Rhubarb

by M. H. Van Keuren

  “A candy salesman named Jeffrey Scarborough. He was in Sidney the morning after I called the show.”

  “Why do you think he’s…one like me?”

  “Because he’s the only one I told about Cheryl baking me a pie before she disappeared. I’d forgotten I even mentioned it to him. He drives all over the state, knows every little diner, bakery, breakfast joint everywhere. Always seems to be in Brixton. And you should have seen the look he gave me after I shot at him.”

  “You shot him?”

  “I fired a warning shot with your little staple gun.”

  “What happened?”

  “A trash can blew up,” said Martin. “After that, he pretty much gave up the pretense.”

  “You better get packed,” said Stewart, waving Martin back toward his bedroom. “It’s not safe here.”

  “Forget it,” said Martin. “Besides, I’m a crackpot. Lee Danvers wouldn’t even believe me. You know what he said? He told me he hears a dozen alien invasion stories a week. I even told the gist of it to a producer of his. Don’t worry, I didn’t mention you or Cheryl or the pie. She thought I was crazy, too. But she heard me out because they wanted to buy my video before I put it on YouTube.”

  “What video?”

  “I got a rough shot of a truck, or ship, or whatever coming through the gap thingy, down on Highway 360,” said Martin.

  “Did you give them this video?”

  “Emailed it this morning. They’re paying me five hundred dollars for it,” said Martin. “But do you see what I’m saying? I’m no threat to your friends, even if I know their preposterous plan. No one’s going to take me seriously. It’s not like the Pentagon’s going to nuke Highway 360 on the word of a Waker.”

  “That’s why no one will care when you disappear,” said Stewart. “I used to be one of them, Martin. I know how they think. There may be a thousand other nutcases out there, but you’re the one with the right information. They won’t want to risk anything.”

  “They let you live here as a human,” said Martin. “Why risk that?”

  “You don’t think I’ve asked myself that a million times?” asked Stewart.

  “You aren’t some kind of deep cover agent, are you?”

  “I could have already told them about you,” said Stewart. “You’d be out there with Cheryl right now.”

  “You know where she is?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say she’s out on the production facility.”

  “And where is that?”

  “Through the portal,” said Stewart. “Out in the Kuiper Belt.”

  “The what?”

  “That’s what your astronomers call a big ring of small icy bodies outside Neptune’s orbit,” said Stewart. “There’s a minor trans-stellar network branch terminus out there.”

  “The off-ramp?”

  Stewart nodded. “And that’s where you’ll go if you don’t get packed and get the hell out of here with me.”

  “I’m not leaving,” said Martin. “If they want me, they’ll get me one way or another. Now, I’m going to take a shower. Then I’m going to drink a beer while I upload my orders, if you haven’t been raiding my fridge, too. And then I’m going to get some sleep. We can talk about this in the morning.”

  Stewart gave his radio a few cranks and turned it up. Martin found two beers still in the fridge. He took both back to the bedroom with his laptop.

  Half an hour later, Martin closed the bedroom door to fall into bed, but he stopped on a sigh. He dug a spare pillow and blanket out of the closet and tossed them onto the living room couch. “You take the bed, Stewart,” he said.

  As Stewart used the bathroom, Martin snuck down to the truck and found the staple gun. “Say hello to my little friend,” he said as he settled in on the couch. An hour later, the front door remained unmolested, and down the hall, the tinny mumble of Stewart’s radio clicked off.

  ~ * * * ~

  Martin awoke with a sore back and the hope that the last few days were nothing more than a late-night-spicy-burrito-induced hallucination. But he still had the FastNCo. staple gun that didn’t fire FastNCo. staples. And none of the memories had faded like dreams should. Nope, they were as real as the coughing and wheezing old man who took his own sweet time in the bathroom.

  “I’m really not supposed to have passengers,” Martin said as he dug Stewart’s spare oxygen tanks out of the Skylark’s trunk. “So, if anyone asks, you’re my uncle and you got kicked out of your assisted-living place for groping one too many nurses.”

  “Who’s going to ask?”

  “I’m just saying I’m not real comfortable with this,” said Martin. Stewart started to reply, but Martin cut him off. “Right. I know. It’s better if we stick together until this blows over.”

  “I was only going to offer to buy breakfast on the way out of town,” said Stewart.

  Martin chuckled. “Well, then. Mount up.”

  With a Croissan’Wich in one hand, the steering wheel in the other, and the staple gun hanging from his belt, Martin merged onto I-90 West. Pixar-perfect clouds salted the expanse of Big Sky. On the southwest horizon, the Beartooth Mountains floated like a chunk of New Zealand had been digitally transported out of the Lord of the Rings movies. The fully loaded truck handled sluggishly but soon got up to speed. And for once, the radio stayed off. It had become half armrest, half table, where Martin’s cardboard tray of French Toast Sticks waited with the little pack of syrup.

  “This is what I do,” said Martin. “Ninety percent of my job, right here.”

  “I had to do a bit of travel for my job,” said Stewart. “They’d send me to different planets, and I’d sample the local delicacies, determine which ones had market potential.”

  “Was it you who found the pie?”

  “No,” said Stewart. “We heard about it through our distribution division.”

  “Truck drivers,” said Martin.

  “You could call them that. The field report and the samples were sent to my division. But they only brought me in when the first formula acquisition attempts failed.”

  “Why you?”

  “It usually wasn’t that difficult. Bring a few samples to the lab, and they’d break it down,” said Stewart. “But with this pie, we found strange inconsistencies in the samples, and nothing indicated what gave it that kick, that special ingredient that made it so good.”

  “Is it really that good? It didn’t taste any different to me than the other,” said Martin. “I tried them both that morning before you threw them in the trash.”

  Stewart grunted, annoyed, and continued. “It’s satisfying and stimulating, and then you crave more right away. I’ve never eaten anything like it. And of course that’s perfect for a snack food and restaurant concern like ours.”

  “So that’s why you figured Linda had some secret,” said Martin.

  “Not me, but yeah. They couldn’t duplicate the pie in the lab. They brought me in to deal with the abduction.”

  “You’d had experience doing it before?”

  “Not really. No one had. There’s only a few sentient species out there, and we’re the only interstellar travelers that I’m aware of. They brought me in because I’d trained under the last guy who had dealt with primitive species. He had died a few years prior, so I became the go-to guy.”

  “If there’s only a few sentient species, wouldn’t the enlightened thing be to keep us alive for study or cooperation or something?”

  “Perhaps, if anyone knew about you. But when the explorers and the surveyors, the ones who assembled the network, first came by, your ancestors still lived in trees. And you’re not on the beaten path. Almost no one comes out here but independent haulers trying to avoid the tolls on the primary links. The branch terminus, the off-ramp, isn’t here for you. The surveyors simply noticed a habitable world in the system that someone might take an interest in someday. And now someone has. But the company’s more interested in profits than anthropology.”

  “Surely t
here’s some government, some rules against this kind of thing,” said Martin.

  “There’s a government,” said Stewart. “Run by and for the corporations. File the right forms, and a corporation can do pretty much whatever it wants.”

  “There’s no recourse? I mean, we travel in space. We’ve sent probes. We have big-ass radio dishes. Can’t you give us the coordinates and translate a message for us?”

  “You’re aware that light has a speed limit?” said Stewart.

  “You seem to get around the galaxy pretty quick, so obviously that can be circumvented,” said Martin.

  “Different principles,” said Stewart.

  “You don’t have a clue how the portal works, do you?”

  “Not the faintest.”

  “But I assume you know how to use it. Help us get up there. Hey, I almost hijacked one truck; I can do it again. Then we’ll go plead our case.”

  Stewart shook his head. “Anything you do risks them pressing that button.”

  “Maybe we should destroy the portal,” said Martin.

  “They’d just wait for the network to sense the damage and recalibrate itself on a new target location,” said Stewart. “There’s nothing special on Highway 360 to destroy. It’s just nice and remote. But near the Corner.”

  Martin dripped syrup on his pants and swore. Stewart dug in a bag and handed Martin a napkin. Martin cleaned himself the best he could, holding a French Toast Stick in his mouth like a cigar. The syrup left a dark stain.

  “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?” said Martin.

  “I’ve spent every moment of my life as Stewart Campion trying to figure out how I can stop this. I’m convinced that the only thing we can do is wait.”

  “Can we make a deal with your corporation? The recipe and a certain amount of land, in exchange for…”

  “They would never make any agreement that cut into profits,” said Stewart. “And who are you to make that deal?”

  “I’ve got the secret recipe, and without it they make nothing,” said Martin.

  “Give it to them and they’ll delete whatever pact they might have signed with your president or secretary-general, release the neurotoxin, and sleep well that night.

  “Your people are jerks,” said Martin.

  “Not all of us,” said Stewart.

  ~ * * * ~

  Yahoo! Answers

  Ask! What would you like to ask?

  Resolved Question

  How do I get to sleep in a cheap motel room shared with the stepfather of the woman I love but haven’t established a relationship with, who (the stepfather, not the woman) is an aged extraterrestrial with respiratory problems, while knowing that other aliens might burst in at any moment to at best kill me and at worst torture me for a secret pie recipe and then kill every human on the planet, while individually coiled mattress springs poke me in the back and there’s nothing to stop an intruder but a loose doorknob and a flimsy safety chain? Also, I drank about 4 gallons of Diet Mountain Dew today and have to get up early to drive 100 miles for work. And what is that smell?

  6 hours ago

  Best Answer—chosen by asker

  Hahahahahahahaha. Loser. Get a life and stop gunking up teh internets with your stupidness. Sleepin with your girls dad is sick. Go on Jerry Springer. Your worse than Hitler.

  2 hours ago

  Asker’s rating: *****

  Other Answers (3)

  Are you sure he’s an alien? I mean, have you actually seen proof that he’s an alien? Pics or it didn’t happen.

  4 hours ago

  You should probably see a doctor, and a psychiatrist, and a psychologist. No offense.

  43 minutes ago

  Um…you need to read this book…billionbooks.com/title/5738204/Yates Field Guide to Mushrooms/review/7198277…I think you’ve been foraging in the wrong part of the forest, my friend.

  3 hours ago

  “You look terrible,” said Stewart.

  “Shut up,” Martin replied and poured himself another cup of coffee—the reason he had driven straight to Perkins for breakfast without even asking what Stewart wanted. They put that pitcher of coffee on the end of the table and let you pour your own. No waiting for the waitress. Never an empty cup. And it never seemed to run out. Martin stirred an individual serving of International Delight Hazelnut Creamer into his coffee. The French Vanilla would be next. Then the half-and-half. He felt prepared to slap Stewart’s hand away if he tried to take any of them.

  The waitress also looked willing to swat Stewart’s hand away if necessary.

  “Very smooth, Stewart,” said Martin, after she had taken their order.

  “What?”

  “Restaurant servers these days do not like to be ogled, winked at, or called ‘sugar.’ I don’t know how they do things back on your planet, but can you please maintain a low profile here?” said Martin.

  “Just playin’ my part,” said Stewart. “Remember, I’m the guy who got thrown out of his nursing home for grabbing the nurses.”

  “I take it back,” said Martin. “But you’re going to put me off my breakfast.”

  “So I’m required to smile while you leer at my stepdaughter, but you get to throw up if I wink at a pretty waitress who’s going to bring me pancakes?”

  “I never leered at Cheryl,” said Martin.

  “Then tell me, how come all of Brixton knew you were after her before anyone but Lester knew your name? Don’t tell me to behave myself. At least I have the guts to talk to ’em and look ’em in the eye while I objectify them.”

  The waitress returned as Stewart spoke, and Martin turned to apologize. But it wasn’t the waitress.

  “Objectify who?” asked Jeffrey. “Oh, close your mouth. And scoot over, old man.”

  As Jeffrey slid into the booth, Martin wanted to pull out the staple gun Han Solo style, but Jeffrey narrowed his eyes and gave him a little shake of the head. “Relax. I’m here to talk, and to get some breakfast. Now where’s that waitress? She’s kind of a perky little thing, isn’t she?”

  Chapter 17

  Jeffrey ordered without a menu, and the waitress left, unaware of the tinderbox to which she had just agreed to bring an omelet and a muffin.

  “You didn’t ask about their pie,” said Martin.

  Jeffrey sniffed a laugh. “A little early in the day for pie, don’t you think?” He poured himself a cup of coffee and helped himself to the French Vanilla creamer.

  “How’d you find us?” asked Martin.

  “You have a cell phone. The Screwmobile has a locator transmitter. Plus…” He mimed a telephone at his ear. “Hello, random store manager. Setting up my schedule for next week; what would be a good time? Oh, and have you seen Martin Wells from FastNCo.? Been trying to get ahold of him. I owe him some money.” He hung up his thumb and pinky finger. “It’s not rocket science.”

  Stewart slipped his sunglasses out of his shirt pocket, put them on, and gave Jeffrey a once-over. “I don’t know you,” he said.

  “No, you don’t,” said Jeffrey.

  “You’re my replacement?”

  “I’m the one they brought in to fix your mess,” said Jeffrey.

  “Bang-up job you’ve done,” said Stewart.

  “You know, I deserve that,” said Jeffrey. “I really do.”

  “What do you want, Jeffrey? Either bring back Cheryl or get out of here,” said Martin.

  “Ah. Cheryl.”

  “She never learned how to make the pie,” said Stewart.

  “I really want to believe that,” said Jeffrey. “But I don’t have the luxury to make assumptions.”

  “You’ve had her for weeks now,” said Martin. “Don’t you think she would have told you if she knew?”

  “Not necessarily,” said Jeffrey. “Not if she knew the production plan. Which given Stewart’s apparent willingness to share with just about anyone…. She’s such a noble girl. Why wouldn’t she resist to save her pathetic species?”

  “You bas
tard,” said Martin. Stewart put up a hand.

  “What have you done to her?” asked Stewart.

  “Phase I and II probes and scans. What? Are you squeamish about that? They weren’t kidding when they said you’d gone native. Oh, and she bakes. We set her up a nice little kitchen, with gravity and everything. But we’re going to have to ramp up to Phase III soon, if she doesn’t give us what we want.”

  “Can I call him a bastard now?” asked Martin.

  “Why? Why move to Phase III so quickly?”

  Jeffrey said a word. It sounded like “Chumpdark,” but with bits of punctuation and a little squish in it. “I fully intend to hand him the recipe when he arrives.”

  “Who’s this Chumpdark?” asked Martin.

  “The CEO,” said Stewart.

  “The CEO?”

  “You understand the term, don’t you?” asked Jeffrey.

  “Why’s he coming here?”

  Stewart answered. “Because this project has gone on for too long.”

  “Something like that,” said Jeffrey. “And I don’t intend on being the scapegoat.”

  “Why tell us?” asked Martin.

  “What makes you think you’re relevant here? I’m talking to the old man.”

  “Well, out with it then,” said Stewart.

  The waitress chose that moment to arrive with a tray of everything. Plates of eggs. Plates of hash browns and bacon. Plates of sourdough toast. Plates piled with pancakes. A plate for Jeffrey’s enormous muffin. A rack of syrup. Heinz ketchup. Tabasco sauce.

  “Can I get you anything else?” she asked.

  Jeffrey peeled the paper off his muffin. “I can’t say I won’t miss eating on this godsforsaken planet. Look at this thing. It’s as big as my head. Thanks, sweetheart.”

  The waitress gathered her tray with an eye roll.

  “Out with it,” Martin demanded.

  “I won’t miss the manners. Relax. Eat,” said Jeffrey.

  “I could shoot you,” said Martin.

  “Please. Jackie Bauer. This isn’t 24,” said Jeffrey.

  Martin’s glare had no effect, so he unrolled the napkin from his silverware and ate.