Horace Brave Scout passes through a crucial door in his quest when he finds a Dream Weaver cave that has gone undisturbed, apparently, for thousands of years, and in it rests a unique Dream Canoe that retains the power to unlock and penetrate the dreams of the ages and all the unfulfilled aspiration of the earth's peoples, past or vanished, present, and future.

Making dark blue juice out of elderberries he ground together in a hollow of a rock, he took a twig, chewed a brush from the tip, and painted a prayer shield.

Back in the 1700s the Lakota got a little prophetic recording the tribe's events, foreseeing ANNO STELLAE 1912's Sinking of the Big Canoe:

Later, Horace Brave Scout journeyed back to the same event, and the others that followed it in quick succession:

The Kiowa, too, had their recorders:

The best cushy job in his life--working for Wolff and Harland in the Belfast shipyards--turned sour for Marty Yeager, so sour he drew an evil-hearted star that, one bitter-cold, black night, answered his molecular S.O.S. call for bloody revenge from across the universe.

Even before the deck chairs and the barber pole and the grand all-walnut staircase ceased floating at the site of the sinking, the sunken fragments of the great ship had its first, ininvited visitors--the razor-toothed kind hat did not mind particularly that the fare on the ala carte menu was rather boney.

Did you get the impression from the calendars that Earth got into some kind of big trouble sometime around ANNO 1912? Your impression is absolutely true to the facts. But that was just the beginning--the first tiny baby step to what we now are facing. What is causing all this havoc and mayhem and unannounced terrorism in the Universe, the Solar System, and the Twin Earths that follows close on the sinking of the White Star Line's greatest ship? Nobody seems to know, and the right questions aren't even being asked--not for a long time anyway, thanks to the opposition of all-powerful vested interests, and by then it may be too late to save Earth(s) from the unknown Alien(s). But the gate of RETROSTAR and THE CIRCULAR WEB is lying open before us--and someone wise said it is better to do the right thing late than never.

The Series of the Twin Earths is available on disk or can be electronically transmitted. The series consists of: RETRO STAR, Vol. 1, Fatal Convergence, Vol. 2, Cloud and Avalanche, Vol. 3. Battles of the DUBESOR, Vol. 4, Lost Chronicles; Part Two, Unchronicles, Vol. 5, Natal Convergence, Vol. 6, Beyond the Rapture, Vol. 7. Final Wars...Convergence at Orion

A "Letter to Agent, Outlines, and Overview and Marketing Strategy" of the Series":

Agent Letter, Outlines, Strategy

A Last Word Count in ANNO STELLAE 1997: 1,400,000

Outlines for VOLUME I, RETROSTAR:

CHRONICLES 1-24--WHAT'S IN THEM?

CHRONICLE ONE--WHAT'S IN IT?

CHRONICLES TWO TO SIX--WHAT'S IN THEM?

CHRONICLES SEVEN TO NINE--WHAT'S IN THEM?

CHRONICLES TEN TO TWELVE--WHAT'S IN THEM?

CHRONICLES EIGHTEEN TO NINETEEN--WHAT'S IN THEM?

CHRONICLES TWENTY TO TWENTY-THREE--WHAT'S IN THEM?

CHRONICLE TWENTY-FOUR--WHAT'S IN IT?

OUTLINES, CHRONICLES ONE TO FORTY-FIVE

OUTLINES, CHRONICLES FIFTY-EIGHT TO SIXTY TWO

Main Game Players (Earth II):

1. The Titans (Atlanteans) who lost Atlantis, on both Earths; then tried repeatedly to re-assert their rule over Earth II; they are a superhuman species that has turned vampire and lives almost indefinitely.

2. The Ten Stones of Fire (Starlike, Jeweline, Super-intelligent, Alien Entities), each performing as OP, or, Opposing Player, with the aim of conquering and destroying the Earths, I and II, and their respective universes.

3. Dr. Pikkard's Computer Wargame, represented by Wally, an electronically-created, free-roaming butterly who fights for humanity's survival against the Alien(s)

4. Human "Alphabetic" or A-Z Champions, also a subgroup called DUBESOR, or the Rosebud Champions

5. Yeshua, the A and Z, the Alpha and Omega, and the Aleph and Tau (also known as FC, the so-called "Forbidden Category")

EVEN BEFORE THE TITANIC'S SPECTACULAR MAIDEN VOYAGE DIVE TO HADES IN CHRONICLE ONE, SOME CLUES ARE GIVEN US. FOR INSTANCE: ON BOTH EARTH I AND EARTH II A CERTAIN CHOICE OF A YOUNG RUSSIAN ARISTOCRAT'S FIANCE (UPPER CLASS, KREMLIN-BORN AND BRED DAUGHTER OF A COURT PHYSICIAN, KNOWN LATER AS ONLY THE "OVERLY POSSESSIVE" WIFE OF THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNER COUNT LEO TOLSTOY) PREPARED THE WAY OF THE ALIEN ENTITY ON EARTH II AND THE DRAGON ON EARTH I: FOR THIS CHECK OUT SCENARIO I. THEN RETURN FOR SCENARIO II, WHICH REVEALS THE GREAT RECORDER HIMSELF, CHRONICLER GABRIEL TALL CHIEF. FINALLY, SCENARIO III, WHERE A KREMLIN STARETZ (PROPHET) REVEALS YEARS BEFOREHAND WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN IN THE ILL-STARRED 20TH CENTURY OF BOTH EARTHS, WHEN SOMETHING WORSE THAN THE H5N 1 STRAIN OF THE BIRD FLU VIRUS IS INFECTING THE TWINS, SO THAT THEIR INTERTWINED FATES ARE ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO SEPARATE FROM EACH OTHER.

(Chronicles Completed unmarked; Chronicles Not Yet Available Marked IP, In Progress)

Volume I Fatal Convergence

Retrostar Contents

Scenario I: CHRONICLE OF SOFYA'S CHOICE

SCENARIO I

Scenario II: CHRONICLE OF THE MEDICINE SPEAR

SCENARIO II

Scenario III: CHRONICLE OF THE KREMLIN STARETZ--EARTH I

SCENARIO III

CHRONICLE ONE, A. S. (ANNO STELLAE, Year of the Star) 1912 1. The Belfast Colossus 2. Night of the Tornnarsuk

PART I, CHRONICLE ONE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

3. "What, have we hit anything?"

PART II, CHRONICLE ONE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

4. Pursuit 5. Mystery Stone

PART III, CHRONICLE ONE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

The Carnelian/Sardius

CHRONICLE TWO, A. S. 1918 Visions from Space

CHRONICLE TWO, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE THREE, A. S. 1924 1. The East Gate 2. Carter's Pill

PARTS 1-2, CHRONICLE THREE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

3. Carter's Royal Sphinx Turkish Cigarettes 4. G-EAOU

PARTS 3-4, CHRONICLE THREE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FOUR, A. S. 1939 1. The Polar King 2. Convergence in Tinsel Town

CHRONICLES FOUR AND FIVE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FIVE, A. S. 1967 1. "Act of God" 2. Letter to ANNO 5931 3. The River of Time's End

CHRONICLE SIX, A. S. 1969 1. The Chevy Chase Inscription 2. A Different Drum 3. Signature of the Drum 4. Miracle at Project M

CHRONICLE SEVEN, A. S. 1985 1. "Switched off?" 2. Epitaph for a Lost Ship

CHRONICLE EIGHT, A. S. 1986 1. "Roll Program." (Challenger) 2. STS 51-L Sequence of Main Events 3. Dear Mr. President:

CHRONICLES SIX, SEVEN, AND EIGHT, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE NINE, A. S. 1987 1. Black Tuesday II 2. Spackle in the Sky with Diamonds 3. Tempest in a Teapot? 4. Mouse or Lion? 5. "Now you see it..." 6. Skylab II: the Year of Sol 7. Enigma of the Gleba 8. Catamaran and Mouse 9. Last of the Great American Icons

CHRONICLE NINE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE TEN, A. S. 1994 1. "And so if he sign rosebud. It just a game." 2. "A lot of 'mind games,' yeah?" 3. Kamamoto's Mind Game 4. Butterfly's StartUp

CHRONICLE TEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

5. "It's All in the Frequency."

"It's All in the Frequency," CHRONICLE TEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE ELEVEN, A. S. 1996- 1. Flyby of the Blue Centaur 2. Hantsbo's Main Chance

CHRONICLE ELEVEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

3. The Thief in the Night (Earth I) THE THIEF IN THE NIGHT, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE TWELVE, A. S. 2024 1. A Question of Any 2. A Matter Under Advisement: The Triliths of Orion--Part I

CHRONICLE TWELVE, PART I, RETROSTAR

A Matter Under Advisement: The Triliths of Orion--Part II CHRONICLE TWELVE, PART II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE THIRTEEN, A. S. 2113 1. A Childish Phase 2. Reformed 3. Q.U.I.P.

CHRONICLE THIRTEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FOURTEEN, A. S. 2145 1. Fresh Ice 2. The Ultimate Weapon 3. The Unstoppable Chill 4. Nils the Red

CHRONICLE FOURTEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FIFTEEN, A. S. 2146 1. Head #41 2. Plots and Counterplots

CHRONICLE FIFTEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE SIXTEEN, A. S. 2155 1. "First Citizen" 2. Red Bladed II, Retrenchment, and the Mole

CHRONICLE SIXTEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE SEVENTEEN, A. S. 2165 1. More Crowns for the Emperor 2. Convergence of Kings

CHRONICLE SEVENTEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE EIGHTEEN, A. S. 2170 1. Convergence in Greece: Beyond the Roche Limit 2. Marching Trees 3. Workin' for the Man 4. First the Foie Gras, Then... 5. Old is In, New is Out! 6. Another Domecraft Scratched! 7. Homecoming to Chillingsworth-opolis! 8. A Mongolian Interruption 9. Bisbee on Alert! 10. Chillingsworth's Zombie

PART ONE, CHRONICLE EIGHTEEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

11. Crisis Control at the Olde Guildhall 12. "Sorry, folks, no Tube today" 13. Visions and Portents 14. Last Breakfast at the Chillingsworthies 15. Fleeing Birds, Floundering Fishes 16. Chillingsworth's Contingency Plan 17. Chillingsworth's Personal Test 18. Black Death II 19. Our Lady of the Angels--Vacancy 20. Palms, More Palms, and Fire Jaguars

PART TWO, CHRONICLE EIGHTEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

21. "What, has the plumbing been hit too?" 22. "Hull bloody world's fallin' apart!" 23. Final ESCape 24. 19.9999999999999...Chthonic Complications 25. The Arctic Fox 26. Seemingly Doomed 27. Death of the Rose? 28. Counterclockwise 29. Birdman of Our Lady's 30. Cause: Unknown

PART THREE, CHRONICLE EIGHTEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE NINETEEN, A. S. 2171... 1. Hermon's Folly 2. Crazy John from Ivujivik

CHRONICLE NINETEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE TWENTY, A. S. 2251 1. Ice and Fire 2. Singer of the Stone

CHRONICLE TWENTY, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE TWENTY-ONE, A. S. 2382 1. A Plain Dutch Boy 2. The Good Ship Argo 3. A Mill Worker! 4. Shafted CHRONICLE TWENTY-ONE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE TWENTY-TWO, A. S. 2390-91 1. "Work, woman!" 2. Wooden Wings 3. The Big Little Apple

CHRONICLE TWENTY-TWO, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE TWENTY-THREE, A. S. 2392 1. Leamis's Good Turn 2. The Mountain Climbed! 3. The Contract 4. Dendrochronology--the Professor's Folly 5. Just What the Doctor Ordered 6. Decline in a Dutch Paradise? 7. Vent and Rip

PART 1, CHRONICLE TWENTY-THREE, RETROSTAR

8. The Perfect Getaway 9. "A River flowed out of Eden..." 10. "Discoverer of Lost Atlantis" 11. Cave of Cannibals 12. Visitors to Earth 13. The Mary Celeste Avenger 14. "We three kings of Orient are..."

PART 2, CHRONICLE TWENTY-THREE, RETROSTAR

15. The Paper Chase 16. Outings with Anne 17. The Kilpaison Female Temperament 18. King of Ellis 19. The Break 20. The Treasure Room 21. The Professor's Wargame

PART 3, CHRONICLE TWENTY-THREE, RETROSTAR

22. The Gray Fox Speaketh 23. "Was it in his contract?" 24. A Dream and a Face 25. Atlantis--will she ever come? 26. Four Cents Saved, Four Cents Earned 27. "Low bridge! Everybody down!" 28. Rebirth of the Atlantis

PART 4, CHRONICLE TWENTY-THREE, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE TWENTY-FOUR, A. S. 2393 1. Convergence in Wioteheka Wi 2. Fool's Day 3. A Good Deal 4. Losers, Weepers 5. Fritz the Farmer 6. Cloaks and Daggers 7. Escape of Department 13 8. No Ordinary Day 9. The Tramp CHRONICLE TWENTY-FOUR, PART I, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

10. Dr. Pikkard's Papers 11. Van Donkt to the Rescue 12. A Charmed Life? 13. Black Tuesday III 14. Fritz, Loti, the Domine, and Plenty of Nothin' 15. Choices 16. Dead Man's Cheque 17. Star of Jamaica 18. The Trouble with Wednesday II 19. Battle of the Atlantis PART TWO, CHRONICLE TWENTY-FOUR, VOL. I, RETRO STAR

20. "Ship up!" 21. Reunion Amidst the Stars 22. "Nach Palestine, Reno nicht!" 23. The Open Porthole 24. "Ship down!" 25. Ship Across! 26. Taken for a Ride 27. The Mystery Youth 28. Second Thoughts 29. Visitations in the Night 30. Angels! 31. A New Olson? 32. "Who will stop it?" 33. Hodgkins the Magnificent 34. "I've failed!" 35. The Plain People 36. Anna Invicta 37. Pieter and the Blue Centaur

PART THREE, CHRONICLE TWENTY-FOUR, VOL. I, RETROSTAR

---

(Chronicles completed: unmarked)

Volume II Cloud and Avalanche

Contents Book One

CHRONICLE TWENTY-FIVE, A. S. (ANNO STELLAE, Year of the Star) 2415 Breath of the Red Star

CHRONICLE TWENTY-SIX, A. S. 2433 Star Song

CHRONICLES TWENTY-FIVE AND TWENTY-SIX, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE TWENTY-SEVEN, A. S. 2444 1. Three "Pearls" 2. The Dragon and the Dragoman 3. Farewells 4. The Liverpool Express 5. The Sphinx and Lady Anne 6. Letter of Marque 7. The Enchanted Islands 8. The Compleat Angler 9. Anne's Discovery 10. Pluto's Ball 11. Deliverance 12. The Reverend's Journey 13. Nemesis III 14. The Devil Man's Medicine 15. La Calaca 16. The Mail Bag from La Boca 17. Change of Administration

CHRONICLE TWENTY-SEVEN, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE TWENTY-EIGHT, A. S. 2457 1. Diana's Expedition 2. Dr. Celman and the Papers 3. The New Atlantis 4. Artiste with a Gun 5. The Captain's Cross 6. Artiste at Work! 7. The Scarlet Woman 8. Madmen and Savages 9. Island of the Moon 10. Jaguars, and Glyphs

PART I, CHRONICLE TWENTY-EIGHT, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

11. Day One 12. Day Two 13. Day Three 14. Papadoc 15. Dzong kunu! 16. The Shrine in the Square 17. Celman's Escape 18. John Canoe's Discovery 19. The Fatal Asterisk 20. Convergence on the Lago Negro 21. Homecoming in 3C 295 PART II, CHRONICLE TWENTY-EIGHT, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

RE-LOCATION OF EARTH II

Book Two

CHRONICLE TWENTY-NINE, A. S. 2458 1. Much Ado About a Key 2. Much Ado About Moons

Chronicle Twenty-Nine included in link below

CHRONICLE THIRTY, A. S. 2460 Terra 2, Alpha Centauri

CHRONICLES TWENTY-NINE and THIRTY, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE THIRTY-ONE, A. S. 4130 The Blue Chair

CHRONICLE THIRTY-TWO, A. S. 4133 The Sixth Hour

CHRONICLE THIRTY-THREE, A. S. 4146 The Dreaded Day

CHRONICLES THIRTY-ONE, THIRTY-TWO, THIRTY-THREE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE THIRTY-FOUR, A. S. 4148 1. "Have you ever heard such nonsense?" 2. The Power of Life and Death 3. Thirty Silver Pieces 4. A True Diplomat!

CHRONICLE THIRTY-FOUR, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE THIRTY-FIVE, A. S. 4149 1. A Dish of Rue 2. "God go with you, dear Auntie!" 3. One Major Hindrance 4. Higher Ground 5. The Trial

CHRONICLE THIRTY-FIVE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE THIRTY-SIX, A. S. 4150 1. Street Women 2. The Golden Bowl 3. The Miracle 4. Noahdiah's Daughter 5. The Widow's Mites 6. Convergence on the Viaduct 7. Tower Ghosts 8. The Lustration 9. Falling Towers 10. The Tablets of Destiny

CHRONICLE THIRTY-SIX

CHRONICLE THIRTY-SEVEN, A. S. 5909 The Tower of Eder

CHRONICLE THIRTY-EIGHT, A. S. 5913 The Road to Enaim

CHRONICLES THIRTY-SEVEN and THIRTY-EIGHT, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE THIRTY-NINE, A. S. 5918 1. The Many-Colored Robe 2. The Pit of Dothan 3. Twenty Pieces of Silver 4. The Iron Collar 5. The Wilderness of Shur 6. Visions of the Night 7. The Beak of Nebel 8. City of the Moon 9. The Cobra's Den 10. Thief in the Night 11. A Fruitful Bough

CHRONICLE THIRTY-NINE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FORTY, A. S. 5920 Woes

CHRONICLE FORTY-ONE, A. S. 5923 Joseph the Steward!

CHRONICLES FORTY AND FORTY-ONE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FORTY-TWO, A. S. 5926 1. War! 2. The Gold Harp 3. Daughter of the Desert 4. The Voice of the Pomegranate 5. The Scorpion's Sting 6. Sleepless in Paradise 7. The Road to Babelen 8. The King and the Prophetess 9. Angel of Death 10. The Gray Dove 11. Horsemen in Pairs

CHRONICLE FORTY-TWO, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FORTY-THREE, A. S. 5927 1. Rising Waters 2. The Death of Heaphes 3. More Falling Gods 4. Into the Pit 5. "Will you and your god slay him too?"

CHRONICLE FORTY-THREE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FORTY-FOUR, A. S. 5929 1. Signet, Cord, and Staff 2. Joseph's Prison 3. "Forbidden Vases"

PART I, CHRONICLE FORTY-FOUR, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

4. Judah's Return

PART II, CHRONICLE FORTY-FOUR, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

5. Two Prodigals 6. Zenobia's Return 7. A Ring of Red and Black 8. The Lowest Pit

PART III, CHRONICLE FORTY-FOUR, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FORTY-FIVE, A. S. 5931 1. The Per-aa Dreamed 2. The Per-aa's Secret 3. The Ka of Narmer 4. Doors of Brass

PARTS 1-4, CHRONICLE 45, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

5. The White Lady PART 5, CHRONICLE FORTY-FIVE

6. Tamar's Children 7. Imhotep's Signet 8. The Sinking Ship 9. M.G.Y. Calling PARTS 6-9, CHRONICLE FORTY-FIVE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

Book Three

CHRONICLE FORTY-SIX, A. S. 6098 1. A Second OP? 2. Pher's New Army 3. The Two Serpents, Part I

The Topaz

CHRONICLE FORTY-SIX, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FORTY-SEVEN, A. S. 6286 1. Waters of Blessing 2. Mosheh's Fire-Chariots 3. The Rod of a Ready Deliverer 4. The Pen of a Ready Writer

CHRONICLE FORTY-SEVEN, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FORTY-EIGHT, A. S. 6679 1. Lightning over Kedesh 2. Under the Tamar Tree 3. Tinker's Nail

CHRONICLE FORTY-EIGHT, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FORTY-NINE, A. S. 6688 Greener Pastures

CHRONICLE FIFTY, A. S. 6699 The Gleaner CHRONICLES FORTY-NINE and FIFTY, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FIFTY-ONE, A. S. 6700 Two Wives and an Attitude CHRONICLE FIFTY-ONE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FIFTY-TWO, A. S. 7074 1. The Dove 2. The Fish 3. The Ship 4. The Worm and the Vine

CHRONICLE FIFTY-THREE, A. S. 7504 The Topmost Twig CHRONICLES FIFTY-TWO and FIFTY-THREE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FIFTY-FOUR, A. S. 7506 1. The Lost Dream 2. The Colossus 3. The Fourth Man 4. "O God, how long?" CHRONICLE FIFTY-FOUR, VOl. II, RETROSTAR

(Chronicles Completed unmarked)

Volume III Battles of the DUBESOR

Book One

CHRONICLE FIFTY-FIVE, A. S. (ANNO STELLAE, Year of the Star) 7537 Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin CHRONICLE FIFTY-FIVE, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FIFTY-SIX, A. S. 8033 Iskander's Secret CHRONICLE FIFTY-SIX, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE FIFTY-SEVEN, A. S. 8507

Notes on Algol, Gorgons, and Nergul

1. U the Dire Knight PART ONE, CHRONICLE FIFTY-SEVEN, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

2. Lords of Ahpikondia PART TWO, CHRONICLE FIFTY-SEVEN, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

3. Molu and the Gorgons PART THREE, CHRONICLE FIFTY-SEVEN, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

4. 02K05 00340 00000000000150000000001000000010 5. Peninah's Comeuppance PART FOUR, CHRONICLE FIFTY-SEVEN, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

6. Molu and the Gorgons, Part II 7. The East Gate Regained? PART FIVE, CHRONICLE FIFTY-SEVEN, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

Book Two

CHRONICLE FIFTY-EIGHT, A. S. 8732 1. Chiron's PQ Plan 2. Elektra's Comeuppance BOOK TWO, CHRONICLE FIFTY-EIGHT, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

3. Mink and the Flying Horse 4. Uwe's Last Farewell 5. The Wandering Paiute PART TWO, CHRONICLE FIFTY-EIGHT, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

6. Wally and the Nano-Queen 7. Michael's Last Trump PART THREE, CHRONICLE FIFTY-EIGHT, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

(Chronicles in Progress marked)

Book Three

THE LOST CHRONICLE, A. S. 9117 The Goatherd Who Turned King BOOK THREE, VOL. III, THE GOATHERD WHO TURNED KING, Retro Star

Book Four

CHRONICLE FIFTY-NINE, A. S. 10, 272 The Blind Man Who Could See BOOK FOUR, CHRONICLE FIFTY-NINE, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE SIXTY, A. S. 10,282 1. The Shadow Line 2. The Lacquered Wardrobe 3. A Pilgrim's Heart BOOK FIVE, PART ONE, VOL. III, CHRONICLE SIXTY, RETROSTAR

4. Talulah's Star PART II, VOL. III, CHRONICLE SIXTY

5. South by Southwest 6. The Gray Wolf 7. Lux ex Tenebris

PART III, AND CONCLUSION, VOL. III,K CHRONICLE SIXTY

CHRONICLE SIXTY-ONE, A. S. 10,995 1. Five Stars for the Long Road

CHRONICLE SIXTY-ONE, PART I, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

2. ARGO Unrequited 3. Pilgrim, Bluebird, Starboy CHRONICLE SIXTY-ONE, VOL. III, PART II-III, RETROSTAR

Part III,

CHRONICLE SIXTY-ONE, VOL. III, PART III CONTINUED, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE SIXTY-ONE, VOL. III, PART IV, AND CONCLUSION

4. Zu the Birdman IP 5. The Tiger of Hagi IP 6. The White Stone

Book Five

Just as a classical Greek epic does not begin at the beginning but in the middle, so the Retrostar chronicles of Gabriel Tall Chief and Horace Brave Scout do not end at the ending--no, they finish exactly here: This is the Last Piece of the Whole Puzzle, Ariadne's Thread for the Labyrinth, Alexander's Sword for the Gordian Knot, the Checkmate, the Royal Flush, the Golden Key in Quinn's search for the meaning locked into his father's sand painting game...all rolled into one grand finale, one classical drama's catharsis and denouement, and...you must join the ARGO and decide for yourself if you really want to find what all men want but are maybe seeking in the wrong places and even dead-ends:

CHRONICLE SIXTY-TWO, A. S. 10,999 Voyage of the ARGO V: Quest of the Cybernauts PART I, CHRONICLE SIXTY-TWO, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

Part II, CHRONICLE SIXTY-TWO, VOL.III, RETROSTAR

PART III, OPTION NUMBER THREE, CHRONICLE SIXTY-TWO, RETROSTAR

PART IV, CHAMPION DAVID WILKERSON, CHRONICLE SIXTY-TWO, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

PART V, NONE OF THE ABOVE, CHRONICLE SIXTY-TWO, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

EPILOGUE I EPILOGUE I, "LAST TO LEAVE...," EPILOGUE FOR VOLUMES I-III, VOL. III, RETROSTAR

(Chronicles Completed unmarked, Chronicles In Progress marked)

Volume IV Lost Chronicles, Secret Chronicles, Mystery Chronicles, Unchronicles, Twin Chronicles with Appendix by Horace Brave Scout

Book One CHRONICLE OF THE INUNDATION, A. A. S. "Year of the Metamorph" How a small, big-winged, thirsty creature with only a sip of water on its tiny mind set in motion events that created the lake-like Mediterranean Sea--the vital body of water around which most of the earliest and greatest civilizations of mankind were birthed.

CHRONICLE OF THE INUNDATION, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR

SECRET CHRONICLE A. A. S. (Ante Anno Stellae, Before Year of the Star) 100,000 The Flamesteeds of Ara How the cherubic magistrate and Mercy-seat guardian, Uran, joined forces with Michael against the take-over of Universe I by the rebel archangel. How the other two cherubs fought to quarantine the equal threat to Universe II that was posed by the corrupted star-stones.

SECRET CHRONICLE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE CRYSTAL BRIDGE A. A. S. 9, 500, Battle For the Bridge How Lucifer, the fallen archangel, fails to seize the vital Gate of Ara, which controls access to the twin Universes; how he makes up part of this loss with vindictive destruction, and goes on to attack the new species the Enemy has planted on what he sees as his exclusive domain, a planet in his allotted sector, Universe I. How going up against Michael a third time, for the control of the interplanetary bridge connecting Earth I and II, he is worsted by the loyalist forces commanded by Michael. It is a terribly humiliating and painful setback (almost as bad as being thrown out of heaven by the triumphant Michael and his armies!). Yet human beings, taken in by Lucifer getting them to rebel against the Enemy, remain his to control and manipulate any way he chooses. He has succeeded in stamping out all fearers of God, except for one man named Noah. That one man should be no problem, Lucifer reasoned. What could one man do against him? He, Lord Lucifer, had won the battle for Earth I--or so it seemed to him.

CHRONICLE OF THE CRYSTAL BRIDGE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE STAR ORACLES (EARTH I) A. A. S. "The Day of Enoch" The Man Who Was Taken Up How Enoch, son of Lamech, cultivated a relationship with the Most High God when most men of his generation worshipped many gods and lived immorally and violently. How the Most High God was so pleased with Enoch that He reached down one day and took Enoch bodily into heaven, but before that day Enoch was given divine signs that signified the meanings God had put in the stars to guide all men back to the truth and to warn them of the coming of His Son, the Dragon-Destroyer.

CHRONICLE OF THE STAR ORACLES, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE HARVEST TIME, Part I A. A. S. 3,301, Year of the Sky Reaper, Harvest Time How no serpent can change its stripes and how a simple shepherd-farmer is confronted with an Atlantean plasma-harvesting expedition. How Lime Flower, Yew Tree's wife, and family coped with being dragged off from their village to slavery in Crooked Tree Village far down from the mountains and on the river plain, and how they were rescued by a God who was unlike all other gods of woods and trees and stones and brooks they had known and worshipped. VOL. IV, CHRONICLE OF THE SKY REAPER, PART I, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE

(EARTH II)

A. A. S. 1230-1200, Voyage of the Argonauts-- How the now extra-terrestrial, vampire race of the Atlanteans, working behind a convenient screen of (to their perspective) petty geopolitics of humanity, sought to stop Jason of Iolkos, also called The One-Sandalled, from gaining the Golden Fleece and returning a hero to Greece. All it needed was such a man of this caliber to unify the whole country of Achaea (at present a hodge-podge of rival city-states and kingdoms ruled by lesser men), which would then be a major setback to the expansion of Ilios and its snake goddess, the major player the Atlanteans had chosen to promote in their grand strategy to regain an Earth II recontructed to their liking.

PART I, CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

PART II, CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

PART III, CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

PART IV, CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

PART V, CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

PART VI, CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

PART VII, CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

PART VIII, CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

"NONE OF THE ABOVE," CONCLUSION, CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE

CHRONICLE OF JASON'S CAPE A. A. S. 1228, Medea's Lost Love How a royal princess and Jason realized it was better to part and not marry rather than form a new ruling Achaean-Colchian dynasty, and how Medea wisely, without her champion Jason to defend her, let the throne of Colchis go and retired with a few servants to the life of a quiet life as a farmer and vintner and remained childless.

CHRONICLE OF JASON'S CAPE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE TWO SERPENTS, PART II A. A. S. 1230-1200, The Horse of Tenedos How two serpents were released to cause havoc in the Upper World. How two ways of life, two sets of gods, two worlds collided at Ludim's chief city, Ilios, later called Troy (Troas) by the Romans. How the poets, chiefly Homer, celebrated the conflict in terms that glorified the heroes on both sides and capitalized on the abduction of a beautiful queen that supposedly sparked the conflict. How Atlanteans, continually meddling in human society for their own advantage, paid a prior visit with a burning "stone" that could have, if finished in construction and put to great effect in the war, have finished the Achaeans in their bid for mastery of the ancient world centered on the Aegean. How, then, the Two Serpent-Armed Goddess was deposed in the bud by the "Horse of Tenedos" and a new world was free to take shape that was not the one the Atlanteans would have chosen. How these vital affairs played out in the coming of Yeshua, and the Good News of that coming was able to be spread universally by the Greek language (not the mother-goddess's language of the Ludim, which would always be spoken locally, not universally like Greek).

CHRONICLE OF THE TWO SERPENTS, PART II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF HORSES OF ISRAEL, A. A. S. 984, The Budding Sopetet How a prophet of Israel, destined to be one of her greatest, was born in Tishbe of Gilead, a village so small it was a flyspeck on the map, and how he suffered early hardship and rough training in Life's School of Hard Knocks, and how he came to confront the king of Israel, Ahab, because he took a foreign, idol-worshipping wife from the wicked heathen city of Sidon.

CHRONICLE OF THE HORSES OF ISRAEL, PART II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF LION-KING, A. A. S. 686, The Wounded Lion, How the king of Assyria, though he was styled "King of the Universe," was badly mauled in a campaign against a tiny kingdom called Judah, and how he returned home without his army (which had mysteriously perished in camp in a single night) only to find his country stirring with rebellion against his tyrannical and disastrous rule.

CHRONICLE OF THE LION-KING, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE VISIONS OF DIVINE MEMORY A. A. S. 537 How the prophet of Israel, grown old, took ship from Joppa to the Iktis, the port city of the Isles of Tin in the Extremity of the West, taking not only his loyal servant Uthai but the Good News of the holy name and saving goodness and almighty power of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to idol-worshipping tribes who burnt people as sacrifices in tree-high haystacks. How the prophet shared with them his divine visions of things and worlds to come.

CHRONICLE OF THE VISIONS OF DIVINE MEMORY, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF LIMERICK II A. A. S. 270 A Cruise on Joseph's Canal How two Irish Celts from the Gaelic Kingdom of Limerick serving as mercenary soldiers in Ptolemy II's army encountered a late and fading memory of a Great Deliverer who kept the land of Kem, Mizraim, the Land of Red and Black, from starving to death in the "Years of the Fat Hyena" when all crops failed for seven years in a row and the hyenas and other scavangers grew fat on the multitude of dead and dying animals and even the bodies of people left unburied in abandoned villages.

CHRONICLE OF LIMERICK II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF CLEOPATRA A. A. S. 31, The Horse of Antirrhodus and the Burning Eye How the last ruler of the royal Macedonian line of Ptolemy in the Land of the Red and Black sought to stop Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus, the grand-nephew of the late Julius Casesar of Roma, from seizing her kingdom so that she could reign as Empress over East and West, with herself deified as the Goddess Isis's incarnation, thus heading the world's state religion. How she retrieved from the world-famed Museum of Alexandria's archives certain old books that contained plans for a super-weapon invented by a race of "Orthrysians"--reputed to be demi-gods from the distant past who had paid her predecessor, the Macedonian pharaoh Ptolemaeus II Philadelphus a state visit with this all-powerful weapon as a "gift" in exchange for certain concessions.

CHRONICLE OF CLEOPATRA, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE STAR OF THE ROSE A. S. 4 -, Wan Li and the Star-Men of the Zoziash How Wan Li, a wealthy merchant of the kingdom of Kuo in the lands of the East, met a prince of stargazers, and together in a caravan they followed the star of the coming King of the Jews--which first appeared in the Sign of the Fish set in the heavens by the Creator of heaven, the earth, and all things and creatures int them; how they met the wicked king in the West, and yet found the young Child born King of kings and Lord of lords, Whose star led them to his house in the little town of Bethlehem of Ephratah-Judaea; how Wan Li and the Star-men worshipped the divine Child, and gave Him royal gifts, then returned secretely without telling the wicked king the whereabouts of the precious Child, and how all their lives were changed forever by the mere sight and Presence of the holy Child.

CHRONICLE OF THE STAR OF THE ROSE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE NATAL STAR A. S. 1-30, The Naked Brave How the Light-Bringer, Lucifer the Covering Cherub who hovered above the Throne of God and kept the Stones of Fire, lost his place in heaven after seeking to be Supreme Deity and was cast out by Michael the archangel and his loyalist forces. How the Messiah, only Son of the Great Father Spirit, leaving the Great Council Fire to live and fight for his Father on Earth (lost to Lucifer and his allies), stripped off his skin and scalp, leaving them shining in his Father's sky-lodge, and how like a star they went seeking for him on Earth.

Reunion How the Messiah, the Bright Morning Star, was rejoined by His stellar glory after his great Victory, and how one of the thieves crucified beside him on a cross shared in the Yeshuas' incomparable splendor.

CHRONICLE OF THE NATAL STAR, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE RIBBON-BEARER A. S. 30, Part I, Tsedahh's Quest How heaven's most insignificant angel was given the task of finding the Universe's most significant tree.

CHRONICLE OF THE RIBBON-BEARER, PART I, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

2. Secret Sharers How two secret disciples of Yeshua, the condemned and executed Messiah-claimant, were unwitting participants in the greatest drama of the ages, and how one, Joseph of Arimathea, took the news of that Event to the Earth's far corner, the coasts and isles of Britain, and how he gave a lasting apostolic blessing to safeguard the land against heathen barbarians after his departure.

CHRONICLE OF THE RIBBON-BEARER, PART II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

3. A New Name How Tsedahh the Ribbon-Bearer retrieved the ribbon and after loosing it above Jerusalem was appointed Keeper of the Tree of Life for eternity, and how he received a new name and a glorious, bright make-over.

CHRONICLE OF THE RIBBON-BEARER, PART III, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE SUFFERING SERVANT A. S. 33, The Forsaken Stream How Yeshua took a towel and wash basin of the lowest household slave and taught his disciples what the Messiahship truly meant on the eve of his trials before the Jewish Council, Pilatus Pontius, and Tetrarch King Herod. CHRONICLE OF THE SUFFERING SERVANT, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF SAUL IN SELA, (OR, PAULUS IN PETRA) A. S. 35, The Eighth Pillar of Wisdom How the budding apostle (who would change his name to Paulus) received a revelation about God's grace directly from the Source, and how it changed his entire perspective on life and the course of his life, not to mention the direction and whole ethos and spirituality of Western Civilization and even the world at large.

CHRONICLE OF SAUL IN SELA, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE THIRD HEAVEN A. S. 49 How two apostles, Paul and Barnabus, reached Lystra in Asia Minor with the Good News of Yeshua, but were hideously stoned when the people, incited by anti-missionaries, turned against them after first proclaiming them gods, Zeus and Mercury (Barnabus called Zeus because of his substantial size and Paulus, being small, called Mercury). How in death (for Paulus was killed) Paulus was taken to view heaven, but was restored to life and sent back to finish his mission on Earth by Yeshua Himself.

CHRONICLE OF THE THIRD HEAVEN, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE HORSE OF TROAS A. S. 50, Philippi Calling How Paulus and two companions, Silas and Lucanus, all believers in Yeshua the Messiah, paused at Troas Alexandria on the coast of Asia Minor (Ionia) to rest and pray. How this epic site where two world-views and their respective gods and goddesses had fought for supremacy 1,180 years before became an even more epic launching point for Paulus's Gospel, for from this jumping-off point to all of Europe a new world was launched at the same time that would overturn the seemingly all-powerful, pagan Roman Empire itself.

CHRONICLE OF THE HORSE OF TROAS

CHRONICLE OF PAULUS AND SILAS IN PRISON A. S. 50, Birth of a Church and a New World How Paulus received a vision in the port of Alexandria Troas (a city near ancient Troy on the NW coast of Asia Minor) of a man of Macedonia urgently calling him to cross over with the Gospel, and how he and Silas were treated in Phillipi of Macedonia and how the city's jailor and his whole family were converted, which was the start of not only a new church but a new world.

CHRONICLE OF PAUL AND SILAS IN PRISON, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

UNCHRONICLE OF THE CHAINED APOSTLE, A. S. 63, Paulus in Britain How Paulus and Silas journeyed to the Estremeity of the West, also known as the Isles of Tin, to bring the good news of Christus to the pagan (and sometimes Jewish) inhabitants. CHRONICLE OF THE WEARY ANGEL A. S. 65 "Welcome, O Sweet Angel of Death" How Paulus, summoned back to court in Rome by the magistrate (a cynical man and Roman pragmatician) handling his case, found the innocent man somehow deserving of death, and how the condemned apostle greeted death by beheading in such a way that the unjust judge could hardly believe his ears when he questioned his aide about Paulus's last words.

UNCHRONICLE OF THE CHAINED APOSTLE and CHRONICLE OF THE WEARY ANGEL

CHRONICLE OF THE FOUR CROSSES A. S. 289, 1. The Theban Insurrection, 2. The Tenth Man How a chief killed his best warriors out of pride, but in doing so made them even greater warriors in the country of sky lodges, where they held the river ford against the raiding Red Dog Star while he suffered everlasting shame for his deed.

CHRONICLE OF THE FOUR CROSSES, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE M-Q WILD GOOSE A. S. 349, Wan Hoo the Kaikonaut and the Rocket Chair How a son honored his ailing, aged mother and went to find the potent herb on the moon to cure her and make her live forever, thereby becoming the first man to attempt to fly there on a "wild goose" (the rocket-propelled chair he invented).

CHRONICLE OF THE M-Q WILD GOOSE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF EIRE'S MESSIAH A. S. 362, The Slave's Gift How Magonus Sucutus Patricius, a young, licentious, shallowly-believing Christian Briton of the noble Roman curiale class, was kidnapped and enslaved by Irish raiders, then later escaped from slavery in Ireland and returned home by a ship trading Irish wolfhounds, only to be accosted in a dream by an Irishman begging the noble youth to return and bring the light and deliverance to the lost and despairing people of the Emerald Island.

CHRONICLE OF EIRE's MESSIAH, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR

CHRONICLE OF THE PAY-BACK A.S. 410, The Fall of Roma, A.S. 1453 - Lamentations with Sacqueboutes How the Burgundians reaped what they sowed; how when barbarians they first shared in the destruction and sack of Western Roma, then benefited by the very civilization they helped destroy, becoming rich and powerful and even Christian in the formerly Roman territory they seized; how the East Roma emperor came to them seeking help against the Moslem Turks attacking his capital city, all that was left of his empire; how he went back to Constantinople without the Burgundian's aid, and how later the Burgundians lost not only their once glorious realm (full of music and feasting and courtly manners) and shining destiny but were reduced to Dijon, a brand of mustard.

CHRONICLE OF THE PAY-BACK, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE BLACK-ROBE A. S. 735, Herald of the Parousia: Bede of Wearmouth-Jarrow How a young brave of the Anglo-Saxons found refuge in a great stone tipi filled with holy men, and how he became a recorder of great things, and how he saw even greater things at the end of his life, which when written his frightened scribe thrust secretly, he thought, into the fire, only it refused to burn--things such as a future world ruler with his throne in London, a royal family renamed Windsor, and even a "people's princess, the glossy Cow Bird beauty called Diana.

CHRONICLE OF THE BLACK-ROBE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE BROKEN EAGLE FEATHER A. S. 878, A Refuge from the Storm How a mighty chief of a tribe fought tribes that came from the east stealing his people's horses and burning their tipis, and how, led by the wisdom of an old woman on the Isle of Athelney, he found a way to save his country, Wessex, which grew and became the mighty nation called England--a nation which came to possess power to obtain a vast realm and change the world. CHRONICLE OF THE BROKEN EAGLE FEATHER, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE WASICHU'S COMING IP A. S. 1620, The Mayflower How pale-skinned, strange newcomers who sailed a great canoe named for a flower and who wore many thicknesses of buckskins settled in a place with bad spirits but learned from us the Vanished People how to plant and produce plenty to eat.

CHRONICLE OF THE BLACK PRIMSTAV A. S. 1707, Chronicler of the Messiah How a rather ordinary Norwegian dairyman, Dreng Bjornsson, began a new Norwegian calendar stick, carving it to replace the old one that had been handed down to him. How the calendar stick became the opportunity for the enlargement of Dreng Bjornsson's vision of the world and the future as well, in the most unexpected way.

CHRONICLE OF THE BLACK PRIMSTAV

CHRONICLE OF THE WASICHU GHOST DANCER A. S. 1755, Bullets That Turned to Raindrops How a young chief trained his spirit with such wisdom and prudence that even bullets could not touch him (and later he would lead the new nation that formed after he achieved victory with arms over the superior forces of the British).

CHRONICLE OF THE WASICHU GHOST DANCER, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE DIVER'S CASQUE A. S. 1768, Angel of the Lake How Gouveneur Morris, a great leader of the Wasichu who helped write the Great Covenant of his people, when a young man was rescued from drowning in a sporting dive in a lake located on the Morrises' Manhattan island estate.

CHRONICLE OF THE DIVERS' CASQUE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE ASSASSIN A. S. 1775, The Lieutenant's Aim How a British sharpshooter had the commanding general of the break-away American colonies's arm dead in his gunsights, but, despite all his training and the 1,000 pounds paid him, could not bring himself to pull the trigger on what he saw to be a true king and a man of noble soul.

CHRONICLE OF THE ASSASSIN, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE GREAT WHITE FATHER'S PASSING A. S. 1799 How George Washington, who could have ruled the brand-new United States of America as a king but declined a third term and everything else smacking of kingship, spent his last day of life busily inspecting his estate and the well-being of its servants and workers; how he fell ill from a chill caught from five hours exposure to the raw weather, and how the unscientific medicine of the day not only failed to help but hastened him to his death; nhow the Dream he had dreamed was reviewed by an aged black woman of devout faith, and how the Dream fared along with the great one who dreamed it.

CHRONICLE OF THE GREAT WHITE FATHER'S PASSING, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE GARDENE OF DESTINYE A. S. 1850, Holiday at Castle Edzell How an eight year old girl from Abbotsbury solves the castle's greatest mind-game, a puzzle left over from the Age of Titans and later amended by Joseph of Arimathea and the 17th Century Tradescant brothers that was reputed to hold a key to the future well-being, even the preservation, of the British Isles.

CHRONICLE OF THE GARDENE OF DESTINYE, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR

CHRONICLE OF THE WASICHU BROTHERS' WAR A. S. 1863, Christmas at Andersonville How the white brothers of the North and South fought, and how the brother of the North, after terrible setbacks administered by the South's genius in war-craft and chieftainship, finally prevails--but in a Christmas play in a prison camp, not on the battlefield.

CHRONICLE OF THE WASICHU BROTHERS' WAR, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE BELZONI EXHIBIT A. S. 1865, Part I, The Colossus of Thebes, Part II, Twenty Minutes After Ten, Part III, "Where are you taking the Colossus, my good fellow?" How the reputed Colossus of Thebes representing the Pharaoh of the Hebrew Captivity came to Washington and was given a Presidential visit, and how the dying President, a Colossus to come, came to view the end in turn of the future Washington City. CHRONICLE OF THE BELZONI EXHIBIT, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR

CHRONICLE OF TWO BROTHERS A. S. 1865-, Giant Footprints How the Wasichu flooded the land of the Lakota, and how a young pioneer Wasichu "sodbuster" on a Dakota Territory homestead saved the life of a Rosebud Lakota chief who was Gabriel Tall Chief's great-grandfather.

CHRONICLE OF THE TWO BROTHERS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE BLACK SHIP'S CREW A. S. 1877, Escape from Wolverton How two delinquent boys escaped from a rural Californian reform school and were enlisted in a computerized wargame far in the future after one of them killed the other.

CHRONICLE OF THE BLACK SHIP'S CREW, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR

CHRONICLE OF THE GREY DOVE A. S. 1878, Wings over Te Aute How Te Hapuku and Karaitiana, two of the greatest warriors and chiefs of the Island of the Long Cloud, who had fought a bloody war over selling land to the white Europeans and opposed each other as bitter enemies for twenty five long years, were finally brought together by a compassionate intermediary, Sir George Grey, Premier of New Zealand, as Chief Te Hapuku lay dying in his lodge; how the wonders of the far future were unveiled before the amazed premier as he was given the secret meanings of the wonderfully intricate wood carvings of the Maori people--carvings that, to the Maori, contained not just the future but the power, the mana, of the world.

CHRONICLE OF THE GREY DOVE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY BRIDGE A. S. 1889, Norton's Grand Vision How a self-crowned "Emperor of the Americas and Protector of Mexico" in San Francisco envisoned a great bridge spanning the Bay, that not only would carry the commerce of men but their hearts' forgiveness and reconciliation. CHRONICLE OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY BRIDGE, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR

CHRONICLE OF THE LISTENING HEARTS A. S. 1912, 1. Wrestlers at the Brook How a Welsh miner left his home and job and followed a divine call to Swansea to establish a training camp for prayer warriors.

CHRONICLE OF THE LISTENING HEART, PART I, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

2. The Premonition How a mother in Second Class aboard a luxury liner on its maiden voyage in the North Atlantic could not sleep because the ship had been called "unsinkable," and spent most of three days voyage sitting up and praying.

CHRONICLE OF THE LISTENING HEART, PART II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

3. "Sweet dreams, Mademoiselle!" How a rich, little girl in First Class aboard the doomed ship dreamed what was going to happen, and how her French governess calmed the girl and wished her sweet dreams only a few minutes before the vessel was fatally struck and sent to the bottom of the sea.

CHRONICLE OF THE LISTENING HEART, PART III, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE TIGERS' FEAST A. S. 1919, The Mirrors of Versailles How a Paris peace conference of the victorious Allies after the Great World War brokered a total disaster of a treaty at Versailles that, unforgiving and punishing Germany beyond any nation's endurance, automatically produced the Second World War, and how the famous mirrors of Versailles framing the conference room, being totally objective and honest, reflected a far different scene than Clemenceau, Wilson, and Lloyd George wished to portray to the anxious, watching world.

CHRONICLE OF THE TIGERS' FEAST, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE RAT STAR AND THE EXODUSTER A. S. 1919, Convergence in Kansas How a young black Kansas farm girl, Pearl Shoey, painted barn rats red to get rid of them, and saw then a red-glowing star that afterwards she thought must of changed her beloved Pa, because he seemed never the same after the red star touched him with its light. CHRONICLE OF THE RAT STAR AND THE EXODUSTER, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE ICE BIRD--PART I A.S. 1922, Shackleton's Third Expedition Continued How Sir Ernest Shackleton, famed polar explorer, on a solo day trip doing reconaissance for his third expedition south to the Pole by way of McMurdo's Dry Valleys--a 1,500 square mile tract of ice-free terrain--finds a strange, mastless ship, which he enters just as a polar cyclonic storm strikes, rndering the area uninhabitable. Christening it ENDURANCE II, after his last ship, the three-masted barkentine ENDURANCE that was crushed in the ice of the Weddell Basin, he sails on a pre-determined curse to the stars in the north, the Constellation of Orion, with a mission he does nt know until he reaches his destination.

CHRONICLE OF THE ICE BIRD, PART I, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE TRAVOIS A. S. 1919-1939, The War Between Wars How the First Horse, Ian "Breaks Eggs, " learned many things from Second Horse, until both could pull the travois together to the place chosen for the Great Council Fire of the End-Time.

CHRONICLE OF THE TRAVOIS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF YELLOWSTONE DAYS A. S. 1928, Song of the Golden West How the rollicking, high-spirited, hard-working girls and boys serving the crowds at Yellowstone, easily the premier national park of America, enjoyed a moment of innocence and beauty so rare in the world, not realizing it was all over for them and their generation in but a few months, with the Wall Street stock market melt-down of '29 just one incident in the long road backwards to the Stone Age.

CHRONICLE OF THE TIME ROCKET, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF RAGNAROK A. S. 1937, Singer of the Ancient Seer How a bard left the Emerald Island to look at old vellum books and paintings preserved by the Benedictines in a monastery in Padua, Italia, and how they warned him about a second great world conflict of the Wasichu nations, which would usher in the new world order and the rise of a lion-bodied, man-headed Beast, the False Messiah, who would seize world power and crush out all the light of liberty and decency in Civilisation. CHRONICLE OF RAGNAROK, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE MOUNTAIN TOMB A. S. 1938, Eugenio's Secret How a Basque fighting with the Loyalist forces in the Spanish Civil War found ancient scrolls and artifacts in a tomb that were older than even Eskual Herria, the Basque homeland that predated every other nation and nationality in Europe.

CHRONICLE OF THE MOUNTAIN TOMB, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE OSLO TAPESTRY A. S. 1938, Katrine's Secret How a Norwegian woman, living alone, grew so desperate about her bone-dry spiritual condition that she would do anything, even take pictures of simple leaves and shadows in her garden, if it would help restore her faith--pictures forming a tapestry portraying events to come that would have astounded the world if all of them had been made public.

CHRONICLE OF THE OSLO TAPESTRY, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE RUINED CATHEDRAL A. S. 1940, Winter of the Soul How Coventry was sacrificed, along with its ancient cathedral and much of its population, by a decision of Churchill who aimed to let the bombers through without any warning to Coventry in order to make the Nazis believe their secret code had not been cracked by Britain's code breakers at Bletchley House. How a half-literate scrubwoman in the smoking ruins of the Cathedral found the means to confront the unspeakable tragedy of losing practically everything in the bombing and firestorm that destroyed Coventry; that is, her husband, children, neighbors, city, cathedral, even her house and job.

CHRONICLE OF THE RUINED CATHEDRAL, VOL. IV. RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE SEA LION A. S. 1940, 1. Convergence at Abbotsbury How a pious, elder daughter caring for an aged, ailing mother, prayed the right prayer, effectively throwing a switch to a most powerful blessing 1,900 years old.

CHRONICLE OF THE SEA LION, PART I, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

2. Winter's Grace How a Welsh "College of Intercessionary Prayer-warcraft and Fasting," founded by a former coal miner, succeeded in turning the major events of World War II, starting with the Battle of Britain.

CHRONICLE OF THE SEA LION, PART II, RETROSTAR

3. No Wings But a Prayer How Sir Francis Cecil, hereditary Lord St. Aubyn of the Mount of St. Michael, Cornwall, while squadron commander of Spitfires in the Battle of Britain, was struck wingless by enemy fire but continued flying, and how he was taken out over the coast where he witnessed an even greater event taking place off the notoriously stormgirt Chesil Banks.

CHRONICLE OF THE SEA LION, PART III, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

4. Ivy's Grand Slam How a little English girl in Portsmouth changed her bedtime prayer and turned back an incoming V-2, setting it on a trajectory that almost took Shickelgruber out of the war.

CHRONICLE OF THE SEA LION, PART IV, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT, A. S. 1940- , How on Earth I Elijah, a Romanian boy growing up in a brutalM Communist-ruled country, found a miracle-producing faith just like Jason the Argonaut's to stand up against the impossible odds of confronting a militaristic, atheist dictatorship destroying his beloved homeland, and how he made a new life for himself, succeeding after tens of thousands before him had been slain in the same attempt to win freedom.

CHAPTER 1, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 2, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 3, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 4, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 5, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 6, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 7, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 8, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 9, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 10, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 11, CHR0NICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 12, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 13, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 14, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 15, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 16, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 17, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 18, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT

CHRONICLE OF THE ORACLE OF MENO A. S. 1938-1941, St. Roderick's Secret How a Basque patriot, deserting the Loyalist army in the Spanish Civil War, became a free lance secret agent for the British side against the Nazis, luring Shickelgruber into the race for a Super-Bomb while withholding vital information that would have made the Nazi project a success.

CHRONICLE OF THE ORACLES OF MENO, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE RAG DOLL A. S. 1943, Christmas at Auschwitz How a young, brilliant, blind chemist, soon to perish in a gas chamber, afraid it was all for nothing, was given unmistakable proof her life was divinely touched. CHRONICLE OF THE RAG DOLL

CHRONICLE OF THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY'S SECRET PANELS A. S. 1944, Questioning the Sphinx How nuns guarded what came to be known as the world's most famous tapestry, the one detailing the Norman invasion of England in 1066, and how an American nun, an expert in tapetries, discovered additional panels that had not been sewn onto the masterpiece--panels that had been kept secret for the obvious reason they were found so disturbing because they were so prophetic about the world to come.

CHRONICLE OF THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY'S SECRET PANELS, Vol. IV, Retro Star

CHRONICLE OF THE BROKEN GLASS A. S. 1945, 1. Legacy How the victorious chieftains at the Potsdam council meeting from Britain, the U.S., and the Soviet Union, in the name of peace started the "War of Ice," and how Britain's "Tube Alloys" nuclear project came to nothing with suppression and disappearance of vital M-2 intelligence, and President Truman's ace in the hole, the Manhattan Project's Super-Bomb, fizzled at Alamagordo--apparently forcing America to join forces with Britain and Stalin's Russia to fight on to the finish with conventional forces against Premier Hideki Tojo's best troops and, unknown as yet to the Allies and their war planners, a whole nation swept by Kamikaze, the "Divine Wind".

CHRONICLE OF THE BROKEN GLASS, PART I, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

2. The Pack Rat How a peddler of information, selling whatever he dug up to the highest bidder, happened on a deadly superweapon--one of three that Senhor Averinata had offered the British--that later would be used to help tip the scales against America in favor of the United Nations and a world government. To the Jews the crushing of the wine glass in a Jewish wedding recalled the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in ANNO 70, but to the Basques, it meant the whole universe was shattered--never ever to be put back together as it had been. (How could he barter and trade the destinies of whole nations as if they were trinkets and trifles? Peddlers, like foraging rats, consider only the present moment, and the penny or two gained or lost--never the long haul, which is, for a peddler, far to frightening to even consider in a rodent-type mind. Without the ship, the rat would drown in the open sea. Yet it infests the ship, spreads its diseases with its own dirt, and gives the crew a deadly plague, and the ship, without anyone to guide it to safety, strikes a rock and sinks, drowning the rats who caused the disaster. This has happened countless times. Their own nature, thus, gnaws off the rope that holds them above the pit. Pity the civilization where such men, such vermin, proliferate and gain high office! And you can always tell the end is near when such are numerous and run free, from deck to deck!).

CHRONICLE OF THE BROKEN GLASS, PART II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

3. The Angels of USS Indianapolis IP How on July 29, following the successful test of a new death ray in the first week of July, that dissolved atomic structures and could fuse human flesh to metal, a battleship was loaded with the deadly "gadget" and sailed for Tinian, an island in the Marianas Chain. Locked in a steel box bolted to the deck of the captain's cabin, the weapon that would knock the Japanese on the home islands to their knees would be assembled in the secret facility at North Field on Tinian, then deployed by aircraft over the first test cities of Tokyo and Kyoto, the two most revered cities in Japan and the centers of Japanese cultural life. How the best laid plan of the war came to naught, with details of immense tragedy and even angelic intervention that were so explosive in nature they could never be revealed to the American public.

CHRONICLE OF THE BROKEN GLASS, PART 3, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

4. The Divine Wind How Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands, ultimately succeeded but without superweapons proved so costly to America and Russia that they had cause to recall King Pyrrhus of the Greek kingdom of Epirus, who conquered Roman armies on their home turf but sustained such heavy losses he complained in his famous statement known for its unforgettable pathos, "Another such victory and I am ruined!"

CHRONICLE OF THE BROKEN GLASS, PART 4, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE HORSE OF NAKING A.S. 1947, A light in Prison; A.S. 1950, Victory in Shibuya How a flier with Colonel Doolittle on his surprise raid of Tokyo afterwards was himself surprised to find there was a way out of the all-consuming hatred he felt for the Japanese guards who were starving and torturing him and other P.O.W.s.

How the mission commander of the Japanese squadron that devastated Pearl Harbor's naval force met the flier after his release and how a great light was passed from the dark hole of Nanking to the former mission commander in Tokyo"s Shibuya Train Station.

CHRONICLE OF THE HORSE OF NANKING, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE WINTER SACRIFICE A. S. 1947, 1. Winter's Child How deeply the alien star's rays penetrated postwar America, and how an old farmer's beloved son was killed in the Wioteheka hi, Month of Terrible Moons. 2. Plain View Farm How two deaths in a fiery plane crash were needed to thaw the frozen hearts of two other men.

CHRONICLE OF THE KILLER BEAR'S DESCENT A. S. 1951, The Bear and the Lamb How Djugashvilli fared, while on the operating table in the Kremlin, as a small army of surgeons desperately tried to preserve his life after a massive sroke; how they failed and Djugashvilli, an atheist, found himself still alive, imprisoned in an Afterlife cell which could only be described as hellish. How things got progressively worse for him, as he encountered a strange Jew wearing a prayer shawl and next faced a Judge sitting on a throne so immense it couldn't be anyone less than God sitting upon it, and how he was judged by the testimonies of thirty or so millions he had had tortured and slain, and how after that he found himself shunted into a burning lake of blast furnance intensity, and how he, like all the others in it, were forgotten.

CHRONICLE OF THE KILLER BEAR'S DESCENT, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE MAN LIKE A BRIDGE A.S. 1956, The Search How a young woman of the First World discovered the way back to her lost childhood faith, a faith that carried her all the way to Third World Cameroon wilderness in West Africa where it finally set its roots deep and briefly bloomed. CHRONICLE OF THE MAN LIKE A BRIDGE

MYSTERY CHRONICLE OF THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY A. S. 1962 The Phantom Ship How Lt. Greg Culpepper's life and career took a radical turn and plunge to the bottom of society after a storm at sea and his sighting of the R.M.S. TITANIC going down as he was inspecting the lighthouse facilities at Cape Disappointment and North Head on the mouth of the Columbia River, Washington State. MYSTERY CHRONICLE OF THE 50th ANNIVERSARY, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF EDYTH'S GOLDEN CROSS A. S. 1963, A Truth Not Told How Miss Edyth Hamilton, humanist, classicist, and world-renowned authority on Greek and Norse mythology, was strangely confronted on her deathbed with certain false premises that undergird her whole life-work.

CHRONICLE OF EDYTH'S GOLDEN CROSS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE LADY OF THE SPARROWS, A Tale of Old New York and Central Park A.S. 1964, Lucky's Big Strike How Lucretiza Tisdale, a spinster lady in her nineties, fed the sparrows of Central Park faithfully every day and how her death under the wheels of a beer truck brought changes, through the very sparrows she had given soda crackers, that she could not otherwise have achieved at her age and with her insignificant, sparrowlike strength.

CHRONICLE OF THE LADY OF THE SPARROWS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE FIGHTING ANGEL, PARTS I AND II A. S. 1963 How the Swensons, a young American newlywed couple, in training for the mission field, took a break from language school in Paris, and came to a crisis of their relationship and a man's faith in God on and beneath the Mount of St. Miguel, the Fighting Angel.

CHRONICLE OF THE FIGHTING ANGEL, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR

PART II: How the Swensons came to share their Christmas with the Fulani Tribe in Cameroon, West Africa, and how their cheer spread from there as far as the stars to a lost tribe of the Alpha Centaurii.

PART II, CHRONICLE OF THE FIGHTING ANGEL AND CHRONICLE OF THE LOST TRIBE (VOL. VI, NATAL CONVERGENCE, "A FULANI CHRISTMAS," RETRO STAR

CHRONICLE OF THE REVIVAL OF HAGIA SOPHIA A.S. 1968 How Lidia, a Greek Orthodox nun, ventured from her safe refuge in a convent in Athens, to return by tourist boat to her lost homeland in the Turkish nation that had forced her family to flee for their lives in the savage. almost genocidal war that broke out between the Greeks and Turks after World War I. How she learned things she did not expect from her day trip and contact with the enemy occupying her people's chief city and seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople and East Rome. How she received a gift she would always treasure--and ceased feeling herself robbed by the Turks though they had taken her Greek homeland as their own and pushed out virtually all her fellow Greeks.

CHRONICLE OF THE REVIVAL OF HAGIA SOPHIA, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE SHOW ME STATE'S PROPHET (EARTH I) A. S. 1966, Elijah's Mantle How young and aspiring Brad Bright Jr. dreamed of becoming a prophet to "Holy Spirit-led, on-fire" Pentecostal churches in Missouri, his home state. How his promising life was cut short by a fatal collision with a tree when he was driving his truck home from a church youth meeting, and how his dream of ministry was defeated only temporarily, as a bit later he was brought back to serve with Elijah's mantle in the war against the AntiChrist Beast and his prophet during the post-Rapture Tribulation Period.

CHRONICLE OF THE SHOW ME STATE PROPHET, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE GIANT CHIEFS A. S. 1972, Two Sayings of Uwe Hantsbo Regarding the Atlanteans: Elektra's Sad Fate, and Atlantis on the rocks, anyone? How the Earth's tribe of original giants that stood like the tallest trees on Earth lived in a vast land that sank beneath the Eastern Sea.

CHRONICLE OF THE BLUE BRIDGE SALIENT A. S. 1973-1978 Even while the armies of France, Britain, and America struggled unsuccessfully in southern Asia to push back the communist forces from the north, a greater battle was being fought among the stars. How Atlantean star fleets combined with the red star and other star-stones to force an entry into the Great Nebula in order to destroy the protective forces centered at the Blue Brige. How, nearly successful, they were rebuffed, forcing an Atlantean subcommander to retreat to Earth.

CHRONICLE OF THE BLUE BRIDGE SALIENT, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF HANTSBO'S NOTES A.S. 199?, On the Bipedal Workforce of 1994tk66--A Flying Texas How Uwe Hantsbo discovered on a planetoid a most interesting cache of mutants, freeze-dried specimens of the very kinds that had been proposed by a Washington geographical society in its magazine to be authentic human prototypes proven by science and archeology. The only problem, as Hantsbo points out, is that they were found all mixed together, obvious contemporaries, not separated by millions of years or mere hundreds of thousands as was said to be the case by the East Coast Brahmin evolutionists entrenched in the powerful, elitist geographical society.

CHRONICLE OF HANTSBO'S NOTES, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE ICE BIRD, PART II A. S. 1973, Voyage of the PRION Inspired by Shackleton's legendary heroism, how an exlorer from New Zealand set out to be the first to circumnavigate Antarctica in a small boat solo, and stumbled into an unknown "Devil's Triangle" of ancient Atlantean orgin just off East Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf that changed his course so radically he was propelled in space and also time as far as an ancient Atlantean outpost opposite the gate of the Great Nebula of Orion--the very site of what Tennison the Poet Laureate of Britain described as holding a "vast mystic charm." CHRONICLE OF THE ICE BIRD, PART II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

MYSTERY CHRONICLE OF THE WHITE CANOE A. S. 1977, Fairwind in Deep Waters How a young electric plant operator of mixed working class and New England blue blood background takes a cruise into the unknown mysteries of time and space aboard what had first seemed a New York based cruise ship on its way to Peru.

MYSTERY CHRONICLE OF THE WHITE CANOE, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR

CHRONICLE OF THE ICE BIRD, PART III A. S. 1978, Cavendish in the Sky with Diamonds A somewhat crusty curmugeon of a retired journalist, in remission from cancer but angry over the recent loss of his wife to the same disease, reflected on the supreme irony of his life. He had planned his retirement so differently! He had just begun writing poetry, meditations, and music under a nice nom de plume when his new, promising, third career of letters and music was stopped right in its tracks by a disaster in his own home: his wife had taken deathly ill. Cancer! Now he was too sick to go on writing and composing--even though the time to do it was his again, lying heavy on his weak, trembling hands. Feeling like the icy, polar coulds of Global Freezing would hang over his head until he died, he goes out into his ruined and half-frozen back yard and changes places with a Prion, a polar bird that has wandered into his garden and died. Somehow the bird in death becomes him, giving him wings of a starship that can touch the farthest stars and Orion, Gateway to the Morning, where something bright and shining with destiny for everyone on earth seemed to open to him.

CHRONICLE OF THE ICE BIRD, PART III, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR

CHRONICLE OF FOXY PASSES A. S. 1983 How Skip Cavendish, alias Stuart Hawkins, wrote a poetic tribute to "Foxy," a local political icon, and, drawing upon his first career in vaudeville, made a last and notable performance at the Capitol theatre before a packed house of State socialites, government leaders, and the wealthy. How the very people preyed upon Hawkins's former schoolmate, Franklin Delano "Foxy" Benedict, the state capital's foremost "facilitator" and master of the incurably corrupt government patronage system, watched in growing disgust and anger as their bizarrely costumed impresario tore Foxy's mask off in verse after verse; how the old fox could still run (or at least roll) from his pursuers, but he still could not escape his and his enemy Cavendish-Hawkins' destinies being woven together in a strange, future cyber-world that neither could have imagined, long after Foxy and his nimble "smarts" had suffered an Ichabod-like fate.

CHRONICLE OF FOXY PASSES, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE LADY OF THE ANCHORED A.S. 1983 On the Trail of St. Paul How Prunella, a sedate altar guild woman from the Midlands, England, on tour with a cruise ship company in the Middle East, finds release from a crushing depression over the accidental death of her daughter.

CHRONICLE OF THE LADY OF THE ANCHORED, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE SURVEYOR OF THE QUEEN'S PICTURES A. S. 1983-, The Knight of Darkness How Sir Anthony Blunt and his fellow Cambridge-educated colleagues became involved in a secret spy ring inside the British secret services, serving not Fascism but Soviet Russia during part of the Second World War and for some years of the following Cold War with Soviet Russia. How Sir Anthony "retired" from being a double agent to being the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, with the responsibility for all the Queen's artworks in the royal palaces, but how he was exposed as a spy and found guilty but was allowed to retire with some dignity to his home, while his co-conspirators fled to Soviet Russia. How in dying they singly and together discovered an Afterlife their Darwinistic beliefs had denied was possible, which delegated them to a new venture just as exciting as betraying their own country and serving her arch enemy--a contest involving the Golden Fleece and a rival ship called the Argo.

CHRONICLE OF THE SURVEYOR OF THE QUEEN'S PICTURES, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE FURLED SAIL, THE UNQUEST OF LARRY PRUFROCKSKI, A. S. 1986, The Man Who Never Launched Forth How Larry Prufrocksi, a union man and a railway worker from the Pacific Northwest, took one of his periodic tours abroad, this time a tour to Russia, Siberia, and Mongolia, naturally encountering a set of new circumstances, but meeting them with his same characteristic determination never to be changed by any of them. And he wasn't changed--right up to the moment his Air France flight, on its return to the U.S., swerved back from Long Island and vanished in what was thought to be an northern extension of the Bermuda Triangle. Pieces of the wreckage were found, however, and enough fusilage so that some artifacts and possessions of the doomed passengers were retrieved by the investigative teams. Among the items was a travel journal, kept by Larry, telling about the entire tour in his usual neat, square-lettered, no-nonsense style of writing, the same style he used for making out railway reports. Sent by mistake to the lone tour member who survived, a woman who had been kept behind in Moscow due to a sudden stomach problem, the journal was sent on to the surviving family, with her comments and condolences entered in the unused pages.

CHRONICLE OF THE FURLED SAIL, THE UNQUEST OF LARRY PRUFROCKSKI, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE SACRED COWHIDE PAINTER A. S. 1987, Ira's Letter to the 11,000th Century How an artist's paintings for a B.I.A.-Lakota Christmas arts and crafts competition were preserved for a tribe of Wasichu lost seemingly forever among the lodges of the stars.

CHRONICLE OF THE SACRED COWHIDE PAINTER

CHRONICLE OF THE LION'S DESCENT, A. S. 1995, "The Lion's Descent," Part I, "The Lion's Legacy," Part II, How a U.S. Supreme Court Justice who was a very nice and likable gentleman became responsible for a once great and godly nation's descent into self-destructive depravity and violence and also for more deaths of Americans than were slain in the death camps of Himmler and Hitler (Earth I), and how he fared in Hades (Hell) after his death.

CHRONICLE OF THE LION'S DESCENT, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF UWE HANTSBO'S NOTES A. S. 199?, On the Bipedal Workforce of 1994tK66, A Flying Texas How Uwe Hantsbo points out certain rather glaring flaws in the evolutionary timeline and evolutionary theory after seeing the flaws in question with his own eyes, frozen specimens of hominids and so-called human precursors, flying aboard a Texas-sized hunk of rock; how their existence supports his own view that highly intelligent, highly terrible ante-humans he names as the Atlanteans were responsible for the Dachau-like work camp on the asteriod.

CHRONICLE OF UWE HANTSBO'S NOTES, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE GREAT WEAVER PEOPLE A. S. 1997, The Secret of Dream Catching How Horace Brave Scout wanders the Southwest and finds his life-guiding vision among the caves and baskets of an extinct tribe. CHRONICLE OF THE GREAT WEAVER PEOPLE

CHRONCLE OF THE UTERO-NAUT A. S. YEAR OF THE CHILD, PART I, Orientation How Shawnta, a 19 year old wannabe careerist like her single mom, was processed at the local abortion mill newly opened in her black neighborhood.

CHRONICLE OF THE UTERO-NAUT, PART I, RETROSTAR

PART II, The Argonaut How Shawnta's unborn child (no such thing as "fetus" ever existed on earth), genius that he was, got going with the name of Jason on a very promising career that might well have benefited the whole society and probably the world, but was rudely interrupted by an abortionist's foreseps, scizzors, and vacuum--but also how the Master Plan created by the FC kicked in with a contingency plan to restore Jason's life and future.

CHRONICLE OF THE UTERO-NAUT, PART II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE PEARLY GATES A. S. 1998, How a Pearl Was Made How a farmer's daughter's experiences in life and her decision to be forgiving came to form one half of a gate of heaven.

CHRONICLE OF THE PEARLY GATE, PARTS I-II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE GRAND PUZZLE--Earth I A. S. 2001- How Anatoly, a survivor of a notorious Nazi death camp where Anne Franke and her sister perished along with tens of thousands of other Jews, spent his convalescence and waiting period to go to Israel by playing the lottery after the camp was in the hands of the Allies; how he shattered the laws of probability by never losing and always managing to win back his stake; how this impossible gambling feat came back to haunt him in the last minutes of his life as he lay dying in a Denver hospital, but how the Hound of Heaven led him to win the Jackpot of life, the greatest prize of all.

CHRONICLE OF THE GRAND PUZZLE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE LOST CITY A. S. 2002, Last Breakfast in the West Wing; Melt-down on Pennsylvania Avenue How the Wasichu of the U. S., in moral and political decline over against the British Commonwealth ever since Potsdam despite the highly-publicized moon and space programs of NASA, are struck by an invisible enemy and lose all their chiefs at once, and chiefs from the rest of the world come and set up a new council fire for the nation on Manhattan Island.

CHRONICLE OF THE MILLION MAN FLESH-EATER, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE DEAD MOVIE QUEEN A. S. 2003, The Burning of Coburn How a Hollywood legend found that all her fame, fortune, and feisty feminism couldn't erase the incredible after-death reality that was evidently turning against her--not only did she find she existed when she should have dissolved into nothingness, but all sorts of strange, powerful beings seemed intent on judging her and then throwing her into what appeared to be a Pacific Ocean set on fire.

CHRONICLE OF THE DEAD MOVIE QUEEN, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF MOSHE, HONORGUARDSMAN A. S. "Night of the Iguana" How on Earth I, Moshe Benlevi, a young Israeli soldier, a freedom-loving Sabra, was chosen to be a part of Michael Jayson's honor guard in Israel when the EU President arrived there for the signing of his "eternal peace" accord he had brokered with the Palestinians and the Israelis. How Moshe tasted sour grapes in the deal and decided to stop the world (at least his slice of it) and get off, but how he was intercepted by someone he hadn't included in his life's equation.

CHRONICLE OF MOSHE, HONORGUARDSMAN, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF DJUGASHVILLI'S SERVANTS A. S. 2024 The Titan of CNNC A hostile takeover by Ted Hunter of a competing Christian network, Alpha-Omega, backfired tragically for him when his wife, converting to Christianity right in his own penthouse on top the CNNC Towers in Manhattan, took A-O's side in opposing him. A takeover that was supposed to be routine, thanks to his billions and an army of corporate lawyers, became a living nightmare when he met a world-class power player in A-0 that more than proved his match.

CHRONICLE OF DJUGASHVILLI's SERVANTS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE FALLEN GIANT A. S. 2024, How the Dominion of Canada, like the Humpty Dumpty the ill-starred egg man in children's nursery tales, broke up due to the disastrous effects of resurgent glaciation but could not be put back together; how it gained an ephemeral capital called Flin Flondia, once called the "Sunless City," in a book by that name.

CHRONICLE OF THE FALLEN GIANT, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT A. S. 2170-, 1. Idylls of the King

CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT, PART I, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

2. The Panther's Jaws

CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT, PART II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

3. Women and Children First!

CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT, PART III, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

4. Le Morte D'X-2914000?

CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT, PART IV, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

5. "Merry Christmas from Lyonnesse"

CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT, PART V, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

6. Wotoo's Black Box; The Duck King

CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT, PART SIX, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

7. Last Wagon Train to Avalann How the Royal Tribe of Windsor fared in exile on a base off Charon, Pluto's moon, and how they adapted to the loss of Earth and the dissolution of the monarchy

CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE STAR CHAMBER A. S. 2363, Christ in Atlantis? How Professor Pikkard was tried before a university panel for his heretical views and found guilty without evidence to refute his case.

CHRONICLE OF THE STAR CHAMBER, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF CHRISTUS TRIUMPHANS, Parts I, II, & III A. S. 2392, The Christmas Factor How Dr. Pikkard, meditating on the mystic Teilhard Chardin's visionary commentary on a medieval painting portraying a "standing" not a "hanging" Christ on the Cross, went on to reflect as well as the Incarnation of Yeshua, and how he concluded that a mystic thread connected all things, even to the blood of the human body, but that he had to wait for a "later" and "younger" talent to make it known scientifically. How, unknown to him, that younger visionary came to be his own predecessor, a Darwininian Establishment-challenging young man named Behe in the 20th-21st centuries, along with his contemporaries, Gabriel Tall Chief and Horace Brave Scout, who traced golden threads and lesser threads in a grand "blood cascade" of their own in the chronicles they brought forth.

CHRONICLE OF CHRISTUS TRIUMPHANS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

Re-Location of Earth II

Book Two

CHRONICLE OF YOSEF'S PILGRIMAGE A. S. 4117, Flight to Avaris How Yosef and his young wife Maryam, with Maryam's newborn Yeshua the Promised Messiah of the Jews, fled from troops and spies of Herod the Great to safety in Mizraim, and how they journeyed back to Nazareth, their natal city, once Herod was dead.

CHRONICLE OF YOSEF'S PILGRIMAGE

CHRONICLE OF THE SECOND RESURRECTION A. S. 4150, Secret Sharers, Part II How the Second Zechariah the prophet, slain in the temple courts alng with many other prophets and saints, rose from the dead as a sign of the resurrection of the Messiah way back in A.S. 30, and how he went into the holy city and appeared to many, after which he was triumphantly escorted by angels to heaven's paradise--a spectacle first recorded, with certain new additions to the Resurrection Rolol, by Secret Sharer Josheph of Arimathea.

CHRONICLE OF THE SECOND RESURRECTION, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

UNCHRONICLE OF THE CHRISTMAS PLAY A. S. 4 6 5 ?, "Merry Christmas from Lyonnesse," A Play, How a miserly, cruel banker seeks to destroy a whole town he has foreclosed on, closing down the only means of employment, the town mill, and how a small girl, Emily Cogwell, revives faith and hope in the people by refusing to give up her own in the bitter circumstances of poverty and homelessness, and how she turns and saves the banker when he experiences a change of heart after seeing her standing alone in the town square holding the Nativity Scene's Christ Child doll.

UNCHRONICLE OF THE CHRISTMAS PLAY, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE DRIED SPRINGS IP A. S. 4760, A Chief's Son Named Laughing Waters How an old chief and his old wife who had no children were promised a son by God, and the old woman laughed, yet later she conceived and gave birth to a beautiful son she named Minnehaha.

CHRONICLE OF THE PEARL DIVER A. S. 5927 -, Shipwreck of Dreams How a despised half-breed, part Keftiuan and part Myceneaean (both nations bitter enemies in the world) and Prince Daedalus do not get along and almost come to blows over the pretty orphan girl Theseus runs off with, and later after the girl's death (and the shipwreck of Theseus's dreams) how they find a way past hatred and revenge. CHRONICLE OF THE PEARL DIVER, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE FIRE WATER MAKER A. S. 5931, The Chosen How a brewery malt masher got herself a mighty warrior as a husband, and how her head was knocked in by other poor women, and left to die, but a great chief's prayer gained her the ear of the Most High and she was healed. CHRONICLE OF THE FIRE WATER MAKER, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE BLESSINGS OF THE BREASTS A. S. 5932-, The Wayward Vine How the births of two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, comforted and cheered Joseph in the land of his bondage, but how his beloved wife and companion's heart turned toward her people and away from her husband.

CHRONICLE OF THE BLESSINGS OF THE BREASTS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

TWIN CHRONICLE OF THE AMBUSHED MAIDENS, TWIN CHRONICLE OF THE AMBUSHED BRAVE A. S. 5934, 1. Dawn Flower

TWIN CHRONICLE OF THE AMBUSHED MAIDENS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

2. The Prince of Gilead

TWIN CHRONICLE OF THE AMBUSHED BRAVE

How a chieftain's daughter and her maid-servant fought for their virtue; how the maid-servant escaped to safety and found a young man she could make her husband; how a prince, robbed of all his wealth, was left for dead in the desert, and how he found a greater wampum.

CHRONICLE OF THE BITTER ROOT A. S. 5938, Abdullah's Return How good times fattened Abdullah but did not improve his character, and how resentment and blood revenge took root in his heart, and how he could not rest until he avenged his brethren's deaths on the head of the chief of those he held responsible--Joseph. CHRONICLE OF THE BITTER ROOT, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF FAT WOLVES AND HUNGRY PEOPLE A. S. 5941, Part I, A Bruised Reed and a Broken Staff; Part II, The Return of the Brothers How the little family tribe of Joseph's father began to starve in their desert hogans and needed to go for provision in another country where there was said to be abundant food and water, thanks to a most far-seeing ruler in it who had set aside one fifth of the harvest for seven straight years of abundant harvests.

PART II, CHRONICLE OF THE FAT WOLVES AND LEAN PEOPLE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE FAR-SPEAKING VASES A. S. 5931-, 1. Secret Diary of Ipu-Pheres (cont. by Benohe-Pheres); A. S. 5942, 2. Letters of Ipu-Pheres, Jonathan H. Thompkins, and Bertha Mae 3. Letter to Reader by Editor of the 23rd Edition of RETRO STAR series. How spirit-house shamans who have not yet been born could talk to people in stone tipis which had long since vanished under the ice. CHRONICLE OF THE FAR-SPEAKING VASES, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR

CHRONICLE OF THE BLESSINGS AND CURSINGS A. S. 5957, Jacob's Last Testament How all his sons received their future shares in the Promised Land and how his blessings in some cases seemed more like curses; how Jacob's embalmed body was carried back to Ken'an and buried with his father's bones. CHRONICLE OF THE BLESSINGS AND CURSINGS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE BLESSINGS OF THE EVERLASTING HILLS A. S. 6011, The Kingdom Pledge How Joseph, on his deathbed at age 110, prophesied that his bones would not lie forever in Mizraim, but they would be gathered to his fathers in the Promised Land by his people. How seventy five years of great blessing followed Joseph's death, but then enslavement of the Hebrews began. How blessed was the one piece of ground, the field outside Shechem, owned by the people of Jacob and Joseph. CHRONICLE OF THE BLESSINGS OF THE EVERLASTING HILLS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF A CLOUDY AND DARK DAY A. S. 6719, A Mighty Chief Called Barley Cake How one young brave was chosen by God to fight tribes of thousands of enemies that oppressed and starved his people, coming every year and taking all their food away. CHRONICLE OF A CLOUDY AND DARK DAY, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE GIANT-SCALPER A. S. 6852, The Runt of Ephratah How a tribesman of tiny Ephratah, smallest portion of a small country, he himself youngest in his family and despised by his brethren, killed and scalped a giant warrior and became the chieftain of the whole country and one of the most famous kings in human memory and whose second name is spread over the whole earth.

CHRONICLE OF THE GIANT SCALPER, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR

CHRONICLE OF THE CHIEFTAIN'S DAUGHTER IP A. S. 8732, Elektra's Contingency Plan--Implemented How a chieftain's daughter lost her last sky-canoe and seemingly all her people but found a tribe who didn't know better and took her along with them.

CHRONICLE OF THE CHIEFTAIN'S DAUGHTER

FROM THIS CRUCIAL POINT ON, COMES THE FINAL WRAP-UP CHRONICLES, WHICH INVOLVE BOTH TWIN EARTHS AND THEIR RESPECTIVE UNIVERSES, AND EVERYTHING INHABITATING THEM, PLANTS, ANIMALS, HUMANITY, DEVILS, LUCIFER, WALLY AND HIS LONE SUPPORTING CRAY...THERE IS NEW MATERIAL YOU WON'T WANT TO MISS, ALREADY APPEARING.

CHRONICLE OF THE SEVEN STARS, THE GREAT WHITE CHAIR, AND THE END OF EARTH'S SKY-TRAIL AND THE GREAT LAST COUNCIL FIRE (EARTHS I AND II) Z-Point II

GREAT LAST COUNCIL FIRE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

1. Z-Point Deferred: Battle of the Seven Stars How, on Earth I, the "Light Bringer" Lucifer attacks the Seven Agensl of the Seven Cburches, determined to gain absolute control of Earth I, and how he uses this attack as a feint in order do the most damage he can to his true objective: the Blue Bridge of Orion that contains, he senses, to the Plan of Restoration for both Earths and their Universes.

CHRONICLE OF THE SEVEN STARS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

2. Part I: The Sentencing Trial: The Great Assize Part I How all the people who had done bad things were shown what they had done and were cast alive into the mouth of a Star-Eater along with all the spirit-creatures that lodged inside the enemy stars. Part II: City of Destruction How the cities and nations were judged and then their names and official seals and insigne cast into the Pit, and all memory erased in the mind of God of their former existence.

CHRONICLE OF THE GREAT WHITE CHAIR, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR

Part II, CHRONICLE OF THE GREAT WHITE CHAIR, "CITY OF DESTRUCTION, the "Emerald City", VOL. IV, RETROSTAR

CHRONICLE OF THE BLUE BRIDGE LINKING CHAMPIONS--EARTH I AND EARTH II How the Bridge once linking the Twin Earths was restored in the Cavern of the Great Nebula of Orion, a work that spanned the ages and completed the destiny of both worlds; how the choice to forgive by one wounded human being, a pioneer Exoduster's daughter from a farm in Kansas, joined the two half-spans together forever.

CHRONICLE OF THE BLUE BRIDGE LINKING CHAMPIONS

2. Homecoming of the City of the Great Chief IP How the council gathering of the Lamb of God, finished after an eternity of careful construction, came down from heaven and set upon the center of restored Israel, where the Nail-Pierced One and his tribes would rule the Earth's nations for a thousand years until the Final Reaping of the Earth.

Volume V Beyond the Rapture--An Eschatology Lived,

Chronicled by Horace Brave Scout

CHRONICLE OF THE GREAT CHIEF'S RETURN A. S. 200? How Yeshua comes to Earth I, unexpectedly to most people, gathers those few "Wise Virgins" who are prepared, and leaves those who were tremendously successful followers, they thought, only to find themselves lumped with the ungodly in a world society racing toward the abyss. How Heloise Turnbull, the televangelist, lost her world-wide organization and wealth along with her husband and family but found new life and a new ministry in Israel where she fled to escape the collapse of everything she had achieved.

PART ONE, BOOK ONE, JACOB'S TROUBLE, "THE VOICE FROM THE GROUND"

"Thief in the Night," Part Two, Beyond the Rapture

"The Spin Shamans," Part Three, Beyond the Rapture

"luv heat and the marcyz boyz," Part Four, Beyond the Rapture

"Hard Choices, Part Five, Beyond the Rapture

"The Wailers at the Wall," Beyond the Rapture

"Shelter from the Storm," Part Seven, Beyond the Rapture

"A Covenant God," Part Eight, Beyond the Rapture

"The Lion Unleashed," Part Nine, Beyond the Rapture

"Retreat to Petra," Part Ten, Beyond the Rapture

Book II, Yom Kippur, Chapter 1, Volume V, Beyond the Rapture

Book II, Yom Kippur, Chapter 2, Volume V, Beyond the Rapture

Book III

Book III, The Seventh Day, Chapter 1, Volume V, Beyond the Rapture

Volume VI Natal Convergence

by Horace Brave Scout

CHRONICLE OF THE LOST TRIBE A. S. 1,136,786 How the Alpha Centaurii discovered an archive of Late Twentieth Century artifacts in a time capsule, and information revealing a Magnum Mysterium that revolutionized everything, to the point where they chose the dreaded White Martyrdom, a final search of the Universe for what they had lost, in which they discover what Ira Sulkowsky has already shown them in.... "The Christmas Factor" 61000202A-Z, Subfile A1, "Dogon Star Child"

61000202A-Z, Subfile A2, "Lakota Nativity" 61000202A-Z, Subfile A3, "A Victorian Christmas" 61000202A-Z, Subfile A4, "Christmas with James Dean"

"Subfile A4: Christmas with James Dean, A Requiem with Poinsettias" 61000202A-Z, Subfile A5, "A Fawn in Winter" 61000202A-Z, Subfile A6, "A Fulani Christmas"

"A Fulani Christmas," Vol. VI, CHRONICLE OF THE LOST TRIBE, RETRO STAR

61000202A-Z, Subfile A7, "Street of Dreams" 61000202A-Z, Subfile A8, "Winter Rose"

CHRONICLE OF THE LOST TRIBE, WINTER ROSE, VOL. VI, RETROSTAR

61000202A-Z, Subfile A9, Act III, "Christmas from Lyonnesse"

61000202A-Z, Subfile A10, ACT III, "Joseph's Letter"

CHRONICLE OF THE LOST TRIBE, VOL. VI, "Joseph's Letter," RETROSTAR "Natal Convergence!"

Volume VII Final Wars...Convergence at Orion by Horace Brave Scout IP

How two major battles fought for Orion and its secret "Skunk Works" resulted in the destruction of the chief project, the Blue Bridge, to the point where only half survived in each Universe; and how a single act of an individual was strong enough to unite the two halves into one whole, thereby completing the bridge and defeating the opposing players.

Epilogue II EPILOGUE II, "THE HARROWINGS OF HADES AND HELL," RETRO STAR

NOTE OF FRIENDLY REMINDER TO DOWNLOADERS: THIS CONTENTS PAGE DOES NOT LIST A GREAT MANY COMPLETED CHRONICLES, SO THERE IS NO WAY DOWNLOADING CAN OBTAIN THE COMPLETE RETRO STAR SERIES. THERE IS, I AM INFORMED, A CERTAIN STARLIKE ALIEN ENTITY THAT IS BEING FEATURED BY SOMEONE, AND THIS OF COURSE IS MY OWN COPYRIGHTED INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY--"BORROWED" FROM MY OWN STABLE OF STAR-STONES, OR ALIEN ENTITIES. HAVE FUN, WHILE WE GIVE YOU A BIT OF LOOSE LEASH! WHAT IS GIVEN TO PUBLIC DOMAIN HERE IS JUST ENOUGH TO OPEN A WINDOW ON THE SERIES AND ITS POSSIBILITIES TO WHOMEVER IS SERIOUSLY INTERESTED.

CHRONICLE OF THE QUEEN OF THE VAMPIRES

After Jason returned to rule over his city and kingdom of Iolkos, all was well in heaven and earth? Well, not quite yet. When Elektra heard what had happened in Colchis, that her amusing little pet dragon (which she had planned to use on hostages for entertaining her at royal functions) had been slain by none other than Jason, and the slayer gotten clean away too, she was determined that heads would roll. And heads did roll, literally, around her. Then she set out personally, in pursuit of Jason. He must be stopped, she thought, from spoiling all her plans for Ilios and its goddess-worship. Achaea, with the likes of Jason to make it succeed, was to be smashed, and Ilios was to rule supreme, under her scepter, of course!

Only then could she complete her plan, rebuilding the dynamos of Atlantis that powererd her airships--which had all been destroyed when the mother continent broke up, due to the exploding gas vents under the sea waters. Once again airships by the thousands would fill the air, as her great cities of the realm hummed with life and power supplied by the power crystals bequeathed to her by her forefathers and their great sages and sorcerers who had fashioned them.

Pulling in the enormous powers that energized the stars and the inner workings of the invisible entities that constituted every visible thing, the power crystals were indispensable to her whole civilization and her plan to restart the imperial throne, with her seated upon it, of course!

If only she had known that her plans would materialize, but not in any form she had wanted or imagined--and, moreover, in a far future time, creating a second Atlantis, but not by her power but by an alien entity that would have no regard for her and her ambitions to be the new empress of a restored Atlantis as magnificent as the one she and her people had lost in the long ago.

THE OPTIONAL TRIP TO TBILISI, SOVIET REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA, AND LARRY TOURING THE SITES OF JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS APPEARS ON-LINE HERE ON THIS PAGE

CHRONICLE OF THE FURLED SAIL, OPTIONAL TRIP TO TBILISI

When the group got back to the hotel after touring the Hermitage museum, our guide called a meeting, and he said there was an optional trip just now made available, which would be on the way down to Tashkent, the next city on our itinerary after Leningrad. If we flew almost straight south, we would land in a place called Tbilisi in Soviet Georgia, and after seeing that area we would fly directly east to Tashkent in Central Asia.

He was talking on and on about the sites in Georgia, which he said had to do with somebody, an old Greek, I think, named Jason the Argonaut. Medea was his witch wife, and they killed her brother and father to get the throne--lots of gory stuff like that, which interested the women particularly. The big highlight was that a National Geographic-funded explorer had built a boat like Jason's and was taking a volunteer crew and they were repeating the entire quest of the Golden Fleece (which is some kind of woolen throw rug covered with gold), and he was going to be on the coast, in the river Jason first entered, with all sorts of celebrations and singing groups to meet him and his men. I could not believe what I was hearing--were they all crazy? I was about to leave when they took a vote. I voted against it, as I wasn't sure the food on the optional trip would be any better and didn't want to risk it. But I was overruled, 13 to 1, with the guide abstaining.

We had to hurry and pack, as the flight left that evening. I wasn't going to go anyway, but how would I meet them in Tashkent if they were delayed, and I knew nobody in Tashkent, and so I decided to go along, rather than lose the group and the tour. After all, Russia is a pretty big place, and I don't speak the language, and these guides are all we've got to get us around.

We arrived in Tbilisi 1:30 A.M., flying south/southwest. This put us in real tropics which I didn't know they have in Russian territory, as we felt the steamy warm air and saw some palm trees outside the plane windows as we taxied in to the old, not very impressive terminal.

When we went through Customs, it was pretty hot, with no air conditioning there. I could see this was the beginning of a bad experience, but I was trapped, having gone along against my best judgment. The women, though, all seemed cool as cucumbers, while I was dripping when we finally cleared and got through the rest of the rigmarole and took the bus to our hotel. I guess being from cool Washington State, without any need of air conditioning, I am not acclimated to these foreign places. Maybe if I lived on the East Coast, or down south, I would be. At our hotel, called the Medea and Jason International Hotel, I got a room by myself, fortunately, and headed straight for the shower. I couldn't go to bed all sweaty like that, tired as I was by the late flight.

This "shower" was another stupid old tub affair, with that crazy hand-held sprayer, which put more water on the floor than on me.

But I kept at it for as long as the hot water (which was lukewarm at best) lasted--which was almost an hour. The next day people complained to the management, including our tour members, that there was no hot water when they tried to wash up. Not one drop! I didn't say anything, as how could I know I was taking it all? Besides most of it went on the floor, not me! If a hotel can't provide for all its guests, then it ought to get another couple water heaters or at least get the ones it has working better! But if there isn't enough hot water, that not the only thing--there are no toilets. I couldn't find the toilet in my suite, so I called the guide, and he came and showed me a hole in the floor in the bathroom, with two spots where you set your feet and are supposed to squat and answer mother nature's call. This was the utter end! I refused, and asked for a real toilet, keeping my voice down real well--but the guide said either I use this stupid contraption, which is so humiliating, or go find a place in the bushes in the park outside the hotel! And get arrested! Nothing doing! I wasn't going to use that hole in the floor, and no toilet paper either, just running water and your hand, so I went walking, found an outhouse behind some factory buildings and shanties, and got around the problem that way!

The next morning, the food was not much--rolls, and some local fruit--bananas, pineapples, citrus, as they can grow that all here in this climate. I was still hungry, so I went out early and found some street venders selling hot food. I bought something very spicy, but full of eggs, and it filled me up at least. Then I went back to the hotel and went with the group on the bus to the first sites of the day. We went to the Palace of Culture, they call it. Inside the big fancy marble building was a lot of stuff from the past country before the Soviet Russians took over. I took some pictures, of the Medea fresco. It was supposely intact before the communists took over, but got damaged in the war. This is the story they all tell about in this country, as if it happened yesterday--they think it is such a great thing and are so proud of it, though it is nothing more than a vulgar TV soap opera in my opinion.

The headless lady lying down was Princess Medea the Witch--and she lost her head, the guide said, when the bombs and explosions were going on. She is the beautiful king's only daughter who refused all her suitors wanting to marry her and then cast a spell on Jason the Argonaut, the hero who sailed the Argo, a famous old Greek exploring ship, all the way from Greece to this country, bringing with him fifty champions who were seeking fame, adventure, and riches. Soviet Georgia was called Colchis in the old days, and had alot of gold and treasure, all taken from the big river, then called the Phasis, since renamed the Rioni River. This river used to be rich in gold and carnelians and diamonds, but is now polluted by factories along the banks, and the country is solidly in the Soviet Union to stay, with people looking for work and even begging in the streets, and with the Russian army stationed in the big army bases. Too bad they aren't independent--but they are too close to Russia for that, they are needed as a buffer zone in case Turkey, the U.S. ally with a big army, attacks from the south.

Well, back to the old days. Medea got Jason under her thumb and magical wand too, and he helped her kill her brother and even her father the king so they could take the throne and rule the country. Of course, she planned on getting rid of Jason as soon as she was queen--but he didn't know that, being somewhat unsuspecting toward women! There were a lot of real gory details, which the guide loved dishing out, and the women were eating it all up.

Our guide told how Jason strangled Medea's brother, who was supposed to rule in the king's place when he died, with his bow string taken from the famous bow of bronze only Jason was strong enough to bend, and then Medea served up her brother's flesh, boiled, to her father at a banquet, disguised as pork, and after he complimented her on the special dish, she told him what it really was. He grabbed his throat and belly, and fell dead at the terrible news--and she has him cast into the hearth fire, burnt to cinders, then the ashes scattered in the river. After that the Erinys, the Hounds of Hades, were released to get the both of them for killing a father by their boiling his son and making him eat him, and they were chased from the palace, and from then from mountain cave to cave. Medea was not one to give up easily. She tried every spell she could think of to drive them off. Finally, she was desperate enough to try the one thing she didn't want to do, as she badly wanted a child and crown prince off of Jason first, that she could use to keep the throne in her hands indefinitely (for in Colchis she couldn't rule alone as queen at that time without neighborhing kings attacking her or trying to force her to marry them).

After she had made herself the most beautiful and alluring she could, she invited her Greek lover boy in to her chamber, and Jason loved her deeply, enjoying all her exotic Eastern charms, and when he was sleeping, with his head on her lap, she plunged her jeweled dagger into his neck to cut the life vein.

The blood gushed out all over her lap and fine gown, and Jason sprang up, realizing he had been slain by her hand most treacherously. He saw her now as a most vicious and cruel serpent that she was--a dragoness, not a human-hearted woman at all. Being a mighty warrior, he still had the strength, even in his expiring moments, to draw his sword and wound the witch mortally. She had conceived in the night, however, and did not die a mortal's death, being a witch with great powers of enchantment that wouldn't let her expire immediately from a wound that would kill a normal man. She lingered on a few days after Jason gave up his wailing spirit to the Underworld. Before she joined him, however, she birthed a horrible monster, a miscarriage of untimely birth. This was the mighty bull of Hades that grew up in the place where he was born on his mother's deathbed, the same place where Jason had lain with Medea in loving and foolish embrace.

Three thousand years later, the orphaned bull-man is still supposed to haunt and guard the cave, and shakes the walls of the cave from time to time as he seeks his long lost parents, and people even hear the heart-broken bellowing and roaring of the bull-man, or minotaur, as he calls out to his lost parents.

This was as much nonsense as I could take, which I think is nothing but "bull-loney," so I went looking around on my own. I went out and bought some ice cream cones at the little shops for tourists I found along the street, different flavors with long names like "King Aeetes's Delight" and "Bewitched Ambrosia, and "Aea the Paradise of Phasis" which are pretty good, despite their fancy names. By the time I did this, the bus was about to take off without me, so I ran back and hopped aboard.

That was a big mistake. When we started out, it was sweltering hot, even in the morning, but we quickly climbed up from sea level on the single lane road into the mountains, and it got so cold on the bus we were shivering. There was snow all round on the ground by now. What luck! The heater didn't work! It was freezing temperatures inside the bus, and then we got stuck as we plowed through a drift of snow covering the road. We men had to get out, with the ladies watching, though one or two got out to help. We pushed and used the driver's one shovel, taking turns, and the guide put some rags and sticks under the wheels, and we got out somehow and continued. My feet were soaked, and even more cold as time went on. I tried everything, taking off my running shoes, massaging my feet, but nothing helped. They had turned blue and stiff. I thought they were going to be frost bitten. There was solid ice under my feet, from the snow I tracked in, and it froze there, it was that cold on the bus! I have never been more cold. We drove on and got stuck again--and the process was repeated. Out go all us men (the four of us!), and we pushed, shoved, and heaved, and put more rags down, and got enough traction, and I could see why we were making such little headway--the tires were balled smooth, and no snow chains! I tried to talk to the guide about chains, but he didn't know of any such thing in Georgia--what a country, it was like Switzerland, but as backward as anything you can find up north in the rest of Russia!

We got over the pass somehow, and it then was a lot easier--we could slide down the other side, but it was really dangerous then, as the roads don't have guardrails, and the snow drifted and disguised the actual edges of the roads, and a number of times I thought we would go over the side and fall thousands of feet. I never saw such ravines before--they were worse, far deeper, than anything in the Cascade Mountains at home. Why they took us up into these mountains in this decrepit old bus, I have no idea. Couldn't we have taken a short local flight instead?

I was certain we would all get killed on this trip. It didn't seem possible that we would survive. Resigned, I felt a little better. Then somebody brought out--probably our Georgian guide--the local whiskey or wine or plum brandy, it tasted most like plum to me--and it was like fire in my throat. I soon warmed up, but I had to grab a mouthful of snow so I could stand the burning sensation!

Then we arrived at the first site on the other side of the pass--the cave where Jason was supposed to have fought a bull from hell, and this was a little confusing to me, but the guide explained this was not the bull-man that was Jason's son by Medea, and that happened in another cave, not this one. Anyway, a huge bull guarded the entrance, and Jason was on some kind of adventure, trying to win Medea's hand in marriage, by this test of his strength and courage. So the old story goes, the guide told us as we started to look into the cave. My, what a talker!--I never heard one so air-headed and motor-mouthed as this one, and his English was the worst on the whole trip. He murdered the language. I thought he was going to spit on all of us, trying to get the words out, he pronounced them so bad.

Fortunately, the plum brandy hadn't worn off, I didn't feel any cold in my feet by this time, and I had only my jacket, but that was enough, with no wind at all, or snow either, in the cave. It was actually warmer there, maybe healed by underground springs or vents from an old volcano, as there was mist in the air, making the place even more mysterious.

They had done some work on the cave to make it more accessible to tourists, fortunately. Some statues that were supposed to look like Jason, Medea, and such, were set up along the route, held upright by iron supports. All we had to do was walk along the paths marked out and look at them, with concrete walks or little bridges over the worst holes and cracks in the rock. There were even some guard rails, to keep us from tumbling into some deep ravines or pools of water. The place was not well lighted, but the guides had soome Coleman-like kerosene lanterns, and we went through the cave on the route set, and could see fairly well.

I was bringing up the rear, without a lantern, but my shoe caught on a rock and came off. I stopped to retie my shoe laces, and though I hurried to go and catch up, the others were not in sight, and must have taken turn or two around some big rocks ahead, as I couldn't see their lights anymore. It scared me right away, for I couldn't go back, not able to see the route, and I couldn't go forward. What to do? I tried to listen and see if I could tell where they had gone, and shouted a couple times to let them know I was in serious trouble. I heard a sound, and it sounded like they were shouting back to me. But the sound came louder and closer, and it wasn't human at all. My blood ran cold. Could the old stories be true about the bull guarding the cave from ancient times? Or was it the Minotaur, Jason's son by the witch? Whatever it was, I was about to meet up with it, for it was roaring loud enough to shake the rocks around me.

I tried to crawl under a rock ledge I had felt with my wildly groping hands, but the monster was on me in a flash, as if it could scent me with those huge, flaring nostrils. It didn't need a source of light--as it was glowing all over its body! I could see it clearly, and it could see in the dark and spot me, as I tried to crawl out of its reach. It was not a bull-man at all--but a bull and something else mixed in--I never imagined anything so devlish in my worst nightmares. I was absolutely petrified.

I wasn't going to be let go either. It wanted me, and I couldn't get away, being lost and wandering around on its own turf. Then a strange thing happened. Another glowing being appeared, but this one was different--it didn't menace me, but went at the bull, and the bull roared but retreated before it. The bull backed up several times, then turned and vanished among the big rocks, and that was the last I saw of it.

I crawled out from under the rock ledge and was trembling, wondering what had happened, when I heard voices. I saw lights, then heard shouts, and the guide appeared, frame in his lantern's light, and I thought his ugly mug looked like an angel's at that moment. I rushed at him and threw my arms around him, I never was so glad to see any human being so much in my life. He couldn't believe being so appreciated, I guess, for he kissed me on both cheeks, wept, and said how much he loved us Americans, even if we were rich and proud and despised his poor people so much--but I didn't really mind him going on like this, I was so relieved, I just let him think I was grateful to him, and didn't tell him the real reason I gave him a bear hug. Would he have believed me? He might have thought I was crazy, and I wasn't going to embarrass myself any more. With his arm around my shoulder, he led me out of the cave, and the whole group was now a whole lot friendlier to me--having wondered if I would ever leave that cave alive.

The moment I stepped out of that cave and into the open air, I nearly collapsed. It struck me what a close call that had been. That monster-- whatever it was--had clearly intended to tear me apart and eat me for dinner! Those teeth, that horrible crocodile snout of his, those ugly, clawlike hands! I never knew anything so fiendish existed. But this cave was its home! All I wanted was to get the farthest away from it I could. Staggering, slipping and sliding on the ice and snow, I ran for the bus, and I couldn't board fast enough. I didn't care what it looked like, I had to get back into the world of sanity where I could be sure I wouldn't ever run into that monster again. Once back on the bus, I fell into my seat, and tried not to show any emotion, but a number of the women came by, trying to be like mothers to me--as if they could tell what a fright I had had.

I tried to laugh it off--but they weren't convinced, by their expressions. "I was praying for you," one said. That shocked me. Why? I wondered. She added, "I felt an evil presence in that old cave, the moment we entered. I didn't say anything to our guide, he wouldn't have understood, but it was truly evil, like something from hell, and it was waiting for us. I didn't think you were going to be the one attacked, not us women. Were you attacked? Your face said something like that happened to you. Please don't be afraid to share your experience with me. I will keep it confidential."

I shook my head. I had no intention of telling anyone on that tour. It was just too disturbing. Instead, I thought I'd just write about it, and maybe I might type it up later, if I decided I wanted anyone to know. We'll see--I haven't yet decided.

So we returned to the hotel in the nearest town, and we spent the next day touring a couple towns on our way to the Black Sea and the mouth of the river where the explorer in his second Argo was scheduled to land with his men. This was, we could tell, going to be the grand event of the season, perhaps of the century, as far as this country was concerned.

We were at the spot, waiting with what looked like ten or fifteen thousand people, when the ship's sail was sighted. The ship came in, and the sail was furled, and the Argo grounded in the shallow water and mud near the river bank. Men jumped off into the water to pull the boat closer in, and then it was chaos, as the Argo's crew and the spectators all joined in a crazy celebration. Bands began blaring away, drums and trumpets, firecrackers, people cheering, it was sheer pandemonium. It was like the crowd at a major league ballgame with a victory won in a second of declared overtime. People were falling all over each other for joy, crying and laughing at the same time. The modern Argonauts were practically drowned, they were mobbed by so many people rushing in to greet them, then pulled up the riverbank, then hauled up on the shoulders of the men, and then carried to the cars and trucks waiting to transport them and the crowd to town, where the city mayor and dignitaries had a grand party staged.

We took part in the whole crazy thing, and so we followed in our bus, and the city square was all decorated, filled with crowds of people all carrying on as if this was the greatest thing that ever happened to them. It was like Jason had returned, but where was Medea? Oh, she turned out to be the local opera star from this area, known by everybody--a dark-haired woman dressed like Medea was supposed to dress in the old days who sang a number chosen specially for the occasion. I don't know what song it was--it was one of their folk songs. And it was accompanied by that strange kind of music they like in these Eastern countries--not like Western music at all-- and they played some strange instruments like harps and pipes along with it, which wail away along with the drums in the most outlandish way--it sounded horrible to my ears, but they all loved it, and she had to sing encore after encore, each one more deafening than the one before.

The Argonauts and their captain were heaped with garlands of local lilies and orchid flowers, head to foot, and given wine and pastries and all kind of the best dishes from the banquet set up on tables in the city square. The dancing girls, bands, and speechifying by officials--it never stopped. They went all out, as I said. It was going to go on for hours, if not days, obviously, so I cut out earlier than the other tour members and found our hotel and checked in. I needed peace and quiet more than the others, as I was still somewhat shaken by the encounter in the cave, and then that woman's remarks to me afterwards on the bus. I think her name is Clare something. What did she mean anyway? I was hoping she wouldn't mention it again--and what with all this hullabaloo about this second Jason and the Argo, she didn't seem to notice me, and I was able to keep well away from her too.

This party would go on indefinitely, so it was time for us to depart. After some rest that evening and as much sleep as we could grab in a town rocking with partying all night long, we were ready to go--and I was glad when we assembled in the morning in the hotel cafeteria, ate a quick but hearty breakfast of fruit, rolls, and some native dishes that reminded me of a combo of lasagna, pizza, and quiche, it was pretty heavy stuff with a lot of bread, bell peppers, eggplant, onion, eggs, pasta, and cheese in it, and headed for the bus, which took us to the airport. They weren't going to torture us again with a trip through the mountains, for some reason, so the flight was uneventful and pleasant, even if the fruits flies were bad, and the seats and the toilets none too clean.

"Tashkent, here we come!" was my one happy thought as the plane lifted off its balled tires and rose heavily into the air, as I had to wonder if we would make it over the end of the runway, as they stuffed that old Russian-built jet to the gills, cargo area too, with crates and crates of the local pomegranates and bananas and dates, tropical fruits which are highly valued in the markets of Tashkent evidently and would bring a good price. With so much fruit around, no wonder there were so many flies. I just had endure it like a good soldier.

PLEASE RETURN TO THE MAIN CHRONICLE OF THE FURLED SAIL, TO CONTINUE LARRY'S ACCOUNT FROM THIS POINT WITH THE TOUR'S ARRIVAL IN TASHKENT. AFTER THAT PORTION, THE FOLLOWING IS THE CONCLUSION.

CHRONICLE OF THE FURLED SAIL, THE UNQUEST OF LARRY PRUFROCKSKI, CONCLUSION, VOLUME IV, RETROSTAR

For a man who had never unfurled his sail and launched his boat of life, it had to come as a shock, even a first taste for him of sheer terror, to find himself suddenly being propelled into another dimension. Standing on the shore of an unknown, alien sea, Larry was struck speechless at the sight of his pathetic, prosthetic-like hands and limbs.

He was not there very long before a "deck" of card-men came shuffling up through the sand and flotsam of the beach, all showing the same card's thickness of his own body. They all gave out fiendish hoots at the sight of him, and rushed forward. Ganging up on him, he was immediately in their power and couldn't escape, for they had ropes and chains, and wouldn't hesitate to tie him up if he showed any resistance or tried to run. Taking him with them, they told him he was now part of their crew, commissioned a sailor, a mariner on what looked to the appalled Larry like an ugly black, 16th century-type slave ship.

Larry also didn't like any of this one bit! He was not about to be anyone's deck-swabbing drudge, either--but, in his present condition--somehow reduced to a wretched playing card, with no way off the slaver except by leaping into the water and drowning (for he didn't think he could swim without his former arms and legs)--he did not have any choice but to submit!

Being an intelligent man who could always spot his best interests in any given situation, Larry knew when to bide his time and keep his own counsel, while looking for a chance to jump ship. If only he could find a way home--but where was home? The ship was sailing around what seemed to be the Puget Sound--which relieved his mind somewhat, since it was his home area, but he had no desire to get off anywhere but his hometown--for then he knew he would make it, knowing the streets and layout better than any of his fellow mariners. As for the captain, Wolvewoeld by name, he looked like a Nazi SS officer and was a terrible slave driver! He was a killer, too--for one of the first things he saw the captain do was slice a man through with his machete-like sword when the wretch hesitated a moment whether to obey an order. The pieces of the card-man, cut right through his midriff, were flopping around, one part going one direction, the other part with the still screaming head going another--when the captain snorted and gave the pieces each a kick over the side.

As for the wretch's blood, the new man--Larry--was thrown a mop and bucket and commanded to clean up the mess.

Cursing under his breath, Larry lowered the bucket on a rope and drew up some water from the bay and did the nasty work, and when he was through cleaning the deck, he flung down the mop and bucket in disgust. The captain noticed this, and he went straight to Larry, raising his sword over Larry's horrified head, one swing of which would decapitate him for sure. Trying to shield himself, Larry could not think of one thing to do--but the captain laughed, a horrible and most unlikely sound coming from so hard and expressionless a face--and, lowering his sword, called for the men to stuff Larry into the cannon instead.

"For flagrant insubordination compounded by disrespect of the ship's mop, the new man is to be taught a lesson, which in his case is capital punishment. Men, feed Old Bertha!"

Struggling and protesting in vain, Larry was seized, dragged, and then stuffed, headfirst, into a big cannon set on the deck, ready for any enemy that might appear.

Gun powder was tamped in after Larry, and then the fuse was lit.

The rest was what you would expect from a powerful, working cannon--a tremendous blast, followed by the furious flight of the hapless ejecta. Though he greatly preferred not to be, Larry was launched forth on his final journey.

THE END OF THE CHRONICLE OF THE FURLED SAIL

After North America, the Great Turtle Island, was split by a superquake right at the center into two parts, East and West Turtle Islands, the great sea that swallowed the plains and prairies and low coastal areas from the Gulf all the way to the Arctic Sea created a wonderful new climate, and keep the whole area round the sea warm, even in winter, so that cities sprang up, with ice free ports even in the Arctic Circle. One city had been anciently founded, Baton Rouge--and it became an island, and this island (or many little islands built on, and joined together into one great and powerful seafaring principality) great a second Venice called Baton Roo. Baton Roo must have had a lot of Italian-descent refugees, for in their new island home they remembered the glories of Venice, long since lost, and recreated them here in their new home. The sea of the straits between East and West Turtle Islands became Baton Roo's own sea, and everything passed in trade passed through Customs at Baton Roo or the tariffs were paid to Baton Roo naval patrols and warships. A warship a day was turned out on the fast production lines of the Arsenal, the city's naval complex. No other rival could equal Baton Roo's navy or hope to penetrate her naval defenses of huncreds of forts strung along the straits and also situated on every considerable island. With its warships and navy, Baton Roo reigned supreme and entered upon its Golden Age.

In a city so rich and powerful as Baton Roo, the rich and the ruling class became corrupted and arrogant and heedless of the poor, however. State charities did not help the many poor in the city, despite the vast amount of congratulation given the grand donors to the charity at the various state balls and festivals staged for the benefit of the poor beggars and the homeless living along the canals (for the city did not have paved streets, but utilized canals instead). The major, marble paved squares were also places where the poor were found, because they could hope for a bare living by begging from the rich passers-by.

Pio was one boy, looking like hundreds or thousands in Baton Roo who kept body and soul together (at least temporarily) by begging.

He did not have a last name, for Giovanni his beggar father did not think to give him one, when he himself did not have one.

Born blind to a husbandless girl who herself begged along the canals, begging was all Giovanni knew. For a time he was married to a fellow beggar girl, and before she drowned herself, one child was produced from the hopeless union--Pio--a child they could not support or care for properly. After his mother vanished, like so many beggars vanished into watery graves without any mention of them thereafter, Pio grew up knowing only a life of a beggar, and his father told him where to go and how to cry and beg for a piaster or two. A ducat of course would have been a fortune, so that was not to be requested--it would never happen. But the rich could find a piaster (worth a loaf of bread) or two to throw to the down and out beggars now and then.

Sometimes though, whole days of hard work at begging passed without a piaster, and the beggars starved, or they went to the markets and begged cast-off, half-rotten vegetables or fish beginning to smell bad and turned unsalable--and sometimes that kept them until times and hearts melted and turned more generous. Festivals were good times (not that they received the monies donated to the poor, for they did not), because the watching crowds at the royal regattas were more open in their pocketbooks than during the usual workdays, when they had to think of their own expenses and the high taxes the governmemt of the city's ruler, the Doge, imposed on them without any vote ever being taken.

When Pio was seven (and was small and younger looking for his age), his father took his day's earnings and then, spitting in disgust at the few paltry coppers sandwiched with tin, announced that he could no longer keep him. He was to go on his own! This was the most crushing thing for Pio. Abandoned to the wide world, which did not love him! Even Giovanni loved Pio, his motherless son, in his own way--though he had not known a loving mother himself. It was better than nothing, knowing that you had a father. But now Pio had neither mother nor father--he was orphaned! Cast adrift on the vast sea of life!

Pio had no way to support himself except by begging, so that is what he did. He slept in a corner of some abandoned building, then in the morning crept out early (to avoid the city police who were hard on transients squatting in abandoned buildings) to the nearest public square or stationed himself by a special event going on, to catch the passers-by who were merchants or traders or ship owners with purses bulging with gold ducats.

But the highly refined aristocrats of Baton Roo heartily despised beggars--so this was not a way for Pio to get much of anything for his growling stomach for that day.

The aristocrats hurried on their way, oblivious of the plaintive cries of the little beggar in his tattered clothes. They really did not want to acknowledge that such children existed in their grand city, much less give them anything personally to "encourage" begging. After all, they gave huge sums already to the official grand state charities, where they were awarded all sorts of applause and medals for their charitable giving to the poor. Huge paintings were done of them too, to be set up in the most important buildings for people to look at and admire. What award could Pio give them in return for some cash? He could give nothing in return! That was obvious from the sight of him. So they treated him exactly like they treated dirty litter--they kicked it away or walked around it as fast as they could as they made their way to and from their golden-bowed, satin-cushioned gondolas.

Pio was heart-broken by being turned away by his own papa into the cold and heartless world of this great city, but he did not know that his father was thinking about him evenso. Giovanni knew a man of some means, a fellow who had a boat and plied the canals as a taxi. This was not a royal looking taxi, of course, but it served for the working classes or even individuals a little higher up who wanted to get a cheap ride somewhere and didn't mind being seen in such a humble conveyance. Pio was hired by this man one day, found somehow by word of mouth (for beggars pass information one to the other and know more than the authorities oftentimes think they know, even regarding high affairs of state!). Told to come along with him, Pio, having nothing to lose, obeyed when he heard his father had sent the man to give him work.

Into the man's boat he stepped, and a new life opened up for Pio immediately.

He was the boatman's helper now. He did all sorts of little errands for the boatman, whose names was Luigi Tuscany Bonaventure, a grand name to the beggar boy's ears. The boatman also seemed very rich to Pio, as he not only wore a velvet brocade coat, but a velvet hat as well, and he had the same sort of outfit for Pio to put on, so that his rags would not turn the boatman's paying fares away in disgust

Never did Pio feel grander than when he wore his red hat and his green coat, all velvet, though worn, faded, and cast off long ago by some rich person into a bin for distribution to the poor. The beggars of course never got these discarded clothes--but the boatmen sometimes did, as they were first to hear of anything thrown into the bins that stood nearby the central tower square, which was where Luigi liked most to locate, as most people were found there going on their ways and needed boats like his to cross the Grand Canal.

This life might have gone on for some time, as it had for Pio's predecessor until the boy became too big and was sent away to support himself however he could, but the city's rulers grew so assured of their power and navy that they were going to wage war against the most powerful empire centered on Multan. This they had not dared before, and they had always paid the huge yearly tribute of 100,000 gold ducats demanded by the Sultan and Grand Kaliph of Multan--but now they felt they could beat the enemy navy in its home ports and throw off all suzereignty forever.

The one warship produced a day at the Arsenal was increased to two. The city stirred with more life and excitement as news spread about the Doge's decision to make war (as the state secret of this magnitude could not be long kept from the people). Even the beggars were affected, as people gave more generously in times of such excitement and possible change of fortune to the better. And boatmen were never more busy, as tradesmen, navymen, admirals, all sorts of people who hoped to profit from the coming war, packed the squares of the city and thronged the boats plying the hundreds of canals.

Daily, the Doge watched at his seaward-llooking window in the Palace as his warships sailed outward bound for the armada assembling in a secret place for the coming attack on all of Multan's imperial ports.

Pio did not take much notice, except that he was very busy, running this and that errand for his master. He extended his gloved hand, took the patron's hand as the man stepped into the boat, kept a nice cushion in the right place for him to sit on, and even fanned away the plaguey flies and gnats as the passage was made. Pio did not sing so well, but Luigi's base voice made up for Pio's slender treble. They entertained the passenger, if he desired it, with all sorts of popular, risque but simple-minded love songs sung along the canals of the city. This passed the time for the passengers, and the boatmen liked to show off their singing abilities as well. Sometimes their voices earned more tips than their expert oaring, so it paid to be a good singer and know the latest songs.

Luigi had not been attentive when passing beneath a low stone bridge, and his right, oaring shoulder and arm had been struck hard, and he had oared since that day always in considerable pain. It did not get better, and so he was grown irritable with Pio, critical of everything he did. One day Luigi sang so much, he strained his chords and became hoarse, and a cold did not help. He could not sing a note, and his voice was almost gone when he whispered to Pio--"Sing, you silly little canary! Sing your heart out! Get us a good tip this time, or, you little bastard whelp of a dog and a whore, over the side you go for a dunking!"

Not usually cruel to Pio, verbally or physically, Pio did not take him seriously enough perhaps. He sang, but without much heart or enthusiasm, and sure enough, Luigi, who was bad-tempered because of his hurting shoulder and arm, added to his cold and lack of singing voice and the loss of tips, grabbed the less than profitable, mediocre canary and into the water he went! Pio was a drenched and sodden mess when the boatman hauled him back out of the filthy canal with his boat hook.

"That'll teach you," rasped the boatman. "Now sing like a sweet canary of the Doge's, or over the side you go again!"

Pio was now very upset, and crying, but, having perfect pitch without knowing what that was, he tried his hardest to keep his notes from wavering and going sour or off-key.

With the next passenger, he did not do as well as he wished, however, and again no tip. Luigi was now in the mood to take out his spleen and frustration on the only person available--the poor little green and red-tinged songbird he had on board. Into the dirty water bath Pio went again! Sputtering, water coming out his nose, Pio was hauled back aboard eventually, but the boatman would not relent and grant him any mercy.

"We will both have to beg in the streets, if we don't get more tips today. The fares aren't enough to keep both of us in bread. So sing! Sing your heart out this time, boy, or I'll drown you yet! You'll not get away! I'll hold your head under like a puppy's until you're done for, and nobody will give me so much as a curse--they'll all say good riddance to you, you worthless baggage!"

Luigi was not stretching things. It was a hard life, lived by men whose hearts hardened according to the circumstances they could not avoid--and who else but orphan boys like Pio were made to bear the brunt of the suffering and financial distress their betters could not escape? Trying to keep back the flood of tears, frightened nearly out of his wits, for he felt he was wet enough, Pio tried to do better.

This time he was so terrified by the inevitable dunking he knew was coming, that something snapped in him, and he really did sing from his heart, only in a way that startled everyone within earshot. Too flustered to be able to call to mind the words of the songs he had learned from Luigi, he began singing extempore, or calypso style, songs that nobody had ever heard before. Pio himself, being so young and inexperienced in life, did not know he knew the things he was singing about, but he had to sing something, and these songs just poured out of him like a river--they could not be restrained. His voice too snapped and became deeper, and the volume increased tremendously! He could be heard for a long distance, and people everywhere were turning their heads to see where the nightengale's wonderful music was coming from.

Pio was the city's instant singing sensation. There was good reason for the acclaim. This terror-conceived voice was one in a century--it was not male, nor was it female, it was both, and yet clear and belllike, stronger than a girl's yet more tender than a man's could be. It melted every heart within earshot, and the hearts of Baton Roons were not easily melted.

Then the lyrics, created on the spot, were astounding, and perfectly matched with the tunes. They created the very scenes that the city was known for, yet did it in a way that told stories, stories of melancholy, confused youth, of lost love, of violated innocence, treachery betweeen bosum friends, betrayals of misplaced trust, of base greed and lust for wealth, of ambition that climbed too far and fell to the depths, of hopeless lives, of misspent talents, of drunken, self-destroying lives, of many, many things that make up the warp and woof of the taspestry of life in a great but very worldly, wicked city such as Baton Roo was. Beautiful, tawdry, glittering, deceptive, seductive, poisonous, and deadly--all the threads were there, the gold and the fool's gold, the muslin and the satin, figured silk brocade and callico cotton, the paste rhinestones and the diamonds, the glass beads and star sapphires, all mixed together in the pattern.

Pio, summoning all the powers of his hidden, marvelous gift of song and memory, created the soul of Baton Roo in those first few moments, a soul that had not existed before, except as scattered, confused, shadowy elements dancing here and here in the canal waters, reflecting off the walls of the palaces and warehouses and ships and barges, flickering momentarily in a man's eye, then dying in the smile of a young woman hired for pleasure, leaping to life in an innocent baby's face, then fading in the wrinkles of an old, starving beggar who had seen it all--appearing, then disappearing, never quite gathering strong enough to last, but here, finally, the city came together, heart and soul united for the first time, in Pio's songs. Prodigies of talent in instruments and singing and dancing had existed before, had their brief career on the stages of the city and in the palaces of the rich, then faded away--quickly losing popularity as someone younger, more accomplished, more dazzling in appearance, rose to view. But this prodigy was altogether different, shining on a higher and exalted level none had reached before--his listeners all realized it without having to think about it.

His master, gaping at the boy wonder as he performed, was kicking himself, however, mentally cursing himself for almost drowning the songbird, which was his right to do as a slave owner. How could he have known this poor singer in the past was capable of emitting such beauties as were pouring forth from his little throat? And where did he get so many songs, and how did he put them together, changing them into much better ones, like he was doing, right on the spot? The little ninny could not possibly do such things--but there he was, drawing thousands of important people to listen to him, and the whole rest of the city was coming to join them--for Luigi could see a crush of boats trying to get to them in the already boat-choked canal!

The city came to an absolute standstill. Nobody could do any business. They all had to listen. The people were bewitched by the incredible, angelic voice pouring forth from this little boy nightengale in their midst, and the boats of all kinds with every class of people gathered by the hundreds round Luigi's, and he could not move as they all listened enthralled to Pio's first concert. The repetoire seemed almost endless, but Luigi, seeing a fortune of gold ducats falling like a golden shower into his boat, realized that he had better save the songbird's voice for another, rainier day than this, so he clapped a dirty gloved hand over his songbird's mouth, then against the roaring and catcalls and displeasure of the crowd, pushed and oared his boat free of the others and made it back to their lodgings in a cheap inn on the outskirts of Baton Roo, nearest the seagate where the warships and merchantmen passed in and out of the city.

Rushing his ducats and Pio up to his slum lodgings in one of the ruined palaces divided up into flats, Luigi worked like a mad man piling up the beds and all the chairs and litter of broken furniture against the door to be had in the apartment. He could hear pounding on the massive, wooden and brass door, and also people calling up to his windows, but he could ignore them for the night. They wouldn't be breaking in on him now--not without an armed force and a battering ram, he knew.

Luigi took some wadded up cheese and bread from his coat pocket and threw it to the crying boy for his dinner, then broke out a bottle of watered, vinegarish wine, drank half of it down, and thanked his lucky stars for not having drowned Pio like a gutter rat as he had wanted to do, he had been so disgusted with him.

Then, lo and behold, the half-drowned rat, the canal whore's bastard, became a gosling laying golden eggs!

As he counted out the gold ducats he had scooped from the boat into a big sack, they looked to him big as goose eggs, since he had never handled solid gold ducats before in his life.

How long would his little golden-mouthed gosling lay such wondrous eggs--for five years until Pio would turn twelve? Until his voice changed to a man's? What then? Luigi's narrow eyes squeezed almost shut in the gloom of the cavernous chamber (which had been a sea baron's drawing room in better days), and rubbed his thick, coarse beard as he wondered about the future.

But five years was a a good amount of time to gather more such eggs, he concluded, finishing off the bottle and forgetting all about spending a ducat or two of his windfall, sending some fellow outside in the square to fetch him a meal fit for a king--and Luigi's thoughts whirled with the riches he saw cascading down upon his open hands like a golden river. As he lay on the floor on his filthy pallet, Luigi fingered his splendid ducats with the Doge's own image stamped on them, counting them over and over, and scarcely got a wink of sleep that first night after Pio's grand debut.

As for Pio, he soon stopped crying over Luigi's unusually rough treatment and squatting on his pallet he devoured the cheese and bread, which was a bigger portion than his master usually gave him for dinner (for usually Luigi ate all the cheese). With such a banquet in his belly, he forgot the concert in the canal and his new voice--which he hadn't even imagined he had in his throat--and fell back asleep on the dirty, pillow-less pallet on the floor, exhausted, still wearing his sodden clothes.

CHRONICLE SIXTY ONE, ANNO STELLAE 10,999, QUEST OF THE CYBERNAUTS

"The Road Not Taken"

Ero, an initially reluctant Cyber-Argonaut electronically shanghaied for the crew of the White Ship's epic exploration of Kastorr, a Cyberworld gameboard concocted by Wally the Cyber-Butterfly for his long-awaited retirement, encountered a number of devilish and angelic anomalies, one of them popping up on his visit to the Union Train Depot, a turn of the 20th century landmark in the City of Destiny. Old Red Kelley on the sax despite his weak heart and his tough octogenarian mother-in-law, Fast Lucy at the mike, sailing through "Red Red Robin," the angels of Sailors Rest who flew away but left him a fully decorated, candlelit Christmas tree complete with presents for him, a Rabbit-man holed up in a sawmill's logpile...would the City of Destiny's wonders never cease? Small chance of that--since it contained "Never-Never Land"!

He had, in fact, toured Never- Never Land inhabited by the grandmotherly, kindly Mother Goose, only to encounter the most hideous vampires and attacking hordes of bats. A climb brings him to yet another unexpected experience. The magnificent dome of the train depot takes on a life of its own and affords him a second glimpse of something far worse than any vampire or bat.

Climbing to the top of the depot's all-copper dome, Ero saw an object lying by the base of the unused flag pole. After a moment's hesitation...he leaned over to pick it up.

A small, faded red morrocco leather case with what looked like bird peck marks on it revealed a 19th century naturalist's Kater's Compass, fully intact and still functional for surveying work. Inside the cover "Property of Usborne, Esq." was inscribed in flaking gilt the color of old-gold.

The oddest thing happened when he moved it enough to realign the needle--the whole landscape shifted wherever the needle pointed. And, with a 180 degree turn, the dome beneath his feet unscrewed like a lid from a jar and lifted off neatly from the main body of the structure, giving Crazy Dan while playing cards at his usual hang-out an unexpected open view of the cyber-sky that made his car saleman's mouth fall open ear to ear. He thought the roof had somehow blown off, and missed seeing Ero hanging to the flagpole as he soared up and away, northward, the antique surveyer's compass, thanks to Wally's tweaking it, acting like a gyroscope and automatic pilot in one.

Now Crazy Dan was expert at spotting green stuff and fleecing rafts of monied suckers from the Emerald City but was never known for his powers of aesthetic taste and observation (what use were such qualities in a car dealership?). If it had been green, he would have spotted it immediately! But this object was red, a faded red. Thus he did not see a compass, falling away from Ero and down over the walls and architectural decorations, bouncing off the sides of the building facing Schonfield's Furniture and Storage, until it almost reached street level, catching on one of the spear-like heads of an iron fence. But it didn't hang there long. The moment the dome's shadow crossed over the Schonfield building the compass, as if magnetized, sprang to life, fluttering up and away like a bird, following the flying dome.

But before the gyro and guidance system Wally thoughtfully provided the Union Station could reach the flying dome and Ero's control as Wally had intended, the cyberdome's unicorn-like mast struck the cyber-envelope of Kastorr a powerful, lance-like blow, and it exploded, sending sheets of sillicate like material cascading all round Ero and the dome.

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Soaring up and through into another world, much darker than Kastorr and smelling of dead and rotting fish that almost gagged him, Ero's eyes adjusted as he peered into the purplish gloom, and then he saw something large looming in the distance, which grew bigger with each passing second. What could it be? It looked like a sort of monolithic Egyptian temple complex like Luxor and Karnak, but this temple extended beyond his gaze into the mists and seem to have no end. Around it were set here and there glowing circular, pillared structures, which seemed to be radiating light and energy, and all this strange dark, stagnant and rotten-smelling world was covered with water, surrounding the main edifice and the much smaller substations like a single vast defensive moat.

The Kater's Compass had not yet caught up with the Flying Dome, as it was moving so quickly and erratically, misguided by its former haphazard movements. The palace was like a lodestone, however, attracting the Flying Dome. It was also the largest single object, and was so colossal it could hardly be avoided as the Flying Dome continued. Moving downwards again, the Flying Dome sped directly at the gigantic water palace--and Ero thought he would surely be smashed against it. But the walls divided into pillars, and the Flying Dome--a tiny thing compared to the immense walls--easily slipped between the pillars and headed into the interior, which was so vast there was no danger of hitting anything right away.

The runaway flying dome did not run any great danger of crashing into anything, not for a while anyway, as the palace stretched seemingly without end, beyond the limits of his vision. Behind Ero, the Kater's Compass, programed with Wally with the dome's navigation system, was gaining on him steadily, flying with unswerving accuracy to the dome as if it were magnetically attracted to the bluish-glowing, copper sheathing. But before they could reunite, Ero found the dome nearing a strange kind of fountain, which grew in size and became so vast he was afraid the dome might fly right into it and he would drown.

Gushing and overflowing with a red liquid, Ero had no idea what it was, except it reminded him of blood.

Fortunately for him, the flying dome lurched and flew past, and then the Kater's Compass guidance system swooped down toward Ero, who caught it on the wing.

A buzzing, red-glowing popup immediately appeared on the compass, flashing an urgent message.

"Questor, Central Programming advises you correct course at once by directing needle upwards by tilting Kater's Compass, or dome will remain in flight for no more than three seconds after this message."

Ero, of course, did not argue, and complied immediately as advised, and the popup, no longer useful, vanished. As the flying dome rose under Ero's control, with the compass securely in Ero's hand and the needle pointing upwards as well, he saw there was another object hovering overhead--vast and batlike. It instantly flashed into his mind what it was there to do--it was a bat, and it was coming for a drink at that massive fountain beneath him--and the liquid continually pouring out of it had to be blood! Blood! What else would a bat want? This vast, dank, malodorous, water-floored palace was the haunt of a monster vampire, and here it was! He had no sword in hand, no cannon, the monster was just too big to fight with any weapon he could think of--what was he going to do?

His hands rigid on the compass control, the flying dome did exactly as he directed it, only Ero was not really thinking at this point as he hurtled toward the monster, which grew more gigantic as he sped right at it.

"We are going to collide!" he thought, though the thought was not really a sensible one, as the flying dome shrank in comparison to the vast vampire, turning to the size of a tiny pinprick of sharp-pointed metal--a sort of tack that couldn't possibly slay so great a monster (as a mosquito could not kill an elephant).

In less than a couple seconds Ero gazed with horror as the flying dome, with himself clinging for dear life to its lance-like narwhal-like tusk, plunged straight into the vampire's left eye, which was not at all so bright as it appeared at a distance.

As Ero plunged through the cornea, the yellow of the vampire's eye was, he found, due to the flying card-like shapes that filled the interior. Not a physical eye at all (since a spirit-form did not need physical eyes to see), it swarmed with billions of photo-cells or files, that flicked on brightly, then dimmed like dimmer lights, then flicked on again. This had given the vampire's eyes their bright outer sheen, but the eyes themselves were seas and oceans of darkness, a seething, wicked darkness that Ero could sense was the essence of malevolence and hatred and spite. He felt as if everything he believed were instantly exposed, ridiculed, disproven, and his whole being pilloried for believing what he did.

As he struggled against the tusanami-like waves of hateful denial that swept down over him and mocked every atom of his being, Ero had no time to think about what was attacking him, for the flying dome converged with one of the flying cards. Instantly, the card sprang to life as Ero's mind was filled with the card's contents. It was Alex Hooper's whole life, played through Ero's mind in brief seconds.

First he saw an old-fashioned, 19th century city street and brick buildings, none of them above four storeys, and one with a doorway marked 105 Main, and Bloomington Courier on a sign above a big window. Was that a "newspaper"? Ero had heard of newspapers being published as late as the first part of the 21st century, after which the Internet supplied people directly with news of kinds, available at a touch of their fingertips on their cellphones and internet-serving devices. Inside the newspaper office he saw a young man of about his own age sitting and hard at work at something. Alex Hooper, the Courier's youngest reporter, was writing against a fast approaching deadline on his assigned articles for the next day's printing and issue.

Alex paused to sip his creamless coffee, then found it was stone cold and stale. He glanced toward the window, wondering if he should run for a fresh pot at the tavern across the street that sold it cheap and hot and black as soot. A jolt of that rotgut would help him through the next hour, speed him up so he reached the finish line on time, but he could hardly drag himself out of his chair to do it. He was exhausted--having worked several hours straight, and having stayed up the night before, only getting a few hours sleep. Why did the editor pile so much on a scrub reporter? He jabbed the pen into the paper, he was so upset at the thought.

He needed this job for the little money it paid--there wasn't going to be anything else for him in town but a blacksmith's helper position, or a stable boy's dirty drudgery, or some such low and stinking, manual labor. Here at least he could wear an ironed white shirt with cuffs and use his high school education, while hoping to save enough to matriculate at college.

He paused a little longer, still gazing wistfully out the window. How he hated Bloomington! It was sheer hell for a young man of his prospects, talents, and ambition. It was just like the stupid, ugly shoes that were stuck on the building's one entrance, on its door frames, on either side, which he had to pass between every time he went to work at the Courier. Imagine putting shoes, turned sole outwards, on a door to bring in customers to a combination barber-shoe repair shop! That was old, money-grubbing Bloomington for you! Utterly shameless! Ever since the stoneware pottery and ironmonger's mill closed and the logging companies moved to Minnesota, to make ends meet people did all sorts of humiliating, tawdry, tacky things! Though people tried to keep up appearances, it was all shame and pretence and shabby hypocrisy--Bloomington had no truly genteel, intellectually cultivated and informed people at all left in the city limits, nor any sense of refinement of the soul! No one read good books to be found in the one library in town--they read only the Bible and books of devotion and prayer and such sniveling trash! It was all work and drudgery and meanness, six days a week! The seventh? Then they trooped, family by family, to church and submitted to the most tedious, brainless pontificating by a pompous ass of a parson to be found on earth.

He would be sure to pick a college as far from the town as he could get a train to take him! Perhaps he would even go out of state--to New York City! Imagine that! He would the the first in his family to do a thing like that--head east where people still knew what fine things were and lived truly cultivated lives. His parents would be mightily upset, of course, and worry that he would be corrupted by the big city and its worldly ways, when Blloomington was all they knew, and they thought it was the best of all possible worlds, being a town with one dominate church, his parents' United Methodist congregation, named, inevitably, Bloomington United Methodist Church.

What a stuffy, old dump to have to grow up in--it was suffocating! He had made it out of boyhood, but he was determined to throw himself off the railway bridge into the river if he had to spend his manhood there just like his parents and all their friends! The very thought of being trapped in Bloominton the rest of his life made him feel like he was going to have another breathless, gasping attack, so he sprang up and dashed out for a breath of fresh air.

Ero saw Alex standing on the street corner of Main and Harrison, and all Alex's thoughts coursed through him like rapid-fire bursts from a gun.

"Yes, that's what I will do. I won't write what they expect me to write. I'll be my own man for a change, the master of my own destiny, the captain of my own ship, and tell them the whole truth--the truth they're avoiding all their petty lives, and which they need to hear. Who will dare to tell them like it is except me? I will do it! I swear I will! That article quoting the whole sermon last Sunday--I will add Darwinian rebuttals to everything Rev. Smith said. That will turn the whole church upside down, as they realize what an empty-headed, driveling fool they have been listening to all these years, presuming he is the oracle of God, when all he does is rehash the messages he pulls out of a volume of Spurgeon's Collected Sermons. Then the mayor's speech--I will point out all the flaws and deceit in his reasoning and explain what is really going on with his proposed budget, how he will stand to gain by the road improvements and the alteration to the railway bridge and the other projects that tax payers are having to fund with increased taxes--which they think are necessary, but which they don't really need, as the only purpose for these projects is to line the mayor's pockets! That's the unvarnished truth--which my editor is too much of a coward, and too much a friend of the mayor's, to tell the public! And I will rewrite the others, the editorial that favors the war with Spain--I'll show that there isn't a shred of truth to the claim that Spain blew up the Maine, that it is all a hoax by the New York City papers to push us into war--and next I will blow the whistle on the City Council, which has just agreed to hand itself a bonus and salary increase without making a public announcement of it. I will also quote some good authors, like Twain, Huxley, Ingersoll, and Voltaire."

For "Yom Kippur," Book II of "Beyond the Rapture," Vol. V, go to the link provided for Horace Brave Scout's account of how the Turnbull family on Earth I met the challenges of the seven year reign of the Anti-Christ and his battles for supremacy over Earth I as he goes to war to smash the last rivals he has resisting his absolute power, followed by the Reign of Yeshua that would last 1,000 years (or one, Seventh Day, in the divine calendar).

Chapter 2, Book Two, Volume V, Beyond the Rapture

Book III, The Seventh Day, Chapter 2, Volume V, Beyond the Rapture is in progress on his page. Chapter 1 has a link in the master directory above in the section for Volume V, Beyond the Rapture, Chronicle of the Great Chief's Return.

Book III,

The Seventh Day,

Chapter 2

Yeshua had not forgotten his promise to the people of Russia, when he judged the nation as a goat nation, but told the Russians that he would remember them because of their great suffering under a host of cruel and unjust rulers in the past, and make them a new nation that would not walk in the evil and crooked ways of the former one. He would also appoint them a new and noble king to rule over them, who would be a just and kind man, establishing a centuries-long era of great peace and plenty and happiness for them such as they had never known before. Who would not want this? The Russian peoples were overjoyed at the news--and they were not going to be disappointed, for Yeshua himself would see to it that they received all He had promised them.

Yeshua also said he would send his servant to choose a king out from their noble young men, one who would be most suited for such high responsiblity and would not become proud, luxurious in his tastes, oppressive in his laws and taxes, cruel, vengeful and immoral--which was what their former rulers were.

Harry Turnbull, appointed as Yeshua's special envoy to go to Russia to help in the healing and restoration of that long-oppressed people and nation, arrived at the proper time for the choosing of a new king.

Actually, the young man he selected was Yeshua's prior choice--his name given him back in the conference he and Heloise had with the Lord in Jerusalem.

So it was not a difficult task. He merely had to find the appointed man. Arriving in Russia, at a place where many people had gathered and re-established some thriving cities, towns, and villages, with many outlying farms and hamlets, Harry found the people had already set up elders and wise men and were under a limited government of their own, so that lawlessness would not prevail while they waited for the particulars of Yeshua's government to be made known to them.

The elders had the civil power to try any breaker of the law, such as the Ten Commandments, which were now the law of the whole land, as well as the law of the world. The Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, the eternal law of God first given by God to man through Moses on Mount Horeb in Arabia, were again the basis for all law on earth, so they were more than sufficient to start an equitable society, after being suspended by the World Union dictator and his anti-God laws. Thus there was peace and justice already established when Harry arrived to do his initial inspections of the various populated and repopulating Russian provinces .

His duties included the inspection as well as the choice and installation of a king.

He would remain as long as he thought it necessary, to see that the new king was functioning properly and whether the people had accepted him and his rule.

Since it would be a first time that a ruler chosen by God had ruled them (even though prior kings had claimed divine appointment and right), the Russian people would need some time to adjust, of course, but there was plenty of time, and no need to hurry the process, Harry thought.

The chief trait he admired most about the Russians was their seeking the uncompromised truth. That impressed him most, though it did not make people, who desired less than the truth, comfortable. He also enjoyed the Russian people for their boundless hospitality, rolicking good humor, and unpretentious ways, and loved their lands' unparalled beauty and vastness, and now the climate was much improved as well. They could grow crops year round if they liked, the temperatures were so mild that winter was only a fading memory. Snow and ice were banished by the global change in weather, thanks to Yeshua, so they would never again suffer the starvation and rigors of the long Russian winter that had caused such hardship, suffering, and loss of life for uncountable Russians in the past.

The Russians were very good at cultivating the rich, black chernozen soil, and they grew abundant crops, and were soon quite well to do. Their surpluses they traded for things they wanted from neighboring countries and peoples. But they also developed their own crafts, and had little need of luxuries except to dispose of grain, hides, cattle, timber, and metal ore surpluses that might go to waste otherwise.

The wide-ranging arts of the Russians flourished again, and embroidery and weaving and making of beautiful clothes spread through Russia. They all had fine clothes to wear now, and they wore them even at work, as they did not need to dress poorly, as they had so many changes of clothes.

The immodest styles of the Great Tribulation were now universally abhorred. Dignity and grace and modesty were again valued--though that did not exclude striking patterns and colors. The people returned to long-lost clothing designs from previous ages, and these were much favored, as they were brightly colored, and the patterns were challenges to the tailors and weavers and women expert with the needle. They were also natural, and composed of local materials they could raise or create or make themselves, without requiring massive factories and enormous expenditures of electric power and polluting and disturbing the earth to dig out the raw materials that went through very complicated changes until they came out as finished products people could wear.

Synthetics were not needed or liked. Sheep were raised for wool, and the wool went into clothing and tapestries and fine rugs. The homes were filled with beautiful woven things, and the people were soon well-dressed, even in the farmsteads!

Harry was amazed at the splendor of the Russians, who had an eye for beautiful things and the ability to create them.

He thought he looked quite shabby in their country, coming to them in a simple Middle Eastern or Arab-style robe. But the Russians were polite, and they gave not the slightest indication they thought he was not as well dressed as he might be for being Yeshua's royal envoy sent from Jerusalem to choose them a king.

The excitement bubbling away in the people was evident to Harry as he travelled about the new cities, town, villages and farms. He was invited everywhere to stay, but he could not stay long at any one place, for he had much to do to inspect so great acountry in size. 70 million Russians were no small amount to deal with! He wanted to make sure that everyone was getting on as he or she ought, under Yeshua's rule, which demanded justice and peace and prosperity for everyone on earth.

Having seen the whole country after months of travel transported on several of Pamela's dragons, Harry then took residence in one of the largest cities, and waited. He was sure the man would find him first, as the word had gone out, that whoever had heard from Yeshua should come and present himself as a candidate.

Harry soon heard from several different young men, but Harry knew in an instant that they were not, each of them, chosen by Yeshua. Something was not quite right, even though they looked regal enough in looks and stature and bearing.

Yeshua was looking for a measure of humility, he sensed, as he sent the men away and continued waiting.

Finally, after turning away a dozen other wannabe kings, Harry was beginning to wonder if the man would ever show up. What was keeping him? he wondered? Was he too busy in his business or farm or family? Had he just married and could not bear to leave his bride alone? There was some good reason, no doubt, for few men would ignore the chance to become a king. Or was he thinking he was too unworthy for such an exalted position with such huge responsibilities?

Perhaps he saw himself as too small a man for so great a task? There was such a thing, Harry knew, as too much humility--for the question was not whether he were worthy (for no man was worthy!) but was he obedient? Was he going to obey the Lord's summons and appointment? That was the real question. In the Bible account Saul, before Samuel anointed him king over Israel, was overly humble and self-effacing, running away from the calling of king, but later as king he became overly proud and even arrogant and too full of himself--humility, for him, was not accompanied with any saving measure of obedience to God. Disbeying God's commands, he destroyed himself and also his sons and dynasty. Obedience, then, is fundamental to a good king, even before humility, as seen in Saul's tragic case.

Yet, for such a task, haste was not a wise thing in the candidate--and a man who knew the Lord's calling on his life was not obliged to rush to seize the mantle of kingship. He could think it over a while, and take the time to count the cost. He would surely need to reflect on the changes that kingship would necessarily bring, and come to some sort of peace with the changes, and also the demands and challenges that kingship and the throne would inevitably bring.

A wise man, then, would take a little time to think it over first before coming forward--but not too long a time! If he was a delayer, arrived tardily, that would be forgivable, but it was not a gracious first act of a king to keep the Lord's envoy waiting beyond an acceptable time.

A day dawned when Harry was wondering if the man would ever appear. He was just about to be annoyed with whomever it was, when the people of the house where he was given rooms brought a visitor to him. He is the Lord's choise, they told him. And he has brought his pet bear with him! Harry smiled, and let them know that he wanted to be alone with the candidate, to see if he agreed!

The man came in to Harry's room, a she-bear trundling slowly in with him attached to a leash, and his two aides, both nephews of his, were with him too, standing like two squires with a knight as in the Middle Ages.

Their eyes met, and Harry nodded, indicating that he wished for the gentleman to proceed. The moment the young nobleman came and bent his knee, extending his hand to the older man in greeting, Harry knew--yes! This is the one, indeed!

Taking a flask of pure and fragrant anointing oil he carried with him from Jerusalem, he touched the king's forehead and hair, anointing and sealing the office of the king upon the young man's head and brow.

"What is your name?" Harry asked as he slipped the anointing oil back inside his robe. "No, don't tell me. It no longer is your name. The Lord said you are to be called Vladimir, to redeem that good name from the past--will you accept the name given you by the Lord?

The spanking new Vladimir the First of New Russia (though its name was to be given later) blinked with surprise, nodded slowly, and stared at Harry.

"Then you shall be crowned Vladimir king of the Russians! Let your companions inform the others, and I shall remain here to see that you will do well by your people, Vladimir, ah, Your Majesty! You will need a Council and a company of wise men gathered round you to see that you steer the ship of state in a right and good and wise way, so as not to abuse your powers or oppress the people in any way that would serve your interest above theirs. I will be here as long as it takes to find these worthy men and bring them here to serve at your side."

Harry rose, then waved his hand for the new king to come and sit in his chair.

Vladimir momentarily looked as if he were embarrassed and might protest (for he was a truly humble young man who respected elders), but Harry's stern glance quickly checked that impulse, and he went and took the offered chair, sitting down and with his attendants stepping forward to stand at his side. As for the pet she-bear, Alexandra, the king let her curl up on a rug, where she settled down comfortably.

The whole household, which knew (as Russians do) all that was going on behind the closed door of the room, could not be held back a moment more, and they burst in. Harry smiled, and gestured, indicating the new king in his makeshift but sturdy throne fashioned from a single piece of golden oak.

The family was suddenly abashed, seeing a real king sitting on a chair in their own house! It left them breathless! With shock in their faces and bewilderment, they did not know what to do, but the youngest, a little girl of four, went forward first, without any fear, and put her hand in the king's.

He smiled at her, and she beamed, then hopped up to his lap. Of course, there was no further ice or formality after this--but that wasn't a problem, Harry felt. Their former kings had been autocrats, ruling far from any contact with the common people in the exalted splendor of their palaces while the Russian people subsisted like beasts in unheated, squalid huts--it was not to happen again! The new Russian king would be one to mingle with the people, as one of them, yet a ruler too, who would decide the most important matters of state in terms of truth, justice, and righteousness, and also lead a delegation from the Russian provinces of his kingdom each year up to Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles.

It was a brand-new day, a time to celebrate with singing, dancing, banquets, and all sorts of games, music, tests of agility or strength, and merriment that the Russians, who invented the year-round festival, were adept at--the start of a glorious epoch of achievement and happiness for the Russians, and a new kind of king was now in their midst to guide them--one who rules to help them, not hurt and exploit them as their past czars and kings had done. There were also, to be sure, some tears, as the older ones recalled the bad times Russia had known under cruel leaders--men like Peter the Great, Lenin, Stalin, and the lesser fry, like Vladimir Putin, who emulated the great monsters, their megalomaniacal lust for power, vices, and over-all venality. Then the almost constant wars had taken so many, many lives--they were uncountable--which meant nothing to them in general numbers, as they could only recall lost love ones--sons, husbands, fathers-- swallowed up in the last catastrophic conflicts of the old world order.

But now they could rejoice in this: never again would there be an unjust ruler over them, an autocrat holding himself aloof from the people like a cruel and unreachable emperor (or Czar, as the former Russians had called their Caesars), touching their lives only to oppress them and tax them into povery or throw them into a prison or mine in Siberia the rest of their days for resisting his unrighteous and tyrannical rule, the new king would be approachable, intimate with the lot of the people he ruled, a genuine "first among equals." Harry would see to it that everything went well in the beginning stage, even if there were absolutely no precedent in Russia for what Yeshua had inaugurated.

On Harry's return to Jerusalem, Yeshua called him to his throne and instructed him on the new world order of righteousness that would completely replace the old order Satan had ruled. Many nations would no longer exist, as they had been Israel's worst enemies, and hurt her most--this could not be forgiven, and so they vanished as entities--and no one wept for them either.

The world, Harry learned, was first to be divided into nine Eden-like "gardens" or "congregations." These were Love, Joy, Peace, Forebearance, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control--named after the Fruits of the Spirit, in which each was centered. Geopolitics, the play of force and deceit and outright aggression, which had raged out of control and produced discord, havoc, and war since the time of Adam, no longer applied to the nations. Peace treaties would no longer be signed and then broken by the signatories, who were all the time they were in conference and even when signing were nothing but treacherous cynics planning further aggressions. Pax Romana, even though last about five centuries, had been temporary, enforced by brute force of invincible Roman legions. Pax Christos, with Yeshua as Pantokrator, was to last unbroken for 1,000 years--all founded on Almighty God's omnipotence. And how much better too!

War (civil and between states or peoples) was abolished in all these spiritual zones among the nations, for they were no longer rivals or competitors. Despite the huge swaths of devastation and nuclear contamination and ruin of earthquakes--the people simply moved to the good areas that were left while the bad areas were recovering, and the climate was so much improved round the earth, north and south, they found no difficulty growing more food than they needed and restarting their societies. From Jerusalem there flowed troops of Yeshua's emissaries, who went out to the nations like the Turnbulls, to help, guide, and restore them. Healers too went about the worst areas too, dealing with those still suffering from nuclear blasts. These were given leaves from the Tree of Life in Jerusalem, which cured them instantly, just as it cured any disease instantly.

Despite Yeshua's ordering of the overall structures, there was a vast area of freedom to rebuild, organize, and beautify the world as the nations' peoples took advantage of the wonderful climate and the astounding growth of their crops and herds. People were so full of health and vitality, that few tasks were thought too difficult for them--as a young man could carry a whole tree, and a child could carry a big log. It was truly the rise of superhumans--only they were now back to the levels of intelligence and strength enjoyed by the antediluvians, the long-lived race before Noah's time and the Worldwide Flood--except the difference was that they were living righteously, not abusing their wonderful bodies with immorality, violence, and fighting one another.

Called back to Yeshua's throne, the members of the Turnbull family assembled from the far quarters of the earth to hear what the Lord had next for them to do. They were surprised to hear what He told them. He said they had been sent separately, to learn each his or her special gifting, but now that was accomlished, and it was time for them to be sent as "one indivisible oil" to anoint the nations in the way He had in his heart to do. This anointing, this oil, would cause a most thorough, deep, and transforming changeve to spread over the whole earth, not just one nation here, and one nation there, with all sorts of neediness and lack of growth in between. No, Yeshua had ordained that the whole earth should grow as one into the stature of the fulness of Himself, the head of all the nations. That is the way the body grows, in unison, not with one foot growing at a different pace than the other foot, nor one arm faster than the other, and so on. There would be harmony among the nations, and that meant growing together, simultaneously, in all areas of life, corporate and individual.

How could this be done? No one knew, except the Lord Yeshua, King over all the earth.

But first the Lord of Heaven had something for His Son--a new name hinted of by the prophet--and this Name was so holy it came down from heaven, attended by the rejoicing of billions of angels. The whole earth saw the angels, and there was not room enough for them on the earth, so they filled the skies instead, as everyone one earth watched the proceedings in Jerusalem. This was done by the simple projection of the Name-giving upon the ozone layer, which had changed and become reflective and image-bearing. All an angel holding two mirrors had to do was reflect the image upwards, and it was transported to the entire watching world--all without the complex system of the former system of satellites and uplinks and cameras and studios utilized by television.

Yeshua was not Yeshua's Name, as the earth now discovered. Yeshua meant "The God Who Saves." It was only given him for a time, but now, for the Millennium when He ruled as King of kings and Lord of lords, His true name, hidden until now by the Father and the Spirit, was made known to all, including the angels, who were just as astonished as any human beings witnessing the event.

The instant the Name of names descended upon the Son of God--a splendor, a glory, broke forth from the face of Yeshua that was so unspeakably bright no one could look at it. it was if the sun itself was eclipsed, He became so bright. And what was His Name? It was Hebrew, Yahweh the Lord of Righteousness.

Gifts of cold desert air and sky,

stars, cliffs of bare rock-- and a chance to ask why.

Earth's hoop was broken in the long ago

(and men still try to mend it the best they can),

but yet it keeps breaking

like a cracked, worn-out bow...

like a cracked, worn-out bow.

Wise chiefs once found a star-crowned child,

who came to mend the hoop men broke and defiled.

Wise men still seek Him who hung on a Cross--

and now there are two hoops

with a bridge across...

with a bridge across.

This is the bridge I pray for you,

I pray you find it and cross it too... and cross it too.

Horace Brave Scout singing his Christmas prayer:

Retro Star and Twin Worlds Timelines

Brief Account of the Twin Earths

Bridges of Destiny

Star Map of the Re-Located Earth, Twin Earth Atlas, Stellar and Terrestrial

Argo, Ships of the Line

Volume IV, Appendix, Part I

Volume IV, Appendix, Part II

Map of Holland America

Extraterrestrials and Terrestrials

The Algol Invasion & Client Species

The Star-Stones, the Evil, Scheming, Destroying Jewels of Fire, & Other Fatal Jems:

Before the Lakota recorders, Jason the captain of the Argo, who led the expedition to regain the Golden Fleece, foresaw this apparition heading for Earth:

Universe Terminator: The Sardius, or Carnelian, Red Star, Stone of Fire, Fiery Stone, the First Alien Entity, Wormwood, Wormstar, Retrostar

The Topaz

The Black Crystal and the White Stone

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