Baron decided to add a bit of humor. “Does it have a battery that needs recharging?”
“Of sorts. It uses something similar to what you call atomic power, but without radiation. I think if used continuously every day, it might grow weak in two hundred years.”
Wishfully thinking, he said, “I could easily spend the rest of my entire life doing nothing else but watching that.”
***
The night before Tak was to leave, Baron had still not declined her offer to join her, but she had taken his silence as a “no.” He obviously could not bring himself to relinquish all that he had accumulated on Earth.
It was still raining when they finished a Northern Thai meal made by the in-house chef, a meal featuring his version of Khoi Soi, a dish of egg noodles in a creamy, spicy, coconut broth.
This, their last evening, when they retired after dinner for a drink at the bar, he brought to her a briefcase covered in brown ostrich. “A small token for my favorite alien,” he announced, presenting it.
She took it, but hesitated to open it, the sadness of the gift representing the acknowledgment of her departure the next day.
She finally, and ever so slowly, opened it, revealing its sparkling contents. The inside top of the case was a map of Earth, with tiny precious jewels stuck in holes in the map in different countries. The bottom was filled with jewelry, enormous versions of the small stones stuck in the world map. Its bottom glistened like a treasure chest from a pirate movie.
“This is my private collection of the best gems from various parts of the planet. I enjoy collecting gems, and they increase in value. I want to give them to you as a going away present. Note that the inside of the top of the case is a map of the planet to show you where on the planet each gem inside came from. See here?” He pointed to the Island of Tahiti. “See the small, dark pearl? That is where the best pearls come from, and where this came from.”
He picked up a huge, nearly iridescent, dark green pearl on a gold chain from the lower part of the case.
Tak took it, turning it about. She then looked at the map and figured out what the gift was all about.
“It’s fantastic!” she nearly shrieked.
She turned her attention to one of the jewelry items in the bottom, a white dragon pendant of two inches, made all from one piece of exquisitely carved jade, with rubies for eyes. “What’s this?”
“Nephrite Jade, from Yunnan, China. See if you can find it on the map. The color in Chinese is called ‘mutton fat.’” He chuckled. “The Chinese are not known for romantic names.”
Tak found it, pointing. “China!”
She then lifted three matching objects with deep green, oval stones, mounted in platinum, partially surrounded by tiny diamonds.
“A ring and earrings in Burma Imperial Jade,” he told her. “It’s the most valuable jade.”
“Wow!” She put on the ring on one of her seven fingers and held out her hand in front of her, turning it from side to side, admiring it.
Baron then pointed to the earrings in her hand. “These go on your ears.”
She fastened them to her ears and went to the nearest mirror. She then returned and looked at the country called Myanmar where she found both a green stone as well as a red one. “There are two from this same country. One is red. There must be two gems from this country.”
She found a huge single ruby in a ring and held it up.
“This is an authentic, pigeon-blood Burmese ruby,” he said. “That is the name for the very best. I got it as a gift from the Sultan of Brunei, although it came from Burma, which is now Myanmar, very close to us. Try it on.”
Tak put it on, changing fingers on her hands until she found one that it fit.
“Why would a person give you such a beautiful thing?”
“I did him a favor.”
She looked at the map and pointed back to Myanmar, which had both the green jade and the ruby in it. “Myanmar!”
She next lifted an opal necklace with a single stone, wide and thin, an inch and a half in diameter, in a natural shape, edged in gold.
Colors radiated from it, as though it was backlit by light through a prism. “What’s this beautiful thing? It appears to be giving off light. Does it?”
“No, no light. It’s an opal, but a very special one with what they call ‘fire.’”
“It’s beautiful!” She held it in different directions to see the colors. She then found a small opal in a county in the southern hemisphere. “Australia!”
“Right!”
She then took out a bracelet of huge emeralds wrapping all around, set in twenty four karat gold.
“Oh my!”
“They’re called emeralds.”
Tak found a small green emerald on the map. “Columbia!”
The next piece she held up was a diamond necklace, covered with so many diamonds as to be a task to count. A line of large stones were set end to end around the length, and there was a huge pendant diamond surrounded by many smaller ones. Tak held it up to catch the afternoon sunlight, which struck it and refracted the light through the stones, creating a display of light and colors on the walls.
“This is like the necklace of Xiu Mei at the dinner in Hong Kong.”
“That’s right.”
She found a small embedded diamond in a country on the map. “South Africa! Absolutely beautiful!”
Tak next lifted up two, huge, blue sapphire earrings. “Earrings?”
“Yes. They’re Laotian. There is a pendant in here to match,” he added, finding the pendant. The monster stone was two dozen times the size of the earrings, and mounted in platinum with diamonds surrounding it.
Tak set out to find the small blue stone on the map. “Here it is! Laos. We were just there!”
Next, from the bottom, she lifted a light blue, star sapphire on a neck chain. The stone was an inch in diameter, and the upper part of the setting had diamonds surrounding it. She held it up and gazed at it. The light made a crisp, white crisscross across the front of it--the star.
“It’s a star sapphire, from India,” he said.
Tak found India on the map. “Gorgeous!”
The next stone she lifted was a pendant of yellow amber.
“This is amber, from the Baltic Sea,” he told her. “These are available where I met you. This is not rare as the others, but still interesting. You will see, if you look closely, that the piece has an insect frozen in it, from prehistoric times.”
“I see it, I see it. How neat!” Then she went to the map, now a very interesting game, until she found a piece of small amber. “Poland.” She held her finger on the country, and Baron looked at where she was pointing. “It will be very special to me,” she said, “as that is where we met.”
She stopped looking, even though there were a few more. “Oh my, Baron, I suspect that these are worth a fortune.” Tak got up and came to him, kissing him. “I shall cherish these always.” Then she took out her pocket watch from her pocket that he purchased for her in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. “But this will still be my favorite as I will always remember where and when you bought it for me.
***
The following morning was overcast, and light rain was falling. It was time. Tak gathered her things, which now were much more than the contents of the satchel she had landed with, and put them just inside the front door.
The wrist computer lit up and spoke in her language. She looked at Baron. “The shuttle is near. But there’s a problem. There’s an Earth warship coming from the south. I believe it’s called a helicopter.”
The helicopter came in under the rain clouds, arriving from the back side of the hill. It swung around the house and landed in the front yard, back far enough to clear the rotor blades. It was a US made Sikorsky gunship in the service of the Thai Army with Thai Army soldiers, consisting of a pilot, a gunner inside behind a .50 caliber machine gun, and another soldier with an M-16 assault rifle. It also had a non-Thai passenger, Richard Ralls.
; It shut down its engines and Ralls exited, accompanied by the Thai soldier with the M-16. Ralls had a .45 pistol on his side. The soldier and Ralls walked toward the house, the soldier two paces behind, looking about, ready with his M-16. Tak and Baron had heard the noise of the helicopter and watched from a window.
At the front door, Ralls announced loudly, “I’m Deputy Richard Ralls, US Homeland Security. We are here for Baron and Baroness Von Limbach. The two of you are ordered to come to a Thai Army Base for questioning.”
Baron and Tak heard the order well. They stood just inside the door, looking at each other, wondering what to do.
Just then the shuttle from the starship descended through the clouds to the front of the house, across from the helicopter. It made no noise. It was a gunship, sent in precaution to remove starship personnel from planets that were not peaceful, in case of trouble. It was black, seventy feet long, fifteen feet high, with two, fearsome laser weapons pointing out the front, a laser on each side, another in the back, and a weapon in a turret on the top capable of destroying an Earth warship of any size.
It was a menacing sight to Ralls and the Thai soldiers, with its configuration that gave it almost an ominous expression, as if it were alive.
It descended near to the ground and landing gear extended. Just before setting down, it rotated to face the helicopter, weapons pointed at it.
Ralls looked on in fear and amazement, backing away from the door. The soldier beside Ralls got scared, retreated back to the security of the helicopter, and kneeled down to one knee, pointing his M-16 at the alien gunship.
The gunner in the helicopter, seeing the menacing gunship, got ready behind his .50 caliber machine gun. He chambered a round and aimed it at the gunship.
Baron and Tak opened the door and stood in the doorway. “We’ll not be joining you today, Deputy Ralls,” Baron said. “If you want to leave here unharmed, get back in your helicopter and go.”
Not willing to stand down, Ralls took the .45 pistol out of his holster and pointed it at the two of them. “You are ordered to accompany me to the Thai Army Base. You will now get into the helicopter.”
The gunship was manned with starship personnel, but they did not initiate the first shot. The front lasers of the shuttle moved a few degrees to aim more precisely at the helicopter and the soldiers. When the Thai solder behind the .50 caliber machine gun in the helicopter saw the weapons of the gunship moving, and Ralls take out his .45, he panicked and opened fire on the gunship, letting go a burst of bullets. The bullets did not penetrate the armor of the gunship, bouncing off, and so he kept firing. The kneeling soldier joined in the fracas and began shooting his M-16 at the gunship.
The gunship responded with a loud laser blast from both front lasers, one at the helicopter, disintegrating it completely with its pilot and gunner, the other at the kneeling soldier next to it.
The helicopter, the noisy machine guns, and the three soldiers, disappeared as though evaporated. The silence became deafening. Ralls stared in disbelief. Stunned, he did not move, but continued to hold his .45 on the couple.
Standing in the doorway, Tak held up her arm with her wrist computer and its laser. She touched the lapis jewel on the top, targeted the .45 in Ralls’s hand, and commanded the computer to fire. Its penetrating bright blue beam hit the .45, disintegrating it and, unfortunately for Ralls, some of his fingers. He cried out in pain and dropped to his knees, holding his wounded hand with his other.
Baron and Tak stepped backward into the house where Ralls could not hear them. Looking into Tak’s eyes, Baron said, “This means a change of business for me. Now that the US Homeland Security wants me, the CIA will be hunting me as well. My business as I have been conducting it is over. I will take you up on your offer and come with you.”
“What about all of your affairs?” Tak said.
“Mei Ling knows that if anything happens to me, she is to open a safe at my office where there are instructions for what she is to do. I had planned that one day I might have to flee, but it would have been to a tropical island where I could hide out. I never dreamed it would be into space. It’s ironic for me. I never thought that my life would be undone by a woman.”
“I’m not exactly a woman,” Tak corrected.
Baron chuckled and quickly packed a small satchel of his own with a couple of changes of clothes and other essential items he didn’t feel he could do without. Then they gathered up Tak’s bags that were just inside the door, including her new jewelry case, and headed toward the gunship. They walked by Ralls, still kneeling on the ground in pain.
Ralls gathered himself enough to say as they passed by, “I knew you were an alien! This proves it! But no one will believe me now as there are no witnesses left to back up my story.” The woman and the baron did not respond but continued to the gunship. The door to the space shuttle opened, and they stepped inside. Ralls remained where he was, afraid to move, and stared at her. “I’ve been following you a long time,” he cried. “Who are you? Please, at least tell me who you are.”
Just inside the door, secure in the protection of the gunship, Tak listened to the plea of the government man with his injured hand, kneeling on the ground in the light rain. She looked at her Baron. He nodded his silent assent.
She then presented herself. “Tak, United Federation of Planets; Field Anthropologist; First Officer; Baroness Von Limbach; Honorary Officer, Republic of China, Decorated First In Combat.”
The gunship door closed and the ship ascended at an unearthly rate straight up, disappearing into the clouds.
End
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brent Ayscough or Ace, as he is known to friends, retired from the practice of law and lives in a house overlooking the sea in Southern California. He has always loved machines, from airplanes to motorcycles, structural design, and other interests. He has enjoyed the acquaintance of diverse and interesting people and is widely traveled. Bits and pieces of characters he has known, places he has been, seasoned with the spice of his imagination, help him create unusual stories and characters. Extensive collaboration with experts and sources, hopefully, make his stories credible and interesting.
GENRE: SCIENCE FICTION/PARANORMAL ROMANCE
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, businesses, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental. All trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, and registered service marks are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for identification purposes only. The publisher does not have any control over or assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their contents.
THE VISITOR
Copyright © 2015 by Brent Asycough
Cover Design by Chris Buchinsky
All cover art copyright © 2015
All Rights Reserved
EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-626942-34-9
FIRST PUBLICATION: February 14, 2015
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