Refuge Earth: Refuge Omnibus, #1

By Foy W. Minson

Following an incident, Jason Wolfe, a widower with a ten-year-old daughter, is concerned that he could too easily leave her an orphan and is contemplating giving up his police badge.  But the issue becomes irrelevant when an armada of starships fall upon Earth in a blitzkrieg invasion of fire and death.  In their quest for survival in a world of chaos, they hook up with other survivors.  But all the monsters didn't come from the stars; some were already here — and they are human.  And then, amid the turmoil, what are the strange powers beginning to emerge among the survivors?  If it's real, is it still magic?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Foy W. Minson
• Release date: Jan 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985599206

Foy W. Minson

Foy W. Minson joined the U. S. Air Force in the summer after high school graduation, became an aircraft mechanic, and served eight years, half of it in Europe.  After that, he was a police officer for almost eighteen years before taking a disability retirement, after which he was a private investigator, a commercial property manager, a security guard, and a courthouse weapons screener.  He currently lives and writes in Santa Rosa, California.

Book preview

CHAPTER 2 – A Good Place

After a period measured by rotations on their axis of many rocky planets, the great armada was near enough to their objective to begin deceleration.  With carefully calculated adjustments, the navigators commenced easing their grip on that piece of the universe that had brought them across space, and the fleet began to decelerate.  Smears and streaks of radiation from far below infrared to far beyond ultra violet and every imaginable color in between marked the uncountable stars swarming past, their true images obliterated by the changed nature of things in faster-than-light travel.

WHEN JASON HAD BROUGHT Emmie to the Golden Gate Recreation Area, the NRA at the south end of Marin County where they could soak in the view of the entrance to the San Francisco Bay, the idea was to take his mind off the hell he had been going through.  It wasn’t working that great so far.

The three weeks since the shooting had been one interrogation or interview after another between which he toiled at one administrative task after another at a desk away from the public.  Now he had hopes that they — the FBI, the California Attorney General’s office, the Sonoma County District Attorney’s office, the sheriff’s department, and his own police department — all appeared to be satisfied that he had had no choice but to shoot Eric Morgan.  Eric’s father would probably file a wrongful death civil suit, and the city would probably settle out of court just to be rid of it.  It sure hadn't helped that they held the body so long before releasing it to the family.  But at least with all the experts agreeing, he could begin to truly believe that the shooting was justified.  He had believed from the beginning, intellectually, that it was righteous, but emotionally, he feared he would always have doubts. 

No, dammit!  I was justified!  Of course, I was...wasn’t I?  Still, maybe it’s time to hang it up, huh, Beth?  Is it time?  I always thought I’d know when it was time.  ...They’re burying him today, you know. 

Maybe he could have waited. 

In his mind, Jason could still see Eric stomping about among the debris and flailing the shovel handle.  But, maybe Eric would have stopped his final charge and put down the shovel handle as ordered.  Or, maybe he could have disarmed Eric, that moving mountain of mean, pissed-off muscle, and then subdued him until the cover units arrived.  Sure.  Maybe he would have survived being bashed with the same force Eric had used in destroying the patrol car.  Maybe Emmie wouldn’t have been made an orphan, just, at the tender age of ten, the daughter of a crippled ex-cop who would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair or flat on his back in a bed. 

Memories of that other funeral over three years past pushed into the forefront of his thoughts, and how, as much as he loved working in law enforcement, he had made a promise to a stronger love.  On that day, he stood over the gaping hole in the ground and faced the flower-draped casket perched above it, and he wondered if his emptiness would eventually turn to hatred.  The fourteen-year-old robber didn’t even know Beth.  She was just another shopper in the mini-market out in their Chicago suburb.  But, when the proprietor yelled and lunged at him instead of emptying the till, the kid panicked and started shooting, mostly blindly and unaimed behind him as he ran for the door instead of dropping his gun before running like any sensible punk.  The kid’s bullets did no harm other than chipped paint and holed walls, except for the ricochet that hit the side of Beth’s neck and ripped open her carotid artery.  Jason’s heart had still not filled with hate, and he hoped it never would, but forgiveness was also yet to come.  He could almost smell those long-since-wilted flowers as he repeated his silent promise to her lying there, that he would always put the welfare of their daughter before any other consideration. 

Then he asked himself for the umpteenth time what less risky vocation would he be willing to devote the rest of his life to, that he would be able, at his age, to become as good at as he was in his present one, one that could give him as much of a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day?  Waiting for an answer he suspected would never come, he let his eyes probe the low hills beyond the water as though an answer lingered there.  ...Maybe teaching.

Just a couple of miles across the strait from his vantage point at the Hawk Hill Vista Point, the city stretched from bay to ocean: San Francisco, that beautiful City by the Bay where falling in love was as easy as holding hands and strolling along the marina.  To sit across the table from her...occasionally touching hands, just brushing fingertips between sips of wine...   To catch the sparkle of a lone, single tear from some foolish, long since forgotten argument that died quietly in the tenderness of a kiss never to be forgotten.  ...Laughter that infected both.  Like giggling school children, they had walked hand in hand, smiling shyly at grinning passersby that turned heads to watch them dashing on down the street.  A picnic beneath...  

A light touch on his arm propped up over the back of the bench brought Jason out of his reverie.  He turned his head and looked straight into Emmie’s face while the wide brim of a floppy, brown Fedora shielded his eyes from the July sun.  It was the only thing he had kept of his deceased father’s few personal items.  Emmie called it his Indiana Jones hat.  Peering under the brim were big, hazel eyes singing to him just as her mother’s had done.     

You were thinking of Mom, weren’t you?

His mind stumbled back to the present like a man feeling his way in a darkened room, back from its hidden chamber of memories.  There was no reason to feel guilty for remembering Beth.  Still, he felt a twinge.  This was supposed to be quality time with Emmie.  He owed it to her after the nightmare of these past weeks.  Was their world to be turned upside-down again?

He took her hand in his and held it for a moment before answering, Uh huh.

I could tell.  I can always tell.  With a touch as soft as a mother’s kiss, she wiped a drop of moisture from the corner of his eye before it had a chance to grow into a tear.  I think about her a lot, too. 

He stroked his daughter’s long, golden hair that so reminded him of her mother’s.  Her pug nose and fading freckles added a Tom Sawyerish look to her face with its wide, expressive mouth and impish eyes.  They seemed to all change minutely each week, becoming an echo of her mother’s beauty that had always taken his breath away. 

Here, he patted the bench beside him.  Sit with me.

She walked around the end of the bench as she gazed out over the strait and sat next to him.  The loose, plaid shirt tucked into the waist of faded denims fluttered against her slim body with the gusting breeze. 

Did you and Mom ever come up here?

Jason’s thoughts flashed again to Beth and to the many things they had done together in the time they had here in her hometown before they were married, and then afterwards until he returned to Chicago with his new bride.  Long, chilly walks along beaches in the moonlight...   The variety of cuisines from half hidden and exotic restaurants...  The iconic cable cars...   Shop-hopping in China Town...   Nights spent in each other’s arms...

No, sweetheart, this was one place we never got to.  Sure wish we had, though.

Wow!  You can see so far! 

Far below, four and five-foot-high swells rolling through the strait seemed no more than endless ripples on a pond.  To the northwest, the great expanse of water ended at the boundary of a fog bank a few miles off-shore that curved in to enshroud the north coast.  The view to the south and southwest was clear, and details faded away in the miles that stretched to the edge of the earth.  Far to the southwest a pencil-line smudge of a ship marked the boundary of water and sky.  Two other ships, a tanker and a cargo container carrier, made slow, arcing approaches to the bay entrance.  The tanker still hung six or seven miles out when the container carrier passed Point Bonita with its lighthouse, the westernmost point of land that marked the mouth of the strait connecting ocean and bay. 

At the eastern end of the strait, the Golden Gate Bridge spanned more than a mile-wide expanse of tide-torn and wind-whipped water.  Scrub covered hills and rocky cliffs at the north end of the bridge formed the headlands at the southern end of the Marin County peninsula. 

Compact, prickly bushes covered the ground on the steep slopes between precipitous crags.  Here and there, near the tops of the hills, small clumps of wind sculpted, twisted, and stunted pines and junipers offered scant shelter against the constant wind.  Still capable of stirring imaginations were the stripped remains of several huge, underground gun emplacements — little-used coastal-defense relics of a war fought before the middle of the last century.  Two such emplacements were located just below the summit of Hawk Hill where a series of tunnels pierced the hilltop to provide secure storage of munitions and supplies as well as safety for personnel beneath tons of rock during anticipated but never-occurring attacks.  A wide, curving path led to the top where the ruins of smaller, stone and concrete walled bunkers for anti-aircraft and machine-guns from that same, far removed war and later replaced by Nike missiles, also long gone, squatted in the sunshine.  Crumbling walls bore ugly scars from the artistic endeavors of countless graffitists.  At the south edge, behind a safety railing, Jason and Emmie sat on a bench facing out over the surf pounding the rocks far below. 

How high are we, Dad?

Jason gazed across the mile of open space between them on their mountaintop perch and the bridge to their left.  Well, I’ve heard those bridge towers rise to about seven hundred and fifty feet above water level.  We’re looking down on ‘em, so I’d say we’re close to a thousand feet up.  Maybe more.

Oh, wow!  We were about this high in that building in Chicago, weren’t we?  But this is different.  And, it’s so clear!  I’m glad we moved out here.  Illinois was either too hot or too cold.  I feel like I could just reach out and touch those little houses and cars over there. 

But was it a mistake, Beth, giving up almost eleven years on the Chicago PD to come out here just to be near where you grew up?  Can Emmie and I really build a new life this close to your beginnings?  What was I thinking?  Was I thinking, darling, or just feeling — grasping?

Emmie peered across at the rows of houses on the ocean side of San Francisco.  Can you see Mom's house from here, the one where she grew up?

Jason looked across the strait to the rows of box-like structures lining tiny ribbons on which ants seemed to crawl.  If I had stayed here instead of taking you back to Illinois, you’d still be alive.  ...Or would you?  Maybe we wouldn’t even have had the few years we did have.  Maybe Emmie wouldn’t even have been born if we had stayed here.  What kind of world would it be without Emmie in it?  How could I have survived when you were killed if Emmie wasn’t there?

No, she lived way down by the zoo.  Beyond the park.  That’s all those trees on the right.

Will you take me there, someday?  I mean just to drive past.  I know Nana and Grandpa aren’t there, anymore.  I’d just like to see the house.

Jason’s arm that draped around her shoulders tightened briefly in a hug.  Emmie had lost her maternal grandparents in a car accident just over a year after the shooting.  Jason’s parents had both been gone for over ten years, and neither he nor Beth had siblings.  It was just the two of them, now.  You bet, hon.  How about we swing by there on the way home?  I know a great place for pizza down that way.  Pizza for dinner sound good?

Ooh, yeah! 

They sat in silence and watched the slow approach of the tanker from the open sea toward the strait, bound for one of the oil refineries on the east side of the bay.  The container ship, bound for the Port of Oakland, was just passing beneath the western span of the Oakland Bay Bridge.

Emmie stood and gave the brim of his hat a slap.  Come on, Indie.  That ship won’t get here for a while, yet.  Let’s explore some more.

Indie?  I’ll Indie you!

Jason jumped up and vaulted over the bench to head her off.  She slipped past just beyond his reach and ran squealing and laughing down a slope toward the nearest anti-aircraft bunker. 

Grinning, he gave chase, but his dash became a slow saunter as he followed her into the dark shadows of the interior.  This is a good place for today.  Peace and quiet, far from the hectic chaos of the world falling apart and all its problems.  Problems can’t reach us up here.

CHAPTER 3 – Failed Sons

Still moving at well above light speed after traversing the vast ort cloud enclosing the star system, the armada swept past the outer gas giant planets a few degrees below the planetary plane, and the navigators adjusted.  As it slipped past Jupiter, it dropped below light speed.  To an observer, it would seem to have simply burst suddenly into existence, a long chain of giant spheres, each one nestled tight against the one ahead like an enormous string of pearls, flashing past and dwarfed by the great, banded giant. 

Ahead blazed the sun at the system’s center and circling it nearby as mere specks were the inner, rocky planets.  The connected spheres followed in line toward the third one out, a small, blue and brown orb streaked with white that could easily be overlooked in the great ocean of galactic space.  The navigators prepared to further release their hold on the force, retaining only enough to facilitate local maneuvering.

AN EMOTIONAL STORM seethed through Vince Morgan.  But, then, his mind always seethed in turmoil about something.  Today it happened to be about Eric. 

The Petaluma cemetery lay across two small hills and a wooded glen at the north edge of town, and at a little after 11:30 AM the summer’s heat was already felt on the shaded hillside.  Vic stood with Vince beside the car just downhill from the gravesite.  Vince leaned against the fender and mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. 

Vince nodded toward their father and Ellie ahead on the gradual incline and said, Just look at ‘em. 

They’re gonna wish they wore something besides black.  Vic said, mimicking Vince’s nod.  It’s gonna be ninety by noon, I bet.

Yeah, and to the big bastard, it’s only right that everyone suffers for the occasion.  I wouldn’t mind watching him slow-roast, but he shouldn’t put Ellie through it.

Vic peered at the Mutt and Jeff pair, their father’s slim six-foot-six against Ellie’s pudgy five-foot-five and shook his head.  Ellie’d probably pick black on her own, anyway.  She’s really tore up about Eric.

Yeah, I know.  She loved him, just like she does us.  Not that the big bastard would ever allow her to say it...lovin’ us.

You know, I’m gonna miss him, Vic said after a pause.  I know you two used to fight, but he was okay with me.

Aw, we didn’t really fight.  Pushing matches was about all.  Hell, he coulda broke me in two like a match stick if he wanted.  Eric was a bully as far back as I can remember.  He only picked on me when no one else was handy.  But he also made sure no one else did.  It was the old story of, ‘I can do it because he’s my brother, but if you pick on him I’ll kick your ass.’  And he did kick ass — all over town.

I think he’s kicked more ass in the three years you’ve been moved out than all the time up to then.  You must have kept him busy before you went.

But he was about the only one around besides you and Ellie that didn’t get all bent out of shape when I’d lose it.  In fact, I think he got a kick out of watching me go ape-shit on someone.

Yeah, but when you go ape-shit on someone, they’re lucky if they can walk away afterwards with nothin’ worse than a permanent limp.

Hey, when something gets to me, especially the big bastard, if I don’t pound on someone, I think I’d either burst into flame or melt down to slag.  He’s too big and mean to pound on, so I just have to find someone else.  Anyway, what’re you going on about?  I never went after you, did I?  Besides, you’ve done plenty of pounding, yourself.

Vic elbowed his brother and grinned.  And if you tried it now, I’m big enough to kick your ass.

Vince leaned away from the pillar and hooked his head to Vic.  Come on, Bad Ass, we don’t want the big bastard to have anything to bitch about us making everyone wait.  Looks like the preacher’s already there.

Everyone?  Vic looked about at the lack of cars parked in the area.  Looks like Eric’s buddies may have had more pressing business

Yeah, Vince sneered.  I’ll bet they’re really broken up.

A soft breeze whispered through the leafy oaks above the forest of ornately carved stones and moved a lock of hair across Vince’s forehead.  Waves of light brown hair cascaded over his ears and collar

Vic nodded at Vince’s hair.  You ever going to get that cut?

Vince peered up at his father before answering.  Hell no!  Not as long as it irks him like it does.  Why do you think I keep it like this?

You could get something else just as radical...like Eric’s.  He didn’t say anything to Eric about it because it was Eric.  But I’ll bet it’d irk him plenty if you got yours like that.  Be a lot more comfortable on a day like today, too.

Naw, he’d just think I was trying to get on his good side by copying the good son.

Up ahead, Ned and Ellie Morgan stopped where the path turned to wend up the hillside.  When Vince and Vic were twenty feet away, Ned dropped his supporting arm from Ellie’s hand and held it palm outward to his two living sons.  That’s far enough.  I allowed you two into the funeral home, but I’ll not have you see Eric into his grave.

Ellie gasped and laid a hand on Ned’s arm.  Ned, please, they’re his brothers.

No!  They’re not.  Not full, anyway.  They share my blood with him, but through their veins also flows the tainted blood of their mother, a contamination Eric, blessedly, was not cursed with.

Still, they loved him, too.  They’ve suffered a loss the same as you and me.

They haven’t!  No!  They can’t even conceive of the loss I feel.  The only loss to them is an obstruction to my money.  Now they think they stand to inherit it all.  Well, they’re wrong.  I’d sooner give it all to some wino passed out in an alley.  They’ll not have a penny of what was to be Eric’s.  They’ll still get exactly the same as they would have if Eric hadn’t been murdered, and that is nothing.  Nothing but a sincere regret that I didn’t tie them in a sack and drop them into the river the day their fornicating mother ran off with her lover.

The maligning of their long-gone mother was something Vince had heard before, many times — oh, so many times.  Their father never passed up an opportunity to point out how vile the woman was that had brought them into this world.

The solemn expression on Vince’s face that had mirrored the rest of the family’s grief contorted into his typical sneering smirk, an expression that found its natural niche there some years ago.  Our fornicating mother?  Do you mean our fucking mother? 

Don’t you use that language in front of my wife, Ned’s response sounded like the deep, warning growl of a junkyard dog. 

He seldom referred to his present wife, Ellie, who was his third, as being their mother or even their stepmother.  Not like he had done with Eric who was also her stepson but was from Ned’s first wife.  Nor had he ever acknowledged that Ellie and these two sons from his second wife might have a relationship that involved affection. 

Well, shit, father, I’m pretty sure it means the same thing.  They had been taught from the crib to address their father as father.  Anything else would bring a swift and often painful reminder.  They had used the term to his face all their lives without a thought.  "Why can you say it, but I can’t?  It is my mother we’re talking about." 

Such a direct confrontation had not occurred between Vince and his father for some time, mainly because Ned didn’t hesitate to use his fists in applying discipline to his younger sons.  Although Vince had developed good, solid muscles, he had not taken his father’s size as Eric had done, or even Vic to an extent, and he had learned long ago that fighting back meant the beating would be even worse.  But, at times, the big bastard just pushed and pushed until it was impossible not to stand up to him, verbally, anyway.

Ned jabbed his finger at Vic, and the hate that ate at his heart spewed from his eyes.  You can get out of my home, too.  You turned old enough a month ago for the law to say you’re a man.  With a pause and a sneer, Ned made certain no one misunderstood his opinion of that allusion.  Get your things and be gone before I get home, or I’ll burn it all.

Ellie gasped in disbelief.  Ned, no. 

You keep your mouth shut.  In his rant, Ned never took his eyes from his sons.  I should have run him off when Vince went.  They’re both the same, bad clear through.  Bad seeds, they are.  How many have suffered because of the demons that infest those two?  How much hurt have they caused to innocent souls?  Why, that poor little girl Vince set fire to back in elementary school will have those disfigurements until the day she dies.  And Vic, too.  He’s almost as bad.  Just look at all those young girls he violated.  Three of them raped for certain, and what...another five that he didn’t get quite that far before getting stopped?  And, God bless her, that first one when she was only eight years old — and him only ten!  God only knows how many more there are that I don’t even know about?  They’re animals!  They just like to hurt folks.  Old men who can’t fight back.  Even an old woman that time, and both on her.

Through Ned’s spiel, Ellie covered her face in an unsuccessful attempt to block the tears streaming down her cheeks.  When he paused for breath, she lowered her hands and placed one on her husband’s arm to entreat him to calm himself and perhaps even to try to have compassion.  But the man was rigid in his fury and abruptly shook her hand off.

I had one good son, and I’m fixing to bury him.  I have no others.  I deny them both.  They were born of evil, and they’ve lived evil.  I could see they were bad from the beginning, but I tolerated them, hoping to make them see to overcome the evil they were born from.  But they failed. 

Failed?  No, father, we didn’t fail, Vince rebutted.  We soaked up every bit of hatred you heaped on us.  You know, you can’t bathe us in shit every day for years and expect us to smell like roses.  Where do you think we learned to hate?  Hell, we had the best teacher possible.  For all the demons in us, the world can thank you!  He jabbed an accusing finger at his father.  You, you fuckin’ hypocrite!  You’re the one that put them there!

Out of my home!  I want you both out!

No!  Tears streamed from her eyes when she looked at Vic.  Please, not him, too!

Ned spun on her so fast she flinched as though expecting him to strike her.  But he only drew his hand back as though to backhand her and held it.

But, my baby... Ellie sobbed.

Vic screamed, You bastard!  You touch her and I’ll —

Ned glared at his youngest son.  "You’ll what?  Huh?  You’ll do what?  Well, come on up here if you think you’ve really become a man.  Come up here so I can feel your bones breaking in my hands."

When Vic took a half-step forward in answer to Ned’s challenge, Vince grabbed his arm to pull him back.  Even though Vic was an inch taller than Vince and had probably an extra twenty pounds of good, solid muscle on him, he knew Vic was no match for their father’s towering strength.  If they engaged today, he had a good chance of dying in the bigger man’s grasp.

Vic!  Hey, come on, man.  Let’s go.  Vince spoke softly beside his brother, pulling him, leading him back toward the car. 

Vince shared Vic’s rage at their father for dredging up the same old crap on top of Ellie’s apparent shame for loving such bad people.  And this added fuel to the fire in Vince’s own belly.  He, too, loved Ellie, and would not have spoken the offensive words, but the big bastard just had to push him. 

He returned his father’s glare of righteous indignation with one of sneering cockiness.  Even though his fury raced through his being like a firestorm, igniting flame within every cell until he felt as though he would explode, he would not let his father see the depth and the extent to which it consumed him.  He would maintain an outward appearance of cool tedium and bored scorn; something he had discovered long ago that irked the hell out of the old bastard.

As Vince led Vic to his car, he had to stop his little brother several times from returning to the graveside service to have it out with their father.  He knew Vic had tolerated all he could take from the old man; that he had remained under that crushing thumb only to be close to Ellie.  But, after today, even if the bastard did relent and allow it, they both knew he could not continue to live under the same roof with Ned Morgan. 

I’ll kill that son-of-a-bitch one of these days.  I swear I will.  Vic’s voice trembled with rage.

Yeah, I know.  Vince settled into the driver’s seat of his car and started the engine.  Me too. 

The back tires on Vince’s car chirped when he put it in gear and sped off. 

Why does he have to always fall back to bad-mouthing mother?  She wasn’t really bad, was she?

Vince’s rage began to subside as soon as they were out of their father’s presence.  Soon he was able to speak of their mother with soft tones and kind words that was often the case when he recalled the past for Vic.

She was only nineteen when she married him, only a year older than you are right now.  Just try to imagine if you were a girl, and this big, strong, older, charismatic guy with a cute little son came along.  Of course, at the time she didn’t know the bastard was also an abusive asshole.  He didn’t reveal that side to her until after they were married.

Vic shook his head and started to say something but changed his mind.

No, mother got taken in by an asshole-bible-thumper that also liked to thump his wife if she didn’t behave like he thought she should.  Eric was only three at the time, and he was probably a sweet little kid back then.  His mother hadn’t even been dead a year, and his father was a thirty-year-old charmer that probably came across to mother as wise and worldly.  You’ve seen how he can turn it on when it suits him.  If he can’t get what he wants from someone by bullying, he’ll smile and work his charm on ‘em.  Hell, she didn’t have a chance.

Vic’s hands clenched and unclenched as if he had them wrapped around his father’s throat.  How the hell could she let him into her bed?

Hell, they were married.  Can you imagine her — or anyone — telling Ned Morgan he can’t harvest his marriage apples?  But, I guess six years of marriage to him and bearing two sons was all she could take.  She just up and deserted her husband and children for that week’s lover, according to dear old Dad.  No different than a bitch in heat, is how the son-of-a-bitch puts it. 

But, if she loved us, how could she just leave us like that?

Vic didn’t see it, but Vince shot his brother a look that was far from brotherly, and how he then struggled for a bit before he settled on a response.  She probably didn’t have much of a plan, had no idea where she was going or how she’d be able to take care of herself, let alone a couple of small kids.  Hell, she didn’t run off with a lover or anyone else.  She just ran.

Maybe she planned on coming back for us after she got settled, but something happened.  You think so?  I bet she did.

Vince’s reply was tight, forced through jaws that could grind granite, but with a smile showing to Vic.  Yeah...probably.

They stopped by the house, and Vic picked up some of his clothes and a couple of things he didn’t want to take a chance on Ned destroying if Ellie couldn’t placate him.  Within half an hour, they were cruising southbound on U.S. 101 en route to Vince’s place in Mill Valley, a small, bay-side town just five miles or so north of the Golden Gate Bridge.  They rode in silence for a couple of miles before Vic again broached the subject of their mother.

I wish I was older before mother left.  I can’t remember much about her except a face floating in a cloud of golden hair.  But I don’t know if I really remember it, or if it’s just all the times you’ve told me about her.  And I sure as hell never got anything from the old bastard except how we’re the — how’s he put it? — the whelps of a tramp no better than sewer-filth.  Nice way for a father to talk to his kids about their mother, ain’t it?

Vince had quashed his sudden rage at Vic’s earlier probing question, and was, once again, the young man’s loving, big brother.  Yeah, I know, bro, and if Ellie hadn’t come along when she did, either he or I would probably be dead by now.

Vic said, She was pretty, wasn’t she?

When Vince glanced over at his brother, Vic’s eyes seemed to be trying to focus on something so far away he was unable to see it clearly, or even to be certain he was really seeing it.  Tension drained from Vince’s body.  As tight as his father could wind him, recalling memories of their mother for Vic could almost always calm the raging beast that clawed to burst forth to maim and destroy.

They had had this discussion, or some variation of it, countless times.  When they were small, it would often occur after bedtime when they were alone in their shared bedroom with the light out and no one else to hear or interrupt or steal the visions Vince created of a mother he, alone, could remember.

She was beautiful.

With long, blond hair.

Like spun gold.  Like a waterfall of pure, sunlit honey.  It was as bright as a field of wild mustard in full bloom, and as soft as moonlight.  And she had eyes so blue you had to wonder if they were real.  They were like the deepest, clearest, summer sky you’ve ever seen. 

And she could sing, too, huh?

Like an angel. 

Vic allowed his eyes to close.  He slouched down in the seat with his head against the base of the headrest. 

With a smile, Vince continued, Her voice was a high, pure soprano, sweet and soft.  She didn’t sing loud, not like she was performing or anything.  As shy as she was, she would probably have been embarrassed to sing for anyone else.

His memories of her had evolved over the years, colored and adjusted, tinted and, after a while, tainted by visions of other women from books and movies and real life and even a small boy’s wishes, and Vic had never questioned how a four or five-year-old boy would have made note of some of the things he claimed to remember. 

She’d sing just to us, and only when no one else was around.  She didn’t know a lot of songs.  But the ones she did know have never been sung better.  Not by anyone.

I’ll bet we asked her to sing a lot, didn’t we?

Vince chuckled at Vic’s juvenile enthusiasm, but he was as guilty, himself.  During these sessions, they were kids again.  We bugged the hell out of her, but she loved to sing for us.  She really did, especially when one of us was sick or upset or something.  When she would start to sing, her voice seemed to just float out like misty clouds on a summer breeze, like it took no effort at all.  She just opened her mouth and it came out.  It was so soft and pure you’d start to shiver and tingle inside and you’d almost want to cry, but you couldn’t cry because it made you feel so good, even if you’d just scraped every bit of skin off your knee like you did that time.  Remember that?

Yeah, he replied with a wince.  Vince had told it to him so many times he believed he remembered the incident even if he didn’t.

You were running across the driveway chasing that old gray cat that hung around and liked to have his butt scratched.  When you tripped and made a one-point landing, you must have hit the roughest spot in the whole driveway.  Your knee looked like someone had taken a power sander to it.

Vic scrunched up his face and puckered his mouth; certain he could once again feel the excruciating pain.

You howled and screamed, and mother came running out.  Vince always called her mother rather than mom for as long as he could remember.  He had probably called her ‘mommy’ before she went away, and he really couldn’t remember when or why he had changed it to mother.  Maybe it was because he had started calling Ellie mom shortly after she moved in.  Besides, somehow the name, mom, just didn’t fit the memories, the impressions he had of her — of mother.  It just wasn’t angelic enough.

She got you inside and cleaned it up and sprayed some junk on it to numb it or something, but you still wouldn’t stop crying.  So, she started to sing to you.  It was soft and quiet, and I couldn’t hardly hear her at first, and I know you didn’t.  Not at first.  You just kept wailing, and she kept smiling and singing and kissing you.  I guess you started hearing her when you would stop to catch your breath between howls, ‘cause it wasn’t long ‘til I guess you decided she sounded better’n you, so you hushed-up so you could listen to her.

I bet I was a little shit, wasn’t I? Vic said with a big grin, nodding all the while as though his brother’s narration had vividly brought to the fore a fond memory of his own.

Yeah, Vince smiled.  You were a little shit.  But mother could always get you to stop crying.

Did she ever sing just for you? Vic asked his brother, like he had never heard any of these stories before.

Vince delved deeper into his treasure chest of memories, not necessarily farther back in time, just deeper into what some might see as a morass of false memories.  Some were based on actual incidents or impressions in the mind of a young child, bits that had been twisted and altered and colored over the years to satisfy a deep yearning.  Others were pure fiction, borne of long held wishes and unfulfilled needs.  Features or qualities that may have been insignificant at the time had been magnified over the years to proportions suited to the gods — or angels.  But these were the memories that Vince fostered and nurtured and accepted as true and accurate. 

Back before you were born, she used to come into my room at bedtime.  She’d tell me stories about heroes and princesses and dragons and trolls.  She’d sing the stories sometimes.  Even when she spoke or sang in a whisper, her voice would go right inside me, into my heart and make it vibrate.  And, I swear I could hear angels’ voices who were coming down from heaven, just so they could sing with her.

While Vic settled back in the seat with his eyes closed and basking in the refreshed memories of their mother, Vince’s cycloning memories settled, inevitably, on that night so many years ago that was the last time he had seen her.  This memory he kept for himself like a last, treasured piece of irreplaceable candy, never sharing it with Vic.  But, more than that, it was his anchor.

It had been late, well after midnight, he was sure.  He was in his bed when something, some noise, stirred him from sleep.  By the ghostly light of a full moon flooding through the window he could see her hovering like a pale wraith over Vic’s bed.  As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and propped himself up on his elbows, she seemed to glow in the moonlight like she was sprinkled with fairy dust. 

She was speaking to Vic’s tiny figure, whispering something only her still sleeping child could have heard, all the while caressing his cherubic face with its lock of hair fallen across his forehead.  As she turned to look at Vince, he could see tears making dark streaks down her cheeks, and he heard her sob. 

She put a finger to her lips to hush his frightened inquiry.  With a last, lingering touch to Vic’s mop of hair, she stepped across to sit on the edge of Vince’s bed. 

When she was closer, Vince could see that she did, indeed, have a coating of powder or dust all over her but mostly over her head and face.  He put out a hand to touch her strangely gray face with its dark tear tracks and pulled it back, rubbing the fine ash between his small fingers.  To still his fears, she explained that it was merely cold ashes from the fireplace that Vince’s father had poured over her during his admonition for what he had considered some unacceptable behavior, an act Vince had witnessed more than once.  

His father would yell at her about how she was a bad wife and should wear ashes and sack cloth in penance, and then he would reach into the cold fireplace for a handful of ashes.  She’d just stand there and allow her towering husband to scatter the ashes over her head and face and shoulders. 

This last night, it appeared, he had used more than one handful; the powdery ash covered her from the waist up.

She reassured him that she wasn’t hurt and that everything would be okay.  She then said something to him that disturbed and confused him.  Vincent, I am so glad you’re such a good boy, and I know you will always take care of Victor.  Then she kissed him goodnight...but it was really good-bye.  She was gone in the morning. 

Vince’s father told him she had run off with her lover, a term he didn’t even understand at the time.  His father overwhelmed his sobbing denials during those first few days without her and buried him and Vic with claims of her infidelity and godless ways.  From that time on, he and Vic were fed a constant diet of how their mother had deserted not only her God-sanctioned husband, but her own children, as well. 

More and more, to Vince’s growing shame, he began to accept the possibility of his father’s charges and to question the sincerity of her love.  In his swirling mind, he would ask himself until the words thundered in his head.  If she really loved me and Vic like she said, how could she have left us?  It was at this end of the pendulum’s swing that his rage became so uncontrollable he had to pound on someone—with fists, boards, bricks or bats, whatever was at hand.  Not at Vic or Ellie, though — never at Vic or Ellie, or Eric. 

And then, for a moment or an hour and more, his hatred for his mother eclipsed even that he had for his father.  

That’s when he would grasp for his anchor, his memories of her angelic face with its dusting of stardust that she tried to tell him was ashes from the fireplace — but, he knew.  He knew she told him that only because he was so young and would have a hard time believing that his mother was not what other mothers were, that she had been merely on loan to him and Vic, and that she was called back to heaven for other, more needful tasks.  Only these thoughts could hold him safe, anchoring him away from the edge of the abyss, a pit toward which a growing tempest blew him where he would fall over the rim.  Only then would the pendulum swing back to the other extreme where his thoughts of her were of love.  When he was younger and tried to reconcile conflicting visions of the same woman, it created such turmoil in his mind he had to give up trying to understand any of it and to just let it be.  He had not tried in recent years.  And, as with his memory of the night she had said good-bye, he never shared his doubts with Vic.

CHAPTER 4 – Air Show

Dead ahead, the white streaked planet swelled with the armada’s slowing approach.  As the navigators further relinquished their hold on the force, each link, starting with the foremost, progressively separated from the others but still maintained a dense formation.  Each one a spherical ship over half a mile wide, the formation encircled the world like an asteroid belt before they began dropping away.  Using their individual grip of the force for their movements, each one made a controlled approach to its designated target on the surface. 

WHEN NATE REMINGTON stepped onto the sand from the bottom step of the weather-roughened stairway, he turned and peered back up the hill.  A sudden, compelling urge struck him to make the hike back up to her, to his Patty, but, with a chuckle at his still ardent though decades-old school-boy crush, he shook his head and turned away.  She’d still be there with her laughing, green eyes when he returned.

He strode out onto the sand where his feet sank with each step, putting extra strain on his leg muscles, building strength as he walked.  One callused hand wiped briskly over his weathered and tanned face that, over the years, had evolved into what he referred to as a line-map of his life.  He lifted to reposition his red and gold, baseball cap with the Forty-Niner’s logo, and a puff of morning breeze ruffled the few strands of straight, gray hair that still populated the top of his head above a full fringe around the sides and back.  He tucked his hiking stick under an armpit while he hiked up the waistband of his trousers and re-tucked the tail of his plaid shirt that had a way of working out whenever he went up or down the stairs. 

After a dozen or so paces, he moved down to the packed sand near the waterline where low breakers flattened out to whisper in and caress the sand then crawl back to fade into the swirling foam of the next.  His legs would get enough of a workout when he got to the hill at the south end of the beach.  At sixty-four and retired, hiking the coastal hills and occasional backpacking occupied a good deal of his time and kept his small frame fit and trim. 

A lone gull swept in to make a single pass over the land looking for a missed morsel.  It wheeled on rigid wings and skimmed back over the tops of the incoming waves.  Rippled sand stretched ahead to where it ended against the base of a rock, grass, and scrub covered hill that sloped steeply down to the water’s edge a little over a thousand feet away.  The coastline beyond that point was blocked from view the same as back to the north by the hill he had just descended.  The summer sun had almost finished burning off the fog hugging the coastline where the little community of Muir Beach perched on a hill six miles north of San Francisco, and the air warmed as it cleared. 

He stopped to peer back at his hill with its variety of trees and brush so thick in places he could hardly see the numerous homes nestled among them.  The wooden stairway zig-zagged up fifty feet of ice-plant covered, rocky cliff from the sand to the road snaking across the bottom of the hill.  Far up the sea-cliff, his house perched on a natural rock shelf jutting out over the water a couple hundred feet above the surf crashing against rocks.  Only the west end of the house extended from behind the mass of foliage blanketing the steep hillside.  He turned and resumed his walk.

As he neared the south end of the beach, he noticed a man and a woman sitting at the top of the dune’s slope to the incoming waves and facing out to sea.  As he drew nearer, he smiled with recognition. 

Good morning, he said.  When the woman withdrew her attention from the undulating surface of the sea, he added, Beautiful, isn’t it?

Good morning.  Yes, it is.  I love it.

They both glanced up at the screech of another low flying gull.

Nate turned his gaze out to sea.  "I always have to marvel that the waves may have traveled hundreds of miles to get here — perhaps even thousands — perhaps born in a storm half way around the world.  And the beach changed just a bit each day, and no two days