Black Desert

by Peter Francis

  “How?” asked Stiers.

  “I’ll explain after we have had a good night’s rest,” she said. “Basically it works the same way hypnotism does.”

  “This I’ll have to see,” said Ramirez. “Can you set me up to I can’t see Gowan – except when she’s naked.” Two French fries clipped one side of his face.

  “Don’t waste food,” said Stiers. “The good farmers of Idaho worked hard to produce those potatoes.”

  “Fries come from potatoes?” queried a surprised Ramirez.

  “Your education is lacking in certain areas,” said the Captain.

  “I have only ever bought fries in packets,” defended Ramirez. “I thought baked potatoes came from potatoes.”

  “Chips, mash, creamed, sautéed and French fries all come from potato,” said Stiers.

  “I didn’t realise such ugly little things could be so versatile.”

  “They are not all little things,” said Ogden. “When I was a child I sat at a cafeteria in England and ordered a baked potato – or jacket potato as they were known there. The waitress asked me if I would mind having a large one…”

  “...I am resisting the obvious here, Paunchy…”

  “…and I said no problem. I could eat a big one…”

  “…which really goes without saying…”

  “…and she served me with a potato that filled a dinner plate. I had this with baked beans and cheese and it was delicious.”

  “Did you finish it?” asked Gowan.

  “Look at his stomach. There’s your answer,” quipped Ramirez. “He’s still wearing it.”

  “Stop insulting Daniel,” said the Professor.

  Ramirez said, “Good luck finding his dick because I doubt he has seen it in a decade or two.”

  “Quit it,” said the Captain. “Let’s plan for an early night and an even earlier start tomorrow. We have lots to do.”

  “At least there are no dishes to clear up,” said Lillishenger. “We can just put this lot in the garbage.”

  “No,” said Stiers. “All this can be recycled inside the Defender. We may need to manufacture clothing.”

  “Your ship is marvellous,” said Lillishenger. “Does it actually have a name?”

  “SPV1101,” said Stiers.

  “I mean a real name?”

  “It was too big to fit the christening font,” said Stiers. “No, it doesn’t have a name.”

  “Then we need to think of one. It sounds like we may be Earth’s only hope.”

  “God help Earth,” whispered Ramirez.

  “It is not a hopeless situation,” said Ogden.

  “It’s okay for you – you’ll be getting plenty of pussy,” said Ramirez.

  “You’ll still have yourself to play with,” said Gowan.

  “Let me show you the house,” said Lillishenger. “Oh dear, I only have two keys so we will have to get some cut.”

  “We can replicate them on board,” said Ogden.

  “Yes, of course. Well, let us proceed.”

  They exited through a small side door which Lillishenger locked after her and walked over to the large, one-storey house. The roof extended over a veranda which faced the workshop – now a hangar. She unlocked the front door and they found themselves in a large living room with a corridor leading back to bedrooms and bathrooms – two of the latter. To the right was a kitchen and to the left a large dining room which was filled with various bits of scientific apparatus. Lillishenger gave them a brief walk through explaining who would be where. Then she took them to the dining room and explained why they would have to eat meals in the hangar or kitchen or onboard their ship.

  “My dining room has become an important part of my efforts to probe the incongruencies of time.”

  “Have you found it must incorporate a spatial element?” asked Ogden.

  “On the contrary. I have found such an element is negative and may inhibit the experiment. In its natural state, any element or being automatically moves spatially and chronologically.”

  “Are you following this, Captain?” asked Ramirez.

  “Not in the least,” said Stiers. “What language are they speaking? Are they saying ‘precipitation’ in place of ‘rain’?”

  “Would you like me to translate as far as I am able?” said Ramirez.

  “You understand us,” said Lillishenger. “Ogden was asking if space is an essential qualification to movement through time. I have explained that it is not as everything already moves through time and space anyway. If you stand rooted to that spot, Captain, till tomorrow, you will have moved forward in time. You do not need to move through space to achieve that because you are already moving through the universe at speeds too high to contemplate.”

  “But we need to speed up that movement.”

  “Not necessarily. If you remain rooted to that spot you will exist both in this time now, and tomorrow. It may be possible to travel through time while we remain here – but I sincerely hope not.”

  “Are you saying there is a way back to our time?” pressed Stiers.

  “There are probably many ways back, but travelling at a rate exceeding the speed of light is probably the best.

  “Our ship cannot do that.”

  “Not yet,” said Lillishenger.

  “Not at all,” said Stiers. “The propulsion system is very limited. And if we were to travel at lights speeds and above, our bodies would collapse.”

  “Your bodies wouldn’t need to go anywhere. You could sit down and play cards and do it.”

  “Not with our technology, and certainly not with the backwards technology that exists today. I’m not even sure they have cellular phones yet.”

  “Leave the physics to me. Your team will be required to perform and complete structural work. I will need Ogden and Ramirez to assist me from time to time. They are the most intelligent.”

  “Excuse me,” said Gowan. “Ramirez keeps his brain in his pants.”

  “Don’t underestimate him,” said the Professor. “He may look gormless but there is a sharp intelligence under that.”

  “Wo, wo, lady. I look gormless?” Ramirez protested. “I am light complected and quite sought after by women for their evening comfort.”

  “So is milk chocolate,” said Gowan. “Much more sought after I’d suggest.”

  “It’s just like having children again,” said Stiers.

  “Come with me,” said Lillishenger and led them over to a table in the old dining room. One it was a piece of equipment that comprised a glass cover over a glass plate. Under the glass was a metal ring and this was connected to a control box containing wires and a connection to a nearby wall socket. Lillishenger fumbled in her pockets – which were mostly empty and come up with the change from the diner. She extracted a dollar bill and folded it tight, placing it inside a plastic container about the size of the cap of a pen. She took another bill and folded it then placed both items under the glass dome and on the plate. She hummed and hawed a bit and adjusted two knobs on the power apparatus.

  “What are you doing, dear lady?” asked Ogden.

  “I shall send these two items forward in time,” she replied. Plastic and glass are least affected by time travel, through I would imagine the same thing applies to diamond.”

  “I have a diamond ring,” said Gowan.

  “We’ll leave that for another time,” said the Professor. “Now watch.”

  She pressed a switch on the control box and the plate began to vibrate in a circular movement. “I came upon this accidentally,” she said. “I was experimenting with cloaking and realised that if you put your hand in front of your face and shake it from side to side it practically disappears. If you could speed that up, it would do. However, the abrupt change in direction limits the speed and consumes vast amounts of energy relative to the effect.”

  The plate and the objects on it disappeared. Gowan said, “It’s gone.”

  “It is moving so fast, you won’t be able to see it,” said the Professor.
“I have sent it forward a few hours. It will be back here tomorrow morning.”

  “We can’t see it because it’s moving fast?” queried Ramirez.

  “Yes,” said Lillishenger. “But it will move even faster.”

  “Did you have much wine today?” he pressed.

  “It will be there tomorrow,” said Lillishenger.

  “It will do that if you turn off the machine,” said Ramirez.

  “Let’s turn in, pards,” said Stiers. “We can argue this out in the morning after we have viewed all the recording.”

  “Yes,” said the Professor. “We will have to examine everything. Travelling in time is only part of our problem. We must arrive there able to deliver a fatal blow to the alien vessel.”

  “Seriously I doubt that even a thermonuclear device could halt them,” said Ogden. “Or even hurt them.”

  “We’ll find a way,” said Stiers and turned away to go to his room. The others followed, Lillishenger taking the hand of Ogden and leading him along or preventing him from escaping. The effect was the same. The Professor had a large bedroom with a king size bed so familiar to sexually athletic Californians with its five and a half feet width. There was an en suite to this room apart from the two bathrooms further down the hall – one of which Gowan had already appropriated as her own, leaving Ramirez and the Captain to share. Ogden looked around nervously.

  He asked, “Wouldn’t you prefer me to share one of the other rooms?”

  “Stop being coy, Daniel. I’ve seen everything you have and I have seen worse and better – but not in recent years. We should be familiar enough with each other.”

  “It has been some time…”

  “It has been some time for me too – almost ten years.”

  “I mean it has been some time since we last engaged in such a level of fond responses. Oh, and what you mean too. Not since Syra died.”

  “That’s more than twenty years.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Ogden sheepishly.

  “Haven’t you missed firming up the old beast?” Lillishenger was already stripping off her uniform with its lack of underwear.

  “I have missed Syra,” he said.

  “I came first, as I remember,” she said and stepped out naked then slipped into bed and watched him. Nervously he began to remove his uniform. The Professor allowed him no privacy, watching with fascination for the moment when his once familiar sex rig appeared.

  “I missed you too,” he said. “Syra filled all my empty spaces.”

  “Get those drawers down, Daniel. You can fill my empty space. For heaven’s sake, man, I’m asking you for a good doing, not to fall in love again.” She paused. “There it is,” she said as the waited for moment occurred. “It looks pretty much as I remember except your stomach is bigger and lower. Not that much though.”

  She spread the covers back and patted the mattress. Ogden climbed in but trepidation was worn in his soul.

  A while later, Ramirez – who was getting used to a real bed again – was woken by the muffled gasps from the room next door where Lillishenger and Paunchy were performing actively. He thought of Gowan and cursed silently. “It sounds like she has the French Foreign Legion in there with her,” he muttered.

  The sandman visited them all eventually and Lillishenger was first up the following morning with a sparkle in her step and a twinkle in her eyes. Gowan hit the kitchen first followed by the Captain and Ramirez. Ogden arrived last looking rather unkempt of what little hair he had. Ramirez studied him and considered his options.

  “How did you sleep?” he asked Ogden eventually.

  “Very well,” said Ogden.

  “Oh, you settled down after wrestling the water buffalo, did you? At least that’s what it sounded like.”

  “We had sex. Get over it,” said Lillishenger.

  “Ramirez has sex all the time,” said Gowan. “It’s always with himself though.”

  “Look…”

  “I’m surprised he hasn’t worn it away,” she pressed.

  “Look…”

  “Although maybe he has,” she said. “Maybe there’s not enough left to stir your tea with.”

  “Look…”

  “I’d like some breakfast as soon as you two stop bickering,” said Stiers. “We must review the recording this morning and analyse them.”

  “I’ll cook,” said Lillishenger. “I have bacon, sausage eggs and hash browns with orange juice and coffee.”

  “I’ll help,” said Ogden.

  “I’ll go and study my cholesterol charts,” said Ramirez and took off for the former dining room. He arrived to study the apparatus set up by the Professor the night before. The plastic tube was there, as was the dollar bill which had browned and aged. He looked at this but left it alone, returning to the kitchen where he whispered in Gowan’s ear. “Tittyshagger’s dollars have arrived,” he said. “Not that they actually went anywhere.”

  “How are we supposed to eat?” whispered Gowan. “There are only three chairs around the kitchen table.”

  “There are two more chairs in the living room,” said the Professor as she broke eggs. “Bring them in.”

  “I have learnt something already today,” said Ramirez softly to Gowan.

  “What’s that?”

  “Sex with a hippopotamus is definitely good for the hearing.”

  Gowan smiled then took off to find the chairs. Ramirez accompanied here and they returned with two wood upright back chairs which they placed around the table. They could smell food now, and unlike the onboard breakfasts they were used to, this actually stimulated their nostrils and woke up their taste buds. Somehow the taste of this food – undoubtedly bad for them – was far superior to the modern food to which they were accustomed, with its removal of anything sweet or fat and substituted with fibre-based nutrition.

  “Is this orange juice freshly squeezed?” asked Stiers.

  “It was when it went into the Tropicana carton,” said Lillishenger, joining them. “I will need to do food shopping today and visit the credit union for more cash. Oh, and we need to start thinking about how to rob a bank or steal money some other way.”

  Stiers choked down a piece of bacon and went red-faced. “What?”

  “We are going to need lots of money for supplies and to secure this place if need be. That means paying off the small mortgage and seeing high-priced attorneys to protect the site while we are travelling.”

  “We can print it if need be,” said Stiers.

  “What – and screw up the US economy?”

  “We can print money from around the world and exchange it. Everybody will suffer equally and to no great extent.”

  “I’ll think about that,” said Lillishenger and swallowed some egg and hash brown. “However, I would much prefer to rob a casino but they only carry a few million dollars and I frankly doubt that will be enough.”

  “Hose my boat and free my goat,” said Ramirez. “What the heck are we planning here? I just want to get back home.”

  “You are currently existing in two times,” said the Professor. “That isn’t something to be sneezed at.”

  “Talking about sneezing, your buck is back,” said Ramirez. “Not that it actually went anywhere.”

  “We’ll deal with that later,” said Stiers. “This morning we all review the recordings. What recording formats do they use in this time, Professor?”

  “I believe they are still arguing the merits of Beta versus VHS,” she said. “Let me see, Philips 2000 went out but cassette tapes are still in. CDs are just about here but DVDs have yet to make an appearance. There is nothing in the area of SD cards, flash drives, USB, or hard drive recording. Cloud storage and atomic recording have yet to be mentioned or even dreamed of. Computers here use five and a half inch floppy discs for data storage. Communication on the move is by beeper signal and cellular phones are about the size and weight of a house brick and scarce as hen’s teeth. There is no DNA linked communication such as that on our suits. Most people
on the move receive a beep then find a landline telephone.”

  “They still have landlines?”

  “Regretfully so. I have one here linked in to the Holmgrove exchange.”

  “Jesus, we could take this planet over in a day,” said Gowan.

  “Why would you want to when there are aliens willing to do it for you?” asked the Professor. “Aliens about which we know very little. I agree with the Captain; we should look at the recordings and begin our analysis so we can arrive at a strategy to eliminate them.”

  “If we examine them closely, we may discover flaws,” said Ogden.

  “I think that is what I was suggesting,” said the Captain.

  “Don’t expect too much,” said Gowan. “We weren’t recording for very long before we were blown back here.”

  “It is backward, but it is not the backwoods,” said Lillishenger.

  “We just need to focus on what we can achieve, and not worry about what we can’t,” said Ramirez.

  “To work, boys and girls. Let’s find out what we’re dealing with before we try to figure out what to do.”

  Five people left the house and with the Professor in the lead entered the small metal door after she had unlocked it. She first approached her battered station wagon and fiddled about inside, then Stiers opened the spaceship portal and they entered up the gentle ramp and ducked inside. Ogden unlocked the second chair at his console and Lillishenger took a seat beside him and waited.

  When they were all seated, Stiers initiated the standby system which brought all systems on line enabling the chameleon cells, which doubled as solar cells, to power up. Holo screens flickered and Gowan began the recordings at normal speed. First up was the straight visual which showed their journey to meet the invader. Ahead of them, on the screens, nothing moved or shimmered or gave any clue as to what was going on.

  “This is our approach,” said Stiers.

  “What about contact?” asked Lillishenger.

  “Do you want Gowan to speed it up?”

  “No. Let’s see what happens.”

  Her patience seemed infinite as they watched the unchanging spacescape where distances were so fast and their speed of travel so relatively small that it seemed almost like a still picture.