3
The traveling group then encounter another survival group led by Ian,
established on a river bluff. There Frank meets a new love in Madge, a mute
cook. Red helps an old timer at the camp cobble together a wood gas generator
for the antique tractor.
The rogue military unit follows, as Colonel Cage and others assigned to quell
the ranch rebellion have broken orders. On the move again, the group encounter
an innovative houseboat city afloat in the river, using plastic bottles as
floatation devices. They arrive at a dome city under the protection of benign
visitors, the Zetas. The dome city is self sufficient, growing food indoors.
The city mayor, Jonah, is an obvious contactee and hybrid children live at the
dome city. After a battle in which the protection of the Zetas plays a part,
the residents of the dome city find they have some friendly new neighbors, not
entirely human.
Danny and Netty are taken on a tour to meet alien lifeforms. Billy is the tour
guide. They meet an intelligent octopus, a hominoid pair with thick plate
covered skin, an intelligent jellyfish in a living ball of water, and
intelligent manta rays living on a poisonous gaseous planet.
4
-Prolog-
Martha, as a little girl, is in the swamp near the ranch home where she is
being raised by her father as an only child. Martha is dressed in a short
sleeved T-shirt and blue jean coveralls with the name “Martha” stitched in
faded red lettering across the left side of her coverall bib. She is barefoot,
hair in pig-tails, an obvious tom-boy. She is munching half a sandwich as she
approaches a clearing at the edge of a pond. There is a large tree at the
edge, with another nearby laid out on the ground with the top branches
splashed into the pond. The roots of the fallen tree have pulled from the
ground, forming a disc of tangled roots as tall as a man, leaving a shallow
hole in the ground where the tree used to stand. Grass has grown around this
area, as sunlight can now get through.
Martha is listening to the thrumming of the frogs, a chorus, and has stopped
munching her sandwich in fascination, looking out over the pond in a type of
rapture. There is a splash to the side, a racoon at the waters edge, and
Martha forgets the frogs, turning her head sharply toward the sound with a
slight smile. She knows this racoon. She leans over putting her sandwich on
the grass and creeps back behind the huge roots of the fallen tree, which
easily hide her small frame which is half the size of the root base. The
racoon scuttles over to investigate the sandwich, then chitters at something
it sees descending from the sky. The area is lighted, soundlessly, for a
moment, while the racoon grabs the sandwich and runs off with it.
A sport size space ship, 25 feet in diameter, is descending rapidly into the
clearing Martha is exploring. Motion is very rapid at first, slowing suddenly
near the ground. A ramp lowers from one side, and a small beige Zeta bounds
out, not bothering to walk down the ramp as much as touching the ramp only at
a couple points. Another floats out, touching down on the grass. Martha has
her mouth slightly open, is blinking a bit too much, and is stepping further
behind the tree roots.
A small beige colored Zeta, no larger than Martha, comes around the root base,
leaning forward head first as though to establish eye contact first, to not
startle Martha. He walks up to Martha, takes her hand, and turns to lead her
back into the grassy area at the edge of the pond. Martha displays no fear.
Two other little Zetas are outside the ship on the grass, one bent over and
reaching a hand out to the racoon who is also not fearful and standing on rear
legs, as though the two of them were having a conversation, silent and
telepathic.
_______________________________
5
Now in the current day, the fallen tree has rotted, is sinking into the
ground, and more brush has grown up where the grass used to be. Billy wades
along the edge of a pond, his jeans rolled up to just below his knees and his
shoes tossed on the edge of the pond. The water is cool against his bare legs,
taking his mind off the hot sun. A large fallen tree that has thrown its
branches into the pond when it fell has rotten so that most of the branches
are broken off and sinking into mud. The trunk of the tree is falling apart,
covered now with moss in places, and brush has grown up along the sides of the
tree. The rain has reduced to a steady drizzle and drip, the fallen tree
looking wet and Billy’s flannel shirt looking damp and clingy.
Billy freezes and moves slowly, his hands out in front of him as though to
grab something as he lowers his body slowly toward the side of a tall grass
clump at the edge of the swamp. He grabs a frog.
The frog is struggling, long legs hanging down and kicking. Billy lets it go,
the frog leaping out of his hands into the pond. He’s good hearted, while
being all boy. He leans back against the fallen tree trunk, digging a cookie
out of his pocket and takes a bite. Billy looks around the swamp edge,
scanning the water. All is silent, no chorus of frogs. A puzzled look comes
over his face. He blinks.
_______________________________
Red is in the tool room in the barn, hiding out again. Retirement does not
suit him, and where he has no cause to regret living with his daughter on the
farm, being a perpetual guest is also a difficult role for the guff old man to
maintain. Here, among the tools, he is in his realm, unchallenged as the
