The Long Road Home

by Max Swan

  “Looks like we’re about sixty clicks northwest of Melbourne,” She said.

  “I couldn’t get us any closer without being in a too populated area.”

  “We need to find a road, maybe we can hitch a ride?” she suggested

  “I think I seen a road about two or three kilometers southeast from here. Let’s get some supplies together and get going, it will be dark in five hours,” he said.

  They gathered some supplies from boxes in the back of the shuttle, filling a rucksack each with essentials. As the hatch door closed behind them, the Shuttle blended into the environment because of its holographic camouflage. The fresh eucalyptus scented air seemed refreshing, and the surrounding woods were surprisingly pleasant to look at. So they turned southeast and started to walk through the woods in silence. In about forty minutes, they could hear the unmistakable sounds of vehicles moving quickly and headed toward it. They had found the highway Paul had spotted while he was landing the shuttle. The highway is two double-lane roads, with vehicles going northwest on one road, and southeast toward Melbourne on the other.

  Paul looked at his compass. “Fortunately for us, the nearest road is the one we want.” They had each seen examples of primitive cars and trucks in museums before, but seeing so many in action amazed them. Although Combustion engines were still used on some worlds, it felt kind of peculiar watching this traffic.

  After a half hour passed trying to get a lift, they were having no luck in getting anyone to stop for them.

  “I have an idea,” Jane said. Paul watched in amazement as she exposed more of her legs. Paul smiled at her and she said, “Well a girl has to use her assets sometimes. You hide off the road and leave it to me.” A short time later, a large truck pulled over.

  “Need a lift darlin’,” said a fat man inside the front cabin.

  “Oh yes, but do ya have room for my friend too? I’d be so grateful,” she said exposing a little cleavage for the truck driver to see.

  “Ah, what the hay,” the driver said leering. Jane gathered that meant yes and motioned for Paul to come out. As he did, the truck driver eyed him suspiciously.

  “Climb in, your friend in the back darl,” Paul climbed into what looked like a cramped sleeping compartment and as Jane shut the door the truck pulled off, back on the highway.

  “Where ya headed sweet pea?” the truck drive smiled with yellow teeth.

  “We’re going to Melbourne. Is that OK?” Jane asked sweetly.

  “Sure I can drop you off near the city if you want,” he said, looking at her breasts.

  “Thanks,” Jane said, feeling disgusted at the drivers obvious leering.

  “Where ya from?” the driver said, making Paul feel nervous.

  “We’re from Sydney, we were at Byron Bay when the attack happened. We decided to head to Melbourne, because we have friends there,” Jane said casually.

  “Sydney eh? Fuckin’ gruesome what happened up there. Did you lose anyone?” the driver asked, looking between the road and Jane several times.

  “Everyone,” Paul said, making the driver shake his head.

  “I was nearly there meself ya know. I was taking a load up there, and I’d just past Goulburn when those fuckin’ aliens—” his words choked in his throat, so he fell silent for a moment. The he said, “I could see it too.”

  “See what?” Jane asked.

  “That fuckin’ laser beam, or whatever it is, coming down from the sky. The horizon glowed this horrible greenish light. Now all that’s left is a fucking black smudge where four-million people lived. Can ya believe it? That laser was there for five minutes tops, and now fuckin’ Sydney is gone,” Tears ran down the truck driver’s face.

  “Yeah, we didn’t see the… err… laser thing. The Police wouldn’t let us return to Sydney, they said it was all gone. Of course, we didn’t believe them at the time, but then we saw it on TV,” Paul said nodding glumly.

  “God knows how long we’ve got until those aliens come back and finish the job,” the truck driver said, blowing out hard.

  Jane shrugged. “The media seems upbeat about being able to defend ourselves, in case they return.”

  The truck driver laughed. “Don’t believe their bullshit, luv. Just one of those things wiped out millions of people. Imagine if a whole heap of em show-up, we’re fucked!”

  “You will be,” Paul said feeling sorry for the man. The truck driver suddenly looked at Paul suspiciously from a mirror placed on his windshield that pointed into the sleeper cabin. He turned back to watching the road ahead in silence.

  Chapter 9

  The driver dropped them off close to the city enabling them to walk into the busy city center. Military checkpoints were everywhere, but they had no problems thanks to the ID Jane had organized.

  “We need money if we’re going to get anywhere here,” Paul said.

  “Look,” Jane was pointing at a sign that said ‘cash for goods.’ It seemed a good place to start. They entered the pawnshop filled with all kinds of strange objects, and some familiar ones too. A bored looking blond man stood behind a counter reading a newspaper. He looked thin, fairly short, and had a rat like face.

  As they approached him, and he looked up. “May I help you?” he asked in a broad Australian accent.

  “Ah yeah, we have some diamonds we want to trade for cash,” Paul said producing a small bag with twenty cut diamonds. The man took the bag and emptied the diamonds on a felt covered tray. He started studying them through a loupe he produced from his pocket.

  “Nice,” he said, looking up eyeing Paul suspiciously. “I can’t pawn these, you’ll have to go to a diamond exchange or a jeweler.”

  Jane and Paul looked a little lost as the pawnshop man tipped the diamonds back into the bag, and held it out for Paul to take. “I don’t need the cops bustin’ me for possessing stolen diamonds, mate,” he said looking disinterested.

  “Oh, they’re not stolen, but we don’t have papers to prove ownership,” Jane tried to explain.

  A wide grin broke out on the man’s face. “Oh sure sweet pea, that’s what they all say.”

  “We’re happy to take a below market value for them. That way you’ll make a nice profit when you sell them,” Paul offered.

  The man rolled his eyes. “You don’t get the hint too well, do ya mate? It’s fucking Martial Law, which means I go by the book.”

  “Major, maybe we should try elsewhere,” Jane said grabbing Paul’s arm.

  Paul turned and gave her a dirty look, freeing his arm, and turned back to face the pawn shop proprietor. “We have no time to play nice. You’ll buy them, and be done with it.”

  The rat-faced man laughed. “Listen, ‘Major’, I have a black belt in kung fu, third darn. So why don’t you and ya girlfriend fuck off, before ya get hurt.”

  Paul reached over-the-counter with one arm and grabbed the man by his shirt. Effortlessly he dragged the man over-the-counter to the floor next to him. Jane moved to the front door and closed it, remaining there to keep watch.

  The man regained himself and yelled, “You picked the wrong bloke to mess with, dickhead.” He proceeded to get into a fighting stance, and violently kicked toward Paul’s head. Paul caught the pawnbroker’s foot in his hand, and held it there amused. The pawnbroker started hopping on the spot, yelling at Paul to let him go. Paul squeezed his foot, and the man yelped in pain.

  Paul looked over at Jane, and said, “We don’t need him making a scene.”

  She nodded, and reached into her purse and pulled out a disruptor pistol. As Paul pushed the man off balance, she stunned him, and the pawnbroker fell to the floor unconscious. Stunning him meant he will be unconscious for eight hours, and his memory will be patchy about what happened to him when he comes to. What could he tell the police anyway, Paul thought? A woman shot him with her ray gun? It’s hardly likely he will go with that story. Paul grabbed the pawnbroker’s body, and pulled it around behind the counter. “Keep watch while I check the bac
k,” Paul said.

  Paul walked into the back of the shop and found no one else there. He surveyed the room finding a locked waist-high safe. Wriggling out of his backpack, and placing it on the ground, he began fishing around inside for his disruptor pistol. He adjusted the disruptor beam so it was pinpoint, and proceeding to cut out around the lock, he eventually pulled the door open. The contents of the safe included a large pile of one-hundred-dollar notes. Paul counted out the money, to find twenty-thousand dollars in cash. He took the whole amount placing some money in his pockets, and the rest in a plastic bag he found. Paul placed ten diamonds on top of the safe; as while he was many things he wasn’t a thief. Dexter had valued the diamonds at the current market price on Earth, at more than one-hundred-thousand-dollars. The pawnshop owner will report the burglary, and claim the insurance, Paul thought, but I won’t be surprised if there’s no mention of diamonds at all. He’ll triple his profit from the burglary by selling the diamonds on the black market. He noticed a monitor in the office linked to security cameras, so he found the recording device and vaporized it.

  *****

  After they left the shop, Jane suggested they needed new clothes because their civvies seemed out of place here. It didn’t take them long to find clothing stores for men and women. Soon after, Paul emerged from one wearing a new business suit and tie, with his old clothes in a bag. He looked like the businesspeople walking around the streets. Jane seemed to take much longer, and when she finally met up with Paul again, he noticed she had six bags of clothes. She wore a light-blue summery dress, with a small floral pattern over it.

  “I must say I do like the clothes here,” her smile was the first Paul had ever seen from her.

  Paul rolled his eyes in pretend mockery. “A woman in her natural habitat, shopping. Come on, we need to go to Melbourne University.”

  “Let’s get a ride there,” Jane suggested pointing to the yellow vehicles with ‘taxi’ written on them.

  “Some things are universal, it seems.” Paul said. Jane stepped out on the curb and hailed one down, climbing into the front while Paul climbed in the back.

  “Where to?” said in a thick sub-continent accent.

  “Melbourne University,” she replied, so the vehicle pulled out into traffic and they were away. It took about ten minutes and the cab pulled up outside the university.

  “That’ll be ten-dollars,” the driver said, holding out his hand. Paul handed him a twenty-dollar note saying, “Keep the change.” The Taxi driver smiled. As the taxi sped off they looked at all the buildings surrounded by lawns and gardens. The lights on the path had turned on, as it’s now after sunset. Paul motioned to a strange looking blond student dressed in tatty jeans and a dirty blazer. “Ah excuse me, can you tell us where the Physics Department is?” Paul asked.

  The young man’s eyes bulged. “Is this a joke? I mean you’re like the head Professor of nerd central, aren’t you?”

  “Ah come on, don’t you want to be part of our little prank?” Jane winked at him, which made the student screw-up his face in contempt.

  “Ah, OK whatever lady. It’s down that path there,” he shrugged walking off getting his cell phone out as he did. “Hey, guess what Professor Poon is up to,” they heard him saying into his phone as he walked off. They hesitantly went down the path the student had directed them, and after several minutes they found a building with a sign that read: ‘Faculty of Science’.

  “This must be it. You’d better go in, and ask. It’ll look strange if I go in, and ask whether I’m there.” Paul smiled. He stood behind some bushes, as Jane entered the building to speak to the receptionist.

  “Excuse me, can you tell me where Professor Starr might be?” she asked in a friendly tone.

  The Receptionist turned and looked Jane up and down with obvious distaste. “He’s on the second floor, through that door is the stairs, room 212. But I’m sure he’s probably gone by now. There’s a faculty dinner on tonight.”

  The Receptionist walked up to the counter, closed the window, and locked it. Jane noting that now the coast was clear, motioned Paul to come in and they quickly went up the stairs to the second floor.

  “So what’ll I say if he’s here?” she whispered as they approached his office.

  “Get his attention, and I’ll do the rest,” Paul said taking out his disruptor pistol.

  “OK,” and she knocked on the door but got no answer. They stood waiting unsure what to do. Jane called out, “Professor Starr, are you there?” Still nothing, so Paul reached down and tried the handle. The door opened to a small reception area, with a desk for a secretary. No one was there, but a light was on under a door that had ‘Professor Richard Starr’ written on it. They quietly walked to the door looking at each other, Paul knocked.

  “Come in,” they heard a muffled voice say from behind the door. Paul nodded to Jane, she entered the Professors office to find him sitting at his desk, dressed in a tuxedo.

  “May I help you, Miss?” the Professor said, looking Jane up and down with a leer.

  “Ah, Professor Starr?” Jane asked with a smile.

  “That’s me, but damn girl, who are you?” the Professor said licking his lips.

  Paul stepped into the room from behind Jane with the disruptor pistol in his hand and fired. The look on the Professors face was pure shock as his doppelganger shot him. Jane hurriedly rushed toward the Professors body, while Paul closed the door.

  After they laid out the Professors body on the floor, Paul said in a hushed voice, “Let’s look around and see what we can find.”

  They began searching the office, and in fifteen minutes of pulling the place apart they found nothing. They entered his laboratory from his Office, and began searching for anything related to the Professors work on gravity. However, they found nothing specific there as well.

  “The only other place is probably his computer,” Jane said.

  “Did ya see that thing? It’s an antique,” Paul said with a smile.

  “Let’s check it out anyway.” Barrett sat in the Professors chair and took out her palmcorder. She moved the keyboard from the old PC, and put the palmcorder down instead. After she had pressed a few buttons, some lights began flashing on the palmcorder, a telegraphic screen appeared in front of the television style monitor. The telegraphic screen was showing the contents of the computer’s hard drive. When a laser generated keyboard activated, she brought up the directory of the files.

  “Looks as if he’s using an early version of Microsoft to write his documents. I’ll run a translate program over them, so we can read them,” she said typing on the laser keyboard.

  In a few seconds, the palmcorder had translated all the documents, and they could now read the directory properly. She entered a search string into the palmcorder for gravity. A list of links to documents appeared. After searching through various documents, they finally found the Professors latest attempts at equations, dated more than twelve months ago.

  Paul studied it with a deep frown. “Jesus, even I can tell he’s nowhere near it,” he said with a disappointed sigh.

  “I suggest we don’t tell the Colonel about this. Mr. Crimpson is right about them being centuries away from discovering anything.”

  “One thing you need to know about Dex, he’s always right about everything, so it’s pointless ever doubting him,” Paul said with a hint of pride. “Anyway, let’s get the Professor back to Ship before someone discovers us. There’s a nice area of lawn behind this building we can use to land the shuttle.”

  The Professors phone suddenly rang, Paul and Jane froze for a moment watching it. The ringing stopped, and they heard the Professors voice, “You’ve reached Professor Richard Starr’s office, leave a message after the beep.”

  The device made a loud high-pitched beep and an angry woman’s voice spoke, “Richard, are you there? Richard, pick up! Damn, you’d better not miss the faculty dinner tonight and make me look like a fool again. If you don’t show up t
onight, it’s over between us. Do you understand?” the other end was slammed down.

  Jane picked up a picture that had fallen during the searching, she looked at it and handed it to Paul. He looked at the photograph of a woman with a large hat, wearing dark glasses with a big smile. All he could make out was that she was a blonde, and probably attractive.

  Paul shook his head. “This is crazy, how can I possibly fool his wife into thinking I’m him?”

  Jane shrugged, “So the Professor misses the faculty dinner. She leaves him. Problem solved.”

  “That’s what I’d expect from someone who’s never been married,” he said, giving her a look that made her turn away from him in embarrassment. “I suggest we get moving on the shuttle.” She nodded, retrieved some equipment from the Pauls’ rucksack, and exited the office.

  Paul sat in the Professors chair and looked at the photograph of Emma Starr. By the sounds of that message the Professor isn’t the ideal husband, he thought. He felt butterflies in his stomach thinking about the possibility of facing her. As much as it rankled his own sense of integrity, he had to admit that allowing the break up to occur suited the mission. He looked at the limp body of Professor Starr feeling guilty about what they were about to do to him.

  Paul’s cell suddenly beeped. “Yeah?” he answered.

  “The shuttle is landing now,” the hushed voice of Jane replied.

  “OK, I’ll bring the Professor down. You keep watch for me, and let me know whether any ones coming. It’s going to be difficult to explain why I’m carrying me out.” Paul said.

  Jane chuckled at the mental picture. “Confirmed, I’m watching the building entrance now, and it’s all clear so far.”

  Paul first went to the outer Office and checked the hallway. He walked backed to the Professor and picked his limp body up in his arms and threw him over his shoulder. Paul grabbed the keys out of the lab door, and as he walked out of the Professors office he found the key that fit the door, and locked it. He didn’t want any security stumbling across the mess they’d left. Exiting the outer door, he looked down the hallway, and walked to the stairs. He proceeded down the stairs slowly, so as not to make any noise. “Receptions clear,” Jane said over the cell. He exited the stairwell to the ground floor, and walked to the glass doors to find Jane crouching. “I seen someone walking down the path over there,” she pointed as she stood, “They’re gone now.”