Chapter 18: A Party of Five

To make certain you haven't gotten confused, I'll rerun the principal players.

Simone Berger: First generation American. German Irish descent. 19, student of anthropology at MSU. Attributes: Brainy, deep red hair, violet eyes. Perfection personified. 5 feet 2. 32D.

Unpronounceable name. Called Ship by choice: 14,000, polite Alien entity on assignment to Earth. Attributes: Cloning, melding, shapeshifting, androgenistic. Chose to clone Simone for the visit to Mother.

Barbara Belant: Native Californian. Retired US Special Forces. 38, student of anthropology at MSU. Attributes: Smart, white blond hair, ice blue eyes. 5 feet 8. 40DD.

Gil Gilchrest: Native Montanan. 26, student of anthropology an MSU. Divorced. Attributes: Local knowledge, brown hair, brown eyes, willowy, striking, 6 feet 1, 38 C.

Hairy (Dave) Kirby: Half Finn. 44, student of anthropology. Possibly retired, pilot, marksman, asian martial arts. Attributes: White blond hair, forget-me-not blue eyes. 6 feet 3, 48, 28, 28. 26 inch bicep. Once referred to as "48in chest, size 2 hat".

Players of inconsequence:

Mother: Mother ship. BIG mothafucka of a constructed ship. 26,000. Attributes: Big, really, really BIG, as in HUGE. Non reflective, cloaked, BIG! Small Planet. Did I mention big?

Powers that Be: Gods. Ageless.

Door: Practical joker under punishment. 14,500.

Astrogator: Pretty blue pop. Dead

Doc: Department Head, Professor, Archaeologist, Linguist. MSU. 70.

Steve: Paid Pit Boss. Dutch ancestry. Masters candidate. Owner, Montana Explorations. 32.

Simone, Ship, Barb, Gil, and Hairy have been 're-engineered' to specifications.

Specifications:

Longevity: Subjects will live a minimum 400 years, except for accidental death. Maximum age, the gods only know. Adjustments may be made on board Mother.

Health: Perfect. Subjects will catch no infectious diseases. No dental, hernia, or broken bone.

Appearance: Subjects never to appear older than 22.

Sexual Stamina: Subjects sexual prowess will be unlimited. Both genders multi orgasmic. Pregnancies by choice of consenting parties.

Linguistics: Subjects will speak and think in all languages for designated continent.

Awareness: Subjects will be aware of harmful plants., animals and situations.

Performance: Subjects will be able to chase to exhaustion any game animal. Subjects will climb any cliff or tree.

Social: Subjects will feel no jealousy. Subjects will be aware of all taboos and ceremonial affairs.

Intelligence: Med Staff said, Quote: You're smart enough. Any more and you guys would be dangerous. Unquote.

Sexual Proclivities: What ever trips your trigger. (Honest, that's what Medical Staff said, word for word.)

Hirsute Proclivities: Subject chooses before departure. Choices include none, head only, facial and head, decorative. Choice is permanent.

The foregoing specifications were fulfilled.

As to where ... remember that where? Yeah, that where. We had no choice. We were placed on site at the archaeology dig we had been excavating. 10000 years before: 10 years before the first occupants.

Oh what joy, we get to watch why the features we found were made. How about that! Far Side cartoonist Gary Larsen would be beside himself.

I asked to be dropped in the valley where we found the blanks and, eventually, the ship. Since I had a lot of things I owned outright they had to send them along. What ever am I going to do with my MIG collection? In my hangar, sent along too, were my MiG-15 "Fagot", 17 "Fresco", 17bis "two seat trainer, 19 "Farmer", 21 "Fishbed", 21bis "Two seat trainer", 25 "Foxbat" and 29 "Fulcrum" ... stolen, every one, from the Eastern Bloc ... I lied ... I got the 21's from Israel ... THEY had stolen them from the Egyptians.

Paraglide in, fly out. Great fun. The Eastern Bloc countries were too close to NATO. I really wanted a MIG-31"Foxhound", but they had better security in Russia.

I made a deal with Mother. She took them, everything except the ultralight, under her wing, so to speak. "If you ever get out of this you can have them back," and she chuckled. I could almost hear, "Fat Chance" in there.

About Montana:

I believe I've mentioned this before, but it stands repeating. "You can't get there from here." Most Easterners don't understand the concept. Unless you happen to be from Vermont ... they understand. You can't get there from here in Vermont either.

Montana is like that, yeah, it is. There is no direct pathway. It's not just the physical obstructions that nail you. People and laws get their turn at frustrating you.

A mountain is in the way if you want to go south.

There's a river to the west but only a couple of bridges, there used to be fords in the river but the fly fishermen complain if you silt up the river.

The Forest Service objects to you going that way, what ever direction that was.

The tree huggers don't want the wolves disturbed over there.

AND the roads that do cut through are gravel with speed limits sometimes in the single digits and never over 35. The ranchers don't appreciate dusting their cattle and the sheep do what sheep do ... panic.

Ah ... the ranchers ... Ted T bought a few square miles of Montana and fenced and posted it. Roads included.

I forgot the Military. Ah, we have "things" over there. No!

Fortunately, Barton Gulch is not on, near, or beyond any Native American Reservation. Nor does it involve any Native American Holy sites. Unless we find a body ... if we report it.

There are several ways to Barton Gulch, everyone of them require one or more of the following:

Back tracking. You're not driving back over the same road, you're having to drive literally miles out of the way to get to the bridge or secondary road so you can switch roads and go back to where you wanted to be, but on the other side of the river, mountain, forest, wilderness area, National Park, Military Reservation or Historic Site. Many times you can SEE the road you need, you just can't get there from here. It's over there and you're here.

Roundabouts: it's a lot like back tracking but the road you are on peters out and you have to take a different one. If you turn left instead of right you end, eventually, back in town and have to start over. There is a penalty for starting over.

Gravel: some times you can't help it. You have to drive the gravel to get to the cut across to get to the bridge so you can back track to the road you need.

Bozeman to FourCorners on Huffine Lane, also called US 191 ... at the stoplight, left goes to West Yellowstone ... and Big Sky Ski Resort.

Big Sky is just east of Ennis. Ennis is east of Virginia City which is just east of Alder which is just north of Barton Gulch. The sensible thing to do would be to go to Big Sky and go west.

There is no road from Big Sky to Ennis so you must go straight on Huffine lane at the stoplight ... unless you're already worn to a nubbin and want to take in Bozeman Hot Springs ... In that case turn left at the light, two minutes drive and you can soak your troubles away.