Chapter 18

"The Qerda are our worst nightmare..." Lisa began.

"Wait," I interrupted. "We need my Dad here for this."

Lisa didn't mind waiting at all.

"Take your time. He's an old man; if he's already in bed, we can do this another time," she said sweetly. Everyone laughed, including Lisa.

Ten minutes later, Dad was seated and Lisa continued.

"No one knows who the Qerda are or where they came from. We didn't even know they existed until they chose Planet # 3 for extinction.

"First, people started dying. Their twins started disappearing. Neither they nor their colors ever surfaced again. Colors were mysteriously taken from people. Planet # 3 was decimated.

"The thing was, none of it made any sense. There was no reason for them to come after us. We were a peace-loving people, we had never met them before, yet they knew everything about us. They even knew how to kill us, in ways that even we didn't know.

"They knew how to kill us permanently, so we would never come back," Lisa whispered, a horrorstricken look on her face.

"There was no meeting, no diplomacy, no surrender terms. They just decimated the planet, killing or making into zombies as many as they could. Then they sent their fleet after us. They specifically picked Planet # 3; they ignored the other two planets.

"We knew they were coming days before they arrived. We had a sympathizer, a slave that worked for the supreme commander of the Qerda fleet. He warned us they were coming, and what we could expect. Even he didn't know how bad it would be.

"They bombarded the planet, destroying everything. It made little difference, as whatever they had destroyed that affected our color development had pretty well made the planet a wasteland. We had plans to evacuate the people left alive anyway. We left a force of about fifty of us to cover the retreat. The fleet arrived before everyone had been evacuated. All of us were in that force."

"Who led the force, Lisa?" I asked.

"You did," she said, hesitating.

"Who else?" I saw her flinch and turn pale. I knew I had guessed right. Her eyes pleaded with me, I'm not sure for what.

"Tell him," Julie said gently.

"Amanda," she whispered.

"We'll talk more about her later," I said, and noted her look of relief. It was short lived. "And, who else?" I asked.

Her eyes opened wide with surprise.

"What makes you think... ?"

"Lisa, honey, don't make me tell you again. Tell him. All of it."

It sounded like an order from Julie. Lisa looked... admonished.

"Victoria was the third leader." I saw the look of surprise on Victoria's face as Lisa said that. Apparently I wasn't the only one in the dark here.

"Why us three?" I asked, surprised. Victoria looked interested also.

"Please. Don't ask me that," Lisa begged.

Julie and I exchanged a look and decided the same thing at the same time.

"We'll cover that later," I said, and watched Lisa sigh in relief as we decided to give her a break on that particular subject... for a moment. This had to be hard on the poor girl. I saw the look on her face; she really was very concerned about me. I still didn't understand why.

"So, what happened?"

"We evacuated most of the people off, but with a high casualty rate. No one would have survived if it hadn't been for Amanda. I still have nightmares about this whole thing. Don't expect to get much sleep this week. When I can't sleep from reliving all this, I'm coming in to wake you up, so you can keep me company. This was all your idea!" My, such angry, flashing eyes in such a pretty little girl.

I hugged her, tickled her a little, and talked nonsense until she calmed down some.

"What did Amanda do to save everyone?" I asked, getting us back on track.

Little kids are eternal optimists. I could tell from the look on her face that Lisa had hoped I had forgotten again. She sighed heavily.

"She kept all of us together at the extraction point, saying that if we spread out too thinly, we would be helpless targets. The people who hadn't made it to the extraction point would just have to take their chances. She had Sarah and Jessica teleporting people out, but it was slow considering how many we had to go yet. We suggested that you also help, but Amanda said you were needed for other things.

"Throughout it all, she kept you and Victoria close to her. There were several times the two of you wanted to go help someone, a special friend, or some other person in need. The answer was always 'no'. The extraction site had to be secure or all was lost."

"Where were we being extracted to?" asked Victoria.

"The caves in Arizona and Utah. Sarah and Jessica were teleporting everyone directly to Earth. We had the coordinates from the ancient writings. It was a big risk to send the first person there without having ever seen the area. They survived, and sent a mind picture back to make the destination more exact."

"Wasn't there a concern that the Qerda would follow?" I asked.

"There was. Amanda had a standing order in place that if they overran the site, you were to immediately teleport Sarah and Jessica so they couldn't be taken alive. I guess she assumed they would never get any coordinates out of you. On the Earth end, as soon as the last person came through, the caves were to be made powerless areas, shielded so that none of our powers would work in them, at least not at the strength needed to teleport in or out. Once Planet # 3 was evacuated there was no going back, ever."

Julie brought Lisa a glass of water. She smiled gratefully and took her time drinking it. 'Stalling again', I thought, hiding my smile. She'd figure out eventually that I wasn't going to just mysteriously forget all about the subject.

Lisa leaned back against me, closing her eyes. I could feel her little body trembling.

"It wasn't working. Too many people were getting killed travelling to the extraction site..."

Lisa closed her eyes again and seemed to go to sleep.

"What happened?" I asked, poking her in the side to 'wake her up'.

"Amanda happened," Lisa said tiredly.

I waited for her to continue, but she just sat there.

"Meaning?" I probed gently.

"Daddy, Grampa, everyone, you have to understand the problem I have with telling you what happened from here on. Not the fact of telling you, although you know how I feel about that," she glared at me and I saw Julie hiding a grin behind her hand, "but just trying to explain it."

"Daddy, everyone else knows this. I assume you've also figured out that I'm a hell of a lot older than six years old. I've spent the majority of my time since the battle for Planet # 3, and that was a long time ago, going over what happened in my mind. I'm the Historian, which means I have total recall of every fact and occurrence that has ever happened. I have access to all views from any angle. Not only that, but I was there. Amanda kept Lori and me close to her most of the time. I saw it all.

"I have relived every single minute, multiple times. I have calculated endlessly the power that was needed to do what Amanda did. I knew Amanda very well; I knew her capabilities, her power, everything about her. I'm the Historian; I know everything about everybody. At least, I always thought I did. I have recalculated all that knowledge, observed the mental records of every movement and action she took since the time I first knew her, trying to figure out where I got it all wrong. The answer I always come up with is this; either what happened is totally and completely impossible, by a factor of at least 10,000 or more, but happened anyway, or I have dreamed all this up and completely misremembered it, or Amanda lied to us about who she is and what her powers are. Well, I guess you wouldn't say she lied, since she never told us anything. Even if the third possibility is the correct one, there is no known, or possible, power in the universe that could have done what she did. So, we're back to 'it didn't happen'. Yet, here we are, so it obviously did. I'm getting a headache... again," she giggled weakly.

"What happened?" Dad asked. I didn't ask because I was trying to keep from pushing Lisa anymore than I had to. This was very traumatic for her.

"You don't know?" I asked.

"No, I was the one who volunteered for the first teleport to earth. I couldn't ask anyone to risk teleporting into a cave wall if I wasn't willing to do it. I teleported to Arizona, sent an image back, teleported back to Planet # 3, then teleported to Utah to do the same thing. Then I stayed on earth, working on shielding the caves," Dad explained. "Afterwards, after we wiped your's and Lisa's minds, we never talked about it."

"What happened, Lisa?" I asked this time.

"What happened is that Amanda shielded the entire planet," Lisa whispered.

There was stunned silence. Julie grinned.

"You gotta love that Amanda, bless her little heart," she said in a perfect imitation of Jessica's voice, southern accent and all, laughing all the while. Jessica looked startled.

"Daddy, I've redone the calculations thousands of times. That cannot be done. No one can do that. You cannot conduit enough power through one person to do that, not even 1% of the amount needed. We were... are... powerful, but there are limits even to our power. There are some things that just can't be done. Shielding an entire planet the size of Planet # 3 is first and foremost on that list of things that can't be done. It... simply... cannot... be... done," Lisa stressed.

I was beginning to get the idea that Lisa didn't think shielding the whole planet could be done.

While everyone was babbling to each other, digesting this information, I suddenly remembered something Lisa had said.

"Lisa, honey, where was everyone when this happened?" I asked, holding my breath. If what I was thinking happened, I wasn't sure I even wanted to know about it.

"Well, you, Amanda and Victoria were all together, with Lori and I next to all of you. Everyone else was scattered around the area, helping the people coming in to get to the spot where Sarah and Jessica were teleporting."

That matched what I was thinking. After this story was done, I was going to see if I could take a walk through Lisa's mind.

"Even at the time, I remember thinking that what Amanda had done was... remarkable. It wasn't until I did the math later that I realized how impossible it was.

"I remember seeing the bolts of energy from the Qerda ships hitting the shield. The first one bounced straight back into the ship that fired it and the ship exploded in a huge fireball. Apparently, the Qerda never thought to shield their ships against their own weapons. The firing died down for a while until they learned how to fire without the bounce back. They were smart.

"Once they started firing again, only one in six or seven shots would penetrate the shield. It bought us the time we needed to get the rest of the people off. Then came the hard part."

"That was the easy part?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes. The hard part was how we were going to get out the fifty people covering the extractions without getting all of us killed. You see, the Qerda figured out about that time that the planet was empty and we were the only ones left. They concentrated the fire of 35 ships into the little area where we were.

"As impressive as it was, the shield was starting to fail. The concentrated fire of 35 ships in one small area was too much, even for Amanda. What am I saying? I've proved over and over again that she couldn't even do what she did. No one expected what came next."

Lisa went into 'sleepy-time' mode again. I let her rest a little, then poked her awake again. She was getting cranky.

"You wanna lose that finger?" she asked testily. She cringed at the look Julie gave her.

"Sorry," she mumbled, then took a deep breath.

"You had a niece, or at least that is the closest translation in human terms. Her name, translated into human language, was Jill. She was the first of the fifty left on the planet killed when they concentrated on us. She was a favorite of Amanda's. It was the worst thing the Qerda could have done. I'd never seen Amanda so mad before. I'm a nice girl, so I won't repeat what she said in reaction, but it boiled down to she'd had enough, and something about grass and a lawnmower, and someone's parents and their sexual preference for animals. It was very colorful, very earthy," Lisa said, shrugging her shoulders in confusion.

I grinned. I was very familiar with that expression.

"Amanda told you to oversee teleporting us out, one or two at a time. She was concerned that if more of us went at once, they would be able to pinpoint our location better when the power showed up on their screens, and there wouldn't be enough left on the planet to protect the ones left behind. We didn't know then that the power of teleporting would be the last thing the Qerda would be worrying about.

"Amanda moved slightly away from us, taking Lori and Victoria with her. She left me with you. The shield collapsed. Then she started to glow like a rainbow. I thought it odd that she was shielding herself when she had taken the shield down from the planet. I quickly realized that was not the case.

"It didn't take long for her to ramp up her power, wherever she was getting it from. In seconds, she was glowing so brightly that we couldn't even look at her. The glow swallowed up Victoria and Lori also.

"Then, Amanda glowed brighter for a brief second or two. There was no visible sign of any energy leaving her, but there was a sound of... gentle thunder... like air collapsing back into the vacuum made by superheated air. Nothing else, just a glow and a soft sound.

"In less than two seconds the sky above us exploded into a massive display of incandescent balls of flaming debris. We had just seen another ship explode into millions of fiery pieces. I'm sure it took the Qerda as much by surprise as it did us. If we didn't see what took the ship out, I'm sure they didn't either.

"Two seconds, Daddy. Two seconds. That's all the time it took for the energy to leave her, travel through space, defeat the shields of the ship, reach critical mass, and explode it into a million little fireballs.

"Amanda had changed her focus from shielding us to taking the battle to the Qerda. Ships started exploding, one after another. We had no idea how it was happening, as we saw nothing except a slight occasional brightening. It wasn't any method of power or any weapon we had ever seen before. Certainly, we had never seen Amanda do anything like that before.

"She had taken out about fifteen ships when they began to focus their power on us again. Amanda told you to take everyone except her and Lori with you on the next trip, as we were running out of time. You protested, saying you were not leaving her there. It was the only time I ever heard her yell at you. She told you to get your ass going, that she would be alright and that she would be right behind you."

Lisa closed her eyes. I saw tears leaking from the corners.

"She lied, Daddy. She fucking lied. She never had any intentions of following you," Lisa sobbed.

We waited while Lisa composed herself. There were many wet eyes in the room.

"Once you took us out of there, leaving Amanda and Lori alone, Amanda concentrated on blowing up ships with abandon. She had taken out probably fifteen of them before we left, and after we left she took out the next twenty in short order. Then, something went wrong.

"I think they simply pinpointed her location better. There were fewer energy signatures to confuse the issue, and she was like a beacon with all the ships she was blowing up. She had to be using most of her energy for hitting the ships, leaving little for shielding. I'm sure she realized all along what was going to happen; that's why she sent you out with all the others. I was never sure why she kept Lori with her, except maybe to provide the shielding. All we know is that suddenly Lori appeared in the cave with us. Amanda must have teleported her to save her life, knowing things were falling apart and death was imminent. We never knew she had that power. Lori was hysterical and demanding we teleport her back. She couldn't teleport herself back; it seems that Amanda had temporarily disabled that function in Lori to keep her from coming back. Another thing we didn't know she could do, except we didn't know anyone could do that. We wouldn't have teleported her back anyway, but before you could go back to get Amanda, there was a massive explosion on Planet # 3, the coordinates on that side were scrambled, then destroyed, and the power drain shield was activated on the earth side. How she did all that from where she was we never knew. Then, her presence dropped out of all our minds and we never sensed her again.

"Amanda was dead. She stayed there to finish the job and saved all of us. She kept them from following us." Lisa was openly crying now.

Poor Lisa. I thought it a good time to distract her.

"You said that the Qerda seemed to know all about us, how to kill us, everything. Did all that come from Bandor? It just doesn't make sense to me in some ways," I remarked.

"That's the thing, Daddy; almost none of it makes any sense. When I wasn't recalculating the power needed for what Amanda did, I've been going over the whole situation. It doesn't add up," Lisa stated.

"In what way?" I asked.

"Well, some of the things they knew about us couldn't have come from Bandor. He didn't know some of the ways they knew to kill us, nor did he know how to kill us permanently. He also didn't know what to destroy on the planet to disrupt the workings of our colors. Those are all things they knew some other way. Besides, the whole 'Bandor-traitor' thing just doesn't make sense."

"How so?" I asked. I wasn't sure I was ready to cut him any slack.

"Well, look at it this way. He was one of the most powerful men on our world. What could the Qerda have offered him to make it worth his while? He was married to one of the most powerful and beautiful women. By all accounts, including my own observations, he and Elizabeth were very close and loved each other very much before he started acting bizarre. Why? And why did he kill Megan? He loved her. Even though she dropped him for you, it didn't make sense, and it certainly didn't explain betraying his whole race, just because a woman he loved rejected him. Furthermore, Megan was, and is, a very good judge of character. It just doesn't follow that she would date and even sleep with a man that would be capable of killing her," Lisa added.

"Lisa!" Megan hissed, looking embarrassed and upset.

"What? Did I get that wrong? You did sleep with him, right? That's what I heard," Lisa said innocently.

"I can't believe you said that... Patrick... I didn't exactly sleep with him... I mean, I did, but I didn't sleep with him... if you know what I mean... Oh God, please don't hate me... I'm sorry..." Megan whispered fearfully.

"What are you sorry about, honey? You were dating both of us, and hadn't made up your mind yet. I never expected you would decide between us without spending time with both of us. I wasn't naive enough to assume nothing sexual would go on between you two.

"It's ok, we can talk about this later," I reassured her. I didn't tell her that I knew what had gone on between her and Bandor. He and I had still been friendly at the time and he told me all about it. Maybe he exaggerated... maybe. Some of it was pretty specific, and right on the money. It didn't bother me; I loved her anyway. Sex and love are not always the same thing with us.

Megan was still worried.

"I mean, I did stay with him all night several times, but he was never... inside me... down there... ," she mumbled, looking down at the floor, embarrassed and blushing deeply.

"Meaning he was inside you somewhere else? I don't understand," Lisa said.

"Lisa... that's enough. You're embarrassing her, and this is none of your business," said Julie sharply.

"Hey, none of this was my idea. I'm not the one that said I should tell him everything," Lisa objected.

"That's true, dear, you weren't. However, if you're interpreting my instructions that literally, I believe there are a couple incidents of your own that you never told Patrick about. Perhaps you should reveal those also... all in the interests of telling him everything, of course," Julie said calmly.

Lisa's face turned pale and I heard her gasp.

"How... how do you know... ? You... you wouldn't tell him about that... would you? Oh please, Julie, you can't tell him that! You just can't!" Lisa begged.

"I'm not going to tell him anything, dear. You're the one that's telling it all here," Julie said, smiling sweetly. If possible, Lisa turned even paler.

"You... you wouldn't make me tell him that. Oh please, Mommy, you wouldn't make me do that... would you? Please? I'll be good, I promise!"

Lisa panicked as Julie said nothing for a moment.

"No, dear, I wouldn't make you tell him. But you better stop being a little snot and get this story moving before I change my mind. Those who tell other's secrets get their own told too," Julie admonished.

Lisa breathed a sigh of relief. I wondered just what the hell I had missed.

"Sorry, Megan," she said softly. Megan glared at her. She wasn't in a very forgiving mood. She was obviously nervous and worried, scared even, that great harm had been done to her relationship with me.

Megan never understood; nothing could harm our relationship. Megan and I may not have been officially Life-mates (how does one know if you are and just not aware or activated yet?) but we may as well have been. No stronger bond was possible than the one between us.

"Anyway, Daddy, none of it makes any kind of sense. There was no reason for Bandor to betray us. He didn't have the information to do so anyway. I don't understand how he could walk away from a woman he loved, kill another one, then kill her again later. Not his wife and sister; not Megan either, who by all reports was so sweet she made Sarah and Jessica look like sourpusses.

"Where did the Qerda come from? It's obvious they had previous knowledge of us, but from where? How could they know about us but we know nothing about them? Why did they hate us so? How did they destroy Planet # 3? Why can we live on earth like on Cornaza? How can Christopher be equal parts of Cornazan, Tarqa, Human, and Qerda? The Qerda wouldn't be caught dead in a room with any of those three. How could they interbreed?

"How can there be two Tori-llia's?

"Those are only the tip of the iceberg as far as questions. None of this makes any sense!" Lisa said, exasperated.

If it didn't make any sense to the Historian, the rest of us had no chance of understanding it.

Julie walked out of the house, leaving us all sitting there wondering where she had gone, and why. She walked back in a moment later with a weed in her hand. She flipped it to Megan. Megan gave her a dirty look as dirt splattered all over her. Then Megan's eyes opened wide as she looked at the plant. It glowed softly in her hand. She looked at Julie, awestruck, and gasped as Julie nodded at her.

"At least there's one mystery I can clear up," Julie said. "That plant is why we can live here, bodies, powers, and colors all in harmony."

"What is it?" Becky asked.

"It's called Plantain. It's a common weed and herb here on earth. It has restorative properties, can heal wounds in hours, and is as close to a miracle plant as exists here. The seeds from it are what is called psyllium seed. Humans spend most of their time working in their yards trying to eradicate it as an annoying weed. It's so common and hardy it's a losing battle. It's why we can exist here."

"How do you know that?" Becky asked.

Julie shrugged her shoulders.

I saw Megan's eyes go blank as she worked at retrieving information from her memories. She was so excited she couldn't sit still when she 'rejoined' us.

"Our people kept very detailed records of things that changed during the time of trouble, in case we could determine later what happened. This plant died out worldwide over a period of several months just before life began dying out on Cornaza," she said excitedly.

"But why didn't it affect us? Why didn't we die, or lose our colors like all the others?" Lori asked. Everyone looked at her in surprise.

"She talks," Sammi murmured to no one in particular. She still hadn't completely forgiven Lori.

"We don't know. One possibility, one thing we have in common, is that we all descend from one of four people; Bandor, Sandor, Eliandor, and Emilandor," Dad said.

"Emilandor?" I asked.

"Your Mother's name," he smiled, then waited for me to get it.

I got it. I don't know if my face turned bright red or not, but it sure felt like it. It must have, because everyone looked at me, suddenly interested in what was going on.

"What is it, Daddy?" Lisa, of course, ever the curious one.

"Nothing," I mumbled.

Amy's eyes got huge, and she started laughing.

"I swear, Amy, if you say one word, I will never, ever talk to you again as long as you live," I hissed.

Amy stopped laughing.

"I'm sorry, Daddy; I didn't know you were really serious about it. My lips are sealed," she said solemnly, zipping them shut with her finger and thumb. I swear her eyes were twinkling, though.

"What?" Cindi asked excitedly. She loved gossip.

"Never mind," I snarled. For once they all realized I was serious. The matter was dropped.

Dad leaned over and put his arm around my shoulder.

"It's ok, Son; don't be embarrassed. Your Mom still talks about it. It was one of the high points of her life," he whispered to me. I glared at him. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

I decided it was time to change the subject.

"Lisa, can I go inside your mind and look at the scene just before and after the battle, and particularly the shield, happened?" I asked.

Lisa shrugged. We all traipsed through each other's minds all the time, but it was polite to ask first. It also kept you from getting a lightning bolt up your rear end if you took someone by surprise!

"I've seen it thousands of times. I don't know what you will see differently, but be my guest. Maybe new eyes will see something new," Lisa said.

I slipped in her mind, to look around at the battle of Planet # 3. I almost fainted when I got my first image.

Oh my God, Amanda was so... beautiful! Although no one had admitted it yet, I was pretty sure she had been my wife. She was stunning. I had a lot of beautiful women and girls in my family, but they paled compared to the image I saw of Amanda. I forced myself to stop looking at her and watched carefully as the scene unfolded. I was first amazed, then shocked, then stunned as I had never been before in my life with what I saw there.

It was as Lisa said, and it was clearly not a dream on her part. It was too clear. We were all standing there together, watching the energy beams slamming into the planet, watching people randomly vaporize as they were caught in the blast. Then, without warning, a rainbow colored shield instantly spread across the atmosphere. It didn't start slowly and grow; it was not there, then it was, from horizon to horizon. Lisa, being a Historian, had access to all the views of the planet, and it was the same everywhere. By her internal chronometer, at the exact same second and everywhere on the planet, a rainbow colored shield covered the globe.

I ran it through again, and was shocked at what I saw the next time.

There are two people I trust more than anyone in the world to discuss things with. One is Victoria. She is my twin, my lifelong companion, and trained to look at things analytically.

The other one is Julie. I don't know why.

I sure as hell wasn't going to discuss what I saw on the second and subsequent playbacks with Victoria.

'Pretty amazing, isn't it?' Julie asked, standing next to me in Lisa's mind.

'Did you get Lisa's permission to come in here?' I asked.

'No need. I'm not here, ' Julie answered.

Whatever. I wasn't going to argue with her.

'Did you see what I just saw?' I asked her. She smiled.

'Tell me, ' she said.

'Just before the shield happened, Victoria and Amanda held hands. Then the shield went up instantly, and they held hands the entire time it was up, ' I said. 'In fact, they held hands until Victoria was teleported out.'

'Look at it again; slow it down this time, ' Julie instructed me.

I did. My world would never be the same again. Neither would Victoria's, except I had no intentions of telling her what I saw.

'What did you see that time?' Julie asked.

'The shield didn't go up instantly. It was fast, but not instantaneous. There was a gigantic power transfer from Amanda to Victoria. I've never seen that much power move from one person to another that quickly. That was nothing compared to the one back from Victoria to Amanda. Why would Amanda and Victoria exchange power like that? Where did the extra power come from? How could Victoria handle and transfer that much power? Her transfer back to Amanda had to be in the multiple billions or trillions of terra-watts range. There are stars that don't have that much power, ' I said, not sure how much, if at all, I was exaggerating. I was stunned. What was going on here?