One of the "army" from the Little A'Le'Inn found the
scientist.  He was alone in a room so far back in the
cave beneath the mountain that he hadn't seen the sun
or the moon in days.  No, he had not yet received his
transfer orders although everyone else had been
shipped out to some place in New Mexico.  He thought
Los Alamos, but he wasn't sure.  In fact, he wasn't
sure about a lot of things.  However, he was not a
Vacht and he was working on a project with a series of
computers and if everyone would just let him be, he
would appreciate it.  Because he was getting fairly
close to "figuring it out."

"We'll look after him," Ted Atkins told Xtery and
Starr.

"Evidently, they were about to replace everyone here
with a Vacht," said Chuck.

The problem with Ted's army, as they came to be
called, was disorganization.  The loose fans that hung
out sporadically in the Little A'Le'Inn, if you could
call them fans, were from all facets of life.  There
was even a racehorse tout named George Wilson and
cartoonist named Bill Pearson.  But the IQs of the
majority of this ragtag group were astronomical.  Two
or three of the group had turned down scholarships at
major universities because they already knew more than
the professors.  Lou Dorren, for example, was a renown
name in the field of acoustics, both analog and
digital.  He had his name on a list of patents that
was quite extensive.  And he had claimed for years
that "the jury is still out regarding flying saucers."

Now, the denouement of Area 51 had proven all of their
claims and the group were celebrating as if they'd
achieved a major victory.

Headquarters for New 51, as they began to call it, was
in a bunker out of view in one of the mountains
overlooking the area.  Dorothy and Chuck Miller
decided to hang around for a while in order "to teach
these people how to march in rank."

"You've got to be kidding," said Ted Atkins.

"Darsoons are master technicians when it comes to
military discipline and order," said Chuck.

Four months later, Chuck still hadn't been able to get
three of any of them to march in step.  But the truth
is that he never had time to try.  He and Dorothy were
extremely busy during their spare hours keeping track
of everything that was happening.  And this proved to
be immense.

The scientist leftover in the cave turned out to be
Jon Fricke and he was within a deep breath of a
successful fusion pod that operated on used oil
drippings.  With the help of two shaved heads with
tattoos on both arms, he was able to complete the
project within seven weeks.

"Better than mine at the citadel," said Xtery.

"Goodbye to the windmill," said Starr.

"What's a windmill?" Xtarso wanted to know.

Xtarso Divhuud, the controller, had so far not
returned to Cyrreen.  Officially, he said he was
monitoring the situation.  Secretly, Xtery thought his
extended stay had more to do with the Lizards and
their ranch in central Texas.  Xtarso had become a
"plaything" with the kids.  They took him everywhere.
If you spotted a patch of children in the distance,
more than likely you would eventually see the head of
the Cyrreenian bobbing up and down as he darted with
them on his scooter.

The oil fusion pod was installed in the new city in
the desert for the once homeless of the United States
which now housed more than 40,000 individuals as well
as more than 5,000 families, new living centers in
Afghanistan, India, Iran, Africa, and Central America.
 It meant virtually free power.

The citadel hidden in El Capitan became, literally,
more active than Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan.
The Lizards, once called River Rats, roamed freely in
and out, seemingly partaking of an endless stream of
peanutbutter sandwiches.  And quite a few of the crowd
from the Little A'Le'Inn now dropped by occasionally
to talk with Miles and Chuck or scan other planets
with the "window."  They learned quickly how to use
the "doorway" and they came and went as if they needed
no formal invitation...and they didn't.  As for the
military, they had quickly moved back into Area 51,
but certain people were now given carte blanche
visitation rights and once Ted Atkins had presented
the military with production models of the flying
saucer, security was not quite so tight and some
people were extremely welcome.

Ted Atkins wanted to give the first flying saucer off
the production line to Starr and Xtery.  They turned
it down in favor of presenting it to Chuck and Dorothy
Miller.  "It runs on one of those oil fusion pods
Fricke developed," Ted said.

Miles, after an extended trip, finally came back from
the Middle East with the report that things were going
well in Palestine.  Guns kept disappearing, tanks kept
losing their engines and becoming immobilized.  "And
they finally decided they didn't need those helicopter
gunships and the airplanes after they kept nosing into
the ground on takeoff.  Nobody was hurt, though."

Miles also made a trip back to Northern Ireland and
this time took both Bdudd and Muduud who the Irish
thought were the "little folk" and three bombs went
off in the ocean off the coast and no one could
explain why.

Things were going so well that Roberto had started
another living center in northern Mexico and was
already inviting families to move into some of the
mobile homes located in a thriving agricultural area
in the mountains.  All of the mobile units contained
everything from satellite television to microwave
sets.  There was free clothing and although it was
what some referred to as a "bilious green," a lot of
people took advantage of the clothing because it was
comfortable and everyone seemed to be wearing much the
same thing.

Then, Misma turned up missing.

Dorothy and Chuck had made the decision to send her to
school on the military post so that she would develop
social skills.  For weeks, Bdudd and Muduud had been
assigned to watch her, unseen, from a corner of the
school room.  Secretly, Xtery had hoped the two
Verdidiuns would also develop better social skills.
After a while, close scrutiny had lapsed.  Misma took
to formal education with excitement and was soon top
in her class.

Yesterday, she had not returned home from school.

"The general called for her," the school teacher
explained to Chuck and Dorothy when they investigated.

"The Vacht," said Xtery.

"I know you should have let me talk to that fellow,"
Miles said.  "Now he goes and pulls a stunt like
this!"

"It wasn't just one fellow, Miles.  It was millions of
them," Xtery said.

Dorothy wept and blamed herself.  Starr tried to
comfort her.  It was impossible.

Xtarso Divhuud wanted to immediately bring in special
combat forces from the various systems belonging to
the alliance.  Xtery turned this idea down before
Xtarso could reach for his communication device.

"We don't want to turn this entire planet into more of
a war zone than it already is.  There has to be
another way to fight the Vacht," Xtery said.

"Call me if you need me," the controller said and
returned quickly to his kids at the ranch.  They had
built a small log cabin for him on the premises.  He
was even thinking about retiring there one day.

For a while, Xtery stood at the "window" and looked
out upon the rolling hills with stunted cedars far
below, but he couldn't have described the scene later
if you'd asked him.  It was strange how attached one
could become to a child such as Misma.  At first, she
was afraid of everyone and stayed out of sight.
Slowly, she'd come to trust them.  Eventually, she'd
learned to smile.  And her laughter had become
infectious.  You heard her laughing at something and
most of the time laughed with her even though you had
no idea what she was laughing about.  She had become a
sweet treasure to everyone in the group.

He told himself that this vast chasm in his life was
not a Tarrmellian characteristic.  This, of course,
was just another reason to believe that earth had,
indeed, changed him.  Dorothy and Chuck, too.  As for
the Verdidiuns, they were whirling about in the corner
of the room, screeching in misery.  Miles still
remained a mystery in spite of the statement of
Xtarso.  But Xtery somehow thought that Miles, too,
was deeply affected by this horrible thing the Vacht
had done.  His solution always centered around
conversation and Xtery admitted that his talking had
done a lot of good in Ireland and even, to some
extent, in Israel.  As for the Vacht, Xtery thought
that talk was out of the question.

Chuck, on the other hand, sat on a couch and cleaned a
military Colt .45 pistol just as if shooting a Vacht
was possible.  It wasn't, of course.  And,
unfortunately, Xtery didn't have a weapon in mind that
could deal with the Vacht situation.  Evidently, the
"hex" placed on the Vacht had worked, but had not been
a solution.  The Vacht had obviously kidnapped Misma
in order to force her to remove the hex.

But, everyone in the group was concerned.  Ted Atkins
had an entire squadron of flying saucers out searching
for the Vacht.  And his air force was a bit strange in
appearance.  The only flying experience a few of them
had previously was speeding on a Harley-Davidson.
They wore no uniforms.  In the flying saucers, statis
fields had done away with the necessity for
pressurized flying suits.  So what you had was a bunch
of guys with tattoos and long hair and women with
tattoos and short hair out roaming the planets with
the U.S. Air Force quickly trying to catch up.

"Hey!  Half of them have Ph.D.s," Ted had said.  "No
one has ever had an air force like this before."

"Probably not," Chuck agreed ruefully.  Though he
seldom wore a uniform except on base these days, he
was still a military man.

"We've also added a few gizmos," Ted explained.

Even Chuck, however, was impressed with the flying
skills of Ted's air force.  And the flying saucers
were not only fast, but agile.  Probably more agile
than the Vacht unit on which they'd modeled the flying
saucers.  Of course, that particular Ford Lincoln
hadn't really been a car, it had been actually a
Vacht.  More exactly, millions of Vacht that appeared
to be a car.  Xtery had just never bothered to tell
the bespectacled longhair that their flying saucer was
more Ted's invention than even he realized.  Ted and
the others believed in flying saucers.   Probably most
of the group preferred motorcycles to Ford Lincolns
anyway.  Thus, they may have studied the Vacht that
appeared to be a Ford Lincoln, but came up with a
flying saucer once they had the right kind of
equipment and a facility for construction..  No wonder
the Vacht general had wanted his vehicle so
desperately.  The term "brothers under the skin"
occurred to Xtery.

Because Xtery had reached several conclusions about
the Vacht with the kidnapping of Misma, the flying
saucers were now armed with a weapon similar to the
ballpoint pen Ted still carried in a shirt pocket.
Secretly, Xtery didn't think it would be that useful
against the Vacht if they attacked.  However, it might
stall them for a while.  No, a raygun was not the
answer as far as the Vacht were concerned.

"But I don't understand where those guys are hiding,"
Ted said to Xtery.  "We've searched everywhere in the
solar system, including around the moons of Jupiter."

"Did you count the moons?" Xtery asked.

"No," Ted said and, because he was extraordinarily
bright, he asked only, "Can they do that sort of
thing?"

"I would surmise," Xtery said.  "And it will look
real."

"We'll go back."

"Too late, I would think," Xtery said.  "They are more
than likely somewhere else and something else."

"Just what should we look for?"

"Everything.  Anything different or out of place.  And
it might appear as a single entity or several.  But
don't go off half cocked.  We must not jeopardize
Misma's life in any way.  She is too dear to everyone
here."

"Me, too," said Ted.

Just the same, Xtery fetched an air-tight glass cage
and went out hunting for the rabbit that Mindy claimed
was her friend.  He realized now that the Vacht were
not only devious, but extremely flexible when it came
to shape and form.  They could be anyone, any time,
any place.  Some of them or all of them.  He had never
heard of anything like this in the entire known
universe.  Nor had anyone he knew, including Xtarso.

"Isn't this rather dumb, chasing a meek little rabbit
amidst the cedars on this mountain top?"

"Yes, it is," Xtery told Miles.  "You want to try to
talk it into surrendering?"

"Sarcasm will get you nowhere, young fellar," Miles
replied joyously as he sat in the shade under a tree
and watched Xtery scamper about.  Finally, Xtery gave
up and popped the frightened rabbit into Mindy's
waiting arms.

Catching the rabbit was not a problem.  Placing it in
the cage was not a problem.  Feeding it was not a
problem.  Recycling the air was not a problem.  The
problem was that he finally decided it was really a
rabbit--Vacht probably didn't eat lettuce--and instead
of letting it go back amidst the cedars, Mindy
insisted on keeping it and now took it everywhere,
including on her visits to the citadel, where it
usually made a home on the couch and others had to be
careful not to sit on it.

"Everyone's comfortable here," Mindy explained.  "Even
the rabbit Redoux."

Subconsciously, however, Xtery knew that the Vacht, in
some manner not yet known, were keeping him and the
others under surveillance.  If not the rabbit, one of
the inflowing or outflowing children?  No, that would
be unlikely.  The children were not always present.

Then, who?

Though he admonished himself, once Xtery had caught
himself studying Miles more intensely than was
necessary and wondering.  Xtarso recognized Miles as a
native of Barwin, noted for being one of the most
peaceful civilizations in the universe because of
highly evolved negotiation powers.  They neither
fought among themselves, not over anything, nor with
other races.  But Miles had mentioned vague memories
of a flying saucer.  The people of Barwin, like those
of Tarrmell, had developed needle-shaped space
transportation.

On the other hand, the Vacht could have used a flying
saucer concept to reach this solar system.  Not a
flying saucer, per se, but the shape of a flying
saucer.  Because, obviously, they could be anything at
any time.  Why not a flying saucer?

At the moment, Xtery could perceive no weakness in the
Vacht entity.  No one is perfect except, of course,
the one great perfect being in the entire existence.
But that particular being needed no display of egotism
nor supremacy; it did not need to conquer, eradicate,
overwhelm others.  The obvious and singular necessity
for that being was love.  Love so great that it let
its creations exist in their own right without
guidance, without control.  For mistakes lead to
learning.  Thus, logically, the Vacht had some
weakness, some shortfall, something that would lead to
the necessity to learn, the necessity to make a
mistake.

Xtery wanted to be that big mistake in their pathway
to continued existence.  He felt no compunction to
eliminate them.  Nor, on the other hand, to talk with
them.  He did not want to know them al all.  But he
did desire to stop them, here and now, and restrict
them to some distant part of the known universe where
they could be watched and prevented from further
damage to other beings.  Certainly, they'd done enough
damage on this planet.  War and rumors of war.  Aptly
stated.  And true.

This thought process caused him to walk over the
hilltops on this giant of mountains and he strode
aimless amidst the cedars.  Often Starr was there at
his side, silent, thinking on her own.  Sometimes,
others joined them for a distance.  Mindy and her
rabbit, Roberto, Ted Atkins, Jon Fricke.  Most of
these fell away after a while; they found it difficult
to keep pace.  He was a boring companion, for he did
not talk, often did not notice them even to say hello.

When Starr went with him, she did not fall behind.
She matched him stride for stride and, he thought,
thought for thought.  He marveled at this young girl
beside him and wondered if she would ever love him
again as in the days of yore.  Of course, those days
didn't really exist.  He'd been a different person in
those days and she had been different, too.

He did, regardless, enjoy her as a partner in this
battle.  For a battle, it was indeed.  A battle he had
not anticipated and certainly one in which he had been
reluctant to engage.  But the battle was a reality.
And he would have rather had no one else at his side.
Chuck may have been military born and bred, but Starr
had capabilities far exceeding mere combat, mere
strategy.

One day, followed a distance by the rabbit, Xtery and
Starr found themselves after a while, after the rabbit
had long ago given up curiosity for comfort and
returned back to the citadel, on a rock escarpment
that jutted out into the sky beyond the cliffs.  The
view was immense and magnificent; he felt a tense
nervousness out here, air at their feet and,
literally, space for thousands of feet below.

"You walk when you could be anyplace just by snapping
your fingers," she said.

"I love to walk.  And I do not snap my fingers."

"With all of the walking we've done, you should have
solved the problem by now," she said.

"You're probably overestimating my capabilities," he
said.

"Mududd says that you have a mind better than a
computer.  A big computer, she said, and she
emphasized the word big by fluttering her wings
rapidly."

"You've been talking to Mududd about me?"

"Just woman talk," Starr said.

"She knows nothing about me," said Xtery.  "Or, at
least, actually knows very little.  And I wish she'd
quit telling it."

"She also says you'll solve the problem of the Vacht."

"Just wish I had as much confidence about my
capabilities," Xtery said.  "Especially regarding my
supposed capabilities.  I'm just a Tarrmellian.  No
more.  No less.  We're extraordinarily adept at
figuring things out.  Whatever that means.  But we are
not supermen."

They walked a while longer.

"I have faith that you'll get Misma back safe," Starr
said.  "But I worry about the chances of finding Misma
alive if we don't find her soon.  This is not to put
extra pressure on you, for I know that you are very
concerned about her safety, but...."

"It's true they--or it--may kill her once they've
cured the infection she placed on them" Xtery said.
"It wasn't a killing infection.  Just a sickness.
Like a fainting spell.  But I'm hoping that they'll
just dump her somewhere as they may have dumped
Miles."

There was considerable emotion in her voice.

"Miles is not a Vacht?"

"No.  A Barwin for sure," Xtery said.  "Xtarso Divhuud
is no doubt right about that.  However, the general
modus operandi of the Vacht is to sample the
population.  By mere chance, they probably picked him
up and examined him in their flying saucer.  Pure bad
luck, on the part of Miles because they evidently
erased some of his memory.  On the other hand, it
provides us with the definitive information,
extrapolating logically, that the Vacht do not
negotiate.  If Miles couldn't talk to them, as he so
quaintly puts it, the probability is quite high that
no one can persuade them toward compromise or peace."

"Then they might just discard Misma after finding out
what they want to know?"

"The Vacht are unpredictable.  At least, to me.  Right
now, they're preventing us from finding her.  They've
hidden her among millions of Vacht.  We cannot see
beyond their shield.  If they dump her, I believe
we'll know immediately.  If they don't dump her...."

Far off out there in the sky, almost playing tag with
a cloud, an eagle floated by on the currents of the
wind.  He took a close look at it.  But he could not
tell if it were actually a Vacht or just an eagle.

Just an eagle?  The bird was magnificent!  A shift of
wings, it soared higher and higher on the thermals
that bounced from the desert floor far, far below.
How could something as wonderful as that eagle
possibly be a Vacht?  Yet, he knew that he could not
trust anything nor even anybody these days.
Especially in the few days to come.  He had a terrible
chore ahead.  He did not relish doing it.  He didn't
even know if he could do it at all.  Not even with his
"army" at his side.

Starr, too, watched the distant eagle.

"How beautiful!"

"Always wanted to bring you up here to see this,"
Xtery said.  "I popped up here one day out of
curiosity and immediately fell in love with this area.
 In my study below the house in Juarez, I often opened
a window on this area.  Once, I spotted two deer back
over that direction beyond the trees."

"I wish you'd brought me here."

"Me, too."

"Is that eagle a Vacht?" she asked.

"No.  I don't think so.  I certainly hope not.  Too
beautiful.  Can't be less than an eagle."

"That's good," she said.

"Yes, isn't it."

"So what are we going to do?"

If she thought he'd figured out an answer to that
question, she was wrong.

"Walk," he said.

There was more than one reason for walking.  First, he
did think better when strolling amidst beauty.  And at
the moment he possessed beauty all around and a real
beauty at his side.  He marveled, as usual, about her
stunning appearance.  And she seemed to always radiate
a certain amount of charm.

But another reason was that he could not stand,
literally could not tolerate, the misery of Dorothy
Miller.  Perhaps she'd even become more attached to
the Mexican waif than if it had been her own daughter.

Her misery and Chuck's own misery made the citadel
almost uninhabitable.

And the Verdidiuns flew aimlessly about, disappearing
now and then as one of them, then both, had an idea,
but always returning to hover like large hummingbirds
with no real place to go.

Mindy had sought help from some of her gifted friends.
 Nothing developed.  Miles Davis, with no one to whom
he could present an argument for peace, talked to
himself and strolled from wall to wall of the room.
His desperate need to talk with someone about
something irritated everyone.  He didn't get in
anyone's way because the room was so large.  Everyone
left him alone because they had their own misery with
which to deal.

To get away from the gloom, Xtery walked through the
pines of the forest not far from the cavern entrance.

And Starr was usually at his side.

She was the first to hear him speak the words
"millions upon millions upon millions."  He seemed
excited about the phrase.

"Millions of what?"

"Vacht," he said.  "I was wrong when I chastised Ted
Atkins for not counting the moons of Saturn.  They're
not a moon, they're the moon."

She was astonished.

"The entire moon?"

"Not entirely.  No.  But I'll bet that right now the
moon is a foot to three feet wider than it used to
be."

"Let's hurry back and tell the others," she said.

"I don't think so," he said in a pensive tone.  He was
watching the eagle again as it circled high on the
thermals rising from the valley below.  "Logically, I
believe that would be a mistake.  I don't know why at
the moment...that is I have no proof...but I sense
that we're under surveillance.  The Vacht would know
almost immediately somehow and disperse, perhaps along
with Misma."

"So that's why you had that weird situation with the
rabbit and now was staring at the eagle."

"I confess," he said.  "I do not know the modus
operandi that the Vacht is using.  See?  I'm not
perfect as Bdudd would have you believe."

"She didn't mention the word perfect," Starr said.
"She only voiced certain criticisms."

"Women!" Xtery scoffed, but it was a mild scoff with a
chuckle to show amusement.  This was a technique he
had learned lately as he participated more with the
group and less as some kind of papa domo.

"Well, I, for one, am glad to have Bdudd around,"
Starr said.

"They do add a certain atmosphere to life," he agreed.

"Ted's device might be able to eradicate quite a few
of them if he attacked the moon," Starr pointed out.

"And perhaps kill Misma in the process," he said.
"The odds in that direction are too high.  I can't
take that chance.  I've got to figure out a better
way.  Anyway, killing, from a purely philosophical
viewpoint, is not necessarily an deterrent.  They used
to have public executions here on earth.  Stonings,
burning at the stake, the Guillotine, hangings.  These
proved little except that some of the people were
quite macabre.  I'm probably macabre enough without
having to prove more so."

"No.  I would say that you've become more and more
human."

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

"Thank you for saying so," he said.  "I consider it a
compliment."

"You would," she said.  Her voice was soft.  Distant.

He tried to analyze this last statement from her, but
by this time they'd reached the citadel again and he
was overwhelmed once more by the terrible feelings of
misery that permeated the room.

Ordinary humans, he had noted, sense the feelings of
others.  Especially during a period of stress or a
period following great loss.  But these feelings were
amplified in a Tarrmellian.  Long ago, he'd learned to
avoid funerals.  The feelings swamped him and to some
extent prevented him from rational thought processes.

This is the only explanation he had later for a
totally irrational act, an act that was literally
unforgivable for a Tarrmellian.

(... continued next week)