“If you and Jane acted on those feelings, it would be most pleasurable.
“That is not an option.”
“What if you never left Earth, then what?” Bobby asked.
It was hard for Bobby to understand John’s urge to want to go home. After all, he had always known Earth as home. How could any other planet be better to live on? Especially given the little they knew about John’s home planet. It was not even in our solar system that Bobby knew of. It sounded most sterile, and the elders seemed to take the fun out of the simple pleasures most humans enjoyed.
John studied Bobby a moment. “I haven’t thought of not leaving.”
Bobby gulped down the soda and then turned back to John.
“Well, if you are stuck here, you might as well enjoy it,” he added.
Just then the door opened, and Jane walked in. Her body glistened with perspiration. She had been picking up a glow from the hot desert sun, and the color was becoming on her, especially with her blonde hair. As Jane walked through the kitchen, she glanced at the two. Bobby kept his eyes on John and raised his eyebrows, as the young navigator couldn’t take his eyes off Jane. John looked down at the stiffening body part that concerned him. Jane gave John a frown as she also looked down at John and then hurried out of the kitchen.
Just then a commercial came on the little flat-screen television set that sat in the corner of the kitchen counter. It startled John for a moment as he listened to what was being said.
“It’s Big Kaz from Kazar Used Car Lot,” the man on screen announced.
John found it difficult not to watch the tiny screen. Bobby just laughed, thinking John had a problem with the used car salesman.
“It’s only a commercial,” Bobby added abruptly.
“No, it’s Kazar!”
“Yeah, Kazar Used Car Lot. The guy is an idiot.”
John continued staring at the small screen. The logo of the used car lot was that of his home planet.
It had been hours since the bleep appeared onscreen. The coordinates matched those on Highway 375, which didn’t make sense, given the bleep indicated a craft and why would it follow a highway?
The Colonel and his caravan of Cammo dudes followed the road and the coordinates exactly when they came to the first bleep that appeared on the screen. The Colonel parked his white Jeep Cherokee and stepped out of the vehicle. He slowly walked over to the bottle of moonshine smashed on the side of the road.
One of the Cammo dudes walked over to the Colonel. He glanced down at the broken bottle and then looked up.
“I wonder if it was before or after he drank the bottle that he saw the spacecraft,” Colonel Crimshaw said under his breath.
“It was an official sighting.”
Colonel Crimshaw bent down and picked up the broken bottle, “By a drunk.”
“What do you want us to do?” the Cammo dude asked.
The Colonel tossed the broken bottle back on the ground. He was tired of being made a fool of. He finally turned to the soldier.
“Call off your men. We’re going back to the base.”
The Colonel quickly walked back to his jeep. Then he turned and looked down the highway for the longest time. It had occurred to him that most of their alien sightings took place during the Star Trek convention, so he was skeptical of strange beeps and witness accounts.
CHAPTER 19
John finished his delivery in record time, thankfully for the craft he used. He was able to go Mach speed down Highway 375 and only had one incident with the old pickup truck. When he was done with his deliveries, he parked the craft back in the shed. It gave him the perfect way to test problems in the space craft. John busied himself tightening one of the solar panels. Bobby walked into the shed. He looked at John, who was busy checking other areas of the craft. Bobby just walked around the space craft, amazed at how small the craft was. He turned to John.
“You’re hell-bent on leaving?” Bobby asked.
“This is not our home.”
“It could be.”
“The commander and I,” John started to say but then stopped.
Bobby did a double take at John. He frowned at the way John always seemed to put himself down when it came to Jane. John noticed Bobby’s concern and then he restated what he was about to say.
“Jane and I were sent on a mission to collect evidence that one of our comrades, Kazar, landed here a long time ago.”
It caught Bobby’s interest. Now he understood John’s interest in the commercial earlier but felt it was only coincidental that the used car salesman could be his long-lost comrade in arms.
“How can you be sure?” Bobby asked.
“It would be ten years in your way of telling time,” John said as he shrugged with a kind of indifference.
“What are you going to do when you find him?”
“I did find him. He was on the monitor screen.”
Bobby grinned a moment. “Have you been hitting my stash under my bed?”
“It was him!”
“So now what?” Bobby challenged.
“Our mission is to bring him home.”
Bobby glanced around at the ancient tools in the shed and then laughed. Although he knew John was serious, there was no way he could get the spacecraft up and running with the tools at hand.
“Look around, man. You do not have wings to fly out of this hellhole. Besides, what makes you think your comrade wants to go home?”
John shrugged as he thought for a moment. It never occurred to him that there ever would be a problem. He and Jane were sent on a mission. Why wouldn’t he also want to return to his home planet? John finally turned to Bobby.
“Why do you pose problems?”
Bobby rolled his eyes. “Call me a fatalist.”
John looked puzzled. He liked Bobby and felt a real kinship with him, but he had to remember that Bobby was also an earthling, that his loyalties were for his mother planet. Bobby knew nothing else of the universe. As far as earthlings were concerned, an alien looked like what he saw at the video store. After a long silence, John finally answered Bobby.
“There were frequent messages transmitted from your planet, but then they stopped when it was announced a rescue mission was underway.
“Maybe he didn’t want to be saved.”
John quickly turned to Bobby. He looked at him a moment, about to say something, but then stopped. He turned and walked into the opening of the craft. Bobby followed him inside.
John walked over to the controls. He opened a panel door and pulled out a container. John showed it to Bobby.
“This will bring him to us.”
Bobby appeared puzzled for a moment and then quickly asked while shaking his head.
“You said the transmission stopped. Maybe he is dead?”
“No,” John said ignoring Bobby’s remark. “In our world when the body ceases to function, the Celtic…”
“Celtic?” Bobby questioned quickly. “Is that like in basketball?”
“He is our spiritual advisor. When the body ceases to function, the aura of a being’s existence is gathered.”
“Like the spirit?” Bobby asked.
“Spirit?” John said, looking puzzled. He was apparently confused by the word and what it meant.
Bobby thought for a moment. He did not know how he would explain this to John when he did not have much of a religious belief, and that was where they discussed the spirit. He struggled to find the right words, and then he pointed to his heart.
“That’s who we are inside.”
John glanced at him as if he understood. “Celtic?” he said again.
Bobby just shrugged, raised his hands, and dropped them as he mumbled, “Whatever!”
John turned to Bobby and then smiled. He held up the container from the console.