Chapter 42

Things changed after that incident. The fact was that no one was happy with our 'benefactors' anymore. Even I was tempted to call them 'the fucking aliens' as a result of what had happened and while things didn't change immediately, that anger and resentment brought things to a boil quickly.

"I want to go back to the rift valley," I declared over my morning coffee.

"What?" my wife exclaimed looking up from her meal.

"I said I want to go back to the rift valley," I repeated myself more forcefully, my words drawing the attention of everyone else in the dining hall. "I want go there and find a way up the western side of the valley wall so I can explore that region."

"Why the hell would you want to do that?" Emma asked me bluntly.

"Because there are people there," I replied without hesitation, "and I want to talk to them."

"That sounds great Adam," Emma went on, "but why now?"

"Because I'm pissed off," I told her and everyone who was listening, "and I want some answers. Sitting here on our asses isn't going to get us answers. Working the farm or hunting or knitting or just fucking isn't going to get us any answers. Going to the western side of this region might just give us answers."

"Maybe," my mother interjected, coming over and refilling my coffee cup, "and maybe not. You don't know what you might find over on the other side of the valley. Those fires you saw might be from more of those great hulking creatures that eat people."

"Maybe," I admitted firmly, "and maybe not. We won't know until we go looking."

"But there's work to be done here," Emma declared half-heartedly. "You need to stay here and help out."

"There's very little that I need to do around here," I replied pointedly, "and everyone knows it."

"Is this because of Pebble?" Rebecca asked as she joined the group that had gathered about my table.

"Yes," I said promptly, looking her in the eye, "and the hunt and all the other crap that has gone on including Tilly's family being forced to drive for three months to get here and us doing essentially nothing during that time. I'm tired of not knowing why things have been happening to us and I want some answers."

"But you can't go right now." Emma stated with conviction. "There's nobody to go with you. It would be too risky for you to go alone."

In a way Emma was right. By now we were entering our seventh month on this planet. Most of my women were entering their second trimester of their pregnancies. Emma, Tilly, Mindy, Sarah, and my mother Sally were actually beginning to show a little. That left very few who could technically come along with me on an explorative excursion. The only ones not pregnant were Vicky, Rebecca, and Melody. I could also throw in Shell but I really couldn't see her heading into the valley with us, especially in this weather.

"I know," I finally admitted, "but I still want to go and check it out. With the change in weather, more leaves will have dropped from the trees along the west wall of the valley. I might be able to find a ramp up to the other side."

"Not by yourself," Rebecca pointed out, "and I'm not planning on going with you. If you'll remember rightly, the only reason I'm not pregnant is so I can take care of everyone else. Traipsing off to the valley isn't taking care of everyone else. I'll be staying here and so will Melody."

"Look Adam," Emma interjected before I could respond, "you're not the only one pissed off over what happened with Pebble. We all are, but for now we think it would be wise to stay here and wait. You can't go to the valley alone and other than Vicky, there's no one else who can go with you. I mean think about it Adam, you're not going to risk your unborn children are you just to go exploring?"

Emma was right, whether I wanted to admit it or not, so I surrendered to their arguments. For the time being I would wait and while I waited, I'd go hunting.

We drove up to the escarpment early the next morning and then followed the river eastward until we hit the meadow where we'd killed the wild cattle and where we had set up the lure. Once there I halted our convoy so that I could survey the carnage that we'd helped create. To my surprise there was still quite a bit lying around.

Naturally we posted sentries. Even as we pulled into the meadow, we could see that the heaps of carrion were still attracting scavengers. A couple of rat like creatures scurried away as we climbed out of our vehicles. Vicky had Samantha, Karen, and Helena stand watch while Lizzy, Vicky and I walked about and inspected the mess. For the most part, our lure was gone. The freshly butchered meat had been gobbled up by the pig-creatures and the dinosaur well before the other scavengers had arrived. As for the animals that we'd shot, the pig-creatures had been picked over well and they were mostly gone. The rest had been nibbled on including the dinosaur. When we looked at it we found that its belly had been slashed open with a set of long sharp teeth. From the look of it a sabre-tooth tiger had feasted on it.

The carnage had made the meadow inhospitable. The herd of wild cattle that had been grazing there had wandered off to safer pastures and from the look of things they had no intention of coming back. It would be quite a while before we could hunt this area again. Acknowledging this fact, I had everyone climb back into their vehicles. We needed to find somewhere else to hunt. As we prepared to leave I cornered Vicky for a quick conversation.

e prepared to leave I cornered Vicky for a quick conversation.

"You didn't speak up yesterday," I said to her as we approached the ATVs.

"Others were talking," Vicky replied in a low voice, "and from the sound of things, no one wanted to hear a dissenting voice. I just kept my mouth shut."

"So you think I should go west?" I asked her directly.

"I think we should both go west," Vicky replied firmly, "and see what we can find."

"Good," I replied with a conspiratorial grin upon my face. "I agree. I also think that we should meet later and talk about this. Of course, well have to be quiet about this. I doubt the family will be happy to know that we're thinking of doing this."

"Understood," Vicky agreed returning my grin as she spoke, before stepping towards her waiting vehicle. "I'll talk to you later."

It didn't take us that long to find a new spot. From the meadow we drove due east, keeping the river to our right and the woods to our left. When the river started to bend north-east towards a range of steep hills and small mountains, we picked the first track that we came across that headed directly north and followed that. The track was broad enough that we could drive down it single file. I led the way. The track meandered a bit but eventually, after another couple of miles or so we came out into a clearing and found ourselves at the bottom of a long narrow valley that ran from the north-west to the south-east. The valley was heavily populated with deer of every kind. We stopped upon seeing them.

Our arrival startled the deer closest to us. They were huge in size with great big racks of antlers. Frightened they attempted to flee.

I guess my reaction time had improved since the first time I'd blundered into a herd of animals. Seeing the giant deer kick up their heels in flight, I grabbed my rifle and leapt to my feet, scrambling onto my seat so I could rest my rifle on the roll bar of the Argo. As I did, I chambered a round and brought the rifle to my shoulder. As the forestock levelled against the top of the roll bar, I took aim and fired. Amazingly, I hit a large male as it dashed across our path. The slug struck it in the neck, just below the jaw line of the head. The impact staggered it. As my spent cartridge ejected and a second round was chambered, I fired a second time. This time as the animal struggled to maintain its footing, the slug struck it in the temple dropping it where it stood.

To my amazement I hadn't been the only one firing. Vicky had come up with her carbine and she had dropped a male as well with a nicely placed burst. Helena had dropped a young female. That gave us three kills in a matter of seconds and a hell of a lot of work to do. The deer were the size of moose.

Vicky and I met later that night. It was already dark out so we wandered up to the barn for some privacy. Nobody blinked an eye at that. It wouldn't have been the first time that I took someone there for a role in the hay. We greeted the dogs when we got there and I took a moment to look in on the animals. Once that was done, I pulled out a thermos of coffee that I'd spiked with Bailey's. I'd figured a warm drink on a chilly night would be better than a couple of beers. Vicky accepted a cup with a smile and a thank-you on her lips.

"So," I said after taking a sip of my coffee and cream, "how do you think we should go about this."

Vicky didn't answer right away. She too took a sip of her warm drink and then thought for a minute or two. Then she took a second sip before answering.

"Anything we do will piss off the family," Vicky replied thoughtfully, "What we'll have to do is plan this excursion with the minimum of risks involved. The fewer risks involved mean that there will be fewer arguments about why we shouldn't go."

"The problem is minimizing the risks," I stated with a heavy sigh. "If just you and I go, we're eliminated any risk to a pregnant member of the family. However, the family will argue that with only the two of us going, we're taking the risk of not having enough firepower to protect ourselves if something big and plentiful comes after us. It's a no win situation."

"Then we'll just have to find a way," Vicky insisted, "that gives us a winning situation."

We talked some more and drank some more and then headed back down to the mobiles for the night. We didn't have sex. It was too cold in the barn to get up to anything and I wasn't really in the mood. Before parting we both promised each other to think about what we needed to do to convince the family to let us go down into the valley. Then we went our separate ways.

It was Lizzy who came up with a solution to my problem. The hunt the day before had provided us with ample meat and I decided not to go hunting again. Instead I saddled up the mare 'Maggie' and went out for a ride. Lizzy decided to keep me company. As usual, we headed south towards the beach first and then turned east. We'd been riding for about an hour when Lizzy decided to drop her bomb on me.

"We know that you and Vicky are scheming Dad," my middle child informed me bluntly, glancing over at me from the back of her own horse, "and the girls and I are pissed off. Why haven't you spoken to us yet?"

"About what?" I asked, taken off guard by Lizzy's rebuke.

"About the trip you and Vicky are planning on taking," my daughter informed me. "We know that Vicky and you are planning on going to the rift valley to do some exploring. We don't mind you know, but it's pissing us off that you haven't asked us to come along with you."

"We're trying to limit our risks," I told her, deciding not to pretend that I didn't know what she was talking about. "There is no way we're taking any pregnant women with us. Your mother and your grandmothers would kill me if I put you or any other woman into unnecessary danger."

"To hell with mom," Lizzy replied adamantly, "and to hell with Gramma Sally and Betty. We might be pregnant, but we're not invalids. The girls and I want to go with you and we're not taking no for an answer. Besides, four more rifles will improve your chances of returning alive."

"Maybe," I tentatively acknowledged, "but for this trip, Vicky and I were planning on spending several days in the valley. It means we need to rethink our transportation and camping methods. There's no way we can spend the night in the valley in just a tent trailer. It'll be too dangerous."

"What about a camper?" my daughter asked me. "Maybe the aliens can give us a hard body camper. That would protect us while we're spending the night in the valley."

My daughter's suggestion took me by surprise. Suddenly I realized that Vicky and I had been going about the planning for this trip wrong. We'd been thinking about what we had already that could be used to make this trip possible. We hadn't once thought about asking our 'benefactors' for any help. After all, one of the reasons for this trip was to find answers to questions that related to the aliens that had dropped us on this world. To us, asking for their help didn't make sense. Still, it might work. I decided to have another meeting in the barn and this time I'd invite my whole hunting party. We met mid afternoon.

"We could ask for some Humvees," Vicky suggested once I had related what Lizzy had mentioned that morning. "The military had a couple of variants that had either a shell on them or a shelter. One was the command post variant and another was the ambulance variant. With modifications both of them could be used for sleeping in."

"We could do that," I agreed, "but I think that a humvee would be too wide to navigate the route through the ravine or the ramp down into the valley. If I'm right we'll have to find another route down into it and that might take us some time. Perhaps we should ask for a different type of vehicle."

"Maybe not Adam," Vicky said, smiling mischievously at me as she spoke. "If we're going to ask the aliens for newer and better transportation, then we should also ask them for a road down into the valley. They might refuse us everything or they might not. We won't know until we ask."

Again I hadn't thought about it at all. Theoretically what Vicky had suggested was possible. Our so called 'benefactors' were always rearranging the world about us with what appeared to me as a flick of the wrist. They might do what we wanted them to do. All we needed to do was ask.

The vehicle was the first priority. We talked about what was needed and then, with a general consensus between me and the girls, I put in the order. I asked for three vehicles similar to the Humvee in design and functionality, which had the rear half of the vehicle converted into a camper. I also ordered a trailer for each of the vehicles. Two would be standard cargo trailers and one would be a flatbed on which I could haul one of our Argos. If we did get down in to the valley, I wanted the smaller vehicle as a runabout.

To my surprise we got exactly what we asked for. With a poof of displaced air, three vehicles suddenly appeared outside of the barn. The front ends definitely looked like your standard Army version of the Humvee. The back end on the other hand looked like the box of a standard pickup with a camper built into it. The camper was compact looking but functional. Its overhang stretched out over the roof of the crew compartment of the vehicle. A trailer, as specified was hooked up to each of the vehicles.

The arrival of the vehicles and trailers didn't go unnoticed. My mother was out and about the paddock when they popped in. The moment I saw her face I knew there was going to be trouble. Her face went from surprise to disbelief and then to anger.

"What this all about?" Sally demanded to know when she came over to where the vehicles had appeared.

"They're new toys from our 'benefactors'," I replied casually, "for my trip into the valley. They want me to travel in style."