Spaced out part 6 of 7

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A short while later the antiquated vehicle pulled up with a sudden stop  beside the hunter’s cosmo-craft thanks to Bugsy stomping on the brakes with more than adequate brute force. The jolt snapped Bob out of his slumber in just enough time to experience the rough hospitality of Mugsy leaning over, thrusting open his door, and pushing him out onto the dirt. He scrambled to his feet and started to run, believing that his chance for freedom had manifested itself at last. However he had only managed to cover a few meters of dark open ground when all the air was suddenly knocked clean out of his lungs by the outstretched limb of his not so easily shaken off captor. The scaly buffoon may have been big, and was without doubt slow witted, but he had also turned out to be unexpectedly nimble and fleet footed when the urge took him. Bob doubled over and instinctively clutched at his violated stomach as his assailant grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him towards their waiting star cruiser. The reptoid’s cohort had already opened the ship’s hatchway in readiness for reoccupation and gave a wicked grin as their detainee was painfully hauled up the ramp yelling all the way. The key holder followed close behind and when they were safely inside the door snapped shut, cutting off Bob’s continued protests to the outside world.

A low, ominous hum soon began to fill the small clearing, and moments later the strange craft rose slowly from the ground. Casting its binding gravity aside it hurtled near vertically up through the crystal clear night air towards the outer limits. Inside the cockpit its beastly pilots exchanged congratulatory smirks. Their jubilation was abruptly cut short though when the anti-collision radar screeched out a warning of impending doom. It was even so helpful as to recommend, rather tersely, that perhaps the taking of some kind of evasive action might be a pretty good idea under the circumstances. The cause of such consternation was that an Earth owned space shuttle returning from a satellite launching mission was rapidly vectoring onto their flight path. Buffeting past the startled N.A.S.A. crew without so much as a how-de-do they re-routed their way out of the solar system towards their next port of call, a planet orbiting around the ‘dog star’ Sirius.

[Story note: Technically known here on Earth as Alpha Canis Majoris, Sirius is the brightest star in this planet’s night sky. It is only 8.6 light years away, and is regarded by all local life within cooee as the sector capital system for this outer lying area of the galaxy.]

Indeed, all would have seemed to be going smashingly according to plan except for the fact that this near miss, in its own odd little way, presented Bob, who had been unceremoniously manacled in the cargo hold, with an opportunity for escape that was just too good to refuse.

Sitting on an innocuous storage shelf along with other useless gadgets was the previously much vaunted Luckatron. Believed by the lizard men to be entirely spent of its happenstance energy, and therefore deemed no longer necessary since it had already played its part in the successful capture of their elusive target, it was none the less an item of some importance and value that had been placed in their care, and one that the I.G.B. would be keen to have returned at the completion of their mission. The upshot for Bob was that the spatial jolt provided by flying through the shuttle’s wake managed to knock the idle device from its perch and roll it across the floor to stop within his somewhat restricted reach. This basic level of good fortune was greatly increased in stature when it was  coupled with the fact that, as with most battery powered devices, the ‘tron had managed to pool enough residual zap for one last hurrah, thus changing the outlook for Bob’s short term future much more in his favor. Grabbing at it from behind, he thumbed the trigger switch, closed his eyes, sculptured a smile/grimace, and hoped for the best. Living up to its legendary reputation, against all his fair expectation and subsequent huge surprise, it winked out its last favor. This caused several things to happen, and in the correct sequence, which turned out to be rather handy for the incarcerated bar hopper. First off the blocks, Bob’s wrist and leg binders simultaneously sprang open giving him grateful and relieved freedom of movement. Then an escape pod hatch swung invitingly open just meters from where he was wobbly standing and trying to reacquaint himself with his space legs. Not one to be left behind at any opportunity, he staggered into it seconds before the door slammed shut. Finally, completing the luck maker’s trifector of benevolent acts, the pod automatically ejected itself from the cruiser’s rear quarters and began the long plummet back to the planet’s surface. A pretty nifty bit of fallout from  this fortuitous burst was that Bugsy and Mugsy remained blissfully ignorant of current events happening on the lower deck and so hadn’t an inkling that Bob was no longer with them, even though a small warning light flashing on their cockpit consol indicated that something was amiss in that department. This was, as has been previously noted (almost to the point of ad nauseam), due to the fact that they weren’t really very bright, and they thought that the slightly hypnotic blinking indicator meant that all was well. Even the over zealous close proximity warning system had thankfully sorted itself out by abruptly shutting up. They simply settled back and relaxed, relieved that things were going according to plan at long last. However, as far as these two were concerned at least, it seemed a fairly large pity that their newly acquired viewpoint would soon prove to be so utterly deceptive. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, relations between Zed and A4 had deteriorated to such a rocky level that Zed, in his desire to put a good amount of distance between his androidal headache maker and himself, had taken to ignoring his metal antagonist from an entirely different service cabin. His decision turned out to be pure gold, for in the process he had stumbled into the ship’s communications room. Clapping on a light he plonked down in front of an interface used for receiving the local Mega Spatial tv channels, hoping that it might take his mind off his most pressing problem – that of impending sobriety. His last two bottles were slowly evaporating down his throat sip by precious sip and he was in grave danger of drying up shortly if Bob didn’t get a wriggle on with a new supply pronto! As such he was in fine position, and semi-coherent form, when a very familiar face filled the main screen. Bob’s first stab on Earthern tele played out before his blurring eyes, and fairly jolted him out of his groggy daze. Collecting as many of his wits as he could manage to gather he staggered out of the viewing chair and straight into the nearest wall. Deciding, upon rapid review, that the door might be a less painful option (and much more practicable to his intended goal of egress) he loped through it and down the corridor, bouncing with new found vigor into A4’s brooding chamber. What he was going to say to break the icy impasse between them he had absolutely no idea since he was never very good with words, and the current situation didn’t appear helpful in alleviating this deficiency to any significant degree. However, something had to be done and, by gum, he was the only one there with anything that might pass for the authority to do it! Coming to a stumbling halt in front of the biobot, and not being one to carry a grudge for any great distance anyway, he got right to the point and blurted out what he had just seen. “We have to go and pick him up, man!” he almost pleaded. Having wanted to reunite the troublesome twosome all along for his own warped reasons, A4 was unable to hide his glee and beeped out a musical “okay”. Rushing down to the parking bay as quickly as each was physically able to, they soon arrived in the cavernous hold and selected a good sized cruiser for the rescue mission of differing ulterior motives. It was only when they were halfway to Earth that the penny finally dropped for Zed concerning their destination. Then his panic started to set in.

Lisa slept. Not the fit sleep of the untroubled, but one brought about by sheer physical and mental exhaustion. It was a necessary time-out, and deep in her subconscious she desperately hoped that come the morrow her world might return to some kind of blissful, boring normality. The nightmare, however, was not quite done with her yet as

only a few kilometers away Bob’s new and rather cramped temporary living quarters, the recently borrowed astral life preserver, plummeted through the ionosphere, burning a glowing red on its base until the automatic altitude sensors kicked in and fired its retro grav-rings. This slowed the capsule’s progress to a speed safe enough to deploy a single drogue parachute. The force of air pushing on this small cone of supple poly vinyl was plenty enough for it to extract the main chute, which safely floated him down the last few remaining thousands of meters to sweet terra firma, albeit with a slight jarring bump upon the completion of its task. Unfortunately for Bob, the improvised drop zone happened to be exactly in the centre of the Sydney Cricket Ground and the only glad tiding for this unscheduled arrival, when the ground’s officials were eventually able to reflect upon it, was that his touch down occurred almost immediately after the players of the inter-state limited-overs match had left the field. Still, a circular band of security personnel and police remained to safe guard the playing surface until the crowd dispersed, and were not impressed when they became aware of the mysterious craft’s presence and, more importantly, the way it had penetrated their barrier of fleshy steel unseen – not to mention the damage it perpetrated in the form of a large indentation in the hallowed turf.

[Story note: The curator was not sure quite what to do with the pod that Bob had left slap bang in the middle of his pride and joy and had subsequently failed to come back to claim. Furthermore, he was more than just a little miffed with the damage that removing said cylinder from the pitch had revealed. To be sure, he was justifiably aggrieved as he had many variables working against his goal of presenting a world class wicket, and strange bits of metal falling out of the sky potholing it was one factor that he felt he could really do without. For want of any better suggestions, some of which probably shouldn’t be recounted here, he simply placed it in a play area for children to climb all over. No one seemed to be the slightest bit interested in what it was, and so were blissfully ignorant of the huge advances in metallurgy that could have been gained had it been inspected by the right sort of people in that field. In all fairness though, those very folk were at the time attending a tremendously important conference regarding sand smelting techniques on some terribly exclusive island resort in the South Pacific and weren’t all that keen on being disturbed from their hard earned scientific junket. Thus Earth space farers missed the chance to pollute their nearby star systems much sooner than they were actually able to do so.]

As he stepped out uncertainly from the pod, and attempted to regain his bearings, he was accosted by a somewhat surly police officer who demanded just what the hell he thought he was playing at. Looking around and spying the score board he unwisely tried humor to help diffuse the hostility he noticed in the copper’s voice. “Err, cricket?” He flashed his almost famous pearly whites. Unfortunately the cop was going to have none of this, being immune to celebrity teeth and any other bits of their anatomy that tended to pop up. However, after radio consultation with his superiors it was decided that perhaps Bob had been a segment of half time entertainment that had some how gone horribly amiss in both time and placement. It seemed the most plausible explanation from a host of increasingly weird ones offered up from the ranks. Anyway, since the game was over they saw no reason to pursue the matter further. It was now the S.C.G. board’s problem and they could sort it out in the morning.

The man in blue was about to let him go along on his merry way when Bob made the next in a long line of boo-boos. “Anywhere ‘round here I can get a drink, mate?” he innocently asked. The law keeper, who did indeed enjoy the odd tipple himself and, while still on duty was unable to indulge in this particularly pleasurable pastime, was more than a little peeved at having to endure watching a multitude doing just that for hours on end. The final straw was being blatantly reminded of the fact. Whipping out a pocket breathalyzer, he made Bob blow into it, and a smile ruffled the corners of his mouth. The device registered a large reading, owing to Bob’s residual alcohol level from the day before and the intruding jokester was unceremoniously dragged off to a waiting divisional van by the grudge-wielding flatfoot, the telltale machine sitting snugly in his back pocket with its reading completely off the dial. ‘Drunk while in charge of an entertainment apparatus’ was the creative charge.

Early the next morning Bob was roused by the clanging of his cell door opening to reveal a tall form framed by a rectangle of light entering his dim recess. “Come on”, the young incarcerator gruffly greeted him, waiting irritably as Bob stiffly climbed off his cold concrete bed and trudged past him out into the corridor. They walked a short way towards the front of the building until reaching a small office where the duty desk sergeant was sitting behind a large black typewriter. “Name?” he snapped, waving Bob into a vacant chair facing the table. “Bob”, came the simple reply.
“Bob who?”
“Err, Barina” 
“B-a-r-i-n-a”, the sarge spell typed, not catching onto the little joke at all.
“Height?”  The interviewee was at a loss to answer this query, and most of the following ones as well, so he just held his hand out flat next to the top of his head. “About this high”, he quipped.
“Wise guy, eh?” the typer blurted out. “Get under that”, he snarled and pointed to a measuring device mounted on the far wall. The senior constable who had rudely awoken Bob from his slumber moments earlier read out the answer while the scribe duly tapped on the keys, swearing as he realized that he had inadvertently inserted it in the wrong box and had to cross it out again. Finally getting it right he moved on. “Weight?” Again Bob looked at him helplessly and shrugged his shoulders.
“It usually depends upon where I’m standing at the time”, he ventured truthfully, though felt that it was probably best if he didn’t go into an in-depth explanation of the interaction between gravity and planetary mass.  The cop sighed heavily. He really didn’t need this crap so late in his shift, especially when he was looking forward to going home.  “Well, stand on that over there”, he indicated towards a set of scales in the corner that had also seen better days, as had most of the equipment and furniture in the small office.  To boot, the decor of the room  appeared to have been purposefully done out in early government blah, no doubt intended to sap the will of any trouble makers unlucky enough to have it inflicted on them. Oddly, the staff carried on as though they were quite impervious to it, perhaps due to the fact that constant exposure coupled with hours of mindless tedium while on duty, punctuated only briefly by having to host some of the worst that society cared to offer up, had done exactly the same job in its stead. Enforced sleep deprivation on the night shift topped it all off nicely. The lackey called out the relevant number of kilos, and the number was duly noted.

Getting to the end of the release sheet, after receiving the answers ‘as often as possible’ and ‘blood shot’ to his respective questions of ‘sex’ and ‘eye color’, he finished the remaining sections himself after having come to the conclusion that his charge might not be the full quid after all, and ripped the paper from the claptraption with a triumphant flourish. Slamming it down on the desk in front of Bob and pointing to the bottom right hand corner with one hand while holding out a pen with the other he smiled with relieved contempt. “Sign here.” Bob obediently complied and was ushered out of the room to the front counter where he was given a plastic bag containing the personal items confiscated from him the night before. His pill box had caused some consternation the prior evening, with the police automatically believing that they were illicit drugs of some description, and Bob’s offbeat behavior had done nothing to allay their suspicions. Yet the results of a test sample done in the twenty four hour crime lab nearby had come back inconclusive, much to their annoyance and disappointment. As far as the analyst could work out it was mostly of a health/diet nature with an added mystery substance that she wasn’t able to identify, and since it did not fit the chemical signature of any known ‘recreational’ drug it couldn’t therefore be deemed to be illegal. However, she kept the specimen for further study at her leisure, more as a matter of scientific curiosity than anything more serious. If only she knew just how close she was to receiving a noble prize in chemistry she may well have put more effort into solving the quasi-compound’s riddle.

Meanwhile, back at the station Bob’s enforced detox was really starting to have an impact by now and, having only just been reunited with his cure-all pills along with his other belongings, he was beginning to experience some pretty savage pain. He wondered if it might be prudent to pop a ‘life saver’ there and then, however one look into the eyes of his ex-jailer standing in front of him gave cause to err on the side of caution and he felt that it would probably be better to put up with the nagging aches a while longer. For Bob, this was unusually strange territory.

The arky public servant bid him a fond farewell as politely as he could manage by telling him that he could piss off now, and nearly went ballistic when Bob casually asked “Aren’t I entitled to one phone call?”
“What?” he yelled, unable to contain himself any further.
“In the movies, when a person is locked up he’s allowed one phone call”, Bob persisted un-phased.
His recently acquainted adversary, completely flabbergasted by this stage, waved around the room. “Does this look like fricken Hollywood to you?” His outburst drew the attention of the boss who, basically bored shitless this close to his end of shift, thought this could be worth a laugh or two that might fill in the last few minutes before his replacement arrived. “Now, now, senior. The gentleman has a point.” His subordinate stared at him in astonishment.
“What?”
“I think we could accommodate this upstanding member of the public with his simple request”, he suggested sarcastically.
“But sarge, even if he was entitled to one, it’s supposed to be before he’s let go.”
“Ah, let’s not be a stickler to detail here”, he smiled falsely. Bob clicked that perhaps for the umpteenth time someone was taking the piss at his expense but decided that a little ridicule was worth the price, since he desperately needed to contact Lisa if for no other reason than to ‘borrow’ her new mobile and get her to claim back her old number again in case Zed did actually call as he had misplaced the one she had originally given him. Oh, and he missed her like crazy as well. Placing the desk phone at Bob’s disposal the station boss sneered “Now, just whom would you like to be calling?”
“Lisa, though I don’t know her number.”
“Ha!” the subordinate antagonist let out an involuntary guffaw, part surprise and part triumph. 

The sergeant leaned forward, placing his elbows squarely on the counter, and stared Bob straight in the eyes. This last action he instantly regretted, not sure what it was about them that suddenly started to unsettle him so but also not liking what he saw in there one little bit. Ever so slightly shifting his gaze he regarded his former prisoner with growing distaste. He felt, quite self-rightly, that the joke had now run its course, and the disheveled person standing before him could only become an expanding source of major worry if allowed to do so. The earlier jibe from his underling had rankled him a tad and so it was time to wrap up the whole unhappy proceeding. The thought of going home and cracking open a soothing stubby before climbing into his waiting and welcoming bed grew more desirable by the minute. With a growl he continued his line of inquiry. “Lisa who?” 
“Lisa, my friend”, Bob replied with misplaced optimism.
“You trying to be funny?” the copper all but yelled as his back stiffened, giving his previously tired frame a good few centimeters of extra height.
“No sir, not at all”, Bob hastened to placate the only person around who could help him get the ball rolling in his quest to escape from the confines of this obscure little planet. “But it is very important that I get in touch with her”, he quickly added. The keeper of the peace visibly relaxed a little, somewhat worn down by his incessant charm, and decided to try a different track.
“Can you describe her?”
Bob tried his best with what he could remember which wasn’t a lot, having been so caught up in his own world of problems.
“That’s not much help. Is there anything further that you can tell me, like where she lives or works?”
Bob thought about this for a minute, then mentioned to his inquisitor that she had a big house overlooking the harbor, a unit in the city, and that her father owned a few liquor stores dotted around the place. The transformation in the officer’s attitude was simply amazing, as though a pair of curtains had been drawn back from his eyes. This was quite a turn up for the books.
“Not Lisa Longsdale?” he regarded his annoyer suspiciously, and in a somewhat new and not so nice light. Why on Earth would such a famous and well placed socialite be knocking around with someone the likes of this guy’s caliber?
“Yes, I believe that is her!” Bob shot out excitedly.
“Why would you want to be contacting her?” he continued his grilling with an added hint of slow malice rising in his voice, as ironically her father and he were good drinking buddies and long time old school chums. Bob decided to try to convince him yet again to help in his quest, and pushed the strained friendship to the limit.
“If I told you, you probably wouldn’t believe me. Let’s just say that we are newly acquired very good friends.” The questioner didn’t believe him for a second yet was oddly unable to dismiss the prospect outright, having known the young lady so well and for most of her short life. Turning his charm to overload, Bob all but pleaded “Please, just call her. She’ll vouch for me, I’m sure.” Reluctantly, the burley civil servant lifted the receiver and jabbed in the number from memory, expecting a good laugh at the completion of this seemingly futile exercise. However, finally ascertaining to his utter astonishment that all was as Bob had predicted he tersely reported that she was on her way in to pick him up and directed him to take a seat in the waiting room. Not wishing to have any further part in the deteriorating proceedings he wandered back to the tea room for a much needed infusion of caffeine. What he was going to say to his mate’s daughter he just didn’t know. Bob did as he was bidden, and started to tap his right shoe on the cold lino floor in a mixture of relief and near uncontrolled impatience.
 


CHAPTER TWENTY

Lisa soon arrived at the police station located in Kings Cross, not far from the infamous night club strip. Hesitantly walking through the front sliding doors she spied Bob sitting in the waiting room with a look of bored expectation on his face. As soon as their eyes locked he leapt off his seat and ran to embrace her, almost knocking her over in the process with his unbridled momentum, elated that she was there for two very important but much differing reasons. Firstly, against all probability of ego inflated self-centeredness, he had found in the past few solitary hours that he really missed her. And secondly, he was extremely relieved that the tenuous link between himself and possible rescue had been reestablished.

Lisa was the first to break free of the amorous clinch, pushing him back to an arm’s length. For a brief moment she coolly regarded him. This action brought about strange feelings of guilt in Bob that he couldn’t adequately explain, and so he yielded the floor to both his confusion and to her. He stood there silently chastened, much like an errant school boy outside the principle’s office, and waited for her next move. When she had decided that he had been sufficiently rebuked she spoke. “Well, you’re certainly a hard bloke to shake off. I don’t even know why I dragged myself down here. I guess it’s mainly because I’m intrigued, what with all we’ve been through. I mean, I couldn’t leave you to roam the streets on your own now could I? Society just wouldn’t be safe.” She attempted a little laugh, mainly for her own benefit to disguise the fact that deep down, despite herself, she still loved him, but her small stab at humour was completely swept aside by Bob’s undisguised joy.   
“I thought I’d never see you again,” he exclaimed.
“Yeah, I was sort of hoping the same thing,” she winced, rubbing her arms to help get the blood flow back to normal after her crushing reception.

Of all Bob’s attributes, his ability to rebound from adversity was his number one skin saver. Quickly regaining control of his faculties, which thankfully seemed more or less intact, he promptly disregarded her previous words and switched back into escape mode. “Come on! We’ve got to get out of here and keep moving. I have no idea when those jokers’ll realize I’m missing and decide to double back for me. Next time they might even get serious!” That thought shocked Lisa. She couldn’t imagine what they may do that could be any worse for him, or her previous happy-go-lucky lifestyle, but she wasn’t all that keen to find out either. What she had initially thought to be a figment of Bob’s deranged imagination had indeed turned out to be horribly real in one form or other and she didn’t want to be caught up in any more of it if humanly possible. Why was she here helping him again when she had been successfully parted from his extremely odd company the evening before? She still wasn’t sure. The echoes of that day’s events had finally subsided in her mind to a reasonably comfortable ‘icky’ level, and now here she was having it all stirred up once more. What was it that kept dragging her back?
Unable to decide, she felt that the best, and most mentally friendly, course of action would be to just continue to go with the flow. This decision helped sway her towards any plans that he may put up, even the weird ones, if indeed he had some other than simply always running away. “That’s not the only thing that you have no idea about,” she chided. Taking the initiative, and ignoring the half-hearted insult, he grabbed her hand and resumed pulling her along into the great unknown. Still, at least by now she was getting used to it. “It’s all go-go-go with you, isn’t it?” she asked rhetorically, though he answered her anyway.
“It’s the only way I get to stay alive baby,” he puffed, giving her a wicked grin which almost convinced her that he quite enjoyed the challenge, if not the unnecessary and constant exercise.

With no need to check for alien abductors this time around Bob towed her onto the footpath and then abruptly stopped. “What’s the matter now,” she hardly dared ask.
“Which way to your vehicle?”
“Follow me,” she let out a relieved sigh, glad at last to be taking the lead for once. As they approached her bright yellow Porsche she electronically unlocked it and casually bid him to get in. Once settled in the snug leather seats she told him to belt up. “I didn’t say anything,” he protested his innocence, feeling a little hurt at her words. After all, it had been one hell of a rough couple of days and his nerves were well under consideration for an obscene amount of danger pay by that stage. In addition, he was getting quite sick of being told to be quiet all the time. After all, what good is the language chip in your CISED unit if you can’t use it?
“No,” she soothed, “I mean, put your seat belt on.” Then she realized by his blank look that he probably had never used one before and leant across to adjust it for him. Thinking that she had other motives in mind he grabbed at her and tried to lock his lips onto hers. Clipping his restraint into its slot she broke free and, wagging a finger, admonished him by saying “I think we need to have a long, hard talk before we get back to that stage.” Then she turned over the engine, put the car into gear, and pulled out to join the sparse traffic flow. Bob sat pensively in his seat and feebly pulled at the unfamiliar strap, all the while wondering just what the Faldrons he had done wrong this time. Flashing along in a saffron streak Lisa drove back towards her Glebe town house for a well needed, and thoroughly deserved, rest.

Arriving home in good time they went inside. Lisa put the kettle on for a nice cup of tea and fished around in the pantry for some biscuits. Arranging them on a plate she carried the goodies, along with two steaming mugs of hot black fluid, over to the small table in her living room. All this time Bob paced up and down just this side of impatience and waited until she had sat down before beseeching her. “You know that we have got to get out of the city now. They could be back at any time. Please!”
“Alright,” she placated, and not for the first time, “Let’s have our drinks first and then I’ll grab a few things. We can go for a drive in the country somewhere for lunch.” This was only partially the outcome that Bob was looking for, but at least it was heading in the right direction.

Momentarily satisfied with the progress being made he moved onto the next pressing segment of his plan for recovery and eventual salvation from his relentless pursuers. “By the way, I unfortunately lost your phone, so I was wondering…”
“Don’t worry,” she soothed, “I retrieved it and it still works. Believe me!”  “Oh, great! So, have I had any calls yet?”       
“Heaps. The bloody thing won’t stop ringing, but they’re all cranks,” she smiled, silently pointing out the irony involved here. It was a small pleasure that she allowed herself after being on tender hooks answering it so many times, hoping that one of the calls might just be him trying to get in touch with her. Though she would never care to admit it to anyone, let alone this crazy person standing beside her, she had missed him too, and had been seriously worried about his welfare. “May I have it again then?” He held his hand out expectantly. This irked Lisa somewhat, since there was not so much as a thank you forthcoming for what she had endured. Still, she was glad to be rid of the annoying little device. “With pleasure!” she slapped the mobile into his open palm with an exaggerated measure of relief and over zealous force, causing him to wince a tad. Bob cupped it in both hands as though the common communicator was a revered talisman which, in a big way, it was, since it was his only possible link to Zed and a ride off this ho-hum planet. He then checked the received calls section and deleted any Earth based ones that it had registered, which turned out to be all of those displayed, more for something to do while he waited for Lisa to get ready than for any particular technical reason. This was because any call from space would not be recorded on such a primitive device as this orb’s mighty telecoms influence hadn’t extended much beyond the local satellite network. Sitting down he took his tea, and his face took on a look of utter distain once he had ascertained that the brew contained absolutely no alcohol in it at all. He looked at her dubiously. “You can get your sort of reviver later on. It’s way too early for that yet,” she admonished. Believing no such thing he shrugged and took the whole cup in one long pull, half choking as the hot fluid near scorched a path down his throat. "Yew! You people actually drink this stuff?”
“It’s an acquired taste, and better savored slowly rather than gulped in one go,” she defended one of her favorite drinks.

After tea was finished Lisa packed a small picnic bag while coercing Bob into having a much needed shower. Then they were out the door and back in the car, turning into the street and on to a highway out of town. For once Bob seemed to have a pretty good idea of where he wanted to go and she dutifully followed his haphazard directions to the letter. After all, why the hell not? She had no particular destination in mind anyway, for as the old saying goes- ‘when you don’t know where you are going, every road will take you there’, or something like that. Soon he had located the same dirt track that he had been jostled about upon several hours earlier. However, in all fairness it must be said that this was not due to any particular skill on his part but to a small electro compass-like device that he had secreted in his jacket pocket. It was an anti-gravitation residual detector, or AGRED, which measured the tell tale ‘wake’ of a space craft engaging their anti-grav generator in a planet’s atmosphere. They were portable devices that were used to locate fellow party goers in a local system, and worked by detecting the contrails of space scooters and their larger cruiser cousins. Being non-material in nature the left over emissions lasted for quite some time, more than long enough for Bob to follow the bounty hunter’s trail back to where they had previously taken off.

Driving into a clearing that bore a small circular mark of flattened, though oddly enough not burned, grass he bid her to stop the car and they both got out to stretch their legs. Lisa looked around and saw nothing outstanding other than the so-called ‘crop circle’, which she regarded with slight interest. Opening a rear door, she retrieved the food basket and placed it on the ground. Soon a small camp site had been set up inside the mysterious marking and they ate a rather tasty lunch, washed down with a bottle of very nice red wine. This at least, Bob thought, had been a great idea, though he was somewhat disappointed by the lack of quantity. As if you’d give a man thirsting in the desert an eyedropper of water. Really! Anyway, after lunch they cuddled up together and let the digestive process lull them into a fitful snooze.

Lisa was the first to stir as the cool air of the late winter afternoon gently massaged her naked feet. She tentatively shook Bob from his slumber. “We’d best be getting back before it gets dark. I hate night driving in the country. Too many animals come out to play on the roads.” For once he was unmoved. Literally. He didn’t budge a muscle. His mind was elsewhere. An itch was nagging at the back of his head, but he doubted that it was any local wild beastie. No, the annoyance was something that he had forgotten. He thought that he had covered all the bases concerned with his up coming rescue.  What the Pollux was it? So far he had managed to get himself and Lisa to this particular clearing where he knew Zed would land, since all the liner’s space scooters had the AGRED system that would lead him right to them. There had been no other UFO sightings or reports lately so he wouldn’t get confused and stop somewhere else. All Bob had to do was wait and pray to the mighty Zarblat that Zed had seen his broadcast. The alternative meant that he was stranded, and that didn’t bear thinking about. So he didn’t. But what was it he had missed? They had had a lovely lunch and a pretty good bottle of wine.....  “Eureka!” he shouted, startling Lisa and an unknown number of living creatures lurking in the fairly close undergrowth. “Wine! Booze! That’s what I need!”
“Yes, you’ve made that clear ever since we met. I’ll shout you a large scotch when we get back home.”
“No, you don’t get it. I need lots of it. We have to stock up our ship for the next leg of our journey. That’s what I forgot! It’s the reason I came here in the first place! I seem to have become a little waylaid.” This oversight concerned him a bit, as he rarely got sidetracked from his pursuit of grog and good times. She raised her eyes again in the growing darkness. Not that same old shite. Well, he did seem fairly convinced that a space ship would pick him up soon, and a case or two of cheap hooch would be a small price to pay to see his crestfallen disappointment. Hell, he would certainly be needing the stuff when reality arrived and slapped him in the face. Then she could take him back into town and try to convince him to seek the proper medical help he sorely needed. After all, they couldn’t stay out here all night, that much was certain. “How much do you require? A few cartons?” she asked with slight trepidation.
“Oh no, we’ll be wanting a lot more than that. Maybe a truck full?” 
“A truck full? You expect me to get a lorry load of alcohol delivered out here in the middle of nowhere at this time of day?” she exclaimed, waving her arms around wildly. By now panic was again rearing its ugly head, for she had absolutely no desire to spend any longer out in the open bush. As usual, Bob wasn’t at all helpful in calming her concerns. “Yeah. Would that be alright?”
“Oh sure!” she replied sarcastically. Missing the mark completely, he pounced.
“Beawdy!” He hugged and kissed her with such genuine gratitude and affection that she had no other option but to cave in. If it was all an elaborate fairytale then she could reclaim the stock the next day, and hide her embarrassment by taking a week’s holiday in the Whitsundays. It might even enhance her tan a tad. And if it wasn’t? This prospect she didn’t want to contemplate in the slightest detail. Change was something that she couldn’t handle very well at all. “I’ll make a call and see what I can do”, she sighed and thanked her lucky stars that her father was chairman of the company, otherwise her budding career would be short lived indeed. Lisa dialed the number and in a few moments was telling the dispatcher exactly who she was, what she wanted, and where it was to be delivered. After repeating her request a couple more times to satisfy the woman at the other end that she wasn’t drunk nor joking she hung up and turned back to him. “It’s on the way.”

So, the final piece of the puzzle was in place at last. All he had left to do now was to lie back down and wait for his prize to be delivered to the clearing, and for Zed to come and pick them up before his pursuers returned to spoil the party. A slight breeze sprung up and threatened to turn the approaching evening chilly. Lisa, feeling that perhaps they were going to have to stay out there for a while longer after all, resignedly cuddled up to him and pulled a blanket over them both. Darkness was just beginning to descend when Bob’s ears twitched.

Way out on the frosty frontier of the solar system, almost exactly opposite to where Pluto was currently situated on its long trip around the central orb, a cruiser sped purposefully onwards, putting good distance between itself and its last planet call. Just a little further on and it would be entering deep space. Then its crew and any embarked passengers would be required to enter the cryo units for the long haul to their next stellar destination. Inside the cockpit sat two very well pleased with themselves reptoid bounty hunters. What gave them such an air of inner happiness was the fact that, against all the odds of Anaxagoras, they had hunted their elusive quarry for quite some considerable time and distance, and now he sat shackled and cowered in the cargo hold of their sleek craft. Or so they thought. The unfortunate problem, as far as they were soon to discover, was that their mini brig seemed to be completely devoid of any life signs what-so-ever, and that an escape pod was missing as well. Only a slight whiff of Bob’s lingering body odour remained. Putting two and two together, and coming up with two-two, they would realize that their slippery prey had managed to wriggle out of their clenched clutches once again. After a short seethe, followed by a slightly longer hissy fit, they would irritably have to turn their craft around and head back towards the planet that seemed to be doing its level best to vex them. This time, though, it would be ‘no more Mr. Nice Reptoids!’ 

Back on Earth a low rumbling sound started to fill Bob’s hyper sensitive ears. Had his nemeses discovered his vanishing act well before he had expected them to, or had Zed somehow managed to arrive unannounced? No, this was something altogether different on both counts. He scanned the skies just in case but predictably found no trace of descending space craft of any description. Swiveling his head a little for a better view he found his field of vision blocked by a pair of very cute eyes attached to a somewhat perplexed face. “What is the matter now?” she asked, intrigued.
“I’m listening to something”, was his vague reply. Even without the bionic implants that he had been fitted with on his home planet, for the rather sneaky purpose of allowing him to escape such dicey situations, his ears were naturally very good sound gatherers.
[Story note: Rigil, a star system in the constellation of Orion, had several planets that all strangely began formation as very quiet places, and as such emitted hardly any noise whatsoever. So little in fact that life forms on the most silent world had evolved super sensitive hearing appendages to pick up the faint sounds whispered by other hyper hushed entities. However, once galactic space travel and its resultant racket had been introduced into their tranquil lives they found that the huge dangly things hanging on the sides of their heads became somewhat of a troublesome and painful embarrassment, and so they lined up to have them surgically reduced. To allow for the drastic lowering of hearing power when back home bionic implants were invented which compensated pretty well. As an added touch, these devices were designed to be turned up or down by frowning or yawning respectively as needed. The only minor down side was that very tired Rigilians occasionally became temporally disorientated, thinking that they had gone deaf all of a sudden. ]

Lisa, on the other hand, did not have the benefit of enhanced aural technology and thus couldn’t hear a thing in the crisp night air, save the sounds of the nocturnal wild life and insects. “To what?”
By now the odd sound had grown steadily louder and seemed to be coming from a more lineal direction. Bob frowned, and was eventually able to pinpoint the direction of the offending noise. It lay beyond a crest down the dirt road on which they had previously travelled. “That”, he pointed into the darkness. Soon Lisa could just make it out as well. “Ahh, that’s just the beer truck silly”, she giggled. Leaping to his feet in a trice Bob strutted around, pretending that nothing was amiss while hardly being able to contain himself. “Great!” he slapped his hands together and rubbed them with glee. Things were now finally starting to come together. “Can you get the driver to unload it about here and then bugger off before Zed arrives? You know, to save any complications that may pop up,” he asked, and manfully pointed to a lump of dirt which was of no significance to his plan at all. “Yeah, sure. Whatever,” she sighed heavily again for the umpteenth time while wondering how she was going to explain it to her employee, especially when she would have to ask him the next day to come and pick it all up again. Oh well, she’d think of something. At least Bob seemed to have a lot of faith in this fictitious friend of his. Pity. Could this all be a huge con, and was she being taken for a ride? For a few pallets of beer? Perhaps. Though doubtful. He seemed totally genuine in his delusion. It was all getting to be a bit much really.