The Bonding (22 page)

“What about the military?” Tarku asked.

“Hopefully, at that time of the morning,
even the military base at Fort Worth will be asleep. I’m also hoping that if
they do see us descend to the surface and scramble the jets that they would
never expect us to move closer to the city. This way the jets would go right
past us and circle around Lake Bridgeport and the immediate area.”

Tarku still had a look of concern. “I
don’t know. My ship is very large, and even though it is a dark color, I fear
that its size may give it away.” He pointed to an area farther west –
Miller’s Creek Reservoir. “Perhaps this would be a better place. It seems more
remote.” He slid his hand over to the town of Padgett. “Then we could quickly
move to here.”

Janet looked at it for a moment and
nodded. “I agree; the more remote the better. But I was concerned with making
the actual telephone call. I didn’t want to make a long distance call, because
we have no way to pay for it, and I don’t think my parents would buy into a
collect call, in the middle of the night, from a person they think has been
dead for the last three years.”

Tarku looked confused. “What is a long
distance call, and a collect call, and what form of payment would you need?”

Janet laughed. “The communications
systems on Earth are much different from Zintandu. If you wish to call someone
you have to go to a pay telephone, if you are not at home and don’t have a
mobile phone.”

“This is very different from Zintandu,”
Tarku said.

“Yes it is,” Janet agreed. “And, since
I’m sure that I’ve been declared as dead for the last three years, I doubt that
the payphone will recognize my scan.”

“Your scan?” Tarku questioned.

Janet laughed again and Tarku still had a
confused expression. “Yes. Each payphone has a small screen that you look into.
The phone scans the retinas of your eyes, to identify you, and then it
automatically charges your bank account for the price of the call. And I won’t
even get into collect calls. Since I doubt that it will recognize me, I will
probably have to bypass the scan circuit.”

Tarku nodded. “This time you will be the
teacher. I will watch and learn from you.”

“Okay, so we’re going to come to the
Earth over Miller’s Creek Reservoir, then move along the surface to the town of
Padgett. When we get there we need to find a payphone. They are usually located
near a market or service station.” She felt his next question before he asked.
“I’ll explain later about service stations.”

Tarku smiled. Janet changed the display
and looked at the space route.

“It looks like we should get there in
four days.”

“Good,” Tarku said. “That will give us
some time to begin learning the language of the new planet we’re going to
visit.” He reached over and shut off the star map. “We should begin right after
we eat. Come on! I’m starving!”

Over the next four days they vigorously
studied the new language. As they learned new languages they would only speak
to each other in the language to begin feeling comfortable with it. With the
help of the learning techniques of Tarku’s race, Janet’s mind had evolved more,
and she could now learn the languages nearly as fast as Tarku. She not only
studied the languages, but also the sciences and technologies. All of her
seemingly endless questions had long ago been answered. In three years her
technical and scientific knowledge had far surpassed everyone on the Earth, and
she understood why she couldn’t share this knowledge. The government, if they
ever got their hands on it, would immediately use it for military purposes, and
that was an unacceptable risk.

Chapter Fourteen

On the fourth day they were excited about
reaching the Earth. Fortunately, as they approached, the North American
continent was already in darkness. Janet determined that the time in Texas was
1:00am.

“I think we should wait until at least
3:00am,” she suggested. “At that time I’m sure that everyone will be sleeping.”

“No problem. We can sit here in a
stationary orbit,” Tarku replied.

“Okay! Let’s go over the plan one more
time,” Janet insisted. “I want to be sure that we’ve covered everything.”

At 3:00am they entered the atmosphere and
rapidly descended to Miller’s Creek Reservoir where they stopped exactly fifty
feet above the surface of the water. The ship hovered in total silence, not
even disturbing the water beneath it. It was a perfect night for their mission.
The moon was in its last quarter and the night was very dark. The advanced optical
viewing systems on the spacecraft allowed them to see everything as clearly as
though it was daylight. Tarku touched the control panel and the huge ship
quickly and silently moved across the surface towards the town of Padgett.

Every building and house was dark, and
the streets were only dimly lit from occasional streetlights. Nothing was
moving, and as Janet presumed, even the local police were at home sleeping. At
the edge of town was a gas station with a single light illuminating a payphone
beside the front door. The huge ship stopped directly over the street just
above the trees and telephone poles.

Janet looked at Tarku. “Okay! I guess
this is it. Welcome to Earth.”

Tarku smiled and touched the control
panel. The smooth, seamless exterior on the bottom of the ship suddenly
spiraled open, and a tube extended from the center of the ship to the ground,
flowing down from the bottom like a column of liquid metal.

“Let’s go!” Tarku said getting up from
his chair.

A moment later an opening appeared at the
bottom of the tube and they walked out onto the street. Janet took a deep
breath of air and slowly let it out.

“Oh my God! I can’t believe that I’m
actually standing on the Earth. I thought I’d never be able to come here
again.”

Tarku was nervous scanning the area. “We
must hurry. We don’t know if your planetary surveillance saw us or not.”

“Okay!” She moaned. “I just thought I’d
enjoy the moment.”

They walked over to the payphone and
Janet touched the screen. Nothing happened. She put her whole hand on it and
still nothing happened.

“Shit!” she mumbled, “the phone’s dead!”

Tarku looked at her oddly. “These devices
are normally alive?”

“No! Not like living,” she moaned. “Like
a piece of electrical equipment that stopped working.”

“Oh! Can you repair it?”

“If it was working, I could bypass the
retina scan, but since it’s totally inoperative, I think we should find another
phone.” She looked inside the front window of the gas station. “Look, there’s a
phone on the wall behind the countertop.”

Tarku put his face against the window.
“Yes, I see it. That one looks much different from this one.”

“That’s not a payphone. I don’t have to
do a retina scan on that one.” She tried the door, but it was locked. “I didn’t
figure it would be open. Come on, let’s go around to the back and see if
there’s another door. In a small town like this, they probably left the back
door unlocked.”

Tarku followed her to the back of the
building. There was another door, but it was also locked. Janet looked up at
Tarku. “Do you think you can get it open without too much noise?”

Tarku nodded and put his massive hand
around the small doorknob. He twisted and it literally broke off in his hand as
the door popped open. He looked at her and smiled.

“That was easy. I hope they don’t have a
silent alarm,” she said. “I doubt it in a little town like this.”

Inside the back room it was very dark. At
the far end of the room, they could barely see the doorway to the front office.
The door was slightly open allowing a sliver of light to enter. They started
making their way towards it. Janet took about five steps and tripped over
something on the floor, followed immediately by Tarku.

“Ow! Damn it!” she blurted out.

They both fell and something metal
crashed to the
floor,
rolled across the room and
banged into the wall.

“Are you all right?” Tarku asked.

“Yes! God, I hope we didn’t wake up
anyone. Oh shit! Now I hear a dog barking out back. We need to hurry.”

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” he
suggested. “Perhaps we should get back to the ship and formulate another plan.”

“No, no. We’ll be okay. Come on. Let’s
get to the phone and get this over with.”

They opened the door to the front office
and Janet moved behind the counter and picked up the phone.

“Thank God, there’s a dial tone.”

“I guess that means it’s alive,” Tarku
said chuckling.

She began dialing the number, and
suddenly the lights came on.

“Hold it right there you two,” they heard
in a deep southern drawl. They turned to see the barrel of a shotgun pointing
directly at them, held by a wiry little old man. He looked at Tarku’s huge
frame and teardrop shaped eyes and an expression of shear awe covered his face.

With one swift motion, Tarku knocked the
gun from his hands, causing one shot to fire into the ceiling before the gun
crashed against the front door. He grabbed the man by the neck and lifted him
over a foot off the floor. Tarku pulled him up close to his face to look at
him. Tarku’s expression was anger, and the little old man’s eyes were as wide
and white as two golf balls trying to pop out of the sockets.

“Tarku, don’t hurt him!” Janet screamed.
“Please, put him down.”

Tarku lowered him to the floor, but kept
his huge hand clenched around the man’s throat. The man couldn’t take his eyes
off of Tarku, even when Janet was speaking.

“Listen to me sir,” Janet said. “We are
not going to harm you. We only need to use the telephone. What’s your name?”

Finally, he moved his gaze from Tarku to
Janet and was somewhat relieved to see that she was human. He tried to speak,
but Tarku still had a tight grip on his neck.

“If I ask him to release you, you’re not
going to try anything stupid are you?”

“No ma’am,” he said in a half whisper.

Tarku released his grip and the man
rubbed his neck, but continued staring at Tarku.

Janet asked him again. “What is your name?”

“H-homer, Homer Watkins,” he replied.

“Okay, Homer, listen. Obviously, we’re
not from around here. We just need to use your phone and then we’ll be on our
way. We’re not looking for trouble. Now, do you mind if we use your phone?”

Homer was looking at Janet now. “Yes
ma’am. You can use it as much as you want.”

“Thank you, Homer. By the way, my name is
Janet, and my rather large friend here is Tarku.”

“Hello, Homer,” Tarku said in perfect
English.

Homer was astonished when he heard Tarku.
“H-hello Mr. Tarku.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever seen anyone
from another planet, have you, Homer?” Tarku asked.

“No sir, Mr. Tarku.”

Tarku was now amused at the situation and
pointed to their spaceship hovering above the street. “Have you ever seen a
real spaceship, Homer?”

Homer’s eyes followed Tarku’s finger and
the look of awe again covered his face. His mouth hung open as he shook his
head slowly back and forth. It was very dark outside, but the huge craft was
still visible.

Janet again began dialing the telephone
when two police cars pulled up in front of the building with their lights
flashing. “Oh my God! This is not good.”

Tarku had a worried look, because the
police were between them and their ship. “What do you suggest?” he asked.

Janet again set down the phone. “Homer,
did you call the police?”

“No ma’am, my wife did. I told her if I
wasn’t back in five minutes that she should call em. And I’m sure she heard the
shotgun and called em right away.”

“Thank you, Homer.” Janet looked at the
police and then to Tarku, who was also watching them. “Tarku, this could turn
very ugly. I think I should go out and introduce myself and let them know that
I’m an Air Force space shuttle commander, and that we’re here because our ship
had a problem and we needed to use the phone to call for help.”

“I believe that I could disarm both of
the police officers,” Tarku said. “Then we could simply get back on board the
ship and leave.”

“I know these people,” Janet said. “As
soon as they see you they are going to immediately draw their weapons and tell
you to stop where you are. And, if you don’t, they won’t hesitate to shoot you.
Let’s go with my plan.”

She looked over at Homer. “You need to
come out with me and explain that we were only using your phone, and that we
didn’t harm you in any way.”

Homer nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

“Tarku, you need to stay in here, out of
sight for a minute, please.”

Tarku was hesitant but agreed. The police
didn’t know what to do first, check out the spaceship or the gas station. They
were discussing the situation when Janet opened the door and stepped out with
Homer.