different color, and now that they have stopped in orbit I can see that it appears that the inner wall of those drives is also a different color.” Edison thought a moment and said, “I know you are probably tempted to fire a penetrator up one of those drives to see if we could disable one of their ships, but if we do we will give away the fact that we can hide from them. We need to use this when we can do the most damage, and that would not be now.”
Joe smiled, “I agree. We’ll plan how to use this, but for now let’s try to keep them jumping around. What do you think they’ll do next?”
“Why, go to another planet and try again. Do we have Searchers at all of our planets?”
“Yes, and they have optical scanners placed far enough in-system to see if any stars have their light disrupted. We may not see them initially, but we’re confident we will see them. The problem will be if they decide to go to a planet of another race. We only have the Spider planets covered now. There are not enough ships coated yet to use for all our members.”
Edison continued to look at the picture of the brown ship’s drives, “I feel reasonably certain that their instructions are to eliminate us first. I will be surprised if they violate those.”
“We have also placed some stealth probes to follow their jump tracks, so we should be able to know where they’re going. Between the probes and the Searchers we should be able to keep the populations of most planets safe for the moment.”
“What about those planets that are not members?”
Joe was silent for a long moment, “Then there will be a huge loss of life. Those populations will not be able to teleport away. Let us hope that doesn’t happen.”
Edison looked at his screen again and agreed with Joe Gardner. “We can only hope.”
The Directors of all the invading Keepers ships were connected telepathically and had a common intelligence. “How do we account for this event?” After a few minutes of reflection the consensus of all their opinions replied, “Either all of our sensors are defective, which is highly unlikely, or the beings in this universe have a way of deceiving our scans.”
A secondary consensus commented, “Or the population evacuated as we approached the target planet.”
The sum of the Director’s thoughts reflected on that thought. “That would indicate a level of technology that is so far ahead of us that they would not need to evacuate. It also begs the question of how a population could jump away inside the barrier to star travel. It must be a means of deceiving our scanners; notice that as we moved closer the true surface of the planet was revealed. The Sensor Operators consensus asked, “Then how do we find a planet with a real population? I cannot distinguish the difference.”
The Lead Director ordered, “Pick another planet and we will go investigate.”
“The selection is on your screen, Director.”
“Edison?”
“Yes, Einstein?”
“What happens when their fleet moves out of the system and they don’t see any population on the planet? Won’t that give them a suspicion to believe the population was moved?”
Edison jumped up from his board, “Contact the leader of Hallago and have him teleport the population back in at ten percent per hour.” Edison looked at his board receiving the feed from the Searchers in the Hallago system, “They just started moving away; we have fifty minutes to get ten percent back on the planet.”
Einstein pushed his com.
“Director, my scan shows the population rising on the planet as we move away.”
“Then it must be caused by a technological device.”
“Should we send a ship back to investigate?”
The Director thought a moment, “No, we saw there was no one there. Keep me informed if the numbers increase as we move away. That will confirm a mechanism that deceives our scanners.”
After five hours the Sensor Operator thought, “The population is now at the identical level when we were here on the way to the planet.”
“We are going to have to find a way to defeat this technology. Perhaps it is only this planet that possesses it. How long before we jump to the next target?”
“Five intervals to move outside the star drive barrier, two more to organize for the jump. The next planet is fifteen intervals inside the barrier.”
The Director leaned back on his four legs, “This has been a waste of time so far. Perhaps the next target will offer an opportunity to destroy the ancient enemy.”
Jackson Grant was puzzled. The community had replaced all those taken with new births and now the population was fifty over the limit set by the Keepers. The population had never grown more than twenty over the limit without the Keepers coming to take the surplus. This was unheard of in the community’s history. How was this happening? He found his thoughts kept going to the Good Luck Man. There was just no way the two could be related, but nothing different had happened. He thought about it for an hour, then sent a messenger to bring Kathea. Kathea arrived and Jackson said, “Sit down, Kathea.”
Kathea knew Jackson and highly respected him. All the Humans gave great respect to their chosen leader, and Jackson was one that everyone liked immensely. Kathea sat down on a rocker outside Jackson’s quarters and smiled, “Hello, Jackson. Why have you called me to come here?”
Jackson looked at her and felt a love for one of his children. “Kathea, it is my understanding that you were the first to touch the Good Luck Man. Tell me about what happened.”
Kathea thought a moment, “He dropped his shovel and I noticed that he touched me on my shoulder when I bent to pick it up.”
“That’s not unusual, Kathea. Did he touch you inappropriately?”
“No, he didn’t, but he is a very good looking man and I watched him in the fields as we worked. I noticed that he touched many other women during the day. He also volunteered for water detail and continued touching other women.” Jackson nodded and continued to stare at Kathea. “I approached him that evening when we were gathered to eat and asked him why he was touching so many of my sisters.”
Jackson sat up straighter, “What was his response?”
“He said that his father told him that he was a good luck baby, and that every woman he touched would have good luck. He also said that his father believed that if he could touch every woman in the community, that the entire community would have good luck.”
“And you believed him?”
“Not really, but something happened that made me wonder.” Jackson remained silent and waited. Kathea reached up to her neck and pulled a string out of her dress and showed Jackson the small metal ring. “This ring has been handed down in my family since we first landed on this planet. It was the wedding ring of my original ancestor.” Jackson looked at the ring and furrowed his brow.
“The string broke one day several weeks before and I lost this ring in the fields. Within an hour of him touching me, I was pulling weeds from the crops and the ring came up with one of the weeds. What are the chances of that happening, Jackson? I also discovered that more than ten of my other sisters had found lost items and ten others received proposals from the ones they were hoping to marry. There was just too many coincidences, and I told others about what had happened. The rest you know about. It seems that everyone who touches him has something good happen. The community sees that we are over the limit on our numbers and the Keepers have not come to take us. There is a growing sense that all of our women want to touch him to see if what he says has any truth in it. What do you think about all this, Jackson?”
Jackson rocked and slowly shook his head, “Quite frankly I find it difficult, if not impossible, to believe he is a Good Luck Man. I also don’t remember ever seeing him before he touched you.” Kathea furrowed her brow and tilted her head, “But that doesn’t mean anything, Kathea. I’m sure there are many that I don’t know.”
“I’m not so sure about that, Jackson. Your memory is legendary.”
“Perhaps.” They both continued to rock in silence then Jackson asked, “What do you think we should do, Kathea?”
Kathea started nodding her head slowly, “I would have every female in the community touch him as quickly as possible. I’ve seen too many things happen that just can’t be explained and maybe, just maybe, there is good luck for us if we do.”
Jackson nodded and said, “I think I need to speak with him before we set that up.”
Kathea nodded, “You should. I think you’ll like him.”
