Awe.  It was the only word Commodore Griffin Conrad decided could describe the reaction, his reaction.  It always happened when he witnessed something of overwhelming beauty: a Nebula from less than dot 1 parsecs away, meteor showers on planets with high hydrogen levels in their atmosphere, and now this to add to the short but brilliant list.  It was the first time he had ever attributed that word to something planet side.  (Not that he had had a lot of opportunities to experience planet side phenomena.)  Awe was a condition he didn't very often assume, but he knew good and well what it was.  The main sign, he admitted to himself, was that it was the only time he ever started considering that maybe there was a God.  He passed his hand over his eyes to block out the sight, briefly, so that he could look on it again as if for the first time.  Yes, it was definitely awe.
	The floor of the ravine he was looking across seemed to be made up of wide glossy leaves that looked like delicate, gossamer nets.  It gave a strange but delightful rosish hue to the greenery he could see past those shimmering leaves.  Another bluff that was slightly lower and opposite the one he stood on seemed to roll and sheer at the same time out of the forested ravine.  Mist just thick enough to be called white rose from the far north end of the deep valley, causing the brightest rainbow he had ever seen to arc down to the forest floor below.  The colors were so dazzling that Griffin could not see the gray rock that composed the cliff behind it.  A small waterfall cascaded down the rock face to his right that signified the end, or rather the start of the ravine.  Behind him, he heard the thrum of his ship become lower and lower as all its systems went into a standby state.  Finally all man made sound ceased to exist and in the relative silence that followed he could hear the distant roar of what promised to be a large river in the valley far below.  Wild birdcalls (he assumed they were birds) accented the unspoiled, natural setting of this… this, well, awesome scene.  
	"Maybe there is a God," he muttered under his breath, careful not to speak too loud for fear the scene before him would shatter into a thousand pieces at the slightest foreign sound.  A very slight breeze, but not a cold one, riffled His fine blond hair.  Without thinking, his one and a half-meter frame swayed with it.
	"Eh?  What was that, Commodore?" an English accent inquired from beside him.  
	Griffin couldn't help but notice that his title was spoken with what seemed to be a twinge of sarcasm.  His amazingly dark blue eyes narrowed for only a moment.  He was getting used to that by now.  A super spatial ship's Commodore at only 21 years of age, he had broken the previous record for youngest Commanding Officer on an SS ship by nine years.  The man beside him was surely three times his age and he seemed to resent that a man so young could be in a place of such authority.  Griffin dealt with the small needle of annoyance the same way he always did.  He was what he was.  Que sera, sera, as his father used to tell him.  What will, be will be.  Griffin wasn't one to pretend to be average just for the reason that some people were angry at his being above average.
	"It was nothing Dr. Egwet.  I was just enjoying the view."  He had to force his body to turn from the piece of paradise before him.  When he finally tore his eyes away they came to focus on his gleaming SS ship.  Normally he felt a sense of pride at the sight of his mid class, super spatial ship, but the scene now directly behind him, seemed to mock that ship as plain somehow.  His crew were crawling around on it like ants on a mushroom.  They made their way across its smooth surface searching for any damage that might have escaped detection by the external sensors.  After turning from the view behind him, it was easy to see the wonder of modern technology for what it was: simply a man made carton created to haul humans across the void between the stars.
	"Do you ever wonder about God, Dr. Egwet?  Just a little?"  He asked of the man beside him with out looking away from the ship.
	The roundish, balding man gave a snort.  "What's to wonder Commodore?  I should think it rather obvious?  We are god.  Human kind has mastered the galaxy.  We have proven that we are the only sentient beings here.  Not much remains beyond our power.  If anything is god, it is most assuredly us, my boy."
	Out of the corner of his eye, Griffin could see the doctor shaking his head as if chuckling to himself.  Griffin decided again, as he had after almost every conversation with Dr. Egwet, that he did not particularly like the short man.  With that thought he dismissed the doctor from his mind.  He started back toward the SSS Oregon IV, his egg-shaped vessel, and the flurry of activity around it.

	Dr. Albert Egwet watched the Commodore as he walked toward the ship.  That man put him on edge somehow.  Maybe it was the velocity of his rise to the upper echelons of the Independent Stellar Coalition.  Every civilized planet knew of Commodore Griffin P. Conrad by now, the brilliant young genius who had entered the ISC University at age 11 and had risen unbelievably fast through the ranks to attain Commodore status just 10 years later.  He, Albert Egwet, had worked for many years to gain the reputation that he had as foremost authority on colonial sociological development.  It irked him that this boy, this lad, was already more well known than the great scientist and researcher Dr. A. Egwet.  No one should be able to rise to the top as fast as that, that child.  Ah well, even if the Commodore was in charge of the ship, this was actually Albert Egwet's mission.  Egwet thought of the opportunity upon which he was about to embark: a colony, nearly 300 years lost.  If it hadn't gone genocide, this was surely the first event of its kind.  He had records of the colony’s founding 313 years ago.  For 12 years it had thrived, one more feather in the Coalition’s ever expanding hat.  Then suddenly all transmissions had ceased, simply quit coming.  It was as if the colony had never existed.  He half fancied that it all made him shiver as he pulled a pipe out of his pocket, tamped some organic tobacco in the bowl, and lit it.  He took one or two puffs and regarded Commodore Conrad’s receding back a moment longer.  What was that lad talking about, God, gods.  He hadn't heard a question like that since he was a mere university professor on Earth.  With a slight grin he started back himself.	

	"Prelanding orbit confirms precipitation activity, level 3, approximately 0.74 times daily, Sir."  The officer responded promptly to Griffin's question about the chances of rain that night.
	"Thank you, Officer." Griffin turned to leave the ship’s cramped lab, then remembered to ask, "Oh by the way, how long is 'daily' here?"
	"Twenty two point three standard hours per day, Sir."
	Griffin nodded, then left, making his way toward the bow and observation deck. He stepped into a small room with large viewing screens on all the walls.  They were supposed to simulate windows.  Each showed a live scene fed by many microscopic cameras on different sides of the ship.  From the looks of the one on 45 degrees, the planet was even more breath taking, if that was possible, by sunset.
	"Hey Griff, are we camping out tonight?" A man, resembling Griffin in almost every way except eye color, rose from a chair whose high back had hidden him and stretched.
	Griffin had pulled strings, a lot of strings, to get permission for his brother to come along.  Even as it was, he had to assign Orion some sort of a combination between an official observer and ship's psychological counselor as duties to justify his appearance on the ship’s roster.  Space on an SS ship was, after all, quite precious.  No room for joy adventurers… like Orion.  But he had promised his older brother a ride on a SS ship ever since he had entered the University those short ten years ago.  A promise made as a child, yes, but a promise none the less.
	"You know I didn't want to complain after what you went through to get me on this ride, but," his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, "that little box you gave me for a cabin isn't at all what I expected."  Orion gave his younger brother a gray-eyed wink to let Griffin know that he was kidding.  Griffin knew.  Orion always winked when he thought something he said in fun might possibly be taken seriously.  It still didn't do much to quell the feeling of disgust that began to rise in Griffin.  Even though the two brothers looked so much alike, their personalities were almost as much different.  Griffin was hard working, and self-driven.  Orion chased the wind and was self-indulgent at times.  Griffin was a serious, ship's commodore.  Orion was a fun loving, dry witted, who knows what. 
	Nothing, Griffin thought with some disgust, a Conrad who, when all was said and done, had amounted to nothing.  To his brother he said with no trace of the contempt that was tickling the edge of his brain, "No.  No… 'camping'.  Planet Side Officer reports heavy rains are probable.  We'll spend the night in our quarters, tonight and then set out for the colony at first ambient light.  Where have you been keeping yourself this whole trip, Ri?"
	"Oh, I know how busy you Commodores are, and I figured that you wouldn't want your hobo of a brother getting in the way.  I've been mostly in my box reading.  That and talking with Dr. Egwet."
	Griffin started a little at Orion's description of himself.  Sometimes he wondered if his brother really realized how little he'd made of his life.  Comments like that made it seem so.  "Talking with Dr. Egwet?  I didn't think he was ever far enough away from me to have a normal length conversation with anyone else.  That man is insufferable.  And too taken with his work."
	"Too taken with himself is more like it."  Orion snorted.  "I think most of our discussions took place while you were on sleep shift.  One third of them were about colonial development, and the rest were about the man foremost in that field of study.  Turns out that that man is our own dear Albert Egwet."  There was more than a little dryness in the last comment.
"Yes I know." Griffin smiled slightly at his brother, "He’s managed to work that small fact into every conversation since leaving Beta Dock.”  Suddenly Griffin laughed, “Ri, I won’t have you picking fights with semi-famous researchers on my ship.”	
	Orion looked startled.  "Why I was thinking of no such thing…"
	"Ri, we're brothers.  We grew up together, remember?  I can read you like a nav console."
	Orion stroked the beginnings of a beard.  "You know I kinda miss those growing up days…" he mused.  Then he shook his head and grinned, "But I suppose it would be slightly disapproved of if I was to go about taking down men three times my age."  He stopped in mock seriousness and pointed at Griffin, "I think I could take him though, Griff.  I'm pretty sure I could take him."
	“Yes, I’m sure you could, big brother,” Griffin smiled a genuine smile.  “Well, I, for one, am going to return to my box and sleep.  We've got a bit of a hike on our hands tomorrow.  If you are going to be getting into a wrestling match with Dr. Egwet on top of that, you'll need your rest too, don’t you think?"
	Orion laughed, "I guess I will at that."  Then he put a hand on his brother's shoulder.  "It's good to be with you again Griffy."  He turned and walked out of the door that slid down at his touch.
	"Yeah, great." Griffin murmured to the door as it resumed its closed position.

	Griffin was sitting on a rock at the base of a waterfall, dictating to his personal log computer.  They had finally made it to the bottom of the ravine adjacent to the touch down site.  It had been a complex affair of ropes and an anti-gravity dolly, complex, frustratingly slow, and slightly exhilarating.  The highly inefficient dolly was used solely for the transportation of heavy equipment.  The consequent hanging against sheer rock hundreds of feet above the ground had resulted in adrenaline coursing through Griffen’s body.  Rappelling wasn't something he did often.
Now they were in the valley that Griffin had so admired the evening before.  The jungle that he had viewed was further to the south of his position.  From this point of view the landscape appeared to morph gradually from grassy flat land into a thick rain forest over the distance of a few miles.
	"All heavy equipment has made it down in satisfactory condition, and the last of the men are descending as I speak.  Dr. Egwet seems quite excitable today..." Griffin trailed off as the subject of his last dictation approached.  The doctor's breath sounded a little like the puffing of toy train Griffin had played with as a child, and his face was more than slightly red.
	"Ahh splendid.  Splendid!"  the doctor beamed.  "Simply an excellent day for an outing, eh?"  Egwet obviously did not expect a confirmation of his observation because he continued immediately.  "Commodore, the original colony location is 15 miles away over relatively flat terrain, but I'd like to arrive as early in the day as I can, so please have your men ready to start off as soon as everyone arrives."  Egwet seemed to suddenly remember something and turned heel quickly.  He was shouting and half-trotting to where some crewmembers were unloading smaller instruments into field packs before he got all the way round.  "You there!  I say, be careful with that, it's worth more than your entire bloody retirement allotment."
	Griffin arched an eyebrow at the doctor's back and continued with his dictation.  "Yes, Dr. Egwet is behaving much like a cadet in a quantum electrical shop to use a cliché.  ETA is at 1100 hours local time, 2300 standard.  Our radio contact will be limited, as the communications link seems to degrade exponentially past a few decameters.  We have yet to determine the cause."  He powered down and folded the log computer in on itself.
	"Is THAT how a cadet acts in a quantum electrical shop?  I've always wondered."
Griffin gave a start and turned on his rocky perch to see his brother standing with hands on his hips behind him.
	"That's quite a waterfall, hmmm?" Orion admired the scene that had caused Griffin to choose this spot a little ways away from the busy activities further along the base of the cliff.
	"Hello, Ri, how are you liking the planet side mission so far?"  Griffin turned back to the waterfall to face his brother.
	"The 'outing', Griff?"  Orion assumed a thick English accent, "Well, splendid dear brother, simply splendid!"  He resumed his normal voice, “No really, this is great.  It’s wonderful to be on real ground again, don't you think?”
	Griffin frowned absently.  “I guess so.  You know-”
	"Sir, the last of the men are down.  We are ready to continue, Sir."  A grizzled, red haired officer called out from the group of men that were now hefting packs and re-attaching the bindings on the tops of their boots.
	"Acknowledged, Captain.  Arrange the party into array delta with one sniper at each corner."  Griffin replied crisply as he rose from the stone and brushed himself off.
	"I say, Commodore, is that absolutely necessary?" Dr. Egwet called from a place at the head of the men.  "These are Coalition chaps we are looking for, not militarily inclined dissidents."
	"Doctor, it is your job to study any groups of living people that we find.  It’s my job to get you and your equipment to said people in a condition conducive to study.  When we arrive I will not interfere with your duties.  Please don't interfere with mine until then."
Griffin was near to the group by the time he had finished speaking, just close enough to hear the doctor mutter, "Yes, all's well and good, just hate to see the brains of my study subjects melted by some trigger happy soldier before I get a chance to interview them.  Beastly weapons."  He gave a sniff to make sure that everyone understood just exactly what he thought of resi-rifles.
	"Can't argue with him there, brother," Orion whispered.  "Something that kills you with a migraine isn't humane by anyone's definition…  nice rejection of request though.  Not much room for him to question you on the subject."
	Griffin gave the command to move forward and they started off with Orion and Griffin in front and Dr. Egwet moving among the various men with packs urging them in no uncertain terms that they were to walk softly while carrying a piece of his equipment.  They traveled in a loose oval with the anti-grav unit in the center.
	"That man has been second guessing me all morning!" Griffin hissed softly to his brother.  "I believe he derives pleasure from it."
	Orion turned his head to regard Egwet who was now trying to convince one of the four snipers to activate the safety on his resi-rifle.  "I believe our good doctor is suffering from a sever case of bonified jealously.  Uhhhhh, you might want to help that poor guy out."
	Griffin turned to where Orion was looking, "What do you-" He saw Egwet's attempts with the sniper and his face became slightly red, "Doctor!  Do you think you can stop harassing my men long enough to confer with me a moment?"
	Dr. Egwet stiffened a little, then quickened his pace to move to the front of the procession with Griffin and Orion.
	As he was coming, Orion whispered, "I think I'll go talk with that captain.  He was telling a most intriguing story before we reached the cliff."  He dropped back before Griffin could say anything.
	By that time the Doctor had arrived, still puffing for all the world like a toy train, "What is it, Commodore?"  The title was dripping sarcasm.
	Griffin held back the tongue-lashing that rose to his lips with a little difficulty, and finally said in the most neutral tone he could manage, "I'm not completely sure of the way to the colony site, and terrain is going to thicken into a forest quite soon.  We should send a group ahead to clear underbrush.  I was wondering if you would be so kind as to lead that group."
	Egwet harumphed, and blew a breath out his nose.  A breath, no doubt, he was intending to employ countering the reprimand that he was sure was coming.  "Well, I suppose I could take them."  He said finally.
	"Karns, Smothers, Hephkern, Jones, Darls."  Griffin called the names of four men and one woman.  "You are beta group assigned to clear the region ahead of inhibiting plant growth.  Use the thermal cutters, except Darls.  You are sniper."
	Egwet spoke up immediately, "Look here, Conrad.  I don't want any weapons in my-"
	Griffin looked straight ahead, "Doctor, you have full command over group beta except the sniper.  You may move ahead now."
	Egwet was livid.  He stared at the side of Griffin's head for a very long moment.  When he realized that it was having no effect, he turned to the group that had left their places in the pattern of walking men and growled, "Come with me."  Then he strode away without a backward glance.
	The red haired Captain Karns, turned and looked morosely at Griffin.  Griffin smiled at him and said, "See that the Doctor doesn't harm himself chewing through the bark of the nearest tree, Captain."
	"Aye, sir." The captain gazed wistfully at his spot in the larger group a moment longer, then squared his shoulders and marched after the speeding doctor with the rest of the beta group.
	Orion came up to walk beside Griffin again.  "You took away my story teller," he said.
	"So sorry," Griffin replied and they marched on in silence.
	Soon the doctor and his band were lost among the increasing thickness of trees.  Soon after that Griffin and his party formed two single file lines so that they could fit on the narrow path of wilted vegetation characteristic of thermal clearing.  After half an hour of silent walking among the relatively short trees and shrubs, they came to the first of the great trees whose red gossamer leaves Griffin had seen from the touch down location.  It was a sight to behold.
The particular tree was well over 600 meters tall.  Its girth was so large that Griffin ordered the men to halt and see how many of them it took, holding hands, to reach around it.  All nineteen plus Orion came within a decimeter of doing it.  The first branches started out from the great trunk, at a slightly upward angle, fully 50 meters from the ground.  Those first limbs could have been mistaken for mature trees themselves had they been upright in the soil.
	As they continued on, they started to see spots of yellow, pink, and what Griffin could only describe as aqua flash among the shorter plant life.  They were birds of all shapes, and sizes flitting here and there on missions known only to themselves, raising an awful, glorious ruckus as they did.  Slowly, the large 'mega-trees' as Griffin had named them in his mind, became the prominent large vegetation.  However, because of the leaves' translucence, the shorter trees and forest floor plants were extremely thick as well.  Little balls of fur were seen hanging from the lower limbs of the mega-trees.  Some of the men wanted to shoot one down to see what it was, but Griffin wouldn't hear of it.  They were there to study the humans that had been grafted into this paradise, not pick off the original inhabitants.  Everything in the forest had a red tint to it, mostly due to the red filter of the mega-tree leaves, partially from the weak red sun that was this planet's life source.  Griffin guessed that it was at least a few billion years older than Sol, and thus was probably only half a billion away from its useful life's end.  Only half a billion years.  I guess no one did any long term planning in picking this planet out.
	After another hour of hiking, Orion grabbed his brother’s arm, pulled him to a stop, and pointed.  The first pair of men ran into them before Griffin could signal a halt.  He turned to his brother with a heated remark about saying something before resorting to yanking a man's arm out of socket, but before he could get the words out, he saw the quizzical expression on his brother's face, and looked where he was pointing.  Ahead their path appeared to intersect a previously existing trail.  It ran east and west, winding through the forest as it followed a stream a short distance away.  The older path was not much wider than the one on which he now stood.  Of the doctor and the beta group, there was no sign.  Except….  Is that a body leaning against that mega-tree?
	"Soldiers take cover."  Griffin yelled as he pulled his older brother to the ground and began to crawl toward the dense brush at the side of the newly cut swath.  The rest of the men dove for the underbrush in different directions in a deluge of sudden, frantic action.

CH2
	For what seemed like infinity, slow seconds ticked by while Orion tried his best to breath around Griffin's hand which was smothering his mouth.  At first a surge of fear induced by his brother’s sudden and obviously evasive maneuvers was the only thing that filled his head.  Then a bruised shoulder and the hot, moist, closeness of his brother's hand began to replace fight-or-flight with irritation.  Orion grabbed the offending hand and removed it less than gently.
	"What's the big-" he managed before the hand resumed its original position with force that was somewhat less than delicate as well.
	Griffin glared fiercely at his older sibling and the hardness of it shocked Orion enough to realize that now perhaps wasn't the best time for conversation.  He put his hand on Griffin's again, but this time just let it rest there until Griffin was satisfied that he had conveyed the necessity of silence.  Finally, Griffin moved his hand to pull a pair of field glasses from a pouch at his belt.  He looked through them for a long moment, then slowly, without making eye contact, handed the glasses to Orion.  Orion stared at his brother's bowed head for a bit then turned and began to scan the trail.  On his first pass he saw it: a man sitting against the trunk of one of those giant trees that were all over this forest.  Actually, sitting is a generous term.  The posture would better be described as slumped.  Orion decided.  He couldn't be sure from this distance but…  Griffin seemed to read his mind and clicked some little lever on the glasses.  The image jumped toward him, and Orion almost jerk his head back in reflex.  When his eyes had refocused, his guess at the man's identity was confirmed.  It was the single sniper that Griffin had sent with the doctor.  The one called 'Darls'.  The cause of his poor posture was also revealed.  He was dead.  At least Orion assumed the man was dead.  He couldn't remember meeting many live people with what appeared to be an arrow sticking out of their throat like that.
	Orion turned to his brother to find that Griffin had scrounged a wire thin headset from somewhere on his person and was talking in low whispers into a tiny mouth piece.  "…and crawl."  was all that Orion heard before his brother was crawling through the bushes and waving him to follow.  For a moment Orion was struck with dejavu as a scene from the brothers’ childhood surfaced in his mind.  An imaginary war game in the woods that had ended, if he recalled correctly, in a rather severe case of poison oak.  He began to drag himself forward with his elbows to follow after Griffin, mental itchings tickling all over his body.
	Griffin reached the edge of the brush right where the crew's new path intersected with what appeared to be a well-worn trail.  He waited a minute and a half until he had heard check-ins from each of his 19 soldiers.  They were in positions forming three expanding circles centered on the intersection.  Then he stood, walked calmly to the very dead Darls, and bent down to examine the body.  The arrow shaft that had entered from the front appeared to be made of buckytube titanium, of all things.  The body was stripped of all equipment, but otherwise, there was no sign that anything was out of the ordinary.  Aside from the fact that he was dead of course, Griffin thought with no amusement.  The dirt of the old trail was slightly damp, and well packed.  He recognized some scuffs from what were probably the beta groups' boots, but there were no foreign foot prints that he could see.  Of course, anything less than metal-heeled footware probably wouldn't show up in the hard soil.
Griffin straightened and spoke into the com wire, "Everyone scout a 30 meter radius then join me here."
Orion was about to comment on the odd combination of a weapon from the history books made out of a fairly recent metal alloy, but a look at his brother’s face stopped the words short.  A single trail of moisture ran down Griffin’s cheek.
	"He's the first I've lost under my command."  Griffin mumbled in explanation, then spun his back to Orion and squatted down.  He picked up a twig and studied it intensely.  "They say the first is always the hardest."
Orion put a hand on his brother’s shoulder until Griffin stood, and drew a deep breath.  "I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention my… reaction to the men, Ri."  He said softly.  "It took me long enough to convince them that I actually shave, and this would only resurface their doubts about serving under the youngest Commodore ever."
	"Don't worry little brother.  I guess calluses don't come with the promotion.  I won't say anything."
Five minutes later, crewmen began appearing from the brush.  Each walked over to the body of their dead comrade and saluted by grabbing their right fist with their left hand.  When all 19 were standing on the trail, Griffin spoke.
	"Pull the arrow through, and then put the body in a stasis bag.  Drag him off the trail.  We'll pick him up on the way back."
	When the order had been carried out, Griffin took the arrow, knelt, and placed it gently on top of the bagged body.  "May you rest in peace, my friend, if that exists in the universe," he muttered, then grunted as he stood and turned. "I want all the rifles we have in the hands of the best shots.  Every one else, side arms at ready.  Keep spread out along the path and we'll proceed east along the stream.  I don't think that I need to mention caution, so I won't."
	The men spread out in pairs along the path.  Orion stayed with Griffin about in the middle of the group, and brandished the sleek pistol that was one of the rifle bearers side arms.  He wasn't positive on the operation of the thing, but it sure felt good to have something to wrap his hand around.  The anti-grav dolly followed the group with just one pair of men behind that as a rear guard.  They stalked along in silence for what seemed hours, though Orion's chrono-center claimed that 40 minutes was all that had passed.  Suddenly one of the few women soldiers in the group stopped up front and put an arm out to hold her companion back.  She was holding what could have been a cousin to Orion’s recently acquired pistol, except that there was a small dish on the front of the gun like object, and a thin wire led from the back to little buds in the woman's ears.  After a few seconds, she signaled her male partner, and the man turned to motion the others up with them.
	As soon as Griffin arrived at the gathering group of people, the partner said, "Lieutenant Treer says that there is someone running toward us around that corner there, Sir."  He gestured at a lazy curve the path took to mirror the meandering stream.  "She says probably 300 meters."
	The woman with the listening gizmo held up two fingers then closed her hand into a fist.
	"Two hundred and fifty meters now, Sir," her partner translated.
	Griffin spoke rapidly, "I want three rifles on their bellies up front, four more with side arms on a knee behind them.  Everyone else take close cover."  To Orion he spoke quiet but urgent, "You'd best take cover too, Ri."
	"Look Griff, I know- " Orion started, but was cut off.
	"Orion Conrad, have you even ever touched a weapon loaded with smart ammunition."  Griffin waved his hand at the gun in Orion’s grasp.
	"Well… Uhhh… Actually-"
	"Right, so on behalf of those in the crew who don’t want one of the little buggers coming after us.  Please take cover and wait this one out."
	Orion sighed.  "Yes sir, little brother."  He followed the last of the crew into the thick shrubbery.  The anti-grav unit was entirely too big to fit in the brush so it stayed out of the way a few paces behind Griffin and the hastily assembled defense team.  Griffin took a spot standing behind his men who were kneeling, weapon trained on the spot where the path disappeared around the bend.
	"One hundred meters," Lt. Treer's partner hissed from somewhere in the bushes.
	Griffin inclined his head slightly to see down his outstretched arms and across the short length of plasti-metal he held in his hands….  straight into the distant face of one of the most beautiful young women he had ever seen.
She appeared unarmed and at the sight of eight men blocking her path, she stopped short.  After a furtive glance tossed over her shoulder, however, she continued to run straight toward them, arms outstretched.  "Please, help me you."
	"Hold your fire, Griffin commanded his men, and relaxed a little himself though he didn't quite lower his gun all the way.
	The woman continued toward them, begging, "Don't let get, the Bugs, them."
	She glanced back again, and, more frantic than ever, doubled her pace.  "Please.  Please!  Do not let kill me, him."
	The young woman was mere steps away when a wicked triangle of metal seemed to blossom from her chest, high and just to the left of center.  The girl stumbled as the arrow's kinetic energy was added to her own.  She looked down, almost in wonder, at the shaft extending slightly above her breast, then fell forward in a heap.  Behind her and just in sight from around the bend, was presumably the source of the evil looking projectile.  A darkly bearded man was in the process of notching a second arrow.
Griffin didn't have time to wonder about the woman, or the man.  His 10 years of training in the University responded to perceived danger.  His pistol came up in a smooth motion and fired a single shot so quickly it didn't seem possible that he had waited until his arms were level to pull the trigger.
	The semi-heat guided bullet took the archer in his chest before the young lady had finished falling.  It literally lifted him off of his feet and knocked him flat onto his back, unmoving.  The whole exchange from the moment the arrow had pierced the woman to the strange man's fall had taken less than a second.
	Griffin ran towards the fallen girl and had just reached her when he heard one of his men yell, "Down, Commodore!"
	Without thinking, he threw himself head long next to the splayed body, and felt more than heard something whip by his ear.  Griffin lifted his face from the packed dirt in time to see a second bearded man standing in the path, arms spread slightly to his side, bow dropped at his feet.  Griffin didn't have to see the 75 meters to know that there was a green dot of a laser on the man's forehead.  He knew the typical stance of someone who had just been hit in the head with the pulsing ions from a resi-rifle.  The man crumpled where he stood.  Griffin heard the pound of boots on the ground as his point men ran forward to secure the next few hundred meters of territory.  Then he saw the knee of his life retainment officer as the man knelt next to him.  Griffin pushed himself to his knees.
	"I'm fine.  Check the girl."
	Together he and the officer carefully rolled the young woman onto her side.  The LR, Lieutenant Antwer, held her head up with one hand, and used the other to make the arrow stable.  At first Griffin thought she was dead, but then with a cough that brought up more than a little blood she opened her eyes.  The deepest green Griffin had ever seen met his gaze.
	"Are God, you?" she asked in a voice husky from blood.  Her beautiful eyes weren't focusing quite right.
	"I'm Commodore Griffin with the ISC.  You're safe now."  The assurance of safety sounded so hollow to a woman with an arrow through her heart.  "Please, don't speak, we'll take care of you."
Her lids were closed again, but her voice continued through lips that were turning blue and barely moving.  "Must help us, you.  The Savior Beetles.  The Bugs -" She coughed raggedly again.  "Must be saved, they….  The Bursting…."  Her voice trailed off, and her head sagged limply in the LR officer's hand.  Griffin turned to the man, but he only shook his head and shrugged.  Griffin stood.  The crew that had been in cover was out and running down the path.  One sergeant stopped in front of Griffin and saluted.
	"Orders sir?"
	"Help with her if you can." Griffin waved toward the slack body.  "I'll take the rest of the men and finish securing forward terrain."  Griffin looked again at the girl lying on the ground and thankfully retreated into a detached emotional state that was part of his training.
	Griffin heard the pounding of more boots on the trail behind him, and Orion pulled up.  "What exactly happened there?!" he panted.
	"Stay here, and help."  Griffin ordered in a toneless voice.  "I'm going to check for additional enemies."  Then he walked swiftly toward the other two bodies lying on the path, forcing the sight of the girl from his mind, or at least somewhere toward the back.
	He could see the majority of his men up at the bend training their weapons presumably on the continued path.  Two were checking the bodies, and saluted as he approached.
	"Two dead, Sir," an ensign reported.
	Griffin looked at the bodies that had died in practically the identical spot.  One was spread eagle on his back, blood spreading a darker stain on his already black garment.  His mind systematically recorded all information that seemed pertinent.  The cloth soaking the blood so fast spoke of natural fiber, not micro poly-linen, yet the man wore an ear ring of buckytube titanium.  The bow still clutched in his hand was of plasti-metal, and a scattering of arrows spilled from a hip quiver were also buckytube tite.  The other body was sprawled out, face first.  At a word from Griffin, the two men with him turned it over.  Griffin saw the telltale marks of a resi-rifle hit.  Trails of blood ran from tear ducts, nose, mouth, and ears.  Without conscious effort, Griffin replayed the lecture on the use and effects of a resi-gun from his first year at the University.
	"Resi-weapons are the most advanced sight and shoot, single anti-personnel weapons in manufacture today," the instructor had started out.  "The smaller cylinder here contains a chlorine/iodine laser sight and magnifying scope, as well as an ultra sensitive green light sensor.  Within a picosecond, the sight has calculated the range to the target to the nineth decimal.  Within a nanosecond, the gun has cycle fired an ion-particle beam ranging from 1 to 8 giga-hertz and, based on the resulting vibrations of the laser's reflection, determined the resonate frequency of any cavity behind the surface of the target.  In less than 5 microseconds from the pull of the trigger, a heavy ion stream is cycled precisely to cause violent vibrations in the target cavity.  It takes under a millisecond for most targets to be immobilized by pain if they are hit in the skull or chest.  All soft tissue in the target cavity is literally scrambled within three-quarters of a second, thus the nickname: 'brain melter'.  This is not a nice weapon, boys.  Be sure that in a situation of its use, the alternative to firing is equally unpleasant."
	Visions of a keen triangle of metal twisting through a helpless girl's chest convinced Griffin that the intense burst of pain that this man had undergone, was entirely too good for him.  It was obvious that this second person was part of the same group, or tribe, or family, or whatever they had on this planet.  He wore the same black robe, and his beard was almost identical to the first man's.  The only difference in apparel was the color of the sashes tied around the men's waists.  The first man wore pink, the second's was orange.
	"Aren't much for looks are they?"  Orion's voice said behind him.
	Griffin didn't turn around.  "I thought you were supposed to stay back there."
	"Ennhh, there were already enough hands.  I guess she isn't quite dead yet.  Though, you'd have a hard time proving it by me.  Antwer thinks maybe the tip missed her heart by a hair and just punched through a lung.  He doubts she'll survive, but he's in the process of cutting the shaft off to pull it through, just the same."
	Griffin finally turned around and ran his fingers through his hair, "If I had just watched more carefully, Ri, maybe I would have seen…" He shoved the body with his foot.  "Maybe-"
Orion cut off his brother with an upheld hand, "Ah, ah, remember what dad used to say: ‘Maybes’ are a lazy man's way to avoid dealing with the present.'  Besides, I'd say that you took care of that guy pretty slick.  I was impressed.  I don't see how you could have done better."
	Griffin shook his head and looked up to the red tinted ceiling high above.  He had grown used to the birdcalls, but they were still deafening.  Flashes of color still flitted from tree to tree.  As he brought his head down and scanned the lower branches of the mega trees, he saw another community of those hanging balls of fur.  It was truly lovely, but the image of a beautiful stranger looking down in a moment of wonder as that wicked tip pierced her body seemed to superimpose itself over everything in his vision.  Even though he was now part of the awe-inspiring scene he had so admired last night, he just couldn't bring himself to think of it as paradise any longer.  He doubted he ever could again.
	Slowly, Griffin broke out of his reverie.  His brother was watching him silently.  Griffin gave Orion a quick smile that didn't make it to his eyes, and proceeded to assign a group of five to hold the path while the rest of crew withdrew and discussed their next move.  Griffin looked at the young woman as he walked up to the two men working on her.  The life retainment officer had finished removing the shaft and was tucking a thermal blanket around the girl's chin.  Griffin could barely see her chest rise and fall.  Her face was pale, her lips and eyelids blue from lack of oxygen.  They made her look a little like an old woman asleep, but Griffin guessed her age to be about 18 or 19 standard years.  Legal ISC marriageable age, was the first thing that popped into his head.
Where did THAT come from?!  He didn't have long to ponder his thought patterns.  Soon all the men who weren't guarding the path were gathered in a loose circle around the wounded woman.  Griffin led them a little ways back down the path before he began.
	"We must assume that the doctor and the rest of beta group were taken by hostile entities.  They have to be colonists, but I don't know what would make them so aggressive toward ISC, or why they are using relics from the history books as weapons.  Orion, in talking to Dr. Egwet I understood that this was a fully technological colony.  He didn't say anything to you about Anti-tech men or Dissatisfieds as the financiers of the enterprise, did he?"
	"Not that I remember, Griff.  I think he told me a couple of times that it was ISC funded actually.  They had the full benefit the latest technology three centuries ago had to offer." Orion replied.
	"That's what I thought.  So-" Griffin was cut off by his brother.
	"Wait, I remember Egwet saying something about the Commodore of the ship, and consequent leader of the original colony, Christopher William, I believe his name was.  He was a fairly well known Commodore, but also some sort of religious man.  Got on the bad side of the ‘powers that be’ and I guess this colony ship was his only way out of a bad situation, maybe a court martial on earth.  He was still a leader when ISC lost contact with the colony, a very influential man I gathered.”
	Griffin stroked his chin, "So could he have gone anti-tech after contact with ISC was lost?"  He began to rack his brain for the religious factions of three hundred years ago.  "Do you remember what religion it was?"
	"Uhhh…. I think he was Christian.  The conversation with the doctor about him is hazy at best, but I got the impression that the whole sticky situation culminating in being stuck on a colony ship had to do with a conflict of orders and beliefs."
	Christianity still held sway in some parts of the 10 inhabited planets of the galaxy.  (Actually, Griffin mused, this encounter proves 11 inhabited planets.)  Those who followed its teachings strictly, however, were considered backward, and slightly crazy by the majority of the galaxy's populous.  Still, as long as they left the galaxy alone, the galaxy let them be.  Griffin knew that hadn't always been the case, though.
The great exterminations brought on by the Religious Liberation almost half a millennium ago were still remembered as the ugliest side of human nature that had ever been exposed.  It began in the nation known then as the United States of America.  A large gathering of people in the American States had demanded that their government do something about the decreasing moral standards, until a domestic terrorist’s bomb killed the vast majority of those gathered.
The recent information revolution of the late 20th and early 21st centuries allowed instant communication between 78 percent of the world population.  It also created a hitherto unheard of menace: planet wide riots. With this communication link, the bombing somehow sparked a totally unexpected world wide killing spree.  250 million people had been slaughtered in six months as uncontrollable mobs with dark consciences tried to alleviate any guilt they might have acquired by ridding themselves of any who condemned their actions.  That was how it had started anyway.  In the end it was just "Kill anyone considered remotely religious."  The America states took the brunt of the brutal killings.  Over half of its population had been wiped out for ties, real or imaginary, to a religious organization.  This resulted in a bankruptcy of order as well as economics. Eventually, the nation ceased to exist. It fractured into a hundred small, independent countries.  In fact the Oregon IV was named after one of the more prosperous federations.
It was a group of extremely well-to-do Christians who, fearing for the future of their beliefs, secretly launched the first colony ship to a recently discovered earth-like planet orbiting the star Andréa Aries.  That ship had failed, but an actual attempt at space colonization had shifted the world’s focus from death and destruction to new life in the stars.
	Griffin returned from his brief reflection on galactic history to find that the conversation had continued without him.
	"…don't understand," an ensign named Tobet was saying, "is why they are using buckytube tite for arrows.  If they've got the means to create the nano-carbon tubing in buckytube titanium, then surely they have resources for more advanced weaponry."
	"Maybe, maybe not," Orion broken in.  "The doctor told me once that early earth-launched colony ships were made of buckytube titanium because of its high structural integrity and low weight factor."
	"How'd they take care of its low melting point?" asked a burly, scar faced lieutenant known to most the crew as Barrel.  "They didn't have heat dampers back then."
	"They coated the outside with some highly heat resistant polymer, and then stuck ceramic tiles all over it, like bio-raisins on a sugar bun."
	"WooHoo!  I bet that was a sight."
	"How odd."
	"And that worked?!"
	Griffin spoke above the exclamations of wonder, "Yes that's the way they did things back then.  Didn't you boys have to take Space History 1105 at the University."
	Barrel looked sheepish.  "It was the only class I got a 1 point in.  I didn't see how it was going to help me in the Coalition."
	Griffin shook his head then turned to Orion.  "Were you going somewhere with this, Ri?"
	"Going somewhere with… Oh, right!  I was just going to point out that their ship had an amazing amount of buckytube tite in it, and with a melting point of near 1000 degrees Kelvin, it's not that difficult to craft objects with it."
	"You think they melted their star ship down to make arrows?"  Tobet sounded a little incredulous.
	Orion defended, "Hey, it's just a theory.  No one else has a better one do they?"
	Communal mumbling gave the answer.
	Griffin concluded "So how far has this society fallen and how recently?  If they have resorted to using their ship to make arrows, what have they turned into?  The way the girl talked wasn't normal.  It's standard, but it's tweaked somehow.  This colony has been a long time without ISC influence and there's no telling what it has evolved into or why.  I'm starting to have new respect for Dr. Egwet’s line of work."  Griffin took a deep breath.  "Let's go a little further on this path and find out, if we can, where the girl came running from."
	"But Commodore, it may be hostile held," the woman, Lt. Treer called out.
	"It may be," Griffin conceded.  "But even so if we can find it before we are detected by hostiles, we will at least know their position and know better how to avoid these,” he paused, “these encounters in the future.  If it is friendly, then we need to get this woman back home where they may be able to help her."  He looked at the red fire ball of a sun through the leaves of the mega-trees.  It was well past its zenith.  "We're not going to make it back to the ship tonight."
	There were nods and general concurrence among the more experienced crewmembers, and conceding sighs from the more green.
	"Let's get those two bodies into stasis bags and off the path.  Remove the Doctor's equipment from the Anti-grav dolly and put the girl on it.  Then we move out. I want every one in radio contact at all times and," Griffin made eye contact with at least half the group, "Keep your guard."

CH3
	Doctor Albert Egwet was still trying to figure out what had happened when he entered what appeared to be a rather large metropolis; one with houses made from hollowed out sections of those giant tree trunks.  It was also a city that appeared to have roads made solely of dirt.  Hardly what he expected of a society that at its birth had all the advantages of the technology of its day.  I dare say it will be a joy to study though, at that, thought the doctor, if I can ever convince these chaps to take these bloody ropes off of my arms.
	As he walked down the street, he contemplated the houses and people he was passing.  All the men that he could see wore black bathrobes, while the majority of the females wore white counterparts.  Each person had a colored bit of cloth around their middle.  There seemed to be nearly 15 colors of choice from blue to green to pink.  Blue seemed the rarest of the colors and only muscular young men and shapely young women wore those.  The most common color of belt was pink.  People were everywhere, walking down the dirt road, talking in front of the houses.   Now and then, coarse, uproarious laughter was heard from a pair or more of people.  Yelling and angry gestures seemed more frequent.  The whole scene could have passed for one of those historic societies that tourists were so fond of visiting back on earth, except for the foul mood the majority of the population seemed to be in.  And the houses-- he had never seen anything like the houses.
	The dwellings on this street were hued out sections of gigantic trunks as well.  Egwet was willing to wager a medium sum that all of the city's buildings were of the same architecture.  This made for interesting arrays of cylinders, as the trunk sections were arranged in square blocks.  As far as he could tell, each block had a single row of trunk houses around its perimeter and a sort of courtyard in the middle.  Some houses seemed to consist of multiple trunk sections connected by a closed passage, but every house, big or small, had an oval shaped doorway and at least three windows.  The doorways and windows were covered with a translucent reddish material that he deduced was from the broad red appendages that the giant trees fostered.
	The doctor turned to study his captors and fellow captives.  Three of Conrad's men and one woman walked behind him with their upper bodies wrapped in hemp ropes as his was.  Behind them swaggered seven black clad soldiers.  Each carried a genuine bow and a bundle of arrows.  Egwet knew them to be crude, but effective.  He believed that the fifth man Conrad had sent with him, the young man with the awful resi-weapon, was dead by one of those meter long shafts.  A jolly lot of good that gun had ended up doing them.  Of course he couldn't place all the blame on the young man.  Everything had happened so quickly.  They had run into that old trail and the men were just finishing with the thermal cutters when the sniper had communicated some misgivings about feeling watched.  Egwet had bent to examine a particularly curious looking beetle and almost immediately, Darls cut off in mid-sentence.  He had straightened to see why, only to find the man slumped on the ground clutching that spike in his throat.  Dr. Egwet had just enough time to be astonished, before someone tackled him from behind.  After a rather lengthy trek west along the old trail, here he was, walking through a city of barbarians by the look of things, and being stared at by half the people besides, as though he were some queer animal.
	The procession of captives and captors continued down the street then turned on to another that was slightly broader.  They proceeded to a particularly tall and closely grouped cluster of trunk sections.  Dr. Egwet supposed that there were at least three house levels to each section, and eight sections were connected by short passages.  It was in front of this compound that the party halted.  One of the men wearing a blue sash seemed to be the leader of the captors.  He walked to within ten paces of the large oval door and there spread his feet apart, planted his fists on his hips, and began to sing of all things.  This was actually the first sound the doctor had heard from these men dressed in black.  His trained ears quickly picked up that the words were standard, but that the majority of the time, the singer placed the subject of a phrase at the end in some sort of sub-language.

Have sent on a quest me, you.
Set out to obey I.
Now have returned I.
See if is earned, your
Pleasure.
	
	Fascinating, thought Doctor Egwet. Once this truly unfortunate misunderstanding is solved, I surely look forward to a study of the poor fools.
	The door opened and the oldest man Egwet had yet seen on the planet stepped out a little unsteadily.  The sight of him made Egwet realize that he had not seen anyone in the city that appeared over 50.  This man had to be at least 70 years old.  He was dressed all in gray with no belt.
	"Have brought a bountiful harvest, you child?"  The old man asked of the leader.
	"Yes, father."  The leader of Egwet’s group held high a box that he had been carrying on his back.  It was roughly the size of a field pack.  “And lost only two men, we.”
	By this time a small crowd had circled the seven black clad men and their five captives.  By the way their eyes pop out of their head, one would think that box is solid gold.  Egwet noted the reaction to the lifted box.  A collective sigh went up from the crowd in accompaniment with their wide eyes.
	The man in gray was standing on a little platform in front of the building, which put his chest on the level of the raised box.  He reached out a shaky hand and flipped a latch.  Then he slid back a small circular door and quickly popped his hand in.  When he with drew it, a sort of bug was clutched between his bony thumb and forefinger.  A beetle, actually, it looks like, Egwet said to himself, very like the intriguing specimen I observed before that poor sniper was killed.  It was almost perfectly round in shape and slightly larger than a man's thumb in diameter.  The light of the sun glinted metallically off its green back.  Dr. Egwet could see the creatures legs walking, trying to move itself elsewhere with no success.  The old man held the bug above his head and looked at it almost as if he was admiring the color.  Then he brought it down to his mouth in a smooth practiced motion and bit it straight in half with an audible crunch.  A look of euphoria crossed his wrinkled features as he slowly began to chew.  It seemed that the whole crowd was holding its breath until he swallowed.  Then everyone took a deep breath and held it again.  The old man's eyes were closed as he dropped the other half of the beetle onto the platform supporting him.  It was quickly picked up by somebody and tucked back into the box it came from.
	Suddenly the gray clad man opened his eyes and, with amazement, Egwet saw that they were glowing red.  The doctor blinked to make sure that it wasn't some trick of reflection, and found that indeed it was not.  The eyes were giving off their own soft glow of light.  The old man spoke, except he wasn't using his voice.  It wasn't the same voice that had asked Egwet’s blue belted captor if he had achieved good harvest, at least.
	In a deep, impossibly loud voice that seemed to echo unnaturally, he said, "You have done well, my child.  Pay the tenth tribute and sell what is left for yourself and your band."  With that the old man leaped off the platform and ran, he ran, down the street at a speed faster than anyone Egwet had ever heard of, laughing like a mad man and yelling garbled words as he went.
	Doctor Egwet and the crowd watched him without wavering until he disappeared around a corner.  Egwet’s mouth hung open, but he didn't care.  He was so astonished that he didn't even bother to make note of the fact that the man's speech had lost its dialectal properties.  The now somewhat larger mob, on the other hand, seemed to have lost its awe of the situation.  They had let out their breaths in sighs of delight at the old man's disappearance and were now crowding around the blue belted man.  The people proceeded to clamor loudly about what Egwet gathered to be monetary units, situations of dire need, demands to have what was in the box, and other things that he was sure he couldn't understand despite training in sub-Standard languages.
	The man with the box held up his hand and everyone fell silent.  He seemed particularly pleased with himself.  "Stop, my friends.  Will go on sale tomorrow morning, these."  He shook the box and the sound of many little hard things could be heard hitting the sides.
	The crowd absorbed this new turn of events for a moment, then roared in what seemed rage at the postponement of their obtaining whatever was in that box.  More of those miserable little bugs I suppose, thought Egwet.  I wonder what happens to us now.
	As if in response to his thoughts, the blue belt, holding tightly to his box, pushed his way past grasping hands toward his captives.  He stopped in front of Egwet and the doctor could see that the man was indeed pleased with the situation.
"Will come now, you.  Are my guests tonight, you."  He chuckled and led the way down the street in the direction they had just come.
	Egwet didn't move right away and a poke from the bow of another captor was a better conveyer than words as to the actual conditions of hospitality that he and the rest of the small group from the Oregon would be enjoying.  The mood of the crowd seemed to change from anger to excitement as soon as the blue belted leader left.  Egwet could hear speculations, boasts, and laughter about the upcoming sale of the beetles fade behind him as the little party of prisoners and captors made their way toward wherever this man called home.

CH 4
	They almost turned back.  The sun appeared three fourths of the way through its daily cycle when the path widened and bent and changed abruptly into more of a road.  Griffin's chrono-center affirmed that 8 of the projected 11 hours of sunlight had passed since they had left the Oregon.  Griffin sent two pairs of his people ahead to scout what he assumed would be growing signs of civilization.  Twenty more minutes of walking on the road saw the scouts back with reports of a strange village constructed of what looked to be pieces of the mega-tree trunks.  Griffin ordered a halt to discus the best course of action with his officers and Orion.
	Treer pointed out that the girl in their care had been running from wherever this was, and that it wasn't a particular dream of hers to dodge arrows, despite how primitive they may be.
	Orion mentioned an e-book he once read where the same assumption had been made in a situation similar to theirs.  "By a particularly impulsive woman," he added with a glance in Treer's direction. However, when the blood and dust of a hostile encounter had cleared, both parties had found that they were on the same side.
	Barrel said that he was all for diplomacy, but in his words, "I'll have a hard time being diplomatic if I've got one of those blasted shafts sticking out of my stomach."  Barrel seemed to value his stomach more highly than the rest of his anatomy.
	In the end, their discussion was rendered moot by the 50 or so men that quietly stepped out of the jungle on the edges of the roads and surrounded them.  Each newcomer had the bow and bundle of arrows that seemed so prevalent on this world.  Griffin wasn't an expert on ancient weaponry, but it was easy to see that someone would send an arrow his way before he could raise his weapon.
	"Will come with us, you," said a middle aged man wearing loose fitting pants gathered at the ankles and nothing else.
	Fortunately all of Griffin's soldiers, even the ensigns, had enough sense to forgo anything heroic, anything stupid.
	Griffin and his group of officers stepped back from where they were circled around the woman's weak, slightly alive body.  He opened his mouth to speak to the man who had addressed them, and was surprised to hear a heart-wrenching wail emerge, seemingly from his open mouth.  The timing was so impeccable that it took Griffin a moment to realize the howl of pain hadn't come from him, it had emerged from the man he was about to speak to.  It took another moment to realize that the man was rushing straight at him with a look of such anguish on his face that it hurt to look at him.  Before Griffin could do anything, the man was at him and then past him, throwing himself toward the anti-grav unit.  There he began to kiss the young woman’s forehead and mumble pitifully to himself and the unconscious girl.
	"Have killed you, they, my Kella?  No.  Not yet, thank the Christopher.  Have done to you, what, they?  Is wrong, what?"
	Another man, apparently the second in command, stepped up to Griffin, "Came by how, the First's daughter, you?"
	Griffin regarded the 'First' as he continued to cry and mutter to his comatose daughter.  He decided that if he was ever going to make friends on this planet, the present was looking more and more like a good time.  None of the men appeared to be of the same tribe as the two he and his soldiers had killed.  They wore completely different clothes, at least.  Apparel was brown or red (or some combination thereof) and limited to trousers.  They all appeared to be between the ages of 20 and 50, and all fine specimens of what a man should be, judging from the way the muscles on the upper half of their bodies were defined.  Griffin decided that he had no reason to tell anything but the truth.  He didn't feel like trying to mimic the man's dialect though.  Let him spend a little effort puzzling out what I say.
	"Two men dressed all in black shot her with one of those, " he pointed to the bundle of arrows at the man's hip.  "We killed her attackers and removed the arrow."
	There were murmurs from the surrounding party.
	"Speak well, the ancient tongue, you.  Are priest, you?"
	"Priest?  My name is Griffin Conrad.  I'm Commodore of the Independent Stellar Coalition SS ship: Oregon IV.  And you are...."
	The man didn't give his name.  Instead he said with something akin to incredulity, "You are from ISC?  The Christopher sender?"
	Things were running around in Griffin's head, ancient tongue?  Priest? The Christopher?  What has this society become?  To the man he was talking to, he said, "You know of ISC?"
	The guy actually seemed insulted, "Do not forget the Christopher Sender, The Remnant, as does The Beast.  Is powerful god, ISC, but not as powerful as The Christopher's God, think I ."  The man changed the subject, “Is Twilgal, my name.  Am Second of this defense band, I.”
	By then the First seemed to have gathered himself.  He walked slowly over to Griffin and Twilgal.  “Have done to her, what, you?”  He demanded, throwing an arm in his daughter’s direction.
	“Have saved First, her, they. Have saved from The Beast, her.” Twilgal answered quickly, “Are friends, they, think I.” 
	Griffin saw Twilgal glance at him from the corner of his eye, and took it as a cue to confirm or deny his friendship.  “Yes, we are… friends.  We were coming this way to see if we could find help for your daughter.”
	The First seemed to make a decision.  His speech still seemed a bit muffled from concern or grief, but his voice was that of one used to being in command.  “Then friends will be, you.  Come.  Let be your trees, our trees.  Is open to you, my house.”
	It took the crowd of 70 people twenty minutes to reach the village that Griffin’s scouts had seen.  Griffin and Orion didn’t waste a microsecond.  They conversed the entire time with the First, whose name turned out to be Farini, and with Twilgal.  Griffin and his brother answered some of their questions, but asked far more than they answered.  By the time they had come within view of the gathering of strange trunk houses, a sketchy history of the colony was beginning to fall into place.
	From what the brothers could gather, an event Farini and Twilgal called ‘The Bursting’ was what had cut communications with ISC three centuries ago.  It also destroyed everything that contained microelectronics, and people had died.  The actual occurrence that The Bursting referred to appeared lost among the 300 hundred years that had past.
	In whispered comment, Griffin remarked to Orion that it all sounded much like a anti-tech revolution.  Orion nodded in agreement.
	One hundred years after the death of Christopher William, whom Farini and Twilgal revered almost as a god, the colony had divided into two cities.  Incredibly, the split had been over some kind of insect.  A small group, who called themselves the Remnant, wanted to protect the bug almost religiously.  The rest of the population, who Farini referred to as the Beast, found that consuming the bug produced the effects of a powerful hallucinogen and wanted to partake freely thereof.  It was the Remnant’s belief that these insects, which they called Savior Beetles, were somehow going to spare them from another Bursting.  The Beast scoffed at such unfounded and unproven beliefs.
The men that Griffin and his soldiers had killed were part of a raiding party from the Beast.  The Beast had consumed almost all of the naturally occurring beetles.  They had always known that the village of the Remnant contained a secret supply of the insect, but only recently had they discovered where: a small building in the center of the town.  That building had been broken open in the last raid and all the Savior Beetles had escaped.  Kella had somehow been caught outside the village during the confusion and was forced to run for her life as the raiders returned to their city.
A war over small green bugs seemed so ridiculous.  Griffin would have laughed at the situation if someone had told him about it second hand, but these people seemed so serious.  Then there was the beautiful Kella on the A-grav unit behind him.  Her condition proved that people were willing to kill over the creatures.
Griffin gazed around as Farini and Twilgal took him and his men to the broken building that, until now, had housed the Savior Beetles.  They left the anti-grav dolly at a house that was taller than the rest.  There a group of women clad in colorful clothing had gathered around the almost perfectly still Kella and begun to form what could only be called a prayer meeting, calling on the God of Christopher William in fevered voices.  He regretted that he had not headed back to the ship after all.  He had hoped that this village had retained something of ISC medicine.
The Savior Beetle building had a gaping hole in one side.  Farini explained that the one weak spot of the mega tree trunk was a small hole where the people inserted food and Savior Beetles they found in the wild.  The Beast raiding party had stormed the village and used a large limb as a battering ram to break into the building at this point.  Now, people ran around the village in a fruitless effort to recover the escaped bugs.  It was chaos.
Griffin was just about to ask where his troops could make camp in relative peace, when a commotion down the street drew his attention.  Some of the Remnant warriors had one of his men.  He was struggling to free himself from five of the Remnant and almost succeeding.
“I must speak to Commodore Conrad.”  He was yelling.  Suddenly, he saw Griffin and made a tremendous effort that broke him away from the men holding him.  The man sprinted down the street toward Griffin.  Some of the Remnant band with Farini raised their bows, arrows notched.  Griffin waved them down.
“Commodore!  You must return to the ship immediately!”
Griffin recognized one of the men he had left on the Oregon, Ensign Verer.
“I’ve been running since midday, sir.  This planet’s sun is highly unstable, sir.  We think an incredibly massive solar flare could errupt at any moment.”

CH 5
	Dr. Albert Egwet was a god.  He was sure of it as he stared at the standard ISC smart gun still smoking slightly in his hands.  Egwet released an insane laugh and sped out of the stunned silence that filled the trunk house.  He felt the wind on his face as never before.  He could feel each granule of soil shift beneath his flashing feet.
	A god.  He, Albert Egwet, wielded great power in his hands.  The power to take life from another.  Just to prove it he shot a white clad figure as he passed the outskirts of town.  The body rose into the air up and back.  The power of a god!
	It all started at the feast.  Their host threw a great party far into the night at his rather magnificent apartments.  Egwet and the four officers with him were guarded closely, but told to join in the festivities as guests.  The officers still had their sidearms.  Apparently, the people of this colony had no idea what a gun was.  At the time, Egwet noted it as strange that such forgetfulness could occur in a mere three hundred years.
The small group of prisoners discussed plans of escape in hushed tones and came up with nothing acceptable.  Then, with out warning, their host decided that it would be amusing if one of his captives ate the other half of the beetle that the gray man had left behind.  Egwet of course, being an expert on cultures and societies, had experience participating in foreign customs.  This included consumption of strange foods as well as the occasional narcotic.  The small green beetle seemed both somehow. He volunteered.
The other four did not argued with his choice of who would eat the bug.  They did, however, strongly object at the prospect that the effect the beetle had had on the old man earlier would be mirrored in Egwet.  In the end Egwet pointed out that they didn’t have much choice.  “Besides,” he said as they all exchanged doubtful stares, “every one in that crowd today seemed to think it safe, even desirable.  It must be innocent enough.  It can’t possibly hurt anyone but myself and I am willing to take that risk for the unique experience, such a splendid account to include in my paper on these simple people.”
So the leader ordered ten men to surround Egwet and then watched keenly from an overlarge chair as the doctor closed his eyes and crunched the unfortunate creature.  That was when the transformation took place.
	When he opened his eyes, Egwet could feel every beat of his heart, knew every pump brought him closer and closer to being invincible.  He could see with clarity as never before.  Around him, people seemed to move more and more slowly.  A fact which allowed him to easily draw the gun from Capt. Karns’ holster and pin their host against the back of his huge chair before anyone could blink.  The guards around him looked confusedly at each other in slow motion.  Egwet mocked their stupidity in high pitched, garbled speech as he shot each one through the heart.  He enjoyed so much the way that their bodies were thrown back at his command that he raised his head to the ceiling and laughed.
	Originally his plan was for the four ISC people to escape with him. However, when he turned and screamed utter nonsense that was a command for them to follow, they shied away from him in gradual increments of horror.  It displeased him.  So he killed them, as well.
	Now he sped at an incredible pace past giant trees toward the SS ship with one thought in his head.  How high and mighty will that young whelp of a commodore be now that I, Albert Egwet, am divine?

	Griffin made his decisions quickly.  There were no more than two thousand people in the Remnant’s village.  They would all fit, albeit cramped, aboard the Oregon IV.  At his inquiry, he found that there were at least 15,000 in the village of the Beast, which was well over ten kilometers to the west.  There was no time, and there was no room.  It couldn’t be helped.  He explained the situation as best he could to Farini.  The man grabbed Griffin’s head in both his hands and looked hard into the young commodore’s eyes.  Then he made his decision.
	“Is the Bursting, it.”  He stated calmly and then proceeded to shout orders in such a frenzy that in a matter of 30 minutes, the entire village was mobilized for travel.
	Griffin didn’t care what Farini thought as long as his people were quick.  He was striding toward the entrance of the village in the midst of hurried disorder when he felt something brush his arm.  He stopped short and looked down.  It was Kella still on the anti-grav dolly, but her green eyes were opened and there was color in her face.  She was absolutely lovely.
	“Call Conrad you, they.”  She said quietly.
	“Make that Griffin.”  He couldn’t look away from her eyes.  “Make it Griff.”
	“No matter happens, what.  Wish to thank you, I.  Brave man are you.”  She grabbed his hand and held it.  “Thank you, Griff.”
	Then someone was pushing the dolly down the street.  Griffin just stood and stared after her like an idiot until Barrel grabbed his arm on his way out of town and drug him along behind.
	It took the immense caravan of confused men, worried women, and excited children 14 hours to reach the base of the cliff he and his men had started out from.  His nav crew had already flown the ship down into the ravine so they didn’t have to worry about getting two thousand people up the sheer face.  Griffin made a mental note to promote whoever had made that decision.
	When everyone was on board, Griffin made them all lay down in the corridors, equipment rooms, wherever they happened to be, for take off, which was just in time.

	Albert Egwet had just come out of the forest and was laughing in a high pitched tone at what he would do to the Conrad brat when his enhanced vision allowed him to see every detail of the shining white, egg-shaped vessel that flashed over his head.  The ship would not, he knew, be taking off without the Commodore on board.  He screamed in rage and sent the remaining smart bullets in his gun after the retreating shell of flying metal.  Then he watched it disappear over the giant trees he had just run through.
Suddenly, his refined eyesight picked out a small cloud of sparkling green.  It appeared to be hovering over a very small area of forest, perhaps ten kilometers to the southeast.  The sun had not yet shone itself at Egwet’s altitude, but it was reflecting like mad off of that green tinged cloud.  At that moment, the sun burst up over the eastern horizon, shining more brightly than Egwet had ever seen.  In fact it was the last thing the newborn god ever saw.  For in a matter of seconds, the pain of skin simply melting coursed through his drug-muddled brain and he lost consciousness permanently.

	Griffin intended to stay in orbit until the actual time of the solar flare could be determined.  Perhaps he would have a little more time to search for the missing Doctor Egwet and the four soldiers with him.  As soon as they exited the planet’s Ion sphere, however, his crew went wild over the largest solar burst they had ever witnessed.  They were mere minutes ahead of it. Since the expanding sphere of radiation was traveling at the speed of light and the Oregon IV was slightly slower, it only a mater of time until it caught up with them.  Griffin was never so glad for super spatial technology. Griffin caught a last glimpse of the cloudy marble of a planet he had thought might be paradise before the observation screen he was looking at went dark and the Oregon IV punched into super space.

	They sped through the nether dimension known as super space protected by a tight fitting web of regular three-and-a-half dimensional space created by the SS drive. A man-made carton created to haul humans across the void between the stars, thought Griffin as he lay on his narrow bed one off-shift.  A tone sounded that indicated someone wished to enter.  It was an ensign, Ensign Verer, in fact, with a stack of what appeared to be old-fashioned paper books in his arms.  They nearly hid his face.
	“Ahhh, Ensign, I never got a chance to thank you.  I saw a computer model of the flare’s affect on the planet surface.  We owe to your speed the fact a lot of us aren’t human steaks right now.”  Griffin sat up on the edge of his bed, “Well-done human steaks.”
	Verer shrugged, but Griffin could see that the young man was pleased.  “They were just my orders, Sir.”
	“Yes, they were and you followed them in the face of extreme danger and discomfort.  I plan to promote you to Lieutenant when we get back to earth.  Congratulations, Ensign.”
	“Thank you, sir.”  Verer beamed for a moment over the pile of books, then remembered why he had come.  “Oh yes, sir, the life retainment officer reports that the young woman you inquired about should be out of the infirmary in a day.  She is healing rapidly without any medicinal attention, and he is at a loss to explain why.”
	“That is good to hear.”  Griffin said sincerely.
	“Also sir, the uhhh… Commodore of the refugee group asked me to take these to you.  He said something about ‘saving the sacred writings’.  I didn’t understand it all.”
	“Thank you, Ensign.  Put them on the chair over there.” Griffin pointed to the only other piece of furniture in his quarters.
	Verer did so and left, striding just a little taller than when he had come in.
	Griffin picked up the top most book and lay back down.  It seemed very fragile so he opened it carefully:

CH 6
Jan. 21, 2689
	We’re here!  Finally.  After 10 years of travel at near light speed, we have arrived at our new home.  I’ve only been outside the ship once since touching down yesterday, but my initial observations tell me that we made the right choice in coming.  The flat plane of white sand we landed on appears to be sterile of life, but I can see lush forest just two and a half kilometers north.  I think that the leaves are red.  I’m not sure if this is their permanent color or just an annual phase like autumn back home.  It is so exhilarating to notice something as simple as the color of the leaves and know that it is a subject that will provide perhaps years of discovery as this world’s wonders unfold.
	The children are very excited.  Little Geoffrey was so overwhelmed by being outside ship for the first time in his life that he fell over backward trying to find the ceiling.  My dear Darla is depressed.  Experiencing a planet underfoot again has resurfaced some of the homelonging that so filled her with gloom after we set out.
Well I must get back to work.  We are already discussing ground expeditions to find the best site for our founding city.
	Blessed be the God who brought us here.
PS This will be the last entry in my journal with the standard date.  After today I will begin to measure time based on this planet’s cycles, another item with cause for excitement.

	Griffin put down the ancient book of paper as gently as he could and picked up the second in the pile.  This one started in November of year five.  He turned to the last entry.

July 29, 0011
	Two strange things have happened the last few weeks.  Most importantly, we are having trouble communicating with the satellites that we placed in orbit upon arrival.  Increasing the strength of our command signals and the sensitivity of our receiving dishes seems to be doing the trick for now.
Also, small green beetles that, up to now, have only been observed to locomote by crawling are suddenly flying up to ten foot distances at a time.  I had the bio-lab on the ship analyze one, and they came up with some interesting results.  First, the beetles’ bodily fluids are of an unknown biological structure.  Second, their DNA indicates that this flying ability has been locked up inside them all along.  This generation is the first to have it partially unlocked in over 300 hundred standard years!  Our biologists predict that next year the bug will be able to fly at will.
Bless God for even the smallest creatures He has made.
PS My computer died yesterday.  It makes me glad that I keep this journal on paper despite the teasing I receive from friends.

Griffin knew that year 0012, the next book, would tell him what had happened to the colony to cut it off from the ISC, what ‘The Bursting’ referred to.  He almost didn’t want to look.  It was like a good novel that he read every now and again.  When the book was completed, he missed the story and the characters so much that sometimes he wished he hadn’t ever finished reading it.  Griffin took a deep breath and opened to the page that he guessed would depict a year after the end of the last volume.

Aug. 14, 0012
	The most amazing thing I’ve seen in my life happened today.  The green beetles that have been three times as numerous this year as previous years flew en-mass at about 6:00 this morning.  It was amazing.  They simply lifted from the ground in a lovely green shimmer as if by one mind and flew to an altitude of over 800 meters, well above the top of the Ultra-Trees.  There they formed a ceiling that blocked out the sun for 12 hours.  It was an errie day of twilight to say the least.
	Geoffrey did not return to town today as expected from his study term at the ship labs.  Of course we can’t radio the ship since the atmospheric interference that started last month.  (Our scientist are still working on it.)  We aren’t too worried.  The young people often stay a few days past their study term to finish up a project.
	Bless the Lord for the beauty He creates.

Aug. 23, 0012
	Tragedy.  Everything has been chaos since the flight of the beetles.  None of the young people on study term came home last week.  Finally, a few with late projects arrived three days ago, accompanied by all 57 of the scientists on duty.  They told a wretched tale of electrical equipment that simply quit working, and of twenty-one dead and charred bodies they found in the desert just on the edge of the forest, twenty-one young students who will never make it home from study term.  We have had meetings and discussions round the clock since then.  We are all tired and grieved.  Our best guess as to what happened is that the sun is much further along in its life span than we first thought.  We now believe that it is in the last million years of its useful life.  What we experienced last week, indeed what appears this planet has been experiencing for millennia, is a massive, massive solar flare that occurs every three hundred years.  It is not determined what triggers it so periodically.  Some have suggested that a comet of extreme size that passed the planet a month ago may be the cause.
	Evidently this is why the desert is so sterile.  The forests appear to be protected by the 300 year beetle.  The consensus is that the unusual biological make up of the fluids in the Beetle somehow reflect the harmful radiation from the solar flare.  This is amazing since not even the titanium of our ship’s hull could stop all radiation.
Every single micro-electronic device on the ship has failed.  This failure also embraces our communications satellites.  Our link with the outside universe has been absolutely severed.  We are truly on our own.  Everyone is still in shock.
	I must get some sleep.  I have been in conference almost continuously for three days.  Now that we have deduced the cause of our dire situation, we must decide how to deal with it.  The meetings for this purpose start in six hours and I have a feeling that they will continue for months, maybe years.  Our entire colonial social structure must change from fully technological to beginning from scratch.  The feelings of hopelessness in town are thick enough to breathe.  At least Geoffrey was not among those killed in the solar burst.
	Bless the Lord for small miracles.

	Farini had been right.  The solar flare they had barely escaped was indeed another bursting.  The Remnant was correct, the Beast wrong.  Chalk one up for blind faith, thought Griffin.  He put down the third book and picked up the first again.  This time he read everything in order until the wee hours of the morning when he finally fell asleep from exhaustion.  When he awoke, he read for the entire day until he had finished the account of the first 62 years of the colony’s existence.  Griffin seemed to experience each of the new events with Christopher William as he devoured the man’s journals one by one.  He read of the despair, the hope, the terribly costly mistakes, the wonderful achievements.  He endured the death of William’s son, and the scientist that had been on the ship during the solar burst-- horrible deaths from some form of brain cancer.  He sensed the overwhelming joy at the birth of a new daughter relatively late in Christopher and Darla’s life.  He felt Christopher’s frustration as the man tried to teach Christianity with out a Bible to those who wanted to learn.  (All electronic books that had been in the town were depleted of battery power about 7 years after the Flare.)  He experienced the discovery that oral consumption of the Savior Beetles,  (which the colony aptly dubbed the green bugs) brought about a temporary and unheard of change in the human body, a change that was in effect a cross of mega doses of adrenaline, hallucinogens, and PCP.   He felt the anger of Christopher at the growing use of the beetles among the colony’s populous and the satisfaction at the strict laws that were enforced in an effort to encourage the people to quit using them.  An entry near the end of the last book was longer than the rest.  It caught Griffin’s attention more than anything else had.

Sept 12, 0061
	The council was not willing to increase the punishment of consuming a Savior Beetle to the death penalty.  I alone remain of the adults that survived the Solar Burst.  The council members are men who were just children when it happened.  They do not remember the first few years of despair that followed, the years before we discovered that we could exist without our electronics.  They never had a chance to study the history of Earth before the Burst took away our history books.  I admit that to them, death must seem a harsh penalty for eating a bug, but they do not know as I do that a society will always consider the act punished the greatest as the act that is most sinful.
	In a strange, twisted way we are the United States of America all over again.  I wrote my thesis for history at the University on the events preceding the Religious Liberation.  They punished murder with death, yet allowed women to kill their babies up to three months after birth and the babies that grew up were allowed to kill their parents, with a doctor’s assistance, after the age of 70.  So murder was considered a dire sin, and yet nothing was thought of ‘abortion of parenthood’ as they called it, or the killing of elderly parents.
For a time, the sentence for rape was confinement to a prison. At the same time, there was no punishment for adultery and thus it was common.  Yet the only difference between rape and adultery is that rape is one person forcing their will upon one other person, while adultery is the result of two people forcing their will upon another: the unconsulted spouse.  So it went.  Their moral lines became blurred and arbitrary.  Slowly, what was unacceptable to one generation was not even thought of twice by the next.  Eventually, nothing was left.  The society degraded until rape and even blatant murder at times were not considered particularly bad, just bad taste perhaps.
I fear that as our colony’s first generation slowly dies, history will die with them.  The purpose of the Savior Beetles will be forgotten. We have nothing but my few journals to leave as written word behind.  Oral tradition is our last hope.  Oral tradition always fails over time.  Slowly the laws I am fighting to create now concerning the beetles will become more and more lax until, finally, they do not exist at all.  Two hundred and fifty years from now will any of the God-given, little bugs exist?  Will anyone remember why they are important?  Will anyone remember that they are important?  Will our colony be destroyed because for their pleasure, its people destroy the only thing that can save them?
When the Religious Liberation was over, the American Nation discovered too late that it was morals given by God that had protected them all their years from chaos, anarchy, and destruction.  For nothing more noble than selfishness, they destroyed their moral standards one by one until they had nothing left to shield them from the radiating corruptness of man’s nature.
Will my people follow an oddly parallel path?  I do not know.  I can only hope… and pray.
Bless the God who protects us from ourselves.

Griffin gave the books to Orion the next night, but the words in them never left his mind for long.  A week later, Griffin and his brother met each other on an unusually empty observation deck.  Orion was just leaving.
“Hey Griff, I’m off to a late dinner.  Want to come with?  I’m interested in your take of the William journals.”  
Griffin shook his head.  “I’d like to, Ri, but we should be breaking out of super-space dot three parsecs from the Guadeloupe wormhole any minute now.  Kella is coming in a bit to watch it with me.”
Suddenly Orion’s smile widened significantly and a twinkle appeared in his eye. “You know, I think you’ve spent close to every one of your off hours with that girl since she got out of the infirmary, Griff.  I’m beginning to get these vibes that somehow, you’d rather be in her company than mine.”
Griffin hadn’t really thought about it much.  He protested strongly that he barely knew Kella, that he would much rather spend time with Orion, and that if he hadn’t already promised Kella...  Strangely, the protests rang slightly hollow in his ears, and for some reason, they seemed to amuse Orion immensely.  The older brother left chuckling something unintelligible about his first love. Though how Orion had drawn such a subject out of what they were discussing, Griffin couldn’t imagine.
The door slid shut behind Orion and Griffin turned thoughtfully toward the large observation screen that was at zero degrees.
A few minutes later, Kella entered.  She had obtained a ISC micro-elastic jumpsuit from somewhere.  It outlined her gently curved body almost perfectly.  Her golden and red hair was pulled back from her face, but it hung freely down her back just past her shoulders.  Griffin decided it was the softest stuff he had ever seen.  Her deep, green eyes shone with excitement and when Griffin looked into them as far as he could for just a moment, he almost thought that the excitement was at the prospect of being with him, not the space phenomena they were about to observe.  Absurd, he chided himself.
Kella grabbed Griffin’s hand, and Griffin didn’t complain.  “Will I see the hole worm soon with you, Griff?  In curved space, the straight line?”  Her mind was intelligent.  It picked up concepts incredibly fast.  Her voice was magic.
Kella had been trying to learn regular standard speech and insisted that Griffin be the one to teach her.  She was learning fast.  Still, every time he conversed with her, Griffin smiled with secret amusement at her unique way of speaking.  It was not a taunting amusement, more like a private joke shared between the best of friends.
“One end of it anyway.  Should be anytime now,” they sat down together in a large chair.
Without warning absolute blackness of the observation screen that signified the ship’s state of super-spatial travel blossomed into the utmost beautiful colors.  Impossible browns shifted to orange, improbably yellows to green.  The brightest blues turned violet then transformed quite suddenly to a strikingly violent white.  The wormhole undulated in three dimensions.  It was a living creature; diverging and emerging into and from itself like the dancers in a complex ballet that Griffin had seen when he was six.
Griffin caught his breath, then looked at Kella to see how she reacted.  Her mouth hung open in a state of total amazement.  Her eyes stared unblinkingly at the screen in front of her.  Griffin chuckled, “That feeling, is called awe, Kella.”
She closed her mouth quickly, and turned her head to smile warmly at him.  Griffin felt his darkest blue eyes merge with her deep green ones for an instant, then she squeezed his hand and nestled against him as she turned to watch the screen once more.
At that moment, Griffin considered hard what he was feeling.  The orderly chaos of colors on the screen definitely rivaled a nebula at dot one parsecs for beauty.  Yet he was more than pleased to ignore it completely and gaze at the beauty beside him.  He felt sure his heart was in his throat.  It was a feeling of tenderness, of never wanting to leave this chair for the rest of his life.  All he wanted to do, more than explore the stars, more than be the most famous ISC commodore in history, more than be alive was to make sure that this woman so content beside him was this content forever.  He wanted to be her protector, her confidant, her closest friend for the rest of his existence.  The feeling was foreign to him.  The feeling was unsettling.  The feeling was… It was wonderful.  It might have even been considered… awesome.
“Maybe… Just maybe there is a God.”