By now Rachael was coming round to sort of believing what I had said about living on another planet. We took the seeds and left. Outside I handed Rachael my letter telling her to read it later when she was alone. I also gave her the communicator, telling her to keep it in her bedside cabinet. I told her that if it ever played a short tune, to hold the blue button in for three seconds and not to allow anyone to see it. I then gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek and said sorry that we would have to go. She pleaded with me to take her with me.
I looked into her eyes at the same time saying, ‘‘Sorry not this time but next time, I will if you are still single and alone but I can’t, I just can’t at moment but I promise I will be back for you even if it takes three or four years I will be back for you.’’ I handed her my remaining money,
‘‘What’s this for,’’ she asked.
I said, ‘‘Well it’s no good where I am going and you can use it more than me.’’
We then started to make our way back to the shuttle. We could see Rachael following a short distance behind and as we climbed over the gate I told the wives I would have to let her see the shuttle, as she still had doubts that I lived on another world. We waited for her. I said, ‘‘Rachael you should go home but come here first.’’
As we approached the shuttle it appeared in front of us, she said, ‘‘It is true isn't it!’’
I replied, ‘‘Yes now go home.’’ I escorted her back to the gate and helped her over. She did not leave at first but we had to go so we waved and entered the illusion field before boarding the shuttle.
The pilot who was one of Lumi's mothers asked, ‘‘Who is she?’’
To which I replied, ‘‘Don’t worry that’s my sister. She can be trusted not to tell anyone what she has seen.’’
As we took off Rachael was waving towards the humming sound as she would have been unable to see us and as we gained altitude she soon disappeared from view. As a caring brother I wanted to make sure she got home safely so every now and again I pinged the communicator; she would not know this but I could track where she was at any given time before we left orbit. As soon as we returned to the cargo ship Alenna left me with Lumi in our cabin while she went to report to Hera, prime wife of the house of Tinter, to give her the seeds. I had pinned a note to the cucumber seeds, which just read, ‘These are good for salads.’ Now I had been left alone with Lumi, apart from what I expected would happen from a new wife left alone with me I needed to find out some information.
Sometimes we passed Alkarr’s moon on our return to Alkarr. I had noticed three cargo ships in orbit there. The moon’s orbit is where a number of old spacecraft are stored for various reasons or problems; mostly they cannot be landed for some reason or other and just left there, while some have been there for many years. So I asked Lumi if she had noticed them and whether she knew anything about them. Lumi replied saying as far as she knew they had been towed there a few years ago. Then she said something that excited me, which was that it had something to do with pirates. The next thing I would now need to do was to see Rolf on my return to Alkarr and try and find out on the men only forum if anyone could shed any further light on them and who they belonged to.
It wasn’t just Alenna who had plans. I had an idea although I could only take it so far, and after that it would be down to her. Alenna returned to our cabin and said that Hera had thanked us for getting the seeds. She told me that it would not have been easy without me. I agreed; they would have needed money to buy them which they didn’t have, but say they did have money, they did not speak English. Lumi may probably have got by, apart from not knowing how to pay, or they would have had to break in and steal them from a greenhouse or wherever they are grown. There were bound to be humans nearby; definitely risky, at least they called in the expert. I was very pleased with myself and I was being a little bit self-important. In the past as Alkarrens did not steal; they paid for seeds or plants which they took from earth the only way they could. They did this by sprinkling a special organic fertilizer made from a seaweed with very special properties, which can double a crop’s yield the following year. Only this time they did not need to do that.
We had a last look at Earth through a port hole; at the same time I pinged the communicator. I was also relieved to see its location was at our aunt and uncle’s flat so I did not need to worry about her returning home safely. As I finished, the star drive was engaged and we were on our return to Alkarr.
We were two days into the trip and we had spent the evening in the entertainment room while everyone else on the ship had left to retire for the night. As we went to leave, the door to the main corridor would not open. After trying for a short while Lumi said we would go the long way though the other door, which was a single file corridor past a number of store rooms. Lumi led then I went behind her with Alenna then following up from the rear. As we approached these store rooms I could see two doors opposite each other open. This was very unusual as the rooms were temperature and humidity controlled due to perishable food normally stored in them. I had a strange feeling that something was not quite right.
I stopped dead and Alenna bumped into the back of me. I called to Lumi to stop, and they both asked me what was wrong. I wanted to know why the store room doors were open; however, they could not think of a reason, so I asked Lumi to have a look inside one. She asked why but I had no answer other than to request that she looked inside. So, peering around the corner Lumi then went in and screamed, which made us both jump. When she reappeared, she was dragging out one of her sisters, then she looked into the other room where she found the other one lurking. The pair had hatched a plan to get me alone as they had hoped. As I passed the door one would rush out pushing me into the other store room with her following and the other sister closing the door behind them. It was a good plan. I suspected that it had been those two who had jammed the main door to the entertainment room. The scary thing was that it would almost certainly have worked.
Now Lumi went berserk; she was raving at her sisters for trying to shame her and not just that, they would have brought shame on their mothers’ house as Alenna had a contract that had one wife not three. What they would have done had they succeeded was change a contract after it had been agreed. That would have brought shame on the house of Tinter.
Lumi escorted both of her sisters to their mothers so that they could administer their punishment, which of course was never physical but I was sure they would be cleaning toilets for quite some time to come. The rest of the journey back to Alkarr was uneventful. We of course were summoned to the bridge to take our seats for landing. As we came out of star drive again we passed the moon where I observed those cargo ships orbiting. Lumi could see I was looking at them but did not remark about it. If she had, Alenna would have been alerted. I was not quite ready to discuss my plan with her yet.
Chapter 4
Our Own Cargo Ship
As often on our return to Alkarr we visited the house of Motok’s main residence. Jenna Minty and the children plus all the other family members were already there. I managed to get invited into the man cave, which always resulted in having a drink of liquor. However, I needed to find out about those cargo ships. Rolf made enquiries for me on the forum and we had one reply that indeed they had been disabled by pirates and towed into the moon’s orbit. They now belonged to the house of Zinda, who resided on the moon. Their family business was in scrap metals.
I then made a note of the house name and details of where they could be contacted. Could it be that all these ships had the wires cut? The same thing that happened to us. I had gone as far as I could as all business was only done between prime wives. I now needed to bring Alenna in on my plan.
After leaving Rolf’s man cave and having to drink that awful bitter swamp drizzle it was time to return to the cargo ship along
with all the wives and children. That evening after we had eaten the last meal of the day and all the children had gone to bed, it was now the time to bring my plan into action. Although Alenna had not discussed it with me, I knew she wanted us to have our own cargo ship; however, her only concern was the cost. I told her about the three cargo ships orbiting the moon; although she had seen them, she had never given them another thought. But when I told her they were there due to pirates disabling them, she became interested and started to get excited. I told her that it was now down to her as I had gone as far as I could.
I handed her the details of the house who owns them and where they can be contacted. She just replied, ‘‘You have been busy,’’ turning to Jenna, asking her to arrange an appointment with the prime of that house to discuss these ships. Jenna nodded. The rest of the evening was spent reminiscing about the cargo ships; we just hoped nothing had been removed and that they had not been gutted. Just as importantly one of them could be obtained at a very low price.
The next day Jenna enquired about an appointment. To her surprise the prime of that house Lidier showed no hesitation of wanting to discuss them, so an appointment was soon made with Alenna; in fact, Lidier was coming to Alkarr the next day so she would see her then. We waited attentively for her arrival. When she did arrive she came with three others: a deputy wife and two of their daughters. They were invited on board and Lidier went with Alenna to the entertainment room to discuss the matter and all the others were taken to the galley to be entertained by us with fruit drinks and snacks. Now the two daughters were unmarried, which made me aware that if any deal was done with a younger house it would result in another wife. I put my bets on it that it was going to be between these two so I tried to find out as much as I could about the pair. Soon my preference would be Perri as she felt comfortable talking with me; also the other wives got on well with her, whereas Deena, the other girl, seemed a little more aloof, although very polite.
After some time had passed Alenna and Lidier entered the galley. I could see by Alenna’s face that she was pleased with herself. After exchanging pleasantries they were shown out and left. No sooner had they gone we all turned to Alenna; she was dying to tell us something but was teasing us by making us wait. After we were sitting comfortably, she informed us that they were all for sale, "The pirates had indeed cut the very same cables as our mothers’ ship and they had not been repaired due to the very same reason that they could not see the difference in the cables. Towing the ships to Relnor for repair would have taken many months due to the slower limit on towing a ship in star drive.'' She then went on to outline the deal, "If Jake could repair the ships and then fly two of them to the surface of the moon, we could then purchase the other one at scrap value, which meant we could also afford to buy a shuttle. The ships no longer have theirs, the best place to obtain one was Relnor, and so whenever we got the chance to transport a cargo to Relnor we would acquire a good used one. Everything else is still there on all the ships.''
I thought for a moment about the ships and then suggested, ‘‘What if we could only fix two of them?’’
Alenna then replied, ‘‘We will only get paid for our time, Lidier is sending me the logs so we can choose which ship we want.’’
‘‘It’s clear then,’’ I said, ‘‘It’s imperative all three ships are repaired, and another matter, will this bring another wife to our house? If I suspect it does, could it be Perri.’’
To my amazement all the other wives wanted Perri as well and were saying, ‘‘Yes please Alenna let it be Perri.’’
Alenna said, ‘‘I will go with your choice as you all seem to have chosen already.’’ This was difficult as I did not want to have another new wife, but on the other hand I wanted us to have our own cargo ship. For this reason alone I had no other choice but to accept it.
We still had to continue cargo runs with the house of Motok and would be resuming the next day on a run to Molk, the water world, the same place as we had the encountered with pirates. Due to what happened the last time we went there, we were worried, but on this occasion Elma did not seem at all concerned. Alenna asked her why were we going back there after all this time of avoiding cargo runs to go there. Elma replied by saying that the matter regarding pirates had been dealt with; yet we wondered what this statement actually meant. A few days later we found out. The settlers on Molk had all clubbed together and had acquired a planetary defence frigate, which was bigger than our shuttle but small enough that one would just fit in our ship’s cargo hold. They were sufficiently armed to see off any threats from pirates; the small premium on the price of fish was well worth the peace of mind that we were no longer susceptible to pirate attack.
Our run there went without a hitch. It was now becoming difficult on the ship as the younger sisters were reaching marrying age, so now I could no longer roam freely on the ship during runs. This just seemed to happen over the years although it was not supposed to, but it was deemed safe for me to do so, up to now that is. This has now changed and I now have my chaperones back. On our return to Alkarr, Alenna must have virtually run to the residence of her parents to see if their package with the logs had arrived. She had soon returned in double quick time gripping tightly a bundle tied together. We followed her into the galley where we started to go through everything; all the ships had to have had work done over the years. The youngest ship was seventy-three years old, and the oldest was one hundred and two; in fact, it turned out the youngest had the most work done with three pods and one fusion reactor replaced and its service record was almost complete, not what you could say for the other two. The decision was unanimous. The youngest ship was going to be our choice.
The next move would be to ask a favour of Elma to fly us to the first ship with her shuttle then follow us to the surface of the moon before transporting us to the next one in turn. We were going to need three environmental pressure suits as any atmosphere in the ships was going to be stale and the temperatures not being controlled would vary wildly inside. For the job in hand we needed some liquid solder, which you could just paint on and when dry was as good as high temperature solder, plus some heat shrink sleeving to complete the job as a permanent repair. Finally we needed a landing spot at the cargo port along with suitable cargo depot for loading and unloading goods to. This could be hired fairly easily as there were a few spare places left, as it’s a government port and there would be no new wife involved.
Alenna spent a morning organising everything; she had borrowed three environmental pressure suits. Elma was willing to take us, so Alenna, Jenna and I were set to go; we were quite excited at the prospect of getting our very own cargo ship. The moment arrived and we left with Elma who had brought along Elka for company, so she would not be alone when following us down to the moon. We lifted off and very soon were approaching our first ship. Elma docked the shuttle onto the hatch. The three of us then proceeded to enter the air lock, closing the door behind us. We then opened the outer hatch doors on both ships before climbing inside and, closing both doors after us, we were now ready to open the inner door to the cargo ship. It was dark, very dark. We made our way to the bridge, which was a bit scary moving through a large ship with just the light from the helmet of the environmental suit.
I went first as the girls were quite jumpy, and eventually we made it to the bridge where a single illuminated button could be observed. Good, I thought, the reserve energy banks were still operative; in fact, these took many decades to run down if left on standby. I pushed the button and immediately the instrument panels lit up. I started the first fusion reactor start sequence and then we waited, watching the display screen. Then as readings predicted, we had the reassuring pulse as it fired up. Soon we had the life support up and running along with the lights. I bent down and looked at the bunch of cables which had been sliced in half. Removing my helmet and gloves I set about the repair.
We called Elma on the radio to say we were ready. She followed us down to the moon and very soon we had landed, shut-down all systems and disembarked. The ship was going to need a new pod, but that was not our concern; we had done what we were contracted to do. Soon we were on our way to the second ship; this was the oldest one, and when we entered it looked like someone had left in a hurry. There was rubbish and junk spewed about everywhere; we had to step over lots of items on our way to the bridge. When we finally got there it looked a mess. I pressed the button and the instrument displays lit up as before. I soon brought the first fusion reactor on line along with the life support systems, but when we took our helmets off the place smelt badly, like something had died in there, yet it was probably the sewage system on board that was leaking.
The girls put their helmets back on. I could not blame them. I had to endure the stench as I got on with the job joining the wires together. Before I had finished with the wiring job Jenna, who had attempted to start the second reactor, reported to me that she could not bring it on line. This was not good. I finished joining the wires and tried the reactor start sequence another three times. There was zero response. I wondered if it could have been faulty before the incident or whether it had just happened. It may have corroded injectors but there was no way I could confirm this without looking. I needed a radiation suit so I was stuck with one reactor, which by the instrument panel display, was running within specification, which was one good thing we had going for us.
Chronicles of Jake 1: My Return to Planet Earth Page 5
