Lillishenger hadn’t expected him to use a word like ‘inured’ either.
Work continued on the dome construction and whenever any of them required a break they took to the ship’s computer library in an attempt to accurately track the potent variety of sarin. Outside the ship an outer skin was attacked to the framework and the lexan sheets were applied inside the structure. Ramirez checked and rechecked the generators outside which would supply the power required to keep the inside stable.
Gowan and Ramirez, apart from the occasional jibe, hardly spoke to each other during this time except when professionally required. Ogden and Lillishenger went through plans again and again looking for flaws in their calculations.
The Professor and Sarah also undertook most of the shopping expeditions and sometimes haunted Ace Hardware like two dedicated ghosts. Small amd medium items could easily be fabricated on board Challenger but it was essential to source the correct materials to feed into the hungry end. They received a visit the day before they planned the sarin raid and this caused them to defer the visit to England. Two men drove by a couple of times before driving across the gate one day, in effect blocking the exit.
“The Men in Black,” whispered Ramirez as he watched the monitor.
They all halted work and sat round the coffee table and chatted anonymously while waiting for the visitors. It was Gowan who went out and unlocked the gates and invited the visitors inside. They were not exactly Men in Black although one wore a dark blue suit and the other a dark grey one. They both wore sunglasses which they kept on even indoors and only one wore a hat. Stiers wondered if they were more used to Washington D.C. than the Golden State.
“You boys lost?” he asked. “You’re welcome to join us here for coffee.”
“What happens here?” asked the one with the hat.
“This is a salvage yard,” said Stiers. “We’re always looking to buy good salvage stock.”
“What’s that thing?” asked the hated one.
“Over there? Why that’s the water recycler we’re working on.”
“It’s early stages,” said Lillishenger. “Take a look if you want.”
“Don’t step inside though. You might disturb something,” said Stiers, who was more concerned they might bang their bodies on the cloaked ship.
“What does it do?”
“It recycles water,” said Stiers. “Or at least we hope it will when it’s finished.”
“How long will that take?” This question was from the one without the hat.
“We only work on it now and then as you can see,” said the Captain. “Probably be a year or two before we finish it. We plan to recycle and clean all our fluids – even waste and dishwashing water. If it works we’ll patent it.”
“You boys have a lot of questions,” said Sarah. “Who are you? Are you selling something?”
“We’re not selling anything, Miss.”
“Our plans are on the wall over there,” said Lillishenger. “Take a look. We would have to miniaturise this thing before it becomes commercial.”
This distracted their attention from the dome to the other wall where the plans were pinned in open view. Both men walked over there and studied the plans although neither could really understand them. They could read phrases such as ‘water inlet’, ‘purification bath’, ‘recycle stager’ and ‘litres per hour’. They spoke quietly to each other.
“So who are you?” asked Sarah again. “Department of Water?”
“No,” said the hat. “We’re tourists.”
“We’re not exactly a known tourist spot,” said the Captain. “Most people go to Death Valley.”
“And look at sand?” said the non-hat.
“There are ghost towns and mine workings,” pressed Stiers. “You guys aren’t really dressed for the desert. Those suits of yours are going to get very hot and uncomfortable.”
“The car has air-conditioning,” said the hat.
“Yeah. What is that you’re driving?”
“A Mercury Marquis,” said the hat again. He pronounced it Markee.
“There are lots of places in the desert that car won’t go,” said Stiers. “When you step out of it you can’t take the AC with you.”
“Sure. Maybe you’re right,” said the hat. “Maybe we should go back and buy some lighter clothing and find a white car.”
“And don’t forget to carry lots of water in the trunk,” said Stiers. “It may save your life.”
The two men finished their comprehensive study of the plans and turned back to the others. “Where did you get the money for all this?”
“Insurance payout on a motorcycle accident,” said Hugh.
“What’s your accent?”
“I’m originally from England.”
“New England?”
“No, the old one.”
“Whereabouts?”
“Buckinghamshire.”
“Near the palace?”
“Not a million miles away.”
“We have to move on,” said the hat. “Thanks for your courtesy.”
“No problem, guys,” said Stiers. “Would you like a drink or some water before you go?”
“No. We have soda in the car.”
“Give it a decade, fellas,” said Lillishenger. “We’ll have all the free water you can drink.”
Gowan walked the men back to their car and locked the gates after they drove off, spinning wheels in a U-turn across the road. “What do we do?” she asked the Captain as she re-entered.
“Nothing for at least a week except scavenge around the yard outside while a couple of us pre-assemble the panels inside. They may be watching for a few days. I don’t want them seeing us come back if the Professor’s cloaking device has been knocked out.”
“It will be better in a week,” said Lillishenger. “It’s a bank holiday and almost all the staff will be away from Porton.”
“Society works better when there are no secrets,” said Gowan. “They never did say where they were from.”
“This is still a time of paranoia,” said Ogden.
“I liked their sunglasses,” said Ramirez.
“I didn’t like the hat,” said Stiers. “I’d like to see a president wearing a cowboy hat.”
“George Bush did,” said Ogden.
“Bush never wore a cowboy hat,” said Sarah.
“Not the one who’s gone,” said Stiers. “The one yet to come who cheated his way in and set America back half a century. The dreaded son of Bush.”
“That is depressing,” said Dunfield.
“Not if you have any money in Halliburton,” said the Captain. “Gowan and Ogden. I want you guys to set up a holo perimeter with readings of everything for five miles around the ship. I want to know if anything changes in traffic, people with binoculars or anything else that may affect us. If we take readings now we’ll get an idea if anybody is taking more interest in this place than usual.”
“Aye, aye,” said Gowan.
“Hugh and the Professor, I want you to keep working on polishing our plans for Porton and treble checking our computations for the structure.”
“Yes, Captain,” said Lillishenger.
“Ramirez, you’ll be with me in the yard organising the junk out there into tidy recognisable rows. Let’s look like we’re in a business here.”
“Sir.”
“Sarah, every time I see you it cheers me up so perhaps you can wander from place to place and keep us focussed on our tasks.”
“No,” she said. “I’ll come outside and help you guys in the yard. I can move light stuff, you know.”
“It’s hard for me to give you orders,” said the Captain. “Your real job won’t begin till we leave when you’ll have the most responsibility of all – keeping our mission safe.”
“You can give me orders,” she said.
“Not when you keep saying ‘no’,” said Stiers.
“It’s so strange to think you’ll see us aging rapidly yet whenever we see you
, you will hardly have changed.”
“I’ll be eternally young,” said Ramirez.
“And an everlasting pain in the butt,” said Gowan.
“Get on with your tasks,” said the Captain. “Ramirez, join me outside while we do some pointless hard work.”
They split up as ordered and Ramirez and the Captain went outside and began ordering the junk into a sensible collection. The yard was vast – about four or five acres the Captain figured – and was filled with old tractor units, trucks, air-conditioning and heating units, ploughs, pipes, cars, trucks and to the delight of Ramirez, another two generators which were in need of reconditioning. He liked the thought of having backups to the backups.
He asked Sarah if she would like to help him. “In the event of the power supply going down we will need these to cut in and be in full working order at all time,” he explained.
“Sure. I’d like to learn.”
“You’re a smart girl. You won’t need much teaching. That boyfriend of yours, Hugh, he’s one intelligent guy also.”
“So are you, even though you try to pretend you’re from the barrio,” she said. “I expect in normal circumstances you’d be a doctor or lawyer.”
“I am in the middle of studying medicine,” said Ramirez. “I had hoped to specialise in paediatrics but then our sensors showed these ugly aliens looming on our doorstep so I enlisted in Fleet.”
“And your Captain?”
“He’s old-fashioned but he makes good decisions. He runs a ranch with his family – beef mainly although lots of people are afraid of it now.”
“Has the law changed?”
“America had to be dragged screaming to the negotiations. Until then she had wanted it all her own way. Now we have some good international law policed by cops and not soldiers.”
“So Fleet isn’t purely American?”
“Far from it. Fleet is an international force, originally formed as a cross-border rescue organisation in the event of natural tragedies. I’ll tell you how it started when there’s time. Our ship is English-speaking but some are Spanish, French, German, Russian or Italian. There are others too but mostly, for simplicity, the crew of each ship share a common language. Ours is English but Ogden is fluent in French and passable in German and Gowan has Russian and Italian and I have basic Spanish. Apart from which, we have the international translator computers which are very fast.”
“I noticed your accents are not like ours.”
“Language changes with time. I doubt your greatgrandfathers would understand a lot of what you say.”
“That’s true enough. What would you say is the biggest change in America?”
“Just before your time America was thrust into a leading role in the new world. You could say that the biggest change has come from her accepting she doesn’t always need to change other countries in order to get along with them.”
“Fascinating,” she said.
“That’s what Spock used to say – out of Star Trek.”
“You still get that show.”
“Sure. Some channels still carry the original version but three dimensionally enhanced.”
“I wonder what the difference is.”
“Spock’s nose looks bigger.”
Sarah laughed as they continued to work. By the end of that day they had prefabricated as much of the dome as they could and it would remain like that until final assembly which would seal Challenger inside, apart from one access panel. Ramirez immediately began work outside on stripping down the generators with Sarah’s help, explaining carefully each component and what could go wrong. “I’ll have to order a few parts,” he said. “Some things just don’t like being exposed outside.”
Sarah wore short shorts and he found himself constantly distracted by her legs. He compared them in his mind with those of Gowan who was taller and whose legs were slimmer but not quite so shapely. He decided that it would be difficult to choose between the two girls on that point and with Sarah having a slightly larger bust and having witnessed Gowan topless he couldn’t help a comparison. In the end he decided the girl he wanted was Gowan because she would keep him in line and beat him up three times a week whether he needed it or not.
Not that she would ever know how he felt. He was a macho man who felt all he should need to do to attract a woman was snap his fingers. Yet every time she leaned away from him he could not keep his eyes off Sarah’s ass, held tightly inside the shorts. He wondered if she just trimmed or totally shaved herself around her pubic bush. It seemed to go in trends for girls to completely defoliate themselves. He had read how it was popular early in his own century and the trend had returned for his own time. That made him think about Gowan again and whether she did or did not. Ramirez was not actually a fan, not feeling content till that short, curly hair was close to his nostrils. He had no idea why a grown girl would wish to look like she was eight years old. Joining Fleet, once training was over, was signing up for virtual celibacy. This did not seem to bother the women much although Lillisbanger was shagging Ogden so much the man was developing bags under his eyes – the price for her decade of no sexual action.
Ramirez had not been laid since he had left Earth as part of the defence force. He was vaguely worried that if he didn’t use it, he would lose it, and had occasional nightmares about waking up to find his willy having fallen off in the night and laying beside him all dried up and shrivelled. Whacking one out was not an option in such close quarters and he had envied Stiers and Ogden who were either so faithful or of such antique vintage that sexual athletics were but a distant memory. Yet here he was, on a sunny day with Sarah’s legs and ass and bust a few inches away and him in danger of losing control of his manhood as it threatened to rise up and smell the flowers. He thought about beating it down with the wrench he was holding but decided that was both too violent and far too obvious. He tried instead to arrange his legs pointing in the other direction to spare Sarah any sight of his bulge.
Maybe she sensed something for she said, “What do you guys do for sex when you’re on board the ship?”
That surprised him. He cleared his throat. “The Captain has signed the abstinence pledge for the duration; Ogden and the Professor are giving each other hippo baths; Gowan, I believe, has no sex organs; and I’m left to my own devices.”
“You mean you masturbate?”
“Fat chance with those thin partitions.”
“Did you like Jenny?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What about Junette?”
“Gowan?” Ramirez thought for a few seconds. “We just don’t get along.”
“Why not?”
“She thinks I’m arrogant and sex mad.”
“And she’s wrong?”
Ramirez grinned. “I guess not.”
“You should treat her better – more like a woman than a crew member.”
“I’ve tried – but…”
“Then try harder – or find a quiet spot to jack off before you explode.”
Ramirez was mildly shocked, not wishing this to be a road he should travel. The object of his conversation was helping Ogden prepare the visual and sensor perimeter which would register any changes in what overlooked them.
This involved using the ship’s sensors to scan the horizon and intervening landscape and storing the result in its memory banks which were more than adequate for the job. They used atomic storage which was virtually infinite in its capacity to hold data. There was no way, of course, to communicate with the future but being blown well off course had been in the minds of the designers when they placed just about every available bit of data where it could be accessed. They held a reference library on board which would have put most of their own time libraries to shame. There was plenty of technical data also, lots of it shared between the countries that had contributed even in a small way to the founding of Fleet. By holding this information on board, the builders had hoped to help them with any unforeseen developments although their particular circu
mstances had not been considered even as a possibility. The physics excluded it.
“What’s it like growing old, Ogden?” asked Gowan.
“I’m not that old, dear lady. In our time I am barely middle-aged.”
“Yes, but we all die, don’t we?”
“And you would think greedy men would recognise that by now instead of trying to accumulate vast wealth at the expense of others.”
“How do you see age?”
“I see a young girl and an old woman as two ends of the same piece of string. It is almost too sad for words, but our planet could not cope with longevity. It barely supports us now.”
“But it should.”
“Yes, it should. We spent too much time using too many of the planet’s natural resources. We recycled paper instead of growing new trees which would also have been good for the environment. We recycled glass instead of using the vast quantities of sand in the desert which we could have turned into fertile land. We managed our water poorly. It’s only lately – through necessity – that we have woken up to the things that matter. Let me tell you about growing old. You just cannot believe it is happening to you, even though you have seen it in others, including your grandparents. We watch our bodies wither and our brains atrophy till everything we once were is lost. What is worse, it that we know the same things will happen to our children. Their bones will grow brittle and their skin will sag.”
“I’m beginning to wish I’d never asked you now.”
“Gowan, we should live for a thousand years but the oxygen on this planet kills us. We have achieved some longevity through regulating Earth’s atmosphere to 19 per cent oxygen – the level at which fire is controlled and our breathing is adequate and not poisonous. It is progress – for now. There are no forest fires or buildings burning to the ground. Many lives have been saved.”
“What are you talking about, pards?” said Stiers as he joined them. He was wearing his cowboy hat again and his brow was sweaty from working outside.
“Where’s Ramirez?” asked Gowan.
“The boy is still outside with young Sarah,” said the Captain.
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