The fighting in Europe and The United States dragged on and there were hints that there was trouble coming in Asia. The Coms were regaining power in China. They were still angry over their government's agreement to withdraw from Tibet.
The spread of democracy was not to their liking and there were demonstrations in almost every city. The Spiritist intervention when they had mobilized to seize Tiawan when diplomatic negotiations to rejoin the two countries had failed again, had enraged many of them. The only relief they had gotten for the last year and a half was the Christmas truce. The Chris all over the world had agreed to a forty-eight hour cease fire, forty-eight hours of peace and quiet, of no killing! Samuel relished it. But as he went to bed on Christmas Eve it was one of the rare occasions he was alone. Sharon was down at their old post observing The Days Of Sorrow with their friends there. Crysanthamum had gone with her. One of the children was sick, and though they had plenty of nursemaids Suzie insisted on staying with her. Samuel could not remember a night since he and Sharon had been married that he had been in bed, alone. It felt VERY strange!
It was about midnight when a presence made him stir. There was someone in the room. He thought perhaps it was one of the children troubled by some bad dream and come to be comforted. But as he opened his eyes he found a strange woman standing by his bed in a robe made of material that seemed to shimmer in the darkness.
Samuel instantly realized she wasn't of his world. Her head was far larger than a human's. She was short. Her arms, legs, and torso were thick. Somehow Samuel knew wherever she came from the gravity was much stronger than it was on Earth, and her species needed these incredible muscles to move around. He seemed to sense all these things instantly, as if every question he had was being instantly answered as he asked it. "What do you want?" he thought.
The woman undid her robe and let it fall to the floor. Samuel knew EXACTLY what she wanted. He moved over and let her join him on the bed. As they were intimate and their bodies combined, and souls joined together as one, Samuel caught fleeting images of a beautiful yet strange world, with things that had never existed on his world, and never would.
When they were done the woman's massive hand caressed his cheek. Samuel knew full well, she had been fertilized. She had been sent because she was at the exact moment of her cycle when intimacy would result in pregnancy. She quickly rose, donned her robe, and with one last smile departed.
Samuel went back to sleep. He was woke in the morning by a ringing phone. He got up and took it. "What?" he snapped, "What?"
"Sir," came the voice of his morning aide, "the Chris prisoners, sir, at the three maximum security sites. They've escaped, sir! All of them! The sites are empty! The guards are totally bewildered. They can't explain it. One moment everyone was there, suddenly it was daybreak, and the camps were empty."
"Sound a general alert," Samuel snapped. "Set up road blocks. Ban all public travel until we can locate them and secure them. How in the hell could 6,000 prisoners escape from three maximum security camps? Somebody's in serious trouble, serious damned trouble! I'll be dressed and down in a few minutes. So much for the Chris' promises!"
Samuel quickly dressed, hurried to headquarters, grabbed a vehicle and rushed to the nearest camp. All reports he got on the way were negative. None of the prisoners could be located anywhere. It just didn't make sense, that many people people COULDN'T stay concealed. They HAD to have found a FEW of them by now!
As Samuel arrived at the Chris camp its commander greeted him. "We've FOUND something, sir, something strange! You'd better have a look."
Samuel quickly followed him into the camp.

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