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THE LAYING OF CLAIM 
(PASSAGES IN TIME Episode 2)
by Alan C. McD

THANK YOU
For the kind comments on part one, and yes, I've used a spellchecker this
time. I'm such a klutz.

WARNINGS (TWO FOR THE USE OF):
If you're too young to drink, and too young to swear,
There are stories for you, found here and there.
This is not one of them, go find another,
But note down the name for your father and mother.

For the rest of you, all that is laid out below,
Is copyright, and I believe you should know,
My rights are enforced, when breaches are known by
My best friend and lawyer, one Don Corleone.

NOTES:
The best way to start is to read Episode 1, The Awakening, which assm have
been kind enough to archive in November. Actually, it should still be on
your newsreader.

If you don't want to be bothered with that, then what you absolutely have
to know before starting The Laying Of Claim is this:-

Sarah, a Manchester prostitute, has been visited by a client, Gary. Gary
seems determined to make Sarah remember a time "before" she was Sarah. As
things become more passionate, she experiences flashes of a rather alien
existence as "Loranna", who loved another being named Aumerle. She also
recalls some sort of accident. Then, as her passion reaches its height, her
mind leaves her body, and she finds herself transported backwards through
time......

All right, I'm a crap summariser. So sue me.....

SIBERIA, 10,000 BC 
Time passed around her.

Well, that was one way of putting it.

More accurately, time slipped. 

Or more accurately still, time became a circle rather than a line, a thing
without end or beginning. And while Sarah found this disorientating, she
did not find it either unfamiliar or frightening. She had stepped through
the fissure that Gary had opened for her, onto the spinning circle, with
practised ease.

Of course, she couldn't understand the how of it, or the when of it. But
she knew that she had travelled this way before.

She still referred to the clear voice in her mind as Gary, even though she
understood that the voice was many voices, had many names, that if Gary was
now one of those voices, then he was the least of them.

"It's a long road, Loranna." Gary's words were an echo in the centre of her
head. "It won't be an easy one. And until you return, only part of us can
ever be with you. And the assistance we can provide will be minimal at
first. Although it will grow."

She had known all of that. But until he had said it, she had not known that
she knew it. It was all so odd.

She understood the implication. He was indicating that whilst he could take
her to the beginning, to where she needed to be, that was all, for now,
that could be expected of him.

And she understood the way things were. 

In some other place, within the circle and simultaneously outside the
circle, a young man named Gary Andrew Callery was frozen in coition with a
young lady named Sarah Margaret Gunn, frozen at a moment of maximum
penetration. Sarah's skin was flushed, her nipples swollen with blood. Her
climax was in full flood, and Gary's was impending.

In this place, neither within the circle nor entirely outside it, could be
found the essence that truly was Sarah Margaret Gunn, an incorporeal
essence which felt to Sarah Margaret Gunn entirely corporeal, even though
the body that she thought she owned could not be seen. 

And she was not alone within that body, nor within her mind. It was now
obvious that Loranna was growing stronger all the time, was fusing with
Sarah in a way that, because of the knowledge and certainty the union
promised, she welcomed.

As for the essence that truly was Gary Andrew Callery, well, she only knew
that he was safe. And that, extracted from him, guiding her now, was a part
of him that had never truly been a part of him...

"At first", the guide went on, "the judgements will be difficult to make.
You must always be sure of likelihood, and of timing. You can't afford a
single mistake. We've tried this before, you know, and we've always failed.
Be wary. Because it may be fifty, one hundred, even two hundred years
before we can try again. By which time this planet may be reduced to ash,
and we along with it."

Again, he had told her something that she already knew. But she didn't
resent his force. As he had said, it was vital that no mistakes be made. He
was entitled to try to satisfy himself that she was clear on that.

She assured him that yes, she was clear, but the assurance was unspoken. It
was conveyed instead as a thought.

"The first place we have to visit, thankfully, is safe", he advised. "The
thing that you must make happen there has happened every time we have
pursued the union, and probably will always happen. The variables, you see,
are minor. But after we are through that event, matters will not proceed
quite so simply. In other cases, there are many variables, many problems.
Often only determination can make history unfold as we wish it to."

"It's for me to instil the need, isn't it?", she realised. "Before I enter
the being."

"Indeed it is", he agreed. "It must be before. Because once you enter the
being, you will become the being."

"Like Loranna lost herself in me", she guessed.

"The relationship between you as Sarah and you as Loranna is slightly
different", he pointed out. "You will understand why as your journey
progresses. But  yes, the effects are similar. Effects like the submergence
of personality. Sarah, once you merge with another being, the only things
which will survive of you will be the needs you refer to. The needs which
you have instilled."

"And if those needs are not resolved", she realised, "then the game is
lost."

"If the union is not concluded", he confirmed, "then you will become
trapped again. In the body that you inhabit. And we will have failed.
Again."

While he had been speaking, she had become aware that time was no longer
passing around her.

Well, that was one way of putting it.

More accurately, time had refocussed. 

Or more accurately still, time became a line rather than a circle, linear
and visible.

As though from behind a hazy mist, she was looking out over a landscape
which seemed entirely alien. A great plain spread out before her, peppered
with plants and shrubs resplendent in the deepest reds, browns and greens,
covered with grass that must have been two feet high. In the middle
distance was a forest, which snaked back towards her on the left. Over the
forest hung a heat haze. To her right was a broad river, running with such
violence and speed that it appeared uncrossable without the aid of a
bridge. On the other side of that river was another plain, much like the
one upon which she stood.

The place was alive with noise. The buzzing of insects. Odd birdlike
sounds. Crickets, and the occasional cries of frogs and other reptiles. She
wondered for a confused moment whether she had travelled in space as well
as time. 

Gary remained silent, so she prompted him by asking, "What is this
beautiful place?"

"Earth, of course", he advised. "What else could it be?"

"But how could it be?", she disagreed. "Earth when? Earth where?"

"When is ten thousand BC", he told her, and she could hear the smile.
"Approximately. Where is an area that will come to be known as Southern
France. You have been here before, you know."

"If you say so", she allowed, "but I don't recognise anything." She
surveyed the terrain again. Everything seemed bright, clean, immense, wild.

"We didn't have too much time to look around then", Gary said. "And we
don't now. We have to concentrate on the man. That's the important thing."

The man?

Yes, she realised. There was a man. He was making his way through the waist
high grass towards the river. 

She studied him. He was short and stocky, naked to the waist, beneath which
fur flaps, suspended from a thong, covered his modesty.

But he was too far away for Sarah to see him clearly. She when she wished
that she was a little closer, the wish became reality, as though she had
been staring through a camera lens, and it had adjusted to close up. The
fact that she had such control did not surprise her. In retrospect, she
realised that she had expected it. Her study intensified.

The man was of indeterminate age, although he was not old. And he was just
about the hairiest human that Sarah had ever seen. His chest, arms and the
backs of his hands were a black carpet, and his face had never known a
shave. His brown eyes were slits, his nose pugnaciously large, his mouth,
which hung open with exertion revealing sharp white teeth, was wide and
red. There was an animalistic cruelty about him.

Sarah was horrified. "Surely I don't have to seek union with him?", she
said. "I don't think I could bear it."

"Not with him", she was told. "Worse, in fact. You must become him. As for
the essence of our friend, well, that must be released from another."

She was confused. "There is no other."

"You will find her", the guide informed, "in the river."

Three things occurred to Sarah all at once. The first was agreement with
the voice that the thought of inhabiting the body of the appalling savage
she saw before her was unbearable. The second, oddly, was a thrill, born in
the probability that she was about to experience the sex act from a male
point of view, that she would know the nature of sensations which had
always intrigued her. And the third was curiosity.

She wanted to know just who might be swimming in such a dangerous river.

For the moment, that curiosity won out, and she swung the notional camera
lens in the direction of the raging waters. As she did so, the woman was
washed ashore.

At first, it seemed that she was dead. She lay on the river bank, unmoving,
white. But then she shuddered, and her chest started to heave as she
coughed up the huge amount of water that she had swallowed. Then she pulled
herself up onto her knees, still coughing. Gradually, she started to
reclaim her life.

Her sodden black hair was very long, and it hung down, obscuring her face,
but from what Sarah could see of her, which was quite a bit because the
woman was entirely naked, she seemed to be young and attractive. She was
shapely, with strong hips and a taut waistline, and her breasts were big
enough that they hung pendulously, rocking as she recovered from her
ordeal.

"You need to connect", the guide insisted.

"Not yet", Sarah appealed. "I want to see her face."

"There isn't time", he replied. "I said that this first place was safe. And
it is. But only if we watch the clock. You must be where you need to be
before the event occurs."

She played for time. "I'm still not sure. I don't know what to do."

"You know exactly what to do", he stated. "You must release Melira. Your
counterpart. And you can only do so by performing the act."

"But he's awful", she objected. "How can I become him?"

"You don't become him", Paul said. "This early in the procedure, you will
be submerged within him. Afterwards, you'll remember. But at the time, you
won't be aware. Loranna is within you, and so you know the stakes. There
truly is no choice."

He was right, of course. But it was so hard. Mere minutes ago, she had
never conceived of the need to make such decisions. Decisions upon which
the lives of so many rested.

So hard. And so damned unfair.

"I just hate the thought", she grumbled.

"You don't have to like it, Sarah", he replied, correctly identifying that
her sentiment was not shared by Loranna. "But you do have to do it. And
soon. If you don't want our fate on your conscience."

She sighed, then conceded. "What do I do?"

"Go to the man", he instructed. "Make him think of the need. Concentrate
upon him, and make him think of the need."

"The need", she repeated. And she adjusted her view again, brought it back
to include the man, closed in upon him....

Nearer.....

He had stopped walking, and was staring dreamily at the sky. His stillness
smoothed his rough edges somewhat, made him seem less fearsome. 

Sarah allowed room for the possibility that the experience might not be
quite as bad as she feared.

And as further encouragement, there was the exciting prospect of becoming a
male, of experiencing copulation from the point of view of a male. Wasn't
there?

So she concentrated. On the need. You need the woman, she told him. You
need her. And she felt the power of Loranna, enhancing the message, making
it live.

Suddenly she was aware of the smell of the grass, and of its light touch,
of the warm wind and the heat of the sun. Suddenly she felt the essence of
him in her, the strength of him and the surprising sadness of him.

You need the woman. 

You need her.

Suddenly she was no longer looking at him. Instead, she was looking at his
life. Remembering it. 

Becoming the result of it.

Loranna seemed familiar with the absorption, and her calmness was a comfort
as Sarah felt her individuality begin to ebb away.

There was a moment when he recognised her presence. You need the woman, he
thought. You need her.

Then the presence was gone and, as before, he was alone. Alone and lonely.

But his attention span was short, and even loneliness did not bother him
for long. Shaking his head to clear it, he returned to his close
observation of the firmament.

In particular, he watched the twinkling lights far above him, as he so
often did when the blackness descended, and as usual he was consumed by
wonder. He did struggle with such complex things as concepts, but distance
was one which he could almost grasp, and he believed that those pinpoints
were many days away from him. 

The distance was of course irrelevant, because he could never walk to the
lights. He understood that they were not for such as he.

After quite some time, it occurred to him that he was hungry. His hunting
had fared poorly recently, and he hadn't eaten for three days. 

But there was no cure for it. He would not cross the river, for the men who
lived on its other bank had already shown their hostility by waving weapons
at him when he looked for fish. And the journey back to his own people,
even had he wished to make it, was far too long. He would never survive it.

In any event, he would rather die than return. Having lost his woman to
another in his tribe, all that waited for him in the place of his birth was
humiliation and quite possibly death.

He tried to recall what had happened. Often, it seemed that the facts were
fading, and then he would capture them, like a fish on a stake.

She had been a fine woman. She had borne him eight children, two of whom
had survived. But he had recently developed a sickness, which had laid him
low for many days, and during that time he had not been able to provide for
her. He had only been able to lie prone, feeling hot and sick, watching his
family starve.

And then another had come to feed the woman, and his children, another who
was weaker than most of the tribe, and without his own woman. 

The man had been too weak to fight for what was his, and as a result what
was his had been lost.

When he had recovered, and yes, he had recovered, fully, the tribe's law
had ostracised him. He could have fought for his past, of course, and he
would probably have won.

But he'd found no wish to fight. 

Because he hadn't wanted her any more.

And so he had begun his long walk, a walk which had brought him here, to
the river. And to the twinkling lights which, suddenly, reclaimed his
attention.

He had seen something. Out of the corner of his eye. Something unusual.

Yes. There. A light, slightly brighter than the others, slightly larger
than the others. A light which seemed to be moving.

It seemed to be moving towards him.

It seemed to be taking on shape.

Noise assailed him, a roaring which made his ears hurt. He fell to his
knees in supplication. 

He theorised. The theory became fact.

Beings greater than he were angry. They were destroying the night. Could
he, he alone, mollify them?

Now the star filled his vision, seeming to move beneath the clouds. It
dipped and weaved, as though uncomfortable in the sky. 

It was composed from a material he had never before seen, something which
reflected the glare emerging from the circular holes all around it. The
centre of the object, which was also circular, appeared to be spinning
slowly.

A new theory. Was this, perhaps, a visit from the God of the Sun? A visit
to him? Had he done something so bad in losing his woman that even the God
could not forgive him?

Was he to be punished?

He was stricken with fear, unable to move. He gaped at the object as it
came closer, ever closer...

And then there was another terrible noise, a noise over and above the
existing terrible noise, a noise like mountains grinding together.

The object started to come apart. Pieces split away, tumbling downwards,
crashing to the earth. The ground was shaking with these impacts, and it
seemed that he would not retain his footing.

Still the awful disintegration continued. There was nothing he could think
of to do but scream, so he did that.

Suddenly, there was a flash, then heat so intense that he felt the skin of
his cheeks start to burn.

Yes, he decided, the God had come to punish him. Just him.

The light disappeared. But he knew that it had disappeared only for him.
Because he was blind.

At length, the heat too started to dissipate, and the noise moderated then
disappeared, leaving a silence so total that it was horrifying. 

Clearly the beasts around the river, so much wiser than he, had fled.

He sat. He had no choice. Behind his eyes lived a whirl of bright colours,
and in his ears lived a whooshing. If he walked whilst these things
continued, he was putting himself at serious risk. The river was too close
by to consider carelessness.

He would die in any event, he believed, because he would not be able to
feed himself. Time would pass while he sat here, and his stomach would
become empty. It was also possible that before such a stage was reached, an
animal would happen along and resolve its own hunger by eating him.

The sound of the rushing river came back to him then. Perhaps he had been
deaf as well as blind. Perhaps the return of sound permitted him to hope
for the return of vision. If not, then the river might be the best
alternative after all.

He waited. And waited. The night became cooler. He was not impatient,
because he accepted karma. Either he would see again, or he would not.

The colours became less sharp, moderated to pastels. And then a greyness
came, and through that greyness he saw pinpricks of white light. The stars,
perhaps.

No. Far too bright for the stars.

It was daylight. The light of dawn. He recognised the distinctive quality.
He also recognised a distinct sensation of relief.

Improvement after that was swift. Soon he could stand.

He looked out over the long grass to the woods beyond in one direction, to
the angry river in the other. There was a stiff breeze in the air which
refreshed him, but which also reminded him of his need for food.

He had a vague recollection of burning stars falling around him, something
from the night before. But he could see nothing unusual, and he dismissed
the thought. Food was the priority now.

He looked back towards the river, deciding that a fish was perhaps the
simplest solution to his problem.

And that was when he saw the woman.

Her presence both startled and pleased him. He knew immediately that she
was a member of the tribe from across the river because he had seen her
with that tribe, out of his reach, looking for fish with other females. 

She had caught his eye then because of her outstanding beauty. 

As to how she had crossed the difficult waters, he had no idea. And in
truth, he didn't care.

She was his. That was the only relevant fact.

And to her credit she seemed to know it. She had obviously registered his
presence long before he had registered hers, and was already half-turned
towards him, exposing her left shoulder in the standard gesture of
submission. He wasn't surprised at this, because her logic was clear. If
she couldn't get back over the river, she would need protection. And food.
And she would wish to avoid violence.

She stood about ten body lengths away from him. He moved closer, to a
distance of about five body lengths. First he snarled at her, accepting her
capitulation. Then he studied her more closely.

Yes, she was even more attractive close up than she had seemed from a
distance, and she was young too. It wouldn't have mattered, of course, if
she'd been ugly, because a woman was a woman, but the prettiness was a
bonus. Her figure was full, her hips were round and strong, and her hair
was long, a black cascade which caressed the backs of her thighs. Her eyes
were blue, glinting like sharp jewels. 

Her mouth was thinner than any mouth he had ever seen. Beneath those thin
lips, it was apparent that she still had most of her teeth.

The lips were not the only oddity. She seemed taller than women he had
previously encountered, but not stronger, because her muscles were not well
developed. The shape of her face was unusually angular, her breasts
unusually large. 

These departures piqued his curiosity, and he felt the thing between his
legs stir as he considered them.

He walked towards her, and indicated with a jerk of his head that she
should assume the position. That was the only way to proceed, because it
was necessary to claim her immediately. Who could predict what might happen
if he delayed? Another, a male, might also have crossed the river.

She did as he instructed, bending, placing her hands below her knees to
support herself. He was pleased to see how clean her time in the river had
left her. 

He took a moment, just a moment, to study her buttocks, noting how round
and firm they were. His last woman had sagged badly, and he had almost
forgotten the pleasures that this girl promised.

Between those buttocks, her cunt, red and hairy, was plainly visible. He
saw that it seemed to glisten. Perhaps she wanted him. Certainly she would
know that she needed him, but perhaps she wanted him too. Although it
seemed strange that she could have readied herself so quickly.

He, less surprisingly, was fully ready. His cock was raising the angle of
the flap which hung against the front of his body. 

He tore the covering free, and as he did so, the woman glanced around. He
grinned, confident enough to believe that she would be impressed by what
she saw.

Then she returned to the position, back bent like a bow, buttocks raised
high, hair trailing in the dirt.

He stepped behind her, placed his fingers around his red, swollen cock, and
touched it to her redness.

Disappointingly, she wasn't wet. It had been a trick of his vision. The
disappointment did not, however, affect his determination. She would simply
have to endure.

He did her the courtesy of trying to assist her a little, not wanting her
to hate him. Reached down beneath her body, he spent a moment or two
teasing her long, brown nipples, happy to feel them stiffen under his
questing fingers. But a moment or two was all that he had to spare. 

He was so desperate. It had been so long.

He moved his hands to her hips and, with a howl, he pushed forward, firmly,
quickly.

He made no progress. Her cunt was closed like a clam. Even adjusting the
head of his cock so that it was placed precisely and firmly in the
appropriate place won him no ground. Moving it around only resulted in
cries of pain from the girl. His frustration raged.

With effort, he was able to lodge himself, feel her heat, even breach her
inner lips enough to make his glans disappear, but he could make no further
progress, and did not wish to injure her with a violent, careless thrust.
After all, perhaps he was her first.

The more he considered that, the more likely it seemed.

Then the idea came to him, so obvious a notion that he wondered why he had
not thought of it earlier. Hawking, he delivered a substantial gob of spit
onto the fingers of his right hand. Stepping back, he smeared the lubricant
over the surface of the woman's vagina, taking care as he did so to gently
push two fingers inside her, lathering as far as he could reach the walls
of the orifice which he intended to penetrate. She felt smooth inside,
smooth and tight and warm. As he worked, the strain in his erection became
painful.

She had relaxed a little while he prepared her, but tension stiffened her
again when he returned to his position behind her, pressed his cock to her
vagina for the second time.

He could feel the moisture, worked with it. Inch by inch, rocking backwards
and forwards, he penetrated her. 

Her tightness was glorious. He needed to support himself firmly, hands on
her buttocks, to continue his progress. 

He was aware that he was causing her discomfort, because she consistently
adjusted her position, but this was not a matter of major concern to him.
She needed to understand her duties in return for the reliance she would
wish to place on him. And this particular duty would, he was already sure,
be a frequent one.

The last inch of his weapon sank into her. Penetration was complete. He
revelled in the wonderful closeness, the beat of her pulse against his
shaft, the new wetness which she had produced herself, the pleasuring
warmth. He squeezed her buttocks tightly to show her his gratitude, and
ground against her, not withdrawing at all, savouring the increasing ease
of movement and the smoothness of her fat inner walls.

Already, he was close to coming. It seemed such a waste. But there would be
other times.

He started to stroke in and out of her, surprising himself by how slowly he
did so. Of course, her resistance was still substantial, and that did
contribute to the pace, but in the main he wanted to feel her warm flesh
slithering against his hardness, rather than simply to drive into it as he
had always done with his other woman.

Each such stroke brought him closer. He leaned slightly to the left, hoping
to see her face, to try to judge whether she was enjoying the experience,
but her long hair obstructed him. So he grabbed a bunch of that hair at the
nape of her neck, hauled her head backwards. She grunted in protest, but he
was rewarded by a momentary glimpse of her. Her teeth were whitening her
lower lip as though she was bearing pain, and there were tears in her eyes.
He didn't want to see that, so he released her, allowed her head and
shoulders to slump again.

He remembered one time, just one, when his other woman had seemed to enjoy
the act of copulation as much as he. On that occasion, she had gone rigid,
and had made little noises in her throat, then her body had started to
heave up against his. Her cunt had sucked at his cock, and she had started
to bite him. He tried to recall what he had done to produce that reaction,
but could not. He did recollect that he had felt extremely tender towards
her that evening. It had been only a few days after they had first coupled.

And yes, he felt tenderness towards this woman. It was oddly important to
him that she liked him. So he caressed her, at first reaching to touch her
nipples as he had done before but then, finding the stretch uncomfortable,
he started to stroke her ribs, her buttocks, her stomach, her hips and
thighs.

It soon became clear to him that whatever he was doing felt good for her.
She stopped moaning, and started to push back against him, her taut inner
lips scraping along his stiffness. Her breathing became a little ragged,
just as his other woman's had so long ago, and her hands left her knees,
wandered between her legs. He wasn't sure what she was doing there, but
occasionally the pad of one of her fingers would come into contact with the
base of his cock.

He would have liked to have waited, to know whether his endeavours and hers
would have taken her to the place which his other woman had briefly
visited. But it was too late to consider such things. The sloppy friction
of her soft flesh against his hard flesh had become too much for him to
withstand. 

His climax was impending.

Perhaps next time, he thought, as he increased the pace of his penetration
to match the speed with which sensation was now flooding into his body,
liquefying his thighs and hips, stiffening his back. For a few seconds he
hammered into her, hearing her moan, knowing that he was hurting her again,
knowing that he had no choice, finally forgetting her, forgetting himself,
forgetting everything but the incredible pleasure focusing sweetly now in
his cock and balls.

And then his movement slowed again, as the pressure peaked. He seemed to
stiffen yet more inside her, seemed to jerk against the roof of her cunt,
rhythmically, time and again. He realised that only his hips were moving,
but they were not pumping. Rather, they were rotating, keeping his erection
sheathed to maximum depth. Looking down, he noted as a passing curiosity
that his fingers were digging into her pink buttocks, creating white
circles where the pressure was being applied.

Biological relays switched, and he felt an unfamiliarly substantial jerk in
his testicles, then squealed with delight as he felt semen bulge into his
urethra, barrel along it.

The first swill of his ejaculation, voluminous and heavy, hosed into the
woman's pussy with such velocity that her lack of reaction to it seemed
ungrateful. A second mighty expulsion followed immediately, thrilling him
as it slurped through his prick, out of it, deep into the woman. This time
she did him the courtesy of moaning in receipt of it.
 
He collapsed forward, letting her support his weight on her back as he
delivered numerous smaller tributes and sought to recover his breath. Then,
still fully stiff, he hauled himself clear of her, slapping her hard on the
left buttock in confirmation of his ownership of her.

She fell forward, rolling onto her back. She was panting, exhausted. He sat
down beside her, cross legged. There was nothing else to be done. The
connection was made.

His cock continued to dribble. He watched the trails of semen settle on and
sink into the earth.

He felt powerful.

He felt whole.

After a time, he looked at her. 

Her eyes were heavy, and he noted that there was blood on her thighs. 

But she seemed quite content.

He made a gesture to ask her if she was hungry, and she nodded eagerly. She
seemed suddenly easy in his company, her expression open, more settled, as
though some burden had been lifted from her.

Her hunger pleased him, because it allowed him to please her. When she
smiled and repeated the nod as a request, he suddenly knew that he was
committed to her. For the rest of his life.

And then, something very strange happened.

Momentarily, he was more than he had ever been, and more than he ever would
be. It was something he would not remember, but it was so nonetheless.

He was Loranna, and he was Sarah, and he was a very small part of Gary.

And he knew the future. And he knew a little about the universe. 

Most wonderfully, he knew that the points of light were stars, and he knew
how far away they were.

Then, he was what he was again. 

A man with a new woman. 

A newly happy man.

Loranna, Sarah and the very small part of Gary, meanwhile, were once again
tumbling in the wild eddies of the time stream.

And momentarily, Sarah too was more than she had ever been, although not
more than she ever would be. It was something she would remember. Sarah too
was Loranna, and she was a very small part of Gary. And she knew the
future, and a little about the universe.

The small part of Gary, she realised, was named Jober, But that part was
dissipating, leaving her completely alone. 

She grasped for him, mentally. 

But he was gone.

She wondered what she would do without his instructions, how she could
survive. She felt abandoned.

Then a new voice spoke in her mind.

"He's gone back to his time", she was advised. "We'll pick him up again.
Along the way."

Whilst it was a new voice, it was a friendly voice. Female in tone. And, of
course, welcome. 

"I'm grateful for the help", she assured. "But who are you?"

"Why, Melira, of course", came the reply. "Your friend, Melira. Perhaps you
should seek the memory from Loranna."

Sarah didn't do that. At least, not consciously. But the memory came.

"We were explorers", she realised. "We were exploring the galaxy. We were
exploring the earth. And there was.... an accident."

"Not an accident", Melira corrected. "An attack. An unprovoked attack."

"And yes, we were friends", Sarah recalled. "Just as you say. We were good
friends."

"The best", Melira agreed. "There were many of us. We were all good
friends." 

"We have to find them", Sarah insistent, vehemently. "We have to find them
all."

"We will", Melira reassured. "This is only the beginning."

Sarah found the reply insufficient. "Now", she said. "We have to find them
now."

"Then perhaps", Melira suggested, "we should be on our way."

"How do we do that?", Sarah asked. "Where do we go?"

"I think", said Melira, "that you can safely leave that to me."


NEXT: 1938. The Confidence Of Lovers.




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