The Other Earth (13 page)

"Yes, I'm making pancakes" he said, turning his head slightly to look over his shoulder at me.

I laughed, "Oops, you caught me peeking" I said, running from the kitchen giggling. It would seem that I was in an uncharacteristically good mood as well.

I walked into my room and pulled the wet towel off of myself and grabbed my robe, slipping it on and walking back out to the kitchen, ready to scarf down some pancakes.

After we had finished eating we sat in the kitchen, writing in our journals for the day, well mine was for two days as I never managed to write in it yesterday.

"Do you want to look through the telescope again, see if we can see the other earth yet?" Brandon asked me.

I looked up from my journal, "No not really. I don't think we've gone far enough to be able to see it yet anyway" I said.

He nodded and closed his journal, "I can't concentrate on this right now" he said.

I sighed, "I know what you mean."

I stood up and walked over to the living room, throwing my journal down on the small table next to the sofa. I reached up toward the ceiling and stretched my body, yawning in the process. I felt a cold breeze and realized that my robe had come slightly undone. I pulled it tighter and looked up to see Brandon standing fairly close to me.

"I didn't get to give you a proper good morning" he said.

"What are you talking about, you already told me good morning" I said with a smile.

He leaned forward and kissed me softly on the cheek before whispering into my left ear, "Good Morning Randi" he said. Instantly the tingles and heat flared through my body.

"G-g-good morning" I stuttered, trying to keep my face calm

I watched his hands slide down my body and untie the robe, pushing it off of my shoulders until I stood naked. He pulled me toward him until my body was directly in contact with his and I realized that he was already partially erec
t.

"You are awfully dirty to have just gotten out of the shower missy. I think I'm going to have to clean you up" he said.

"What?" I asked, confused.

He smiled and winked as he picked me up easily and put me over his shoulder. I held on to him as he starte
d to walk and I realized that he was taking me to the shower. My heart started to pound as I realized exactly what he meant.

Chapter Thirteen

I sighed in relief as I looked through the telescope. We had finally drifted close enough to the other earth to be able to see what exactly inhabited the planet. The first thing that I looked for was development, and what I saw helped to alleviate my fears as to what was actually on the planet.

There were houses. Only
people lived in houses and not giant beasts like dinosaurs. I tried to get a closer look, but still could not see any movement.

"Pick up anything yet?" Brandon asked from behind me, bringing me a sandwich.

I nodded as I picked up the sandwich from the plate, "There are houses" I said, taking a large bite.

His eyes lit up, "Houses? That's a good sign" he said, going to the computer to see the images that were scrolling across the screen.

"No dinosaurs" I said.

"That is definitely a good thing, in my opinion" he said.

I laughed, "I think anyone would have that opinion" I said, turning back to the telescope.

"You see anything else?" he asked.

I shook my head, "I still can't zoom in close enough, but look at those picture. Do you notice how they have a big cluster of land in one place?" I asked.

Brandon looked back down to the computer screen and scrolled, "Yes I see what you mean. It's almost like how our planet was before the continents separated."

"Yes, exactly. So, is it odd to you that this planet was only formed a few hundred years ago, yet they obviously have intelligent humans there? It's like they skipped the entire evolutionary pattern" I said.

Brandon put his hand on his chin, "Hmm, you make a good point.
The problem is that we still cannot see what their so called humans look like. I am assuming they would look like us, but we can't be sure yet."

I leaned back in my chair, "This is so frustrating. We have been on this ship for almost six months. I feel lik
e I have been in a waiting room waiting for a very slow doctor. I want to be there already" I said, putting my fingers up to my temples.

"Do you have a headache again?" Brandon asked me, his eyes narrowing in concern.

"Yes" I moaned without opening my eyes.

I heard him get up and in seconds felt his hands on my shoulders. I started to moan as he started to massage them, "You have to relax" he said.

"I know. I'm just a little stressed." I said.

He continued to rub, "I don't know why you are letting something
you can't control stress you out. It takes time to travel through space. Just be thankful we aren't in one of the old rockets. It would have taken us at least nine months to get there on one of those things" He said.

I laughed, "I am grateful for that" I
said, tilting my head to the side as pushed his thumbs into my neck.

"Besides, has the last few months been all that bad? I know the last three have just flown by" he said, leaning down and kissing me on my neck lightly.

I laughed, "Well, the second half of this trip has gone by much faster than the first half that's for sure."

"With a lot less cold showers too" he said, kissing the other side of my neck.

I smiled, "But with many more hot ones."

"You are such a bad girl, do I need to spank you?" he asked.

I groaned, "I would love a good spanking. Later. Just not right now, I have too much to do to get ready to land."

"We don't land for another few days, what are you getting ready?" he asked, moving his thumbs up to my forehead.

"I need to start logging our arrival and trying to coordinate our landing somewhere safe on this planet. I need to start securing the supplies that will be locked up while we are there, and I need to start packing clothes once I can get a look at how these people dress" I said.

"You d
on't have to do all of that by yourself, I am here to help."

I smiled, "I know. It just seems like there is so much left to do in just a few days. The time somehow got away from us it seems" I said.

Brandon laughed, "Yes well, that happens sometimes when you are having fun. So I'll tell you what" he said, clapping his hands together. "I will start to scan the coordinate for the landing, and you can start the log. Once that is done we can sit down and have a nice dinner. Then, maybe after that we can play a game of poker. We haven't played in a while and my hands are itching to kick your ass."

"If I'm not mistaken, I am now ahead of you on games won, so I will take that challenge" I said.

He leaned down and kissed me on the forehead, "Great, see you at dinner dear" he said, laughing as he walked down the stairs back to the main control room.

***

"Hey are you coming to eat? Dinner is ready" Brandon asked me.

I looked up from the computer and sighed, "Wow, that time went by fast" I said,
not realizing two hours had already gone by.

"Are you still logging?" he asked.

I nodded, "Well I was logging, and then I caught some movement from the other earth and as I studied the pictures that were coming in, it looks like they have something that resembles our cars, but they look a bit different."

Brandon walked up to her, "Different how?" he asked.

I pointed to the screen marking a spot that held one of their vehicles, "Well, look here at how it's shaped."

Brandon leaned in, "Tell me why this looks like I'm looking at a picture of a Twinkie" he said.

I laughed, "Yes, exactly. It's shaped like a long log. I can't really tell at this point but I would guess that these vehicles would only have room for one person in them."

"One person?
That's odd. How would they take their kids to school or go buy groceries?" he asked.

I shook my head, "I don't know, that's something I was wondering too, but I think I might have it figured ou
t" I said.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"Well, if you look here and here" I said, pointing to other parts of the screen. "It looks as though they are divided up into very small colonies. I can't tell if these are like barbed wire fences or if it's a solid wall, we are still too far away. But either way, if they are in small colonies, then there really isn't much use for a car, as you can walk everywhere you want to go" I said.

Brandon nodded, "Yes I see what you mean. This is very interesting. I mapped ou
t the coordinates and it shows that down in the southern area there is a large amount of empty land. It seems like the space they live on is limited and they have a lot of free wilderness. Seems odd since they don't have all that much land to work with anyway." He said.

"Yes, that is odd." I said.

Brandon stood back up, "Well, we won't know anything more until we drift a little closer. Come and eat" he said.

"Okay" I replied as I stood up and stretched my body, which had been sitting in the same position fo
r a few hours already.

"What are we having?" I asked, following him down the stairs.

"Chicken and Rice" he said.

I groaned, "Again?"

"Yep, again" he said.

I sat down at the table and started to eat, which was good even though it was boring.

"What do you think these people are going to be like?" Brandon asked.

I shrugged my shoulders, "I don't know. That's something to think about though. We should be close enough soon to actually see what they look like and what they wear and things like that. Hopefully the
y don't dress too crazy or we won't have anything to fit in with them."

"Another thing I was thinking about. It took so many years for us to evolve into the humans we are at home, and it took billions of years before someone invented things like cars and s
uch. If this planet has evolved so fast, will their demise be just as fast?" he asked.

I thought about that as I finished chewing my food, "I don't think so. The entire problem that we have with our planet stems from our pollution, which in turn h
as been killing our planet. They don't have the problem of pollution as we do, so will they ever meet their demise?" I asked.

Brandon nodded, "I see what you're saying."

We continued to eat in silence, the both of us contemplating this new planet and what surprises it would hold for us. I just hoped that the people would be friendly enough that I didn't feel as though I was serving a prison sentence. I looked over at Brandon and smiled, I had been so worried about things becoming too awkward between us, but we had somehow fallen into a sort of comfortable routine with each other over the past few months.

Every day we had breakfast together, did some work, had lunch, wrote in our journals and studied a little more, had dinner together, and then it was persona
l time. Personal time was usually spent locked up in one of our rooms, exploring each other.

The routine was actually a little too comfortable it seemed. What would happen when we landed on the planet, all of the personal time would have to be put on hold
for the sake of the mission. It was one thing to play around at night when we were all by ourselves on this ship, but it was another thing to do that when we were supposed to be blending in and getting to know the people and learn as much about this new planet as possible.

"What are you thinking about?" Brandon asked.

I shook myself out of my daydream and decided I wasn't going to bring it up. We still had a few days to enjoy the time together and I wasn't going to be the one to break the spell we were under.

"Oh just thinking about this new planet."
I said.

He nodded, "Yeah I figured that's what you were thinking about" he said.

"Well what were you thinking about?" I asked.

"Getting you naked" he said seriously.

I laughed, "Well I hate to burst your bubble mister, but you owe me a game of poker first, and I am going to wipe the floor with you" I said, taking my empty plate to the sink.

"Oh it's on" Brandon said, slapping my ass as he walked past me. I smiled, happy for now that we were still comfortable arou
nd each other.

***

I looked through the telescope, trying to understand what I was looking at. We were only hours away from landing and I could finally see people close enough to make out what they looked like, and I was actually surprised by what I was s
eeing.

"Can you see them?" Brandon asked from next to me, looking at the images flashing across the computer screen.

I nodded, "Yes, but it's not what I thought" I said.

He tilted his head to the side as he turned to look at me, "What do you mean" he asked
.

I looked back through the telescope, "Well, first of all, they look like humans. The same as us, but only they dress funny" I said.

"Dress funny how?" he asked.

I pulled away from the telescope and motioned for him to look through it, "They all dress the
same. Gray shirt and gray pants. I can't see close enough to see their shoes but I would take a guess that they are gray too. The other thing is there is some kind of symbol on their shirts. If you look between the different areas that are separated each area has a different symbol, and all of the people there wear the same one."

"They almost all look like they are living on a military base or something" Brandon said.

"Yes Exactly. It's odd though because everyone is like that, so what would they even have a military for?" I asked, confused as to what we were getting ourselves into.

"I don't know. Maybe it's not that they have military, maybe the people there just live this way. We don't know the history of the planet yet so they may have had some huge war
and now they dress alike." Brandon reasoned, pulling away from the telescope and switching seats with me again.

I shook my head, "It's odd, but we can find out what the reasoning is once we get there. Now we have a problem though. We have gray clothes, th
at's not an issue, but how are we going to fake that symbol on their clothes? We will stick out like sore thumbs if we don't' have it" I said.

"Well, where we are going to land is in a place nobody seems to live, but at the same time is close enough to peo
ple to get in and get out quickly if need be. We will try to figure something out to blend in, but if we fail, we can always hide out in the ship. I don't think anyone will find it where we are going to be landing it" he said.

I nodded, "I'm just worried t
hat we won't be able to blend in. I mean, I get that we can always forfeit the mission if we have to, but it's like I waited my entire life for this mission and I want it to go smoothly" I said.