Chameleon Ch 30

Tom and Honey walked side by side along the omnibus tracks on the way out of town. She skipped for the first half a kilometer, stopping to pick a random wild flower several times. Soon she slowed to a skipping walk. By the end of kilometer two, her energy was reduced to an adult level, pacing an extra step now and then to catch up with Tom. By kilometer three, Tau Ceti baked down from its zenith, and the girl flopped down on a small boulder to rest.

“How much farther do we have to go?” she asked. Tom handed her pouch of electrolyte water and opened another for himself.

“The device says not quite five kilometers. We’re about half way there.” An estimate would do as well as explaining five eighths of the journey. He sat next to her on a larger rock. “About an hour and half or two hours.”

“Then we have to walk back?” she whined.

“I’m afraid so. Maybe we can get a ride on an ox cart for the trip back.” He watched the girl drink most of her hydration in one long gulp. Her hair was the color of apple juice, her freckled face pale, with a hint of pink from the time spent outside in the spectrum of Tau Ceti. It made sense that the native people were deeply pigmented in shades of mahogany and rouge. A slightly thinner atmosphere allowed a bit more ultra violet rays to reach the ground. Not a problem for natives, but aliens needed to be aware of the UV index, and take precautions.

  “I’m better now,” she announced, poking the empty mylar pouch into a pocket. Not to be outdone by an eight-year-old girl, Tom got up and they resumed their trek.

“What do you want to do when we get back to Earth?” he asked.

“Do?”

“I guess you’ll be going to school near your grandparents’ home.”

“I thought Keith and Bailey were my new parents?”

“I’m sure they’d love to but your mother’s parents want you to live with them,” at least he thought so, anyway.

“And I can’t live with you and Zalara and Rianya?”

“What about your grandmother?”

“I don’t know her. I want to stay on the ship.”

“Ah,” he answered, working words over in his brain. “Well, Honey, the ship has to stop sometimes.”

“Like at the space station?”

“Sort of. But more like now, where we stop at a planet and fix the broken things, and different people come on. Earth is home, where your family is, and they want to be your forever family.”

She looked up at his face, squinting from the bright sunlight, but he could still see the color of her eyes, a bright, rich blue like Delft china. It was a rare person with true-blue eyes, most humans having brown from a mingling of races over the centuries.

She looked forward again, focusing on the vanishing point of the metal tracks, without commenting. He ruffled her hair a bit and patted her shoulder.

“When will we be back to Earth?”

“If all goes as planned,” which it rarely did, “probably six or seven months.” He looked forward as well. “Do you see that?” She looked in to the distance and shook her head. “The light from some object out there,” he said, pointing. “That’s our target.”

“Where we’re going?”

“It looks like a radio dish.”

“It’s really big!”

“There are some on Earth bigger,” he said. That one looks, well, average, I suppose.” From his vantage, the dish was about two meters in diameter. A long pole thrust out of the center of the large, concave dish. “You ever think you might want to be in the space service?” he asked absentmindedly.

“No.”

“You already know what space ship life is like,” he said. “You could do anything, like Ms. Bailey, or Kym Byrd, or Lieutenant Lee.”

“He’s a boy.”

“Girls can fly star ships, too.”

“My mother said girls can do everything boys can, but boys can’t do everything girls can.”

“She said that?” Tom tried not to be offended personally, but he was pretty sure gender had little to do with intelligence or ability.

“Girls can have babies. Boys can’t.”

“That’s the truth,” he admitted. A smile grew on his face without his permission, realizing that courage took on an entirely new perspective in reference to childbirth. He knew of no man with that much chutzpah or strength. He decided not to admit that out loud lest his status as the captain be subject to scrutiny.

“Is that the radio?” she asked, pointing to the object as it grew larger to the eye. The dish was mounted atop a small building, a rather modern building with clean lines and sharp corners, a flat roof, and no windows. It might have been four by four meters, not much larger than a dog kennel. A couple of trees, bushes, and a patch of grass surrounded the structure, a stark anomaly on the countryside.

“Yes, that would be it. Look, the omnibus tracks end right in front of it.”

“Maybe it’s an omnibus station?” she mused aloud.

“Let’s find out.”

Tom slowed their pace, taking a cautious approach that Honey mimicked. He stopped a dozen meters from the building where a stand of short trees offered a small barrier of camouflage. Honey stood behind him, peering from behind his long legs at the building.

“It’s not making any noise,” she said.

“No, our ears can’t hear it. I’m sure it’s making some noise.” Tom didn’t take his eyes off the building. He couldn’t identify any nefarious activity, nothing sinister about the dish or structure it sat upon. It was, however, inconsistent with the immediate surroundings, looking more like it belonged in the city with other modern buildings and electric power.

The door opened slowly; Tom and Honey slipped back into the shadows almost instinctively. A young male, a Cetian, stepped out, shielding his eyes from the bright sun. He meandered around the back of the building; the door closed behind him. The two humans conferred with eyeballs that the coast wasn’t yet clear.

The man came back into view and retreated back into the building.

“There’re no windows. Let’s take a look.” Tom stepped out of the brush and walked up to the building, looking for any clues that might shed light on the reason a radar dish was beaming signals into the sky.

Honey found a flat stone to use as a chair near the marginal protection of the vegetation. Tom was satisfied that she would sit tight while he snooped, freeing him to concentrate. Clumps of drying grass nestled up against the building, apparently having existed there for some time. Formal flowerbeds were absent, and decoration was limited to two colors of paint on the walls.

A patch of fine gravel led from the omnibus tracks to the door of the building. The overhead wires that ran the public transportation terminated there also, like the tracks, some ceramic capacitors and resistors near the top of a heavy pole holding the cables taught. They’d not passed any parked omnibuses; all were in the city bus yard.

He examined the radio dish from the ground, stretching to see the antennas, any markings, and to what direction it was set to transmit. Or was it a receiver, or both? It was a standard design, like Earth radio and radar technologies. These low-tech devices served several purposes in a digital, high tech environment, especially when simplicity was the best option, or when communicating with bats and dolphins.

So, this was it, the big deal he walked eight kilometers to see? He was hoping for something more exotic, interesting, or at least scientific to dig into. He didn’t dare admit to any boredom for fear of bringing on an antidote.

The single door of the little square building opened with the faint squeak of a metal hinge. Jackson stood quickly, as casually as he dared, knowing his presence could be misinterpreted in several ways. He had reviewed the language spoken in this part of the world before they’d arrived, but it was going to be choppy.

“Hello,” Jackson said, initiating the contact. It was the same man who’d taken the walk around the building ten minutes earlier.

“Are you lost? The festival is at the other end of the track,” he said, nodding at the omnibus rails.

“That’s where we came from.”

“We?” the man asked. Jackson remembered Honey hiding in the shrubs. He motioned for her to join him in the shade of the radio dish. She emerged, shyly at first, then quickly ran to Jackson’s side.

“We came to learn about your radio,” he said, the words to convey a more precise technological description outside of his vocabulary. He gestured toward the large metal dish.

“It is a private hobby,” the man said. “I do not partake in the festival. Where are you from?”

“We come from the Earth village. I’m Jackson, this is Honey.”

“You like electricity?” He leaned against the shaded wall. His tone was indecipherable. Should he answer yes or no?

“Yes, mostly,” Jackson answered. “But it is fun to return to the old days, too.”

“The power plant is a blight on our world,” he said. “An alien stain that we can’t eradicate. A poison.” Jackson hadn’t expected that response. “The only good is that I don’t have to walk here from town, at least when the bus runs.”

“Are there a lot of radio machines here?”

“Not out here. They’re all back in the city. Without the electricity, it is a quiet day.”

“I suppose we should be on our way,” Jackson said.

“If you want to see come in,” the man said. “I’m Jake. Come, at least have some water before you go back. Hot day.”

Jackson and Honey followed him into the modern hut. Unlike the city, his electricity was on. Jake poured two glasses of water and then refilled his own, inviting them to sit at the console.

“It looks like our bridge,” Honey whispered. The captain nodded.

“I don’t understand why you have electricity, in fact, need it, but you think the power plant is not good for your world.”

“I can’t run my radar and radio without it. I still don’t like it, but I’m not going to pretend it isn’t useful. I have some snacks,” he said, and unwrapped a cloth from a wooden tray filled with edibles. At least, they appeared edible, at first. “Have one?”

Jackson looked hard at the odd tidbits. A small cube of yellow fruit or vegetable hosted a twig set in a glob of honey. He picked one up without further scrutiny, but as he placed one in his mouth, Honey dropped hers, let out a blood curdling scream, and began to jump up and down in terror as if the thing had bitten her.

“It’s a bug!” she managed to choke out. Jackson took another look at the tray and realized she was right. The various twiggy objects stuck in the honey were lengths of insects, brown, resembling grasshoppers. A chill shot down his back, but he finished chewing the crunchy canape and swallowed it. Frankly, it was kind of tasty, but it was a little harder to choke down once the topping had been identified.

Jackson picked up the piece on the floor, apologetically looking for a place to dispose of it.

“I forget humans don’t like ragoolas,” Jake said, taking the tray back to the shelf and replacing the cloth over the top.

“It wasn’t bad,” Jackson said with as much sincerity as he could muster. Honey shivered and coveted her glass of water.

“Take a look here.” Jake redirected their attention to the readouts and displays related to his radio. “This is actually monitoring the items in orbit. A couple satellites, several star ships, and canisters of radioactive by product from the power plant.”

“What?”

“It’s not a lot, but no one knew what else to do with it. The Pegasi take it up for us, but they get to have what of it they want. They use it for something. In space it cools down faster than burying it.”

A cold blanket wrapped around Jackson’s head. He knew that the power was generated by the decay of thorium, not uranium. The waste product was nothing compared to water-cooled uranium rods. Thorium fuel had to be bombarded with neutrons, and to stop the reaction one simply cut the power to the firing mechanism. No neutrons, no reaction, no meltdown, light waste.

“They put it in orbit?” he asked.

“Like I said, it’s poison. I keep track of them, make sure none come down on us. No one knows I do this.”

Jackson’s heart went cold with the thought.

“How do they keep them in orbit?”

“The canisters have thrusters. It’s all very new, but, if you’re from Earth you know about space travel and rockets and the like.” Jake turned his gaze away from the console at Honey. She still shuddered from the bug snacks, her eyes like blue saucers. All interest in the radar, what little had been there to begin with, was gone.

“Are you feeling okay?” Jake asked her. Jackson translated for her. She nodded slightly. The man rustled in a basket on the shelf and pulled down food that was far less exotic, offering her a small bread roll. She took one, hesitatingly, examined it, then took a bite, approving the morsel with a nod.

“Have you been doing this long?”

“I started a few years ago. I live in town most of the time.”

“Maybe a few more questions?”

“Ask away.”

“This trimer of flashing lights, the red, yellow, and blue. Is there some significance to them?”

“Not specifically. But the universe is made up of threes, so I’m sending three pulses on slightly different wavelengths. The blue is shortest, red is longest, yellow’s in between. Each represents the decay of an element to a lower energy. Blue comes from helium, the yellow from oxygen, and the red from nitrogen.” Jackson nodded.

“Are you here every day?”

“I work at the power plant at night, but I come out here every day or so, check the feedback.”

“How can I find you in town?” Jackson asked. The man scribbled a small map on a piece of paper with the cooling tower as the reference point. He gave the slip to Jackson. “Mornings, when I get off from my job.”

“We will stop by,” the captain assured him. The man followed them out to the omnibus rack.

“Hey! What’d I tell you? Hi-Yo!” A man sat on the front of a cart full of what looked like potatoes. He slowed his big beast by tapping its rump.

“Looks like you need a ride into town,” he said. Jackson nodded, staying clear of the creature pulling the cart. It appeared more like a griffon than a horse or steer. A bite from one could kill a person.

And that’s when he remembered Quinaal. So many years back his medic had been bitten by one, and she came to the girl’s rescue with a poultice of sulfur and silver. He’d let her go then, and the time before. He didn’t want to run into her again. Regardless of his wife and daughters, saying goodbye to her a third time might break his heart for good.

He and Honey climbed in the back with the piles of dusty potatoes, and waved to Jake as he grew smaller and smaller. The man waved back and disappeared into the radio house.

“He’s a generous man,” Jackson said aloud.

“He’s nice. He’s cute, too,” Honey said. “But the bug food was horrible! I will never eat that again!”