When I woke up at three o'clock Thursday morning, I felt well rested but very hungry, so I got some food and water packets from a cubicle beside the doorway that led into the library and went into the living room to sit down and eat my first breakfast aboard the Eagle.

The apartments aboard the Eagle had four rooms. That is one more than any of the apartments in the complex on the planet Sustenance had. The rooms were: A living room, a bedroom with two beds, a room that contained exercise equipment and a small swimming pool, and a room that had shelves in its walls like a library. But, instead of books on the shelves, these shelves held hundreds of black ovals that were the same size as the oval Pass.

While I ate, I thought of how I would choose the men and women who were needed to control the vessels. I sure didn't want any hot headed fools who might use the vessels' weapons to gain control over other human beings; therefore, I would have to be very careful of who the men and women were before I turned the vessels over to them.

"They will also have to be taught to understand what each of the dents in the dent panel are for and teaching them by myself will take a long time unless Micro can help me."

"Micro," I said after I swallowed the last of the hot coffee from a packet, "can you teach other people the Father's language as you taught me?"

"Yes," Micro's thought-voice answered, "However, they must be clothed in a suit formed of us."

"I haven't seen any other suits. Where are they stored at?" I asked.

"The suits will appear, as did the one you have on, when any member of your race, who is not clothed in one already, touches the dent that brings the cleaning toilet into existence inside of the bedrooms of any of the living quarters," Micro said.

"So that's why I didn't find any more suits!" I thought, then I asked Micro, "Will you be able to talk with the other people the same way as you do with me?"

"No," Micro said, "We can converse only with the ones who have a Pass, but we can influence the way the other people think if you tell us to."

"That's good!" I said, "If anyone tries to use any of the weapons to harm another human being, I want you to stop them. Can you do that, Micro?"

"Yes," Micro said.

"Okay, that will be one thing I won't have to worry about!" I said, "Now, Micro, about the vessel's weapons. What kind are they, and how do they operate?" "The three types of weapons are on the order of the tools you carry, but they are far more powerful. The weapons are operated by the touch of your fingers on the dent panel, and you aim and control them with your thoughts," Micro explained.

"Then it won't be very hard to teach the new recruits how to use them will it, Micro?" I said.

"No, Caleb," Micro answered.

I lay the empty packets on the low table in front of me and watched as they were absorbed into it. I got up from the couch to go into the library to learn more about the Fathers' past because Micro had informed me that the ovals in the libraries aboard the Eagle contained most of the Fathers' history. But Micro also said that a larger library on the Fathers' home planet did contain the complete set of history ovals; however, for me to learn just what was in the ovals aboard the Eagle would take me quite a while.

When I walked into the library, Micro said, "There are many radio frequencies being used to ask you to identify yourself."

"I told them yesterday who I was!" I said, "Who is it that wants to know who I am this time?" I asked as I sat down in one of the two seats that set on each side of a glass topped table in the center of the oval library. The clear glass table had brown oval dents in its top for the black ovals from the library to set.

"The radio frequencies are being used by many people from all the land masses of this planet," Micro said.

"I guess the government of the United States is keeping my speech a secret from the rest of the world. I should have known that they would, but I had hoped that they would have realized that this is too big for just one country to handle."

"Micro," I said, "can you broadcast my speech on all the radio and television frequencies?"

"Yes," Micro said.

"How about using thought-voice also? That way, everyone will understand my message," I said.

"Yes," Micro said, "we will use thought-voice."

"Can you send the speech I made yesterday? If you recorded it, that is?" I asked.

"Yes," Micro said, "we recorded your speech. We have on record everything that you have said and done since the moment you arrived on the planet Sustenance."

"That's good, Micro," I said, "I may want to see and hear that someday. But, for now, I want you to send my message to everyone on Earth, and I want to see what their reaction will be. Will you connect me to a few television stations so that I can watch them here in the library?"

Four images of myself appeared above the glass topped table, and I watched and heard my image as it repeated the message that I had given to the lieutenant and sergeant yesterday:

"I am Caleb, Captain of the space vessel Eagle. I am also a representative from the many worlds of the Galactic Republic of Calorn. I come to this world in peace to ask for the help of some of your people.

"We have been in a battle with an evil race of beings for many of your years. And now the evil beings are attacking some of the worlds, such as yours, which are not members of the Republic of Calorn. Therefore, the Fathers of the Republic have authorized me to lend you the vessels and weapons to protect yourselves. However, we do not have the people to man these vessels, so you will have to operate the vessels with your own people, and I will train them.

"Also, the people who are chosen to man the vessels must be free to choose their own destiny; therefore, the countries of Earth must stop their bickering and pull together into one united nation.

"Nevertheless, I will place four vessels around your world to protect it until you can protect it yourself. That is if you want to help us and yourselves. I will wait two days for your decision."

My image vanished from the four screens, and two of the screens were showing commercial advertisements while one of the other two was showing an old black and white movie. The fourth one must have been showing a talk show because the two people on the screen, who were both trying to talk at the same time, stood beside chairs that faced each other.

"Are we back on the air?", "Where did that come from?", "His voice was in my head!", "Go into a commercial!" and "Is this some sort of prank?" was what the two men said. Then, a commercial advertisement replaced them on that screen, so now there was an advertisement on each of the four screens.

I watched advertisements for everything from used cars to feminine hygiene for three minutes before the two men appeared on the screen again. They had regained their composure and were discussing the way a person should feed and water his or her flower plants as if nothing had happened.

"Micro," I said, "I've seen enough!" and the four oval screens vanished from above the glass topped table, "I have better things to do than to watch TV," I thought as I got up from the seat, "but I'll check on them in an hour or so to see how they're doing after they realize that everyone on Earth heard my message."

As I walked around the library looking at the symbols on the shelves below each oval that described what was recorded on the ovals, I thought:

"I'll have to think of an excuse to land one of the other vessels down on Earth so that the scientists can research these library ovals," But nothing there seemed to interest me at that time, so I left the library and went across the bedroom to the doorway into the exercise room.

As I stood looking into the room, I thought, "I don't feel like I want to exercise right now. What I want to do is to go home and be with my family. But since I can't, I think I'll take the Eagle out into space somewhere and practice with its weapons." I left the apartment and, by using the shimmering green transport column, went up to the Eagle's control deck. As I sat down in the left control seat, I saw that I had left my oval Pass laying on the console between the two seats.

"I've got to remember to take the Pass with me whenever I leave the control deck," I said as I placed my fingers on the bottom row of dents on the dent panel, which had swung into position in front of me, and drove the Eagle out into space until the earth looked to be the size of a golf-ball. I let the Eagle hover there while I touched the dents that fired the weapons, but nothing happened.

"You will need a target," Micro said, "before you can see what the weapons will do."

"Where am I going to find anything out here to shoot at?"

"There are many minor planets, or asteroids, in orbit around this star," Micro said, "between the orbits of the fourth and fifth planets of this system of planets. These asteroids are all that remains of a major planet that was destroyed by the evil beings."

"Gee-golly damn!" I said, "When the Father said that two planets were destroyed by the evil ones, I sure didn't think he meant that they were blown up. But I've read about the asteroid belt, and the astronomers have always said that the asteroids were just chunks of rocks which never formed into a planet when the other planets were formed billions of years ago."

"The astronomers are incorrect!" Micro said, "This planet was to become a food-water planet just as the planet Sustenance is now; however, the Creators had not finished building the structure there, which was to be formed of us, when the evil beings pierced the core of the planet with one of their weapons. Since there were only a few of us on the planet, we protected only the Creators from death. All other life on the planet was annihilated.

"Shortly after this planet was destroyed, the evil beings also destroyed another food-water planet which was in full production. Then, the Creators created billions upon billions of us to protect the Creators' worlds, which remained, and to form vessels to battle the evil beings.

"However, the Creators could not use the weapons that they had placed in the vessels to destroy the evil beings because we had become part of the Creator's minds after so many years of living in their bodies."

"Are any of you inside of my body, Micro?" I asked.

"No, Caleb," Micro said, "The eight Creators were very young when they were chosen to stay in this galaxy to start the race of humans, so the elder Creators removed us from the bodies of the eight infants to prevent them from passing us on to the new race; however, we were always there, in the form of the suits, to protect the eight Creators from harm."

"If the Creators could remove the Protectors from their bodies," I asked, "why didn't they build a race from the Fathers' children?"

"The creators tried this," Micro said, "but when the children found out that they could become immortal with us in their bodies, they injected us into their bodies themselves and became as the other creators."

"If the Fathers had on the suits when they left the galaxy, how come you don't know where they've gone to?" I asked.

"We can detect living matter if it is not more than approximately 5,878,677 trillion of your miles in distance away from us," Micro said, "Therefore, the Creators and the Fathers have gone to a galaxy that is farther away from this galaxy than it would take light to travel in one million of your years."

While Micro was telling me this, I had placed a three dimensional graph on the viewer of the orbits of all the asteroids, and there were thousands of them. So I placed on the viewer the relative distance from the Eagle to each asteroid and drove the Eagle toward the closest one.

When I stopped the Eagle five miles away from the small asteroid that I could see shining brightly ahead of me, I touched the dent that activated one of the Eagle's three weapons. Then, with my thoughts, I aimed and fired the weapon, and the asteroid vanished. But the curved line on the viewer that represented the asteroids orbit didn't vanish. I had turned an asteroid, that had been out here in space for millions of years, into a cloud of atom size particles.

The weapon I had used worked the same as the red oval, and it was the one that disintegrates or integrates living or nonliving matter, or it can stun living matter for a short period of time.

"I'll have to be a little more careful with this weapon," I said as I aimed the weapon and fired it, with my thoughts, to reunite the particles into a solid mass again, "so I'll call it a Stun-Gun or Stunner to remind myself of what the weapon can do without killing anyone."

I touched the dent of the weapon that worked the same as the blue oval and, with my thoughts, fired it at the asteroid. This time, I could see a beam of light that went from the Eagle to the asteroid. I intensified the beam and drew a circle on the face of the asteroid. Then, using the weapon that worked the same as the brown oval, I pulled at the circle, and a section of rock came out of the asteroid leaving a hole clear through it. I pulled the cylinder shaped rock toward me and stopped it within a few feet of the control deck's invisible dome. Then, with my thoughts, I pushed the rock away, pulled it back, turned it end for end, and moved it to my right and left like a puppet on a string. The two weapons I had used this time were the Light-Laser and the Gravity-Imitator.

Using the Gravity-Imitator, I pushed the cylinder of rock back to the asteroid and fit it into the hole from where it came. Then, with the Stunner, I merged the cylinder with the rest of the asteroid.

"I believe that I can teach anyone to use these weapons now, but to be skillful with them will take some time."

"Micro," I asked, "does anything remain of the structure which the Fathers were building?"

"Yes," Micro's thought-voice said, "We, who the creators used to build the structure, are on one of the larger pieces of this destroyed planet," As Micro voiced this, one orbit of the many asteroids, which I had placed on the viewer, began to blink off and on.

Placing my fingers on the dent panel, I headed the Eagle away from this asteroid toward a much larger one that was quite a distance away. As the Eagle approached the asteroid, I saw that the asteroid looked as if it had been a range of mountains which had been sliced from the planets surface, and it was covered with, what looked to be, white ice or snow. But, as I swung around the asteroid, I saw that on the flat side of the white asteroid, which would have been the bottom side of the mountain range, there was a square black object that protruded out from the white ice or snow.

As I moved the Eagle closer to the black object, I realized that the object wasn't so very small, but that the asteroid was so large that the object was small in comparison.

"Is this the food-water complex, Micro?" I asked.

"Yes," Micro said by thought-voice.

"Why was it left here?" I asked, "I would have thought that the Fathers would have used these Protectors to help build the space vessels."

"We, who form the complex on this minor planet, were left here to help the Creators protect your planet, the Earth, from the evil beings if they should happen to return before the new race was able to protect themselves," Micro explained.

"What is the name of this asteroid?" I asked.

"This minor planet was named Vista by the new race of human beings," Micro said.

"Vista," I thought, "I don't believe I've heard of that one. The only one I remember reading about is Ceres. It's the biggest one, I think? Well, it doesn't matter if I've heard about it or not, it's here."

"Is the ice around the complex part of the ocean that was on the planet?" I asked.

"No," Micro answered, "The ice on this minor planet was formed as a by-product of the process of living by the protectors over the many years we have been here."

"You absorb radiation and emit water," I said, "is that what you are saying?"

"We discharge more than water," Micro said, "We discharge Oxygen, Nitrogen, Hydrogen, and many other elements from our absorption of radiation from the galaxy."

"If this is true, why did the Fathers place you on water planets such as Sustenance?" I asked.

"The planet Sustenance was not a water planet when we were first placed there," Micro said, "The planet was an arid and lifeless planet with very little atmosphere. Many of your years passed before the planet became able to support the life it has now. At that time, the creators brought the seed of each of the life forms and spread them across the planets surface."

"Then you built the atmosphere and the ocean from the oxygen and water you discharged in those many years! Is that right?" I asked.

"Yes," Micro said.

"I think it's about time I checked on what the people are doing about my little speech," I said, "I hope they haven't panicked."

I touched the dent panel and brought the Eagle around so that I could see the Earth, which was a blue-white crescent shape among the many stars, and tuned the viewer into a few of the many television stations sending their signals out into the void of space. And only one of the four stations that I had on the viewer came from an English speaking nation. I also found out, with the help of Micro, that none of them were talking about my message.

"It's a little early," I thought, "for the people to realize that everyone heard my message. It may take a full day before they do. Then they might not put anything on the radio or television about what is being done because they may think that I'll be listening for just that. So, I'll go look at some of the other planets up close while I'm out here in the solar system."

I wiped the four TV. stations from the viewer and placed a map of the solar system on the viewer which showed all of the orbits of the planets. The map was three dimensional and I could turn it in all directions with my thoughts. There was also a spot which showed where the Eagle was located.

In the next twelve hours I visited all of the planets and all of their moons. The trip was very exciting to me. I even took the Eagle down into the atmosphere of Venus and saw the arid landscape where no living thing could live. The most beautiful sight I saw was Saturn with its many colored rings, which were much thicker than I thought they would be. The outer planets looked cold and depressing so I didn't stay out there very long.

I drove the Eagle across empty space toward the Earth and Moon and stopped it a few miles from one of the giant Vulture space vessels. Standing up, I picked up my oval Pass and went over to the green circle and stepped out onto the apartment deck below. I was tired and needed to get some sleep.

"It'll be another day and a half before the people on Earth should be calling me," I thought as I lay down on one of the beds, "At least I hope they call me."

The time was 4:15 in the morning when I woke up Friday feeling as if someone had been calling my name. I stood up, stretched out my arms to get the kinks out of my upper body, touched the blue column into life, and went through the shimmering curtain to freshen up for the day.

When I came out of the blue column, I touched it away and asked Micro, "Micro, has anyone been calling me?"

"Yes," Micro said, "The young female, Sergeant Hanly, whom you spoke with a few hours past, has very strongly spoken your name in her thoughts."

"I'll have to find out what she wants," I said, as I got a water packet from the cubical beside the library door and went in to set down at the glass table in the library.

"Micro, place a viewer above the table and get me a view of the place where Miss Hanly is at the present time," I said.

The scene on the viewer was of the young woman in bed. The bed covers were hanging half on and half off the bed as if she had kicked at them during the night. She was laying on her side in a curled up position with her arms hugging a pillow to her chest. Her brown hair was in curlers and she had on a short white night gown that didn't hide her well shaped body very well.

"Sergeant Hanly," I said, very softly, "Sergeant Hanly, I am Caleb. Do you want to speak to me?"

She straightened out her legs and rolled onto her back still holding the pillow to her chest. Her eyes blinked a few times and she said slowly, "What... what was that?" Then she pushed the pillow to the side and sat up on the edge of the bed and glanced at a clock that set on a small table beside her.

"I am Captain Caleb," I said, "did you want to speak with me?"

She looked around the room as she placed her arms across her chest and said with a frown, "Where are you? What are you doing in my bedroom?"

I rotated the scene until I was looking at her from about four feet away and level with her face. Then, with my thoughts, I made an image of the upper part of my body to appear in the room, which made me feel as if I was in the room with her. In fact, I could turn my head and see all of the small room.

"I'm sorry if I startled you," I said, "but I believe you were calling my name in your dreams. Is there something that I can help you with?"

"I... I would like to put on my robe," she said as she stood up and crossed over to a chair that had a white robe laying across the top of it. As she put on the robe she said, "I did have a dream about you, Sir, and I do want to tell you something, but the two are not related."

She walked over and sat down on the bed and looked at me, "You remember the message you had Lieutenant Scott and I record on video tape? Well, the tape turned out to be blank, but I had recorded our conversation on another tape recorder which did pick up the message as well as the conversation prior to that; however, the words you spoke in the message were not recorded in English. I know that I heard you speak in English, but the recorded message was not in English. That is why your message was not given to the government or to the United Nations. It was not my fault, Sir!"

"Micro, what happened to make my message come out on the recorder in the Father's language and not in English?" I asked by thought, "No, don't answer that. I was using thought-voice so what they understood was in their language. I suppose the message I sent yesterday will be the same. Except, they would be able to record my image that time because I sent it over the radio frequencies as well."

"Sergeant Hanly, I know that it wasn't your fault," I said, "I want you, and the Lieutenant, to get in touch with me as soon as the world makes up its mind to help me or not. Will you do that for me?"

"Yes," she said, "if I can, but my superiors may not want me to be the one who contacts you."

"You tell them that I will not answer any calls unless it's from you and Lieutenant... What was his name?" I asked.

"Scott, Lieutenant Robert Scott," she answered.

"Okay, from you and Lieutenant Scott. And what is your first name Miss Hanly?" I asked.

"Robin," she answered.

"Okay, Robin it is. That is if I may call you Robin?" I said.

"I'll be flattered if you will," she said, smiling.

"I'll leave you now, and I'll be waiting for your call, Robin. Good-luck!" I said. Then with my thoughts, I switched off the viewer, and the image of myself on Earth, and I was back in the library aboard the Eagle.