Prologue

John said good bye to the Powers that be.

“Keep in touch,” said John, and the girls all nodded. The two men were unmoved.

“Oh, we will,” the ladies said ... in five part harmony.

John headed back to bed. The pillow was in the way so he snuck it out from under Sultry and she just gravitated to his chest again. Still asleep, she reached down and grabbed his shifter, sighed and snuggled.

She felt ... good.

Cassie was a great girl ... smart, sexy, innocent ... in a way ... the likes of which John had thought impossible, but ... she was unobtainable ... on a permanent basis.

To see her ... to be with her ... he had to go on a mission ... every time.

And that was what Cassandra wanted. Missions. Rescue a stupid damsel. Except ... they weren’t stupid. Ornery, hard to get along with, opinionated ... yes.

It was the sex. It was great.

Every Earth-man, dreamed of being so great at sex that women would shatter in seconds. Orgasms galore and no faking it. Lots of luck with that.

They don’t fake it in the bedrooms of Crossroads.

“NO NO NO NO! NOT AGAIN!” was heard in the bedrooms of Crossroads.

“It’s STILL up! I’m so sore...” The bedrooms of Crossroads.

“OH.MY.GOD!” The bedrooms of Crossroads.

“Drink this, he’s still ready to go!” The ceiling of the bedrooms of crossroads.

“I DON’T believe it ... this can’t be happening.” The bedrooms of Crossroads.

Let me give you a little synopsis of evolution.

Propagate the Species That’s it.

An extreme example: The Spadefoot Frog.

During summer monsoons, the spadefoot is well-known for emerging from its subterranean estivation to breed in the temporary ponds created by the heavy runoff. Interestingly, the cue for adult emergence during these summer thunderstorms is not moisture, but rather low frequency sound or vibration, most likely caused by rainfall or thunder. Upon emergence, males begin calling to attract females. Their calls sound like the bleating of sheep or goats. One female may lay as many as 3000 eggs. Once the eggs are laid, they must hatch quickly into tadpoles before these shallow pools disappear. And hatch quickly they do—at water temperatures of 86°F (30°C) eggs hatch in 15 hours! Tadpoles must also metamorphose quickly—2 weeks on average, sometimes as little as 9 days—into froglets before the ponds dry up.

Fifteen hours to hatch. Two weeks of babyhood. Eat bugs until ready to burst. Bury yourself in the sand until next year and do it again.

Cassandrian males aren’t interested. Cassandrian females have adapted. The species has managed to adapt. Get him ready ... get it in ... it’s over. Not even enough time to think about painting the ceiling beige.

The species rapidly adapted, but ... the time it takes to fertilize the egg hasn’t changed. Low sperm activity. Low sperm motility. The species fell below half a million survivors. On ... the ... planet.

The female Cassandrian might not have understood ... half a million ... male ... female ... and what children managed to be born ... spread out over the surface of a planet the size of the earth ... Danger, Will Robinson!

And the males didn’t care.

That’s where the Heroes came in ... improve the breed.

Importing strange has always been in use. The Hutterites in Montana did it during the Second World War. The Elders sent the US born males of draft eligible age off to Hutterite Colonies in Canada and the Canadian Hutterite Colonies in Canada sent their conscription eligible males to the United States. Both groups were listed as imported labor and ineligible for military service ... foreign nationals. It didn’t take intelligence to figure out who sired next years crop of babies.

So ... John was worried about the attrition rate. There was something going on he didn’t understand ... but he could put it into words.

Honorable men from earth were being slaughtered on foreign soil. Alpha males. The kind of men who bred true. Honor, Duty, Country ... Civility and Chivalry.

In his 1945 “Notes on Nationalism”, Orwell wrote that pacifists cannot accept the statement “Those who ‘abjure’ violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf.”