Chapter Six

You Can Send Him With Owl

       According to Crys’ guidance program, which used the information from Charlie’s notes, they were going to have to make about twenty different jumps to get in the same neighborhood as the rogue planet. At each stop, it would be from an hour to a day's delay, depending on the accuracy of the star charts of Charlie’s – and the reliability of the transferring of information. Reading Charlie’s sometimes scrawling handwriting left a lot open to interpretation. Jeeves was set up to take readings, and then compare what it found to the information that Crys had entered from the notebooks. There would be a lot of trial and error, but once they had made a trip, Jeeves would have the solid information stored and ready to recall at the touch of a key.

       They had made three jumps so far and were already running into trouble. On the third jump, Jeeves didn’t recognize anything. They were letting it take measurements from the core of he galaxy in hopes that something recognizable would become apparent. “Son-of-a-bitchin’ rat bastard!” Crys spat. “Not Charlie!” she quickly said turning to Al. “It’s just these damn numbers. I can’t tell if that’s a 4.6 magnitude or a 4.8. And this number here. Is it MG16347 or, well, I just don’t know.”

       Al was kicked back in the control chair, watching the video screens. “So we’re somewhere on the other side of the galaxy, and we’re lost in space? Should Jeeves be saying ‘Warning, Will Robinson’? You know, I always thought that was a bit too hokey, them just coincidently being named ‘Robinson’. You know what I mean, Harry?”

       “And you thought all the rest was ok, huh?” Harry snickered.

       “What are you two talking about? Who is Will Robinson?” Crys asked, irritated about the noise of the conversation.

       They both looked aghast. “You mean you don’t…” Al began.

       “You poor, deprived …” Harry sputtered out.

       “I’ll show you depraved, Hairy One,” Crys said as she showed him her aching digit. She was grinning by then. “Lost in Space. Nineteen sixty-five to nineteen sixty-eight. Eighty-three episodes. Original working title: ‘Space Family Robinson.’ The first color episode was shown September fourteenth, nineteen sixty-eight.” She turned back to the notebooks and her charts and diagrams. “A girl needs a little fun, and you boys aren’t exactly showing me a good time.”

       “Junior, I think we’ve been had.”

       “Women. You can’t live with ‘em, you can’t live with ‘em,” Al confided.

       Hairy sat up in his chair, “Where’s Woof? I haven’t seen him in several hours.”

       Crys looked up again. “Hope you haven’t lost him, Boss.”

       “How could I possibly lose a cat in a sealed space ship? He can’t be far. I just hope he didn’t get ahold of some space mouse and get his butt kicked. He’d never live it down.” He stood up and stretched. “I’m going to go see if I can find him.”

       Harry headed to the lift and went down to the cargo hold. Woof sometimes liked to prowl around down there, but Harry had no idea why. Maybe he’s been reduced to catching roaches. Harry sighed. Some things you just can’t get away from. He had seen one of the buggers in the gym scurrying along the wall. He tried to smoosh it, but it was too fast for him, and it made it to the safety of the treadmill base. “Hey, Woof! You down here?” Woof always came running when he heard his name. He was such a pig for a good skritch. He slapped the door-open button and stuck his head into the doorway when it swooshed open. Woof had his own special electric eyes on most doors on the ship – even the bathrooms. Where else could a self-respecting cat get a drink? And being the typical male, he always left the seat up.

       No Woof. Harry checked the living quarters, galley, gym, and the library. Still no Woof. The Power room had no cat’s eyes, but Harry checked anyway. The Mainframe room had none either. It was on the side of the ship opposite the Power room for security reasons. Not people security, but leaky power emissions.

       “Hey, Woof, you in here?” Harry queried of the room.

       “R-ralph,” came the answer.

       Harry went in and said, “Woof! Where the hell are you?” He looked around the big cabinets but didn’t see him.

       “M-mowie,” Woof answered.

       Harry squatted down and began looking around the bases of the units. Sure enough, one of the access panels was off and just leaning against the opening. “Goddamn it!” Harry swore. “I just wonder who left this off. Jesus H. Handbasket!”

       “Rwow wow,” Woof cried. “R-roow!”

       “I repeat, ‘where the hell are you,’ you pesky, lap stealing nuisance.” Harry lay down on the floor and stuck his head in the opening. “Oh, crap.”

       Woof was a tangled mess of wires and flat ribbon connectors. He was obviously trapped, but he also was cleaning himself, eyes half closed as he licked.

       Harry backed out and then slid one arm and shoulder in before he returned his head through the small opening. He reached in and tried grasping Woof around the middle with his hand, but Woof was having none of that. So he tried to get him by the scruff, but then he became concerned that he might yank some wires out, so he left the cat where it was. “I’ll be back,” he told the trouble maker.

       “Who left the access hatch off of the God Damned server?” Harry nearly yelled as he entered the control room. Al and Crys were playing chess.

       “Oh, shit,” Crys said. “That would be me. Is Woof …?”

       “Yeah, Woof is! I can’t get him out without yanking wires, and I didn’t think Jeeves would feel too good about that if I did.” Harry was steaming.

       Crys stood up, “Look, Hairy One, I …”

       “And you can quit calling me ‘Hairy One’ too! I’m no more hairy than either of you. And what the hell are you smiling about, Junior? You can’t even grow a beard.” Harry was about to lose it, and the other two could see it.

       “Okay, okay, Harry. Clam down. We’ll take care of it,” Al said,

       “You bet your sweet ass you will,” he said and stomped out.

       “Great. Our first hassle. Why did you tell him you did it? You know it was me,” Al asked.

       “He’s your friend, and I could give a good damn.” She said and headed out.

       Al hurried to follow. “Don’t tell me you like the guy! I mean, like like?”

       “Don’t be ridiculous, Tiger. You know that I have the hots for you.”

       “Yeah, right.”

       Crys was able to schooch her whole torso into the access opening. “Come here, you flea bitten pest. No, hold on, Woof. On second thought," she said, “Al, would you go up to the control room and shut Jeeves down? Make sure you shut it down properly. I don’t want to lose any of what it’s already calculated.”

       “Jeez, Crys, I know how to shut a computer down. Here,” he said, pushing a small two way radio in through the access hole. He brushed her breast by accident and didn’t even know that he had.

       “Watch it, Boy. You don’t touch unless I say you can touch, unless you want to gain some brand new broken knuckles.”

       “What? What are you talking about?”

       She slid out and looked hard at him. Satisfied he really didn’t know what she was talking about, she said, “Never mind. Just go shut it down.” She slid back into the hole. “Take it easy, Woof. We’ll get you out of there. Just don’t slosh around.” She chucked him under the chin and began rubbing his ears. That was a sure way of making sure that he didn’t go any where.

       Al headed for the control room, more confused than ever. He muttered to himself all the way into the room. Harry was waiting for him there. “You going to yell at me some more? You know it was me that left that cover off and the door open.”

       Harry nodded. “Yeah, I remember you being the last one with computer work in the mainframe room. Look, Kid,” Harry began.

       “Don’t worry about it, ‘Hairy One.’ Were all itching to get going, and all we can do is twiddle our diddles. Or diddle our twiddles, if you know what I mean.” Al grinned his irresistibly disarming grin.

       Harry grinned back.

       “I gotta shut Jeeves down so Miss Tight Jeans can get Woof untangled,” Al joked.

       “Need any moral support?” Morale support is more like it, Harry thought. I’m supposed to be leading this crew of Gummy Bears, and here I am gumming things up myself. I need to stay on my toes if were gonna make it. Harry was really good at self analyzing. He did it too often.

       “Naw, I got it.” Al went to the terminal and reached for the mouse. “Uh oh,” he said.

       “Uh oh?” Harry asked. “Uh oh? I don’t want to hear ‘uh oh.’” He leaned forward to see what was ‘uh oh.’ The monitor was blank and the lights were out on the keyboard.

       “I hope it was done with that cycle,” Al said.

       “’Stuck in Lodi again,’” Harry quoted.

       Al pulled the miniature walkie talkie out and pressed the button, “We’ve got trouble here, Hot Stuff.”

       “Yeah, I know,” came the answer. “Woof decided he was hungry and that a few measly wires weren’t going to keep him from his Crunchies.” Al heard her grunting as she stretched and reached for some wiring harness. “I’m almost done here. The worst that might have happened is Jeeves might have lost a cycle.” She grunted again.

       Harry and Al looked at each other and chuckled. What a woman. Harry took the radio from Al. “Why don’t you make noises like that more often?” he asked.

       “Is that you Hairy O – Harry? Are we forgiven?”

       “Yeah. I want to apologize. Junior wouldn’t let me, but I know that you would let me crawl and beg if you could get me to somehow.”

       “Somehow? Give me half a chance, and I’ll have you begging to beg.”

       “You’re all talk, Sweetie Pie.”

       “Uh huh.”

       Suddenly the monitor lit up, and the boot sequence began. “It’s coming up,” Harry said. Come on back up, and we’ll see how much we lost.”

       “I’m coming. Well, I’m breathing hard, anyway.” Crys was such a kidder … wasn’t she?

       They got lucky. Jeeves had completed the cycle it was working on and was just starting another. Four minutes after it started the interrupted cycle it said, “Analysis complete.”

       Al said, “Thank God.”

       “It’s about time, Jeeves” Harry quipped. “Let’s get this saucer under sail.”

       “R-ralph,” Woof chimed in as he entered the control room, looking for all the world as if they should be glad to see him. He tried to jump into Harry’s lap, but Harry was still a little miffed, so he blocked Woof’s attempt.

       “R-rai?” he asked.

       “Come over here, Boo Boo. Mommy has a nice lap just for you.”

       Woof ran over a leaped onto her, inviting any sort of skritch she was willing to give.

       “And we’re off to see the Wizard,” Al said.

       At the ninth jump, there was another delay. This one was voluntary, though. This solar system had thirty-five planets in it – eight in the so called ‘life zone.’ Of the eight, five had atmospheres and three had atmospheres made up mostly of nitrogen with healthy amounts of oxygen and other non-lethal gasses.

       “A treasure trove of life, I’ll bet!” Al said in wonder, looking at one planet live through the video, and looking at the stats of the other four on the monitor.

       “Yup. X marks the spot. The planet in front of us has an ocean covering approximately sixty percent of the surface. It also has a moon, but it’s currently on the other side,” Crys reported.

       Harry remarked dreamily, “And just look at those clouds.”

       “Anyone up for a dip,” Al asked.

       The other two looked at him questioningly.

       “Yeah, I know, but we don’t know that he’s in any trouble, and I think he would really be pissed if he found out that we found a system like this and didn’t at least take a look.” Al was still staring into the largest of the four video screens.

       “Let’s do it,” Harry ordered. “But let’s check for radio signals on all bands first. I don’t want to freak out a population that’s never seen a flying saucer or aliens with pink skin before. Crys, will you run the scan please?”

       “Yes, Sir.” They had all agreed that when it came time for protocol, formality was not wasted. They all realized the value of command and knew that their lives could depend on following orders, so when ‘on duty,’ they would follow a formal protocol.

       Crys began the standard scanning program that would first look for common VHF and UHF signals, which included Am and FM, and television. Next it would look for short wave, microwave and so on.

       Within a few seconds, they heard crackling, and then noises that just might be voices. Or maybe even music. Crys worked at the keyboard trying to filter out the static and bring in clearer reception. Suddenly, the entire room was filled with a mystical, eerie sound. It sounded a little like monks chanting through Theremins, and being answered by God playing an oboe. It was flowing and beautiful and haunting. Crys was crying by the time it flowed to silence. Then they heard what sounded like pops and clicks with perhaps someone sawing on a bass fiddle with a hacksaw. Al slapped the volume down. “How can music like that be made by beings who speak like that?” he remarked, mainly to himself.

       The hacksaw had broken the spell that the music had cast. Harry shook his head, as if to wake himself from a dream. His eyes were red too. “Well,” he whispered, “See if you can find an unpopulated area to set down. Even if it’s just for a few minutes. Crys, you know the telescope best. How about it?”

       “Yes, Sir,” she said, unashamedly wiping the tears from her face. She got up and went to the observation controls on the wall opposite the flight controls. She opened the telescope shielding under the saucer, and engaged the scope. Then she transferred visuals to the four main screens. “Let’s have a look,” she said as she came back and sat in her chair. She took a joy stick from a hook on the consol and started scanning the surface below.

       “Hold it there,” Harry said. They were looking at a deserted beach on a most unusual shore. He looked at his two companions, shrugged and said, “Take her down.”

       “Aye aye, Captain!” Al gave a twist and a shove and they were hovering over one of the most beautiful beaches any of them had ever seen.

       It had sand, frothy capped waves, and long grassy vegetation growing in patches all along the coast. And the sand. The sand looked like a patchwork quilt of stained glass windows, beckoning the waves to come on ashore. There were different sized patches of deep blue, red, green and every shade in between. It looked like it was a very fine grained sand. Al asked, “What’s keeping the colors separate?”

       “Can we get out and check it out, Captain?” Crys asked anxiously. She was in love with it already. Such beauty.

       “Let’s watch a few more minutes. I’m wondering why the beach is deserted,” Harry answered. They were hovering about two feet off the ground, and about ten yards from the sand. “Open the outside microphone.” They were able to pick up radio, light and sound through what Charlie called Inertia Pulsing. The inertia drive would cut on and off several thousand times a second, letting the signals in, but keeping everything else that was out, out, and everything that was in, in.

       The sounds of the surf were mesmerizing. Suddenly, they saw movement on the beach. The colored grains were moving, flowing into one another in one small section. Within a minute, twenty yards of the beach was squirming, twisting and mixing colors.

       The sound coming through the microphone and into the sound system from the beach was wonderful. It was liquid and warm, sloshing around in through their ears and into the core of their brains. It was hypnotic and moving. It was color living through the sounds. “The music is in color,” Crys breathed.

       “I’ve heard of synesthesia, but I’ve never met an actual synesthete. I wonder if this is what they live with all of their lives.?”

       They were entranced by the coordinated movement of the swirling colored sand on the beach synchronized with the eerily wonderful music.

       “I want to see it live,” Al said. “What about it, Boss?”

       “Let’s go up to ten thousand feet and do some more scanning first. I want to see if there is more ‘living color’ in this general vicinity. Does that suit everyone?”

       “Sure.”

       “Yeah, Boss.”

       They shot up to the requested height, and Harry said, “Hey, that music is still coming through the speakers.”

       “Yes, Sir! You were right! It is now coming through the radio.” Crys started a slow grid scan with the telescope starting at the beach and swinging inward. “Just look at it, Harry,” Crys said, still enchanted.

       “Looks like it’s the dominant life on this planet,” Al piped in.

       The view was zoomed in to about a hundred fifty feet from ground level, and everywhere they looked, they saw the colored sand, if sand was what it was. Sometimes it was in small patches with just a few colors, but most of the time there were vast areas covered with mosaics of the stuff. “Did you ever make a crystal radio when you were a kid,” he asked them both.

       “No, what is a crystal radio?” Al asked.

       Crys, who knew a lot about a lot of stuff told him, “It’s a crystal ground to an AM frequency. You can hook a wire and a clip on it. Then clip it to a good source of static electricity, say a metal bed frame, and hook it up to an earphone and violin! You have a working radio with no batteries. It’s pretty cheesy, but is was really cool to a seven year old girl.”

       “And even an eleven year old boy,” Harry added. He went on, “I think that that sand might just be broadcasting its own music. Maybe it’s silicon based.”

       “Could be how it communicates among its community, too,” Crystal said, picking up his lead. “It makes a lot of sense. And, the bigger the community, the stronger the broadcasting power.”

       “I got ya,” Al said. “When they rub and slide together, they vibrate and then broadcast the sound.”

       “Junior, I think you’re gonna be thinking like your namesake any day now,” Harry joked.

       Al got sullen. That was a social sore spot with him. He’d really had it rough in school with the teasing from the other kids. The teachers also expected him to be brilliant, and when he turned out to be just an average student, they were always harder on him than on the other kids. “Yeah, yeah. And here’s my aching finger, too,” he said, only half joking.

       Suddenly Crys sat bolt upright. “What the hell is that?” she said, pointing at the screen. There was a single large black patch moving toward one of the larger patches of color. The color looked as though it were transported into a blender. The color swirled in actual swirls and whirlpools. The closer the black patch got, the faster and more ragged the swirls became.

       “Al, take us down to ten feet above that black patch,” Harry said.

       Al looked at him, but obeyed. “Another hunch, Captain?” he asked.

       “Yeah.”

       Al twisted the stick, and they were instantly hovering ten feet above the black patch. Harry reached over and turned the radio down and the outside sound up. The music was at a terrifying crescendo, like Therematic violins scratching out Psycho shower scene music. “The poor musicians are shrieking,” Crys nearly cried.

       Al thought for a Black Ops operative, she sure is a girl.

       Then the black sand was on the patch of color, for that’s what it was. Similar life form, different color. The cabin was immediately filled with the most discordant, dissonant screeching that any of them had ever heard. It was similar to the hacksaw noise, only more vibrant and full of . . . hunger. It merged with about a quarter of the color patch, and for a few moments, beautiful colors could be seen swirling in and out of the black. Then the black patch began to move away from the color. It looked larger, and more lethargic than it had when approaching. The color began to settle down, too. The swirls and whirlpools melted in to more individualized patches, and the music slowly became more tranquil. Harry and Crys started breathing again, not even realizing that they had been holding their breaths. Al was just shaking his head. They were all shaken to the bone.

       “That was terrible,” Crys said finally.

       “Evolution in action,” Al said. He looked away from the screen.

       Harry sat quiet for a couple of more moments, and then he said in a low voice, “Anyone still want to go for a dip?”

       Al shook his head again, and Crys murmured, “No, but thanks anyway.”

       Harry said, “We need a sample of that life form. Both of them, actually.”

       Al looked him dead in the eye. “I don’t want to be in a confined space with that black . . . stuff!”

       Harry chuckled hesitantly. “It is kinda like the Blob, isn’t it.”

       Al and Crys both erupted into laughter, letting off the tension that had nearly threatened to overwhelm them. Al said, “What a great theme song! So hokey, but so appropriate! ‘Beware of the Blob, it creeps and dum, da dum, dee dum, dee dum, dee dum, da dum, pop!’”

       They all laughed at his hokey singing, and the tension was all gone.