Houston Run

Chapter Twelve

“Still nothing?” Plato asked.

Sherry sadly shook her head. Her weariness was evident. “There is nothing new to report. Rikki confirms Lynx, Gremlin, and Ferret are not in the compound. None of the Warriors on guard duty saw them leave.

The drawbridge has been up all night.”

“Dawn is only an hour or two away,” Plato noted. “I will call an emergency session of the Elders to deliberate our course of action.”

Sherry absently gazed at Plato’s cabin, then up at the stars. “They’ve disappeared! Just up and vanished in thin air! I can hardly believe it!”

Plato frowned. “Please. Don’t take it so hard.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Sherry said. “Your mate is safe and sound in your cabin.”

“Hickok and Blade will show up,” Plato assured her.

Sherry glanced at the Family Leader. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I’m afraid I don’t have your confidence.”

“Don’t you believe in your husband, in his competence?” Plato asked.

“Hickok is the most competent man I know at what he does,” Sherry said. “But in our line of work, you never know when your number is going to come up.”

“Such an attitude is too fatalistic for my taste,” Plato remarked. “The Spirit has bestowed free will on us, and possessing free will enables us to become partners with the Spirit in the co-creation of our own destiny.”

“What will be, will be,” Sherry commented.

“Rubbish!” Plato responded, a trace of annoyance in his paternal tone.

“I detest such a superficial appraisal of reality.”

“And how do you see it?” Sherry queried.

“Our destiny is, to a large extent, in our own hands,” Plato philosophized. “True, many circumstances arise daily beyond our control.

But a spiritually conscious individual molds those circumstances to conform to the will of the Spirit. From many of the books in the Family library dealing with prewar society, I gather the majority of people spent most of their time lamenting their lot in life and wishing their life was better. I’ve even seen a poll conducted a few years before the Big Blast, in which over three-fourths of the respondents asserted they were unhappy with their vocation and bitter about their status in life. Imagine that! If you want your life to be better, you must make it better. Wishing is for simpletons. Faith and prayer are the grease lubricating the gears of cosmic destiny.”

“Prayer, huh?” Sherry said. She turned and walked off.

“Wait!” Plato cried. “Where are you going? Did I offend you? If so, I apologize.”

Sherry glanced over her right shoulder. “You don’t need to apologize.

You didn’t offend me.” She stopped, faced him. “I’ve done just about all I can do. Every inch of the Home has been searched, and I know Hickok isn’t here. I have no idea where he is, so I wouldn’t know where to begin to look outside of the Home. There’s nothing left for me to do except find a quiet spot in the trees and lubricate those cosmic gears you were talking about.”

“Oh,” was all Plato could think of to say.