A quote: “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” ~~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
I’ll start with a story …
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It wasn’t hard to see bad news riding my way. Dust like that is kicked up by horses ridden hard and fast.
I had coffee and hot crullers ready as they came through the door.
“Not a word, boys, until you’ve set a bit and had a bite.
I caught grateful looks as they fell to the fare. “The Grafton place is abandoned.”
I wasn’t surprised. Young Robbie was always a risk. Even as a child he was a master manipulator who could charm the birds out of the sky (or the panties off a gullible girl) at will. He also envied an imagined life in The City.
Which is why he was still a Probie, not a Citizen.
I sighed, “How long?”
“Long enough. But Miriam and the baby will slow him down. I have riders after them right now. But if we don’t get them before the Graymen …”
I held back tears. Not that we might have to evacuate. All towns were always one alarm away. No, it was Miriam. Sweet, stupid girl. Even if we caught up with them, only the baby would be coming back.
Survival was unforgiving.
I wiped the tear from my cheek.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
Cameron says: I stared at the man coldly as we sat down. “Get to the point and then get out.”
“I went through a lot of trouble to find you.”
“That should have been your hint that I didn’t want to be found.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry about what happened. You should not have been exiled.”
I smirked. “On that we agree. But I’ve built this ranch on my own. More physical work than magic mind you. So now you come here asking me for help.”
“He’s your son-“
“You said otherwise when my sentence was pronounced and you refused to let me go to my own wife’s funeral.”
“And I was wrong,” he said. “Please. The boy’s talent is emerging and there aren’t any teachers strong enough to help him.”
“How strong are we talking?”
We looked in the living room at the boy. The Vulpenaya, a deadly spirit that protected my ranch from outsiders, was playing with him like he was a happy little puppy. I could see the magic flowing off my son and touching him.
“Fine. He stays at the ranch and learns to control himself. But I do it my way. Keep the Council off my back.”
Eileen Milligan says: Report #126-72A
I warned Mandy, told her how dangerous this trip could be, and she had nodded her head and said she understood. She would pay attention, be helpful, be a part of the group. I was not entirely convinced but I let her in.
Today, as we were moving from one safe zone to another, Kate, a group member, abruptly decided that she had had enough and wanted off the bus. I sat and watched with horror as Mandy got off with Kate and disappeared in the crowded, noisy, dirty street. I remember the coldness that grew in my chest as I thought of what might happen to Mandy. With that coldness came dread. Mandy had not taken me seriously, now we were all in danger.
Four hours later, they found what was left of her. She had been tortured. She knew where this safe zone was, did they get that information from her? We could not take the chance, the order was given to abandon this zone and destroy it, completely.
We are running out of places to hide.
Sheila Garrett says: “You came to do what!?”
“Rescue Ally,” the young man said.
I looked around the entry hall. Marble staircase, Persian rugs, exquisite decor. “From what!?”
“You,” he started. “I friended Ally on Facebook six months ago.”
“Stop.” I looked at the butler, Cravis. “I believe I need to sit down for this one. Would you like a drink, young man?” He did.
Once we had our tea, iced for Billy, he said his name was, I heard a tale that I would never have believed if he wasn’t talking about my daughter. They’d been friends for three months when she started private messaging him. How she was isolated in her parents house, unable to go anywhere alone. Locked in her room, only able to go to her grandparents and church without her evil mother, me, watching over her constantly. When he wanted to call the police on me she’d said it would only make things worse. When he said he’d come and rescue her himself, she told him that we had guns and he would probably be shot.
“Oh, Lord,” I groaned, and tried to explain Ally to Billy. Because of a cleft palate at birth, Ally’s grandmother had been firmly convinced she was disabled and unable to do anything for herself, and proceeded to convince Ally of the same thing. Ally accepted this unquestionably, using it to get out of most of her chores, schoolwork, and other things most twenty-three year olds could do, including driving a car.
“That’s why she doesn’t go anywhere alone, someone has to take her anywhere she goes. Look,” I stood, “I’ll take you to Ally and let you see for yourself. I’m sorry you came all this way, but I think you’ll find that Ally is just fine.”
Two hours later I stood in shock as Billy told me he would marry Ally. It didn’t matter that she had misled him to get his sympathy. He loved her and was willing to take care of her the rest of her life.
The best I could do was make them wait another three months for the wedding, so we could have the relatives come from out of state. I was still shaking my head in disbelief as we watched them drive off to the honeymoon.
This world is just enough like Earth to make me homesick on nights like these, when that big pale moon shines full and bright over the mountains — and then I see the very different patterns of light and dark on its surface. Some people say it looks like an old Yankee Clipper, and other people say it looks more like a pagoda — but it’s sure not the Man in the Moon, or the Moon Rabbit, or any of the other figures people saw in Luna’s pattern of maria.
But it’s got one thing Earth just doesn’t have any more — wide-open spaces open to be claimed. So when the Chongu passed the word that they were looking for settlers out here, another world in their picket line against the Tchiador, we volunteered. Maybe we were crazy to hop on a spaceship and head out so far that even if we could find Sol among the strange constellations, we’d be looking at light that left it back when King John and his barons were hashing out the Magna Carta.
At least we had one huge advantage over the settlers of the American West — we were looking at a world that had already been mapped from orbit, so we had a good idea of the prevailing weather and drainage patterns. For instance, we knew from the beginning that our homestead would be in a part of this continent where cold polar air would collide with warm air off that big shallow inland sea, creating weather similar to that of the Midwestern prairies. We’d need a suitable shelter in our building plans, so when the warnings came through from the weather satellites the Chongu were putting in orbit, we’d have somewhere to take refuge.
So we were delighted to discover an opening to an underground cavern not far from our planned farmstead. It’d spare us the expense of excavating and constructing a storm shelter. Just put in some stairs, maybe level out the floor, and ensure we had proper drainage so it wouldn’t flood.
And then we started finding the artifacts. Strange things, like nothing the Chongu or any of their sepoy species make, and according to their xenoanthropologists, not anything the Tchiador or their sepoys make either. Tools made for a completely alien body plan, and showing evidence of being millions of years old.
It would be our luck to pick a homestead right on top of a trove of artifacts that may well trace back to the mysterious ancient civilization that spread through this part of the galaxy about the time of the Permian Extinctions.
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