by V R Tapscott
“Is that good news?”
“Well, I kinda think so, sugar. I mean, it’s prob’ly precisely what he’s wanting us to find. Which means I’m suspicious of it.”
I paused, drank some pop, and said, “Then when do we head that way? Is this something that just you and I can do?”
“Sweetheart, there ain’t nothing you and I can do alone. Mostly ‘cause I’m not taking you alone. You need someone to watch over you and that ain’t me. You don’t listen to me.”
“Hey, I listen to you!”
“Puleeze. You don’t ever listen to me anymore. I mean, sure, if you need something technical, it’s fine. But anything else, it’s Georgia or Bailey, not lil ol’ me.”
I frowned. “Well, I guess that’s true to some extent. But it’s because you’ll never let me do anything the least bit dangerous, and sometimes life is just dangerous. I know you’re afraid of turning into Kit, and I know you’re seriously upset when something does happen to me, but it’s my own choice, love. It’s my nature to be out there in the middle of things. I’d be living half a life if I didn’t do things that get me into trouble. I know it’s one reason that Dale spends time away, he can’t handle me going off and doing things that are dangerous. And I wind up getting into a lot of dangerous things.”
She sighed and shrugged. “I know. But I have to take care of you, Jane. And I guess that’s why I’m not qualified to make a judgement on what to tell you how or what to do. I see that. It just ain’ what I like either.”
I hugged her and said, “I appreciate you and all you do, Olive. Always.”
She smiled sadly. “I know, Jane. Just sometimes you drive me batty!”
“Mm ... you need to talk to my mom. Or Dale.
She smirked wickedly. “Or Cai. Or Bailey. Or even Laney.”
“Speaking of Laney, have you been to see her lately?”
Slightly evasively, she said, “I get to Vegas sometimes.”
I shook my head. “And you think I might tell you to stop? That’s just about like you telling me to stop.”
“Touché, my lady. Touché.”
“Anyhow, should we gather the team and hit the area?”
She nodded. “I guess. I’m not sure, this is kind of cold and inhospitable. Not even sure that we can put all of us in. Maybe draw lots and let just one person go along with us?”
“Or take volunteers.”
“Like that’s gonna help, sugar. None of ‘em will be interested in staying behind so you just wind up with a lot of volunteers and no one staying here.”
I tilted my head at her and said, “Well, then, what do we do?”
“Maybe take volunteers to stay behind?”
“I guess that may work. But what if no one volunteers. And I bet that’s what would happen.”
Olive shrugged. “I dunno. Back to drawing lots, I guess. Volunteers or reverse volunteers won’t work, as far as I can see.”
“Ok, we’ll bring it up in the morning, eh?”
“I suppose it should be a full crew decision, since it affects all of us.”
“Yeah, probably so. Besides, I think everyone is off doing other things, right now. Speaking of doing other things, we could go see Laura? Or Laney?”
She looked at me. “Why?”
“Why? Well, maybe ‘cause we never go anywhere together anymore, we take everyone. And I miss you.”
“Oh. I guess, well, that’s kind of nice.” She frowned. “I hadn’t thought about it, but I think I miss you too, Jane. Like we’ve disconnected.”
“Maybe so. Of course, a few years from now when this is all behind us, we’ll probably be alone. Together, but alone.”
“Then we’ll deal with that, then. Not today. Besides, we won’t be alone, we’ll have Jandice.”
I grinned. “Let’s go see Laura. And I’m not ready to be an old cat lady, yet.”
And so we went to see Laura. The nice thing about this time would be that Olive could finally shake hands with her, or hug her.
We drove down out of the mountains in an upgraded smart car, much cuter than the old one. We pulled into a parking lot in front of the Wagon Wheel and walked inside. Midafternoon in Montana means not much is going on, and Laura caught sight of us at once. She squealed her delight and came running over. This time she was gratified that Olive hugged her and kissed her forehead.
She pulled us over to her station and we flopped comfortably. She brought us fries and we all sat munching at the fries, or simulating munching at the fries at least.
“So, what brings you to Montana this time?”
I smiled. “We just came to see you, Laura.”
She laughed. “Oh sure, drive all these miles just to see me. I don’t see Dale s’often as I used to, he’s pretty busy I guess.”
I nodded. “He gets to visit me now and then, and I make it here fairly often.”
“I hope y’all are good. Y’make a great couple.”
I nodded. “Yep, we do really well.”
She and Olive got into a spirited conversation and they batted things back and forth, finally running down after an hour or so. A little conversation later, people started to filter in, and we made with our goodbyes and wandered out through the front door.
Back in the car again, Olive hugged me and thanked me. “Sometimes I forget that it wasn’t very long ago it was just the two of us. I miss that sometimes, Jane.”
“I miss it too, Olive. I suppose it will come up again soon enough, though.”
She looked sidelong at me. “What if we went and checked out the rogue’s trap. Just the two of us?”
“I thought you didn’t want to do that, that I was too rebellious and wouldn’t listen to you.”
“Oh, that’s all true. But I’m feeling mellow and giving, right now.”
I grinned, “Don’t push it, Olive.”
As expected, she stuck her tongue out at me. I returned the favor.
So, we headed toward Antarctica. Just the two of us, with guilt following us both, but not enough to keep us from doing it.
From a couple miles out, it was pretty obvious the place shown in the picture was this bit of forsaken waste. The closer you got, the less it would be possible to pick it out though, since the ice wall was huge. Which means that the area to search was correspondingly huge. Olive turned on her sensors full blast and we started roaming the area. There was pretty much nothing out there, seemed even the polar bears avoided it. Hah! Gotcha, no polar bears in Antarctica. In fact, while there’s lots of life near the seas, there’s almost no life on the ice itself. Which makes sense, seeing how dang cold it is there.
We flew in over the area. I double checked with Olive to make sure that the invisibility was on. I realize it was probably pointless, but it only takes one major slip up to be ever paranoid. Of course, she rolled her eyes at me, stuck out her tongue and refused comment. To me that could very well have meant that she completely forgot it. She’s making the transition to human very well.
After patrolling back and forth for a while over the general area where the arrow ended, I saw a frown come over Olive’s face.
“What is it? You see something?”
She replied hesitantly, “Well, I’m not sure. I’m getting a reading of some sort, but I’m not sure what it is.”
“Anything odd is probably what we’re looking for, isn’t it?”
“I guess. But it’s just a piece of rock, and not a very big one. It’s just … it just doesn’t really belong there, Jane.”
“Well, then I guess that’s what we should look closer at, right?”
“I suppose. I just get a bad feeling about this. Like it’s something we’re being pushed toward. Maybe I can get in close and just tractor beam it up and look at it closer. It’s just barely under the surface.”
I looked down at the landscape. “Hm. How about we just go out with a pick and peck around at it? It’s been a long time since I got to do any archeological digging.”
She shrugged. “I guess. There�
��s a pick in the closet, and you’ll have to change into your skinsuit. Trust me, you don’t want to be outside in those clothes.”
I nodded and stripped, pulling the skinsuit out of the closet and grabbing the pick that was conveniently standing there. It was like getting back into uniform, pulling on the suit and getting ready to head out into adventure. I know, we’d been on adventures lately wearing the skinsuits, but this was MY suit, from my old adventures. Made me feel nostalgic, and I missed Kit. Olive hugged me from behind.
“You loved him, didn’t you?”
I shrugged. “I guess. We were the best of friends, anyhow. I’ve always thought maybe something might have happened. But Kit never had any interest in a body or the like, or at least he never mentioned it.”
I looked out at the landscape.
“Wow. What a great slide!”
And with that, I jumped over a little bit of an edge and slid down at least a hundred feet, Olive shrieking in my ear, something about “Jane, don’t do that, you’re gonna get yourself killed!”
She slid to a stop beside me. She looked at me. She glared. Then she laughed. “You like doing crap like that, don’t you?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I do. I never wanna get old, Olive. I wanna be a kid the rest of my life.”
“I suppose all humans do. I’ll check back with you in fifty years and see what you say then.”
A qualm passed across my thoughts. “Well, it was just a thought. I’m not completely sure I’m ok with hundreds of years. I’m still thinking about it.”
She shrugged and reformed the ship. We got back in it and rose to the top of the area where the rock was. I hopped out and walked over to it.
I looked at it. “It’s not a very big piece, is it? Kinda weird that our rogue was so interested in it to set up the whole arrow and stuff.” I gave the ice a big whack, and it split around the area, and I could see part of the fracture near the chunk of rock. “Another good hit and I can probably pull it…”
I heard a gasp beside me, and Olive grabbed the pick out of my hand. She pushed me into the ship and solidified the door closed.
“What the heck, Olive, why …”
And all hell broke loose. The ship was buffeted around and while we didn’t truly feel the effects inside, it was obvious from the intense flash of light and billowing clouds of ice crystals that whatever it was had blown up. Very blown up.
Chapter Eighteen
You went WHERE??
There was silence in the ship as we motored home. Olive had been nearly throwing up, her fright was so intense. I’d never seen her so pale, I didn’t even know she could get that pale. She sat in her seat, moaning.
I sat next to her, hugging her close. After the worst passed, she started crying. Long drawn out sobs of the scared child.
Finally words came. In hiccups and fits and starts, she said, “I can’t believe I almost killed you. One more hit of the pick and ...”
“But I had my skinsuit on, Olive. Nothing would have happened, I even had the hood up, it’s cold there!”
She turned to me. “It wouldn’t have helped. Remember the substance on the skin of the ship, the one that Kit blew up?”
“Uh huh. I know it was bad.”
“Well, that was what was on that rock. And as soon as it was exposed to air, it blew up. It was the perfect trap. I had no idea. I was puzzled by the reason behind the rock. I should never have let you get close to it.”
“But the skinsuit? I was fully covered. I would have been fine. Right?”
She looked at me and began to sob again. “No, there’s no way a light duty item like a skinsuit would have survived that. I was worried that even my ship shield would give way, it was that intense. It probably blew most of that ice mass away, and it might have cracked the whole ice plate.”
I boggled at her. “You mean, like half a continent?”
She nodded. “Probably nothing that bad, but I’m betting that when we turn on the news there will be scientists talking about weather changes worldwide from that many ice crystals in the air. And the shock wave. I don’t even know what it will cause. Tsunamis? We’re a long ways from other land masses here and we were out in the middle of hundreds of miles of ice fields, so I’m hoping it won’t do anything really damaging. But, it nearly killed you, Jane. That’s all I care about. You.” And she dissolved into tears again.
I hugged her and rocked her, stroked her hair. After a while she seemed to get better, but she didn’t lose the haunted look around her eyes. We touched down in the garage at home and got out of the ship. We made our way across the area and into the house. Olive dropped off with a final hug and started toward her room.
I pulled her back and around to face me. “This wasn’t your fault. You will not blame yourself or do anything crazy, or damaging. Do you understand?”
A peculiar look came over her face, but she said, “I understand and obey, Jane Bond.”
I hugged her again. “I love you, Olive. Always.”
She pasted on a smile and said, “I know.” She turned and went into her room and closed the door.
I headed upstairs, planning on telling no one what had happened. Everyone was gathered in the living room, watching the news. Of one accord, all eyes turned to me. I swallowed. About then, the news cycle came up again, talking about a massive explosion on the continent of Antarctica.
Georgia spoke up first, as usual. In honeyed tones, she said, “Where you been, sweetie?”
“Oh, hi! Olive and I went to Montana to visit Laura. I’m thinking about ordering pizza though, whatcha think??”
She looked me up and down. “Laura, huh? In your skinsuit?”
I blanched. I’d completely forgotten I was wearing the skinsuit. “Uh, yeah. I thought she might be interested in seeing it.”
That sounded lame even to me.
They all just stared at me.
I swallowed. “Well, I talked Olive into taking a quick look at the site that she found where we thought the rogue’s arrow was. And … um … we kinda accidentally set off some kind of a small bomb. But we were ok.”
Raised eyebrows around the table. Then almost in perfect harmony, “Look at the TV news.”
I did.
“In breaking news, less than two hours ago a massive explosion shook Antarctica. It’s not yet known what caused the explosion, but lack of radioactive signature seems to bar atomic origin. Interestingly, lack of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide seem to rule out volcanic origins. A massive plume of what’s mostly ice crystals and rock have jetted into the atmosphere. Scientists are in hopes that the debris will fall back to the earth in relatively unpopulated Antarctica rather than cause issues in the rest of the world. The blast occurred far enough inland that at this time meteorologists are not overly concerned about tidal waves, but there will likely be some affect to the ocean.”
I looked back at the group. “So, pizza?”
Bailey looked at me. “Did you actually say ‘small bomb’ a minute ago?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, I could have picked it up with one hand. Maybe two hands.”
“What were you doing picking up bombs? Are you crazy?”
Hands on hips, I frowned, “It didn’t look like a bomb, it looked like a rock. And why are you all getting on me? The rock blew up, but we got away without any damage. It’s not a big deal. Really.”
Georgia looked at me. “It sounds like CNN thinks it’s a big deal.”
“CNN’s a news organization. Anything they can point at and scream about is a big deal.”
“Granted, but still. They were saying the plume is thousands of miles into the atmosphere. You can’t call that minor.”
I shrugged. “Ok, so it wasn’t minor. And honestly, I’m very freaking glad that none of you went along this time, since Olive wouldn’t have been able to get all of us on board in time and at least some of us would be dead right now.”
I sat down and grabbed some peanuts. Jandice took advantage of this moment to jump up on my lap,
and I sat absentmindedly petting her.
“It was an unusually heavy-handed trap. I really wanted to give this rogue a chance, but he’s shown his true colors here without a doubt. I just can’t see any benevolent gesture in a bomb that would almost for certain kill me, and possibly destroy Olive and her ship.”
Cai put down his glass. “But you had your skinsuit on.” He smirked. “That’s obvious.”
“I did. But Olive said the skinsuit would have had no effect, it might as well have not even been there.”
From behind us, Olive spoke up, “It absolutely would have killed Jane, suit or no, and if I hadn’t moved fast enough to be a thousand feet out when it blew, I believe we’d both be dead now. Anyone outside the ship would have been vaporized.”
The pronouncement took the wind out of everyone’s sails. We all sat back and munched thoughtfully on whatever was on the table, none of us paying much attention to what it was.
Cai asked the obvious question. “So, how did it get there? Surely if it was that volatile, it would have blown up when it arrived whenever. That ice in that area has been there for thousands or millions of years. And even then, if it had arrived when the original spaceship arrived 140 million years ago, it would not be the same ice as now. 140 million years is far further back than that ice.”
Olive nodded. “I was looking at it. In fact, Jane was gonna dig out the rock with a pick when I noticed in scanning that the ice in a pocket around the rock wasn’t the same age as the rest of the ice. I kinda figure that our boy musta brought that chunk of rock in already froze in ice and melted it into the place Jane found it. Otherwise it’d of blown up on entry.”
Bailey said, “And that was one hell of a nasty premeditated murder. Can you see it any other way, Georgia?”
“I’d like to, but I sure can’t. If it’d been another popgun or jack-in-the-box, sure. But this was something that was calculated to draw someone into just digging it out. That bastard set us up with giving us toys to play with, and then slid in a real gun on us.”
Jeannie Bond tossed in her two cents with, “And that moves him or it into the level of an evil thinking planning creature, who has no empathy for anyone but himself. This ‘joke’ almost points to a joy in causing others pain. Since but for the fact that Jane was, right or wrong, playing it solo - probably most of us in this room right now would be dead.”
