Bubba And the Aliens

Obujutte Thirteen

“Dingo would not answer calls to his communicator. We waited at the space station for two days for him to return to the ship.”

“You had to wait for Gilfoy and Elsa too,” Dingo said in defense.

“Yes, but only a few hours. Though we would like to believe they had a romantic interlude to take up the time, there were six Elvi killed that night in Relix, and two Claassens. We did not know about it until later when we were watching the news vids. It would have been better if we were gone while those killings were being investigated instead of waiting for you to make your way to the spaceport. Gilfoy and Elsa were never willing to reveal what happened during the hours they were missing. They came back to the ship in different clothing than they had worn to the party. Everything else was at the hotel. Arlo and Hello went down gather their things when they refused to return to the planet.

“Hello spent the time with Mikimo, under Bubba’s watchful eye, improving on Kristin’s disguise and making her up to look remarkably similar to herself. They lightened and cut her hair along with wardrobe changes. Bipodecus hovered in the background for a while, but soon went to see George and Sven. He sent a coded message to Lakanica telling them the princess was rescued. We were going to keep a low profile for a few days before returning. This would allow the authorities on Lakanica to prepare all the paperwork to file a complaint about the kidnapping.”

“Which never happened,” Bubba said with a strong hint of anger.

“Well, why not?” Janet wanted to know.

Arlo stepped in. “Because they had already filed a complaint with the galactic government, which was working its way through the bureaucracy. It would be years before it was even looked at. The princess had been rescued. There was little they could do without getting themselves into trouble for hiring us to get her back. If they ever did get around to looking into it, Mikimo would already be back on the planet. Everyone could drop the whole affair. Her father was still upset. He said he would deal with the Elvi in other ways. We preferred to be left out of those discussions.”

Janet nodded to herself for a moment and then turned to watch Bubba walk back into the room and flop down in a chair. “What happened with you and the princess,” she prompted.

He twisted the top off his beer and took a drink. He took in a deep breath and slowly let it out with a sigh.

“I was married once to a girl in Ohio. It was a long, long time ago. We weren’t exactly high school sweethearts, but we had known each other in school. It only lasted a couple of years, from eighteen to about twenty. She wanted some things in life I was not able to give her.

“After we got divorced, I joined the Army to get away from our small town and her memory. I became a Master Gunner.”

“What is that?” Janet asked.

“Small arms master, dealing with handguns, rifles, that sort of thing. It is highly detailed work to become a master of all weapons your unit uses. It means knowing every intimate detail of how they work. You learn how to rebuild and repair them, along with regular maintenance. I loved the job because guns are simple and have a definite purpose. When you pull the trigger, a bullet should come out of the end of the weapon and hit your target.”

“Your enemy,” Janet stated.

Bubba shook his head. “Your target,” he repeated. “It could be an enemy combatant, a paper target, a building, or bunker. It depends on the weapon you are using and the situation you are in. We trained for warfare and hoped to avoid it. However, if push came to shove, I wanted the guys in my unit to have the absolute best weapon available in their hands without jamming or other malfunction.”

“It gave you a sense of purpose,” Janet mused.

“It also put me in the line of fire in a few places around the world. I’ve seen a lot of ugliness and hatred and violence. Jack and I have talked about it some. He and Dingo were in some of the same places around the same time.”

“We haven’t talked about it,” Janet said looking at me.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I offered, “but they are things we can talk about out of comradery. You talk about the good times and the absurd because it’s hard to talk about the friends you lost and the bodies of kids lying in the street. We don’t talk to Arlo about them either because there is no basis for comparison. You and he don’t have the life experience of being in some country where people are shooting at you because you are different than them.”

Bubba and Dingo nodded in agreement.

“Where were you,” Janet asked.

“Different places,” Bubba answered. “All of us ended up in the desert at one point or another. You burn up during the day; feel like you are going to freeze to death at night. It’s just not hospitable to human life in the first place. Throw in a few thousand guys trying to kill you with bullets or bombs and it’s a living hell. And as Jack said, you can’t explain it to someone who has never been there. The tension of battle mixed with the strain of waiting in between battles. Then you come back here and realize no one is ever going to understand what you went through.

“It’s what made the desert oasis on Obujutte seem so unreal. It looked the same. It had the same sort of feel to it in so many ways, and yet it was vastly different than what went on before.”

“Meaning no one was trying to kill you,” Janet supplied.

Bubba nodded and took another drink from his bottle. We waited until he was ready to speak. “Even disguised to look like Hello, Mikimo was stunningly beautiful to me. Those pale green eyes which had first met mine in the back of the car haunted me. I’ve never been great with the ladies like Dingo and Jack.”

I did not bother to tell him he was not helping me with Janet. “Jack used to walk into a place, drop his coat and order a drink. Before you knew it there were two or three girls at the table talking and laughing, out on the dance floor without a second thought. Whatever he has, it bleeds over a little, I guess. Those girls would talk to Arlo and me, dance with us too. Some of them would even date us sometimes. I always knew it was never going to be anything that lasted. I was looking for one perfect girl.

“I hadn’t found her in my hometown growing up, or in Augusta Georgia, or any of the other places I was stationed. She never crossed my path in Germany or Kosovo. No one caught my interest in the desert. My perfect girl was born on another planet.

“See,” he said pointing around the room, “these guys think my ball hitting Osned was a huge mistake. But without it, without the abduction by the Pilifinos and the mind-scrambling on Darfo Seven, without all of it, I never would have met Mikimo. And to not have met her would have been a terrible thing.” He paused as he searched for words, tried to sort the story out where it would make sense.

“She was a princess. Maybe ours is a princess and a pauper kind of story. After I met her, I didn’t care about the money we were going to get when we got her back home. All I cared about was getting her home safe.”

“Does Lakanica have a tourist trade like some of the other worlds you were on?” Janet interrupted.

“People make pilgrimages,” Dingo said with a dismissive shake of his head.

“Think of it like Tibet,” Arlo explained. “They allow a few people to come and study their way of life and their teachings. They fear most outsiders can never fully understand their beliefs unless they were born and raised on Lakanica. I guess the answer is no. There are not a lot of tourists on Lakanica. They mostly keep to themselves. They have people who deal with the other worlds and the galactic government. Most of them do not want to be bothered with such unholy matters. They want to be left alone.”

“Until someone kidnaps their princess,” Janet prompted.

“I stood by as her protector since the moment of her rescue,” Bubba spoke again. “I dared not let her out of my sight while she was awake, even though I knew she should be safe on the ship. I don’t want to sound silly, but she seemed precious to me.” None of us laughed or even smiled at his admission.

“Bipodecus was with her most of the time, getting the details of her treatment while the Elvi held her. They had threatened her with vacuums, but never went that far, afraid she might tell Elvis, and then they would all be punished.

“I guess Carmenelli gave them an impossible task. They were to break her spirit, to brainwash her into being a compliant servant of the King. Mikimo was no such thing. She was twenty-nine and had refused several suitors her father and others in the palace had suggested. She was her own woman.

“Bipodecus was leery of telling her of his own actions in the weeks which led up to her rescue. She turned to me for those details. I did not reveal to her what Bipodecus considered his failings, glossing over certain aspects of the story. I told her about being freaked out by the Khelids and what happened on Darfo Seven. She consoled me with her fear of insects and laughed good-naturedly at the Darfo Seven stuff. We watched the tape of Jack fighting the Kelvekian. We talked about the team we put together for her rescue. She was impressed it had been done for her, that we would do it when we did not know her. I told her we were getting paid. She only thought it fair since we had risked life and limb. We talked several times on the ship as we flitted through space jumps. I don’t understand why, but we cruised through different solar systems for three days before we arrived at Obujutte.”

Janet turned to Arlo, expectant now to seek him for details.

“There are several approach and departure points along the outer edges of a solar system. We might cruise in one for several hours to reach a different departure point. You have heard the old saying ‘you can’t get there from here’. It was true in some instances. George could have plotted a more direct route but going roundabout seemed wiser. It would be harder to track the ship through multiple jumps through multiple systems. We weren’t sure anyone was chasing us, but we were being safe.”

Bubba nodded his agreement. “By the time we got to the oasis, Mikimo and I had spent several hours in deep conversation over several days. We were beyond the details of the rescue. We started to talk about our own lives, what we saw as failures and triumphs no one else seemed to understand. I told her about being married to Becky Sue and how unfulfilling it was. She told me about sabotaging the arranged marriages proposed for her.

“We got down to the planet. I told her about the battles I had been in and the tragedies I had seen. Somehow it made me a hero in her eyes. I admit it felt awfully good to be seen that way. She seemed to understand all the stuff I felt when no one else ever had.

“I’ve known these three for years,” he stated as he met each of our eyes in turn. “We’ve had our adventures and disagreements. I always feel like a third wheel lummox.”

“It’s not intentional,” I said gently. “We all give each other a hard time about our missteps and oddball notions.”

“I know, I know, but I took it more personal than I should have sometimes, I guess. Arlo is really smart. Dingo doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him. Jack is well; Jack is genuine in a way few people can accomplish. I’m not any of those things, but I’m not as dumb as a lot of people think I am.”

I did not think this was the time or place to argue the point. Bubba was a couple of degrees off north. I am not saying any of the rest of us pointed true north either, but we were all kind of skewed in the same direction. If we were running five degrees to port, Bubba was seven degrees to starboard in most cases. I had never intended to hurt him though.

“Mikimo did not know about my past, about all the stupid things I did sometimes because I don’t see the world like everyone else. She really seemed to understand stuff while we talked. Everyone had all these ideas of how she was supposed to act as the princess. Advisers and handmaidens and all these people in the palace had appointed themselves to direct her path in life instead of letting her forge it on her own. Neither of us lived up to the expectations of others.”

Janet was bobbing her head as she listened to him speak. Dingo, Arlo, and I were loath to interrupt. This was a side of Bubba we were unaccustomed to. I believe each of us knew he was not nearly as dumb as we accused him of being, but again, he was different.

“Jack said Obujutte was to be a mini vacation. We wanted an out of the way place to lay low, relax, rest, and celebrate a successful mission. It was just going to be a few hours in space and three or four jumps to get us back to Lakanica after we left. He had arbitrarily decided to stay for five days.”

“Why do you say arbitrarily,” Janet asked as she turned towards me.

“Because I didn’t discuss it with everyone,” I answered. “I had about a weeks’ vacation in mind when we rescued the princess. After three days of travel to get to Obujutte I discussed the idea with Bipodecus and Danny Boy. Once they agreed I just kind of announced it.”

“And it pissed everyone off because you three didn’t consult with the rest of the crew,” Janet deduced.

“Something like it,” I admitted.

“Pretty much exactly like it,” Bubba stated. “We kind of got over it. Jack had the money from the casino. He paid for rooms for everyone. It was called an oasis, but it wasn’t the only one on the planet. There are several in the desert. There are other resorts in different locales which offer everything from tropical to artic. Danny Boy had been in one of the tropical resorts when he first got there. Even with a new identity, it was decided we would probably be better off somewhere different. None of us really felt like snow skiing or anything like it, so Jack chose the desert oasis.

“Space is cold. I don’t mean the ship is cold. You can get the computer to set your cabin to whatever temp you want. Space just kind of invades you when you are out there between planets. It is something that settles in your bones. Maybe it’s a mix of artificial gravity and the recycled air and I don’t know what else. It gives me a chill just thinking about it.”

“Hence, the heat of the desert,” Janet suggested.

“Maybe it is why Jack chose it. I don’t know for sure. I just know five days was too long. I didn’t think it at the time. As a matter of fact, I cherished every minute we were on the planet. I didn’t want to take Mikimo back home. We were in these big tents, gathered around the lake. There were some common tents, like the dining room and a bar, of course. They had a game kind of like golf which Arlo and Dingo tried their hand at. I figured after what happened with Osned I should kind of avoid it,” he said with an unassuming shrug.

“Anyway, we did not have a whole lot to do. We could stay up late, sleep late, play games, and lounge by the lake or the pool, whatever. Mikimo and I spent our hours talking, sharing stories of our different worlds, talking about how we wished things were different in each of them and the things we regretted in our lives. She drew a lot of admirers in her skimpy bathing suit, but her attention remained with me.

“The Herpes were off in their little group. I don’t really know what they were doing. Dingo and Danny Boy were chasing the women at the resort and drinking a lot of alcohol. Jack and Arlo played golf and drank beer and talked about what to do with the money we were going to get. They started making plans for their gold in the desert story. Bipodecus, now that the princess was rescued, locked himself up in his tent to meditate some more. No one really noticed how the princess and I always ended up together alone.”

“Hello,” Janet said. We all looked at her. “You left out Hello.”

“She had disappeared,” Arlo stated. “When we were on the space station above the planet, she told me she had some things she needed to take care of on Tzatziki. She said it would only be a couple of days and she would meet back up with us at the end of the week.

“It probably sounds terrible, but I was ready for a bit of a break from her. We had been bound together talking about planets, history, science, politics, religion, and so many other things. She had been a fount of knowledge I drank deeply from. She was ready to hit the sheets at just about any time. I realized the first day on Obujutte I had missed out on much of what was going on with the rest of the guys. The golf and working with Jack planning for our return to earth enlivened me, at the same time it revealed how wrapped up I had been in her.”

“We hadn’t bothered to mention it,” I proposed, “because Arlo hasn’t had many girls like her in his life. When they come along, we tend to do stupid things and forget about our friends for a while.”

“Where we like that?” Janet asked of the rest of the guys.

“Not too bad,” Bubba answered. “But Jack is different.”

“How so?” she asked inquisitively.

Bubba looked at me before he answered. I knew what he was going to say would not be flattering, but it would be the truth as he saw it. I nodded lightly and met his eyes. “As I said earlier, Jack has this thing. I don’t even know how to describe it. Dingo is a smooth talker and has a good dose of bad boy edge. He throws in an Aussie accent and girls fall into bed with him. But Jack, he just attracts people. I guess you could call it charisma. Nothing against the current company, but Jack is loyal to only a few. Dingo and he have been friends for fifteen years or more. Arlo and I have known him for somewhere around ten. Hundreds of people have passed through our lives in that time, but they tend to fade away.”

“What are you getting at Bubba?” Janet queried.

“Jack’s relationships last a few months. He has it in his head or his soul somewhere he can fix people. He tries to repair what’s broken in their hearts or their lives. Once they are better, or he feels he has done all he can do for them, he lets them walk away. And they tend to love him for it. If we see one of his ex-girlfriends in town somewhere and catch up for a few minutes, they always ask about Jack. They talk about how good he was to them, how he helped them through a difficult time. They miss him but say breaking up was probably for the best. They don’t hate him, even though he forced most of them to walk away from him.

“They always talk about him with a touch of sadness, like there was something they just could not quite figure out how to be for him.”

Janet regarded me silently for several moments. I knew she was rehashing every conversation we ever had, the past heartbreak in her life, and how I was an odd mixture of deep caring and apathy it seemed. It was going to be part of a much longer conversation after the conclusion of this tale.

“Of course, you’re something a little different too,” Bubba added after taking another drink. “Don’t know what it is, but he was dating three or maybe four girls regular when he met you. He dropped them all after your second date.”

“What,” she said in astonishment, turning to me.

“It’s true,” I answered. “They all knew it was never going to be anything serious. They all knew I was seeing other people. A couple of them knew each other. It was dinner, or dancing, or a movie or something. It was never going to be more. Nothing was hidden from any of them.”

“Kind of struck me odd over this past couple of months,” Bubba continued to contemplate, “Jack didn’t run off with none of the girls on any of the planets. Besides Obujutte, I was right there with him most of the time He had a few offers. It kind of made me think you might be different,” he directed towards her.

I could see both confusion and anger in her eyes. I knew her anger would simmer until it reached a boiling point somewhere in the next few days. “Back to Mikimo,” I suggested.

Bubba took a second or two as he delved into his memory. “Five days was too long. Three days would have been alright. But on the evening of the third night, sitting by a fire next to the lake with a thousand unknown stars in the sky,” Bubba drifted off for a moment as he closed his eyes.

We waited.

“This breeze came off the lake. Mikimo shivered as we sat there. She slipped a little closer to me. I wrapped an arm around her. I was telling her how all of it seemed unreal to me, even sitting there with her. I knew where I was, and yet a part of my mind was telling me I could not be there. I must have been the one hit by a golf ball and was knocked out having some wild dream.”

I looked at Dingo. This had been my plan. We would get Bubba falling over his feet drunk, passing out on my couch drunk. Tomorrow while he was nursing his hangover, we would recount the story, saying he told it to us the night before while he was drunk. I wanted him to think it was all in his head. If he thought it now, it only improved our chance of success.

“We saw a falling star,” Bubba was still speaking, his voice far away. “She pointed it out and told me about how her people had once thought they were omens and made wishes on them, long before wandering into the reality of space. I told her we did the same thing. A little bit of magic and wonder were lost when they found out the truth. She looked towards me with sadness and something I don’t have words for. I leaned forward and kissed her. I wanted her kiss more than I have ever wanted anything in the world.”

“Anything in the universe,” Dingo waxed poetically.

“Yeah, in the universe,” Bubba repeated. “It was the third night in the deserts of Obujutte. It’s why five days was too long. If we had left after the third day, none of it would have happened. She would just be one more girl I had a crush on and never got anywhere with. The kiss changed everything. We made our way back to my tent, snuggled down into the bed and held each other and talked. I talked to her about things I’d never talk to these guys about, things I think they would never understand.”

“Elvish figurines,” Arlo suggested.

I suspected an outburst from Bubba, but I was wrong.

“I didn’t even really have to explain it to her. She got me in a way no one else ever has. We talked quietly until we fell asleep in each other’s arms. When we woke up the next morning, well, things got more intimate. All the talking and stuff had really opened us up to each other and it just seemed like the most appropriate next step.”

“Condoms,” Janet asked, looking at each of the guys in turn. None of them met her eyes. She was glaring when she turned back towards me. “You guys never think, do you? Never crosses your mind to have a little protection on hand when you need it.”

“It’s hardly fair,” Dingo responded. “Guys never know when they are going to find a girl to bed. Girls know before they leave the house how their night is going to end. You’re the one with the power. If you don’t want a nine-month bug, you should throw something in your purse to prevent it. Right, there is a damn good equal rights argument!”

Janet’s eyes grew even wider. Her nostrils flared. It was actually a valid argument, from my point of view. I was not about to defend Dingo. I had my own passions which would need to be satisfied at some point in the near future.

“Most of the advanced planets,” Arlo stepped up to diffuse the situation, “have something in the food, or in the air itself which prevents pregnancy. If you want to have children, you apply for a license, get tested, and then are given the antidote in a limited dose if you are approved. Without it, the occupants of said planet are basically sterile. Of course, there are exceptions to any rule, so occasional unplanned pregnancies do occur, but the rate is minuscule.”

“And the women are given the option to abort,” Janet demanded to know.

“Depends on the planet and their policies, but generally it is not an option. If fate decides your actions result in a child, you get a child.”

“What about rape, incest, molestation, or birth defects,” she continued, unable to comprehend how advanced societies would not agree with her progressive views.

“I did not delve into the specifics of it with Hello, “Arlo answered, “beyond the question of whether or not we needed some kind of protection. As for birth defects, parents are screened when they apply for a license. The risk can be determined and addressed before pregnancy begins, or in the womb, if needed. Because of the sterility drugs, rape and incest would almost never figure into a pregnancy. They are separate issues.”

I could see the frustration building in Janet. I knew she wanted to argue her point further, but to what end? We did not control the universe. By Dingo’s view, we did not even control when we were going to have sex. Men had to be ready because we never knew when a woman might say yes to our advances. “So, did it change everything between you and the princess?” She finally asked.

“Not initially. We were as wrapped up in each other as Arlo and Hello had been the first few days they were together. We knew we only had a couple of days left on Obujutte. We made the most of them. After we left the tent in the morning our souls were filled with a bit of sorrow. We knew it could not last beyond those few days Whatever time we had on the ship traveling back to Lakanica was all we would have.

“We continued to talk, to walk along the lake shore, to lounge by the pool and sip fruity drinks with tinges of alcohol. I stared at her and tried to take in every curve of her face, the twinkles of sunlight in her eyes and the tiny changes in her expression as she spoke. I want to remember her for the rest of my life.

“She was trapped on Lakanica. She was imprisoned within hidden boundaries on where she could go, whom she could interact with, who she could fall in love with. On our ship, and on Obujutte was the first time she ever had a chance to be free, to be herself without the judgment of those who her father appointed to keep her. In some ways, she had not seen her captors much differently than the life she knew on Lakanica.”

“Nobody ever writes about it much in the fairy tales do they,” Janet mused.

“They were the best days, and the worst, because we knew our time was short.” Bubba lamented.

“Is our time short,” she asked as she turned to me. “Have you found and fixed what is broken in me?”

“It’s not like that with you Janet. We don’t need each other. Our time together is by mutual choice. I never thought you needed fixing.”

“What else happened on Obujutte?” she asked turning back to Bubba. This discussion too would wait.

“Well, we found out Gilfoy and Elsa had something going on. Romantically I mean, Gilfoy really was a space pirate. He had never had his own ship, but he had been part of several crews who were not much more than mercenaries. Dingo was right, Elsa was kind of crazy. She wanted to be wild, unhinged, and violent in ways she was never allowed on Herpe. She also had a lot of rage at a system which had raised her and her sister. She claimed she didn’t believe in God but hated him for what had happened to her. Gilfoy was teaching her how to fight, how to shoot, and anything else she could think of.

“With our mission pretty much over except for pulling into the driveway, the Herpes were also planning what they were going to do next. Bob and Ella had taken a liking to each other. Kristin and Dylan were already together. If Elsa and Gilfoy were involved romantically, it left the three brothers free to do as they wished. The three girls were related. We kind of figured they would want to stay together too. Dylan was related to George and his brothers but was more concerned with staying with Kristin than them.

“They would accompany us to Lakanica to get paid. Afterward, it would be the end of the party for our little band. Jack, Arlo, and Danny Boy were eager to get back to earth. Dingo said he wouldn’t mind it much either but wasn’t sure how long he wanted to stay.”

“Why would you go back out there?” Janet asked with surprise.

“Are you serious,” Dingo asked. He saw she was. “There are worlds to discover Janet, worlds! I’ve got twenty or thirty years at best to see some of them. Jack and I have seen places all over Europe and the Middle East. I’ve seen the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, and Yellowstone. I’ve been to New York, Paris, Rome, and sat on the shores of islands in the Caribbean. What’s left to do here on earth when I could be out there in the stars?”

“I don’t think any of us would be happy here for long,” I said. “Arlo might be able to settle down somewhere with a nice girl and write the past couple of months off as a grand adventure no one would ever believe, but Dingo is right. There is a whole universe out there to discover. We aren’t rich by galactic standards, but we wouldn’t be exactly poor either. We could do private transport runs between planets. The Janet’s Lair isn’t set up to transport cargo, at least not a great deal of it, but we could move people around for a fee, see what is out there. It might get old after a while, but there are thousands of worlds we haven’t seen.”

“You said Oz was real,” she replied quietly as she thought about the possibilities.

“And a world where magic really exists from what we understand. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see Ozkeria and spend a few days walking around a world L. Frank Baum wrote about?”

“As long as a house didn’t fall on my head, or flying monkeys didn’t attack me,” she said with a nervous smile. “And we could come back to earth to visit whenever we wanted?” She asked.

“I don’t see why not,” I answered as she once again took my hand.

“I don’t think Oz would be a good idea,” Arlo reminded me.

“Not a good idea at all,” Bubba added.

“What’s wrong with Oz?” Janet wondered.

We all kind of looked at each other for a moment. “Not quite yet,” I said. “We will get to Ozkeria in a little while.”

“Oh, Arlo and Dingo played golf with Kohan and Drazah on Obujutte,” Bubba said suddenly. “They invited them to visit Maya one day.”

Dingo looked at him with slight shock. “You were the one telling us earlier we aren’t supposed to talk about the Mayans, remember?”

“Sorry,” Bubba responded. “I misspoke. Don’t know what I was saying. Ignore the last part.”

“What is the big secret with the Mayans?” Janet asked in exasperation.

“What Mayans?” Bubba replied.

“The ones you were just talking about who played golf with Dingo and Arlo.”

“Sorry, I’m pretty sure I never said anything like it,” Bubba replied as if he actually believed it was true.

Janet looked at me, bewildered by the recent exchange with Bubba.

“Hello didn’t come back to Obujutte,” I said. “Arlo decided to stay for a few days to wait for her while we took the princess back to Lakanica.”

There was a red tinge to Janet’s eyes. It matched her hair in a way which was a little more than disturbing. “Mayans,” she said in a barely controlled whisper.

“Disappeared from earth several hundred years ago. They had their reasons for leaving,” I answered. “If we get out there in the stars and you meet one of them, you can ask them about it. Arlo and Dingo promised them we would not reveal what they told them. They have not even told Bubba, or I what was said.”

“But no one on earth would believe you, because no one would believe you were abducted,” Janet argued.

“Do you believe we were abducted,” Arlo queried.

“Yes,” Janet admitted. “There’s too much detail and collusion for you to come up with this on your way back from the bar at the golf course. I believe you.”

“Which is why we can’t tell you,” Arlo explained.

Janet stood up and grabbed her beer bottle. I thought she was going to fling it at Arlo’s head! She polished it off and stormed off towards our bedroom. I waited a few seconds and followed her. She had gone into the bathroom and closed the door. I wandered back out into the living room. It was empty. The fellows had gathered up the empty beer bottles and were taking them out to the garage. They returned a few minutes later with a fresh case of beer to put in the fridge. Arlo put some popcorn in the microwave. “I never realized I missed popcorn,” he said as he watched the bag rotate around.

“And real beer,” Bubba said as he twisted the top off of one from the fridge and settled down into a chair in the living room. He took a long pull and smacked his lips. “We definitely need to take a couple of pallets with us when we go back out there. Is Janet going to be alright? I mean, I thought it was kind of risky telling her about all this. Maybe we should have just told her we went to Vegas and let her be mad at you for a couple of days.”

“Maybe,” I agreed.

“But Jack always tells the truth,” Janet said as she too grabbed a fresh beer from the fridge. I did not know she had walked back into the kitchen. “Well, when it’s important he does,” she revised. “Jack says you were abducted and went planet hopping, then who am I to dispute it? I still haven’t seen any real proof.”

“What about our identification cards?” Arlo offered.

“They don’t look like anything more than metal blanks to me,” she replied.

“And Jack’s scars and missing finger? What about the vacuum marks,” he asked raising his shirt up again?

“Circumstantial at best,” she replied. “I can’t explain the change in Jack’s appearance or any of the rest of you. Jack’s the only one who looks dramatically different. The rest of you look pretty much the same. Bubba has never spoken so eloquently in front of me, but people have been hit in the head and suddenly known how to speak a different language, or how to play an instrument with no training. Sometimes weird things just happen.

“You know I met Jack because I was standing on a street corner, waiting to cross, and a girl on a bicycle hit a bump, spilling her coffee on herself, crashing into me, and knocking me off my feet into traffic, where Jack hit me with his truck.”

“Not my fault,” I said quickly.

“No, it wasn’t your fault,” she reassured me. “Whose fault was it? I could blame the girl for drinking coffee and riding a bike instead of concentrating on the road, or the city for not fixing the bump which caused her to spill her coffee.”

“Or the coffee place for making the coffee too hot,” Dingo suggested.

“Coffee is supposed to be hot,” I replied.

“The point is,” Janet interjected with a raised voice, “none of it would have happened if I had been five minutes earlier or later. Jack would have never rushed me to the hospital. We likely never would have met. I would not be sitting in the living room listening to you talk about space aliens and kidnapped princesses.”

“Only one princess,” Bubba corrected.

“Whatever, I’m just saying there are things which happen and can’t be explained.”

“Like why the Mayans left,” Bubba said excitedly.

“No, it has an explanation. You just won’t tell me what it is,” she seethed.

“You’re damn well right I won’t,” Bubba said with satisfaction, missing the ire and irony completely.

Janet sunk down onto the couch and looked at me wearily. “You took the princess back to Lakanica,” she prompted.

“Yes, yes we did.”