Artwork by Scot Noel and Lois Yeager

The Gatherer of Souls

A moon flower opening at night.  Photograph by Lois Yeager.

The Gatherer of Souls. Artwork Copyright © 2007 by Scot Noel, based on a photograph by Lois Yeager.

See more nature photographs from Lois Yeager below.

From The Gatherer of Souls: 

Her ship probed. Jericho's signal returned, bouncing from a wall nearly one astronomical unit away. It was clearly impossible, but it wasn't alone in filling Christine with overwhelming dread. For besides the reality of the channel's sheer, unencumbered magnitude, there was… the alien ship.

"Oh, my God! Do you see it?" asked Christine. She fought to steady her knees from trembling at the sight. "What are you?” she asked the white, galactic swirl. “Journal, do you recognize that?"

"No. I think you've found a new species."

Whatever it was, it lay dead in Christine's path, and it out-massed Jericho by ten thousand, perhaps a hundred thousand times. The scale was difficult to grasp. Her hands shook along the controls. Should she send out energies to probe it? Was it about to open some great maw and sweep up Jericho as plankton is swept before a whale?

"My God in heaven," Christine whispered.

"I don't think so," said the Journal. Its child-like delivery held not the slightest hint of sarcasm. "The emergency beacon is within that ship. Willis and his Star Reiver, they are inside there."

Set against the banded light of the prespace tunnel, the alien seemed less a ship than a living thing. Its great, swirling shape took on the delicacy of a flower. At its center there was soft light, a formation that Christine could not make out, but that might have been a vast maw in the act of opening. The turn of its far flung, galactic tendrils was a mystery at first, until Christine realized that each tendril was a gravitc fin, a massive outrigger of unprecedented weight and power.

"I see without believing," Christine said. She could discern now as well the great, electric lines which arced from the corners of the leviathan ship. They sparked in ever changing patterns and seemed to rushed out to meet the walls of the channel, like solar flares many Earth diameters long, as if these were the energies the great ship used to support the vast aneurysm of prespace through which it traveled.

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Photography by Lois Yeager

Butterfly	Flower Interior
Humming Bird	Bee Collecting Pollen

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Lois Yeager is an amateur photographer living in  North Huntingdon, PA.

Lois Yeager is an amateur photographer and avid gardener living in North Huntingdon, PA.

She has been growing flowers and taking pictures of them for over 15 years. From the photos, greeting cards, calendars, and screen savers have been created to the delight of all who have the opportunity to receive them.

Close-up photography is her true love, but she never misses the opportunity to photograph nature and a simply beautiful scene. She finds solace in her gardening and photography and hopes that you enjoy the photos as much as she does.

Many have asked her, "Do you take the flower pictures because you have a wonderful garden or do you have a garden so that you can take pictures of the flowers?" The real answer is "yes."

Her photos have been used on websites, such as the Westmoreland County Parks photo on this page of InWestmoreland.com.  They have been displayed on the cover of Inspiring Times, Who's Who of Amateur Photographers, and of course, on her line of greeting cards, and calendars, etc.

Copyright Info

The Gatherer of Souls and Outland Sorrows
Copyright © 2007 by Scot Noel
Artwork Copyright © 2007 by Scot Noel, based on an original photograph by Lois Yeager

Original nature photos on this page Copyright © 2007 by Lois Yeager.

You are not permitted to  redistribute wholesale, resale, or claim as your own any stories, images, or artwork displayed on this website.

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