“They’re probably just a little busy lately. You can’t fault them for that,” I said, “We all get a little distracted sometimes.”
“Distracted? I was applying for a promotion that would take me to the Big Apple,” she said, “I’d be moving away permanently in order to almost double my pay.”
“Really?” I asked, stopping to look at her.
She turned to me and gave me a humble shrug. It looked like she was fighting off a grin full of pride.
“Three of us were applying for the job, so it’s not a sure thing. I feel really confident though,” she said.
“Is the Big Apple far from here?” I asked.
She punched me in the shoulder, “Are you serious?”
“When we regain contact with the satellites, we should probably have them do a little more research for us,” Rewan said, “We’re apparently missing some important stuff.”
I shrugged.
“New York City, Cyan! It’s nearly two thousand miles from here,” she said, “Do you really not know this stuff or are you just being silly?”
I shrugged again. She turned to me and halted my progress through the woods.
“What happened, Cyan?” she asked.
Caught within the powerful stare of this woman, I crumbled. Steine, a well-known detective who spent many years reprimanding the troublesome youth, or investigating the minor crimes that happened in our world, was now brought to his knees by a human woman from a savage planet.
“I’m missing a lot of information in my mind,” I said, tapping the side of my head, “The explosion that sunk my boat… well, it happened really close to me and it wasn’t real pretty if you know what I mean.”
She reached up with her free hand and cupped the side of my face. I placed my hand over hers.
“So, can we please talk about something much more interesting?” I asked, “Can we talk about Evie?”
“I’m a farmer’s daughter,” she smiled, “There’s not much to talk about.”
“Yeah,” I laughed, then repeated her statement, “Nothing to talk about at all.”
She stepped away from me and examined me for a moment.
“I’m serious. I’m not half as interesting as you’ve built up in your mind,” she said, “Tell me what you’re looking for.”
“Evie,” I said.
“Be specific.”
“Besides Evie?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“Evie’s lips,” I said.
“Hmm…” she cocked an eyebrow seductively as she watched me from two paces away.
“The river is down this path over here,” she said, turning abruptly and starting down the inclined path.
“It’s like that?” Drexil asked.
“My thoughts exactly!” I added, “What did I do wrong?”
“You did nothing wrong, Steine,” Rewan said, “She’s just having a little fun now that she knows where you stand on everything.”
“Fun? She’s running away!” I said.
“Then you’d better go catch her,” Rewan laughed.
Edwards Air Force Base
Nevada
“Nest, this is Woody Woodpecker. I’ve got it on my radar and it’s way up there. We’re talking around 115,000 feet and maintaining position and altitude,” Captain Richards stated, bringing his Bell P-59 around for another pass, “How did you even locate this UFO?”
“Woody, you will refrain from using such terms over the airwaves,” Major Stockholm replied, “We picked it up by the communications signals it was sending and receiving to the Roswell object.”
Captain Richards kept his eye on the screen beside him. The Bell P-59 Airacomet wasn’t designed as a radar jet, but adding the necessary equipment to the fighter was an easy half-hour task. Richards had been watching the object since he’d first picked it up and it never wavered from its hovering position at nearly twenty miles above him.
“We can’t reach it with any of our aircraft, but I got word from the Office of Naval Research that Strato-Lab might have a weather balloon that could potentially reach such heights. You are to remain in position and keep it within radar range, Woody,” the major stated, “The truck is about an hour away with the balloon.”
“Not to state the obvious, sir, but what’s a balloon going to do to a metal object?” he asked.
“For now, we just aim to fry it. If it’s some form of Soviet spy technology, and it most likely is since it’s hovering over Los Alamos, our first duty is to destroy it. This offers us a perfect opportunity to test an experimental device.”
“I’m with you on that one, sir. Woody Woodpecker is maintaining a presence until relieved,” he said, “Woody out.”
Riverside
“Do you think there’s anything out there beyond those clouds?” Evie asked.
We were both lying on the blanket, staring up at the perfectly blue sky above. Neither of us were hungry yet, so the picnic basket rested on the riverbank unopened.
“Of course,” I said, “The moon is out there somewhere circling the Earth, and the Earth is circling the sun.”
“I know, but what about beyond all that?” she asked, “I’m sure Orson Welles would have me believe there are Martians out there ready to eat my brain, but I’m not willing to accept that life is that ‘ordinary’. Like… if the universe is as big as they say and if it’s as naturally inhospitable to life as scientists presume, then life can’t be common. Do you know what I’m saying?”
“I know exactly what you’re saying,” I replied, “If every star out there is another sun, shouldn’t we be picking up a bunch of radio waves or signals?”
“Exactly!” she said, “And if Flash Gordon fires an atomic pulse at another ship and he misses his target, shouldn’t that flaming pulse continue on forever? And with so many battles going on out there, we should either see a bunch of random projectiles or atomic pulses racing through our solar system. Heck, we should get hit with one every few years I guess.”
I turned to look at the woman beside me. How could such crazily intelligent theories come from the mind of such a beautiful woman? Her eyes shifted my way while she faced the sky.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re too pretty to have such an intriguing scientific mind,” I said.
“I take offense to that!” Rewan hollered in my head.
“You’re right, Rewan, and I’m sorry,” I said, “You also carry on that same unique quality, but I have to say, it’s still a very rare trait.”
“Well then, apology accepted,” Rewan said, “But I do take offense to the fact that you’re not imagining me when you look at her.”
“And what exactly are you imagining, Rewan?” I asked, “Or should I stop pretending that I can’t read your thoughts as clearly as you read mine?”
She was silent. I waited a moment to see if she intended to add anything else, but she didn’t.
“My dad gets more than just the Capper’s Farmer magazines. Even when times are tough, Dad refuses to forgo his monthly Popular Science subscription. I think I’m the only one who truly reads it though,” she said, “And what made you think I wouldn’t be smart anyway? I’m up for a major promotion!”
“I never said I didn’t think you’d be smart,” I replied, “I said you have a lot of intriguing stuff going on in that head of yours. I’m still looking for the imperfection. It’s got to be there somewhere.”
She turned to me and melted me yet again with her smile. The peaceful ripples of the river added the perfect background music to such a delightful scene. I was without a doubt ready to retire here for the rest of my life.
“Maybe you didn’t search hard enough for the imperfection,” she said.
“Forgive me, then. I won’t make the same mistake twice,” I whispered, leaning into her and pressing my lips to hers.
I could feel the muffled sigh behind those lips as she permitted her head to fall into my hand on the blanket. I kissed her gently, afraid that somehow I would forget the st
rength I possessed and accidentally inflict an injury. I raked my hands through her hair, cupping her head as I would a fragile egg. All the while, I kissed her tender lips, her soft chin, the slope of her throat, and her delicate ear.
“It’s dangerous,” she whispered against my lips, the moment I returned to them.
“What is dangerous?” I whispered back, kissing her gently.
“This,” she said.
“I’m being good,” I grinned, kissing her upper lip, then the tip of her nose.
“I know!” she growled.
“I’m confused,” I whispered, kissing my way back down to her lips.
“We need to be careful,” she whined, taking a hold of my face.
“You’d better watch out,” Rewan inserted, “So far, you are a good person in everyone’s eyes, including her parents.”
“NO! Go away, Rewan!” Drexil said, “Don’t listen to her!”
“I’m being good and I’m being careful because I think I love you, Evie,” I said, “But do we have to stop what we’re doing?”
“What do you mean ‘stop’?” she asked.
“I’m really enjoying your lips, your chin, your throat, your collarbone, and your ear,” I said.
“Oh god,” she groaned as I kissed my way back down the front of her throat, “I think I love you too, Cyan.”
. . .
By the time the sun finished its morning trek to its highest perch above, we were discovering just how much food her mother prepared for us. I had to wonder for a moment if she’d had hopes of us spending all our time at the river eating instead of doing the many things I’d been struggling against imagining.
“Looks like we’ve got ham sandwiches, a jar of mother’s canned pears, a jar of pickles, a plate of my butter cookies, two large Mason jars of lemonade, and best of all…” she said, lifting a bowl slowly as though she were presenting me with an award, “My mother’s famous macaroni salad.”
“Wow, how long does she expect us to be gone?” I laughed.
“I guess she’s not expecting us back until tomorrow,” she snickered.
I enjoyed watching her set out the plates and the silverware on the blanket as though it were a proper table. She seemed so focused and serious as she performed the task of serving both of us our picnic lunch. She unwrapped the sandwiches and set them on the side of the plates, leaving room for the macaroni salad she would then scoop onto both of our plates.
“Such fine presentation,” I said, reaching into the basket and taking out both of the jars of lemonade, “You should work in a restaurant.”
“I’ll ignore that presumed compliment,” she said with a smirk, “I had to work in a restaurant for six months of my life and I hated it.”
She opened the pickle jar and placed a pickle next to each of our sandwiches. She kept the pears and the cookies in the picnic basket, then brushed her hands off on the blanket.
“I guess we can dig in. Do you want to say the blessing this time?” she asked.
I inhaled sharply, afraid suddenly that I’d really have to say a prayer to a god I didn’t believe it. She smiled broadly and patted my hand.
“You don’t have to. I was just giving you the opportunity if you wanted. I’ll say it,” she said, putting her hands together and closing her eyes.
I followed her lead, but spent most of the time peeking at the plate of food before me. I truly wished in that moment that I had the sense of taste I once had on my own planet.
“Dear Lord, we thank you for a very beautiful day and for a pleasant person to share this day with. We ask that you bless this food, bless this family, and keep us safe. Amen,” she said, looking up at me, “Now I’m not some dainty princess when it comes to my mother’s macaroni salad, so don’t expect me to show restraint and fork a single piece at a time.”
I laughed, then reached for a macaroni noodle with the very tips of my finger and thumb. I lifted it “daintily” then placed it gently on my tongue.
“I don’t mind as long as you don’t mind if I am a dainty princess who-”
She reached over and slapped my arm, laughing as she nearly fell forward on my plate of food.
“What?” I asked, feigning innocence.
“Then tell me what you think of it, Cyan. How’s the macaroni salad?” she asked, poking me in the chest.
“Hmm…” I pretended to be lost in thought, “I believe I can no longer be dainty anymore thanks to your mom’s skills in the kitchen. Did you bring a garden shovel by chance?”
“See!” she snickered, picking up her own fork and shoveling a large portion of the salad from my plate.
“Hey, that’s mine!” I said, sliding my plate away from her.
“Then you’d better guard your food a little better next time,” she said, shoving the full fork into her mouth, “Mmmm.”
“Don’t make me fork your sandwich!”
“Steine, we’ve got a problem,” Rewan said, “I picked up a partial transmission from the satellite that never made it to us. Well, it made it, but we didn’t hear it because we turned off its voice unless it was an emergency.”
“What do you mean? Is the satellite back online?” I asked.
“No, as a matter of fact, I think it’s gone completely,” she said, “It must not have considered this an emergency. All it said was ‘aircraft bouncing radar signals off this satellite. They have discov-’ and nothing further after that.”
“But why do you think it’s gone completely?” I asked.
“I sent out a locater signal and I got a response blip from only the secondary satellite,” she said, “Even if the thing was shut down, I’d have still got a response blip.”
“What the heck are we going to do then?” Drexil asked.
“We do what we said before,” I said, “We’ll have to build a communication relay and get the secondary satellite to hurry up and send the ‘stand down’ order.”
“The stand down order?” Rewan asked.
“Yeah, the stand down order! Are you telling me that you think this is a race of heartless, evil savages?” I asked with a little more anger in the tone than I intended.
“He’s right, Rewan,” Drexil said, “If we’re going to exterminate a whole planet, we’d better be sure there are significantly more guilty than innocent living here. I don’t see that from where I’m sitting.”
“I know, but…” she started, “I’d rather wait until we saw more than a little farm town before we returned a verdict.”
“I can appreciate that,” I said, “But either way, we need to get working on this relay.”
Memo
From: Gen Brian S. Woods – Edwards AFB
To: RADM Stephens – ONR, Strato-Lab
As you probably already heard in the past hour, the invaluable assistance of your office has made our mission a success. I offer again my gratitude and will be sure to keep the communication lines open between our offices in the coming days as we research the remains of the object.
I write to you however with another request. The orbital object appears to have been accompanied by something in a much higher orbit. A radar “ping” was sent from somewhere in southeast New Mexico. This was definitely something related to the operations we were performing as when we replayed our reception of the same event, we caught traces of a return ping from an object higher in the atmosphere.
We have not located this high-altitude device with any of our equipment, but we can safely estimate by the two radar signals (the outgoing and incoming ping) that the object could be as high as 1,500 miles. We are contacting DC to keep them updated, but as it stands now, I think it would be beneficial to both our offices if we could seek out a way to intercept such a high-altitude object. As I’m sure you realize, none of our aircraft could even get high enough to lock onto such an orbital, and we don’t have any worthy rockets in the making or on paper at the moment.
Any assistance or ideas you and your office could offer will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
again,
General Woods
USAF, Edwards AFB
Good News
If I were a creature that actually required sleep, I doubt I would have been able to sleep that night. Evie spent the whole afternoon and evening dancing a dirge through the receptors in my shared computer mind. I kept up the charade of hanging out in my bed for a couple hours every night, if nothing else to at least make the mattress appear slept in should there be any visitors when I’m out working with John.
“We could probably find most of the supplies we need in the Sears Catalog,” Drexil said, “Though money would be an obstacle we’d somehow need to overcome.”
“True,” I said.
We examined the remains of the Sears Catalog on two of the instances that we hid out in the outhouse pretending to be human. Those times make me wish yet again that our creators would have spent more time trying to engineer a sense of taste instead of perfecting this unfortunate sense of smell.
“What do you plan to do with Evie?” Rewan asked.
“What kind of question is that?” I retorted.
“You proclaimed your love for her and she proclaimed her love for you. This is a living and loving being who could get hurt,” Rewan said, “Especially if we’re just using her like a pawn for five years.”
“I’m not going to hurt her,” I insisted.
“Then I ask again – what do you plan to do with Evie?” she asked, “She’s probably in her bedroom right now imagining a long future with that handsome human living in her barn. She’s probably imagining children and grandchildren. She’s-”
“Okay!” Drexil said, “What do you propose we do?”
“Well, the decision is probably going to be Steine’s,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
“You told her you love her. Do you truly love her?” she asked.
I paused, watching the random specks of dust drift casually through the moonbeam that had been invading my room. I was sent here to observe a society we knew nothing about. I was sent here with the unspoken understanding that I probably wouldn’t interfere a whole lot with the regular flow of life. I was fairly certain however that if I was going to return a verdict of “extermination,” my home world could care less how much trouble I caused here or how much damage I did.
The Mystic Saga Omnibus (Books 1 - 5) Page 34
