another voice, another star

opening...

The old man opened the book. The young children at his feet sat around as he began to read and form the sentences.

"Listen," he said softly. "Listen to the words."

Their ears opened and thoughts hushed as they studied the passages: "and the news went out at dusk and the people cried with joy the men worked the levers the children wrote the songs there are rockets in the sky there are rockets in the sky..."

The young children all settled back to listen, comprehend, and absorb...

Rockets in the Sky The children threw down their toys. Dirt and grass flew into the air as they jumped up and ran around the playground, yelling at the top of their voices. The men stopped working and looked to see what all the commotion was, as the women opened windows to also see what was going on.

Overhead, above the trees and the buildings of the city, came a roar as loud as the huge waterfalls and the unleashed wind put together. People covered their ears, and shouted upward trying to be heard above the deafening noise.

Then it came.

Across the horizon, filling the sky like hundreds of giant silver needles came the long, thin bodies of the first expedition. Rising higher and higher, they reflected the sun above and the waters below. They took the hopes of the educated, and the dreams of the common man.

Slicing through the sky went the ships that carried the first men to space, the first people to conquer the world outside the realm in which they all lived.

The children danced and yelled as the crafts flew overhead towards the stars. As they waved, they all chanted skyward, wishing and pushing them on with their words.

"There are rockets in the sky!" they called to the people who did not know yet. They called to inform everyone of the great feat being accomplished up above.

"There are rockets in the sky!"

"There are rockets in the sky!"

The Game "Well, I'll be!"

Wells Kamper adjusted his glasses and glanced up at the clock.

4:42 p.m.

The Plant would close in eighteen minutes.

Eighteen minutes to mark another day off of his life at his work. Wells finished the last drops of coffee from his plastic cup, glancing swiftly at a mirror on the desk to check the bald spot on the top of his head before his gaze returned to his work.

He had found a small note on his desk when he had returned from his 3:30 meeting with salesmen and board members. The outside of the letter read in gold letters "From Number One­The President to Number Four­Secretary of Personal Disbursement."

Wells, himself, was Number Eight, and no one had ever left others peoples' documents on his desk before. So the only logical explanation was that someone must have left this note in his office by mistake. All that he knew about Number Four­Secretary of Personal Disbursement, who the note was intended for, was that he was in charge of the hiring and firing of employees in The Plant. In fact, Wells only came in contact with him twice every day. Once as he entered and once as he exited the main door of the building. Not the kind of relationship that Wells was building the future on.

But still, he could not withhold the temptation to open the note.

His eyes studied the formation of words to sentences, sentences to phrases, phrases to meaning, while his hands grew cold as he read the note slowly: "Move B.B. up four spaces. Terminate W.K." He read the note again.

"Move B.B. up four spaces. Terminate W.K." Wells read the note over and over again to himself. His eyes could not believe it, as his mind computed the meaning of the words.

Wells had never liked the numbering system at The Plant. He was Number Eight in a line of employees from Number One­The President. It seemed to him like such a distance between being a person and just being labeled a number, another statistic on The Plant's employment graph and payroll computer file.

But he could not grasp this note.

"Move B.B. up four spaces..."

B.B. must be Bob Barner, Wells thought. Bob Barner was Number Twelve in the line of people at The Plant. Moving him up four spaces in employment would put him at Number Eight...Wells' position.

"Terminate W.K..."

W.K.?

Wells finally thought that he understood. The putting of two and two together and ending up with four.

The ultimate answer.

W.K...Wells Kamper.

"I give them my most productive days, and they shove them back at me like this."

The Plant sometimes worked in strange ways.

Being tactful wasn't one of their better traits. Why couldn't they have just said "fired" instead of

"terminate"? It sounded so permanent. And the note had come from Number One­The President. The top of the line. Well, he supposed that this made it official.

Number One had ordered him fired. Ordered him removed from their ranks. It was as plain as black­and­ white.

Wells wadded up the note and threw it dejectedly into the waste chute. Walking out, he slammed the door behind him so hard that the electronic lock fell off and broke, and the automatic sensor kept saying, "Welcome to Wells Kampers' office...Welcome to Wells Kampers' office...Welcome to Wells Kampers' office..."

That night, as the thoughts and actions of the day's developments weighed heavily on his mind, he sought solitude by staring into his fire window. The flames seemed distant to him.

He had joined The Plant twenty years before in the fall of 1998, fresh out of college with the eagerness to become successful. He had worked hard to get to the Number­Eight position, starting out in the beginning as a general runner for the executives (the lowest number and work level at The Plant).

Those early years had not all been filled with easiness? Like any young man with a great desire and incentive to succeed, he had clawed and fought his way up the ladder of the Numbers over the years to reach his present spot at Number Eight. A few people had been stepped on, some even unknowingly moved out of his way. But he had now reached a level where he was happy with his work and himself.

But his body had not been keeping up with the pace of his work. There had been too much strain, and

he had had a mild heart attack and an ulcer over the years. His nerves were about shot.

Wells climbed into bed at 11:26 p.m. He turned on the Video­Television Machine to try to calm him down and lure him to sleep. But his thoughts kept drifting back to the note.

How could they do this to me? he thought. I have given them the best years of my life.

He took two sleeping capsules.

I have never been late for work.I was almost never sick. Just the weeks in the hospital for my operation.

He took two more sleeping capsules. The minutes began to drift by.

He cursed the Video Machine as he turned it off.

Putting Bob Barner in my spot, he thought. I just cannot see it. What did he do to deserve my number?

He took one more sleeping capsule.

"I wonder," he whispered out loud, "if they will give me a gold timepiece?"

He drifted off to sleep.

The automatic wake­signal broke the silence at 7:00 in the morning. But Wells would never hear it again. He had lost count of how many sleeping capsules he had taken, and sometime during the hours of the night his body had just lost its will to live. The signals rang loud and clear until the cleaning lady found him two hours later. She cried as she shut it off.

The time was 10:30 at The Plant.

Number Four­Secretary of Personal Disbursement's phone rang.

"Hello," he said.

The voice on the other end was sharp and crisp.

"Number Four?"

It was The President.

"Yes, sir, Number One!" the Secretary said.

"Number Four, did you get the moves I sent you this week?" The President asked.

"No, sir," the Secretary said. He had been playing chess with The President by mail for a year now.

The President continued. "Well, I had just wondered because my new runner said that when he delivered the moves to you yesterday, he could not find your office. He said, though, that he left the chess moves in another office, and by the way he described it to me, it's the one next to yours."

"Wells Kamper's office?"

"Yes," The President answered.

The Secretary sat back in his chair. "I haven't seen Wells in today...could you tell me the moves over the phone?"

"Okay," said The President. "They were move B.B. up 4 spaces...Terminate W.K." The Secretary checked his chess board. "Now, let me see," he said. "Move Black Bishop up 4 spaces."

He counted his moves over the phone. "This knocks off, or 'terminates' as you call it, my White Knight."

The President laughed over the phone.

"Checkmate, Mr. Secretary," The President said.

"Checkmate," The Secretary sighed.

The President hung up.

"I just love this game."

Looking Forward, Looking Backward The lady whose eyes had seen more days than she could remember was almost asleep. Another night almost ready to take over. Her sixty­five years were clearly marked, and in the dim light her expressions were finely outlined, valleys of age giving away time­ worn secrets. Snow white hair drifted in patches across her pillow, while memories clouded her in and out of consciousness.

Her husband was in the next room. Placidly placed in a chair, his total hours of life ebbed more and more.

Huge hands gripped the arms of the seat, and deep set eyes stared straight, the eyes of a man who had seen many things come and go, and wanted to see one more. Ancient cobwebs tried to clear. Lost moments were just out of reach.

He tried to concentrate.

In front of him stood an old antique clock. The outline of a steam train whose meaning was long

forgotten carved the bottom of the structure, while the hands, numbers, and gears adorned the top with painted silver figures. The pendulum was moving back and forth at a pace almost too slow for detection, the ticking of it holding one rhythm while the squeaking of the forlorn chair he was in held another.

The man strained to watch the clock, trying to observe and movement at all.

He organized his thoughts.

'My life is a good one' he thought through the dimness. He had been on this planet now for what seemed so long it was ceasing to bother him. Coming at an age where he was expected to do no more work, he just smiled and tried to be cared for. His wife had adjusted to being here. His friends had adjusted to being here. It didn't really seem so many of those years ago that they had first come here from Earth, starting what were new voyages in old bodies. His life here was pleasant and good. Not too many worries. Not too many excitements. He smiled within his thoughts.

1:558 He knew Earth was supposed to be put behind in their minds. Put aside as an old file is. Not to be thought about long, for the homesickness would set in, for which the cure had yet to be found. The yearning would upset the thoughts and rearrange the thinking. It's what would haunt the mind, and the desire would burn inside the heart.

He must avoid that.

1:56 Don't think about the Earth a million miles away. It is better not thought of much. Impossible to reach out and just turn a switch and go home. So don't worry about it. Don't even dream.

1:57 The man, trying to keep his mind away from the sky, reached out and hit a switch on a black box. Dim lights flickered, and then numbers appeared ever so faintly, their red glow consoling the empty darkness. A low voice called out over the box, a radio, reassuring him that, no, he was not the only one awake tonight.

1:58 "Well," the radio said, "you realize that it is almost Daylight Savings Time. It's almost time to set those clocks back, turn those digital numbers in reverse, and reset the old clock on the stove. You know, spring forward, fall back. Now who out there remembers that?"

The old man turned the edges of his mouth towards a smile of acknowledgement.

1:59 "I still kind of wonder," the radio voice continued, "just why we even turn our clocks back. An old habit that they're doing back on Earth tonight, and I guess just one of those little ties to the home planet that is hard for us to break, even if it is not needed up here.

But I guess we can live with it."

The voice paused. "Now remember, at 2 o’clock; turn your clocks to 1 am. Is everybody ready....here we go!"

The brass bars inside the clock casing struck the long chimes twice, in perfect synchronization with the minute hand standing straight up and pausing on the raised segment below the "2."

The man stopped rocking and froze in time. His eyes darted back and forth.

"2 am," he whispered out loud.

He slowly rose from his sitting position and balanced on the edge of his chair, then reached across the vastness of the room to the clock. His fingers felt the sting of time, but they rang true as they approached the clock. Slowly, he turned the minute hand backwards on the face of the clock until it read "1 am" again.

"Well," he said softly to himself as he sat back in his chair, "I know that I am not supposed to think about the Earth too much, but my opinion is that once a year isn't so bad. I don't live any of my life time wise, so I might as well use this extra hour of time over. Like a gift from God, it's given just to remind us that He is still with us no matter where we are."

1:03 The man, now comfortable in his easy chair, reached over away from him where he had strategically placed an old faded cigar box, along with some equally old shoeboxes.

He lifted the lids on the boxes, and peaked inside each one, seemingly hesitant, as if wondering if the contents were all still there. His eyes would pick out an item, focus on it for a moment, and then the brain would register a smile of recognition. After this brief assurance, he would move on to another item, until this mental inventory of goods was completed, and all the wares accounted for.

1:09 His worn hand reached in and picked up an object. Studying it carefully, turning it over in his hand and in his mind, the old man began to remember the Earth that he knew before he had come here. The Earth that he called home, whose soil was forever embedded in his pores and skin, whose air was always somewhere

deep within his lungs and whose life blood would always run his heart and body.

"It never hurts to rekindle," he whispered to the alien air, suddenly realizing how far physically from the Earth he was. "It never hurts to stay in touch mentally."

He touched the object.

It was faded yellow paper whose lines the ages hopelessly deleted. But the old man knew what it said, reaching back to draw out the almost lost words.

"The old train schedule," he said to himself. "I got this in 1945 in some torn up train depot about thirty miles outside of Berlin, while the company that I was in was driving toward the heart of Germany to try to finish that damn war. I was, let's see, twenty years old then. It seems like such a long time ago." He drifted in thought.

The explosions. The bodies. The fear.

1:24 He found a ticket to one of the 1956 World Series games. He remembered his father went with him to that game. He thought of his father...

1:31 In one box, he had an old "Beatles" pin­on button that was his daughter's in 1965, her teenage years.

His thoughts drifted to her, the curly­headed cutie before she got married and had a family of her own...

1:39 He flipped through an old TV GUIDE from 1975. He laughed when he read the titles of these outdated shows, and thought about how he loved to watch them.

"I wonder who was on Johnny Carson that night..."

1:44

He came across a photograph of Disneyland in California, dated 1988. He thought of "M­I­C­K­E­Y..."

He laughed out loud.

1:49 Some old ticket stubs, in one of the shoe boxes, caught his eyes. They were the boarding passes and complimentary brochures about the early colonies going to Mars in 1998, when he was a passenger returning from a brief vacation on the planet. He remembered the Red Planet, its mythical canals and ever so deep azure sand...

1:52 The old man caught the hands of the clock out of the corner of his eye. Was it that time so soon? He thought. How quickly the memory files can be scanned and recharged. How quickly faded imprints are sharpened up. How quickly time seems to melt away.

But...the memory banks were opened. The nerves charged. The sparks turned up. He was again close to himself.

1:56 A voice that he had been tuning out for the past selected minutes finally registered in his brain, seeping in through the cracks in the cells. He cocked his ear toward the speaker. The radio voice called out.

"Well, it's 1:56 for the second time tonight. I hope that you had a good hour of your life back."

The old man sighed.

"Yes, I have," he whispered out over the air. He carefully started selecting every article and putting it back in its rightful place in the boxes, replacing the lids and covers when the containers were full. Putting things back next to undisturbed dust. Making everything so again that they could be found next year. Next time.

1:59 He pulled his eighty years up, and put the boxes in their original places.

2:00 The radio called out.

"Welcome back to the real world."

The man smiled, shook his head, and went back and laid his head in his bed. His worn, flattened pillow rested against the upright rings of the brass headboard.

His wife turned over, and he could see the faint light draw shadows across her features.

"Was everything still there?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. She smiled in the dark.

"You know that it will be there again next year for you," she whispered calmly.

He nodded.

"Yes, I know." The silence crept around the room like hidden smoke. Then, the man said "goodnight" before they both drifted off to sleep. He added one last observation. "I'm already looking forward to it," he assured himself. "Already looking forward to it."

The Star Watchman John Holden had specifically asked for this room. He sat quietly in the chair by the window, watching the night sky. The moon was three­quarters full and there were few clouds to distract his view.

Above him were endless lights in the heavens, and he

could count hundreds of the stars in his head to himself, while knowing that there were millions more that he could not see. But he did not need to see them. He was with them. In his mind, he was out there.

John Holden was sixty­two, had grey hair with a hint of whiteness in it, and was dying of cancer.

He opened a notebook and began to write: "I, John Holden, being of sound mind and..."

All the scouts were pulling at each other and cutting up around the fire. The last night of the two week excursion by Troop 318 was a time to sense accomplishment, so the leniency given to the boys was expected. But the head counselor noticed that one boy was missing from the festivities.

"Holden?" he said as he approached one of the tents.

"Back here, sir." The counselor walked around the grounds to find a boy lying face up on a sleeping bag behind the tent.

"Little Johnny Holden," he said, "What are you doing back here?" Johnny shifted on the ground.

"Look up at the sky, sir."

The counselor looked up.

"Aren't the star beautiful tonight. There’s the Big Dipper, and the Constellation Leo, and Mars is over that way."

The counselor lowered his head and studied the boy.

"Yes, Johnny, they are. Tell me, how did you do on your Astronomy Merit Badge last week?"

"Real well, sir."

"I thought you would. But, Johnny, don't you want to join the other boys over by the fire?"

"I will in a minute, sir. Right now I just want to lay here and gaze."

The counselor shook his head and began to walk away.

"Okay, Johnny. I'll see you over by the fire."

Johnny did not hear him...

He was glad that he had signed up for the night class. It gave him a chance to walk alone for a while and clear his head. College was much harder than he had imagined, John thought to himself. But he would make it. The walks always made him feel better.

Along the paths around the building, John knew that he would be at his room soon. So he looked up at the sky one last time before he had to hurry to class. It gave him time to study the night. To take in the moons.

To open up to the stars. How he loved the sky.

He entered the door...

"I'm glad that you brought me here."

"It was the least that I could do for you on your thirty­fifth birthday. But to bring me to Walt Disney World, I mean..."

"You deserve it."

John Holden smiled and sat with his wife and children in the hard metal chairs that surrounded the room.

"Dad, I just love this 'Tomorrow Land'." They were in the pavilion and exhibit where there was a mock spaceship ready to blast off towards the stars. John Holden gripped the arm supports as the taped engines started a low roar and the false gravity pushed them lower into their seats.

"I do too, son,” the birthday father said over the rocket noise. "I do, too...

"There must be a million lights out there tonight," he whispered to himself. "How I would like to stay and look at you." But he knew that he had to be on his way.

John Holden opened the door of his car and climbed in behind the wheel. The only good thing about being an executive and having to work late was this little rendezvous with the sky. Every night as he drove home from his job of thirty years he would stop the car at this rest stop and get out. Since the stop overlooked some hills around his home, he had a perfect view of the stars.

So he would get out and watch the heavens for ten or twenty minutes before he went home. He knew that this was the best medicine for living, by far.

He started the car...

John Holden finished writing, closed the notebook, and eased back into his hospital chair. A man who was present in the room with him gently pried John's fingers off the notebook, and then opened the cover. Reading the writing, he looked down at John.

"It will be fine," the man said.

"Are you sure?" John asked. His voice was failing beyond repair. "They tell me that there is not much time."

"It will be all fine and legal. I just have to sign it as your attorney."

"Thank you so much."

As the man reached down to sign his name on the document, John Holden's eyes returned to the night.

"Goodnight," he said out of the hospital window...

The plane rose up to a thousand feet. Its engines hummed gently as the craft glided along to its destination.

"Here we are, Mrs. Holden," the pilot called out.

A small woman of about sixty years was sitting on the passenger seat in the plane, holding a red vase in her hand. Lines where tears had been earlier were etched down her cheeks. She turned to the pilot.

"John wanted it this way," she said, her voice barely audible. "He left the instructions in his will."

New tears began forming around her eyes.

"He finished it from his hospital room the night before he died. The lawyer was even there to make it legal. It is how he wanted it."

"I know, Mrs. Holden," the pilot said. "I'm just glad that it stopped raining and the sky has finally cleared up."

Mrs. Holden looked out of the window of the plane at the night sky. So this is what he saw. This is where he lived night after night of his childhood and adult life. This is what I always had to share with him, Mrs. Holden thought to herself as the thinned clouds moved by.

The silence was broken.

"Mrs. Holden," the pilot said. "I think that it is time." She turned and looked at him for a while, then nodded her head. Slowly, she opened the window just a little, and held the vase outside. She could, for the first time, almost feel the stars with her hand. She could almost, for the first time, small the stars filling her

senses, touch the stars pressing against her skin and nerves.

She tried to understand. For once, filling herself with vision, feelings, and the night, she really tried to understand.

The magic night dust did its trick.

The twinkling heavens let her diagnose.

She felt finally what he felt, and it filled her like nothing before.

She smiled a small smile.

"Good­bye, John," she gently called. "It is just like you wanted it in your will, and I will abide by your last wishes."

She tipped the vase over.

Down over the night sky fell the cremated remains of John Holden. The stars reflected off of them like thousands of bits of tinsel from a Christmas tree suddenly being thrown into the air. Wind blew him around. Air pushed against him. Gliding and caught on top of the clouds, he would forever be with the sky.

The plane traveled on. Mrs. Holden sat staring out of the window. Tears fell from her cheeks and lined the half­open glass that separated her from her late husband.

"He's resting now."

Birthday "Happy birthday, grandpa!"

The young voice cut through the crowd of noise like the sharpest of knives through the densest of materials.

Gordon Thomas smiled.

"Thank you, Charlie," he called back in a rough­ toned voice to his grandson. The years added many memories and etched away others, but the power of recognizing a loved one's voice was still there. His fingers no longer held as much as they used to, his silver hair no longer seemed to all stay in one place, but his mind was still able to function and perform these simple but so meaningful tasks.

"Save a hug for me later, grandpa."

"Later, Charlie," Gordon answered back. "I shall keep a special one just for you." Charlie smiled the smile that only the innocent can and scurried out the open door.

Over in the far corner of the room sat James Thomas. Younger than his brother Gordon, but having the same features as his older sibling, James just sat looking at his brother. Analyzing and scrutinizing, he took in every detail that was obtainable, checking every line, every feature, and every movement that he could.

"Something wrong, little brother?" Gordon asked when he finally became aware of James looking at him. The question jolted James from his observations.

"Oh, no, Gordon," James said. "I'm just looking you over on this special day of yours. Trying to remember all of our times together."

"You must have a long memory, James. Even I can conceive that some of them have become blurs to even me. But we did have some dandies, didn't we?"

Gordon asked.

"Yes, we did," James answered. His voice trailed off a little at the end of his answer. "Yes we did."

The festivities continued in the room, with the opening of presents, cutting of cake, and blowing out of the candles. The smell of burnt wicks and colorful ribbons filled the room. Finally, after all the celebration, they sang the traditional song to him.

"Happy birthday to you..."

James did not sing. He just moved his lips in unison with the music. "...happy birthday to you..."

Like a marionette someone had stuck a nickel into and watched it lip­sync a favorite tune, James mouthed the words. Letters without substance.

Sentences without feelings. "...happy birthday, dear Gordon..."

James did not give meaning to any of his words.

He just went through the motions of moving his muscles to form syllables. His jaw tightened and untightened, the nerves moving it up and down. "...happy birthday to you."

Everyone laughed and clapped at the closing lines of the song, lingering on the last notes as long as possible. Then they all stopped by and kissed and hugged Gordon on their way to eating cake, drinking

punch, and celebrating. The event held the family together, bonding bloodlines and ages.

After all the gala had somewhat subsided and all were settled into their eating and partying, Gordon came up behind James and took him by the arm and gently pulled him to one side, away from the others.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

James could not look at him.

"No, no," James said, staring straight ahead.

"Nothing's wrong. Why do you ask?"

"I've seen that look on your face before."

James' throat tightened.

"Nothing's wrong, Gordon."

After hearing this, a large grin came across Gordon's face.

"Well, then," Gordon said, "aren't you going to wish me a happy birthday?"

James turned and looked into his brother's eyes.

He noticed wrinkles and lines he'd never seen before.

Tears were beginning to swell up around his own eye's perimeters, but before they could overflow and Gordon could see them and ask questions about them, he reached out and hugged his brother, whispering softly on his shoulder.

"Happy birthday, big brother."

"That is better," Gordon said, "you're too sentimental about things like this."

James looked at his brother.

"It's just that under different circumstances..."

"Nonsense!" his brother interjected. "Life's too short to be taken too seriously."

James nodded his head up and down.

"A strange choice of words, Gordon," he said.

Gordon laughed out loud, but the corners of his smile turned down slightly as he realized his brother was not laughing with him, and how, after a moments thought, what he had said was indeed not that funny.

"Yes, it is, Gordon," James called silently as his brother turned and went back to blending into the celebration.

"Yes, it is too short."

The same old songs were sung, the same old notes missed, the same old voices thinking that they sounded better after a few drinks.

The party continued through the night. Gaiety exchanged, gratitude expressed. Everyone was having the best of times.

But there was a crack in the festivities. Like a small quirk in the normal run of activities, a little glitch in the flow of the vibrations developed.

A small ache appeared in Gordon Thomas' body.

A discomfort in his frame.

He was sitting in his old, brown rocking chair while the younger children were sitting around a card table putting a puzzle together and the older guests were delegated to the kitchen.

He mumbled a low moan, half out of pain and half out of surprise at what was happening.

One of the children heard the sound out of Gordon, but only looked up to show some proper respect. His gaze returned to the puzzle at hand.

Gordon's chest tightened like the rubber band wound too tight on a propeller of a toy airplane.

Wanting to free the tension bound up, but unable to expand the energy.

On countless old movies and television shows, Gordon had seen this happen to people, and they always immediately grab for their chest. But he just sat taking in the strange sensation he was experiencing, not really sure just what was going on.

The tightness held.

The squeezing pushed.

The pounding closed in and would not relinquish.

He opened his mouth as if to speak. The words would not come out.

The perspiration started to bead up on his forehead, spilling down his cheeks and ears. His muscles around his eyes went taut, as his fingers began to push into the arms of the chair so much that they began to leave marks.

His mind wandered.

Something was draining him, taking the necessary fluids away from his thought process and putting them elsewhere. He dreamed a few split seconds about his childhood, about growing up, about high school, college, his younger days. Like a slide show popping in his head off and on, like fragments of an old film spliced together, the pictures flashed in and out of his memory.

"Gordon!"

The recognition of a name jolted him back to reality.

"Are you alright?" James Thomas shouted.

Gordon, awakening partially from his dizziness, realized that he was slumped over in his chair, his head almost between his knees. He tried to shake his head to rid himself of the fogginess that had filled his eyes and ears.

"I..." he mumbled out some words, "I'm not feeling that well." He fell farther even more, and had to hold himself with his arms from falling to the floor.

James rushed over to his brother’s side, just in time to catch him from tumbling out of his chair.

"Somebody help!" he pleaded for anyone who could pick up his call. He cradled his brother's head as he sat back in his chair. By now, the crowd who had dispersed earlier had all re­entered the living room.

"What's the problem?" It seemed that everyone asked this question at once.

"I'm not sure," James said, trying to examine his brother. "I think you should call the ambulance." One of the relatives ran to the phone as Gordon, now seemingly comfortable in his chair, tried to speak.

"I'll be alright," he whispered in a tone of voice that brought the people in the room the realization that something was wrong. "Just a heartburn, I guess."

James eyed his brother carefully.

"I think that it is more than that," he said to Gordon, trying to convey the seriousness of the situation to his brother.

Gordon sensed the vibrations, and slowly shook his head in acknowledgement.

"We will take care of you," James said calmly.

The relatives in the room formed a small circle around Gordon, like some unknown ritual of togetherness to help his cause and keep him from harm.

They stood silently as the long distance wail of a siren could begin to be distinguished in the background as it closed the gap between helplessness and help.

James held Gordon.

The family held hope.

Gordon held on to life.

The red machine pulled through the damp night, finally arriving at its destination. A crowd outside the house motioned the men to where they were needed.

The faceless attendants entered and exited, doing their job as well and as quickly as they could.

"Cardio­pumps!" one called out.

"Pulmonary nodes!" another yelled.

The crowd whispered in hushed silence outside.

"His heart?" a nameless section asked. Nodding heads affirmed the question.

"80 cc's of aorta­unblockage," an attendant yelled. IV bags were opened and attached; veins were found for synthetic life fluids.

The red lights of the ambulance whirled around and around under a lone street light, making the scene takes on an eerie and unreal scenario. Like so many clips out of a late­night movie, the darkness surrounded the halo­like middle of the picture where the drama was unfolding.

Two men rolled out the attached stretcher from the back of the truck into the cold night air where you could see your breath ever­so faintly, trying to keep Gordon Thomas as comfortable as possible as they transferred him into the ambulance on his chaperoned ride to the hospital. Attaching this, securing that, making sure that everything was connected, the attendants worked like finely­tuned machines.

The family crowd had gathered around the outskirts of the ambulance in the street and on the sidewalk, while James stood back off to one side, partially hidden behind a nearby telephone.

"God help him," he whispered under his breath.

"God help him."

Crash!

The two solid white doors open with a rush of air that seemed to race to fill the void inside the room.

Stale air meeting pure. White uniforms meeting cold white walls. Reality meeting reality.

Five men surrounded and pushed a slab of mattress on wheels down a long corridor. Five white­ clad men moving steadily and swiftly, seemingly unconscious of the plight but all moving as one towards a unanimous goal.

Gordon Thomas lay dying on the mattress.

There were tubes stuck in him in every possible and conceivable area. Tubes like probing eyes trying to see what the problem inside of his body was. Machines whirred, bright blue lights blinked, and dull red lights kept a low hum.

"Room 125," one of the men yelled.

The blur of arms and hands moved the stretcher into one of the adjacent rooms, while some of the attendants started hooking tubes and dials from Gordon's body up to cylinders and nozzles protruding out from the wall.

But with all the liquids pumping, all the vials filled, all the machines measuring, all the oxygen pumping, all the dials registering, and all the efforts honorable.

But the time and trial was not paying off.

"Doctor," one of the interns said in the lull that everyone was taking to make sure that things were working properly and that everyone was doing all that could be done, "he's fading."

The doctor stared down at the quickly melting away of Gordon Thomas.

"The prognosis, sir?" another of the assistants asked. The doctor looked at the black rubber cylinder that was registering Gordon's breathing move up and down, and realized that it was slowing ever so slightly on every inhalation and exhalation.

He summed the situation up in very few words.

"Irreversible," he informed everyone in the room. "We cannot stop the inevitable.

There was no movement in the room, except fro the ever­present "blip" of the heart monitor that was now taking longer and longer between each noise until, as if finally giving everyone what they were putting off hearing, the high­pitched continuous sound of a failed heart permeated through the air. A stopped life machine.

The people stared coldly at the green screen.

"Time?"

The doctor's voice thawed the crowd and brought them back to the situation at hand.

"8:47."

The doctor walked over and checked out one of the charts that were hanging on the wall between tubes and silver instruments.

"8:47?" he said while checking some figures on a clipboard, "we are thirteen minutes late."

He turned and looked across the room at the nurse in charge and the attendants that brought Gordon Thomas to the hospital on his last journey.

The doctor continued.

"I have here that Mr. Thomas was born fifty years ago at 8:34 p.m."

One of the attendants cleared his throat, as if to be getting to explain something that he would rather not.

"That is correct, sir," the attendant said. "I was driving, and it was the cross­town traffic bringing him back, sir, that slowed us down. We would have been here sooner."

The doctor shook his head in agreement.

"That's alright," he said. "It is no big difference."

He focused his gaze one last time on the body of Gordon Thomas in front of him, while the sheet was being pulled over his face.

"I guess that I should go tell the family," he murmured low. He turned and started towards the door.

"One of my more unpleasant tasks," he said, and disappeared from the room.

Walking out through the halls and corridors of the hospital, the doctor was going over in his head the speech that he would have to use on the surviving family members. He searched the waiting room for the eyes that would tell him that they were the ones that were waiting to hear from him. He had this knack, this conditioning, which gave him the ability to know who he had to speak and console.

His technique worked again.

James Thomas noticed the doctor searching him with his eyes.

"I'm sorry," the doctor said in a voice ever so faintly.

Most of the family huddled together over by one of the far walls, consoling each other by hugs, tears, and words. James went around to each tearful member of the family, gently touching each one of them hoping

some invisible osmosis would flow strength to help him cope with this situation.

James stopped when his eyes, even through their wet­layered coating, met the doctors.

"Sorry, hell," James said, "you doctors are all alike. Come out here after everything is over, after everything is said and done, put on a sorrowful face, and regurgitate back to us 'I'm sorry'. Just like someone back in those God awful­colored rooms plugged a cassette tape in your back that read 'pity­recording', and turned it on, flipped a switch, and sent you to me."

The doctor, caught off guard a few seconds by the sudden attack, fell silent. After reorganizing his thoughts, he began to speak.

"Oh, come now," the doctor said, his sullen feelings now being melted down while his defensive feelings were slowly swelling up. "It's not that way at all. Are you telling me you really weren't this?"

James looked eye to eye with the doctor as he crossed the room and stopped about five feet from him, not wanting to get any closer, but wanting to be near enough to see the doctor's eyes as he spoke to him. To try to catch any sense of change in them. Any glimmer that would tell him that he was right.

James' voice seemed a little calmer now, but he chooses his words and their punctuation and inflection ever more carefully.

"The truth is," he slowly announced, "that we really didn't have to call you at all tonight, did we?" His eyes steamed as his thoughts transmitted the question and waited to assemble the answer. The doctor let out a small smile.

"We would have been here sooner or later," the doctor answered as if reading from some cue cards

behind James' head, "no matter if you had called or not.

We have a way these days of knowing what is going on when it comes to things that interest us, things that we have a stake in."

James paused a moment collecting his thoughts.

Then, shaking his head in apparent understanding, he continued.

"Tell me, doc, what room is the time clock kept in?"

"Time clock?" The doctor strained to understand.

"Yes. What room do they throw the switch that turns off another man's life? Where does the digital voice ring out, 'it's 8pm, that's it'?"

"Now, Mr. Thomas, it is not like that at all."

"The hell it isn't," James retorted the burning swelling up inside of his mind. The doctor walked over to one of the white vending machines and began putting coins in its slot.

"You realize as well as I do, Mr. Thomas," the doctor said as he punched the "coffee" button on the dispenser, "that your brother's time was up."

"Time was up!" James shouted so loud it startled the doctor, and he dropped his black liquid that he had just taken out of the dispenser all over the immaculately clean floor. "Is that what you call it?"

The doctor brushed himself off.

"For lack of a better phrase at this moment, Mr. Thomas," the doctor said, trying to remain calm as he motioned for help in cleaning up his newly formed mess.

"We used to call it 'modulation termination' but that sounded so inhuman, so mechanical. The Retired Persons' Group got on us, the right­to­life people;

everybody against the movement began picking up on this."

"Why you son of a..." James stopped himself before he continued his observations of the doctor. He arranged his ideas before trying to continue the discussion. The doctor broke in before James had a chance to speak.

"What is the matter now?" he asked. "You have no right calling me names. I am just doing my job."

"Tell me, doc," James now asked in a sarcastically calm tone of voice, "when do you implant the 'modulation­terminator' in people?"

The doctor chuckled as he sat down in one of the lounge chairs in the lobby. James followed him, and sat down next to him.

"Quite a choice of words, Mr. Thomas.

Touché'. Very well, if you think you must know. In layman's terms, Mr. Thomas, the 'termination­ modulation' as you call it is implanted at birth now.

Within ten minutes after the child is born, there is a process that has been developed that puts the small transmitter device near the person's aorta.

It lies dormant all those years with no side effects or problems till 49 years, 364 days. Then it springs to life, kicking in a signal and interrupting blood flow to the heart and all the surrounding veins. A massive coronary follows, with the usual physical degeneration not far behind."

"An induced heart attack?"

"One might say." Thomas let his anger simmer before he retorted the last statement by the doctor. He slumped down in a nearby chair like a man beaten, a man finally coming to grips with powers too great for him.

"You know, doc, I remember when doctors used to keep people alive."

"Nonsense. Who told you that?"

"I remember my grandfather telling me that before he died. Said they used to use these machines to help people live. Used to hook those tubes up to bodies and pump new blood and life into them. Used to take those big pipes and pump new oxygen into their tired lungs and hearts. Used to work for the saving of lives.

The doctor would get paid to keep people living to rip old ages of 70 and 80, even longer sometimes."

"Well, that is what we do here mostly."

"Except in my brother's case."

"Come now, Mr. Thomas, you know as well as I do that he was different."

"How's that?"

"Simple," the doctor said. "One comes in here before fifty years old, and we will do our best to keep you alive and well. Modern medicine is so advanced these days that almost nothing is technologically impossible. Transplants, rebuilding, organ restructure, anything that you can imagine is now within our reach."

"But not at fifty, huh, doc?"

"Ah yes, fifty."

"What do you do to them then?" James asked, "the reverse effect? Do you pump death fluid in his body? Straight formaldehyde in his capillaries?

Straight monoxide to his lungs? Do you cut off the oxygen supply at night when no one's looking? Pull plugs, or shut off valves? Do you play checkers in a person's room, then when you get close to dying and need treatment or medication, do you just ignore them and say 'your move or mine?'?"

"Come now, it is not all that bad."

"Bad!" James through up his arms. "Bad! Ever since the government ordered that you could no longer live over fifty years of age, killing old people has become a new way of life. Everyone takes it for granted. Everyone accepts it. Everyone thinks that they agree with it. Everyone thinks, 'that's the way it has always been'."

"That is because it is how it's always been."

James eyed the doctor carefully, trying to get a sense of a variation in his patented story.

"That's not what I heard," he announced, putting an emphasis on every syllable.

"Ah, another one of these," the doctor laughed as he sat back in his chair. "Fairy tales that you've been hearing, Mr. Thomas. Fairy tales. It has always been this way, or our country, our people, and our race would have been overpopulated years ago. This way, everyone gets their fair shot at living a normal adult life, and can go away with dignity after their half of the century is, well...up. This is a systematic use of fuels, foods, and energy for every living person. Theories have proven that this way, there will always be enough supplies and fuels for upcoming generations to use. If people were allowed to live on and on, everything would be used up, and the human race as we know it would cease to exist, just die off."

James mulled over these words and their meaning, it being the millionth time that he had heard them since he had grown up.

"I still don't think that is how it has always been," he repeated in obvious defiance.

"Face it, Mr. Thomas; the inevitable is, well...inevitable."

James looked down at the floor, then stood up and turned to start towards the door. His family had already left before him during all the conversation and he paused as he tried to exit the room.

The doctor sensed his hesitation, and called out to him.

"Tell me, Mr. Thomas," the doctor said, "just how old are you?"

The nerves and the muscles in the back of James' neck seemed to harden and rise up as he slowly turned back towards the doctor. A cold feeling of emptiness came over his lips, as the words spilled out over his tongue and into the air.

"I still have ten months left before you see me, you cold­hearted bastard!"

The doctor got the strangest look on his face, like a cross between hopefulness and anticipation, as he spoke out one last time to James as he left the doorway and disappeared.

"We will be seeing you."

The Sky­Boot Maker Morning The old man opened the store. A bell clanged as he pushed the door in. Walking down long aisles that seemed to stretch on forever, he finally came to the back of the building. There, a small wooden table waited for him. He put his sack lunch to the side and sat down for the day's work.

There was a smell of leather in the air. It would linger in the inside of his nose, and gently hold him during the hours of the day. When the old man left the store at night, the smell would burn in the back of his head like a still movie frame left on a projector too long.

He had come to Mars many years before with the first group of settlers. But now he was one of the last left of the first expedition. Most of the others were gone. Dead. But he was not ready to die yet. So he worked to keep his health. To keep his business. To keep his visions. By making shoes.

All types of shoes could be manufactured at his store. Shoes to keep out the hot sands of the city. Shoes to keep dry after playing in the river. Shoes for anything. But there was one type that he was especially proud of. And today, he would finish a pair of those special shoes.

Afternoon The young boy and man came through the front entrance. The bell clanged as the door was shut behind them. The two figures walked down one of the aisles, and the young boy's eyes darted from side to side trying to comprehend the enormous amount of shoes on the shelves. At the end of the rows, they found the old man

at the table. The man cleared his throat. The old man looked up and smiled.

"They are ready, Captain," the old man said. He reached behind one of the aisles and brought out an old box. He gently handed it across the space between them. The man's hands felt the container. The young boy curiously peeked up over the top of the table until his eyes were even with the box. Up on his toes, the young boy could see into the carton.

There, under a sheet of white tissue paper, was a shining pair of black leather boots. They had gold buckles down the front, and silver lacing on the sides.

The heels were an inch high, and the top of the boot would reach to a man's knee.

The young boy smiled with approval as the man pulled them out of the box.

"Marvelous," said the man. He felt the leather with his hands, covering every inch of the boots to make sure of no imperfections.

"Perfect?" the old man inquired.

"Perfect," the man finally said. The old man grinned.

"Thank you, Captain. I always do my best when it comes to making the sky­boots." The young boy moved around to the back of the table and tugged at the old man's arm.

"Will you make me a pair of sky­boots one of these days?" he asked. The old man lowered his head to look straight at the boy. He could see himself reflected in the young boy's eyes.

"Someday, if you become a sky­man flying with the stars, I'll make you a special pair." The young boy's eyes widened.

"Really!" he said excitedly.

The old man put his arm around the boy.

"Really," he replied. The man smiled. The old man smiled. The boy smiled and his face glowed with anticipation of the future.

"We must go, old man," the man said glancing at his timepiece and picking up the box. "Thank you, sir, for your trouble."

The old man waved as the young boy and the man walked back down the aisles to the front door.

They opened it, ringing the bell. The young boy paused, and looked back at the old man. Their eyes met.

Then he waved.

The old man waved back, knowing that someday he would see him again. The door closed behind them.

Evening.

The old man rose from his table and picked up the now empty sack that he had eaten his lunch from.

The stacks of leather flashed by his eyes as he walked down the aisles and slowly paused at the door. He surveyed his rows of shoes for a minute, seeming to wait for something that never happened. He held the aroma of the leather in his mind for a moment, then shut off the light and locked the door behind him.

As the old man strolled away, he heard the sound of the bell die down behind him until it stopped ringing.

Celestial Entertainment "Bring her around, Mackey, and cut our speed down to almost zero."

The sleek, silver craft cut through the darkened air, leaving remnants of used propellant sparkling under the night sun.

Head pilot Tim Jansen had done the maneuver so many times before; he decided that he would let the younger pilot try his hand at it.

The ship spun, shifted, and obeyed.

"Done, sir," Mackey beamed.

"Thank you, Mr. Mackey."

Jansen rose from his flight chair and strolled to the large metal door that kept him and his co­worker from the rest of the craft. Opening it, he surveyed what was inside.

Ahead of him was the plush interior of a ship obviously designed for comfort. Red velvet lined the walls and floor. There were ten huge chairs, in five rows of two. Seven of these chairs were occupied by people...returning. Returning to their families, their jobs, their homes. By way of Jansen's ship, the Starbelt Eight.

They had boarded the ship at Port Three on the light side of the moon. Where they each were before was unknown to the others. But, for some reason or another, they all had to return to earth. So they sat in Jansen’s ship waiting. Waiting to navigate the stars to come back.

The Starbelt Ship System had been started to accommodate star travelers. Like a conveyor belt the ship would take people to the moon, refuel, and return with a new set of passengers to the earth. Thus, the "Starbelt" name.

Jansen turned and called back to Mackey.

"Bring her to a full stop, now, this is as far as we go for a while." One of the passengers looked up at Jansen.

"Why are we stopping here?" he asked. "We are in the middle of our trip."

Jansen smiled.

"I know, sir," he said. "But it is show time, and we have yet to miss show time." All of the passengers looked at each other and began to talk.

Wilson was returning to his home from one of the mining towns in the Sea of Tranquility. Mr. and Mrs. Ehrlich were enjoying their vacation with the stars.

Professor Robinson was relaxing after his lecture tour.

Mrs. Jamerson was starting back to earth and a new life after being fed up with her living on the moon. All just wanted to go home. But since their journey was interrupted, they had stopped for a while.

"Do not fret, ladies and gentlemen. There is our showman now."

The passengers saw Jansen point out one of the port windows into space. Looking outside, they saw a small craft veering up along side of the Starbelt Eight. It

was an old, meteor beat ship, the kind that first entered the Starbelt system years ago. Most of these crafts were obsolete now. The travelers turned back to Jansen.

"What is going on?" Professor Robinson asked.

Jansen reached into his pocket.

"Here, look at this. This might clear some things up for you."

The passengers all sat up and looked at a small white card that Jansen held in his hand. On it, in gold letters, was written; Celestial Entertainment, Inc. Magic, mystery, and fun Any place or time Setting 270.3­contact anytime.

Jansen put the card back into his pocket.

"He has played in my ships for twelve years now. It is more or less a traditional thing. You will all see in a moment."

The passengers all looked a little skeptical.

"A damn clown show."

Jansen could sense the crowd’s uneasiness, so he returned to the front of the ship to check on the visitor that had come aboard. The people all seemed a bit perturbed that their journey had been interrupted by a side show.

There was some shifting and shuffling and laughing and small talk around the front of the ship.

Mackey and Jansen kept sticking their heads through the cabin door and looking in on the passengers. It seemed like they wanted to make sure the audience was still there. Finally, Jansen walked into the main part of the ship. He looked over the passengers, and then spoke.

"Ladies and gentlemen, our performance for today. Here is our 'dream­spinner', Mr. Sean Cabbot."

The crowd moaned.

"This better be good," Wilson said.

The lights went dim, as a figure walked through the cabin door. It had the outline of a huge man. His muscles were well defined showing through the outfit that he wore. Dressed in black from his shirt to his pants to his boots, with a dark moustache that drooped over the side of his mouth, he was quite an awesome sight.

At first glance, Mrs. Ehrlich (and most of the other passengers, too) thought that the man looked terribly sinister. Like every villain in the old late movies on earth. But the hint of grey in his coal black hair and the lines around his face, and just the spark that seemed to come from his eyes put the people in the audience at ease.

The man stood at the front of the crowd and seemed to be studying the scene before him. Looking over the faces of the people, he slowly broke into a small smile.

"Thank you for having me here today," he said in a voice that seemed deeper than any had ever heard before. "I hope that I can keep your interest for a while.

Now, I realize that some of you are troubled that your time is being taken up, so let me fix that."

He waved his hand, and the clocks in the room and the watches on the people's arms all stopped. Time ceased.

The people gazed about.

"There!" Mr. Cabbot continued. The audience seemed in a trance just listening to Mr. Cabbot's voice.

They watched while he raised his arms and called out again.

"Let the show begin!" The crowd waited.

Mr. Cabbot opened the show by making the floor disappear. The people looked down, but there was nothing under their chair supports but stars. When the passengers raised their heads back up, Mr. Cabbot had taken away the walls and the ceiling of the craft. There they all were with their chairs sitting on nothing, staring at the blackness about them. Mr. Jansen, Mackey, and Sean Cabbot all seemed to be standing in space, drifting with the flow of the stars.

The people held on to their arm supports tighter.

"Never forget the frailty of a craft when it is put against the powers of the stars outside," Mr. Cabbot said loudly. "Be thankful for the bolts and nuts that hold it together."

Hearing this, the people saw the walls rushing back towards them at such a speed that the crowd flinched when they got close to them. But the ceiling, the floor, and the four panels that surrounded the audience came together with a soft thud, and the room was back into one piece. Before the people could react (either with appreciation or madness), Mr. Cabbot went straight into another piece of mystery.

"Eyes forward, and see what comes about!"

For the next performance in his show, every ten to fifteen seconds Mr. Cabbot would make something new appear before his audience. One time it was a Martian animal, with its bronzed body reflecting the diffused light in the room, rearing up on its hind legs and sneering at the crowd. Then it disappeared and a Mercuric Cat appeared playing with a gold ball, oblivious to the passengers in the room.

After that, in its place, came a huge seal­like creature that sat staring at the passengers until they

broke up laughing over its clownish face. Then it was gone, and Mr. Cabbot told them that it had been a Water Cub from the shores of Venus.

Their applause showed their approval.

Before the people could catch their breath, Mr. Cabbot produced three spheres and started juggling them. They were the color of blue sky, of blue fog.

"Watch carefully," he told them As he threw each of the balls into the air, they just disappeared into the atmosphere of the ship. The crowd was spellbound.

He turned his back, fumbled in his shirt, and brought out a long silver tube. Holding it in his right hand, he proclaimed.

"A treat from the stars! A galaxy ice cream cone!"

As he held the tube upward in front of the people, the three blue spheres each reappeared on the cone, one on top of the other. He balanced them there for a second, and then with the wave of his hand, the three spheres melted into the tube. Like blue balloons running out of air and falling into the tube. Like an illusion. Like magic.

As the crowd came alive again out of their audience trance, Mr. Cabbot took over the show. He took a huge flare out of one of the bags that he had with him, and lit it in the middle of the room. Then he spoke.

"Now ladies and gentlemen, a small type of firework show just above your head."

He threw a handful of what seemed to be dust into the air, and when it rebounded off the light from the flare, it reflected a million colors into the room, one

handful of color after the other. As if Mr. Cabbot was pulling a rainbow out of his hand.

"Spice from the caverns of Saturn."

Red fire, surrounded by white outlining it.

"Sand from the dunes of Uranus."

Blue melting into brown above the passengers.

"Golden dust from the hills of Pluto."

Every color imaginable was being born as Mr. Cabbot threw the matter from his hand. A mirage of reflections. A kaleidoscope of colors.

The people applauded. They smiled and laughed. They watched and were sometimes so scared that they left fingerprints in their arm supports on their chairs. They looked into the future; they had a glimpse of the past. They had an enjoyable time.

After a good hour of spinning magic and wonderness for the people, Mr. Cabbot glanced inside his huge black bag.

"Enough," he said. "It is time that I must go."

He waved his arm one last time, and the hands on all the timepieces in the room started up again, right where they left off.

The crowd was overwhelmed, and pleaded and begged him to not go. But the performance was over.

"It happens every time," Jansen said to Mackey after watching the past minutes in the hidden corners of the craft. "They wonder what the hell he's doing here, and then after it is done and he begins to leave, they clamor for him to stay longer."

Sean Cabbot packed up his bags to leave. He paused in the door when he was leaving. Like he was waiting to turn around and say something else to the audience.

He started forward, then stopped, and started forward again, then stopped one last time and turned around. He studied the faces of the crowd for a minute, and then broke into a small smile. The same type that he used on the people at the beginning of the performance.

Walking back towards his audience, he whispered to the people.

"Thank you."

They reached out for his hand so that they could each shake it and thank him personally.

After a few rounds of "good luck" and a lot of "appreciated it," he was on his way again. Waving one last time as he walked through the door, he turned again and the crowd said their last good­byes.

Then he was gone.

"He is retired," Jansen said watching the craft through the port window pull away from his ship. "An old captain of one of the Starbelt ships that, well, he says that he wanted to keep on serving people somehow. He says that he did not know how to do it on Earth, so he stays up in the air and does it here."

Jansen and Mackey watched Sean Cabbot's ship as it left.

"He will probably do it until he dies."

The ship disappeared out into the night, leaving nothing behind but precious memories.

"Sir," Mackey said, "when you retire, would you like to do what he does?"

Jansen laughed.

"Maybe someday I will join him. Be a duo."

They both laughed as Jansen hit the button to fire up the rockets to push their ship, their passengers, and themselves back home.

The Dream the earth men raised their fists to the sky as they entered the craft. "it is time!" they chanted together with strange harmony, while the air seemed tense with anticipation. "death to the one­eyed creatures!" one shouted.

"destroy those cyclopses!" another returned. the men sat along two walls of the craft so that they faced each other in rows. this way, they could see each of their fellow cohort’s cafes and read each ones expression like a novice card player. blue lights bathed the room in an eerie glow, casting hardened shadows over the faces of the men. some were eager, some were subdued, and some were motionless. all in some way were scared. but the chanting broke the many moods. "they won't be expecting us!" "they are all asleep!" "how can they fight us with only one eye? we are by far superior!" the chants became louder and louder until they grew into one. a deep maroon "ready" light came on, piercing the blue haze. "it is time!" they chanted. "it is time!" "it is time!"

The boy cried out as he awoke.

"Mother!"

His scream shattered the quiet. There was some rustling in the room next to his. Then, sounds of running increased louder and louder until she was upon him.

"What is it, son?" his mother questioned as she hurriedly entered his room. The boy lay for a minute collecting his thoughts.

"I...I must have had a bad dream," he finally said.

"Now, now. I am here," she said, trying to calm him down. She reached for a tissue from a container near his bed.

"Let me wipe your eye and take away that nasty tear." She dried his eye as he began to tell her about his dream.

"There were strange men," he remembered as he sat up, "all talking together. Something about an invasion, or war."

She brushed back his hair.

"Why were they so strange?"

He lay back down and drew the covers up around him, like he was using them as a shield against any warriors that might confront him.

"Mother, they had two eyes."

She gasped.

"Two eyes! That is strange. How ever did you dream up something like that?" He shrugged his shoulders under the sheets.

"I don't know. But...there was something else."

His mother waited.

"Where they said that they were going to invade.

Well, they talked like the people that they were at war with had one eye."

"One eye?" she said.

"Yes, mother. Like us." She smiled briefly, trying to decipher a little boy’s nightmare as the minutes ticked by. "Sounds like you dreamed of some two­eyed creature coming after us." She managed a small laugh at this, thinking maybe her son would see the humor in his situation that he was imagining.

"But mother, it was so real."

"I bet that it was." He shifted in the bed.

"And mother, may I ask you something else?"

She braced herself for another unanswerable child’s question.

"What is a Cyclops?" he asked.

The mother thought a moment. "Why, I don't know."

"Well, that is what the men called the people that they hated. The people that they were going to destroy. A one­eyed Cyclops." His mother held back her laugh.

"We will have to ask your father about that one." The boy’s eye grew wider, like a small carnival balloon suddenly filled with air and made to expand.

"Will he be home soon?" he asked.

"Yes, in a little while. They had a meeting tonight of the Defense Board, and your father had to go.

Something about our relationship with another planet being on the verge of becoming critical."

"What planet is that?" he asked, with the curiosity of his age.

"One of those over in another galaxy." She motioned to the windows at the newly risen stars and moons. "Some place with nine planets and a huge sun."

"Does it have a name, mother?"

She stood up and rearranged his covers on his bed. As she reached for the lights while she left the room, she whispered.

"I think its name is 'earth'."

He watched her.

"Good night, son."

"Good night, mother."

He relaxed back down into his bed. As he drifted off into sleep, he wondered to himself where he had heard about the planet 'earth' before. "it is time...

The Jiox Pole Boom!

The rocket jolted as it hit the surface. Dust was thrown up from under the engines so much that it enveloped the windows and cut down a view of the surface to nothing. The crewman looked at all of his lights blinking on and off on the console, then turned in his chair.

"Everything is fine, sir. We just brought her down a little too fast."

Commander Bard motioned with his hand.

"It is alright. It seems that we are having just a small problem with this gravity. No complaints on my part. We just learned from this one."

The crew felt easier. Commander Bard was a gentle man in his forties, but he had his own way of letting the crew know that he wanted everything done just right. But who could really blame him. Millions of miles away from home in space would make any man careful. His silver hair told the tale of too many times that he was not so careful. It made him age quickly. It let him see things of other worlds that few men did.

"Secure everything," the Commander said, trying to see through the windows. "Prepare to try out the surface."

It did not take long for the men to secure the ship for their trip to the surface. They went through the motions of checking and re­checking the equipment for something that might be wrong in the units, and they were glad that everything did work correctly when

tested. Being cramped inside a spaceship over millions of miles tends to make one long for the wide open freedom of movement found on a new planet. So they wanted to be through with the tests and outside the craft.

To capitalize, if for just a few hours, on stretching the body and inhaling the crisp alien air.

The first men out scanned the landscape, and then called out to the Commander.

"Sir, look east! There seems to be some sort of paved road!" Through the hills of sand and rocks that layered this part of the alien world, there was what seemed to be a hardened pathway cutting through the horizon. The Commander studied the lone landmark.

"Well, let's take it, crewmen," he finally said.

"One has to end up somewhere on a road. It will break up the monotony of this desert."

Indeed, there was desert. Nothing visible to the eyes but sand. No mountains to sight on, no streams to ford. Nothing that would add color to the picture unfolding before them. So the four men that came from the spaceship strolled across the hundred feet or so of the dull scene to the road and began their journey down it.

"To where, sir?" one of the crewmen asked.

"We shall see," Commander Bard answered, staring only ahead. "We shall see."

The men talked to break the sameness of the barren landscape. They talked of old girlfriends. Of lonely bars. Of Earth so far away. Commander Bard told them of stories of forgotten wars, and of distant planets. The crew was hypnotized by his flowing voice and captivating scenes he painted for them while they journeyed on.

About three milled down the road they spotted what seemed to be structures off in the distance. The first sign of life among the silent dunes. It appeared to be a lone metropolis in the middle of all the sand.

Commander Bard was cautious.

"Take the safeties off your guns, men. One never knows about these planets."

So into the city they went. Bright silver buildings glistened in the sun. They were all one story houses, and their orange windows seemed to watch the men's every move. No tall skyscrapers reaching up towards the heavens. Just small structures blending in with the surroundings, with the sand. Suddenly, the men spotted their first alien.

"Careful, men," Bard warned, tension lines creasing the commander's face.

The alien also saw the four spacemen. The two parties studied each other over the distance between them. Words then broke through the thin air and fell on ears that recognized the speech.

"Welcome," the alien said. The crew understood the language, but the accent was one never heard before by any of them. As the crew studied him, the alien's skin appeared to be a very dark brown color to the crew, but otherwise his features closely resembled the four spacemen's.

"My name is Commander Bard, and these other men are members of my crew. We have just landed here on your planet."

"Landed on our planet?" the alien asked.

"Yes," the Commander continued. "Our ship is over among the sand hills to the south." He pointed in

the direction of the craft, and the alien looked southward.

"I see," the alien replied. "How interesting!"

He paused. "But, from where did you come?" the alien asked.

"From the sky," the Commander answered. The alien looked up and shook his head.

"How nice. Your name, you say, is Bard? Such a pleasant name. But forgive me. I am called Raeta, the Quiet One. You are most welcome here."

Though only a few minutes had elapsed since their acquaintance, the men all felt easier now. If this first encounter with this alien was any indication of the rest of the world, then their stay would be a pleasant one. They began to relax and look around. The Commander searched his uniform and pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket.

"According to our star charts," he said, "this planet is in Section Two, planet number Four­C. I realize that this does not seem too respectable to call your planet number Four­C. So, could you tell me, do you happen to have a name for it?"

"A name for my home here?"

"Yes." "You are on Jiox."

The men listened and noted the name.

"Jiox?" the Commander questioned.

"Yes," the alien continued, "but enough of this small talk." A crowd of the jiox people was beginning to form about the crewmen. Their silver eyes were fixed on the space travelers. The alien turned to the group.

"Friends from afar!" The jiox people stirred.

"Came to our home in a craft from the stars!"

The people talked among themselves.

"We must take them to see the priests!"

The crowd turned and cheerfully acknowledged.

"And to see the pole!" the alien said.

Now the crowd really grew restless. They were very friendly and pointed the way to what the crewmen guessed must be the direction of the pole to the spacemen. Commander Bard turned to the alien.

"What is the 'pole'?" he asked.

"Ah," the alien beamed, "our sacred pole!

Where we can find the priests." He shook his head up and down. "You will like our pole, Commander."

The alien began walking away from the men, and motioned for them to follow. So the men fell in behind the alien, staying with him through the streets and buildings, with the gathering of Jiox people falling in behind them. The crowd was singing and chanting, like a festival had just begun. Finally, on the outskirts of town, they gradually came to a stop. The crowd grew apprehensive and quiet. Commander Bard and his men looked outward towards the hills.

Out in the sand in front of them was a massive brown structure reaching up towards the sky. It was, they guessed, about forty feet high with finger­like offshoots extending from its base. Its brownish color was a sharp contrast to the orangish sand. At the base were five men in ceremonial clothes standing around it.

They turned and saw the spacemen.

The crewmen stared at the pole.

"What is this?" Commander Bard broke the silence.

The Jiox people beamed. They looked at each other and smiled. They clapped their hands and

laughed. Then, one of the men standing by the pole spoke.

"I am the high priest of our people." The crowd grew quiet. The Commander spoke up.

"I am Commander Bard, and these are my crewmen. We came here in peace to visit and learn from your planet."

He pointed skyward.

"We are from the stars."

The high priest gazed upward.

"A wonder of the times," he said. His gaze turned downward. "But forgive me," he continued. "I must explain our sacred pole."

The Commander and the crew pressed forward with the crowd as the high priest spoke.

"This is our sacred pole. The only one on our planet." He ran his hand over and felt the bottom of the pole. "It has been here since the beginning of our time."

The space travelers studied the pole. It swayed gently in the breeze like the mast of an ancient ship with its sail tied up. They were dwarfed by the enormity of it, as it filled the sky with its size and huge mass. Moisture dripped from its spreading projections, as a new fallen rain wetted the pole and made it gleam under the hot, noon­day sun.

The priest continued. "The gods have placed it here on this spot to remind us that they are with us."

Around the pole now the crowd gathered and began to chant again. Commander Bard and his men all looked at each other at once.

"Commander Bard, sir," one of the crewmen said.

"Yes," he answered.

"Excuse me for asking, sir, but..."

"Say no more," the Commander cut in. They all stared at the pole.

Tables of food were brought in to feed the people and their visitors. Vials of liquid were poured to quench thirsts. The Jiox talked and laughed openly, while the priests smiled and enjoyed. But during all the gaiety, the Commander and his men seemed quietly subdued.

Every now and then, one of the crew would stare at the pole and then catch another man looking at him staring and quickly he would look back down at his feast. Then the eyes would always lift back up. Trying to catch a glimpse again of it, to register a little more information each glance to put it all in perspective, and to try to decipher the so called 'Jiox pole'.

During one of the quieter moments, the high priest turned to the Commander.

"And what do you think of our sacred pole?" he asked. The Commander cleared his throat to make sure the right words came out, but before he could answer, one of the crewmen shouted out.

"It's nothing but a damn tree!"

The crowd, who was seconds before laughing and joking, became still and attentive. Like dominoes falling in rhythm, the silence started from those few circled around the crewmen and spread down the rows till everyone had registered and comprehended the statement.

The silence held. The high priest turned to the man.

"What is this?" he questioned. The Commander rolled his eyes upward, and then found himself too late to quiet his crewman who was about to speak again.

"A tree!" the crewman continued. The crowd listened. "We grow them like crazy back on our planet.

We must have millions and millions of them." The Jiox people shifted.

"Millions?" the high priest asked.

"Yes!" A whisper spread through the crowd. The Commander felt uneasy, as he wiped some nervous perspiration from his hands onto his trousers.

"Besides," the crewman continued, "there is nothing sacred about a tree. Just a bunch of wood with branches and leaves on the end. The high priest watched the man carefully. His piercing eyes studied every small movement coming from the men. The crowd around them grew silent again.

The high priest spoke slowly and carefully.

"Nothing sacred?"

The Commander cut in.

"Quiet, man. Don't you realize..."

"Realize, hell!" the crewman yelled back.

"These people are worshipping nothing but a tree. How can that be a god?" The crewman leaned back in his seat and sighed. "They are just a bunch of ignorant aliens."

The crowd gasped.

"Sir," the high priest turned and directed his voice towards the crewman, "this sacred pole was placed here from the gods above. I have no idea what this structure is that you are talking about. We live for our sacred pole, with its projectiles reaching out to touch the sky, like us."

"Projectiles!" the crewman laughed. "Why, those are just branches..." Commander Bard stood and stepped in front of the crewman, cutting his sentence off

before he had a chance to finish it. But it was too late.

The Jiox had heard too much.

"Enough!" the high priest screamed. The crowd rose in unison as if following some unheard order, and their ominous chant echoed off of the tables, seats, and the sand under their feet.

"Enough!"

The four spacemen drew themselves physically closer together.

"But sir," the crewman said.

"Shut up, damnit," the Commander yelled.

"Don't you realize that you have just insulted these people and their gods?"

The Jiox people talked rapidly among themselves. The crewman pleaded his case to the Commander.

"But a stupid tree, sir?"

"One more word and you won't have any stupid teeth left, crewman!" This the crewman understood, and he nodded his head and said no more on the matter. But then, the Commander could sense something very wrong. He turned to the high priest and to the crowd.

Everyone was watching the Commander, and seemed to be waiting for him to do something. After a few moments, he broke the silence with a forced calm voice.

"People of Jiox, I apologize for my crewman's words directed towards your gods, and..."

Before the rest of the words were formed in his mouth and his voice could speak them out, the Commander was struck down by the high priest. The other crewmen lunged to help him, but were grabbed simultaneously by the crowd. The Commander, shaken a moment by the blow, tried to get up and right himself,

but he too was grabbed by the people. The high priest then called out.

"We have held sentence against the four spacemen."

"Sentence for what?" Bard asked.

"Denying our gods! Slanderizing our sacred pole!" The four spacemen fought to get free.

"Away with them!" the high priest called, and the people let out a chant. A chant of victory.

Commander Bard squirmed and screamed.

"What are you doing?" he shrieked.

"Blasphemy against the gods!" the priests cried.

"Kill the slanderers!" the people yelled.

With this, the Jiox crowd overpowered the four men, dragged them down roads and shoved them across fields like madmen driven over the edge of sanity.

Finally, they reached a lone river that ran outside of town. The warm liquid reflected the faces of the crewmen as they were poised on the edge by their captors. Then, the people leaped into the waters.

"Throw them to me!" one of the crowd motioned.

"Here! Fling their disgraceful white outer skin here!" another one cried.

The priests granted their people's demands. The space travelers were hurled into the river. They kicked.

They squealed. They prayed. But the Jiox in the river were too many and too strong. The men's arms, legs, and heads were pushed under the warm waters. The Jiox held them down while chanting and singing and pushing...and pushing...and pushing.

Bubbles broke the surface around where the men were being held under the surface. As they popped, they seemed to be carrying the final screams from the mouths that bore them from below. The high priest cried to the sky. All of the Jiox joined in with his chant.

Then, as the ripples in the waters leveled out, the bubbles came fewer and fewer, until they came no more.

The people threw up their arms, while the priests yelled skyward and thanked the gods for strength.

Everyone climbed out of the river onto the bank and began to dance...everyone except Commander Bard and his three crewmen. They would never climb out. They never surfaced.

The spacemen with their future ways and their ancient beliefs, would not tred on their past memories and upbringings, would not interfere with their present rituals and tithing’s, and would not alter their future heritage and birthright.

"Back to the pole!" the Jiox cried. The directive shot through the crowd, and they rushed through the streets of the town back towards the desert. There, standing under the midday sun, was the pole. With its projectiles casting darkened shadows on the faces of the people. And the Jiox rejoiced that the pole was theirs.

It would always be theirs. No space travelers would ever take it from them.

In the Canals of Mars The fire lit up the night sky like a new dawn breaking over the curved hills. The engines lit the evening as a warm campfire can illuminate and heat the mid­summer stars. Rocket travel had made Mars easily

accessible to travelers: pioneers, people just starting over. They brought hopes, fears, pride, and uncertainty.

The uncertainty had brought Professor Lochford.

On loan from Boston University to study and research crime on the newly settled planet, he was a police expert in criminal science. A tall man of medium build, he took his job very seriously. But he always had time to look out at the new landscape and marvel that he was really there, that the Earth from which he left was one of those tiny specks of light above him. He never really let this fact get too far away from him.

The ringing phone rocked the professor from his journey, so he picked up the three­speaker device used on the planet, and spoke.

"Hello."

"Is this Professor Lochford?" The voice on the other end was distant and wavering.

"It is," the professor replied. "Whom am I speaking with?"

A pause.

"This is Jonathan Tomlinson. I am employed at the District Post Office. Sir, I must talk with you."

"To me?"

"Yes," the voice said. "It is very important. I have some papers. Some interesting papers."

The professor became more acute to the conversation.

"May we talk right now?" the professor asked.

"No. Please meet me outside the district office in ten minutes. It is imperative."

"Ten minutes? Alright, I’ll be there. Your name...Jonathan?"

"Yes. Ten minutes."

"Ten minutes," the professor answered.

The phone went dead.

"He sure hung up in a hurry," the professor muttered into the silent receiver as he set it down.

As he readied himself for his trek, he paused one last time to look at Mars on this darkened night. To collect his thoughts and log his images.

The hot wind blew from the sand hills over the canopies and roofs of the buildings. Professor Lochford stood in front of the District Postal Office alone.

"Mr. Tomlinson?" he called into the silent evening. The air grabbed his words and echoed them back. No answer.

"Anyone here?" he asked again. The brown building stood offering no condolences. The windows stared at him like lifeless eyes. The professor stuck his hands into his pockets and walked up and down the sidewalk looking for his contact.

He waited a few more minutes, and then shrugged his shoulders as he started away.

"I suppose," he spoke as he left the area and started back towards his vehicle, "that something kept him from coming."

The wind still twisted around the buildings.

The next morning, the phone clattered across the metal room.

"Sir," the officer spoke.

Devlin looked up. Being the chief­of­police on Mars had hardened the forty­year­old tremendously, but there were still signs of gentleness in his eyes.

"It is the Postmaster from down the street. He has a missing person report for us."

"Take it down, will you," Devlin asked. "We will have someone there in a while."

Professor Lochford entered the room.

"Morning men."

Devlin waved.

"Morning, sir. Sleep well?"

"I did alright," the professor said as he reached for the coffee dispenser. "I went to meet someone who called me last night, but no one showed up."

"Wild goose chase," Devlin said.

"Maybe."

The policeman who was at the phone set the receiver down as his conversation was over. He paused a few moments as he wrote down words on a paper, and then turned to Devlin.

"Here is that missing person report, sir." The professor intercepted the paper.

"Just something to start off the day," Devlin said. "It always seems to happen..."

The professor broke in.

"Is this the name of the man who is missing?"

Devlin looked over the paper, as did the policeman.

"Johnathan Tomlinson," the policeman said.

"The Postmaster called. He is this Tomlinson's boss, and he didn't show up for work, and no one can seem to find him."

"What a coincidence. This is the name of the man that I supposed to meet last night," the professor said.

"Really?" Devlin asked.

"Yes." The professor rested his coffee cup down on the table. "Can we go to the Post Office?"

"Sure, sir."

"Let's finish our coffee first." He reached back down to the table.

"Okay," Devlin answered, "sounds good to me."

They sat back and tilted their cups skyward.

As the sand ship glided along toward its destination, the professor took a long glance at the landscape.

"Mars is a wonderful place, Devlin,” he said in a quiet tone as he watched the red sky and perfectly molded sand dunes enter his field of vision.

"Yes it is, sir. I have been here five years now, and I still look around in wonderment at this place."

"I know. It will be hard for me to go back to Boston. It is nothing like this."

The ship moved on.

"Maybe you could get transferred up here, sir."

The professor turned this over in his mind.

"That would be something, wouldn't it," he said in a careful voice. The ship pulled up in front of the post office.

"Well, what about it?" Devlin asked as they stepped out into the sand.

"I'll have to think about it more, Devlin."

They entered the building.

"Hello," the professor called from the opening door.

"Come in," a voice answered. "Are you Professor Lochford?"

"Yes, and this is Mr. Devlin with me." Devlin stumbled in behind the professor.

"Clumsy me. Are you the postmaster?" Devlin asked.

"Yes, I am. For six years now on this planet. I suppose you are here about Jonathan?"

The professor walked over to a huge window that overlooked the main part of the postal operation.

Devlin spoke.

"Yes, about the missing person. The police department usually doesn't send our men out to check missing person reports, but there was a slight difference in this one."

"Difference?"

The professor turned to the postmaster.

"I received a call from a Mr. Jonathan Tomlinson last night, setting up an urgent meeting with me. Something about some important papers he had.

But he never showed up at our planned meeting."

"I see."

"And today, he shows up missing," Devlin added.

"Well, I called his home, and found no answer," the postmaster said. "He never goes anywhere on this planet, so I became worried at once. But I don't know anything about any important papers."

"Has he ever missed days before?" Devlin asked.

"Never."

"Anyone else that might have contact with him?" the professor said.

"He works on his shift with a man named Bates, Darrel Bates. But I talked to him and he has heard nothing."

"I see."

"Bates is on break right now. 'Mr. Clean' we call him."

"Mr. Clean?" Devlin asked.

"Yes. Bates has a way of wanting everything spotless and perfect. Eats health food, that kind of stuff.

But he is harmless."

"Good enough, sir. Thank you for your help," the professor spoke.

"We might be back," Devlin said.

"Very well." The postmaster walked over and opened the door for them. "Maybe I'll see you again."

"Thanks again."

Back at the police station, the mood was sullen and quiet.

Steam formed on the transparent glass from Professor Lochford's breath as he stood close to the window to view the day's world outside. He never thought Mars would be like this. All the Quonset huts and horses and sand ships; it reminded him of a cross between the Civil War and Cape Canaveral. Where the sands of time had been forced back up the hour glass, damned up, and held captive so that they would not escape.

The silence broke.

"Professor!"

He turned and found Devlin poking his head in the door of the small office.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Sir, we've found a body," Devlin said excitedly.

"Oh?" The professor motioned him in.

"Yes, sir," Devlin continued as he entered the room, "in the canal." He was trying to calm down his emotions.

"The canal?" the professor questioned.

"He apparently drowned, sir, Monday night."

"Who apparently drowned?" the professor asked.

"Jonathan Tomlinson."

"Are you sure? That was the man who called me the other night. It was definitely Jonathan Tomlinson, Devlin?"

"Yes, sir. Would you like an autopsy done?"

"That would be in order. Start it at once. And prepare to go back down to the post office."

"Post office?" Devlin asked.

"To look around again." "Yes, sir."

As Devlin exited, the professor turned back and watched the outside world through the window.

Back at the post office, the professor and Devlin had been generally searching around one of the work areas most frequented by Tomlinson. They had checked everything around the area, and found little.

The professor looked closely one last time around the room. His eyes missing nothing. His mind contemplating everything.

"What's this?" he said, bending to the floor.

Devlin turned to look.

"A piece of torn paper. It looks official," he said, noting the lettering that was left on it. "Sir, do you recognize this?"

He handed the small piece to the postmaster.

"Well," the man said, now proud that he could help in the investigation, "it looks to me like it's a remnant of a wanted poster."

"Wanted poster?" Devlin asked.

"Yes. There is a file here. We get them first from Earth, and distribute them out to the proper authorities. We have a huge file over here."

He pointed to a large metal file box on one of the shelves. Dust collected on the top of it like insects collecting to sticky paper.

"May we see it?"

"Sure, let's see. I can make out a number up here in the corner of your torn paper. These posters come in numerical order, so there might be a small chance we can trace this one down."

The professor took the paper.

"Sir, check number 12573­CD. That is the way that I make out the numbers." The postmaster thumbed through the files one by one, pausing at each one for his tedious scrutinization. This process took several minutes. As the professor and Devlin looked on, the postmaster finally found what was not there.

"Well," he said, "that certain poster is missing.

It's one of the newer ones, probably came in Monday afternoon."

"Monday afternoon?" the professor logged this information away.

"Yes, but it's not here."

"We can trace it, sir," Devlin broke in. "At the station. I’ll get right on it when we get back."

"Very good, Devlin," the professor said as he motioned to leave. "We must check every bit of information."

Later, back at the police station, Devlin looked in on the professor.

"The autopsy report is in, sir," he said through the open door.

"Thanks, Devlin. What does it read?" Devlin adjusted his eyes to read the words.

"The conclusion was reached that the death was due to water in the lungs. It goes on and on..." Devlin paused as he scanned the pages, "he definitely drowned, sir."

"Anything else?" Lochford said.

"It says here that he had a small bump on his head."

"Bump?"

"Yes, sir. Not enough to kill him, but the doctor says maybe enough to knock him unconscious for a while,” Devlin read on, "well, here is something, sir."

"What's that?"

"Well, along with all the canal water in him, they found traces of purified water in his lungs."

"Purified water!"

"Yes, sir. They don't know how that got into him. The canal water sure isn't pure. That is why it was so easy to spot and detect."

"I see. Purified water. That is strange." The professor teased this idea.

The Teletype machine started clicking, cutting off Devlin's sentence.

"Here it comes, sir," Devlin said.

Professor Lochford walked over to the machine.

A true innovation, this machine, he thought. Line by line, a picture was beginning to form on the paper. Like an artist was breathing life into a scene. Like a simple painting brushed on the sheet in the machine, but the hand that paints it is thousands of miles away.

"I'm glad that they got the Teletype hooked up," the professor said. "It must have matched the poster number on the torn piece of paper with one of its own from Earth. We will have it in a minute."

The men watched as the lines began to form a figure, as the shades of grey and black began to outline features. Then, it was there.

The professor and Devlin headed back to the post office. Once inside, they talked casually to the head postmaster who was busy bouncing off one side of the room, then the other.

"I have had a copy made of the wanted poster that we found torn up the other day," Lochford informed him.

"Oh," the postmaster said in obvious curiosity.

"Yes, here it is." The postmaster glanced at the line picture carefully, studying every detail and every shadow.

"Why, that looks like Bales."

"Bales?" the professor asked.

"Yes. You remember. He works here in the mail room. You know, 'Mr. Clean'. I told you he worked with Jonathan."

The professor and Devlin looked at each other, then turned back to the man.

"Look at it very carefully, sir," Devlin asked. "It is important."

"Well, that's him. I don't think you gentlemen have ever met him. He was always out when you were here before."

"Is he here now?" Devlin asked as he looked towards the work area of the unit. The postmaster walked over to one of the windows in his office that overlooked the main mailroom.

"Here, gentlemen. Look here." He pointed out the window, while the professor and Devlin walked over and followed his gesture.

"There he is now."

Outside the window, oblivious to the gaze of the three men, was a man six feet tall and medium build.

The dark complexion had either come from hours in the sun on Mars or the Earth, and the blue eyes gave his face a soft center inside a hardened texture. He was sorting envelopes into chutes for proper disposition. As the three men watched, the professor read the writing on the poster.

"Darrel Bales is wanted back on Earth for a murder two years ago. It doesn't give much detail on the homicide, except that somehow he slipped through customs and, apparently, ended up here."

They watched his movements.

"You know," the postmaster said slowly, now playing detective, "he was Tomlinson's co­worker. In fact, he was on duty with him Monday night."

"Interesting," Devlin said.

"I wonder if he saw the wanted poster and tore it up, trying to hide it?" the professor questioned.

"And if he did?" Devlin wondered out loud.

"Tomlinson might have seen it, too. That might have been why he called me late Monday to arrange a meeting to show me the information."

"Then Bales found out," Devlin said, "and stopped Tomlinson from blowing the whistle on him."

"By killing him?" the postmaster asked. The three men studied Darrel Bales through the glass.

"Maybe," Lochford said.

"Do we pick him up, sir?"

"Not yet, Devlin. Let us do nothing right now.

I don't think he will be going anywhere. If he did kill Tomlinson, we have to find out how."

The postmaster broke in.

"I thought that Tomlinson's death was an accident?"

"It might have been," the professor said.

Devlin spoke.

"But it was obvious. Darrel Bales is wanted for murder. Jonathan Tomlinson found out, so Bales killed him. Tomlinson disappears and comes up dead."

"Found dead Tuesday," the professor said.

"So?" "The autopsy says he died Monday night."

"Well," Devlin said trying to simplify things, "we didn't find the body until Tuesday."

"Maybe," the professor said, "but that's an awful long time to be in the canal and no one notice you, as much everyday they drag and filter the water in there."

Devlin could not dispute this fact put before him.

"Would someone have not noticed him in the canal for twenty­four full hours?"

Devlin shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know, sir. I guess you're right. The boaters and cleaners are through there an awful lot during the course of a day.

"But he must have done it," the postmaster said, blowing imaginary smoke rings from his now unlit stale cigar while playing detective.

"Maybe, but how?" Lochford polled everyone in the room.

"It really might have been an accident," Devlin said.

"Maybe," the professor answered unconsciously shaking his head off in thought. "But we will watch him. Put a tail on him tonight. I also suggest, Mr.

Devlin, that while Mr. Bales is here tomorrow, we go visit his house."

"Excellent idea."

The next day, approaching an old building on the outskirts of the town, Devlin and Professor Lochford talked casually. Their soft soled tennis type shoes that were standard equipment on the planet made very little noise on their walk.

"Can you get us it?" Devlin asked pausing and looking around as they stopped in front of one of the out structures.

"Sir," the professor said as he took a small tool out of his pocket and played with it in the lock of the door, "I did not go to college for nothing. Even a Boston born student learns many things not taught in regular classes." As he finished his sentence, a gentle click was heard from inside of the lock and...the door opened.

Devlin smiled.

"After you, sir," he said.

"Thank you."

The professor and Devlin surveyed the scene.

The inside of the house was furnished with just bare essentials. A few chairs, a couch, and some tables dotted the main room.

"Not much to see," Devlin said running his hand over a tabletop.

"It is clean, though. I can see why they call him 'Mr. Clean'."

The two men visited each room, turning over all objects and ideas that could lead to clues: the kitchen with stove and sink, the bedroom with waterbed, and the bathroom with an ancient shower.

"At least it has all of the comforts of home," the professor said after thirty minutes of looking the place over. Devlin paused as he stood back in the main room.

"Sure is a clean place, but not too much here to go on."

"Maybe not," the professor said, "but we must take in everything we see. Absorb every detail. Let osmosis leak in subtleties we might miss. One never knows."

"Yes, well," Devlin said in a low laugh, "how about we take in some food. I'm hungry."

The professor smiled.

"Alright, Devlin. Back to the station."

A few days later, Professor Lochford and Devlin sat down in the kitchen of the police headquarters for a small lunch. The sandwich machine, emptied of its finest cuisines, stood overlooking the table. The contents of the bread were somewhat a mystery, with a proper blend of various meats to come up with a tasteful food group. The food was used as a distraction.

Something to take their minds off the case at hand. As the food was prepared and the appetite whetted, Devlin spoke.

"You know, it is funny how this guy is such a cleanliness nut."

"Yes, I know," the professor said.

"I mean," Devlin continued, "I have been tailing him around for the last few days, and when he goes in somewhere, he wipes off door handles, just stuff like that. For him, everything has to be just perfect. Why, I even followed him into one of those health food joints up town."

"Did you talk to anyone there?" the professor asked.

"The lady in the health place told me a bunch of nothing. She talked about his eating habits, what he buys, and all of the water he uses."

"Water?" the professor sat up.

"Yes, she even showed me his bill. Every two weeks he buys 150 gallons of some sort of factory clean water that comes in bottles. He has done this for the past year like clockwork. She is not sure what he does with it, though. Always buys 150 gallons. Except last week."

"What about last week?"

"Well, it seems that last week, instead of buying 150 gallons at once like he usually does, he bought 108 on Monday and 42 gallons on Tuesday."

"Monday and Tuesday?" The professor thought.

"Tuesday was the day that Tomlinson did not show up for work."

"Yes, I guess it was," Devlin said, "not much of a tie to anything, though."

"And he never deviated from this all year except now?"

"That is the way it seems."

The professor's years of experience logged this fact away for further thought and deduction.

"Odd," he said, "a man sets his habits, establishes a small ritual, then breaks it." He paused.

"What would cause this?"

Devlin had nothing to answer. He just shrugged his shoulders and ate a few bites of the make­shift machined lunch. As the meal progressed and the food consumed, the professor filled up a glass of tea on the

table. Inadvertently, he dropped four ice cubes into it, and it overflowed over the table.

"I should know better than to do a thing like that..." The professor paused in his sentence, and stared at his glass.

"That's alright, Professor," Devlin said to him.

The professor didn't hear. He was still watching the glass, turning the well­educated gears in his mind.

Clearing the cobwebs. Opening the valves. Oiling the gears. Then, over the minutes, he patted his forehead.

"You know, Devlin," the professor said slowly, "life has many twists. Some are obvious, some are not so obvious. Some you wish you never saw. Or knew."

Devlin listened to the professor waiting a few seconds for some possible continuation, then spoke.

"I'm not following you, sir." Lochford leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through the long locks of his hair.

"Have you ever heard of Archimedes’s Law, Devlin?"

"No, sir," he said. The professor then poured the tea out over the table, and refilled the glass.

"Sir!" Devlin said, watching the mass move across the table.

"Archimedes’s Law. Watch as I put the ice cubes back into the glass. The ice cubes take up space, so when I add them to the glass with a normal amount of water, it overflows. If I put in less water, and add the cubes, I bring the water up to the normal level in the glass."

Devlin just listened.

"So?" he said.

Professor Lochford smiled in his chair, crossing his arms behind his head.

"The mind works in strange ways, Devlin.

Sometimes ideas hit inside you like bolts from the sky.

Sometimes ideas seep into you like slow diffusion of thickened liquid. The thoughts gradually become clearer. The puzzle mildly comes together. Over the minutes and hours, the brain waves melt the right word, the correct answer into your head. Before you know it, or want to know it, all of the pieces fit."

"Are you trying to tell me in a roundabout way that you have figured it out?"

"In a roundabout way, I think I have."

Devlin waited.

"Well?"

The professor only stared at the ice cubes in the glass of tea.

"Jonathan Tomlinson drowned alright, but not at the canal."

"Not there?"

"Not there."

"But if not there, where then?" He shifted in his chair to listen.

"Let's go to Bales' house. I'm afraid we will find the answer there."

A light but authoritative knock rattled the door.

Darrel Bales opened it in a well worn white shirt and blue jeans.

"Yes," he said slowly to his visitors. There stood Professor Lochford, Devlin, and two uniformed officials.

"May we come in?" the professor asked. Bales' eyes darted back and forth across the men.

"Why, uh, sure." He cautiously opened the door the rest of the way, half hiding behind it as the men

entered. As the door shut, the two officials walked over and flanked Bales, on each side of him.

"Can I help you gentlemen in some way?" he asked.

The professor's eyes took in everything in the room, noted every detail, dissected every angle.

"I will come directly to the point, Mr. Bales. I am here to place you under arrest for the murder of Jonathan Tomlinson." Suddenly, the men next to Bales seemed larger and closer to him.

"You're mad, sir! Jonathan was a friend of mine, my co­worker."

"I will agree with you on the subject that he was your co­worker, Mr. Bales. But I must sense that this was possibly his downfall. You see, we traced the torn up papers in your office that we found lying around, and one trace led us to an old 'wanted poster', with your picture on it."

Darrell Bales' eyes focused only on the professor.

"That was years ago," he said.

"I agree it was, but the charge still stands."

"Well," Bales said, looking at his captors, "you can extradite me to Earth for that charge, but you have nothing on me about this Tomlinson case."

The professor walked across the floor and stood in one of the doorways to another room.

"I beg to differ," he said, looking back at Bales.

Bales looked at Devlin, but Devlin just shrugged his shoulders.

"What do you have on me?" he screamed.

"The mistake," the professor said. "The one mistake that we were looking for. The one clue that brought us to you."

All the men seemed to be waiting now for an explanation, the conclusion of facts.

It came.

"You see, your change was the mistake that threw me."

"Change?" Bales asked.

"Yes. You bought 150 gallons of water every two weeks. They tell me that you are really a nut about being clean."

"Sir, I don't consider myself a nut."

"Nevertheless," the professor said, "it was a habit. I wondered what held 150 gallons of water? And then that one day, you changed your habit. You bought 108 one day and 42 the next. That got me thinking.

Why? Why break this habit? Then the ice cubes came."

"Ice cubes?"

"Yes, the ice cubes. And Archimedes."

Now Bales really looked uncertain. So did the other men in the room.

"You see, Jonathan Tomlinson did drown. But the traces of purified water in his lungs started me wondering. Then the cubes and Archimedes. Here it is: you did drown Tomlinson. The bump on his head was to knock him unconscious to put him in the water. Then you pulled him back out and threw him in the river a day later to throw us off. You knew that your container only held 150 gallons of water, so you had to buy less, so when you put Tomlinson in the water it would not spill over. That is Archimedes' principle. A normal body dissipates about 42 gallons of water. So you filled up 108 gallons on Monday, put Tomlinson in and killed him, then after you took him out put the rest of the amount, the other 42 gallons, back in on Tuesday to fill

it back up. Unorthodox, but simple." The men next to Darrel Bales held him firmly in their grasp.

"Sir," Bales said, "you will never prove this."

"Believe me, Bales, I will rip out every clue, dilute every drop, comb each corner, leave no particle unturned to prove this."

The uniformed officials led Darrel Bales away out through the door. Devlin watched the scene, and then spoke.

"I don't understand, sir. Let no stone unturned where to prove it?"

"Here, Devlin, in the bedroom."

Devlin and the professor walked into the room.

"What, Tomlinson drowned in the bedroom?"

Devlin asked.

"Sure. I'll prove it, by gosh. I'm not sure how long it will take."

"But," Devlin was truly puzzled, "where will you look for clues here in the bedroom?"

The professor stared out one of the windows in the room. He wished the words didn't have to come out.

"Jonathan Tomlinson drowned Monday night," the professor said.

"But sir," Devlin broke in, "if he drowned Monday night, why didn't we find the body till Tuesday afternoon. You said yourself that the canal isn't deep, and with all that traffic we would have seen him."

"He was put in the canal Tuesday, after he had been dead for a day."

"I'm still lost. If he didn't drown Tuesday in the canal, where did he drown Monday night?"

"East," the professor said as he pulled back the quilt that covered the liquid mass, and exposed the canvas that had a huge, newly mended tear in the top.

"I bet Bales had a bumpy sleep Monday night."

The Third Variation

Perkins spat as he walked down the corridor.

"Let's get this over with!" he said in a defiant tone. The narrow concrete wall was bone white, and small hard plastic windows lined the top of the walls next to the ceiling. A lone door was at the end of the hall, and a man was opening it as Perkins approached.

The latch on the door was a steel circle, and the man was spinning it open like handles on a submarine door.

Perkins was flanked on both sides by huge men in dark green uniforms.

"We're finally going through with this," he said, his words echoing off the cement slabs. The men didn't answer. They just guided Perkins toward the door.

They pushed his head down as they led him through the entrance to the chamber.

Perkins lifted his head up, and looked around.

He was in a large concrete room, with a few men scattered around. In the center of the room was a chair...an electric chair. It was a large wooden structure with straps and chains around its arms and legs. On top

were wires coming out, and a circular grill on the head of the chair told where the victims' heads were placed.

Perkins spat again as they sat him down in the chair. He saw an old man sitting in the corner. The old man smiled. He had one gold tooth shining out, reflecting the dull white lights. The reflection seemed to hypnotize Perkins for a split second, and he shut his eyes tight to try to escape the glare. Slowly, he opened them again.

"Who is this old bastard?" Perkins asked in the snidest of voices.

"That is Jonesy," one guard said. "He is the care­taker of the 'chair­room'." Perkins stared at him as the old man just smiled back, following him only with his eyes.

"That son­of­a­bitch gives me the creeps," Perkins said.

"Such a trivial thing to worry about now," the guard laughed.

They strapped Perkins in and made sure all the connections were right. The old man rose from his chair and walked over to Perkins. Perkins followed him out of the corner of his eyes. The old man leaned down and whispered in Perkin's ear.

"The President was a good man." His breath was cold on Perkin's neck. As cold as the inside of a coffin. As cold as death. The old man continued.

"You'll be damned for life for this. Fate itself can have a cruel twist to it, even for someone like you." Perkins tried to wiggle his head loose from the leather straps.

"Get this nut away from me!" he shouted.

"Damned for life," the old man kept whispering as he slowly edged from Perkins. "Damned for life."

Perkins was sweating hard as he watched the old man back away out of his small angle of sight.

Damned for life? Perkins thought.

It was his last thought as he heard the switch thrown. The lethal volts of electricity were sent through his body. His eyes tightened and closed. He heard the leather crackle and buckle across his skin.

Perkins blacked out.

He opened his eyes. He was falling.

In the split second on the way down, he couldn't focus on where he was. Because of this, he wasn't really aware of his body, what was up, what was down.

He landed on something with such a jar that an excruciating pain shot up his body. He grabbed his leg, while slowly lifting his head. He realized that he was on some kind of stage, with an audience staring back at him. There were loud mumbles going on. He looked up, and saw several ornate audience VIP boxes full of people, who were leaning out of them. Some pointing to him, some pointing to a separate box. The box they pointed to was the most elaborate one there. It had a red­white­and blue banner hanging in front of it.

Perkins found himself opening his mouth and speaking. It wasn't something that he was thinking of, or controlling. Just something that uttered out of his mouth, through his subconscious.

"Sic semper tyrannis!"

"What the hell does that mean?" he asked himself as he turned and limped quickly across the stage towards a side door. As he grabbed the handle of the door, he stopped and stared at a handbill lying face up on the floor.

"Our American Cousin," read the playbill's title.

"April 14, 1865."

What's going on? he thought to himself. Our American cousin in 1865? He turned back toward the surrealistic scene behind him. He stared at the preferred seating box above the side of the stage. It was now filled with people.

A chill ran through him like the million of volts of electricity he felt just moments before.

Lincoln? he asked himself.

He opened the door and found himself on a wooden platform outside the playhouse, a horse tied up to a metal hitching post a few feet below him. He loosened the reigns and climbed on the back of the horse. As he unconsciously slapped the back of the horse to get it moving, he turned the events in his mind.

He took inventory.

The cool air did fill his lungs. The sounds of the horse did entertain his ears. The events were, as he knew general laws of physics, real. The animals heart pounded under him, as his pounded inside of him.

But...how...how?

Lincoln? No way...but it's so real.

And me? I just couldn't be...

He searched his memory and historic files.

Booth?

John Wilkes Booth?

He rode away down the dirt layered road. The physical pain in his leg, and the mental pain, pounding in his head.

"I hope this has done the job," a voice said.

Perkins found himself sitting on a bed in a room.

He looked around and realized that he was in a house, and by looking out one of the windows, he knew he was

in an upstairs room. The figure in front of him was working quickly on Perkin's leg, by applying some splints and gauzes to his throbbing limb. He guessed the man was a doctor, and every now and then he would glance up at Perkins, but would quickly return his gaze back to his work.

Perkins became aware of something on his face.

He brought up his hand to his chin, and felt the rough edges of what he could only guess was a beard...a false beard. How did I get this on? he asked himself subconsciously.

As he pulled his hand back down, he began to understand where he was. He remembered his history...his school days in government class. His eyes and the doctor's eyes finally met, and Perkins smiled a wry smile at the doctor.

"Have you ever heard the expression, 'Your name is Mudd', doctor?"

The doctor looked puzzled.

"That's an odd saying...seeing that's my name."

"Oh, I know. That's what I thought. And you're the one that will make that saying famous."

"What are you talking about?" the doctor asked as he put the finishing touches on his work.

"You. Your little deed here will go down in infamy. Go down as one of the nicest things a person could ever do to the likes of me." Perkins laughed.

"The like of you?" the doctor said. He didn't look up.

"The likes of me," Perkins said, as he grabbed the doctor's arm. "You know who I am, don't you." The doctor froze his movements.

"I believe I do. The fake beard doesn't do you any justice. The description that I've heard on the street seems to fit well."

"And you're still fixing my leg?"

"Part of my job. You stayed the night to begin the healing of your wound, and now you must be on your way." The doctor stared deep into Perkin's eyes.

Perkins just smiled.

"And this dedication to your work, this cold, heart­felt pledge to do the right things, this straightforward, nothing stands in my way of my work approach will, Dr. Mudd, will make you famous.

Or...however one looks at it...infamous."

Mudd grabbed up the instruments that he used on Perkin's leg. "You're done. Now, please leave."

Perkins got down off the table and hobbled to the door.

Mudd handed him a crutch he had leaning against the wall.

Perkins smiled.

"Thanks, doc."

"One thing," Mudd asked as he and Perkins went down some steps and stopped at the front door to the house, "why did you..."

Perkins held up his hand.

"Isn't it strange, doc. It might not even have been me who did what you think. Just a ghost in someone else's body. Just an unrested spirit in a puppet's frame. What would your years of medicine say to that? How would the countless hours of bookwork interpret that?"

"I don't understand," Mudd said as the April wind came through the open front door, "you better let me check your head. You might have sustained a blow to it."

Perkins laughed.

"No, doc. No blow. No blow...yet."

He stepped out into the morning air.

"Remember the phrase, doc. Your name is Mudd. Go down with it proudly."

Dr. Mudd watched Perkins disappear down the dust covered road. Minutes later, he could still hear him laughing.

Later, Perkins hobbled down a city street in the shadows of some buildings and their awnings. On one of the store fronts as he past, he saw a poster. "$100,000 Reward! The Murderer of our late beloved President, Abraham Lincoln." And the pictures.

A man named Surrat, a man named Harold. Who were these men? He just couldn't piece them together. But their pictures flanked one another. A face he saw reflected in a window pane recently. A face...he was wearing.

Booth.

In his daze, he read on.

"Let the stain of innocent blood be removed from the land by the arrest and punishment of the murderers." He lowered his head and looked at his hands. The hands that must have pulled that small pistol's trigger. The hands that held the nation's pulse, and removed it like a keen surgeon. The hands...he could not control.

He walked on.

Perkins found himself peaking through the crack of the door. How did I get here? he thought. He could make out faces staring at him across the darkness. Faces in blue uniforms. The lead man was taking aim with a

rifle. Taking aim...at him. The name tag on his uniform top seemed to be glowing, the letters outlined so that Perkins could read them, even in this darkness.

Sgt. Boston Corbett.

"Is this the man that kills me?" Perkins asked out loud. He studied the man, and realized someone was standing right behind Corbett. A face that fired memories. A face that was recognizable. Where had he...

"The old man!" he yelled out loud as his eyes grew wider with the revelation. "The bastard still haunts me!"

Perkins stepped back away from the door, stumbled and fell to the ground. His leg was throbbing with pain.

He smelled the flames inside his nose and inside his head. The smoke filled his lungs and his thoughts.

The pain in his leg was bad, and he found himself crawling on the floor to try to escape its sharpness and get air to breath. As he groped his way around the room, he reached a wall, but by now the flames and smoke had disoriented him so that he had no idea where in the room he was. He leaned against the wall.

He heard shots. The recoil of a gun.

He felt bullets entering the walls, barely missing him. He lifted himself up on one knee, and wobbly on his crutch headed for what he thought was the back door of the barn.

At that moment, one of the bullets being fired from outside came crashing through the walls and exploded in his chest. The concussion of the blow flew him back. He lay on his back, as the life blood oozed out from him.

"What have I done?" he asked through the flames, smoke, blood...and time. He closed his eyes, and the pain blacked him out...

He opened his eyes.

He was staring down the gunsight of a rifle.

"What the hell?" he said as he lowered the weapon and looked around. He was sitting by an open window in what, he thought, must be a tall building.

Everything below him looked so small. Perkins scanned the scene. He must be witnessing a parade, he thought, because the street was lined with people on both sides.

In the street were cars and huge black vehicles, some with red and white police lights on them.

But he noticed a strangeness in the happenings.

The biggest black vehicle had some people in it slumped over, with a man draped over the back of it. It raced away from Perkin's view as the red and white lights of the police cars began to whirl, and the sound of sirens filled the air with deafening vibrations.

Perkins also noticed that everyone seemed to be looking up at him...and pointing.

"Oh, my god!" he said as he backed away from the window. He looked around, and he was in a room filled with cardboard boxes and crates. There was a date stamped on top of one of the boxes.

November 22, 1963.

He held tight to the rifle, and ran.

Perkins found himself walking down a city sidestreet. He glanced up at a sign on the corner.

"East 10th."

He looked around and noticed a police car driving slow in the street along side of him. Perkin's muscles tightened.

The police car stopped in front of the third house on the right hand side of the street, right where Perkins was walking. An officer stepped out.

"Excuse me," the patrolman said. The man scrutinized Perkin's frame carefully. "Do you have a moment?" Perkins could read the last name of the officer on his badge on his uniform.

Tippit.

Perkins saw the nerves in Tippit's forehead twitch. He noticed a shifting of the eyes in their sockets.

A change in the chill in the air.

"I think you better come with me," Tippit said, "I think there might be some..."

Perkins felt his hand reach and draw out a handgun he had in his belt. Funny, he thought as the scene unfolded, I didn't even know that pistol was there.

Perkins aimed and shot Tippit four times. He fell in the street beside his patrol car. Perkins stared at Tippit as a subtle twitch settled in Tippit's body lying on the concrete.

"Forgive me," he whispered as he found himself running away from the body down the street.

"Don't you understand," Perkins pleaded with Captain Fritz as they waited in an old room. Room number 317. The two men had been talking for close to an hour now. Fritz was the officier in charge of Perkins.

"I'm not really Oswald. I'm Mathew Perkins. I was born October 19, 2021. I don't know how I got here, but I'm being played a cruel trick. I know somehow I've begun to look like Oswald, and even talk like him.

But...I only say what I am supposed to say. Say what he should say. Like...like someone reading a part in a play.

Oh, I can think my own thoughts. My own ideas. But the words that come out of my mouth are his. I have no control over them."

"So he is talking now, right...not you?"

"No. Sometimes I can override him. Say what I want to. Say what Mathew Perkins is thinking. But when it comes time to say what he really said...do what he really did...I cannot control it. I just kind of go along for the ride. Just like I did with Booth."

"Booth again, huh. You were Booth, too.

Right?"

"Yes! Yes! God has dealt me a cruel death. A living hell. Some kind of punishment for my shooting the President."

"Kennedy?"

"No! Fleming! President Fleming! The 49th President of the United States. I blew him away at a stoplight. Too much underhanded dealings. Too much money going too few places. His time, too, had come. I knew he'd be there. He came every day he was in town.

The secret service stopped at my newsstand and bought the daily paper. So I knew he'd come. I just waited and waited, until the perfect time. Then...

Perkins stopped and studied Fritz's face.

"You don't believe me, do you?"

"Would you believe me if I told you this story?

We capture you in the Texas Theatre. Or did we capture Booth? Or Oswald? Or Perkins? I get that confused."

Perkins ran both his hands through his hair.

"Okay, Captain, okay. I don't know how."

Perkins paused. "I understand why, though." He leaned against a white porcelain sink.

"Listen, Captain," Perkins said. "We are going to go out of this door and through the corridor down in the basement of this Dallas Municipal Building. We are going to be headed for the police car to take me to another jail. But I will never make it!"

"What?" Captain Fritz said.

"I'll never make it. A few yards down our journey will be a man off to my left, some guy named Ruby...Jack Ruby. Some detectives will be on one side of me, and you'll be on the other. As we get by Ruby, he'll step out and put a gun in my ribs, and pull the trigger. Some kind of revenge for my shooting the President. And I'll die...never reach your station. Never go on trial to tell my story. Never see the outside of this building."

"Nonsense," Fritz said. "We've got everything under control here. You might as well quit using this insanity plea on me, because I don't buy it. Save it for the judge and jury."

"I've already been judged," Perkins muttered.

"I've already seen the jury." A knock came on the door.

"The car's here. Let's go," the captain called out.

Fritz helped Perkins up by the arm.

"I see now that I'm being shown something," Perkins said, "the wrongfulness of my ways. God is making me live this. Making me go through this as my own...apocalypse."

The captain turned the knob of the door.

"One thing," Perkins said slowly as they walked out of the door toward the corridor, "after Ruby shoots me, tell me you'll consider what I said."

"Sure I will," Fritz said, with an appeasing nod of his head, "sure I will."

Perkins saw the walkway before him lined with people and at the end the police car which he knew he'd never reach.

"I wonder," he said to the captain, "if Oswald and Booth are going through the same thing that I am.

You know, while I'm here, Booth is going through my end in the electric chair, and Oswald...Oswald going through Booth's death in the barn. What an interesting punishment. What a dramatic..."

Perkins words were cut off in mid­sentence.

The group of men, himself included, started down the hall. Perkins could not speak in his own voice, could not do any actions on his own. He was just walking down the ramp as a puppet...an individual inside of a marionette. He was just along for the ride. The only control he had over his body was the pupils of his eyes.

He widened them as wide as he could, scanning the rows of faces for the man. The image he remembered out of newsreels. The frame he recalled out of old pictures.

For Ruby.

A few more yards.

For a split second he thought he recognized a face in the multitude. Just for a brief flash. Where had he seen that face before?

"Oh, god," he thought to himself, "the old man."

He swore he saw the old man among the crowd watching him take what he knew was a death walk.

His pupils darted from side to side. A few more steps.

A movement.

A slight alteration.

There! On the left side! Perkins noticed a figure stepping out of the crowd.

Stop! Oh, Captain Fritz! There is Ruby! Stop, for God's sake! The scene unfolded in slow motion in front of his eyes.

For God's sake? He thought as he felt the barrel of the gun push into his ribs and the bullet exit the chamber and hot projectile enter his body.

I guess for God's sake is the improper phrase, he thought as his face scrunched up in pain as the gunshot registered on his brain...

Perkins lifted his head up and looked around.

He was in a large concrete room, with a few men scattered around. In the center of the room was a chair...an electric chair. It was a large wooden structure with straps and chains around its arms and legs. On top were wires coming out, and a circular grill on the head of the chair told where the victims' heads were placed.

Perkins spat again as they sat him down in the chair. He saw an old man sitting in the corner. The old man smiled. He had one gold tooth shining out, reflecting the dull white lights. The reflection seemed to hypnotize Perkins for a split second, and he shut his eyes tight to try to escape the glare. Slowly, he opened them again.

"Who is this old bastard?" Perkins asked in the snidest of voices.

"That is Jonesy," one guard said. "He is the care­taker of the 'chair­room'." Perkins stared at him as the old man just smiled back, following him only with his eyes.

Perkins began to shake. Something was wrong.

Something was terribly wrong. He had...he had been through this before. This room. This conversation.

This feeling.

"You see, my friend, " the old man said, "what can happen."

Perkins stared at that face.

"What the..." Perkins looked straight into those eyes that he had seen moments before in other places and other frames.

"I've been through this before," he said to the old man.

"Yes! Perceptive, aren't we? And, you shall go through it again, my friend."

"Again?"

"And again," the old man whispered. "Fate, my friend. Fate that you live over and over. Fate that you meet your...counterparts."

"Counterparts?"

"Yes. Your peers, I suppose you could call them. Oh, come now. You know who I'm speaking of."

Perkins thought for a moment.

"You don't mean Oswald and Booth?" he whispered.

"Oswald and Booth."

"They are in this too, aren't they?"

The old man laughed.

"Very good analogies, you all are," he said. "In a way, I guess they should say 'thank you'."

"Why's that?" Perkins said cynically.

"Well, for the past 98 years, they've just been going back and forth into each other's hells. Living each other's horrors and screams. Tasted each other's sweat and blood. Gone through Act 1, Act 2, and the Epiloge of the other one's climactic play. That infamous gesture tha has changed the lives of millions, and forever put their names in vain on humanitys lips.

And now you, Perkins. You have added a...well...a third scene. A third act. A new tunnel to go in, a new corridor to explore, a new hole to fall deep into the bellows of hell in. A third...well, you could call it...a third variation."

"Variation?" Perkins said, his voice cracking.

Perkins thought a moment, then screamed.

...middle...

One of the old ones spoke.

"Where do we go from here? There is no place else to go?"

The young ones disagreed.

"To another place," said another voice, "to another star."

They all smiled in anticipation.

Train of Golden Birds

It had been five years since they had come to the planet.

Just a few at the beginning, the selected ones to be first. But over time there came more and more people, and now they numbered about one thousand in all. It was hard, the planet could be so harsh, but they were determined to make it.

The fields of green stalks against the reddish sky were really starting to produce. The food from this alien ground tasted better and better every day. They had brought generators on the early ships to get power started to the colonies. Everything was all starting to fall into place. Now they were prosperous. Now they were blossoming.

The trains started coming about three months back. The people had completed the steel tracks to keep the outer colonies in touch with the main rocket port.

They were built with the intention that they would be able to deliver the last comforts of home to the people.

At first, they brought books and games to keep the people occupied after the day's work was done. On the second trip into the colonies, they brought pets to play with. To help out, to love. On the third trip, the people were treated to cases and cases of wine. They had a great festival, and gave thanks for staying alive all of these years.

And now the last train had arrived. Its bright red engine blew out columns and columns of grey smoke into the thin air as it sat on the tracks ready to be opened. The people gathered around but were not sure what was inside, because they were never told beforehand the contents of the trains. But they were still all throwing out guesses about what could be inside.

Everyone was ready. The lock was broken, the seal cracked, the door flung open.

There was a moment of silence...

From the train there was a great rush of air. All of the people gasped and smiled. Then, as all eyes focused on the opened train car, out came thousands and thousands of birds. Blue, black, red, white, and grey.

Almost every color of the rainbow. They flew to the south. To the north. Some headed east to the shores.

Some traveled west to the hills. Birds to sing in the morning, birds to help the people greet the new day, birds to help keep the fields alive, birds to help them adjust to their new planet.

The people were very happy. They clapped and cried for joy as the birds filled the air. Now, every last one of them was out of the train. In the sky, as they filled the air with song, it seemed that they all looked golden under the afternoon sun.

The people cheered. Their children cried. The parents remembered.

The planet seemed at last a little more like home.

They knew now that they would make it.

The Rainbow Day

"Today is the Rainbow Day!" The little girl threw back the shutters on her window and called to the people in the street below.

"Everybody! This is the Rainbow Day!" Her voice echoed off old wooden buildings and fell upon open ears. The people walking in the street who had heard her looked up toward the window and smiled and waved. They already seemed to know what today was.

The town was a beehive of activity. Mothers grabbed up their children from backyard sandboxes to be cleaned up. The old men played their last game of checkers before getting their haircuts. Girls threw last kisses around corners to boyfriends as they hurried home. Everyone was busy somehow readying themselves for the day.

"Jimmy, tie your shoelace."

"Mom, I can't find my comb."

"Grandpa, straighten your tie."

After all the cleaning and brushing and polishing and washing and checking, it was finally time to go.

"Where are we going?" a young voice would ask.

"Just follow the procession."

Indeed, it seemed as if a line of people was filing out of town to some unknown destination. No one questioned where they were headed, and families fell in with the human parade and flowed along with the tide of people to the Rainbow Day. The narrow dirt path that the people walked on was not in the best of shape, but it was passable. Years of travel had honed it down in the center, and this made it hard to walk along the edges of the road. But people were patient, and everyone walked together without much problem. All along the way the dusty road was lined with bushes and berries and fruits. The children busily picked them as they walked, as desert.

After about a mile of keeping with the pace, the crowd came upon its destination. Unseen brakes appeared to slow the multitude of travelers, making

them seem almost hesitant to go on. But as they did, through a final clearing in the trees and in front of all the people, there stood a mound covered with green moss, ferns, and rocks. It was not all that big, but it was larger than anything else in the area, and through the years of legend and lore, it had been duly named the "Rainbow Hill."

Eyes turned upward.

On top of the hill, in a small opening overlooking the edge, stood a wide wooden barrel.

Made of timbers years before, the container seemed to blend into the side of the mound like a chameleon changing colors to keep from being detected. Next to the barrel, the crowd could make out a single figure tinkering with the timbers high above them. His long silver hair and beard blew in the breeze as he toyed with his invention.

"Look!" one of the young boys said. "There is old Mr. Jackson on top!" The crowd waved to the figure, and an acknowledging was given back from above.

"Well," one of the ladies called, "let's set up our picnic. It won't be long now."

The scientists in all of their wisdom were not sure if it was the pollution in the air or the nuclear clouds escaping over the land or the deterioration of the ozone, or (what most probably agree on) a combination of all three. Whatever it was, the outcome was the same.

Worse had come to worst. They had let it go too far.

It had stopped raining twenty years before, and it had not rained since.

The historic creeks, gentle rivers, and scenic lakes were all gone. Only the sea, with all of its vastness, had held on its fight for survival. The few first years were the worst to get through since the rainwater was gone. Then the government had luckily found a way to convert and transport seawater cheaply, so they harnessed it in place of rain. But it could never quite take its place.

The law went out that the water should be conserved and used sparingly. Showers were turned down, water slides turned off, pools shut down. Only after much heated debate and convincing had Mr. Jackson received a permit from the government for his project. A waterfall.

The permit read: "To be turned on one day of the year, and silent the rest of said year." So the people of the county named this one day of the year the "Rainbow Day," and converged on the hill, and on Mr. Jackson to watch and remember.

Mr. Jackson did odd jobs over the months, so he really did not make too much money. But because he made this lower income, every year he received back from the government a sizable check for his income tax return. So every year he would use his tax money to buy the water to fill his barrel.

He put in his order three months in advance, for the red tape bureaucracy took that long to get his water to him. When it did finally arrive, he loaded it into a tank in the back of his truck and drove it himself up the hill over timbers and wood he had laid up the hillside for just such an occasion. At the top, he hung a hose from the back of his truck over the side of the wooden vial and let the water rush in and fill the barrel. Then he waited for the proclaimed "Rainbow Day."

The hot dog vendors were about their business and the popcorn machine was running low. People were scattered with their families at the bottom of the mound, eating and talking, while their children played innocent games to pass the time. A carnival atmosphere was in the air.

Suddenly, Mr. Jackson called down from the tope of the hill, and the crowd grew quiet.

"It is two o'clock, and the sun is now perfect for our show! Hold back your children, and look out below!" Mr. Jackson turned some knobs, dialed some buttons, and pulled some stoppers on the barrel and, while the crowd watched from below, opened the valve to let the water out.

The wooden barrel creaked and moaned as if fighting to keep the liquid inside, but then gave up and let the cascade of water tumble out of its walls. Down the hill the water fell in a steady stream, scattering young and old alike as it hit the bottom of the hill exploding every way and direction possible. Water as cool as a gusty breeze on an early spring morning, and water as warm as heat waves rising above and across concrete pavement during a midday sun. ackson called down from the top. The children began to dance, and the people started to applaud Mr. Jackson's waterfall. But they knew that the best was yet to come.

The children all gathered in a circle around one boy who had brought a book and began to read out loud to them. ". . . made by sunlight shining through tiny drops of water in the air . . ."

The cascade water was swirling at the bottom of the hill.

" . . . tiny drops of water break the sunlight up into colors . . ."

The water pounded and smashed at the rocks. ". . . violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red . . . " The drops acted like millions of rubber balls hitting the rocks and bouncing back up toward the sky. " . . . often a rainbow in the sky . . ."

The boy stopped reading. A hush fell over the children. They all slowly lifted their heads and stared open­mouthed at the waterfall. They could scarcely make out the start of a miracle. There, within the huge torrent of water, it started to break through.

The rainbow.

The crowd watched.

The seven colors of the rainbow became more definite every second until it was sharp and crisp.

"Beautiful!"

The drops reflected through the rainbow like thousands of diamonds being turned to sparkle against the water. The rainbow colors brightened the morning and the people's eyes, firing memories of easier times­­ and rainbows.

The crowd grasped the moment.

Shutters on cameras clicked, brushes on canvasses painted, pencils on paper drew. They all were trying to capture the rainbow. To hold it until next year.

To remember the lost spectacle one last time.

Mr. Jackson yelled from the top.

"All the water has almost run out! Get your last looks in!"

Men held their children on their strong shoulders for one more long look. Young couples held hands and wished upon the seven magical colors. Like

flat rocks skipping over a smooth river, the older children skipped through the water standing around the edges where the waterfall fell, finally lying down in the liquid, laughing and exhausted from their day's play.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, the last few drops ran out of the barrel and over the timbers down the side of the hill. the final small bits of water leaped from the peak of the "Rainbow Hill" to the ground below.

The inevitable happened.

The waterfall stopped.

For the next few minutes, while the water drops still filled the air, the rainbow hung on for life. The young boys ran up to try to touch it and take part of it home with them, to breathe the cool colors into their lungs one last time.

The rainbow twisted and faded and seemed like minutes. The, they broke into a thuderous applause.

"Magnificent!"

Hundreds of tiny rainbows seemed to form in the eyes of the crowd while each and every person cried, saying goodbye to their old friend.

Mr. Jackson received thank­you cards for the rest of the year.

The Spacestation

The new sun rose slowly over the curved horizon, sending thousands of light rays erupting towards the dark corners of the heavens.

"Marvelous."

Shaw and Ward looked at the scene with awe.

Their spacecraft was just in proper alignment to observe the occurence, so they took a few seconds of their busy schedule to reflect and enjoy. The beginning of another day, the end of another night.

The two men savored the moment from their cockpit.

"You know that we are making somewhat of history today," Shaw announced to his co­pilot. Both men were about the same height and build, in fantastic physical shape as defined by the strict rules of their space program. Ward had the more receding hair line, Shaw the lighter shade of grey around the edges.

"How's that about the history?" Ward asked.

"Well," Shaw continued as he gestured and pointed out the window at the alien sphere. His dark blue uniform blended perfectly with the ocean below, "no one outside of this planet's own people has ever been where we're going."

"You mean this spacestation that orbits the planet?"

"Yes. We earth men stationed on the sister planet have visited the people many times, and we have very good diplomatic relations with them, but they have never let any outsider visit their station."

"What's on it?"

"More like, 'who's on it'. I don't know if it is just one person or a hundred, but whoever is up there is sort of a hero on the planet."

"But you don't know who or how many?" Shaw flipped a few switches and checked the attitude control and course.

"No," he said, "the people won't tell us. No telling what we are in for."

The men sat back and enjoyed the voyage.

The three computers on board calculated the distance to the station , negotiated the amount of fuel needed, averaged the time it would take, and fired up the rockets to put them at exactly the speed to dock the two crafts.

"Sometimes I think that I'm just a spectator alone for the ride," Ward spoke as a statement.

"Sometimes we probably are," Shaw added.

The ships closed distances.

"All clear on my end," a voice crackled through space over the radio. Shaw put on his headphones.

"Well," he turned to Ward, "at least we know there is one person on board." His co­pilot nodded.

"We will be there in a minute, sir," Shaw said over the radio.

"I'm looking forward to meeting you gentlemen," the voice called back. Shaw took the headphones off.

"Your chance is almost here."

The two ships gently tapped each other as they docked and connected. Bolts fired and locked, wires tied, fittings solidified. The two ships were one.

"We will check out the system, then be on our way."

After satisfying the trouble­shooting checklist, the two men unstrapped their safety harnesses that so securely held them in their seats, and floated freely in the gentle confines of zero gravity. Ward had always enjoyed this, being the more boisterous of the two.

Shaw could not hold down his professionalism, either, bouncing from wall­to­wall on the way to the exit door.

"We'll be there in no time," Shaw said, reaching through the vacuum to his gun by the armament panel.

Strapping it on, he motioned to Ward.

"Just to be on the safe side."

Ward nodded his head, and strapped his on also.

The men readied themselves for the jorney through the docking chamber that separated the two ships, and the final reaching of the alien decompression chamber so that they could enter the station.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

"Let's hit it."

Shaw slowly lifted the huge ring that unlocked latches and opened the door to the outside world. The smell of stars filled their nostrils, as they moved toward the alien environment.

As the two men sat in the decompression chamber having any last remnants of space invisibly taken off of them by hidden probes and eyes, a figure kept darting back and forth in front of a lone porthole, peering in at the visitors.

"Looks as if our host is anxious to meet us," Shaw said, as he watched the dials drop close to normal.

Ward scanned the huge brown eyes in the small window, as they looked from watching the men to watching the dials, and back to watching them.

"Over anxious, I would say." Ward spoke as the chamber became flooded with dark green lights telling them that everything was safe, and the door popped open.

"Gentlemen! How glad I am to see you!"

Ward and Shaw found themselves standing in the doorway of a plush room. White thick carpet under their feet, bright but pleasing colors on the walls, chandeliers hanging from the ceiling with ancient glass globes that reflected the lights in the room into millions of bands, with every different color of the spectrum before them.

"Nice," Ward said.

"That's an understatement," Shaw corrected, turning his attention to their host. Standing before both men, beaming a smile from one side of his face to the other, was a man who's form was like their own. His height was much shorter than both Ward's and Shaw's, and he seemed to be almost without hair except for one small patch.

"Welcome!" he said reaching out for them. "I am Barnok. And you, your names?"

"I'm Mr. Shaw, and this is my associate Mr. Ward."

"Ah, Shaw and Ward. Such nice names." Ward mumbled to Shaw under his breath.

"Kinda reminds me of a bald circus clown."

Shaw nodded, smiling.

"What? What was that?" Barnok asked.

"Oh, nothing," Shaw answered. "We were just commenting on your elegant place here."

"It is home to me. But, come, come, you must follow me to the dining room. I have prepared a feast for us!"

"A feast?" Shaw asked.

"Why, yes," Barnok said, turning away from the men and walking toward a door on the far side of the room.

"I kept track of your approach on my scanner, and computed that would be about time that you would feel the need for food." He paused at the door. "Was I correct?"

Shaw and Ward looked at each other.

"He is right according to me," Ward said.

"I'm afraid I agree," Shaw spoke as he motioned Ward to lead the way behind Barnok.

"Great! Great!" Barnok called back as he exited the room. "Follow me."

The guests noted small details as they walked the corridors of the ship. Abstract paintings lined the walls, soft lighting glowing on the ceiling and lining their pathway on the floor, and gentle music playing in their ears on instruments that the men could not discern.

The music came from well hidden speakers in the walls, and surrounded them and soothed them on their walk.

As Barnok turned and entered a side door off of the long walkway, Shaw called to him.

"You said on the radio, sir, that we were most welcome, but I did not expect this." Barnok motioned for them to enter.

"Expect it."

They stood open­mouthed at the scene before them. The same plush carpet was there as in the first

room, but in here on it stood a long table that was adorned with fine china, elaborate candelabras, and the best flatware.

"Amazing," Ward finally spoke out.

"A table setting for three," Barnok said.

The two vistors sat down at the table, with the alien chairs forming perfect cushions contouring to their body shapes.

"Very comfortable," Ward said, bouncing up and down in his chair like a young boy.

"I am glad that you approve."

"The meal smells great," Shaw noted, eyeing everything on the table. "Did you do this all yourself?"

Barnok smiled.

"Yes, all myself. It is not everyday that I am honored with visitors." Ward stopped his bouncing and turned to his host.

"No offense, sir, but I would think that it must get awful lonely up here all alone."

"Alone?" Barnok questioned, "but I am not alone."

Ward looked at Shaw, who in turn looked back at Barnok.

"Not alone?" he asked.

"Why, no. Whatever gave you that idea?"

"But there are no signs of anyone else living here. We just assumed . . ."

"Well, my friends," Barnok cut in, "you just assumed wrong, that's all."

Shaw reached down for his glass of liquid on the table.

"Tell us more," he said between drinks.

Barnok wiped some traces of the liquid from his lips, then he spoke.

"My good friend and I live here," he said.

"Friend?" Ward asked.

"Yes," Barnok said, "Mr. Ceid. He lives on the other side of the ship. We have been up here almost three years together." Barnok paused as he drank down a full glass of a liquid in front of him, then continued.

"We are at war."

Shaw's eyebrows went skyward, and his eyes darted from his partner to Barnok, as Ward cleared his throat slowly to begin to speak.

"At war?" Ward questioned.

Bornak shook his head.

"Yes. The tragedy of war is a terrible thing, a tough bit of realism to deal with. The cold, hard facts of numbers, head counts, and age of strategies worked out like stark­figured chess pieces on a chess board, except that this is real; no games, no acting, and the pieces are alive."

"Excuse my ignorance of this matter," Ward said, "but with whom?"

"With whom what?" Barnok asked.

"With whom are you at war?"

Barnok, thinking this question was funny, laughed out loud.

"Why, with each other, of course."

"Each other?" Shaw interrupted.

"Why, yes. His government and mine. There were years and years of battles on our planet, with much destruction and killing. No solution could ever be found between our people, so they sent him and me up here to battle and decide the war."

"What do you mean 'battle', Ward asked.

"Battle," Barnok said, "you know, engage the enemy."

"You mean," Shaw asked, leaning back in his chair as Ward was on the edge of his, "you two fight?"

"Yes," Barnok answered between bites, "and the winner in the allotted time wins the war."

Shaw turned to his partner.

"Interesting." Ward shook his head. Shaw turned his attention back to Barnok.

"And your planet?"

"They are busy rebuilding what the bombs have leveled, working in harmony with one another."

"And you two sit up here shooting at each other, while your planet leans back and watches you guys to learn the outcome?"

"Why, yes."

Shaw and Ward smiled as they decifered and clarified the facts of the evening and put them into their proper perspective. The thoughts of peace, war, and solutions were weighed for and against each other.

Finally, the men turned their attention back to their meal. The fine red wine sparkled through the lead crystal stemware glasses. Shaw studied the goblet intensely.

"Quite a fine service for a spaceship, this glass that you have here."

"They give us only the best," Barnok said.

"Obviously," Ward added.

"Gentlemen," Barnok broke in, "a toast to your arrival!" They held their three transparent containers skyward in unison.

"To your voyage and safe arrival.

"Here, here."

The liquid ran cool through the veins of the two visitors, and moistened their lips and throats for further speech.

"What is this food that we are having tonight, sir?" Ward asked.

"Cuts of meat from the stables of Vespare on the northern side of the planet."

"That tells me a lot," Ward chuckled.

"A rare delicacy, to be more exact."

"Oh, I see."

As Shaw and Ward ate their main meal and had almost reached it's finish, they slowly began to notice that Barnok's expression was changing, as a strange look came over his features. They watched him a moment, as he seemed to be straining to hear something.

"Is there something wrong?" Shaw finally asked.

"Quiet!" he said softly, but forcefully. "Listen!"

The men held the silence and probed the air for whatever sound Barnok thought that he had heard.

"I'm sorry, sir," Ward spoke, "but I don't . . ."

"Down!" Barnok screamed, and in one motion flung himself under the table. Instinctively, Ward and Shaw followed his action and, knocking over their chairs on the way down, found themselves under the table with him. Crouching down on all fours, Barnok drew out a gun from under his shirt that the other men had not known he possessed. Like a machine programmed for hearing, he gathered all information that his acute ears and mind could process and tried to conclude it in some orderly fashion.

The two other men lay silently together under their meal.

"I feel kind of silly," Ward whispered. As Shaw began to speak, Barnok sat up, and all of his muscles that were tense just moments before now relaxed. Like a threatened cat who finds himself in no danger, Barnok turned calm and serene.

"False alarm," he seemed to speak disappointedly, reholstering his gun, "please forgive me." Shaw and Ward watched him as he crawled out from under the table and raised up, then stumbled out behind him.

"What do you mean 'false alarm?'" they asked.

Barnok brushed himself off and turned to them.

"My enemy. My enemies on the ship. I thought that I had detected him outside the room. But it was apparently nothing." He looked all around the room, then smiled. "Please, gentlemen, finish your meal."

They just stood and stared at him.

"Finish our meal?"

"Of course. There is no danger at all." Barnok sat down and began to eat and drink again, while the other two men stood over him.

"Does this happen often?" Shaw questioned in an ironic tone of voice.

"What?"

"This nervousness that you have about being shot, this false alarm?"

"Oh, no. This was the first false alarm."

"First?"

"Yes. Please sit down." They slowly moved towards their overturned chairs, uprighting them while sitting down.

"Usually I can hear him coming. But this time, I think with you gentlemen here, I was just jumpy about any noise. I wanted nothing to upset our meal."

"You flunked there," Ward chimed in.

"Oh, come now, finish up your meal. Desert will follow soon."

"I'll pass," Shaw said.

"Me, too," Ward added, "I'm a little tired." He and shaw rose simultaneously from the table.

"Very well," Barnok said, "I guess the mood has been interrupted a bit." He stood up to join his guests.

"I'll show you to your sleeping quarters."

"Thanks. Are you going to be needing help to clean everything up?" Ward questioned.

Barnok laughed.

"Why, no. It is one of my little pleasures. To prepare, serve, and straighten up my parties for my friends. To do it all."

As the men watched Barnok head for the door, Shaw spoke under his breath.

"Probably not much more to do up here alone."

Ward nodded his head in agreement, as Barnok turned back to the men.

"Are you coming? he asked. The men waved.

Leading them down another adjacent hallway, the men followed closely behind.

"I have this feeling that it is easy to get lost in here," Ward said.

"I agree," Shaw answered. Barnok pointed to a large open door.

"Your sleeping quarters for the night. I hope that you will enjoy them."

"Thank you, sir. It has been an interesting evening," Shaw spoke. Barnok noted the hint of sarcasm in his visitors voice.'

"Yes, well, have a nice evening." He turned and walked away, disappearing down the end of the hallway.

Ward stretched out his hand.

"After you, sir."

"Thanks."

Inside their rooms, their beds were cocoon­ shaped vials hanging in the corners, looking much like holders recently spun for keeping young butterflies alive. The mixture of white cotton and lace was more comfortable than they had thought, but sleeping horizontal would take some getting used to. The rest of the room was adorned with the same fixtures and furniture that had been present in the other rooms.

Climbing into one of the alien beds, Shaw squirmed and pushed against the sides of his sleeping harness, trying to gain more room in it than there actually was. Ward chuckled as he watched his roommate try to solve his dilemma, then listened as Shaw spoke to him.

"What do you think of our host?" Ward thought.

"Well, for someone who says that he is at war, he holds it inside of him very well."

"I agree, almost as if it doesn't seem to bother him at all." Ward zipped his apparatus tightly around his body, and tried to find the right position that he could sleep in.

"Tomorrow," Shaw said, his eyes closed and half­way asleep, "let's go visit the other half of this ship's clientele, Mr. Barnok's so­called opponent."

Waking early, both men wiped the night's sleep away and became alert.

"Shall we continue with our investigation this morning?" Shaw spoke through yawns. Ward stretched out.

"Might as well. This seems as good a time as any." The two men dressed hurriedly and were on their way.

As the men left their room to go visit the other inhabitant of the space station, they found themselves walking by an open door with some shuffling going on behind it. Peeking inside, they saw Barnok inside singing at the top of his voice washing the previous night's dishes. Ward called out.

"We are going to visit your friend on the other part of the ship." Without missing a beat in the song that he was singing, Barnok shook his head up and down in acknowledgment of the statement. Shaw and Ward just shrugged their shoulders and continued on their journey.

Taking along a crude map that Barnok had hastily scribbled the night before, the two visitors headed out into the complex maze of the ship, searching for the other half of the population.

Hours later, they found themselves walking down a dimly lit hallway, heading for the only light that they could make out in the darkness. Inside a small chamber, oblivious to the visitors, sat a lone figure huddled over a desk stacked up with paperwork, hand­ held machines, and calculations.

"Hello," Shaw called out.

The man jumped, startled by the voice. But as quickly as he was caught off guard, he composed himself.

"Welcome," he spoke in a gentle voice, looking up from his work at the table. His tall frame, black hair and thickened eyebrows were quite a contrast from the other man on the ship.

"I was expecting you."

"Seems everyone was."

"I would have greeted you sooner," the man said leaning back in his chair, "but you landed on Barnok's side of the ship. My name is Ceid, and I hope that you feel as comfortable over here with me as you no doubt did with Barnok."

"It was quite comfortable over there," Ward admitted.

"And it will be here, too. We shall eat, and then I will introduce you to my speciality, the rain room."

"Rain room?"

"Yes. A combination shower, sauna, and heated springwater. You should enjoy it."

"Sounds great." Shaw cleared his throat. "Tell us, Ceid," he started, "Barnok said something about a war."

Ceid smiled.

"Yes, I am sure that he told you everything."

"And it's all true? You are up here to shoot each other?"

"Of course. To finish the war." Ward shook his head.

"Then I guess that it is true."

"Why, of course. Mr. Barnok would not lie to you gentlemen."

"Of course not. Silly of us to think that, " Shaw chuckled between words, as Ward smiled at his partner's wry humor.

"But enough of work," Ceid broke in, "let us enjoy the pleasure of wine and food. Gentlemen, please." Their host pointed in the direction of another door.

"I have a feeling that we might get fat on this space station yet," Shaw said. Ward laughed as Ceid opened the door and let the men enter the next room.

After the meal, Ceid clapped his hands as Ward and Shaw looked on.

"We have eaten," he observed. "Now it is time for the pleasure part of the evening. Gentlemen, if you would, the changing rooms are over there, and your apparel is waiting."

"Apparel?"

"Yes." Ceid stood. "No arguing. I will meet you outside the rain room door in ten minutes.

He disappeared behind a door off the dining room, leaving Shaw and Ward alone at the table.

"You never know what will be next up here."

"Well," Ward said, "I'm going to change and join him. This might be the best part of the trip."

"Wait for me, Shaw called, following Ward into the changing room.

Later, outside the room, the three men met at the pre­arranged time.

"Very good," Ceid said, "let us go in."

The door opened, and the wet­hot steam hit their faces like a soothing sauna. In the rain room, hundreds of fine jets of water were shot down from above, with pores on the floor to let the liquid out. The huge concrete walls echoed the sound of the water and bounced it back to its occupant's ears, making them talk in a louder tone of voice than normal.

"The water goes through pipes back to the engines to be used for cooling and heating," Ceid yelled as he brushed the water from his face.

"Quite a mastery of technology." The two men walked behind him.

"Amazing little convenience you have here," Shaw said as he entered the room. "Does Mr. Barnok have the same thing on his side?"

Ceid let the water pour over his body, as he turned around again and again to cover every inch of his frame with the liquid.

He spoke proudly.

"Barnok does not have a rain room on his side of the ship. The builders on the planet only put the one in, and I think that Barnok has has bad feelings about it ever since."

Ward and Shaw now entered the water stream and let the drops take hold of them.

"I don't blame Barnok," Ward said. "Any man could get used to this quickly."

Shaw nodded his head in agreement with his partner.

"This is some high class shower," he said.

"It does tend to relax and soothe the day away," Ceid said as he turned his head back upwards to catch the full force of the water against his face. The water filled his nostrils as he breathed in, and popped out as bubbles when he exhaled.

Then . . .

Time froze.

The sound of gunfire rang out.

It pounded its omnious and unmistakable "thud" against the barren walls and fixtures. Bright metal spigots and faucets overhead shattered and exploded into thousands of pieces, raining down with the water over the floor.

At the first recognition of the shots, the men reacted accordingly.

Water droplets were sent skyward as bodies fell hard on the wet concrete floor. The men lay prone across the surface, with the liquid pooling around their heads and appendages. Then, there was the sound of running from the corridor outside the room.

They lay there in drenched silence for moments, letting nothing but the sound of water enter their ears and register on their brains.

Ceid finally spoke.

"Everyone all right?"

Shaw and Ward began using their senses to probe their bodies for pain and damage. Still afraid to move, they used their minds to check arms, legs, anything that might have been hit.

"I seem to be intact," Shaw said apprehensively, raising himself up on one arm.

"I can't find anything missing from me, either," Ward added.

"Good, very good. I apologize for any inconvenience that you might encountered." Shaw laughed.

"Think nothing of it," he said sarcastically. "We get shot at in showers everyday."

"Excuse me for asking, Ceid," Ward said, "but what the hell just happened?"

"I told you," Ceid replied. "It's the war."

"In the shower?"

"The rain room, Mr. Ward," he corrected.

"Excuse me, the rain room. Is it common to get shot at in there?" Now all the men were standing and cleaning off any debris that still clung to them from the floor.

"Our attacks can come at any time."

"You mean his attacks," Shaw said.

"No, mine too. One never knows when I will just pop up."

"Like at dinner?" Ward said.

"What?"

"At dinner, with Mr. Barnok the other night. He got a little paranoid during the meal."

"At dinner?" Ceid whispered to himself. He was miles off in thought as Shaw and Ward headed for the door to exit the water.

"I think I've had enough of the rain room for one day," Ward said, turning the dew­layered knob opening the main door.

"I agree." Shaw added. "Are you coming, Ceid?"

He never heard the question.

"What? What was that?" he asked. Shaw and Ward just smiled as they left him to the waters.

Barnok cleared his throat.

"Gentlemen, I hope that you don't hold that little incident in the rain room against me."

Shaw and Ward stared at their host across the dinner table. Again, exotic foods and extras adorned the feast, but the mood of their conversation was quite different.

"You know, you about blew our heads off." The men had found their way back to Barnok, leaving the other man after their encounter in the rain room.

Fuming mad at him, they stormed in during his evening meal.

"Oh, no," Barnok defended himself, "I am a crack shot. One of the best. I would have only hit my target, Mr. Ceid."

"Then I suppose," Ward said sarcastically, "you missed Mr. Ceid on purpose and blew apart the water spigots?"

"Do you hate water spigots so much that you must shoot them?" Shaw added.

"A menace to society."

"No doubt."

Barnok interrupted their candor with his past mistake of marksmanship.

"Well . . . uh," he searched for words, "a slight miscalculation on my part."

Shaw smiled.

"Slight?"

The three men finally broke into laughter, letting go of their feelings and succombing to the humorous overtones of the conversation, and as they did, no one noticed a brief flash of light at the back of the room.

It was there but a second, then gone.

Then came the sound. Like rocket engine backfire, like fireworks tied together and simultaneously exploded, like gunfire.

Mr. Barnok's expression went from a smile, to surprise, to limp features. His neck seemed to give way under a heavy top load, his head fell forward onto the table.

Mr. Shaw and Mr. Ward stared.

Barnok lay in a pool of liquid and hardware.

The back of his head had been blown open, unveiling to the men the vast array of wires, veins, terminals and bones inside. The bullet had distorted the mixture of man and machine, sending computer chips into the wine, printed circuit boards onto the souffle, and red blood across the fine white linen.

"A machine!" Shaw yelled out.

Ceid chuckled from the corner. Hearing this, Shaw and Ward drew their guns on him, waiting for the next exchange of gunfire.

"Wait!" Ceid called out, "my friends, your guns are worthless here aboard our ship. Only mine and his work. Shaw still pointed his gun at Ceid.

"I'll call that bluff," he said. Pulling the trigger, only the gentle "click, click" broke the silence.

"I told you," Ceid assured him.

"Great," Shaw said. He and Ward stared down at Barnok losing his life on the table, then Ward spoke.

"Is this suppose to mean that you won the war now?"

Ceid laughed.

"Me? Oh, no. Not now. Come, follow me."

Ceid turned and disappeared behind one of the doors out of the room.

"Well," Shaw turned to Ward, "we might as well go." Ward shrugged his shoulders.

"What could we run into now that would surprise us?" Ward said. They left the room, leaving behind the blood that was starting to drip over the sides of the table, staining the white shag carpet.

The two men searched the corridors outside the banquet room.

"Down here," Ceid called out from one of the adjoining doors. Shaw and Ward entered together and were immediately overcome by what was inside. There, forming and lining the whole side of a wall, stood a huge machine. Red and green and blue lights rimmed the grey­white mass like tubes of colored neon gas, while tapes whirred and switches flipped.

"A computer?" Shaw asked.

"One of the best. Observe," Ceid said, smiling at his visitors like a young boy ready to show off a new toy. He walked over to one of the consoles attached to the machine and touched a button labeled "Tabulation."

Tapes began spinning, while a low hum coming from a speaker in the room built up an audible, understandable voice. Shaw and Ward just listened.

"Ah," the computer voice spoke out in a monotone voice, "I see that it is Mr. Ceid winning this time. Very good, very good."

Ceid spoke to the machine.

"Yes, I won this time. This evens it up, doesn't it?"

The computer melted the question into its wires, and squeaked and crackled as it searched it's memory.

"Yes, Mr. Ceid. The score is now seventeen to seventeen. May I ask, where is the body?"

Ceid laughed.

"Oh, yes. The body. It is in the dining room. I got him between the wine and the steaks."

Shaw and Ward walked closer to the computer.

"Oh, well, I'll have him as good as new in no time."

The two men observing the scene turned and looked at each other.

"Good as new?" they mumbled.

"Sure," Ceid said. "Didn't you know?"

"Know what?" Ward questioned.

"Barnok and I, we are both mechanical clones.

Combinations of man and machine. He will be back soon and we will fight again some other night."

"Fight again?" Shaw let this new information register in his mind for a moment, then spoke.

"How long will this go on?"

"What?" Ceid asked.

"The fighting each other."

Ceid was puzzled.

"Go on? Why, the time factor is one year. Isn't that right?"

The computer whined and blinked, and talked.

"One year."

"You mean," Shaw directed his question to the computer and Ceid together, "this fighting is supposed to go on for a year?"

"Yes," Ceid answered, while the computer kept silent.

"But I thought that you had been up here three years?" Ward added.

"Oh, we have been. The first year ended up in a tie, score nine to nine. The second year Barnok and I got to be better shots, and it ended up to be twenty­five to twenty­five. So we've had to go to a third year to try to break the tie."

"And the computer?"

"The computer keeps totals and sends down yearly reports to the planet."

"So far they have always been tied?"

"Yes." Shaw turned to Ward.

"I wonder if it will always be like that?"

"Probably."

"So," Shaw said, "no one will ever win."

"Or lose," Ward added.

Shaw smiled.

"Clever men." Ceid said.

There was a rustle in the back of the room. The three men turned at once, with Ceid speaking out first.

"Well, I see that you are back already."

As Mr. Shaw and Mr. Ward both stood openmouthed, Barnok entered the room through the door looking like the gentle explosion that took place in his brain minutes before never happened. Looking, to Shaw and Ward . . . alive.

"Yes," Barnok said as if speaking from the dead, "I am back. And may I add, a very good shot on your part, there in the dining room."

"Oh, it was nothing," Ceid answered, walking over and extending his arm as if to shake the hand of an old friend. As their hands met in unison, Ceid continued.

"My gunshot still doesn't rank up there with the one you had through the food aisles last month." Barnok shook his head up and down modestly agreeing with his counterpart.

As the two men greeted each other like long lost relatives, Ward and Shaw spoke quietly to each other.

"I wonder how long this will go on?" Ward asked.

"Go on?" Shaw paused, "my guess is a long time."

"Really."

"Sure. There is peace on the planet as long as these two are up here fighting, so why quit. They'll just continue to hunt each other, add up the scores, and enjoy their wine."

"And every year come up tied."

Shaw laughed.

"Sounds like a pretty good agreement," Ward said.

"Not bad at all," added Shaw, now watching Barnok and Ceid go arm in arm into the corridor, reliving old war stories.

"Not bad at all."

A voice crackled over the radio.

"You must come again."

"Oh, we will," Shaw said into the microphone.

The ships rockets were trembling as they were finally warmed up.

"We must go now, Barnok. Shaw called back.

"Anytime. Thank you men so much for the visit," Barnok replied over the airwaves. As their ship pulled away from the space station, Ward called back over the radio.

"Barnok?" he said.

"Yes." "Where is Mr. Ceid? We would like to thank him for his hospitality, too." There was a moment of silence, then he replied.

"Oh, he is in the rain room at the moment. I will tell him that you thought of him and said good­bye."

"Alright," Ward said. As the ship lighted it's engine and left the space station, all that Mr. Shaw and Mr. Ward could hear over the now voiceless radio was music from the piped­in speakers on the space station, then . . . as the men listened closely to their headsets, the sound of gun report . . . the faint sounds of water falling in the rain room.

Voyager

Reta Ca Seh sat contemplating the night's upcoming activities in his new xyplo­haired chair.

"Honey, we are going to the festival, aren't we?" he said as he adjusted the arms of the chair a little higher. He had promised his wife that the next time he would have the white and brown chairs customed built for himself. He did not mind paying a few more clons if it meant better comfort.

"Do we have to go this time?" she cried from the food bin. "We always get so bored at those celebrations.

You have too much wine and I end up driving the sand glide home."

Reta smiled. He remembered all too well.

"But we have to go, dear. I know that every year we go to the celebration, but seven­zero­zero­point­ zero years ago exactly today our tribal bond was born.

This is the once in a lifetime thing! Anyway, it will be good to get Ty away from those rockets. All he does is play with them all day."

Reta lifled up and strolled across the room. He picked out an entertainment disc that was pretty popular during his younger years, and quietly listened as he dreamed of memories ago. His silence was interrupted.

"I have been meaning to talk to you about those rockets he plays with," his wife said as she entered the room. The blue lights from the ceiling screens caught her at the door, and followed her as she walked across the carpet. She looked younger than he had remembered, Reta thought. Not too often did she ever come in his personal room, but tonight he did not mind anyway.

"It seems that someone has come up with a new playtoy. These rockets now have a heat­proof shield on them, they are cheaper, and they also have atomic fuel in them geared up to a faster speed and longer travel. And to top it all off, they are only the size of one's hand, so

they are very portable. Why, he even carries three or four of them around in his pockets. He is in out in the yard right now with one of them."

Reta thought of his childhood with rockets. The entertainment disc made him moody. Was it so long ago? he thought.

"I will talk to him," he said, leaving the room.

"Get him ready for the festival," his wife said as she followed him. Before she left the room she shut off the entertainment disc of distant music.

Reta gazed at the sky as he walked into the yard.

The clouds overhead seemed denser now. They always looked this way about this time of day. How he dreamed of meeting faces of far away places. How he dreamed...

"Hi, dad."

His son Ty was just outside the night blue lights on the edge of the sand. Reta could see himself in his son, the same thickened blond hair, and dark smooth skin. He sensed a bit longing in his body. He could easily recall giving up all the festival lights on the planet just to play with his rockets in the silver hills.

"What are you doing, son?" he asked softly.

"Well, you see, Dad, I have this new rocket. I figured I could shoot it off and maybe get through the clouds, and maybe have it meet with some outer space man."

Reta laughed. Ty was always talking about some outer space men. He sat down with his son, on the sand. His wife was right, he thought. The new rocket was no bigger than his hand. It had a container on top, with the bottom being just a stick to put it in the ground to hold it up. The end of the container had the traditional wires coming out of it for hooking up an

ignition system. He thought of how many clons he had spent on that new system for Ty during the last festival.

"Look here, Dad," Ty said exicitedly. "When the outer space men find my rocket in the sky, well, there is a note for them."

Reta turned his head and looked into the boy's hand. There, on a shiny silver paper, he could tell that his son had written something with his crayon­like pencils."

He smiled. "May I read this open letter to the stars?"

His son handed him the paper. He opened it slowly and read it outloud: Dear Outer Space People. My name is Ty Seh. I live on the second planet from the Great Ball.

I reside between the silver mountains, and my personal audio tela digit is 825.92(63). Feel free to call anytime.

At the bottom of the page his son had drawn a picture of his pet xyplo, 'Mozz.'

"Surely," his son said as he took the paper, wrapped it up, and placed it in the vial on the rocket, "any outer space man would know what a xyplo looks like."

Reta watched his son attach the ignition wires to the rocket. He could only hope to live long enough to see his boy become a man. He knew that he would be as proud of him then as he was now.

Wonder seemed to fill Ty's eyes. Who would read his note? Who would he talk to? Who could he share his dark, guarded secrets of the silver mountain rocket travel with?

"Ready, Dad?" Ty yelled, grinning at his father.

Reta stood up and walked around behind his son. He put his hand on Ty's shoulder.

"Ready, son," he answered.

Ty pushed the button. The thin air seemed to stand still as it was pulled into the rocket for a split second. Then, as suddenly as it went in, the clear gas came out behind the small craft as a flame and quickly...the rocket was gone.

The boy and his father stood looking up at the dense clouds for a minute. It had not taken long for the rocket to disappear into, and through, their thickness.

Ty looked down. "Launch complete, sir."

Reta was still looking up at the clouds.

"Launch complete," he finally said.

As the rocket shot through the clouds of the second planet and left its upper atmosphere, the small supply of fuel ran out, and it drifted at sixty miles an hour into space.

At that moment on the third planet (over twenty­ six million miles away), 30,000 people had crowded around a New York mortician's business to try to catch one last glimpse of the hero who had just died, a man named Rudolph Valentino.

As it drifted past 21,024,000 miles from the third planet, Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind appeared in bookstores.

It barely dodged a meteor at 15,768,000 miles from the third planet, while Winston Churchill spoke in Fulton, Missouri. It still had not lost a fraction of speed.

When Hungarians revolted and toppled a giant statue of Stalin, the rocket was 10,512,000 miles from the third planet.

At 5,256,000 miles from the third planet, it did not realize that it was sharing the vastness of space with another craft. Surveyor One had just landed on the moon from the third planet.

When it was 525,600 miles from the third planet, one land mass on it was having a Bicentennial.

As it reached the edge of the third planet's atmosphere, the force of gravity upon it was too much, and it was drawn towards the planet like a magnet, gaining speed as it dropped.

Bob Turner gazed up at the stars from his ancient rocker.

"Well here it is another Fourth of July, Ma, and still we sit!" he said.

His wife had many years etched in the lines around her eyes, but they still seemed to shine as she talked. "We are getting too old for that sort of thing, Pa. The goingson today are for our grandchildren now, not us. I am content in sitting here quietly," she said.

The small rocket passed India.

"Sure is alot quieter this year than last year," he said looking around at the ground, taking a good long drink of iced tea. They could have their dad­blamed whiskey, he once said. A cold glass of iced tea did wonders for him.

His wife shifted. "It was that Bicentennial stuff last year that got everyone all riled up. Sure glad it's all over."

The rocket passed over the Pacific Ocean.

"You know," Bob said, "I was reading an article in the paper today about the United States sending a rocket called 'Voyager' out to contact people in outer

space. Seems that they put a recorder on that thing that says 'hello' in over sixty different languages."

"Really," his wife said, half­interested.

"Yes," he said. "They even have one that says 'Hi, you all' in whale language."

"A whale talking!" she cried as she stopped rocking.

"Sure enough," he continued, "but I really do not think that Martians really speak 'whale'."

She looked up at the sky.

"Doc Warner talks to goldfish when he visits them in the tanks down at Woolworth's," she said turning to him.

"Doc Warner gets conversation from a stone wall, too!" he laughed.

"That is true," she said, starting to rock again.

At that moment, the small rocket passed over their house in a tiny flash of light. Gravity had pulled it down too much, and it hit with a soft bang about two hundred feet from the back porch. Bob Turner never moved.

After the quick puff of smoke the rocket caused had disappeared, everything settled back into place.

"Pa," his wife said watching the dust fall back onto the ground, "I sure wish those town policemen would regulate those bottle rockets. Why, that one almost hit our house." Bob stood up.

"I'll tell Mrs. Princeton to have her kids shoot their fireworks the other wat next time. That one did come mighty close."

He glanced up at the stars. For a while he just stared. Then he spoke.

"Ma, did you ever think someone might try to talk to us down here on earth?"

She got up and walked over beside him. She took his arm into hers.

"I doubt it, pa," she whispered. "Anyway, they would probably send us a whale saying 'hello', and we would never know what he was talking about."

He lowered his head.

"I guess you are right." He paused.

"Let's go to bed, pa," she said, moving him towards the door.

"To bed," he repeated, shutting the door behind him.

The small rocket stuck in the ground fro two days until a stray dog carried it away and dropped it while crossing the old Illinois Central Railroad tracks.

There it stayed for four hours, until it was lost when Engine Number 102 bound for St. Louis came by at 10:10 p.m. and smashed it beyond repairs.

The next day the wind blew the small silver paper across two fields where Hank Duwall's son found it and, not being able to read the writing, threw it in the incinerator and burned it up. It was the first time he had taken the trash out in two weeks.

The Painting

She watched the figure as it descended the hill and walked towards the house.

"Michael, is that you?"

He managed a small wave, but otherwise did not break stride. He walked up and gave her a light kiss on the lips, and the scent of the distant hills lingered with him like an odorous perfume. But she could already tell where he had been. There was only one place he could be if he was gone this long alone.

"You have been with the old man again, haven't you?" The hot air blew Michael's hair as he poured himself a cool drink. He looked at his reflection in the glass, and watched the mirror­image make faces back at him as he made faces at it.

He smiled. He frowned. He winked. He moved his eyebrows up and down as every gesture he did, the glass mimicked him.

"Michael?"

He jumped.

"Michael, listen to me. The old man again?"

He shook his head.

"Yes." Sherri flopped down into a chair.

"Why do you keep seeing him, Michael?" He took a few sips of the liquid, then spoke.

"I have told you before. He is one of the last Martians here on the planet. All of his relatives and friends are gone, so he is lonely. I go to listen to him, to keep him company. And, he teaches me things. Things that I never knew before."

She gave him one of her sarcastic looks.

"Like what?" she asked.

"Well, for one thing," Michael said, "he taught me a new style of painting."

"Is that what you call what you are doing in our bedroom on that huge canvas?" She gestured towards one of the rooms in the house. "That is a new style of painting?"

Michael laughed.

"Yes, honey. That is it."

Sherri stood up and walked over to sit down beside him.

"What is so new about this style of painting?" she asked. Michael leaned over and gently kissed her on the cheek.

"You will see," he said. She looked at him, not sure how to take what he had just said.

"Sometimes I wonder if I really like living here on this damn planet," she said sharply, leaving the room.

Over the days, she watched as the transformation of thought and idea to paint and canvas took place. It was like watching a picture develop

before her eyes. White clouds against blue sky. Dark water against light sand.

And then there was the woman.

She was in the center of the painting and obviously the main attraction. Her golden hair melted in with the sky over her, while her features seemed to emphasize the rest of the scenery.

Sherri studied the painting, eyeing the structures and formation of the woman. The she turned to her husband.

"Who is she?" Sherri asked.

Michael shifted.

"Just someone that I dreamed up."

"An old girlfriend?"

"No." Michael kept on painting.

"Someone that you knew in school?"

"No, Sherri. She is just a face that came to me."

Disgusted by not hearing what she wanted to hear, Sherri turned and walked towards the door to leave the room. Pausing as she went out, she looked back at the painting.

"Michael, she looks like one of the Martian women that the old man talks about."

Michael put down his brush and looked at the painting.

"Have you ever really seen a Martian woman, Michael?" Sherri asked.

"Only in what the old man has told me."

She cleared her throat.

"Is that one of them?"

Michael picked his brush back up.

"I'm not sure," he said. "It is just someone that came into my dreams one night."

"She is very beautiful," Sherri said. Michael stopped and turned to look at his wife. She smiled at him, then turned and went out the door.

Later that night, as she passed by the bedroom door where Michael was inside painting, she heard his voice. She peaked her head around the corner of the door and saw and heard Michael whispering to the painting. It was so faint that she could not make out what he was saying. So Sherri went into the bathroom and slammed the door.

That night she slept on the couch.

The next morning, Michael went into the village. He had run low on paint the night before, so he needed to buy more. Approaching the store where he had always bought his paint before, Michael stopped at the front door. For some reason, he did not go in, but kept thinking about going on down the sidewalk. He was drawn to keep on walking.

At the end of the street, in a wooden framed structure that was never noticed before, a small weather­ beaten shop held up the awning at the end of the walkway. His hand reached for the knob, and turning it, he entered.

The light rays that shone through the steamy windows made the air inside the building take on a magic effect. Michael's movements seemed to be in slow motion as he glided around the store. Ancient wooden beams held up the aisles of merchandise that was randomly placed around the store. Huge ceiling fans rotated above the scene, gently blowing his hair from side to side.

Every now and then Michael could detect movements in the other aisles. He caught a glimpse of a

short man with darkened eyes darting around the store rearranging things, but never stopping long enough to give Michael a good look at him. This seemed to suit Michael, for he tried to keep his distance from the old man, although he did not know why.

Finally, in one of the last aisles, he found the paint supplies. Michael studied the jars for the colors that he needed. The small vials holding the colors were not labeled in different shades, but just read on the outside "blue" or "green." But somehow Michael knew that they would work. That they would be the perfect color. His hand almost seemed to move itself picking up the chosen colors.

The last jar that he picked up was a different shaped container, and Michael looked over the carefully.

It had no indication on the outside of what shade it was, the label just read "for eyes." He looked up, and noticed the old proprietor of the store watching him. He saw the jar which Michael held in his hand, and just stood there shaking his head up and down in apparent approval.

In the evening, she apologized to him for just how foolishly she had been acting lately, but she just had to ask one more question.

"Michael, do you still love me?"

He lay on his back next to her, and he laughed a small laugh.

"Yes, Sherri. I do," he replied. She turned over on her side to face him.

"It is just that..." he paused, the continued, "I have just been so wrapped up in my work lately. I seem to run out of time in the day to do everything that I want to do."

She sighed.

"But this is your first painting."

"I know," he said, "but it is the one. The only one, probably." She looked at him, trying to read his words.

"This is probably my first and last painting, so try to bear with me."

"Okay," she answered. "I'll try."

"That's a deal," he said.

Later, as she lay in bed beside him, she watched him as he slept. Michael had a faint smile on his lips.

Sherri watched and wondered would he be dreaming of her, or that Martian lady? She made herself mad again, and turned away from him for the rest of the night.

Over the next few days, she began to resent the time that Michael was spending with his painting. She began to needle him about it.

"Why don't you paint a picture of me?" He would just smile and speak back to her softly.

"I probably will, someday," though he sensed this was his last painting.

The audio bell rang. The sudden noise startled Sherri from a daydream that she was having. She slowly picked up the receiver.

"Hello," she said over the wires.

"Is Michael there?" a faint voice asked through the mechanism. Sherri did not recognize the voice, as she looked into the bedroom to see where Michael was.

"He is deep into his painting right now," she said back to the voice. "Can he call you back?"

The voice continued.

"Just remind him not to forget the eyes." She was puzzled over this statement.

"Eyes?" Sherri questioned.

"Yes," the voice said. "The eyes on the painting. They are the key to the painting. Tell Michael not to forget them."

"But..."

The phone line went dead in Sherri's hand. She placed the receiver back onto the table, and looked in at Michael. He called to her as she stood in the doorway.

"Who was that, Sherri?"

She stared.

"Just a voice," she said. "He said to tell you to not forget the eyes on the painting."

Michael paused.

"It must have been the old man in the hills. He is looking in on me, I guess. You know, it is strange.

The eyes are just where I am about to begin on the painting."

He studied the painting for a few moments, then out the paint on the brush to begin. The painting seemed to hold him like an invisible web, like marionette wires pulling his arms up and down to paint, turning the brush ever so slightly in his hand.

The painting grasped. It drugged. The colors bound and held. The picture was spellbinding. As he touched the brush to canvas, he stopped and leaned back on his stool.

"You know, Sherri," he said as he stared at the painting, "that old man doesn't even have a phone in his place. I wonder how he called here?"

Sherri just watched him work. For some reason, this information did not seem to surprise her.

Everytime that she looked at the painting, the colors seemed to be more vivid. This started to bother her. Even parts of it that Michael had finished days

before became more colorful as time passed. Like dormant hues suddenly becoming alive. Like sleeping shades suddenly waking up. Sherri put aside all of this down to her overworked imagination, and continued to bother him about the painting. Until one day, late in the evening, he announced what she had been waiting to hear.

"It is done."

She lay in bed while he crawled in next to her.

"The painting is done?"

"Yes," he said. She looked at him while he in turn looked away in the direction of the painting. The moments of silence passed. He finally turned back to her.

"Sherri."

"Yes." He had a strange look in his eyes.

"Goodnight." He lay back and smiled. She just watched him as he fell asleep. If only she could enter his mind just once. Maybe she could hear him talk to his lady in the painting. She gave up the idea, and lay back to fall asleep next to him.

The voice pounded in her ears.

"Good­bye, Sherri. Thanks for taking care of him."

The voice was a woman's voice, but Sherri could not recognize it. But it kept throbbing inside her head.

"Good­bye, Sherri. Thanks for everything.

Now I will take care of him."

Sherri fought to quiet the voice, but it persisted.

"Stop!" she finally screamed.

She woke herself up.

It was just a dream! she thought to herself. She laughed slightly at her situation, then reached over to touch Michael. He was sleeping silently beside her, and she was glad that her yelling had not awakened him.

She turned over to go back to sleep.

"I hope the dream doesn't come back," she whispered to the night.

The silence awoke her.

She lay there in bed for what seemed to be hours, feeling the air with her mind. Taking in the quietness. The stillness.

Then, the tranquility seemed to bother her. It was all wrong. She reached out to shut on the light by her bed. Slowly, she turned her head to her husband's side of the bed. But it was empty.

Sherri raised up and looked around the room.

Putting her feet over the bed and onto the floor, she was not sure which way to go first. She called out to him, but there was no answer. She called again. But the echos of the house returned he calls alone.

Noticing the closet door open, she ran to it and threw it back the rest of the way and looked inside. All of his clothes were gone, with his suitcase. The clothes hangers hung empty in the closet like strange geometric forms.

Slowly walking out of the closet, Sherri looked around the room more closely. The bedroom door was ajar. She remembered closing it before she went to bed.

Someone must have left through it during the night. A sudden chill ran through Sherri as a strange feeling fell over the room. Slowly, she turned to the far wall.

To the painting.

The beach was still there, reflecting the sun off of its sand. The ocean was still there, its waves pounding against the cool land. The colors were still there. The forms were still there. But there was something different. Something incorrect. Something missing.

The woman!

The woman was gone.

Sherri moved closer to the canvas. The figure was not erased. The figure was not painted over. It was just gone. Like an old picture fading away. Like she had never been there in the first place. Or, if she had been, she had left.

Sherri slowly sat back onto the bed. She stared at the painting.

The woman was gone.

She stared.

Michael was gone.

She stared.

Then she screamed.

Emdrito Miller floated.

Through the deep haze of the blackened sky, he piloted his wingless craft in silenced procession. He moved through the void, distrubing nothing. No sound, no exhaust. The vaccumn drew him through like a magnet heading for a undefined goal.

He squeezed a trigger. Puffs of light indicated a jettison of fuel to change and slow down direction, but no other trace could be discerned. Miller slowed down his one­man flying spacecraft.

"Steve," he said slowly through the helmet radio, "Steve, are you there?" The voice on the other end crackled through the distance.

"I'm here, big guy. You alright?"

"I'm fine. It's beautiful out here, you know that," Miller said.

"That, I'm sure," Steve replied. "Are you getting close?" he asked.

Miller focused ahead.

"Yes. Another 5 to 7 minutes and I should be there. This manned­manuvering unit performs very well. Just like the simulators back home." Miller kept his vision focused on the small object ahead of him.

"Be careful," Steve said over the radio. "You know this object ahead of you supposedly came from Daron. That planet had been called the sister planet of Earth, just in a different galaxy. It was discovered about 40 years ago, and supposedly developed remarkably similar to ours. The way I understand it, the only trouble that they had was their language. They were having some trouble with understanding all the different dialects around the planet, and were looking for one language that the entire population could use. They decided after study to use our own English language as a nationwide experiment for all of the inhabitants to use."

"Where did they get our language?" Miller asked.

"From intercepted radio transmissions, I was told. They were so far advanced that they took bits and pieces from these transmissions and designed a language around them. There was also talk about strained relationships between factions on the planet. I'm not sure if this developed into anything, though. We've been out of touch with the people down there for almost two years now. No one knows why communications broke off. Just one faint signal from a pod in orbit. That mass you are about to come upon."

"And I should add," Miler said, "I'm about three minutes from it. It's a white cylinderical object, with a few what could be called 'windows' on the side. I also think there's some writing on it, but I can't make it out yet. I'll have to wait until I get closer."

Miller nudged and pulled his unit along with silent jets spitting out retro fluid.

"Closing in," he called out.

"Roger, closing in," Steve radioed back.

"I can make out some letters on the side of the craft," Miller said. "There an E, a M, a D...2800 nitrogen left in my tanks...a R, an I, a T, and an O...1700 nitrogen left...emdrito?"

Steve repeated his partners deciphering.

"Emdrito?" he said, "what's that mean?"

"I can't know at this point," Miller said, "I've made it, though. Here goes." Steve waited over the yards for confirmation that Miller was truly there.

"Soft dock...trunion device in...screw in...hard dock...pods attached...I'm connected to the pods."

Steve breathed a sigh of relief. "Good going, Miller," he said. "Can you get the internal monitor attached?"

"Already ahead of you," Miller called back. "I found an outside duct, and attached the monitor wires to it. Try your computer readings."

Steve switched some dials and threw some toggles, and suddenly the lights on one of the consoles came to life.

"Got it," Steve yelled through the headset.

Miller laughed back. "So I here. Getting any readings?"

"The place is lit up like a Christmas tree over here. You better start checking inside to see why I'm getting these extraordinary readings."

Miller rotated around the axis of his docking device so that his eyes could see into one of the small windows of the craft.

"I'm looking inside now. They have the strangest thing inside."

"Can you describe it?" Steve asked.

"There are about 100 of what looks like...incubators inside. All lined up and hooked up to tubes. I can read gauges and outlet valves on the walls­ oxygen, food, etc. Some of the words are spelled wrong, but it is pretty easy to make them out.

Everything is clean­white in there. Inside the incubators...well...are you ready...are babies!"

"Babies?" lanet. I'm not sure if this developed into anyt "Yes! All moving around! Crying, playing, sleeping,

everything! The wall has a type of poster on it that I can read. Hold on and I'll get back to you."

Steve waited, trying to figure out the situation.

"In general," Miller broke back in, "it talks about the planet. It's problems, etc., and how they were destroying each other because of their language leading to misunderstandings, falsehoods, and suspicions. When it came down to thinking that it had gone too far and that the talk was no one would survive the holacaust that was taking place, they shot off this satellite as the planet apparently died, with the awareness and importance of children being stressed throughout the dying planet, and, if saving anything, it must be the next generation. To survive and go on with their beliefs and teachings. They left notebooks, computer banks, readings, everything to educate their young when they get older. You know, it's funny, some of the letters are backwards on the poster.

Some d's should be b's, some t's missing, that kind of thing."

"Sort of a dyslescia?" Steve asked.

"I guess, where you sometimes transpose the letters backwards. An ailment on Earth for some people.

Maybe they didn't get everything from our language, and this was a drawback of trying to learn it themselves."

Miller thought for a moment.

"You know, Steve, you better put the hot water on."

"Say again?"

"You better put the hot water on. I think we are about to deliver some last survivors. You see, I think we mis­read the markings on the satelite. Emdrito, I think, should read e­m­b­r­y­o."

"Embryo?"

"Yes," Miller said. "I've always wanted to be a daddy."

Wait for the Heroes

The hot sand blew over the planet. It caught in everything. Sand in rocks. Sand on the brush. Sand on the sand. It clung to your clothes. It lodged in your hair. It layered your body like a thin film.

Sam looked up at the grill on the ceiling. He could see the sand blow past the iron bars above. It was his only window to the outside world. Sometimes, when it stormed, the sand crashed down through the opening and covered the floor. After the storms were over, he would just shovel the debris to one corner of the room, and continue to stare up at the grill.

His sand cell was twenty feet wide and twenty feet long, and it was twelve feet from the floor to the ceiling. He had paced the distance off many times, so he had the measurments down by heart. There was no door. There were no other rooms. Just his own personal box sitting down into the sand. Only the grill was above the ground. The rest, and Sam, were buried into the planet.

The walls were a dirty gray. The sand seemed to be painted onto them, textured right into the cracks of the structure. Sam, though, never worried about a new

layer on them. All he had to do was wait for the next storm on the surface to come, bringing new sand in through the hole.

He sat and thought.

It had been three days since the ship had left him there in the sand cell. They left him to keep him quiet.

They left him so that he could not disturb the other crewmembers. They left him to the sand.

The ship had left his home planet six days before in a glorious ceremony.

"No more small raids!" the people shouted.

"This time we go all out. The big attack!" It had taken a year in planning, requiring countless numbers of soldiers. Now they were off on the biggest invasion in the planets history.

But on the journey towards the planet, Sam had second thoughts.

"Suicidal!" he cried.

"Crazy!" he screamed.

"The invasion will never succeed!" he yelled down the long aisles of men. The captain in charge turned slowly toward him. For a moment, his medals made Sam shield his eyes as they reflected the corridor's lights towards him.

"And just why not?" he asked.

"I just know it won't," Sam continued. "I dreamed about it last night. We failed! None of us left!"

The men laughed. The captain ordered Sam in for psyco­therapy. But he grew worse as the journey continued, screaming about how they would all be killed. So, three days out, the ship stopped on the middle planet in the system to deposit a cargo. The men

led Sam out of the ship while the captain watched from one of the windows.

Then the captain called out.

"Wait!"

The men stopped, as the captain walked out and up to his crew.

"I'll take him."

So the captain and Sam walked out across the sand. The gentle wind blew their hair, as the sand made a dull sound as it swirled under their feet. The captain finally broke the silence.

"I don't blame you if you feel bitter."

Sam stopped and confronted his superior.

"I'm not really bitter, Captain. I'm just tired of the bombs, of the deaths. Of the war."

"I see," the captain said. Both he and Sam looked up at the sky. Their home planet was just rising above the horizon. Even across the distance of another world, they could make out the land masses where their people lived, and the oceans which seperated the various languages and beliefs.

"It is beautiful," the captain said.

"Yes, it is." Sam sighed a small sigh. The captain spoke. N "Maybe someday it will change. The war and all."

"I hope," Sam said.

"You know, I must go now," the captain said.

Sam laughed.

"I guess you know that I must stay."

The captain looked at Sam, then turned and motioned back to his men.

"Good luck."

"Thanks," Sam answered.

The men approached Sam, and he knew what was expected. He turned and walked out into the sand, followed by the men. The captain watched, as they took Sam away. Then he closed his eyes.

They took him and threw him into one of the sand cells on the planet. To have him cause no trouble.

To let him keep his silly thoughts of failure to himself.

"We will pick you up on our way back, Sam," the captain called. "But for now I need my men in the best mental shape they can give me. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I suppose," Sam mumbled through the opening at the top of the cell.

He heard the roaring of the rockets and then...silence. He sat for a moment collecting his thoughts and observing his surroundings. Then Sam opened a notebook that his fellow shipmates had so graciously left him. He began to write: "Day One­Today I begin my wait for the glorious war heroes to return."

The two planets had been at war off and on for about two years now. Mostly it was just guerilla­type raids on each others planets. A small attack group of soldiers would destroy key military positions and maybe take some prisoners. This is where the sand cells came in. It was thought to be ideal place to house the captives secretly on the middle planet between the two waring worlds.

There were many of these cells scattered around the planet. They were built at random into the land. But none of them connected. They were just one room hotels with one hole in them, the grill to the surface, to

interogate and torture. The cells fitted in well with their surroundings. Some thought too well. Thus, they were dubbed the "sand cells".

Sam heard a sound.

A changing of the wind. A shift in the still night. An echo so far away, loke a distant train whistle in the late night, not being able to tell whether the object is moving or frozen just over the horizon somewhere.

He strained his ears and listened more closely.

The vibrations through the air finally became distinguishable. The tone over the miles became recognizable.

Then it came again. He looked up through the grill of the cell. There, in the night sky, he could see the two planets. Their tinted colors glowed across the heavens. They both seemed so peaceful up so high.

Whoever would have thought that they would...

A flash of light streaked overhead.

Sam had to blink at the sudden brightness breaking the night sky. He shaded from the illumination around his cell. Then, Sam heard a large crash, like what seemed to be the"thud" of a rocket landing. It did not seem like it landed too far away, he thought to himself. Sam was quiet as he struggled to hear something. Anything.

The minutes passed through the mind so slowly, like rushing water thickened by the coldness of the wind.

Finally, he heard the sound like a door opening.

Then, as Sam listened...voices. He could tell by their distinct accent that they were from the enemy planet.

"Here, Venra," a voice cried. "We will put you in here!"

Sam could hear the sound of a grill of another sand cell being opened. He figured it to be about fifty feet away from his own cell.

"Venra, you will be more happy here during the attack," another voice shouted. There was the sound of laughter from a number of other voices.

Their planet on an attack? Sam thought.

"Fools!" a voice yelled from the distant cell.

Sam listened again.

"No, not fools," the first voice answered. "Just men tired of war. One last attack to finish what they started."

Sam studied the conversation.

"We will be back to pick you up, Venra. Peace be with you."

Sam could hear the rockets start up and hum again. He could tell by their sound that they were not his own planet's rockets. He waited.

The rocket lifted off, and Sam watched it head out towards his own planet. His planet?

He sat down to think. Sam put together the pieces of what he had just come across. An enemy ship lands and leaves a man in a sand cell. They talk of attack, and then lift off towards his own planet. It almost seemed that what had happened to him, had happened to one of his enemy's ships and crewmen.

A chill ran through Sam. "And what of my own ship?" he whispered to the sand. He slowly raised his head towards the blackness of space that he could see through the grill.

All night he watched the sky. It had been three days total since his people had dropped him off. They

should reach the enemy planet tonight and destroy it.

Victory to us? The thought slightly enlightened him, and slightly saddened him. He watched the heavens all night. But nothing changed. The enemy planet had rose, and the enemy planet had set.

Sam laid back down on the cool night sand.

"Maybe tomorrow," he said.

It was the sixth night now since he had been left on the planet. Sam had watched diligently, but nothing had changed in the sky. He began to wonder about his people. Would they be victorious? Would they come back to get him? Sam turned these thoughts over in his mind. Every once in awhile he strained to try to hear the other prisoner. But he did not make much noise. He kept as quiet as the night stars. So Sam kept alone to his thoughts.

One thought had stuck in his head since being in his sand cell. He reached back into his memory and thought back to 1997 when his grandfather gave him a book from "Earth", named "Treasure Island." Sam sat down on the floor and remembered. He seemed to recall a name from the book.

Ben...Ben Gunn was the name he searched for.

Now he remembered! Ben Gunn, who was marroned on Treasure Island for the longest time. Sam laughed.

"Well, here I am," he said outloud to the sand, "the future Ben Gunn. Yo ho ho and a bottle of..."

He looked around the cell.

"Yo ho ho and a bottle of sand."

His gaze returned to the sky.

He watched the planets rise as they did every night. Their blueness and greeness in space, surrounded

by black vastness. What a welcome sight ti him in his lonely cell. He sat back for the time to pass.

Four hours later it happened.

Sam was watching the enemy planet when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of light. He quickly turned and looked. There, where his own home planet had been hanging in the sky, was now a bright ball of fire. It seemed to twist and turn around the blackness of the heavens.

Sam stared.

The panet swelled under the fire, like a thousand fireworks had been shot into it at once. It burned like a single frame of film being left on a projector too long, where the frame melts a hole in the middle and quickly spreads out towards the edges. Like a smoldering log suddenly being fed lighter fluid, rekindled, and flaming up. Like handfuls of colored marbles being thrown in the air to all different directions. Like ten million christmas bulbs being exploded all at once.

Like death.

Sam shut his eyes.

"No, no, no," he cried softly.

When he opened them again, his planet was smoking in the night sky. He turned his head. The enemy planet that he had been watching earlier, before his planet ahd caught fire, was still shining in the sky.

Funny, he thought. It seemed to be smiling.

Sam thought that he could hear cheers coming from the other sand cell.

It had been three days since the fire.

Sam contemplated his situation. His own planet gone. His people dead. What would happen to him?

A noise. Sam sat up. A brief flash of light overhead. Standing up, he moved closer to the grill. He could hear the sound of rocket hum outside.

But...the sound was different. It was not the sound of his own planet's rockets that he heard.

A scream shattered the night.

"Venra!" a voice shouted. "We won! We destroyed their planet!"

Sam heard men, shouts, and cheers coming from the surface. There was a victory celebration going on around the other sand cell. The realization of what was happening began to set in on him. He knew now that no one would be coming to pick him up. No one for him to cheer with. No one for him to congratulate. His people were gone. The enemy ship could return to pick up its "cargo" that it had left behind. But his ship would not come. His was destroyed somewhere above in the vastness of space.

Sam began to scream.

"Help me!" he cried. "I am down in the next sand cell. I have been left in here, with no one to pick me up! Help me!"

But Sam's cries could not be heard through the muffles walls and over the hum of the enemy's rockets.

Rockets that sounded like a hard stream of water pounding an stationary rocks beneath the cascade.

Rockets that drowned out Sam's cries. Suddenly, as swiftly as the ship had come, it lifted off towards its own planet with all of it's crew intact.

Sam continued to yell.

"Wait! Stop! Please, help me!"

But the rocket grew fainter and fainter until it disappeared in the sky.

Sam looked through the grill of the sand cell.

The stars twinkled and turned across the void of blackness above him. The spheres blinked. The planets shone. The suns reached out.

Sam had a front row seat for the spectacle that unfolded before him. He slowly lowered his head. He stared for minutes at the sand that covered tha walls and floor.

He sat down onto the sand.

He slowly reached over and picked up the notebook that he had written in so many days before.

Opening it to a blank page, he picked up a pencil and began to write.

"Day One­Today I begin my wait for the glorious war heroes to return."

Sam fell back and laughed crazily the rest of the night. he sand...

The Payload

The gravity forced his face into shapes it was not accustomed to holding. Lips trembled. Cheeks wavered. Eyes sunk. He knew that the pushing would only last a few minutes, but he was not prepared for this much strain put upon him.

The rocket noise filled his ears. Second thoughts abounded.

He had used up all of his savings to but a small piece of space on the craft. Everyone in the program tried to change his mind from going through with his idea, but he was determined. The red tape was time consuming and thick, but he took everything in stride with anticipation.

"It is something that I always wanted to do," he would say.

So he did it. He rented a three by three foot square in the cargo bay, along with a extra­vehicular mobility unit space suit, and climbed in with the rest of the payload for a shuttle trip into orbit and back.

The gravity force was subsiding, and his face was returning to normal configuration. But it was still dark. He knew by pre­flight briefings that they would be in orbit after about ten minutes from liftoff, but that time seemed to pass slow inside the tinted darkness.

His first glimpse of the stars would come when the craft stabilized its orbit. Then, they would open the cargo doors above him to equalize the heat in the main compartment and the payload section. Only then would he be able to look up and see the spectacle before him that he paid to see. That he gave his savings to witness.

That he yearned to watch.

Sometimes late at night, as he would come home and before he would crawl into bed, he would take out a lawn chair and sit in his back yard and watch the stars turn above him. This rested and entertained him before sleep. This fired his imagination for future actions.

He used to set his alarm for uncommon hours of the night, just so that he could catch maybe a glimpse of a late­night meteor shower, or an early morning eclipse of the moon. Just the little things that many other people ignored as trivial. But to him, these were the best of times.

To be one with the stars, and to share an exciting moment with the heavens.

He had watched every liftoff broadcast on television, and awakened at all hours of the night to witness the moon walks. Sitting alone in his darkened room with no light except from the screen of the television set, he almost felt that he was moving the camera on the moon, following the steps of the astronauts on the surface.

He understood every technical term used in conversation between the ground and the astronauts. He could spout out mathmatical formulas and configurations like he was fluent in speaking a foreign language.

But he understood.

It was what he loved.

A jolt.

A snapping of holdings.

The cargo doors were beginning to move.

Sitting in the bay with nothing but his suit, on boxes, crates, and containers with telescopes and experiments, his excitment was apparent. Even though there were two astronauts flying the ship that he was in, he still could not see them in their main cabin. He was alone in the back with only the dim light around him.

The huge silver doors moaned again.

Slowly, slivers of light began to creep through the cracks around the parting of the doors.

His heartbeat grew, as he gripped his chair.

Simultaneously, both sides of the doors began working their way apart, letting in more and more rays of light from the outside.

He leaned up to peek through the cracks as they opened wider, and the universe unfolded before him.

Through the opening hatches, starlight began filling his eyes. Meteor dust began filling his nostrils.

Remnants of dead planets collected in his lungs and muscles.

The heavens were with him, and he was with the heavens.

As the cargo doors finished their journey and were locked in the open position, he just stared upward at his own personal show.

The earth turned below him.

The perfect parabola of the horizon curved off into the sky. The line that separated night and day moved like a slow curtain across the landscape. No metaphors or analogies that were ever written before could even come close to the view that he had. The oceans were never so blue. The land never so green and detailed. Mountains rose. Tributaries wound and cut lines over the face of the mass. Up here their were no borders, no states, no countries, no conflicts.

The awesome picture that unfolded below would bring shivers to even the most hardened person.

The stars mirrored his eagerness, the suns reflected his awareness and his humbleness.

The situation was fantastic!

It was worth it all.

Lightening from above the clouds

"Do you remember your mother's eyes?" The father directed the question to his son who was standing off to the right of him.

"Yes, I remember."

The air held, as he spoke again.

"Do you remember her hair?"

The boy looked upward at the man.

"Yes, father. I remember it, too."

A small smile etched across the man's face.

"And, do you remember..."

His voice seemed to crack and fail, as he couldn't find the correct words or the proper gestures to finish the sentence. He stared downward at the monument and mound under his feet. His son broke the heavy fall air by speaking.

"You still love her, don't you father?"

He smiled again.

"Yes, son, I do."

"I can tell," the boy continued. His father turned his gaze towards him.

"And you," he asked, "how do you feel?"

"I still love her, dad."

Their eyes met in a brief pause of unison, then they both looked downward at a splintered wooden cross

that stood barren across the landscape. The hot air blew over the sand dunes, and helped the small patches of unattended grass at the base of the pieces of wood wave back and forth in the breeze.

"She loved it here, didn't she , dad?"

The father remembered.

"Yes, she did. You are only seven years old, yet you have wisdom and strength beyond your years." He placed his arm across his son's shoulders. "I'm proud of you, little man."

"Thanks, dad. Mom would have liked me this way."

The father and son took the hot air into their lungs, letting nothing in the atmosphere about escape them. It calmed them, and helped them collect their many thoughts.

"Couldn't they have don anything for her?" the son asked.

"No, not here. They did everything they could at the clinic, but they were just not equiped for this sort of thing. It was something here in the Martian air that her body just couldn't handle, something it was not used to. But she dies in peace here. Maybe there was something on Earth that could have prolonged her life somewhat, but I don't think that she would have wanted it that way."

The gentle wind blew and dried quickly the forming tears in both their eyes.

"Remember the day we arrived here two years ago, son?"

"I was younger then, but I remember bits and pieces of it."

"We stepped off the ship here on Mars, half­way done with out round trip vacation that I was taking her

on. We had already been to Saturn, with Venus still to come. Well, the moment she took in the Martian scenery, lifestyle, and serenity, she turned and tore up those return trip tickets, all of ours. She never regretted it."

"Have you, father?" the boy questioned.

"Neither have I," he said proudly.

"Nor I," the son added.

The sun heated the air. The clouds added pictures in the sky. The distant rains fell. The father and son gazed downward at the cross in the sand.

"Remember the poem that your mother wrote to us last Christmas, son?" the father asked.

"Yes, father. Can you recite it?"

The reached and grasped for the words in his mind, to look and decipher the images that form sentences and rhymes. Then he spoke: "I've never seen lightning from Above the clouds Till I met you I've never seen the stars So bright Till you brought me closer To here, And myself."

The boy joined his father in reciting the poem the rest of the way, their voices blending in unison like the summer breeze and the light branches blend,

swaying and moving in oneness with the world around them.

"I love you My husband A father Someone who I hold dear To me Someone who I enjoy Someone who showed me Lightning from above And a new life Thank you My love."

The silence held in the air like an invisible fog for moments afterward.

"Tomorrow we plant the crops and start fixing the windmill, son," the father finally said, letting the last line of the poem linger on just long enough to refill their broken hearts and dampen their sad memories.

"We must go on," the boy said.

"Yes." They waited, both of them, facing the small wooden cross on this quiet afternoon on Mars.

"But," the boy carefully selected his words and their meaning, "it is nice to reflect and remember. She would like that."

The father nodded his head.

"To the windmill?" he finally asked his son.

"To the windmill," the boy replied.

e father and son gazed down r voices blending in unison ase Someone .last line of the poem linger added, carefully selecting

...where their priorities lie

The gentle wind blew hot over the town.

"I've got to hand it to you, Stuart. I never thought that you could do it."

Stuart smiled.

"Amazing, isn't it, Jackson."

"Really something to watch."

The streets, sidewalks, and roads in the area were jammed with children. Children of all sizes, shapes, ages, races, and backgrounds. Children with golden, auburn, and every other known shade of hair.

Children whose shining blue eyes filled the air, melting green eyes showed anticipation, and calming brown eyes prayed for peace.

All...with smiles.

"Ready!" Stuart yelled.

Ten thousand children waved.

Jackson shook his head.

"I can't believe that you have managed this. The government has been trying to secure peace with this planet for months, and all that they have been getting is red tape. You, Stuart, come in here and deliver...well...deliver what would be called 'presents', and these people open all of their doors to you."

Stuart laughed, and looked into Jackson's eyes, making sure that his point was well taken.

"You have to know where their priorities lie," he said.

"And you found out?"

"Easy. It is in their children. They worship them, indulge them, and treat them as they should be treated. As heartfilled commodities that can never ne replaced."

Stuart turned.

The children were all ready.

Stuart looked at Jackson, winked, and looked back at the mass of faces. He raised both of his arms skyward.

The children...all at once..raised their arms skyward, too. Each child was holding a small plastic toy pistol in his hand, with a circular plastic ring on the end of each barrel.

"I can't believe you brought 10,000 plastic whirly­bird wind­up guns for these kids," Jackson said.

"A small token for their young," Stuart said, pausing for a second to freeze everything and everyone, then speaking softly to Jackson.

"Watch this."

Eyes of 10,000 children had grown as wide as they could.

"Ready!" Stuart yelled again. "Go!" All at once, the children pulled the triggers on the guns, and 10,000 round plastic circles went floating into the air. Some went high, some went low. Some landed back on the ground, some caught the wind and sailed even higher. Some green ones drifted over buildings, some red ones caught in trees. Some blue ones headed towards the young hills, some brown ones blew over the open ponds.

The children laughed, giggled, clapped, danced, and hugged each other while pointing skyward.

And...parents standing behind each of their children wore a soft glow of a smile on their faces.

"You just got to go straight to the heart," Stuart said, ever so wisley. "Straight to the heart."

Codet

The sun shone off the top layer of snow like a reflection off a rippleless pond. A yellow ball, staring through the barren trees, broke through the cold, dark morning, enlightening and giving a new day's glow to

everything that had only hours earlier been barren and serene.

Along the railroad tracks that ran a smooth cutting edge over the landscape, were footprints.

Footprints that made indentations in the frozen ground, that easily made a man's destination trackable, or his path recognizable. Footpaths made by . . . Benny Mimes.

"Where the hell am I?" Mimes said as he stared down the long perspective of the railroad tracks. A small man with a short crop of hair on his head, Mimes stood squinting in the morning sun, kicking the snow off his boots.

He scratched his head as he looked around.

"This must be some kind of dream or something," he murmured as he began to walk down the tracks. "I'll wake up from this in a minute. Where is that train at?"

A few hours before, Mimes was in the smoking car on the Skiload Express traveling south towards the pole. A week of relaxation was in store, as he had been looking forward to this vacation for some time.

Sitting across from him in the smoking car was a man who kept his face in a book for most of the trip, but Mimes could still ascertain that the man was up in years. The face was vaguely familiar to him, but he couldn't match the features with any name.

After a while, the man looked up from his book, gazing over the tops of its pages.

"Excuse me, young man, he said, "would you care to have some coffee with me?" With the heating unit not being what it should have been in the railroad car, Mimes readily agreed.

The old man poured.

Mimes thanked him.

After a few drinks and general exchange of pleasantries . . .

"What happened after that?"

Mimes was standing still on the tracks with his hands on his hips. He wondered out loud a second time, saying each word slowly.

"What happened after that?"

Mimes couldn't remember anything after the next few drinks of coffee. His memory was completely blank to anything that was related to the rest of the ride.

The next thing he knew, he was lying in the snow on the edge of the tracks, trying to revitalize his recognition, rekindle his memory banks.

He looked down the tracks, trying to focus on what was ahead. The sun was rising higher in the sky, and the light was no longer playing tricks on his vision.

He thought that he could make out what appeared to be a structure standing along the rails farther down the horizon. Mimes started walking towards the building.

About twenty minutes later, he came upon his destination, which was one lone building standing by itself, with drifts of blown snow piled up on one side. the structure was a wooden shell with old broken windows dotting the sides and front. There was also a porch, with four wooden columns holding up the overhang. A white sign which dangled sideways, held up by chains and cobwebs, read "Depot Three."

As Mimes walked closer, he noticed something that had been out of his eyesight before. On the porch, in a chair that seemed to be as old as the planet itself, a figure leaned back against the front of the building.

He had hair that glistened like a reflection of the snow, and was clad in blue jeans and an old red flannel shirt. He eyed Mimes as he walked closer.

Mimes looked at the old figure, and saw something vaguely familiar in the man. He had seen those features, that build, and especially, those eyes, before. He thought and thought, but just couldn't place him.

About eight feet from the man, standing in front of the opening of the porch at the base of some stairs, Mimes stared at the man. Not a word was said . Not an eye was blinked. Not a gesture was revealed. Mimes turned the face over in his mind.

Suddenly . . . recognition.

Mimes stared.

"You know," he said in a almost unrealistic tone," you look a lot like the gentleman that was with me on the train." The man did not move.

"Was that you?" Mimes asked.

The man locked his vision on Mimes.

"You know," Mimes continued," you still remind me of someone that I just cannot place. You look so familiar."

Mimes placed his right foot on the bottom of the steps.

"How did you get out here from the train?"

Mimes asked. "Do you have any idea how I got off?"

Mimes placed his left foot on the second step.

The man didn't move.

Mimes stepped on the third step.

"You know, I just cannot place your features.

You look so familiar . . ."

Mimes froze.

Like muddy waters that suddenly became clear, like congested situations that all at once are arranged in order, Mimes' mind clicked into motion. His long lost memory cells sprang to life, with his millions of logged away pictures coming across that one elusive file.

Mimes remembered.

He reached out his right hand.

"I know you!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.

The old man shifted, and brought up an old­ fashioned Earth­like small weapon, a "shotgun" it was called, that he had been sitting on.

Mimes yelled as time stood and played the scene in what seemed to be slow motion.

"No!" he screamed.

One of the triggers on the gun was moved, and the barrel exploded in hardened recoil as the projectile exited the end of the gun.

The bullet struck Mimes' extended hand, and blew it off.

Before Mimes could even get the nerve message the millisecond that it took for it to get from his now exited hand to his spinal column and then to his brain for recognition, the second trigger was pulled and the blast left nothing for Mimes to scream with.

He was dead before he fell back and hit the ground.

The millions of falling snowflakes made no sound as they gently drifted from the sky and landed gracefully on the building steps, railroad tracks, and unmoving body of Benny Mimes.

Neptune­2 rose like a sphere. A big blue ball of darkened liquid, it slowly glided upward behind the

peaks. Like a lone drop of turquoise water being lifted skyward, the world turned and shifted as the blue tides rolled across the surface and the white clouds dotted the skyline above the horizon.

"Does it always look this pretty, Martie?"

"Why, Kerr, I am surprised that you even noticed."

"Why?" "I thought that you didn't go in for those things much."

"You are wrong, Martie. The universe is too wonderful and filling just to pass through unnoticed.

You must breath in as you go by, reach out and touch it's boundaries, take in every detail. It is too quick a time before your eyes are sealed, and they no longer can enjoy such a spectacle."

"That's quite a thought, Kerr. Is it one shared on your planet?"

"For the most part. But everywhere has its share of poetry readers and poetry burners."

"So true, Kerr. So true."

The men both stared at the sullen black sky, with its painted canvas within the realm of their vision.

"A pause for reflection is good for the soul," Kerr said.

Martie smiled.

Compton Kerr was a man whose age one could not be sure of. His deep­set eyes and his lightened hair gave him the impression of years, but his vitality surrounded him with the halo of youth. He was a tall man of great build, but with only a rough­loud whisper to his voice.

The commander of the Blazer­D from the planet Theon, he worked his shop with only a skeleton crew.

But that's how he did things. He had only token help²Êso that he would put his full concentration on tasks at hand.

And . . . he was good friends with Martie.

Captain Martie was in charge of the Earthship "Amplicledes," one of a series of ten ships designed to aid in the development of certain sections of the galaxy.

Martie, himself a well­muscled man with dark hair, was assigned to Eighth Quadrant, where over the years he had grown in his friendship with Kerr, whose home planet was nearby. He considered Kerr a mysterious man, but still quite a help. He was always around when one needed him.

Martie rose from his commander's chair as another figure entered the room. He turned towards his guest.

"Kerr, I'd like you to meet my second­in­ command, Lieutenant Christian Heath." Kerr held out his hand.

"Glad to meet you, Heath."

"The pleasure is mine," Heath said. "I've heard many things about you."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Kerr said, "especially considering the source was no doubt Captain Martie."

They all laughed.

"Now gentlemen," Kerr said rising from his chair, "if you will excuse me, I need to get back to my ship to check a few things." The men waved their appreciation to each other as Kerr left.

After Kerr was out of sight, Heath turned towards his superior.

"Sir," he said to Martie, "excuse me for asking, but has he been up too long today?"

"Why do you ask, Heath?" Martie said.

"It looks as if he has been awake for days with no sleep."

Martie laughed.

"That is a skin pigmentation passes down through heredity on his planet. Everyone on his world is like that. The sun is so bright on his planet that the years have darkened the skin under the eye sockets, and these patches have developed to keep the glare down. It has burned away the normal skin tissue to develop this eye shadowing effect."

Heath shook his head, and the two men continued to discuss matters as the afternoon wore into the evening hours.

Later that night, after the crew and commanders had finished nightly maneuvers and eaten their evening meal, Kerr and Martie sat in the Video­Console Studio on the Balzer­D alone. The night­synopsis information was coming on the screen, one part across the top and one part across the bottom. The Earth and surrounding bodies' news was on the top, while the news about the quadrant that the ship was in came on the bottom.

"I kind of like this network telementary," Martie said. "Earth stuff on top, and what is going on around here on the bottom."

"Gives you a good overview of the world," Kerr said, "but it is all just poured on you at once."

"Well, for some people, that is the way that they like it."

"I guess," Kerr said, watching the monitor. He winced. "What's this?" he said. Kerr sat up and pushed a button on one of the desks. The news monitor froze.

He fumbled with a few more buttons, and the information began to roll backwards slowly.

"What did you see?" Martie asked.

"A name of old," Kerr said. He kept scrolling back through the news until he saw it again. He leaned up closer to the screen.

"Mimes," he read.

"Mimes?" Martie asked.

"There," Kerr said, pointing to a section on the screen, "right there." He studied the screen, and read the information.

"Mimes was killed on ES­11, one of the snow­ covered planets in the fourth section," he read out loud.

"Did you know this Mimes?"

"Yes. Benny Mimes. An old friend of mine from my past."

Kerr sat a moment thinking.

"His name jogs some memories from the past . . . are we near Pritae?"

"Yes." "I'm sure of it. It is one of the only two habitable planets around here."

"Let's go there," Kerr said. "Mimes' name brought back another name from the past, and he lives on Pritae. I haven't seen him in a long time either."

Kerr stood up, and hesitated, his thoughts were miles away, then turned and headed out the door.

"There is someone else that I need to see there also," Martie said.

"Who is that?"

"That's where my wife works."

"Your wife?"

"Yes. Keri. She's a medical technician analysis on the planet."

"I see," Kerr said. "Martie, you are full of surprises. I wasn't even aware of your being married."

"It is tough to keep a life with so many miles between us. But, we care for each other, and that's what holds us."

"Well," Kerr said leaving the room, "I need to go prepare for Pritae." Martie just smiled, and reached up to turn off the video­informer.

Martie cracked the door open and peaked in.

"Hi, babe," he said.

A woman turned around and smiled.

"How's life been treating you?" she said.

They looked at each other for a few seconds, then hugged and shared a long kiss.

"Where did you come from?" she asked as she held her husband.

"We were a few days away, and Kerr, who is with me, wanted to jaunt over here to see someone. So I brought the ship with his to tag along."

She kissed him again.

"I missed you, Keri," he said.

"And I have missed you. How is our ship?"

"Fine. And your medical technician job?" he asked.

"All right. I need more time with you, though."

"I know what you mean," he said. "I'm looking so forward to our vacation in four months. Can you believe it will be our eighth wedding anniversary already?"

"Time flies when you don't see each other too often," she laughed.

"I know," he said. "We should do something about that."

"What?" she said. "I've got my job and you've got yours."

"True," he paused, "and we both love them."

"And each other."

They smiled and sat holding hands, continuing the conversation for about two hours.

"I must be getting back," he said, trying to put off the obvious but inevitable phrase. "Kerr wants to come down to the surface too, so I must go back to relieve him."

"It will be hard to wait those weeks," she said, tears swelling up in her eyes.

"I know," he comforted her, "but it will definitely be worth the wait."

She smiled again.

"I know it will."

They embraced one last time before duty made him exit.

"See you in a little while, babe."

He turned for the door.

"Love you," she called out as he disappeared.

On the ship later, Martie gazed into a blue­green radar screen. In a craft hundreds of miles below, Compton heard a voice crackle in his headphones.

"Everything going alright?" Captain Martie asked through the static.

Compton took a quick look around.

"Everything's fine, Captain," he answered, "thanks for being so concerned.

"No problem," Martie said on the other end of the communications, "I just don't know why your planet doesn't develop a more sophisticated type of aircraft for you to travel from your ship to a planet's surface. I like to fly myself. That is why I took Amplicledes' shuttle craft to see my wife. But why you take that contraption of yours, I do not know.

With all the advanced technology at your scientists disposal, even borrowing from our own ideas, you could come up with a more efficient craft than you have. Do you realize that it is more or less patterned after Earth's fighterjets of the 1990's?" Compton took a slow gaze around his cockpit, then smiled.

"Yes, Captain, I know." he said. "I have flown your highly tech stuff, Martie, with all of it's computers and lights and voice controlled mechanisms. I still like my own radar screen with toggle switches and buttons. I just love this old­fashioned flying.

A laugh came over his communicator.

"Whatever you say, Kerr," Martie said, "whatever you say."

Compton checked all his instruments, entertaining a thought.

"I might as well see if this baby can hold together anymore," he said, looking over his dials.

Speed­704 miles per hour.

Altitude­11,­000 feet.

"What's that?" Martie asked.

"Hold on to your headphones, Martie," Compton said. "I'm gonna kick it in."

"Are you sure that you better?" Martie asked.

As the words trailed off through the headphones, Compton reached up and pushed the "afterburners" button. Immediately, the rockets kicked in, pushing Compton back in the pilot's chair. He held the throttle stick tight as he watched the display.

Mach 1.2 at 784 mph.

Mach 1.3 at 848 mph.

Compton noticed a slight shaking in his hand on the stick.

Mach 1.4 at 960 mph.

Mach 1.5 at 992 mph.

"We've had enough," he whispered over the roar of the flaming rockets. He hit the "speedbrakes" switch at Mach 1.5­1008 miles per hour, and coasted at 13,000 feet. He settled back down in his seat, and exhaled slowly as he realized everything was still holding together.

"Kerr!"

Captain Martie's voice cut over the deafening sound.

"Kerr! You still there?"

One last look around to check the normalization of the situation.

"I'm still here," he said calmly. "Captain, you can keep your fancy shuttle craft. I just love this old style flying machine."

"Sometimes I think that you are crazy," Martie said.

"A few screws loose here and there never hurt anybody," Kerr answered.

He banked the aircraft towards his destination, and switched on his radar to help in his final descent.

"Coming in for a landing," he laughed as he picked up the airport on his radio frequency.

He headed down.

Kerr knocked on the silver door.

A rattling and footsteps inside. The latch turned.

"Compton!"

The man inside the door was of average size and build, but what struck Kerr first was the deep redness of the man's skin.

"Landen." Kerr said. "Landen Richardson."

Both men smiled and shook hands.

"Come in, Kerr," Richardson said, "it's been such a long time since I've seen you." Kerr entered the house that was furnished ever so scarcely, but what there was, was antique Earth tones.

Richardson gestured to an old blue chair for Kerr to sit down. He brought out some liquids in red vials.

"Where did you come down, Compton?"

Richardson asked.

"I'm over at the Tyxic Airport. I took one of the aerorentals to get here."

Richardson looked at Kerr closely.

"I heard about Mimes dying. It was quite a shame. We had a lot of memories with him, didn't we."

Compton shook his head.

"Yes, we did. A lot of old times etched over the years. You heard that he was killed, though, didn't you?"

"I did hear something on that. Are there any clues?"

"None yet. He was found on ES­11, outside some old, rundown ghost town."

Richardson held his hand against his forehead.

"I'll miss him," he said slowly, reminiscing in his mind as he spoke. He drifted a few seconds in his memory.

"And what of you, Kerr?" he finally asked "What's with your life?"

Compton sat back in his chair with his hands folded behind his head.

"Nothing new. I dropped in on Captain Martie, and one of our conversations was about Mimes. My memory was jogged about you, so Martie accompanied

my ship out here to see you. He's in orbit above, next to my ship."

"I see."

"How's life treating you here?" Kerr asked.

"Oh, just fine. I was just about to take a shower when you arrived. The dust from this planet layers your body quite well, and it is the hardest stuff to get off."

"Still trying to farm out here?"

"Yes. I do enough to keep me alive. I take my agra­crops to Tyxic. There is always a market there."

Compton smiled.

The two men talked for an hour about old times, present ideas, and future horizons.

Like friends meeting for the first time in years, after the cobwebs disappeared, and the words flowed out from one man to the other. The conversation held the men together, the times that they were used to fusing them through the years.

After many passages and countless phrases, the talk began to slow down. Like hints that their time together was almost up, the clock began to tick louder, the light in the window darkened, and there were longer pauses between sentences.

"Well," Compton said as he lowered his glass of liquid, "I must be going. The young Captain will be worried about me."

"Thanks for stopping by, Compton," Richardson said with a genuine harmony in his voice. "I really enjoyed it."

"I, too," Compton returned.

The two men shook hands, and Richardson found himself headed for the doorway.

"Take care of yourself, Richardson," Compton said.

Landen just smiled.

"You too," he said. Compton returned the wave, turned, and was gone. Richardson watched out the door a few seconds, smiled, then turned and headed back into the house.

He studied the small cluster of glasses, unused liquid, untouched food, and soiled material.

"I'll clean this up later," he said to himself as he headed toward the bathroom, back to his shower that he was delayed from. Richardson entered the shower stall, closed the door, and turned the water on.

After a few minutes of cleansing himself, Richardson paused.

A noise.

Richardson stopped, trying to tune his ears to a noise that he had thought he'd heard. He waited, wanting to hear some kind of recognition to substantiate his curiosity.

Silence.

"I wonder if Compton forgot something?" he said under his breath. He listened again, acutely tuning his ears to any kind of sound.

Silence.

He shrugged his shoulders, and continued his bathing. He did not notice the slow unruffling of the shower curtain.

Suddenly, the curtain flew back. Naked and vulnerable, Richardson. He froze in astonishment for a split second while he became aware that he recognized the figure standing in his bathroom, staring at him from outside the shower.

"What the . . ." Richardson said, but was cutoff from finishing the sentence as the figure, now smiling an odd smile, reached out for him.

Water.

It gathered around the drain and leaked out through the holes in the bottom of the tub. About five inches above the drain, Richardson's feet dangled in mid­air.

A cord had been tied around his neck and attached to the pipe that held the shower nozzle. His forehead had been tied back, and the water from the nozzle was going full force into his mouth.

His limp body hung there, a victim of a combination of drowning and strangulation.

The water ran off his body in small streams, leaving behind beads that would no longer be used to cleanse his skin.

Footsteps leaving his house would never be heard again by him.

Martie stuck his head in Kerr's cabin.

"You got a minute?"

"Sure."

"Did you happen to see the news?" Martie asked, entering the room.

"I was monitoring the telementry about twenty minutes ago. If you're referring to Richardson, yes I saw it."

"Well," Martie said as he sat down on the edge of a table, "I was just wondering. I'm sorry to hear about that."

"I know," Kerr said, exhaling ever so slowly on every syllable. "I think that it seems worse because I saw him just before he died. We brought back a lot of memories."

"Anything been checked on his death?"

"After seeing the data, I called Colac Samms, who I know in the investigator's office of Policemos, the governing body of that group of planets. He told me that all of the indications led to them believing that he was murdered. Found hanged in the shower."

"Shower?"

"Yes. And what's kinda scary is that he must have been killed right after I left him that day. You know, I even remember him talking about how he was headed into the shower before I got there."

"I'm so sorry. Do they have any suspects?"

"I do."

"You do? Who?" "The only person that links Mimes, Richardson, and Compton Kerr. Codet."

Martie noticed a strangeness in Kerr's eyes when he mentioned this name.

"Who's Codet?"

"Codet­The Water Dragon."

"The Water Dragon?"

"Yes. Quite an appropriate name, too."

"I don't think that I have ever heard of him."

"Many more people than you have, though.

Many more have had his name on their lips, as the last words that they would ever say."

"I don't understand."

Kerr leaned back in his chair.

"During the large Tenishan War twenty years ago, Codet was in charge of one of the holding camps on the captured planets. One of the 'Death Camps' as they were graciously called. They really didn't enjoy taking prisoners, with all the cost of feeding them and housing them. A real business­cost venture that these people were worried about. Well, Codet had a unique way of

killing off the people that were brought to his camp.

The 'Drownfalls' as they called it.

They would take a hundred men, women, and children at a time, and hook them up to specially designed racks, or slots, at the base of a cliff. They had an apparatus that they would strap to your forehead, with a large rope attached. When all one hundred were in place, Codet would announce sentence. Crimes against mankind or some garbage.

Then, he would pull one switch. All one hundred ropes connected to the people went taut, pulling each person's forehead back, leaving their mouths gapping open to the heavens. At this same instance, a lock would open at the top of the cliff, and thousands and thousands of gallons of water would come pouring down on the victims, filling their nostrils, mouths, heads, and eyes with water. Screams came out as bubbles. Terror as garbled muffles.

In ten minutes, it was all over. The water was fifteen feet over each person, and no one ever escaped.

Another switch was pulled, and drains opened and restraints released, allowing bodies and water to both be swept away down the drainage plugs. To this day, no bodies have ever been found.

The water and corpses are still probably floating beneath the planet's surface in underground caverns and tunnels. And no estimate has ever been given of the amount of lives lost to the 'drownfalls'."

That is how he got his nickname, 'Codet­The Water Dragon'."

"Gastly!" Captain Martie finally said. He waited a few moments to let the vision of this slaughter dwell in his mind. Then, he spoke again.

"And how was Codet finally caught?"

"When the great invasion of the planet finally took place, that is when he was finally caught. Mimes had been spying on Codet's operation and camp for some time. He had brought his information back to Richardson and me, because we were working in the War Special Operations Bureau at that time. Mimes, Richardson, and I decided to go try to arrest Codet before he could harm anymore.

We used the invasion to our advantage, because we knew most of the garrison that worked the camp would have to leave to go fight the war. We were correct. We flew down to the surface in silent gliders, and after some reconnaissance realized that only a skeleton crew was left to guard the camp.

It really wasn't too much trouble at all to sneak in and kidnap Codet, flying him back to one of our main outposts outside the planet's atmosphere. That's where, I guess, he put our names back in his memory for future reference, and revenge. And that's where I got my 'war and wound'."

"War wound?" Martie asked.

"Yes," Kerr said, pointing to his throat, "when we grabbed Codet and held him for deportation, there was a short exchange of fists and a struggle before we got him under control. I just happened to be the closest, and he grabbed me by the throat with his hand as we tried to tie him up.

He had just enough of a grip that when he squeezed, he pushed my larynx together permanently.

Mine is not as flexible as an Earthling's. It was a good thing that my cohorts with their quick reactions got a good hold on him, or the damage might have been worse to me."

"Any bad feelings on your part over these years because of it?" Martie asked.

Kerr just smiled a wry grin.

"Part of the job," he said. "I called Samms back about Codet. I knew that he'd been put in the Maximum Prison on Beta­4. Seems that about six months ago he escaped. There is still no official word on how he got out."

"Isn't that one of the strongest prisons in the system?" Martie asked.

"Yes. But you see, Codet is in a class by himself. It probably just took him a little longer than usual to figure a way out."

"And you think that it is him doing the killings?"

"I know it's him." Martie let the time go by a few minutes before he spoke again.

"Do you sense some pattern in all of this?" the Captain asked.

"First Mimes. Then Richardson. Obviously, I'm next."

"What are you going to do?"

"Well, I suppose that I can either wait on him, or go find him. And I hate sitting around and waiting. I think I'll head for Tech­Two, where Richardson was killed. I have a feeling that he is headed away from there. I might as well meet him half­way."

"If you don't mind, I think we'll tag along, too."

Kerr thought for a moment.

"Whatever," he said. "I'm not scared of him.

But I could use the company on the way out."

"You never know when two heads will be better than one," Martie said in a reassuring tone. Kerr smiled.

"I accept your company."

The trip to Tech­Two was routine with the regular checks, radio contacts, and general well­being of the ship being taken into consideration. The trip would take five days. About two days out from Tech­Two, Kerr and Martie were talking.

"I need to go jogging," Kerr said, "clear some of this mess out of my head."

"Use the General Track," Martie said, "it's one of the most popular places on the ship."

Kerr waved as he headed out the door.

The running track where the men ran was a concrete oval runway that encircled one of the engine bays. It was about five hundred feet around the entire circle. Kerr, after doing some preliminary stretching exercises, reached for the apparatus that would help him run. It was labeled "automatic­pacing device."

The "device" was a square computerized box about two feet wide and four feet high. It was connected to a track that ran down the center of the runway. It was designed to help in aerobic running, where as you could set your own pace on the machine (by miles per hour), and it moved around the track at that speed. The runners could either run ahead of it or behind it, whichever they preferred.

Kerr strapped on the automatic pacing­device as he got ready to run. He set the machine for it's normal setting. He turned it on, and trailed behind it, his normal way of running.

After seven laps, everything was going smoothly. Kerr, who was in good physical shape, was just beginning to break a sweat. The pacing­device was

evenly taking him through his running without any problems.

Suddenly, without warning, the pacing­device stopped.

Kerr, who was running along with his thoughts far away from his physical task at hand, didn't notice fast enough that the machine had stopped.

He ran right into the machine, hitting it with such a force that he went over its top and rolled off the other side, falling to the hard floor.

"What the heck happened?" he said in a dazed fashion on the floor. He shook his head trying to rid himself of the effects of the fall, and at the same time gave himself a quick check over to see if there were any problems or broken bones.

The machine clicked.

Kerr looked up at it.

The machine shook a few seconds on it's track, then took off away from Kerr.

"What's going . . ."

Before Kerr could finish his sentence, the rope that was attached to Kerr tightened, and began pulling him along behind the pacing machine. Kerr tumbled end over end and sideways as the machine began picking up speed and tossed his body, like a can tied to the end of a string, back and forth dragging him along.

"Help!" Kerr yelled, but the hum of the engines drowned out any pleading that he was doing. The machine was moving faster, and Kerr was beginning to get to the point where he was starting to lose consciousness.

As abruptly as the pacer had started, it stopped again. Kerr rolled over and landed at its base, cutting

his head on one of the circuit boards that was at the bottom of the device.

Dazed and almost unconscience, Kerr lay next to the pacer.

He heard a click.

He felt a murmur in the hardware.

This is it, he thought to himself, unless I do something about it.

With all of his remaining strength, he reached over the top of the unit and felt for a handhold, a lever, anything he could get a grip on. His fingers touched a handle. He fought with all of his might to grab on before he blacked out. His fingers contracted around the metal bar.

He held on with everything that he had left and pulled himself up on top of the machine. It began to move as he lifted his legs over the edge.

The machine took off again with its great speed.

But this time, Kerr was on top of it, not behind it being dragged. He held on as hard as he could for the ride.

The pacer moved faster and faster along the track, and every second that Kerr held on he regained his composure a little more. Finally, his aches and bruises were put aside, his fogginess cleared up, and his responses were tuned back to normal.

He got mad.

Riding along the top of the machine, he began to look around on it. He noticed a small black box on the top of it, about an inch in diameter. He had never noticed this before on these machines. He reached for the box. As his hand got a few inches away from it, a spark shot out from the side of it, shocking Kerr. He pulled his hand back.

"This must be what's causing all of the trouble," he said out loud. He looked up. The machine was beginning to pick up even more speed.

"Well," he called out, "no time like the present to stop this thing!" He reached down again for the box.

The spark flew out, but this time Kerr held on to the box, trying to ignore as much as he could the pain from electricity.

He pulled the box off of the unit. It was attached to the pacer by three wires. Kerr pulled as hard as he could and ripped the wires, and the box, off of the machine. Immediately, the pacer began to slow down until it finally coasted to a halt, with Kerr still atop it.

He sighed a huge sigh when the machine ground to a stop. He just sat there a few seconds looking around. Martie and four crew members appeared out one of the corridors to the running track.

"We heard some commotion," Martie said, "anything wrong? What are you doing on top of the pacer machine? I thought the idea was to run behind it, not hitch a ride on top."

Kerr did not see the humor in the phrase.

"I think I've had enough exercise for one day," he said, climbing off of the machine.

"A malfunction?" Martie asked, running his hand over the pacer.

"A pre­arranged malfunction," Kerr said. He held up the black box. "Codet has been here."

"Here?" Martie asked.

"Here," Compton answered. "This was obviously meant for me."

"How can you tell?" Martie asked. Kerr turned the box over.

"Look at this," he said, pointing to a small label on the bottom of the box. A diagram to let everyone know. A small graphic of a dragon.

"His signature?" Martie questioned.

"More like his calling card," Kerr answered. He stretched his arms and legs, and dropped the box to the concrete floor, stepping on it with his heel.

"The bastard missed this time," Kerr said.

"He doesn't know that," Martie said.

"Oh, yes he does. Somehow, he knows. He might be watching, or waiting, or will get the information shortly, but he knows. And, I should state, he's near. Very near. And . . . he will try again."

Kerr's wife, Keri, worked on her marble­woven lab table, placing vials and tubes in orders only known to her, with experiment notes beside her guiding her way. Numbers translated into liquids. Liquids translated into discoveries. Discoveries translated into answers.

As she worked away moving this and watching that, a sensation overcame her, a presence in the room that was altering the normality of things.

She looked at the lone window of the experiment room.

Nothing.

She gazed at the door leaving her office.

Nothing.

She found herself slowly turning around to check the entrance to the lab.

Suddenly, she caught the glimpse of a outline of a man in the door. A man who she did not recognize, and knew who wasn't suppose to be in her area.

"You there!" she called out. "What do you want?"

The man stared at her a few seconds.

"What do you want?" she asked again, this time emphasizing each syllable.

The man smiled, and quickly shifted and held up a type of weapon that he had been holding partially in his right hand. Keri put her arms in front of her body.

"No!" she cried, trying to reach for the man.

The man squeezed the trigger on the weapon.

A fine blue mist exited the barrel of the gun, and fell across her features. Her face, her expression, her muscles, her gaze, and her body, all froze solid as ice.

She couldn't move.

Resetting a switch on the weapon, the man walked up to the mass of woman. He pointed the weapon again at her, and pulled the trigger. This time a green­tinted halo surrounded her, and water dropping off the ice began to fall and pool on the floor. In a few moments, her entire body had melted and was contained within a puddle of green water on the floor.

The man then put his weapon away, and bore out a longslotted hose that seemed to be attached to a holding unit strapped on his back. He put the end of the hose in the water, and flipped a switch on his unit.

The unit chugged and groaned, and slowly began to suck the water off of the floor, into some transparent plastic canisters that were hanging off of the man's side belt. The woman, in her now liquid state, was bottled and sealed and put away for transport.

"Now," the man called out, "we shall see who gets the last of the memories."

The man exited the room. But before he got all of the way out the door, he bent down and left

something on the barren floor. He laughed as he stood back up and walked away.

The fluorescent lights gave the object an artificial glow. It was a type of medallion, and on an insert on the piece was definite outline of an animal.

A dragon.

With water droplets surrounding its face.

A . . . calling card.

Captain Martie dreamed.

The sweat beaded up on his forehead as he lay in his sleep module thinking. In his dream, the ships alarm bell rang from the corridors. Martie jumped up, and ran outside his door to find the nearest speaker call­ box, his link to any part of the ship. He pushed in the red light that was blinking on and off.

A voice came over the other end of the box.

"Captain Martie! This is Helm's in Transportation. Sir, I've received a message from the surface. A voice in distress. A lady's voice. She says that she's your wife!"

"Keri?" he thought out loud. "What did she say?"

"Something about a man. I'm not sure what he has to do with it, but she sounds like she's in trouble."

Martie turned and ran down the corridor before Helms was even done talking. He pushed open the door of the room Helms was in.

"Helms!" Martie yelled as he entered the room.

"Sir," Helms said. "Another call, sir. She's yelling about something strange, sir."

"Well, what is it?" Martie asked.

"I'm not sure, but I swear she is saying something about a . . . a . . ."

"What did she say, dammit?"

"Well, it sounded like a 'water dragon', sir."

Martie's eyes grew bigger as a look of horror came across his face.

"Get me to the surface!" he yelled.

"But sir," Helms said, "rules about travel strictly forbids me to send you down until between a certain four hour block of time."

Martie grabbed Helms by the collar and lifted him about five inches off of the floor.

"Get me to the surface, Helms!" he said ever so softly but ever so forcefully.

"Yes . . . yes sir," Helms said.

Switches were thrown, co­ordinates were set, and Martie was off.

Arriving on the planet, he immediately saw his wife with a rope around her neck attached to a pole. The rope was like a leash, with room for her to run around.

Atop the pole on a small pedestal stood Codet. Martie's wife kept running in circles around the pole, because Codet was wielding a laser weapon and kept shooting it at her feet, making her barely keep a safe distance from its beam by moving around the pole.

Codet was laughing at the top of his lungs.

"Martie!" he called out, "send me Kerr, or your wife dies!"

His wife screamed as a beam hit her foot when she fell a little behind in her pace. Martie was shaking, and began to run at them.

"Codet!" he called out. "I'll kill you!"

But as he ran towards the two, they seemed to get farther and farther away from him. He ran his fastest, but could never get to them. Codet just kept laughing.

"Martie!" he said, "I need Kerr! Kerr, Martie!

Get me Kerr!"

Martie sat up in bed.

Water was pooling around where he'd lain, and the sheets were soaked through. His hair was wringing wet, and he sat for a few minutes just collecting his thoughts.

"A dream," he exhaled with a sigh of relief.

"Just a dream." He shook his head a few times to clear his thoughts and to shake the sleep out of his brain. As he became aware of normal thoughts and normal sensations, he realized that an alarm was going off. He jumped out of his bed and ran to the corridor, but no one was in sight.

He turned on the call­box speaker.

"What's the problem?" he asked to anyone who could hear. "Why is the alarm going off?"

"Captain," a faint voice crackled on the other end.

"Who is this?" Martie asked.

"Captain, it's Helms down in Transportation, sir." Martie listened carefully. "Sir, I'm receiving a faint signal from the surface. It's a woman's voice."

Martie stopped cold.

Helms?

Signal?

Woman's voice?

"Helms," Martie said, "listen carefully. Who did the woman say that she was?"

"I'm not sure, sir. But she keeps saying something about a dragon."

Before the words had left the speaker's wire and fell upon Martie's ears, he was running down the hall.

He burst through the Transportation door.

"Surface!" he yelled.

"But sir," Helms said.

"Surface!" Martie screamed, drawing his phaser gun out from his belt.

"Yes, sir," Helms said.

As Martie dropped down the tubeless shaft, Compton Kerr was just entering the Transportation Room.

"What's all the commotion?" he asked.

"It's Captain Martie, sir. He's headed down to the surface."

"Through the Transportation Tube?" Kerr asked.

"Yes, sir," Helms answered.

"But isn't it off limits this time of day?"

"Yes, sir. He pushed me away and just took off."

"Did he say anything?" Kerr asked.

"He just mumbled something about a . . . well, water dragon?"

Kerr shifted his eyes slowly and squinted them closely as he stared at Helms.

"Water dragon?" he asked carefully. "Are you sure he said that?"

"Why, yes sir."

Kerr quickly moved into the tube.

"Send me down, too."

"But, sir . . ."

"No time to argue! That's an order! Put me down where you sent him."

"Yes, sir!" Helms answered. "I'll just do what I am told." By throwing switches, Compton Kerr disappeared down the tube shaft . . . and after Martie.

As Kerr became aware that he was now on the planet's surface, his eyes began to scan his field of vision for anything moving.

He was in the mists of rocky cliffs, with some signs around him about thirty feet away that said "Plutex Mine #53", and "Mineral Starcamp #7." He realized he was in one of the mining facilities on the planet.

Dotted around the area were 6 X 6 square holes in the ground, rimmed with wood. These were the tops of the vertical shafts that were used for mining on the planet. They usually had barriers and fences around them, but he could tell that they hadn't been used in quite a while, and the barriers were down. He walked slowly forward with careful footing, like a soldier in a mine field, avoiding the open pit­holes.

His ears listened and his eyes strained to uncover any signs of the whereabouts of the friend who was supposedly here before him. It was beginning to get dark, the sun's light was failing.

The silence broke.

"Kerr!" a voice cried. Even after years of absence, he still recognized the call. That certain tone.

That certain inflection.

"Codet," he whispered to the wind. His mind and eyes scanned the terrain for a sign of movement.

A flash.

A disruption of the norm.

He focused on a motion. He took a few steps over a small ridge towards the movement. His eyes picked up the message. Standing among the pit­holes and small hills was a figure.

"Martie!" Kerr said. Captain Martie was standing on one of the small hills, but on closer observation by Kerr he realized the Martie was tied,

head to foot, by a rope to a steel pole. Sitting on a steel chair about twenty feet from Martie was Codet, with his long legs crossed and his hands folded behind his head.

He wore a white­clad shirt with a turned up collar, and darkened pants with the smell of stars in them.

"Kerr!" he yelled out. "Welcome. I have been expecting you." Kerr moved a few steps closer.

"What do you want, Codet?" he asked.

"Is that any way to treat an old friend? One you haven't seen in such a long time?"

Compton moved his eyes to look to the right, then to the left, surveying the scene to be sure that everything he was seeing was true. He moved even closer to the man.

"Why Martie?" he asked. Codet shifted in his chair, unfolding his hands from behind his head to bring them down to his lap. Kerr noticed a weapon in Codet's right hand.

"Ah . . . Martie." Codet said. "I needed a way to get you here. I tried to think of other ways . . " "You mean after you missed with your device on the pacer machine?" Kerr asked.

"Why, yes. After I missed with that. I thought, though, that that was quite clever of me."

Kerr stared into Codet's eyes.

"Nevertheless," Codet said, "after that I decided other ways to get you here wouldn't work. So I implanted a thought in Martie's head while he was asleep. I had him dream about me and his wife."

Codet looked at Martie and smiled.

Martie spit towards Codet.

"You tricked me?" Martie said.

"Oh now, Captain. I just had you dream a little."

"Thought osmosis," Kerr said.

"Precisely," said Codet. "Then when you awoke, Martie, and a few circumstances were the same as in your dream, it was you who assumed the dream was coming true."

"A trap," Kerr said.

"Well, sort of," Codet said. "He came down looking for his wife. She really is here. She is in a green vial about two hundred yards behind me, in a liquid state. He was looking for her, and just found me first."

"If you harm her . . ." Martie started.

"Now, now," Codet said. "The proper term is, if you, Martie, do something to harm her."

"And you knew that I'd follow him," Kerr said.

"I play only the odds in my favor," Codet answered. "And the odds said that you would."

"What do you want?" Kerr asked.

"Why . . . you, of course."

"What about Martie?"

"Martie is, how do you say, an added sideshow."

"Screw you, Codet!" Martie screamed. Codet raised his right arm, and without even looking towards Martie, fired his phasic weapon that way. The explosion ripped through the top of the pole, sending sparks and fragments everywhere, but none hit Martie. He just flinched in obvious fear of what could have happened.

Kerr flinched also. As the dust and smoke cleared, he spoke.

"Codet, let Martie go."

"And take away my plaything? All in good time, Kerr. But tell me, Compton, how has your life been lately?"

Kerr now walked towards Codet. Hesitantly, measuring each step, but getting closer.

"I've had no major problems, Codet. How has yours been?"

"Oh, if you call rotting away in prison a good time, then I've had a ball." The closer Kerr got to Codet, the more his senses were sharpening, becoming ready for danger.

He took a few more steps towards Codet, until he was about six feet away.

"I'm just not sure how to get rid of you, Kerr," Codet said in the heaviest of voices.

"You seemed to have had a unique way with my friends," Kerr said. "Can't you do the same for me? Or am I just simply to be killed?"

"I shall heed your request, and come up with a suitable understanding," Codet said. He began to laugh, calmly at first, then it kept building louder and louder until he was hysterical.

During all the laughter, all the insanity, and all the hopelessness of the situation, Kerr's mind turned to an idea. Out of the corner of his eye, he looked at Martie. The Captain looked tired and almost beaten, but his spirit seemed to be more intact than ever.

Kerr looked at Codet. He was still laughing as hard as he could in his chair.

Kerr closed his eyes and thought. He focused all his attention and waves on Martie's forehead.

"Martie."

His thoughts were all directed to one spot on the Captain's body. All his energy. All his vibrations. All his last hopes.

He focused harder.

"Martie!" he thought.

Nothing.

"Martie!" he thought harder a third time.

Martie's nerves above his eyebrows tightened, which gave his face a bewildered look.

Codet kept laughing.

Martie's eyes shifted towards Kerr. He saw that Kerr's eyes were shut in deep concentration, so he shut his.

"Martie!" The Captain heard his own name inside his head. He peeked out of one eye at Kerr, and realized that this is where the message was coming from.

"Martie," the voice inside of him called out, "I've got a simple but probably effective idea." Martie smiled. I guess Codet isn't the only one who can do Thought Osmosis, he thought. He listened inside his head, while Codet continued to laugh.

After a few moments, Martie opened his eyes.

"Codet!" he yelled. Codet's laughter ebbed as he looked at Martie. "Codet, you are an idiot!" Codet chuckled as he turned more towards Martie.

"What did you say, my tied­up friend?"

"I said that you are an idiot!"

"How do you figure that?"

"Because for all of those people that you killed, you have nothing to show for it. No jewels, no gems, no money, no power . . . nothing. All that you do now is run, and in your nightmares you here screams of those thousands of unfortunate people who happened to come across you."

Codet's face changed from the light­hearted figure to a stern look.

"You are wrong, Martie. I have my independence now, and no one to answer to."

"For what," Martie asked, "do you have your independence of running? What good is the freedom of fleeing?"

"The independence of revenge, my good man, is better than any," Codet answered.

"Bull! Revenge is only for the faint­hearted.

The cold­skinned animal who knows nothing else but teeth marks, blood stains, and hurt. Revenge is for the blind who suffer from it's symptoms, and the cynics and idiots who are enraged and overcome by it's fever.

You, Codet, are a prime example of stupidity at work in its purest form, with revenge and insanity ravaging your very existence."

Kerr tensed his muscles, for he felt the time was approaching.

Codet studied Martie.

"Well, my dear Captain," he said slowly raising his right arm with the weapon grasped in his hand, "quite a speech. Too bad it is your last oratory ever."

He aimed his weapon at Martie's head. "Say two last words, Martie. How about 'good bye'?"

If three things in the universe could ever happen simultaneously, then these three did. Codet squeezed the trigger on the weapon, as Martie bent his knees, dropped down, and spun around to the other side of the pole. At the same time, Kerr lunged at Codet.

The projectile from Codet's gun hit the front of the pole, but Martie was safe on the other side. Kerr's hand, though, didn't miss its mark. He hit Codet's hand with a force so strong it dislodged the weapon from his fingers, and it spun like a top in the soil of the planet's surface.

In that split microsecond, Codet was caught off guard.

In the next split microsecond, he regained his composure. In the blink of an eye, he hit Kerr with a backhand and broke three of his teeth.

"I hope that you enjoyed your seconds of the upper hand," Codet said, "for now you will pay for it."

He hit Kerr again this time with the full force of his hand, knocking him flat on his back. Kerr landed by the opening of one of the shafts.

"I shall be back for you," Codet said, and turned towards Martie. He took a small piece of rope he picked up along the way, and grabbed Martie by the hair, pulling him up from his squatting position behind the pole. He pulled Martie a few inches off of the ground, and tied the rope around his neck and around the pole.

Martie winced as his oxygen supply was slowly being cut off.

"Breath very deeply, Captain," Codet said, "soon it will be your last inhalation." Codet walked back over to Kerr, who was still lying on the ground by the shaft entrance.

"Now, my dear Captain, I shall tend to . . ." As Codet tried to finish his sentence, Kerr kicked and put one well placed thrust right between Codet's legs. Codet doubled over, screaming in pain, while Kerr jumped up and wiped off his bleeding mouth.

When Kerr looked at Codet again, he was coming for him.

"See!" Codet said as he wrestled Kerr to the ground "you can't keep this good man down long."

The two men fought fiercely the next few minutes, while Martie hung from the pole with his breath slowly ebbing from him. Codet was getting the better of the fight, and finally one huge swing sent Kerr

sprawling to the ground, landing again by one of the mine shafts.

Codet reached down and grabbed Kerr by his collar, turning his body so that Kerr's head was hanging over the edge of the shaft's entrance upside­down. Some rocks on the edge of the entrance fell into the hole, and traveled forever down into the planet's middle.

"These shafts are endless," Codet said, holding Kerr down. "A fall in these would send a person falling forever." His hands went for Kerr's throat, cutting the supply of oxygen ever so quickly to his brain. Kerr hurriedly went through his options of escape, and came up with none that would work.

Codet pushed harder and harder.

Compton thought and thought, and as a last ditch effort tried one last idea, one last desperate hope.

Straining, with only seconds left on his time clock, he stretched out his right hand and made a fist. He then extended his index and little fingers.

"Now you, Kerr!" Codet said as he applied the final pressure to Compton's throat.

Putting together every last ounce of energy, one last glimmer of survival, Compton thrust his right hand, fingers extended, toward Codet's face.

They found their mark.

His index finger entered Codet's right eye socket, as his little finger entered his left.

Codet screamed a scream never heard before, loosening his grip on Compton's throat. In that split second, that wink of an eye, Compton acted. He yanked down hard with his hand, his entire hand now covered with blood from grasping the inside of Codet's cheekbone. He pulled Codet's head lower.

Codet pulled his head back up.

Kerr yanked it down again.

Codet reacted, pulling it back up, yelling in primal pain the whole time. Kerr mustered all of his remaining strength, and yanked down as hard as he could the third time. At the same instant, he used his legs as a springboard, pushing Codet's body off of himself.

He pulled and kicked Codet off of him so hard that Codet flipped over Kerr's right shoulder and went head first down into the shaft.

Compton lay stunned for a moment.

Captain Martie, out of the corner of his eye, looked on, grasping for air, still tied to the pole.

Kerr turned over and grabbed Codet's phasic weapon, and stood up over the edge of the shaft opening. He aimed straight down the bottomless pit, and fired one long burst from the pistol.

"Just in case?" Martie whispered through his almost airless voice.

"My backup," Kerr answered calmly, "if the fall doesn't kill him, the bullets will."

"I wonder which will hit first, Codet . . . or the bullets hitting him?"

"He'll fall slow," Kerr said, "bastards always fall slow." He leaned over the edge of the shaft, blood dripping off his right hand.

He spit into the shaft.

"Bastard," he whispered into the cold air.

"Codet, you bastard. If you do finally hit bottom, the bullets won't be far behind."

He turned and headed toward Martie to untie him and to help him deliquify his wife.

Lieutenant Christian Heath broke the silence.

"Well, Kerr, I understand your extra­long fingers were an asset to you in your fight with Codet."

Kerr, now sitting in the lounge of Martie's ship with the Captain and Heath across from him, did not acknowledge the question. He just kept sipping slowly on the vial of hot liquid in his hand. After a few drinks, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small electronic device.

"Here, Captain, "Kerr said, "I'm installing this switching­device on your console. It will give you a direct line to my ship anytime."

"Kind of a hot line?" Martie smiled.

"Call it what you want. You Earthmen seem to need all the help that you can get in this part of the world. Always stumbling over something somewhere you shouldn't be."

Captain Martie laughed.

...closing

The old man, his eyes tired and his voice dry, closed the book and smiled. The young children layed back in apparent content.

"More!" they shouted. "More!"

"Someday," the old man whispered, "someday..."

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS "The Rainbow Day," originally published in THE VOLUNTEER. Vol. 20, No. 9. April 12, 1989.

"Looking forward, looking backward," originally published in EXPRESSIONS II. 1988. pages 23­27.

"The Game," originally published in THE VOLUNTEER. Vol. . No. .

1988.

All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, loving or dead, is purely coincidental.