R E T R O S T A R
D I R E C T O R Y
A N D
L I N K I N G
P A G E
Chronicles of a Twin Earth, Sun, and Solar System Under Siege
Dedicated to Gabriel Tall Chief who first blew the horn and to M.G.Y. who couldn't hear it...
Vol. I, Fatal Convergence by Gabriel Tall Chief, Vol. II, Cloud and Avalanche by Gabriel Tall Chief, Vol. III, Battles of the DUBESOR (mostly on-line, with CHRONICLE FIFTY-NINE, "The Blind Man Who Could See," now available) by Gabriel Tall Chief, Vol. IV, Lost Chronicles, Mystery Chronicles, and Unchronicles by Horace Brave Scout, Vol. V, Beyond the Rapture by Horace Brave Scout, Vol. VI, Natal Convergence by Horace Brave Scout Vol. VII, Final Wars...Convergence at Orion by Horace Brave Scout
WELCOME TO THE TWIN EARTH(S)!
AND WELCOME TO FATAL CONVERGENCE!
Gabriel Tall Chief and Horace Brave Scout greet you as an honest friend and candidate for Retrostar challenger! This is a narrative by CP-challenged Gabriel and his cousin Horace that chronicles the struggles of humanity enlisted in a genius's computerized zero sum wargame against the global invasions of unknown superior entities. The Twin Earth chronicles record these battles with relentless waves of alien power which cause the reversal of technology and culture. Mankind sustains one attack only to be blasted by another. How many onslaughts will come? How will they appear? How long can people cope? Or can they? In today's society that has come to question the ability of world powers and leaders to solve catastrophic problems, the struggles of people on Earths I and II will speak to all those who are searching for a winning strategy in a seemingly no-win dilemma.
Our RetroStar Chroniclers:
Gabriel Tall Chief, a Lakota Indian prophet in Holland House, a private children's care center and hospice, Eden Prairie, Minnesota, in the 1990s. As his chronicles for Earth II show, years in advance of the developments he revealed that there would be a catastrophic tsunami, a world-wide network of terrorism and use of conventional explosives to disrupt government and society, the confrontation of the Arab bloc with the West involving the threat of chemical-biological WPM (Weapons of Pestilential Murder), a decline in NASA and the secret intelligence services, catastrophic weather changes, and the discovery of artifacts of Atlantis (much larger pyramids than Giza's have recently come to light in the former Yugoslavia); he also predicted a total collapse of computer-based Western society and the reversal of technology, not to mention, the reversal of cultural development, the rise and fall of a world government based on the European Union, and a Dutch takeover of America and the Caribbean as an Ice Age clamps down on most of the Northern Hemisphere.
Gabriel's disciple and dream-weaver and dream-rider, Horace Brave Scout, who gathered the "fragments" of the chronicles that remained after Gabriel died:
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 a star that, one bitter-cold, black night, answered his call for bloody revenge from across the universe.
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).
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
The Super-continent Oceania (also called Pangaea, and Gondwanaland) on Earth I, before the breakup in the World-Wide Flood in the time of Noah and the Ark:
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 DIVE 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 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 II: CHRONICLE OF THE MEDICINE SPEAR
Scenario III: CHRONICLE OF THE KREMLIN STARETZ--EARTH I
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
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
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-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
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
BOOK FIVE WILL SOON BE ON-LINE, SO PLEASE RETURN
CHRONICLE SIXTY, A. S. 10,282 1. The Shadow Line 2. The Lacquered Wardrobe 3. A Pilgrim's Heart BOOK FIVE, PART ONE, CHRONICLE SIXTY, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
4. Talulah's Star IP 5. South by Southwest IP 6. The Gray Wolf IP 7. Lux ex Tenebris IP
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, IP
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 mostly seeking in the wrong places:
CHRONICLE SIXTY-TWO, A. S. 10,999 IP Voyage of the ARGO V: Quest of the Cybernauts PARTS I & II, 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 IP A. A. S. 1200, Voyage of the Argonauts How the Atlanteans, working behind the petty geopolitics of humanity, sought to stop Jason of Iolkos from gaining the Golden Fleece and returning a hero to Greece. All it needed was such a man to unify the whole country of Achaea (at present a hodge-podge of rival city-states and kingdoms), which would then be a major setback to the expansion of Ilios and its snake goddess, which the Atlanteans had chosen to pump as a major piece in their strategy to regain Earth II.
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
Please return for the continuing Quest of the Golden Fleece
CHRONICLE OF THE TWO SERPENTS, PART II A. A. S. 1230, 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 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. 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 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 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.
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 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, 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 sights, 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 chiefs of the Island of the Long Cloud, who had fought a bloody war over selling land to the Europeans and opposed each other as bitter enemies for twenty five years, were brought together by Sir George Grey as Chief Te Hapuku lay dying.
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 peace conference of the victorious Allies brokered a treaty at Versailles that produced the Second World War, and how the mirrors 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 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.
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 dry spiritual condition that she would do anything, even take pictures of 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 brutal Communist-ruled country, found a miracle-producing faith 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 attempt.
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 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.
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, goes out into his ruined 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 one arth seemed to open to him.
CHRONICLE OF THE ICE BIRD, PART III, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR
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 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
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
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
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
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, 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 Nine, Beyond the Rapture
"The Lion Unleashed," Part Nine, Beyond the Rapture
"Retreat to Petra," Part Ten, Beyond the Rapture
Please return for Book Two of Beyond the Rapture, "Yom Kipppur"
(Chronicle completed)
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
Before they even sighted the Thermodon, however, they saw many clouds of
black smoke rising above the land, and Jason handed out the swords and shields from
the hold, thinking they might be heading into the battle ground of some
army as it attacked a city on the coast ahead of them.
But no, there was no army or attack going on. Instead, it was what he
now remembered, the land inhabited by a race of bronze smithies.
They also fashioned things of iron, but it was ugly metal, and rusted ever since the secret known to the Tubal-Cain of the ancients that prevented rust was lost, and so most people preferred the beauty of bronze and copper, though iron was far stronger.
Jason, and a group of picked Argonauts, went ashore to look about,
though Jason was not intending to buy anything, since he had all he needed
in bronzeware.
The smiths were all very busy, he discovered, making things from the molten
metals pouring into molds through clay channels from their furnaces. He tried to get one Kashkan smith to tell him
his trade secret how fine bronze was made from the two ores that went into it--but the man pretended not
to understand his Achaean speech--though Achaeans were frequent enough traders, Jason knew,
all down this very coast, coming for the highly valued bronze above all other things they might
take and sell in the markets of Ilios, Miletus, Tiryns, Argos, Orchomenos, Calydon, and Pharae and the islands.
Learning nothing he did not already know, Jason grew impatient to get on with
the voyage. Besides, the furnace smoke was so thick it irritated the eyes, and
burned his lungs. It clung to hair and clothes, too, and so he and his
Argonauts, beginning to cough and wipe their weeping eyes, were glad to get away from this smelly, dirty, smoke-smudged
country of the bronzesmiths and miners.
After a sidelong glance at Jason to see if the coast was clear, he sidled over to
Mopsos, who was taking his break in the bow.
Mopsos opened his eyes, a little surprised at the sudden question, but not about to say anything just yet. Biting his lip, Lukeios was not one to give up easily. "You know the tale he sings--about the ram that flies with wings like a bird, and is golden, and took Phrixus and his sister all the way from Orchomenus to Colchis? Is it true or just an old wive's tale? Tell me, I need to know if I am a fool to go on this voyage or not. I know our shipmaster believes it, but you--do YOU believe it?"
It was a longer wait than usual before Lukeios got a response. Mopsos spoke very slowly too--word by word gradually leaving his lips, to the great aggravation of his agitated, finger-drumming hearer.
"How can I know it is true--this golden Ram flying down from heaven to rescue a
forsaken young man who was to be killed?"
"Yes, tell me at once! Wipe that smug little smile off your big, blooming Achaean face! I am not going to hold my breath. I will die if you don't speak up without any more of your dilly dallying!"
Mopsos, however, could not be changed by this juvenile outburst. He wasn't going to be pushed or moved into making foolish, hasty speculations just because Lukeios demanded it. He had stood before kings and princes of renown, fighters and men of war all, with the courts of their palaces looking on, and wasn't pushed one mustard seed's length to say what Wisdom did not allow him to say.
He took his time, and when he was sure of his words, that they stood on Wisdom, he replied slowly as cold honey oozing from an water-cooled stone crock:
"How can a man know what he has not seen? Yet I know it, because I believe it first. In believing, I can know it for certain that it is true--even before my poor, mortal eyes see it. Do you understand that? It is the way, and any child or a man with the heart of a child can see it--not just to know this tale is true, but the way provided by high heaven
to win the Golden Fleece itself."
Lukeios stared at Mopsos as if he saw a snake rearing to bite him on the chin. He shook his head and backed away, nearly toppling over an oar. But he had one parting shot to fire first, now that the words had come to his ready tongue. "Ha!" he laughed at Mopsos. "Why, you are a bigger fool than I first thought! Imagine, knowing something is true just because YOU happen to BELIEVE it! Are you a child, who takes everything in like mother's milk without question? People believe all sorts of nonsense, but that doesn't make it the least bit true. I asked you a simple question. Instead of a simple answer, all you can give me is madmen's dreams and whirling dust from a braying, kicking donkey! Some wisdom you've got to hand out! Pfaugh! You can keep it to yourself from now on! I want no more of it!"
Off Lukeios flung himself from Mopsos's company--and Mopsos shrugged, and went back to
his own thoughts and meditations on the wiser way, while Lukeios wracked his brains trying to think of ways to jump ship amidst this savage landscape of unknown cities and barbarous inhabitants and yet get back home with his precious, princely, Minyan skin intact--skin, he felt, was worth two of any Achaeans'.
He thought of something. Perhaps contact with Mopsos had rubbed off on him a little. He settled down and grew more reverential. Then he pulled out his image of the pig goddess which he had bought from a Ilian trader for a hefty sum of silver. It was silver too, but the pig goddess's teats were gold inlay--at least the trader, vowing with the pig goddess's holy name, assured him it was real gold inlay. He rubbed the pig goddess's udders hard, as he prayed earnestly, with all his might, not noticing some of the gold inlay came off on his dirty, oar-roughed fingers.
O Holy, Pure, Plenteous Lady of the Heavens and the Earth, whom all the tribes and nations and cities worship and adore!
That was the ceremonial invocation which he had heard in the pig goddesse's temple in Iolkos and other cities, chanted by the ritually stripped priests.
What next? He could not remember. So he made up the rest as best he could.
"Grant me freedom from this barbarous country, O Lady! I promise you great heaps of gold and silver on my return to my own city! Only give me a way back to my people and country! Waft me on the wings of the wind, or get me a fine ship that will carry me thither safely! You are all-powerful, Goddess of Life, for all the men and creatures of look to you--as you give life and birth in the city, in the country, in the (he thought "gutters", but quickly changed that to "holy temples").
That long a prayer, made on the spot, was exhausting to Lukeios's stock of pious phrases, and he fell silent, glancing around him to see if anyone had noticed he was
turning to religion. He knew his Achaean shipmates were not much taken with the pig goddess and her cult, which were really an old Minyan favorite, so he covered it with his old discarded loin cloth and stuck it back in a hiding place he had under the boards
covering the hold. Then he rose and went back to his oar--his break was over, and he
had decided to wait for his opportunity at the next port of call, whatever it was. Surely, the great Pig Goddess, Ceres the Magnificent-Breasted, would rescue him her most devoted servant, after he had offered her so much money! That priest of hers in Iolkos was always rubbing his big belly whenever someone came with an offering--what would he think of a thousand silver pieces! Well, maybe a hundred pieces would show his most heart-felt gratitude just as well?...or ten?...or one?...or...might even a loaf of bread be sufficient for the pig goddess as a reward? After all, he had his servants throw out all the stale bread in a pail of the cook's stinking slops from the kitchen window in his own house, and the pigs grunting and copulating and giving birth to more litters in the gutters always
got it without fail. That he could tell from their ear-spliting squealing and fights with the dogs to get the tidbits of fly-covered fish heads and moldy bread that they were being feasted to their little hearts' delight.
Now that he thought of it, what matter if he just let her have
a loaf of bread that had gone a bit beyond freshness--he would be home, safe and sound
and making up for lost time with his slave girl,
and dear old Ceres would be happy with that, right?
Pleased with himself for his wonderful way of handling the high gods and their favors, Lukeios applied himself at the hated, sweat-grimed oar with vigor--all more since he was dying to get to the next landing.
What to do? He did not like the sound of this youth's name even--it reminded him of an old, old story he had heard as a boy, someone who was a champion who fought a great serpent and won--could this be someone like that? If so, he wasn't needed here in his kingdom! He had plenty soldiers, who were fierce enough, so that no neighbor round about the sea would dare attack him. What if he coveted his throne and his gold? Champions usually sat on thrones, sooner or later. The unwashed populace of the cities were known for making such mighty heroes their rulers, killing or throwing out their old, feeble,
exploitless kings. Had some traitor in his midst sent word to this youth to come and test his might against the king's?
Not that he was old, feeble, and exploitless! He could stand against any champion and send him down to Hades. He had done so already to a number of foolish, brash rivals and contenders from his youth upwards to where he was sitting right now--on the high throne of Colchis, in a splendid hall set close to the gods in their high Olympus!
But this "Jason" might be stronger and know the craft of war better than other men. He had heard additional words too--of his burning a helpless city down, after accepting its hospitality and numerous banquets and every courtesty. Poor Sinopoli--having trusted such a treacherous guest! It had paid for that trust dearly!
Then other reports--killing the holy sicklebird, the sacred, avenging Hound of Zeus the Thunder-Bolt Thrower, which had furnished his own crown's noble crest! Was he not the gods' royal Avenger, appointed to punish all the cities and kingdoms round about that did not yet acknowledge his rule and join his hegemony? How dare this alien commit such an impiety against the gods' chosen mascot, the wonderfully fierce sicklebird! He would be made to pay for it, the king vowed.
So this impious, treacherous pirate who burned cities was headed for Aea, to no doubt try the same tricks on him and his people! Never! Never!
He would think of something--he would snare this base intruder--without having to
use any of his own men and arms. Colchis, he knew well, was full of deadly
hazards and accidents, all just waiting to happen to such as this stranger from
far-off Iolkos! With a little help, everything could be arranged for a convenient mishap that would remove the nuisance and his pack of beardless bandits forever from the sacred soil of high-towered Colchis!
Thinking this, the king felt much better. He called men, who came running to do exactly what he had in mind, a plan that no man could circumvent or overturn, however smart or powerful-bodied he was. Forces, monsters no man could equal, were plentiful in Colchis, and would be enlisted for the king's cause that would vanquish this "champion" seeking the Golden Fleece--and he would vanish forever like a mere puff of smoke! A mere puff of smoke!
They do not want to leave the ship for an extended time, for pirates infest
the sea, and they will pounce on any vessel that is not well defended.
Fortunately, they do not have to go much further, for the mountains that
come down to the sea ahead of them are thickly forested. As they
look for a safe harbor to pull into, they notice a small town or
overgrown village--certainly no city worthy of the name--climbs the
slopes behind a small anchorage.
Traders have left behind words of various languages, and the Mossynoeci
know enough to get on with most everyone, including Achaeans and their
confederates, the Minyans.
Argus and Jason soon make a satisfactory exchange of some silver pieces and a bronze mirror with the locals,
and the Argonauts carry the needed beams to the shore next to the anchored
ship. They will not mend the ship here, however. Jason sees no reason why
the Mossynoeci should be assumed trustworthy hosts, and so they move on, politely
declining the invitation to stay and enjoy a "feast" and "games" with
this town of rough, half-civilized woodsmen. Their would-be hosts even promise to
lend the Argonauts their wives and marriageable daughters for the night when they see the captain's frown.
Jason will not change his mind. The Mossynoeci menfolk are very disappointed, and their faces show how crestfallen they are. They had hoped to capture a fine sailing vessel to convert to a merchant to carry their lumber to lucrative, far-off markets--even if it meant a stiff fight for the ship. Of course, they couldn't set upon such men as these without first getting them drunk and sleepy--as these fellows, plainly enough, were just too alert and ready with
swords, shields, and javelins--formidable weapons of war the poorer townsfolk are hard put to rival with their bronze axes and saws.
The Argo is soon gone--and the woodsmen return to their axes and saws and
hard labor--until one day, raiding ships come and burn the little town down and
kill the men and enslave the women and children--a common enough occurrence
along these half-barbarian coasts that it is never thought worth recording by
men of letters in colonizing expeditions from Miletus or Ilios who sail by and happen to notice the burned, abandoned ruins.
The Argo, with no more thought given to the town of the woodcutters, sails on to
the next landfall. They need to find just the right sort of place, with tall reeds growing in a river's mouth, where they can hide the ship while it is undergoing repair on the
the shore. This way they will not reveal their weakness to any passing
vessel carrying raiders looking for just such an opportunity to set upon them.
Of course, they could fight and defeat them--but Jason was not looking for
opportunities to fight and possibly lose some of his own precious mariners--the whole purpose of the voyage was to gain Colchis and the Golden Fleece.
As for repairs, Argus remains the the only one who knows what needed to be done and could do it--so this will be the opportunity Jason had looked for, not just for the Argo's sake but to give the men a needed time of games and rest. They were, he saw, showing signs of turning "ship sour." Some of his men had not been on sea-going ships for more than a few days at a time, much less a voyage lasting many days, with no end yet in sight. They really needed a change only a pleasant spot could give them, to do some hunting, some playing, and some
resting and, of course, much good eating. He knew this, because he himself was young, and able to feel all his Argonauts felt so keenly at their age.
His eye paused more and more on a particular Argonaut, who was causing him some concern--more than before, in fact. The Minyan "prince" aboard who carried a chip on his shoulder and thought himself a notch better than the Achaean "immigrants" to Iolkos--none other than Lukeios, who was named after his family's ancestral homeland of Lukka--he was needing some watching, did he not? His father had warned him--it takes only one bad grape to spoil the bunch! What did this man have in his heart to do, if he took it in his mind to oppose his shipmaster in any way? Would he be able to draw other men to his view, whatever it was? He had seen such men, such rabble-rousing ringleaders, before--they overturned whole kingdoms, by the power of their little, constantly moving tongues! Always carping and complaining, always making the king look bad in his decisions, holding the king responsible for every thing, little or big, that might be going wrong in in the kingdom--that was their tactic, and eventually it worked its evil into every household like someone's drumbeat going night and day, so that they would turn into a mob and support the usurper as their tyrant, until he proved worse as an oppressor than their rightful king ever had been! Then, when he turned to stop the revolt and massacre his former supporters who put him on the throne, they were sorry they had listened to his evil tongue--too late! Lukeios was no match, man to man, with him, Jason knew--but his
unfettered tongue, without sense to guide him as Wisdom clearly guided the good Mopsos and men like him, it was
able to influence the unwiser, untaught ones among the crew one way or another, if given free rein. Lukeios was even at that moment, Jason saw, looking around--yet was it for himself alone or for the sake of the ship? What was he planning? He seemed so restless in his movements. Whatever the plan was, it could not be told, unless... One thing was necessary, he decided. Just the same, it pained him, the thought of what he must do.
Jason thought as he observed Lukeios, "Well, let's see what his clever, cunning tongue can accomplish. Much cunning? As my beloved father said, much cunning, crafty argument invites nonsense. So let this fine prince of Lukka and Iolkos do his work, since I will not restrain him. If he is bent on treachery, then let his twig be bent all the way to show exactly what crooked tree it came from! Then I will know the true hearts of these men of mine too, whether they truly are for this venture or secretely against it. I don't want to lose one, not even Lukeios, but otherwise, how can their secret hearts be known? And if I don't know them, they will surprise me when I need their loyalty and it is not to be found."
Now the spot he looked for needed to have a good elevation, so that they could see whomever was coming that way and not be taken by surprise. It needed cover too for the drydocked ship, and also game to be hunted, and clean, fresh water for baths and swimming (the salt of the Unfriendly Sea was getting unbearable to their skin, as they were running low on the cleaning, health-giving olive oil to keep their skin from cracking in the almost constant strong wind and burning sun), and their clothes also needed washing. Where was such a fine place? Hour on hour as they sailed eastward, Jason and every eye of the crew looked for it with
growing expectancy.
What a relief it was for Jason when they sighted a possible safe landing for a campsite up ahead. And this is what they found. A waterfall up on a high moutain had plunged all the way to the sea, depositing enough sand and silt to build up a cove against the sea waves and tides, and the fresh water had caused tall reeds to grow and flourish, with many birds and small animals living in the abundant greenery ringing the small cove. Some tall trees also grew there at the edge of the cliff where the brook splashed into its little bay, and
so there was shade and enough shelter for a few men in a camp. But there wasn't enough room for all his men, by any means. What to do? Gazing up, Jason took another look at the fringe of green above, where the falls could be heard thundering down the mountainside. Where could so much water go? he wondered. The brook was not enough to carry off all the water they heard falling above. Something was stopping it or directing it elsewhere, and he meant to find out what it was.
Jason left Argus and some guards for the ship, as they got it close to land, and he took the rest with him to explore the brook's source. Climbing up several hundred feet, they could see a the branches of trees waving high up in the wind. But it took several hundred more feet of rock for them to climb before they saw just what they desired--a small, flat tableland, with much grass and small trees and shrubs, and, best of all, a freshwater lake big enough to swim in! At last, their safe haven of rest!
They lost no time in settling in. Scrambling back down to the ship, they carried back everything they needed, for Argus intended a complete overhaul of the ship for the remainder of the voyage--so whatever they had on board had to go ashore. Packing some things like supplies, shields, and various personal items together, they hid them with reeds, then took only what they needed up to their base by the lake. Jason appointed guards for the next night and the following at both sites, with relieving guards as well--it would not be safe here otherwise along this busy coastline. With that done, it was time to stake out a camp for the night, and make a fire, and then, joy of joys for those who knew how, go hunting for dinner! Baths for the hunters could wait a bit--which would be wonderful in the rainbowed spray of the
waterfalls tumbling down the cliff face. And then later they could go swimming as often as they wanted in the lake itself--which lay blue as a sapphire in a hollow shaped like a big, round-rimmed basin for
hand-washing. Did it have fish? They soon would find out. "Fish and
mountain goat roasted over the fire--ah, that would make a fine dinner, indeed!" thought Jason.
Jason shook his head, smiling. "What exploits? It will be a very short song!"
As Jason and Orpheus joked together about the town made all of wood, and the Clashing Rocks that nearly clipped their hair, and the armored women of Lemnos who would have clipped more than their hair, Jason's attention was diverted by something he saw happening. It was innocent, seemingly innocent, one Argonaut talking to another like a dear brother, his arm slung across the other's shoulder, but why was Lukeios giving a valuable ring to Zetes? What had Zetes done to earn it? And what favor was Lukeios expecting for such a costly gift of a gemstone set in gold? You could buy a farmer's cottage and cattle for a single ring of such fine quality. Then the ring on Zetes's hand would only make his hot-blooded twin envious, and the other Argonauts would wonder why he was so special to rate a princely gift.
Walking abruptly away, he left Orpheus staring at him with hurt surprise in his eyes, as Jason had never treated him rudely as this before.
But Jason's mood changed soon enough, and he joined in the games and sports once they were free of the work to play.
Finding a suitable stone for a discus, he and Zetes competed for the farthest throw. Being the shipmaster, it was his turn first, with Mopsos appointed as the judge in case Zetes's landed close by Jason's.
How proud he was, flushed with his victory over Jason in the discus, and now strutting about to the admiration of
his fellow Argonauts, showing off his valuable ring and gemstone too, which
no one but Orpheus could rival with a ring of his own. Lukeios ran and got a laurel branch, and twined it
round and set it on the discus champion's brow, and Mopsos, at this point,
almost said something--but bit his lip and held his peace.
Jason, without his weapons, now had nothing to hunt with, and telling Zetes to wait for him, he hurried down to the ship's arsenal for a sword and javelin. As if he had not heard Jason, the exultant Zetes set off without him, anxious to use his winnings to meet the needs of the Argonauts and prove
he, not Jason, was the bigger man and could provide for them the best supper they had ever eaten.
Foolhardy Zetes did not have time to regret his leaving without Jason when he was suddenly set upon by a mountain of horned
fury that was a wild ox. Cunningly, it hid its bulk behind a huge
rock, then sprang out on the lone hunter when he least expected it--the
usual tactic of this beast whenever it spotted a man invading its territory.
Jason handed Mopsos a blanket. "Here, take this in case he is
hurt and you have to carry him back to camp."
Even though Zetes was well armed and could defend himself against most anything, man or beast, Jason had a bad feeling about Zetes and sent word down to the ship to fetch Zetes's twin.
Calais, who had been standing guard at the ship in the cove,
came running. Immediately, he wanted to run and join up with Mopsos, but Jason caught his arm
and held him back. Calais protested, but Jason would not relent. "Four
are enough to bring him back. We must wait."
Finally, the Argonauts, who had all gathered together round Jason
and Calais, saw Mopsos and his helpers.
Calais could no longer be held back. He lunged at the
caravan and saw for himself. For a moment Jason thought he might
go and throw himself off the cliff, but instead he ran up into
the rocks of the mountainside, and vanished.
The details of Zetes's death were now shared round by Mopsos and
the others who had gone with him. A wild ox had got Zetes, but
it too was dead. No one wanted any part of the ox that had
killed their comrade, so they left it, but took the javelin, sword,
and shield, and laid them in a safe place where they could
later retrieve them.
Jason had them take Zetes to a place overlooking the sea,
set in the green grass. There they dug a shallow grave,
and laid Zetes in it. By this time an Argonaut had retrieved
Zetes's weapons and shield, and they laid them over his body.
Then, with Calais still gone, they finished by laying stones
over the body, in a big heap that would be his memorial.
Orpheus, without the harp, sang a dirge, from the old sayings of the Minyans,
before the Minyans turned away from One God to many gods--
Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved; Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Hades,
Nor will you allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life; In Your Presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Calais went to the grave and threw himself down on the stones.
Jason turned to Calais. "It is time to go."
"I'm not going with you!" Calais blurted out.
Jason was surprised, but he recovered quickly. "All right, it is your choice.
Remain behind then. All right, men, let's go."
No one moved of the twenty gathered around Calais and--apparently--Lukeios.
Jason noticed for the first time that Calais was wearing his brother's ring.
How had he gotten it? Had Lukeios removed it? Lukeios was currying favor
with Calais now?
Jason decided he would call a council. He sat down. "All can talk. What is the trouble here. Tell me! And I want to hear from Calais and Lukeios too."
Calais moved to step forward to speak first, but Lukeios shouldered him aside. But instead of facing Jason, he turned to the assembly as if Jason were on trial.
"You have all seen how very badly things have gone to this point. There is only one person responsible for these troubles. We have lost many beloved comrades--have we not? All for nothing! And now our dear sweet comrade Zetes has perished needlessly! Why must we suffer any more of these calamities? Why must we too perish like dogs! It is time to turn back! Our loved ones cry night and day for us to return! Do you not hear them crying your names? They are drowning in their tears--fearing that we are dead in some barbarian country like this one! Let us leave it at once!
We refuse to go on with this foolish venture of Jason's. Is that right, comrades?"
A shout went up from the twenty or so Argonauts that favored turning the ship around.
Jason let the noise die down, and then he rose slowly. "You have decided this, haven't you? Before I was even back from the ship, you decided this thing--to turn back, and end the quest in this cowardly fashion!"
Speaking right into the face of Lukeios, he held his eyes in his own, and
Lukeios looked as if he had swallowed an amphora of salt water and might burst.
"Yes, what of it?" the prince of Iolkos erupted. "We are free men. We aren't your slaves--not yet. We have minds of our own. And so we refuse to go on this madcap voyage of yours, just to give you glory at the expense of all our lives, so that we
die miserable deaths like Zetes and Idmon and Typhys and--"
The Argonauts who supported him began shouting. "We're turning back! We're turning back!"
Jason looked at them with sadness, for he knew now, clearly revealed, what was in their secret hearts. They all had been poisoned by Lukeios's evil words--they were not in their right minds and were behaving like children, not valiant men and champions. Just the same, they had
made their decision to exchange their rightful shipmaster for Lukeios, and
they would have to abide by that decision. He could not take them back and trust them not to change their minds again in even more difficult places than they had already known.
Jason still keeping Lukeios's eyes gripped by his own, replied slowly, "Go then,
follow this new leader of yours, and see well how you fare with him. I am returning to
my ship, and whoever is with me, may accompany me. The rest
I now release from my charge."
Saying no more, Jason turned, and did now show a flicker of fear he would be driven through
with a sword or javelin.
Behind him he could hear muttering, then a furious argument broke out. "What'll we do now, Captain Lukeios?" "Are you going to let him get away with our ship?" "We thought he would back down, when he saw all us standing against him!" "We're lost if we stay here in this strange barbarian country!" "Do something quick, Lukeios! You got us into this fix!"
Jason, followed by Mopsos, Orpheus, the Sinopolitan newcomer, and other loyal Argonauts, numbering seventeen,
returned to the ship to load it for departure.
By the time they finished, it was dusk, and risky to venture forth into
unknown waters--so they remained on board, with guards set.
They heard voices up on the table of mutiny, and then silence.
Jason, just in case, passed out swords and javelins, and
they slept at their oars, ready to fend off any attempt to capture the
ship and also to slip away at the first light.
Whatever
the other mutineers felt about the loss of the ship, they got over it quickly, and disregarding their former inhibitions and following their
rumbling stomachs, they rushed up the mountain and quickly carved up the ox, and soon they were roasting huge steaks over the fire. Without waiting for the meat to be thoroughly cooked, they were feasting. They feasted until they could eat no more--and then they slept, but soon they awoke with severe belly cramps and aches. They could not think what was happening to them--they were so ill, retching until they had nothing left in their stomachs.
A few more days like this passed, and the whole camp was silent, and no one stirred about.
Only now and then a mutineer staggered to the lake or the spring to drink, and then lay there like a dead man. After eating only fish for many days,
so much rich ox meat at one sitting had sickened them, they realized, but it was
too late now.
Calais, who hadn't touched the meat due to the abhorrent fact the ox had slain his twin brother, went off alone, just to get free of the sick and apparently dying men. He could not help them anyway, except to give the sufferers water now and then. He had not gone far when he saw a glorious sight. He could not tell what it was, but the
idea of a chariot came to mind, though this was immense and poised on legs, not wheels. As he stared at it where it was set across a crevasse, a door opened, and
two splendid-looking gods appeared and motioned to him, evidently greeting him. They were dressed for war like the gods often were dressed, and he raised his hands in salute and welcome.
Gods came quickly
down a staircase that unfolded from the chariot, and they carried him up into the
belly of the chariot. Inside, he was left in a brightly glowing room, bound to a hard table top.
He could not fight the invisible net any more when he realized his struggles just made it tighter, and so he just watched as
gods entered, then put something into his wrist, and his blood began to
flow--he could feel it going from him.
Horror rose up in him. These beings were not his people's gods--but what were they? Struggling to get free, calling to his fellow Argonauts,
he was left alone once again, while his life drained completely away.
Such things were known to happen for far less offenses. Right now, as a matter of fact, the king did not want to go to war, leastwise for such a trivial matter as this presumptuous puppy named Jason. What would he gain by it? He might lose many fine fighting men, men he badly needed for the war he had already planned to wage against a powerful neighbor on the Caspian Sea presently occupying the rich land (full of gold and caviar and other good things) where he wanted to extend his kingdom's borders.
How was he to get rid of the young nuisance if he couldn't kill him? His already conceived plan--that would do the job--but could he execute it? He must try something else first, then if that failed, his plan would be his last resort. Medea heard the about the king's stratagems from her servants. The king's counsellors--sly, treacherous long-moustasched devils who would hang their own mothers for money or the king's favor--advised him to offer various tests of strength and skill and daring to the brash barbarian--which could be arranged, without much trouble to the king, to
remove him from the land of the living permanently. Starting off, let him bend the unbendable bow of bronze that the great Hercules had left the king's ancestors, that no human being could bend far enough to send an iron-tipped arrow completely through a thick plank of wood. After that, if it was needed, he could be tested with something else, with real danger to it. When (not if) the young man died in
the failing of a particular test or labor of impossible nature, his death could not be held to the king's account due to the beautiful accident, and after burning the remains the young man's ashes could be sent back to his uncle in a
nicely figured alabaster urn from Ilios with a suitable memorial gift of fine Colchian gold, of course, that would please both uncle and the mourners in his family. A most beautiful, excellent, fool-proof plan, was it not? Would could go awry with it? The king's counsellors laughed, assuring the king the plan could not possibly go wrong.
Medea thought about this--for the elaborate maneuvers whose details
presently came to her ear as well--only made her think that the young adventurer
was worth saving. Why was he being so unfairly attacked? she wondered,
taking his side. He hadn't been given a fair hearing before he was being
condemned to death! Medea's delicate, pale cheeks and nostrils flushed pink, then red. She got angry at the thought of this injustice--she
got very angry indeed!
Rather than tell her dear father, whom she believed had been misled by his
malicious, serpent-tongued, slit-eyed counsellors, she took to going forth in the early morning onto the western wall of the palace-fortress
to see if the stranger had arrived in his ship. Somehow she would save him by
warning him in time before the king got to him with his "tests of strength and daring."
The breaking storm resumes, however, and they have to dive back into their sailcloth tent and spend yet more hours, huddled
on the wet and rocky ground, while the Argo heaves at its anchor in the tossing
waters. The night comes, and still the storm continues unabated. The Argonauts' hopes die, and their misery increases. Where is there any comfort on the hard, wet rocks and gritty sand? It is freezing cold now, in the long night, and chattering teeth
and shivering bodies make the ordeal almost unbearable.
Some would rather be back on board the Argo, but how could they make it
there safely, as it is too dark to find it in the water. Has the anchor held? Is the Argo still there? Jason is aboard with Argus--but they cannot even call to them--since
no voice can be heard in the raging winds.
Unable to sleep, exhausted, the men suffer without a word--as the long night
drags on. The gales of wind, and the driving rain, drive them back whenever one
or more try to leave the shelter for some wood for making a fire to warm themselves.
Sometime before morning, the men are startled when Jason and Argus scramble into the tent,
like beached fish flopping on their bellies. It will soon be morning, Jason tells them. They need to repair the ship and help Argus erect some kind of mast before they try to slip out of the storm--since
to remain there is asking for more damage, should another such storm strike that coast.
One Argonaut speaks up.
"But why can't we strike inland, and find a city or at least some cottages of farmers, where we
can find a little food and maybe a place to get dry and warm in their barns?"
Other Argonauts agree that is a good idea, and say so, but Jason
objects, having heard their counsel. "And leave the ship here? We don't have enough men to guard it--if
attacked. And if we lose the ship, we will have to walk back, and we will never reach our home cities in that way, fighting all the way!"
The men fall silent, as each thinks of walking back, how long that would be, and how impossible, when everyone along the way would treat them as dangerous, roving strangers would naturally be treated. No, they would all be killed, as strangers would be killed by suspicious barbarians, if they had to walk.
Now that they were so few, they could not go out of sight of the ship--everyone was needed to defend it in an attack. Even then, they were woefully weak in numbers.
So the matter of repairs came back to the fore. Where would they find the
beams for the new mast and the other repairs? They must take the axes and hew down the trees. But would they find suitable, straight-trunked trees on this barren, rugged coast? All they could yet find around them
were unscalable cliffs and rocks! It seemed so hopeless!
So they sat in their wretched state, without any chance of escape or bettering their circumstances, waiting for the dawn's first light and the breaking of the storm.
Each man was silent, engrossed in his own thoughts. And Jason too
thought silent thoughts that turned back down the coast. He had to wonder about the Argonauts they had left behind. Would they return home, bearing false and evil tales of what had happened, and making their own deeds seem wise and good? It could not be helped if they lied to the whole city and heaped disgrace on their names. Surely, they would be ashamed, when he looked into their faces on return, if they should ever meet again on this wide and enemy-filled earth, that is.
What Jason could not know happened about this time. Back on the table land, one of the dying men summoned his last strength and seized Lukeios, dragging him to the nearest cliff edge. Alive enough to know his fate, the prince screeched, crying for mercy that was not going to be his, right to the moment he was sent flying to the rocks below.
His killer collapsed, then dragged himself to another part of the cliff. He did not want to mingle his bones with those of the hated Lukeios. Then he slumped,
slipping over the edge, his hands clawing at it for a moment as if he changed his mind, but he was too weak, and could not hold on, and he fell into the darkness without a sound.
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. 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.
Marty Yeager, like most of the workers, goes to see the newly
installed rudder and
triple screws for himself. For a few pence, he stands between the screws and the rudder and gets himself a picture too, from a professional photographer--an extravagance he cannot resist, since he wants proof he ever worked at H & W on this grand ship, just in case he ever runs across his
wife and family.
What lay ahead? Jason recalled that his father had mentioned
a great river--brimming full of beasts and birds--divided at its mouth into ninety-six branches. This was the second of the two greatest rivers that flowed into the Unfriendly Sea, and it was called the Thermodon.
Would they find a good, safe harbor there? Jason wondered. Or were the barbarian tribes too fierce for them to make a safe landing? Hopefully, they could find a friendlier people than the Sinopolitans and a less savage race than the inhabitants of the last port of call!
The hills all about the area
were full of valuable metals of different kinds, and so the Chalybes smithies for the kingdoms of Hatti and Kashka were plentiful,
working dawn to dark in a perpetual sooty black atmosphere to extract the ores they needed and make the
strong bronze shields, swords, and beautiful vases that were finding their way to cities or trade centers
as far as Egypt and Dilmun and Tartessos and uttermost Iktin in the West.
Now that they had lost Hylas, Apollo, Herakles, Idmon and Tiphys, Lukeios, for one, was entertaining some second thoughts about how well this voyage was going.
"Do you believe that old song of Orpheus's?" he asked the seer in a low voice, to keep it private as possible.
Meanwhile,at the far end of the Unfriendly Sea, a ship throws anchor in the crowded harbor of Aea, the flourishing capital of Colchis.
A man disembarks before the crew and runs up through the city to the acropolis where sets the royal palace and its surrounding fortress walls and watchman towers, armouries,
arsenals, dungeon, and barracks for the palace guard and some of the army troops.
King Aeetes is mulling over the latest report with its unwelcome news of a possible threat to his throne. Spies have been sent out to track
the progress of the approaching "dark horse"--a certain Jason from Iolkos, whose king has already warned him of his coming.
The Argonauts sail on. But the Argo is showing need of some repairs by this time, and both captain and shipwright look for suitable sources of wood beams to replace those that were weakened or damaged by the Clashing Rocks. Taking on water, the hull must be made seaworthy, or they may not survive if caught in another of the many storms
of the Unfriendly Sea.
Going ashore, they find a town of wooden houses, not one stone building
in sight. And the people, the Mossynoeci, come out to greet the strangers, hoping no doubt for a sale of their lumber--for this is the one thing they have to trade with the outer world.
Not poor, but certainly not rich, the people's wooden houses, the mossynes, are comfortable enough, if sparse in furniture and lacking in any civilized amenities like plumbing and toilets.
When they finished climbing up to the rim of the tableland,
they saw clearly that heaven had smiled on them. It looked like an Elysian field--what the ancients had described in the old tales about Paradise and which the master poets (like Orpheus) with harps loved to sing about at the great annual feasts and gatherings of the tribes and clans of the Achaeans and Minyans. Everything that grew there, every rock, every red poppy and tree, all was placed as a master gardener for the king's palace would place it in the king's park. Yet no man had done this beautiful work or created the design of it. The One who set the Sun in the sky and the moon to shine in the night along with the eternal lamps of heaven--He had fashioned it. This was what some of the Argonauts knew--Mopsos the Seer and Sage, Argus, Jason, and Orpheus among them--though Lukeios credited everything good to his pig-goddess of Ilios for the favors that came his way.
With a heart of gratitude, Jason listened to the men's joking and playful ribbing of the
each other as they set about their various tasks, in preparation for the camp and the hunting and fishing. For the first time in days, they sounded happy to him, the cares of the voyage forgotten, and the losses of fellow Argonauts gone, for the time being. Many exciting games and sports and tests of strength would follow the next day--and of course rest, with all this soft grass to stretch out their legs on--much appreciated, to make up for the long days squeezed together, cheek to jowl, in the cramped quarters aboard ship.
He caught Orpheus's eye and went over to him. "I know what you are wanting," Orpheus laughed as he got his harp from the cloth bag he carried it in. "What songs do you want me to sing to the men? Songs of the heroes of the past, or...how about a new song? I will craft a new song, in praise of the many-oared Argo and the splendid champions aboard her, and their noble exploits."
Orpheus paused in what he had been saying, realizing that Jason's
eye was on Lukeios and Zetes at that moment. He turned to Jason. "Beware of Minyans bearing gifts," he said, and Jason laughed at Orpheus's witticism, though it didn't really amuse him as it struck too close to home.
Jason was not trained in the discus, as Zetes was, and Zetes, though
a smaller man, won handily. He claimed as his reward (already wagered) Jason's sword, shield, and javelin--a fortune in arms. With these fine bronze weapons, he was now a formidable warrior, indeed, who could easily bring down chamois or wild goat for the
Argonauts' dinner.
Jason returned to the camp, found Zetes had gone, and
feeling something had gone wrong, sent Mopsos and three others on a search
for the missing Argonaut.
They were going very
slowly, so Argonauts ran to help, and then stopped, when they saw
what had happened to Zetes.
"I have set the Father of All always before me;
The next morning, Jason broke camp, and the Argonauts
prepared to leave quickly. While everyone else was busy doing that,
Jason went up into the mountain, to see if he could call out Calais.
Calais came, at the second call--but did not look at Jason but
walked straight by him.
Jason could not get Calais to speak to him, nor would he stop mourning, so he left to attend to the outfitting of the ship. When he returned to the camp
some time later, he was surprised to find Calais standing in a group of
about twenty Argonauts, thick as thieves, all talking together. Jason thought nothing
about it, hoping they had given some comfort to Calais, but when they all fell silent the moment they saw him he wondered if there wasn't something else going on.
Jason took no chances, and they left the cove just
before dawn, as Lukeios and his fellow mutineers knew his habits well by this time.
The mutineers slept in late, and when they awoke, they were famished, having missed their fine supper promised them the night before, thanks to the wild ox. They noted that the Argo had evaded their planned ambush, but that couldn't be helped now, and Lukeios was saying nothing, perhaps nursing his wounded pride after losing the ship and not being brave enough to lead an attack.
Calais had to take a closer look at the gods, the first he had ever seen, other than the gold and silver images that stood in the temples but never did speak or move about in any way like these were doing before his eyes. It took all his courage, but
he no sooner approached the chariot when a net fell upon him, invisible to
him but binding him so strongly he could not fight his way free.
How the new Argonaut from Sinopoli, at last free of the city he hated and loathed, loved getting back to his oar, and
he refused breaks, knowing they were so short-handed and the remaining crew
had to work all the harder when the wind was not in their favor.
Medea, the only daughter of King Aeetes, was like any woman in the
royal household--she always knew sooner or later what she was not supposed to know. If she did not hear it with her own ears, there were quite a few others listening for her, and soon the news about the spies coming and going clandstinely to the king's private quarters reached her in her private apartments in the women's portion of the palace. Growing more curious about the flurry of spy reports, she listened even more closely to what her servants told her was going on. Someone named Jason was coming to visit the king her father, and
he was not really welcome--as, according to the spies, he was a barbarian who behaved--well, quite like the Colchians behaved toward their neighbors. Yet he was a king's nephew (at first the spies had him as the king's son, but that was later corrected by a spy direct from Iolkos who dug out details of the usurper's ambitions to take the throne on return from Colchis), and so must be accorded some sort of official welcome. Since he was coming at the behest of his uncle the king of Iolkos, Aeetes would have to
see him, or risk a snub that could possibly provoke a war with the visitor's royal uncle.
Even with his eye on the horizons, Jason could not anticipate the
dark, whirling clouds that suddenly engulfed them as they rounded a headland. Again a storm caught the Argo at sea--but much worse--blown to the southern coasts by the
North Wind sweeping off the snowy wastes of the frozen steppes. Meeting the warm
air, the cold outbreak produced greater fury in the howling wind and towering waves.
The Argo is dismasted, with only about half of the sail saved by valiant efforts of Argus, but the loss lightens the half-swamped
ship. It is useless to try the sail, and just as useless to use the oars in such a cauldron of boiling waves. The desperate Argonauts look for any place they can safely land the foundering ship,
but the cliffs fall straight into the sea in an unbroken line. Without
even seeing it, the dangerously drifting Argo slips into a safe anchorage, much like a leaf in a swirling stream is swept into a relatively quiet eddy behind a rock standing in the water.
Having barely survived the storm, they will look for a place to repair the ship once the winds and waves die down. After some hours, they seize an opportunity
to leave the anchored the ship and jump into the water and make their way to shore. They find precious little level ground, and there they huddle beneath sailcloth, propping it up with pieces of drift wood to keep it off their heads. The winds still gust violently and tear at their rough shelter, and they have no way to get dry and warm. The storm seems to be breaking, and the men look out, with hopes of
building a fire now and getting something to eat too.
Retro Star and Twin Worlds Timelines
The Black Crystal and the White Stone
Bridges of Destiny
The Algol Invasion & Client Species
Universe Terminator: The Sardius, Carnelian, Red Star, the First Alien Entity, OP, Wormwood, Wormstar, Retrostar
Map of Holland America
Extraterrestrials and Terrestrials
The Topaz
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
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