Chapter 5

Larry had mixed emotions as he watched Beth load her clothes and other possessions into her Ford Edge. He almost broke into tears when she drove down his driveway and was hidden by the dust of her passing. Finally, after the dust was almost settled as far as he could see into the distance, he turned and trudged back to his small abode. He took a beer from the fridge and walked down to his favorite spot beside the millpond. He listened to the water splashing as it poured from the slowly turning mill wheel. He was so used to the noise of the splashing water and the gentle humming of his generator he really didn’t notice them any longer.

He couldn’t tell you what he thought about during the several minutes he spent contemplating his peaceful surroundings. He was content here and had no desire to return to what most would call civilization and move back to town. He felt no need to return to the rat race he would have to be in if he found a job once again. He had no need for companionship from many people but he did wish he had someone he could see and talk to occasionally and someone to love.

Later that evening Larry was eating a sandwich for his supper when he saw a cloud of dust coming down his driveway. He saw a speck at the head of the cloud and knew it was a car or truck. He sat watching as the vehicle came closer then stopped in his designated parking area. Two young women and a young man got out of the car and walked up to him smiling. They were carrying books and laptop computers.

The older woman smiled happily and said, “Good evening Larry. I hope you’re ready for this tonight. I’m having a bitch of a time with this crap right now.” The other two nodded their heads in agreement.

The young man looked around and said, “Where’s Beth? Hasn’t she gotten home yet?”

Larry looked stricken and didn’t answer. The other young woman slammed her hand against the boy’s shoulder and hissed, “Quiet asshole.”

“HUH? OH,” he said before blushing and looked at Larry guiltily. “I’m sorry Larry. I guess she finally told you huh?” He looked around and said, “We can go if you want us to. I mean, I know we were mostly just piggy backing on Beth’s tutorial session so if you don’t want to help us any longer, we understand.”

“NO. Look, I’m sorry. I sorta forgot this was study night with everything that happened this afternoon. Sit down and we’ll get started. Hell, I don’t mind helping you. I enjoy the work and to tell the truth, I enjoy talking with you all. I really don’t know if Beth will come back or not though.”

They had worked on the lessons for several minutes before they saw another vehicle coming down Larry’s drive. When it got closer, they saw it was Beth’s old Edge. She parked beside the other vehicle and got out of her car. She stood looking at Larry and the other three students for a moment then walked slowly toward the study group. When she got to the table, she said, “I’m sorry I’m late. Larry, is it OK if I still come for help? I mean, I would understand if you didn’t want me around any longer.”

Larry smiled and said, “Yes Beth, it’s ok if you still come study. I thought I made it clear when you left earlier that you were always welcome here. We’re buds after all. Now belly up to the table and let’s get with it.”

Beth smiled and moved to give Larry a hug. Afterwards, she took a seat across the table from him and opened her book. They worked until almost ten p.m. but when they quit all four of the students had a good grasp of the work they had been studying. As always, Larry came out of the session with a better understanding of the material. He once again thought about the old saying that you never completely learn a subject until you have to teach it.

Shortly after his friends—yes, he thought of the study group as his friends—left, Larry got another beer and returned to his chair beside the mill pond to think and relax before going to bed. He looked up into the sky through the tree leaves and watched as the predicted meteor storm became visible. His eyes got large and felt as if they were going to pop from his head when he saw a large meteor coming straight toward him. He actually flinched away and dropped to the ground when it flashed over his head. It was so close he felt the heat it generated. He felt the ground shake and heard the crash when it hit.

Larry got shakily to his feet and looked in the direction of the strike. He couldn’t see any smoke or flames so hoped the strike hadn’t started a fire. He got another beer and sat looking in the direction of the strike for over half an hour before he decided he was safe and went to bed. He had trouble going to sleep because of the excitement of the day but finally, a little after midnight, he dropped off.

The next morning Larry had his usual coffee while he sat beside his millpond. He thought about the events of the day before and decided he would go see if he could find the impact area from the meteor that scared him so the night before. He didn’t know what he would need, if anything, so packed a light backpack with the things he would use if he were going camping or on a daylong fishing trip. He also brought some gloves and a shovel in hopes of finding the meteor and bringing it or a chunk of it back. It would make a great conversation piece. He knew some people made lots of money finding and selling meteors. Hell, he might even do that. He had enough money to live the way he wanted but money was like sex. Up to a point, more was always better!

After a larger than normal breakfast, Larry carefully crossed his stream and walked in the direction of the meteor strike. He found himself relaxing as he walked through the woods and listened to the birds and other wildlife. He moved slowly and appreciated the beauty of nature as he walked. He had only gone about a quarter mile when he came to a scene of devastation. Starting at the tops and angling downward, there were several trees broken off and shattered. He walked slowly, carefully, down the path the falling rock took until he came to the large hole slashed in the ground when it hit. There was still a small amount of steam rising from the hole.

Larry looked around and smiled. The impact area was well within his property lines. He could barely see the small trail he cut around his boundary fence between an eighth and a quarter mile away. He sat on a broken off piece of an old oak tree trunk to drink some water while he contemplated the impact area. “Damn,” he whispered. “That sure made a mess.”

Larry looked around for a long time before getting back to his feet. The hole in the ground from the meteor was a lot larger than he thought it should be also. When he stepped up to the edge of the hole, he could still feel the heat from the meteor. He looked at the impact area and stared into the hole for a moment then began walking around the hole looking for smaller pieces that may have broken off the larger stone. There didn’t seem to be any other, smaller, impacts.

Larry was almost afraid to go into the hole to check it out but he finally decided to do so. Hell, he really didn’t have anything to live for any longer so if it was radioactive or full of dangerous gasses or bacteria, so what. Besides, why would this meteor be different from millions of others that struck earth in the past? People picked them up and didn’t suffer any ill effects.

Larry tried to climb down into the hole but found himself sliding in the loose dirt of the side of the crater. He made a controlled descent and was finally standing on what he assumed was the surface of the meteor. He knelt down and brushed the surface of the object to clean off the debris. Humm. It seemed smoother than he thought it should be. It was metallic and showed the extreme heat of falling through the atmosphere. It was still warm to the touch but not as hot as he thought it might be.

Larry moved more dirt, looking for a nodule or rough place he might break off and take back to his place. He couldn’t find any irregularity at all. After he removed the dirt from almost a four by four foot section of the object he was convinced it was not a meteor. He decided one of the satellites that circled the earth had made reentry during the meteor shower and slammed to earth on his farm. He decided he needed to contact the Air Force and report finding the unit.

As Larry climbed out of the hole he had another thought. There were two things wrong with his theory that this was a satellite. One was it came down from the wrong direction to have been an orbital vehicle and two, he wasn’t aware of any man made satellite that could survive the immense heat of reentry and the crash landing intact.

Larry felt a chill come over his body. He turned back to look at the object once again. He was suddenly scared and immensely excited. Had he found an alien vehicle? Naw, impossible. He turned and began digging around the object once again. Larry worked all day digging the object out of the hole and still hadn’t found the end of it. He did finally admit it was a man made—well, a manufactured object in any event--whether it had been made by man or not.

Finally after nearly eight hours of work Larry decided he needed to quit digging. He was exhausted and still hadn’t completely uncovered the object. He had uncovered what he assumed was the rear of the object for a length of about fifteen feet and a depth of about ten feet. He thought the wall he was digging around was beginning to bend back as if he had dug past the thickest part of the object. Larry walked slowly back to his home. When he got to the millpond, he stopped, stripped and dove into the ice-cold water to clean off and cool down from his day’s exertion.

The next norming, after his essential chores were done, Larry loaded his Kawasaki Mule with tools he thought he might need in his endeavor to uncover whatever had crashed in his woods. He drove slowly and carefully to the impact area and stopped his machine near the hole. Huh. The object seemed larger, maybe closer to the surface or something. He didn’t remember uncovering as much as was showing this morning.

As Larry looked toward the hole he thought he saw movement. There was an arc or flash of light as if someone was welding but that was impossible. He slowly moved toward the hole and looked over the edge at the object. SHIT! The sides of the hole were fused, almost glass like and there was movement in the space he could see between the object and the wall of the hole it was in. He could see some distance along the side into the earth now and he knew he had not dug back into the earth yesterday. Fuck, there was movement alongside the object in the cavern surrounding the front of it.

Larry watched closely as there was another flash of light. It crashed into his eyes and blinded him for a moment. He stepped back involuntarily, stumbled on a tree branch and fell to the ground. He sat there in shock and a little fear. What the hell had he stumbled onto here? He wanted to run. He wanted to stay and watch, and he wanted to get in the hole and dig.

Larry moved back toward the hole, crawling this time. He put on a pair of sunglasses before he once again looked over the edge of the hole toward what he assumed was the front of the object he was now convinced was a vessel of some kind; a space ship if you will. He was convinced in his mind it was alien too. No human engineered spacecraft could do what this one had already done.

Larry looked into the hole beside the craft and saw a dim light coming from within. There appeared to be an open door or hatch about four feet into the earth. Small creatures or robots or something were occasionally entering or leaving the vehicle.

He couldn’t resist, Larry slid down into the hole and squeezed between the metal side and the fused dirt of the hole until he got to the opening. He carefully looked around the corner into the vehicle. He saw a small room, an airlock he assumed and an open door on the other side. He was looking into a room with a couple of consoles and some screens showing. There was a couple of what he thought might be chairs behind the consoles.

As he stood trying to see into the ship Larry felt something pushing against his legs. He turned his head downward and jumped when he saw one of the small moving objects pushing against him. It’s manipulator arms were reaching upward toward his buttocks as he watched. Without thinking Larry jumped. Unfortunately, his jump was a poor idea as his head came into rather violent contact with the hard metal of the door opening. He felt the instant pain then nothing as he fell rapidly to the floor, half in and half out of the ship.

When Larry fell the little robot, for that is what was pushing on him, let out a rather metallic chirp. It scampered backward to keep Larry from falling on it but at the same time it used its manipulator arms to try and reduce his impact with the ground and floor of the air lock.

Larry slowly regained consciousness after only about ten minutes. His head throbbed and his body felt as if he had been beat. He was somewhat uncomfortable lylying on his back. His head rested on a hard metal rail, his feet hung out into space off the end of whatever he was laying on. Another sharp edge cut into the back of his calves just below his knees. There was a nightmare conglomeration of arms, needles, sensors and tubes hovering over him. It kept moving back and forth getting closer to him then backing away as if it didn’t know what to do.

Larry rolled his head to the side and saw another table on the other side of the room that looked like the one he was laying on felt. There was a grayish green lump laying on it. The lump had a vaguely humanoid shape but was only about five feet tall. With a groan, Larry swung his feet off the bed and sat up. As he sat up his shoulder brushed against the machinery hovering over the bed. He took his arm and pushed it away from him. It took some effort to effect the move.

His head throbbed and his body ached from his fall. With a groan, he rose from the bed and staggered over to the other bed. It did not appear as if the body on it was alive. He couldn’t detect any movement and the body was cold to the touch. Whatever it was definitely did not originate on this old ball of dirt, Larry thought.

Larry moved out of the room and walked down a passageway. He soon found himself back in what he now thought was a control room, perhaps a bridge or cockpit depending on the service you wanted to credit the ship to. He collapsed into one of the units he decided were chairs in front of the central console. When he sat in the chair lights and displays came up on the console in front of him. He just sat staring at the console in awe trying to decide what in the heck to do about this find.

All the while Larry sat, the small robots moved in and out of the open doors. A couple even skittered around in the control room removing panels and working with wiring and what appeared to be some sort of electronic cards in the consoles. From his observation it appeared the ship was about 40 feet long, some 25 feet of which he could access from inside. He assumed the remaining 15 feet must be engines. There was what appeared to be a small door in the rear of the ship that was closed up tightly.

Larry placed his hand on the console to help himself stand. When he did so, a voice (or what he assumed was a voice) sounded. Of course he didn’t understand a word it said. He noticed a flashing white light on the console. He quickly moved his hand and the light continued flashing. He heard a hum coming from the rear of the ship. His stomach lurched in fear. Fuck, what the hell do I do now, he thought. He pushed the button again with no result. There was another button beside the one he pushed. He pushed it and the flashing light stopped and the hum died down then stopped. Larry sagged back in the chair in relief. Shit, that was close. Why the hell did he come into this ship anyway?

Wait, he didn’t come in the ship. The last thing he remembered he was standing in the door and one of the little robots was pushing on him. Then his head hurt. Crap, did the little bastard hit him? No, it couldn’t have, it wasn’t tall enough and the pain and cut were almost exactly on top of his head. Oh, yeah, he jumped and hit his head on the ship.

Larry wandered around the control room picking up this and that just to see what was there. He even opened some drawers and cabinets. Some of the smaller electrical items he stuffed in his pockets. He was going to take them back to his shop and see if he could figure them out. His Electrical Engineering persona was coming out in full force as he became more used to his surroundings and felt safer. He really, really wanted to know what all the electronic gadgets did. Oh, hell, tell the truth, he really, really wanted to not only know what the things did, he wanted to know how the whole damn ship worked and maybe even go into space in it.

When Larry got back to his house he went straight into his lab and began working on his new toys. The next thing he knew the sun was rising and he was famished. He staggered out of his shop and into the shipping container house. After a huge country breakfast, Larry collapsed onto his bed. He didn’t wake until he heard the banging on his door that evening when Beth and her friends came out for their usual Tuesday evening study session.

Larry staggered to the door, grungy clothes, bed head, and all. When Larry opened the front door Beth and Rachel were standing on the small porch. Tom and Sally were behind them. Beth gasped when she saw Larry. Rachel stared for a moment then pushed Beth out of the way. She pushed the door farther open and moved to Larry. She put her hand on his forehead and asked, “My God Larry. Are you ok? You look as if you are sick or something. Have you been in bed?”

Larry looked sheepish and nodded his head then said, “Yeah, I pulled a damn stupid stunt and had an all nighter last night. I got interested in some work and lost track of time. Gimme a minute and I’ll be with you. Come on in. You know where every thing is so help yourselves.”