Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103

NEVER SPOKE, NEVER FORGOT Sheriff Jacob Keller laughed as his grandson strutted noisily down the boardwalk, just button-bustin' proud of himself, leading a Paso Fino colt half beside and half behind him. Sheriff Jacob Keller leaned his head forward a little to see this clattering wonder. The gait of a Paso is rapid, unique, exquisitely smooth: this is an inborn, inbred gait, it is not taught, it is the natural pace of this fine breed, and even their very young colts walk with this rapid pace. Juvenile boot heels were almost lost in the waterfall of tiny hooves on warped boards. Jacob's son Will leaned against the opposite side of the ornately turned post. The Sheriff's Office was of stone now, but the boardwalk remained -- there were plans to replace it with a stone walk, but that hadn't happened yet -- the snowshed roof that overhung the board walk in front of the Sheriff's office sheltered the Deacon's Bench (where to human knowledge, no deacon had ever parked his backside), and in season -- which was almost every day -- loafers, idlers, whittlers, liars and other interesting folk would take their ease, at least for a little while. The pair watched as this representative of their pale eyed bloodline strutted happily past them, all little-boy grin and flannel shirt, unbuttoned vest and hat cocked back on his head: granddad and Pa waited until their progeny crossed the rutted dirt street (soon to be brick paved, or so they'd been told!) and down the broad alley toward the livery. Father and son looked out over the street, at a local cat on one end of the horse trough, at one of the stray dogs at the other: the pair had a truce: neither intruded on the other's territory, though their young were not signatories to this territorial understanding: kittens were known to climb atop Mount Hounddog and sleep, or bat the scarred tail, but woe betide any representative of the Canine Kingdom that intruded upon Feline Territory! "Will?" Jacob's voice was deep, confident, the reassuring tones of a father who was certain of his place in the world, the comfortable voice of a man standing in the sunlight, soaking up a little heat on an otherwise chilly morning. "Yes, sir?" "Thank you." Silence for several heartbeats. "You're welcome, sir." Jacob's ear pulled back a little at the note of uncertainty in his son's reply. "Will, you're first born." "Yes, sir." "I was too." "Yes, sir." "A man makes his first mistakes and his worst mistakes and his most often mistakes with his firstborn." "Sir?" Jacob pushed away from the porch post, turned to face his son: Will turned as well, puzzled. "Will, you've done better as a father than I did with you. I'm proud of you!" "Sir?" Will replied, honestly puzzled. Jacob laid a fatherly hand on his firstborn's shoulder, and Will saw the humor, deep in his Pa's pale eyes. "You're doin' good, Will, and I'm proud of you!" Linn sat on a bale of hay, grateful for the thick, folded saddleblanket that kept prickles from insulting his denim covered backside. Michael sat beside him, silent, clutching an invisible blanket of misery like it was something precious. Linn pulled out his watch, unfast it from his watch chain: he pressed the stem to flip open its cover, handed it to his son. "Don't think I showed you this yet," he said, his voice gentle. Michael took the watch, frowned a little as he looked at the inside of the hunter case, then he grinned, looked up at his Pa, honestly delighted. "Sir, that's gorgeous!" Linn winked. "Your Mama likes it!" Shelly's image looked up from the inside of the watch case: it was Confederate work, engraved with lasers or something, Linn wasn't sure quite how it was done, he only knew his wife's portrait was actually engraved into the metal, colorized somehow, and had a protective layer of something over it to prevent its damage. Michael nodded, started to hand it back. "Look closer, Michael." Michael's hand stopped, drew back, and he frowned a little as he studied the image again. "Look around it. Circling the portrait." Michael tilted the watch, frowning: he ran an exploring fingertip into it, looked up at his father, puzzled. "A hair?" Linn nodded, smiled a little -- almost sadly, Michael thought as his Pa accepted the watch back, closed the case, fast it back onto his watch chain, thumbed it into his vest. "It is a single, blond hair." Michael's brows twitched a little -- Linn knew this meant his son was surprised, that he wasn't expecting that answer -- he looked at his Pa and said, "Sir?" Linn chewed on his bottom lip, rubbed his palms slowly together. "Michael," he said slowly, "I had a girlfriend ... in college ..." He frowned, looked at the floor: Michael saw his body language shift just a little, he read this as defensiveness, and he was right. "Her name was Dana," Linn said softly, "and my Pa disliked her from the moment he laid eyes on her. I don't know if that's because he thought her a city girl, I don't know if it's just ... sometimes you meet someone and they remind you of someone else and you dislike them instantly. I don't know." Linn looked up, looked across the barn, looked through the workbench and the far wall, his voice distant, softer. "She had blue eyes and blond hair and honestly she was built like a fire plug but I loved that woman," he almost whispered. "She complained I had my Pa so high on a pedestal it's a wonder he didn't have nosebleed. She had no idea that's where I had her." Michael listened silently. He knew somehow his Pa was showing him a hidden part of his heart, and he knew he would have to tread very carefully to keep from bruising this -- this apparently tender memory -- and so he stayed silent, he listened closely to his father's gently spoken words. "I was firstborn, Michael, and a firstborn is trained -- first, foremost, before all else -- to OBEY. "Don't think, OBEY. "Don't ask questions, OBEY. "Even before don't take off your diaper, the firstborn is taught to OBEY -- immediately, without hesitation, without question." Michael waited; silence grew long in the stillness, then Linn continued. "My Pa did not like Dana, and so -- I'm a firstborn -- I broke it off because he didn't ..." Michael saw his father's head drop, slowly, saw his hands close into fists, then open. "Pa and I were estranged for a lot of years. "One day Mama and I were talking -- your Gammaw" -- Linn looked over at Michael, his expression soft, and Michael saw the smile of a good memory tightening up the corners of his Pa's eyes -- "she said Pa was working on an important speech, dictating it into a tape recorder and playing it back. "She said he looked at her all surprised and said, 'That sounds like Linn!' " He looked off toward the workbench again and continued in a gentle voice, "Mama said 'You're just now realizing this?' -- and she didn't say any more about it. "She didn't have to. "I realized then how much alike we were and that's why we were damn neart estranged for a time. "I went home and we set down and Pa and I talked for a good long while and neither of us said a thing about it and by then Dana married someone else -- she died ten years ago, rest her soul, pneumonia -- but this..." Linn pressed the stem on his watch, flipped it open again. "That one single hair," he said, "is from Dana's hairbrush." He dropped his head again. "The firstborn is taught to obey," he said, and Michael heard honest regret in his father's voice. "I dropped Dana and I've regretted that every single day of my life since then. I blamed Pa for a long time until I realized it was my choice, I could have married Dana anyhow, so I blamed me for a long time, and finally I let it go." Michael blinked, silent, digesting all this: his fingers closed gently around his shining, faceted crystal watch fob. "Juliette was a fine young lady," Linn said slowly. "I am genuinely sorry she was lost to us." "Thank you, sir." "Marnie filled me in on how you kept a promise." "Yes, sir." Linn turned, laid a careful, open hand gently on his son's shoulder blades. "Michael, I am proud of you." Michael swallowed. "Thank you, sir." Linn's jaw eased forward, his brows wrinkling together a little, then he looked very seriously at his youngest son. "Michael, follow your heart. I'm not the one marryin' the girl you take a shine to. If she's the right one for you, then you are not answerable to anyone for your choice." "Sir?" "Yes, Michael?" Linn's youngest son squirmed a little, the way he used to as a little boy, then he turned and looked very directly at his Pa. "Sir, why are you tellin' me this?" Linn considered for several long moments: he rubbed his palms thoughtfully together, he looked across the still, empty barn, listening to the ghosts that lived there, the memories that filled this shadowed space. "Michael," he said slowly, "a father realizes at some point that even his youngest is growin' up. You kept a promise, hard though it was." Linn swallowed, continued in a huskier voice. "When that happens, the Old Man has to realize his son just stood up on his hind legs and started makin' noises like a man. You've proven yourself many times, Michael, it just took this long and this one thing to soak through my thick skull." Michael nodded, chewed on his bottom lip, considered for a long moment, then he pulled out his own watch. He unfast it from his own watch-chain, pressed the stem, flipped open the cover and wordlessly handed it to his father. Linn looked at the blank inside of the watch cover. He tilted it a little to catch the light across it. Michael saw his father's eyes smile a little at the corners as his Pa saw a single hair, circling the inside of the watch cover, sealed to its stainless steel surface.

A PROMISE KEPT The robot ship coasted silently in the silence between stars. A heavy walled pipe extended through its hull into the black vacuum. The ship was moving at a fantastic velocity, but owing to a lack of landmarks, it seemed to be still, unmoving. A cloud of dust and crystallizing gas trickled from the pipe, a surprisingly cohesive stream that spread, dissipated, disappeared. Michael Keller waited until the funnel was empty, until the dust was gone, educted with a stream of dry nitrogen, into interstellar space. He'd made a promise. A crystal hung from his vest, a crystal with a pinch of dust in its faceted heart: he wore a watch fob, and in it, the last earthly remains of a girl he'd known as Juliette. Michael loaded the eductor into the ejection hatch, launched the spent device into the void, guaranteeing every milligram of ground, burnt, bone ash was sent to the stars she'd seen when her bandages were first removed from her regrown eyes. Michael Keller manipulated the controls that closed the hatch, sealed the ejectors: he turned, addressed the robot ship. "We're done. Take me home." An Iris appeared before the ship; they passed through the black ellipse, and disappeared. Michael sat heavily, remembering, staring at the long, faceted crystal at the end of his watch-chain. He remembered how her arms felt, how she held him around his middle as she rode behind him, as Lightning took them to places he'd seen and described to her -- the great falls, where he'd shot rock snakes that tried to kill his twin sister, and him -- he'd taken her to glaciers, windy and cold, to seashores that glowed at night, he'd taken her to a planet where bright, screeching parrots fluttered around them, swinging around branches like acrobats. He'd taken her to a prairie where herds of bovines moved like a broad, shaggy river, she'd laughed with delight as they stood atop a rocky promontory and felt the earth shivering underfoot at the passing of thousands of hooves, he'd taken her to a night-darkened field where glowing insects flashed green in an ancient mating dance, looking like living emeralds bobbing in a velvet pool. He'd held her hand as she whispered that she did not want to die in a hospital, she wanted to die at home, in her own bed, and he'd set beside her and held her hand as she relaxed, as the cancer ate into her brain and murdered her as she slept. He'd been with her when she was examined, when Confederate medicine, for all its miracles, failed to stop the cancer that damned flesh-burning plant caused, and he'd tried his best to find the plants that did this, only to discover they'd already been rooted out and destroyed. Michael Keller held her as she whispered that he'd shown her beauty she never knew existed, he'd urged Lightning to greater speed as they thundered across a prairie, surrounded by whistling Fanghorns, running as if to escape Death itself. All this he remembered as he sat, alone, in the silence of a robot ship, holding a pinch of dust, sealed in a crystal, attached to his watch chain. An electronic voice said, "Arrival," and the rear hatch opened. Michael stood, settled his Stetson on his head. He saw his Pa's Appaloosas, he saw fence he and his Pa worked on and painted and rode together and kept up, he saw the pasture he'd known since earliest childhood. Michael remembered how Juliette clapped her hands with delight and laughed at the Appaloosa colts, running and kicking and playing in the pasture, he remembered how gentle her words had been when she murmured, "Horsie puppies," and he'd looked sideways at her gentle smile, and he remembered how happy he was in that moment. Michael walked out into the pasture, half sick with grief. He walked over to one of the white mares that drew the fire wagon, fed her a pinch of molasses cured chawin' tobacker, bent his wrist and murmured "Ship, released," and the robot ship rose silently, turned, eased through an Iris, disappeared. He laid an arm over the mare's back and buried his face in her long mane, forbidding himself the grief that roared like ocean's anger over the rock dam of his resolve, and he remembered the night when they unwrapped the bandages from Juliette's new eyes, and how the first thing she saw was the stars, and he remembered how she held his hand and whispered to him that the cancer was killing her and they couldn't stop it, and promise me you'll send me to those stars I saw when I had eyes again. Michael Keller gritted his teeth and forbade himself to make a sound. His shoulders heaved and he locked his grief deep in his throat as an Appaloosa colt came up and nosed him under the arm, and he swallowed hard and rubbed the curious little mare's back the way he did when the colt came up and nosed up under Juliette's arm, and then his. Pale eyes watched him, from a distance: a mother moved, as if to go to her son, but a father shook his head, and she stopped. "I don't understand," Shelly whispered, her throat tight, for she knew what it was to lose someone she loved. Linn was silent for a long moment, his arm around his wife's shoulders, then he raised her hand to his lips, kissed her knuckles, and she felt a scalding drop of saltwater drop on the back of her hand. "Sometimes," he said, and swallowed, and started again, for he too knew what it was to say that final goodbye. "Sometimes a man has to keep a promise." The last long red ray of the setting sun reflected off the crystal on Michael's watch chain, as bright and pure as a maiden's heart.

... and that odd braying sound in the distance is me, laughin' ...

NOTHING MUCH, JUST CAUSIN' TROUBLE, HOW 'BOUT YOU? "Howdy, Pa!" Linn grinned at the scrubbed-clean face of his growing son, reddened cheeks glowing in what must be cold air: Linn saw snow landing on Michael's Stetson brim, saw his son's breath from between the turned up sheepskin lined collar as he spoke. "How does Lightning handle the cold weather?" "She's fine, sir. Thunder and Cyclone are wallerin' like a couple pups, playin' in the drifts!" Linn grinned, nodded: Michael saw his father's brows crowd together a little and knew the Grand Old Man had a question. "Michael, did you happen to travel back East by any chance?" Michael's grin was quick, bright, genuine. "I did, sir!" "I thought that might've been you, but all they really had on camera was your saddle blanket." Michael grimaced. "Didn't mean to cause trouble, sir." Sheriff Linn Keller's grin was just as quick, just as genuine as his son's. "It couldn't be traced to us, Michael, and I have to admire what you did!" Michael squinted at a gust of wind, as snow sleeted across, heavier now, a there-and-gone crystal curtain between himself and the camera/screen. "I reckon you'd best find shelter out of that wind." "We'll be home tonight, sir. Is Mama still fixin' meatloaf for supper?" Michael lowered his arm, glad to get his wrist-screen back into his coat-sleeve: that wind was finding every gap in his insulation. Lightning lifted her head and whistled: Thunder and Cyclone charged across what was, in warm weather, a tallgrass meadow, but was now either scoured down to dry grass and frosted, or drifted nearly tall as a grown man: they were two kids playing in the snow, lowering their heads, driving their flat, juvenile bone-bosses into the fluffy white stuff and whistling delight as they blasted drifts into clouds of crystal powder. Fanghorn, colts and a pale eyed rider drifted ahead of the wind, toward a sheltered lee they knew of. A worried looking woman cleaned the tracheostomy tube, dunked it in white vinegar, sloshed the scrubbed-clean plastic vigorously and set it out to dry. Her daughter's trach was freshly changed and she was breathing more easily now. There was a knock at the door -- a brisk shave-and-a-haircut. "I'll be right back," she murmured, and her daughter signed a quick "OK" -- she communicated with sign language, her fingers fast and surprisingly graceful from years of practice. The mother wiped her hands on a towel, snapped it over her shoulder, opened the door. A tall boy -- not a young man yet, but getting there -- removed his black Stetson. "I understand your insurance gave you grief," he said without preamble, extending a thick yellow envelope. "You likely had to pay out of pocket for a night nurse for your daughter. It would be a blessing on me if you'd accept this." "I -- what --" The young man replaced his Stetson, touched his hat-brim, turned: he swung a leg over what she thought was a horse, until it stood, until she realized this monstrous, muscled creature was almost horse shaped, but elephant tall. The rider touched his hat-brim again, then they rode ahead. The mother drew back, opened the thick, surprisingly heavy envelope, took a look. She ripped the envelope, laid out the contents, tore the paper bands on thick bundles of bills, started to count. Her jaw dropped as she whispered a sum to the still air, then she grabbed for her purse, for her phone, she pulled up an app and took a look at what the doorbell camera might have caught. The only thing she really saw was the insignia on the saddle blanket, an insignia that made the evening news when they covered the story on the insurance company's refusal to pay for a night nurse for her daughter's care. The evening news showed a gold, six point star, in the lower rear corner of the saddle blanket -- that, and blond fur with forked lightning paths in lighter fur. A family sat down to supper: laughter, quiet voiced discussion, the smell of meat loaf, of green beans with onion and bacon, of taters and gravy, of fresh baked bread: Shelly complained good-naturedly that she cooked for thrashers, her husband said he was trying to think of a good smart remark to make and his mind just went blank, and his wife squinted one eye shut and shook a menacing fist at him, at least until he grabbed her wrist, kissed her knuckles and murmured, "You good lookin' thing, can I flirt with you?" Meat loaf was slabbed off and deposited on plates, plates were circulated around the table and loaded down, when china settled to the tablecloth Linn bowed his head and said "Hello, plate!" and a half dozen sweet rolls sailed through the air and most of them hit his forehead or scalp -- he caught two of them, and Snowdrift made short work of the ones that hit the floor -- and the sound of knife and fork prevailed, at least until clean plates and covetous glances announced the arrival of the coveted "Time for Dessert!" Pie and ice cream, distributed generously, while Shelly pretended to ignore that Michael and Victoria put their plates on the floor -- "Prewash," Michael described it innocently some years before, as Snowdrift et. al. polished the china free of any remainders -- Victoria looked at her Daddy, and at Michael, and said something about seeing a mystery man and his generous financial gift to a woman who'd had to take out a short term loan due to an insurance firm refusing to pay what they were eventually shamed and embarrassed into paying. Michael managed to look very innocent as he paid close attention to fresh homemade still-warm-from-the-oven apple pie and the double scoop of vanilla ice cream atop the sugar-dusted crust. "Nobody knows who it was," Victoria continued, "but they did show the only thing she got on her doorbell camera." She held up her pad, turned the screen toward Michael, showed the still shot of a gold, six point star on a black saddleblanket, with blond, lightning-streaked hide showing behind. "Michael," she said in a scolding sister's voice, "what have you been up to?" Michael sat up very straight, pale eyes wide and innocent as he looked around the table, at every face there, then back to his twin sister's knowing expression and the screen she still held toward him. "Oh, nothing much," he said casually, "just causin' trouble, how 'bout you?" A thirteen year old girl looked out her window and waved, and a boy about her age, wearing a black suit and a black, flat-crowned Stetson, grinned and waved, and then the big blond horse he rode reared, huge hooves smashing at the air. In the next room, a mother sat, staring at the pile of cash on her table. She could pay off that loan she'd taken out, and then some.

Rainin' like pourin' dried peas on a rawhide. (Describing a heavy rain) It's a genuine toad strangler!

I was told the same thing, Wallaby -- by a B17 pilot from the European theater, rest his soul. I'd say you do indeed have the right of it!

So short he could sit on a cigarette paper and swing his legs Half a sandwich shy of a picnic So crooked he planted a grove of cork screws for shade. So crooked he wasn't buried. They screwed him into the ground.

WHEN IN DOUBT, CHEAT! It was a contest of wills, and Michael was not winning. He did, however, have an advantage his long tall Pa lacked. Michael's Confederate field -- a much improved version of the one that kept him from being incinerated when he and Lightning inadvertently came into an area where military maneuvers were not supposed to be conducted -- was modified such that, when the fiery Appaloosa stallion dropped his head between splayed forelegs and did his best to mule-kick one of the two moons overhead, Michael sailed through the air, tried to tuck and tumble and land on his feet, and ended up slamming into packed ground, almost flat on his back. As Michael's spine had been completely regrown, as he'd known pain beyond what most grown men could even survive, as he had an honest paranoia about reinjuring himself, when he landed, he just kind of laid there, mouth open, gasping in wind that somehow had not been knocked out of him. When he realized the Confederate field soaked up the impact of landing, and the actual shock to his lean young body was almost nonexistent, he snarled, clamped his jaw shut, came up on all fours and charged the stallion. Michael Keller stopped -- fast -- he skidded awkwardly, one leg thrust forward, then he rose, looked at the offending equine, still bucking around the circular corral. It took an effort, but he unclenched his fists, he took another long breath, blew it out. The stallion apparently thought this was great fun: he came mincing over, as if daring Michael to try again, and Michael did. This time, when he felt the stallion start to bunch up, he drove his head down, grabbed an ear between even white teeth, and bit. Hard. The stallion squalled. It wasn't the pure, beautiful, whistling whinny of a horse declaring its strength and mastery and happiness, it was the distressed wail that meant something was very wrong and the realization that it had just been bested sunk through his thick horse skull. Michael felt his teeth meet, he opened his jaw, spat out some hair, sat up. The stallion's eyes walled and Michael felt him shivering beneath him. "Now, damn you," Michael muttered, spitting again, "walk!" The stallion was not the only recalcitrant saddlemount Michael worked that day. The stallion was, however, the one Michael kept coming back to, and fooling with, and gentling with caress and brush and thick pinches of shredded, molasses cured, chawin' tobacker. Whether it's because the rebellious child is the one most loved by a parent, whether it's because this horse honestly had the most spirit, the most raw strength, the greatest intelligence, or whether because of a tall boy's bruised pride, Michael worked with this particular stallion more than the other horses. It wasn't that he tamed it, or that he got it gentled down, it was more like there was some kind of a truce between them, and there was speculation among men who knew horses, that each party thought this to their benefit, and both horse and rider thought each had bamboozled the other. Whether in spite of any of these, or because of any of these, Michael and this particular stallion matched up well. Slingshot wasn't the smoothest riding horse Michael ever straddled. Slingshot wasn't the fastest, though in fairness he was in the top three. He was the contrariest, he was the stubbornnest, he was honestly the one most likely to try and duck under a low branch or wipe Michael off against a convenient tree -- but when he found none of these things worked, when other riders uses curses, kicks and quirts on him when he tried such things, and Michael did not -- well, Slingshot found himself under saddle leather for Michael more often, and offered less protest when it was Michael in the saddle. Lightning, of course, was not impressed, but she had her adopted colts to tend; still, she would snuff elaborately at Michael's legs, then lift her head and grunt as if at a bad odor, after Michael came to her after a day's work with Slingshot. Michael's father watched on his computer screen, a rarely seen, gentle smile as he marveled at his son's skill: Barrents watched with him, whistled quietly: "Boss, there is a horseman!" Linn nodded and said softly, "He's twice the chevalier I ever was!" "Is that what he's doing for a living now?" Linn nodded. "Very nearly, or so I understand. He's borrowed my old experienced horses and he's using them to teach young men." Linn smiled. "What was it the man said about the Lipizzaners? 'The old men teach the young horses, and the old horses teach the young men.' " Barrents gave a chuckling double-grunt, the way he did when his old friend managed to tickle the Navajo's funny bone. "Is he making a decent living at it?" "I gather he is. He's got quite the commerce in books and Angela built on that and she's dealing in printing presses, paper making ... and hemp." "Hemp?" Barrents was a hard man to surprise, but Linn heard just the hint of surprise in his lifelong friend's voice. "Outlasts cotton several times over, it's better than jute for rigging on a sailing-ship. Makes fine rag paper that outlasts wood pulp paper seven ways from Sunday. That's opened the door for technologies from Confederate Central -- they install nuclear rippers on every stack, at every waste discharge of any kind, all waste is reduced to its subatomic components and reassembled into something they need." Linn shook his head. "All that's beyond me. I'm just a poor dumb hillbilly." Barrents rested a warm, strong, blunt-fingered hand on the shoulder of a man he'd known since earliest childhood. "My sons have out-done me," he said quietly, "and I couldn't be prouder!" Linn nodded. "Me too, Buddy Joe," he said, just as quietly. "Me too." Michael looked at Thunder and Cyclone, one hand on Lightning's shoulder. He looked up at the big, slow-blinking Fanghorn mare's blunt, businesslike skull. "Down," he said, his voice quiet. Lightning folded thick-boned, hard-muscled legs, bellied down with a surprising grace. Michael walked over to Thunder, laid a hand on the young stallion's shoulder. "Down," he said. Cyclone looked at Lightning, looked at Michael, bellied down without being told. Thunder looked at her, turned his neck toward Michael, bellied down. Michael gave them each a peppermint, called them good puppies, the way he'd done when he was but a wee child -- when he and Victoria were still very young, they laughed and called their Daddy's colts "Horsie Puppies!" -- and Michael still secretly called them puppies, which he thought nobody else knew, which everyone else in his family thought was sweet and charming, and fortunately nobody teased him about. Michael threw a leg over Thunder, eased a small amount of weight down onto the saddle, while stroking his neck and murmuring to him. The young Fanghorn's eyes closed and he chirped happily, delighted for the attention. Michael didn't put more than a very little of his weight onto the saddle: he came off the bellied-down stallion, went over to Cyclone, called her a good little puppy, threw a leg over, let her feel a very few pounds' weight in the saddle, all the while caressing her and murmuring to her, all while under Lightning's watchful gaze. Michael came out of the saddle: "Up!" he called, with a dramatic lift to his palms. Lightning came to her feet, towering impressively over the three. Cyclone looked around, came to a stand as well. Thunder, however, didn't so much stand, as sneak: he coasted over to Michael almost on tiptoes, if it's possible for a hooved Fanghorn to walk on the tippy-toe edges of hard, broad hooves: Thunder's head lowered, he stuck his neck out, he very delicately nipped at Michael's backside, seizing the dangling wild rag -- he bit, he pulled, he danced back, waving the big white kerchief with blue polka-dots triumphantly. Michael Keller, horse-handler, Fanghorn-rider and young businessman and entrepreneur, yelled, grabbed futilely at the fluttering poka-dot, chased after him, and Thunder whirled, hobby-horsed away, just out of reach. Cyclone thought this was a fine game so she came bouncing along as well, and Lightning, not to be left out of the fun, trotted after the three, whistling approval. Sharon's head turned and she looked from her dispatcher's desk back toward the closed door of the Sheriff's office, then she smiled as she recognized the sound. The Sheriff and his chief deputy were laughing at something, and laughing well indeed.

THE YOUNG Marnie said this looks like the Ohio country where Gammaw grew up. Michael eased his weight into his stirrups, stood up, worked his backside a little now that he was off his setter. He straddled a creature taller than an African elephant, a beast with fangs and lightning-streaked fur, one of only three Fanghorns ever to tolerate a saddle, though that was changing: Lightning adopted two orphaned Fanghorns, outcast from the herd, and Michael and Victoria were working with them the way their Pa worked with colts back home, getting them used to wearing a light saddle, getting used to having a saddle blanket draped over their spine, of having weighted saddlebags behind the empty saddle. The young Fanghorns were as quick and as intelligent as Lightning, equally demanding of attention: Marnie watched the twins working with the colts and murmured to Angela, "Sherlock Holmes must've seen this pair in action." "Oh?" " 'Jealous as a pair of professional beauties,' " she quoted, and Angela nodded thoughtfully. "They are that!" "How soon will they try riding them?" "Michael said he didn't want to ride a two year old Appaloosa. I think these two are just short of two years." "Three, then?" Marnie nodded, smiled as the colts came trotting ponderously over to the fence. Marnie hauled up her hemline, scaled the whitewashed board fence, dropped easily to the other side: Angela was a little slower, but when Marnie looked up from fooling with Cyclone, she saw Angela's look of absolute delight as Thunder laid his head against her front, closed his eyes and gusted out a noisy sigh of obvious contentment. "I wonder ..." Marnie looked up, smiled. "Joseph needs to learn to ride, and so does Littlejohn." Angela's eyes smiled at the corners: her hands were busy with the demands of a young Fanghorn with all the patience of a two-year-old at an amusement park. "We don't want them ridden too early, but they need some weight, more than saddlebags." "We can apply a medical monitor with their Confederate shielding. I know who to ask about spine related stresses." "How do you think Jacob will react to our drafting from his Unorganized Militia?" "If it comes to horses?" Angela laughed. "He'll be all for it!" "I thought he might." Angela reached under Thunder's jaw, rubbed it gently: the young Fanghorn muttered happily, and Cyclone came over, lifted her head, begging Marnie's attention. "You're spoiled, you know that." Thunder chirped quietly. Lightning stood, watching, for all the world like a proud Mama. "Michael said Lightning does that to show she's the Herd Mare." "Do Fanghorns have a Herd Stallion?" "Michael?" Angela called, lifting her chin. Lightning came plodding along behind him as Michael approached. "Does a Fanghorn herd have a stallion in residence?" "Not generally. Not from what I've seen, anyway. They come around when the mares come fresh, but when the mares freshen they'll peel away from the herd and look for the studs." "How soon will Thunder's automatic pilot take over?" "Probably a couple of years, I think." "Any idea when Cyclone will start to freshen?" Michael looked at the contented Fanghorn colt, almost ready to melt for happiness as his sister's hands caressed the way she used to put Appaloosa colts to sleep when they leaned against her in that selfsame manner. "I'm ... no, I ... don't really know," he admitted. "I reckon we'll find out, then." Michael nodded, frowned as an idea occurred to him. "Sis ..." Three pale eyed Keller ladies looked at him, blinked, and all three said with one voice, "Which one?" Michael opened his mouth, his ears reddened -- good God he looks like Daddy! -- Michael looked away as his sisters all giggled -- his eyes swung toward Lightning and she lowered her head, chirped quietly as he caressed her jaw and muttered, "At least you still love me!" "So what's your idea?" Marnie smiled. Michael frowned at Cyclone, considered her loaded saddlebags. "I don't want to put a man's weight in their saddles yet," he said, "but might we try Littlejohn or Joseph ridin'? They need to learn anyway." Michael had the distinct feeling his idea had somehow been outmaneuvered as his sisters looked at one another, then at Lightning, then at the colts, and finally back to him. "I think that could be arranged," Angela said finally. "I'll talk to Jacob. I know Ruth delights in going off-planet."

EXAMPLE Esther Keller hesitated as she saw her husband's labors. She stood at the corner of the house and looked at his backside. Wives are perceptive and observant creatures, and Esther was both. She knew when her husband divested himself of his coat, he intended some work, but when he hung up his vest as well, he was either unhappy, or boilin' mad -- generally the two meant the same thing -- and the fact that he was splitting wood with a broad ax instead of the double bit, argued for his mood more the latter than merely the former. Linn's shirt was sweat-damp -- sweat dried fast this high up -- which told Esther he'd been working himself mercilessly, viciously, and that meant he was mad clear through, and he chose to take all that temper out somewhere he'd not cause any more harm that -- at worst -- a broken ax handle. He set another saw-cut chunk up on the splittin' stump, ran a palm down the side of his hip, then the other palm -- Esther did not have to see his face to know he was absolutely glaring at the chunk he'd just set up -- he moved, smooth, fast, brought the ax around in a flawless, tight, incredibly swift circle -- Esther Keller was all woman, and mad or not, her husband struck a fine and manly figure when he was at labor. Esther glided forward, swinging out to her right, more to come into her husband's peripheral than to stay shy of the swing of the hand-forged, broad blade: her eyes were as gentle as her voice as he stopped, parked the ax against the wood pile, as she said quietly, "I thought you might be thirsty." Linn nodded, wiped his face and the back of his neck with a worse-for-wear cloth: he hung the sweat rag over the end of the ax handle, turned to Esther, approached her slowly, almost carefully. He picked up the tall glass from the tray, looked over its thick rim at his wife's knowing eyes. "Thank you, darlin'," he said, his voice quiet, the way it was when he spoke to her: he put the glass to his lips, took a sip, took another, closed his eyes and sighed quietly, then took a good long drink. When he came up for air, Esther had a handful of pitcher handle and refilled the glass. "Darlin'," he said quietly, "that is genuinely good!" "You've been working for a while." Esther turned a little, the way a woman will, to swing her skirts and remind a man of her femininity. Linn nodded. He took another drink, frowned a little: "Strawberries in this?" Esther smiled. "I cut up strawberries from some preserves and stirred in." "Darlin', you've got somethin' good here!" "I'm glad you like it." Esther looked around: Linn kicked half the chunk off the splittin' stump and Esther set her tray down, came over, took her husband's hands. "What is it, darling?" she asked quietly, and Linn gathered her into his arms, held her, laid his cheek over on top of her hair. She felt his strength, felt him take a long breath, felt as much as heard him sigh it out. "And don't tell me it's nothing, Mister Keller," she murmured, lifting her head and looking up at him with those lovely green eyes of hers. Linn's eyes snapped open and he jumped like he'd been stung. He was laying in his own bed. His hand slid to the side, fingers open, searching -- A pale eyed old man screwed his eyes tight shut, his questing hand clenching futilely into a closed, shaking fist. Just a dream. It felt so real. Esther -- He threw back the covers, squinted toward the window: not long after, Dana Keller looked up and smiled as her Daddy came sock-foot down the stairs, dressed and carrying his boots. She turned up the lamp so he could see her: it was not yet daylight, and she knew his eyes were failing him, and she did not wish to startle him, like she'd done before, and he nearly came to tears apologizing to her for startling him. She never told anyone about the event, but she'd never forgotten his voice -- younger, stronger, hopeful, as he turned toward her, as he said, "Esther?" -- then reality walked up and belted the man across the face with a cold dead fish, and he'd turned away, ashamed. "You're up early," Linn said quietly. "Is all well?" "Yes, Daddy. I knew you'd be up." Linn set his burnished Cavalry boots down, careful to set them down quietly, then he took his daughter's hands and smiled, raised them to his lips. "Darlin'," he confessed, "I'm near to stone blind, and you're still as gorgeous as I remember!" Dana laughed and hugged her Daddy, throwing her arms around his neck and giggling like the little girl she used to be, and Linn hugged her back, straightened, brought her off the floor, then set her down, startled and half ashamed: she wasn't his little girl anymore, she was womanly now, and part of him didn't want this change to come quite so fast. Dana patted her Daddy's chest, then ran her fingers under his necktie, gave it an entirely unnecessary tug: "You're causing me trouble, you know," she said quietly, and he could hear the smile in her words. "Oh, now, trust me to do just that!" he bantered back. "What did your old man do now?" Dana planted her knuckles on her apron strings and declared, "Daddy, a girl looks to her Daddy to see what kind of a man she could marry! Now where in the world will I find someone who measures up to the example you've set?" The hired girl came hurrying up, muttering apologies, mumbling that she had to get the fire up and get breakfast started and she'd not be but a minute or two, and Linn caught her by the shoulders and turned her toward him and lowered his head a little. "Mary," he said gently (her name was Mildred, but he called her Mary out of habit) -- "don't be apologizin' to me now," and Angela heard the smile in his voice as he said the words: "we're not usually up this early, it's my fault and not yours!" "There you go again," Dana complained good-naturedly, and the two women shared a look of mutual understanding. "Where am I going to find a husband who is as naturally kind as you are?" Dana winked at Mildred, steered her Daddy out of the kitchen. "Come on out on the porch and help me watch the sun come up. We're underfoot here and I hate to interfere with Mildred's good work!" Father and daughter emerged onto the front porch, their breath steaming: the barking chant of the freight engine pulling the ore train was not loud, but it was clear, rhythmic in the dawn-shadowed distance. Linn leaned against the porch rail, looking around, remembering. Dana took his hand, looked up at the mountains, at the first fiery touches of dawn on the highest peaks. "I understand a young man is interested in you," Linn said quietly, and Dana looked at him, suddenly, startled: her face colored and she felt her ears turn scarlet under her cornsilk hair. "Yes, Daddy," she said shyly. I'll bet she dropped her eyes like a bashful maiden! "I understand he wishes to come and ask permission to pay you court." He imagined her look of surprise -- she'll blink twice, then take a breath and blink twice again and then she'll answer -- Dana swallowed and said in a meek little voice, "Yes, Daddy." "I've looked into his bona fides already." Dana looked up at her Daddy's face, carved, weather tanned, masculine, lean and sculpted in morning's light. "Yes, Daddy?" she said faintly. "I will be pleased to receive him." He felt his eyes tighten a little at the corners as he heard her sudden breath, as she hugged him, quickly, excited as a little girl. "When the time comes," Linn said quietly, "your mother has a ruby pin. I would be pleased if you would wear it the day you are wed." He turned his head, smiled down at her as he added, "Which I don't think is quite yet!" They heard the door open, smelled coffee, smelled bacon, or at least its fragrant cloud, following the serving girl as she brought them each a big, steaming mug of freshly brewed. Father and daughter stood on their front porch in morning's chill and looked together into the future.

JUST ONCE! The Confederate Ambassador marveled at Marnie's success. Many's the time they two went to the negotiating table and came away with success and accord, with all parties quietly pleased, or all parties equally displeased -- Marnie explained once to such a group that "Diplomacy is the art of making everyone equally unhappy," which was just the soothing humor needed to take the sting out of nobody getting quite what they wanted. The Ambassador marveled at Marnie's ability to draw a delegate aside and talk with an open, unaffected candor, a disarming openness that go results: Marnie was patient, Marnie was firm where firmness was required, and above all else, Marnie was a Lady, in the finest sense of the word. The Ambassador genuinely regretted two things. He honestly regretted being well older than the lovely young Madam Ambassador, and he even more sincerely regretted that she was a married woman. Marnie flowed across the dance floor, an opposing delegate on each arm: with the staunchest representatives of their respective parties, each utterly at odds with the other, both walking with this beautiful, charming, younger woman -- with Marnie's face shining, her eyes bright, her laughter sparkling in the ballroom's lights -- none there could miss Marnie's charm, her skill, her ability to bring together people at opposition, and crack the hard shell of their stubbornness, and make it look easy. Dance was an art preserved and cherished through the generations of Southrons, and skill at dance was yet the mark of a well-born gentleman: the opposing delegates heard the music start and suspected they'd been set up by this pale-eyed seductress in a floor-length gown, and they found themselves spun, each in a beautiful woman's hands: the familiar tune, the feel of femininity turning with them, moving with them, and two men who'd been ready to rip one another's throats out at the negotiating table, laughed with delight as a brisk "Turkey in the Straw" sang from a quartet of wide-spaced, curlyback fiddles. There is something almost intoxicating, when a genuinely lovely woman pairs off with an accomplished dancer, moreso when her skill and his are well matched: a pale eyed Ambassador in a McKenna gown, a pale-eyed nurse in her white dress and winged cap, threw their heads back and laughed -- spun -- whirled out to arm's length, spun back, traded partners -- they danced in a perfect coordination, wheeling around the floor as everyone drew back to give them room. Four hands came to center, a living star if viewed from above, smooth and graceful, Marnie's heels loud against burnished, narrow, close-set hardwood floorboards, in perfect time with the music, a brisk counterpoint to the fiddlers' skill: none there missed that the lead fiddler was a Valkyrie, and four more of her squadron-mates snatched up partners from the delegates, to populate the floor with femininity and masculinity in happy accord. Negotiations had not been going well through the day. Marnie consulted with the Chief Ambassador; they reviewed the day's proceedings, then Marnie went and freshened up (though the Ambassador couldn't imagine what needed freshening, Marnie invariably looked like she'd freshly bathed!) -- but when she came out, it was with a particularly well-fitted gown, and the Ambassador knew from the way she walked -- or, rather, glided -- that she had her heels on, and he smiled a little as he remembered she'd made specific requirements for the post-negotiation period. The Valkyries were considered more than elite; they were almost untouchable, in the common mind, yet here they were, dancing like angels, one of their number spinning magic from a mountain fiddle they knew was older than she was, the other fiddler looking utterly nondescript and out-of-place in scuffed work boots, a calf length skirt, a man's flannel shirt and a broke brim hat. Appearances notwithstanding -- the utterly unremarkable, and the black-skinsuited fighter pilot of legend -- the delegates each found themselves seized, spun onto the floor, dancing with an incomparably lovely, absolutely gifted, dancing partner, and it wasn't until every last delegate had been spun to dizziness on the floor, not until laughing femininity lifted each man's spirits, not until dancers male and female alike collapsed laughing on the sidelines, that the fiddlers smiled and withdrew, and Marnie glided out into the spotlight, raised her gloved hands and smiled, bade them all a very good night, and declared the proceedings at a close for the evening. When the Ambassadorial shuttle lifted off -- they made conventional arrival and departure for reasons of formality and of protocol -- Marnie dropped her head back against her headrest, sighed dramatically, then opened her eyes and looked over at the Ambassador. "Well?" she asked quietly. "What do you think?" "I think we made a good accord," he replied in a quiet, satisfied voice. "I do too," Marnie murmured. "You look tired." "Appearances are not deceiving." "Is there anything you'd like to have done differently?" Marnie smiled, just a little, opened her eyes again and said gently, "I know we have to present a dignified image ... I know that image involves arriving in a horse drawn carriage, and being formally received, and I know we have to bear up under all the posturing and all the accusing voices they reserve for these third party events." "But ...?" "Just once," Marnie said, lifting a gloved fist and bobbing it a little before her, "just once I'd like to go ridin' in on Daddy's stallion, I'd like to bring him up into a big showy rear, jump off and run up and deck that one annoying delegate!" The Ambassador's face reddened a little at Marnie's words, and he could not help but smile quietly, for her words were uttered quietly, honestly, with a simple sincerity that told him she meant exactly what she said. He opened his mouth to agree with her about planting a fist full of knuckles in a particularly obnoxious face, then he realized Marnie's fisted hand was relaxed, her head was turned a little, her eyes closed, and she was sound asleep, just that fast.

FRAME AND BINDER Retired Police Chief Will Keller regarded the matted, framed drawing: his eyes were bright, wrinkled at the corners, the way they were when something pleased the man, and right now he was pleased indeed. "I drew this part," Victoria said, her pink, clean-scrubbed finger indicating the lifelike, detailed pencil drawing of a Fanghorn in full charge, cleverly enough rendered to seem to be coming off the eggshell paper, about to ram into and tromple over top of the viewer. "Michael drew that part." Her finger shifted, withdrew: Will knew the horse, a rearing Appaloosa mare, and he knew the shouting girl astride the hoof-slashing mare, the little girl with the delighted, shouting expression, slinging her Stetson by its brim in salute as her brother came rip-roaring alongside on the war-charging Fanghorn. Uncle Will looked at the picture, looked at Michael, at Victoria. "You do know we're trying to keep the Confederacy a secret," he said quietly. "This is safe," Victoria said knowingly. "It's not a photograph." Will nodded, frowned at the drawing, shook his head. "I do well to draw a stick figure," he sighed. "You two ... ever since I can recall, you both had this gift!" "That's what Lightning looks like," Victoria said. "I had her run toward me so I'd know how to draw them!" "Lightning thought it was fun," Michael said softly. "I dismounted and stood where Victoria was, and I had Lightning run at me the same way as we did Victoria, so I could see what she -- Victoria -- looked like when Peppermint reared when Lightning came past." He grinned at the memory, then shivered. "Peppermint got tired of just staying in one place," Victoria explained. "She wanted to turn and run with Lightning." She looked at her twin brother, bit her bottom lip, considered for a moment, then admitted, "We almost ran into Michael." "It was close," Michael admitted, "but I had to know what they looked like when Lightning came through like that!" "That," Will said softly, "would be pretty damned intimidating, having her come at a man like that!" The twins nodded together, and their voices as well: "It was!" "I do appreciate this," Will said softly, looking from one to the other. "Thank you." Sheriff Jacob Keller eared the hammer back on his blued-steel .44. "Don't," he said -- one word, quietly spoken. It was enough. More than just the Firelands colonists were familiar with the triple-click of a single action revolver coming to full stand, and the proliferation of Westerns through the Known Worlds popularized the notion that the plow handle revolver on a lawman's belt was a tool of mystical power, able to slap down the biggest, meanest sort with incredible ease -- an image Jacob took pains to reinforce when he took pistol practice out on the Martian sands. Little boys and grown men watched the Inter-System broadcasts, watched as the pale eyed Martian Sheriff casually walked around a pile of sand, as he drew, fired, as a yellow-painted steel silhouette twisted and swung as if actually feeling the impact of a hard-cast .44. Jacob shot into jugs of liquid, sometimes drawing both revolvers at once, a smooth, coordinated fast draw, hitting two plastic gallon jugs at once, blasting them both into impressive sprays of water -- hot water that vaporized, crystallized into clouds that sublimated away before they hit the ground. When it became necessary to address the violent, or the deadly, the image Jacob cultivated worked in his favor -- not always, those who chose to indulge in recreational compounds, those enraged or impassioned, often disregarded the reasonable, the sensible When Jacob eared back the hammer on his engraved, blued-steel .44, when Jacob spoke one word, quietly, it had the desired effect. A knife fell to the deck and an individual felt himself sobering with a most unpleasant velocity. Uncle Will opened a three ring binder he'd unwrapped: it arrived by common carrier, and instead of a return address, it had a pencil-drawn rose inside a horseshoe, and he knew who sent it. He opened the notebook, read the note stuck to the inside of the front cover: Uncle Jacob said he and Marnie helped you cast bullets. He said what he's loaded with, he cast himself, with your furnace and your mold. Will turned the page, grinned at the remarkable drawing: he wasn't sure if it was Michael or Victoria who rendered this, but when he looked at Jacob's delighted face, when he saw the look of delight on a baby boy's face as dear old Dad took him under the arms and swung him waaaaay up toward the ceiling, Will couldn't help but smile a little, for he'd done that very thing with Jacob, when Jacob was but a babe in diapers. Another page, another drawing: Jacob sitting with his little boy beside him, Jacob's hand gripping his son's -- a light grip -- the next page, Jacob's hand, spread wide across Joseph's shoulder blades, his face turned toward his son and his mouth open a little, and Will could almost hear Jacob's praising encouragement as his son painstakingly plied his pencil and formed letters on paper. Another page: Ruth, buxom and motherly, laughing as she knelt, all skirts and smiles as Jacob lay on his back, pressing the laughing, squealing little boy like he'd press a weight. I don't think I could do better with a camera, Will thought, nodding. Another page, and Jacob stood, his arm extended, thumb just coming off the full-cocked hammer, his eyes hard, unforgiving. The drawing was flawless. The drape of his watch-chain across his vest, the curl and texture of his handlebar mustache, his bladed stance, the slight tilt to his Stetson ... Will nodded again, turned the page and laughed. He saw himself, holding something in a picture frame, with Victoria pointing to it and her mouth open in explanation. Will raised his head and looked around. If I frame these, he thought, I'll need more walls to have room to hang 'em!

ON THE BACK STAIRS Children they were, and like children, they slipped away from adults' watchful eyes every chance they got. It's what children do. They sat side by side in companionable silence, each knowing the other a kindred soul, each realizing without outward proofs or adult assurance they were bonded somehow, conjoined on a deeper level than didactic instruction. Sarah Lynne McKenna sat beside Jacob Keller, each leaning against the other, neither speaking: beneath them, behind them, above them, voices, a piano, the sounds of saloon and of commerce, coming through hand-fitted walls and stairs, but between them ... silence, and this was a comfort to them both. Each bore scars, terrible scars, from adults who'd done terrible things to them both. Not all the scars could be seen with the naked eye. Both knew their responsibilities; both knew the duties expected of them; both lived now in stable homes, both loved and trusted their parents, those adults to whom they had to answer, those adults who -- thus far -- had given no sign of violence toward them, no sign of temper toward them. Neither trusted completely. Both had been hurt far too deeply, too terribly, to ever trust anyone with the innocent completeness of a child. No one but each other. Jacob blinked a few times, the way he did when a notion occurred to him, and Sarah saw this and smiled just a little, laid her hand on his, squeezed gently. "How come these steps are so clean?" he almost whispered. Sarah smiled, thrust out a foot, pointed her toe like a dancer: "I had these made," she replied in a soft voice. "Felt soles. I wear them here." "Felt?" Sarah nodded. "I wear these indoors when I wish to be silent." Jacob's brows puzzled together a little. Sarah smiled. "I dust these steps myself." "You said nobody else knows about them." "They don't. I locked the panels above and below so nobody can get in. The panels are cleverly enough made you can't tell it's not just part of the wall." Jacob scratched his head, frowned. "We're the only two who use these steps," she whispered. "I dust them so we can sit here and not get our backsides dusty." Jacob turned his head, his shoulders, considered the length of this hidden staircase, looked back at the pale eyed girl seated beside him. "That's an awful lot of work, just for us." Sarah dropped her head, leaned into him a little more. "It's the only place --" she whispered, then she swallowed, and Jacob turned, ran his arms around her, held her. "You're safe here," he whispered, and he felt her shiver. "You're the only one I feel safe with," she whispered back, and he heard her voice tighten in her throat, at least until she lifted her face and added, "you and Twain Dawg." Jacob's grin was quick, boylike, bright, that there-and-gone look of delight that lifted her heart, that expression so very few people had ever seen. It would be another year before the Sheriff would find written corroboration of several peoples' suspicions, that he was sire to both children, that they, Jacob and Sarah, were blood relation: until then, they knew only they had a deep affinity, the knowledge that each could trust the other with more than their immortal soul. "Jacob." The man's voice carried the warmth a father feels for a son, and Jacob could hear the smile hidden in the man's single word. "Sir." Sheriff Linn Keller stopped, looked around again -- the man's eyes were never still, he was perpetually watchful, a trait Jacob took as normal, for the men he looked up to all exhibited this same tendency. "I had a big lie to tell you," Linn said quietly, "and damned if I can remember just what it was!" Jacob almost never smiled in public, but here, with just the two of them and the Sheriff's stallion as the only witnesses, Jacob allowed his smile to flow from the corners of his eyes down through the rest of his face. "Would it be swampland for sale in the Great Mexican Desert, sir?" Linn frowned, shook his head. "No, that was last week. Might have been Professor Nonesuch's genuine snake oil." "The kind that makes a man younger, smarter and better lookin', sir?" The Sheriff snapped his fingers, winked: "The very thing!" he declared. He looked around again, eyes busy, searching. He'll pull out his watch now, Jacob thought, and sure enough, the Sheriff curled his fingers, pushed up on a vest pocket, brought out a watch. Jacob had designs on that very watch, and a surprise in mind: he'd have to be slick, he'd have to be quick, but when he was done, he believed both his Pa and the woman he refused to call Mama would be pleased. Jacob smiled as Sarah flowed down the steps in her felt-soled slippers. She'd had them made to look like her other pretty patent-leather slippers -- "I don't want Mama to know about these," she explained, "she'll ask why I had them felt soled" -- Jacob nodded, once, his expression suddenly stern, and Sarah bit off the rest of her explanation, swallowed the words, suddenly uncomfortable. Sarah was above Jacob: he stood, held out his hands, and Sarah took them, took another step down, until they were eye to eye. "Sarah," Jacob whispered, "I hide things too." Two children with old eyes hugged one another, suddenly, desperately, each knowing in the most secret part of their wounded souls that here, here was the one living creature in all the world that would understand, that was the most worthy of the other's trust. They slacked their long embrace, but still held hands, pale eyes looking into pale eyes. "I have something to show you," Jacob whispered. He curled his fingers, pushed up under a vest pocket, turned his hand and opened it. Sarah tilted her head, interested: they sat, Sarah's skirts rustling quietly as she arranged them under her. "Pa's watch," Jacob whispered. Sarah gave him a puzzled look. "I had this one made," Jacob explained. "I played hell gettin' his watch and gettin' it to a man that did engravin'. He chased this one" -- Jacob showed Sarah the closed watch cover -- "just absolutely exactly like his, only here in the middle -- see this? -- I had him add this and I told him to make it just as real as he could." Sarah marveled at the closed cover of the watch. In an arc, almost a compete circle, beautifully engraved into the hunter's case, the words Sheriff Linn Keller Sarah knew the Sheriff's watch bore his name, she'd seen something was engraved on it, and she'd been able to look at it -- she'd learned to read men, she knew when the Sheriff shifted his weight and dropped a shoulder slightly, when he looked around with his hand open a little in front of his belly that he was going to push his watch up and palm it before he read it -- she'd been close enough to see his name, engraved after this exact wise. Jacob saw her lips draw up at the corners, saw her expression soften as she studied the center of the watch cover. "A rose," she breathed, and Jacob grinned -- she looked up into Jacob's eyes -- Sarah hugged him again, quickly, impulsively, released, looked down at the rose engraved in the center of what used to be bare, polished metal. Jacob's thumb pressed down on the stem and the engraved watch-cover flipped open. Sarah's eyes widened and she cupped her hand over her mouth, and Jacob heard her quick, delighted breath as she blinked, as she leaned a little closer, as she stared at the inside of the watch cover. "Jacob," she whispered, "it's Aunt Esther!" Jacob's cheeks reddened and his eyes narrowed -- she felt his silent laughter -- they stared at the flawless, lifelike, hand-painted portrait of a truly beautiful woman, a woman with red hair and green eyes, a woman regarding the viewer with a quiet and knowing expression. Esther Keller looked up at them from the inside of the watch-case. Jacob closed the case -- reluctantly, Sarah thought -- he slipped it back into his vest pocket. "I've already shown Mother," he said quietly, and his expression was troubled: he blinked quickly, lifted troubled eyes to Sarah and asked, his voice serious: "Sarah, when she looked at this, her eyes watered up and she had to dab at her eyes." "It's all right, Jacob," Sarah whispered, her hands warm and reassuring as they closed about his hand and the watch that it held. "That means that she's happy enough to cry!" Jacob blinked, confused, worried his bottom lip between even white teeth, looked at Sarah again and raised one eyebrow, just the way she'd seen the Sheriff do when discussing a confusing matter. "It made her happy?" Sarah nodded. "Mama cried because she was happy and Mama cried for sorrow." He looked at Sarah, slipped the watch back into his vest pocket. "I don't reckon I have women figured out," he admitted, his hand protectively flat on the vest pocket, then she saw his eyes change as his train of thought was switched onto another set of tracks. "I'll need to trade out his watch," Jacob said. "I'll play hell doin' it while he's asleep." "Why not just give it to him?" Sarah suggested. "Walk up to him and tell him his watch is due for a cleaning and hand him this one, tell him a man ought to have an extra." Jacob chewed on a knuckle as a smile flowed down from the corners of Jacob's eyes and over the rest of his face, and Sarah, silent on felt-soled slippers that looked just like the pretty shoes she usually wore, flowed like a ghost across those boards underfoot that would not groan and betray her passage, and she looked through a peep-hole she'd discovered years before and watched as Jacob walked up to his father, spoke: the man turned toward Jacob, Jacob held out his hand. She could not see the Sheriff's face -- the brim of his hat was in the way -- but she could tell by the square-up of his shoulders, the slight straighten of his habitually-straight spine, that the man was pleased, even before he opened the watch-face. She saw Jacob's hand raise a little, curled fingers indicating the watch, she saw his thumb twitch -- probably following his words, she thought, he might be telling the Sheriff to take a look and see if the time is right -- Sarah bit delicately on her knuckle as she saw the Sheriff's thumb tighten down, as the lid snapped open -- The Sheriff's head came up a little, and Sarah could just see his curled, iron-grey mustache widen and lift a little, the way it did when the man smiled, and Sarah wiggled a little with absolute delight as she saw the man nod, as he gripped Jacob's shoulder, as he turned to show the portrait to someone standing beside him. Sarah drew back, rose gracefully, turned: she pressed a release, slid another, eased the panel aside on its silent, waxed track, slipped into the hidden back stairs, closed the panel and made sure it was locked: she hugged herself with happiness, remembering the moment when a father laid an approving hand on his son's shoulder.

MOUNTED INFANT-RY Ruth moved in like a tugboat with a maternal instinct: something small, bundled and noisy was handed off from one maternal set of hands to another -- a later review of surveillance was met with the approvingly murmured words, "Quarterback Sneak!" -- Jacob received the football, stepped through the airlock door, lifted the flap of soft fuzzy blanket and frowned at the red, wrinkled, open-mouthed and very loud little boy-child. Jacob Keller pulled out a small, powerful light, held it almost into the little, scarlet, wide-open mouth, pressed the button, frowned: he switched off the light, returned it to an inner pocket. Beside him, the airlock whispered open, a little girl brought out two baby bottles: she lifted the flap of Jacob's coat pocket, slid them in, looked up at the Martian Sheriff, smiled shyly as he winked at her. Not long after, a Martian Sheriff and another man's child emerged from an Iris into a sunlit field. Jacob curled his lip and whistled, laid the blanket wrapped bundle down on wind-bent grass. Apple-horse, curious, bent his neck and sniffed at the unfamiliar creature that waved chubby little arms and looked around, wondering whether to cut loose and imitate a juvenile storm cloud or not. Jacob unbuckled the left hand saddlebag, pulled out a pint flask, wiggled the genuine cork out of the bottle's neck. The contents were a thin purple in color -- Uncle Will's Finest, half and half moon likker and home made wine -- guaranteed to go down like Mama's milk and blow the socks off a man's feet, carried by a pale eyed lawman for medicinal purposes only. He had medicinal need for this potent potion. Jacob dipped the pad of his little finger into the bottle, looked down at the grunting, restless baby boy. Right about then, the child decided it was time for another good long extended caterwaul. Jacob pulled its little red fist out of its mouth and quickly, with the ease of having done this before, lightly anointed angry red gums covering ready-to-emerge teeth with the soothing fires of distilled Numbitfast. He laughed silently at the child's shocked expression -- the protesting thrusts of a young tongue, until the realization that pain relief was better than its taste -- Jacob took advantage of this moment of juvenile confusion, plugged the bottle's milk-dripping nipple in, murmured "Storm Plug." Back in the Firelands Colony, Ruth towed two young children, one in each hand, into another section, smiling at the happy, energetic young: behind her, a young mother, frazzled, changed clothes: her husband stepped into the room, smiled, extended his hand. "It's been a while since we had a night out," he said, and winked. An Appaloosa stallion and a pale eyed Sheriff scented the wind, looked into the distance: yonder, just shy of the mountains and misty in the distance, a storm was building: the wind was carrying toward them, and Jacob smelled rain, he smelled ozone from the thunder storm: it was still miles away, the sun was still warm on his back, and he leaned forward slightly to cast his Stetson's shadow on the baby wrapped up in the blanket. Between the horse's motion and the comfort of a filling belly, and probably because chewing on the rubber nipple helped its sore gums -- and likely having worn himself out squalling as long as he had -- a little baby in a blanket and in a Sheriff's arms, relaxed, and fell asleep. Ruth discreetly withdrew as husband and wife were shown to their table. She'd given the wife a recall button to press, when they were ready to return; their other two children were napping under the watchful eye of another of the Firelands ladies: Ruth knew children, and she knew how important it was that they burn off nervous energy, and she'd taken them somewhere very near her home, a place where they could run and jump and leap into piles of fragrant straw, where they could chase billy goats with three horns, and the billy goats could chase them, back and forth in a sunlit field, with little baby billies bouncing after them, laughing: finally, tiring out, the goats came up and crowded up against them, the children each gripped a curled horn, and the billies trotted happily back, towing cheek-glowing, out-of-breath children, half a dozen curly-white Little Billies following. Jacob ducked to clear the crude lintel. He rode Apple into the open-sided shed: they just made it before the rains hit. Jacob swung down, carried the wiggling baby over to a work bench, laid him down and stripped him down. "I ain't as good at this as m'wife," Jacob muttered, "but I've changed my share of little backsides. Holt still now" -- and a father's experienced hands managed a swift and expert diaper change, complete with powder and frown. Jacob made sure the diaper was smooth, snug, secured: he rewrapped the sleepy little boy in the blanket, dropped the soiled diaper in a plastic sack and threw a knot in it -- "That'll hold the smell," he explained to the yawning little face that looked up at him -- "how's them teeth, hey? You need another gum rubbin'?" A little baby boy managed a truly huge, stretching yawn: Jacob picked him up, leaned him over his shoulder, over the spit rag he laid just in case. "You'n me," he rumbled, "we're like a couple old b'ars. We git our belly full, we git warm, we go to sleep!" Jacob raised his leg, got a boot into the doghouse stirrup, bounced twice, swung back into saddle leather. He had to hunch over just a little to keep his Stetson out of the crude rafters: he bent his wrist, tapped a command, and he and Apple-horse eased through an Iris, and the sound of rain on a tin roof was gone. The Bear Killer's head came up and his tail began slashing back and forth across the smooth stone floor. Apple-horse walked easily, daintily, steel shoes loud on the slick-polished deck: Jacob walked up to a particular doorway. "Ho," he called softly, and Apple-horse ho'd. Ruth smiled as she stepped out, caressed Apple's nose, then looked up at her husband, smiled: she raised her arms and received a sleeping little boy-baby. Jacob touched his hat-brim and Ruth stepped back across her threshold: an Iris opened, and Jacob walked Apple through it. Not five minutes later Jacob came through the door, smiled as Ruth glided over to him: Jacob's grin was broad and boyish as he held his wife. "Did they make it?" he asked quietly. "They're still there," Ruth said. "I imagine they'll spend the night." Jacob grinned, nodded, laughed quietly. "I wonder how many other Sheriffs do things like this?" Ruth caressed his smooth-shaven cheek, blushed a little as she did, but there was no missing the pride in her face, and in her voice, as she said, "Only the ones who take care of their people."

TO KEEP A CONFIDENCE Michael Keller breezed into the conference room with all the stealth of a dust-devil on a windy August afternoon. A dust-devil in a black suit and a broad, bright-eyed grin. He didn't run -- the Abbott considered that his twin sister might've skipped happily -- Michael's gait was rapid, but contained: he strode purposefully the length of the heavy timber table, placed a squarish, cloth-wrapped, string-tied bundle in front of the Abbott. The scent of coffee rose invitingly from the bundle, and William raised curious fingertips to the cloth, finding it pleasantly warm. He raised the warm bundle, closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, smiled. "Fresh from the roaster," Michael grinned. "This isn't Confession but I need it covered with the Seal of the Confessional!" The Abbott placed the fragrant gift back on the tabletop, gave the tall, slender lad an amused look, nodded. Michael pulled a chair out, dropped into it, leaned forward -- for all the world like his pale-eyed father did, only with the nervous energy of youth -- elbows on his knees, hands clasped and two fingers steepled, he frowned at something inside William's ribcage and then looked up. "Abbott," he said, "I am convinced of the existence of God." It was not easy to surprise the Abbott: after a lifetime in the Priesthood, he'd heard confessions enough, he'd seen things enough, very little could surprise him. This, however, did. "Abbott," Michael pressed on, "I'm going to tell you some things this world isn't ready for yet, so bear with me." The Abbott nodded gravely. Michael pulled his sleeve back, bent his wrist: the Abbott saw something that looked like ... well, he wasn't sure what it was like: he'd seen Michael horseback, wearing leather roping cuffs, and this ... ... wasn't ... Michael passed two fingers over it, and it changed from flat black (leather?) to a complex-looking, glowing screen. Michael looked up toward the tabletop, the fingers of his off hand busy. The Abbott blinked, surprised: he'd seen such things portrayed on the silver screen, but never in person. "Hologram?" he hazarded. "Yes, sir. And for scale --" What the Abbott saw, rotating slowly end-for-end, was long, slender, silver: flat-footed legs extended, the image appeared to land delicately on the tabletop and what looked for all the world like the hinged bottom jaw of a sleek, dangerous bird of prey, lowered, to reveal a black sarcophagus. The sarcophagus rose, stepped off the lowered jaw, stood: black arms and black hands gripped the spherical black head, twisted, lifted. "Howdy!" Gracie's voice called, then her image gave the Abbott an assessing head-tilt: "You've lost weight, but your color's good!" The Abbott blinked as the image drew back, grew: suddenly Gracie was life-sized, standing through the table, with the great silver bird overhanging her shoulder, it jaw swung down behind her, absolutely filling the tall, quiet room. "Gracie?" Gracie laughed, that contagious laugh he remembered so well: she was ever a welcome guest in their Monastery, and as often as the Ladies' Tea Society joined the White Sisters in choral praise, so did Gracie with her curlyback fiddle -- she'd ride in on a mule in a mid-calf skirt and work boots, in a flannel shirt and a broke-brim hat, looking like a lost mountaineer, but when she pulled out her signature fiddle, she could spin magic from its strings fit to bring a strong man to tears for the hearing of it. "Abbott, I'm well on the other side of two star systems away," Gracie grinned. "I'm a Valkyrie -- we're a squadron of fighter-interceptors and we just got put in our place." "I ... have never ... heard Confession from a ... hologram?" the Abbott said hesitantly. Gracie laughed -- that contagious laugh of hers, easy, natural ... clean, he thought, then corrected himself. Innocent. No ... clean suits her better! "Abbott, I'm not stationed on Mars anymore. We're part of a thirteen star system Confederacy. Michael consulted with you on where to get Douay Bibles printed up for distribution. Faith is alive and well in all the Confederate worlds. Presbyterianism is chief among the represented beliefs" -- the holographic image turned, looked at Michael, looked back. "Abbott, we intercepted a rogue world sailing through space. God alone knows how it got knocked out of orbit. It was pretty much a planet sized frozen rock but it was headed where it shouldn't. "Each of our Interceptors command firepower enough to incinerate a planet, my ship here" -- she hooked a black-gloved thumb over her shoulder -- "can cut a world apart and play pool with the fragments, but there were complications." Gracie's transmitted image frowned and she turned to look at her ship, as if asking a question, or listening for an answer. "There were two interlocked pulsars that ... they each put out a spinning beam that could slice Gunfighter here in two, or burn her out and me with her, and flying through that would be like trying to swim a goldfish through two interlocking Cuisinarts. "We couldn't stop that rogue planet. "Abbott," Marnie said, her voice and her face suddenly serious, "my ship and I have eyes that can see light-years into the distance. We can slip between dimensions and cross universes in the space between heartbeats. I can see what color a DNA strand is, when I look through my ship's eyes, and my ship and I can calculate trajectories and solve problems that would take ten legions of mathematicians with quantum computers a lifetime to figure out." Gracie's life sized image in its black skinsuit, standing through the table in front of the cleric, looked very directly, very seriously at him. "Abbott," she said softly, "the entire squadron came together and we talked to God about it. "This was something we couldn't get through to stop, and by the time that planet bulldozed through the beams it would be too late to prevent its dropping into a gravity well and being slingshot toward occupied planets -- three of them all told -- we projected the damage it would do and we knew there's no way we could evacuate ahead of it and we wouldn't be able to stop it." Gracie closed her eyes, took a long breath. "We had two choices, Abbott. "We could sit there and watch a slow motion train wreck blast three occupied worlds into shrapnel, or we could call on the biggest, meanest, most powerful weapon system any of us knew about." The Abbott's interest was evident: he leaned forward, nodded once, unblinking eyes listening as intently as clean-scrubbed ears. "A temporal rift opened up. We found where it led, a year later -- God opened the rift, the rogue planet sailed through it, the rift closed and a cosmic billiard ball was plucked from the table before it could shatter three worlds." "Where did it go?" the Abbott asked quietly. "In a decaying orbit around a neutron star. It'll be torn apart and pretty much its dust will be sucked down onto the star and that'll be it." Gracie tilted her head, hefted her spherical helmet. "Gotta go, Abbott," she smiled. "Got a train to catch." "A ... train," the Abbott echoed skeptically, and Gracie laughed, and the Abbott smiled to hear it again. "We do what good we can, Abbott. We're constantly on patrol. We're not the only life out there and we've had to draw lines in the sand, and I'm due to patrol a known border sector." Gracie lifted her helmet, started to ease it down over her Marine-short haircut, then she hesitated, lowered the helmet. "I'll be talking to God about it." The Abbott watched as the life-sized image of a black-skinsuited woman, standing through the solid timber table, slipped the helmet over her head, twisted it slightly: he heard a distinct, metallic *click!* -- the figure turned, walked back to the huge silver bird's open jaw, turned, lay down, and became a shining-black, human-shaped sarcophagus once more. The silver jaw closed -- silently -- then the entire Interceptor simply, silently ... ... disappeared. Michael's voice was quiet in the sudden, hushed absence. "When the cockpit closes," he said, "there oughta be something. It ought to whine shut, like hydraulics maybe." The Abbott nodded thoughtfully, looked down at the beads, forgotten in his hand. "I should have given her this to take with her," he whispered. "She was a hologram, Abbott. This is real" -- Michael patted the fragrant cloth package of fresh-roasted, still-warm coffee -- "Gracie was a projected image." He tapped at his wrist-unit, considered, smiled. "Abbott, all this is under the seal of the Confessional. This world isn't ready to know about us yet. As far as anyone knows, Mars is lightly populated but cut off and they've not been able to raise a signal. Nobody knows for sure whether the colony is alive or not. They are. "Marnie isn't Sheriff anymore, Jacob is, only this world doesn't know that. "Marnie is Ambassador for the entire thirteen star system Confederacy, this world doesn't know that. "We have technologies that make Earth's most advanced achievements look like scratching stick figures in the dirt. "Do you remember after a Christmas service, you gave each of the Ladies of the Tea Society a little leather wallet with a Rosary in it?" The Abbott blinked, smiled, nodded. "Gracie has hers with her. It's in a pocket of her suit. She has a Bible with her and she doesn't just read it daily, she studies it." The Abbott considered this, nodded. "Abbott, thirteen star systems has more inhabited, Earthlike planets than I can think of offhand. I've been to several, but not all. Their level of technology ranges from early steam industrial level to well more advanced than Earth. The seminal history of this Confederacy is ... a subject for another time." "Which means ... you're trying to make a point." Michael looked at the Abbott, and the cleric saw something that surprised him. He saw memory in Michael's eyes, and he saw a fear of that memory. "I was shot," Michael almost whispered, "my Fanghorn and I. It was an energy-rifle that could cut a battleship in two with one slice. It overpowered our field and burned out my spine and did more damage to my back bone than anyone realized." He swallowed, closed his eyes for several long moments: the Abbott leaned forward, laid cautious, gentle fingertips on the back of Michael's hand. Michael opened his eyes, gripped the Abbott's hand, looked at him with the expression of a scared, hurt little boy. "They had to pattern me a new spine," he whispered, "they scanned Victoria's spine and regrew mine -- the bony structure -- but they couldn't regrow a neural net from hers. They patterned hers but they had to honestly regrow mine from the word go." Michael shivered. "Abbott, doctors are good and technology is fine, but they ... can't ..." Michael closed his eyes again, took a long, steadying breath, grimaced. "PTSD, I guess, sorry about that," he whispered. "That'll happen when you feel your body burning from the inside." Michael's grip remained tight around the Abbott's tanned, callused palm. "You remember the joke about the scientist challenging God to a creation contest. The scientist reached down and scooped up a handful of dirt and God said "No, get your own dirt!" The Abbott smiled, just a little, nodded encouragement: Go on. "Doctors and technology don't make their own dirt," Michael said, his voice serious, his breathing betraying the stress of memories he really didn't want to look at again. The Abbott laid his other hand, warm and reassuring, over Michael's, pressed gently. "I understand," he said quietly. Michael rose, still holding the Abbott's hand. "Thank you," he said, his voice tight. "I had to talk to someone and I figured I could trust you to hold this confidence." Michael released the Abbott's hand, bent his wrist, tapped at the screen, or whatever it was the Abbott saw: something tall, black, elliptical opened behind Michael, at the far end of the long, heavy table, and something huge, ugly, blond-furred and lightning-patterned walked slowly out of the ellipse, hung its blocky, muscled neck over Michael's shoulder, chirped like a contented canary as Michael caressed its blunt, broad nose. "This is Lightning," Michael said. "She and I were hit with the same energy rifle and she had to heal same as I did, only she's tougher. She had to heal on her own, until Victoria rubbed some Starfighter nanos into her so she'd heal faster." The Abbott had absolutely no idea what starfighter nanos were, but there were some things a man of the cloth simply accepted. Life sized holograms were a new experience, but the Abbott accepted this. A black ellipse and a genuinely huge and rather ugly horse-thing was another. Michael unwrapped two peppermints, said "Hold out your hand." The Abbott watched as this fanged horse-thing sniffed, clearly interested, then delicately lipped the swirly, red-and-white hard candies off his palm. Michael handed him a cloth -- "for the horse slobber," he explained -- the Abbott laughed quietly, handed the used rag back. "Lightning and I have been tried in the same fires," Michael said, "literally." The Abbott sat alone in the conference room, considering. He'd blocked off an hour's time, to meet with Michael, and he'd used nearly the full hour. He leaned back in his chair and looked at the high ceiling, remembered a spaceship and its pilot, a monstrous horse-thing with fangs and a quiet voiced, pale eyed, tall boy of his acquaintance, and he smiled, just a little. "Saint Mercurius," he murmured, "sometimes you go to the Confessional, and sometimes it comes to you." He looked out the window, looked up at the cloudless winter sky, smiled quietly. He asked me to keep this meeting in confidence, the Abbott thought as he felt amusement tickle his belly from the inside. I don't think that will be difficult. Who would believe that I had a spaceship, a fighter pilot and a Monster Horse with fangs, visit me all on the same day? He picked up the squarish, cloth wrapped bundle, lifted it to his nose, closed his eyes, took a long, savoring sniff. He looked at the stenciled brand inked into the cloth: Ambassador's Blend McKenna Coffee Works The Abbott laughed quietly. This, he thought. This they will believe.

THE BOLSHOI MEN'S CHORUS Shelly dropped her head a little, glared at the German Irishman, planted her knuckles on her belt and tapped her foot like a schoolteacher addressing a naughty student. "You'll let me take a look," she said quietly, "or Chief will order you to ER and they'll strip you down to the altogether and take pictures!" Shelly turned, raised her Mommy-finger, and the rest of the Irish Brigade withdrew from the bunkroom. "I'm getting better," Shelly murmured. "I didn't even have to shake my finger at them!" The engineer unbuttoned his red-wool, bib-front shirt, pulled it off, tossed it on the bed. Shelly took his left hand, pulled gently: he straightened his arm. She frowned, turned him to get better light from the window on his swelling wrist. "I don't think --" he started, and Shelly's glare was enough to stop his hopeful words. She laid her palm under his, then tapped his fingertips, watching his expression as she did. "Pain?" He shook his head. Shelly slid her palm down to mid forearm. She raised her own arm, flexed her wrist down. He bent his to match. She slowly hyperextended her wrist, drawing it back as far as it would go. She saw no sign of discomfort on his face as he imitated her movement. Once she was satisfied he hadn't chipped the left distal ulnar prominence when he slipped on a concrete step and fell, she had him drop his drawers, examined the side of his knee the same way her husband examined a horse's leg: not only with observation, but with the laying on of hands. To be perfectly honest, Shelly's examination was as professionally efficient as her husband's equine assessments: after having him grab the foot of a bunk and do a deep knee bend while her fingertips listened on either side of his knee, she had him pull his drawers back up. She laid a hand on his shoulder as he cinched his belt, looked him in the eye and said with a straight face, "You'll live." "Gee, thanks for the sympathy," he muttered, looking red-faced at Chief Fitzgerald, who had his arms crossed, with one hand covering his mouth and hiding the lower part of his steadily reddening face. "Do I at least get a lollipop for being a good boy?" the engineer complained in the whiniest voice he could manage, and Shelly dipped two fingers into her uniform blouse pocket, pulled out a cellphone wrapped, cherry flavored sucker, handed to him. She looked at Fitz and said, "Nothing broken, I don't think there's anything chipped. Cleared for duty." "Good enough!" Fitz nodded. "I feel like an ass, fallin' like that," the engineer muttered. "If you like, I can arrange the Bolshoi Men's Chorus to sing in a harmonious minor note," Shelly said, straight faced: she clasped her hands in front of her breastbone and swayed dramatically as she sang, "Duuummmbbbbb, Duuummmbbb!" She came up on her toes, kissed the red-faced German Irishman on the cheek, spun like a giggling little girl, skipped over to the firepole -- a jump, a drop, a happy "Wheee!" and she was gone. A voice echoed up from below: "Hey, we're jealous! We didn't get a lollipop!"

A WOMAN'S ADVICE Dr. John Greenlees toweled another plate dry, set it carefully in the cupboard, turned and picked another just-rinsed, still-warm plate. Shelly could tell he had something on his mind. Normally everyone who shared the supper table, would lend a hand with dishes, but somehow her husband and children knew Marnie's husband wanted the detail, and so they discreetly ... evaporated. Shelly waited: mothers are wonderfully perceptive creatures, and she knew the younger man had something on his mind. When the last plate, the last cup, the last dish was scrubbed clean, dried, set away, Dr. John hung the dish towel where it normally draped: Shelly tilted her head a little to the side -- so that's where Marnie gets the habit! -- and said, "What's on your mind?" Dr. John Greenlees, physician and surgeon, frowned a little as he considered: he'd had his words all ready, and suddenly they seemed awkward and uncertain. "It's Marnie," he finally said. "Oh?" "I need your advice." "Oh." Shelly's eyebrows went up, she nodded thoughtfully, then she looked at the cupboard behind Dr. John's left shoulder. He turned, withdrew two coffee cups. The pair sat at the corner of the kitchen table, each with a steaming mug of coffee. "You need my advice," Shelly prompted. "About Marnie?" He nodded, his face serious -- he looks so much like his father! -- John was hunched over his mug, shoulders rounded, forearms on the tablecloth: he leaned back suddenly, threw his shoulders back and looked at his mother in law. "Marnie is having nightmares," he said, "and I don't know what to do!" Marnie Keller was waiting for her husband when his Iris appeared. He stepped out of the black ellipse into their parlor and stopped, surprised. Marnie did not stop: she powered forward, stepped up to her husband, ran an arm around behind him and her other hand behind his head, pulled his face down to hers and kissed him rather soundly. Dr. John returned both the intimacy, and the embrace: when they came up for air, he whispered, "I love your welcome home speech!" Marnie looked up at him, affection in her eyes and welcome in the pressure of her womanly form against him. "John," she whispered, "thank you, we need to talk!" Her expression may have shown affection, but his confessed confusion: he sat beside her and she gripped both his hands in both of hers. "John," she said decisively, "I have not been ... as attentive ... as I should have been, and I must beg your pardon for my distraction." Dr. Greenlees frowned, looked curiously at his wife's solemn expression. "Dearest ... you are an Ambassador." "Yes, but I'm also your wife." "You have never failed to be my wife." Marnie's hands tightened, just a little, and she looked past him, then looked back. "John," she sighed, "I can't say I prevented a war, but I delayed one." "I might count that a good thing," John said slowly. "It is," she agreed. "The more we can delay hostilities, that many fewer men will die." "If I recall correctly, you single handedly prevented at least three wars." "I had help, but yes, and more than three." Her voice was soft, but her eyes filled with memories and she looked away. "John, I've been having nightmares." John almost -- almost! -- said "I know," but some instinct bade him to silence: instead, he pulled his wife into him as he leaned back a little, and she sighed and laid her ear on his chest, the way she did when they were courting. "What are your nightmares?" John asked softly. "Let us look the Devil in the face!" "I stood on a reviewing stand," Marnie said, her voice as haunted as her wide, staring eyes. "Mine were the inspiring words that sent fine young men to die. "They were cavalry, John, and they were beautiful ... shining horses and shining lances, pennants and guidons and uniforms, straight lines and disciplined ranks and mine was the voice they heard, telling them to go forth to ... to war." He felt her breath catch, felt her breathing quicken, heard her voice drop to a whisper. "Mine was the last voice they heard before they died." Shelly Keller blinked rapidly, frowned a little, sipped her coffee as she arranged her thoughts: John saw her eyes swing left, as if looking into her husband's study, and she knew at least one of her thoughts was of him. She lowered her coffee. "Linn has nightmares." John studied her face as he listened. "His are either things that happened that he couldn't prevent -- those are the worst -- or things he fears might happen, and those are almost as bad." Shelly swallowed, set her coffee down. "He came across a wreck. He was off duty -- I don't think he was ... he may not have been a Sheriff's deputy yet. His father was still alive. He ... the car ... he knew the car. "It was a rollover and the gas tank was split, and he bellied down to look and saw the driver was hanging upside down from the seat belt. "Then it caught fire. "He had a small extinguisher but it was useless, he tried but he couldn't ... he couldn't help ... that's been thirty years ago and he still wakes up hearing screaming." John nodded somberly: he knew the wreck, the victim was his father's classmate, a good friend ... but he never knew Linn was first on scene, nor that he'd been powerless to help. "There were others. "He tried to talk a man out of committing suicide. "The man blew his brains out while Linn watched. "He came across a wreck and it caught fire as he arrived, and all he had was a two-and-a-half pound dry-chem. He still wakes up hearing the driver scream to death." "Has he seen anyone about this?" "No," Shelly sighed. "He'll tell me 'They're my ghosts to carry,' or 'I got me into it, I get me out of it.' " Dr. John Greenlees listened to his wife's quiet, stressed syllables. He bent his head a little, kissed the top of her head. "Dearest?" "Hm?" "You play poker." It was a statement, not a question. "Mm-hmm." Dr. John reached up, pulled the knit afghan off the back of the couch, drew it over them both. "What are the odds that yours actually will be the voice to send them to war?" Marnie hesitated. "Dearest, you are the Ambassador. You talk people out of fights. Yours is the voice of reason and of good counsel. You help find compromise and you give them a way out." "I don't want to fail, John," she whispered. "Know what I think?" he asked quietly. Marnie looked up at him like a little girl looks hopefully at her Daddy. "I think you actually give a genuine good damn about what you do as Ambassador. "I think you have a conscience tall as a shot tower and big around as a church. "I think those nightmares are remote possibilities that you can foresee. "I think you are the smartest, wisest woman I know, and I think you will fight like ten red-handed hells to keep anything of the kind from happening!" Dr. John Greenlees tightened his arms around his wife, his voice quiet, strong, filled with conviction. "Marnie, you've seen death and you've dealt death and you've screamed at death. You went to war when those Raiders murdered our children and tried to murder everyone in the Colony." His voice sank to nearly a whisper. "You know what war is, and that's why you're Ambassador. You don't want anyone else to have to see what you've seen!" Marnie was quiet for several long moments -- long enough John wondered if she might have slipped into exhausted sleep -- then she murmured, "You're right." "When Linn has nightmares," Shelly confided quietly, "I'll feel him quiver -- he rarely moves, but he'll shiver just a little. I'll lay my hand on his breastbone and his hand will slice out from under the covers and press mine to him, and I'll feel him shaking. He'll take one deep shivering breath, then he'll relax and that's it for the night." Dr. John Greenlees lay beside his wife, her hand in his. He lay awake until drowsiness claimed him, until his soul submerged in the silent lake of slumber, and the dark lake remained undisturbed.

Okay, I shouldn't read when I'm dog tired ... ... I looked at the illustration and thought "The plural of Cthulhu?"

PLANNING "He's an old man." "He is." "I could take him." Two men lifted their beers, took a drink. "Then what?" "Whattaya mean, then what?" "You take an old man. So what, he's an old man!" Beer bottles were lowered to the crumb-littered tabletop. "He's Sheriff." "And he's an old man." "So?" "So you step on a Sheriff's toe, every cop in the State will howl. You can't get away, they'll catch you and then what? You know what they'll say in gen-pop? 'He beat an old man. Big whoop.' " "They'll say I beat a Sheriff!" A derisive snort, a sip from a longneck. "Your funeral." An older man with twinkling, merry eyes and an iron-grey mustache looked up, grinned. "Howdy!" he called, amused at the surprised -- almost disappointed -- expression on the stranger's face. The stranger mumbled something in reply. "Pick up that saddle and fetch it over, would you?" Still surprised, the stranger turned, gripped the brand-new, just-unwrapped roping saddle: it was heavy, it was awkward, he had to reset his grip twice before dragging it off the sawhorse and waddling over with it. "Thank'ee kindly," the Sheriff said pleasantly: he gripped the saddle, hoisted it easily, laid it over the edge of the stall, whistled quietly: something big, furry, silent and solid! slid in between the stranger and the Sheriff. "Stand," Linn said quietly: the stranger slipped ahead, frowning as the Sheriff spun a saddleblanket over the stallion's back, smoothed it with a twitch and a swipe of callused palms: he laid a black doghouse stirrup across the saddlehorn -- "Not that it'll stay there," he complained good-naturedly to the staring stranger -- he picked up the saddle with a genuinely surprising ease, swung it back, then over the horse's back. The stallion took a restless step, tail slashing. "Oh, mutter your granny's hairbrush," the Sheriff chuckled: he bent, busied himself under the splotchy, brown-red-and-white horse's belly, straightened. "Do me a favor," the Sheriff said as he laid a hand against his stallion's throat, pressed gently, backed him up half a length: "grab those two bales of hay and set 'em over here for me? I'm gettin' puny in my old age!" The stranger was absolutely nonplussed: here was a man he'd intended to jump from behind, he'd figured to beat him into a bloody pulp, take him by surprise and murder him, and here he was being ordered around like hired help instead! Still -- the element of surprise was lost -- he squatted, spread his arms, tried to grip the bristly payload. The Sheriff came up beside him, working his hands into a pair of leather work gloves. "Easier way," he said, "like this" -- he dipped his knees just a little, ran curled fingers under the hay strings, stood: he picked up two bales, walked them over, twisted, swung one, then the other up, tossed then casually right where he wanted them. He turned, grinned at the stranger. "Ever put up hay?" His voice was gentle, friendly, almost ... fatherly. The stranger shook his head. "N-n ... no." "I just got done throwin' half a thousand bales. My elevator broke and had to get 'em into the hay loft by hand." He did a slow deep knee bend, frowned a little, looked up, his eyes still bright, as if ready to spread over the rest of his face with good natured laughter. "I'm still kind of sore after that!" The stranger opened his mouth as if to say something; he nodded, mumbled something, turned. Pale, knowing and somewhat amused eyes watched the stranger walk quickly away. Ambassador Marnie Keller excused herself: she discreetly withdrew around a corner, raised a cell phone to her ear, delight in her face and anticipation in her voice: "Susie?" She listened, blinked. "Susie, you did the right thing, now get out of there! I'll send a car!" Michael Keller raised a leather-gloved hand, knocked politely on the Farmall Cub's shining-red hood. Linn looked up, grinned. "Sir, did Marnie speak to you today?" "She did, Michael. Had supper?" "Victoria is inside just talkin' up a storm with Mama." Linn frowned. "I reckon we'd best get inside and take 'em to the Silver Jewel for supper, elsewise they'll figure to go to the City and you know what that means!" "Yes, sir," Michael grinned. "They'll both get new shoes, Victoria will want to wear those pretty new shoes and that means we'll hit every dance, every cotillion and every formal dedication this side of who-knows-where!" "I reckon she'll dance with a hundred men." "And get proposed to by twice that many." Father and son and a great white Snowdrift-dog sauntered toward the house. "Your sister talked with an old schoolmate, Susie Smith. You remember Susie?" "The one that got into drugs and trouble, sir?" "She's the one. Marnie got her clean, God knows how. I know she was off-planet for a while. She called Marnie and Marnie called me." Michael stopped suddenly, regarded his father with hard and pale eyes. "Sir?" Linn stopped, turned, regarded his son's suddenly-solemn face. "Yes, Michael?" "Sir, are you safe?" Linn laughed quietly: behind him, the front door opened, mother and daughter stepped out, pulled the door firmly shut behind them and set the alarm. "We're going out for dinner," Victoria called, sounding like a little sister threatening to tell on someone: "are you two coming?" Linn's eyes were tight at the corners, they were bright as they looked at his son, as he laid a gentle, fatherly hand on Michael's black-suited shoulder. "I am safe now, Michael," he murmured. "Marnie's warning and I took care of it, story at eleven." Two unwashed, disreputable sorts sat at a crumb-littered table, opened a fresh longneck apiece. "Where's Susie?" "Hell if I know. She left." "Take anything?" "Nah. Just left barehand. Can't have got far. Say, you jumped that old man yet?" A brow-furrowed glare was the only answer.

TO WRITE A SERMON Gilead pushed through the heavy glass doors, stopped just inside, grateful for the warmth, for the lack of wind. He looked around at the familiar-yet-so-foreign interior of the Sheriff's Office. Sharon tilted her head, looked at the man curiously. "Hi," she said. "Umm ... hello," Gilead said uncertainly. "Help you find somebody?" Gilead looked to the rear of the lobby, toward a door with frosted glass and a six point star. "I'm here to see my father." Sheriff Jacob Keller looked up, surprised, took two long strides toward his brother. The Bear Killer flowed along beside him, greeted the newcomer with a canine version of the Hoover treatment. Jacob's grin was as wide as it was genuine: "You're just in time for dinner!" "Actually," Gilead said uncomfortably as The Bear Killer taste tested his hand, "I need your advice." "Easily got!" Jacob winked. "Come on in and say hello to Ruth, she'll be tickled to see you!" Jacob, Ruth, Gilead and young Joseph sat around the table, The Bear Killer happily beside Joseph, alert for fallout -- as Joseph was getting some size and responsibility about him, fallout was rare these days, but The Bear Killer kept station anyway. "I know I can have a meal fabricated," Ruth said quietly, "but it just doesn't seem right!" "Darlin'," Jacob said gently, and Gilead could hear their father's voice in his brother's throat, "if you went to the trouble to make it, you bet your bottom dollar I'll eat it and be glad for it!" Joseph looked from one adult to another: he hadn't spoken six words since Gilead came through the door with Joseph's father. Gilead winked at Joseph, looked at Jacob, who happily mopped his plate with a torn open sweet roll. "I know it's not mannerly," he said, "but it's so good I don't want to waste any!" "I'll agree there," Gilead echoed, looked at Ruth: "Thank you. I'm sorry, I should have sent word ahead." "Oh, pshaw," Ruth smiled, coloring. "I've fresh apple pie ... anyone?" Jacob rose, thrust his hand toward Joseph: "Twist my arm!" Joseph happily seized his Pa's wrist and Jacob flinched: "Ow, ow, ow, all right, I'll have pie!" Father and son laughed: Ruth looked at Gilead, concerned at the sadness she saw in his eyes. Ruth withdrew discreetly, allowed the men their privacy. Gilead sat, clasped his hands: he was leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, frowning: Jacob waited, recognizing the signs of a troubled man who was trying to think of the right way to say something. Jacob saw Gilead blink twice, rapidly, and knew he'd come to a conclusion. "Jacob," Gilead said, "do you think Pa can forgive me?" It was Jacob's turn to lean forward, only instead of sadness or concern, his face was genuinely surprised. "Come again?" Gilead looked miserably at Jacob. "You remember ... when Mama's oldest daughter ... they had such a screamin' fight and she left and ..." Jacob nodded. "Pa and I didn't come to words, I just left." Jacob waited, grateful he'd practiced the Poker Face. "I ... I realize now Pa would've supported anything I did." Jacob waited, listening closely, assessing his older brother's body language very carefully. "You recall Pa told us at some time or another, every boy figures he can whip the old man?" Jacob nodded, slowly, once. "I never figured I could whip him," Gilead admitted, "but I sure thought I knew more than he did!" "Did you?" "Academically, maybe, but good sense, no. No, Pa is far wiser than I." "You're farther ahead than most men your age." Gilead looked at Jacob curiously. "Most men don't really realize how smart the Grand Old Man is until they're well older than you!" Gilead grimaced, looked away. "At least he didn't slaughter the fatted calf," he muttered. "He was fixin' to, then you went in for surgery, Marnie got in a scrape, Angela threw some fella through a window when he tried to lay hands on one of her nursing students, then there was a tree fell across the fence, cattle got out, I don't recall what-all went on but he had his hands full." Jacob looked very directly at Gilead. "He wanted to throw a big feed for you and bring in dancin' girls, kags of beer and he was even goin' to import an couple fallin' down drunks for the occasion so none of our people would have to get plastered." "Is this where I fetch out that block of salt?" Gilead deadpanned, and they both laughed. "Now I am not followin'," Jacob said with an exaggerated casualness: "what terrible thing did you do to fear Pa won't forgive you?" "Jacob, in Scripture ... there's so much that's symbolic. Any time someone goes East it's symbolic for rebellion, and I went East. I reckon Pa would have put me through divinity school and likely I could've found a church to pastor out here, but I got a bad case of stupid pride and wanted to do it myself." Jacob lifted his chin, considered, lowered his head, thought for several long moments as memories sorted themselves out and recollection arranged memory-pieces in a clearer order. "I met Adina and got married. Do you remember I brought a girl home and Pa didn't approve of her." "Vaguely." "She's dead now. Pa ... didn't like her and that went all through me, so I dropped her and hated myself ever since, but she's dead so there's no goin' back to fix that one." Jacob waited. "I put myself through school and got my ticket, I got a church to pastor and I was doin' just fine until that pair come in and they took my eyes." "That's when Marnie stepped in." "She did, bless her. Got me a church offworld, she did, and I was doing good work there." "I recall watching the vids where you took a knife in the guts keepin' your people alive, and you stone blind." Gilead's face paled a little -- his new eyes were not pale, but they showed a hardness, a deep and abiding anger, there and gone just as quick -- Gilead nodded. "And now we're here," he said. "And you wonder if Pa can forgive you?" "I was proud, Jacob. I left. I wanted to hurt him because my pride was bruised and that is no reason to cut off from family like I did." "Gilead." Jacob shifted in his seat, sat very straight. "I'm not Pa, and I won't presume to speak for him, but I reckon he is the forgivin' kind. He's long allowed as God plays fair if He plays a'tall, and he's done his best to run his life that same way." Gilead considered this carefully and finally nodded, then snorted and smiled with half his mouth. "You know, Jacob," he said quietly, "when things were at their worst for me -- after I'd lost my eyes and I didn't reckon I'd ever see my wife, ever again -- Pa's words ... those same words ..." His voice trailed off. Jacob turned, pressed a key, tapped a few more. "Pa will be at work. Your best chance will be to catch him at the Sheriff's office. I can open you up an Iris in the foyer between the outer doors and the inner." "Thank you. I'll take you up on that." Sharon watched the stranger disappear into the conference room, then she keyed the intercom. "Sheriff? A man to see you. He's in Conference waiting." That night Gilead sat in his comfortable old chair, leaned his head back the way he did when he was composing a sermon -- before he had eyes again, he'd have to memorize his sermons. Adina smiled as she brought him coffee, sat it on his desk the way she always did, in exactly the spot she always did, knowing consistency of placement is vital in the world of the blind. Gilead blinked, looked at his wife, smiled. "Darlin'," he murmured, "you are gorgeous!" "You told me that six times so far today!" she smiled. Gilead nodded. "Good." "You looked like you were composing your sermon." Gilead nodded, slowly, smiling just a little. "My best sermons have come from actual experience," he said softly. "How was your visit with your father?" "Do you mean, did he forgive me?" Adina nodded. Gilead rose, took his wife's hands in his own, his grip gentle, the way he always did. "Darlin', my father forgave me freely and completely, and turns out he never held my leavin' against me." "Did you tell him why you left?" "I told him I had a bad case of bruised pride and stupidity." Adina tilted her head, caressed his cheek. "But that's when you met me." Gilead gathered his wife into his arms, held her, felt her breathe, felt her warm and living and very real in his arms. He whispered in his wife's ear, and she suspected she was hearing the core of his Sunday sermon: "God plays fair if He plays a'tall."

SHE DIDN'T "Good mornin'," a quiet voice said. A man moved, or tried to. He was stove up and sore and it hurt to move. He managed to throw an arm over, come up on his side, then awkwardly, painfully, up on all fours. He stayed there for a long moment, gathered his strength, felt blindly to his left, found a shelf of some kind. He managed to make his feet, steadied himself with one hand against a heavy timber wall. It hurt to move, it hurt to stand, it hurt to lift his head. He opened his eyes -- they were swollen, he raised his free hand to a bruised, tender cheek bone -- Good God that man can hit! he thought, and remembered the sight of a fist coming at him, just before his lights went out -- "Got coffee, if you're of a mind," the voice said mildly. "Thanks," he replied, forcing his eyes open a little further. Jail. I'm in jail. What the hell did I do this time? He managed to sway and stagger over to the bars. A tall fellow with pale eyes stood on the other side of the bars; he held a steaming tin cup, handle toward the prisoner. "How'd I get here?" "Wasn't peacefully." "Thank'ee." A pale eyed lawman waited while the prisoner took a sip, took another, drank. "Reckon you'll need the chamber pot. Bucket's in the far corner yonder." "Yeah, thanks." "Back shortly." Daisy Finnegan raised her fisted hand, belted the Sheriff's office door -- three hard, summoning slams of the heel of an Irishwoman's hand, demanding entry. A pale eyed lawman lifted the heavy latch. He didn't have to open the door. Daisy shouldered it -- hard -- pushed it and the lawman out of her way. She stopped, coffee pot in one hand, a cloth-tucked withie basket on her forearm: she glared up at the silent lawman, thrust an accusing finger at his chin -- "Not a word, you!" -- she stomped back toward the cells, snatched the keys off their peg, disappeared down the short hallway. Linn shook his head and sighed -- silently, as he knew any sound would bring more Irish ire down upon him -- he closed the door, set the latch, turned. Daisy was a woman driven by purpose and a red-headed Irish temper. She snarled as she thrust the key into the cell door's lock, grunted as she yanked it open, glared at the prisoner as he turned quickly away from her, set the bucket down: "Have done, woman, I'm not buttoned up!" Daisy's glare scorched his spine and her sharp tongue seared the air: "SAINTS ABOVE, HA'E YE NO DECENCY! THERE'S A LADY PRESENT! NOW GET YERSEL' READY AN' HERE'S BREAKFAST AN' YE'D BETTER EAT WI' A GUID APPETITE!" Linn stopped short of the hallway, unable to suppress the widening smile laying claim to his lean, tanned face: he folded his arms, leaned his shoulder against the timber wall, waited. He heard the faint clink of tin cup on blue-granite coffeepot spout. "This is fit t' drink," Daisy scolded, her voice harsh: "th' man can't make coffee fit t' drink if he had to!" Daisy thrust the cup at the man, handle first, then she set the withie basket on his pallet, snatched the covering cloth free: she turned, snapped the cloth open, then tucked a corner into the man's collar, Irish-green eyes snapping. She frowned at his discolored face, at one eye swollen nearly shut: she laid a gentle hand on his cheek and murmured, "Ye found me attractive enough last night!" -- she seized his shirt front in both hands, pulled him down or herself up, kissed him quickly, gave him a smoldering look and whispered, "A woman wants t' know she's still desirable!" -- then she shoved him away from her, whirled, stomped out of the cell: she SLAMMED the door shut, gave the big, heavy key a vicious twist, stomped down the hallway, slapped the keys into the Sheriff's chest -- "I'll need me dishes back!" she shouted. The prisoner heard the heavy door open, slam shut: he looked up at the Sheriff as the amused lawman sauntered to his cell. "What," he asked, "was all that?" "That," Linn said quietly, "is why you woke up here." "What did I do?" "You patted her fanny." "Dear God," the man groaned, "she beat me? -- feels like I got run over by a freight wagon!" Linn shook his head. "She didn't beat you," he said quietly. "Her husband did." He leaned a forearm across the bars, his thumping head on his forearm. "I got locked up for grabbin' her backside?" "No," Linn grinned, "so that big Irish fire chief couldn't get to you to finish the job!" Linn looked at the basket. "From the smell of that, you'd best eat while it's still hot. I'll look and make sure Sean's nowhere in sight and we'll get you turned loose from here, but was I you, I'd figure it's way healthier a couple counties away from here!"

DISCRETION "No." A woman's hands, skilled, firm, stopped. "No?" Gilead swallowed. "Is my wife here?" He felt her pause as much as he heard it. "I ... no, I'm sorry --" "Then don't remove the bandages, not yet." "But ... we have to assess --" Gilead drew his head back a fraction, his voice hardening. "No," he said firmly. "The last thing I saw before I lost my eyes was the face of an angry man attacking me. The very last thing before the lights went out." He stopped, calmed himself: it took an effort to steady his breathing, to unclench the fists he was pressing hard into his lap. "I want," he said slowly, "the very first thing I see, with these new eyes --" He stopped, swallowed, then continued at a strained whisper. "I want the very first thing I see, to be my wife's face!" A woman's hands, gentle against both sides of his face: he felt her nod. "I'll get her." Linn looked up at his Uncle Will. Marnie's voice on the speaker, Marnie's face on the screen. "Angela said the bandages come off today, but there's been a complication." Two men regarded the screen with carefully neutral expressions. "What... kind... of complication?" two men asked with one voice. Normally Marnie would have smiled, or even laughed. She did neither. Ambassador Marnie Keller leaned back, steepled gloved fingers, frowned a little as she considered her answer. "They're bringing his wife in now." Two men leaned forward, suddenly: "Marnie," Linn said sternly, "do you need us?" Marnie placed her palms flat on the desktop, lowered her head and looked very directly at the camera. "I will advise in six minutes or less." Uncle and Nephew looked at one another, and when Will spoke, his voice was quiet as he spoke for them both: "God Almighty, I hate waitin'!" Adina heard the ladies' room door open. She was too miserable to care. Adina knew the stall door was open behind her, she knew her backside was looking at whoever just came in. She did not care. Strong hands took her shoulders, pulled. "Stand up," Angela said quietly, firmly. Adina stood, jaws locked against the misery she felt. She heard the crackle of a water bottle's seal breaking. "Here. Swish and spit, then take a small drink." Adina did. Adina closed her eyes as Angela wiped her face, carefully, gently, the way Adina's mother used to when she was sick. "Adina?" Angela whispered, and Adina laid a hand on her belly. "It has to be a boy," she whispered, then coughed: she turned, spat into the sink, ran water and splashed her face. Angela waited until Adina pushed up from the sink, then handed her the towel. "Gilead is asking for you." Adina nodded, swallowed. Gilead's head turned a little as the door opened. "She's here, Gilead," Angela said briskly. Gilead sat up a little straighter. He was in an exam chair; he heard something rolled closer, smelled his wife's cologne, felt her hand close around his: he frowned, turned his blind face toward her. "Adina? What's wrong?" "Nothing," she said quickly. "Do we know yet ...?" "No," he said. "I ... wanted to wait until you were here." He felt her nod, raised his head: "Proceed." "Dim the lights, please," a man's voice said, then: "Gilead, let's see if this works." Gilead's scarred face was not quite neutral -- Angela saw his jaw muscles shift, saw him swallow. He turned his head, just a little, toward the hand that held his -- toward his wife's hand -- as the bandages were carefully unwound from around his head, from over his eyes, he turned his face to where his wife sat, holding his hand. "I can feel you shivering," he whispered. "It's all right, darlin'." She squeezed his hand in return: Angela lifted her chin, looked to a plastic pan: she accepted it from the aide, held it discreetly behind her, watched Adina closely, in case her morning sickness returned. "Five minutes fifteen," Linn murmured. The screen lit up, Marnie tilted her head and smiled at her Daddy. "I heard that." "You have hearing like your mother," Linn deadpanned. "Report." "I'm sending an Iris." "Good, bad or otherwise?" "The news is good." Sheriff and retired Chief of Police looked at one another, looked back at Marnie. "Bring it." Reverend Gilead Keller looked around. He stood behind the pulpit, gripping its edges almost as if to keep from falling over. He lowered his head, swallowed, looked back. "I had a fine sermon all polished up and ready," he said, his voice husky, "but ... if you'll forgive me, let me instead say thank you." He swallowed again. "My wife tells me of your many kindnesses." He stopped and swallowed again. Concerned, one of his congregation stood and said "What's it like to be able to see again?" Gilead's smile was slow, but it broadened: he looked at his wife, seated with family in the front pew. Gilead blinked, laughed; his wife gave him a look, mouthed the words, Don't you dare! Gilead nodded, looked at the man whose voice he knew better than his face. "The very first thing I saw," Gilead said slowly, "was the most beautiful thing I could ever see." He looked at Adina. "I saw my wife's face." Gilead held the brandy snifter carefully, swirled the shining liquid slowly, marveling at its appearance. Linn, Uncle Will, Jacob, Angela, Marnie, Shelly -- all raised their glasses to him: his wife raised hers as well, and Will felt the corners of his eyes tighten as he remembered Angela pouring Adina's snifter with something tan and bubbly: "Ginger ale for you, sister!" she'd murmured. "Gilead, you said this morning that your wife's face was the first thing you saw," Linn said, and gave his son a knowing look. "Yes," Gilead admitted. "I said that." "I notice you didn't go into detail." "Gileaaaaad," Adina said, her voice rising slightly -- clearly a warning -- and Gilead felt his face and his ears warming rapidly. Gilead cleared his throat, looked down at his brandy, looked back up at his wife. "You could say that," he admitted. Will came to his rescue, raised his glass: "To Discretion!" "Discretion!" the entirely family chorused, and drank. Gilead took a taste, decided that apricot brandy was to his liking, drank: he lowered his glass, looked at his Uncle Will and said quietly, "Thank you." Adina shot him a look -- gratitude, he reckoned. Her face was indeed the very first thing he saw when he opened new eyes and saw again for the first time in a year and a half. He just didn't say in public that his wife's face was shoved down in a plastic pan as she heaved up her guts from morning sickness.

A PROMISE KEPT The surplus GI entrenching tool scraped futilely at the frozen ground. Young hands, gloved hands, raised the tool and drove it hard into wintertime graveyard sod. The wind was picking up, snow stung what skin wasn't covered. He knelt, he raised his arms, he tried to make a dent in the drifting white cover, but all he succeeded in penetrating was snow, and the icy crust beneath. Again and yet again he raised the tool: when finally cold and fatigue slowed him to a frustrated, chin-tucked stop, breathing into his collar to keep from frosting his lungs, he threw the olive drab folding shovel down, bent over, head in his hands, and groaned. He felt a presence -- he'd heard nothing -- then a hand on his shoulder: firm, fatherly, and a voice. "Howdy." He pushed up from the snow, looked miserably at a sympathetic face, at pale eyes between a snow-covered Stetson brim and a curled, iron-grey mustache: the eyes were old, tired, almost out of place in such a young face. "You look about done in." The discouraged young man nodded, thrust a chin at a cardboard box, almost snow covered, a little drift forming in its lee. "I promised Granddad I'd bury him out here," he said. "I reckon Granddad would recommend you get thawed out first," came the quiet reply. "It's not far to the Silver Jewel. What say we have us a good hot meal and cozy up close to the stove?" Two men stood; a gust of wind whipped snow between them, a glittering white curtain of knife-sharp crystals, there and gone. "Name's Keller." A gloved hand thrust out. "Wilburn." Gloved hands clasped. "Your car start?" "Should." "You'll need to turn around. Snow's blown off the gravel so you shouldn't have trouble. Back on the road and turn right, town's just over the rise. Silver Jewel is on the right. Meet me there." A young man picked up a cardboard box and an entrenching tool older than he was. The folding GI shovel went in the trunk, and the ashes of a man he remembered, a man he'd loved, went in the passenger front seat. "That wind's fit to cut right through a man." Wilburn watched the man pull off his coat, give it a shake and a swat to dislodge the snow: he pulled the back strap free, brought his Stetson briskly down against his leg, knocking off a surprising amount of snow. "C'mon in, it's cold out here." "You're ... Sheriff?" A grin -- quick, almost boyish, and the man with pale eyes and the iron grey mustache suddenly looked twenty years younger: he hauled open the heavy door with ornately swirl-frosts etched into the glass. They went into the welcome warmth of the Silver Jewel Saloon. "Back here." They paced back through the lightly populated saloon, settled into a table in the back corner. Wilburn was not at all surprised the Sheriff hung coat and Stetson on a peg behind the round, black, cast iron stove. He was very surprised when the Sheriff set an old fashioned, lever action rifle in the corner beside him when he took his seat with his back to a wall. Wilburn hadn't seen the man bring in a rifle, but then he was cold and he was concentrating on getting inside where it was warm. "Now what brings you clear the hell and gone out here?" the Sheriff asked gently, and it was more a fatherly, or maybe a grandfatherly question, not that of a suspicious badge packer. Wilburn swallowed and felt grief again, like an ocean wave swelling quickly from the depths. "My Granddad liked it out here," he said. "He dearly loved to fish and he ... I think it was somewhere around here he fished, and he said when he died he'd like to be buried out here." "You brought his ashes." Wilburn nodded. "Kinda figured. 'Twould be difficult to get a grown man in a box that small." Wilburn blinked, surprised, then chuckled a little. His Granddad said that same thing, that he'd planned on being cremated so he'd not spoil during the trip, and he could be transported more easily in half a shoebox than in a full size coffin. "You realize you were tryin' to dig a hole in Potter's Field." They leaned back as the cute little has slinger in the red-and-white check dress sashayed up to their table, set coffee in front of each man, an insulated pot between them, and a small pitcher of milk beside it. "Two specials, if you would, please," the Sheriff said gently, and the waitress hip-shot him and laid a familiar hand on his shoulder: "I'll bet you say that to all the girls!" -- she looked at Wilburn and smiled, "Isn't he just the sweetest thing?" Wilburn laughed uncertainly as the Sheriff's eyes smiled knowingly. "I generally come in here and torment those girls somethin' fierce," he admitted, "and they give as good as they get. One time for my birthday they allowed as they were goin' to give me a strip tease. Three of 'em came skippin' back here, they were ready to start a remodel so one reached up and peeled a long strip of wallpaper loose -- that was the strip part -- then they all three stuck their thumbs in their ears, wiggled their fingers and said "Neener neener nee-nerrr!" and run a-gigglin' back to the kitchen. That was the tease part." The Sheriff sighed, shook his head. "I think my wife put 'em up to it." He looked at Wilburn again as the stove threw off welcome waves of heat. "Startin' to thaw out a little?" Wilburn tried his coffee, found it very much to his liking: his brows puzzled together as he looked up at the Sheriff. "Vanilla?" "Yep," the lawman grinned, even white teeth bright beneath his elegantly curled lip broom. "They make that just for me, bless 'em!" Conversation suspended as the meal arrived. Wilburn was honestly surprised: he hadn't realized how hungry he was, and he never realized meatloaf and mashed potatoes could taste so very good! When he commented on it, the Sheriff nodded knowingly: "When I was newly wed, my wife put me to cuttin' up taters for beef stew. I didn't know any better so I diced 'em up real fine. She looked at 'em kind of funny but put 'em into the stew -- I noticed she used a good cut of meat, she has arthritis so she had me cut up that cold meat so's not to hurt her hands -- I diced it up fine too, and don't you know that was genuinely the best beef stew I'd ever had." He chuckled a little, buttered a sweet roll. "Mama used to chunk her taters up kind of big, and she used a cheap cut of stew meat ... now I'm not as dumb as I look" -- he looked at Wilburn the way a man will when he's confiding in a friend -- "an old and dear friend told me that's proof the Lord is merciful -- but I never, ever, told my Mama that my wife made better beef stew than she did!" Wilburn smiled a little, nodded. "Your Granddad like to fish, didn't he?" Wilburn looked up, surprised. "He favored a fly rod." "You knew him." "I did," the Sheriff nodded. "Liked the man. Didn't hear he'd passed until well after the funeral, I'm sorry." Wilburn nodded, and the Sheriff saw how absolutely lost he looked. "Tell you what. I think we can inter your Granddad in the regular cemetery with the decent folks. Potters Field is where they buried executed criminals and such-like, back when." Wilburn frowned a little. "It won't take much of a hole for that box," he admitted, "but I didn't make a mark in that frozen ground when I tried." He blinked, considered, and his shoulders sagged. It just occurred to him that he was in the presence of the County Sheriff, and you can't just dig a hole and bury someone, there has to be grave space purchased and recorded and he'd need his Granddad's death certificate -- "Let's go up and take a look," the Sheriff said. "You'll play hell gettin' a car up Cemetery Hill in this weather. Do you ride?" "You mean horses? -- um, no, not really." "We'll fix you up." The Sheriff rose as the hash slinger came over with the check: he pressed something green and folded in her hand and said seriously, "Darlin', I've been tryin' to think of somethin' to tell you that's not rude, crude or socially unacceptable, but I work with men and I only hear the ones you can't tell at Mama's supper table!" The waitress came up on her toes, kissed the Sheriff's clean-shaven cheek -- quickly, a delicate, little-girl peck -- then she looked at Wilburn and giggled, red-faced, and skipped off toward the kitchen. Wilburn handed the box down to the Sheriff, then climbed awkwardly down from the mule. He didn't know he'd ridden a mule and not a horse -- in his world, horsepower was under the hood, not under a saddle -- all he knew was, he rode with his Granddad's ashes in one arm and his other hand welded to the saddle horn, as his mount plodded patiently, sure-footedly behind the Sheriff's spotted horse. "It's right over here." Two men turned, the wind pushing them; Appaloosa stallion and brindle mule stood close to one another, backsides to the wind, waited patiently as the pair walked down a row of stones, went down hill to another row, stopped. Wilburn stared, his mouth opened in surprise. A stone -- his Granddad's name -- date of birth, death, husband, father, beloved grandfather -- The stone was round topped and old fashioned looking, but his Granddad's image was laser engraved beneath the lettering, fishing net in one hand, a bending fly rod in the other. The Sheriff scuffed snow aside, reached down and removed a board, revealed a small, square hole. Wilburn knelt, placed the box carefully in the hole, paused. "Rest easy, Granddad," he whispered, his words whipped away by the cold wind. The box slipped from between cold-numbing fingers, dropped: the Sheriff went to one knee, removed his Stetson. Two men quietly committed the remains of someone they knew, to the earth from whence it came. Wilburn thrust out his hand and the Sheriff took it. "Thank you," he said. "I hadn't expected ..." He swallowed. "Weather's supposed to clear up tonight," the Sheriff said. "You might be wise to stay the night and take out after a good breakfast." Wilburn nodded. "Granddad said I wasn't like the other boys," Wilburn said. "He said I would listen to sound advice, and that's what this sounds like." The Sheriff grinned. "I knew your Granddad and I knew he wanted to sleep out here. Figured I'd get things ready." "I, um, the estate can pay for --" The Sheriff shook his head, smiled sadly. "It's taken care of." Wilburn's eyes stung as he nodded. The Sheriff handed him a small, black leather bound book. "You left this at the table when we ate." Wilburn's eyes widened with distress. "Granddad's fishing journal," he gasped. "Thank you. I'd ... I didn't know ..." A fatherly hand rested on his shoulder, pale eyes between a Stetson brim and an iron grey mustache twinkled, winked, like a father, or a grandfather. That night, as Wilburn got ready for bed, he sat on the edge of the mattress and paged slowly through his Granddad's fishing journal, re-reading the familiar words. He remembered there were two blank pages left, in back, and he tried to think of some fitting words for the final entry. He turned to the back, turned one blank page, stopped. The other page was not blank anymore. There was a pencil drawing, of two men kneeling in the snow: beside them, an oval topped tombstone with old fashioned lettering: between them, a small box being lowered into a hole in snowy ground. Small drifts of snow, wind-blown crystals -- the Sheriff was drawn facing Wilburn and the interment, but Wilburn was drawn with an incredible accuracy. Beneath, in an ornate, old-fashioned, copperplate script: A Promise Kept.

THUS SPAKE RUTH Sheriff Jacob Keller glanced irritably at the screen. It was the Inter-Colony news, and it showed him with an unhappy individual in each hand: the camera's angle made him look like a giant, the effect not at all diminished by the fact he'd wound up a good handful of shirt front and had each man hoist off the deck by at least a foot. Jacob was Sheriff, and Jacob had to handle situations, and Jacob followed his pale eyed father's example: reason and patience were often enough to handle a situation, but if vigorous action was indicated, he jumped in headfirst with both feet and made sure everyone involved understood Jacob was The Law, and Jacob's Word would be obeyed, peacefully. Or otherwise. And he was more than willing to show exactly what "otherwise" meant. Jacob sighed, shook his head: he hung his uniform Stetson on its peg, took off his coat and hung it up: he subscribed to the archaic notion that he should wear a vest, at minimum, over his shirt. Ruth, for her part, gave her husband an approving look: she set a platter of something she'd tried for the first time -- she'd made an Earth delicacy she'd tried, when Jacob took her home for his most recent visit -- something Ruth never had before -- something called "Meat Loaf." Jacob looked at it, and Jacob closed his eyes and took a long, deep, very obviously savoring breath: he smiled a little, that boyish smile she'd fallen in love with -- he looked at her and murmured, "Darlin', that smells goood!" -- Ruth knew by the way he drawled out the word that he genuinely approved, and she blushed a little and dropped her eyes, the way she'd done when he first met her, when he'd first realized he had feelings for her. They looked at the screen, frozen at the moment Jacob flexed both arms and hauled the pugilistic opponents off the floor, the narrator's voice quiet and professional in the background. Jacob looked at Ruth and blinked uncertainly, then he looked at the screen and said "Screen off." Ruth gave him that patient look of hers and she said gently, "But, dear, I was just appreciating the view!" Jacob laughed, and Ruth laughed with him: they dipped up whipped potatoes and drizzled gravy over them, Jacob ate with a good appetite, and little Jacob watched them with big and innocent eyes that missed absolutely nothing. Jacob was about halfway to his full mark when he spoke. "Darlin'," he said, his voice gentle, the way it was when he addressed his wife, "I have no idea what you ever saw in me." Ruth looked at him, amused: "I'm trying to think of something ... profound," she murmured. Jacob thrust his chin at the darkened, silent screen. "You can see for yourself. Your husband is a bully who uses overpowering strength to get his point across!" Ruth gave him almost a pitying look. "I see a man who can take a jawbone to the Philistines," she said quietly. "Yeah," Jacob grunted. "Kind of like the Preacher and the Mule." Puzzlement: Ruth's brows twitched together, she blinked a few times, and Jacob grinned, lifted a hand. "Never mind, story at eleven," he chuckled, and Ruth was even more confused: she picked up a roll, split it open, added a good dose of butter, part of a recent shipment from her father. That evening, after Jacob took pains to pay very close attention to his son, after he had his young son explain his lessons -- Jacob had long been of the conviction that to know a subject well, one had to teach the subject, and he had his son teach him what the son had learned -- after they'd tucked young Joseph in bed and retired themselves, Jacob lay on his back, holding his wife's hand, stared at the ceiling ... ... and smiled. Ruth rolled up on her side, cuddled into him. "What are you thinking?" she whispered. Jacob smiled a little more: she laid her hand over his flat belly, he laid his hand on top of hers. "When we were married," he almost whispered. "Hm?" Ruth hummed drowsily. "I remember what you told me." Ruth closed her eyes, smelled soap and her husband's cologne and his unmistakable man-smell, and she nodded, her cheek against his shoulder. "Where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God,” Ruth recited. Jacob rolled up on his side to face her, ran his arm around her, kissed her forehead. "Darlin'," he whispered, "what did I ever do to deserve you?"

A LITTLE THEATER Something short, pastel, fast moving and LOUD!! streaked across the street. A police officer moved to intercept, shouted a warning. Too slow. The crescent buttplate of a '73 rifle drove into a man's kidneys, followed by the collision of six stone of incensed female: Michael stiffened as the collision of cop and his twin sister rolled over him: his steady chant went to a full-voiced shout: "ARCHANGEL CALLING MAYDAY, MAYDAY, GET ME SOME BACKUP, NOW!" Ambassador Marnie Keller picked up the gleaming sugar-tongs with delicate, lace-gloved fingers, transferred a tan, maple-flavored sugar cube into her steaming cup of tea, blinked innocently. "You realize, of course, that since the Diplomatic branch is involved, this has elevated to an Official Incident." "I realize that," a man in formal attire said slowly, frowning: "I also realize that it was hardly necessary to blow the sky apart above them and land in force!" Michael Keller rode Lightning up the street at a spanking trot -- which, to everyone else, looked ponderous and slow, until they realized just how much ground a trotting Fanghorn actually covers. He looked around, saw buildings with false fronts, single pane windows -- at least they're genuine glass! he thought -- a team and wagon was halted up ahead, a ladder was steadied against a pole, and men were working on overhead wires. Michael leaned back and Lighting halted, lifted her head, sniffed: she muttered, shook her head, and Michael reached down, caressed her silky-furred neck. "I know, darlin'," he murmured. "Electricity scares me too." The ground lit up with a bluish glare and Michael looked up, startled. A man fell backwards, his leg through the rungs of the ladder: the ladder started over backwards as men flinched, arms thrown up, then tried to stop the ladder's fall. It came down over the wagon, the far end hit the ground: Michael was out of the saddle, he hit the ground, launched into a sprint. Victoria was one street over. She saw the flare, heard men shout: she turned Peppermint, her face grim, and the Appaloosa mare launched into a gallop, shot like an arrow between two buildings, came out on the street as Michael seized the man, pulled him free of the ladder, rolled him over. Victoria bent her wrist, hesitated as Michael brought his wrist to his lips. "ARCHANGEL CALLING MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY CODE BLUE CPR IN PROGRESS NO DRILL," he snapped -- slowly enough his words were crisp, distinct, hurried enough to leave no doubt as to the veracity of his call. Victoria lowered her wrist. Michael's fingers were deep in the purpling man's carotid groove: Victoria saw his lips move as he counted silently, saw him position, landmark, then begin driving his weight down into the man's breastbone, responding as he'd been trained. "Your people," Marnie explained patiently, as if to a slow child, "interfered with a lifesaving medical procedure. They interfered with Diplomatic personnel, and they committed armed assault on Diplomatic personnel." Marnie stirred her tea, her moves delicate, feminine: she placed the spoon on its holder, tilted her head, looked at the well-dressed official. "In order to save a man's life, it was necessary to establish that we were there, in force, under arms, and that we would bring as much to bear as we had to, in order to stop your people from further wrongdoing." " 'Our people,' " he said, an edge to his voice, "had no idea a child carries diplomatic --" Marnie's eyes raised -- they were all that moved -- but when they did, they were dead pale, and the color was rapidly retreating from her fair features. "Your people all admitted, during interrogation, that they recognized Michael, they recognized Michael's fanghorn, and they recognized the business end of a Winchester rifle," Marnie said coldly. "Michael Keller is known on this world, thanks to the Inter-System. He is the only living soul to routinely ride a Fanghorn. Even on Planet Fanghorn, they are not domesticated, they are not broken to saddle, and they are --" An upraised palm interrupted the Ambassador's patient voice. A flash, as if lighting, followed by the slap of thunder's blast: overhead, four flat bottomed, shining-silver ships appeared, then two Starfighters, establishing their overwatch orbit as the Shuttles deployed landing gear, as they sat down, fast, engines screaming, hot winds blasting against the street: they landed, exhaust thundering against hand-laid brick and raising a cloud of free-blasted bedding sand, then the shuttles SLAMMED open and uniformed soldiers ran out in columns, bayonets fixed: the street filled with sharpened steel, men moved in step, a wall of death advancing toward the wagon, the ladder, the back-shrinking policemen: the utility men were on top of their wagon, Victoria lowered her Winchester's muzzle, she backed up close to Michael, stopped. "MEDIC, UP!" came the shout -- men parted -- four men with a grav-litter ran up, knelt beside the laboring Michael. Michael rocked back on his haunches, stood, backed up a step. The unmoving man was seized, hoist ungently to the grav-litter, his shirt and vest split open: wires, pads, an IV pole was raised, locked into place: one medic bled the IV tubing while another called, "OFF!" Men stepped back, palms raised, while automatic machinery made its analysis. "AUTOPACE!" the lead medic called: a shock, a minor convulsion, fingers pressed into the carotid groove -- a look, a nod, and the IV needle found a vein -- "I'm in, plug me up!" More connections, the automatic dispenser went on-line with the intravenous setup: four men gripped the grav-litter, turned, ran the floating transport device to a waiting shuttle. Michael turned to Victoria. "Thank you," he said quietly. "YOU!" the uninjured policeman snapped, pointing at Victoria. "SURRENDER YOUR WEAPON --" Four bayonets were in sudden close proximity to his face. The senior ranking officer spoke quietly. There was no need to raise his voice. "Disarm them," he said, "and place them under arrest." "SEE HERE, YOU CAN'T --" The press of cold steel under his jaw stopped his speech. "Was it really necessary to blow the sky apart and come blasting down out of the heavens like that? People heard that and thought the Millennium was arrived!" Ambassador Marnie Keller smiled quietly, sipped her maple sweetened tea. "We needed to establish our immediate authority," she smiled, tilting her head a little as she did. "Besides, who doesn't love a little theater?"