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BIG DICK McCRAKIN
WHAT AM I
SPACE MARINE
EDEN
SHORT STORIES
THE SWIMMING HOLE
MYSTERY
TWO GIRLS AND AN OLD MANSIONTHE HAUNTED MAINSIONLOST HOUSE FOUND WHAT NEXTTHE HOUSE ON PERI LANESCI-FI
WAR IS HELL STARMAN BOOK 2HISTORYDREAM WARRIORBOWMAN - ADVENTURES OF FUTUREINTRODUCTION TO BOWMANPREQUIL TO BOWMANTHE BEGINNINGLANCE IS A CRAZY TEST PILOTLANCE SAUNDERS ASTRONUTMERCINARY BATTLES FOR LIFESTARMANINVENTOR AND HIS INVENTIONSTHE ETERNAL MANTHE U.S. IS INVADEDTHE 200 YEAR WARCHILDREN & YOUNG ADULT
ALL ABOUT CATSOUR CATS AND CAT STORIESIN LOVE WITH A COMPUTER?STARLIGHTTRUE STORY
MY LIFE IN GENERAL (SHORT)PERSONAL HISTORYAdvertising
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| STORIES BY M.C. DUNCAN |
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| I TREE | OUT OF THE BLUE |
I TREE BY M. C. DUNCAN ©COPYRIGHT Aug 2000 All rights reserved By M.C. Duncan I stand on a high knoll overlooking a peaceful valley. I have stood here for more than four thousand years. I was once man. Homosapien Humanness. How I got to be a tree is a long story. I shall endeavor to tell my tale in these few pages. For with parchment from my bark and the twigs of my lower most limbs for tools I shall attempt to set down this tale. Eons ago my kind was born on this world. Humans call it Eden. Others have called it many other things. We were a simple grove covering the top of a small hill. This hill has become the hill overlooking the valley. Many changes in geology have occurred since our birth. We watched over our peaceful valley and were content. Animals came to feed on our fruit and it was hoped would carry our seed far but no other seed ever sprouted. I don’t know if it was the soil of our hill or perhaps the climate had to be just so to propagate the seed. There was an upheaval of the planet’s crust, causing our hill to rise. A rift in the land created the broad river below. The river cuts through the center of the valley, making it a wide fertile plain. The volcanic ash that rained down of the valley has long since turned to rich soil. We, the trees, weathered the upheaval. Most of the ash and fire bombs were carried West of us and fell in the valley. We suffered a few broken branches and some damage to our root system but the river that was created in the valley promised a never ending supply of water. For many centuries we stood proud and tall, watching over our valley. Beings came in large ships and settled in the valley. They tilled the soil and built cities in our valley. We didn’t mind because they brought new and interesting things for us to watch. The young came and had picnics in the grove and made love under our spreading boughs. We watched and learned. These beings carried their seed within. The rituals for fertilization were many and varied. All was peace and harmony for many centuries. The beings lived in the valley, spilling over to the hills on either side of the valley. One day ships came. Ships unlike the ships of the beings who lived in the valley. There was a huge battle. Some of the stray shells landed among the trees and caused severe damage. The one that bore my seed survived so I have memories of the time of my predecessor’s life through that seed. The beings in the valley died. Their beautiful spires crumbled to dust. The owners of the strange ships never returned. We, the trees, puzzled for many centuries over why the others destroyed them. More changes occurred, uprooting some of our ancient brothers. The hill was pushed even higher and for a time the river that flowed through the valley did not flow. Other changes came and the stream flowed once again. During its absence we had learned to survive with little water by conserving moisture and not producing fruit. A small ship came. It landed. Beings came from it and explored the valley. They climbed about in the hills. One rested under the trees. They were of a type that resembled Felines. They climbed about in the branches of the trees, searching for nests of the flying creatures. The flying creatures didn’t nest in the branches but in caves on the far side of the valley. The small ship went away. A number of years latter a huge ship arrived. One so huge it had to stay above the world and let smaller ships bring the Feline beings down to our valley. They fished in the wide river, dammed it so it filled the upper reaches of the valley and used its water to produce power. They raised their food beasts on the pastures of the hills while growing other foods in the valley. For many generations they lived peaceful in the valley. The world shook itself once more. The trees were thrown about. Some of the ancient ones were thrown down upon the ground. The dam at the head of the valley split open and spilled the water down the valley, carrying away the houses and the Feline people. None survived. No ships came for many turns of the world around it’s sun. The Humans came. They ran about the world like mad beings, exploring every corner. Mining minerals, growing crops. They cleared away large tracts of native forests and planted new trees. Our grove escaped because it was on the crest of the hill. Humans enriched the soil with the bodies of our dead brothers. They were ground up and turned into the soil of the valley to make it grow the grains the humans so desired. Young humans visited the grove and mated beneath our boughs. Their children and grand children came to live beneath the trees. They built homes to the very edge of our grove to escape the summer heat of the valley. They used water from the river to irrigate the crops they grew. This provided abundant water for our roots which spread far and wide. Some even reached the river. A being the humans called the Borom came. They destroyed the humans and for a time occupied the valley. They built huge forts in the foothills but never came near the grove of trees. Another being called the Creuon came and destroyed the Borom. They didn’t build buildings. They camped in the valley for a time, repairing their ships then moved on to other worlds. The Trees became things of legend among the beings who populated our world from time to time. Those who slept beneath the trees dreamed of all that has come to pass. It was said the trees whispered to them as they slept. The legend came from the first beings that occupied our world. No intelligent being’s handiwork is ever completely erased. There are always signs left. Pictures carved in cliff’s and love poems carved in rocks. And so it was with all the beings that came to live on our world. The humans found these remains and through many years of study, learned slowly and painfully to translate them. The legend of the Tree grew. Many came to sleep and propagate under our boughs. Our grove was sacred to the humans. The same was not so of those who felled some of our brothers for timber to build cabins on the slopes of our hill. An organ was discovered in the tree that resembled a brain. It lay where the tall smooth trunk forked and the limbs spread out. A hollow twice the size of a human’s head contained a spongy substance that could be said to absorb water in the wet seasons. But did it absorb more. There were those that said yes. Tendrils led from this organ to all parts of the tree. Did this organ perhaps direct growth, control storage of food, direct the roots to sources of mineral and water needed for growth and survival? No one could prove it did without destroying a tree. Among humans the trees were scarred. The one grove was all that could be found on the planet. This made it special. For many years rain did not fall in the valley. All over the world there was a terrible drought. The crops the humans depended on refused to grow. Their animals died of thirst. The river in the valley dried up. The world got closer and closer to its sun causing the temperature to rise. The trees could have told the humans this was a natural occurrence and was about to reverse itself but the human didn’t ask. They didn’t know how to ask. They packed up their belongings and huge ships came and carried them away. For many centuries our world remained empty of intelligent beings. The plants and animals that had always roamed the world went about their ways. They knew where to find water in time of drought and where to take shelter in time of cold. The world of the trees lived on a twenty thousand year cycle. Once every twenty thousand years it had a wobble in its orbit around its sun. It would move in close to the star then move out away, past its normal orbit. Every twenty thousand years there was a hundred year time of heat and a hundred year time of cold. Then the world settled back to its normal orbit and the climate was warm year round. Most of the beings who had come to the world had done so in the time of pleasant weather. Their civilizations had lived and died without ever experiencing the bad times. A ship came. It had been ten thousand years since the humans left. The ship contained three humans. They explored, took samples and analyzed them. They camped in the valley where they had fresh water from the river. It this time in the world’s cycle there were sometimes storms. While the humans camped in the valley a huge storm came, destroying their ship and killing two of the humans. The third was carried far from the valley and deposited among the trees. The trees had been uprooted and broken by the storm. Usually the storms followed the valley but this storm was far to large to be contained by the valley. It spawned thousands of tornadoes which destroyed the land for many miles either side of the river. The trees would not survive this storm. They were all broken, twisted from the soil by their roots. Their branches stripped away. The most ancient of the trees lay on the ground, its trunk shattered. The organ the humans had so puzzled over eons ago was exposed. The rain filled the cavity and it floated in the water. The tree knew that once the water was gone it would die. Wait! What is this? Something new has been added. The human lie across the trunk of the tree. Blood from his wounds flowed into the hollow of the tree. The organ soaked it up. It must preserve life. Its life. Any life. The organ made a seed. One lone branch clung to the trunk. The organ put all its energy into that branch and at its tip produced one seed. This seed fell to the ground and was lost in the soil where the uprooted trees had once stood. For many years nothing happened. The ship the humans came in decayed and was turned to the soil. High on the hill overlooking the valley a small sprout appeared. It struggled against dry seasons and gasped for breath in wet seasons for it stood in a depression left by the trees that once stood there. Years passed. The sprout became a sapling, growing tall enough to put its leaves above the weeds the overran the hilltop. The young sapling became a small tree in time. It began to spread its branches to the sun. “How did I get here?” The tree asked. “This can’t be! I’m a man! I can’t stand here on this hill with my feet buried in the dirt! I must go to the valley and find my ship and my companions.” “Your companions have long since turned to dust.” The tree whispered. “I must go to them.” The man part of the tree shouted. “You are me. I am you. We shall stand here on the crest of this hill for eternity and watch over our valley. We shall watch beings come and go. We shall stand while they mate under our boughs. So it has always been and so it shall always be.” The tree whispered. Try as he may, the man part of the tree could not move. After many centuries he settled down to be a tree. In time they merged and became one. Humans came. They hastily built buildings and erected strange weapons. Weapons that pointed to the sky. Ships came and went for many years. The bases grew into cities. Cities that grew food and supplied the ships that came. Some ships brought more humans and other strange beings. Beings that were so huge they shook the earth when they walked and beings that flew through the air. The flying ones stopped and talked with the tree. The tree told them how long it had stood on the hill and all that had come and gone before. The flying ones listened and gave sympathy. They too were very old and their nest on the world they called Home had endured for eons. They had explored the galaxy far and wide long before the humans came to their world. “Why do you make war with them then?” The tree asked. “We call them friend. One among them is ancient. It is he who we call brother. If a brother of the hive goes to war then the hive goes to war. These we seek to destroy, destroy all in their path. They would consume you and all of your world.” “Then we to shall call this one brother.” The tree stated. The war never came to the world of the tree. Many thousands of the beings from the huge ships that sent smaller ships down to the surface came and went for many years but no war came. The world became a haven for the humans and their two species of friends. The tree came to know them well. It didn’t speak to them for only the one species could hear and converse with it. The ancient one the tree had spoke with warned it against speaking with strangers. They would carry it away to find how it could communicate. Only one time in all the many centuries the world was occupied but the humans of the last coming did the tree ever break its silence. A human, after swearing his undying love to a female mated with her then took out a sharp knife and started to carve their names in the trunk of the tree. “Ouch! That hurts!” The tree shouted. “Who said that?” The human shouted. “I!” Answered the tree. “But you’re a tree!” The humans ran away in fear, not daring tell anyone of the experience. They feared they would be thought mad or just young and foolish. Time passed and the humans and their friends moved on. The buildings fell down and became a part of the valley. I stand here still. Waiting. For what I don’t know. My roots drink from the river. They take minerals from the soil. My leaves take energy from the sun. The sun. It grows huge and red. Has it been that long? Are we moving closer to the sun again? I must store large quantities of water in my trunk and in my roots before the long dry spells come. This time it was different. The world spiraled down and down. Ever closer. Its surface was parched. The tree was the last to die before the world spiraled into its sun. END |
© Copyright 22 Aug. 2000 BY Melvin C. Duncan. All Rights Reserved Special Edition for Electric Book Worm Publishing OUT OF THE BLUE. Roland Slade was twelve years old. His parents operated a small dairy farm outside Gary Indiana. Roland's job was to round up the cows at milking time. On this particular hot July afternoon Roland had been waiting under an apple tree in the pasture for his father and two sisters to get ready to milk the cows. All of a sudden the sky got very dark and there was a loud buzzing noise like a million bees were flying over. He could see no bees. Suddenly, a door opened right in front of him. A door where only a moment ago there had been only thin air. "How would you like to go for a ride?" The young man asked. "I - I Don't know. I have to get the cows in in a few minutes. Maybe after." He was very frightened. He didn't know what to think. What should he do? The young man was pleasant enough. "Roland!" His sister shouted from the barn. "Bring em in!" Roland started the cows moving toward the barn. To his surprise, the young man helped him. In no time the cows were all in the barn and in their milk stalls. His sisters looked at the stranger and whispered among themselves. They were at that age where every male was a prospective husband. "Now that the cows are in, how about that ride?" The young man asked. "OK, I guess it'll be all right. My chores are done. Can't see any reason for pop to get mad. The young man walked leisurely back to the apple tree. Roland followed. It was odd, one couldn't see the door from the barn, only from the apple tree. Roland held his breath as they entered. It was cool inside. He liked that. The door concealed an elevator. It whisked them away to a space far above the apple tree. Roland could look down and see the farm, the pasture, the apple tree and the freshly milked cows ambling back out to the pasture. A door opened, revealing a passage. They walked along it for some distance. Roland was getting worried. He couldn't see the farm any more. They passed other people in the passage. They smiled and nodded to him. "Where are we?" Roland asked. "This is a Space Ship. It travels between the stars. We are going to give you the information to build one. Do you think you can remember it?" The young man informed him as they approached another door. "Gee! I don't know. Will there be a lot to remember?" Roland asked. "Oh yes, quite a lot. We can help though. We will put the information in your mind and it will be ready when you get old enough to use it," The young man explained. "Will it take long? If I'm gone to long my folks will miss me. My sisters would never know I was gone If I were gone a week. So long as the cows come in they don't care where I go." Roland said sadly. "It will take quite some time but we can fix that." Another Roland passed him, nodded politely and went to the elevator and went down to the apple tree. Roland didn't know what to think about that. "Who's he?" Roland asked. "Oh, he's a double. He will only last a day or so then he will dissolve into nothing. By the time that happens we'll be all finished." The man explained. "Will it hurt?" Roland asked. "No, you'll go to sleep. When you wake all the information will be there. The first ships will be small, only large enough for a dozen people. Later, you will design much larger ships. Ships large enough to travel between the distant stars." The man smiled. Roland went through the door he held open. It was a huge room. Everything was white and looked very clean. "This is a sterile environment. You understand sterile don't you?" The man asked. "Oh yes. We have to be very sterile with the milk or the bacteria count gets to high and they don't want it for drinking. It has to go to the cheese plant if it has to many bacteria in it." Roland was undressed and washed. He had never been so clean. The solution cleaned every pore of his skin. He was so clean he squeaked. Then several other people came into the room and placed him on a table. It was soft and warm. A helmet trailing a huge cable of wires was placed on his head and he went to sleep. Episode One... EPISODE TWO. Roland woke to the sound of cows grazing near by. The flies were buzzing around his head. He swatted at them. What had woke him. Perhaps it was the persistent yelling from the barn. “Roland! Roland!” His eldest sister yelled. She had pushed the huge doors open and was waiting impatiently with hands on hips. Roland couldn’t figure out what she was waiting for. He had only been sitting under the tree for a few minutes. He looked around. The cows were all around him, their udders swelled with milk. The sun was low in the West. “I have spent the whole day dreaming under this tree!” He said to himself and the cows that wandered around. A big brown heifer looked at him and snorted. Roland hurriedly rounded up the cows and headed them toward the barn. They ambled along, their full udders swinging to and fro as they walked. Roland helped his sisters with the milking, all the time, wondering how he could have sit under that tree all day. He was still wondering when he went to sleep that night. The next morning, out of the blue, Roland tells his father, Randolph, He wants to take flying lessons. Randolph Slade was a big man of Swedish ancestry. He was patient and never seemed to get in a hurry. He studied on his son’s revelation for a while. “If the Money’s there Roland. If the money’s there,” he answered. The cows were all waiting outside the big door to the milking shed that morning. Everything went smooth. The truck showed up to haul the milk away. Roland asked the driver if there was any place a guy could take flying lessons. “Well now, let me see, seems I saw a sign at the County airport saying something about flying lessons. Have you looked in the county paper?” He asked as he put away the pump hose that was used to suck the milk from the refrigerated tank. “Hadn’t thought of that. Only got the idea this morning.” Roland confessed, kicking at the dirt with the toe of his boot. “Guess maybe I best look.” He rushed off to the house to hunt up the County paper. Sure enough, right there in the business section was an add for flying lessons. Roland was so excited he could hardly contain himself. Then his Father’s words came back to him. “If the money’s there.” It was mid afternoon before Roland managed to catch a ride to the airport. A twelve year old boy don’t get a drivers license no matter how many farm trucks and tractors he drives around the farm. Driver’s ed. in school was slow and painful but it did get one a license. Roland was working on that. The planes were beautiful, all lined up in a row beside the runway. The airport was small, only one small air strip with some hangers and a terminal at one end. They flew some passengers into the city from the strip but that was about all. Most of the planes were owned by farmers who rarely got time to fly them. Roland walked into the terminal building. An ancient man who looked like he would be doing good if he got out of his chair, sat in one corner. There was a sign over his chair that said, Flying Lessons. Roland approached with caution. “Did J want to learn to fly kid?” The elderly man asked. He was tall, maybe six feet four inches standing, which he rarely did, with stringy white hair and a three day growth of beard. “Yes sir.” Roland had been taught to always be polite to his elders and he didn’t figure one could get much elder than this. “If it don’t cost to much. Pop says if the money’s there.” “Must be the kid of that Swede over at Thompson’s corners. Name’s Slade if I recollect.” He smiled, showing a perfect set of teeth. Roland wondered if they were his or just mighty good false teeth. “Yes sir. That’s me. I’m Roland Slade.” “Well now, guess we could think on the money part a bit. Kind of let you work off some of it and maybe pay the rest off in installments if it’s going to be much of a problem. I say if a kid wants to fly do all you can to help him.” He slowly unwound himself from the chair and stood up. “Come on and let’s go for a ride and let you get the feel of it.” He |
| OUT OF THE BLUE CONTINUED | OUT OF THE BLUE PART THREE |
| He ambled off down the flight line to an old Cessna that looked like it had seen better days. He walked around it, pointing out all the things Roland should check each time before getting in the plane. Next he opened the door and let Roland sit in the Left seat. They went through a cockpit check list and finally started the old bird. She fired right up. Roland was genuinely surprised. “Now son, these thing will practically fly themselves if you let them. If you fight the controls they get real nasty. Now, crank the Trim Tab full up.” He pointed to a crank over his head. Roland obliged. “All right. Now we’re cooking. Give her a little gas and lets taxi to the end of the runway. We’ll be using the west end since there is no wind today. Always use the West end if there’s no wind.” Roland taxied the plane to the end of the runway and finished the pre-flight checks and they took off. He had never had such a thrill in his life. The flight was the most wonderful thing he had ever experienced. “What’s your name. I cant just keep calling you sir.” Roland asked. “Marvin Cates. Marvin’ll do. All this mister and sir stuff just gets in the way. Call me Marvin and I’ll call you Roland.” He smiled down at Roland from what seem to Roland to be a lofty height. Roland returned home just in time to get the cows in. “Where you been?” His sisters all asked. Cate and Bess were his sisters. Cate was seventeen and Bess was nineteen. She would be a junior in college this fall. Cate had just graduated from high school and would start her freshman year. “I’m goina make sure my kids all get to college,” Randolph always said. “What if there’s one don’t want to go.” Lucy, his wife, would answer. “They got to have the chance Lucy.” He would reply. Lucy was a little woman. Barely five feet tall, she may have weight a hundred pounds soaking wet. She ordered that big Swede around like he was one of her kids. He simply said “Yes dear,” and took his orders same as the kids did. Roland got his flight school. Marvin sat in the corner of the terminal building and taught him ground school with a small chalk board and a model plane to demonstrate. Roland learned fast and was soon flying solo. Marvin let him use the old Cessna to build hours for his private ticket. By the time he was fifteen, Roland had the required Forty hours and the FAA man came around and gave him a check ride. He took the written test and passed it with flying colors. There was something funny about the whole deal. Marvin never charged Roland for anything but Fuel and Oil. Roland started his senior year of high school with a brand new drivers license and a pilot’s license to go with it. He was the only pilot in the senior class. All through his senior year he used the Cessna to build hours and for instrument training. He spent a lot of time at home in his room drawing blueprints. Randolph looked at them and puzzled over them but could make head nor tail of them. “Roland, what is this thing?” Randolph asked. “It’s a space drive pop. Got the idea while I was in physics class. I think it’ll work. The theory is sound but it’ll cost a bundle to build one. I know we don’t have the money so I’m just kicking it around. In the year 2020 if a kid was kicking around a space drive the Government got real curious. Most kids were busy playing the latest Video game. Roland wasn’t much for games. He spent his time flying and planning. END EPISODE TWO. EPISODE THREE Roland landed his FA25A at Edward’s and taxied to the Experimental hanger. A woman dressed in civilian clothing was waiting for him. “Roland Slade?” she asked. “Yes. What can I do for you?” Not being a stranger to females, he let his eye drift over her form. She was about five feet four inches tall. Very good looking. Her raven black hair was cropped close. She was as trim as one could be without being considered skinny. She had a round face with a little mustache that just barely showed. “I’m Lou Green. From NASA. We understand you have some blueprints we may be interested in.” She snapped her green eyes at him. He almost had a heart attack. Those eyes were something else. “Well yes, I do have something I’ve been kicking around. Wasn’t ready to show it to anyone yet.” He eyeballed the briefcase she kept fondling like it was a favorite toy. “Mind if I have a look? won’t hurt and who knows, may lead to something.” She smiled, showing a row of even white teeth. She wore very little makeup. Just a hint of lip stick and a little eyebrow pencil. This surprised him. In this day and time a guy didn’t know what he had until he scraped off an inch of paint and foundation. “If you don’t mind a trip to the civilian test pilot’s quarters. Don’t know why they call it that. I’m the only one. The rest of the residents are Air force types.” He started stripping off his flight gear while she stood by watching. “Don’t mind me. I was raised with five brothers.” She sat down on a bench and waited while he stripped to his skivvies and dressed in Jeans and T-shirt. “Have two sisters myself. Both older than me. Every time I got a little shy around them they’d remind me they used to change my diapers.” He smiled and climbed into the old pick-up truck, reaching across and opening the passenger door for her. She climbed in and they were off for the five mile drive to his quarters. “My brothers were all younger than me. Most of them drove me nuts trying to get a peek at me naked. I finally just rounded them all up and stripped off for them. Told them girls weren’t that much different than boys. Once their curiosity was satisfied they stopped trying to spy on me.” She laughed. “Brings back some memories. Married?” She asked. “Never got round to that. Been to busy testing new gadgets for Uncle Sam. Me and the ladies never did get along to well. Guess it’s because I was raised with two sisters.” He looked at her again. He didn’t know if it was the smart business suit or the angle but she was pretty. “Me neither. Never met anyone I was interested in. All those brothers maybe. Maybe I just haven’t been looking.” She looked at him with those big green eyes like she was evaluating him. Roland had grown into quite a strapping young lad. He stood six feet one inches tall, weighed an even two hundred pounds and was in pretty good shape. Lou decided he was quite handsome. She wondered why she had told him about stripping for her brothers. She seemed to be able to talk to him. Something she had never been any good at was talking to strangers. Business was business but idle conversation left her at a loss. “Here we are. Not much, but I call it home. Sure is a change from the farm where I grew up. My parents ran a diary farm.” He wondered why he had told her that. They entered the building. The air conditioning felt good after the wait in the hanger and the ride in the old pick-up. Roland took the lead and escorted her down a long hall to a room at the very end. “I like it way down here. It’s quiet. Lot of Air force types up front. They get a little loud at times.” He reached up on top of a wardrobe and took down a bundle of papers. “This is pretty much it. I’ll have to explain a lot of it to you but the idea seems sound.” He unrolled the blueprints on a table in the center of the room. She could see that a lot of work had been done at the table. It was a little worse for ware. “Let me have a look. Maybe I can make out some of it.” She pulled up a chair and sat down, unrolled the blueprints and weighted the corners down with her briefcase and purse. She studied the blueprints for an hour. Not a word was said. Roland patiently waited for her to start asking questions but none were asked. “Anything I can help you with. Maybe a cup of coffee?” He finally asked. “Sure, why not. This heat exchanger, all your idea or did you get it from someplace else?” She accepted the cup of coffee, looking up from the pages of blueprints and smiled at him. “Guess I’ve been alone to long.” Roland thought as she went back to the plans. Afternoon became evening. Roland brought in sandwiches and drinks. They were consumed with light conversation and the study of the blueprints continued. Finally, she pushed the papers back and stretched, yawned and asked, “Any of that coffee left.” Roland poured her another cup and sat down opposite her at the table. The only other seat in the room was his bunk. She got up and paced the room, stretched the kinks out of her back and smiled at him again. “I believe it’ll work. It looks well thought out. Where did you get the idea?” She asked. “Don’t know really. It just seemed logical that things should work a certain way and that certain things should make them work. I never really gave much thought to where the idea came from. Been kind of messing with it since I was in high school. Physics classes got me started. After that one thing kind of led to another.” He blushed. He had no idea why but all of a sudden he was embarrassed. “Have you filed for patents on this stuff?” She suddenly felt she needed to protect his interest. “Yes. Got one too. They didn’t argue about it or demand a bunch of research fees. I presented the idea and they granted it.” He hadn’t thought about it before but now that he did it seemed a little strange. The patent office usually wanted a search to see if there were similar ideas already patented. “I can tell you for sure, NASA will be interested. Don’t suppose there’s any way you could get backing to produce a working model?” She kept looking him over like he was being judged for something. “Been kind of tinkering around in my spare time. Got an old Business jet rigged out with a unit. Problem is getting the steering down right. Darn thing keeps sliding all over the place.” “If you’ll allow me to take a copy of these back to NASA I think I can guarantee you all the backing you’ll need to develop it.” She stood quite close to him. She smelled fresh. For some reason she made him |
PART THREE She smelled fresh. For some reason she made him think of a freshly sterilized milk tank. “Odd,” He thought. “What have I got to lose. Go ahead and take that set. I have another around here some place.” For some reason he felt he could trust her. “I’ll let you know in a few days.” She bundled up the blueprints and put them in her briefcase and walked to the front of the building and paused. It was almost as if she expected him to kiss her good bye. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you.” He took her hand and held it for a moment. It was so small. Like holding a Humming bird. But much warmer. She signaled for a taxi. “Guess I best give you my phone number. After all, I’m walking off with some pretty important papers.” She opened her purse and took out a card. It read, Lou Green NASA and gave a Florida address and phone number. “My cell phone is on the back,” She added. “Here’s mine. He took out a wallet, searched around a while and produced a card that simply said Roland Slade Test Pilot. There was a fixed and mobile phone number on it. “The address changes to often so kind of gave up on putting it on there.” The taxi pulled away. She waved from the rear window. END Episode Three. EPISODE FOUR Roland packed up and moved to Cape Canaveral Florida. The NASA director of new projects was waiting when he taxied his old beat up Bellanca to the parking area. "Roland Slade?" He asked. "Yes, that's me." Roland looked around as if he had lost something. "Were you expecting someone else?" The man asked. "I'm John Greer, Head of new projects. We've been waiting for you. Have a place all set up for you to start work." "Well, yes, Was expecting a Ms. Lou Green. She's the one who contacted me." He continued to look around. There was nothing but a few private planes and a huge stretch of concrete. Off in the distance he could see the shuttle launch pads and a lot of hangers. Hangers in every size. "Oh, She's busy chasing down another lead. Something to do with Inter-stellar navigation. Not to clear on the details." He smiled broadly. "We have you all set up in hanger twelve. If you'd care to taxi your plane over there," He pointed across the field to a small building with a fresh coat of white paint. "I'll be glad to fill you in on our schedules and explain the day to day routine of the base to you." Roland taxied the Bellanca across to the hanger and eased it inside. It was dark and cool in the hanger. After Edwards he thought Florida would be a relief form the heat but it was just as hot and even more humid. Mr. Greer gave him a quick rundown on the base transportation system, mess hall and sleeping quarters, pointing out the various buildings on a map then left him to settle in. Roland unpacked his gear, set up a work bench and started to work on his space drive. Seven days passed. Seven very lonely days. Roland had pretty well settled in and had his demonstration model almost complete. It would be large enough to power a small unit for flight test purposes. About five PM Roland looked up form his work bench to see a woman leaning against the entrance. "Lou!" He exclaimed. "Been wondering what happened to you. Figured you'd meet me when I arrived." He wiped his hands on his coveralls and advanced on her. She stood smiling as he approached. "Been busy had to go to Wisconsin to see a man about some navigation gear he was working on." She smiles as She walked to meet him. She was wearing denim shorts and a white midriff blouse. Roland didn't think he had ever seen such a vision of beauty. When they met in the middle of the hanger, he looked deep into those green eyes. "I see you've been busy," she said, looking at the work bench. "Yes. It's almost ready to go. They can install it in a lifting body and start their tests any day now." She leaned forward. He kissed her. It was like grabbing a live wire. The shock ran from the top of her head to the tip of her toes. "Gosh!" She gasped when their lips parted. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have," he stammered, not knowing what to do. "But that's what I wanted. That's what I've been wanting since the first time we met." She blushed and leaned against his chest to receive another kiss. "Oh Lordie! We've got to do something about this," she exclaimed as their lips parted for the second time. "Guess we could get married," Roland suggested. "So soon! We've only met." Her eyes darted from one of his eyes to the other. Her heart pounded. "All right," she said in a whisper. "Sooner the better." Roland and Lou were wed that evening in the base Chapel. Nine months to the day Lou delivered a healthy baby girl. They named her Mary Jane. When Mary Jane was two, Roland's first ship was christened. You guessed it, She was called the Mary Jane. END. |
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