“There’s something else that might affect your decision.” Chameleon rose from his seat. Wingman eyed him, but at least he didn’t tackle him. “When I first learned of the campaign to bombard ’Topia, over a period of months, I sent several thousand ’Topians to haven planets.”
“Other ’Topians besides us survived?” Tigre and the men gazed at him, their faces alight with hopeful expressions. That a few of their respective species might have survived was no small gift to give them. For a moment, the crushing guilt over his culpability lessened.
“Yes.”
“How many?” Inferno asked.
“About ten thousand—split up among several planets. I can’t tell you their genotype because I deliberately omitted the data.” In the event his activities were discovered, he did not want a database listing who had gotten off the planet and where they had gone. “Plus, three hundred others launched just before the bombardment. I do recall seeing several Vaporian females board the spacecraft. There wasn’t time to set a haven destination for them, so their ship is wandering in space with no place to go. I fear if they don’t reach a haven planet, the consortium will intercept them.” He felt a huge responsibility to ensure their safety, and now, Shadow’s. He couldn’t let the man die if there was a chance of saving his life.
“We must aid them,” Tigre said to Chameleon’s relief. “And Shadow.”
“Agreed!” Inferno said.
“Good plan,” Wingman responded.
Shadow’s solid form faded, dissipating, until he pulled himself together. “Thank you. I can’t tell you what this means to me.”
He didn’t have to tell them. They could all see it.
Tigre cleared his throat. “Plot a course for Earth. Let’s take the chance we can get the Castaway repaired, and then we’ll locate the other refugees and lead them to a safe planet where we can all make our home.”
Chapter Three
Plop!
Serenaded by the rain’s pitter-patter, Kevanne snuggled under Grandma’s quilt in a peaceful fog between sleep and wakefulness until a water droplet hit her smack on a closed eyelid. Her eyes popped open.
Plop! Another drop landed on her forehead.
Plop. Plop.
WTF? She shook off the drowsiness, her gaze zeroing in on a brown splotch staining the ceiling.
Plop!
“No, not the roof! Why?” She flung off the quilt. After donning her robe and slippers to ward off the chill of the cold spring morning, she dragged the mattress away from the leak and propped it up against the wall. She couldn’t afford to buy a new mattress and replace the roof. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t afford the roof!
She placed a large kitchen pot under the drip and then searched her small, two-bedroom house for more signs of leakage.
None, thank goodness. Maybe the damage wasn’t too bad. Maybe she could patch the leak, and it wouldn’t cost too much. She sighed. Coffee first. She put on a pot to brew and went to get dressed. No sense showering just to crawl around on the roof. She donned some warm clothes, including heavy wool socks and boots with some serious tread so she wouldn’t fall and break a leg.
After a quick fortification of some strong black coffee, she slipped on her raincoat and trudged to the barn. The faint manure odor indicated a previous owner had kept horses, but Kevanne used the outbuilding for storage.
She found a tarp, and, with it tucked under her arm, lugged an aluminum extension ladder to the house. She propped it against the pine-needle-clogged rain gutters and climbed onto the roof. At least the rain had stopped—temporarily, but the clouds remained low and heavy, darkening the morning to a dreary gray, typical for April in northern Idaho. A single patch of brightness lightened the eastern sky where the clouds had thinned a tad.
She picked her way over the slippery shingles, praying she wouldn’t fall or damage the roof further. At forty years old, the house had been around longer than she had, and the roof appeared to be original. She’d been informed the property needed repairs when she’d bought it, but every day she discovered something else needed fixing. At this rate, Dayton’s life insurance money would run out before she could get the business up and running.
“Instead of Lavender Bliss Farm, I should have called it Money Pit Ranch,” she muttered, but surveying her twenty-five-acre domain from the rooftop, she reminded herself how far she’d come. She inhaled a deep breath of rain, earth, pine, and lavender. The fragrance of hope. Her once impossible dream had become a possible reality.
She’d closed escrow a couple of months ago. Most of the parcel was treed with pines and cedars, but five acres had been cleared, some areas planted with lavender. The most recent former owners, an elderly couple, had allowed the field to fallow, but she’d recognized the potential.
Kevanne always had loved lavender and for years had purchased the flowers from nurseries for potpourri, wreaths, and jellies. Now she had her freedom and a chance to become a successful business owner. While the latter was not assured, she vowed no one would ever steal the former from her again.
If only the damn rain would let up so she could till and plant the fields. Once the farm got squared away, she planned to open a gift shop in time for the summer tourist season. The outbuilding at the edge of her property fronting the main highway had been used for that purpose before. However, like everything else, it had fallen into disrepair.
Over her bedroom, near the peak, she found the problem. A swath of shingles was missing. She noted other shingles that curled, some that were loose. One good wind, and they’d be gone. She spread the tarp over the problem area, draping it on both sides of the peak so the rain would hit the plastic and roll off, rather than seep underneath. Belatedly, she realized she needed weight to hold it in place or the slightest breeze would send it sailing.
She crept back to the ladder, climbed down, and tromped to the barn where she gathered a couple of two-by-fours and a half dozen bricks. It took a few trips up the ladder to haul it all onto the roof, but she got the tarp weighted down.
“That ought to do it.” She dusted her cold hands on her jeans. She’d have one more cup of coffee and then run into town. Argent, population: not enough, boasted of little except a diner, an antique store, two tiny churches, one bar, and a bait-and-tackle shop doubling as a hardware store. The latter had a bulletin board where locals could post ads. She’d seen Handyman for Hire flyers in the past—maybe she’d get lucky and see one today.
Besides fixing the roof, a good handyman could make a dent in the long list of needed repairs.
She was stepping toward the ladder when a meteorite burst through the cloud-break and streaked across the sky like a huge flaming bullet. A shooting star! Quick. Make a wish. Kevanne squeezed her eyes shut. Send me my dream man—a handyman. She opened her eyes in time to see the meteorite slow before dropping out of sight behind the tree line. It’s going to hit the ground! She braced for an explosion, but none came.
“What the heck?” She’d never seen a falling star do that before. The meteorite had moved like it was guided. So, missile maybe? Except, unless somebody punched a wrong button in a major snafu, she doubted the government would send a test missile over Argent, Idaho.
Maybe it’s a UFO! She chuckled.