Jerry Oltion - Anywhere but Here

“Look out, idiot!” Trent muttered, swerving the other way, but the other driver did the same thing and they wound up aimed head-on again. They both hit the brakes and skidded to a stop with just feet to spare. Trent was working up a good rant about lunatic Frogs, but then he realized that the other driver was facing him from the same side of his vehicle and he burst out laughing instead.

“The French drive on the left!” he said. They hadn’t always, but the anti-American sentiment in Europe had changed many things.

He wasn’t about to make Donna do the talking, not when he’d been the one to get them into this situation, so he shifted into reverse and cranked the wheels hard left, spinning the pickup around practically in its own length, then he backed up until he was even with the other truck.

The other driver was laughing, too. He was bundled up in a white coat and white stocking hat, and he had a big beard to rival Trent’s, except that was mostly white, too. He waited for Trent to unlatch his inner window and remove it, then roll down his outer window; then he rolled down his own and called out across the three-foot gap between their vehicles, “Bonjour! Welcome to Mirabelle.”

If Trent had ever doubted the need to jack up his pickup’s suspension as high as he had, the last shred of doubt vanished in that moment. The Frenchman’s vehicle looked like a military troop transport or something, with big tractor tires and a blunt, boxy body with an articulated frame, but Trent was able to look the driver straight in the eye and say, “Thanks. We’ve got your mail sack in back.”

The other man nodded, then simply looked at Trent, clearly expecting him to say something more. Trent couldn’t think what it might be, but Donna whispered, “The password,” just as the Frenchman said, his accent making the words almost comical, “That’s a verra nice chapeau you have there.”

“Right,” Trent said, slapping himself on the forehead below the hat’s brim. “Man, I’d forget my head today if it wasn’t attached. Sorry about that.”

The Frenchman laughed again. “De rien. You no doubt have many things on your mind at the moment. This is most unusual for us both, eh? How is it that an American brings our mail?”

“Sergei has the flu, and we were headed out this morning, so Greg asked us if we would make a side-trip long enough to drop it off.”

“I see. Eh bien, he must have his reasons to trust you, and here you are with the mail after all, so that trust was not injustifié. Do you wish to transfer the mail here, or would you like to go somewhere a bit less exposed?”

Trent wondered if he meant that in terms of weather or strategically, but either way the answer was the same. “Let’s get out of this wind. I’ve got my parachute balled up in the camper, and it’d be a damned sight easier to fold up if it wasn’t flappin’ all over the place.”

The Frenchman nodded. “Yes, no doubt it would. Come, then, I will lead you to my sanctuary. It’s only a few kilometers from here. Perhaps you would have time to take déjeuner—the lunch—with me? I seldom have the chance to practice my English with a native speaker.”

“Well…” Trent said, but Donna leaned over before he could say anything more and said, “We’d love to.”

The Frenchman smiled wide. “Ah chère madame, you will not have the regrets! Follow me!” He rolled up his window and pulled forward, swinging around to the left and heading back the way he had come. Trent hit the juice to follow, discovered the embarrassing way that he was still in reverse, then shifted into forward and took off after him.

“Lunch?” he asked Donna as they bounded through the snowdrifts after the Frenchman.

“It sounds like fun. Who else do you know who can say they’ve had lunch with a French person?”

“Nobody,” Trent said, “And that includes us if we want to stay out of jail. It may be just lunch out here, but back home it’s fraternizing with the enemy.”

“Fraternizing,” she said, and she laughed. “A French word. I’d love to see them charge us with that.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Trent said, but he couldn’t help smiling. If anybody could make the court look ridiculous over a single word, it would be Donna.

Big clouds of snow billowed up behind the other vehicle. Trent had to hang back to keep from getting blinded by it. “I wonder why they settled here?” he said. “They have the whole planet to choose from. You’d think they would pick someplace warmer.”

“It probably was warmer when they chose it,” Donna said. “Seasons change. And some people like winter.”

That was true enough. Trent didn’t mind it himself, but he appreciated easing into it a little more gradually, preferably after a long, hot summer. He’d just endured a long winter back home, and their day on Onnescu wasn’t nearly enough warmth to make him happy to see snow again.

On the other hand, it made for some excellent four-wheeling. The snow was just deep enough to be fun, and the drifts and the clumps of grass kept things interesting.

After they’d driven for ten or fifteen minutes, the terrain began to change. The ground started rising up into shallow hills, and taller plants dotted the low spots between them. They weren’t quite bushes and they weren’t quite trees; they looked more like big barrels with maybe a dozen branches sticking out like angled spokes from the top edge. A single triangular leaf flapped like a pennant from the tip of each branch.

“I’ll bet those trunks are full of water,” Trent said. “Like cactus.”

“It’d be ice this time of year,” Donna pointed out.

“Maybe. Unless they’ve got some kind of antifreeze.” “We’ll have to ask our guide when we get wherever we’re going.”

That didn’t take much longer. The barrel trees became more common over the next couple of miles, growing taller and thicker as well, until the vehicles were driving through a forest of them, winding between trunks maybe twenty feet thick and thirty feet tall. After another mile or so of that, the Frenchman pulled to a stop beside one and stepped out of his truck.

The snow wasn’t drifted nearly as much here. When Trent opened the door, he couldn’t feel any wind on his face, either. He stepped to the ground, and the smooth plastic soles of his Ziptite suit immediately slipped out from under him, landing him on his butt in the snow.

“Trent, are you all right?” Donna hollered from her side of the cab, just as the Frenchman said, “Did you hurt yourself?”

“I’m okay,” he said, and he used the edge of the door for support while he pulled himself up to his feet again.

“Perhaps you would be more… grippy? No… more stable without the pressure suit,” the Frenchman suggested.

“That’s for sure.” Trent didn’t really want to remove a layer of protection, but if they were going to have lunch with this guy, he couldn’t very well stay suited up the whole time. So he took off his coat, peeled out of the suit and tossed it in the cab, then put on his coat—and promptly fell on his butt again.

“Mon dieu! You are having the bad luck today.”

Trent could either laugh or get mad, so he laughed. “I’m havin’ the cowboy boots instead of the work boots, is what it is.” He pulled himself upright again and tried a few cautious steps. If he dug in his heels it was just possible to walk. “Watch yourself,” he said to Donna. “It’s slick as snot out here.”

“Come into my home,” the Frenchman said, waving an arm behind him. “It’s warm and dry.”

“Let’s get you the mail sack first,” Trent said. “My job’s not done until it’s delivered.” He went around to the back of the pickup, opened the camper, and began pulling out the parachute.