I was born and live in Wisconsin, the state which had the distinction of reporting more UFOs than any other except New Mexico. My novel started as a personal journal of recurring dreams. Then I thought it would be interesting to read if I embellish and share it. Enjoy.

Virana's people needed answers. Why did the vicious heat wave appear threatening all remaining life? Could they learn fast enough to save themselves?

Miri and Johny Soliquiy, two brilliant scientists and the only telekinetic adults on the planet, designed the image-processing computer to heal the atmosphere.

Something did not want Virana or its people to have any healing. A shadow monster that cast only one shadow under the solar system's two suns got to Virana ahead of the hostile aliens controlling it. It wanted Johny and Miri alive and the computer for its masters.

They would soon need to answer a different question. Could they accept what they used to believe about themselves to be mostly wrong?

Excerpts below -

Another atmospheric heat surge struck the overseers' administration building. This time it shook Mortimus out of his exhausted sleep.

I must have fallen asleep again. Having trouble breathing, with the heat getting worse. Why are we being punished? Every kind of rock, air, water sample and everything else we can get it being studied. Even one of our ships is on its way back from the northern continent with samples. We learned more geology and meteorology in ten months than the last ten years and still it's not enough. Not even with the teraplex computer solving all the linear equations because the weather is changing in ways the equations can't predict.

Our scientists even revived an ancient branch of mathematics. Their fractal equations are describing the weather perfectly. But they have so far failed to predict how far the heat wave will rise.

The Sungala Institute on this continent is the only one on Virana known to have its teachers alive. The teachers took over existing weather records before adding to them. They say Sungala's files are so extensive it would take even the teraplex computer years to analyze them. How can their librarians have no idea what went wrong with the weather?

Dear God above, I sincerely wish for better immediate and permanent changes unprecedented in the history of Virana. The heat has already killed millions of us. But if we are going to die, can I at least know why?

Our scientists have nearly been cut off from communicating with each other on this continent. So many communications towers smashed by the heat surges. The atmosphere is so turbulent that the hand-held radios can't transmit more than a mile now and it's getting worse. It's taking the stronger transmitters in the carriers just to get through from the ground to the satellites that listen on their frequencies.

Not even Miri or Johny have an answer. They have always come up with an answer. Why not now? I have been told we are running low on food and the nuclear reactors with the new magnetic containments we were counting on are close to useless.

Miri first developed the ideas that have kept the energy plants going as long as they have. Johny has solved problems that nobody else could understand. Why can't they and the others understand the weather? thought Mortimus to himself as he opened his steel-gray eyes and raised his head and arms from the desk full of reports, some of which fell off as he sat up.

It was the middle of another night in which he sat behind his desk. His desk faced away from the wall with the boarded up window, a single window nearly the size of the wall. The entire ceiling glowed with diffuse lighting. The rest of his office had its walls lined with filing cabinets full of reports and studies leaving only enough room for the two doors opposite each other and next to the wall with the window.

A single computer terminal on his desk displayed a flashing black cursor in the middle of a blank white screen. Mortimus pushed one button on the terminal's keyboard. The screen went blank. He looked at his reflection and straightened by hand his partially gray hair. Then he looked up at the wall opposite him.

A color video screen half the height of the wall from the ceiling on down and as wide as the wall faced his desk from across the room. On its left side appeared a series of illustrations of samples collected and analyzed along with images of technical modifications to air conditioners, cars and nuclear power plants needed to keep them working at all. Images of the new land-based carrier and airwing designs appeared and stayed there while everything else faded out. The airwing's image rotated showing its sleek design with the control room blending into its nearly semicircular wings. Its existing propulsion systems and the proposed gravity drive appeared on the screen's right side.

Mortimus desperately studied every report handed him by every researcher. Exhaustion had forced him asleep once again. He picked up he reports on the floor and put them in two lower desk drawers, one on either side of him.

He got up, walked through the open door, stepped into the deserted glass wall and ceiling corridor, and looked out across Sealane. To the southwest he could see the airfield standing idle. The atmospheric heat surges threatened even the airlifters. He looked at the buildings around him.

The architects were so proud of all those beautiful windows. They allowed the light from both suns into the buildings from both suns for most of the day. And the buildings themselves almost blend in with the natural curves of the terrain. The continental windsteams have caused no major damage to these structures.

And it was no small triumph to keep the grass, smaller plants and trees alive in this heat. Still, I wish the windjammers would grow here.

All those stars. Could other people be in trouble on other planets?

What is that? The stars are being covered over. Its shadow is on the ground. Fear? What kind of fear is that? It can't be. Both moons are full. It can't have only one shadow. It just can't. What can't have only one shadow? It feels like more than absence of light. It feels like an absence of … Something is coming this way.

Run in the office. I can't move. The shadow is coming for me. I can't stop staring at it. It wants something from me. What is … What about Johny and Miri? They are different. But those early medical reports were wrong. Who is asking me about what? I won't tell you that.

Hotter again? I'm standing right over a cold air vent. This administration building has Sealane's strongest air conditioner. Keep breathing. I'm sorry Johny and Miri. Please let me breathe. They were never disabled as originally feared. They are somehow able to learn whatever they need to know to get something done. He did behave differently when he was growing up and remains different from the rest of us. It's a result like his learning ability and not a nervous system fault. That's what the neurologists told his parents. Miri is the same but more emotional in her reactions to stress because an injury prevented her from taking that course with her husband.

Worse breathing and hotter again? You promised. Why have you come here to Virana? What else do you want from me? No, I won't bring the other overseers or our personal technicians to you. I refuse.

Can't stand up my legs are so weak. I'm kneeling down over this vent blowing in my face and I'm still getting hotter. I took the bronchodilator before I fell asleep. I should be breathing better. My vision is going blurred and dark. What is that feeling? Dear God no it feels like something is being torn out of me and that's why I'm getting weaker. Who is that lying on the floor? It's me on the floor! How can that be me if I'm alive here? Alive where if that's me? Can't see anything now. Who are you? Why are …

The following conversation is taken from Chapter 4. It features Johny, one of two telekinetic adults on Virana, and Julie, a teenager who is the best telepath on the planet. She had received a warning about genetics. Miri is Johny's wife. They are in a race against time and a powerful enemy they know almost nothing about. The windjammers are a race of trees. The ridge is a heat-resistant barrier the characters believe has protected the windjammers in Valley of the Ages from volcanic lava, the valley they had just driven out of. Going to the beach party refers to using a special device to help them recall a happier time. The image processor is the computer Miri and Johny designed to heal the atmosphere.

There were no more stars of any color visible in the cloudless blue and aqua sky streaked with magenta. The single shadows cast down into the valley were shortening. Double shadows appeared for mountains and the carrier as the red sun rose. A trail of dust followed behind the carrier speeding through this rectangular shaped valley enclosed by gray looking, lifeless mountains on three sides. Water had been brought into this valley by redirecting the spring. Life followed. Both were gone now.

"I thought volcanoes have their lava erupting around all sides of them," said Julie looking back east.

"They do. It runs down on all sides of every volcano on Virana except if it's been damaged on one side and …" Johny stopped himself when he realized her point.

The Towers were the four defiant exceptions to the answer he just gave her, exceptions to the known laws of physics that Johny realized had earned these volcanic mountains the distinction of having their attributes ignored.

He slowed the carrier to half its original speed, looked out the driver's side window and back in the direction of the Towers, then turned around and accelerated again.

She was painfully right. Johny considered himself an objective and insatiably curious observer working as a scientist. All of it had somehow been directed into Valley of the Ages. How could that be if the Towers all had flat tops? The windjammers grew on lava from erupting volcanoes after it cooled. If the black ridge was not there to begin with, how did it get there to protect the windjammers? For that matter, did the Towers or ridge show any sign of erosion? No.

Painfully right. He could appreciate more clearly now other people's reluctance to accept new findings, or old findings, that had never been considered before. What other information might already be available to them and they just could not or would not see it?

"I just don't know of anything in this valley that could deflect molten rock."

Johny and Julie were the only two awake. She put her head on his shoulder.

"Julie. Did any of your monsters come from other planets?"

"Yes, but how could they have our DNA if they're monsters?"

"First tell me. Can you handle this conversation?" he asked her.

"Yes because I saw what my monster threatened to do. What about you?"

Johny looked back at the other three sound asleep. "If you help me. The monsters intend to turn us against each other. We might be able to turn their plan against them. There's no way I can prove it but I have the feeling if they have a weakness it is underestimating you. Would you be able to help us if we get separated?"

"You got it. What do you want me to do?"

"I might be the one who forces you to run. But Julie I promise as long as I'm alive and control my mind I will help all of us."

Julie knelt on the seat to hug him as tightly as she could and repositioned herself to put her head on his shoulder again.

Johny smiled at her and turned his head to look at the others. They were sleeping. He reached into a shirt pocket for a wrapped package half the size of the environment scanner.

"Not even Miri knows about this. Don't open it or read the directions unless you and I are separated. That way anyone looking at your mind won't know what this is. And don't tell anyone else."

"Any theories?" questioned Julie to change the subject as she put it in her pocket and closed the snap.

"Aliens or unknown unclosed doorwave transmissions. And right now I don't know which theory if either I believe. I don't want to use my reception telepathy or you your stronger telepathy with something we have virtually no understanding of."

"Or both together," said Julie.

"Without knowing what we're up against we could both be overpowered."

"No, I mean what if both your theories are the right ones?" Julie asked him.

"You mean alien relatives could have an unclosed doorwave transmitter. But who would know Virana is here?"

"Anyone looking this way with the right instruments."

"Julie, did I just say relatives?"

"Why not? Couldn't we watch somebody else if we knew where to look and where they were?"

Johny let go of the right hand joystick to put one arm around her for a few seconds. "Like I said. You're with us. I don't know if we could get there and succeed without you."

The valley around them became brighter and hotter. The carrier's air conditioner responded automatically. Both suns were clearly visible in the sky.

"That's going to make us easier to see. But I'm glad it's daylight again and everything has two shadows. Let's say we are talking about someone watching. Who would want to watch us and find out what?" said Johny.

"I'm happy for the daylight too. Somebody who wants this planet all to themselves. Or something else," said Julie.

An atmospheric heat surge hit the carrier sideways lifting the driver's side an inch before letting it down. An audible alarm rang once before Johny quickly silenced it by pushing one button. Both looked back at the other three who repositioned themselves without waking.

"We're going to have more of that to look forward to. Or somebody who doesn't like us. You're interested in natural life and weather aren't you?" Johny asked her.

She nodded with her head up against his shoulder.

"Then why are you getting all these ideas to help us?"

"I don't know," said Julie looking suddenly confused.

"Thank you for saying that. And don't worry about getting information. What if we have good relatives and bad relatives?"

"You're the scientist. Why don't they give you the ideas?"

"If the bad ones heard a transmission to me, they could get to me through that unclosed doorwave while I'm awake. So the risk is to you so if you got hurt while you're awake I could still keep going and start the image processor," Johny told her and then hastily reconsidered.

"Julie, I'm sorry. I'm not thinking clearly. I didn't mean for it to come out like that."

"I told you by the cave I'm expendable compared to you."

"And I told you no to that."

"We do have good relatives. They're helping all of us," said Julie.

"Same promise."

"What else do we know?" she asked.

"Supposedly my monster is coming after me last."

"Because it's doing other things against you first."

Johny said nothing.

"Please Johny, for all of us hold on. You made me a promise. I expect you to keep it," she insisted.

"One kept promise coming up. Helping all of us," he replied and continued their conversation.

"Let's look at things. Outnumbered by armed pursuers chasing us and in front of us. Telekinesis doesn't work on Mike. All of us put together couldn't win a fight against him. Len has my tactical skill and is faster at using it. And Mortimus out performed both of us during that strategy course. I can't read Mortimus's mind at all. We don't know who might be controlling them or what they want. How do we take all that and turn it to our advantage?"

Julie let go of Johny and sat straight up by herself. She had her eyes closed and was barely breathing.

"Julie?"

"They said look for advantages within what we know and can do," said Julie opening her eyes. "First, the bad ones think they have a big advantage because you won't even consider killing your friends."

"That's right. What else?"

"Don't let it get us wide awake like it tried to do in Sealane and the cottage. They said to me it's only in our dreams so far. If it can't get us wide awake, it can't control us awake."

"You mean when all of us got so scared and barely managed to keep ourselves from blind panic in the cottage?" Johny asked her.

"Yes and you saved us by taking us to the beach party. I tried to think to them how to get Mortimus away from whatever is making him sick but I don't think they can. I think they said something has to happen here first with the image processor," said Julie.

"OK but for your safety don't talk to them anymore. Only listen. Julie? Julie what is it? You look scared again."

"The bad ones want you and Miri alive for something. Mortimus is just following orders he doesn't even realize. They want to take you back after they get here," said Julie.

"Get here from where?" Johny asked her.

"I don't know because the good ones said it's too far away for us to understand. We couldn't even get there at all even if we had spaceships faster than light and we don't have anything like that. The bad ones want to know about something with you and Miri."

"You said the bad ones want Miri and me alive."

"Yes and only you two."

"Just us?"

"They're asking about what makes you the only two telekinetic adults on this planet with telekinesis."

"We don't know ourselves yet because there just hasn't been enough time for …" Johny was taken by surprise once again. "What do you mean on this planet?"

"You said yourself we could have alien relatives. And the bad ones want to know about you and Miri because you scare them."

"We scare them?"

"They think you're threatening them."

"How could I if I didn't even know there was anyone else?"

"You were working on gravity drive. I know you were just starting but couldn't it … No, that idea won't work," said Julie.

"Anything could be important," Johny encouraged her.

"Couldn't your gravity drive lead to practical distance star travel? But how could it even if the nearest stars are so far away and the speed of light is limiting us? Nobody could go to more than a few stars in just one lifetime. Even if that many."

"Nobody we know. And, do we know for sure the speed of light is just one speed in the whole universe?"

The following is taken from Chapter 5. It features Mortimus, compelled by the monster controlling him, to further torment his subordinates with their own worst fears to keep them under control. This control is temporarily broken by the windjammers, a race of trees striving to help the characters. During this time, the characters recall a happy event. The airlifter is a massive aircraft. The carrier is a land-based vehicle being carried by it. Mortimus is riding in the carrier.

Everyone heard an increasing roaring sound approaching that interrupted Mike's response. It was all too often heard through the Castleways' valleys the last few years. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up for any sign of an approaching tornado. They were relieved to see an airlifter coming from the east.

Their relief was short lived. There would be only one reason for an airlifter Len did not order and only one person with the authority to make it fly without Len being informed.

"Sir, I only see one carrier held by the airlifter," said Mike.

"The rest of you stay here and get everything operational that you can. Sergeant. The telemetry model plane. Driver, follow that landing at full speed," said Len as he and Mike got in the lightweight carrier.

The lightweight sped south along the river. This stretch of road south of the river bend curved away from the Tarlyn River. It was the only road for hundreds of miles in any direction with a clearing on both sides wide enough to land an airlifter. The lightweight and airlifter were converging in that direction.

As the airlifter descended, so did the windstorm produced by its engines. Then for a reason unknown to Len, the pilot cut power to the engines to idle speed before it came down to treetop level. The pilots had always kept their engines up to a higher speed in case their cargoes shifted unexpectedly and more recently as a precaution against heat surges. This airlifter would be gliding in for a landing.

There was no time to wonder about it. Len gave his driver an order.
"Stay back this far until we are no longer in danger from the windstorm. Then pull up next to the carrier so I can see in it."

The driver obeyed and drove ahead as soon as safety permitted. Len's renewed fear was confirmed. He did not see any sign of the carrier's air conditioner running. He did see Mortimus riding in it and speaking into a microphone. Len hastily fumbled with his carrier's radio to get it on the right setting.

"…hear me Captain?"

"Yes sir. What is your pleasure?"

"Were my orders conveyed?"

"Yes sir and already obeyed."

"What do you intend for getting the telemetry scrambler within range?"

"With your permission sir. Will you be taking the airlifter to Mirada?"

"Do you presume to second guess my judgment?"

"No sir. I was advised to make sure the telemetry scrambler gets within range of the Soliquiys. With your permission…" was all Len got out before facing a new threat.

"Do you recognize this Captain?" Mortimus held up a black device slightly smaller than the scanning units Len's brainwashed technicians were using.

"No sir, I do not."

Mortimus turned on four switches. Len saw his wife appear along side Mortimus. The image of Jacquiy looked exactly like Len remembered her with one exception. She was visibly pregnant with their baby.

It's not real. Turn away, did Len no good to think to himself.

There was something else about this new device Len had not experienced before. Something about it did not allow him to physically move at all or even close his eyes. He was powerless to do anything except look directly into the carrier clamped into the airlifter.

Mortimus's carrier rapidly filled with water. Jacquiy and Mortimus were looking straight at Len. Jacquiy screamed for help and pounded on the window. Mortimus did nothing except smile at Len. The water rose above their heads. Mortimus continued breathing normally.

Len had no choice about watching for that eternity of time until she exhaled and then inhaled water. She looked down putting her hands on her abdomen. Then she looked back at Len utterly panic stricken. At last, she stopped struggling and floated to the top of the carrier.

Mortimus allowed to the image of Len's dead, pregnant wife to remain visible floating in the water. To Len's mind and for his feelings, he just witnessed two murders committed by a man who a few days earlier would have layed down his life to help someone. It could happen again because Jacquiy and their baby were still physically alive. His torment continued as two more began.

Mortimus shouted an order into the microphone at Mike and Len's driver. "Both of you look this way now or you will be punished."

They obeyed. Mortimus turned on two more switches. First Mike and then the driver were physically paralyzed exactly as Len had been.

Mike saw a spider appear on the window right in front of Mortimus's water filled carrier. It jumped across to the lightweight's window right in front of Mike. It passed through the window. It clung onto the inside surface of the window.

Mike could do nothing but watch and breathe as it jumped from the window onto his left arm. It wasn't just a poisonous spider. His original rescuer stepped on the spider breaking three of its legs. Now this apparition walked up his arm on five good legs and jumped onto his neck. There it stayed as the driver's ordeal began.

The driver's monster learned what happened to her in the Miffline nuclear research facility. It brought her nightmare to her no more than a few hours ago while she slept in her carrier being flown by an airlifter. She was about to encounter the nightmare again, this time wide awake.

She had been working on magnetic containment for nuclear energy research. She was there in Miffline during an accidental malfunction in the containment field, the same malfunction that led to the carriers' magnetic propulsion systems. She was the only one injured by the malfunction for reasons no one could explain.

She later told her doctors the magnetic malfunction totally disconnected all sensory input into her brain. She experienced the blind terror of a human brain having no information reaching it at all. Thankfully it lasted no more than a few minutes. Even so, her recovery and reorientation to the world around her took days of time.

Once again and this time at the hands of Mortimus, her vision went so dark there was no perception of even the color black. Her hearing fell dead silent. She tried to pinch herself but was unable to feel her arms moving. She had no voice she could summon to scream out loud. Any feelings of having a body or a mind were gone. There was nothing she could touch and nothing touched her. She experienced no passage of time in this short eternity of hell. She experienced nothing except her own self-awareness inside of some kind of nothingness.

Then it ended for all three of them. The water and image of Len's pregnant wife vanished. All three could move again. Mike found no sign of a spider anywhere. The driver turned herself all the way around several times as though she were taking in the experience of vision for the first time in her life.

Mortimus had one final order. "Sergeant. Take the telemetry jamming plane to my airlifter's control room now."

Mike grabbed the little plane and ran out of the carrier with it. He ran forward and handed it to someone reaching his hand out of an access panel, turned around and started running back to the lightweight carrier. He almost didn't make it back uninjured.

Len saw Mortimus shout an order at his radio meant for the pilot. The airlifter's propellers increased in speed.

"Driver," was all Len needed to say.

The airlifter's engines were known to produce a back force of wind able to upset the heavier carriers. She threw herself into the driver's seat and fastened the harness only on the one latch needed to prevent her from being thrown to the floor.

Len scrambled up and ran to the back of the carrier as the driver backed it up. He pressed the switch to open the rear door. Mike jumped in and rolled forward on the floor.

Both men looked back at the airlifter as the carrier's rear door closed. They could hear loud slipping noises and see static electric discharges as the landing gears' braking systems were released. Then it came. The windstorm shook the carrier.

When she saw the carrier's rear door close, the driver accelerated forward. The gale force wind and dust storm pressed the carrier forward to accelerate faster than it could move on its own. She struggled with the controls as Len and Mike were forced back against the rear door. When the windstorm no longer threatened the carrier, Len had one order for his driver. "Take us back."

All three were far too brutally terrorized to wonder about what just happened. Mike and Len walked forward to sit behind the driver. She slowed to a moderate speed to take them back to their staging area.

Taking the telemetry jamming model plane by air provided the one best chance to get it in range of the environment scanner the five refugees had with them. The monster controlling Mortimus used valuable time further torturing submissive followers. Perhaps the monster fed on suffering and terror of helpless, innocent people.

Or perhaps the monster found something in the mind of Mortimus or Len to fear. The windjammers' healing sound might overcome the brutally tormenting conditioning unless something more was done. Taking the time to make them destroy the windjammers, even if they could without killing themselves, would mean Johny would get his wife and friends to Mirada far ahead of the ground pursuit. And the unavoidable windstorm produced during the airlifter's takeoff would be likely to start the windjammers humming.

The calming hum endured for only a few minutes compared to the day long humming produced by the continental windstreams. Still, it was living windjammers. Compassionate military commanders encouraged their traumatized subordinates to hear these trees. The windjammers provided a healing inner peace to all who heard them in a way that no one could explain or duplicate.

The humming transformed the lightweight's three occupants. Their terrified faces relaxed and soon turned into smiles. They had a friendly conversation recalling a happy memory. For the first time since their living nightmare began, Len and Mike recognized the driver as a person. Len's wife's best friend. And she recognized them.

"You were in the chapel the day Jacquiy and I registered the announcement and reservation request," said Len.

"Correct sir," she answered.

"I interviewed you and your husband at Miffline. Then you are …" said Len striving to remember her name.

"Pamela Marstead. I was so excited when Jacquiy asked me to help her decorate the chapel. And she was so nice inviting my three daughters along with us. I think they were more excited than I was," said Pamela with a happy voice and smiled as though a long kept secret was finally revealed.

"So that's what Jacquiy was so secretive about. Still secretive. I was wondering how only the two of you were able to finish the entire nature photography layout in the chapel and reception hall without me finding out," said Len to Pamela and then looked at Mike. "You helped me get the rest of Jacquiy's paintings secretly delivered to the chapel without her knowing. Then the minister kept me outside while you carried the paintings up to the front entrance and then you left with me. He said there was a message for me. The tailor needed me back right away."

Mike smiled back at Len. "That half of the secret was for you. The minister did honestly tell you the truth. But the reason you were needed back was time to set up everything. Both of you knew a few of your photographs and paintings would be there but not what we had planned."

"Those paintings in their frames had to weigh hundreds of pounds. There's no way the minister could have lifted all those in there by himself and set them up in time for the wedding," Len said to Mike.

"Never said he did," Mike replied with a widening smile.

"You drove me right back so I know you didn't take them in there. And nobody else would have had time to get there to do that after you took me back," said Len to Mike.

Pamela turned her head to smile back at Len. "Two of my daughters are telekinetic. So a few hundred pounds of paintings was nothing for them. Marsha and Tyler made sure all three of my girls got there first and then went back. Amy and Leslie had to put them in the basement of the chapel because Jacquiy came with me right after that with your photography and all three of them hid down there. After you left, they got them back up with Sarah putting them in place with the other two moving them. Same with the rest of your pictures when they got there.

"Then Jacquiy was told the dressmaker needed her back right away for the last fitting which really was true. After I took her back, her paintings were just as easy for the girls to get them up the steps. Happy surprise for both of you. And she's still trying to figure out how every last one of her paintings got in there."

"Then that explains things. Steve took me to get my suit when the tailor supposedly couldn't find what he needed to finish my fitting. But he couldn't do that for more than a few minutes without me getting suspicious. Then my mother must have let you in my apartment to get those pictures," said Len smiling back at Pamela.

"Not exactly. You were so nervous you locked your photography room door instead of your apartment entry door and took both sets of keys with you so we couldn't open it without extra help," said Pamela as she turned to look at Mike.

Len turned his head to see Mike smiling back at Pamela. Mike continued smiling and said nothing.

"I know you could break in but it wasn't damaged. The ultrasonic tools?" Len asked him.

"Your mother asked me and I asked Johny for help. His tools could do it but the vibration was so strong he needed me to help him hold onto them. So between us we got those pictures just in time thanks to Steve slowing you down," said Mike who started laughing when he turned to see Len's surprised look.

"Remind me to suggest additions for the next strategy course to the teachers. I need to know more about the sense of humor my friends have," said Len with all of them laughing out loud now.

"And you still don't know the whole story," said Mike laughing even harder.

"I definitely want to know more about your sense of humor. But first I want to know what you're both laughing about now," said Len.

"Your wedding ceremony and reception went faster than anyone anticipated. So we had to delay both of you so we could get your surprise gift to your destination before you got there. Miri and Johny told me what they did and I got Mike to you first to help you look in all the wrong places," said Pamela laughing louder than ever.

"That's something Jacquiy never found out either. What did happen to my car?"

"Miri and Johny put it on your TV station," said Mike.

"You mean up on the roof."

"That's it," said Mike laughing harder than ever to himself.

"Both of you had me looking all around the TV station and you knew it was on the roof?"

Pamela and Mike couldn't answer him because they were laughing too hard. Len burst out laughing in his loudest laugh yet.

Len almost got the chance to hug his two friends. A heat surge moved through the windjammers. Their humming abruptly ended. The heat surge hit the carrier knocking Mike and Len to the floor. When they got back on their seats, the smiling, laughing and renewed friendships were over. The desperately needed peace of mind for all three ended. The monsters were back in control.

"Accelerate and get us back there. Turn the radio on for me," were the shouted orders from Len.

"Yes sir," Pamela replied with a trembling voice.