Spaced Out part 7 of 7

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

A pair of powerful headlights pierced the darkness and illuminated the small gathering in the clearing’s centre. Lisa reluctantly rose and wandered over to where the truck had stopped.  Indicating to the bemused driver exactly where she wanted his cargo unloaded, she then moved out of the way. He set to work as instructed and in around fifteen minutes had set the mini mountain of relaxation inducer on the ground with the aid of his trusty pallet crane. Signing off on the delivery docket she bid him a pleasant enough farewell, but with a parting look in her eyes that suggested that he should perhaps not mention this incident to anyone if he was smart about it. Also, the $100 tip tucked into the paperwork helped sway him nicely. He duly obliged and took his leave, turning the vehicle around across the grass circle, much to Bob’s horror, and rumbled back out the way he had come in, relieved both of his load and concern that he was somehow the butt of an elaborate practical joke. Now it was someone else’s problem.

Bob checked his device to ensure that the deliverer hadn’t damaged the trace on the landing spot and, satisfied that all was still okay, hastily inspected the packaged treasure. Finally he was almost truly happy again, and allowed himself a slight smirk. He had the grog, and he also had the girl. Now all he needed was a lift off the planet that had frustrated him thus far. Helping himself to a can from one of the cartons he offered another towards Lisa, who declined with a screwed up face. She wanted to be stone cold sober to see his downfall and didn’t want to miss any of it by having her mind numbed in the slightest possible way. Bob sauntered back over and squatted down beside her to sample his amber ale, then thanked her for being such a good sport about the whole thing. He wasn’t totally devoid of fair feelings, and could appreciate the trouble she was going to for his benefit. Naturally he would try to pay her back in the coming years that they would be travelling the galaxy together, but she could not be expected to know that at that particular moment. First off though, he had to ask her once more. Broaching the subject with all the subtly of chilli sauce on haemorrhoids he blurted out rather pathetically “Please come with us.” She looked sadly upon his optimistic face and decided to try another tact.
“Is it really so bad to stay here with me?”
“With you? Not at all. And as far as rocks go this one of yours is pretty good. But I’m a born wanderer, and to spend the rest of my days stuck in one place would drive me nuts. It’s not the destination so much that’s important, but the fun along the way that counts. Travel is all that matters, not having to see the same patch of dirt day after day. It’s just not an option for me, but don’t worry. I’ll get offa here, anytime now. Come with us! Let me show you things you can’t ever imagine!” Lisa tried for one last ditch effort at reason, hoping it would put up a good fight and win her the day. “I can’t go with you, you’re way too irresponsible.” Without skipping a beat Bob blocked and jabbed.
“Yeah, perhaps, but I’m still light years ahead of any guy you’ve ever known.” Ouch! Reason took one in the guts and went down for the count. With the verbal sparring finally over she gazed upon him in renewed awe. For once she couldn’t argue with his logic. And so, sitting on a log in the dark clearing, she casually consented to his request, more for the peace that agreeance  would bring than for taking him in any way seriously. It was his delusion after all. If only she knew what she had gotten herself into!

Calm returned, and they both went back to staring up at the starry sky deep in their own thoughts.  Quiet enveloped them once more. Lisa lay back and wondered how long she could comfortably allow this charade to continue before finally growing weary and calling the whole thing off when the ringing of her mobile phone suddenly shattered their repose. It nearly scared them out of their skins, and it got their hearts racing for two very different reasons. For her the culprit was adrenaline spurting forth from the startle she had just received. Bob, on the other hand, had not so secretly been hoping for and expecting the call, and so his reaction was unbridled joy at the prospect that it almost certainly entailed. If indeed it was Zed on the line then the last of his woes would very soon be over, and since the crank calls had dried up by that stage it should well be him at last. It was.

Caution was generally a quality rarely practiced by Bob. Still, even he was able to appreciate the merit of its use in this circumstance, and so he put on his best pretend female voice as he spoke into the device. “Hello?” he ventured in a high pitched and most unreal tone.
“Man, that’s the worst fake voice I’ve heard you pull in all our trips! How’s things man?” Bob’s eyes lit up and he stopped with a start, which is no mean feat to be sure. A tremble worked its way into his vocal chords and played them like a xylophone. “Zed, mate?” he screamed into the phone, with a large dose of genuine happiness to be reunited with his hiking buddy, only slightly lessened by the desire to appear ‘cool’ about the whole having to be rescued thing. “Yeah, man. Hey, not so loud okay? I’m nearly on top of you, and I don’t mind sayin’ man, just lookin’ down at that overgrown marble you’re on is giving me the heebie jeebies!”
“Sorry about that, but, hey, come and Get Me Outta Here!”
“No worries, man”.
Just before he hung up Bob directed Zed to home in on the reptoid’s residue trace, while cross checking the location with the signal still emanating from the bug in his cised unit. Thus, with A4’s expert flying skills, their craft would be able to drop right on top of the ‘crop circle’ that was still barely visible in the dim moonlight. By the dawn of the approaching day there would be two neat concentric rings left on the waving grass for any interested parties to marvel over, if they ever cared to venture that far out of their way to gaze upon them.

While he waited for Zed and A4 to touch down Bob turned to Lisa and broke the resumed silence. “We’ll have to get on quick smart once they land. Zed doesn’t like this planet and will be wanting to get out of here as soon as possible.”  Still not believing a word of it, and yet strangely feeling a little offended by the slight visited upon her home world, she queried his latest statement. “Why? What has he got against Earth?”
“The Great Mole Rat”, was Bob’s simple reply. Lisa stared at him, totally dumbfounded.
“Did you say a rat?”
“Not just any rodent. The Great Mole Rat. He’s got a phobia about them.”
“How did he manage to get that?”
“In a dream he had once. I tried to reassure him that it was probably only a hallucination from drummin’ too much Zicho dust, but it was no use. He’s got it bad. So then I looked it up under Galactic Phobias, Fears, and General Worries on the ship’s computer before I came here and, boy o boy, does this place rate high on that list! I mean, there’s actually a proper category for the Great Mole Rat. Can you believe that?” Lisa blushed in the darkness, not sure whether to laugh or cry. “What’s it called then?” she defensively demanded, wondering if she was somehow being toyed with yet again. “Zemmiphobia. You’ve got to admit, it’s got quite a nice ring to it, as far as anxieties go, don’t you think?” he asked, without a hint of his trademark smile which usually appeared after he’d hooked a sucker. “Yeah, lovely”, she replied flatly, and made a mental note to check it out for herself when she got the chance. “By the way,” she added some moments later, more as a way of passing the time than for any real interest in the subject while trying not to feel just a tad silly sitting on a log in the middle of a clearing far from home beside a strange sort of guy who claimed to be from outer space and who was waiting for a flying saucer to come and pick them up, “what’s drummin’ whatever it is dust?”
“Drummin’ Zicho dust”, he corrected, as if it was anywhere near important.  “It’s when you mix the dust from a particular desert area on Capurinia 6, near the Eastern Rim Joint, with a squirt of fluid from the nostrils of a Lumpy Snotgobbling Zicra Horned Beast, and drip it into your ear canal. It gets absorbed instantly and affects your sense of balance by knocking the legs right out from under you, so it’s best administered while lying down.”

Lisa didn’t mind the stories that she thought Bob was making up for at least they were entertaining, and some, she had to admit, were damn good. Yet he had done nothing so far to prove their validity one way or another. However, she was growing quite fond of her tale teller and as long as she could be with him he could say just about anything he liked. They were only stories after all. What could they possibly hurt? “Sorry I asked”, she huffed, rather more truthfully than she would have cared to own up to. Then, without missing a beat, “If the rat’s only found on Earth, and he’s never been here before, how does he know anything about it?” She asked this in a somewhat accusing tone of voice, believing that she’d seen through the con at last. “That’s the really weird thing”, Bob replied, causing her to stifle a guffaw. “He was watching an Earth channel wild life doco in a Rim Joint bar at the time and I think this may have triggered something deep inside his temporarily altered mind. Who knows what might lurk inside there?”
“Not just him, it seems”, she eyed him coolly. Bob was almost about to feign indignation at that remark when his ears twitched again. These super sensitive organs of his could both hear and feel vibrations slightly outside the range of Earther senses, and so gave him an edge over many less gifted species. Therefore he almost never put them in danger of being damaged by drummin’, unless it was free of course.

The cause of his aural follicle stimulation was something as simple and subtle as a soft hum. “There!” he pointed. Lisa couldn’t make out anything and wondered how on Earth he was able to, if indeed he was hearing anything at all. Then she realized with slow trepidation that there was a slight mechanical noise on the wind, but she put it down to being a helicopter or other such aircraft flying far above their position. The disturbance gradually gained in intensity, and the hairs on the back of her neck inexplicably stood up to attention. Then a rare creepy feeling made a prickly appearance, crawling wave-like up and over the rear half of her head. Could she have been wrong after all? Since the jury was still out on that one she reserved her decision for the moment and instead grabbed reality with both hands, lest she loose her grip of it entirely. As if he could read the question mark in her eyes, despite the gloom all around, Bob touched his ears and grinned. “Best lugs in the outer quadrant. Very useful for meetings like this”, he proudly boasted. Still, the whiner stubbornly would not reveal itself to her, try as she might to get a bead upon it. She could hear it well enough by now, but just could not pinpoint its exact location in the encompassing darkness for love nor money. It was all getting a bit frustrating to say the least, and rather scary to utter the most.

“I thought flying saucers were supposed to have lots of flashing lights?” she pondered quietly, so as not to disturb him from tracking the craft. “Yeah, the show offs usually do. They seem to get a kick out of it. The brighter the better, as far as they’re concerned. Yet the more serious of us find it somewhat unwise to draw too much attention to ourselves. You just don’t know who might be waiting for you.” A dull thud broke their conversation, and then the din cut out abruptly. “Come on, let’s go!” Bob urged, grabbing her hand and leading her quickly across the clearing to the now slightly visible ship. A faint green crack of light appeared, and then widened. This marker was what Bob headed straight towards, pulling his companion along with growing urgency. As they got closer it was clear that a short ramp had opened out and down from the hull to the ground.

Zed appeared in the hatchway, semi-illuminated by an eerie back glow, with a thousand light year stare and a space rifle at the ready that was capable of firing blasts of thermo energy that could fry a Great Mole Rat to a black and charred shade of golden brown with ease. The fact that that particular rodent was nocturnal only heightened his fear, for, as far as he was concerned, anything that stayed up all night must be one pretty serious groover.
[Story note: On the way in A4 had patiently and repeatedly tried to reassure Zed, until he had finally lost interest and got on with some computing that he needed to do, that this particular species of Earth mammal did not inhabit the cut-off land mass  upon which they were to park. However, this was of no never mind to Zed in the least. He simply wasn’t going to take any chances and was ready to blast the first furry little critter that poked its head up anywhere near him to smithereens, right between its wee sparkling eyes. Such was the stuff of his recurring adopted nightmare nemesis. It was just a pity that they were so cute too.]

Bob raced up the incline and embraced Zed with a gusto seldom experienced by his cohort in crime, startling him and in the process nearly causing his weapon to discharge a blast in no particular direction. Once Zed had regained his laid back/on edge composure they exchanged the secret Rigilean handshake. By the time they had finished Lisa had reluctantly ambled up the short gradient and stood beside them at the top. Bob introduced her to his mate and then called A4 to come and join them. The metallic pilot left his post and glumly reported. After receiving instructions to load the precious cargo into the lower rear bay he set to work while the organics went inside and occupied the craft’s cozy cockpit to catch up on things. Zed stubbornly clung to his blaster despite Bob’s implorations that it wasn’t at all necessary, and seemed just a bit dangerous for them all should it malfunction in any way. However, he could not be dissuaded. He simply could not be parted from his death delivering security blanket for all the tarsho in Zadoclod.

Pointing his levo-stick at the grog pile A4 made short and effortless work of his task, easing the pallets one at a time into the hold while muttering dark thoughts quietly to himself. Once all was in readiness he returned to the command seat, retracted the sloped stairs, and fired up the anti-grav generators. When satisfied that they were all running at the correct settings he employed the clutch and their ship shot up through the stratosphere like a demented elevator towards the relative safety of outer space. 

A very short time later they had reached the point where they were free of Earth’s bindings and the andro-captain flipped the control for reverse cycle artificial gravity which would provide stable comfort for his charges on the trip back to Pluto. He himself didn’t care one iota either way, but they seemed to like having their feet on the deck and were easier to handle when kept happy. Their destination, for the time being, was the newly ‘acquired’ astro liner parked neatly at a position between Pluto and its moon Charon where their mutual orbital attractions cancelled each other out. A sort of natural space anchorage, so to speak. 

As A4 forged their path ahead, dodging all manner of wayward celestial objects, the other three sat back and took stock of their relative fortune, both good and slightly odd inclusively. A nagging fear began to manifest itself in Lisa’s mind, and she soon gave it voice. “But what about my houses and other stuff?” As usual, Bob’s honesty was brutal from the outset. “Forget all that, babe. You won’t need them where we’re going.” She thought about that for a moment.
“Well, I guess they’ll be alright ‘till we return.”  Then she fixed a steely stare upon him and quickly added “We are going to be coming back, I hope?” Bob’s bland face spoke volumes, and her spirit sank. “But what about my family and friends? What will they do?” He looked into her sad, frightened eyes and suddenly realized the huge gulf that existed between their individual life experiences. She had thought that she was well travelled, and he certainly was. It was really just a question of scale, for in space the distances between the stars were very large and the time needed to traverse them was correspondingly long. Even if they did decide to revisit the Earth after their trip to the Central Hub the elapsed period for that planet could be measured in eons. This he gently tried to explain to her. Then he directed her attention to outside the starboard porthole. Mars quietly floated by without so much as a murmur. Up close and personal, in all its rustic red blotchy glory. She had seen photos of it in her daily perusal of the tele newscasts, especially as N.A.S.A. was desperately trying to make it the Earth’s new cosmic junkyard, but never in her wildest dreams did she think that she would be near enough to almost reach out and touch it. The enormity of this eye opener fairly knocked the wind out of her sails. Any thoughts of going home vanished in that instant. To what? Her folks would get on fine without her, and her close acquaintances, she was forced to admit, were mostly superficial anyway. She shed a tear for them, then firmly shut the door on her home world forever. This orb that she was gazing upon was just a taste of things to come, and her appetite had been instantly whetted. She had contracted a mega dose of space fever, and she liked it! The Milky Way, you say? Bring it on! Bob was both surprised and pleased with her new and assertive attitude. “Can I see some more, please.” Happy to oblige, even though it would take them a little out of their way, he motioned to his biobot driver to divert slightly in order to pass a couple of the larger outer gas globes that currently traversed that side of the solar system, including Saturn her favorite. 
“I know some places that could run rings around that donut!” Bob joked, and was suitably ignored as Lisa sat glued to the viewing window.
Leaving her to ogle at the beauty of the unfolding universe, Bob and Zed settled back and cracked open a couple of cans. Bob was determined to enjoy the fruits of his hard earned thirst over a ‘quiet’ drink or two, and Zed was more than keen to follow suit. The relatively small amount of booze that had been acquired seemed to be but a disappointing drop in the proverbial ocean, yet it would turn out to be quite a tasty little splash for the time being. At the very least it would keep them well oiled until they reached the next space port of call where they could work on replenishing their stock. Bob savored the cool amber liquid gently flowing down his throat, and triumphantly blew the suds on his lips towards his comrade in arms. Life was good, and things had finally all come together in his favour. Nothing was going to spoil his party now, at least not in the short term anyway, and he felt that he could truly relax. Let his hair down, so to speak. Against all the odds of Omega he had managed to accomplish what he had set out to do, eventually, and a small tear of immense relief slowly trickled down his cheek from the corner of an eye. He was leaving the Earth at last.



The End 

(of sorts)
Author’s note:

Any criticisms, constructive comments, and/or encouragement may be sent to-

John Kenzey,
P.O. box 2021,
Flemington road,
RMH,
Victoria, 3050,
Australia.

The author apologizes before hand for not being able to reply to individual letters as he is currently writing hard on the next installment of the story for your reading pleasure, and he thanks you personally for your valued interest.

‘The universe be there for you!’