SuBBrilliant Blog

It was a dirty planet. Young but unorganized. Its inhabitants would not be civilized for centuries and not respectable neighbors for centuries more after that. Eventually though they would become the most respected species in existence. The Ambassador knew this because he was one of them.

The Secretary made his office in this space-time point because of just this juxtaposition. Any arrival had to observe the planet in its ancient state. The Guardians of Alenda should never forget their heritage.

It didn’t hurt that it was an unfixed point in time. In fact, the Ambassador might have visited before on this very day and not remember it. The conditions were such that nothing future visitors could do would cause any permanent effect on any significant events. Butterflies flapped their wings in vain here. The outside winds were too strong.

The Ambassador landed his ship, ‘The Verity’ just outside the rough wooden shack the Secretary called an office. He went inside and once again saw the rough interior. The Secretary easily could have constructed a modern technological space that any natives would have been shielded from seeing. Instead, he lived, dressed, and the Ambassador was reminded pointedly, smelled, in period-appropriate conditions.

“Ah, Ambassador, please come in. Have a seat. Apologies as usual for the lack of comforts, but— well you know the reasons.”

The Ambassador had heard the reasons. The Secretary wanted as little pollution of the planet as possible. Not for worries of effecting the timeline, but just for the ecological sensitivities of it. He also liked to feel the discomfort of his visitors.

“I’ve asked you here because it’s time for you to take a very difficult journey, the end of which I can’t even see.”

This was not the usual opener.

“The Progons and the Sensaurians are on the move. Both in different eras, but the effects are spread out over a vast amount of space.”

“You think we would have noticed that before,” the Ambassador ventured.

The Secrteary nodded. “A few of us have. Certainly. But only in the corners. It’s like that old adage about our home planet. If an alien landed blindfolded in the Jerendran Desert and took off his blindfold, he’d think he landed on a desert planet. Ladn in a forest and think he’d landed on a forest planet etc. We travel all through space and time, but we still only see a corner of it.”

“So what’s this issue then?” the Ambassador felt a little impatient with the Secretary sometimes.

“A war. The greatest war we know ever existed. A secret war meant to end the Guardians protection of the universe and change every unfixed point. A war only you can prevent or end. I’m sorry.”

The Ambassador bowed his head. His annoyance and mirth all fled.

“What do I do?”

“You start with a mission of piece. First to the Progons. Then to the Sensaurians. There is a possibility you can rearrange their motivations in such a way to limit the war to a more conventional size and save the universe.”

“And if I fail? Do I fail?”

“Even I don’t know if you do. It’s that obscured. But if you do, you’ll have another option. You’ll learn it in time.”

The Ambassador got up to leave.

“Oh one more thing,” the Secretary said. “Two more actually. One, hold on to the Verity tightly. You’re a pilot at heart. Don’t forget that.”

The Ambassador nodded. “And the other?”

Don’t trust the Vice-Counsel’s plan. That’s all I can say. All I need say, I think. Good luck, Ambassador X.”

Luck. It was a word the Secretary never used. It was frightening that he did so now.

“Did you hear the Ambassador arrived?”

“Yes, he flies alone you know. So unusual. But then I’ve heard he carries a singularity in his cabin. So it’s a bit done for show I should think.”

“The Verity has a singularity on board?”

“So, I’m told anyway. A whole pocket universe if the stories are to be believed.”

“Seems dangerous, if You ask me.”

“Well perhaps that’s why they don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Ask you.”

“Fair point.”

“So is it true about the treaty?”

“If anyone can pull it off peace with the Progons and Sensaurians, it’s the Ambassador.”

“Only Bolger can go to Nollisar, eh?”

“Something like that. He’s not like the other diplomats. Wasn’t born into it.”

“He’s a Guardian though, no?”

“Oh yes, from the central planet and everything but not one of the favored houses if you catch my meaning. Not a house at all really. Worked his way up. He’s been at all sorts of jobs, Instructor, Secretary, even Pilot I hear.”

“Would explain the small ship I suppose.”

“Explains the peace possibility too. Takes an outside perspective like his. That’s what he’s been doing the whole war. Wracking that clever brain of his to find a solution. Apparently he’s hit on it, or that’s the buzz anyway.”

“Have you met him before?”

“Once. He’s a charmer that’s for sure. And a fast-talker. It’s no exaggeration that he can talk anyone into or out of doing pretty much anything. I knew he’d untie this not we’re in.”

“So what happens to the generators then? And uh, you know the uh, conscripts if you will?”

“I expect it will just be wound down now. Less said about all that the better. Ah here we are. Mr. Ambassador, a pleasure to meet you.”

The Ambassador who is just stepping down from his ship turns to greet the two men with a menacing smile.

“Ah gentleman, just in time for some pinball,” said the Ambassador. The two other men looked puzzled. “Be with you in an Instant.”

“Commander I’ve got something. ”

“What is it Specialist?” Commander Ngtyllik moved over to Scanning specialist 12’s station.

“It’s a match for a surveillance order. The Verity.”

“The Verity? Don’t know it. Who gave the order?”

The specialist hesitated. “Uh, it says here you did sir.”

“What? I have no memory of that. When?”

“I don’t know, sir. In fact I don’t remember entering it myself. It just popped up like its always been there.”

“Nonsense. Maybe it’s from upstairs. Damned odd to slap my name on ot of ot is. Don’t worry Specialist. Good work. Do try to pay more attention when you’re authorizing orders though. Could sound sloppy not to remember orders.”

The Specialist looked doubtful. “Yes sir. I’ve sent acknowledgement and provided approach for now.”

“Good good. What else do we have on it?”

The Specialist poked around on his interface for a minute.

“Not much sir. The order only calls for an alert if the vessel is matched. it’s called the Verity. No known origin. No known crew. One race. Alendan?”

“Never heard of it.”

“And that’s it other than, oh! My apologies sir. It’s a level one alert.”

“What?! That’s ridiculous.” Level one was an all hands emergency if spotted. The idea that a level one could be spotted but nobody be expecting it or even remember entering the order was the most disturbing thing the Commander could think of.

“Well– Capture it. I’ll head upstairs and try to get to the bottom of this.”

The Commander ran up to the Captain’s office but he had already headed off to the Admiral’s Ready Room as soon as the alarm sounded. the Commander raced down the corridors to catch up and came barreling into a room filled with top officers all staring at him.

“Ah, Ngtyllik, I assume you can explain this?”

Crap.

“Somewhat sir,” this brought a perturbed look to the Admirlas face. The rest if the officers look less than pleased. Nobody joked ant a Level 1 and they all seemed to know even less than he did.

“Specialist Ramsey spotted the target just now on a ship called. The Verity. Records show I gave the surveillance order at Level 1 signed off by you Admiral. Neither the specialist nor I recalled the order, which is damned odd in this case. The ships only details are a race of origin called the Alendans. I’m not familiar.”

A Captain from another part of the operation laughed. “You don’t read fairy tales then?”

“What’s that supposed to mean Fergranters?” The Admiral snapped.

“Sorry sir. The Alendans are characters from children’s stories. A once powerful race that could travel in time but reached too far and brought their entire people to destruction. Typical moral lessons and such,” the Admiral cut him off. Captain Fergranters was from the Cultural Relations arm. They could talk at length if allowed.

“And that’s all we have? Please tell me this isn’t some kind of joke Ngtyllik–”

An aide interrupted the Admiral. “Sir we ‘re getting a transmission from the ship.”

“Is it already locked on approach?”

“Yes sir. It’s been captured on my orders,” said the Commander.

“Ok, so they can’t pull much. At least we did that part right. Let’s hear it.”

A burst if static filled the room followed by a perfectly normal sounding voice speaking the dominant language of the Fringe. Cascade.

“This is Pilot X of The Verity to the command of the Fringe Cascade. I mean you no harm. Doubtless your records are in disarray or even missing about me. I can clear up the confusion. Please allow me to land peacefully.”

The message repeated.

“All right,” said the Admiral. “Peacefully. But make sure a well-armed battalion meets him to make sure it’s stays peaceful.”

His flight was timeless. The Verity was equipped with all manner of features to pass the time, entertain, research, educate and more but he made use of none of them.

Mostly he wept. Not so much for what he’d done but for the need of the doing of it. And for the fact of his survival. He could have thrown himself out of protection and disappeared like the rest of it. Often he wished he had.

But he hadn’t. It was his punishment and his reward. He must live with the guilt of surviving. And also, he must live. That was his reward. The purpose of living to tell the tale, to help the others, to see it was not all in vain.

Hence his flight to the Fringe Cascade, the most advanced civilization left. If anyone knew best how to continue afterwards it would them. Even if they didn’t know why, which they wouldn’t, to them, existence would always have been like that, but even so, they would be clever enough to know something had happened, and how to deal with it.

A light when on at the console. A very important light. A light that usually demanded immediate attention. Pilot X looked at the light and laughed. He had been detected. The Fringe Cascade were still expecting him. They had scanned him and a
Proved his approach, even though by all rights they should have no idea who he was anymore.

He reached to acknowledge the signal, and the Verity lurched and threw him away from the console. Another series of lights went on. These did not make hi laugh. These were bad. The Verity had been captured and was being pulled in. So he was expected but at the same time no longer welcome. Either they knew almost nothing or somehow they knew everything. Either way they weren’t pleased. He’d find out why soon enough.

An echo rumbled through the tower as The Verity settled into place outside the command center. Its arrival added to the clamor and noise of the ongoing battle.

“What is that?! A ship? How did it get in here?!”
“Is that Ambassador X?”
“He’s not Ambassador anymore. He’s gone rogue didn’t you hear?”
“Citizen X, please cease your activities and vacate at once!”
“Citizen? No need to insult the man if you want him to comply.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Dear stars in alignment, is that the Harmony Device? How did he get it?”
“He’s not going. To use it is he?!”
“Ambassador X, stop this minute ,”
Foomp
Or maybe mor like a shoomp sound.

Whichever it was it was a small sound as he pushed down the plunger activating the device. The Verity protected him in a chrono-neutral envelope as the wave spread out from the device freezing everything. The people in the tower’s command center stopped. The battle outside paused. He cried. The wave was unstoppable now, rippling through space and time to the fringes of the universe, destroying almost all of them, rewriting history in the rest.

But he was stopping them. His people. And their enemies. A war that had unleashed a million maniacs on unsuspecting worlds. A war that would kill all the innocents, leaving him no choice but to take this action, at this moment, irrevocably.

The tower was dark now. He saw the wave returning. He couldn’t really see it, but he could catch hints of its progress as the stars went out. He knew he’d have to leave before it converged back here at the center. Even the chrono-neutral field would be wiped out then. He hadn’t stopped crying. He almost decided to stay and pay for his crime. But he knew he had one last responsibility to those left in this universe he had just remade.

He dragged himself into the Verity and told it to set course.

“Where?” It asked reasonably. Always reasonable, his ship.

He looked out at the spreading darkness and saw a twinkle of light. Stars still existed. A few. Not caught in the wave. Space travel would take ages now. People living among those stars would think it had always been that way. Because of him they would never remember the teeming life of the galaxies as they were. But they would survive. The madmen would not rule them.

“There” He pointed at the distant twinkles. “We’ll start there, I think.”

“Course set for the Fringe Cascade.”

Pilot X fled from the dark tower as it faded and disappeared into never having been.

The origins of the medicine ball are shrouded in the mists of the history of the tribes of North America. Some have speculated that it refers to shamanistic practices, others to some sort of traditional healing ceremony. The story is rather more prosaic. In the 1500s explorer Vasco De Gama reported tribesmen using a “weighty spheroid in ceremonial activity” which may lend to the confusion about shamanism.

While no more detail exists from De Gama, a later journal of the explorer Franklin Seagraves describes a conversation with a chieftain about the unusual healthiness of its members. Seagraves writes, “The chieftain then explained that his people use a ceremonial ball with divers markings on it and totems in an activity called by some untranslatable word. He showed me this ball and while its appearance was normal, it was strange heavy. He then caused his sons to demonstrate all manner of passings and liftings and other odd comportations with the thing such like I have never seen fore or since. It was made a gift to me with the recommendation that its proper use was ‘great medicine’ and I should add years to my time in its application.”

References are scattered after this but sometime in the late 1600s some medical men are found to refer to “Seagraves Lifting Ball” and “Seagraves Great Medicine”. These intermittent usages finally settle into the usage “medicine ball” by the mid 1700s and the rest, as they say, is history.

Bev’s Bora was famous but she just felt old. She wished Marnly were here. Her husband lay in intensive care. He had told her at great length that she should forget all about him and go have fun. But here she was breaking her promise and thinking about him while she should be thinking about the big event.

“Ok Bev, we’ll need you in place now. Only three minutes,” the young aide said guiding her gently to the podium set up in the meadow.

50 years ago she had stood in this very spot and sent a message to the Zima. At the request of the Primavera’s Commander, she asked what happened to the Zima, why it had changed course towards them, and invited their descendants to board the Primavera should they eventually catch up.

Just shy of 25 years after that, someone, hopefully, on the Zima would have received the message. Survivors existed. Even though they could on,y see the one transmission from Zima’s meadow they had seen people come and go through it as early as yesterday.

In less than a minute, any return message from the Zima could arrive. Of course they might not respond immediately. Bev had prepared remarks in that expected case. But hopefully they would respond soon. She didn’t have that many remarks.

The time arrived, the aide pointed at Bev, and the lights dimmed and a spotlight highlighted her. She watched the screens of the meadow on The Zima, showing a 25-year-old picture.

“50 years ago, I was an inertial specialist with a hobby.” They laughed respectfully. “Today I’m known as Bev Bora, the world finder. Well,” she never finished the thought as a lady in a red dress walked slowly into the meadow. She was as old as Bev, but looked much more worn. Was it really her? And only 25 years after being so vibrant?

She turned and spoke. The Zima could not send audio, but new technology had been developed to read lips and simulate a voice.

An old and withered voice addressed them. “Bev Bora this is Hypotenuse Tensate Proctoress of the Longship Zima. When you sent your message I was young and our ship had forgotten itself. The meadow camera was a plaything. You were entertainment. Your message set us straight, caused us to grow up. To remember ourselves. To be again, a longship of the great exploration.

“Our ship was hit by flying rocks some 70 years before. Most of our communication equipment was taken out as well as most of ship operations. Our animals are gone. Our plants survive. Our people get by. In a last maneuver of the dying engines, our commander changed course at the expense of his life to chase after you, the Primavera. His hope was that we would contact you and be able to transfer or possibly even make repairs.

“We forgot that, but you helped us remember. I will be long dead by the time y receive this message. Perhaps you will be too. But our descendants shall meet in friendship one day. Please send us anything you can think of to help, until we can meet more directly. Our lives our yours.”

The woman bowed and stepped back as if to await a reply. Bowed her head and left the meadow empty. A dat stream then commenced with ships logs and other status updates from the Zima.

Of course Bev had guessed their need for information and assistance, and even without knowing the main condition of the Zima, had convinced command to send schematics and other helpful information already. For 50 years. Now Bev began her actual response. The real meat of her being here. She gripped the podium tightly and her eyes shined.

“To the Zima. I am Bev Bora. This will be my last message–”

An explosion knocked Bev to her feet. Followed by another and another. Shouts and confusion erupted around her. She smelled smoke. The aide rushed over to her side then fell screaming.

A tiger had her in its jaws. It looked at Bev. She froze halfway raising herself from the ground. Another explosion shook the ship and the tiger broke eye contact and leaped away leaving the dead aide on the ground.

Bev turned to run and confronted a jaguar
“Bora! Someone shouted. The entire zoo has escaped. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Bev wasn’t sure why the person felt the need to yell this lashed worked it out for herself. And from studying the Zima she had a very good guess what was happening. Meteors had crashed through the ship taking out essential systems, like the containment field on zoo animals. She had to get out of the park, not only to avoid wild animals but to get to the Bridge and warn them not to make the same mistakes she suspected the Zima made.

Although she didn’t think Zima’s zoo had run wild over the land like Primavera’s. She turned to see if she could get to a train. She never saw the lynx.

Bev Bora was not popular with the audio engineers at first, she was an amateur. They didn’t quite see why command had saddled them with a moonlighting lieutenant best left to her real skills, whatever those were.

That typical professional resentment lasted about 20 minutes not their first meeting.

“So I’m fairly certain with a proper model the Doppler shift combined with the known longship acceleration can give us a fairly precise limit on the light-year distance of the Zima. I just don’t,t have the math.”

All five audio engineers sat quietly starting at her then at each other.

“We’ll I do,” one coughed, ” excuse me, do. I do. I can calculate it.”

Bev smiled with relief. “Great! Uh, how long do you need?”

“Lady, you’re impressive. You already did all the hard work,” another engineer interjected. “It’s all the data points that are tedious. Given what you collected, I think anyone of us would be embarrassed if it took us an our.”

Be looked surprised, then smiled. “Fantastic! Well. Let me know we you have something. I’ll be at ,y post.”

Without dropping. Her smile, she turned and left, rather fled, the meeting.

In 35 minutes working with Bev’s data set, the engineers not nay had the location of the Zima, they also pinpointed its heading and found that it must have been deflected from its original trajectory. It was headed at an angle back towards the path of the Primavera. Eventually the Zima would pass behind the Primavera within 5 less than a light year.

Bev developed a 25 year program to send detailed communications to the Zima, or whoever would be left 50 years after the lady in red.

Bev Bora had become a mini-celebrity in Bridge town, the common name for the occupants of the Bridge area of the Longship Primavera. Her notoriety came first as a result of her obsession with watching the broadcasts from the other three longships, two of which were out of range and one of which had suffered a catastrophic disaster, presumedly wiping out all occupants and leaving the transmission focused on a surviving meadow somewhere inside the longship Zima and nothing more.

All that changed when a woman appeared in the meadow wearing a red dress, who walked up and shut off the camera. That led the Zima’s internal system to switch to another camera, the first indication that anything inside the ship was working.

Now Bev Bora was no longer the crazy obsessive watching a dead ship, but the foremost expert in determining what might be happening on the Zima. The four longships were headed in different directions, but the Primavera was very interested in what happened on the Zima in order to avoid it themselves.

Bev laid out several schematics of the Primavera and the Zima alongside several photos of meadows. The command team on disaster prevention gathered around along with Marnly who had been with her when the lady in red had appeared.

Bev pointed at the photos. “These top two images are stills of the Zima’s previous camera and the current camera. These bottom two are of the meadow we think is the equivalent here on the Primavera.”

The top two were empty meadows. The bottom two had several command staff walking through them.

“Is that the same person in both?” asked Marnly.

“Not just the same person, but at the same time,” Bev answered.

“It’s the same meadow?” asked Specialist Lombardozzi.

Bev nodded. “The schematics show how we identified it. We eliminated the vegetation from both Zima images to get an estimate of the contour of the terrain,” as she spoke the vegetation disappeared from the top images, replaced by line-drawings of the ground. “The lady in red helped us make a much more accurate estimate of the first image since we saw her walk up, but it’s still pretty accurate for the second.

“As you probably know, terrain and camera placement in all four longships was standard. Ground level varies because of soil placement, vegetation and erosion but we factored those conditions out. That led us to 5 places on Primavera that could correspond to what we know of thirst image and 12 that could be the second.”

“So how did you narrow it down to these two?” asked Specialist Hahn.

“You mean one,” said Marnly.

“Exactly,” agreed Bev. “One location showed in both lists. This one,” she tapped the Primavera images and they merged into a 3D representation showing the command staff member from all sides.”

Bev turned to the Distance Monitors behind them. Only two were active. One of them showed a series of images from cameras within the Primavera. The other showed the current still from Zima. Bev manipulated some controls and the Primavera screen stayed on one meadow.

At first glance it looked similar but not identical to the Zima’s image. Trees were in different places and the ground cover looked slightly different.

“If you look past the trees and grass, you can see this is the same spot. Were 99 percent certain this is the equivalent location. What we don’t know is–”

Bev stopped. Nobody was listening to her anymore anyway.

The lady in red was walking into the meadow again on the Zima’s screen, heading straight for the camera. She smirked a little as she got close.

“No!” Bev yelled, “Don’t do it again.”

This time instead of just disabling the camera though the woman looked into it and mouthed some words, then shut the camera off. Just like last time the screen went blank. If things proceeded as last time it would be awhile before the Zima found another camera to show, if there was one.

“What was she saying?” asked Marnly.

Bev scanned back to show the woman again. She called up a speech emulator and a computerish voice said “Are you listening? Because I’m watching.” then the video showed the woman disabling the camera again.

“What is she watching?” asked Marnly.

“The meadow,” said Bev.

Bev Bora sat at the Distance Monitor Consoles as she did every day. Two monitors showed nothing but static. The third, labeled ‘Zima’ showed a dark area of vegetation. She watched as she did every day for a sign of non-plant life.

It wasn’t her job. Her job was to calculate and program inertial distributors for the Primavera, who’s bridge she sat on. She was incredibly good at this job. So good in fact that she could usually get her day’s worth of programming down in two or three hours. She chose to spend most of the rest of her time at the Distance Monitor Consoles.

This was volunteer duty, so she didn’t risk a reprimand for goofing off during work hours. And nobody else really wanted the gig. Only Marnly showed any interest. Beve was pretty sure he was just being friendly.

“Any apes?” Marnly said from behind.
She turned and grinned. “Whole pack. I just missed them though because I turned around to say hi to you. They’ll be gone but he time we both look.” She turned to find the same empty area of trees and grass. It was their usual joke.

Tell me Bev, what do you expect to see. The ship is dead. It’s a fluke that the distance transmitters are stills ending this one camera. And since the ship is dead, that camera will operate forever. All you’ll see is the trees die slowly.”

Bev didn’t believe that. She’d seen things. Shadows. She’d reviewed the records to make sure she wasn’t imagining it and they were there. She’d reported them with great excitement but the Command team determined it wasn’t enough to take any action and just ordered monitoring to continue.

The Zima, was a Generation ship like the Primavera. Along with the Qiu and Majira, the four ships and set off in different directions to explore and possibly colonize. The ships were great works of engineering meant to last for inestimable periods of time.

It hadn’t worked out that way.

The Qiu and Majira had stopped transmitting years ago. Officially they were designated out of range but Bev had reviewed the stored last transmissions. Both ships had been in trouble.

The Zima had never stopped broadcasting After a containment breach and a freak disease outbreak, the Captain had declared ship wide emergency and ordered all survivors to the Bridge. The last transmission from the Bridge had been the Captain’s inspiring survival speech interrupted by an explosion and data indicating all hands were dead.

Then the transmission flipped to this scene of trees and grass from inside the ships Park. The Primavera had a park just like it and a camera observing a similar scene. All four ships and been laid out the same.

Everyone had expected the scene to show death by fire or vacuum breach or just to stop transmitting. But none of that happened. Apparently environmental controls were working well enough to keep the vegetation thriving. Basic power for life support was provided by passive stellar collectors, so the camera operation meant power was still on and as Marnly speculated, would probably last forever.

The mystery of what had happened on Zima consumed the attention of whole command teams for months. The containment breach must have been fixed. According to the Captain’s reports killed 44% of all life on Zima? So the Park’s continued existence meant it had been outside that number and the breach never affected it. The disease that finished off so many of the rest of the crew wouldn’t have affected the plant life. And the bridge explosion? What caused that? why would the system switch to a park view rather than Medical or Engine Room?

Eventually no answers and no new data came along, and only Bev was left obsessed with the transmissions.

Marnly finally convinced her to get dinner and they left. He failed, again, to convince her to take the train on from the Barracks to Galley for a fresh dinner instead of commissary food. She pleaded, as usual, that she mated to head back to the bridge after they eat and she only had two train credits left for the day.

“Don’t you want to transfer to another department eventually? I mean you say you don’t want a command job. What about Observation? They have the best views in Primavera and they’re close to the park. OUR park.”

She laughed. “Yes I know. But I really feel connected to the Zima. And I don’t believe everyone there is gone. So I think we can discover what happened. maybe even make contact again.”

He gave up and they switched to talking about sports. Bev’s only other interest besides the Distance Consoles was the Handball League. She oddly supported Tactical’s team, even though she lived in Barracks and worked in Bridge both of which had a team.

After dinner, Marnly accompanied Bev back to the Bridge from the Barracks even though it meant spending a valuable train credit.

They were laughing about the chances of Galley’s Handball team ever scoring against anyone when both stopped short.

On the Distance Transmission Screen for Zima in the middle of the trees, stood a woman in a red dress. She was beautiful. As Bev sat down and began priority log and forward of the scene, she shook and began to cry.

“I’m not imagining it?”

Marnly sat down slowly. “no,” he whispered.

The woman in the dress began to come towards the camera. She climbed up a tree and stared into the camera. The transmission did have audio but the woman did not speak. She reached forward towards the camera and the transmission went blank. Not static, just blank. The transmission was still chive but the woman must have disconnected the camera.

“No!” yelled Bev.