Chapter 9: Hide In Plain Sight

"Here you go," Steve told his neighbor, "All we agreed on and fifty more for a job well done." The Storms nodded their appreciation as a happy neighbor drove off.

"Come out into the barn. We have three more of those bad guys out there and more new stuff as well." Steve led the way while the dazed Storms followed behind.

Linda told them, "You got great kids. The twins sure know how to get rough when it counts and Vikki is a perfect little lady."

"Thank you," Henry Storm said as a single barn door opened. "We are ... By the Silent Star." His voice broke as he saw the slab of purple on the floor in front of him. "Is ... is it real? It can't be. It was all was destroyed except for one small shard at the time of the Great Cataclysm. It is real, isn't it?" His eyes were wide open in near unbelief.

"Oh, it's real all right and our son Gage can do tricks with it."

"What - sort – of – tricks?" Henry asked carefully, spacing his words.

"Well, he took Vikki for a ride on the thing. I couldn't believe my eyes."

"Who are you?" Henry hissed as he instinctively backed up. "All sensitives and adepts were killed when the transporter exploded during the Cataclysm, stranding us here." How can this mere boy do what none of us have been able to do after three thousand years of trying? Who are you?" He looked close to a breakdown.

"Henry don't have a head rupture, now," Steve tried to calm his new friend down. "It looks to me like a lot of your so-called wisdom and knowledge just turned out to be a little off here and there." He smiled reassuringly at the distraught man and added, "Besides, we got a secret weapon."

"Ah, what weapon?" Ellen Storm asked nervously.

"Haw. There's an easy one to answer." Ralph laughed as parts of his own questions were answered. "They have Dog. Am I right or am I right?"

"Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back, warrior boy," Peg cautioned her husband. "After all, this young lady figured it out a lot faster." She smiled at Vikki.

"Your dog is your secret weapon?" Henry looked at Steve, not believing what he was hearing.

Steve looked at Gage and asked, "Dog was part of one group which came through the portal at some time or other, as they call it. Right?"

"Well?" Gage asked, "Is Dad right?"

"Yes, I believe I was part of the team which did the navigating. My memory is a bit hazy, but essentially your father is correct. He is much more intelligent than I gave him credit."

"Dog had something to do with the navigation through the portals. He's smarter than your average dog." He grinned affectionately at Dog and received a mental picture of Dog snapping at his butt as Gage ran away in wild-eyed fear.

"Would you show us what else you can do?" Ellen asked.

"Aw, it's not much, but it's a start." Gage concentrated on the slab and asked it to come to him. Like an obedient dog it rose slightly off the floor and settled down in front of him at his feet.

Everyone gasped at the sight. "Wait," Dog ordered. I remember something from the past. I believe you can attach things to the targ by ordering it to hold onto whatever you desire to be attached to it." He looked around and added, "The old car seat with the seat belts still on it might be a good start."

"Dad, would you bring the old car seat over here and set it on the slab? I want to try and fasten it so I got something to sit on."

Steve brought it over and was careful to be gentle as possible as he placed it in the middle of the slab. Gage mentally asked it to attach the installation brackets on the bottom of the seat so it couldn't fall off. It was done quickly as the purple material seemed to flow around the seat base. He called to Vikki, "You want to go for a ride?"

Before he finished asking she was seated beside him. "Fasten your seat belt," she told him.

"You're bossy, you know?" He sat still and said, "Would somebody open one of the big doors?" The twins jumped forward and opened both doors wide.

"Go" Gage ordered and nothing happened.

"Be more specific," Dog suggested. "Tell it specifically what you want it to do."

"Come up six inches above the floor and go outside." His mental image was of the slab flying high in the air. Once outside they rapidly ascended to an approximation of Gage's idea of "high in the air."

"This is great. Our own flying saucer." Vikki looked at the world below.

"Naw, it's more like a flying carpet, a purple flying carpet," Gage countered. "Let's go way up." He gave the mental order and they rose to over ten thousand feet. It became more difficult to breath and the wind was cold.

"Let's go back, I'm getting chilled," Vikki requested. She had started to shiver.

"Go back down slow like," Gage ordered. He imagined the desired rate of descent and the slab complied.

As they returned to the barn, Henry asked, "Where did you go?"

"Way high," Vikki answered. "Way, way high. It was cold and I had trouble breathing."

"Put your toy up, Gage and let's see what else is in the hole." Steve got back on the Case tractor and backed down in the hole where he removed another bucket load of what looked like rubble. It was the remains of a second half disintegrated box full of gold.

He dropped the load on the floor in the barn and said, "We better separate the dirt from the gold. We need to wash it and count it. I have a hunch this is all there is." To make certain though, he dug around a little more with the backhoe. He rummaged through the dirt yet found nothing more even after digging a little deeper.

Gage took the rolled up hose inside the door of the barn, uncoiled it and turned the water on. Even at the low forty pounds of pressure their well pump supplied he was able to give their treasure a thorough washing. In no time at all it was wet, shiny and free of all mud. Linda hurried into the house and brought out their bathroom scales. "Let's see how much the old lost Swede left us," She told her husband.

"What is this talk about a Lost Swede mine?" Henry looked bewildered.

"It's a joke," Steve answered.

"I don't get it," Henry said.

"It's because you're not Swede." Steve grinned at him.

"But you're not Swedish, are you?" Ellen asked.

"No, it's all part of the joke," he told her.

"Well, I don't get it," she complained.

"That's because you're not Swede." Steve's face cracked into a great big grin.

"I get it." Exclaimed Vikki. "There's no point to the joke except to keep people trying to get the point of a joke when it doesn't have one." She smiled at Steve, "Am I right?"

"Yah, you got me. It's all a put on. Pretty good isn't it?" He laughed as the others stared at him, still trying to understand how a joke could have no point and was still supposed to be funny.

"Actually your father happens to be more correct than he knows. The people who buried this were all from what is now Sweden and they were lost." Gage heard the humor in Dog's mental voice.

"Is there anything else in there, do you know." Gage looked at his friend.

"I am not certain, but I believe there might be another rune stone in there."

"Dad," Gage interrupted his father as he was talking to Henry. "Dog says there could be another rune stone down there. I get the feeling it's the most important one of all. I'm not sure yet, but I somehow get the feeling that rune stone is more important than all the gold we found."

"You boys feel like getting dirty? I'm about all dug out. Somebody else better dig a while." Steve was tired and showed it.

"We have about ninety-six pounds of gold here," Linda announced. "What are we going to do with it?"

Everyone looked at each other blankly. "I would suggest you sell it in small amounts in other states. Take only large bills and be discreet in all your dealings," Ralph suggested. "Perhaps you might make a quiet trip to Jamaica and deposit some there in a dollar account." He shrugged, "I'm just making a suggestion. You know if word gets around you have all this gold you'll find more trouble."

Sounds good to me," Steve said. "I want to change some of it for ready cash. I hear jewelers buy gold, no questions asked."

"You're right there, some of them," Ralph answered, "They will discount it pretty much around ten percent."

Steve shrugged. "Well, it didn't cost us anything so I'll go for it. I want to buy the farm across the road. We can get it cheap. Since it's mostly bog and small lakes we'll get it for a little over a hundred dollars an acre. We put a new house on it and we can move in there and let the Storm family have this one. I have a hunch we are going to become real close in the next few days."

Henry Storm looked at Steve, disbelief showing on his face. To be handed a home with no strings attached was hard to believe. "Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"You get some real hare brained ideas some times, but this is extreme even for you." Linda looked at her husband as if she couldn't believe her ears.

"Now Linda, just relax and stop and think. First, it seems when we need money we get it rained on us. Ever since our desert vacation we have been getting into one thing after another. Dog there could probably come up with a Lost Norwegian Mine and even a Lost Martian Mine." He looked at dog and said, "Bark once if I'm right." Amused, Dog went "Woof."

"Steve, you are so tight usually you wear a dollar bill out stretching it while you spend it. You don't sound like you." Linda looked worried at the man she had married and thought she knew so well.

"Oh, I don't think we'll be going on food stamps, unless we have to keep feeding so much meat to Dog all the time." Dog gave a good-natured bark and listened.

"I still don't understand why you are in essence just handing us a home. Why are you doing this?"

"Somehow we are two families who didn't know each other existed last month. Yet everything we had happen since Gage met Dog and cheated at chess seems to bring us all closer together. It's like we were meant to somehow be together. Even our two kids, Gage and Vikki, have come to depend on each other. They are like a team only closer. I really think they're going to end up married to each other in a few years. I been getting feelings and those feelings say we got to stay together or we'll be dead." Steve acted so serious no one doubted him.

He looked at Henry Storm and said, "You are a smart man and work at a job where brains count more than muscle don't you? I been lucky so far. What do you do for a living?"

"When my health permits it I'm an international investments analyst."

"Okay, you and Ellen rest up and then you take our motor home and head out with the gold. You have a better idea on how to turn it into cash without being noticed than I do. When you get it turned into money we can start using it to find out what we really have going here. Whatever it is, I bet it's something big"

"We must inform the rest of the People about all of this," Ellen said. "With the knowledge we have in our archives and the other artifacts we already have, we all definitely need to work together. The Raak are not going to give up."

"Which brings us to an area I am familiar with, security." Ralph stood his full six and a half feet tall and smiled at the others. "I studied criminology and electronics in college until I got side tracked by wrestling. I have given serious thought about retiring next year to open a security agency that offers protection, surveillance, the works."

Then he added, "Have you noticed how we all seem to have been placed in positions where we could not help but run into each other? We all have different talents and they all fit together. There must be some sort of reason for this." He looked around at everybody.

"Honey, what can a big old clumsy broad like me do? The rest of you all have talents. All I have is a college degree in anthropology and a couple of black belts in Northern Tai Chi and Korean karate. I sure can't make things fly or find some lost whoever's gold mine. Everyone seems to have more to offer than me." Peg looked wistfully at Vikki and shrugged self-consciously.

"I don't know for sure what he means, Dog says you are cru ... crucial to our endeavor," Gage told Peg Milton. He turned to Dog and said aloud, "Why don't you stop using big words?" Dog didn't respond, he just grinned at his friend.

Ellen told Peg, "I don't know about Linda, but I feel, well ... safer when you are around. You both are so competent. I just know we won't get hurt too badly if the Miltons are around."

"Thank you," the big woman said. "You know, there's a funny thing about this all. Ralph and I talked about it and we both feel we were somehow drawn to the Larsens first, and now to the rest of you as well. It is not a case of misplaced gratitude either."

"There are forces at work here, drawing us together which are beyond my understanding. Tell them just those words." Dog conveyed the urgency of the message to Gage.

Gage told the others what Dog told him. "I think he means we just don't know enough and had better be careful."

Henry Storm looked first at Steve and then at the rest of the small group. "Do you think it would be a good idea to start a headquarters building here? It should be large enough to suit our needs and yet hidden from sight as much as possible."

"What do you have in mind, Henry?" Steve asked.

"I have a feeling when we tell the People about our discoveries there is going to be a split in the Inner Council. The tradition bound ones are going to demand we turn everything over to them and the more forward thinking of the People will want to cast their lot with us. We'll probably split the whole Council itself. More has been discovered here in such a very short time than in the past thirty or so centuries as we have clung to the past until we became afraid of any future changes." He looked slightly embarrassed as he added, "I was one of the worst of the conservatives. Yet now I see the need for progress and change. We have spent centuries hiding from the Raak, more worried about preserving our precious heritage. I now see we were the keepers of an empty chest filled with treasures which did not exist."

"Well, you call whoever you think you should and if you're rested up enough tomorrow you can get busy selling gold. I bet there's a lot of people who want some gold at a good price." Steve smiled and handed Henry the keys to the big motor home.

Gage came running into the house with two coins in his hand. "Guess what these are!" he shouted. "I found 'em in with the Lost Swede gold."

"Two more coins like we sold the crook in Las Vegas?" Linda asked her son.

"You guessed it, Mom. And these are even newer looking than the other two. I want a motor bike and my own bank account." He was hopping from one foot to the other in his excitement.

"I can understand you would want a motor bike, but why the sudden interest in a bank account?" Steve looked at his son quizzically.

"So I can have a debit card. Then in an emergency I have something to help me get out of trouble. These are perilous times, Dad." He looked so serious Steve dared not laugh.

"Give me the coins to keep, Gage," his mother said. "Okay on the motor bike. We were planning on getting you one for Christmas.

"Well, what I want is kind of a custom thing. I want a twenty-speed mountain bike with a five horse two-cycle engine with a belt drive to the rear wheel. If Dad will put a centrifugal clutch on it and a slide shifter I can go more places than a Jeep can go and make good time doing it. I don't want to get caught out somewhere and have those baddies find me with no way to escape."

"Where did you ever see something like what you just described?" Steve asked his excited son.

"Well, I take after you dad, I'm just a great mechanic." Steve smiled at the obvious flattery. "Anyway, I figured out what I need and designed it from there." He hesitated and then added in what he hoped was a casual tone of voice, "Oh yes, the bike will have to be one of those high end special alloy types with the foam filled tires instead of air filled. Then I can't get flats and the mag wheels won't bend like the cheaper spoke rims do."