She sighed again at the entrance eyeing the gate that had fallen after its rusting hinges had given way, it had been dragged and thrown into the overg...own garden behind the fencing. Although Clara was in charge of internal security she was powerless to have the gate repaired and re-erected. The governing board had no spare funds because the forty residents were tight-fisted. She went to the pool where a cook-out was underway for anyone who bothered to turn up to celebrate Halloween. A resident,. “I refused so they are trying to starve me into submission and threatening to use her. She’s been up there with them for two days.”“How many of them?” I asked.“You saw, I’m sure, a company out in the field. A half-dozen officers in the house, eating our food, abusing our servants.”The girl came down the short flight of stone steps, turned sideways and entered the cellar, the awkward yoke still on her shoulders.“Chessie, oh Chessie,” the woman cried, rising to meet her, “what have they done to. *-*-* Ten months later, Jessica lay on her bed in herapartment, her infant daughter quietly suckling hergenerous breasts. Jessica couldn't help but smile.Knowing that her beautiful baby was really her malefriend Lee inside was rather humorous. As the infant fed from her mother's double-D breast,totally oblivious to everything else around her,Jessica examined the child once again. Leah was themost beautiful baby Jessica had ever seen, and thatwasn't just a mother's pride. Everyone who saw. The focus pearl had been right there, in the forest. The Portal had worked. It was simply the destination that had been willfully changed."JOLLIS, YOU BASTARD!" Gronnus screamed, raising his shaking fists to the heavens.There was a sound. It was faint at first, but steadily rising in volume. A staccato cascade of thuds against packed earth. As it approached, the rattle of metal could be heard with each thump.And then, in the distance appeared the first plumes of dust from the encroaching.