Jerry Oltion - Anywhere but Here

“Next stop, your new home,” Trent said.

That turned out to be overly optimistic. It took a couple more hilltop reconnoiters to correct their path, because Trent kept steering too far to the left. It was all the hills and gulleys in the way; he had to pick a direction around them, and he was always a little off in his guess when he tried to head the same direction on the other side. It had actually been easier navigating by Orion last night.

Katata and her family were a long ways out of town. Twenty miles didn’t seem like much on a civilized planet, but out here, without a vehicle, they might as well be doing the Adam and Eve thing. He hoped they could grow and hunt all the food they needed, because there wasn’t going to be much grocery shopping in town for them.

At last they topped a rise and saw the parachute and the water-tank spaceship in the grassy meadow below. And now that they had daylight, they could see the stream that ran along the edge of the meadow just a couple hundred yards away.

“You know,” Trent said, “You guys picked a decent spot. You just might do okay here.”

When they drew closer, they could see that the father and the child who had stayed behind had been busy. A bright yellow tent stood beside the water tank, and the animals had been released from their cages and tethered outside. A corral made of branches from the brush along the stream was about half finished.

The youngster ran out to greet them as they drove up, the yappy mop pet right at his heels. Big, ungainly birds flew up into the air ahead of them, squawking indignantly as they flapped off to the sides and landed again. The father, Magalak, came out from around the side of the tank to see what all the commotion was about, and when he realized who it was he dropped his axe and ran after his son, scaring the birds all over again.

Katata and the kids bounded out of the truck the moment it came to a stop, and everyone leaped together in a big family hug. Tentacles snaked over and around their bodies like ropes, and Katata and Magalak nuzzled their noses into each other’s necks like vampires going for the jugular. Magalak lifted Dixit into the air and swung him around, and Talana proudly showed off her cast for all to see. Katata made Magalak hold still while she inspected his head wound, but it must have looked all right to her, because she didn’t linger on it. Instead she gave him another squeeze and went for his neck again.

“Well,” Trent said, a little embarrassed at watching them smooch it up, “it certainly looks like they’re happy to see one another.”

He and Donna got out of the truck, and Katata rushed over to them and babbled something full of k’s and t’s and a’s, gripping their hands in her tentacles and tugging them from side to side.

“You’re welcome,” Trent said, and Donna said, “You’d have done the same for us, I’m sure.” Magalak came over and spoke more solemnly, but just as unintelligibly, and Trent and Donna said “You’re welcome,” half a dozen more times; then Katata said something to Talana and Talana came over and they repeated the whole exchange.

It was rapidly becoming an “Aw, shucks” moment. Trent looked over at Donna and said, “We ought to get going. We’ve got mail to deliver.”

“Yeah, we probably should.” To Katata, she said, “We’re going to take off now. It was a pleasure to meet you, and I’m glad you’re all okay. Next time we’re out this way, we’ll look you up and see how you’re doing.”

“Good luck to you,” Trent said, reaching out to shake Magalak’s tentacle.

Magalak suddenly held up his tentacles and said “Bata-bata!” then rushed back to the tent and emerged with a bottle of green liquid about the size and shape of a two-liter pop bottle. He thrust it into Trent’s hands and said, “Tarit! Bogota tarit, boo.” He mimed drinking it, then staggered from side to side.

“It’s gotta be hootch,” Trent said to Donna.

She laughed. “The universal thank-you.”

“Must be pretty good stuff, the way he’s acting.” Trent said to Magalak, “We appreciate the thought. Thank you. We’ll, uh, save it for a special occasion.”

He and Donna went back to the pickup and folded up the tarp that Katata and the kids had been sitting on, then got their Ziptite suits out of the camper and pulled them over their clothes. Magalak watched for a moment, then suddenly burst into a long speech, pointing over toward the creek as he spoke. He mimed driving over there, then made a “pop” noise and threw his tentacles into the air.

“You want us to take off from over there?” Trent asked. “It’ll leave a big crater right beside the creek.” Then he realized what Magalak wanted. “A pond! Sure, we can dig you a pond.” He repeated Magalak’s gestures, then held his hands out in a circle. “How big you want it?” He widened the circle, then made it smaller.

“Taga!” Magalak said, making a big loop with his tentacles. “Bataga!”

Trent laughed. “Okay, one big honkin’ reservoir comin’ up.”

Katata and Magalak and the kids all gave them one more round of squeezes, then they climbed into the pickups cab and sealed it up. Trent checked the air gauges—full—and the power gauge—down to three-quarters again after the morning’s drive—and Donna got the computer out and hooked it up. Trent overpressurized the cab and watched the gauge for a couple of minutes to make sure they didn’t have any leaks. When they were sure they were in good shape for space, they waved goodbye to everyone and drove across the meadow toward the spot where Magalak wanted the reservoir.

“How wide should I set the jump field?” Donna asked.

The wider they set it, the more power it would take, especially right on the surface of a planet. And from the sounds of it, they wouldn’t have a chance to recharge at their next stop. On the other hand, a puddle wasn’t likely to do anybody much good, especially if the summers were dry here the way Trent suspected. “How about thirty feet or so?” he said. “That’ll hold quite a bit of water, and it’ll still leave us with quite a bit of juice to get around on.”

“Thirty feet it is.” Donna tapped at the keyboard.

Trent pulled the pickup about twenty feet from the creek. Magalak would have to dig a short ditch to fill his reservoir, but this way it wouldn’t wash out or silt up.

The whole family was standing next to their water-tank home, Magalak and Katata with their tentacles wrapped around each other’s waists, and the children in stairstep progression beside them. “Onnescu Gothic,” Trent said. He waved. The aliens waved back, and Dixit jumped up and down, trying to break free of Talana’s grasp and run toward the pickup.

“We better go before he gets loose,” Trent said.

“I’m ready any time.”

“Then let’s do it.”

Donna punched the “enter” key, and the planet vanished.

Gravity vanished with it, but a second later the pickup surged upward, pressing them into the seat again. Rocks and dirt flew past the windows, chased by billowing clouds of steam.

“Whoa!” Trent said. “I didn’t expect that.”

“There must have been a lot of water in the ground right next to the stream,” said Donna. “It’s all boiling at once.”

They watched their soggy dirt bowl break up and blow away, the upward pressure slowly easing as it did. The fog glowed bright white in the sunlight, and the rocks cast long shadows through it.

“This must be what it looks like inside a comet,” Donna said.

“Yeah? I thought they were mostly ice.”

“Nope. They’re full of rocks, too.”

The sun was coming in from the right, creating a bright halo on that side of the pickup and an equally bright rainbow on the other. They were going to have to wait a while for it to dissipate before they could get a position fix on the stars.