The three jumped and turned quickly around. To their surprise they saw a Chinese girl standing before them, who was close to the same age as George and Emberly. She was wearing a well worn sweater, and shoes that looked about as old as she was. She smiled shyly, and said, “I’m Jiu Na. I wondered if you could come with me to my house. It’s not far away – right over there.” She pointed to a small shack nearby that looked like the roof was about to fall in. Other little, run-down shacks like it stretched off into the distance by the side of a trickle of water running down an open ditch.

The protector looked at George and Emberly for a moment. Then he said, “We’re kind of in a hurry and probably won’t have time to go to your house. What do you need?”

“I have something to show you,” she said pleadingly. “Won’t you please come? It’s very important.”

“Well,” said the protector, “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll come back some other time.” He started to get into the car, signaling for George and Emberly to get in as well.

Jiu Na looked like she was on the verge of tears. “But you’ve got to come!” she cried. “I have to show it to you! He said I had to!”

The protector stopped, and looked sharply up at Jiu Na. “Who told you that?” he asked.

“The funny little brown man,” Jiu Na said miserably. “I didn’t want to tell you about him because I wasn’t sure you’d believe me. He was so strange.”

The protector quickly closed the car door and turned to face Jiu Na. “Did he have leathery skin and a gravely voice?” he asked with rising excitement.

“Yes,” said Jiu Na in surprise. “Do you know him?”

“It’s the Ziphon,” said the protector, turning to George. “We’d better go.” Turning back to Jiu Na he said, “Lead on.”

She smiled and said, “I’m sorry. I should have realized you’d know who he was. Come with me.” She then led them across a small field to the shack. They stumbled occasionally over the ruts running across the dark field, since it was too dark to see clearly. The spotlights on the field behind them did little more than cast difficult shadows across the uneven ground.

The door of the shack was scratched and scarred and creaked heavily as Jiu Na pushed it open. Inside by the dim light of a single bulb hanging from the ceiling they could see that the shack had only a dirt floor and a few sparse furnishings. An older woman was standing by a makeshift sink. She turned and smiled at them as they entered.

“This is my mother,” said Jiu Na.

“Hello,” said the older woman. “Would you like some rice?” She was already reaching for some plates on a rickety shelf.

“No, thank you,” said the protector quickly. “But we do appreciate your kindness in letting us come into your home.”

“My daughter said you would be coming,” said Mrs. Na. “I’m sorry that my home is so simple. We had to move here a year ago when my husband disappeared.”

George looked up sharply. “Disappeared?” he asked curiously. “One year ago?”

“That’s right,” said Jiu Na. “One day he was just gone, without any warning. He went to work and didn’t come back. He had a good job too, and we lived in a nice house. But after he disappeared, we couldn’t stay there anymore. Nobody has heard from him or has any idea where he went, although sometimes I dream that he comes to me in my sleep and writes in my hand.”

George’s mouth was dry, and he could suddenly feel the pounding of his heart in his ears. He stared in shock at Jiu Na, hardly believing what she had just said.

She looked curiously back at George. “What’s wrong?” she asked quietly.

With an effort, he said slowly, “My father disappeared too. One year ago. And no one knows where he went. And sometimes I dream that he comes and writes on my hand.”

Jiu Na and her mother stared at George, their eyes wide. “You poor boy,” Mrs. Na said after a moment. “It must be very hard for you.”

George gave a half hearted smile, but didn’t know what to say. He shifted from one foot to the other.

“If that’s so, then you must have talked to the leathery brown man too,” said Jiu Na softly. “And you probably have one of these.” And with this, she pulled a small, clear rock from behind a pot on a scratched shelf and held it up.

George gasped. The rock reflected the dim light in the shack and seemed to magnify it as if it were much brighter than it really was. Although it was several feet away in Jiu Na’s hand, George could almost feel it throbbing. Slowly he pulled the pouch containing his own rock from his pocket. When he reached inside it felt icy cold, but by the time he pulled it out it had become almost too hot to touch.

The instant George’s rock came out of the pouch a shaft of brilliant light shot between the two stones. The tiny shack was bathed in light so bright that everyone was temporarily blinded.

And then the light was gone.

The rock in George’s hand suddenly felt neither hot nor cold and was perfectly clear. It seemed so ordinary that if George hadn’t felt and seen what had just happened, he would never have believed it.

“Wow!” said Emberly in amazement. “That was cool. Do it again!”

“I don’t know how,” mumbled George. “I don’t even know what just happened.”

“You mean, you don’t know how to control it?” said Jiu Na in disappointment. “When the leathery brown man told me you three would be coming, I was hoping one of you would have a rock like this and would know what to do with it and how to use it.”

“When did this little brown man come?” asked the protector.

“One week ago, right after the fallen star came down in that field over there and I found the rock. He didn’t say much – just something about a sacrifice I could make, and that a man and a boy and girl would be coming, and they might help me know what to do to protect the earth from fire and ice, and to save my father.”

"Save your father!” exclaimed George. “He never mentioned anything like that when he came to me. He just told me to find the protector and that the earth was in danger from fire and ice.”

“Who is the protector?” asked Jiu Na.

“That would be me,” said the protector with a bow. “I hope I won’t startle you and your mother too much if I say that I am from another planet and am here on assignment to protect the earth.”

Mrs. Na stepped back in alarm, but Jiu Na didn’t seem surprised at all. “Is the leathery little man from your world too?” she asked.

“No,” replied the protector. “That was a ‘Ziphon,’ a being that lives sideways through time and knows much of the future. He recently came to me and to George here, to give us a warning that the earth is in danger, and we are now trying to figure out what that danger is. So we came here to your country—“

“You mean, you’re not from China?” exclaimed Jiu Na.

“Actually,” said George, “I’m from California, in the USA.”

"You mean America?!” Jiu Na cried, staring at George in total amazement. “You speak Chinese very well,” she said softly.

“I don’t actually speak Chinese at all,” said George with an embarrassed laugh. Jiu Na and her mother stared at him in confusion.

“This is probably a lot to be telling you all at once,” interjected the protector, “but I have a few tools that I use in my … uhm … profession, and I transformed George, Emberly and I from our normal appearance, so that we would look like Chinese people. We are also chewing some translator gum that I had, so we speak Chinese. I know this all probably sounds a little crazy to you—“

“Oh, not at all!” said Jiu Na. “Ever since my father disappeared strange things have been happening. But strangest of all was when that big star fell the other night with such a huge crash! I was the first to get over to where it fell. People were running up from everywhere. It was hot and steamy and scary, and some people thought a war had started or the end of the world had come. And then I found this rock. I was drawn to it somehow. I haven’t told anyone I have it. But I know it must have come with the fallen star. Somehow, it seemed like it was meant just for me.”

“That’s a relief, that you haven’t told anyone,” said the protector. “When George first came to me we did a little research on his rock.” Briefly he told Jiu Na of what they had learned about rocks from the planet Uth, and the strange powers they had.

“That explains a lot,” said Jiu Na. “Right before the star fell, my school said I needed a new uniform or I couldn’t attend in the fall when school starts up again. I knew we didn’t have the money to buy one, so it looked like I wouldn’t be able to go to school anymore. If you don’t go to school here in China, you’re trapped in a life of poverty forever.”

“Then two days after I found this rock, it suddenly got very hot while I was walking to the market. Then it slipped out of my hand into a ditch and when I dug through the weeds to find it, I found the money I needed for my uniform—the exact amount!”

“That sounds like what happened to me at the store!” said George. “The rock helped me find a can of pickled peaches.”

“A can of WHAT?” exclaimed both Jiu Na and her mother.

The protector laughed. “It’s an American thing, so don’t worry about it. Has the rock done anything else strange?”

“Well, there was one other time it did,” said Jiu Na reluctantly. “It was kind of scary, so I don’t like to talk about it.”

A prickly feeling went up the back of George’s neck. He had a feeling he knew what she was about to say.

“A few nights ago,” continued Jiu Na slowly, “I woke up to see the rock glowing. When I picked it up I felt like I needed to go outside. I went out and looked up at the stars. They seemed closer than normal that night.” Jiu Na shivered. There was silence for a moment in the shack. “Suddenly something very strange happened. It was like I could suddenly see way out in space. I saw a ship with a window, and at the window I saw a creature.” Jiu Na shuffled her feet uncomfortably. “He had a dog-like face, and it seemed like I could feel evil coming from him. And behind him I saw my father.” Jiu Na’s voice broke, and she stared at the floor.

Slowly George said, “I saw the same thing one night. Only behind the creature was my father!”