TRIGUN: MOON CHILD ¤ The Oklahoma Years Chapter 4: Int with Kinza ¤ P2 ¤ Family, a trigun fanfic

TRIGUN: MOON CHILD
THE OKLAHOMA YEARS
Based on "Distant Lives" (FFN #3519328/9) from Trigun: Moon Child

Chapter Four

Interview with Kinza
Part Two

Family
By R. A. Stott

Edited by TiredGamer

Sections of this story based on The Lugia Chronicles, After Chronicles: Year of the Cat & After Chronicles: The RPGs

She had dozed off in the lotus position. The meditation had been rather powerful this time, for she felt the need to cleanse her soul deeper than before.

But sleeping that way meant for some sore hips and knees in the morning.

"Puruu… Puruu… Wake up!"

She groggily looked up at the nothing that greeted her. She attempted to raise her hand which had been lying in her lap. It buzzed as she did so and slapped herself in the face with the numb limb.

"Puruu!"

She looked over at the voice and hand that was shaking her. "Sempai? What is it?" she asked her teacher/guardian.

"Puruu, there's a special mission you're needed for…"

The Goddess-in-Training blinked and stared blearily at her vocational officer. "Huh?"

It had only taken her a few moments to drop down to the dimensional level where the starship Pegasus was berthed. It was the middle of the night in the capitol city of Pola-Lortos V, but all the lights were on when she materialized on the ship's bridge.

"He's been calling for you," the android captain said from his command seat. He never looked up at her. He just stared at the deck-plates before himself.

"Then I should get Xuru…" she started then saw him raise his hand up.

"Just you… he insisted…" Nepto said. "Something about a thing only you can do for him now."

Puruu clutched her chest. She and her partner in the school report, Xuru the Junior Demon, had stayed in the past to finish their interview with the Tomassamassian Kinza, so to her, things were happening in 'real' time. She pensively looked at the doorway leading to the hallway back to his room and slowly stepped towards it.

"Miss Puruu?" Nepto asked.

She stopped. "Y-yes?" she replied.

The android continued to stare ahead of himself. "I want to thank you. You and your friend… you've made the last few days much easier for him. I appreciate that very much."

Puruu gave him a slight smile, though he never saw it. But he heard it in her voice.

"It was our pleasure sir," she said. "We are eternally grateful for your hospitality over these last few days…"

She looked back and saw the android nod. She could have sworn she saw him heave a sob.

"Go to him… he needs you now," he said.

Puruu continued towards the back. The ship's lights had dimmed in the rear to mimic the darkness outside the hull, as was the custom of starships as to keep the crew's livelihood more like their home-world's own. But right now, it felt too dark.

As she approached his quarters, she heard voices from behind the door. She moved her clutched hands to her face as she heard a plaintive cry from the room – one she never would have expected.

"Not like this… I didn't want to die like this," she heard a whimpering cry from there, and it tore threw her. "This is unfair… we are warriors… we do not die in a feeble pool of ourselves… oh I hate this…" She could hear that the voice broke into tears and it drew her in to join him.

"Shhh, Kinza, don't press yourself," a deep male voice said. "I'm sure she'll be here shortly."

Puruu wiped her face and lightly tapped on the door. It slid silently aside.

"Ah, you must be Puruu," the voice said. She looked over at the bed and saw a tall dark-skinned human male standing beside it in a uniform similar to that she had seen Kinza wearing before. In the room as dimly lit as this one, she nearly could only see the whites of his eyes. He walked over to her and shook her hand.

"Hank Josephs, Alman of the GCS Hydron," he told her. "Pleased to meet you. He's been desperate to see you for some time now."

Puruu looked over at her friend in the bed. He was looking straight at her, tears rolling down his cheeks. The bed sheets were missing, as if he had thrown them off.

"Why?" she asked the man. She saw him lightly smile and look back at Kinza.

"You'll have to ask him," he said. "As usual, he's being a stubborn Tomassamassa." He sighed and looked back at the young Goddess. "Personally, I can see why he wants to be alone with you. I'm sure you're better company than I am."

She blushed slightly, if anyone could have seen it in the darkened room. He guided her to the side of the bed and nodded to Kinza.

"You be good to her," he told him. "I'll just wait outside," he added to her.

The door slid shut. Puruu looked at the projection of the outside still being shown on the curved roof and wall of the opposite side of the room. It was raining outside, and it was making it ever drearier in there.

"Please," Kinza rasped, "sit… there isn't much time left…"

Puruu's heart leapt for her throat. This was wrong if it was true. She had scheduled her visit to the Tomassamassa to give him a week's rest after the interviews were to be completed. She stood petrified at the miscalculation.

She then heard Kinza snort. She looked down and saw a smile briefly on his wet broken lips. "I know what you're thinking… yea, you're right…"

"I – I am?" she queried.

He lightly rocked his head. "You thought you'd get here with time to spare… But you followed the information in the Federation Data Banks – they were a week off you told me…" He coughed a wet and unnervingly gagging hack. Puruu looked around and held her left hand over his chest and concentrated. An energy field covered her right hand as she created a gentle healing orb in it. As she held it out though, she found her hand being taken by his rough and blistered paw which popped it like a balloon. She saw him looking at her through streaky moist eyes.

"No… you're not allowed to do that," he said. "This might be the most undignified death a warrior species can have, but let me have it unfettered, please?"

Puruu gasped and placed her other hand on top of Kinza's paw. "Why have you asked me here then?"

He closed his eyes and smiled. "Well, I would have asked for Rob North to come, but he's not really a preacher… At least not in this time-line… And I needed someone with your father's ear…"

"What?" she asked, fearful of what he was meaning.

He opened his eyes, a tear rolling down his scarred face. "I want to give you my confession… if you'd do me the favor…"

She swallowed, shocked at the request. She reached over and pulled up Xuru's chair and sat down. She stared at him briefly, the thought that he would have to confess anything stunning her. She shook her head and began to pray. A pair of white wings sprang from her back scattering a few glowing feathers about. She then reached over and took his paw again.

He smiled and looked at the ceiling. "Bless me," he whispered, "for I have sinned…" Those words alone caused her to wince, her wings twitching as she made contact with her home.

Time seemed to hold still to the Goddess-in-Training. It had been less than an Earth week since they had started the sessions with Kinza - Now suddenly this. Had he known? Was that not against the rules of the Observer Corps? The last few days rushed by her mind in a blur as she searched for an answer in her friend's comments.

The second day of interviews came with Kinza showing signs of improvement. She and Xuru had returned ready for new stories. Having been told of how the first homestead was built, the theme had moved on to how his crew and those on near-permanent station kept watchful eye on the new family. He recounted the first child's birth as he watched from high above in his Scat Back, the little fighter craft that he so enjoyed using – he always had to apologize to the second in command of Forrestal for any damages inflicted on his borrowed craft. He laughed.

He remembered the second child's birth as being almost as much trouble as the first one had been.

November 1896 was typically cold for the plains of Oklahoma. The summer and fall had run by quickly on the homesteads. The new houses were nearly completed, having been donated by the folks of the Federation & Observers Group to the two families that had settled that area. Kinza thought his job was to watch over the Saverems, but found that after Meryl was born he had a second family to keep tabs on – the Murrahs. After the incident of their children's dual births Wolfwood insisted on larger homes for both of them. Since it was beneficial to both families, North had seen to it that a pair of house kits would be available to them – only THEY would have to assemble them on their own.

Ed Murrah was finishing the back wall to the kitchen of the Saverem's home that day. They worked on an every-other-day shift, working on one house one day, the other the next. Wolfwood had added the foundation layout of the church to his plans, so he was outside taking care of that project, which meant the disassembling of the cabin they had spent the first year in. It also meant that the work on the Murrah's home was further along and just about complete. In fact, Melissa Murrah was still back at the home finishing the painting of the bedrooms while keeping an eye on their baby son Jeb.

Millie sat for a moment on the steps of her home having just hauled a load of scraps out to be tossed into their growing pile of junk which all farms had at the time. She had sorted it though. Ed was always surprised when he'd see their rubbish pile and see that it was almost as neat as the house.

"You never know when you need to recycle something," she gleefully would tell him. He'd scratch his head, having never heard the word 'recycle' before – he thought it was some sort of special bicycle or something.

She caught her breath and looked at the pile of stuff in the canvas bag she had been dragging. The wood scraps were going into a scuttle bucket next to the door – no sense wasting good burning stock – the broken glass and nails were trash, but they had their places in the Millie Dump. Then there was the plaster mess. Baby Meryl had found the white muck extremely fun to play with – it had taken some time to scrape it off the floors. Large chunks of it were making the bag heavy that day. She rubbed her enlarged belly. The child she was carrying was not enjoying the exercise that afternoon.

The American Express wagon started up the drive from the main trail. The driver scratched his arm where his jacket rubbed the skin. He made a clicking sound and the mule pulling his cart started up the hill.

"Hey Ed," Nicholas called. "Got something good for us?"

Ed Murrah stuck his head out of the kitchen window and looked around at why someone had called his name. "What?" he asked.

"No - no," Nick laughed. "The OTHER Ed," he said pointing at the wagon driver who had just arrived with a large box in his buckboard.

"Ea, Tess here will be happy ta see this thing out of here, Reverend," Ed the American Express driver said as he patted his mule on the rump. "I t'ink yer bell has arrived." The small stocky man got down from the driver's seat and opened the gate to the rear. He jumped up and slid the heavy crate back to the rear.

Ed Murrah had come out to look at the delivery. "Well that makes sense," he laughed.

Wolfwood smiled and scratched his head. "Yea," he said. "Figures I'd get my bell before I'd get my church!"

Ed the driver snorted a laugh. "Yea, figures… where do yas want dis?"

Nick looked about. "I guess in the stock shed," he said gesturing over to a cobbled together shack that had been made up of some of the cabin's components.

"Here, I'll give you a hand," Ed Murrah said as he came around and took one side of the case. Wolfwood got the other as the driver slid the box just over the edge of the cart, jumped down and grabbed it along the sides. They heaved it up and started to haul it over towards the shed.

"Kinza," Ed the driver heard in his ear. "Kinza, do you read?"

"Scragg," he grumbled under his breath. Fortunately, the other two were grumbling as well as the bell and case weighed a ton!

"Kinza, find Millie, fast!"

He looked around with a start. They had that crate to handle. Now he had an emergency to deal with too?

"Hey Reverend, where's yer wife?" he asked as they struggled with the bell.

"Somewhere over by her trash heap, I think," he said through the strain. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Nuthin' – I just thought I heard somethin'"

"Huh?" the preacher asked and stopped in his tracks. They listened hard.

"Nicholas!" could barely be heard from behind the house. The bell was quickly put down.

Millie was on the ground, the bag of rubbish beside her. She was panting hard and was staring at the sky. "NICHOLAS!" she screamed as a third contraction struck her.

"Whoa, honey!" he yelped as he came over the rise. "Honey, what happened?"

She grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and gritted her teeth. "THE BABY IS WHAT HAPPENED," she howled through contraction number four.

"Wow, they're coming fast!" Ed the driver said much to the surprise of Wolfwood, though he was having his world shaken like one of Baby Meryl's tin rattles. He managed to look over at his neighbor before the next strike.

"Get my buckboard and horses ready, will you?" he asked then the world went blurry again.

"YARRRRGH!" Millie yelled and flung her husband away. She was not being as easy to handle as she was with Meryl. This baby was fighting.

Ed Murrah was heading up to the stable area. Wolfwood was on his back looking at the cold November blue sky above them. He reached into his jacket pocket then thought better of it, seeing they were not alone.

"No need," the American Express driver said to him as he helped him up and tapping his chest where the communicator was. "We're already here."

Wolfwood looked at him. "You're an Observer?" he asked the man he knew as Ed the diver.

Kinza laughed from behind his cloak of a human body. "Heck, I've got Doc McManus shouting in my ear right now," he whispered.

Xuru smiled. "How often had you played this Ed character?" she asked.

Kinza glanced at the ceiling of his room and counted off. "Humm," he rasped, "it must have been at least ten or twelve times. I wasn't the only 'Ed' used. A fellow crewmember, Frean Lar, who happens to be around my size, was 'Ed' also."

Puruu sat back. "Why didn't you do it all the time?" she asked. "Weren't you worried that they'd notice a difference?"

Kinza rocked his head. "The system they used allowed for multiple people to play the parts… It cloaked not only their bodies, but their voices and mannerisms. One 'Ed' looked exactly like the other 'Ed'. Remember, I wasn't always posted with the Saverems… there were many other missions to do as well, so I wasn't there all the time. Frean hated doing that job though."

"Why was that?" his sister-in-law Koni asked as she was listening in that day. Then it dawned on her. "Oh, yes, I could see why it would…"

"Well I can't," Xuru snorted. "Why would this Frean not like doing the Ed part?"

Kinza snorted a painful laugh. "Frean had an enormous furry tail! He would have to tie it up around himself before putting on the cloak. Hated it… hehehe…"

Xuru grabbed her own thin tail and shuddered. "No one touches the tail!" she snapped as she petted it.

Ed Murrah came thundering over the hill with the buckboard. Kinza raised his hand to Nightwatch to manage of the situation, as the over-exuberant man was only barely in control, and he did not want to get run over. The Cheverian bumped Betsy and slowed them down. He then glanced back at the human in the driver's seat.

"Idiot," he snorted.

Kinza peeked in over the sides of the wagon – there was still building stock in the back. "Aw, what a mess… let's get this out, pronto!"

"It's too late for that," barked in his ear. "Get her down here!" McManus yelped.

Kinza looked over at Millie. She was grunting and panting now.

"Scragg scragg scragg!" he mumbled. "Ed, go up to the house and get me some blankets and towels, quick!"

As he ran off, Kinza looked down on his patient, as was her husband.

"Doc McManus is down at the Laverne Settlement," he told them.

"How are we going to get her up there?" Nicholas asked looking back and forth between the high set wagon and the ground where Millie lay.

Kinza looked at the stock in the back and pulled a sheet of Rock Maple planking out. He tested its strength and leaned over towards the Reverend.

"We're just gonna have to tap into that Gunsmoke strength you've been hiding," he quietly told him.

Wolfwood looked at him then remembered that he would have known how he used to fling his massive Cross Punisher about with ease.

But this was not his Cross Punisher – this was his wife!

"Quickly, before Ed comes back," Kinza urged. "Millie, I need you to roll over… you think you can do that?"

"I feel like I'll roll down the hill," she squeaked.

They placed the wide board where she had been and rolled her back. Fortunately, rock maple is a very hard and strong wood. They managed to lift her up. Wolfwood was shocked to see that the little man was having no problem raising her up - in fact, the driver looked to be stronger than the reverend! They slid her into the bed of the wagon as Ed burst through the back door of the house towards them with the requested blankets and towels.

"Great," Kinza said as he took the linens. "Now, we need you to watch over Meryl while we take Millie down to Laverne Settlement, okay?"

Ed stepped back as if he suddenly was not wanted. "Y-you mean… I can't come?"

"Ed," Nicholas replied, "someone has to watch over Meryl. We can't bring her along on this."

"I'll send a rider up to your place to let your wife know, okay?" Kinza offered.

The young man realized that he did have a duty – take care of his god-niece. He waved and started for the house. "Oh, okay," he stuttered. "God speed Reverend!"

"What are we doing, launching a rocket?" Kinza murmured. "Let's get going!"

Nick mounted the seat and waved. "Let's go Diamond Mane! Let's go Betsy!"

The horses began to trot down the hill. Kinza kept a watch behind them at Millie, briefly peeking out a scanning rod he had concealed in his pocket.

"Oh, those readings aren't good," he heard in his ear. "Get back there!"

"Scragg," he said as he joined Millie in the bed. "Keep driving!" he barked.

Millie looked panicked at her new nursemaid. "Have you ever done this before Mr. Ed?" she nearly screamed.

"Believe it 'er not Miss Millie," he said in Ed's accented voice, "yes… many more times th'n you have I would presume… Hang on…"

He rolled up a huge blanket that had been stripped off their new bed and flung into the mix by Ed Murrah and placed it behind Millie's head to prop her up, he then took the remainder of it and wrapped it over her – she might be sweating up a storm, but in the cold November air, he did not want her to catch pneumonia.

He looked at what he had on hand. Two standoff units, used to hold heavy objects up while working underneath them were with them. He put one of Millie's feet against one, the other foot on the other and spread them apart.

"Okay Millie, yer gonna have ta trust me here," he told her. She nodded hard. He lifted her dress up and laid down a few of the towels across the planking. He shook his head.

"Yup, yer fully dilated…" He then looked a bit curious. "When did you burst your fluid?"

Millie shrugged. "I don't know… why?"

"Because the head's already out!" he shouted. "Push! PUSH!"

They were not even near the little creek that ran below the house when their new son was delivered by Tomassamassa.

The baby glared at him. He did not cry, nor did he whimper. He just stared as he was quickly wrapped and handed to his mother.

"He looks eternally pissed at me," Kinza noted as he sat beside Wolfwood. He looked over and saw a simple expression on his face and the bushes getting closer on the side of the trail. He quickly spun about and grabbed the reins.

"Earth to Nicholas!" he yelped as he brought the buckboard back into the path. He looked back at the Reverend and now found him giggling to himself.

"I have a son," he was saying to himself. "I HAVE A SON!"

Kinza reached up and yanked the rim of Nicholas' hat down bringing him out of his jubilation. He gestured to the rear.

"Get back there – I'll get us to Laverne," he said. Wolfwood spun about and jumped into the bed of the wagon lying down beside his wife and their new child.

"You delivered their baby?" Puruu exclaimed.

Kinza smiled and held up his paw. "Two of them…" he said adding a two fingered victory sign. Then the smile vanished.

"What?" Xuru asked. Kinza dropped the paw on his chest with a thud, and the girls jumped, worried he had suddenly passed on. But he closed his eyes and grunted.

"Nothing," he said. "I was just remembering something…" He coughed.

He looked over at Xuru. She had taken his paw and was slowly rubbing her thumb over the bandage.

"Did the Reverend ever find you out of the Ed suit?" she asked.

Kinza stared at her. She sat up, a feeling that maybe she should not have asked that question. She watched him return to looking at the ceiling.

"Err… yes…" he said as he cleared his throat. "He wasn't supposed to, though he knew I was an Observer…" He then laughed. "His reaction to my… former self… was classic."

"Once in a while, sitting on the ridge north of the homestead was a relaxing way for the Observation crews to keep an eye on the family when maintenance was being performed on the sensors and systems used to keep tabs on them," he noted. "In the spring of 1898, a passing solar storm had scrambled the main scanner satellite over the planet, so I set up camp at our second blind area…"

The warm breeze rolled the grass up towards him as he sat with a canteen and binoculars. It was boring work, but the day it was going to take to get the unit back in service made it necessary. He sighed and poured a cup of coffee.

He watched young Meryl and David frolic around near the large tree. Millie was sitting on the porch of the house rocking their latest child Jerry back and forth in the swing they had added the week before. Nicholas was down in the lower field with his new herd of cattle, the third to be brought onto the farm and the most productive. His chapel was completed and a new large barn was starting to take shape. When it was completed, it would obscure this vantage point Kinza was enjoying. Until then, he munched on a TKL and grunted.

"Boring - boring - boring," he mumbled to himself. "When are they going to get that scanner fixed?" He rolled over and picked up a book he had put down half way through its first chapter. He glanced over at a portable scanning system beside himself and tapped it. The local scanning disks were reporting in, but the main satellite one was still out. He snorted and turned the page.

His ears twitched. He heard the scanning relay make an almost silent chirp. He then heard something nearby snap.

The book flew away as he rolled quickly over the ridge, gun drawn and ready. He looked about for whatever it was that tripped the proximity alert sensor.

Wolfwood stood over the spot that he had just been laying. He was holding the book with a puzzled look on his face, and his own gun drawn.

"HEY!" Kinza barked. "WE GAVE YOU THAT GUN TO PROTECT YOUR FAMILY, NOT SHOOT YOUR PROTECTORS!"

Wolfwood looked over at the ridge at two furry ears peeking over the edge.

"DAMN!" he yelped. "What the hell are you!?"

Kinza raised his head and looked down the hill at the house. Millie was still swinging gently away and the children were still playing near the tree. Fortunately the breeze was keeping the sounds of this encounter away from the home.

"You know me as Ed," Kinza said as he sat up, keeping below the ridge-line so that if the others saw Nicholas up there they would not see him as well.

"Ed?" Nicholas yelled. He then saw the strange beast trying to hush him.

"Take it easy, Nick!" Kinza was saying trying to get the ex-gunman under control. "We don't want those folks down there looking up this way!"

Nick then realized what he was doing and quickly joined the critter on the other side of the ridge. Kinza shook his head and leaned on his elbow as he slapped his gun back on his hip.

"Geeze, you'd think you'd be used to non-humans, seeing you were in Angel Wings just prior to getting here," the Tomassamassa remarked, reminding Wolfwood of the small section of the Third City of July he had saved from Vash's Angel Arm Cannon, and where a group of Observer Trainees had set up camp, many of whom were of various species other than human.

"Sorry, but you just don't have that surly human look to you," Wolfwood said as he sat back and looked Kinza over. "I mean, for Pete's sake, you don't even LOOK like Ed."

Kinza sat up and crossed his legs and cleared his throat. "Today, the part of Ed is being played by Mr. Frean Lar, a Lieutenant from the Starship Forrestal, and is currently between Laverne Settlement and the Murrah's delivering some provisions. You see, the cloaking suit can be worn by anyone, as long as they are near the size of the Ed character."

Wolfwood leaned over and pointed at the odd creature looking at him. "You mean to tell me YOU were the person who climbed into the back of my buckboard and delivered my son David?"

Kinza folded his arms and snorted. "Would you have rather I had just let him shoot out and bounce? As I said to Millie at the time, I've delivered babies before. Mind you, that was only my second human…"

Wolfwood scratched his head and looked a bit perplexed. "What are you doing delivering babies?" he wondered.

Kinza laughed. "I'm a security chief, son… I'm sometimes the first one on the spot in an emergency. And I've done my share of babies."

Wolfwood looked about holding his gun up. "A security officer?" he asked. "Why? Is there some danger about?"

Kinza shooed an insect away. "Only from these bugs and crickets!" he griped. "Na, I'm just on sentry duty while we fix our satellite. Even we Observers have breakdowns."

"All by yourself?"

Kinza looked at Wolfwood as if he had suddenly wanted a platoon around his family – circle the wagons – lock up his love ones – the lot.

"Not into your freedom yet, are you?" the security officer asked as he pulled his gun and set a dial on top of it. He then looked down the sloping hill behind them at the Kiowa Creek. "See that stone with the rock on top of it?" he asked.

Wolfwood stared at the area that Kinza had gestured to. "Ummm… you mean that one in the center of the stream?" Damn! This guy had a good eye if that was the case!

"You got it!" Kinza remarked and took aim.

"Hey! Hey! HEY! Won't they hear that?" Wolfwood yelped.

"Nope," was Kinza's only reply as he pulled the trigger and sent a small plasma bolt away. The stone was cleanly sent skipping up stream by the shot made over one hundred yards away. The only thing Wolfwood had heard had been a slight thump from the gun and the ricochet from the stone, which even Kinza was surprised about enough to peek over the edge of the hill and make sure no one suddenly needed to look up his way. Finding them happily oblivious, he settled back down.

"They're safe," he said as he placed the gun back on his hip.

Wolfwood looked down at the missing stone then back at the Tomassamassa who had shot it. He smiled and stood up.

"Well then… Sorry to have startled you," he said as he placed his own gun in the holster on his belt. He looked at the book he still had in his hand and read its title. "Lord of the Rings? Ah… Fellowship…"

"You've read it?" Kinza asked as he was handed the volume.

Nicholas brushed himself off. "Only parts of it… Chapel the Evergreen had a set. I wasn't very into it. He had all of the parts with Saruman's bits highlighted."

"Freaky," Kinza said. Wolfwood noticed that by saying that, he showed his full row of cat-like canines. He shook his head.

"You be careful with that," the preacher noted as he looked over the ridge at his home. "There could be trouble if that were mistakenly found today."

Kinza laughed. "You mean just because a book that won't be published for another 60 years or so was found up here? Maybe so, but it wouldn't be the first time. Besides, Shadsie would be angry at me if I lost her copy. 'Course, the fact that the author of this book is only, what… six years old at this time… It would be a mess…" He grinned at Wolfwood, showing his teeth again and making him ponder his guard again.

"How much longer will you need to be up here?" he asked.

Kinza looked at his scanner board. "No idea – they're having trouble realigning the array. It might be another day. Don't go having another baby, okay?"

Wolfwood laughed and started to head back down towards the house as he left his family's protector behind. "Well, if anyone was to attack and he didn't have his gun, I guess he could always bite them," he surmised as the vision of those teeth kept running through his mind.

Kinza checked his scanners and sipped his cold coffee. He shivered at the shock of not finding it at least warm, so he pressed a button on the cup's rim and started heating it back up while he found his spot in the book again.

"Did you say hello to the man on the ridge?" Millie asked Wolfwood as he walked by her on the porch. He stopped in his tracks and looked up at her.

"What?" he gurgled.

Millie giggled. "I was assuming that he was one of those you said was helping us here," she noted. "You said so when we arrived!"

Wolfwood stood stupefied. He could never pull anything past her without her knowing! He rubbed his head. "Err, yes honey… he's just on guard duty for a few days…" Even that was more than he had really wanted to say, but obviously keeping it from his wife was damn near impossible.

"Oh, should we invite him to dinner?" she asked. Wolfwood's eyes shrunk at the thought of a cat-bear-goat-whatever man at the table.

"No – no… he's under orders… no dinner!" he quickly tripped over his tongue.

"Oh, that's a shame," she sadly said but still managed to beam it.

Wolfwood managed to step into the newly built chapel and plopped in the only pew that had been set up. The tangled mess of the rope for the bell sat waiting repair, having broke that morning while testing it. He could have used a cigarette then – blasted promise! He looked up at the steeple hole and sighed.

"I'm living in a damn fishbowl!" he harped.

The storm of the century was what the ship's weatherman called it. The captain was not happy that being they had all this available history reporting, they could not keep that one satellite safe from solar flares and ion storms. The ship had stayed safely protected by Earth's own magnetic field, but the scanner-ship over the Saverem's homestead was directly in the path of the storm and had been splattered across the upper atmosphere.

The summer of 1909 was hot, sticky and buggy. The new blind that Kinza found himself in was near the rivers intersection that had been the hiding place the Indian had used when watching the building of the first cabin. He was also inclined to move closer to the home than normal, since this place was sometimes checked on by the children. The best place was a thicket of scrub-brush near the site of the first blind, across the road that lead past their now fifteen year old home.

He had not heard any messages from Frean/Ed about any special deliveries being made that day, but when he returned to his post after taking a slight break, he saw the American Express truck up the driveway. A few minutes later, he saw the truck turn around and head towards him. Ed shrugged at him as he passed.

"Huh," he said as he spied on what was going on up the hill. He could see Nicholas running about as if a Christmas gift had been dropped on him. Millie was just standing on the porch shaking her head, as were a number of the kids. Jerry, Dally and Christopher were with their father attacking the long crate that had been delivered, David stood with his sisters next to his mother just watching the carnage of straw and packing flying through the air.

Kinza sat amused by the histrionics and hallelujahs being uttered by the preacher. The sensors could not discern what it was he was opening, and Frean had not stayed around long enough to tell him. The massive storm raging above them in the upper atmosphere was raging all sorts of ghosts on his scanning rod, so he could not find out what it had been.

He snorted. It was not going to concern him soon anyway. He was there to keep the safety of the family, and there was not anyone or anything that he knew of due anytime soon.

The case was blocking his view. He shrugged and sat down in the blind and opened a book.

Now there was yelling – cursing – Nicholas ran into the barn, a storage shed, everywhere Kinza could see from his lowered seated position. He ducked down as he saw the newer smaller buckboard with Clover, their latest horse, drawing it along with a wild-eyed Wolfwood at the reins. He looked back up the hill to see Millie now looking at the contents of the crate. She only shook her head as the children giggled and danced around the box.

"Odd…" he said to himself. He turned around and sat back down as the kids were gathered away by their mother. But the cat inside him was full of curiosity. He'd peek up over the edge of his blind to see if he could get a better look at the crate, but one of the kids would inevitably be within sight of it, making it impossible for him to go up and look. He shrugged and finally settled in with "The Chronicles of Narnia."

It was about an hour later that he heard the horse and buggy return up the road. As it turned up the hill, Kinza could smell the pungent odor of gasoline following it. He looked up again and saw Wolfwood lifting a can off the back seat. It sloshed a bit and he cursed each drop that spilled. But he quickly brought it over to the box and started pouring it into something. He put the can down and dipped below the side of the box, hiding what he was doing to the security officer. He then popped up, a simple smile on his face, and then stepped over something that the box obscured. He seemed to sit down to Kinza's view, but he could not tell. He then rose up and suddenly dropped down.

It started as a putting sound followed by a sizable backfire. Wolfwood's hair was rising as was the grin on his face. Millie collected the children on the porch, a worried look on her face. The children were jumping and hollering and rooting their father on. Kinza looked back and saw Wolfwood donning a pair of goggles.

Wolfwood pulled on a handle and he leapt forwards as the Harley-Davidson Model 5D Twin Cylinder in red and gold trim flew out from behind the crate. He spun the rear wheel about and brought the bike around to face the driveway. Kinza held his breath as he watched the cycle tear down the hill at him then suddenly swerve to his right spraying him with small stones and dirt. He turned his book over to dump the gravel off it.

The thunderous rumble of the motor could be heard rolling across the valley. He looked around himself and saw the billowing cloud of the bike far off in the distance. He sat down and pondered this latest development. He pulled a small box from his belt and keyed in the details of what had just launched itself from the farm.

"History report," the box replied. "1909 Harley-Davidson Model 5D – owner Nicholas D. Saverem – history shows this vehicle is used sparingly, with little or no overall effect to the timeline… end of report."

Kinza sighed knowing what that meant – the bike was a nuisance but otherwise was not going to harm the future of the family. He sat back and brushed the dirt off his book and picked up where he had left off.

He suddenly had a set of wheels six feet over his head and a startled Wolfwood staring down on him as the bike leapt the small gap in the side of the road he was hiding in. He heard the cycle touch down behind him as he slowly peeked over the ridge. Wolfwood spun it about while keeping his eye on where he had just jumped. A scowl greeted him from the underbrush.

Kinza dropped his paw on his forehead. "It still feels like I have tire marks on my forehead… Blasted humans and their mid-life crises… Tomassamassas don't have mid-life crises!"

"That was the second time you met Wolfwood in person?" Puruu asked as she wrote a note to the pad in her lap. She looked up to see him rubbing his head now.

"Umm… no… The second time… well, that time was eventful for another chance meeting…" He rubbed his nose and smiled slightly as a memory past across his face. "Ah my Lexy," he said with a wistful grin. He looked over at Puruu, who was smiling back. "What?" he asked her.

"You say that as if you had a special relationship with her," Puruu cooed.

"Oooh, Kinza had a girl friend?" Xuru giggled and prodded.

When Kinza didn't respond they all leaned forwards.

"Kinza, you didn't," Koni asked outright. He looked down at her.

"Don't be crude," he grumbled. "Lexy and I had a special relationship. After all, she was the other Saverem I delivered."

It was way too soon. The child had not been due for another month they thought. Young Meryl ran about looking for towels, sheets, and help of any kind. Daddy was down at Fort Supply, and Mommy was… Mommy was…

Oh! What is a seven-year-old to do!

She remembered years ago – When her friend Jeb died… Daddy had Mommy ring the bell on the church. But it's Saturday… why would anyone ring the bell on Saturday?

"David, Jerry," she ordered, taking command of the situation, "go to the church and start pulling on the bell rope."

"But Daddy got angry at us the last time we did that," the serious looking David said. Jerry only nodded as he huddled behind his brother. He would look back at the heap on the floor behind them. Mommy was being very still, and she had made a mess of the floor. Daddy was not going to be happy with Mommy.

"Don't worry," she said as she forcibly guided the pair to the door out into the chilly February morning. "Just get over there and start ringing the bell! I'll take the blame if he gets angry!"

"It's cold out here," Jerry complained. He and David found their winter coats and gloves being tossed at them.

"GET GOING!" Meryl barked. She turned and looked back at the next problem to confront her. The three-year-old twins had been seated in their chairs when Mommy collapsed in front of them. Both were still in their seats. Christopher was no longer howling, but Dally looked as if he were on the verge of it. Meryl looked over the situation and sighed. She slipped around her Mother on the floor and the puddle she has spilled and spun the first highchair around to remove Christopher. She did the same to Dally and shooed them to their room.

She heard the bell – one toll. It sounded like it had taken a heavy pull, as it was a clanking ring, as if the pull rope was frozen. She gave a quick glance out the frosted window of the kitchen and saw David tossing a stone at the stuck brass clapper. He was always good at pitching a baseball, and he struck home the first try. Not bad for a five year old. It swung free and clanged again.

The American Express wagon sat on the side of the trail leading northeast. A quarter mile south was the fork in the road that lead northwest. The aging Tess was not at all happy at standing in the frigid weather as her driver played with his equipment.

"What do you mean there's an event happening at the Saverem's?" Kinza barked into his communicator.

"An unscheduled event has occurred at the Saverem's homestead," the computer repeated to him. "History Observers are reporting an unscheduled event at o'nine hundred hours, Saturday February 8th, 1902 at the Saverem's homestead, five miles northwest of Laverne, Oklahoma Territory…"

Kinza switch channels with a grumpy snort and a "Blasted computers," retort. McManus came on.

"Thank goodness you're there," she said, her usual calm demeanor shattered.

"Abby, what is going on up there?" he asked. But before she answered, his ears twitched as the bell of the church started to waft over the rolling hills.

"Millie breached and scanners show she's starting to hemorrhage," the doctor said. "We've got to get there now!"

"Transmat up," Kinza said, stating the obvious.

"I can't," McManus replied. "Too many folks down here at Fort Supply know I'm here… I can't risk it… it would blow our cover!"

"It'll be a moot cover if she dies!" Kinza barked back. "But you're right…"

He looked around himself. He was in the weeds – there was no one to see him.

"Look, I'm over an hour and a half away right now, so I'm going to have to transmat in," he told his com unit. "But I'll want to do this right… who's in orbit right now?"

There was a brief sound of papers rustling from his com unit. "Olympia is there now… She doesn't have a cargo transmat if that's what you were looking for…"

"She doesn't need one," Kinza said with a slight uneasy shift in his seat, "just a good engineer… Okay, I'll catch you in a few minutes. Get hold of Wolfwood - He's down there with you somewhere…" He switched channels before she could acknowledge his suggestions.

"Russell, I hope you're up there dude," Kinza yelped into the com.

"Yo, Big Ears," a cocky voice replied. "What gives dude?"

"Trouble up at the homestead, kid," he said as he blew on his paw. "Listen, I need some of that transmat wizardry you can do. Think you can beam both the wagon and me to location twelve on the Homestead Trail?"

There was a grumble and the sounds of a keyboard rattling in the background. "Oh dude, you're pushing the limits of this transmat here," the engineer said. "I would say I could take all the live items, but not all of the buckboard… at least you'd have wheels, dude."

Kinza looked back into the covered wagon. He saw his own kit of supplies at the rear and climbed back to pull them forwards. There were a few stray boxes towards the rear as well, but they were deliveries that had been rejected by the last stop. He climbed back into the driver's seat and keyed the com unit again.

"Okay Russell, if you can do it without tearing too much up, I'm ready." He reached down and patted Tess on the rump. "Hang on girl, we're going for a ride."

"Okay dude," Russell said. "Point-to-point transmats are a pain, so grit your teeth and stay frosty!"

"It's twelve degrees out here!" Kinza snapped. "Don't tell me to stay frosty!"

There was never a reply, just an unpleasant buzzing feeling throughout his body. Behind him the bubble system this transmat used severed the aft section of the wagon. He heard it drop off just as the tingling got its worst. It subsided and he now had the sun to his rear. He heard a flapping of cloth and looked back. Without the rear support, the canvas was whipping in the breeze. He looked at Tess. She was a veteran of many transmats, so she stood still with her eyes shut, as if she had slept through the whole move.

"How's that dude?" Kinza heard over his com unit.

He heard the bell of the church just above him on the hill. Location twelve was just behind the hill that the homestead sat on, safely out of sight of anyone, unless they were walking or riding nearby.

"Perfect," he said as he switched on his Ed suit. The winter garbed driver of the American Express Wagon appeared once again. "Let's go Tess!" he urged his mule. As they started off, he could hear the tinkling of something falling out of the back. As he turned up the drive to the house, he saw silverware dropping out from a sliced box.

"He rejected them," he shrugged and bade Tess on.

The door to the church swung open on the boys and a goggled and heavily wrapped individual looked down on them.

"YAAAAAH!" they screamed.

"Yo dudes!" Ed said. "What's with the bell ringin'? It's only Saturday!"

It took a moment for them to realize who it was at first. David settled first.

"ED!" he yelled, the serious look gone from his young face. "Mommy's sick!"

"Ed?" Kinza heard. He looked behind himself at the house and saw Meryl running towards him.

"Ed!" she cried, tears flying as she ran up to him, grabbing his hand and yanking hard. "Something's wrong with Mommy! A lot of water came out of her, and now it looks like she's bleeding!"

"Scragg," Ed said and ran over to his wagon, grabbing the pouch he had moved to the front with him. He looked back at the church.

"You boys stay there and keep ringing that bell, okay?" he told them as he followed Meryl back to the house. There he found Millie in the middle of the kitchen and the twins peeking around the corner by the stairs.

"Meryl, you might want to get them out of here," he said, hoping she'd take them back to their room and leave himself alone long enough to use some of his toys. She ushered the boys back to their room as he hoped. He quickly opened his 'First Aid' kit and pulled out a hypo. A fast shot to the neck and he stabilized Millie's blood pressure which he could see was dropping fast.

"Kinza," he heard in his ear through the Ed suit's internal com unit, "remember, the baby in this case is not as important as the mother."

He continued to work. "Abby," he said, "I will pretend I didn't hear that."

"You'd better son," the voice of North came on. "Millie is more important here, not the child. I know that's harsh, but it's the fact in this situation."

Kinza cursed his com unit. "Well do you mind if I at least TRY to save the child?"

There was silence for a moment. "You have a go on that, yes," came a reply with some hesitance in it. "The child will be roughly a month premature – be ready."

Kinza nodded. "Understood," he said. He looked up and saw Meryl standing at the doorway.

"You… you were talking to yourself," she said.

Ed laughed. "Just telling my inner doctor to get his tail out here, dearie!" he said. "Don't worry – I've done this before… I brought your brother into this world a few years ago… 'course that was in the back of your buckboard!"

"You said try to save the child," Meryl pressed as she came over.

Kinza/Ed sat back a moment as he considered her comment. "Meryl, I'm not going to beat around the bush… your Mother is very ill," he told her. "She could loose the baby or her own life if I don't do something quickly. Now I'm going to try to save them both, but I must have your help, okay?"

"Kinza, I have an idea," North came on in his ear. "Reach up to your hat – I'm sending a new program to your Ed suit."

Meryl watched as Ed reached up to the goggled hat on his head and pulled a silvery rod up.

"What is that?" she asked with a little excitement.

Ed pointed at the silver rod. "This is an antenna for a new device the American Express Service is using – it's called a wireless telegraph. It can call all the way back to my base where I've sent for a doctor to help me. But it's finicky."

"Finicky?" she asked as she watched Ed tap his index finger against his knee as if her were keying a telegraph.

"Yes, the boys must be moving around upstairs," he said as he looked up at the ceiling. "They're interfering with the signal. Can you keep them settled up there?"

Meryl smiled and headed back up the stairs. Kinza sighed.

"North, you're a genius!" he said under his breath.

"I've been told that before," he heard. "Now get to work!"

Kinza started in on his kit of equipment and brought out his scanning rod and wound healers. He quickly sent a scan to McManus.

"You're going to have to get the baby out in a hurry," she reported back. "The lining has come out and she's bleeding internally."

"Will a wound healer be enough?" he asked back as he examined the situation.

"Just," the doctor replied. "It's all we have at this point. I can fix anything it does later, just as long as we stop that bleeding!"

Kinza snorted. He looked at the child and thought a moment. He remembered how the back of the wagon had been removed by the transmat.

"Stand by base," he keyed and then switched channels.

"Russell, be there you magician!" he prayed.

"Here, Fuzzball!" he heard in his ear. He smirked.

"Okay wizard, I've got a doozey for you this time!"

Russell felt sick. This was the ultimate transmat cycle, and it had to be done just right. Kinza was feeding him the scan readings. He needed to remove just the child, severing the umbilical and point-to-point the child into a waiting set of blankets that Kinza had set up beside them. He wiped his brow and held his breath. He plotted and graphed the settings – hopefully the child would not move much.

"Listen dude, watch for shock setting in on the child," he warned. "I mean, not even born and being sent through this transmat – it would put a crimp in anyone's day!"

"Understood," Kinza said as he readied the wound healer and scanning rod. He closed his eyes and took a breath. "Great Bahdom, let me be right!" he whispered to himself. "Okay dude… let her rip!"

Russell swallowed and nodded to the ship's captain, who had come in on this delicate piece of transmat surgery. He keyed the intercom to the bridge.

"Helm, hold position for the next ten minutes," he ordered. "Negative drift."

"Aye sir," the helm replied. "Negative drift."

Russell adjusted his readings for the lack of movement in the ship. He shook his head again and held his own breath for a moment.

"Okay dude," he finally said, "here she comes!"

Kinza looked up. "She?" he asked. He was answered by a humming from inside Millie which seemed to move across the room. It settled on top of the towels he had placed beside himself. He sat shocked for a moment until the scanning rod screamed. He leaped at the work at hand.

"Did it work dude?" he heard in his ears.

"Can't tell just yet Russell – sorry, got to go! I'll let you know," Kinza replied as he quickly switched channels back to the doctor.

"Kinza? Kinza!?" McManus was shouting into the mic. He winced as he lowered the volume and returned to his work.

"Here doc," he said as he feverishly scrambled over Millie to stop the bleeding within her. "It looks like the placenta separated prematurely," he reported. "The wound healer is stopping the major flows, but it looks like the deeper ones are going to need your fine work. Sending data…"

He sat back as Millie's breathing stabilized and she moaned slightly. He placed a few of the towels under her head for her to rest on and covered her in a blanket. It was then he remembered he had another patient and looked down at the baby.

She was shivering, smaller than the last one he had delivered, but surprisingly rambunctious for a preemie. He gathered her up in his paws and stared at her. He scanned her with the rod and sent the data down the line.

McManus looked at the readouts on her from the rear of her Conestoga wagon which was moving northwest and heading for the safe transport zone now that they had called in Forrestal and her large cargo transmats. She looked up at North who had been keeping Wolfwood calm, or as calm as he could up front.

"You know, this child was not suppose to survive," she whispered to her commander.

"We don't know that," North replied. "That's why this was presented to us as it was – the history computers did not know about this event, only that it was unscheduled. I hate it when S.A.M. gets these hiccups…"

"CAN'T WE GET THIS WAGON MOVING ANY FASTER!?" Wolfwood shouted for the fifth time.

Kinza opened up the jacket of the Ed suit and held the preemie within to keep her warm. He gently rocked back and forth to keep her settled.

"Ed?" he heard.

He looked over and saw Millie looking at him.

"Are you okay Ed?" she asked with a feeble voice. "You look like you hurt yourself."

"No m'am," he said quietly to her. "Just keeping someone warm here."

"What happened Ed?" she asked, finally noticing she was on the ground. "Oh… I don't feel well…"

"Now don't you move," he told her as he slid over to her side. "You've had a little accident. I want you to lie still. Help is on the way."

"Oooh," she groggily said. "What sort of accident?"

He opened his jacket up to show her the new child he held within. "This accident," he said. He saw she was trying to raise her hand but the strength was not there, so he lifted it for her and rested it in his jacket so she could touch the frail skin of her newborn daughter. He looked up and saw Meryl peering around the corner of the stairs. He gestured for her to come closer.

"Meryl," he whispered, "tell the boys to stop bangin' on that bell, will ya?" Ed asked.

"Will Mommy be okay Mr. Ed?" she asked.

"I'll be fine," Millie said as she stared at her daughter in the jacket. "Mr. Ed knows how to take care of us, right Mr. Ed?"

Kinza felt a bit uneasy about the way she said that. Almost as if she knew he had been watching over them.

"Hurry," he told Meryl. "They're givin' me a headache!"

She smiled and headed for the door. She barely got past it when her father and a neighbor came charging in. Pastor North and Doctor McManus were close behind.

"Where is she!?" Nicholas was yelling. "Where's the baby!? Ki… er ED!"

"Hi honey," Millie quietly said to her husband. "Look, we had a little girl…"

The Reverend fell to his knees as he saw the condition of his wife and the friend who had come to her rescue. Kinza gave him a small salute as he opened the jacket further to let a nurse that had come with them remove the baby. McManus then moved him to the side to get access to Millie.

"Very nicely done, Mr. Ed," the doctor noted as she examined his handy-work. "You should consider a career change."

With the baby removed, he fell back on his tail. "No thanks… These house calls are murder!"

"Heh… she wanted to name her after me… or Ed…" Kinza snickered. "But Edwina… yuck! She then wanted to try my middle name…"

Xuru raised her head off the edge of the bed. "They gave Ed a middle name?"

Kinza coughed. "Ha, they gave the Ed character a whole life background. Edward Zachary Olefchefski… Polish immigrant son born in Philadelphia… and no, we didn't use Zachary… I thought of an old friend of mine… his name was Alex…"

"Alexandria?" Puruu asked as she leafed through her notes. "Somehow that doesn't sound right…"

Kinza shook his head. "Millie couldn't get the name straight, so we took a shorter version, at least to her… Alexis… Alexis Victoria, better known as Lexy." He laughed a hurtful chuckle. "Lexy the Torpedo… she was certainly a pistol. And she was always getting into mischief…"

Now Puruu sat beside Kinza, her wings slowly moving with the pulse of the cosmos as she prepared to take her friend's confession.

Kinza swallowed. "Where to begin…" he said as he fidgeted in the bed. "My sin… my sin deals with Lexy…"

Puruu nodded, the name rolling through her to the great beyond to where an immortal soul received it. She sat and waited to hear more.

"It was my duty to protect the Saverem family from any harm that might befall it within the jurisdiction of the Observer's Reports on the history of the family as a whole. That means, the person known as Alexis Victoria Saverem was not supposed to have lived. My intervention when I did kept her alive."

"But that is not a sin, Kinza," Puruu noted.

"No… not at least to me it isn't… wasn't," he said as he rocked his head. "But, the fact that she wasn't supposed to have lived means that there is an extra soul in Bahdom's Gate by now… Of all the Saverems, she was the most alive… she wasn't supposed to have been there, so she shone like a beacon, blessed little child…"

Puruu noticed that the Tomassamassa was now crying. Not a small trickle, but a pained flowing flood of tears. He found it hard to catch his breath until he found his paw being taken by Puruu's gentle hand.

"I'm here Kinza," she said, but not in a voice he had expected. He looked at her with a touch of shock.

"That… that voice… Lexy…" he said through his streaked face. He reached up but found he could not lift himself, so Puruu leaned over to let him hold her and her visiting soul.

"It's okay Kinza," they told him. "I'm here now, I'm with my family. We all owe you more than we can ever repay… Kinza, my little Mr. Fuzzy…"

Kinza closed his eyes and pushed Puruu back. He coughed.

"Kinza?" they asked.

"Puruu, please…" he said. "I must… give my confession… I thank you for bringing her here, but please… if she wishes to stay, I must be… unhindered…"

Puruu nodded and returned to her seat. She clasped her hands together and concentrated. She then let out a small gasp and looked startled at Kinza.

"I'm… I'm sorry, I'm new at this… she refuses to leave…" Puruu said with a trickle running down her own cheek now.

Kinza scowled. "Lexy, you scoundrel! Very well, stay if you must… But be warned, you many not want to hear what I MUST confess." He lay back, exhausted from the strain. "Lexy, you're gonna be the death of me girl…"

Puruu sat upright for a moment, a look of confusion on her face. "Why does she know you as Kinza and not Ed?"

The scowl left Kinza's face as he sadly looked at the Goddess-in-Training. "Well… that was my first sin…"

"You would have thought that after that near disaster with the birth of Alexis, that Nicholas and Millie would have had enough with having children. Well, they did – for about a year – Claire Anne made her appearance late in the year of 1904, and the second twins showed up in 1906. It was during this time while Millie was away at Fort Supply Hospital so that Doc McManus could check on her progress that things got a bit troublesome…

"Nicholas was having his hands full taking care of the kids by himself, though the VanDermiers, the new neighbors, were quite willing to help out. Trouble was the language barrier was nearly insurmountable. Young Gretchen VanDermier seemed quite taken by Nick's second oldest son Jerry, and would play with him in and around the barn constantly. David would vanish into his own world and in many cases take the twin boys with him, shoeless as usual.

So it left young Meryl in charge of dealing with the daily operations of the homestead, which was fine with Nicholas. His twelve-year-old daughter was nearly a match for everything her Mother did when it came to household and barnyard upkeep. What was beginning to worry him was that she was starting to see her share of suitors - something Wolfwood was not exactly ready for. His Sunday morning sermons had been interesting as of late, what with his having to deal with young hot-heads trying to court his stunningly beautiful first daughter, and also dealing with the six other children. Added to that was the running the farm and tending to the workers he boarded in the new house they constructed a half mile down the trail for their thriving cattle business.

"He had hired a cattleman named Duke Underwood, a rousing barroom fighter but generally good-hearted man, to keep an eye on the heads of beef he was raising. Meanwhile two of the VanDermier's own sons, whom Wolfwood only called Greg and Turk (since he never could pronounce their real names) ran the crops side of the expanding multitasking property. This meant that Gretchen would be there as well, since she was the only fully versed translator there for her two brothers.

"This left the last two children among the unaccounted for, and in the case of one of them who wasn't locked up in a playpen, free to roam as she pleased… and believe me, this was one free spirit…

"It began early on a June morning, as I was making a delivery at the homestead…"

The truck ground up the hill towards the church with a package from Sears and a crate from the Trenton Bible Works waiting to be delivered by AmEx. Kinza had switched on the Ed suit and was dealing with the jerky ride this 'new' form of transport gave him. The open faced Mack Van had a large curved dash and a high roof, and it churned and smoked and made some of the most wicked sounds and noises – it had anything but a silent approach. He would sometimes wish that old Tess was still pulling the wagon, but this was supposed to be progress… sure it was…

He found the Reverend laying on a pew, gurgling in sleep. He guessed the bone-rattler, as some of the other drivers were starting to call these Mack Trucks, had not been noisy enough to raise the exhausted preacher. He shrugged and quietly headed for the house.

"Good morning, Mr. Ed," Meryl said as she bounded out of the door. "Anything good today?"

Ed rubbed his neck and slapped the side of the Mack. "Box from Sears an' a crate of Bibles," he said. "You's seems ta have a body on yer pews back there," he added with a nod towards the chapel.

"Did father fall asleep on the pews again?" she remarked in a tone that sounded just like her mother's semi-scolding tone. "He's been working on the next sermon and getting ready for his trip to Guthrie for the Constitution Convention later on this year…"

Ed rubbed his balding head. "Looks like statehood done run him over. The convention's not 'til November, and he's already churnin' away on it?"

Meryl signed the clipboard Ed handed her for the boxes. "He takes his duty seriously, Mr. Ed," she said with a stern smile, "being the area's representative and all… Dally! Christopher! Get your shoes on and come get these packages!" She turned back to him. "I'll get father off to bed - he's been overdoing it again."

"Need any help?" Ed asked. "Looks like he's still hobblin' on that bum ankle of his."

They started over towards the church together. "That certainly was an eventful Christmas last year," she commented.

A half hour later and an eventful hauling of the tired preacher to the comfort of a mattress, Ed cranked the starter handle on the Mack and readied to take off.

"Where to now, Mr. Ed?" Meryl asked.

Ed looked back. "Just one more stop up at the Steakhouse," he said using the nickname the boarding house where the cattlemen stayed. "Got somethin' for Duke. Then I get to call it a day!"

Meryl looked at the sky. "Beautiful day to get the work done early, Mr. Ed," she noted. "Tell you what, Duke is supposed to be here in about an hour anyway – want me to take his package and you can be on your way?"

"Much obliged Miss Meryl," he said tipping his AmEx cap. He handed her a small bundle parcel which needed no signing for. He then shifted the behemoth into gear and lurched forwards, the beast churning and growling as it made the loop to exit the property. Bottom of the hill, he turned left and headed down the trail towards Laverne.

It was near noon as the truck reached the creek that crossed the path. Next to it was a large oak. Kinza was now off duty, and saw this as a perfect place to take a breather and have his lunch. He shut the Ed suit off and pulled off his shirt, since without the suit on, the internal air conditioning was off as well, and it was a bit warm. He then sat down beside the tree, making sure that a bush was there to hide behind in case someone came along the path and saw the truck. He opened his book and started to munch on a TKL.

He had dozed off halfway through the chapter. He blinked as the sun was now behind him.

"Umm…"

He held his breath. He had not made that sound. And something was leaning into him.

"Umm mmm… Mr. Fuzzy!"

He looked down to his left to find the scarlet mop of Lexy curled up on his furry arm. He resisted the urge to leap out of his socks at that moment. He closed his eyes and counted to ten instead.

"This is great…" he told himself as he watched the child snooze. He gingerly removed a scanning disk reader from his kit that the Ed suit sat in. He had to know when she saw him, before or after he removed the suit? He tapped on the shoulder of his shirt. His personal disk appeared. He inserted it into the reader and watched as he mindlessly stroked the girl's head with his paw.

He was safely within the range of the disk's scans – two hundred yards all around – had she stumbled across him as he dozed, or…

No, she had stowed away on the truck! She had been in the rear all along! But had she seen him remove the suit?

He spun the image around as his recorded self started to take Ed off. He moved into the truck and found Lexy playing with a dolly in the rear, oblivious that her driver was becoming a touch furrier. He looked at his belly and noticed that Dolly was sleeping there as well. He sighed and ran the playback further.

She had finally left the van. She excitedly ran up to the creek and splashed a little in the water. It was then that she turned and saw the feet from behind the bush.

Kinza looked at his legs. He was still wearing Ed's shoes and pants, though without the suit active, his fur stuck out of the cuff. He wondered if she understood the difference. He watched her tentatively check out the legs she had found.

There he was, in all his glory – one giant Teddy Bear. Without hesitation, she ran right up to the slumbering bear-cat and tweaked his large oval ears. Kinza seemed to remember shooing a bug away as he napped. He shook his head. He watched the child giggle and laugh and - dance!? - around his sleeping self.

"Damn," he grumbled. "I could sleep through an earthquake," he said then looked down on the slumbering redhead, "and you would obviously play with a sleeping lion. Kiddo, what am I going to do with you?"

He pulled on his kit bag and pulled out the medi-kit. He found his sprayer of sedatives and set it for low, and gave the child a gentle sprits. She briefly woke up and smiled at the face looking down on her.

"Mr. Fuzzy," she said as she fell asleep again.

"And hopefully fuzzy is all you'll remember of this," he said as he picked her up and placed her in the back of the truck. He then donned Ed again and started the monster up.

Wolfwood lay looking at the ceiling of his bedroom. He had been satisfied sleeping on the pew. Without Millie beside him, he could not sleep in their bed comfortably. He finally got up and sat in a chair across from it and stewed.

Then there was a noise. Not one he had expected in 1906 Oklahoma. It was a high pitched beeping sound, and it was coming from his jacket. He pulled open the vest and found his com unit. He nearly flipped the device across the room when it beeped again in his hand. He opened it.

"Hello?" he said.

"Nick – great… Kinza here," it said.

"Hey," he nonchalantly said as he leaned on his chair. "Long time no hear… what's it been, three hours or something?"

"Yea, something," the Tomassamassa said. "Listen, we have a problem…"

Nicholas never liked that set of words, but who does? "What sort of problem?" he asked.

"Well, have you counted heads lately?"

Nicholas looked at the com with a puzzled expression. "What do you mean - my cattle?" he queried.

Kinza plunked Ed's head against the steering wheel. "No Nick, family," he grumbled. "If you did, you'd find you were short one right now, specifically a small red-headed one!"

Nicholas sat down in the chair. "Lexy? She's with you?"

"Stowed away on the truck," Kinza reported. "I never knew she was there until I took a break and she found me."

Wolfwood sat back. "Wait a minute… she found you? Don't you mean you found her?"

Kinza blew air which snorted out the Ed suit's ears. "No, she found me – worst yet, she found ME, sans Ed!"

Wolfwood slapped his forehead. "She saw you as YOU!?"

"Yea… I'm gonna need your help on this one buddy." He looked down on the sleeping child behind himself. "She's sleeping now… I need you to make her believe I'm just an imaginary friend or something."

Wolfwood stood up and started to pace the floor, wrapped ankle and all. "What if she wakes up before you get her back here?"

"She won't," he heard. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear it that way.

"What do you mean she won't?" Nick abruptly asked.

Kinza sighed – he knew what he was about to get. "I gave her a spritz of knockout spray."

Wolfwood pinched his eyes. "Yea, I guessed so… guess you had no choice…"

Kinza sat back, surprised that he had not just had his head handed to him then. "Yea, it was that, or have her drag me up to the other kids saying 'look what followed me home – can I keep him?'"

Wolfwood smiled at that thought. "Okay, what do you need me to do?"

"Well, I have to find a way to get her back in the house," Kinza said as he approached location twelve. "I'm almost in position now."

"Can't you just, oh what is it you Observers call it, beam her in?" the Reverend asked.

"I would, if there was someone up there to transmat her," Kinza noted with a grumble. "We don't have anyone in orbit right now."

"So what do we do then?"

Kinza looked at his scanner readout. "I need you to keep everyone to the church side of the house. Make sure your front door is unlocked, and I'll sneak her in."

Wolfwood looked out his bedroom window. Duke Underwood was coming up the path towards the church, a slight bit tipsy from what he could see.

"Give me ten minutes," he told Kinza. "Start making your way up and keep to the curve of the hill."

"Gotcha," Kinza said.

Meryl hated it when Duke would show up after a bottle of whiskey had drowned another of his sorrow filled stories. He tripped on a small stone and cursed it, then laughed at the folly of a stone bringing his large frame to his knees. He stumbled back onto his legs and continued to soldier on.

"Uh, here you go, Mr. Underwood," Meryl said as he approached her. She held the package that had been delivered earlier out so that she did not need to smell him too closely, which was hard not to as the breeze was following him.

"Thankie Miss Meryl," he said in his very odd accent. He may have been dressed as a cowpuncher, but for some reason Meryl always thought he really belonged at sea – he had that pirate look and swagger to himself. "Ah my… Charles Scribner's Sons… looks like another rejection it does…"

Meryl took a step to one side to let the odor move east of her. "Scribner's? Isn't that a book publisher?"

"Aye, it is lassie," he said as he sat down in the middle of the path and tore open the package. He removed a soiled and tattered volume that had an attached note. He took it off the manuscript and attempted to read it.

"Ah, the type is too small for me eyes…" he grumbled then handed the paper to Meryl. "Could you tell me what this says lassie? It seems short enough… an' I forgot me readin' glasses…"

Meryl held the paper between two fingers. "To Mr. Richard Andrew Underwood," she started. "Richard Andrew?"

He cleared his throat. "Tis the name me mum gave me," he said in a way that sounded both proud and a bit pensive that he had such a title. He cleared his throat again. "Please… continue…"

"Well, there's only one line here," she said, a bit worried about the content she was reading.

"Don't worry child – let me have it – both barrels!"

Now it was Meryl's turn to clear her throat as her father hobbled up to her side. "Dear Mr. Underwood, if Harper Brothers didn't want your manuscript, what makes you think Charles Scribner's Sons would want it any more than they would?" she reported. Underwood rolled backwards as if buckshot had indeed splattered against his chest. "It's signed Jennings," she finished.

Underwood rolled back onto his legs. "Damn fool… That's their entry editor – culls out the deadwood and sends the good stuff on to the upper editors." Duke sighed and fell back into the dust, placing the tired old manuscript on his chest. "How am I gonna get me story through an ass like that?"

"Should I perform last rites now?" Wolfwood asked.

"Huh," Underwood laughed as he opened the book and spread it across his face. "Just like this," he said.

"Maybe all it needs is a bit of editing by someone who is unbiased," Wolfwood suggested. "Where did you find time to write this monster anyway?" He examined the book draped across his foreman's face – it had to be at least three hundred pages.

Duke sighed from behind the slightly yellowed manuscript. "Me late wife transcribed it for me," he moaned as it seemed that the alcohol was beginning to take its daily toll on his head. "Bless her… she had a typewriter available and did it up for me."

"It's funny – I never thought of you as a writer Duke," Wolfwood said as he reached down to pull his cattle chief up.

"Uhh, never judge a book by its cover laddie," Underwood gurgled. "I may not look it – hell, I may not even sound it, but I am educated."

"Really?" Meryl asked as she screwed up her courage and her sinuses and assisted her father lifting Duke up.

"Four years at Oxford will leave little in a man who's been to sea fifteen years and scruffin' out here for another ten," he said as he dragged the manuscript out of the dirt it had fallen to. He dusted it off, looked at it with a snort then threw it back down.

"I'm a damn fool," he growled.

Kinza had made it to the far side of the house. The boys and the VanDermiers were over at the barn. He was now hugging the back side of the chimney with his bundle and making sure they had not seen him. A quick scan showed him that the youngest, Claire, was in the room next to where he wanted to take Lexy. He slid further along the wall and peered around towards the front. He saw Nicholas, Meryl and the old farmhand down the hill. A quick look behind him made him flinch. David and Jerry were coming out of the barn with Gretchen. They surely would see him if he did not move now.

He ran around the rails on the porch and jumped into the shadows opposite the swing seat.

"Ea?" Underwood said. Some movement made him focus on the bleary house ahead.

"You shouldn't toss away your story, Mr. Underwood," Meryl exclaimed as she bent down to pick it up. "Do you mind if I read it?"

Duke looked up at the young girl. "You?" he asked. "How old are ya?"

Meryl looked at her father and blushed a bit. "Twelve this fall," she smiled.

Duke gave her a cockeyed look. "Tha's a heavy and dreary story of sea life, lassie… not exactly meant for young eyes like yours."

"Pish, Mr. Underwood," she said as she skipped through a few pages. "I can even edit it a bit if you wish… Father lets me clean up his sermons all the time."

Nicholas scratched the back of his head. "She's pretty good at it, I must say…" he said following it with a bellowing forced laugh. "Oh god I'm so lame," he added with a quiet whimper.

"Now daddy, don't be like that," she laughed. "We all know you try!"

Duke blearily looked between the two. "Huh? You mean to tell me you don't write your own sermons Reverend?"

"What?" Wolfwood barked. "Of course I write my own sermons!"

"Mother and I just make sure they come out sounding right!" Meryl added with a grin.

Wolfwood dropped his arms and head. Snagged again!

Kinza took that moment to open the front door. He fell backwards into the house in a tuck and roll.

"Aye, I thought so!" Duke barked as he scrambled to his feet leaving a trail of dust behind.

"What?" Nicholas yelped as he pulled himself up and saw where Underwood was heading.

"Someone just went inta yer house!" the old sea-dog in cowboy garb lumbered. Wolfwood would have chased him down, if only his foot had not been holding him back. He followed with Meryl close behind.

Kinza made it to the bedroom and gently opened the door. He laid the child in her bed and brushed her hair out of her face. It was then he found that she had a death-grip on his furry thumb.

"Umm… Mr. Fuzzy!" she whispered in her sleep.

"Kid, you're too much, but I gotta scram!" he said as he pried his digit from her clutches. He pulled her dolly from his back pocket and quickly swapped it with his finger. He rubbed her head and sighed. The last time he had seen her up this close had been when he delivered her.

"You're a real heartbreaker kiddo," he said with a sigh. He then looked about and peeked out the window. He saw Duke heading for the front door!

"Dang!" he said as he looked about the room. The Observers Corps had set up an emergency escape route out of the house. But it was not in the room he was in now - it was the one next door, the one with the infant Claire in it!

"This is just not my day!" he said as he quickly surveyed his options. Claire was barely a year and a half old. If she was awake, what would she remember of a giant Teddy Bear running through her room?

"Gotta risk it!" he told himself as he heard the trio downstairs in the foyer. He opened the door between rooms and slipped in. The second child was standing in her crib. The look on her face was of sheer surprise. It quickly turned into a cry of delight that an upright kitty-bear had just entered the room!

"Oh, I don't have time for you!" he said as he headed for a panel on the wall on the opposite side of the room. He tapped on it lightly and it slid open. He replaced a large toy giraffe that he knocked aside back on its feet, gave the infant a wave of his paw and slid the panel shut.

The emergency escape was a chute tube in the wall that had been secretly installed while the building was being erected. It was located at a point where the history computers said no modifications were planned to the home and could be accessed from any level of the structure. It fed to a tunnel that lead out through the old blind at the bottom of the hill. He would have to wait until dark before leaving the stone doorway. He sat in the dark cobweb filled room with only a safety light on and his book he had brought along. But reading was not on his mind. He would look back up the tunnel and think of the little girl who called him Mr. Fuzzy.

It was mid afternoon when Duke finally decided that he had seen only a farm cat. One was found curled up in the rocker beside the fireplace.

"I'll get one of da boys ta get a fixin' on that door," he grumbled. "Blasted thing's too easy ta open!"

Lexy awoke with a start. She looked at her dolly, who she was still holding in her hand. She left her on the bed as she sat up and looked around the room. She looked at her hands to see if the fur had been real. She then burst into tears. Next door, like a domino, Claire joined in with her big little sister.

Down below Kinza twitched as he could have sworn he heard a crying wail. He knew just how long that spray he used worked, and guessed that it had probably worn off by then. He sighed an examined the cover to his book.

Nick sat down beside his daughter. She grabbed him and cried into his chest as he soothed her.

"He was real daddy!" she cried. "Where is he? He was real!"

Wolfwood brushed her hair. "Where is who, pun'kin?" he asked.

She looked up at him, her blue eyes ringed in red. "Mr. Fuzzy?" she blubbered.

"Mr. who?" he asked. "Honey, you came up here after breakfast. There hasn't been anyone here since then."

"But I know he was here!" she insisted. She pushed away from her father and looked around the room calling "Mr. Fuzzy! Come out Mr. Fuzzy!"

"Honey!" Nicholas called. "Pun'kin, you've been napping! I think you dreamed this Mr. Fuzzy."

She stood in the middle of her room and looked at the walls cluttered in toys, books and other items of childhood. They all now seemed insufficient. She looked back at her father and ran back into his arms.

Kinza squeezed Puruu's hand and gulped some air. "My second sin…" he started.

Puruu held her breath. How many were there?

"The spring of 1907 came in wet. The children and their parents were mostly cooped up over the snowy plains winter, and the rainy weather that followed just prolonged the agony longer. March had been warm, but still damp. But in late April there was finally a break and the fields around the homestead burst with a spread of flowers that was incredible. The lower fields were filled with the cattle that had made it through the rough weather with the young calves dancing through the tall grass. The smell of honeysuckle near the creek and rivers was simply wonderful. This was probably the best time I ever had during my service with the Saverems.

"I had returned to 1907 from a multi-year tour-of-duty with Forrestal, detailing the history of level 1472-Beta 12. After my near disastrous run in with Lexy the summer before, taking a time-stretched assignment was therapeutic indeed. But I missed the family. When assignments were posted and I saw that Ed was going to make his return in the spring, I jumped at it.

"There was something a bit different this time – I had a rider with me. A guy named Ross was riding out with me from the United States Postal Service with a special delivery for Duke Underwood."

"Oh my," Millie exclaimed.

"Something wrong?" Kinza/Ed asked.

"I would have thought you would have heard, Mr. Ed," Meryl said. "Duke died over the winter."

Kinza stood back a step. "Really, well I'll be damned. Well, I haven't been up these parts in almost three or four months."

"That's why Nicholas isn't here," Millie said. "He's escorting his body back to England."

"Well, that's a bummer," Kinza noted as he looked at the guy he dragged all the way out there with a package for a dead man. "Guess you'll have to return that to the sender."

"Not exactly," Ross said through his walrus mustache. "It can be signed for by… ummm… ah, Meryl Eileen Saverem?"

Meryl dropped the dish she was holding. She held her chest and looked at Russ as if he were delivering a box of plague. "Which… which one is it?" she gasped.

"Honey?" Millie asked worried over the reaction her daughter had just had. "What is it?"

"Do you mean who is it from?" Russ asked as he looked at the box. "Looks like Macmillan…"

Now Meryl grabbed the nearest chair and sat down with a thud. "The… the BOOK!" she said through her hard breathing.

"Meryl silly!" Lexy said as she dashed through the kitchen and out the back door. Kinza/Ed watched the child run out and into the fields without a care in the world.

"Just sign here," Russ said.

"Oh, would you look at that!" Millie exclaimed as she saw all the stamps on the package. "It came all the way from England!"

Meryl looked at the package and sighed. "We figured that Mr. Underwood was trying the wrong publishers for his book. After all, he was from England… I suggested that he try an English publisher."

"Well, they certainly were insistent on getting back to yas, Miss Meryl," Russ said as he brushed his finger through the droopy mustache. "I'm here because they sent it special courier. Yas don't get that much out here, do yas?"

"Go ahead and open it," her mother prodded her seeing her daughter just stare at the package. "I'm sure Duke would have wanted you to do so."

Meryl took a pair of scissors and snipped the string that held the worn waxed paper to the bundle and unwrapped it. Inside she found the manuscript Duke had let her read through and correct and found it worked over with scribbles and marks in the margins.

"Huh," Meryl said a bit shocked by what she saw before her. "The other publishers didn't do this." She then found a letter addressed to Mr. Underwood and her.

"Dear Mr. Underwood and Miss Saverem," she read aloud. "Your synopsis was quite correct. The manuscript that you submitted to us would be very much more appropriate if published here in Great Britain than there in the States as it would have greater relevance. We would like to offer you…" She covered her mouth and held the letter out. Millie looked at it and took it from her.

"We would like to offer you," Millie continued, "the possibilities of having your story published here, as we have found it exceptionally well versed and unique. Please pardon our editor's remarks on your original copy. These are what we found needed to be corrected prior to our taking this story on as our own. I strongly suggest that you find a literary agent as soon as possible as they will be able to expedite contact between our New York offices and here with greater speed than parcel post. We look forward to seeing your corrections within the next few months. Sincerely, Neville Wallingford, Senior Editor… Oh honey!"

Kinza/Ed heard a crack. Then a glass on the sink behind them started to spin. It did not fall so it did not draw anyone else's attention. He smiled. When he looked back Meryl had her head between her knees and was wailing away.

"Did I miss something?" he asked.

"I… I can't do this by myself!" she cried. "I can't… not without Mr. Underwood! It was his story, not mine! I need his thoughts… He knew the story… I just corrected it for readability! What am I going to do? What am I going to do?"

"Meryl silly! Meryl silly!"

The little voice had come from the doorway. Meryl looked up at the child and exploded.

"LEXY! NOT NOW! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND!?" she blasted the backlit silhouette of her little sister. But a larger one stepped in front of the child making her look up.

"No, she doesn't," Ed said. "She's only five years old."

Meryl's eyes grew wide as she realized what she had just done. "Lexy!" she gasped.

Kinza turned and saw the doorway empty. He stepped through and saw Lexy running towards the barn.

"I'll get her," he said as he followed after her. He tapped the back of the Ed Suit's hand and a screen appeared. This new version had a scanner built in. The barn showed clear of anyone other than a small human as all of the farmhands were out in the fields. Before he entered the structure he ran up to the edge of the corral to an old friend.

"Nightwatch, did you see Lexy," he asked. "She was running this way."

"I saw her run into the barn… I take it that loud yell was directed towards her?" the Cheverian asked.

"Not intentionally," Kinza said. "Keep an eye out for her… this scanner isn't picking her signature up well… they still have to get the bugs out…"

"Will do," he said as he trotted to the opposite side of the paddock.

Ed entered the barn and looked about. The suit had another bad fault he would have to address to the tech crews – it hindered his hearing. He looked about and shut down the field. Kinza then used his ears. He heard whimpering nearby. He moved over to the third stall in the set and found Lexy in a little ball crying.

"Hey Red, she didn't mean it," he said as he turned on the suit again. He bent down to her side and placed his paw on her back.

Paw? He lifted it up and saw his furry digits looking back at him.

"Mr. Fuzzy!" he heard and was then bowled over. Something had definitely gone wrong as she obviously was seeing him in his full furry self.

"I knew you weren't a dream!" she exclaimed. "I just knew it!"

As she pulled back, she was greeted first by the face of Mr. Fuzzy, then of Ed the AmEx delivery man. She looked at where her hand was and pressed again. Mr. Fuzzy returned.

"Great… just peachy," he grumbled. "Torpedo Kid, you found my on-off switch!"

Lexy keyed the spot a few more times until Kinza stopped her with his paw.

"Please, you'll overwork the battery!" he exclaimed. He then sat back and gave her a weary smile. "How are you doing kid?"

As she looked at him, her face changed from joy to a quivering sadness. She then burst into tears and fell into his chest.

"My big - big - big sister yelled at me!" she bellowed. "Why did she yell at me?"

"Ah, you found her," he heard before he could answer her. He looked up to see Nightwatch looking over the gate to his stall at them. "Aren't you out of uniform?"

"Shh!" Kinza hissed. "One awkward moment at a time, thank you!" He stroked the long red strands that covered the girl's head as she let her feeling out into his uniform. "Now now," he said to her. "She didn't mean it… You just caught her at a bad moment. Your sister loves you, you know that. She helped bring you into this world, you know that?"

"She… she did?" she sniffled.

"Yea," he cooed to her. "She was a real trooper, just like you." Kinza then hugged her, kissing her forehead and wiping her tears with his paw. "Now you're a big girl, right? You've got two little sisters who'll follow you now, don't you?"

She nodded as she wiped her face. "Uh huh…" she said to the deep purring voice.

"Then you know that you have to show them a good example, right?" he said as he scratched her under her chin. "You've got to take the lumps and make mashed potatoes, okay?"

"Yuck! I hate mashed p'tatars," she exclaimed with a stuck out tongue.

Kinza sat back and crossed his arms. "Well then, what do you like?"

"Celery!" she chirped.

Kinza blinked. "Celery? You gotta be kidding!"

"Yay celery! Crunch crunch crunch! Noisy celery!" She stood up and did a celery crunch dance to the amusement of both the Cheverian and the Tomassamassa.

"At least she's eating her veggies," Nightwatch said as he withdrew his head from the stall window. "Heads up!" he warned. "Family units heading your way!"

Kinza reached out and took the child in his paws and hugged her. "Listen you," he told her, "you and I go back a long way… I don't ever want to see you crying like this again, hear? You're too feisty for that."

"Feisty?" the blue-eyed child asked as Kinza rocked her back and forth.

He pointed right at her nose and said "too full of life!" She giggled. "Now then, I want you to head back to the house, okay? I'm sure there's someone who wants to say she's sorry to you. But you… you should say you were sorry too."

"Me?" she asked a bit shocked.

"You. You were teasing your sister at a very bad moment. Can you do that for me?"

She nodded and looked down. Kinza lifted her chin and planted his forehead against her head and gave her a friendly growl. She growled back. He growled back at her. She let go a mountain cat snarl.

"Kitties," Nightwatch snorted from the window, "they are waiting outside the barn looking like they need to fumigate it."

Kinza grinned. "Okay you, go show me you're a big girl, okay?"

"Okay," she smiled back and ran out of the stall.

Kinza brushed himself off and looked up at the Cheverian. "What?"

"You didn't tell her to not tell them about you," Nightwatch said.

"I didn't tell her to say that you talked either," he said as he fixed the suit and returned to Ed. "What sort of letch do you think I am? I'm not about to tell a little girl to go out there and lie for my sake."

"You put your faith in a five year old?"

Kinza/Ed snapped a look at Nightwatch that made him step back. "That's five years that little girl should not have had. She's my responsibility."

"Are you planning on being her guardian angel for the rest of her life?" Nightwatch asked as he returned to the stall window.

Kinza/Ed stood at the open stall and watched the child run into her sister's arms and roll her over. Millie was standing beside the doorway. She smiled and nodded to him.

"I can't say Nightwatch," he told his friend. "I only know that child's life and mine have become intertwined. Maybe it's fate… or just plain dumb luck… I don't know… I really just don't know."

As Ed walked out, he was grabbed by Millie who hugged him.

"Well, gee, thanks m'am," he said while in her death grip.

"I never did get the chance to thank you properly for what you did for Lexy and I," she said quietly. "Thank you."

Ed managed to tip his cap in her direction as he caught his breath. "Not a problem m'am!"

"I knew that you'd be able to settle Lexy," she continued. "You're like our guardian angel!"

He looked back at the Cheverian. He snorted and shook his head as he withdrew it from the window. He knew he was becoming just that, whether he wanted to or not.

The two delivery men climbed into the van and waved goodbye. Down the road a bit, Ed pulled Kinza's communication unit out and handed it to Russ.

"What the…" Russ asked.

"Shadsie see if you can get the frequency to transmit a signal into the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph Cable so we can send a telegraph message to Wolfwood in England, would you?" he asked the postal agent as he kept his eyes on the road.

Russ looked at him with surprise. "How long did you know?" he asked in Shadow's voice.

"In the kitchen – you cracked your tail," he grinned. "Nearly knocked a glass over too! If you want to, climb into the back and turn that thing off… I know how much you hate these suits."

"I don't hate these suits," she said as she shut it down and climbed into the rear, "but these new ones block my hearing! Ah – got the frequency… what do you want to send him?"

He reached back and she handed him the com unit. He then set it to change his voice message to text and cleared his throat. "Pip-pip and cheerio Reverend Saverem! How would you care for a side trip while you are over there? You may want to stop by the Macmillan Publishing House to see about the story that your dear daughter and the gentleman whom is in your care sent them. Seems they quite enjoyed it but need final editing. Could you pop in on a Neville Wallingford, senior editor there, and see if there are any extra edits he may have forgotten? You will find Macmillan in Houndsmills, the Hampshires of Basingstoke. Please reply by telegram. Yours truly, Kinza… Pip-pip what-ho!" He grinned as he closed the com unit and returned it to his jacket.

"Why are you having Wolfwood check in with the editor at Macmillan?" Shadow asked as she removed the belt that controlled her suit.

"Those editors are always forgetting something after they've sent the manuscript back for final tweaking," Kinza noted as he lowered his own suit's field.

Shadow sat back and pondered the Tomassamassa. "You really care about this family, don't you?"

Kinza smirked and grunted. "Family… yea… I guess I do." He sighed. "By the way, Nightwatch says hi!"

He heard a thunk in the back. He looked to the rear and saw Shadow pounding the wall of the van.

"Blast it all!" she yelled. "With all that about the book and all, I forgot he was there!"

Kinza returned to watching the road. "Want to turn back?" he asked.

She sat down with a thud. "No… I have a feeling that telegram you sent will have me out there again real soon."

The Mack ground away down the road towards Laverne Station as the sun was dipping low to the west. What a day!

"Lexy would shanghai me whenever I would visit and she was about," Kinza said with a weak smile on his face. "Bless her, she was a scamp… you are a scamp young lady…"

Puruu looked down. He was addressing the spirit that was within her obviously, and that soul was blushing – she could feel it. She looked up and saw Kinza's wet eyes glimmering in the dull light from the window. He was letting his emotions control himself now - it seemed all he had left.

"You may consider that my third sin – against regulations and orders, I had made contact… regular contact with someone other than the official contact with the family… even though I was pretty sure that Millie knew all along… Vash was right about her you know… she was smart. She just never really understood just how smart she really was." He sniffed as his control was wavering. Puruu gently placed her hand on his cheek.

"Please, if you need to take a break…" she said.

Kinza broke. He shattered emotionally, something Puruu had not expected, and the soul within her sat stunned over.

"Kinza… Please, Mr. Fuzzy… Don't cry…" the voice with her said aloud.

Kinza fought and regained some control. "But you don't understand…" he gasped. "You wouldn't understand… my forth and fifth sins… they are sins I can never atone for. And they were about you…"

Lexy gasped within Puruu's mind. The Goddess hushed the Tomassamassa as she added a slight claming sedative energy orb. "Please Kinza… You must settle."

He rolled his eyes, the energy he had just spent catching up with him. He swallowed as he felt the soothing energy rushing in to take the pain he was suffering down a notch. He reached up and placed his bandaged paw on her hand.

"I thank you for allowing me to regain my composure," he told her. "That will be quite enough… Allow me the dignity please… we are a warrior race after all… and this is about all the dignity this disease is allowing me…"

He drew in his breath and closed his eyes. "It was the fall of 1912 – that was when my forth sin occurred…"

"The eleventh of twelve was on his way. This time, Millie's hormones must have been completely out of whack – this pregnancy left her an emotional wreck, and was probably the hardest one on the family since… Lexy's early arrival. Even my 'replacement' – Tom the AmEx driver – had his head handed to him by the once sweet head of the household. Eighteen year old Meryl was away with her scholarship money the publishing house of Macmillan had granted her, she was safely in Kansas City away from Mount St. Millie… But everyone else was fair game."

Wolfwood stood on the cold hill overlooking the cattle fields. "ALEXIS!" he shouted. "ALEXIS! HONEY!"

Nearby a shimmering light caught his attention. He rarely had seen a transmat in use – he himself had traveled through one when his daughter had been born. Two figures were there, both friends who had answered his panicked call for help.

"Rob! Kinza! Thanks for coming guys," he pleaded.

"Millie spouted off on someone?" Kinza asked hearing some epithets being hurled down at the house.

Wolfwood looked at the ground. "It's that obvious, is it?" he said while scratching the ground with his shoe and his head with his hand. "Oh, that's right, you got a dose the other day… And I guess that Abby reported in about her adventure…"

"Doc McMannus is a saint," Kinza noted. "She knows more about what's going on than any of us, and knows that Millie meant none of it."

"Yes, but why is she this way in the first place?" the Reverend asked, the slightly harried expression on his face in evidence.

North looked at a PADD device he was carrying with him. "Well it looks like this time she's not only got some hormonal imbalance, but I'd say this baby has a bit of a sweet-tooth, as her blood-sugar levels are also out of whack. It happens quite often and even more so when the mother is older."

Wolfwood had a twitch to his eyebrow and a quirky grin on his face like HIS OWN blood-sugar was out of kilter. "Are we done yet?" he asked. The way he said it was obvious to the two Observers – was there any more children coming? They simply gave him a silent look that told him volumes. He dropped his head and arms while the chilly wind brought another round of yelling wafting up the hill.

"So, what's the emergency?" Kinza asked while tapping his scanner. "Blasted ion storm is messing up our equipment."

Wolfwood suddenly remembered why he desperately had used the emergency com unit and started looking around in a panic. "It's Alexis!" he said while looking around hard.

"Lexy?" Kinza asked as he now was looking about with concern. "What's up?"

"It's a long story…" Nick started. "She and her mother got into a real shouting match this morning – I mean a real barn burner… they were face to face screaming at each other until they looked like tomatoes. It's getting so that even the cattle punchers won't come up to the house anymore… Anyway, Alexis ran out and we haven't seen her since – she's a free spirit and all, but she's never been out this long… and this time I think Millie may have gone just a bit too far…"

Kinza snapped a worried look at Nicholas. "How so?" he asked.

Wolfwood looked up at the darkening sky. "Millie had found her in the kitchen taking a break after helping me with some chores in the chapel… she must have thought that she had been loafing there all that time I guess, because she started accusing her of being a slug-a-bed… and then the name calling started…"

"Aw crap," Kinza snorted as he brought his scanner up. It was giving him some mixed signals on Lexy's location.

"Yea," Nick agreed with that one word assessment. "It got worse… Millie finally told her that she was worthless and a mistake…" He saw the shocked look the Tomassamassa was giving him. He had the horror of a parent telling very much the same thing when he had been a child. "My Millie's an angel, Mr. Kinza, you know that. She wouldn't say that or mean that…"

"All the same," Kinza said with trepidation, "we need to find her before she does something we would all regret." He looked back at North and suddenly felt a cold streak run up his spine. The look on his face worried him – as if they weren't suppose to find her… until it was too late?

"Scragg… you're kidding…" he said to the sad look. He quickly took a reading and looked about. "Which way did she go?"

"No one saw, other than she was running," Nicholas said. "Normally she would hide out in the barn, but we've been all over that – she's not there." Another row came up the hill and he cringed.

"I'm getting Abby here now," North said as he pulled his com unit out and Nicholas headed down the hill for his home. "We've got to get her under control. Kinza, you start a search for Lexy."

"Right," he said as he adjusted his scanner.

"And Kinza," North added, "code two."

He stopped in his tracks and stared at the captain. "Two sir?"

"Two," he replied, making sure that Nick had not noticed the reaction.

Kinza walked down the hill with a puzzled look on his face. "Code two?" he mumbled. "Take my time?"

Then it dawned on him. As a captain, North had the privilege to see the history tapes that told everyone how to proceed with certain events. So he… must have known…

"Lexy!" he said to himself and took off running towards one of the faint signals. "Damn you North… you knew… you're getting Abby because you know that she's going to be needed to keep Millie calm! Scragg! Lexy! Where are you?"

The upper atmosphere storm was not helping any. The signal his scanner gave him was faint or scattered – a dozen Lexys would appear then vanish. He finally slapped the unit shut and did what came natural to him and his species. He sniffed the cold air.

Tomassamassas are one of the galaxy's best navigators some say because they can smell their way from one point to another. He knew her scent from the day she was born. It took him only a few moments to find it. But it was getting dark. He would have to trust his other abilities, such as seeing in the dark and acute hearing. He looked up at the sky. The ion storm was making an Aurora Borealis to the north. Beautiful as they were, it would hinder the equipment he had, especially at night. He hurried along the scent trail.

He began to worry. Lexy's scent was taking him far away from the homestead. He was now at least three miles, and it still was straight and true. From the drawn out length of the smell, she had been running all along, and his mind felt he knew how she had been – a young child of ten, crying her heart out in a torment, her mother having told her that she was a mistake, blindly running without reason or direction towards…

…towards Two Bluffs.

Two Bluffs was really just a slice out of the land created by a dried stream, and was the two sides of the banks. But the trees and brush that covered the spot also made the gouge in the surface of the ground hard to see until you were right on top of it.

Kinza sniffed then pulled out his scanner again.

There she was. She had blundered over the first cliff and was lying sprawled like a rag doll at the bottom.

"LEXY!" he shouted as he clamored down the cliff face.

"M… Mr. Fuzzy?" she weakly replied. She could only barely see anything, and what she did see would have frightened her if she was not in such pain. Two glowing eyes were looking down on her.

"Aw honey, look at you," Kinza said as he got to work on her. He pulled out his com unit and keyed it up.

"Kinza to North," he tried – static. "Kinza to base," he then tried – more static. He looked up at the sky. No ships were in orbit because of the storm which was putting on a spectacular display of lights to the north.

"Kiddo, we are in really deep deep do-do," he told her. He checked on his tools and equipment. The storm was affecting everything, including some of his medical equipment.

"C-cold," she shivered.

He did a quick scan of her. Her back was fine - it was a head trauma that she was mostly suffering from. He pulled a thermal blanket from his pouch and spread it wide. He cradled her in his arms, wrapped them both up in the blanket and settled down to stay warm with his own body heat. He set his com unit to the distress setting and brought some tools into the mini-blanket tent he had made to work on what he could.

"You are a mess sweetheart," he told the girl as he worked on the nasty cut she had on her forehead. A trickle of blood from her mouth told him that she had bit her tongue as well. He shook his head as she shivered in his grasp.

The ionic discharge the atmosphere was getting worse as the night continued on. He knew it would be at its worst just before daybreak. At that rate, his wound healer would be either discharged or simply worthless. He could tell she had internal injuries. He looked about to see what he could do to augment his situation.

He pulled closed the thermal blanket, hoping the Mylar would shield them slightly. It only made a slight improvement to the scanner, but it was enough to tell him that the internal bleeding was in the area of her lungs and a broken toe. But the shielding was not enough to help the wound healer.

He looked at his belt. "Humm… maybe Tom can help…"

"T-Tom?" she asked.

Kinza laughed. "My new alter-ego," he said as he opened the control pack for the Tom suit on his belt. He popped open the control pad and looked at the circuitry. He pulled a pair of tweezers out of the medi-pack and began moving connections inside the unit. He quickly finished and sealed it up with a click.

"Okay… here we go…" he said as he hit the power button. The unit hummed then projected a curved dome that surrounded them at about a meter all around. On its surface was a stretched and distorted image of Tom the AmEx driver.

Inside, the wound healer and the scanner suddenly came to life. Kinza smiled – this was going to work…

"Code two…"

North's words returned to him and he snorted. "I'll be damned if I do that," he grumbled to himself as he now could see just where to use the healer. But then he thought about it – what was the real reason why he told him to hold back? Could he be changing the course of history by saving her?

She reached up and placed her arm around his neck and laid her head on his chest below his chin. "I knew you would come… my Kinza… my Mr. Fuzzy…"

She had never called him by his real name before. Even at their secret meetings to play tea or enjoy the fields of grass, he had always been Mr. Fuzzy to her. Of course how she knew his real name was anyone's guess – he figured she had heard him calling for help earlier… he did not know. He shook off his doubt. The wound healer was put to quick work to mend what it could.

The night drew on. There was nothing more to do for her with the device, and the shield the Tom suit provided did little to keep out the cold, so when the battery failed an hour later it only let the chill in closer to them. Even though the healer had done its work, there was little it could do for the shock to her system the tumble had done, or for the blood already lost. Kinza kept the blanket close and her closer to keep her warm against the cold blast of air hitting his back.

"Kinza?" she asked weakly.

"Umm?"

"Have you a girlfriend? Or a wife?"

He looked down on the girl's dirty face. She had her eyes open only as slits, and she was staring at his patch on his breast pocket. He sighed and shifted her.

"Sweetheart, you're only ten years old… why would you want to know that?"

"Do you?" she persisted.

He laughed a gentle and deep laugh. "No wife, but I do have a girlfriend… Her name is Emmie…"

Lexy held him tighter. "Do you miss her?"

He considered his young interviewer. "Yes… I don't get to see her much…"

"Is she a pretty fuzzy like you?"

Now he really shook and Lexy held tighter. "She's not a Fuzzy dear… She's not a Tomassamassa…"

She looked up at his face. "Tommassa…"

"Tomassamassa, it's what I am," he said tapping his chest with his free arm. "She's actually humanoid."

"Humanoid?"

He smirked – all these questions… "You are human," he told her pointing at her nose. "A humanoid is a person who looks human, but is of a different species."

"You love someone of a different species?" she asked.

Kinza snorted. "Lexy dear, beauty is not augmented only towards one own species. There are many things to love in this world and all the rest. To have feelings for another sentient being should not be hindered simply because one isn't the same species or race. The simple act of being in the presence of that other person is all I need to fulfill my love for that person. Always keep an open mind, kiddo, okay?"

"Then you won't mind it if I say I love you?" She snuggled up under his chin.

He sighed and looked out of the small flap in the blanket at the nearing dawn. "You're my family, child," he told her as he rubbed her shoulder. "Of course you can say that."

She gave a little giggle. "Uncle Fuzzy," she said as she finally fell asleep. He soon followed.

"Distress beacon located," was what he heard that woke him up. "Sector nine near Two Bluffs."

"Affirmative," someone responded. "On site."

Kinza lifted the blanket and looked up at the now visible minor cliff. Shadow was looking down on him.

"Need some privacy?" she asked.

"I need a doctor, NOW!" Kinza barked, not exactly wanting humor at that moment. He was stiff, and his arm was asleep from holding the child against himself all night. He looked down on her and brushed the hair out of her face. When she had not at first respond he nearly panicked. But she finally stirred and blinked at the bright sunshine.

"Daddy?" she asked.

Kinza looked up and saw Wolfwood scrambling through the brambles with Tolefson and Ike close behind carrying a fold-up stretcher. He bent down next to the heap out of breath. Kinza held up a paw, and Wolfwood grabbed it and shook it until it buzzed.

"She took a flop," he told him when he saw all the equipment.

"Bad?" he asked with some fear on his face. Kinza only nodded.

"I'll give you a full report when we get out of here…"

Then it dawned on Nicholas. "You're out of your suit!" he said.

"He's cute, isn't he daddy?" Lexy cooed giving her new 'uncle' a hug.

"Uhh," the reverend said. He then saw Shadow and nearly jumped up since she was sans her suit as well. He looked down at the pair before him and saw Kinza with his finger against his mouth.

"Lexy is the only one other than yourself that knows," he said, "though Millie is still a question… just how much does she know?"

Kinza felt his neck get throttled when he mentioned Millie's name. He looked at the little girl he held and rubbed her red mop. "Hey… what's up?"

She was starting to cry again. "I don't want to go home… mommy doesn't want me!"

Kinza wrapped himself around her and rocked back and forth. "Shhh, no no no child, don't think that… Your mother loves you… she does… she's just not herself lately. Having a baby will do that to you sometimes. And everyone can be on the firing line when that happens."

"Kinza's right," her father added as he rubbed her back. "Your mother chewed me a new one just this morning… but I still love her, and I won't run away from her. Right now though, she is worried sick about you."

"She is?" Lexy asked, peeking out from under Kinza's beard.

"I'm sure she is," the Tomassamassa said, "so why not we go with these boys and get you checked out then get some breakfast, okay?"

"Okay!" she exclaimed as Wolfwood helped him to his feet. He then stepped a bit clumsily to the waiting stretcher and flopped on it still holding Lexy.

"Home boys!" he commanded.

North and McManus stood by the ambulance waiting for the group to come down from the bluffs. He shook his head and sat down on the tailgate.

"Well… he chose…" he murmured. "I hope he understands just what he's done… What he'll have to do now…"

McManus sat beside him and looked at the clear blue sky. "Would you have left her to die?" she asked.

North drew in a deep breath. "I've been there… I've done it… and I've done exactly what he did as well, and lived to regret it. History can't be tampered with without something happening – it's simple physics. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction… unless you're a domino."

"What do you mean by that?" she asked.

North watched the procession coming down the hill. "If she marries and has a child, the repercussions could be insurmountable."

McManus leaned over. "You said 'if' – does she?"

North sighed. "I hope he understands," he replied. "I sure wouldn't want to do it."

"Fifth sin…

"What a horrible duty… what a horrible duty to perform…

"It is May of 1942…"

He slammed his paws on the table and just stared at his orders. "Crap… what sort of demented… twisted mind came up with these orders?" he cursed.

"History did," North said from behind a pair of folded hands. "History and the fact that you saved her life that night thirty years ago."

Kinza pounded back and forth before the desk. "But… she's been alone ever since her husband died in 1929!"

"And it was a good thing too, or you'd probably have to do something about him as well!" North pulled himself up to the desk. "Kinza, you were the one who taught me about the trouble time has when you disrupt it. You of all people should know the consequences!"

Kinza stopped parading and dropped his head. "Damn you… damn you damn you damn you! There isn't any other way, is there?"

North fell back in his chair again. "The history computers haven't found any, and believe me I've had them burning their circuits trying to find an alternate answer."

Kinza flopped into a chair and pinched his eyes with his paw. "Crap…"

"The problem isn't with Alexis," North said. "She doesn't remarry, and she doesn't do anything that disrupts history, other than publishing her husband's exploits with the help of her sister, and of course her own series of books. The problem is with her son Thomas… I can only guess why they named him after your two suit personas."

Kinza fidgeted. "T.E.… What's he do?"

North brought up a screen behind himself. "T.E. Folks is only a trainee pilot right now, but becomes an ace before the end of the year. He has his mother's flair for observation, and his father's adventurous spirit. Not only does he become America's first triple ace, he is awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery and skill. After the war, he becomes an All-Star third baseman for the Washington Senators baseball team and leads them to the 1948, 49 and 50 World Series. He takes off during 1951 and 1952 to join his friend Ted Williams as they both return to the Air Force to fly in the Korean War. When he returns, his wife and he proceed to have six children. From these children will come another line of Saverem descendants who change the course of history. The domino effect that it creates actually causes a delay in the launch of the SEEDS ships until it is too late and mankind remains on a dying planet. And this history never happened."

Kinza shook his head. "That's pretty ugly.

"What is worse is that the first 'kill' he has as a fighter pilot is this man," North continued as the picture of a Japanese man in a business suit appeared. "Usuke Fujishima was only a marginal pilot in his own right, and it was amazing that he managed to survive the war at all. But he did, and became the CEO of a small electronics firm – if he doesn't become that person, the company folds in 1958 during the financial crisis that struck during that time. But, that company needs to survive, since they are the lone provider of this…"

A small round device appeared that Kinza did not recognize at all. North smirked.

"This is the containment frame that keeps a Plant from exploding. Fujishima Heavy Industries was the only company that managed to create a ceramic housing that could withstand the punishment of sending the energy of The Source through. This same ceramic housing is used in our warp drives. It is still made by FHI."

"I get the picture," Kinza said with his head down. "Can I just get him grounded?"

North sighed. "We checked on that, and no. Even discharged for poor piloting doesn't stop his changing history – he's what we call a hinge-point – in this case, an unplanned hinge-point. Go one way, history is complete. Go the other, and history takes a dive."

Kinza shook his head then looked up. "Disabled?" he asked hopefully.

North shook his head. "That doesn't work either. The guy is just too adventurous."

He grabbed his head with both paws. "Just like his parents! Damn it! I can't do it!"

North shut the screen off and sat back in the shadows. "Then we shoot him down from orbit, and the Japanese gain a story of a divine light coming down and smiting an American dog who would dare to attack them."

Kinza sat back in the chair and huffed. "Damn it… damn it all to hell… what do I have to do?"

"Report to the cargo transmat on the lower flight deck at o'nine hundred hours in the morning." North stood up and saluted.

Kinza stood and slowly stepped towards the door. "Rob…"

"Yo," the man said as he cleaned his glasses.

"When we met for the first time back in Tech Lab One… I told you then that I had greetings for you… and warnings…"

North stood and placed his glasses back on. "Yes you did," he said. "You saved my life then, especially when you dropped my older self on me as confirmation."

Kinza nodded. "We haven't done that yet, right?"

"Nope."

Kinza sneezed. "Blast it all… How can you trust me to go through with that now?"

North stepped around the desk and sat on its edge. "Because I trust in you more than I trust in myself. Because a Tomassamassian has saved me more times than I can count, and that your code of honor binds you to it."

The door slid open as he approached it. "Crap." He departed the room.

May 7th, 1942 dawned on board Forrestal without much fanfare save one thing – the engineers were busy down in the landing bay. Below on the planet, a decisive battle was beginning – Coral Sea – and a flight was about to be launched off the aircraft carrier Yorktown. A Grumman F4F Wildcat was being readied for launch – on board was a rookie pilot who had the highest training scores ever for a Navy pilot. He gave his ground crew a wave and was sent down the long flight deck of the carrier to follow its torpedo bombers as escort.

Kinza entered the flight deck and was surprised by who he found.

"Puruu… Xuru… What brings you two here?" he asked the adult Goddess and Demon.

Puruu stepped up to him and placed her arms around him. "You asked me to," she said.

"Oh scragg, when?" he asked. The patch on his chest dinged and he tapped it knowing that the S.A.M. System was warning them not to say.

"She knows," Xuru said with near disgust. "She was there because you asked for her!"

The computer dinged again. To his surprise, it was Puruu who snapped at the speaker.

"S.A.M.! We KNOW!" she shouted.

"S.A.M., override command North-1," North said as he stepped over from the work in the corner. "You may continue without interference."

"Hello Rob," the adult demon said as she sauntered over to him and ran her finger across his chest. "Blow up any worlds lately?"

"Well, I see you're back to normal again," the scientist said. "Forgot that time you cried your heart out on my shoulder, ea?"

Xuru pulled back and glared at him. "Ah… yes… you remember that, humm?"

"What makes you think I'd forget something like that?" he grinned. "I also remember who it was that finally brought me back," he added gesturing to Shadow, who was standing next to the project that the engineers were working on. She was glaring at the demon while spinning the small cross she wore around her neck.

Kinza looked up at the tall Goddess. "What do you mean?" he asked her. "What do you mean I asked you?"

She held him close and placed her head next to his ear. He felt her power up, and felt the passing of feathers across his face.

Shadow gasped, clutching the cross now.

"Oh great," Xuru grunted. "She's gone full power!"

Puruu kissed Kinza's forehead and held his paws. "For what you are about to do, you are forgiven," she whispered. "She understands…"

"Who understands?" Kinza asked, his bewilderment growing by the moment.

She stepped back slightly leaving a shimmering ghost before him.

"I understand," a familiar voice said. The image solidified into the form of Lexy as a young woman, her red hair swept back and her blue eyes sharp as ever.

"No… no… Lexy, no this isn't right…" Kinza said as he stepped back.

"I never said that it was right," she said with a smirk. "But if it's a choice between the future of humanity and my son, well then… it's not like he's not coming to a better place…"

Kinza stood shocked by what he just heard, as did Xuru.

"Hey, I like this bird!" Xuru grinned. "Are you sure she's not one of mine?"

"No," Puruu smiled. "She is willing to sacrifice her only son for humanity's future."

"After all, I wasn't supposed to be there either," Lexy noted. She turned back to Kinza and smiled. She glanced skyward. "I'm being told my time is nearly up… do what you must Kinza, please." She reached down and kissed him on the cheek. "I still love you, Mr. Fuzzy!" With that she vanished.

Kinza was to tears, something he did not want to show. He cleared his throat and quickly wiped his eyes. He glared at Puruu for a moment.

"I don't know whether I should thank you or scream at you," he said. "Tell me that this doesn't have to do with that project that you two were doing as teenagers?"

Puruu bowed slightly. "Yes… you called it your fifth sin…" When she looked at him next, a peaceful expression was on his face and he was smiling at her.

"Well now," Xuru said to the expression, "that's not the look I was expecting."

Kinza shook his head. "What you said explains all then," he said. "My fifth sin… one through four were all concerning Lexy as well I would assume…" He pointed at Puruu. "And I asked for you alone because you were also performing last rights, am I correct? The Slyznics finally gets me, right?"

Puruu looked away, a tear rolling down her cheek. "It hadn't been expected… our interview was suppose to have been a week prior to your passing, but the Federation computers had it wrong."

North quickly pulled a pad and pen out and jotted that down.

Kinza took her hand. "Well, it's good that you knew when it was then, or I'd have to ask you when it will occur. Seeing me bald was probably bad enough…"

Puruu reached down and smothered the Tomassamassa in a hug. "I'm sorry you have to go through this."

"It's okay… History's Daggers… I'm beginning to understand what that term means now." He kissed her on the forehead. "Thanks angel." He moved to the demon.

"Hey pretty lady, you're not suppose to cry," he told her as he saw a trickle running down her dark red skin from her golden red eyes.

"You're a pain, Kinza," she said. "A flat out pain in the ass." She surrounded him in an embrace unbecoming a demon of her rank but she did not care. She had missed out saying her goodbyes to him. She pulled back and smiled at him. "I would say that when the time comes… to try hell… it's not as bad as they say…"

"…But I'm probably going through it now," he finished for her in a cracked grin. "You betcha!" He looked at the pair and scratched his arm. "I will assume that this isn't the last time we cross paths, so I'll probably see you both again."

"No," Puruu said, "this is not."

"Good," he replied as he headed for the engineers. He stopped and turned back to look at the two of them again. "Question for you two…"

They blinked. "Yes?" they chimed together.

"You two were paired back in your school days, right?" he asked them. "Why are you still together?"

The Goddess and the Demon looked at each other. "We're friends. We like each other," they answered him.

"Well I'll be damned," Kinza grinned. "The treaty worked!" He continued towards the cargo transmats.

"What's he talking about?" Xuru asked.

"The Treaty of Advent," North explained, "the sheet of paper that keeps your two sides from decimating each other was drafted by that lowly Elb." He then followed him while the two deities gawked at them.

"Gentlemen," Kinza addressed the crews working on a replica of a Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter, "remove any weapons."

Tolefson looked over the canopy at him. "Are you sure?" he asked. "We were just about to install the bullets…"

Kinza shook his head. "Leave them out. I don't want them. I know how I'm going to attend to this. But I do want you to add a shield generator to the hull of the aircraft."

"Ah," Tolefson said as he looked at the body of the plane. "Protection…"

"No," Kinza countered, "as a matter of fact, I want it set to polarize rather than deflect."

"What the hell for?" the helmsman asked.

"I understand," North said. "You want to go for a glowing effect – a stand out in the crowd look."

"Right," Kinza said, "and the fact that it will allow us to use this to a better advantage," he added with a kick to the base plate of the cargo transmat.

Coral Sea – the first battle of World War II where the opposing forces never saw their opposition – an entire battle fought in the air. It was the first flight in battle for the young T.E. Folks, but the nineteen-year-old man was quick sighted and extremely skilled with the yolk of his Wildcat. He saw the pair of incoming defense aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy and launched himself off into the sun.

Before they knew what hit them, his Wildcat was baring down with bullets flying.

"Fujishima! Above!" the second dark gray Zero yelped as he peeled to his port side. The lead craft swung to his right as the Wildcat blew through the pair of them. It then seemed to do an impossible turn and headed for the first craft.

"Matsumoto! I can't shake him!" the lead Zero cried as it avoided the strafing fire. A few rounds caught the aileron, but his plane was still flyable, but one hot bullet in his unprotected fuel cell and he would be history!

Just then, as the American plane drew in for the kill, out of nowhere appeared a starkly white Zero fighter. It passed between the two planes drawing the attention of the American pilot away from his first target.

"Where'd he come from!?" Fujishima yelped in relief as he saw the white plane draw the dark blue-gray Wildcat down towards the water. He tipped his plane into a dive and followed along with the other Zero.

Then they saw something that even the American plane had not expected. The white plane shimmered then vanished.

Fujishima took the advantage of the angle and the confusion and promptly downed the American plane into the water. His voice cracked over the radio as North watched the translation appear on a monitor.

"Did… did you see that Matsumoto?" Fujishima asked.

"Damn… Ghost Warrior… Do you think we should report this?"

"Are you mad?"

He shut the screen off.

The paw that Puruu was holding squeezed her hand. She blinked as she looked at the body in the bed. It was hard to do so through the tears.

"So," Kinza rasped, "she forgave me in the past… I've confessed my sins… and you've got your interview… I can rest now…"

There was a gurgling sound, and he made one last attempt to swallow. And then he was gone.

Puruu lowered her head and prayed with his limp paw still in her hand.

She then heard a shrill whistle behind her. She looked back and saw Nepto the Android and Hank Josephs standing at attention at the doorway. Koni was being consoled by her husband beside them as was Ariel. Doctor McManus stepped by them to confirm what they all knew. She nodded and closed her scanner.

"At O'Four Hundred hours, please log the passing of Elb Kinza Farley, pilot and navigator of the starship Grand Council's Ship Pegasus," Nepto said.

"Affirmative," the voice of Mother, the ship's computer, said.

"Break anchorage," he continued. "Autopilot settings are ready – take the long walk…"

"Josephs to Hydron," the other Alman was calling to his com unit. "Standby for escort duty – ready the long walk… The lion sleeps."

There was a quiet "affirmative," from the unit.

"Hey, what did I just miss?" Xuru asked as she materialized in the room and was instantly hushed by Nepto. She saw Puruu and the condition of the body, and the fact that her friend had her wings out.

"Damn," she said under her breath. "He's off to Philly…"

"As a matter of fact," Nepto said as the ship rocked a touch, "no… Oklahoma."

Xuru and Puruu looked up at the android with perplexed expressions.

Pegasus lifted off the surface of Kinza's home world as sirens blared and flags lowered. She slowly spun about and began an approach across the planet that took her over the Royal Palace, then south to a small home in the rural mountains that had been the birthplace of one of the world's favorite sons. The ship landed for a few minutes as two drums of soil were stored in her lower landing bay. Family members that were not going on the final journey were allowed to say their goodbyes, and those who were coming boarded the ship.

"It has become incredibly furry in here," Xuru noted as the few crew quarters were now filled with Tomassamassas, though there were a stray C'racz, a creature that looked slightly like an upright alligator with a Mohawk on his head, and a Rhizon, a pudgy weasel type with a very sharp tail, both of whom were from the races that lived on Pola-Lortos V's many moons.

'The Slow Walk' was an impressive sight, if not a bit… slow… in Xuru's mind. Pegasus had lifted off the planet and had been joined by the much larger starship, GCS Hydron. She was impressive in her own right as she was cruising with all shock cannons deployed and her crew on the outer decks in ceremonial salute.

It was then that Puruu and Xuru realized just how important this simple Elb had been to many. Pegasus entered a corridor of ships. There were all sorts of vessels – frigates, freighters, battle cruisers, basic transports, cruise liners, and the majority of the defense fleets, who would disgorge their weapons as their ship passed. They were approaching another ship in the corridor – Forrestal, with all her lights and trim flashing was holding station awaiting Pegasus.

The smaller ship deployed her landing struts and came to rest among the crew of the much larger starship, locking onto her back. Puruu and Xuru felt the vessel rock slightly as Hydron fired her own heavy shock cannons as a signal of transference of duty to her fellow fleet member. Once secure, Forrestal fired up her impulse drives and continued the slow walk for the next hour.

"Prepare for terminal transfer to the Trans Dimensional Barrier Zone," the speakers on the bridge of Pegasus said as they passed the final stragglers in the corridor of honor. Puruu and Xuru watched as Nepto sat in the seat he had been staring at for most of the time they had seen him, the pilot's seat.

"Pegasus secure and ready, Captain Strom," he reported.

"Thank you," came a courtesy call from Forrestal's bridge. "Sit back and enjoy the ride."

A grinding sliding sound permeated the ship. The girls watched the android Alman as he looked about.

"This always gives me the willies," he said, not giving the girls much assurance. He smiled as he watched the power levels start to peek.

As a Goddess-in-training and a Junior Demon, the ladies were quite capable of jumping dimensions on their own. But this was the first time they were 'enjoying' man's mechanical way of doing so.

"Entering the TDBZ," a voice announced. The dark expanse of space that hung in the windows along the ceiling of Pegasus' bridge shifted colors. First it was a blue tinge then red. Then the star field vanished and was replaced by a yellow haze.

"Welcome to the power field that connects to The Source," Puruu said. Xuru nodded.

"They make it look so easy," she noted.

"They just imploded their engines to do it," Nepto said with a smirk. "I certainly wouldn't want to do it."

"Doesn't that damage their ship?" Xuru asked.

Nepto shrugged. "Doesn't seem so. Inverse physics are sometimes very strange. Their implosion creates a warp field that puts them into this zone that allows them to transverse time and dimensions… odd isn't it?"

"Umm… very," Xuru said, noting not to ask such a question again.

"Stand by – reverse course," the com said. "Moving one week aft."

"What?" Puruu asked.

"They're moving a week back so that those on Deneb One may join in," Nepto noted as he adjusted his chronometer.

"That answers the question on why the Federation database was off by a week," Xuru noted to herself.

"No…" Puruu said. "That would make it two weeks back. We thought we had an extra week remember?"

"You're right…" Xuru shook her horns. "I'm confused."

"You and I both," Puruu noted. She then found that she had to grab the back of the Alman's chair as it felt as if the floor had just dropped away.

"Now moving to prime level," the com reported as everyone's belly felt a bit queasy.

"Everyone okay back there?" the voice of Forrestal's captain asked. "Our gravity generators didn't compensate for you being there, sorry."

Nepto looked back at the ill looks he was getting. "It's a good thing I don't have to worry about those things anymore then. I'm sending you the cleaning bill, Roy."

"Maintenance crews to Pegasus," Strom ordered.

"Stand by – departing TDBZ," the com announced. "Opening thrust baffles."

The grating sound that sent them into this yellow zone returned. The windows shifted their hues again and the stars returned to an inky black universe.

"United Nations Starship Forrestal has returned to normal time and space, Earth Normal Dimension Zero," the voice of S.A.M. announced over the com system. Puruu sat down in the empty Alman's chair and produced a calculator with an extremely perplexed look on her face.

"What?" Xuru asked as she watched her friend punch numbers about.

"I wish Skuld were here – she's so much better at calculating than I am," Puruu remarked as she scratched her head. "You heard what the computer said – they just returned to their space normal time… that means that they were already a week ahead of themselves when they picked us up."

A mechanical finger came in and tapped the calculator in her hands. "That's because to keep any transferred life forms between our universes in their proper time lines when they are returned, it is standard practice by this ship to work a week apart from one universe to the other," Nepto told her.

"Really," Puruu said as if that cleared thing us – it was still muddy to her though.

The stars in the window above them spun about as the course was altered. Then they burst into a string of lines as the ship went to warp.

"Whoa, where are we going now?" Xuru asked.

Nepto watched the reading on his console. "We are heading… let me see… two seven eight seven mark fourteen… The planet Deneb One."

"No!" Puruu yelped. "Xuru, we must hide ourselves!"

The demon looked confused at her partner. "For Beelzebub's sake, why?"

"This is still our past, remember? And we're heading to the planet that Vash and Meryl live!" Puruu explained. "They met us for the first time when?"

Xuru gulped. "The Christmas party!"

"Then may I suggest you disguise yourselves?" Nepto noted.

"Huh?" the two girls asked.

Vash was loaded down with cases and cases of clothing. "Honeyyyy!" he whined. "We're only going away for three days! What's with all these suitcases?"

"We're going to Earth, dummy!" Meryl squawked back. "I don't want to be left without a change of clothing, and neither should you or Millie! Besides, I might want to see Nova while we're there."

Vash sighed. "Right… Millie?"

Meryl stopped in front of him and spun about, making him nearly lose a case or two. "You didn't forget to get her, did you?"

"Of course he did, he is my brother after all," Knives said as he sat drinking a coffee, "so I got her last night."

Vash stared at his brother. "Wolfwood let you take Millie?" as Meryl hugged him.

He shrugged as he started to munch on an English muffin while reading the morning financial report. He looked down at his clothes. "I think it was the suit," he said as he adjusted his tie after Meryl's hug. He turned and looked out the kitchen window at the skyline behind their home. Forrestal and her companion ship were passing over his corporate headquarters for KVSTollgate Corporation as they continued final approach towards the Juno Spaceport. He could hear his nephew and niece yelping at the sight. He sighed and continued to sip his coffee.

Millie was sleeping in, much to Meryl's amusement – she knew how diligent she was on the farm, yet get her off it and she instantly reverted to her slug-a-bed self. She leaned against the guest-room door and watched her friend sleep with a smile. Forrestal was not leaving until the next day anyway, so there was not any rush just yet.

But old habits are hard to kill, and she took the bell she used to call the kids in for dinner and started clanging hard on it.

"GET UP MILLIE! GET UP!"

Knives and Vash listened to the clamor. "She gets her kicks out of that, doesn't she?" Knives noted.

"Constantly," Vash moaned as he loaded more clothes into the second suitcase - Just four more to go.

Knives closed his briefcase. "I will see you all this afternoon then – I have a short docket, and I wish to be in Juno by this evening."

Vash patted his brother on the shoulder. "Go get 'um tiger," he said.

Sara Montgomery watched the paired ships land at the spaceport in the valley from her backyard. The other night she had watched ships depart with her family. Now one had arrived with someone she and many called one of theirs. She turned and prepared her own bag.

The evening looked like celebrity night on Deneb One. Vehicles were arriving and dropping off the many people responsible for the daily running of the planet, and the many who had seen it through its darkest moments. Sara stood with her husband Lexington in full dress uniform as she watched old friends arrive at the lower hanger bay of Forrestal. She was nearly smothered when Brandywine appeared with Secretary Bryant of the Security Council. Dallas and Harrisburg also arrived, both of whom were to be pallbearers. Dallas still was using the Tunnel Steamer as a transport with his wife of the last four years, another Plant named Tulsa – the trip would be a homecoming for her as well. Harrisburg was now the Commandant of the Space Marines. He had never married, and always called the Marines his 'family'.

Then there was the arrival of the central figures of the crisis years – Vash Saverem and his wife Meryl Stryfe-Saverem, his brother Knives and Millie Wolfwood.

"Oh my, how things have changed!" Millie exclaimed. "You know, when the message had come about Mr. Fuzzy, I never thought I'd get a chance to go to his funeral… But could you tell me one thing Meryl?"

It had been an afternoon of Millieisms for the former Bernardelli Insurance girls. She shrugged and readied for another one. "What's that Millie?"

"Why are we going to Earth to bury him?"

A pair of androids that were beside the open casket coughed. Millie looked at them and pondered for a moment. Meryl was just happy that they had made that noise at that very moment. Even she did not know that answer fully.

"Technology these days!" Millie exclaimed. "These two almost look real! Not like that one over there," she said pointing at the oddly shaped head of Heswald Nepto. She returned to looking at the lady androids.

"WHY… ARE… YOU… HERE!?" she yelled at them as if they would not understand what she was saying unless shouted slowly at them.

"We are here on orders of Doctor McManus to guard the body," the red one said.

"You don't say!" Millie said while scratching her cheek. "Isn't that a surprise! I had a Doctor McManus in Oklahoma as well!"

"Fascinating," the red android murmured. The fair colored one beside it cleared her throat.

"You should get that checked out!" Millie advised.

"What's he holding?" she heard and turned to see Meryl looking in on the body. She walked over to see for herself.

"Oh, it's Mistletoe!" she exclaimed. "It's our state flower you know."

"Oh," Meryl said. She was having a hard time containing herself and finally turned into Vash and requested to be escorted away with her face planted in his chest.

"Oh Meryl," Millie said. "She's never really had to deal with the death of a friend, I mean other than my Nicholas… of course he came back… Mr. Fuzzy isn't coming back, is he Mr. Knives?"

Knives sighed as he stared at the still face of his 'only friend'. "If you only knew how I wish he could," he said to her. "If you could excuse me, Mrs. Wolfwood, but may I have a moment to myself with Kinza?"

"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry, yes of course. I'll be over with the others."

He nodded to her as she moved away. "She has absolutely no clue, does she?" he seemingly said to the air but then looked at the two android ladies.

"Pardon?" they said in unison.

"Please, don't lie to me," he said. "I can sense the energy you two exhibit. Yours is to the positive and yours is to the negative. I'm sure even Vash sensed it, as did any other Plant around here for that matter. So why are you here?"

"Well, umm, you see," Android Puruu started.

"We're part of the Observers group," Android Xuru finished with a lie.

"And since some here will know us in the future, we're in disguise," Puruu added to keep it a partial truth.

"Ah – that does make sense," Knives said as he looked down on Kinza.

"It's amazing," Xuru noted. "He was bald… where did all this fur come from?"

"Once he died, the disease did as well," Puruu noted. "It was easy enough for Doctor McManus to stimulate the remaining hair follicles to cover him again."

Xuru sighed. "He certainly needed it…"

"You were there?" Knives broke in. "You were there when he…"

"I was," the light android said looking down at the body.

Knives cleared his throat. "Did he… did he mention anything…"

Puruu raised her hand. "His last interview with me was a confession. I am not at liberty to discuss it. Sins are a private matter between his soul and his maker."

Knives crossed his hands as he stared at his friend. "Sins… He confessed his sins… I made him sin…"

Puruu coughed. "Umm, no… his confessions were not about you or his courts-marshal…"

Knives stepped back, a look of shock on his face. He looked down on his friend as if he was seeing something she failed to. "Sins? Sins other than what he admitted to with me?"

Xuru crossed her arms and scoffed him. "What? You thought he was a saint? He was simply mortal, buddy - Nothing more. He may have done all these wondrous things, saved the universe as we know it, but he was just as frail as you or me."

Puruu looked at the still body. "I don't know about that… if he did the draft work on the Treaty of Advent, are you sure he wasn't a saint?"

Knives looked between the two droids. "Just what are you… really?" he asked. "And what is the Treaty of Advent that he drafted?"

Puruu squeaked. "Well… I am a Goddess-in-Training… She is a Junior Demon…"

"Yes, that would explain the odd energy I feel," Knives said with some trepidation.

"The treaty basically prevented the annihilation of the universe as we know it," Xuru added. "Limitations, regulations, a whole bunch of –ations… Come to think of it, that means this is the guy that made me wear this limiter!" she griped as she pulled on an unseen ear ring.

Puruu rustled her invisible fancy one that dangled from her right ear. "We all have our limitations, Xuru." She looked at Knives and saw the look on his face. "Are we bothering you sir?" she asked as she saw him nearly step back.

"No… no, not at all," he said and adjusted his tie. "If you will excuse me…"

"What's with him?" Xuru asked scratching the back of her metallic head. She notices Knives stopping and looking back.

"Deities?" he asked. "Allowing a mortal to regulate your powers?"

"Well, for the good of the universe, yes," Puruu explained. "Remember, he just drafted the treaty… we had to ratify and obey it…"

Knives shook his head and continued on.

"Nice guy," Xuru said.

That evening saw the paired ships launch for Earth with those dignitaries that would accompany the body. Only a few hours later they came out of warp to yet another slow walk of ships, though this one seemed more ceremonial than the cluttered assortment that had been in the other universe. The line was composed of obvious fleet ships as the shapes resembled that of Forrestal and now Exeter as she pulled alongside her sister ship.

Just prior to entering Earth orbit, Pegasus detached from the hull of the larger starship and took the lead through the corridor of ships. Exeter dropped away as both Forrestal and the smaller ship began their descent to the planet below.

"I remember that first flight in," Puruu heard as she stood on the bridge of Pegasus. She looked over at the female officer who had said that.

"Scared the hell out of us, didn't he?" Captain North was telling the cat-looking woman he was holding by the shoulder. "He got us in there though…"

"What a first year," Shadow said as she laid her head on his shoulder. "The tornado… that stalker… and those builders they sent…"

"Foley and Dickinson?" North laughed. "Who said they were ever considered builders?"

Shadow looked at him. "The Observers Corps did," she said.

"Security Engineers… that means they know how to hide bugs and sensors," North laughed. "Sometimes the military mentality can think the most idiotic things."

"They nearly scalped me!" she laughed.

"They what?"

She looked at North. "Scalped me… you heard about that surely… those two assistants to Foley and Dickinson tried to use a laser gun to level the floorboards of the cabin!"

North stared at her and shook his head.

"Kinza didn't report that?"

North continued to shake his head. "No… that would have got them thrown in the stockade," he said. "When was this?"

Shadsie looked down. "Well, I wasn't hurt… They actually missed us by a couple of feet…"

"Us?" North barked. "You were on Nightwatch when they did that stunt!?"

"Rob, please…" she said as she saw him steaming. He raised his hands and showed he was calming.

"Okay… okay…" he said. "You know how defensive I get…" He sighed. "So, Kinza didn't report that incident, ea?"

Puruu turned away as Shadow was saying something about Captain Edwards knowing about the incident. Her eyes then fell on Millie. She was seated by a monitor watching the approach they were taking towards the planet. Puruu stepped beside her and watched as well.

Millie looked up at her and smiled. "You're one of those robots that are with Mr. Fuzzy, aren't you?" she asked. "But you're not really one, are you?"

Puruu looked shocked at her. What was it that Vash had said once? Millie was quite the observationist.

"How… how did you know?" she asked.

Millie giggled. "I'm a mommy dear," she said with her usual cheery self. "You can't hide a lie from a mommy! Besides, unlike your companion, you seem unable to lie well."

"I never lie!" Puruu exclaimed. She then heard a metallic tone and saw Millie tapping her metal hand.

"You're lying now!" she grinned.

Puruu gasped. She was! That… that was unheard of by a Goddess! Now she worried just what sort of penance she would have to endure.

"Oh don't be worried," Millie said as she brushed the lie off. "There must be a good reason why, otherwise you'd be burning in doughnut oil by now!"

"Doughnut oil?" Puruu could not fathom what she meant. She did notice that she had become a bit more solemn just then when she returned to looking at the monitor.

"Is there something bothering you Miss Millie?" she asked.

Millie watched a city pass below them – Dallas possibly. "For the life of me, why did he wanted to be buried at my old homestead's cemetery? It was in his will…"

It finally dawned to Puruu just why they were taking the trip to Oklahoma.

"Family," she said. Millie looked up at her.

"Huh?" she replied.

"He wanted to be with his family, or surrogate one at least," she said with a touch of wonder in her voice. "I understand now…"

"You're an angel, aren't you?"

Puruu looked down on Millie. "Pardon me?"

"Oh, don't worry dear, I've met a few, what with living in The Source and all," Millie laughed. "My great - great - great - great - great – umm – great granddaughter is always dropping in on me!"

Puruu smiled and shook her head. "No, but I do have one with me," she said. "Would you like to meet her?"

Millie blinked.

"Where did she go?" Meryl groused as she and Vash looked through the throng of furry siblings and dignitaries. "You would think that landing at her old home on Oklahoma she would want to be the first one at the hatchway! Honestly!"

Vash peeked through a doorway. "Well, maybe she wanted to be alone for the moment, you know? It's got to be especially emotional to her."

Meryl looked back and was going to say something, but figured that he was probably right. She shook her head and continued to look into rooms.

Vash slid a door open. "Millie? Where for art thou? Oh, I'm sorry…"

The glowing form of Android Puruu raised her finger to her mouth and hushed Vash. She winked and turned back to the pair across the room from her.

Millie's face was wet and her lip was quivering as she held her daughter. A young Lexy embraced her mother.

Millie wiped her face as she looked at her again. "How are you doing Pun'kin?" she asked with a grin and more tears.

"I'm fine mommy… Mr. Fuzzy and I are just fine…"

Millie caressed her face with her hand. "Is he with you? You two always were nearly inseparable…"

Lexy looked back at Puruu with a shocked face. "You knew?" she asked her mother as she turned back to her.

"Of course she would," Puruu said. "You can never hide anything from your mother."

Lexy started to laugh. "I guess not," she giggled with the same effervescence that her mother would. She looked back and grinned. "Aunt Meryl?"

Vash looked under his arm. Meryl was staring at the glowing child standing in front of her insurance partner. Lexy started to walk towards her when the android raised her arm.

"Stay before me child," she warned. "Do not stray from the light of the Lord…"

Meryl heard the warning and rushed forwards to keep the child safe within the beacon of light coming from the android. She bent down to stare at the new face of a child from before her time. The girl giggled and danced.

"Oh, my big-big sister would have loved to have seen you!" she exclaimed as she took Meryl's hands in hers and brought her over to Millie's side. "We must set up a family reunion in The Source someday!"

"Oh, that would be wonderful!" Millie exclaimed. "Don't you think so Vash?"

Vash nearly broke into laughing. "Wolfwood would be ecstatic!" he said with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice. He quickly clammed up as he saw the look his wife was giving him.

"Hey, what's with the holy light?" the android Xuru barked as she looked into the room and saw the child standing in the glow.

"Uhh…" she said with a gawking expression on her face, "have you been carrying her all this time?"

Puruu shrugged. "She just wouldn't leave," she noted.

Xuru snickered. "You're stuck there, aren't you?"

Puruu looked at her feet, which seemed to have been anchored where she was. She smiled. "While the child is here, I am not concerned."

Vash looked at the red android. "And what are you carrying?" he asked.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Xuru coyly joked as she ran her finger under his chin and spun about and sat down in a chair across from them. Vash blushed then saw the look on Meryl's face – which was now redder than the android's own – and decided to walk over to her side. He placed his arm on her shoulder.

Meryl still elbowed him.

"I've got a question," Vash said as he rubbed his stinging ribs. "If you weren't supposed to know of your mother's past, how do you know her as your Aunt Meryl?"

Lexy stood in the middle of the light and grew a little – now she was a teenager. "As a family, eventually we found out that our parents would not be joining us in heaven, at least not anytime soon… we came to understand their mission in life… their purpose… and that they had returned to where they had come from – the Planet Gunsmoke. That is how we found out who we were named for, or in my case who I was nicknamed for."

She turned about – now the senior Alexis Saverem-Folks, adventurer and renowned author stood before them. "But their purpose had been set," she continued. "To start a mighty family tree that grows to this day. Oddly, I am here today because I wasn't supposed to be here. A quirk of fate made my life possible. If Mr. Kinza had not arrived when he did and come up with a solution, I would not have survived, and mother would probably have died. But, the fact of the matter was, his job was only to make sure mother survived. But because I did, our lives, and his life were changed and intertwined. He truly became family that day."

Alexis held her arms and walked towards the edge of the light and tested placing a finger beyond it. It faded. She drew her hand back and the finger returned. Puruu swallowed.

"Please don't do that," she whispered to the angel.

Alexis looked at her fingers. "Sorry – my sense of the unknown…" she said as she looked beyond the light. "I have always known I wasn't supposed to be, even here as an angel… You knew as well mother… As you say, I could never keep a lie from you, and you never lie… which means that when you once told me that I was a mistake, even though you didn't mean it that way, it was the truth…"

Millie gasped and held her hands to her face. Puruu did not like where this was going. She glanced back at her partner. Xuru stood up and began slowly moving around to the side Alexis was facing.

"Millie," Meryl whispered, "did you really say that?"

"Honey…" she managed to say. "Please honey…"

Vash stood up and moved to the opposite side of the light from Xuru. Alexis smiled and laughed.

"You would have an easier time catching a beam of light, Mr. Vash the Stampede," she said. "And you," she said to Xuru, "you can't touch this light without burning yourself."

"Why are you doing this kid?" the android demon asked.

"The last mystery… the final adventure… My life was a mistake… my family wasn't supposed to be, which was probably why my husband was taken from me… then my son… and by… by… oh god…" She fell to her knees sobbing. "Why did it have to be him? Why did it have to be him?"

"Who is she talking about?" Meryl asked as she too now was standing.

Millie's eyes were wide and wet. "Not… not Mr. Fuzzy?" she whispered. "Please, not him…"

"Nobody cares!" Alexis cried. She stood up and glared at Xuru. "My next adventure… is oblivion!"

"Don't do it!" she heard behind herself. It was a voice she had not expected. She was hoping it would be him, but it was someone with a bit more clout.

Vash stepped back, the black wings of his friend swatting him in the face.

"Daddy?" Lexy asked as she dropped to being a child again. Wolfwood stood outside the light.

"I was sent down here by two concerned people," he said grimly. "The one was your brother," he noted glancing back at Vash.

"Knives?" he asked.

"The other was our benefactor. He told me how to transfer down here using the door in the chapel." He looked back at his wings. "You know, I've sort of missed these," he joked. He returned his look to his daughter. She looked down, not wanting to see the stern look he was giving her.

"So, oblivion, ea?" he said as he placed his fists into his hips. "Do you really think that would be a suitable answer to your life? Do you really think we didn't love you? Do you think that what Mr. Kinza had to do wasn't the worst thing he ever had to do in his life?"

"Oh my god," Millie whispered. "It was him?"

Wolfwood took a step towards his daughter. He looked down and saw that his black pants, where they were lit by the light from Puruu, had changed to white.

"Great," he grumbled. He looked at Lexy and bent down to her level as she was now the size of an early teen.

"Do you really think this is the answer?" he asked her. "Do you really think this would solve all your problems? Solve all the hurt that has befallen you? Because that would only inflict the same hurt on those who love you, those who don't care that you may have been a mistake, because you were never a mistake child. You are my pun'kin, remember?"

"But… but daddy, they lied to me," she whimpered as a child. "They said that T.E. would be with me… up there…" She pointed at Puruu, or more towards the light emanating from her. "T.E. isn't there! All I have is George!" She looked back at Xuru.

"Hey, don't look at me!" she yelped while waving her hands. "He's not down there for all I know!"

She felt her father's hand on her cheek. She turned to look at him.

"Of course he's not up there with you, Pun'kin," Wolfwood said with a smile. "He's not dead."

Puruu nearly dropped the light she was glowing. Xuru gaped at him.

"WHAT!?" they shouted.

Wolfwood looked at the two androids. "You two know something about this?"

"Hammana… hammana… hammana…" was all Xuru could reply. Puruu could only shake her head.

"They do, but they can't say right now," Robert North said from the doorway as he and Knives entered the room along with a uniformed officer.

Millie stood up in a start. She just pointed at the officer. "THOMAS!"

"I don't see one in here," Vash said looking for a giant kiwi. He then heard a pair of heels snap together. The young officer was now saluting the child being held by Wolfwood.

"Lieutenant Thomas Edward Folks of the United Nations Starship Exeter reporting, MADAM!" he barked to his mother. "Miss Puruu, Miss Xuru, good day."

Xuru poked him in the belly with her finger. "Umm… he seems real…" she noted.

"But… but the fifth sin…" Puruu asked in total puzzlement.

North shook his head. "The sin wasn't that he had to kill her son, but take him away and not tell her. Kinza found another way – he used the same cargo transmat that he used to drop his airplane in front of the Lieutenant's here to also remove him from his aircraft. You put up quite a struggle too if I remember."

T.E. seemed to turn red and scratched the back of his neck. "Well, yea, but Mr. Kinza did straighten me out… He personally trained me, made me realize the changes that would have occurred if I had stayed in the past would have ruined the future."

"But aren't you doing the same thing being here in the future?" Vash asked.

"I'll be damned," Wolfwood cracked, "that almost made sense!"

North shook his head. "To us Observers, anything in the here and now is fair game for the future. He's here - he's now - so be it!"

Lexy took a step towards her son, changing again to the elder Mother he knew. He entered the light and embraced her as she broke into tears on his chest.

Wolfwood looked at Knives. "I don't get it, why was it that you were the one that came to the chapel to warn me of this going on?" he asked him.

Knives shrugged. "Kinza told me to," he said. "I heard his voice telling me to find you. Personally, I had no idea who this Lexy was… But she seemed extremely important to him… almost as important as this Emmie person he told me of."

The ship rocked slightly as it touched down.

"It's time," Puruu said. "I'm sorry…"

Alexis shook her head. "I'm the one who should apologize… I should have known than my Kinza would never fail me in such a way, and that I should never underestimate my mother."

Millie reached out and embraced her daughter. "You'll always be my little torpedo," she whispered to her. "I love you, always…"

It took a few minutes to settle the gathered in the small room. Finally, Puruu retracted the light and withdrew Lexy's spirit back within herself. She opened her eyes and found a face-full of Nicholas looking her over.

"Now then, would you care to explain just how my daughter got inside you?" he asked.

"She would not," North interrupted. "Now Nick, you of all people should know about asking an Observer about the future."

"These two are Observers?" he asked his friend.

North nodded. "Most definitely," he said. "Now then, aren't you on a clock?"

"Oh, geeze!" Wolfwood exclaimed as he looked at his watch. "How long have I been down here?"

North looked at his chronograph. "About twenty minutes. You've got roughly another ten minutes maximum.

"Before what?" asked Meryl and Vash.

"Oh nothing much," North commented, "just that The Source crashes, all mayhem breaks loose, and I think the lemmings start stampeding."

"LEMMINGS START STAMPEDING!?" Vash screamed. "NOO! YOU!" he barked at Wolfwood, "GET BACK UP THERE! WE CAN'T LET INNOCENT RODENTS STAMPEDE!"

"Is he nuts?" T.E. asked as he watched Vash grab his old friend and vanish for The Source.

Meryl shook her head and groaned. "Uuh, most of the time, yes."

"I don't know," Knives smiled, "I find my brother to be refreshing sometimes."

The fact that Knives was smiling at all gave Meryl a creepy feeling. She shivered and shouted at the ceiling, "YOU IDIOT! YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR…"

"The funeral?" Vash finished for her as he reappeared behind her. His wings flapped once and vanished leaving a few stray feathers. "I'd never miss such an event for a friend."

Millie stood next to her grandson just looking him over. He blinked and looked at her.

"Is there something wrong grandmom?" he asked.

She reached up and straightened his uniform's collar.

"There!" she said with a smile. "Fit as a fiddle!"

"I think they're all nuts son," North said to the Lieutenant as he cleaned his glasses and started to leave the room. "You'd better run while you can!"

Puruu held her head. She noticed North leaving and followed him. Xuru joined her, not wanting to be asked unwanted questions alone.

Puruu was surprised to see that North was waiting for them outside the room. Xuru bounced off her back. He was looking them over.

"Let me guess, Nepto suggested this look," he noted. The two girls looked at one another and nodded. "This was not the sort of thing you expected in your interviews, was it?"

They shook their heads. "Sir, why didn't Kinza tell me?" Puruu asked.

"That T.E. survived?" He scratched his head. "Remember how sick he was, Puruu. It may have simply slipped his mind. Mind you, he was always choosing the harder way to proceed when it came to these special tasks."

"How so?" she asked.

North leaned against the bulkhead and sighed. "Transmatting a subject out to avoid a historic error is probably the riskiest thing to do, especially when they're armed." He saw the looks he was getting from the girls and laughed. "Military pilots are armed. There are six bullet dents in the deck plates of Forrestal around the cargo transmats. If he hadn't stopped him, T.E. could have killed someone."

"Kinza stopped him?" Xuru asked. "How?"

North grinned as he remembered that day. "Your mother isn't going to like it if she finds out you shot Mr. Fuzzy!" he quoted. "Stopped him cold. He then took it upon himself to train the boy, make him realize that the future would be a wiser place to be. Granted, he was leaving much behind, and his own history would have been a great deal more impressive, but the fact of the matter is he's alive, the future is intact, and life goes on. Isn't that a kick?"

A spring morning greeted them as they exited Pegasus. Dickinson and Foley saluted North as he stepped off the ship. He saluted back.

"Is everything ready?" he asked them.

"Aye sir," Dickinson replied. "Saverem Historic site ready for internment."

"No it isn't!" they heard. They looked back to see Millie storming out of the ship. "Where's the rectory!?" she shouted.

"Oy… Miss Millie, these aren't even the original houses," Foley pointed out. "This whole area was wiped out by a tornado in 1971!"

Millie blinked. "Then what are those?" she asked pointing at the buildings that she could see up the gently sloping hill.

"Reproductions mum," Dickinson explained. "Completed about twenty years ago by the Oklahoma Historic Preservation Society - They based it on what the site looked like around 1900."

"Oh… 1910 you mean," she smiled as she held her hand over her eyes.

Dickinson and Foley blinked as she walked by. "M'am?" they asked.

"Nick's motorcycle is leaning against the barn," North whispered to them. "I told you, she's a very good observer!"

"Oh my!" he heard her exclaim. He looked up and saw what she had seen. He shook his head and laughed.

"What a showoff!" he yelled at the Cheverian as he and his rider came in for a landing on the path up to the homestead.

"He wanted to stretch his wings," Shadow giggled as Nightwatch reverted to his normal horse appearance.

"Diamond Mane!" Millie exclaimed as she ran up to her old horse and hugged his neck. "Is Betsy around too?"

"Umm… no," he said. "Betsy was a regular horse, sorry."

"Oh, that's okay," she smiled. "Hey, when did you learn to talk? And who is that riding you?"

Shadow smiled and held up her hand and pointed at her ring finger. "Put this on, signed 'S'," she said to her.

It took Millie a moment to think as she looked at her hand and saw the gold band on her own finger. "You're a jeweler?" she asked.

Shadow got up off the ground after falling off Nightwatch's back.

"Shadsie was the one who put your ring in the dresser that you found it in," North reminded her.

"Oh, I know," she giggled. "I was just kidding!"

"Sure you were," Shadow groused.

Millie sighed as she looked at the old homestead. "You know, it's a shame that the old cabin couldn't be put there as well."

"Oh, it's there mum," Dickinson said. "We put it up on the hill behind the barn, since the church is where it would have been before."

Millie turned and looked at him. "You did?" she asked.

Foley and Dickinson scratched their heads. "Well, we were there when Mr. Kinza built it in the first place. We and the Toll boys just followed his old plans again."

Millie nodded and grinned. "Then he was part of the family even before there was one!" She turned and continued on towards the house leaving some to ponder her words. Others just scratched their heads. Knives laughed and shook his.

The ground began to rumble. The procession looked over the rise of the hill beside the path as Forrestal and Exeter landed on the flat plains above the homestead. As they did, a herd of cattle was seen being moved towards the old 'Steakhouse' that was up the road. Millie sighed at the sight.

"All those years… how old was Mr. Fuzzy, Pastor North?" she asked.

He had his chronograph open. "In real years or Time-Dilated years?" he asked back.

"Huh?" she asked.

North laughed as he wound the unit and slipped it into his pocket. "Well, for your reference, he was about forty."

Puruu was close behind him when she heard the first question. "And Time-Dilated?" she asked.

North glanced back. "Ah, well, as an Observer, he worked many years outside the normal time-lines. You don't age when you're off your own personal time-line. I bet if we looked at his actual chronological time-line that we'd find he was actually around a thousand years old." He pulled out his com unit and started to tinker with it as those around him, including Vash the old man, gawked at that thought.

"One thousand seven hundred eighty six years, four months, six days, fourteen hours twenty nine minutes, Earth Greenwich Mean Time at time of death…" North's little pocket communicator said.

"What, no seconds?" Vash asked.

"Huh," North grunted. "He was older than I thought…"

They headed for the rear of the chapel. Millie stopped as she saw that the tree she loved was missing.

"I'm sorry mum," Dickinson noted. "The tornado got it as well."

She nodded and looked at the cemetery that had been beside it. The stones looked as if someone had taken care to repair any flaws or damage. She stopped at the first one and touched the rough concrete pillar that held a simple marble plaque. The name 'GERALD EDWARD SAVEREM' glared at her. Beside it was a smaller headstone that bore two names. 'GRETCHEN' was on the left side next to the pillar stone while 'DAVID SYLVAN' was to the right.

Meryl stepped next to Millie in case she needed any help. She could not fathom what it was like for her seeing where her children had been buried so long ago.

Millie laughed. "Gretchen always did have it bad for both my boys," she said. "I see she got them both!" She giggled and continued through her family's section of the yard. It was Meryl who stopped and held her breath.

The stone before her read 'MERYL EILEEN WITHERSPOON'. Next to her were her husband 'HARRISON EDWARD WITHERSPOON' and two smaller names. The first only read 'Child - Boy'. The second was 'Bonnie'.

Millie returned to where Meryl had stopped and looked at the stones. "Oh," she said.

"Those names…" Meryl asked with her hands to her mouth.

Millie looked at the ground and scratched the grass with her toe. "Umm… Meryl had a stillborn child. And Bonnie died of the influenza that hit in the early 1920s."

Meryl shook her head. "I don't know how you're doing this Millie," she said. "These were your…"

Millie shook her partner by the shoulder. "Hey! You're supposed to buck me up, not the other way around! Besides, if we have the reunion up in The Source, I'll be seeing them all again…" She glanced at the gray overcast sky. "As long as they all went up there that is…" she added as she continued on.

Millie was guided along by a keeper of the property to a spot where the earth had been opened for the grave. It was still within the section reserved for her family, and she noticed that they were beside a set of headstones. She looked at the marker and smiled, then broke into a gentle rain of tears.

"Oh, that's perfect," she said as Meryl finally got up to her and let her lean onto her shoulder. She looked at the headstone beside the hole.

"ALEXIS VICTORIA FOLKS" she read aloud. "I don't get it, why is this perfect?"

Puruu and Xuru saw the grave and understood the relationship perfectly. Mr. Fuzzy would forever be playing with his little Pun'kin. They just hoped he could handle it. They stepped aside as the casket with the six pall bearers moved towards the grave. Dallas and Harrisburg was in the front, Nepto and North were in the middle and Vash and Knives were to the rear.

The actual funeral ran for nearly three hours. Every dignitary felt the need to expound about the nobility and good deeds this lone Elb had done to the point that even Kinza would have wanted them to stop. The wildest point came when the Tomassamassa family members let loose with the traditional 'release of souls' roar. Over fifty cat-like creatures howling and yelling for all they were worth was both surprising and exciting as they bid their departed to Bahdom's Gate. Millie at one point joined in.

"Today, four families have come together to say goodbye to a favorite son," Heswald Nepto said as he addressed the gathered. "The Saverems, for whom Elb Kinza Farley was more than their protector, but for many, he was their only means of life - The crews of the Starships Forrestal and Exeter, for whom, even while ill, he managed to create a service record that was both heroic and astounding - For my own family aboard Pegasus, for whom Kinza was brother, father, son and friend - And of course, his own direct family, for whom we are eternally grateful for allowing his presence to forever grace us.

"I have had the pleasure of serving with two members of the Farley's… his father and of course Kinza. They were both student and teacher to me during our journeys, and I was proud to call them friends. Now, I could droll on about the merits, the heroics, the utter god-like life he lead… but I won't… Because in reality, he didn't. Kinza wasn't the font of all knowledge… he wasn't incredibly strong, wise or beautiful… as a matter of fact, I'm told by some of his family, he was a rather average Tomassamassa."

A murmur crossed the crowd as he leaned over the podium and held up his hand.

"What he was," he continued with his finger pointing out where he was going, "was a warrior."

The Tomassamassas voiced their approval of that synopsis with a quick cat-like roar.

Nepto held up his hands to hush them as he smiled. "Warriors do not want or need such ceremony upon their passing. Warriors want to go forth victorious in life and strong in spirit. Warriors want to die in a blaze of glory with a dagger in their hands and their enemy lying beside them. Now granted, the time when the Tomassamassian race went to battle in such a way has long since past. But each one of them still hears that primal wish in their souls. Kinza was one of these.

"A Tomassamassa prides themselves with their honor. Honor and loyalty above all else is their credo, their drive, their burden if you will. In the final weeks of his life, as he was quite willing to admit, Kinza lost much that would have been called his dignity, but he kept his honor. He kept his loyalty. And I'm proud to say, he kept my friendship."

The crowd broke into a rousing cheer as Nepto saluted the casket.

"Well, he certainly got the kitties riled up," Vash noted to Meryl. He noticed a tug on his arm and looked down to see an elderly Tomassamassa gesturing for him to bend over.

"The kitties also have exceptional hearing," she said.

"Ah ha, well… I meant kitties in a very friendly way," Vash tried to apologize before nearly getting sliced. Meryl snickered that her husband deserved that.

Nepto cleared his vocal processor. "Today we have gathered as one… diverse as a group can be, but family in every sense of the word. Brought together by a friend, a brother, an honored hero, and united in our love for this life that we knew. We shall always cherish it. We shall never forget it." With that, the Alman nodded and stepped down from the podium.

The casket was lowered into the hole beside Lexy's grave. The two containers of soil from his home world were brought along side and blessed by a Tomassamassian cleric who surprised the locals by jumping into the grave to bless it as well. He sprightly jumped out again as two Tomassamassian Nuns started to trowel the soil into the hole with golden hand spades while family members tossed in small trinkets they were carrying as they filed past.

"Well, that's different," Dickinson noted as he saw North stand.

"It's tradition," he told those around him. "Family and friends place an item that is important to them and the departed into the grave as a way to remain connected to them." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his chronograph and tossed it into the hole. Shadow held the scanning rod and reader that had been Kinza's and threw it in.

Millie sat with a look of sadness on her face. "I didn't bring anything… I didn't know…"

"I've got an idea," Vash said as he stood up from his seat and stepped outside the gathered. He first removed his suit jacket and tie then he started to remove his shirt.

"Vash! What are you doing!?" Meryl nearly shrieked.

"No, no! I think that's a great idea!" North interrupted. "Go ahead!"

Meryl looked at the Captain as if he had lost his mind. "Trust him," he told her. "He knows what he's doing."

Meryl looked back and saw that her husband had even removed his undershirt and was now concentrating. As he did, she could see that familiar glow off his back he would get when he linked up with The Source whenever he would take them up to see the Forgiveness Chapel.

There was a sudden gust of wind as his white wings exploded from his back. He had to catch his breath as he had already generated them once that day. He held his hand up to show he was all right.

"Okay folks," he panted. "Each one of you, take a feather…"

"Excellent brother," Knives said as he stroked the wings he wished he could generate as his predecessor had. He then quickly jerked one and held it up. It was at least a foot long. He was handed a tag by North and a pen.

"You at least have to let him know who it was from," he told him.

Millie looked at Vash's wings and then at his face. The one Knives had removed obviously hurt, as he winced at its removal.

"Are you sure this won't hurt much?" she asked.

"I can stand it, don't worry," Vash said. "See? The one he removed is already growing back. Just don't take it from the same spot, okay?"

She nodded and gingerly felt the smooth feather in her fingers. She grasped it and tugged… and tugged… and tugged again.

"Millie! Millie! Millie!" North yelped as he saw Vash grimace each time as if a thousand volts were being sent through him. "That's a main feather! Try that one there – it should come out easier!"

Millie clutched her face. "Oh, Mr. Vash, I'm sorry!"

"Hey," he said with swirls in his eyes. "No sweat! Here!" He reached up and yanked out a feather for her.

Meryl was next. Vash swallowed as he cleared his head. She gestured for him to lean down much like the old Tomassamassa had. This was after all 'she who must be obeyed' – He gingerly leaned over to her.

"I love you," she said as she kissed him on the cheek and plucked a feather. She then tickled his nose with it. "You're too much," she added as she stepped away and took a tag from North.

Vash sneezed then yelped as another feather was removed.

Wolfwood stood outside his chapel after cleaning up from his rapid return to The Source. He was looking up at his steeple. For some reason the bell was making a small tapping ding noise. He pondered it while scratching his head.

Tags written and tied, the family members placed their feathers into the grave. Vash used one that had come off when he had brought the wings out. He joined the group after retracting his sore wings and putting his shirt back on. He looked in on the grave and tossed in his feather along with the rest. The trinkets made for an interesting collection of mementos. Many of the Federation mourners had placed items brought along from the many adventures they had with Kinza.

"I hope that's empty," North noted of a red and white ball lying to the side of the scattered items. He noticed a sizable thump as another article was dropped in. He looked at it and whistled.

"I take it you have a spare?" he asked the android Alman.

Vash looked at the reddish gold plate that had been tossed in by Heswald Nepto. "What is that?" he asked.

"That is my Dylithium core from my recharge unit, and yes, it's a spare," Heswald noted with a sad smile as he turned and walked away.

"That seems an odd item to leave," Meryl noted. Dickinson and Foley both cleared their throats as North gave it an impressed look.

"I wouldn't say that," he told them. "To him, that is like removing your heart and dropping it in there… and also… remember that sixty billion double dollar reward of yours?" he added towards the former gunslinger. "That's worth at least three times that."

The sun started to break through the clouds that afternoon as Millie stood on the porch of the restored house she once called home. Shafts of light could be seen dancing across the vast valley of prairie and trees. She sighed as she took in the vista once again and leaned against a column.

"I can see why you loved this so," Meryl told her. "This is beautiful!"

Millie giggled. "This is… at least today it is. This area can be pretty rough weather… though it seems a bit greener than I remember."

"Weather control," Foley noted as he sat on the stoop. "There hasn't been a tornado in these parts in nearly sixty years."

Millie huffed. "That takes some of the excitement out of it," she said with a bit of disgust. "This is a wild place. It deserves to remain wild, not tamed."

"Well, they don't have total control of the weather, mum," Dickinson noted. "Otherwise, that cloud cover we had this morning would have been out of here. This place still gets its load of snow in the winter. It's just the heavy stuff the WCS controls."

She sighed. "Maybe… it still seems to lack the wildness of the past."

There was a rumble and a thumping drone. Vash suddenly came barreling around the front of the house on the reproduction of Wolfwood's Harley followed by a few of the keepers of the property.

"I can see why he loved this thing!" he yelled as he tore around the back. "I want onnnnnnne!"

Meryl sighed. Millie laughed.

"This is where I want to come," she said. "When the time comes, I want to be with my children."

Meryl looked up at her partner. "But… Millie, you haven't aged since you entered The Source…"

She shrugged. "I can if I want to," she casually noted. "I think I'll have a talk with Nicholas when I get back." She looked back at the cemetery and sighed again. "I just wished the old tree was still back there. The children always loved that tree."

Groundskeepers were finishing the filling of the grave. They had noticed the two lone figures watching them and figured they were just part of the crowds now returning to the three starships for their return voyages. They gathered their tools and dismantled the canopy that had been over the site. They left a spot ready for the new headstone that was leaning against one of the others.

"Thank you," Puruu said to them. "May we have a moment alone here?"

The faces of the men seemed to go blank for a moment as her words seem to mesmerize them. "Yes m'am," they blankly said as they gathered their wheelbarrows and headed for the barn.

The girls reverted to their normal forms. Xuru stretched her wings making them snap in a nasty way.

"Oh, that feels better," she said. "What a day… So, how long have you been carrying Lexy?" she asked her friend.

She looked down and saw Puruu on her knees before the grave praying. "Aww… must you?" she complained. She looked around the grounds and felt about. There were a few that had gone to her home rather than Puruu's… that was good. But that particular part of the cemetery seemed too clean for her tastes. The souls there had been all pretty clean… save maybe James Patrick there… one too many lies in his youth.

She felt a hot sensation to her left and looked over at Puruu, who had started emanating that cursed holy light again, though this time she was also spreading her own wings. She covered her face as the image of someone stepped out of the Goddess-in-training.

"Well, I'll be damned," the vision said. "They did put me next to Lexy."

Xuru stood in shock. "How… ha… HEY! How long have you been carrying him in you as well!?" she yelled.

Puruu sighed as she released her bond to the soul that was standing before her.

"Whoa! Don't do that!" the Junior Demon yelped. "He'll dissipate!"

Puruu shook her head. "He hasn't been to Bahdom's Gate yet. He's a freed soul right now."

Kinza grinned. "Yea, I thought I'd take in Philly first," he said with a grin and a wink towards Xuru as he sat on his headstone. Xuru jumped and laughed.

"All right!" she cried. "Still in for the adventure! Won't they be waiting for you up there though?"

"Where's the excitement in that?" he remarked. "I'll get there sooner or later. Right now, there's another adventure waiting me down this road, not that one. These last few years made me remember just how much I missed that. Oh, and by the way…" He reached down into the soil of his grave and pulled the Dylithium pack Nepto had placed in there. "…Please return this to Mr. G… tell him I appreciate the gesture, but he doesn't have a spare. Besides, North was right… these are expensive."

Xuru caught the tossed plate of crystal. "So, you're really going to, well… Hell?"

Kinza burst out laughing. "I've been told I was going there all my life, I might as well check it out first hand! HA! Naa… maybe the outskirts… I don't think your father would be too happy with a freed spirit loose in the underworld, now would he?"

"Especially the one responsible for the Treaty of Advent!" Puruu giggled.

Xuru nearly burst on that. "Oh, that would be precious to see! Daddy would turn yellow!"

Kinza laughed then looked at the two ladies. "Look, I always told you two that we'd meet again, so this is not goodbye. I'm sure we'll see one another."

"Hey, I'd join you on that trip, if they'd let me out of school," Xuru grinned.

"Well look me up on your summer vacation then!" he said as he lifted off the headstone and floated briefly. He then shook has head and landed.

"I'd rather walk," he stated. "I haven't had a good walk in years." He started to turn away when he spun back to face them with a grin.

"One more thing for your project you should know," he told them as he stepped over to a Saverem headstone. "I know where this name came from."

Puruu oohed and produced a notepad. "Yes? Yes?"

"Tell me you didn't give them that name!" Xuru exclaimed.

Kinza smirked. "No… S.A.M. did…"

The girls looked at one another. "The COMPUTER!?"

Kinza laughed. "Yup," he said as he put a paw over the last three letters in the name and gestured to it.

"Save," Puruu read the remaining word.

Xuru slapped her forehead as Kinza removed his paw. "REM!" she yelped as she read the remaining letters.

"Project Save Rem…" he said shaking his head. "You'd think someone would have been a bit more creative…" He gave a howling laugh as he turned to leave.

He looked up at the house at the remaining people who had gathered for his funeral. One stood out, because she was looking right at him.

"Hey," he asked, "does she see me?"

Puruu looked up at Millie. She smiled. "Try waving."

Kinza waved his paw. Millie waved back.

"Dang… Vash was always right about her. She is observant!" Kinza said as he turned to walk down the path towards Laverne Station. He turned to look back and saw that Knives had joined her on the porch looking.

"What do you see?" he asked her. "Is he there?"

Millie looked at Knives then back at the downward sloping hill. "He's waving and walking down the road. He's fading… I… I don't see him anymore…"

Knives drew in a breath. Meryl touched him on the shoulder. She was surprised as he spun around and started to cry into her shoulder.

"Why couldn't I see him? Why couldn't I see him?" he moaned.

"Goodbye Mr. Fuzzy," Millie said under her breath.

The long stretch of road that had once started out as only a dirt trail, then a buggy path, now a paved street lay quiet in the open fields under a midday sun. Around a bend came a Tomassamassa running for all he was worth. He was followed by a blond-haired man riding a vintage motorcycle!

"AW COME OFF IT VASH! I KNOW YOU CAN'T SEE ME, BUT WOLFWOOD ALREADY RAN ME OVER WITH THAT THING!" he was shouting.

"Whoo hoo! This is a blast!" Vash cried oblivious of the bear-cat he was running down.

"SCRAGG!"

oOo

Next Episode

I can't believe my partner!

She went off and interviewed Kinza all by herself!

Well I can do that just as well!

And I know just who to interview

Next Chapter of T:MC – The Oklahoma Years – Pistol Sermons – Interview with Wolfwood – Part One

I can't let Puruu have all the fun now, can I?

Robert North, Tolefson, Dickinson, Foley, Frean Lar, Roy Strom, Puruu, Xuru, Nightwatch (Diamond Mane), The Observers, Heswald Nepto (Mr. Gizmo), Koni, Lotha Farley, Kinza Farley, Ariel, Hank Josephs, Mother, GCS Hydron, GCS Pegasus, UNS Forrestal, UNS Exeter, Scat Backs, SAM System ©2004, 18 DMS – Used with Permission
Alexander Ramsey (Alex) ©2004, 18 The Estate of Barbara Ann Doms/DMS – Used with Permission
Shadowcat (Shadow, Shadsie) ©2004, 18 S. Nordwall – Used with Permission
PokéBall ©1996, 2004, 18 Nintendo/The Pokémon Company
"Lord of the Rings" ©1954, 2004, 18 The Estate of J.R.R. Tolkien
"The Chronicles of Narnia" ©1950, 2004, 18 The Estate of C.S. Lewis
"Rumpole of the Bailey (she who must be obeyed) ©1975, 2004, 18 John Mortimer/ITV/Thames Television/FremantleMedia
"GHOST WARRIOR" (Bōrei Senshi) ©1976, 2004, 18 Leiji Matsumoto

Skuld (from Ah! My Goddess) ©1988, 2004, 18 Kosuke Fujishima
All characters from the Anime/Manga TRIGUN ©1996, 2004, 18 Yasuhiro Nightow
All characters from TRIGUN: MOON CHILD ©2000, 2004, 18 The MOON CHILD Project/DMS – Used with Permission

Edited 1807.18

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