I have to admit I botched that part rather badly, but it seems to have all come out OK in the end.”“I guess you’re right, Lucille. I’ll pull b...ck surveillance on the kid and concentrate on the house. We still want to find the portal, along with your brother’s notes and sapphire ring.”After a wonderful night in their new home Kyle and Kathleen work hard getting the house in order and preparing a list of additional things they need. By late afternoon they generally have things under control in. Three more of the motherships showed up after the planet had exploded, so they were transported into the star.At his point, the FTL radar could not find anything worth fighting, so the fleet withdrew from battle stations. A short discussion with Abner caused Jacob to send a radio message to Earth reporting their victory and saying that they were coming home. In the message, he did report the loss of 'Olla'.As usual, the jump took only 12 hours from initiation to completion, and they were in. They had put duct tape overmy mouth. I raised my head and my vision cleared, myhearing returned, and I saw them. The three black men whohad forced their way into our house.We had encountered them earlier at the bar at therestaurant. They’d tried to flirt with my wife and woundup making rude comments to her when she rebuffed them. Istepped in when I saw them start to get aggressive andpush almost came to shove right there. Fortunately, ourtable was called and we hastened to our dinner cue.. I heard David's voice.'Honey, I hope that you are OK. I know that it may sound stupid but I had a nightmare last night. You were sick. Your face looked very pale. You were coughing badly, but were eating ice cream despite that. I tried to dissuade you, but you would not listen to me. Please call me!'The second message was from Dave too.'I am worried, Nadine!'I laughed and dialed Dave's number. He answered immediately.'Hi, David.''Hi.''You behave so foolishly, Dave. How did you concoct.