Jo, Cheese and Lone Tree were sitting on the cliff looking down on the tipi village. Lone tree said, "these lodges...where did you come up with the idea?"<p>"It was something the Cheese and I had done before."<p>"Before?"<p> "In a passed life."<p>"Past life?"<p>"In a life that we had before this one."<p>"You mean, you've died and come back?"<p>"Sort of...Can we just say it was something we've done and remembered it?"<p>"Ah...I can understand that."<p>The Cheese explained, "I didn't want to have all of us live in caves. We need to be together. You can only have a few of the people in each cave. We, all of us, must fill this place," the Cheese made an expansive move with his arms,"  with our seed and we needed a house that moves easily.  You've seen how simple they are to build.  We have animals we can use to help us move.<p> "Caves are hard to heat and they often have other entrances that allow bears and big cats to sneak in and kill us. There's bats in caves and I believe the water fear sickness comes from bat urine."<hr>"Cheese?"<p>"Yes, Two Voices?"<p>"There's another group coming out of the path from the landbridge. This bunch is all males and they're looking for women. They're moving fast, so we need to see about stopping them."<p>"Why, Two Voices?"<p>" When they capture each new group, they sacrifice the males, rape the older women and sacrifice them too." Two Voices said disgustedly, "it seems they have an old shaman telling them they need fresh blood to appease the gods.<p>"They keep the young women as slaves only as long as they don't find more, when they find new women, they kill the older slaves. I think we need to be gods."<p>"Oooo, this sounds adventuresome."<p>"Lori is going have a blast."<p>"We need to keep them moving south or remove them."<hr>They flew over the band at noon. The whole idea was to frighten the living daylights out of them.  The shaman shit!  Here were the gods he was pretending were real. Two Voices slowly settled her big sled until she was ten or so feet above and the same distance in front of the shaman. He threw a spear at the sled and of course it bounced off the forcefield. He was trying hard to rally his men. Then Lori flew right into his belly and knocked him down.<p> She said, "on your knees, you fake. You have misled your people and for that you must pay."<p>The rest of us were trying so hard not to laugh at her antics, we were coughing and spitting. Evidently, the shaman decided he could deal with a minibeing pretending to be a goddess.  Bad mistake. He struck at her with a club and she used the powers to pitch him into a barrel cactus.<p> 'Man, we're hard on barrel cacti,' the Cheese thought.<p> The spine pierced shaman lost all control. He decided he was going to teach her a lesson and ended up in a pile of Beavertail cactus...the ones with the really long spines. He didn't seem to be learning a damn thing though. He grabbed her in a bearhug and tried to squeeze.  she lifted him up, flew him over a deep sinkhole and heated her body red hot. He screamed and tried to throw her away. She stuck to him. "Two Voices?"<p>"Yes Lori?"<p>"Mine his mind. Is he worth saving?"<p>"He's pretty bad, Lori. He knows there are no gods. He is using this band. He hates anyone who is in his way. You should heat up a bit more and drop him. There's water in the bottom of the hole."<p>"Boy! He's leaving a trail of greasy smoke! Ow! That wasn't much water!"<p>"We should find the women."<p>"Good idea! What do you want to do with the men?"<P>"We'll have to see...they might end up with the shaman. I've gotten a lot less tolerant with evil lately."<p>"I noticed that. I'm having second thoughts about nasty people. I guess it takes all kinds to make a people. I think I don't want to put up with the bad ones though."<p>"Snatch up one of the shamans followers."<p>"You got it."<p>Two Voices said, "where are your captives?"<p>" I'm not talking!"<p>"Oops."<p>"Butter fingers..Grab another, Lori."<p>"You saw what happened to your friend...you looking to keep secrets too?"<p>"They're two valleys back, on the left.  Please don't drop me."
<hr>The Cheese made an exploritory flight and came right back, "Two Voices. They're all dead. I'm thinking we don't want to keep any of these.  Lori, I don't want you to look."<p>Two Voices said. "I'll be right back." When she returned she was furious. "Oh Cheese, you are so right.  Heads on stakes and they were pretty women." Two Voices whispered to the Cheese, "They've been cooking and eating the bodies. Let me handle this." She spoke harshly to Lori, "Lori, go back to camp. NOW!"<p>"Cheese, I think the rest of you don't need to see this, please go back with Lori."<hr>Much later, when Two Voices came back
to the village, she was in a foul mood. "Jo. Vickie. Cheese. Kurt. Come with me. The rest of you better keep away from me for a while."<p>She brought the quartet up to the plain above the valley. The ship appeared. "Get in." They all went up the ramp to the open hatch. The hatched closed. "Lori! Get out!"<p>The hatch opened, a tiny shape flitted out, the hatch closed.<p>"I can get in so much trouble letting you in here," Two Voices explained, "isolation from the lab rats and a clinical attitude were stressed in the lecture all the experimenters were given before we started our lab work."<p>The Cheese rolled his eyes, "you mean we aren't the only experiment."<p>"Exactly. There are others."<p>"How many, where and at what time?" asked Jo.<p>Vickie only wanted to know one thing, "Why?"<p>"Jo, every continent and isolated large island group has at least one experiment on going. They're about 500 years apart. They have two things in common: english language and hippie attitudes. <p>"Vickie, Your species can get into more trouble than you can possibly imagine. Soon, very soon in your hometime, inventions in the weapons industry are going be tested. They are so powerful they can only be tested in space. Quite by accident, we hope, one of those blasts will destroy the observer station in geosynchronous orbit of the moon you call Europa. Interesting things are happening on Europa and my people are watching. Those interesting developments will be destroyed along with the station." Two Voices sighed. <p>"Soon after that event, while exploring the possibility of controlling the water spouts and tornadoes that cause so much crop damage, one of your minor RePoSci (Religious Political Scientific) entities will discover how to construct a "portable" black hole and use it to move the destroyed planet you call the asteroid belt directly to the blast furnaces of their steel industry. This sudden influx of very cheap but excellent raw materials will upset the political and religious balance of your entire planet.<p> "Then some military genius decides that they can adapt the black hole to a ship and go exploring.<p>"They will discover us. We will not be happy. When we're not happy we do things we regret. We regret the asteroid belt is the result of our unhappiness. We are trying to unite this planet with one language and one religion, <i>Lori</i>. If you all speak the same language you won't fight. If you all love Lori, you won't kill in the name of some damn fool god or crazy prophet."<p>Two Voices became very agitated. "If this happens here then My People won't have to do something We will regret!"<p>Jo had one <a href="http://www1.asstr.org/~Old_Man_with_a_pen/work.html?nocache=iEXWzKPxUIHfzXgvmeGV">question</a>..."