...and then, I had to go wreck my nice system by extending to 54. On the other hand, 5 + 4 gets you 9, which is a very wonderful number, and filled with surprises. Gotta love that, right? Thank you for reviewing, you guys. Will respond with lightning-like speed! ;)

54

Thunderbird 5, in high, geosynchronous orbit-

Unexpectedly, Jeff got an unknown, mysterious comm-buzz. As he was right in the midst of a furious argument with Colonel Casey, he very nearly didn't pick up. Floating there in mid-dome (which he hadn't left all day, except for hurried bathroom and water breaks) Jeff glared at Casey's holo, growling,

"Mind-scrapes aren't cheap or simple to perform, Colonel. They require proper equipment and expertise. So, you tell me. If not the Unity Council, who else could've done this, and why?! International Rescue has always upheld the world government. Maybe Scott didn't want to reactivate as a fighter pilot, but that doesn't justify..."

"Jeff, I simply don't…"

By this time, they were talking over each other, in growing spirals of volume.

"Colonel Tracy," he corrected her, in a voice of pure, distilled wrath. "I'm only Jeff to my friends, and right now, the GDF doesn't qualify."

Casey inhaled sharply, then blinked; head jerking back as though rocked by a blow. She would have said something, maybe, only that sudden call came through, first. Masked and deeply encrypted, it sprang from seemingly nowhere, using a semi-private family line. Ordinarily, he'd have shunted it off to Brains. Now though, that call was the perfect excuse to ring off.

"Important message on another line," Jeff barked, already thumbing the flashing red comm switch. "Tracy, out."

Her glowing blue holo winked away like a rudely-snuffed candle, suddenly ending debate. Angry, confused and torn with unspoken feelings, the uniformed officer sat fuming alone in her office. Snapped a stylus in half, and then another, all the while staring at nothing. Then, stabbing a button on her sleek plastic desk, Casey growled,

"Get me the chancellor. I don't care what he's doing. Drag him off his d*mn secretary, if you have to. Get Rigby, too, on a second line. Now, dammit!"

Meanwhile, up in the station, Jeff had taken the risk of accepting a tightly encrypted hail. After all, what the h*ll else could go wrong?

He heard a series of whistles and beeps. Then, where Linda Casey had been just seconds before, a shadowy, distorted figure blossomed. Dark and featureless, outlined in fiery sparks, it addressed him. In a voice of hissing static, the figure said,

"Tracy: Japan belongs to the Hiros. The Hiros are shape-changers. Consider well." Just those few words, and then it was gone; vanished away before Jeff could track the call's source, or blurt a response.

XXXXXXXXXX

Somewhere else, entirely; beginning, perhaps, to forget-

Scott Tracy had never liked farm labour. Too dirty and exhausting, with d*mn little to show at the end of it all except painful blisters and crushing debt. This was different, though.

Now, instead of grumbling his way through a hated chore, Scott had swarmed up that ladder and into the dim, fragrant hay loft like a pirate scaling the mast of a captured schooner. Grinning, he threw open the big doors at the gabled far end, letting in sunlight as more than just shy, peeping beams. Plenty of gusty warm air, too.

Leaned out a little and waved to Granddad, waiting in the barnyard below with a tractor and wagon.

"How many, Sir?" he called down, as Rusty ran hither and yon, scattering chickens and barking like a fool. Granddad lifted a hand in reply, calling back,

"Five bales, and a sack o' sweet-feed. South pasture ain't producing like she oughta. Come Friday, we'll switch th' herd ta th' west thirty. Careful with them bales."

"Yessir," Scott replied. There were tools, big hooks for grabbing and slinging the prickly gold hay bales, but he felt stronger and younger than he had in years. Muscled that hay right onto the harness and winched it down, himself. Experienced things he hadn't in ages, and enjoyed every d*mn one of them.

Tiny motes danced in bright sunlight, stirred by the breeze of his work. Scott's footfalls thudded on creaking wood, as a family of half-feral cats looked on, seeming amused by his effort. Tabby or calico, most of them. Half didn't even have names (to any but Kayo, who'd adopted them all).

Slinging those heavy bales, Scott worked up a sweat and an appetite, actually forgetting for several long minutes that he'd ever lived anywhere else. That this wasn't his "normal". Could it be, though?

Scott paused for a minute, up in the hayloft; sweating, happy and puzzled. Watched swallows darting to and from their homes in the rafters, making their own sort of warbling music.

Could he choose to stay here, where nothing had ever gone wrong? If he did, what would that mean for the rest of his family, out there? Could he reach them, somehow? Was he dead? Were they trying to find him, or putting him into the ground?

"Ain't got all day, Boy!" he heard, from outside and below. Granddad, still waiting.

"Yes, Sir! I'm wrapping it up!" Scott called back, mopping his brow with a damp plaid sleeve. Got those last few bales down to his grandfather, then descended the ladder in two jumps, loping across the barn to the locked metal bin that held the sweet-feed and cracked corn. Well… supposed to be locked. Kayo 'd evidently forgotten to seal it up tight again, after feeding the chickens.

Scott shook his head as he hauled out a feed sack and tossed it up onto one shoulder. He'd have to have a talk with that girl… but wouldn't tell Granddad. No sense troubling the Old Man with what he could handle himself, on the down-low.

Rest of the day went like something out of a dream. Hopped on that beat-up green tractor with Granddad, got the cows fed. (Jerseys, most of them. Only the bull, Ferdinand, was a white-face.) Worked his ass off… but talked and listened, too. Asked questions. Laughed at deadpan jokes told in a rumbling drawl he'd never expected to hear again, ever.

Know what was funny, though? No headaches or blood-pressure dizzy spells. Not one. Then, as they were heading back to the barnyard, with the sun setting orange and full in a gem-coloured sky, Grant Tracy gave his oldest grandson a sideways glance and said,

"Don't suppose you've changed y'r mind… about takin' over th' place, once I'm gone?"

Scott, startled, turned from watching the fields, the slow, flat river and huddled cottonwoods.

"Sir?" he asked. See, in real life, he'd been much younger when a massive heart attack had killed his grandfather, and the subject had never come up.

Still driving the tractor along the pasture-access road, Granddad mused,

"This land's been in th' family f'r a long time, Scott… an' I figure y'r daddy ain't interested. He wants…" Grant gestured upward with one big, rough hand. "…space. Adventure. Not a buncha d*mn cows, an' work that don't never stop. Cain't see John Matthew takin' it over, neither. He's got th' same bug as Jeffery, ta see them stars up close. Th' young 'uns, well…" Grant shrugged his broad shoulders, straining that faded plaid shirt. "No kid wants ta be tied down ta th' land, anymore. Don't set right ta just up an' sell, though. Given it any more thought?"

Scott opened his mouth to speak, then shut it, again. Looked at Granddad's weary, hopeful face, with its bright blue eyes and deep smile lines. Teenaged Scott would have said no, pure and simple; wanting wings, not a d*mn tractor. Near thirty-year Scott had a different perspective.

"Sir," he admitted, after a brow-furrowed moment or two, "I'm not a very good farmer."

Granddad snorted with sudden laughter.
"No one is, at first. They learn as they go. Get a feel f'r when ta do things. What ta plant, when ta sell off some a' th' herd. How ta make good things grow. We've allus managed, since y'r lotta-greats granddaddy, Jake, first bought th' place."

Scott nodded, riding easily with the rumble and sway of their big green conveyance.

"Only, then dad got a wild hair up his… um… decided he wanted to fly, right?"

Granddad sighed, feeling around in the pockets of his denim jacket for a packet of cigarettes and an unbroken match.

"That's about the size of it," he agreed, letting Scott handle the controls while he shook out a 'coffin-nail' and lit up. "Now you an' John Matthew 're all et up ta join the academy, too."

The wagon jounced and creaked behind them, hitting ruts every so often. Distant cow bells tinkled, and the house lights were just coming on, as Grandma rang the dinner bell. Scott took it all in, marveling.

"Sir," he began, after another few moments of silence and billowing smoke, "Let me think it over."

Grant Tracy seemed to relax, as though he'd been holding his breath, or something. Nodding, the big, silver-haired farmer said,

"Cain't expect no more 'n that from ya, Boy. It'd set me at ease, some, is all, knowin' th' place 'd stay in th' family."

Scott wanted to hug him and stop all that talk about passing the property on. Granddad was here, now… and Mom, too, in a Kansas that somehow was still hale and beautiful. Could… could he keep it that way?

As they reached the barnyard, then had to uncouple and put up the tractor and wagon (no fancy hangar-rides, here) Scott surprised himself. Leaning across to touch the older man's hard-muscled arm, he said,

"I love you, Granddad… and, if I decide to stay, that'll be why, right there."

Grant Tracy just cleared his throat and stubbed out the cigarette, busying himself with machine, shed doors and jingling keys; looking everywhere else, but at Scott. Then,

"Them words don't get said a lot… but that don't mean they ain't felt. Reckon I love you, too, Boy. Now… let's wash up an' get ta supper, afore th' women-folk toss it all out f'r th' dog."

They met up with John (smelling like horses and sweet-feed), then took turns at the hose, getting "respectable". Left their boots on the porch, then went on into a big old house alive with noise and light and laughter; filled with the scent of good food.

And somehow, bit by bit, over pot-roast, biscuits, mashed potatoes, baked beans and cherry cobbler, his other past started slipping away. What with Virgil recounting the details of an upcoming concert, Gordon clowning around making faces on the plate with bits of his supper, Alan and Kayo competing for the last scoop of cobbler... With mom secretly drawing on the art pad she'd hid on her lap… Grandma piling more food on his plate… how could Scott worry? How could fear and pain touch him, here?