the President was talking with General Kingsley in Texas and Colonel Brighton in Alabama, Special Agent Culpepper was holding a three-way conference of his own…

“Yes, General Hawkins, sir, I understand that I am in charge of the Alien Task Force’s Special Unit at this time and I’m supposed to be handling this, but we have a major situation here, SIR! There is a bona-fide, major UFO sitting directly over the Mesaliko Reservation and part of Roswell right now, and I don’t have the firepower I need to bring it down! I really need some reinforcements down here… STAT!”

There was a short pause, then a frustrated General Hawkins’ voice came back over the intercom… “Listen, Barker, try to understand this… General Haggerty and I have given you Cobra helicopters, we’ve given you tanks… even some of our F-16 fighter jets with conventional missiles… but there is no way I’m giving you a nuclear missile! This is already going to take a lot of cleaning up before I can… uh… report this… uh… incident. The collateral damage from a nuclear missile would be my swan song.”

“But we’re talking about a UFO, General! And not just any little UFO! This is NOT that little tin toy that you had in lock down in Area 51, sir. We’re talking a monster truck here versus… a… a Yugo. This thing is three miles across, and our missiles don’t even penetrate its defensive shield or whatever’s protecting it. It just sits up there… impervious to all our weapons… mocking us! Mocking ME!”

“Barker, if you did bring this thing down where it is now, wouldn’t it fall on the Reservation?”

“There’s nothing there to worry about, General… not anymore. Besides, it might help to explain what happened to the… uh… Indians who used to be there… with a little special preparation and clean-up… You know what I’m saying? We can put a few bodies under the ship… inside whatever’s left of the houses…”

There was another pause on the line. “Yeah… yeah, I understand you, but… what about Roswell? You said it was over Roswell, too. How do we explain half the city getting crushed under this thing?”

“We don’t have to explain it, General! For God’s sake! Shit happens! We were just protecting the nation… THE WORLD!… from an alien attack. We’ll get medals!”

General Hawkins sighed audibly and drummed his fingers on his desk for several long moments as he thought about it. “I don’t know, Barker. It sounds dangerous… to ME! I’ll consult with General Haggerty. We’ll get back to you.”

General Hawkins hung up the line, leaving Barker, alias Agent Culpepper, frustrated… especially in view of the fact that he was pretty certain that the firepower he had requested was not going to be forthcoming. General Hawkins had considered it. He was almost convinced. But there was that little element of danger. No. He wouldn’t be giving Culpepper the weapons he was requesting. Culpepper was sure of that. He couldn’t expect Haggerty to come through for him either. In the end, someone doesn’t become a general, Culpepper told himself, without covering his ass pretty well… and this would almost be like streaking in church for them. The danger of exposure was too great. Culpepper, on the other hand, had no such qualms or concerns to bother him. The protection of the whole world was in his hands now.



**********


“Climb out of the plane,” Agent Culpepper yelled up to the pilot of the F-14 preparing to taxi to the runway. The pilot pulled back his canopy and removed his helmet, then he powered down his jet.

“What’s going on?”

“I need your plane,” Culpepper said. “I’ve been ordered to use this one for a special mission.”

“I wasn’t told anything,” the pilot said.

“This is very hush-hush, Lieutenant. I expect you to keep it that way. You guys haven’t been able to dent that UFO with your missiles. General Haggerty wants me to try something else.”

“It won’t do any good,” the pilot said, shaking his head. “We’ve fired thousands of rounds and at least twenty missiles at that thing. It all just disappear into thin air. That ship’s impervious. It doesn’t even know we’re attacking it. It would take a nuke to bring it down.”

“That’s what I told the general,” Culpepper said.

“A nuke?”

“The general wouldn’t give me one. I had to come up with something just as good. Lieutenant, did you ever watch Star Wars… you know, the original movie?”

“Yeah… I saw it several times. I’ve got all the episodes on DVD.”

“Remember the Death Star?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember how they destroyed it?”

“Yeah. Luke shot a missile into a small vent that went to the reactor in the core.”

“Right. And when the Death Star was being rebuilt in the third movie, they destroyed that one by flying one of those X-Wings right into the inside of the thing, firing into the reactor, and flying back out before it all blew up.”

“Yeah. I remember that,” the pilot said.

“Well, Lieutenant, there’s been an AWAC up there taking recon photos of that ship and the area and transmitting them back. I assume General Hawkins or General Haggerty sent it up. Look at these recon photos that have been coming in. Do you see anything?”

“I see one monster UFO,” the pilot said.

“Do you see this vent… right here?” Culpepper pointed to a part of the picture.

“You’re going to fire a missile into that?” The pilot looked unconvinced.

“It’s a bigger opening than it looks like in the photo, Lieutenant. That opening is big enough to fly a fighter jet into… and back out again.”

The pilot shook his head. “Uh uh… It may be big enough to fly into, but where are you going to turn around? You don’t even know what’s in there?”

“The reactor’s in there, Lieutenant. Recon has confirmed it. It’s emitting some kind of ions from the vent that can only come from a reactor. It’s not nuclear, but it should blow up with one helluva a bang just the same. There’s a similar vent on the other side of the ship. That’s a distance of three miles… one and a half in… fire my missiles… then one and a half out the other side. This F-14 can cover that distance in under 30 seconds. It should be enough time for me to get out before the whole thing goes up.”

“You’re crazy,” the pilot said, shaking his head. “Did General Hawkins approve this?”

“General Haggerty ordered it,” Culpepper lied.

The pilot breathed a deep breath and let it out slowly again. “Well, I guess he knows what he’s doing… but I wouldn’t want to fly into that thing and shoot a missile into its reactor… whatever it is… then try to get back out again.”

“Nobody’s asking you to, Lieutenant. I flew one of these planes for several years before I became part of the Unit. I’m taking this ride.”

“I’m glad it’s you and not me,” the pilot said honestly, stepping out of the way, as Culpepper climbed into the pilot’s seat and powered the F-14 up again. Moments later, Culpepper taxied the F-14 to the end of the runway… then the plane’s engines roared, as the jet rushed down the runway and lifted into the air, banking into the sun and heading off in the direction of the Reservation and Roswell.

The pilot watched his plane disappear then walked into the airmen’s barracks and set his helmet down on a table.

“I thought you were flying,” a voice behind him said.

The pilot turned around, and a young airman handed him a cup of coffee.

“Thanks. Yeah, I was, but apparently the General had other ideas.”

“Ah, yes! He can be like that.”

“Weren’t you on the first recon mission… the one that just got back,” the lieutenant asked the young airman.

“Yep… We got a great bird’s eye view of that thing. It’s huge! I can only wonder how they make it just sit up there like that.”

The lieutenant nodded. “So the primary propulsion it uses isn’t nuclear, huh?”

The airman raised his eyebrows a notch and shook his head. “How’d you know that?”

“Somebody told me. What kind of reactor does it use?”

The airman breathed in deeply then exhaled softly. “Anti-matter.”



tbc

The Night The Dreams Died



Culpepper’s Last Flight

Chapter 32

XXXII



The lieutenant’s face turned ashy white, and he appeared to reel. He ran one hand through his hair nervously then laid it on the back of the chair beside him. The young airman noticed that the knuckles of the lieutenant’s hand were turning white as he held onto the back of the chair; and realizing that something was very, very wrong, he turned several shades lighter himself… “What? What’s the matter?”

“Barker’s going to fire a missile into an anti-matter reactor in that UFO up there… with my plane,” Strickland said, trying to sound calmer than he actually was. “If he does, it’ll be the end of… maybe the world… but at least this hemisphere. Do you know what even a small amount of destabilized anti-matter could do?”

The airman shook his head. “Maybe they have a secure containment field or something around their reactor.”

“Maybe,” the lieutenant agreed, “but I can’t take that chance… the WORLD can’t take that chance. I’ve got to get to a radio.”

Lieutenant Strickland ran from the airmen’s barracks and jumped into a small truck that was sitting in front of the barracks with the keys still in it, then he drove across the airfield to the control tower. As fast as he could, he ran up the stairs and knocked desperately on the door. He heard the electronic latch unlock, and one of the controllers opened the door.

“Lieutenant?”

“I need to come in.”

The controller moved aside to let Lieutenant Strickland enter then immediately turned his attention back to the UFO on the horizon. It was clearly visible in the distance from the tower, and both of the controllers were watching it intently with something akin to deep awe, even though it sat quite a few miles away from the airfield or the base itself, over the Mesaliko Reservation and the town of Roswell.

“I don’t have time to explain,” Strickland said, grabbing for the microphone. He needn’t have bothered. The two controllers weren’t paying any attention to anything that he was doing. Strickland pressed the button to speak…

“Barker! Barker, come in!”

There was no answer. Strickland called again, but Barker was apparently not answering his radio. He probably had it turned off. That would be something Barker would do. That way if he was ordered back to base he could say that he never heard the order and blame Strickland with leaving his radio turned off.

“Dammit, Barker, come in!” Strickland yelled over the radio one more time. For a moment, he seemed to despair… but then he turned to the controllers…

“Has anyone tried to contact that ship up there?”

“What for,” the younger of the two controllers asked, with a tone of amusement in his voice. “We don’t have anyone on the base who speaks Martian.”

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe they might understand US,” Lieutenant Strickland asked, turning the frequency dial to scan for any possible signal source.

“What would we say to them,” the second controller asked.

“You might try, ‘hello!’” Strickland said with a tone of obvious irritation in his own voice.

Strickland picked up the mike and pressed the button again…

“This is… uh… this is Lieutenant David Strickland. If anyone can hear me on that ship… this is important. Come back. I mean… reply!”

Strickland turned the dial several times, each time repeating his message again, then a few moments later, he got an unexpected surprise…

“Go ahead, Lieutenant Strickland. We’re listening.”

Both controllers looked at each other, their eyes wide.

Strickland pressed the button on the mike again. “Uh… okay, we, uh… we have… well, YOU have… WE ALL, I guess, have an emergency situation here. One of our agents is going to fly a fighter jet into a large vent on your ship. He intends to fire a missile into the reactor as he flies through the core. Do you understand me?”

There was silence on the radio. For a moment, Lieutenant Strickland’s heart sank into his stomach. Maybe they hadn’t understood anything he had said. What had made him think that they would understand him anyway? They probably didn’t even know what a jet was… or a missile… at least not by those names. And Barker, or Culpepper, as he preferred to call himself, would be getting there very soon… if he wasn’t there already.

“Lieutenant,” a voice came back over the air finally, “I have someone here who is qualified to discuss the risks with you.”

“I am Varec,” a different voice said, with an accent that the lieutenant couldn’t place. The other voice had sounded… well, now that he thought about it, almost American… perhaps even New Mexican. This new one, though, was different somehow… maybe Canadian. No… Not Canadian… Definitely not Canadian…

“Mister Varec,” Lieutenant Strickland said, shaking himself out of his thoughts and back to the matters at hand, “Your ship and our world are in danger. If Agent Barker flies into your ship’s vent and fires a missile into your anti-matter reactor… and manages to blow it up… it could destroy not only your ship but potentially half of our world.”

“You are well-informed,” the voice from the ship above said.

“And desperate,” Strickland said sternly. “There’s no time. Barker may be there already.”

“Wouldn’t the outflow of air push anything back out of the vent,” Strickland heard the first voice ask the one named Varec.

“A bird, yes, Zan… maybe even a small plane,” Varec replied, “but probably not a slip-stream… what you call a ‘jet.’ It has enough power and speed to fly into our vent, but I do not think that it could fly through the containment area in the core.”

“I hope you’re right,” the first voice said… “because I think I see it coming now.”

Max, Michael, Varec, Liz, Alex, Isabel, Maria, and the others who were currently on the bridge crowded nearer to the huge front window of the ship to catch a glimpse of the fast approaching fighter jet.

“Strickland,” Varec said, “Warn your pilot not to enter the core! He will not survive.”

In the pilot’s seat of the approaching F-14 fighter jet, Barker, alias Agent Culpepper, sat transfixed, gazing at the huge mothership ahead of him with a single-minded, blind fanaticism and a trace of a smile on his face. He never really entertained the thought that anything could go wrong with his plan. Of course, somewhere deep inside his mind, he knew that it could, but there was a certain arrogant self-assuredness about Culpepper that wouldn’t allow him to seriously consider failure. He was sure of himself. He was sure of his abilities. He was sure of his plan.

Barker aligned the F-14 Tomcat with the huge spaceship’s oval-shaped starboard vent and adjusted his speed and flaps slightly, rotating the plane’s adjustable wings out just a bit for stability as he slowed the jet’s forward speed to make any final course adjustments. The plane wobbled ever so slightly as it continued to speed toward the opening. Seeing himself right on course, Barker increased the throttle to full and turned on the afterburners.

Strickland pressed the button on his mike to warn Culpepper away, but it was already too late. At that moment, Barker’s fully-armed F-14 Tomcat flew straight into the starboard vent at full throttle and with afterburners blazing. Max looked at Varec then at Michael. Both of them stood there silently… waiting.

It was exactly as Barker had imagined it inside the huge oval-shaped vent. The passage was easily sixty feet high… probably a bit more… and it was wider than four F-14 Tomcats placed wing to wing, not enough room to turn a jet around in but certainly enough for any crack pilot like himself to fly through. Barker’s F-14 Tomcat, by comparison, was sixteen feet high and had a wingspan of 64 feet, 1.5 inches “spread,” which is at their maximum span. The wings can be drawn back into the “swept” position, which reduces their span to only 38 feet, 2.5 inches, or “overswept” position, which reduces them almost another five feet, to 33 feet, 3.5 inches.

As Barker flew into the huge vent, he did notice a significant amount of air resistance. His plane’s airspeed dropped by about one fourth as it encountered the outflow of air coming from the core. It felt a bit like driving a car into a strong headwind. But Barker was not concerned. At full speed or three quarters speed, his success, he was absolutely positive, was assured. The plane’s afterburners would push him through the heavy outflow of air on the way in and onward to the core. There, he would fire his missiles… then the rushing outflow of air on the other side of the ship would actually provide him with a tailwind, helping him to get out before the ship exploded, as he exited with the airflow. It was a sweet plan.

What Barker, alias Culpepper, did not know was that the reactor was well protected and totally impervious to any of his missiles. But more important than that, to Culpepper, would have been the knowledge that the reactor was cooled by forced air flowing around the inside of the entire core at a speed greater than that of any hurricane ever known on earth. In a sense, this was a ship that actually breathed. When they were not in space, air was sucked in literally through every centimeter of the skin of the ship and diverted into the core where it flowed around the reactor many times before being vented out through the huge vents. The system was very efficient… but incredibly violent, wind-wise… within the core itself. In the vacuum of space, air was unnecessary to protect the reactor.

As Culpepper flew Strickland’s F-14 Tomcat ever deeper into the enormous passageway inside the vent, heading toward the core of the mothership, Max and the others braced themselves for… they weren’t quite sure what. But Varec knew. It was he, after all, who had designed the ship… and he had helped to build it. Approximately forty seconds after entering the vent, a bit longer than expected due to the heavy airflow being vented from the core, Culpepper was nearing his expected target. Then he saw the huge, swirling storm circling the core ahead of him. It looked like a half-mile-wide monster tornado. There was no way around it. Belatedly realizing what he was flying right into, Culpepper instinctively pressed his right foot hard to the floor in a brief moment of sheer panic, but there was no brake pedal.

Suddenly and with total clarity, if only for a brief second, Culpepper realized that he was doomed.

The fighter jet slammed into the howling 3000-mile-per-hour winds with the force of a train wreck, and the winds slammed the jet to the side like a sledgehammer hitting a fly, exploding the plane’s already armed missiles one after the other. What was left… because it could no longer be identified as a jet… tumbled around the core with the wind, as it continued to break into smaller and smaller pieces. Within a matter of mere seconds, it had been reduced to tiny motes of flotsam barely large enough to even recognize. These circled the core a few hundred times at 3000 miles per hour before being ejected from the starboard and port vents and fluttering to the ground below like a million tiny silvery butterflies sparkling and glinting in the sunlight of a bright new day.

In a way, the silvery, glistening confetti falling in streams from the ship’s vents was almost beautiful. As for Culpepper, his body had either been pounded into oblivion by the winds and by the unexpected premature explosions of his own missiles or simply absorbed by the anti-matter reactor… in which case, Culpepper may ironically actually have provided a millisecond or two of extra energy to the ship that he had sought to destroy.

Varec swallowed nervously but was clearly unsurprised when no one onboard felt so much as a bump… even as all the missiles of the fighter jet blew up one-by-one inside the core. Fortunately, the explosions were effectively damped by the ferocious winds and caused no damage whatever to the ship or to the reactor.

“What’s going on there,” the voice of Lieutenant Strickland crackled over the radio. “What’s happening?”

“I believe you will need to replace your jet,” Varec said simply, in total seriousness… “and your agent.”

There was a momentary silence over the radio before Strickland replied.

“Then the world is safe… and I take it, you are, too.”

“We are all safe, thank you,” Varec said, confirming Strickland’s statement.

“Good,” Strickland said simply, his voice a bit shaky but sounding sincere. “That’s good.”

“Lieutenant Strickland.” It was the southwestern-sounding voice of the one named Zan. “Thank you.”

“For what,” Strickland asked, genuinely unassuming. “I didn’t do anything… well, nothing that helped anyone.”

“You did. You warned us. If we had needed to stop your agent, we could have done so… because of your warning. Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary for us to take extraordinary measures. The reactor is quite safe when the ship is in the atmosphere… due to the cooling winds that blow around it. And in space, where it doesn’t need to be cooled, I assure you, even without the winds, it’s still very well protected. I am sorry about your loss, though.”

Strickland sighed. “Yes… that was a fine plane… an F-14 Tomcat.”

“Yeah… well… I was speaking of the pilot, actually,” Zan replied.

“Culpepper?” Strickland exclaimed impulsively, momentarily sounding unexpectedly shocked. “Yeah well… thanks… but he knew what he was doing. That’s the problem really. He did know what he was doing… and he would have destroyed the world.”

“Lieutenant Strickland.”

“Yes?”

“There are a good many other jets… and helicopters… still flying around our ship. You may want to warn them of what will happen if any of them has any idea about flying through the core like your agent did.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Strickland said, actually managing a slight smile, “I think they got the message… It’s still streaming out of your vents.”

“Our systems are showing more jets approaching from the east, Lieutenant. Are they planning to attack the reservation… or us? Their pilots may not be aware of what happened to your Agent.”

Lieutenant Strickland seemed surprised by this information. He glanced at the radar screen and saw that indeed not one but possibly even two squadrons were approaching the area. They were still about sixty miles out, but that was only a few brief minutes for a modern fighter jet like the F-14 Tomcat, F-16 Fighting Falcon, or F/A-18 Hornet. Strickland motioned to one of the controllers…

“Find out where those jets are coming from. Warn them not to enter restricted air space.”

The controller nodded without answering and put on his headphones. Then he checked his equipment.

“They’re coming from Alabama… and from Texas… two different squadrons.”

“Can you contact them?”

“I’m trying. They’re not answering.”

“Give me the mike,” Strickland said, picking up the other microphone again.

“This is Lieutenant David Strickland… to the squadrons heading toward Roswell from Alabama and Texas. Unless you turn now, your vectored course will take you over a high security area that is off-limits to anyone who does not have specific clearance… even if you are military. If you do not turn back or I do not receive the proper clearance, I will be forced to have you brought down.”

There was a momentary pause, then a voice came back over the air…

“Lieutenant Strickland… this is, uh, ‘Eagle Scout’… with Bravo Squadron out of Dannelly NGB… in Alabama. Where is General Hawkins? He was supposed to pass on our orders to the control tower.”

Strickland looked at the two young air traffic controllers with him in the tower, and they both shrugged. “We haven’t seen him… He didn’t give us any orders,” one of the controllers said.

Strickland pressed the button on his mike. “I haven’t seen the general today, Eagle Scout. No one has. I’ll have to confirm your clearance personally. Do not enter restricted airspace until I have confirmed you.”

Strickland picked up the nearby phone and hastily dialed a number. He listened, then moments later, he set the phone down.

“You didn’t say anything,” the younger controller said.

“I didn’t have to,” Lieutenant Strickland replied. “There are… channels that you don’t know of.”

Strickland pressed the button again on his microphone…

“Eagle Squadron and Bravo Squadron, you are both cleared for approach. Is there anything I can do for you, sir?”

“I think you’re doing it, Lieutenant. It looks like you’re right where you’re needed.”

“Yes, sir… uh… is it your intent, sir… if I may ask… to attack that, uh, spaceship up there? If it is, I have to tell you something. It wouldn’t be advisable. Besides, I don’t think they’re here as aggressors. I think they’re basically friendly.”

“So I’ve been told, Lieutenant. I’m counting on that. The purpose of our visit is to help straighten things out down there… with the native Americans on the Mesaliko Reservation… and, hopefully, with our special visitors… up there.”

“Yes, sir!” Lieutenant Strickland replied, his voice taking on a brighter and more hopeful tone. “Sir, there are three squadrons of F-16’s, F-14’s, and F/A-18’s… and, I believe, nine Cobra helicopters… currently engaged in ‘maneuvers’ in the area of the reservation… and around the ‘visitors’ ship, in particular…”

“We want those maneuvers stopped, Lieutenant… immediately! General Hawkins was ordered to terminate this operation.”

“Uh… doesn’t appear that he did so, sir.”

“Yeah… That’s the information we received, too, Lieutenant. That’s why we needed to get some special units in there to straighten things out. And Lieutenant…”

“Yes, sir.”

“Temporarily… you are in charge there.”

“I don’t think anyone will listen to me, sir. I’m a lieutenant… General Hawkins far outranks me.”

“Then we’ll have to make you a general.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me… You’re in charge, General Strickland! Your first order is to stop those ‘maneuvers’ at the reservation and any harassment of that ship. Our ETA is eight minutes. Any planes still involved in ‘maneuvers’ on the Mesaliko Reservation or in the vicinity of that ship when we arrive WILL be forced down or back to base… or destroyed. Please make that very clear to them. That operation is OVER!”

“Yes, sir!”

Strickland immediately picked up the mike and turned the frequency to the channel used by the fighter pilots.

“All pilots involved in ‘Operation Seeing Red’… Culpepper is no longer your immediate superior. Actually, I think he’s no longer… at all. In addition, General Hawkins has been relieved of his authority over these ‘maneuvers’ and over this base, and you have been ordered to cease operations immediately and return to base. This order comes from the highest levels. Any failure to obey immediately will be dealt with by forcing you into compliance… by any means deemed necessary. This is Lieu… I mean… General Strickland. If anyone has any question about these orders, address them to me at the base after you have returned. I repeat… Operation Seeing Red is over! Return to base immediately!”

Strickland set the microphone down and looked at the two controllers, who looked back at him with something close to the awe with which they had been watching the UFO earlier…

“General…?”

Strickland nodded and shrugged. “That’s what the man said.”

“How many stars?”

Strickland smiled. “I don’t know. He didn’t say. I’d guess one… I only became a general today.”

Strickland picked up the microphone again and adjusted the frequency to where he had found the spaceship before… then he pressed the button.

“Zan… Varec… This is Lieutenant Strickland… I mean, General Strickland. I was just put in charge of everything that is going on here, and I’ve recalled the fighter jets and other units. They should give you no more problems.”

“General…?”

“Uh, yeah… I’ll tell you about it sometime… if we ever meet.”

“That could be arranged, General. Are you interested?”

Strickland choked momentarily.

“I… well, yeah… I am… but I’m in charge here… I can’t…”

“Go for it,” a voice said, breaking in on the conversation over the radio.

“Who is this?” Strickland asked.

“This is Eagle Scout. General, you have a unique opportunity to learn more about our visitors… and what we can do for each other. Go for it… if you’re game that is.”

“Yes, sir! I guess you heard, Zan.”

“We heard. I’ll pick you up.”

The message ended. Strickland looked at the UFO on the distant horizon. It was huge. Even from this far away, it looked somewhat like a beautiful, multiple-level, super large Frisbee just hanging there in the sky. But as Strickland and the two controllers watched, the UFO began to move toward them. They watched it grow larger and larger surprisingly quickly… it took only fifteen seconds to reach the base, and that was at nothing near its potential speed. None of the three men in the control tower had actually realized just how large the ship really was. Now that it was closer, they saw that it was a complete city floating in the air. The ship may have been only a few thousand meters across, but it looked to the three men like all of fifteen miles, at least, as it approached. Finally, the ‘city in the sky’ floated directly over the control tower, blocking out the sun from above. In every direction they looked, the three men could see only the ship above them. They could just make out the edge of the ship where the sunlight peeked around and under it almost a mile away. In total amazement, the two controllers turned back to look at Strickland… but at that moment, he disappeared in front of their eyes.



**********


“Welcome to our little spaceship, General,” Zan said, holding out his hand and smiling. Michael and Varec stood beside him.

“I am Varec,” Varec said, offering his own hand in turn.

“I’m Michael… Some people call me Rath,” Michael said, extending his hand to Strickland after Varec.

“Rath is our General in charge of all the armies,” Varec noted.

“How many armies do you have,” Strickland asked impulsively.

Michael smiled. “Just one.”

“But if we had more, he’d be in charge of them,” Zan said.

Strickland smiled and nodded, looking around…

“This is really an amazing ship. It’s so huge inside.”

“This is just the cargo bay,” Zan said, motioning Strickland to come with them. “The ship has seven levels. This is the lowest level, level 1. There are thirty-two rooms, or compartments, around the perimeter of the cargo bay, and each one has something in it that we need or that we are storing. One of your planes is in one of them. Level 2 is the dining room and galley. There is also a separate recycling and processing sector on level 2. Level 3 is the living quarters, lounge, and game rooms. Level 4 is the bridge and control deck… and the engine rooms. Level 5 is the gardens, where we grow all our food. Level 6 is the arboretum, where our oxygen is produced while in space. And level 7 is the observatory. I think that covers it, doesn’t it Michael?”

Michael nodded.

Zan placed his hand momentarily over a handprint on the wall and opened the glass ascension chamber.

“After you, General.”

Strickland swallowed but stepped into the chamber. To his relief, Zan, Rath, and Varec followed him in. Then the chamber began to rise. After a few seconds, it stopped and the door reopened.

“After you,” Zan said again, inviting Strickland to step out. Zan, Rath, and Varec led Strickland to the bridge, and again Zan opened the door by placing his hand briefly over a handprint on the wall. As the door opened, Strickland immediately was treated to a view of the entire area around the base through the huge windows on the bridge. It was breathtaking. A pilot himself, Strickland was accustomed to seeing this view from the air, but he had never seen it before while standing perfectly still in a city that floated in the sky. This somehow gave it a whole new perspective. Strickland turned around to speak to Zan and realized that there were other people in the room… not only men… but women… and they didn’t look very alien to him.

Liz smiled and held out her hand. “Hi! I’m Liz. I’m Max’s…” She cast a quick glance at Nancy, her younger double’s mother… “I mean, I’m Zan’s wife… Elizabeth… and she’s Liz…” She motioned toward the younger Liz.

Strickland smiled back at both of them and noticed that a good number of the others in the room seemed to have doubles as well.

“General David Strickland… at your service, ma’am.”

“This is Maria,” ‘Elizabeth’ said, introducing her best friend, “And that’s… well, that’s… Maria, too.” Liz cleared her throat nervously. “We’re supposed to call her Marisol… just to keep them straight.”

Strickland nodded. “Do all your people come in two’s? I can imagine that would be a problem… although I can think of some benefits, too.”

‘Elizabeth’ laughed. “No, we don’t come in two’s. Some of us are from a different dimension. That’s why there are two of some of us. I would explain it to you, but we don’t totally understand it ourselves.”

“So you’re from a different planet… and a different dimension?”

“Elizabeth is being modest,” Varec interjected. “She knows more about physics and science than anyone else here.”

“Oh, yeah! Who’s being modest?” Elizabeth laughed. “I certainly don’t know more than you, Varec!”

“Well, in a few more years you may… if I can’t find something else to learn before then,” Varec said, only half joking… “And if you keep learning at the rate you’ve been learning and gaining on me.”

“It’ll be a long time before I ever catch up with you, Varec. I’m not holding my breath.”

‘Elizabeth’ went around the room and introduced each one of the people on the bridge to Strickland.

“You’re not an alien,” Strickland said with certainty to Gray Hawk. “You’re from the Mesaliko Reservation… And so are you,” he said to Little Fox and White Feather. He turned to Jeff and Nancy Parker… “Are you, uh, human, too? No… if you’re Liz’s parents… you’d have to be aliens, wouldn’t you?”

Jeff smiled. “Some people may think so, I guess… but we’re human. Our daughter is, too. Her boyfriend is the one who’s from somewhere else… out there.”

Liz smiled and nodded. “Zan and Max are only part alien. They’re part human, too.”

“This is a lot to digest all at once,” Strickland said softly. “So some of you are part alien, like Zan, some of you are human… including Mesaliko… and some of you are, I presume, completely alien?”

“That would be Varec and Rayylar,” ‘Elizabeth’ said… “and Rahn. Varec is one hundred percent Antarian. So are Tess’ husband, Rayylar, and Rahn.” She decided not to elaborate on Rahn’s unique difference… the fact that he was a shape-shifter. Strickland had enough to think about already… and besides, he knew enough about them, at least for now.

Strickland looked at the three men. He couldn’t see much difference between them and the humans or the part humans. Now that he knew for sure that they were aliens, of course, he could see some differences in Varec and Rayylar. They had rather large eyes, but not entirely too large to be human. Strickland thought of The Captain and Tennille, who were popular singers a decade or two back. The Captain’s eyes were easily as big as Varec’s or Rayylar’s… maybe even larger. Varec and Rayylar’s skin was a bit light… in a strange sort of way. But that, too, was not definitively non-human. And it had an appealing tone to it, really. It wasn’t just anemic or pale. Their accents set them apart, but it could have been from anywhere. Strickland just hadn’t been able to place it. No… Strickland realized that these ‘aliens’ could have passed for humans and lived among us. The part aliens, Max and the others like him, apparently had lived among us… and no one had been the wiser.

“Aren’t you afraid… or at least concerned,” Strickland said to Max, “that so many people are going to know what you are now?”

Max shrugged. “It wasn’t really a choice that we made. Circumstances cast that fate upon us. Our doubles managed to keep their secret pretty well in their dimension, but things went kind of wrong for us in our dimension. Some of us got shot… at our graduation…”

Strickland gasped. “That was you? You were part of that graduating class… the one involved in the shooting? But you… How did you…? I heard that you were dead! My God!” Strickland exclaimed, suddenly understanding… “Then… that’s what that whole shooting was all about! You were shot because of… who you are! They knew! Culpepper… and the others… They knew! I never realized…”

Max sighed. “Like I said, the secret’s out now. After we were shot, they took us somewhere on the base and locked us up… on Culpepper’s orders, I think. They originally intended to dissect us… Michael, Maria, and Isabel were dead, by human standards, but I healed them. It’s something I have a kind of gift for. After we escaped from the base, we hid with… friends… but then all hell broke loose on the reservation, and I had to do some things that made it impossible for us to hide anymore. A lot of people saw things that they shouldn’t have seen… things that we had never let anyone see before… On top of that, I think some of it was seen on TV. We didn’t plan it that way. It just happened. Now there’s no going back… just forward… wherever that takes us.”

Strickland nodded understandingly and looked back at the huge front window of the New Granolith just as several F/A-18 Hornets flew by. The planes made a wide arc and came back for another pass, then the radio that Varec had rigged up suddenly came to life…

“General Strickland, this is Eagle Scout.”

Strickland saw one of the pilots raise his thumb and smile as he passed in front of the ship’s huge fore window.

“I see you’ve made new friends, General.”

Varec handed Strickland the microphone. The tiny device had no attached wire, so Strickland assumed that it functioned remotely. He held it between his thumb and first finger and spoke into it…

“I believe so, sir.”

“There’s someone with me who wishes to say hello to a friend,” Eagle Scout said. He pointed with his thumb at a nearby F/A-18. The pilot of that plane smiled, raised one hand, and gave a quick wink as he passed by the front of the ship.”

“Who was that,” Michael asked.

Diane Casey blushed a bit and smiled. “Dan Klein. That was meant for me, I think. He said he’d be back to help us. He didn’t tell me he was a pilot, though.”

Suddenly, Dan’s voice came over the radio… “We got rid of the planes for you… only had to ‘encourage’ two of the pilots to return to base. The rest appear to have heeded General Strickland’s order. By the way, David… Congratulations on your promotion!”

Strickland smiled. “Thanks. Uh… just how did you ‘encourage’ them, Dan?”

“I just got behind ‘em… told ‘em I’d put a sidewinder up their afterburners if they didn’t head back to base immediately. They were very reasonable about it.”

“No doubt,” Strickland replied. “Well, Dan, you’re a little late, but I can’t say that we don’t still need your help.” He looked over at Gray Hawk and the other two Mesalikos… “There’s someone here who wants to know about the situation on the reservation, I think, Dan.”

“Doesn’t look good. We did several flyovers, and there isn’t one house down there that escaped damage. I’d say ninety percent of them are totally destroyed. Right now, the Reservation is swarming with people, though… and all kinds of vehicles. We’ve got a team coming in to protect what’s left.”

“And the Mesalikos?” Strickland asked, “Did many of them survive?”

Gray Hawk stepped forward and answered Strickland’s question…

“My people are all safe… thanks to you… and to these people… and Kyle… He warned us what was going to happen, and because of him, we were able to escape in time. The Mesaliko people have never asked for anything more than to live… and be free. Everything else is just…” Gray Hawk paused a moment but didn’t come up with anything to compare “everything else” to. “We will find somewhere to go now where we can live and build our homes again.”

“Dan…” the voice crackled over the radio… “Eagle Scout here. Tell the Mesaliko people that their homes will be rebuilt… The government will take care of it.”

Strickland turned and looked at Gray Hawk… “Is that okay?”

Gray Hawk nodded. “We are grateful. Does it have to be exactly like the old house?”

“No… I guess not. Was there something wrong with the old house,” Dan asked.

“It was leaky… the ancestors could see in. I had to use peyote dust sometimes… a lot of it… when I didn’t want them to see something…”

Dan chuckled.

There was a brief silence…

“No… it would not have to be like the old house exactly,” Eagle Scout said. “It seems only fair that you should be able to repair or rebuild your home any way you like.”

“Thank you,” Gray Hawk said humbly. “I want a pow-wow room.”

Dan chuckled again. “I think you’ll get it, Gray Hawk. It’s the least we can do after what’s happened here. By the way, Eagle Scout wants to know if someone on your ship might be willing to oversee the restoration of the reservation. He would like to talk to them about it.”

Zan took the microphone from Strickland… “We’ll do anything we can, naturally, but why would he trust us… or even want our help?”

Dan smiled. “Well, in the time that Diane and I were together on the reservation and she was filming, we saw things, Zan… how your people worked together… your determination… your ability to overcome obstacles that would have defeated others… functioning together in an environment of hostility and danger that would have left most others unable to go on. But you kept going. You persevered. You succeeded. And you were accepted by the Mesaliko people. That means a lot! It is something that is not easily accomplished or to be taken lightly. Eagle Scout and I believe that your special talents and fortitude, and your special relations with the Mesaliko people, are what we need now. Would any one of you be willing to take the assignment on… for the time it takes to repair the damages?”

“How about you, Michael,” Zan said to Rath. “You practically single-handedly brought everything back together on Antar after the war with Kivar was over. You had all the linked science labs rebuilt and brought all our scientists back. There couldn’t be anyone better to do this job than you.”

Michael smiled then sighed in resignation, but deep inside, he wanted this, and he knew it. “Geez, Max, with a recommendation like that… You don’t leave me any room to say no. Okay… yeah, I’ll do it. I’m a sucker for making things work out when there are handicaps to be overcome. I guess I owe Hank for that… and Mr. Borelli.”

“The biology teacher?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he help you pass biology?”

“Nah… He failed me… But I survived it.” Michael smiled a self-satisfied smile.

Max shook his head and smiled, too. “You’ll be a great advocate for the Mesalikos! Nobody else could ever make sure that they get everything they should get or that it’s done right better than you will.”

It seemed that everyone present on the bridge agreed, because there were a lot of nodding heads at that moment. Then Maria sealed it by giving Michael a kiss, guaranteeing that he wouldn’t back out even if he was thinking about it… which he wasn’t.

“Well, you know I’ll do my best,” Michael said after Maria was finally finished with him.

“You always do, Michael,” Maria said softly. “I’ve never complained.”

Zan handed a slightly reddening Rath the microphone… “Here… Talk to Eagle Scout and Dan.” Then he turned to Gray Hawk…

“With Michael on the job, you’ll be back in your homes before you know it. For now, welcome to the New Granolith… It can be your home away from home… if you’re okay with that.

Gray Hawk nodded. “And what of my people? There are 173 Mesaliko who lived on the Reservation.”

Max looked at Michael, and Michael shrugged… “We’ve got the room…”

Max breathed out a long breath then looked back at Gray Hawk and smiled… “Welcome to the Mesaliko Reservation… the, uh, sky rise subdivision.” Then he turned to Liz and Strickland and grinned. “I wonder what the people down there are going to be saying. This is going to really put Roswell on the map. Who’d’ve guessed… real aliens… in Roswell! And they’re us! And we’re abducting all the Indians… Real news like this could put the National Enquirer and Globe completely out of business.”



tbc


Coming up: Michael gets down to business, and Gray Hawk reveals that he knows a lot more about Angie Lee than he ever told her… or anybody else.

The Night The Dreams Died



Gray Hawk And A’in Ji Lii

Chapter 33

XXXIII



Four days had passed since Max and Michael had agreed to allow all 173 displaced Mesalikos to be brought onboard the Antarian mothership, the New Granolith, until their houses could be rebuilt or repaired. With Culpepper’s demise unquestioned after what had happened… and Generals Hawkins and Hawthorn both officially AWOL, neither one having been seen for the last three days, it had been fairly easy for a newly appointed General David Strickland and two F/A-18 air squadrons from Texas and Alabama, led by Dan Klein and “Eagle One,” to put an end to “Operation Seeing Red.”

The name Culpepper had given to his bogus maneuvers had turned out to be oddly revealing. After Judge Lewis provided him with the clues that allowed him to figure out that the “aliens” were hiding on the reservation, Culpepper had indeed been “seeing red…” and he directed that anger at the Mesaliko Indians… “red skins.” His goal was to punish the Mesalikos for helping the aliens to escape from him as much as it was to recapture… or kill… the aliens themselves. And unlike most people, Culpepper was not bothered by feelings of pity or remorse. In that, at least, he and Judge Lewis shared a common bond. But Judge Lewis was still recovering at Roswell General from wounds suffered in his ill-advised tangle with Amy.

General Hawkins and General Hawthorn, for their parts, had been complicit in Culpepper’s activities by giving him the personnel and equipment he needed to attack the reservation and signing the official papers approving the bogus “maneuvers.” Neither general really knew the extent to which Culpepper would go, but both knew that this fact would matter for little. Both of them had known that Culpepper’s maneuvers were bogus… but they had wanted the aliens back as badly as Culpepper had. They had made excuses for Culpepper’s actions as long as they could then had looked the other way when Culpepper had gone over the top. They were responsible, and there was no denying it. Still, no one was sure why the two had disappeared. Ultimately, they would have to face justice, likely a court martial, if they came back. But living in the land of the disappeared didn’t seem much better. Either way, they would no longer have their positions, their salaries, or their power.

General Haggerty would probably escape any blame for the reservation fiasco. He had been in Washington, D.C. the whole time and had had no part in it, but he was almost certainly complicit in the earlier shootings that had put Liz in a coma and Max, Michael, Isabel, and Maria in a dank cell on the base. After all, it had been Haggerty who had made up the story about the agents in that shooting being vets who had been drinking earlier in the night and had suffered a mass battle flashback. And it was he who had said that the victims, other than Liz, were all dead. Explaining the fake bodies in the coffins now would be no picnic for General Haggerty, and other “sins” were likely to come out as a result. Given the media frenzy and voracious public appetite for every morsel of information that was tossed to them about what had gone on in Roswell or was going on there now, there seemed to be little doubt that any guilt… or lack of it… would almost surely come out.

Work on the reservation had already begun. Jumping right into his new job, Michael had actually lined up most of the contractors needed before the sun had even set or the dust had settled on the first day… literally. About a third of the Mesalikos had signed on as carpenters… rebuilding their houses and getting paid for it, too. For their part, the Mesalikos started work early each day, as soon as the sun began to rise, but they stopped work at three o’clock promptly, and most of them returned straight to the ship as soon as they were off. Max wondered about their desire to return early each day, but Michael seemed to have no problem with it, and work was proceeding at an unprecedented pace despite having started only two days before.

One of the Mesalikos who wasn’t working as a carpenter was Gray Hawk. He had chosen to stay onboard… after carefully going over the plans for his new home, complete with a new pow wow room, with Michael. He knew Michael would see that it was done right. Besides, for all his strength and stamina, Gray Hawk was an old man. He relished the opportunity to relax and let someone else do the work for once.

It was almost dinnertime… five o’clock… now, and most of the Mesaliko workers had returned to the ship at least an hour before and were making their way to the dining room already. One thing they did not seem to lack was an appetite, and the Antarian food was definitely A-OK with them. Many of them had even asked for seeds to plant their own grelliat gardens and other Antarian vegetable patches. Max hadn’t decided yet whether introducing Antarian vegetables to earth was a good idea or not. Exotic plants and animals often turned out to be more harmful than good in the end, and you couldn’t get much more exotic than “alien.” Still, most of the Antarian vegetables were controllable and didn’t seem to pose a major exotics problem… Neither Max nor Varec had been able to come up with a good reason so far not to provide most of the seeds to the Mesalikos who had requested them, though neither had consulted the Department of Agriculture for their opinion either.

Wingman One, the pilot who had been brought onboard the New Granolith during the early part of the battle, and Edmonds and his men, who had been transported up later, had been turned over to the newly appointed General Strickland after spending two days onboard the mother ship. All of them had since returned to their duties. It was determined that they had only been following orders and had had no hostile intentions other than as applied to the performance of their duty. In fact, all of the men had been deeply impressed by the “aliens” and the ship, and several had made a genuine effort to strike up a friendship, some asking if they might return to visit the ship later or be given a tour. Max and Michael had readily agreed. The fact is, Max and Michael enjoyed showing off their ship as much as the pilots and troops enjoyed seeing it. The gardens and arboretum… and many of the other features of the New Granolith… were still the source of a great deal of pride and awe to Max and to all those onboard almost as much as to those who were seeing them for the first time.

Max and Liz… both couples… walked into the dining room together and found most everyone else already there. The younger Liz from earth had been doing a lot of walking lately, but Jeff and Nancy still smiled and became misty-eyed every time she walked into the room on Max’s arm looking for all the world like she had never been paralyzed at all. In a very short few days, Liz had learned to control her “shape-shifting” so well that no one at all would have guessed what had once happened to her. Correcting for the damage by shape-shifting was becoming so normal to her that it happened almost automatically whenever she woke up now. She did it without thinking about it… just as anyone else would roll over to the side of the bed and stand up in the morning without giving it a second thought.

Max pulled out Liz’s chair, and Liz smiled and sat down gracefully, conscious of the fact that most eyes at the table were watching her in awe. Her previous handicap was still so fresh in everyone’s minds that it seemed that the only one who had totally adjusted to the new Liz so far was Liz herself. Liz looked around the table and smiled.

Alex grinned and nodded back, and Nancy reached over to squeeze her daughter’s hand.

Meals were becoming a major affair these days. Because of the large number of Mesalikos onboard, each meal had to be done in several shifts, so the dining room was open pretty much all day. At this shift, on this day, the Antarians and their doubles were all present. Max from Antar sat at one end of the table with Liz on his right and Michael and Maria on his left. Max from earth and the younger Liz sat at the other end of the table with Michael and Maria from earth beside them. It provided an eerie balance. Either way one looked, Max and Liz were there, and beside them were Michael and Maria. It took some getting used to. Gray Hawk and Angie Lee sat next to the younger Max and Liz from earth; and on this occasion, Tess and Rayylar sat next to Gray Hawk and Angie Lee, offsetting the “balance” just a bit. Alex and Isabel from Antar sat at the Antarian end, and their earth doubles sat at the other end with their friends. In the middle, arranged along both sides of the table, were Dan Klein and Diane Casey, Varec, both Jim Valenti’s, Amy, Kyle, Jeff and Nancy Parker, Phillip and Diane Evans, Charles and Gloria Whitman, thirty-two Mesalikos, and several visitors… among them, General David Strickland, Edmonds, two F-14 pilots, and one of Edmonds’ men. Coincidentally, it was the one who had asked the droid which way he had gone after he had been transported onto the ship.

The droid appeared and went around the table, quickly taking everyone’s order, then disappeared into the galley after leaving a drink and a small pashita loaf at each place to serve as an appetizer. Edmonds shook his head in awe and looked at General Strickland. Strickland smiled.

“Better get used to it, Edmonds. Our world’s never gonna be the same again.”

Dan Klein picked up his glass in a toast. “Here’s to change!”

The others all smiled and raised their glasses in agreement.

“I heard there were some reporters onboard yesterday,” Dan added after taking a swallow of his drink.

Max nodded and set his glass down. “Yeah. Diane brought Jeff and Glenna back onboard… and a couple of her other co-workers. They filmed a video tour of the ship. It aired last night. It was good!”

“Now every other reporter in the world seems to want to come onboard, too,” Michael said. “…We’ve been deluged with requests from at least thirty countries!”

“You gonna let ‘em come?” Dan asked.

Max shrugged. “We’re considering the logistics. Maybe we might let some of them come… one or two at a time. Right now it’s too soon, though. There’s too much going on. We already knew Diane… She’s like one of us already.”

Diane smiled, and Dan looked at her and grinned… “I guess your boss is happy.”

Diane nodded. “I’ll never be called Kitty Kashizzle ever again. It’s ‘The Evening News with Diane Casey’ now… and he gets me my coffee.”

Everyone at the table laughed.

When the laughter had settled down, Angie turned to Gray Hawk… “Grandpa, Tell me about my past.”

Angie Lee already knew what Gray Hawk’s response would be. It was always the same…
“You were my gift, A’in Ji Lii. You came from Heaven. It is not necessary to know more. Earth is our mother; sky is our father. We only need to know that to be happy.”

Angie Lee had heard it a thousand times before, and she expected to hear it again. She had the answer memorized already. She could repeat it with him word for word… but Gray Hawk put his pashita loaf down and looked into Angie Lee’s eyes. Then he smiled. It was something of a mixture of a sad smile and a happy one. Angie Lee’s heart began to race. Gray Hawk was going to say something… and it would not be his usual pat answer. Angie Lee knew him well. She could see it in his eyes… and written in the lines on his face. Angie Lee put her bread down and took a quick sip of her drink then looked at Gray Hawk.

Gray Hawk held up his hand… his palm aimed toward Angie Lee… and instinctively, Angie Lee placed her palm against his.

“Do you feel it?” Gray Hawk asked softly.

Angie Lee shook her head but then began to nod. “I don’t… I don’t know. Yes… I feel something.”

Gray Hawk lowered his hand.

“In 1947, I was a young man… only twenty-three years old. There was a lot less out there on those hills in 1947 than there is today. I hunted in those hills then… almost every day… and one day, when I was hunting, something fell out of the sky. It was much like this… machine… that we are in now… only not so large… much smaller. I saw the light fall from the sky, and I ran to see what it was. When I got there, though, there was nothing to see. I was confused and thought that the ancestors were playing a strange joke on me. I looked everywhere, but after a long time of looking, I went back home.

The next day, I went back and looked again, but still there was nothing to see. I sat down on a rock to think, and I heard something… in my head. It wasn’t a sound like you or I would make to make someone hear us… it was more of a… a thought. But I heard it. I turned around and looked again, but there was no one there… only the hills… only the grass… only the trees… and the wind…

But there was something… The wind seemed to be blowing on me from two directions… It was blowing on my face from the left… and from the right… but not from straight ahead. It was like a void was there where the wind dared not to blow… Instead, it went around the void and blew on my face from both sides. I walked toward the windless void in front of me, and I walked right into something that I could not see. I touched it with my hands. I ran my hands along it for many paces in both directions. I followed it to the other side. It was something big… something that could not be seen. I was… scared… but I was more curious. So I stayed. I sat on the rock again and asked the ancestors why they were taunting me. Were they taking my mind away from me when I was so young… or trying to teach me something that I needed to know. Sometimes they will do that.

Then I heard the thought again. It wasn’t in words… I don’t think there were words at all… It was more like… a feeling. I stood up and followed where it led me… It seemed to be leading me toward one place, and I bent down and stepped forward. I expected to hit my head on the windless void again, but this time I did not. I stepped inside something that my eyes could not see from the outside. And from inside, I could not see outside. The thing that I was in was a machine… made out of iron… but not like the iron we make knives from or any other iron I have ever seen… not then and not since then. It was different. It was… solid… but like liquid. It would bend, but it always returned to what it had been before. I followed the lights inside the strange machine-void to several other rooms, and in one of them, there were several strange, glowing sacks. Near the sacks, there was a man. He was lying on the floor, and his eyes were open, but he seemed to be dying. He was different. When his eyes closed, a black eyelid closed over them and made his eyes look very large… and black. But then he opened them again and he looked like us… except somewhat paler… and thinner… and his fingers were relatively slender.”

Gray Hawk looked at Rayylar and Varec. Their fingers were also more slender than might be expected. It wasn’t a very pronounced difference. In fact, none of the others had ever noticed. But Gray Hawk did. Of course, he knew now that the man he had seen in 1947 was indeed like Rayylar and Varec, but he had not seen anyone else like them before.

“In my mind, I felt a thought… no, a compulsion… to help, but I didn’t know how. Something seemed to be leading me to the glowing sacks… and to one of them in particular. I looked… and then I saw… what I saw…”

There was a total silence at the table until Angie Lee broke it…

“What, Grandpa? What did you see?”

“A tiny hand. It pressed against the side of the sack… from the inside… with its palm and five little fingers open. At first, I wanted to run away… I was shocked. But instead I reached down and placed my hand against the tiny hand inside the sack… and that’s when it happened.”

“What, Grandpa,” Angie Lee asked quietly.

“A feeling washed over me… like nothing I had ever felt before… very powerful. It touched my heart and ran through my whole body. I knew who you were. I knew YOU. I knew the dangers you had faced… And at the same time, the other voice in my head was telling me that you would face danger again… from others… here. When I took my hand away, I felt like… I know it sounds strange, but… like a bond was broken… a special bond, like the cord a mother shares with her baby… I felt like if I let you go you would drift away in some strange, unseen river and be lost forever. We had been one for a moment… and now I might lose you again… forever. And at the same time, I was you… the child… and I felt myself drifting away… away from a mother or father… I felt both of our emotions, A’in Ji Lii… yours… and mine… mixed together… inseparable.”

Angie Lee placed her hands over her face and choked back the tears that brimmed up in her eyes…

“I made you love me, then. It was all just some alien thing. It wasn’t what your heart really felt… It was just an alien trick… meant to guarantee my survival… to make you think you loved me so you would protect me.”

Gray Hawk shook his head. “No A’in Ji Lii. That is not true! The voice… the feeling… inside my head took me to another sack in the room after that one… I placed my hand against the hand in that sack, too…”

”Who was it,” Angie Lee asked.

“It was you, A’in Ji Lii.”

Gray Hawk could see that Angie Lee was surprised by this… and confused.

“The voice in my head was trying to protect YOU, A’in Ji Lii… but there were more than one of you. I didn’t understand it then, but I knew that some of the other sacks in that room were you, too. When I touched the hand in the second sack, though, it made me jump. It seemed to grab me. I mean… it didn’t actually grab me… but it felt like it did. It was a feeling like it wanted to… like it would protect itself at any cost. It gave me a sense of danger… fear for my life… I felt like I needed to escape. But when I touched your hand… I felt only love wash through me. Love… and loss.”

“Did you touch any of the other sacks… with me in them,” Angie Lee asked.

Gray Hawk shook his head. “No. The voice in my head said that you were the right one. It seemed to know it… and I seemed to know it. You did touch my heart, A’in Ji Lii. But it was not a trick. It was you. I felt love… like a father or…”

“A grandfather?”

Gray Hawk smiled and nodded. “A grandfather, yes. Like a father, I think, at the time… but you were not ready to come out into this strange new world yet. When you finally were, it was many years later, and I was a grandfather.”

Angie Lee smiled and kissed Gray Hawk’s weathered face.

“You’ve been both a father and a grandfather to me, Grandpa. I love you.”

Gray Hawk nodded and hugged Angie Lee to himself.

“Did you take me with you, Grandpa?”

Gray Hawk nodded. “I looked at the man on the floor. He seemed satisfied. I think it was his thoughts that I kept hearing. He seemed to be telling me to get you away from there… and I knew somehow that there were other sacks that had already been taken away somewhere and protected… with other babies in them… not you. He was supposed to protect you. You were his responsibility. I wrapped the sack in a cloth and took it with me. But when I stepped outside, I noticed that there were two other men like him standing outside the ship. They hadn’t been there before.

For a moment, we all just looked at each other… then I started to go, but one of the men stopped me and put his hand on my chest. The moment he did that, I heard the voice in my head shout… very loudly… ‘Don’t!’ It wasn’t in words… It was a… a thought… but I understood it.

The man stood there for several moments with his hand pressed against my chest, and I could hear thoughts and emotions flying back and forth between him and someone else… too fast… too many… for me to understand… between the one holding his hand against my chest and the one inside the ship, I think. Finally, he lowered his hand… but he seemed angry about it… as though he was not getting his way.

The voice in my head seemed to plead with him to rescue another sack. He looked at me for a moment, then he went inside the ship and returned with the other one that I had touched…”

“The one that made you afraid, Grandpa?”

Gray Hawk nodded. “The man gave me a final look… a sort of angry, cold, sullen look… then he walked away carrying the other sack. Then the man who had been with him went into the ship and brought out another one of the sacks. That’s when I noticed that there were two more of these strange men lying on the ground outside the ship. I hadn’t seen them before. They may have been dead already. When I started to check on them, though, the voice in my head said very loudly to go… I could come back later… but to protect you first. I was never able to get back again, though. The Army came that same day, and it was impossible to return. I never knew what happened to them. But I knew this… Their only thoughts were to protect you… and the ones they had saved already.”

“Even the angry one, Grandpa?”

“Yes. I think he would have preferred to kill me first and then save the sacks… but your safety was the most important thing to him. I never knew if that was his choice or… something else. But in the end, it makes no difference really, little yellow coyote. He let me take you, because it was the only way that they could save as many of the sacks as they could… and the dying man inside the ship commanded it.”

“What… what did you do with me… with the sack… Grandpa?”

“I took it to my house. I kept it there… in a special room.”

“Since 1947…?”

Gray Hawk nodded. “Forty-six years. It was forty-six years before you finally decided to come out.”

Angie Lee looked stunned. “You took care of me all that time… for nothing in return?”

Gray Hawk smiled. “It wasn’t so hard, A’in Ji Lii. You didn’t eat or need a bottle… I didn’t even ever have to change your diapers…”

Angie Lee blushed.

“All I ever did was come in your room several times a day and press my hand to yours. You always knew when I was there, A’in Ji Lii. Your little hand and fingers would press against the inside of the sack as soon as I came in the room… like a child asking to be picked up. So in a way, I held you… by pressing my hand to yours. It made you happy. It made… me happy.”

“Grandpa… you said that you knew who I was… that you knew me… and the dangers I had been through… the first time you touched my hand. You must have got that from me. Why don’t I remember it myself?”

“I don’t know why you do not remember, A’in Ji Lii. The information is there… in you… because I felt it the first time I touched you. Maybe it disappeared and… you just forgot. You were only a… a…”

“A sack?”

“No, A’in Ji Lii… More than that… Much more.”

“Who am I, Grandpa? Where am I from?”

Gray Hawk looked at Max and Michael then at Varec and Rayylar…

“A planet known as Antar… their planet. You were its queen… and his wife… until your enemies killed you.”



tbc

Coming up: Max and Liz, with Tess’ help, have a lot of explaining to do to Angie Lee and Gray Hawk, and Jim Valenti shows up at a Roswell town council meeting with Amy and takes on the city “leaders” for going along with Judge Lewis when the judge arrested Liz and Alex on trumped up drug charges and sent them off to an asylum miles away from their families and friends, putting their lives in danger.

The Night The Dreams Died



Sins Of The Past

Chapter 34

XXXIV



Accusingly, Gray Hawk’s finger pointed directly at the younger Max from earth. Angie Lee gasped, and Kyle appeared too stunned to speak. Liz sat with her mouth open but no words coming out. Max turned a shade paler than normal, but after a moment, he managed to stammer…

“There was a book… In it there was something about us having mates before… on Antar… but I… we… none of us… know anything about that other than what the book said. I swear, I could never have had anything to do with harming Angie Lee, though.”

“You did not,” Gray Hawk replied. “Her enemies were also your enemies. They killed you, too… all of you. But you, Max, were the king… and A’in Ji Lii was your queen. You were married.”

Angie Lee looked at Max then at Kyle. Kyle appeared vaguely ill.

Angie Lee swallowed hard. “I… I don’t remember that… I don’t remember anything from then. I don’t… I’m sorry, Max… I don’t feel that way… about you.”

Max breathed a deep breath. It was hard to tell if he was finding his voice again or if it was a reflex action caused by relief. In either case, it was the first breath he had taken since Gray Hawk had pointed his finger at him.

Max shook his head. “I have no memory of that either. And it’s alright, Angie Lee. I…” He glanced at Liz beside him… “I love someone else already. It only makes sense that you would, too. This life is not the one we lived before… on Antar. We may have been made from their DNA… We may even be them… but we have different… destinies.”

Liz shook her head and laid her shaking hand on the table in front of her. She attempted to calm it by laying the other hand on top of it, but that hand was shaking, too…

“How can we fight destiny, Max? I mean… if that’s your destiny… How can you fight it?”

Max’s mouth dropped open, and he appeared to be shocked and hurt. “How can you accept that, Liz… just like that? I thought you… I thought we…”

Isabel kicked Max under the table and gave him a piercing look…

“Max, you idiot, look at her. It’s not what she wants. She’s looking for a way out of this stupid destiny crap. You’re supposed to help her find it, not act like a friggin’ hurt puppy!”

Max closed his eyes for a moment then opened them again. “I’m sorry, Liz. I just…”

Liz held a hand up and shook her head. “Don’t, Max. I understand.”

“No, I don’t think you do, Liz.” Max shook his head emphatically. “I don’t believe in destiny… except the destiny that we make ourselves. If we had a different life before, that life doesn’t exist now… at least not the same way it did before. Angie Lee knows it, too. If destiny was in play here, I’d be looking at Angie Lee all the time like… like… well, kind of like Kyle keeps looking at her… when he thinks no one is noticing.”

Kyle’s face momentarily reddened enough that he might have passed for a Mesaliko, and Angie Lee looked down to try to hide the smile that was inching over her face.

Tess stood up and walked over beside her younger near-double. Tess was, for all practical purposes, Angie Lee’s double, but besides the slight age difference, which they all had, Tess had light, smoky blue eyes; the younger Angie Lee’s eyes were jade green. Except for those minor differences, the two might have been mistaken for identical twins…

“Angie Lee, I think I may be able to help you understand some of this… You, too, Max,” Tess said, turning to the younger Max from earth. “In our dimension, Max and I have been through this already. So has Liz.” Tess looked at the younger Liz. “And Liz, Max married you in my dimension… not me. So destiny can be changed, like Max said. It’s not set in concrete… nothing is… except as we allow it to be. I married Rayylar.” Tess smiled at Rayylar, and he returned the smile. “It was the best thing I ever did… Max was crushed, of course, but… somebody had to do the right thing.” Tess winked at Liz from Antar, and Liz shook her head and smiled. Beside her, Max closed his eyes and bit his tongue.

“And there’s something else, Angie Lee,” Tess said… “something that you really have to know. It would have made life so much easier for me if I had known it from the start. Our scientists discovered that about twelve thousand years ago, one of the king’s confidants switched his own baby for the king’s baby. No one ever knew it at the time. The confidant’s baby grew up as part of the royal family, and the king’s baby grew up thinking she was the daughter of the other man. The king’s real daughter, who was raised by this other man and didn’t know she was part of the royal family, eventually got married and had children, and they had children, and their children had children… through about twelve generations, I think… until about ten thousand years ago, when three girls were born into her line, MayaSabriena, AnDasniya, and JoLeesa. Their father was a cosmic mapper and xenobiologist, and he took his family to a blue planet in the seventh galaxy from Antar, called Eluymer, to map that planet and gather life forms to bring back to Antar for study. You know Eluymer as earth. The three girls were only fourteen years old… going on fifteen… when they came to earth. And they were triplets.

At that time, Eluymer… your earth… had two moons…”

A number of people around the table sat up, appearing shocked at this bit of information, especially General Strickland, Corporal Edmonds, Dan Klein, and Diane Casey.

“The smaller of the two moons,” Tess said, “was only about half as far away as the larger of the two, the one that is still there today. Anyway, Maya, Andya, and JoLeese were allowed to travel back and forth to the small moon at will in a kind of small, enclosed vehicle that was apparently pretty simple to operate. And they went back and forth often, because they had a secret hideout there… a hidden cave on the far side. I won’t go into the whole story of these girls’ lives or what happened to them, but here’s why they’re so important to us…

Ten thousand years after those girls went to earth, Max and Michael found a diary and some other things that one of the girls, Maya, had kept when they were on earth. Because of this diary, our scientists decided to trace the girls’ ancestry and lineage, both on Antar and on earth. What they found was that these three girls were… according to their DNA… in the direct line from the king. But this was not possible, so they traced the ancestry, using DNA, of the most recent queen… me… and found that I was NOT in the direct line from the king or from any of the extended royal family. Instead, I was in the line from the king’s confidant thousands of years before. Of course, like everyone else, I didn’t know this. This meant that the triplets had been the most recent known true female descendants of the real original king of Antar. When our scientists traced Maya, Andya, and JoLeesa’s lineage on earth, they found that one of the girls, Maya, the first-born of the three and the one who had kept the diary, had a descendant still living on earth today.” Tess looked at Liz from Antar. “That descendant is Liz. And since she is the only known direct living descendant of MayaSabriena, who was a direct descendant of the king of Antar at the time when the lines diverged, Liz is… legally and rightly… the real queen of Antar. Who’d’ve known, right?”

For several moments, Angie Lee sat quietly, absorbing this information… Then she asked…

“Does that mean that Max is not the real king then? And if he is… and Liz is the real Queen, too… aren’t they like… related?”

Tess smiled. “That would be logical, but they’re not really. Max is descended directly from the original king through the male line. Traditionally, the queen was chosen from among the many descendants of the many members of the royal family who were descended from the original king. But after more than twelve thousand years and a lot of marriages outside the royal family, none of the women who become queen are really that closely related, bloodwise, to the King… Only the King, through the male bloodline, maintains an absolutely pure lineage. But position is everything. I was the Queen of Antar in our past life, because Max… Zan, that is… married me… but I was not a queen by heritage, only by his choice, because I had never belonged to the royal family as it turns out. Liz, on the other hand, is Queen both by heritage and by choice. She is a true Queen of Antar.”

Several people around the table applauded lightly, and “Wow” was heard more than once.

“The reason you need to know this, Angie Lee,” Tess said, “is because you need to let go of any preconceptions you might come to have about some false position in society that you occupy. When we returned to Antar, I knew that Max was married to Liz and that I would never be his queen… I accepted that… and I was totally okay with it… but I had this preconception that I had that station in life, as the rightful heiress to the throne based on my lineage, and without realizing it, I shut a lot of people out of my life… guys especially. I didn’t really understand why everyone else had someone and I was still alone… until Alex told me. Mr. Big shot King over here didn’t want to hurt my feelings.” Tess walked over and gave Max a light thunk on the back of the head with a flick of her finger.

“Michael, aren’t you supposed to be protecting me,” Max asked, rubbing the back of his head and giving Michael a bewildered look.

Michael smiled.

“So much for being a king, huh!” Max groaned good-naturedly.

There was some laughter around the table.

“Nobody wanted to tell me,” Tess said. “After the others found out about it, it was all hush-hush around me. It took Alex to tell me the truth. He just came right out with it… ‘Tess, you’re not the real Queen. Liz is.’ There… it was as easy as that. Then he told me what they all knew but were too afraid to tell me.”

Isabel squirmed in her seat, and Alex smiled. He remembered how Isabel had practically threatened to end his life with supreme prejudice and violence after he had embarrassed her by so bluntly telling Tess the truth right in front of her. But Alex had surmised that Tess needed to know this in order to move on with her life… and he had been right. He hadn’t told her the truth to be cruel, though to some… like Isabel at the time… it had seemed so. Isabel had put him on notice after that that the only reason he was still living at all was because he was so unbearably cute and irresistible… most of the time… Otherwise…

In their own dimension, before Max and Michael went to Antar and defeated Kivar to retake Max’s throne, Tess had been responsible for Alex’s death. But when Max and Michael later returned to earth in its past to try to save Liz, Maria, and Isabel from dying in the end of the world, they wound up changing time in some unexpected ways, specifically by undoing the damage to time that ‘future Max’ had done by coming back in the old granolith. As a result, the earth survived, and Tess never killed Alex. In fact, she never knew Nasado at all. Years later, when the special unit found out that Alex had been close to Isabel, they dragged him off to the base without letting anyone know what had happened to him. His parents thought he had been killed, and it was Tess who saved him and brought him to Antar.

Alex had no memory of ever being killed, of course, because once that timeline changed, it never happened. The only ones who remembered it were Max, Michael, and Kyle, because they had lived on earth in that past before it was changed. Everyone else was a product of the changed past. Alex did know about it, because Max and Michael had told him, but he shrugged it off. Tess was, after all, his good friend in this timeline. She had saved him from the special unit and had brought him with her to Antar. Despite these differences in Tess, however, she was keenly aware that she had been the Queen of Antar in her past life… and until Alex relieved her of that burden, it had ruled her life in ways that she never realized.

“Liz is good as the Queen,” Tess said. “She isn’t bothered by preconceptions of any kind. She’s just herself. And it works… for her. I would have thought I’d have been upset to find out that I wasn’t even a royal, but I actually just felt liberated. I looked around, and there was this whole world that I had never seen before… guys that I had hardly allowed myself to speak to or who wouldn’t speak to me because I gave off that air like, ‘Don’t come close, I’m a royal.’ You know? I didn’t realize I was even doing that. But suddenly, I was free, and I could see it… and it actually felt good to be… just me.”

Tess sat down, and Rayylar pulled her close and gave her a kiss. Alex leaned over and boldly gave her a kiss of his own on the cheek, and Tess smiled. Somehow, Alex knew that Rayylar wouldn’t mind. Isabel shook her head, certain that one day Alex was going to miscalculate. But she smiled, too. Alex was Alex after all. And there was nobody else in the whole world like Alex… Alex was free of all preconceptions, as Tess had so aptly said about Liz. Alex was pure… He was Alex. And it allowed him to get away with a lot.



**********


Two days later, in Roswell, Jim and Amy were making their way through the crowds toward City Hall. The streets of Roswell were packed, something that reminded Jim of the UFO conventions that were celebrated there every year… probably almost since the crash happened in 1947. UFO freaks and alien-seeking sci-fi buffs came from all over the U.S. and many other countries each year for the convention, and the town’s leaders encouraged it. It meant money… big money… in the city’s coffers. The business people loved it, too. Business at the CrashDown, Jeff and Nancy Parker’s alien-themed café, always bustled during the UFO Convention. It brought in more profit in five days than the whole next three to four months together could be expected to generate. So it was no wonder, really, that the town leaders were meeting today to discuss how to best capitalize on the presence above Roswell and the Mesaliko Reservation of an honest-to-God, bona-fide UFO with worldwide news coverage already assured. Jim could just imagine the salivating that was going on in that meeting, and it made his blood boil.

To Jim, it seemed the absolute epitome of hypocrisy for these men and women to sit there in their plush seats talking about how to make more money from this phenomenon that literally dropped into their laps… after the way they had treated Liz and Alex… even passing a special ordinance allowing Judge Lewis to send them to an insane asylum on trumped up charges of dealing drugs, something that no one in Roswell would have truly believed. Judge Lewis had wielded enormous power in Roswell, enough to lead the town council any way he wanted them to go, but that did not excuse them in Jim’s mind. What they had done was criminal, and Jim would not let them get away with it so easily… much less allow them to profit from the presence of the ‘aliens’ now… at least not without hearing from him first.

Jim opened the door of the city hall building and held it for Amy. Amy was a very independent person, but Jim was nothing if he wasn’t a gentleman… It was in his blood. And Amy would have had it no other way. They walked up the stairs together to the third floor council room, and Jim opened the door again. Councilman Moss was leading the meeting, and he stopped in mid-sentence. Everybody turned to look at Jim and Amy. For a moment, no words were spoken, then Jim broke the silence.

“Gentlemen… as Sheriff of Roswell, I believe I am allowed to attend this meeting.”

“Sure… Yeah, sure, you are Sheriff,” Councilman Ralph Moss replied. “Have a seat. We were just talking about how our town can grow and… uh… take advantage… uh… put to best advantage… the presence of this wonderful… uh… turn of events in our area.”

Jim’s eyes widened. “Wonderful, Ralph? Is that what you all think it is now?”

“Well, sure, Jim… We all want what’s best for Roswell. This is a boon. We intend to take advantage of it… The town can benefit…”

Jim nodded. “I see that. What about those two kids… Elizabeth Parker and Alex Whitman, Ralph?”

“Now what do you mean by that, Sheriff? Nobody done those kids any harm. They’re both doing just fine. I heard the girl’s even walking again.”

“You heard right, Ralph. It’s no thanks to you or anyone in this room, though. If you had had your way, she’d be dead now… along with the Whitman boy.”

“Now that’s a mighty hard accusation, Jim. We never wanted to harm them… either one of them. Judge Lewis maybe… I can’t speak for him. But leave us out of that.”

“You didn’t leave yourself out of it, Ralph. How did you vote on that resolution the Judge asked you to pass… you know, the one that gave him the authority to ship those kids up to that asylum and kept their parents –and me- from seeing them?”

“That’s not fair, Jim.”

“How’d you vote, Ralph?”

There was a brief silence. “I voted ‘yes,’ Jim. We all did. You know that.”

Jim nodded. “Yeah… I do. Not even one of you brave, noble councilmen had the guts to say no to Judge Lewis then. Why was that? Huh? Was it that hard to do the right thing? Judge Lewis was taking kickbacks from renegade miscreants in the FBI and the Army, from common criminals, and even from the coyotes. Some of you even knew it. What happened? Cat got your tongues? Nobody knew how to speak up? You just turned those kids over to the FBI and Army to be… killed… or dissected… or whatever… Washed your hands of them… of the whole affair? Well, it’s not that easy.”

“That’s not fair, Jim,” Moss insisted again. “We had every reason to trust the special units. They are, after all, government sponsored. My God, Jim, we’re talking the U.S. of A. here. You don’t question your country. It’s a matter of… of patriotism.”

Jim straightened and raised himself up tall suddenly, almost as though he had just been struck in the back by a board, and he looked Moss directly in the eye for several moments… several long moments for Moss. Then he let his gaze drift around the room, catching each council member in turn in his gaze. As he did, he pronounced each ones name in turn slowly and deliberately… “Connie Lawrence… Buddy Mills… Lou Bateman… Frank Johnson… Loretta Sims… Angela Harwood… Kenneth Wilder… Will Wilson… Marsha Goodwin… Tom Everett… Gene Kirby… Jessica and Lonnie Benson…” Each one lowered his or her eyes as Jim called their names.

“Shame on you all! That’s all I have to say. Shame on you all! We are all fortunate that those two children survived and were rescued… no thanks to any of you sitting here in this room today salivating over the ways to make money off of them now. You sold them out, then you sold out the Mesalikos…”

“We had nothing to do with that, Jim,” Jessica Benson quickly retorted.

“You are all responsible, Jessica. Each and every single one of you. You allowed a cancer to grow in your midst… Judge Lewis. You fed it, groomed it, used it, coddled it. Now you own it… and all that it is responsible for…

And Ralph! Patriotism is the right to be proud of what you have accomplished and done when it is GOOD… and the responsibility to keep it that way. History has shown us that even great cities revert to wilderness when there is no one left who cares to tend them, protect them, and build upon them. If our country is great, it is because men and women who cared have fought to keep it that way and to vigilantly weed out corruption that would seek to destroy it. To follow blindly while allowing ourselves to sink into an abyss of corruption and disrepute is not patriotism. That’s a crime. What, then, is there to set us apart, as a race, from the Hitlers, Pol Pots, or any other despots and criminals? Might we all hide behind the robes of patriotism? If we as a nation have the right to be patriotic –and indeed we do- it is because some have earned it for us. I would ask you…” Jim looked each one straight in the eyes again. “Do you feel that your actions… or inactions… on this board have earned you that right today? Gentlemen… and ladies, too… we all have made mistakes. Greatness comes in recognizing our mistakes… and then bringing about change that will guarantee the justness of our cause, preserve our heritage, and assure our right and that of every future generation to share in that heritage. Then, and only then, can we as individuals stand proud… and claim our earned right… to patriotism. So Councilman Moss… before you talk to me of patriotism, be absolutely sure that your actions do not betray you. That’s all I have to say. Amy? Can you think of anything else?”

Amy smiled and shook her head. “You said it all, Jim. I wouldn’t change or add a word.”

“Then gentlemen… and ladies,” Jim said, “Thank you all for your time. When next this board meets, I trust we will have happier things to discuss. You may go back to your business now. I think you were talking about how to capitalize on the UFO craze that has come to Roswell.” Jim turned and left the room with Amy, leaving only stunned silence in the council hall behind them.

Out on the sidewalk again, Amy kissed Jim and wiped a tear from her eyes. “I swear, Jim, I could hear The Star Spangled Banner playing as you spoke. I’d give anything to be a fly on the wall in there right now.”

Jim smiled and put his arm around Amy.



tbc


Coming up: Judge Lewis gets out of the hospital, and the gang gets a look at Gray Hawk’s new house.

The Night The Dreams Died



Of Rumors And Bogeymen

Chapter 35

XXXV



At Roswell General Hospital, the doctors were preparing to release one now fairly-infamous patient, Judge Horace Lewis. His two-week-long stay in the hospital had kept him out of circulation while much of the world learned about the aliens… and found out what had happened to them… and who was responsible. With global news and satellite coverage what it is today, and thanks to Diane Casey’s always excellent news coverage, the name of Judge Lewis had become well-known worldwide. It was generally considered slightly more derogatory and creepy than the name of your average ax murderer or Freddy Kruger. In fact, the name “Judge Lewis” seemed to have replaced the Bogeyman in some places… More than one person had been overheard telling children that if they misbehaved Judge Lewis would get them. No one could remember such a name association being used since the American Civil War, when many mothers in northern households kept their children in line… and indoors… with the threat that Stonewall Jackson, the famous and much-feared-in-the-north southern general second to General Lee, would get them if they misbehaved. Further away from home, in parts of Central America, “No seas malo o te lleva el chupacabras” was rapidly being replaced with “…te lleva el juez Luis.” It seemed that the legendary chupacabras, a sort of vampirish creature that sucks the blood out of goats and is believed by many to exist, just as many believe bigfoot to exist, was no longer as scary to children… or their mothers… as el juez Luis.”

On hand to protect Judge Lewis and escort him from the hospital to a waiting car was Sheriff Jim Valenti; and with him was his wife, Amy. The irony of this was not lost on Jim Valenti. Judge Lewis had sought to discredit Jim… He had got the sheriff fired, tried to banish him, and possibly even been complicit in the failed attempt on his life… and now he was depending on Valenti to protect his own sorry life.

Jim put his arm around Amy, and Amy smiled.

“Do you think he’ll be glad to see us,” Jim asked Amy coyly.

Amy laughed. “He’ll be glad to see you, Jim. He needs you… to get him past that mob out there with what little’s left of his hide still intact. I don’t think he’ll be glad to see me. I’m responsible for him losing what he’s lost already. He won’t want to lose any more.”

“Well, maybe he’s learned his lesson, Amy. People do change, you know.”

Amy smiled. “Keep believing that, Jim. I love a husband who still believes in the Easter Bunny.” She puckered her lips and squeezed Jim’s cheek playfully. Jim smiled.

“Well, I didn’t say I thought he HAD changed,” Jim corrected. “I just meant that miracles do happen… sometimes.” He looked at Amy, and she looked at him…

“Naw,” both of them said together at the same time.

Jim took a quarter out of his pocket and flipped it into the fountain beside them.

“What was that for,” Amy asked. “Did you make a wish?”

Jim shook his head. “No. I had been saving it to bribe the Easter Bunny for some extra candy.”

Amy snorted then began to giggle, nodding her head as though she actually believed Jim’s story… or at least that he might be capable of it.

While Jim and Amy waited in the hospital lobby, in a waiting room nearby, two unseen men were also waiting for Judge Lewis’ release. They were dressed down in older clothes, though they did not appear to be comfortable in them or to be accustomed to them, and they were clearly making an effort to remain out of sight and inconspicuous.

One of the men peaked out the door then turned back to the other one… “I heard she beat him up pretty good.”

The other man shrugged. “That’s what I heard. He lost a lot of skin… and got some fractured ribs and stuff… and… uh… uh…”

“And what?”

“Well… it’s just kind of a rumor, you know, that she, uh, tied it in a knot.”

“It?”

“It.”

“That’s not possible. Somebody’s putting you on. You’re too gullible, Hawkins.”

“I heard it from some pretty unimpeachable sources. I don’t know. I wouldn’t rule anything out where that woman’s concerned, Hawthorn.”

Hawthorn nodded. “Yeah, I know what she’s capable of.”

He paused to think about it then smiled. “No. Some things just can’t be done, Hawkins… not even by her.”

“Not even if it was a… a noodle?”

“Geez! Get real, Hawkins!”

Hawkins looked at the floor abashedly. “Sorry.”

Hawthorn smiled, having apparently won this round, but he seemed to swallow a bit harder than usual. At that moment, the doctor walked out of Judge Lewis’ room and headed for the lobby to speak with Sheriff Valenti. Hawkins and Hawthorn followed, staying out of sight.

“Ah, here’s the Doc!” Jim said, walking toward the doctor, as the doctor walked into the lobby. “How’s our favorite patient?”

“Alive,” Doctor Maris said… “and ornery as ever. I’m glad to get rid of him, frankly, Jim. A few more days in here and he’d have this whole hospital turned into his offices… He seems to think we’re all here just to run errands for him and do his bidding 24/7. I never saw an ego like that man’s.”

Jim shrugged. “That’s too bad. I thought maybe after what Amy did to him he might have learned something.”

Doctor Maris shook his head. “Well, I’ll say one thing Jim. That wife of yours can tie a damned hard knot. That half hitch was the devil to get out. Nobody here could untie it. We wound up having to cut the whole thing off.” Doctor Maris made a slicing motion in the air with his scalpel.

Amy smiled and blushed. Then, the emergency exit doors in the hallway opened suddenly, setting off an alarm. Doctor Maris ran to close the doors back and turn off the alarm.

“Some people never pay attention to signs, Jim. It clearly says, ‘For Emergencies Only’ right over the door… But do they read it? Huh? I ask you. Oh well… Whoever ran out these doors is gone now. I guess they were in too big a hurry to go through the lobby.”

Jim nodded then turned to Amy. “I didn’t know you knew how to tie a half-hitch, Amy. What did you tie a knot in?”

Amy smiled. “I pulled his feet up behind him and put ‘em through his belt. Then I tied them there with his shoe laces.”

“We like to never got his feet straightened back out, Jim,” Doctor Maris added. “Nobody here could undo Amy’s knots. We had to cut the laces and his belt off of him to get his feet out of his belt.”

Jim looked at Amy.

“Hey,” Amy shrugged. “I was mad. He was hurting Maria.”

Jim nodded. “That wasn’t my critical look, Amy… That was admiration.”

Doctor Maris laughed, and a nurse walked into the lobby at that moment pushing Judge Lewis in a wheelchair.

“What? Somebody say something funny?” Judge Lewis barked angrily. “I’m suffering in here for two weeks after being almost killed and somebody thinks something’s funny?”

Amy stepped out from behind Jim, and Judge Lewis sank into his chair, suddenly becoming quiet.

“Did I just see two men running out the emergency doors,” the nurse asked. “They looked like they’d seen a ghost. They were falling all over each other trying to be the first one out.”

Doctor Maris shrugged. “I don’t know what their hurry was. I guess some people are just afraid of hospitals.”

Jim nodded. “Well, let’s get the Judge out to his car before any of his admirers outside realize he’s been released.”

Judge Lewis looked at Jim and narrowed his eyes. “Admirers? That was sarcasm, wasn’t it, Jim?”

“How would you know that, Horace?” Jim asked. “You might have admirers… Don’t you think?”

Judge Lewis didn’t reply.



tbc


Coming up: The gang gathers in Gray Hawk’s new house for a house-warming party, and ex-generals Hawkins and Hawthorn corner Judge Lewis.

Author’s Note: This all-new chapter is entirely different than chapter 72 in The Four Faces Of Rath. In The Four Faces Of Rath, the gang from Antar visits Gray Hawk in his new home. In The Night The Dreams Died, the younger gang from earth visits Gray Hawk in his new home the next day. TFFOR is primarily about the Antarian gang while TNTDD is a story about the younger earth gang. Even though the two groups happen to be together right now and some chapters will therefore be the same for the moment, these two chapters are different. If you are following only this story, you may want to read chapter 72 in The Four Faces Of Rath, too, to see what happened with the other gang at Gray Hawk’s house. It’s like getting a two for one! How can you lose?

The Night The Dreams Died



Roll Over, Ancestor
(featuring the TNTDD Gang from earth)

Chapter 36

XXXVI



“Did you see Kyle this morning, Maria?”

“I think he’s already gone down, Sheriff… I mean, Dad.”

“Already?” Jim looked at his watch. “He spent the entire day there yesterday… with our alien doubles when they went to see Gray Hawk’s new house. I was going to ask him if he wanted to go back this morning with us regular, uh, earthlings, but I guess that answers my question.”

Maria smiled. “I think he’s a bit preoccupied… with a certain other person there at Gray Hawk’s house.”

Jim knew exactly what… and whom… Maria was talking about, but he betrayed no sign of being aware. “I’ve never seen Kyle like this. The sun barely starts to come out… he’s up and he’s gone. Yesterday, he went to Gray Hawk’s house with the aliens… today he’s going again with us. Well, actually, he’s already gone, I guess…”

“The ‘aliens’ are us, you know, Sher-… uh, Dad. They left earth and went to Antar years ago in their dimension. Well, some of them were born here anyway… our doubles were. Actually, if you really think about it, if they’re aliens, so are we. Maybe someday we’ll be out there somewhere in the stars and we’ll be the aliens, huh?”

Jim laughed. “You’ll have to get me off of earth first, Maria. I’m just a small town country boy sheriff, not Buck Rogers.”

“That’s what your double said he once said, too… Remember?”

“Yeah, I heard him, but he left under duress… they all did. The special unit was after them. It was either leave or be locked up forever… maybe tortured or killed. We don’t have that problem here now.”

“Not right now,” Maria agreed cautiously. “But some of us did for a while. If they hadn’t shown up from Antar to help us, we might have all disappeared forever or still be running to keep from getting caught. It could happen again… someday.”

Jim shook his head. “No. Things are different here now. The whole world knows about the aliens… and about you and Michael and Max and the others. The whole world knows what happened to you guys here before the aliens came. And the whole world is… how can I say it… alien happy, no… alien crazy! They’ve adopted the aliens… and that includes everyone associated with them here… Max, Michael, Isabel, Angie Lee, Alex, and you and Liz especially. You’re like their… I don’t know…”

“Pets?”

“Well, that’s what I was going to say, but it doesn’t seem appropriate.”

Maria nodded. “But that’s kind of how some of them see us. There are people out there who are living in this sci-fi bubble-land storybook. When that bubble finally breaks, what will happen to us then? We’re just fads. People get tired of fads… they discard them… or even worse. You don’t see any of those pet rocks around anymore, do you? What do think happened to them? Huh?”

Jim smiled and shook his head. “Some things may be for the best, Maria. Anyway, we’ll deal with that when it happens… if it happens. Maybe this is not as temporary as you think. They just have to learn to think of us as real people… to get to know us… and love us… or at least accept us. Besides, maybe if they get tired of us it’ll be to our benefit. We’ll be able to live private lives again.”

Maria smiled and raised one eyebrow. “Us, Dad? Aha! You DO know you’re special!”

“I’m not special, Maria. People just think I am. What can I do about it?”

Maria put an arm around Jim. “You are special. You’re my Dad now. That makes you special. And Mom loves you. That makes you special. And you saved all our butts several times before the Antarians ever got here. So I think you’re very special.”

Jim smiled at Maria and gave her a wink. “Thanks, Maria. Let’s just keep that ‘special’ stuff to ourselves, though, okay.”

“Whatever,” Maria said with a grin.

Jim knew the meaning of ‘whatever,’ especially coming from a teenager, and double especially when that teenager was Maria. He smiled and shook his head, knowing full well that he had just been over-ruled and was unable to do anything about it. And if the truth were known, perhaps he didn’t really want to do anything about it. Somewhere deep down inside, like everyone else, Jim did enjoy praise. He just wasn’t accustomed to accepting it.

“Ah, Max!” Jim said, happy to change the subject, as Max approached. “Are we about ready to go see Gray Hawk’s new house?”

Max nodded. “Michael’s right behind me with Alex, Isabel, and Liz. Amy’s coming, too. As soon as they all get here we can go. Nobody’s seen Gray Hawk’s new house yet… well, except Gray Hawk, of course… and our doubles when they went down to see it yesterday. They’re keeping it all a big secret, though. It’s sort of a big production.”

Maria raised her eyebrows again and smiled. “You think they built him, like, a mansion or something?”

Max smiled at Maria and shook his head. “Nothing like that. Rumor has it, though, that most of the houses finished so far did get an extra bedroom or a carport… or a pow-wow room, like Gray Hawk wanted. Michael approved it. He didn’t think it was asking too much. I think the government was just happy they weren’t being sued and that they got off so easy after what happened on the reservation.”

Maria and Jim both laughed.

“Here they are now,” Max said, nodding toward Michael, Liz, Alex, and Isabel. Amy walked up right behind them. “You guys ready?”

“Ready and raring,” Michael said. “I’m anxious to know what my double did with Gray Hawk’s house. He won’t even tell me… and he’s ME! It’s like I’m keeping secrets from myself!”

Everyone laughed, then Max pointed toward the ascension chamber. “Everyone inside. Let’s get down there to the Reservation.”

Eighteen minutes later, Max, Michael, Liz, Maria, Alex, Isabel, Jim, and Amy were standing in front of Gray Hawk’s house. The first thing they noticed was a large, shady, covered porch spanning the entire front of the house. Gray Hawk had not had a porch before. Size-wise, the house itself looked only slightly larger than before. The yard was fixed up nicer, both in front and in back. No longer was the front yard just bare dirt… It was thick green grass now. And Michael could see something that looked like an Indian handball court in the back yard.

Max knocked on the door, and it opened. Standing in the door was Kyle, with Angie Lee beside him.

Michael exhaled emphatically. “Oh great! He’s moved in already!”

Maria laughed, and Jim narrowed his eyes, trying to appear stern.

“Come on in everyone,” Kyle said, opening the door for them.

“Did Gray Hawk forget he’s supposed to keep the scalps of guys like you who come looking for his daughter… uh, granddaughter… nailed over his fireplace,” Michael asked. “I’m surprised he’s being so easy going about all of this.”

Kyle grinned. “I’m just visiting, too, Michael… just for a little longer than you are, that’s all. I wasn’t here last night.”

“Oh, well that sets our minds at ease,” Michael said with a touch of good-natured sarcasm.

Liz shoved Michael on the arm. “Give him a break, Michael. You’ve got Maria, Isabel’s got Alex, I’ve got Max. Kyle has a right to find some happiness, too.”

Michael grinned a sort of lopsided grin. “I didn’t say he couldn’t be happy. Did I say he couldn’t be happy? I just wanted to see how a real scalping is done. Gray Hawk’s letting me down here.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “You’re a real pal, Michael. I’ll remember!”

Kyle led the group through the house, passing through the living room and down the hall past five doors, two more than had been there previously. Angie Lee explained that the two new doors were to a new bedroom and a new bathroom. Finally, they came to a room in the back. “This is Gray Hawk’s pow-wow room,” Kyle said. “He’s very proud of it. He’s waiting to show it to you.”

“It’s great!” Angie Lee exulted. “I could spend all day in there!”

Maria looked surprised then laughed. “You like to pow-wow, Angie Lee? Isn’t that like where a bunch of Indians… mostly old men… get together and smoke a peace pipe or plan wars or talk about hunting trips or something?”

“Yeah… it can be that,” Angie Lee agreed. “But it’s just a place where everyone can come together to talk or to have fun… even me.”

Max smiled, imagining Angie Lee sitting cross-legged on the ground passing a peace pipe around a fire with a bunch of old Mesaliko Indians.

“What does Kyle think of it,” Michael asked.

“Do I like the pow-wow room?” Kyle asked, rephrasing Michael’s question. “I love it! Angie Lee and I have already spent a lot of time there.”

That picture was too much for Michael, and he snorted then tried to muffle his laughter.

Kyle opened the door, and everyone gazed upon a large room, decorated with Indian trophies on the two side walls and a curtain covering the far wall. In the center of the room were several rows of very comfortable-looking plush reclining seats, like a fancy theater might have.

Max surmised that there was a pit behind the curtain where a fire could be lit and ritual dancing could take place.

“Come in,” Angie Lee said. “But watch your step when you come in. It’s a sunken room.”

“Sit,” Gray Hawk ordered, stepping into the room behind everyone else. Everyone did.

Angie Lee turned a dial on the wall, and the lights began to dim. Then music came on.

“You have a stereo system in here?” Max asked.

“The very best,” Kyle replied for Gray Hawk. “You can lean back and listen to CD’s, tapes, whatever you want. It comes out a group of speakers surrounding the room.”

Max did have to admit that it was soothing. The music seemed to come from everywhere at once. He wondered what a system like that would cost. But the soothing effect was the result of more than just the music. The room seemed to amplify the music while keeping all outside sounds out. It was essentially sound-proof and acoustically arranged. If one leaned back in the seat and looked at the ceiling, the lights disappeared as they dimmed, to be replaced by a twinkling, starry-sky effect, which gave the feeling of being outdoors at night.

“I may go to sleep,” Liz said.

Maria giggled. “Me, too.” Maria leaned against Michael, and Michael drew her closer to him and into his arms. Max put his arm around Liz, and she laid her head on his chest and listened to the music. Alex had Isabel in his seat with him, her face next to his, their arms entwined, as they both watched the starry sky effect together to the music.

Just when everyone was comfortable, Gray Hawk flipped a switch and the curtain began to open in front of them. At first, they watched curiously but nonchalantly, then everyone sat up bolt upright at once…

Maria gasped. “Omigod! Is that a TV?”

Gray Hawk smiled. “Flat-screen, wide-vision, plasma. One hundred sixty inches.”

“It covers most of the wall,” Kyle added, as though that fact were not already abundantly clear.

“I didn’t know they made them that big,” Maria said.

Kyle smiled and nodded. “Some sports bars have them. You have to have a big room to put them in… and a whole free wall.”

“That’s incredible,” Max said, whistling softly. “That’s the biggest one I’ve seen personally. It’s like a regular… theater almost!”

“Better!” Amy exulted, as she cuddled up to Jim in the back row. “It’s more private… and more comfortable.”

“We can watch videos or DVD’s or watch TV on the screen,” Angie Lee said. “Pretty cool, huh? We can even play games on it.”

Max looked at Gray Hawk. “Is this what you had in mind, Gray Hawk, when you said you wanted a pow-wow room?”

Gray Hawk smiled. “Something like this. Michael helped me with the details.”

“I’ll bet he did,” Max said.

Kyle laughed, and Michael nodded, knowing his double as he did… It was something he might have done himself… if he’d had the money to do it and the opportunity had been given to him. It didn’t surprise him that his Antarian double had approved this… or even that he had, in all likelihood, encouraged it… or at least the grander elements of it. Michael guessed that somewhere between twenty and forty thousand dollars, maybe more, went into this home theater alone, including building the room itself; but even at that, Michael was sure that the guys in the government were counting their blessings and sighing with relief that they got off as easy as they did. Even if every Mesaliko got a pow-wow room like this, which Michael doubted, the government still got off quite easy. Michael nodded appreciatively, admitting to himself that he had gained a whole new respect for his Antarian double.

“There’s one more thing you need to see,” Angie Lee said, as she got up and lifted Kyle’s arm off of her with a smile and a wink.

“If you want to, we can watch a movie, like the others did yesterday. Or…”

Angie Lee flipped a switch on the wall, and the floor began to move. Everyone hung onto their seats, as the floor seemed to come apart, spiraling open in concentric circles that slowly carried the seats with them to the sides of the room. It turned out that the seats were attached to three concentric segments of a false floor that opened much in the way the lens of a camera or the iris of the eye does. The real floor lay just underneath.

Angie Lee changed the music and walked to the center of the room, which was now totally clear of any obstructions. The seats were lined up neatly near the walls in a sort of huge, wide-open circle surrounding the central arena. Angie Lee began to sway to the music then smiled and reached out her hand toward Kyle. Kyle blushed noticeably, shaking his head and protesting that he wasn’t much of a dancer, but he joined Angie Lee anyway.

Everyone applauded, as Kyle spun Angie Lee around then pulled her close, their bodies moving together to the beat of the music, as the starry “sky” effect on the ceiling twinkled above them in the subdued light of the room. Isabel and Alex quickly joined Angie Lee and Kyle on the dance floor. Then Maria pulled Michael in, followed by Amy, who pulled Jim in with her. Finally, Liz and Max stood up. Max knew that he wasn’t getting out of this. What surprised him was the realization that he didn’t want to. Max watched Liz sway to the music, her face beautifully bathed in the glow of a radiant smile, and he remembered her sitting in a wheelchair. How very far she’d come!

Liz reached out her hand, and Max took it. Then she spun toward him and into his arms with a movement as graceful as any Max had ever seen. Max found himself moving to the music with her… and watching Liz dance like she had never danced before.

As the beat of the music throbbed in their bodies and the haunting strains of the tune infused the very air around them with life, Liz swirled and spun… she leapt and swayed… she pirouetted and dipped. Max moved to the beat with her, holding out his hand again. Liz took it, and Max pulled her to him, lifting her gently yet easily into the air on strong arms. Like a graceful swan soaring for the very first time from a previously earthbound existence into the glorious infinite blue sky above, Liz rose lightly into the air. She held out her arms, balancing on Max’s gentle hands, losing herself in the moment. It was freeing. It was cathartic. It was wonderful.

Gently… in total harmony with the music… Max lowered Liz back to the ground, as he turned gracefully… more gracefully than he had realized he was capable of… on his feet. Liz touched the floor lightly, like a feather floating down, then her feet gracefully propelled her back into the air in a spin, followed by another pirouette on her toes.

Applause filled the air from every side of the room. In the emotions of the moment, Liz had not even realized that she and Max had literally cleared the dance floor. They had become the main attraction, the single attraction, and everyone… absolutely everyone… was loving it.

Liz had become one with the music, moving to the beat as though it were part of her. She spun again, letting her hair fly slowly in the air like a wide wave rolling in on the ocean around her. Then she stopped, cocked her head slightly to the left and the right, and smiled radiantly at Max, as hair fell gently back over her in all directions. Max smiled back, finally losing himself in the joy that was Liz.

Max dropped to the floor then leapt upward, high into the air, spinning, with his arms tucked in near his chest. As his feet touched the ground, his hands reached out to Liz, who placed her hands in his. Max pulled her close and turned her around with him three times, as Liz leaned back, allowing her body to be supported by Max’s strong arms, her eyes watching the room spin around and around behind her with joyous abandon.

Max pulled Liz gently back to an upright position and held her in his arms for a moment, as they swayed together to the music, their faces touching cheek to cheek. Secretly, irresistibly, Liz unbuttoned Max’s shirt. Then he swirled away from her and she from him, as if knowing each other’s intentions intimately, both of them releasing each other’s hands simultaneously at the last moment. Liz turned around once on her toes then stood, swaying to the beat, holding Max’s shirt in her hand, an immutable grin on her face, her feet moving in small, rhythmic steps, as Max sashayed around her, gazing deeply into her eyes… into her soul… the smile on his face almost as irresistible as the one on hers, his body rippling with every movement, with every flexing muscle.

Moving away, Max turned around twice rapidly then took a short running leap, rotating in the air and landing on his hands in a back flip. Liz watched, smiling deliriously, then took one final spin of her own, holding Max’s shirt over her head, allowing it to wave high in the air like a victory pennant.

As the dance came to an end, Liz fell joyously into Max’s arms, and Max held her there. Lovingly moving some strands of hair off of her face with one hand while holding her close with the other, he kissed her breathlessly; and she responded, returning his kiss with interest paid in passion.

As if that was her cue, Angie Lee put on Ivy’s Edge Of The Ocean. Max held Liz close to him, and their two bodies swayed slowly to the music together. Then everyone else returned to the dance floor, enjoying their own moment and leaving Max and Liz to theirs. One by one, the songs played… and the couples danced… to Ivy… Edge Of The Ocean, Sarah McLachlan singing Blackbird, BoA’s Number 1, Heather Nova doing What A Feeling, a reggae band singing Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot, Lidia singing I Will Always Love You, Michelle Branch singing You Get Me, Hilary Duff doing Irresistible, another BoA song, Valenti, Robbie Neville singing C’est La Vie, Christina Aguilera singing Genie In A Bottle, a favorite of Maria’s, and many more. Time was all but forgotten. It didn’t matter anymore… not now… not at this moment. This moment was timeless. This moment was theirs. In some ways, this moment would always be… and nothing could ever take it away.



tbc

The Night The Dreams Died



A Fox In The Night

Chapter 37

XXXVII



Judge Lewis looked up when the door of his office opened and two people let themselves in without knocking. His first thought was that Culpepper had returned, but he knew that that wasn’t going to happen. He had heard what had happened to Culpepper, and he knew that Culpepper would not be coming back. And without Culpepper, the two agents who were always with him would likely not be returning either.

The two who had just walked in were either some new kind of aliens or the ugliest women Judge Lewis had ever seen. Either way, not what he would have wanted to look at at 8:30 in the morning, before he had even had his coffee. Their dresses didn’t fit well, their hats… hats? Hats like these hadn’t been in style since the turn of the century, but he guessed that with wigs like these two were wearing the hats were probably preferable. He couldn’t imagine why the big lady in front had one breast hanging at least ten inches lower than the other one.

“What can I do for you ladies? You really should knock before just coming in…”

The two “ladies” raised their improvised veils and Judge Lewis got a look at their faces, badly applied lipstick, and… five o’clock stubble? <My God, these women are ugly> he thought to himself right before recognition hit him…

“General Hawkins? General Hawthorne? What… what are you doing here? The whole Army is looking for you two! If they catch you, you’ll both be in the brig waiting for a court martial before the hour’s out.”

“Your concern is touching, Judge,” Hawkins said with a touch of sarcasm. “It’s wonderful to know you have our interests at heart.”

“I didn’t say that,” Judge Lewis replied truthfully, knowing that they knew it anyway. “I’m just surprised that you two would be careless enough to appear… so publicly like this.”

“We didn’t make any guest appearance announcements,” Hawthorne said. “This is sort of… let’s say, an impromptu appearance… off the record… you know what I mean? If I were you, Judge, I’d be more concerned about what’s going to happen to YOU.”

Judge Lewis swallowed a lump in his throat. “I’m a free man, General. They’ve got nothing on me.”

“Oh, they’ve got plenty on you, Judge. They just don’t have what they need to prosecute you yet. Not like… say… what we could give them.”

Judge Lewis turned vaguely pale. “Listen, I spent two weeks in the hospital already. I’ve been punished enough for anything I might have done.”

General Hawkins grinned. “That opinion might be open to some debate. And we heard about your little cat and dogfight with Amy DeLuca… or is she Valenti now? No matter. She tied you up pretty good, I heard.”

Hawthorne snickered.

Judge Lewis looked at Hawkins sullenly. “Yeah… so what? I wasn’t at my best. I was… under the weather that day.”

“I heard you were under Amy,” Hawthorne said, “and your screams weren’t screams of passion… though by some accounts they may have sounded a bit, uh… what was the word they used… Oh yeah… effeminate.”

Judge Lewis’ face darkened. “You’ve obviously never had the hair ripped out of your armpits or had your feet pulled up behind your back and stuck under your belt then been hogtied like that with your shoelaces for hours.”

“I heard she tied something in a knot,” Hawkins said, “but it wasn’t your shoelaces.”

Judge Lewis gave Hawkins a puzzled look, clearly at a loss as to what he meant. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, General. She tied my feet to my belt with my shoelaces. They had to cut them off in the hospital.”

“Your shoelaces?”

Judge Lewis nodded. “Don’t look so disappointed, General. What did you think they cut off… my feet?”

“I told you it wasn’t possible,” General Hawthorne said, turning to General Hawkins.

“Well… I know anyone else couldn’t have done it,” Hawkins replied defensively, “but to that woman, ‘can’t’ is merely a challenge. I don’t think she even knows the word is in the dictionary. I wouldn’t consider anything to be beyond her ability… if she was mad enough.”

General Hawthorne nodded. “Hum… you’re probably right, Hawkins. I could’ve used a few thousand like her in the army.”

Hawkins smiled, noticing Judge Lewis’ involuntary reaction. “Was that a shudder I just saw, Judge?”

“What is it you guys want from me,” Judge Lewis asked with a scowl. “I’m trying to keep a low profile. I don’t want anything to do with you two right now. Do you know what it’s like to walk into a restaurant or other public place and have everyone else get up and leave… or boo you? I was just walking to my office yesterday, minding my own business, and a little kid walked up to me and smiled then kicked me in the shin. All that damned television coverage and that woman who’s a friend of the aliens’ have turned me into a walking pariah. I may never be able to practice law in this town again… at least as a judge. I’m on censure right now.”

“What does that mean?” Hawkins asked.

“I can’t hear any cases… until they remove the censure. I’m restricted to office work only. I can’t even pass any judgments on cases I was following before this all happened.”

“Well, that’s just because Hawkins and I aren’t there to pull strings for you. Or Culpepper… but he won’t be coming back, I guess. If you want your old authority and power back you have to play ball with us, Judge… scratch our backs, too, as they say… help us get back into the army’s graces… protect our image… give us the alibis we need. You never were anything without us anyway. You know that. We made you what you were… We protected you… We gave you the real power.”

Judge Lewis knew that what Hawthorne had said was largely true, but he wasn’t thrilled about becoming involved in more of what had already brought him so much trouble… and possibly having to face Amy’s wrath again.

“At least I’m sitting here in my office, General… and everyone knows where I am. You two are hiding out somewhere and, obviously, uh…” Judge Lewis glanced over their clothes and faces again, then smirked… “running around in disguise. Frankly, I don’t see what you can do for me at all, gentlemen… and I use that term very questionably under the circumstances. You still haven’t told me what it is you want from me.

“Didn’t we?” Hawthorne asked with a definite dramatic flair. “I’m sorry, Judge. Hawkins, tell him what we want.”



----------



Miles away from Judge Lewis’ office, much later in the day, a group of friends who were in happier spirits walked along the road leading from the Mesaliko Reservation. It was after 7:30 PM, and the sun would soon be setting. They had been at Gray Hawk’s since early morning. Now they had to return to the transporter point and to the New Granolith, the place they had all called their temporary home in recent days, some for longer than others.

Max chased Liz, reveling in the miraculous wonder of her recent “cure,” and Liz ran, giggling, along the road in front of him. Michael and Maria alternately flirted and ran from each other. Alex and Isabel walked hand in hand, smiling dreamily. Kyle and Angie Lee occasionally came up for air long enough to see that they were still walking the right way.

This was a giddy time… a time the likes of which none of them had been able to enjoy for longer than any of them could remember. Lighthearted gaiety had given way to dark seriousness –life and death seriousness- on one fateful night almost a year before. Nothing had been the same since that night… graduation night. True, the group had managed to keep a cautious sense of humor and spirit, which had helped them through the darkest times… helped them to survive. It was in their beings, a part of them that could not be denied. But until today, nothing like this had happened. The dance at Gray Hawk’s house was more than just a dance. It was a beginning. It was a huge infusion of life… and of all the good, all the happiness, all the joy of living that life had to offer.

Watching Kyle and Angie Lee walking with their eyes closed and lips locked together for longer than he thought was advisable, Rahn gave in to the urge to offer his help.

“Kyle, would you like me to guide you,” Rahn asked seriously. “I am afraid that you or Angie Lee will walk off of the road and fall into a ditch or something.”

“If they do, they won’t notice,” Alex quipped, astutely judging the young couple’s mounting feelings for each other. “We could just leave them there and come back and get them tomorrow, and they wouldn’t know the difference. I don’t think the world they’re in right now has roads, Rahn.”

Jim smiled and shook his head, and Amy grinned and put her arm around Jim’s waist.

“You keep walking on that side of them Rahn,” Jim said, motioning with one hand. “Amy and I’ll be here on this side. If they start to walk the wrong way one of us can turn them back around and aim them the right way again.”

Rahn nodded. Isabel snickered, and Alex grinned, trying hard, but unsuccessfully, to stifle a laugh of his own. Then he kissed Isabel. As their lips parted after several long moments, Alex smiled at her…

“Well, who says our world has to have roads? Kyle could be on to something. I can’t let him have all the fun!”

Isabel smiled.

Max guided them into a nearby field where the transporter had been focused, but as they neared the site, Max stopped everyone suddenly.

“Michael… who’s that?”

Michael looked across the field. There was a strange man standing on the other side of the field… and he looked like he was searching for something. Was it coincidence that he was standing in that precise spot? Both of them knew it was possible, but doubt was written all over Michael’s face.

“We gave the transporter code to 173 Mesalikos and a few other people,” Jim said. “He could be one of them… but I don’t recognize him.”

“He doesn’t look like a Mesaliko,” Michael agreed. “Maybe he’s just out here for an innocent walk in the evening air or something.” Then he added cautiously, “but I doubt it. He’s looking for something.”

“Yeah… yeah, he is,” Max agreed. As they watched, the man triggered the transporter, and suddenly he was gone… into the ship above. Max looked at Michael and Michael at him.

“I’m going to find out who he is,” Michael said, as they hurried to the transporter point. “I don’t like this.”

“Maybe it’s nothing,” Isabel said. “We did give the transporter code to a lot of people.”

“The Mesalikos… and a few friends… no one else,” Max said gravely. “He didn’t look like any of them to me.”

“Yeah, I have to agree with Max,” Michael said. “We have to find out who he is.”

Jim nodded, also appearing concerned. Max pressed the code on the transporter in his hand, and the group disappeared into the ship together.

“Kyle!” Jim said, giving Kyle a gentle whack on the back of the head. “We’re back.”

Kyle separated his lips slowly from Angie Lee’s then looked around. “We’re back on the ship? When did that happen?”

Jim closed his eyes and shook his head.

“It’s like trying to pull two magnets apart,” Alex mused. “Their lips just get sucked back together whenever they look at each other.” Alex closed the fingers on both his hands and let them fly together to illustrate.

“You’re just jealous,” Kyle said, then he looked at Angie Lee, and their lips slowly drew together again.

Alex nodded. “Yep! Magnets!”



----------



The next day, having never found the mysterious man or anyone who had seen him on the ship, Max and Michael from Antar and Max and Michael from earth transported down together to oversee some of the final work on the Reservation. They usually avoided being seen together, but it was almost inevitable sometimes. Jim would stay on the ship and watch for any sign of the mysterious man on the ship while they were gone… if the man was even still there.

As they walked toward the Reservation, a short walk of only about half a mile from the transporter point, a car drove up the road behind them then pulled up beside them. The man in the car gazed intently at Max and his counterpart then stopped his car.

“You two… get in.”

Max looked at his double then at Michael then back at the man in the car.

“Why?”

“You are Max, aren’t you… the alien, Max? Oh… I’m sorry. It’s just that I need you… just for a few minutes! Please! Are you Max?”

Max from Antar nodded. His earth double looked at him as if to seek his approval, then cautiously, he nodded, too.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to give me a little more to go on than just that you need me for a few minutes,” Max from Antar said.

The man appeared flustered. “I’m… I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t have much time. My little boy was hit by a truck this morning riding his bike. The doctors… say he won’t make it.” Tears began to fall down the man’s face. “He’s only five years old.”

Max looked at his double again, and without answering, both of them got into the car. Michael and his double jumped in with them.

“Sorry, Max,” Michael said. “If you go, I’m going, too.”

Max nodded. Ten minutes later, the car pulled up to the emergency entrance of Roswell General Hospital. The man got out and motioned to Max to follow. Both of them did. So did both Michaels. They walked quickly down the hall to the ICU, and the man opened the door and motioned them inside. On a bed near the window, attached to more tubes than Max cared to count, was a little boy. He was badly injured, that was clear. It broke Max’s heart to look at him. Max looked at the doctor who was standing nearby, and the doctor shook his head.

“How long?” the father asked.

The doctor shrugged. “Hours… minutes. He’s already gone, really, Oren. You know that. He’s only being kept alive now…”

“They can help,” the man insisted, indicating Max and his double. “They can save him. I saw them make bullet wounds disappear on TV when they were being chased on the Reservation.”

The doctor looked at Max. It was true that the younger Max from earth had healed several Mesalikos who had been shot while they were on the run together on the Reservation, and the act had been captured by the cameras and shown on TV. But surprisingly few people had actually picked up on what had really happened in the flurry of the overall drama that was going on. Most of them just assumed that Max had checked the injured Mesalikos out then helped them to get back up.

Max from Antar walked over to the boy and put his hands over the boy’s body then grimaced. He could feel the pain of the child’s injuries as he took the healing of his wounds onto himself. Max looked at his counterpart, and the younger Max placed his hands over the boy, too. Their hands began to glow. Slowly, they moved their hands from one part of the child’s body to another… then another… then yet another… repairing broken bones, a torn spleen, a ripped and punctured lung, a badly bruised kidney, a fractured skull…

As they finished and the glow of their hands began to ebb, the boy coughed. Then he opened his eyes. Startled to find himself hooked up to every imaginable kind of tube, the child struggled to sit up and pull the tubes out. At first, the shocked doctor and several nearby nurses attempted to prevent him from pulling them out, but as the reality of what had just happened came over him, the doctor helped the boy to remove them. As the last tube came out, the child jumped into his father’s arms, leaving the doctor and nurses speechless.

Tears streamed down the man’s face, as he kissed his son then looked back and forth at both Maxes. “How can I ever thank you? How can I ever thank you enough?”

“You just did,” Max from Antar said, as his counterpart from earth nodded. Both Maxes were tired, but they felt good. They had healed a child who, only moments before, had been at the edge of death. It felt good. Seeing the father’s face made it even better.

“Gentlemen,” the doctor said cautiously to Max and his double, “I… I need your help. Please.”

Max from Antar looked at his double, and they both had a sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs. Healing the little boy had been draining, but at the same time, the satisfaction it had brought them had given them strength to go on. That strength wasn’t inexhaustible, though. If what they feared the doctor was going to ask them to do… if he wanted them to heal more people… maybe even everyone in the hospital… they wouldn’t be able to do it. They could literally kill themselves with exhaustion and still never heal everyone. And what would people think if they couldn’t heal them after they had healed others, Max wondered. Would they understand? Would they just let them go? Max looked at Michael, and for once, Michael seemed to be at a loss for a response. Michael was asking himself all the same questions. There were people here who needed them. They couldn’t be blamed for wanting Max’s help… especially people who were dying or critically ill or whose child, husband, wife, mother, or father was dying or critically ill. Max was a healer. No… they weren’t going to understand that he was not a superman… that he was also mortal and exhaustible… especially if he healed others then not them. Max was sure of it.



----------



As the call to dinner sounded on the New Granolith, Liz found Max… and his younger double… stumbling toward their rooms.

“Aren’t you guys headed the wrong way?” Dinner’s about to be served.”

Max from Antar shook his head. “You go ahead, Liz. I’m too tired. I’m just going to get some sleep if you don’t mind.”

The younger Max mumbled a weak, “Me, too,” then walked into his room and closed the door. Max from Antar walked on to his own room then opened the door and went in, throwing himself headlong onto the bed. Actually, “falling” headlong onto the bed might have been a more accurate description. Liz, who had come in behind him, closed the door and sat down beside him, running her hand gently over Max’s back, arms, and legs.

“Max… what in the world did you do? I don’t remember ever seeing you like this. You’re totally exhausted.”

“We healed a little boy who had been run over by a truck on his bicycle,” Max managed weakly.

Liz gasped slightly and then smiled. “That’s wonderful! But you’ve healed people before, Max. It’s never tired you out this much.”

“The boy’s doctor had a few more people he wanted us to heal,” Max said weakly.

“More… How many more?”

“I don’t know. We lost count. Each time we healed another one the nurses or the doctor were bringing two more in for us to heal. I think they wanted us to heal everyone in the hospital.”

“Can you do that? I mean… is that possible for you… physically?”

“No. Too many people. It takes too much out of me… out of us. We had to try, though. We promised to go back and heal the others tomorrow.”

Liz looked concerned. “And what then, Max? I mean… it’s wonderful that you can heal all those people, but even both of you together could never even begin to heal all the people who need help in the world… and you would never have time for anything else if you tried. I’m… I’m just afraid that once you’ve started doing this and word gets around… you’re life… and Max’s life here… will become… well… captive. Everyone will expect you to do nothing but heal people twenty-four hours a day.”

“I’m sure they’d let us have weekends off,” Max mumbled, only a bit jokingly.

“People die on weekends, Max… Death and illness take no holidays.”

“You sound like Michael.”

Liz closed her eyes and rubbed Max’s back again. “Then Michael is right, Max. You have to stop this… before it goes too far. Oh, God! Listen to me! I sound so horrible, don’t I… so cold… and heartless?”

Max rolled over and looked at Liz then wiped a teardrop off her cheek.

“You’re not cold or heartless, Liz. You’re the most caring person I’ve ever known. You’re just concerned. And you have a right to be. I am, too. I just don’t know what to do about it. We kept our identities so carefully guarded and secret when we were growing up on earth in our dimension… this problem never really came up. I mean… I healed you… and Jim… and Kyle before we left earth, but the whole world wasn’t clamoring for our help there. No one else knew. It’s so different here in this dimension. Now that the world knows who we are… who they are… our doubles here will never be able to live private lives again. WE can always go back to Antar in our dimension when this is over… but what about them… our doubles? And what do we do now… when everyone wants to be healed and we know that if we don’t heal them… many of them will die? I understand now why Michael was so upset every time we used any of our powers on earth when we were growing up… and when I healed you after you were shot.”

Liz nodded, understanding Max’s dilemma. “Would you do it differently now if you could do it over, Max?”

“What? Healing you? Of course not, Liz! I still would. It was… It was you.”

“No… would you tell the doctor… and that father… that you couldn’t help his little boy… or the others… if you could do it over again?”

Max thought about it then shook his head slowly.

Liz smiled and nodded knowingly. “You did what had to be done, Max. Don’t beat yourself up over it now trying to second-guess your heart. What you will have to do now is find a way to live with what’s been done.”

“Our doubles,” Max clarified. “Our doubles will have to live with it. I wonder if they can.”

“Then you have to come up with alternatives for them, Max… in case they can’t.”

Max nodded then kissed Liz. “What would I do without you, Liz?” Then his head slumped onto the bed and he was asleep. Liz gently covered him up and stood there looking at him for several long moments. Then she smiled, kissed him on the cheek, and left the room, turning out the light and closing and locking the door behind her with a wave of her hand over a sensor pad beside the door.

Sixty feet down the hall, she knocked on the door to Michael’s room to see if he was there.

“It’s unlocked. Come in.”

Liz opened the door.

“Oh, Liz! Come in!”

“Michael! Were you with Max when he healed the little boy and all the others today?”

Michael nodded. “I should have seen it coming, Liz. I let my guard down. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not here to blame anyone, Michael. You couldn’t have done anything else. At least, you couldn’t have lived with yourself if you had.”

“I would have stopped Max before, Liz… when we were younger. I didn’t think about, you know, what would happen to others so much then. I just knew what had to be done… to protect us… to protect Max. I’ve lost that edge. I may have lost my usefulness as a general… as a soldier… and your protector.”

“You haven’t lost anything, Michael. You’ve gained something.”

“What? A heart?” Michael asked, predicting Liz’s response. “I’m not sure it’s a good thing for me to have, Liz… maybe for any of us to have. How can I have a friggin’ bleeding heart and protect us from people who don’t understand us at all… people who consider us as just aliens?”

Liz smiled… “Like Kiraugo?”

Michael flushed then looked at the wall. Liz knew the reaction she would get when she mentioned the name of the little Dragon child from Drago. Michael and the others had saved the Dragon children… and many other alien children… even though the Dragons were their enemies; and Kiraugo had leapt into Michael’s arms and hugged and kissed him. In fact, the Dragons became their allies, and every time Kiraugo saw Michael after that, he leapt into his arms again, much to Michael’s dismay. But he couldn’t deny to himself that he loved that little Dragon child.

“You let your heart guide you when you saved those children, Michael… children of our mortal enemies. And because of that, they’re our allies and friends now… and their society has even changed in a lot of ways. Antar has over two hundred new ally planets because you saved their children… because you had a heart. It isn’t HAVING a heart that’s the problem, Michael. It’s NOT HAVING ONE that’s the problem… the fact that not everyone has one… that’s the problem.”

“Well, yeah, I know that, Liz, but how can you blame someone who may have a day or two left to live for wanting Max to heal them? They don’t think about the effects on him… even when he’s dropping over from exhaustion. A lot of people lose sight of their reason when they’re under stress. It doesn’t mean they don’t have a heart. They just can’t find a place for it in the little time they have left to… you know… find a miracle or something.”

“And you understand that, Michael. That’s an enormous advantage to everyone. We have to find a way to control the situation now somehow. We can’t beat ourselves up for not doing anything differently in the past. It couldn’t be helped. The future can be controlled, though. That’s where we all need you the most, Michael… to find a way to protect our futures, not to fret about perceived past mistakes that couldn’t be helped anyway. We all count on you to guarantee our futures… not our pasts.”

“Thanks, Liz. But how can I guarantee our futures if I couldn’t even protect our pasts?”

“You have already, Michael, and against all the odds. We all know that. So do you… somewhere deep inside you. Give yourself a little credit.”

Michael was silent for several moments, then he looked at Liz. “Let’s do some planning.”



----------



In the darkness, Max slept. He was dead tired. Everything was silent except for the soft, rhythmic sound of Max’s breathing, but it’s doubtful even the blaring of an air horn over his head would have stirred him much, so it wasn’t odd at all that he didn’t hear the sound of the hand that somehow unlocked his door… or the feather-quiet steps that walked across the floor of his room to his bedside. The man looked at Max for a moment then reached down with one strong hand and pressed on a soft spot right behind Max’s temple and on a nerve behind his ear simultaneously. Seconds later, he released Max and quickly left the room, closing the door back behind him. In the room, all was now quiet.



tbc

The Night The Dreams Died



Alarm

Chapter 38

XXXVIII



Even though there was no official edict on the New Granolith that dinner had to wait on Liz or on Max, the fact is, everyone would wait if they were late. It had happened before even though Max had asked them not to do it. Liz knew that if she didn’t put in an appearance there would be a lot of hungry people sitting around the table. So she made her appearance, made excuses for Max, and grabbed a quick obligatory bite before excusing herself from the table and hurrying back to Max.

Walking down the hall, Liz met her younger double coming the other way.

“How’s Max doing… uh, your Max, I mean… Is he still sleeping, too?”

The younger Liz shook her head. “Apparently not. I thought he’d sleep all night… the two of them were so exhausted… but when I went to his room a little while ago he had gone somewhere. I would’ve thought he’d have told me where he was going.”

Liz from Antar shook her head and smiled. “Well, your Max is still a teenager. He probably recuperated faster than my Max. Of course, Max wouldn’t like it if he heard me say that. He’s so proud of his physique. He rolls out of bed in the morning as soon as the alarm goes off and starts doing push-ups before he even gets dressed. I have to have a cup of coffee before I can just open my eyes all the way.”

The younger Liz laughed. “I doubt that… I’ve seen you in the morning. You look pretty good. Besides, you two aren’t really much older than us.”

“We’ve got children who are almost teenagers… before long… well, in a few years… some of them.”

The younger Liz smiled. “I wish I could meet them… again. They’re kind of my children, too, in a way… I mean you being me and all. It’s weird knowing that somewhere, even if it is in another dimension and all, I’ve got children… four of them!”

“Five,” Liz corrected, grinning.

“Oh, that’s right! Jeffy! I saw them, you know, in my visions before you came to earth… I mean before you came to our dimension… or whatever. Omigod, I think that’s just so incredible!”

“You met them, too… remember?” Liz from Antar reminded her younger double. “…When you and Alex popped in on us on Antar.”

“Yeah, I know… That’s why I said I wish I could meet them ‘again.’ I didn’t really get to spend much time with them… except Jayyd. She was such a darling! I wish I had her here! You know, all that almost seems like it was a dream now. I mean… I know it happened, but it just seems so unreal. Sometimes I have to go back and reread things in my diary just to convince myself that they really happened and weren’t just… you know… a dream.”

Liz of Antar laughed. “I know. I do the same thing… about a lot of things. You wouldn’t believe all the things I’ve seen since I went to Antar. It is a bit unbelievable… even for me! I go back and reread it in my diary and it’s like, wow! Did that really happen to me?”

The younger Liz nodded vigorously. “That’s me! That’s how I feel exactly!”

“Let’s check on my Max,” the older Liz said. “Maybe he’ll know where your Max went.”

The younger Liz followed her Antarian double to her room. “Let me peek in on him first,” the Antarian Liz said, passing her hand over the scanner by the door. The door opened, and a moment later, she motioned for the younger Liz to come in.

“He’s gone, too. Maybe the two of them went somewhere together.”

The younger Liz stared at the bed. “Did your Max drop into bed with his shoes still on, too?”

“Yeah, he did. He was pretty tired. I took them off of him after he was in bed.”

“They must have both been walking somewhere very dusty,” the younger Liz said. “I found a lot of dust on my Max’s bed, too… when I went back to his room to see if he was sleeping.”

Liz of Antar looked at the dust on the sheet. Somehow, she had missed it. The sheet must have been covering it up. She had pulled the sheet down while looking at her younger double. Liz’s heart stopped momentarily, and she forgot to breathe for several seconds.

“Are you all right? Liz?” The younger Liz asked, concerned.”

The Antarian Liz shook her head. “No… I… I don’t know. Do you know what happens to Antarians when they… when they…”

“Die?” the younger Liz offered cautiously, saying the word that her double didn’t seem to want to say.

The Antarian Liz nodded.

“I’ve seen it happen… to a couple of skins,” the younger Liz said. “I know it happens to Antarians… even Max… if he were to… you know…”

“I’m concerned,” Liz of Antar said. It was a gross understatement. The younger Liz knew this intuitively, and she knew what was concerning her Antarian double. She turned pale, too…

“Omigod… if something happened to Max… I should have… Why didn’t I think about that?”

“You haven’t had much experience with that aspect of Antarian physiology,” the Antarian Liz said. “You wouldn’t know.”

“But I should have known,” the younger Liz insisted. “It’s just that Max… my Max… had dust in his shoes when I took them off of him. It fell out of his shoes. I saw it. When I went back to his room again, I found more on the bed… and I just assumed it was more of the same dust… out of his shoes.”

The Antarian Liz walked quickly to the end of the bed and looked for Max’s shoes. They weren’t there.

“That’s odd. I know I put them right there… at the end of the bed. They’re gone.”

“Maybe Max put them on and left… with my Max,” the younger Liz said hopefully.

Liz from Antar nodded slowly, clearly not convinced, then scooped up the dust with her hands and carefully put it into a resealable baggie. “Why didn’t he tell me if he was going somewhere? He was so exhausted. No… I don’t think… I don’t know…” She turned to her younger double. “Let’s go find Michael! He’s got to know.”

The younger Liz swallowed hard then followed her Antarian double, who left at almost a running pace without even closing the door of her room back. Arriving at Michael’s room, Liz of Antar knocked loudly on the door. When there was no immediate answer, her younger double knocked, too. The door opened.

“Maria!” both Liz’s said at once. Then the older Liz took over the conversation. “Maria, is Michael around?”

Maria nodded, smiling curiously.

“Can we see him?” the younger Liz asked. “It’s important.”

“He went down to the lower deck with his double. They got a mysterious call… someone said they would be needed there. I don’t know what it’s about. The caller wouldn’t say.”

“Who was the caller?” the younger Liz asked, becoming more alarmed by the moment.

Maria shrugged. “The caller wouldn’t say who he was. Michael didn’t recognize the voice. He thought it might have something to do with the strange man that we saw in the field yesterday. Michael didn’t want to worry Max with it… He knew how tired he was. So he went by himself… well… with his younger double.”

“Our Michael?” the younger Liz gasped, just realizing that her friend’s boyfriend might be in danger, too.

“They’re the only two Michaels here that I know of,” Maria said, still curious about where this was all going. “And frankly, as much as I love him, Liz, it’s confusing enough having two of him around. I mean… not that I’m complaining, mind you. I can think of a lot of worse things than having two Michaels around…”

For just a moment, Maria thought she saw something in the younger Liz’s eyes. Was it jealousy? Couldn’t be. Liz had Max… she wasn’t interested in Michael. Then Maria smiled. Of course! Liz was being instinctively protective of her friend, Maria… the younger Maria… her double. She probably didn’t even realize it. Maria from Antar found this amusing. She had to admit to herself that this doubles thing was confusing, but in the end, Maria had her Michael and her double had hers. Neither one really wanted to mix it up, but the idea of two Michaels was still enough to make either Maria smile.

“Come on,” Maria said. “Let’s go look for them. Michael said he was going to the lower deck… where the cargo is kept.”

Liz nodded, then all three headed toward the central ascension chamber. As they arrived, they met the younger Maria, who appeared to have just come up in the chamber…

“We really have to stop meeting like this, Liz… all of us together! I feel like I’m in a house of mirrors and need to find my way out.”

Liz smiled, too, but Maria could tell that it was a smile ridden with worry.

“What’s wrong, Liz?”

“We’re not sure anything’s wrong,” the younger Liz replied to her friend. “We’re just concerned because of… of… circumstances that… concern us.”

Maria grinned, shaking her head. “That was really clear, Liz! Okay, spill it! What’s got you so upset?”

“Michael,” the younger Liz replied. “Her Michael.” She indicated the Maria from Antar. “He went down to the lower deck because of some mysterious call… and he may have taken the other Michael… your Michael… with him.”

“And there’s something else,” Liz from Antar added to what her younger double had said… “Both of our Maxes have disappeared… and on their beds… we found… dust.”

The younger Maria looked at both Lizzes and at her own double for a moment, then it registered with her what this might possibly mean. She turned pale for a moment, but then she shook her head.

“No. No, I don’t think anything happened to them, Liz. My Michael got a call from someone saying he was needed in the cargo area. Your Michael showed up at Michael’s door right after he hung up, and they went together. I was there with him when they left. Your Michael said he got a call, too. They asked me to let Jim Valenti… uh, my Dad, know, and I was just coming back from telling him about the calls. I think if something had happened to Max, Michael would have found out about it. Besides, wouldn’t you have… you know… felt something, Liz?”

The younger Liz looked at her Antarian double, and they both nodded, realizing that Maria was probably right. Every other time that she could remember when Max had been in danger, Liz had felt it. It was more than a sixth sense. It was palpable. She felt it in every fiber of her body. If something drastic had happened to Max, she would have felt it… or… it had happened too fast for him to register any fear… any sense of danger… any reaction at all that she could pick up on. This was possible… but not likely. This was a good thing, really. But it did not put Liz’s mind completely at ease. Things do happen… unexpectedly… fast.

The ascension chamber opened, and both Lizzes and both Marias stepped in. Liz from Antar passed her hand over one of the sensors, and the chamber started down. After several seconds, it arrived at the lower deck, and the door reopened. The four stepped out together and looked around.

“Where do you think they would have gone,” the younger Maria asked. There were many storerooms and doors around the periphery of the cargo bay. Some of the rooms were quite large. One of them held a small submarine that Michael had named the “Maria Mia” during their first trip on the New Granolith, years before, when they had returned to earth to rescue Liz and Maria. That room could be sealed and flooded if they were underwater, and the “Maria Mia” could be piloted out of the New Granolith through a large underwater hatch. It was just one of Varec’s amazing inventions and innovations. There were many of these on the New Granolith. It was truly an amazing machine.

Liz shook her head. “Maybe if we start over there with the first room and just check every room in turn…”

The younger Liz grimaced, realizing how much time this would take, but she nodded.

“Or… we could try that room down at the end,” Maria said.

Everyone looked at the younger Maria. Maria shrugged. “Well, I saw the door close a moment ago. It was cracked before. Someone had to close it.”

Without answering, all four headed toward the door Maria had seen close. As they drew nearer to the door, they saw something on the floor. Maria of Antar leaned over and scooped some of it up in her hands. It was dust. She looked at Liz of Antar. Both of them knew that this was not a good sign. The automated cleaning droids passed over every inch of the floors in the New Granolith at least every two hours. Dust literally didn’t have time to settle in the New Granolith. This was a fairly sizeable amount of dust… and it was very recent.

Liz of Antar opened the door to the room, and the four friends stepped inside cautiously. It was a very large room, divided into numerous subsections or smaller rooms. It would be a dandy place to commit a murder that one didn’t want to have discovered any time soon. Liz swallowed and looked at her younger double, and they both looked at the two Maria’s. A certain fear was evident in all their faces, but they kept going.

Maria pointed to a small corridor that appeared to lead deeper into the mysterious depths of the room.

“I think I saw a shadow, Liz… just for a second. I just got a fleeting glimpse of something.”

The other three nodded, and they all tiptoed silently together down the corridor, following the shadowy vision that Maria had seen and holding onto each other without realizing it. They came to a dead end. From there, the corridor went both left and right. The one to the right went to a door only thirty feet or so away, so they decided to check it out before going off down the other corridor to who knows where.

Opening the door cautiously, the four were confronted suddenly with bright lights and a long, drawn-out ratcheting sound. As they struggled to adjust their eyes to the sudden brightness of the lights, they heard other noises in the room around them… something small being thrown onto a table… and people… lots of them from the sound of it… and something that sounded like coins falling… lots of coins.

If Maria hadn’t been absolutely positive it was TOTALLY AND UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE, she would have sworn she was in a…

“RED! I WON!!!!!”

The sound assaulted Maria’s ears like fingernails being raked down a blackboard, as the chinking sound of falling coins competed to be heard from another corner of the room over the surrounding cacophony.

“Welcome to the Mesaliko Sky Casino,” a chipper voice said, as a man walked up to the four girls. He was not a Mesaliko and was obviously totally unaware of who any of the four girls were. “What’s your game?”

Maria looked at the stranger, her mouth open but nothing coming out. She looked at Liz… then at their doubles. Their mouths were also hanging open with no sound at all coming out.

“If I find Michael in here,” the younger Maria said, “I’ll turn him into dust myself.”

“Can we… can we… uh… look around and see what we want to do first,” Liz from Antar asked innocently, flashing the dapper-looking man a smile, albeit one dripping with hidden venom.

The man shrugged. “Of course. As long as you got money… you can look all you want.”

“Oh, I’ve got money,” Liz said.

“Then look as much as you like,” the man replied, flashing Liz a multi-megawatt smile that lacked nothing save the flash of a shiny gold tooth. Liz flayed her fingers out and then balled her hand up, denying herself the pleasure of walloping the man in the gut with an energy ball. Liz’s energy balls were not deadly like Michael’s or Max’s, but they did get attention… the few times she had ever used them. And she was pretty sure that with the right motivation she could increase the power substantially.

Liz motioned to the others, and they followed, walking past a large roulette wheel and a poker table then past several walls lined with “one-arm bandits.”

“I don’t believe this,” Maria said. “Tell me I’m dreaming.”

“If you are, we all are,” Liz said. “I see it, and I still don’t believe it.”

Suddenly, four strong hands reached out from between the walls and grabbed the four girls, dragging them quickly out of sight and covering their mouths so that they couldn’t scream. The four struggled… but to no avail. The attackers had overpowered them and restrained them… They were unable to use their hands. Liz spun around and looked at her assailant…

“MAX?!” She almost got the word out, but Max had his hand over her mouth before she could say it.

“Shhhh… don’t talk,” Max said. “I’m sorry we had to get you out of there this way, but it couldn’t be helped. You have to be quiet.”

“What is going on here, Michael?” Maria asked in a low voice… showing amazing restraint under the circumstances.

Michael looked at Max, and Max looked at the four girls’ faces… then decided to explain… as quickly as possible. But first, he took them into an unoccupied side room and closed the door.

“This isn’t what it looks like.”

Liz nodded. “Oh, that’s classic! This isn’t what it looks like! Is that all you have to say for yourselves?”

“Let me finish. This REALLY isn’t what it looks like. We just found out about it today. From what we’ve been able to piece together so far, a few of the Mesalikos started this casino up and ran it for about a week with a small roulette wheel, a makeshift poker table, and two older slot machines. They had visitors… small-time gamblers… up here that we didn’t know about, who used the Mesalikos’ pass codes to get onboard. But River Dog found out and quietly put them out of business. He told them that they were disrespecting their benefactors… and their ancestors… doing this behind our backs. No one wanted to tell us about it after the fact, so they just closed it down. It was a relatively small operation anyway, and only half a dozen Mesalikos were involved. After River Dog closed the casino down, though, someone came along behind the Mesalikos and reopened it. They brought in a bigger, more professional wheel and more machines, and they glitzed up the place. And that someone… or those someones… do not appear to be Mesalikos. River Dog didn’t even know the place was still open for business. When he found out, he called us and had us meet him down here. Then he told us the whole story… as much of it as he knows. We don’t know who’s running this little business venture now.”

“The strange man we saw?” Liz asked.

“No… he probably came here to gamble,” Max said. “He didn’t seem to know exactly where he was going when he was in the field. He was looking all around. I really don’t know for sure yet who he was, though. Michael and I are working on it.”

“Max, I found dust on your bed,” Liz said accusingly. “Then we found dust on the floor in front of the door leading to the casino. We thought you and Michael had been… had been…”

“Dusted?” Max asked with a wink. “I’m sorry, Liz. When you walk along a dusty desert road, you pick up a lot of dust in your shoes… and on your pants legs… I should have cleaned it up.”

“Yes, you should have! Do you know what you put me through?”

“Put US through,” Maria clarified, so that Michael would know, too.

Michael looked down sheepishly. “Well, the dust on the floor could have come off of my shoes… or it could have come off of anyone’s shoes who was walking down the road near the reservation before coming onboard. It only means that someone was walking on a dusty road… or in the desert… before coming here… like Max and I were when we returned from healing the people at the hospital.”

Liz took the baggie of dust out of the inside of her waistband and stared at it. “Desert dust, huh? I was going to have Varec analyze it.” She pulled Max’s belt out and dropped the baggie into his pants unceremoniously. Max winced then looked vaguely embarrassed, as he shook his leg…

“If that doesn’t fall out, you know how I’m going to look trying to get it?”

Liz smiled. “Uh huh.”

As fate would have it, at that moment the door opened, and everyone turned quickly to see who had just come in. It was River Dog. He closed the door back behind him quietly.

“How did you know where to find us,” Michael asked.

River Dog grinned. “It is not difficult to follow you four… for a Mesaliko. You really should be more careful if you wish not to be found.”

Max shook his leg again, but the baggie remained lodged. He smiled. “Have you found out anything new since we left you a little while ago, River Dog?”

River Dog nodded. “The individuals involved in this can be dangerous. That is the word from my people. My people are watching… quietly… secretly. They will let me know anything that they find out, and I will let you know.”

“Maybe we should just put an end to this right now… right here,” Michael suggested. “This is our ship. We have the advantage. We can take them. Even if they have guns, they can’t take us unless they get really lucky… and they won’t.”

Max shook his head, absent-mindedly shaking his leg again at the same time. “I know we could take them, Michael. That’s not the problem. We need to know who they are and what they want here… and how they got here.”

“The Mesalikos gave them the code so they could come here to gamble,” Michael said with certainty. “But I agree we need to find out who they are… and how many there are. We don’t want to take anyone back to Antar by accident… especially if they’re mob types.”

“My people may not have given them the codes,” River Dog said, seeming quite sure of this in spite of his choice of wording that left some room for doubt.

“Why do you say that,” the younger Maria asked.

“They knew everyone that they brought on this ship. They had dealt with them before… they had gambled with them or had drinks with them many times in the past. These people were all harmless… just local gamblers and friends… nobody important. My people believe that the ones who are running this now got the codes from one of the ones who were here before. Two of the gamblers have been missing for almost a week, and my people believe that it is not a coincidence.”

“But why?” Michael asked, more to himself than to anyone else. “Why would mob types want to set up a casino here of all places? It’s illogical. They can’t operate it openly or advertise or anything… and they must know we might discover them. They could make some money bringing in high rollers, but I don’t think it would be enough to be worth the trouble in the end. It might seem like a lot of money to an average Joe, but to people like the mob… it would be chicken feed… not worth the effort… certainly not worth the risk.”

Max nodded. “I have to agree with Michael. Whatever they expect to get, it can’t be enough to make it worth the effort and the danger. There has to be something that we’re missing here.” Max shook his leg again and wriggled sidewise a bit to try to dislodge the baggie, but it stayed put. River Dog watched but prudently said nothing.

“We need to get out of here,” Liz from Antar said. “…out of this room, I mean. We need to get back to the rest of the ship and figure out what we’re going to do. We’re in danger of being discovered every minute that we stay here in this room.”

River Dog nodded. “She is right. You should not stay here too long. It is too dangerous.”

Max nodded, too, realizing that they were both right. “Okay, let’s go. You girls came in together. You should probably go back out together… without us. We’ll keep an eye on you and follow you out… from a distance.”

The girls agreed and quietly left the room, walking nonchalantly toward the door out of the “casino.” Both Maxes, both Michaels, and River Dog followed a ways behind, trying to look like they weren’t together and were just checking out the gaming options available to them. As they got to the door, they glanced behind them. No one was following. Michael closed the casino door behind them, and the five guys walked quickly together through the narrow corridors to the cargo bay, where they found the girls waiting for them. Max shook his leg again and did a little wriggle.

“I think… the Mesalikos have something that will cure that,” River Dog said, giving in to the urge to be helpful.



----------



Back in their room again, Liz from Antar looked at Max and breathed in deeply. “I… I was so afraid, Max… that something had happened to you. I have to hug you and kiss you.” Max smiled. Liz picked up a pillow from the bed and began to whack Max with it mercilessly.

“Ow! Ow!” Max dodged and covered his head as the pillow landed blow after blow. “What is that for, Liz? I know hugs and kisses. This isn’t them!”

Liz landed a few more wallops on Max then tossed the pillow back onto the bed.

“Now I can kiss you.”

Liz stepped up to Max and put her arms around him tightly, kissing him passionately, as tears rolled down her cheeks.

As night fell, Michael and Max of Antar and the younger Michael and Max from earth all lay wide-awake in their beds thinking… unable to sleep. It bothered Michael and Max of Antar, especially, that some individuals were on their ship and that they had no idea who they were or what they wanted there. Max had Jim Valenti… both Jims, in fact, keeping an eye on all the comings and goings in the cargo bay now, and River Dog and his people were watching, too. But it was a plague that had to be cured… a disease that had to be excised. Michael and Max would be unable to rest until the matter was taken care of. Liz and Maria from Antar had already dozed off, leaving their husbands awake and lost in their thoughts, and the younger Liz and Maria were asleep in their own beds in their own rooms.

Around one o’clock A.M., Roswell time, Michael of Antar finally dozed off. His younger double, alone in his own room, had already dozed off. All was quiet at last. Moments later, in the darkness, a figure let himself into the room, somehow opening Michael’s door even though it had been locked electronically and required a hand scan to open it. The man walked silently over to Michael’s bed. He placed one hand on a spot behind Michael’s temple and another spot behind his ear and pressed for several seconds. Then he did the same to Maria, who was sleeping beside Michael. Both Michael and Maria lay still and silent, as the man left, closing the door back behind him. From there, he walked silently to the door of the younger Michael’s room. A wave of his hand, and the door to the younger Michael’s room opened for him. The man looked both ways briefly then went inside. Moments later, he stepped back out, silently closing the door behind him then making his way to the younger Maria’s room before moving on to Alex and Isabel’s room then to the rooms of their younger doubles. Emerging at last from the younger Isabel’s room, the man looked both ways again and quickly disappeared down the hall.



tbc

The Night The Dreams Died



To Catch A Rat (You Need A Cat)

Chapter 39

XXXIX



Liz awoke in the morning to find Max sitting on the side of the bed, lost in his thoughts.

“Kyrin for your thoughts, Max.”

Max smiled and leaned over to kiss Liz. “That’s about all they’re worth, I’m afraid, Liz. I’ve been thinking about this ever since last night, and I still don’t have a clue who our intruders could be. I’m starting to think maybe Michael was right. We should just go in there and clean the place out, take the intruders into custody, and do whatever we need to do with them. You know, stage a sort of surprise raid.”

Liz shrugged. “I guess you and Michael will have to decide that. I’ll be glad to see them off the ship, though, whatever you do. I don’t like them, Max. I don’t even know who they are, but I don’t like them. They’re trespassing. Knowing that they’re down there in the cargo bay… on our ship… is like… it’s like having a burglar in the house. I feel violated.”

Max nodded. “I’ll talk to Michael… see if he still thinks that’s the way to go. Maybe we can raid them and still find out who they’re working for.”

Max stood up and started to put his pants on, but he stopped with only one leg on. Liz noticed a funny look on his face, then Max shook his leg.

“Max, are you making fun of me? Hey, I’m sorry I put the baggie down your pants yesterday. It was just a spontaneous action, you know. There was nowhere else to get rid of it. And you seemed to deserve it… at the time.”

Max shook his head then put his pants on the rest of the way. “I’m not holding anything against you, Liz… or making fun of you either. I just had a funny feeling for a moment there. It was weird.”

“Yeah, you did look kind of freaked out for a moment there, Max. What were you thinking?”

Max shook his head. “It’s crazy. You don’t want to know.”

Liz jumped up and placed herself in front of Max. “I want to know! I love you even if you are crazy, Max. Tell me.”

“Gee, thanks, Liz… I think.” Max pulled his pants back down and ran his hand over his legs slowly.

“They’re still there, Max… the legs… and the hairs,” Liz said smiling.

“Yeah…” Max nodded. “But feel this, Liz.”

Liz smiled and ran her hand over Max’s leg. Then she ran her hand back the other way. “If you were a girl, I’d say you really needed to shave those legs, Max. They feel rough.”

“You notice it, too, huh?”

“Well… yeah, they do seem… I don’t know… The hairs are just kind of… prickly… more than usual.”

Max sighed and ran his hand over his leg again. “They feel like buffalo hairs… and they itch.”

Max put his pants back on, stood up, zipped up the zipper and buckled his belt, then he put on his shirt, which he left hanging out.

“I’m going to talk to Michael. You want to come?”

Liz nodded, but before they could get to the door, there was a knock.

“Max! You in there?”

“It’s Michael,” Liz said.

“I’m here, Michael. Come on in,” Max yelled back, scratching his leg and shaking it again.

Michael smiled as he walked in. “You still upset about that bag of desert dust, Max? I thought it was pretty funny myself.”

“Yeah, I could tell,” Max replied with a straight face.

“He’s not thinking about that anymore,” Liz said. “He’s just got an itch.”

Michael grinned. “Well, River Dog did say his people had a remedy for whatever you had, Max.”

“Yeah, yeah… yuk it up, Michael. You’re not the one with little trees growing out of your leg.” Max rolled his pants leg up to show Michael.

“Looks like it always did to me,” Michael grinned. “If it bothers you, though, Max, Liz could probably help you do a hot wax job.”

Max scowled. “Michael, did you know you’ve got a sadistic streak?”

Liz ran her hand over Max’s leg. “He’s right, Max. In the light over here, your legs look normal… they even feel normal again now.”

Max ran his hand over his leg then over his other leg, looked at Liz quizzically, then pulled his pants leg back down.

“Let’s talk about something else besides my legs, okay? What’d you do to your face, Michael? You cut it shaving? I didn’t think that was possible with the Antarian Lyyxtres Quad.”

“It’s nothing, Max. It wasn’t the razor. I had a splinter in my chin. Maria pulled it out and it bled a little bit, so she stuck a band-aid on it. That’s all.”

“Maybe you need to move a little further away from your headboard when you’re, uh, sleeping,” Max said with a wry grin. “How’d you get a splinter in your chin anyway?”

“Damned if I know. I woke up and it was there. Looked like a frikkin’ pinfeather… you know… the little stubbly stuff chickens get before their real feathers come in.”

Max grinned. “A chicken, huh?”

“Don’t even go there, Maxwell. At least I don’t have hairy buffalo legs!” Michael smiled at the mental image that this brought to his mind. “I like it, Max! “Buffalo legs! That could be your new nickname.”

“You’re not brave enough, Michael.”

Michael grinned. “Yeah, well… I still like it.”

“Do you still think we ought to raid the casino down on level one,” Max asked, changing the subject.

“I’ve been thinking about it. We can take them, Max. That part doesn’t concern me at all. But after we take them what do we do with them… and will they talk to us and tell us who’s really behind it all? Yeah… I’m game for it, Max. I say let’s round ‘em up now. We can worry about getting information after we put ‘em out of business… permanently.”

Max nodded. “Let’s go do it then. We’ll get the kids on the way down.”

Michael looked at Max for a moment then nodded. “You mean our doubles.” Max smiled.



----------



“There are only five of them in there at any one time,” Jim Valenti said, pointing at the corridor that led to the large room where the casino was hidden. “They work in shifts.” Jim had been watching the comings and goings in the casino all night together with his local double from this dimension.

“We could wait until they change shifts,” Max said… “then take them down as they’re leaving.”

“That’ll be four more hours,” Jim said.

“Or… we could go in and take ‘em down right now,” Michael said. “That would be my choice anyway.”

Max nodded. “You’re the general, Michael. Let’s do it.”

Max, Michael, Jim, and their doubles walked into the corridor that led to the casino and headed for the door that was hidden in the back. They opened the door and walked in as though they belonged there, which, actually, they did.

“Welcome to the Mesaliko Sky Casino,” the dapper man said, flashing his megawatt smile. “What’s your game?”

“I’m afraid you’re not going to like it,” Max replied. “It’s not one that favors the house.”

The man looked puzzled. “Well… if we have it here, we want you to play it.”

“Good,” Michael said, nodding to Jim. Jim slapped his handcuffs on the man.

“What’s this?” the man asked, seeming genuinely surprised.

“It’s called a raid,” Jim said. “We’re closing this illegal operation down.”

“Illegal?” The man’s megawatt smile dimmed considerably. “I don’t know anything about that. I was hired to greet guests and guide them to the games. That’s all I know… That’s all I do.”

“Over there,” Jim said to Michael. “We need to arrest the guy at the poker table and those three big types standing by the back wall.”

“What are they?” Max asked.

“Muscle, I think,” Jim replied.

“Okay, let’s get the muscle first,” Michael said. “…Make sure they don’t get in the way later.”

Jim handcuffed the greeter to a bar near the entrance. “We’ll be back in a minute. Just sit down and make yourself comfortable.” The dapper man sat down on the floor by the entrance and looked at his manacled wrist.

Max, Michael, Jim, and their local counterparts walked purposely toward the three big men standing by the wall in the back. As they approached them, one of the three men held out his hand to stop them.

“You can’t go past here. The games are all in this room.”

“We’re not playing games,” Michael said. “We had other ideas. You’re under arrest… for trespassing on the private property of the Royal House and Government of Antar without its permission. You can save yourselves a lot of trouble if you come peacefully and cooperate with us.”

The three men looked at each other. “I don’t think so,” one of them said, shoving Michael backwards suddenly. Michael was forced to take several steps backward to keep his footing, but he stayed on his feet. Before the big man knew what had hit him, Michael had brought his hand up, and a blast of energy threw the big man across the room. The man did not immediately get up from where he fell. When this happened, the other two men reached inside their coats. Michael knew what they were reaching for, but he was quicker than both of them. So were Max and their doubles. Four blasts of energy converged on the two guns, turning them instantly into hot melted slag. The two men tried once to pull the triggers, but the triggers were already melted solid, and the men were forced to drop the super-heated weapons. The local Jim Valenti grabbed one of the two men, spun him around, and cuffed him, and Jim from Antar, not having handcuffs on him, flipped the other man onto the floor on his belly and tied his hands behind him. The whole thing took less than a minute. The younger Michael had already rounded up the house poker player, who offered little resistance.

“Okay, now what we want to know is who do you work for,” Michael said.

“We work for ourselves,” one of the big men said defiantly.

“No you don’t,” Michael said confidently. “You’re too stupid to be the ones running this. But I’m betting you know who does. You can talk to us now or you can go with the sheriff and talk to his men at the sheriff’s office in Roswell. What’s it gonna be?”

“I got nuthin’ to say,” the first big man said defiantly. “I got nuthin’ to say to anyone.”

“Suit yourself,” Michael said, lifting the man up from the floor and shoving him toward the local Jim, who took him into custody along with the one who had been hit by Michael’s power surge earlier and was still lying on the floor, too stunned to get up. “What were you guys guarding in this room back here?”

The first big man looked at his companion, and Michael thought that for a moment… just for a moment… he saw a flicker of panic in their eyes. The men recovered quickly, however.

“Nuthin’. We were just telling you that all the games are in here. That’s all.”

Michael looked at the door to the mysterious back room and smiled. “Then you won’t have any objection if I check that room out.” The men remained silent. Michael opened the door cautiously. The room inside was dark. Michael turned the light on and looked around. On the surface of it, everything looked okay. There was a large room and a desk… and some boxes… probably supplies needed for running the casino. Michael looked around again. It looked okay, but if he had been Spiderman, his “Spidey senses” would have been tingling all over the place. Michael walked cautiously across the floor, looking around as he moved further and further into the room. Nothing looked amiss. There was no one hiding behind the desk. There were no closets to hide in. Michael turned around and scratched his head then shrugged at Max and Jim, who were standing in the door watching. He started to walk back to the door, but on a sudden impulse, he stopped and opened the top of one of the large boxes. As he did, the box turned over, and a pudgy figure leapt out of it and darted toward the door… and straight into Jim Valenti’s waiting arms.

It was hard to tell which one was more surprised…

“Jim!”

“Judge?”

For a moment, there was total silence, as both men gathered their wits. Jim was the first to speak.

“What in blazes are you doing here, Judge? I thought you were steering clear of trouble now… I thought you’d learned your lesson. You’ve still got a lot to answer for from before. You’re not even off the hook for that and now we find you hiding in here… trespassing… running an illegal casino… and who knows what else!”

“I was just looking around, Jim. I just wanted to see what was up here. You startled me, and I… I hid. I was afraid you might be one of those mob-types out there. I didn’t have anything to do with anything that might be illegal… whatever might be going on.”

Jim groaned. “Judge, there’s probably a total of maybe 121 IQ points between you and all three of those ‘muscle-bags’ out there, … and 120 of them are yours. Those guys out there couldn’t pee straight if someone wasn’t there to tell them how to aim. There are rocks on Antar with higher IQ’s than those guys have! They couldn’t run this place. I’m not buying your ‘totally innocent’ routine. What are you up to?”

“I told you… nothing, Jim. If you don’t want to believe me, then fine. You can’t prove anything.”

Max motioned to Jim. “Jim, do you think Amy would be willing to ‘interrogate’ him for us?”

Jim smiled, and Judge Lewis turned pale then began to shake.

“I think she would,” Jim said. “In fact, I think she might enjoy it.” He pushed the Judge toward the door, but Judge Lewis dug his heels in.

“You can’t do this, Jim. It’s cruel and unusual. It’s… sadistic.”

“You’re on a sovereign ship of the Royal House of Antar, Judge. You’re not in your own back yard anymore. American laws won’t protect you here. But then you don’t seem to pay much attention to them anyway, do you?”

“This ship is on American soil, Jim.”

“Actually, it’s not,” Max said. “It’s about twelve hundred feet above it.”

“And you wouldn’t believe what the Antarians can do to you,” Jim added. “Let’s go, Judge.”

“Wait! Wait… You’re not going to torture me are you?”

“Not me,” Jim said. “That’s the royal torturer’s job.”

Judge Lewis closed his eyes and swallowed. “I’ll talk. Just don’t let her know I’m here.”

“Her?” Jim asked.

“Your wife… Amy DeLuca… Valenti. Don’t let her near me again.”

“What about the royal torturer?”

Judge Lewis frowned but somehow managed to eke out a touch of sarcasm… “I thought they might be one and the same.”

“They are,” Jim said. Judge Lewis glanced at Jim for a moment, and the look in his eyes suggested that he did not discount that possibility at all.

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, Jim. Just don’t hurt me. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to… let me go afterward… would you?”

Jim shook his head. Judge Lewis winced but it was the answer he had expected.

“Talk, Judge, or face Amy,” Jim said, seeming to enjoy himself a bit more than he probably should.

Judge Lewis shook his head. “I’m not the one behind this, Jim. I’m just supposed to keep it running.”

“For who?” Michael asked. “Who’s behind it?”

“General Hawkins… and General Hawthorn.”

Max and Michael both looked at each other in surprise.

“Why?” Max from Antar asked. “Why would they want to run a small-time casino… on our ship? They’re still wanted by the army for desertion. This casino can’t be making that much money… and the danger level for them has to be very high. What do they expect to get from it?”

“I don’t know.” Judge Lewis shook his head again. “They just said that they needed to be exonerated… in order to get back in the army’s good graces. They said if I played along with them, they could restore my power once they were back in power themselves.”

Michael nodded. “And how would this exonerate them, Judge?”

Judge Lewis shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know. I asked the same thing. Every time I ask something they don’t want to answer, they just throw a little more cash down on my desk. I know when to shut up.”

“I’ll bet you do,” Max said sarcastically.

Michael looked troubled. “Max… we both know that this casino can’t possibly get them their reputation or their former positions back. And it won’t make them rich either. It might allow them to live higher for a while, but that’s not what they want. They want something that’s more important to them. What is it?”

Max shook his head. He thought about it for several moments then closed his eyes in frustration. Then, suddenly, it dawned on him…

“This is all a diversion, Michael! This whole casino was merely a diversion from the start! It was reopened to distract us… keep us looking around down here while something else is happening somewhere else. We fell for it!”

Michael’s face became pale then, moments later, flushed with anger.

“What do they want on our ship, Judge?”

“I… I don’t know! Honest I don’t! They don’t tell me those things.”

Michael glared at Judge Lewis, and the judge cringed and swallowed. “Hawkins might have said something about proving that you guys were dangerous… and doing something big that everyone would blame on you.”

Michael grabbed Judge Lewis by the collar, almost lifting him off the floor. “What else?”

“I don’t know! Well… Hawthorn might have said something about them becoming heroes for uncovering the real plot against earth… or something like that… and they might have mentioned looking for alien weapons on your ship… that they could use… so you would get the blame… and then they would be exonerated for using the tactics they used on the Mesaliko Reservation to try to find the aliens.”

“I thought you said they never tell you anything.”

“They don’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t… uh… hear things. I keep my ears open.”

“Knowledge is power, huh, Judge?” Max shook his head. “Michael, where would they go on our ship to find something that could be dangerous to people on a massive scale?”

Michael shrugged. “We don’t carry weapons. But some of our systems could be used as weapons… if someone knew how.” Michael paused a moment and his eyes grew wide… “Varec’s lab! Varec is always working on different things. Not weapons… but some of them could be used as weapons by a determined person with a little ingenuity. And to the general population, some of Varec’s inventions might seem to be phenomenal weapons if they were used… on the people on earth.”

“Would those two hurt Varec… to get what they wanted,” Max asked.

Judge Lewis looked away. “What do you think?”

Max and Michael and their younger doubles raced from the room, leaving Judge Lewis and the other prisoners in Jim Valenti’s hands. Jim rounded them all up, with help from his double from Antar, and locked them all in another room in the cargo bay together, one they could not escape from. Then Jim and his double headed quickly for Varec’s lab to assist the others.

Max raced headlong into Varec’s lab. It didn’t occur to him, in his state of concern for Varec’s safety, that rushing right in might be a little reckless, and Michael didn’t have time to stop him. But it was done. Michael walked in behind Max, quickly but somewhat more cautiously. Varec was sitting at his worktable, and he looked up as Max and Michael came in followed closely by their doubles then by the two Jims.

Varec lifted a protective covering from over his eyes and smiled. “You must be looking for those two over there.” He pointed to the other side of the lab. Everyone turned to look. General Hawthorn and General Hawkins were standing against the wall, terrified. Ten feet in front of them sat a very, very, very large cat. The cat turned its head calmly and looked at the ones who had just come in.

“Jung-Jo!” Jim of Antar shouted in sheer glee and amazement.

The cat actually seemed to smile at Jim through the two-foot-long tusks that protruded from the front of its mouth. It narrowed its eyes in a satisfied cat way and sounded like it was purring. Jim rushed to the Antarian pawgor, a distant relative of saber-tooth tigers that stood over five feet high at the shoulders and even higher to the top of the head, and threw his arms around the huge cat’s neck. As the local Jim from earth watched in utter dumbfounded amazement, the pawgor purred and licked the Antarian Jim’s face with a tongue that looked like it was large enough to wrap oneself up in… with a good amount left over.

Jim smiled. “How in Heaven’s name did you get Jung-Jo here, Varec?”

“Varec can bring things to him from across the galaxy, Jim… remember?” Max reminded him.

“I’m getting pretty good, too,” Varec said, without a trace of modesty. “I had to bring him across seven galaxies and countless dimensions to get him here this time. I’ve never done that before!”

Max looked at the terrified generals standing against the wall. “I guess he gave them a pretty good scare.”

Varec smiled. “They walked in unannounced and tried to take over my lab with some primitive weapons that appear to use a kind of exploding powder to propel a little piece of metal. The weapons are not unlike the ones we confronted in the mountains on earth before.”

Max looked at Varec’s desk. He had taken the guns apart, piece by piece, carefully laying each piece out and numbering and labeling it. Even the bullets had been disassembled into casings, lead tips, and little piles of gunpowder.

“They overpowered me,” Varec said ruefully. “But I concentrated, and a couple of minutes later, I had a fine ally.” He motioned toward the pawgor. “The pawgor surprised them.”

“I can imagine,” Max said with a grin.

At that moment, Liz and Maria, their doubles from earth, and Amy, the younger Jim’s wife, came running into the lab, having learned that something was going on there.

Liz and Maria of Antar saw Jung-Jo, and their mouths dropped open then turned into huge smiles. The faces of the younger Liz, Maria, and Amy, who had never seen a pawgor before, may have looked a bit different.

“What… what is that,” Amy asked her new husband quietly. It was uncertain whether she was being discreetly quiet or whether that was all the voice she could muster at the moment. But to the credit of all the girls, not one of them turned and ran. If generals Hawkins and Hawthorn had had that option… well, it was too late now.

The younger Jim stepped over beside Amy protectively. “He called it a ‘jungjo.’ It looks like a saber-tooth tiger to me, though.”

“Jung-Jo’s his name,” Jim of Antar said. He’s a pawgor.”

“He’s got a name?” the local Jim asked, amazed.

“He’s just a big puddy tat,” Jim from Antar said, caressing the purring animal. “Come here and pet him. He won’t hurt you.”

The local Jim stepped forward cautiously, and Amy stepped forward with him, holding onto her husband’s arm.

“You can pet him. He likes to be stroked,” Jim of Antar said.

The local Jim reached out and ran his hand over the pawgor’s head and down its back. The cat purred and looked contented. Unable to resist, Amy stroked the huge cat, too.

“He likes you,” Jim of Antar said. “He’s contented. See the look on his face?”

“Has he eaten yet… today,” the younger Maria asked, watching from behind her Michael.

“Why don’t you make friends with him,” Jim said. Maria’s eyes appeared to open wider than saucers, but she stepped forward and cautiously touched the large cat on top of the head…

“Nice, n-n-nice kitty. I’m your friend. Don’t eat me, okay?”

The younger Michael smiled then stroked the huge cat, too, followed by Max and Liz. Isabel, who had come in with Alex moments after the others, reached out and stroked the cat then took Alex’s hand and put it on the cat’s head with hers. Their doubles, Isabel and Alex of Antar, watched with smiles on their faces as the younger local gang became acquainted with the amazing pawgor that they all had come to know so well.

Apparently finding a bit of ill-advised courage after seeing everyone else touching the pawgor without any harm coming to them, General Hawthorn reached one hand out cautiously toward the huge cat. The pawgor instantly turned its head toward the general with its huge mouth wide open and let out a deafening bellow that could only be described as part ear-splitting roar, part terrifying shriek. The sound seemed to echo throughout the ship for the longest time before fading. When the cat screamed, the general had immediately jerked his hand back and turned ghostly white. Beside him, Hawkins, who was almost colorless, looked at the floor and moved his right foot carefully away from his companion’s feet. “Great,” he said in a shaky voice. “Judge Lewis, and now you.”



tbc


Coming up: Though the casino is gone and generals Hawkins and Hawthorn, along with Judge Lewis, are turned over to the authorities, finally and permanently ending their quests for power… and their freedom… there is one other uninvited “guest” onboard the New Granolith. But this one is different… very different… and not so easy to catch. In fact, they don’t even know he’s there. And other problems face the “alien” gang and their friends, too. Will earth be a place where the younger doubles can go back to living in peace with their families… or has that possibility ended forever? And can they live with the consequences of being who they are and everyone knowing who they are? Some decisions will have to be made.