Sid, coming up beside her, plucked a feather from his necklace and with mock solicitation, caught the tear before it could complete its downward journey. Slowly, he licked the feather, then without a word, headed for the goat corral. Not terribly far out in the plain, Bud snored softly in the company of the white rhino, unaware of the approach of the emotionally-distressed Commander of the Felix Legions.

***********

Lucilla walked up beside the still staring-into-the-darkness Joimus. "You love him, I know," she said softly, "but so do I...so do I."

Joimus turned, a tender look on her face as she studied the Fuegan hostess. She knew Lucilla spoke the truth. How very understandable Lucilla's feelings were. Her heart genuinely ached for her fellow Peep's yearnings, but, alas, there were only one pair of hands at the keyboard, now weren't there?

Sid leaned on the top rail of the goat corral, watching the enclosed cast members mill about in the moonlight, trying as best they could to avoid the thousands of hummocks of goat digestive by-products. Often, they were unsuccessful at this endeavor. He tapped Jack's telescope on the rail to the pounding bass rhythms of sections of the Master and Commander score....just to annoy the Captain, as though said person were not already quite annoyed enough by the lack of a good stick with which to scrape by-products off his tall black boots. Jack walked toward the fence, asking as he approached, "May I have my telescope back now?"

Sid recoiled, clutching it to his chest. "What? And have you steal my soul?"

Jack glared. "You have none to steal."

Sid smiled. How very right the good Captain was!

Juditha had come up silently beside Jack. "How is Joimus?"

she asked, concerned about the toll the General's gourdlessness was causing her friend.

Sid turned his head, looking over his shoulder at where Joimus and Lucilla still stood talking near the gateway. His seagreen eyes narrowed. "Still holding up too well," he replied, hoping soon to remedy that situation.

Terry leaned on the far side of the corral (there being lots of far sides in epis of late), permitting the half dozen goats to complete their licking of his globules of melted baking soda. Soon he would be fresh again, well, except for a lingering scent of goat saliva, of course. And, as Ann would not permit the goats anywhere in the vicinity of his equipment, that would have to be tended to later...somehow.

BertiWet followed Wanda wherever she wandered about the confines of the corral, attempting as best she could to keep her from tipping over into by-products. Looking up at the glow of the African moon, she was glad the little cloud was now gone. Perhaps the sun would come out tomorrow? She felt like betting her bottom dollar that tomorrow there would be sun. Her heart filled so with gladness at the thought that she lifted both arms, bursting into song, "Tomorrow...tomorrow...the sun will come .....oops!" Drat! She KNEW she shouldn't have let go of Wanda like that!

Meanwhile, out on the Plains of Sheba, Bud smiled in his sleep, dreaming of chairs and ropes and darkened motel rooms. The white rhino beside him stirred, its back muscles twitching off the biting flies.

Maximus wandered aimlessly across the plain, alternately looking up at the moon and then at the silver sheen it brought to the ripened heads of the tall grasses everywhere about him. The sight of it seemed to bring him some calmness of spirit.

He stopped, brushing the thing in his hand back and forth across the grains, smiling at their bending and their straightening again. His oceanblue eyes took in the vast plain, looking for all the world like a sea of grass. "Jack would feel at home here," he murmured, then blinked. Why had he said that? Who was Jack? Why would he feel at home here?

A few steps more and he came to a tiny bare spot, the grasses worn away by rollicking zebras earlier in the day. His gaze dropped to his boots and the reddish soil beneath them. An uncontrollable urge took him and he jammed the thing in his hand pointy-part first into the ground, then knelt, resting his palm near his feet. As if they had a mind of their own, his strong fingers scooped up a handful of the soil...a gesture that tugged so at his soul that his eyes brimmed with tears. He sat back on his heels, staring at the soil on his open palm. Why did this mean something? He lifted it to his face, inhaling its earthy aroma, wishing, he knew not why, that it was black and not red. Slowly he let it sift through his fingers, watching as each grain found its way back to its place on the plain. It was like the soil were going...home.

Standing as he rubbed his palms together, he turned to look back at the distant village. Home? Was that home? Not long before, he had been sure of it. Something...something...in the eyes of that female intruder had disturbed his assurance of that. Squinting, he could make out her form still at the gate. Why had she stolen his cape...and his ceremonial garb? His brother had said that the one who wore it did so as a trophy of his his downfall. The female had not had that air about her at all. Indeed, there was more of a desperate plea of some sort in her eyes than any semblance of triumph. What had his brother meant? In all the world, his brother was the only person he felt any connection to....until he looked into the blue eyes of the intruder. He pressed both palms tightly against his face, holding them there a long while. A wuffling snort not far to his left caused him to drop them and quickly grab his thing from its position in the soil.

Peering sharply in that direction, he could see a large rock in the pale light. He ran the several yards between it and him and moving lightly on his feet, circled warily around it, discovering a male intruder sleeping on the far side. The male was a large, burly fellow with hair like closely-mown grass. A man such as this, thought the General, would seem much more likely to have stolen my cape than the small female. He watched a moment, somewhat fascinated by the smile playing about the corners of the sleeping intruder's mouth, then prodded the male's stomach with his thing.

"OW! Damn!" Bud exclaimed, opening his seagreen eyes and looking up in amazement at the form standing beside him. "Stop that, Maximus!" he said irritatedly, pushing the blade aside and sitting up.

Maximus, however, returned the sword to its position, pressed almost too firmly just above Bud's belly button. Bud attempted to rise, but realizing the movement could cost him several feet of intestine, relaxed back against the side of the large rock. He smiled up at the General. "Ok...ok, Maximus, I get your point. Now move that damn sword."

The General narrowed his oceanblue eyes, staring coldly down at the intruder. "Why do you call me 'Maximus'?" he asked, his jaw muscles working.

"Damn it, Maximus! It's your blasted NAME!"

"You lie!" the General returned, his voice ice. "My name is....is...." He staggered, his sword edge clipping off one of Bud's buttons, before dropping from his numbed fingers.

"My name is...." A ragged breath tore through him, splitting him.

"My name....is...." He seemed to have lost control over his legs, wobbling backwards, then sitting down heavily, the color completely draining from his face. "I....I...." he gasped, overwhelmed, realizing he had no answer. Pressing his eyes tightly closed, he folded his arms over his head, rocking slightly back and forth.

"Maximus?" Bud whispered, getting on his knees and leaning forward, resting one hand on the General's boot. "Maximus?"

But it seemed like Maximus could not hear him. Bud was flooded with concern....a concern that grew considerably when, at the sound of a deep snort behind him, he turned his head and saw that the large rock had opened one eye.

Bud had seen many things in the back alleyways of metropolitan LA, but never had his seagreen gaze rested upon anything quite like the full-grown male white rhino that was getting to its feet immediately behind him.

He gripped the General's boot, shaking him, "Maximus! MAXIMUS! You MUST get up!"

But the Commander of the Felix legions continued rocking slightly, mummuring over and over, "My name is...my name...is...."

Bud scrambled on all fours up beside the General, turning to face the rhino as he did so. The massive head of the great beast shook from side to side, its horn a veritable scythe in the moonlight. "Maximus!" Bud tried again, roughly shaking the General's shoulders to no avail.

The rhino stared at the two men, blinking its beady little eyes, wuffling its large nostrils, its beaky upper lip twitching. Bud looked frantically about, but only nodding plains grass stretched for great distances in all directions. Moving behind Maximus, he slipped both forearms under his armpits, attempting to heft him to his feet. Somehow it was like lifting his own weight...which, truth be told, was very nearly the case.

The rhino moved slightly towards them, its horn lowered. Quite frantic now, Bud's mind raced. Rhinos, he recalled, had terrible eyesight. Perhaps....? Yes! His fumbling fingers loosened the ties of Maximus' cape. Thank goodness he and BertiLuv had sat through the Lord of the Rings trilogy those 17 times! If it worked for Hobbits in grave danger of Orc-discovery outside the Black Gates of Mordor...it just... might...work for Generals and cops outside the gates of the Lost Tribe of Sheba. It was, anyway,...all...he could think of.

Pushing Maximus onto his back, Bud crouched beside him, flinging the large rust-colored cape completely over them both, hoping beyond hope the rhino would think them a lump of reddish soil. He clamped one large hand over the still-murmuring mouth of the General, hardly daring to breathe himself as the horn of the rhino began to prod a bit at the lump.

"Wuffle, wuffle, wuffle," went its little outbursts of breath as it explored the strange mound in the middle of the plain. There was a scent the mound had, unfamiliar to its nostrils. "Ack!" thought Bud. "It's smelling the faux wolf fur!" He gritted his teeth as the rhino pushed its mouth hard against the fur, pulling off a little tufted tidbit to taste.

Ever since he had run into that emotional brick wall a few minutes earlier, Maximus' electrical activity had simmered down to the barest occasional *fitzlsnap*. However, when the rhino, finding faux wolf fur a delicacy rather to its liking, and hooking out its beaky upper lip for another fuzzy munch, gathered into its mouth a section of cape under which happened to lay the General's left ear...well...in addition to a rather startling curseword in Spanish, a bolt of blue lightning shot out and up the rhino's nasal passages.

Unaccustomed as the beast was to the presence of lightning in its nostrils, it rather understandably became just the smallest bit...er...perturbed. As if its sight were not already poor enough, the rhino's eyes crossed, becoming permanently fixated on its horn, whereupon attractive sparkles of blue danced in creative patterns. It began rapidly to back across the plain, hoping that the horn might be left behind near the evil, though tasty, reddish mound. Upon determining that the horn was intent on following it, the rhino screamed and sprinted for the distant jungle.

Back in the goat corral, Jack cocked his head. Not even on the Galapshires when he had all inadvertently made stew from some large, flightless bird and Stephen had come upon the still simmering pot, had Jack heard a scream quite so...so... anguished.

Sid, too, was enraptured by the sound rolling like a tidal wave of despair across the plain. He frowned. He had not been the causer of such a magnificent display of vocal suffering and he wondered what had brought it about. Perhaps, if the fates were kind, it was being produced by the General. One could only hope.

Taking advantage of the Chipster's distraction, Jack grabbed his telescope and stepped quickly back, out of Sid's reach. Swiftly raising it to his eye, he swept it across the breadth of the Plains of Sheba. The moonlight was still bright and illuminated well all that lay within the moving circle of his view. Some large animal was fleeing rapidly towards the distant line of jungle growth.

Closer to the village, he saw two forms low in the tall grasses. His brow knit in concentration as he watched one of them stand and attempt to help the other to his feet. It was Bud...and... and Maximus! Bud had gotten Maximus back to a sitting position but there was no way he could do more than that. Something was terribly amiss with the General. Jack pressed his lips tightly together, remembering all he had been told by Juditha of how his friend had risked all to squeeze the nanogoo from the blue plasma ball in order to restore some semblance of brain function to the Captain. Looking fondly down at the small, blonde woman at his side, Jack whispered, "Maximus needs me."

Juditha, who had yet to get over her horror at any thought of the General's approach to Elysiumesque pocked gates, nodded in agreement. "But," she pointed out practically, "what of Sid...and what of the seven dozen Village People with their spears pointed at the goat corral?"

Jack smiled. "I shall try my best not to hurt them...overly much."

Ah, how Juditha loved a man with confidence in his abilities! "Here!" she said softly, reaching down into her bodice and withdrawing his cutlass. "I've been keeping this for you." As one by one his strong fingers wrapped themselves about the familiar hilt, he looked at her with sparkling eyes filled with gratitude. Then, in that striding forth to battle gesture of his she so loved, he tied back his blonde locks with the leather thong. It was amazing, she thought, how he managed to do that so well with a cutlass in one hand and a telescope in the other.

Terry came up beside them, accompanied by the strong odor of drying goat saliva. His equipment, though, shone cleanly in the moonlight as Ann took one final swab down its length with her Lysol wipey. She liked his equipment sterile, but only in the most antiseptic of nuances.

Jack handed the K&R agent the telescope, guiding him where to look. Bud stood beside Maximus, his hands on his hips, shaking his head in frustration as he stared at the crushed gourd lying near the General. Things were looking worse. Not only was Maximus out of his gourd, but the rhino had stepped on it and its seed had been spilled onto the reddish soil.

"Oh, no," exclaimed Terry under his breath. "It looks like Maximus' seed has been spilled!"

Juditha's ears perked. It was a topic she had always found to be of great...interest. Given this dire development, there was, obviously, not a moment to lose. Terry and Jack scanned the 84 spear points lying between them and the gateway where Joimus and Lucilla spoke endlessly of General topics.

"We could..."Terry began, but was interrupted by....