FRENCHY

by George Olney

The simulations confirmed her estimate of Grae as utterly deadly. What surprised her was how comfortable she was with that fact and how smoothly their personalities meshed when they were in action together, even in a computer simulation.

  The rest of the time, the mesh wasn't so smooth. Not so smooth out of bed, that is, she thought with a slightly guilty feeling of how much she enjoyed sex with him.

  When the computer announced arrival, Frenchy eagerly jumped from the table and ran to her weapons console to activate a viewing screen. Her first sight of a world other than Earth was a disappointment. It was just another star in the sky. The only way she knew it was a planet was the computer highlight on the screen.

  "We can't break down our tachyon field and go to sublight velocity any closer than this to a planet," Grae explained gently from behind her shoulder. "We are about as far away from that planet as your world is from its nearest neighbor. You don't see that as a disk shape, do you?"

  She shook her head. "No. I really didn't understand what space was like until now. I sort of expected to see all sorts of glowing balls like the pictures of the Earth from the moon. Kid's dreams, I guess."

  She was surprised when his smile held no superiority. His eyes got a faraway look, almost as if he was speaking to himself as well as her. "Everyone has dreams. That's what takes intelligent beings to the stars. They're nothing to be ashamed of, just treated in the proper perspective. Besides, we'll see your glowing ball in a few more hours. That will be when we go to work in earnest, so enjoy the sights."

  She turned thoughtfully back to the screen.

  #####

  Several hours later, as she watched the glowing planet with fascination, Grae swung the ship into an orbit barely outside the atmosphere. "Time to begin looking," he grunted. "Activate the scan."

  With the appearance of a brisk competence she didn't feel, Frenchy activated the scan board and began to sweep the planet's surface. Immediately, her screen lit up with responses. "This place is full of remains!"

  "I didn't say it was going to be easy," he chuckled. "That's what you are doing, remember? Using a little human discrimination to target anything irregular."

  She shot him a looks-could-kill glare promising his immediate demise at the first available opportunity. The worst part about the bastard, she steamed as she turned back to study her screen, was that he was always right!

  Grae grinned at her, easily guessing her thoughts. Pretending to be oblivious to her reaction, he rambled on, following a perverse notion to see how high he could turn up the steam. "Like I've said, any civilization worth the name will leave remains scattered every place they could possibly reach. We'll do a rough scan at this height, then down a little if nothing turns up. It ought to take you about four hours or so for the first scan, so I'm going to take a nap. Wake me if anything important turns up." He could almost see the smoke pour out her ears as he turned to leave.

  Glaring at the screen, she snarled as she tried to restore her concentration. She was not going to let the son of a bitch bother her! Why in the hell was she letting him get under her skin?

  It took her a while to relax, but she finally managed to settle in to the routine of the job. It should have been boring, but she was beginning to have fun. The screen translated its findings into symbols that approximated what it detected. Her vivid imagination did the rest, picturing exotic alien temples and incomprehensible, weird structures. Many of the dreams she lived in a theater or in front of a TV were now coming true.

  The excitement of her true life adventure almost caused her to miss the thing for which she was unknowingly looking. The newly programmed reflexes of her body hit the designate button before her mind grasped the significance of the symbol on the screen. There was an active power source down there! On what was supposed to be an empty planet!

  She debated waking Grae but decided against it. She had the source on playback, now that the computer knew it was important. Better to keep going, find some more things, and show Grae just how good a job she was really capable of doing.

  Her dedication began to flag as the ship tediously completed one circuit and dipped lower for another one. It gradually dawned on her that she was once again being used. By now she could see that Grae was right about having a human search for something when there was no indication of the desired goal. On the other hand, it was damned boring work after the first thrill wore off. She checked the rate of scan, and the computer told her that the whole planet was going to be completely scanned before Grae came back to relieve her.

  That damned man was letting her do the all the drudgery while he slept!

  Bastard, she thought. Bastard again! And a sonofabitch to boot!

  About then she got another power signal, this one too weak to be detected on the orbit higher up. Once again, she designated the source by reflex. Two sources, she decided, were enough to wake the lord and master. Tapping the automatic recording switch to avoid missing anything, she pushed away from the console.

  As she stood up, she glanced back at the screen. Two power plants operating on an empty world.

  Why?

  Who was there?

  She suddenly realized she'd never asked why they were so hell for leather after this particular place. She was sure he considered it far out and isolated, so why was he here? She'd guessed Grae was a scientist, but not what type. And it came to her again that he'd never told her what he was or why they were coming here.

  Typical of the superior bastard.

  The scanner and the way they were using it suggested a search for ancient ruins, didn't it? Maybe he was an archaeologist. That would make sense.

  A nagging little feeling in the back of her mind told her that was a wrong guess.

  For a minute, she debated simply asking him what she wanted to know, but voted the suggestion down. It might suggest weakness to him. Better to simply follow along and keep her eyes open for whatever appeared. It wasn't the reasonable thing to do, but she wasn't out to be reasonable, only independent.

  As she hurried down the passageway to wake Grae, she wished heartily for a bucket of water to do the job.

  #####

  Grae rapidly scanned the record of the two power sources, grunting brief approval of Frenchy's performance. As he got into the command seat he told her, "Take your place, we're going down to look at what you found."

  "Are they important?" she asked.

  "They shouldn't be there. This world is supposed to be empty."

  As she seated herself in the other command chair, she took a guess and commented knowingly, "And that's why we are here."

  He shot her a speculative look for an instant. "And that's why we are here."

  Frenchy grinned to herself. Score another point for the home team!

  Watching her screen, she soon realized Grae was planning to land near the weaker power source. Curious. The two sources were half a world apart and he had to choose one of them, but why the lesser?

  Swinging her chair to the scanner, she tried to reacquire the lesser source and figure out the answer for herself.

  Over his shoulder, Grae commented, "You're wasting your time, unless you know a whole lot more about galactic civilization than I think. Your screen says the source is an old, pre-galactic type. My guess is that it dates from the time this world lost its population. We'll get to the other one, because I have a nasty feeling I know just what it is, but I'm not ready stick my head in yet. Instruments don't show any sort of warning net, so we'll take the older one first and worry about the other when I know better what we're up against. I don't want any surprises from whatever's emitting down there."

  Warning net? Nasty feeling? Oh Lord, she wondered, now what? She watched the ground come up at them a little more nervously than a moment ago.

  #####

  Once they landed, she sat impatiently until the computer analyzed the ecosphere outside for any problem. It finally declared the place safe for humans, with the provision that some problems were not necessarily imaginable
by the computer's programmers. Apparently, she thought covering your ass was not restricted to politicians, lawyers, and bureaucrats on Earth.

  As she looked at the screen showing the new world outside, she took a deep breath in amazement at the strange colors and shapes. In a way, it wasn't real yet. Looking at things in a TV screen was too much like watching a Star Gate rerun. She wanted to see the real landscape.

  She looked around to talk to Grae, only to find him gone. Suddenly decisive, she headed back to their cabin, determined to find something to wear in a brand new world. Besides, the monitors reported an outside temperature in the low seventies, comfortable enough in light clothing, but a little too cold for her bare skin.

  She was fishing in the closet for a jacket and other things when Grae walked into the cabin. He took one look and snapped, "What do you think you are doing?"

  She looked at him with rebellion. "Getting something to wear when we go outside! In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not exactly dressed for a romp in the wilderness. I might be able to handle the conditions in the ship like this, but I'm not about to wander in the woods like Eve!"

  The allusion wasn't lost on him, but there was something else in his eyes. "I've told you before you're forbidden clothing. Besides, nobody said you were going out there with me."

  Ignoring the second part of his statement, she countered heatedly, "Well, just what does a girl like me have on when it gets cold back at the dear old homestead? They certainly don't stay indoors all winter!"

  He frowned. "Some do. The rest wear an all-weather cloak. That is all I would allow you by custom, even if you wanted more."

  She seized on that. "Do you have one? If not, I'll get the ship to make one and wear that! Look, I found whatever it is. I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself. I promise I won't get in the way."

  He shook his head with a slight smile. "Okay. I can get a cloak for you, but, for both our sakes, stay the hell out of trouble and out of my way if it does happen."

  Frenchy smiled inwardly. Score another one for the home team.

  #####

  As she stepped onto the exit ramp from the ship, she pulled the warm cloak snugly about herself. The feel of the cloak was soft and supple on her bare skin, and she enjoyed it despite herself. She fudged slightly and had the ship make a pair of walking shoes for her, not knowing or caring if Grae thought they were legal. Nothing fashionable. Just plain shoes. Besides, they looked necessary on the rough ground outside.

  Standing next to the ship, her first new planet fulfilled all of her expectations. The thick foliage was indefinably alien, without her being able to put her finger on just what the difference was. Buildings and everything else had the same mysterious, exotic flavor.

  They were sitting in a large clearing in a dry forest, not a jungle. Buried in a tree line not too far away were a collection of very old stone structures, their carvings weathered and broken by time. She let her eyes wander over the majesty of the ancient towers that formed a harmonious whole with the low main building. A series of stone shafts to one side were carved with faces that represented either shapes out of nightmare or some of the most outlandish alien life she had ever thought to see. Frenchy beamed brightly. It was all she had ever dreamed of in her wildest flights of fantasy. That was going to be a temple. It had to be! There was going to be a treasure, too!

  By way of instructions, Grae grunted at her, then hefted several small pieces of equipment and headed for the center of the clearing. She took careful note of the fact that he was wearing some kind of pistol, with other things attached to his belt in addition to the usual knife in his boot. He also walked with the careful alertness of a man in hostile territory. She decided it behooved her to not get very far from the man with the gun. Odd things were out there, and some of them might hanker for a blonde for dinner.

  He stopped a short way from the ship, and began to consult a small box in his hand. It didn't take much in the way of brains to figure out the thing was telling him the location of the power source. Fortunately, the box directed him towards the temple, right where she wanted to go.

  Carefully, he led the way towards the building's black entrance. Gaping like an opened maw, the doorway was ringed by unpleasant carvings of a variety of monsters best left to bad dreams. She had the eerie feeling that some of the carvings were taken from real life. He stopped at the entrance, puzzled. She caught up with him and tried to read the meters over his shoulder, but the multicolored patterns on the face of the little detector made no sense to her. "What's wrong?" she asked.

  He frowned and looked around with wary puzzlement. "Two readings," he said in a curt, soft voice. "Both old, but the stronger one masked the weaker until we got this close." He turned a puzzled frown to his instrument.

  Irritated at being left hanging, she asked, "And...?"

  He shot her a tense look. "And why is number two in there with number one? They don't show as the same type. Both alien, both old, but one of them doesn't belong to this culture. Somebody else put it there.

  "Come on," he ordered as he began to walk decisively through the temple's open doorway. Right then, she lost her taste for adventure, and mentally kicked herself for insisting on coming on this spook chase. There might be something to the stories about blondes being dumb, after all.

  Screw it, she thought. The thing to do with a monster or a spook was kick it in the balls, if it had any, then run like hell. Grinning, her sense of adventure returned as she followed him into the gloomy building.

  Grae pulled out two light sticks, activated them, and handed her one. For a moment, she was surprised at the courtesy then realized he merely wanted more light and needed a free hand for his tracer. To her relief, the interior of the building was open, with the walls off in shadow on either side. Spooky, she decided, but not cramped. Being closed in would be worse. The floor was hard packed dirt with some trace of the original stone flagging peeking through where drifting soil hadn't reached.

  Peering intently to one side, Frenchy could distinguish still shapes up against the walls. Curious despite her nervousness, she drifted far enough away from Grae to let her light illuminate one of the figures. It was another one of the nightmare characters from the frescoes outside the temple, done as a stone statue. At least, she hoped it was a statue. Eerie thoughts of mummified guardians tiptoed through her mind. Thereafter, she stayed close behind the intent Grae.

  He was aware of her little excursion, but made no comment. There were other things to occupy his mind besides teasing her. He stopped so suddenly that she almost ran into him. "Below this slab," he said.

  The slab in question was about a half inch of stone that covered a low shelf just in front of them. It had every appearance of some kind of altar, was about five feet square, and weighed several hundred pounds at her guess. She wondered if or how he was going to move it.

  It didn't take long for her to find out. She knew Grae was strong, from feeling the power in his body when they had sex. Now she realized her was being very restrained with her in bed. Placing his equipment down, he grabbed the edge of the slab and heaved it up and off the shelf in one smooth motion. The shelf was revealed as a hollow rectangle, concealing a vertical passageway that led down below the temple floor. Frenchy gulped. All that weight shifted without him breaking a sweat or even acknowledging the effort!

  Grae casually plucked her lightstick from her hands, tied a line onto it, and let it down the previously hidden shaft. The light shown on steps slanting down into darkness that looked totally unappealing to her. The darkness faded back as the light was dropped lower, to finally reveal a dank floor glistening at the bottom.

  Frenchy shivered slightly and pulled the cloak tighter about her. The light twisting at the end of the slim line cast weird shadows in the chamber at the base of the stairs, seeming to bring the ever present carved monsters on the walls to life and set them dancing to some demon fandango. The scene below her didn't have to go far to bring her idea of hell to life.

 
It was with a total lack of enthusiasm and no real surprise that she watched Grae start down the oddly proportioned steps. Only the fact that she was otherwise going to be left upstairs in the dark of the main temple prompted her to follow him. Her common sense declared she really ought to be in Pittsburgh.

  The steps were difficult, and every one she took made her feel as though she was she was going to pitch headlong in a disastrous fall. Finally, she reached the bottom. The sights that met her eyes gave no cause for reassurance.

  As they stared around them, she said, "Not Pittsburgh."

  "What?" He shot the word over his back in a preoccupied fashion as he also surveyed the chamber.

  "Not Pittsburgh. As the man said, 'On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia.' "

  "Which man?"

  "Dunno. Some TV commercial I saw. Makes sense to me right now."

  "The feeling will grow on you," he growled, closing the dialog.

  One power source was easy to find. On a low circular dais near the middle of the room, a phosphorescent glow revealed a number of metal items lying in disarray, each glowing brightly as though new. She realized the glow was some sort of protective field, because the stuff was in such good condition. Just about everything else in the room was old and rotted or corroded beyond recognition. There were several large items under one carved frieze that were so far gone as to be unrecognizable. This room had to be ancient beyond belief!

  Her attention suddenly zoomed in on a pair of shapes in another, darker area of the underground chamber. They looked eerily like large, human shaped cocoons. It did her peace of mind no good to see that one was split open and empty. There was another soft glow surrounding the other one. Grae followed her stare and commented, "The other power source. Also a stasis field. Don't touch it."

  He didn't have to tell her twice! Wedging both light sticks in cracks in the walls, he carefully set out a couple of small boxes from his belt with a quiet, professional air, then turned on their glowing screens. Watching him, she again figured him for an archaeologist. He was preoccupied with his study of the antique items in the room to the exclusion of almost anything else, although there was still a watchful feeling about him that was totally second nature. No matter what happened, he was ready.