Another Place Episode 35

Another Place Another Time

Book Two

Luke and Traveler

Episode Thirty-Five

An hour before dawn we knew we were running on borrowed time and our luck could run out at any moment.

I glanced at Charlie, standing on top of the aircraft. He looked at me and shouted, “That’ll do it Luke. You can shut it down.” I could barely hear him over the sound of the pump. I pushed the spark plug wire off the old, single cylinder motor with a scrap of board I had found in a storage compartment of the trailer. That was the only way I had come up with to stop the engine. It wheezed, bucked, and backfired to a restless death. I thought of the irony that the survival of this flying machine from another time depended on an old pump from the past. I couldn’t help but grin at the thought.

I disconnected the pump from the pickup hose, and Charlie reeled the hose in, looked at me with a twisted grin of his own and said, “Okay, let’s see if it will run.”

He disappeared through a hatch that I assumed was an emergency port. I stood gazing like a kid who had wandered on to a Star Wars set, and then I heard Charlie shout, “Luke, before I try to start the engine, I think it would be a good idea for you to move the rig.”

I ran for my truck and quickly moved it into the trees that bordered the field. I blew a short blast on the air horn to advise the Parkers that we had finished, then I shut the big diesel down.

As I jumped from the cab, I heard the three John Deere tractors turn toward us. I looked in their direction, but saw nothing in the fog and predawn blackness.

Traveler whined, and I looked down at him. He was standing at attention. I looked toward the spot where the aircraft had been lying like a beached whale. No longer beached, it was hovering motionless and noiseless, six feet off the ground.

I don’t know where all the lights came from. I had been within arm’s reach of the aircraft for the past three hours, and I knew there were no lights on its surface. Now there were thousands of them, set in lateral lines around the aircraft. They pulsated as if they were alive, changing from yellow to white to blue, then red. I thought, wow, the science fiction guys got that one right.

A ramp swung down from the belly of the aircraft, and Charlie came walking down it as if he did it every day, which I suddenly realized, he did. He had a grin from ear-to-ear, and he gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Hypnotized by the sight of the ship, somewhere in the back of my mind I heard the Parker’s shutting down their tractors nearby. In another moment, Lois’s shouts shattered the stillness, “See, see…Wow. WOW! Will you look at that...”

Andy put his arm around his sister, and the four of us and Traveler met Charlie at the foot of the ramp. He looked at each of us in turn, and said, “There aren’t words for me to tell you how grateful I am.”

We gazed at the aircraft, hovering silently, lit up by thousands of lights. I don’t know about the Parkers or Traveler, but I felt a tear slip down my cheek, and, for the first time, I began to feel like we were going to pull this off.

“I know none of you expect anything for what you’ve done, and I also know there is no way I could ever repay you. However, I do have two presents for you. The first is a ride in my magic machine.”

If he was going to continue, I’ll never know. Lois and Traveler were halfway up the ramp before he could get out another word. Traveler was barking and Lois was screaming “WOW!” Over and over.

********

Inside, the ship was as impressive as it was outside. Two single chairs in the front faced a console that stretched from one side of the cockpit to the other. There wasn’t a single gauge or digital readout on the console; instead, there were light arrays, dozens of them, each in its own hue and shade. Seeing it that way, I realized the obvious advantage of lights over gauges. The other major difference was, there were no foot pedals or yokes like those in conventional aircraft, at least the ones I’ve seen in the movies.

On the right armrest of each chair was a control stick that was about three inches high. Rick whispered, “It looks like a big Nintendo game to me.”

There were six more seats in the ship. They were in two rows of three, one on each side of the ramp and mounted at an angle so each had a good view of the console. These seats were low-slung, padded and covered in the same plush fabric as the command seats.

Charlie made a sweeping gesture that took in the two rows of seats and said, “Have a seat gentlemen and lady; enjoy my flying machine.” Somehow I managed to sit beside Lois, who I should note, didn’t seem to mind. Rick and Andy sat down in the opposite row. Charlie dropped in the command seat on the right side, turned to Traveler, and without a word that I heard passing between them, Traveler jumped into what I assumed to be the copilot’s seat. Charlie grinned as he slipped a headband made of a plastic material over his brow and turned toward the console. He gripped the control stick lightly with his right hand, and the light arrays from one side of the console to the other immediately came to life and began to pulse rapidly.

He slowly scanned the light array, pausing to touch a button here and a light there; he had become an integral part of the aircraft. Satisfied, he touched the top of the control lever and the entire surface of the ship suddenly became transparent. Rick made a sound of exclamation, Traveler barked, and I threw my left arm around Lois and grabbed the arm of my chair with my right hand.

Charlie chuckled, “Sorry, I should have warned you about that. The outer surfaces are an alloy whose molecular structure I just rearranged with an electromagnetic pulse, allowing one-way visibility. That’s why there is no windshield or windows. If you were standing outside, you would have noted no change in the appearance of the ship.

The feeling was one of flying inside a soap bubble, a very fast soap bubble. It initially had an unnerving affect on my stomach, but surprisingly, that feeling passed quickly.

With no sense of acceleration, we were suddenly climbing. I have never flown in a jet fighter, but I know the fastest fighter ever built could never hold a candle to Charlie’s ship.

I heard him say, “We are going through 70,000 feet at a speed nearly twice the speed of sound. All the systems are performing perfectly…thanks to all of you.”

Traveler barked.

Charlie paused for a moment, considered his words, and then said, “I need to cut this ride short. I promise each of you a longer one, soon, but I have people waiting for me, and they are, no doubt, becoming anxious because of my tardiness.”

“I do have one other gift for each of you that I will give you as soon as we land.” There was another pause then he added, “And Luke, I have one more favor to ask of you…” He glanced at Traveler and the dog returned his stare, “You and Traveler, I should say.”

*********

In a couple of minutes, we were back on the ground. I had not moved my arm from around Lois, and she had touched my hand a couple of times. Frankly, I didn’t want to get up and leave Charlie’s aircraft, but I did.

We were standing at the foot of the entrance ramp when I heard the helicopters. They were flying so low and slow; they were almost on top of us before I knew they were there. I had heard them pass to the south about forty minutes before, but in the fog and darkness, they had not seen us. Now, with the fog lifting, I knew that we were about to discovered.

The nearest helicopter was about a quarter of mile away from us. It was the one that would spot us. The rest of them stretched in a line north of the field. There were several of them, but they were too low for me to see them all.

For just a moment, I thought they might not see us, and then the one nearest us suddenly began climbing. I shouted, “Charlie, run for it. We’ll be okay.”

Charlie didn’t budge. I glanced at him and saw that he was staring at the helicopter, which had leveled and begun a slow left turn. I followed Charlie’s gaze and could clearly see the faces of the two pilots staring back at me. I noted the Greyhound logo on the side of the helicopter, and I remember thinking how out of place it was on a military helicopter, then I shouted again, “Charlie, run for it. You can get out of here if you go now.”

Charlie didn’t move. I looked at him and saw a smile appear on his face. Without looking at me he said, “It’s all right Luke. They’re friends of mine.” I looked back at the helicopter and couldn’t believe my eyes. The copilot, at least I guessed he was the copilot because he was in the backseat, was waving. Charlie waved back. Suddenly the rest of the helicopters rose from treetop level, and began turning toward us. I counted them; there were twelve in all. As they continued to turn, obviously getting ready to land in the field behind Charlie’s aircraft, I turned to him, “You said they are your friends. Who are they Charlie?”

“Luke, do you remember when I told you that this was the second time polluted water forced me down, and that the first time happened ten days ago in my time, which was thirty years ago in your time?”

The noise of the helicopters was making conversation difficult, but I had to hear the rest of it. I shouted, “Yes, I remember.”

“Thirty years ago, in your time, I went down in Vietnam, after I picked up some polluted water from the Saigon River. The guys that got me going again were from an Army National Guard helicopter unit whose home base was Montgomery, Alabama.”

The flight of helicopters had just touched down. The air was full of newly cut hay and the noise was deafening. Charlie moved closer and shouted, “They were called the Greyhounds.” He pointed toward the line of helicopters, now shutting down their engines, “That’s them, Charlie. That’s the Greyhounds.”

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.