“Right, then. Say no more. I’ll need some drinking water and a box of crisps and cola, then I’ll be on my way.”
The boxes and water was delivered by Drang and Phyllis.
“Drang, me old chum. Howz’ya doin?”
Drang couldn’t quite figure what he had been asked, so simply smiled and shook his hand. Scott, on the other hand, realised his words had confused him.
“Hey, I’m sorry for the jargon I have been dishing out. I know I must get it into my thick head to speak clearly and logically.
Belinda gave his words some more thought, telepathically speaking to the rest. “His head, according to Scott, was already too big, and now it might also be thick. And what is it he is saying, that he intends to speak clearly and logically.” Humph, she thought. That’ll be the goddamned day.
The others laughed at her statement, thinking she sounded more and more like Scott.
Belinda offered Scott the use of an environmental tool, saying the sun’s rays were extremely dangerous, especially as he was not acclimatised. He refused the thoughtful offer, saying the sight of a foreigner strolling out of a desert wearing a blue one piece suit while donning a little red hat on his noggin would raise more than just a passing glance. It would be the sensible thing to do, considering the heat, he told them, but the need to maintain a low profile was as important as getting hold of the spares they needed. He would carry the boxes in such a way to provide himself with necessary shade. The water would sustain him and the desire to repair the ship would help push him on. Frell gave him such a loving hug, he almost suggested he should hang around for an hour or so before he set off. His heart belonged to her, and hers to him, but first he must carry out his plan… then the fun could really begin.
He lifted the boxes before trying to pick up the bottle of water. He couldn’t do it. He didn’t have enough hands. The others had watched, allowing him to see for himself that his plan had a flaw. He needed another to accompany him. He conceded the fact as the rest of the group all raised their doubts at the same time. He had to raise a hand to silence them.
“Yeah - yeah. I know what you are all trying to say, and you’re right. It seems I need you in more ways than one, Frell.” She could only smile back at him as the others were pleased he had seen sense and understood their gravest concerns.
“I know the direction we must take and we can share the load between us.” Frell had said it as she picked up the box of cola, feeling its weight. Scott had tried to beat her to the heavier box, hoping she would settle on carrying the lighter of the two. She recognised his gentlemanly act and decided to thwart his attempts at being the strongman. She considered herself to be strong as well, feeling vibrant, fit and healthy, even though she had been acting out a stage role as an ice cube for a while. He picked up the lighter box and bottle of water, when Belinda took hold of an arm.
“I really do not think it is a good idea to go for a walk into a town with the weapon and bullets still strapped to your side like an old fashioned cowboy. The locals might think you are a gangster.”
Scott almost dropped the load he carried. “You make me sound like Al Capone from Chicago, for goodness sake.” He really wanted to laugh, but his mind was so concerned with the journey and its possible complications he didn’t. “You are one hundred percent right though. I cannot walk into any town with this piece of hardware strapped to me. I would be arrested without question, and perhaps worse.”
Belinda unfastened the weapon and slung it over her shoulder, looking like a gangster’s moll.
“Follow me,” Frell said while already climbing the slope in one corner of the area. He winked at Belinda and Phyllis, giving Drang a knowing nod of his head. He more or less indicated he was to look after the girls, and Drang returned the same, as if to say he was looking out for them and they would be safe.
With that unspoken reassurance, Scott followed the one woman he would gladly follow into battle, the woman he would die for, the woman he wanted desperately to give another child to. He loved his daughters at home, more than anything else in the world, and he loved his other daughter too. His wife had born him two lovely little girls, even though she had turned into a premenstrual tension suffering monster. Whenever his wife had flown into one of her countless rages he would instantly back-off. He learned to quietly suffer any confrontation, understanding he could never win because his wife just didn’t realise what was happening, which was most of her middle-aged time. He blamed a change in her hormone levels for the agro he received, knowing full well the symptoms were common throughout the female species. However, the damage was being done at increasing levels during those reoccurring episodes, where his patience and understanding was stretched beyond the resilience of any angel. His visits to the Isle of Skye was not just to happily indulge in his hobby and enjoyment of geology and palaeontology, but also to get some peace and quiet. He always missed his girls, for they were the sweetest things to ever happen to him. But now he had another girl to think of, and hopefully, another in the future to come. He would have pleaded for his lover to take him from Earth, to take him to her home and allow him to share her life forever more, except for the love he had for his little girls back home.
“Hey! What are you waiting for?” cried Drang behind him. “Have you fallen asleep or do you need a push?” Belinda and Phyllis stood by Drang’s side, looking a little worried.
“Humph,” Scott released. “Can’t a simple straight forward guy have a couple of seconds to himself, to reflect on his life before he’s sent into the lion’s den?” That silenced them, good and proper, because they did not know what to reply to or what to say. He grinned at their silence, thinking he had told them where to get off.
They watched as the pair reached the escarpment’s edge, climbed across before disappearing down the other side after giving the trio a farewell wave. They had reciprocated, waving, indicating their friendship and best wishes for a quick return. Drang said he would continue with his inspection of the ship’s external surfaces, undercarriage bays and mechanisms, while Phyllis insisted on double checking the controls and internal systems. Belinda was left by herself, standing with the vision of her friends climbing over the cliff’s edge and away. There was nothing left for her to do, except wait for their return.
The sand became softer as they left the stony cliffs behind. The scree from eroded mountains was loosely packed, threatening to make them skid down the steep slopes. Scott’s experiences of climbing on the island of Skye came in useful as he taught Frell how to sidestep and safely traverse the steepest sections, while using their weight and momentum to negotiate slightly elevated hills.
“Let gravity do the hardest work for you,” he would say. “We will have to climb back this way when we have accomplished what we have set out to do, so we must conserve what energy reserves we have.”
She asked him to stop for a moment, pretending she needed to catch her breath. He waited for a moment, wondering why when she had literally been racing ahead. Her lips almost smothered him, taking him by surprise, but he was only too happy and eager to return the passion. The boxes were discarded and the bottle rolled off on its own, unseen and uncared for at that moment. She ran her hand down the front of his suit before her own. He placed his hands around her breasts as her clothes slipped towards the sand to lie at her feet, as his did. They stood naked in the sunshine, reflecting the rays like marble-white statues. She kissed him hard, smothering him with the passion of a thousand years of loneliness. His hands explored her body, feeling the strength and the need for his own to enter her. They lowered each other to the desert sand while still embraced. She had missed her lover and General, needing to feel him inside her again, after such a long and lonely time. His body was ready and hers was too. They met half way and made love with a vengeance. Her body melted against his and he moulded his into hers. Together, they converged and they rode the waves of a turbulent sea, working hard at their sexuality while knowing the outcome would be another child. The
knowledge of additional offspring added to the fervour of their union, forcing him further in while she strove to pull him deeper. It was almost like a frenzy, with deep and loud breathing from extreme physical exercise that would make any athlete wince. He came and she screamed, the echo quickly returning as if another randy couple had just shagged their brains out on the other side of the rock-strewn valley.
It was later when they managed to find the energy to detach themselves, sliding down the rest of the mountain towards a level plain. A road was seen to wind into the distance, heading for the town where Frell was leading them. Scott had stumbled a few times, falling head over heels while trying to hold onto the box of crisps and bottle of water. And no matter how hard he tried, he always seemed to end up with his packages coming to rest many metres away. Frell didn’t suffer from the problems he was facing, it was as if there was adhesion on the soles of her feet. He wondered if there might be a different tread pattern, often tempted to ask if he could have a peek, but bottled out because if there was no difference it would show he was less adapted to the terrain.
The road was made of asphalt, the dark surface looking like the longest black snake in the whole wide world, side-winding its way across the desert between high mountain peaks.
“This is the way we need to go,” she indicated, pointing. “We really must make an effort to move quickly though as we have used a lot of daylight time with our lovemaking.”
This caused Scott to blush and smile like a fool in love. She returned the smile together with a tug on one arm. She had enjoyed feeling him inside her again, and there would be more. But now they had to accomplish what they had set out to do.
It started as a small white speck in the distance, almost like a star in the darkest of nights. The sun reflected off the paintwork, giving the object a shimmering appearance. The small and dilapidated Renault 4 car looked as if it had been abandoned for a century or more, but the still hissing engine proved it had once been mobile, and only a short time before, Scott recognised.
They had approached it cautiously, wondering if the owner or driver might still be there. With no one found, Scott looked into the car. The ignition keys were missing and the windows were open, bar one. He was pleasantly surprised to discover the doors were unlocked and the boot was only jammed shut with a wooden wedge.
“Can we use this to travel into the next town? Frell asked, hoping he would say, yes.
“I could easily hot-wire it,” he said while inspecting their new found prize. “But the engine’s suffered from overheating. It might even be seized,” noticing the amount of steam rising from beneath the bonnet. “And even if it isn’t, it probably would.”
Frell looked disappointed at his reply.
“The owner might also be on their way back to recover it. I don’t think it would be an awfully good idea to be seen in a stolen car. Do you?” He asked with open arms and slightly tilted head, hinting it would be silly to even try it.
But before she could reply, he added, “Hang on a minute, though.”
He gave the car a good once-over, walking around its circumference as if to inspect it or to declare it was only worthy for the breaker’s yard. Frell watched in silence as the engineer did his thing. His mind was calculating as his eyes took stock, his face gleaming with an idea. He reached into the car’s interior, searching for a lever situated in the driver’s footwell. Frell jumped in surprise as the bonnet sprang from captivity, holding her pounding chest as if her heart had missed a beat.
“Sorry,” he apologised, grinning. “I should have let you know that would happen.”
He moved to the car’s front, raising the bonnet to look at the engine. Frell stood to one side, watching him touch and feel the engine’s angry heat. It hissed a couple more times, with small clouds of vapour rising as if furious at his unwarranted intrusion.
“Bastard!” he shouted. “That’s bloody hot!” He blew on his hands to cool them.
“Is it bad? She asked with concern.
“What? Is what bad?” he asked, still blowing.
“Your burn.”
He looked at the red mark on the palm of his right hand and the thumb on his left. “Och, it’s nothin’ tae a Scotsman, he said with an accent. “An Englishman would have screamed blue murder-r-r though. Aye, he would’ve collapsed into fits o’ tears while wettin’ his breeks,” he joked, rubbing his hands together is if there was no pain and the burn didn’t really matter. He did feel the pain though, quite badly, wishing there was a bucket of cold water to stick his hand into. However, in the middle of the flaming-hot North African desert, he had as much chance of seeing an iceberg with a Polar Bear on top singing an Abba song as he did of finding any. Frell read his mind and saw the bear picture, unable to control herself by laughing loudly at the comparison. He enjoyed seeing her laugh then continued to look for something they could use for their ship’s repair. Then he saw it. The thermostat housing, where the steam was escaping from. There was a gasket protruding from around the streaked alloy cover and it looked about the same dimensions as the split and cracked washer he needed to replace. He held the faulty washer close to the cover, trying to hold it in such a way to prove whether it shared the same dimensions as the gasket or not. It seemed to be very similar.
“Yahoo!” he shouted as he lifted his head in glee, banging it awfully hard on the bonnet’s underside. “ A much lesser man would have felt that and howled,” he joked, rubbing it better.
Frell rubbed it too. “An Englishman, perhaps?” she suggested.
It was his turn to laugh.
Turning his attention to the rear of the car, he forced the boot-lid open. The wooden wedge flew over one shoulder and bounced on the road behind. Wrapped inside an oily rag was an adjustable spanner, a badly bent and broken screwdriver and a tube of liquid gasket sealant. He was tempted to take the sealant and head for the ship in the hope it might cure the fault by itself. However, his experience shouted not to be so bloody lazy and stupid, to persevere and go the whole distance, taking the gasket as well.
The hot engine stayed hot as the sun didn’t offer the luxury of allowing it the chance of cooling. Scott winced and cursed more than a few times as his skin felt the searing heat, holding back on the temptation of smacking the engine with the spanner for hurting him. With blackened oily hands, he held the removed part for inspection. The engine’s controlling thermostat was unmistakably blocked with sludge as brown and as thick as chocolate sauce and wet dough, where coolant water had as much chance of passing through as a camel has of going through the eye of a needle.
He compared the gaskets, laying one on top of the other.
“YES!” he shouted at the top of his voice, feeling awfully pleased with himself. It was obvious the gasket had been recently fitted, hence the tube of sealant in the boot. So why had the mechanic not replaced the thermostat while doing the job? “Doh!” Scott said in mystified frustration.
“Does this mean you have what we need to repair the fault on the ship?” Frell asked, hoping.
He turned with a dirty face and a gleam in his eyes. Looking smug, he said, “It sure as hell is!”
“Fantastic!” she replied. Then asked what should they do with the boxes. He suggested they could simply be left inside the car for the owner, should he or she ever decide to return. He imagined the look of surprise on the owner’s face as they discovered the boxes of goodies.
“I’m repairing the car while I’m at it. There’s no reason why I should just leave the poor machine in pieces when it has helped us.”
Frell smiled at him with pride. Many humans would have easily walked away from the partially dismantled car, leaving it to the elements and whatever else found it. He was a caring man who was in love with her, and she him. How she wished he could be allowed to return with her. She had already seen into his thoughts the trouble he was having with his marriage, wishing she could help him while wanting to keep him for herself.
He finished refitting the cover without the th
ermostat. The engine would take longer to warm up, but in the climate where it was it wouldn’t really matter. If anything, he thought, the car will run better than ever. The engine will be much cooler and the oil will in turn also be cooler and thicker, giving the working parts a better level of protection.
“Frell.” He called to her as she placed the two boxes onto the car’s back seat. “How much water do have left?”
She came forward with the bottle, feeling its weight while working out its approximate quantity. “About three litres.”
His plan would work. They hadn’t had to walk too far so could return with much less water than they had brought.
“If you take a good drink, I shall too. Then I can use what is left to fill the car’s radiator. It will allow the car to work again. And if there is anything left after that, we’ll carry it with us.”
She drank her fill and so did he. The rest was carefully poured into the radiator, making a gurgling sound as it bubbled its way in. There was only a little left when the car was full, so decided it was time to take what they had and make a move to return.
Scott fitted the radiator’s cap and closed the bonnet. He secured the doors as best he could and stuffed the wooden wedge back into the boot lid. The car looked like it did when they first laid eyes upon it, never appearing as if any work had been done. They backtracked their way into the desert, following the slight impressions they had left. There was the bottle to carry, and most importantly, the replacement gasket, tube of sealant and the adjustable spanner, which itself looked ancient enough for Noah to have used. The distance seemed greater as they returned, with the steep slopes, loose rocks and gravel slowing their progress.
After his prayers at the Mosque, Mustapha had tried and tried to find a mechanic to return to his car with him, but there was no one willing to do any work on a Friday afternoon. It was their holy day and not one person would do anything until the next. He even tried to get a taxi to tow him back to the town, but they too were unwilling. The excuse was it was a day for prayer, but Mustapha suspected it was because none wanted to risk pulling a dead weight behind them. The town’s taxis were OK for carrying people and the occasional goat or cage of chickens, but pulling a car might rip the towing car’s bodywork to pieces, such was their atrocious condition. He was left to walk back in the terrible heat of the afternoon, hoping to drive the car at a slower pace, praying to Allah for blessings and sacred help in his efforts.
An Alien Rescue Page 50