Angelika Queen Of Mars

Chapter 41

Chapter 41 Magical Mystery Tour Part 3

I can't say I got a lot of sleep that night, on the trip here, Dori and I hardly had any time together, however we were determined to make up for that. As I lay next to her in the morning, which by the way came all too soon, I started to review the day's upcoming events. First of all, my team would be departing for the airport for a week at home visiting family and friends. Before they were due to leave, I had planned to remind them about keeping their mouths shut about what we were doing, and all that they had seen. I knew they all realized this, but I still felt a little reminder was in order. Secondly, Carman and I would be wearing our "tour guide," hats today as we showed Moreck and his parents as well as Captain Neshok and his wife the Black Hills. Thank God, we all wore similar sized clothing, as the style of clothing our Falthian friends wore would cause undue interest. Since my truck would only hold three people and Carman's car the same, this "excursion" would require two vehicles. I had planned to show them Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse monument, the Needles highway, and Custer State park, so they could see buffalo. Carman told me that she and Tarsig had already done the "hills," so she had plenty of brochures. Tomorrow, if they were still interested, I planned on a trip out to Devil's Tower, and perhaps dinner in Deadwood. I had already warned our guests that what they would see paled in comparison to such sights as the canyons of Krontor, or the falls of Ricathia, and buffalo couldn't hold a candle to the dinosaur like Skrithik Githin.

"It doesn't matter," said Moreck's father, "We don't want to visit your entire planet, just a little part of it." Well the Black Hills was certainly a "little part," of it, but I promised all a good time. Just as Dori and I were thinking about morning "quickie," Carman's voice came from outside our cabin door,

"Jake, you've gotta come, they're talking about your flying saucer on TV, hurry!"

"Oh Jake," exclaimed Dori, "Have they found it this fast?"

"Apparently," I replied, as I got out of bed, "Well chalk one up for honesty," I thought, I was sure the government would certainly try to cover it up. By the time we made our way back to the house, everyone was standing in front of the TV pointing and commenting on what was referred to as a "story with legs."

There it was my gift to the people of the United States, and the world really. The footage was obviously from a helicopter but it looked like there were quite a few people on the ground as well. I looked at my watch, seven-thirty in the morning; those people must have driven all night o get to the site to be there this early. As we listened to the reporter describe what was going on, and where this was, I noticed our Amulian friends had decided to join the "party" as well. I smiled to myself as I tried not to let them see me watching them. I also enjoyed a nice little chuckle thinking about the government's reaction were they to know that a bunch of aliens were watching the story unfold on TV.

The scene then shifted to a shot of the Judith grocery and convenience store, and a middle aged woman standing behind the counter, pointing to the picture of Beth standing next to Angelika on that first time we stopped.

She was explaining to the reporter how Angelika had visited the store not once, but twice, and all for a cup of coffee. The store seemed to be crowded with what were no doubt local's and perhaps a few that had been alerted to what had been left on their "doorstep." Now the scene had shifted back to the saucer, with a ground shot now, Kevin then said,

"You know, I don't see any government types there, you'd think they'd bee all over this doing what they do best, keeping people away." He was right, I didn't see anyone with FBI, on the back of their blue jackets, or even…Oh wait, I spoke too soon, there were a couple county boys there, but obviously, this was still a local show, and the agencies hadn't shown up yet. Well, maybe there was hope yet, the "cat" was out of the bag, they couldn't hide it now. Again the scene shifted, to reveal a couple pictures we had taken of the craft as it sat on Mars. That told me NASA was cooperating, or the photos were hacked, as the Falthian Mars base had transmitted them along with Angelika's announcement of the "gift," she was giving to earth.

Well, my work was done, however, this story was to go on for the next week, culminating with the government announcement that the craft would indeed be going to the Smithsonian but that NASA wanted to give it a good "look over," first As events unfolded, not only was my saucer taking up the front page of every newspaper in the country and the world, the planet Mars was also stepping into the limelight as well. Scientists, would be talking about the discovery of what looked like water on the planet, along with a new movie just coming out about an astronaut who gets left behind on the angry red planet.

"You know they are desperately trying to get in touch with Angelika," said Sharla, "Do you think they will become suspicious when she doesn't answer?"

"Maybe," I replied, "All I know is that she'd be having a good laugh right about now over all this." All agreed, as we kept our eyes glued to the screen. I happened to notice Yemock and his buddies were watching as well, so I stepped over to him and said,

"This is what it's all about captain, you see, they are already dredging up grainy pictures of flying saucers amateur photographers were taking back in the nineteen fifties." Yemock didn't say anything at first, but then pointed to an obviously fake photo of what was probably a tin pie plate being held up by a string.

"That cannot possibly be anything real,"

"It probably isn't," I replied, that whole UFO thing offered a lot of opportunities for hoaxes." He watched for a few more moments, then turned to me and said,

"I completely misunderstood you. Instead of keeping that craft for yourself, you gave it to your race, I'm rather impressed."

"Well thank you captain," I said, "Actually I did have selfish reasons for doing this. There are so many misconceptions, falsehoods, and outright lies concerning that whole flying saucer thing, I just wanted to "clear the air," so-to-speak, but I'm sure there are going to be a lot of I-told-you-so's, before all this is over." Then Yemock surprised me again by apologizing for last night's behavior.

"We are very sorry for behaving the way we did by turning you away, but we are a very private race, old habits are hard to break."

"You don't have to apologize to me captain, I understand, however if you don't understand something, be it the computer, or anything around here just ask, I don't want to force myself on you or the others, however, I do have one question…My wife insists that there is a woman in your crew, is that true?"

In a voice so soft and low, I barely heard him, Yemock replied,

"She is my daughter. Technically, she isn't supposed to be here she has no clearance, or crew card. Please, do not tell anyone else."

"Who's to tell?" I replied, obviously, the other Amulians know."

"I'm not concerned about them," he replied, but your Falthian friends, it…it would cause complications I would rather not get into right now, perhaps at a later time we can sit down and just talk, perhaps I will explain everything then."

As much as everyone wanted to continue watching, people had things to do, and places to go, so the TV got turned off, as Kevin was announcing "last call," for a ride to the airport. I helped Dori, and Carman fix breakfast for everyone, the Amulians drifted back to the shed, and Robarik began to call the Beckford's, and Carters back east, letting them know he would be arriving a little later in the afternoon at what he called the old farm. I made some calls as well to my relatives, as well as some of the Blessing clan to let them know "friends" were in town.

After breakfast, we were still trying to get things sorted out, when Rek approached me and asked,

"What is that machine you call a truck doing in the shed? The Amulians brought it to my attention, claiming it stunk, and were wondering if you could move it."

"It stunk?" I exclaimed, "Those Amulians must have mighty sensitive noses, or I'm so used to all the various smells, I don't notice it."

"Well they do have an incredibly well developed sense of smell…or so I'm told," he said. I then took him aside and asked,

"Why do you ask, are you interested it that truck or something?" Rek grinned, and replied,

"Yes, actually. I was looking it over; I think it would do me quite nicely, back at Andara. I'm looking for some sort of vehicle to transport my tools and equipment from job to job. Right now I have to share an equipment wagon with another technician, but if you're willing to sell it I could make you a nice offer."

I couldn't believe my luck, I had been worrying about the truck those thieves had been driving and what to do about it, now Rek was willing to take it off my hands.

"Rek, I'll make you an offer you can't refuse…It's yours…Free, maybe we can get it up in the Giuffrida and haul it back to Falth, but once the gas in the tank runs out what will you do?" He patted me on the shoulder, and said.

"I've been looking for a challenging project, something I can create, but use as well, I can either remove the existing engine and completely replace it with something entirely different, or modify the engine to run on something more practical and safe, when we return home, I will be trying to figure that one out. I promised Rek I'd go over the truck with him once I was done showing our guests around the Black Hills,

"You're going to need tools to tear into the engine," I added, but I'll have to buy them for you, but we'll talk later.

This was a terrific stroke of luck, Carman had suggested burning the truck, but I nixed that, too much chance of fire, and snooping cops, shipping the truck to another planet, what a great idea.

Well we got through breakfast, my guys are en route to the airport, Kha'Mak and Na'Kal are ensconced in the basement "devouring" sci-fi books, and Amulians are wandering around the property, but we're off, the magical mystery tour has begun.

I dropped Dori off at the shop giving Moreck and Tarsig the chance to show the adults where everything starts. Moreck's father seemed to approve as we showed him the whole operation. I promised Dori I'd pick her up when we returned, but right now it was back on the road heading south.

Listening to Moreck and his parents talk, I gathered they were quite proud of his efforts at inter-galactic trade. As we drove south, my guests all commented on riding in my truck, as well as actually riding on the ground. No monorails, or air cabs, or flyers here. They were all concerned about the spectacle of traffic coming right at you separated by mere kiro's. Eventually they got used to it once the scenery got better. Carman was following behind me in her car, as we would maintain contact by phone, coordinating where we would stop, or take a break. Our first stop was at Pactola Lake where Mr. Gormeth showed me his camera.

Surprisingly, is was very similar to ones here on earth, however it could take limitless pictures, as well as movies, a telephoto feature that was the equal to a 25,000$ professional zoom lens, with a twelve power zoom capability. We stood on the viewing platform at Mount Rushmore, and you could pick out details on the faces you would normally having to be looking at inches from your face. Furthermore, he told me it was a cheap camera,

"I accidentally left my good one aboard my yacht, so I picked this one up as we were leaving Cluria." I was afraid they would quickly tire of the quality of scenery to be had, but not so. Both Mr. and Mrs. Gormeth seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves, remarking about the trees, and the canyons we went through, however like many earthen tourists, they were blown away by both Mount Rushmore, and the Crazy Horse monuments.

In some of the remarks both of them made, I gathered it was our ability to overcome obstacles, and take on mammoth projects that impressed them the most. At the Crazy Horse monument, the guide so moved him, Mr. Gormeth left four gold pieces in a donation box. We were all paid by the Falthians here on earth with exact reproductions of either South African Krugerrands, or American gold eagle coins. Early on, I realized there would be a problem trying to bank or sell gold wire, (which is the form Falthian gold is generally smelted) or lumps of gold. I bought some Krugerrands, and gold eagles, which the financial house we deal with on Falth then simply placed in their equivalent of a 3-D copier, and viola! A unit of payment we can use here on earth without a lot of questions. Now this might be called counterfeiting, but gold coins aren't serial numbered, and actually the coins we use are actually purer in gold content per troy ounce that the originals.

Anyway, the people who are working on the monument are going to be several thousand dollars richer after they find those coins. We then drove through the southern part of Custer State park on the wildlife loop taking in wild burros, and buffalo. Again Carman and I were surprised, the sight of buffalo standing right next to the road thrilled our guests something we couldn't quite figure out. On Falth, there are "stoats," large cow-like animals that are their equivalent of beef cattle but as we Kagorians who have seen them, the Dropacheg's and Skrithik Githin's honest-to-god dinosaurs if ever there were.

Yet a large heard of buffalo browsing, and snorting made it all worthwhile for four tourists who traveled millions of light years just to visit earth. At the game lodge, we enjoyed a terrific meal and great conversation as our guests talked about, and asked Carman and me questions about the area, and places to visit. We requested a table off from the other diners so we could talk, however the waitress caught captain Neshok asking me a question about the lodge and asked if he and the others were from another country. Without missing a beat, Carman told her,

"Oh yes, our friends here are from Latvia, they don't speak much English." That seemed to satisfy her and she left us alone. Moreck's mother then asked Carman where this Latvia was. "It's far enough away that most people may have heard of it, but have no idea where it is, and certainly wouldn't have any idea of what language they speak."

All during the day, Carman and I kept checking our phones as well as the radio for any breaking news on the flying saucer, and boy! Was there. The media was going nuts speculating on who here on earth was involved in this, reports were also claiming that NASA, the European space agency, as well as another private space agency were all desperately trying to contact Angelika for interviews, but it would probably be a long time before she was back in the "neighborhood" again. Late in the day, speculation began concerning dangerous bacteria and microbes which might have been on the saucer

"Not likely," said captain Neshok. "All spacecraft exterior metal, especially landing apparatus are treated with an anti-bacteriological chemical, it's fused right into the metal at the time it's forged, no need to worry there." That I didn't know about, maybe it was because the procedure was so commonplace everyone just automatically knew about it.

Anyway, we capped the day off with a trip to Mount Rushmore; everyone was quite impressed with the carving and studiously examined every display in the museum. The fact that the project covered close to fifteen years also made an impression as well, although I overheard Mrs. Neshok tell Carman that were the Falthian's to undertake a similar project, it would take only a couple dorns, perhaps three, due to the sort of equipment they had.

"I almost told that nice girl back at the Indian monument all they needed was a vibration detonator, and a blader, and they could wrap this monument up in less than a dorn." We all had a laugh at that one, talk about a violation of the prime directive. We wrapped up the day with dinner and some more souvenir shopping in Keystone. Carman and I mused at all the tee-shirts, sweat shirts, and knick-knacks our guests bought, but then they were bound and determined that all their friends knew they had visited Kagor.

When we returned home Kaitlan, and her parents were there, along with Robert Blessing, and his folks. Naturally, I received the "third degree," concerning the saucer, and why the queen of Mars wasn't responding. I introduced the Gormeth's and the captain and his wife. The kids were naturally curious about the Amulians, never having seen them before, but I warned them not to bother them as they were a very private people, then Robert told me.

"Uh Mr. Gandrigg, uh, did you know there was a, uh, woman with them?" Yes, Bob, one of them is named Yemock; it's his daughter, why?" I could tell he was embarrassed about something, then finally confessed,

"Everyone was watching the news on TV so I went outside to see if one of those Amulians might come out. Well one did, it was that girl, and…Uh, she didn't have any clothes on."