Chapter 1

Mike turned seventeen this year. It's hard to believe until I look back on my life and events and then realize how much time has passed and how many things have changed since the Day in 2011.

It's now 2030 and Jennifer, the daughter of Jim and his wives, is still enamored with Mike and he has moved from toleration to friendship to love as they have grown in years. A few times, other young men and women have made a play for one or the other's affections. Those efforts never met with success. Shirl and I were happy for them but concerned about their plan to marry at such a young age. Mike has become an accomplished negotiator and has talked his mother and I into not just allowing but actively supporting their wedding. The two of them are mature in their feelings for each other. It's only their young age that bothers Shirley and me. Jim and his wives have always supported the union and, though they have also expressed concerns regarding the ages of their daughter and our son, they support the union as inevitable. Jen has confided in Shirl that they don't plan to start a family for a number of years. We'll see.

Jen is two years and ten days younger than Mike. Two months after her fifteenth birthday will be the wedding. Mid May in Georgia is a pretty time. It is warm but usually hasn't become so hot as to be uncomfortable. It will be a big event with many from Protection flying down and from Pintlala up for the ceremony and reception. Most of Preservation will also be in attendance. Jen's maid or, rather, matron of honor will be Janice. Our "daughter" is so proud of them that you would think it's her children being married. In a sense, they are also. Mike has asked me to be best man and I accepted.

On a more practical note, Mike has been building a house on our pond up the hill from our house. I have helped him as have Jim and Robby and Bennie and many, many more. Jen has also put in her decorating touches along with those of her mothers and my wife. It's a beautiful house in a pretty setting. We had to build a road around to the back of the pond to access it or tear up the backyard area of our house. Mike and I did build a comfortable path from our house up to it. I know he and Jen have spent many evenings up there watching as they built, painted, and furnished it to their mutual satisfaction.

There will also be people coming from a new area thanks to Janice and Bennie's latest trip. I will have Janice tell that story before going on to the wedding.

Janice has written her usual interesting report of her activities with her spouses.

Other than back and forth between Preservation and Protection with my spouses, there was no exploring for a few years. Late last spring, the desire to explore what's on the other side of somewhere could no longer be denied. Bennie and I had been married a number of years and had to adjust to having more spouses. Once that occurred and we were both comfortable with our new husband and wives, all five of us felt the desire to see somewhere new. Even Melissa, the one of us who is most homebodied in her thinking, wanted to explore. With the new plane, we felt more comfortable and able to search out new areas. Robby and Pam are now also accomplished pilots. Robby and Bennie have worked with the "air brothers" and learned about maintenance on our plane and as much about gasoline as could be learned.

We are parents of five children. George had suggested that Melissa should probably stop having children to keep her health. She was the most reluctant of the five of us but we all agreed after talking it over. She admitted that she enjoyed motherhood and, since Pam and I have never gotten pregnant, she wanted for all for us to have plenty of children. Bennie suggested that we should quit before we were outnumbered! As a result, Melissa went on birth control to give us a choice if we later changed our minds. With two active, virile husbands, it appeared that neither Pam nor I would ever bear children. Ten was, after all, a big number for a family.

At any rate, Doris was two years old and we began to plan a trip for all of us. We would leave from Pintlala and head south and west looking for people along the coast of Texas but staying within a safe flying range of no more than five hundred miles per leg. After looking at maps, our legs would be much shorter giving us the ability to veer off course a fair bit yet stay within our planned range.

We spent time with Tom and Vic going over our new plane, a Beechcraft King Air. It's big enough to hold all of us. We were comfortable with its capabilities and with our ability to fly and maintain it. Our oldest son, Charles, called it "King" and that name stuck.

We put together kits for ourselves and the children, loaded up, and flew down to Pintlala. We had warned them we were coming on the radio net so we were expected. We landed and taxied to our usual spot. Robby was flying today with me as his copilot. We met with some of our friends down here and went over the plane carefully. In the morning, we would embark on the first leg of our trip going to New Orleans and continuing on to Baton Rouge. We all had our doubts about the viability of New Orleans.

We didn't have the ability to fly as low and slow as we could in the old Cessna that served Bennie and I so well in our trip north. However, we could go slow and low enough to know what the land in that area looked like. It was bad. We had had two hurricanes come up from the Gulf of Mexico over the years. They had passed close enough to New Orleans that the lack of maintenance over the years had sealed the city's fate. We could tell where it was but few landmarks had survived and none of those unscathed. Without a boat, you couldn't tour New Orleans any more. We traveled north and west to Baton Rouge and saw damage but the airport appeared useable. We landed and began to search for people and gas. We found some useable gas but not much. This was not an airport that we could use much unless we figured out how to re-supply it. We agreed that probably wouldn't happen any time soon, if ever. We had lunch and set out for our next stop, Houston.

Houston was in better shape though the coast was in poor shape. We landed at Bush International Airport and shut down the engines in the general aviation section of the airport. Other than the slight noises of the plane's metal cooling, it was utterly quiet. Even the children were quiet because they were unused to the total silence. We found a good spot for our camp inside a building. We pulled cushions off chairs and made beds for all of us. We cooked our own food over a small fire outside. Before we stopped activity for the night, we fueled the plane and locked it. Bennie and I had learned that precautions were good things and Robby was cautious either naturally or by his training. We settled in for the night.

Early the next morning, I was sleeping in Robby's arms when a noise woke me. I opened my eyes and looked into Robby's. He whispered so quietly that it was like just seeing his lips move. We rose and armed ourselves and carefully stepped out. I guess we looked funny. I was wearing a tee shirt and sneakers with a gun belt. Robby was wearing boxers, sneakers, and a gun belt. We hadn't drawn our guns but were ready. We stayed close to the building looking for the source of the sound that woke us. I have learned that Robby is possessed of inhuman patience. I don't know that I will ever have his patience but with him standing there rock solid, it did make it easier to stand and wait motionless listening for any sound. The total silence was probably unnerving to any person but Robby. We stood there for long minutes, much longer than it takes to read these words twice. Still neither of us moved or even seemed to breathe. I heard it again. With no sound, I pronounced the word, "plane." Robby nodded and moved his hand in a motion to stay. I shook my head. I would rather be in the lead with him to back me up rather than the opposite. I was a better hand-to-hand fighter but Robby was deadly with a pistol or a knife. I was good with either one but not in his league.