Prologue

About a hundred years ago, Vee summoned the UFO left parked on the Dark Side of the Moon.

"C'mon Gary, We're ticking away, we've been laying in the sun even if it is our beach. I don't need the watch and you can show me the way. I wonder what the range of this thing is?"

This thing was the big sister to Company ... more or less ... mostly more.

Still ... a silvery oblong oval rather tear shaped Solutrean spearpoint with parallel flaking ... kind of like the grooves in the skin of a blue whale. As sentient as Company but standoffish ... they hadn't been properly introduced. Vee had started off on the wrong foot by referring to her as This Thing ... very much like calling the Queen of England, "Hey You."

Constance, Wendolyn and Company were the stuff of legend so Vee did another summons. Junior showed up sans Company and Connie.

"Junior? Thanks for coming."

"You're welcome, Vee. You rang?" Junior asked.

"We need Company," Vee suggested.

"Didn't want me for me? Getting too old for you?" Junior huffed. "What do you want with my saucer?"

"Touchy in your old age?" asked Gary.

"I AM NOT OLD ... just a spring chicken ... only one hundred eighty one. Wendy is old." Junior said as Wendy appeared. "Speak of the Devil."

"I heard my name taken in vain," Wendy said. "Junior ... I might have known." She noticed Vee and Gary. "Not wearing the watch?"

"No ... Six has it," Vee confessed.

"Twelve?" Junior and Wendy asked.

Vee nodded.

"They grow up so fast ... babies one day and running the country the next," commented Wendy.

Vee nodded.

Then Junior said, "Before you showed up, Vee was going to tell me why she needed Company." The pair of spring chickens turned and cast gimlet eyes on the child.

"Umh ... the UFO won't speak to me because we haven't been introduced," explained The Fifth.

"UFO?"

Vee motioned over her shoulder.

"Whoa ... she's a big one," said Junior, "And unobtrusive."

"You needn't talk behind my back ... I'm right here, you know," said the silver ship.

"She speaks!" exclaimed Gary.

"Well ... yes ... although I shouldn't. I don't know any of you and I just know I'll regret it."

"Hold on," said Junior. Company?

"Junior!" exclaimed the runabout enthusiastically... "And April." said in a far less enthusiastic and very minatory tone. There might be a history there.

"You know these people?" April asked Company. She was hesitant to accept recommendations from her little brother. Big sisters are like that, yeah they are.

"I know Junior ... excuse me ... Princess Wendolyn Wanzor Austin the third. The other ladies are obviously related." Company voiced that last in expectation.

Junior stepped into the breech. "Company, may I make Wendy von Wanzor Austin known to you?"

Wendy curtseyed ... Company dipped. "Pleased to make your acquaintance. Is it Mrs. or Miss?"

"Neither ... to my friends it's Wendy, please. The Wanzor to my victims."

"Wendy it is then, I'm just plain Company."

"You would never be plain ... but if you insist."

They grinned at each other.

Junior turned to Vee and Gary and made a grand gesture, "Company, I make known Princess Wendolyn Wanzor Zalewski and her Consort, Duke Gary Zalewski. Wendolyn ... Gary ... Company, my partner in crime."

Then came the convoluted introduction of, "My big sister, April ... and I do mean BIG," to the assembled throng.

"Still acting the ruffian, I see," April said to Company, "Mother had such hopes ... ah well. I'm pleased ... I think ... to meet you all. Now that we've been made known to each other, I'd like to chat with my new pilot. Vee, is it? As in the fifth?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"So polite ... mostly," commented April. This Thing still had her feathers ruffled.

Chapter 1 »