Planet America (19 page)

But not this time.

"Oh Lord," the giant explorer moaned now as it all began to sink in. "We
are
looking down at the whole thing. Or up as the case may be. That flood in the center must be the Ball, the streams on its edge the beginnings of the arms. But we must be thousands upon thousands of light-years removed from the swirl to have such a view!"

He shook once, from head to toe, then whispered, "Brothers, this is truly an unnatural place for us to be."

But the flood of stars was not the only unusual thing going on over their heads. Rising off to the east, breaking through the last of the clouds, was the strange planet's only moon. It seemed overly large, very close and familiar somehow. Bright white, with many craters in evidence, it was traveling so fast across the very starry sky, they could actually see its movement.

And still, that was not the strangest thing above them. Strangest of all was the string of heavenly bodies that stretched across the sky, roughly east to west, like a necklace of gigantic white gems. It was hard to tell just what these things were, or how far out from the planet. From their size and brightness, they seemed almost close to orbit. Yet the way they were aligned across the entire sky indicated they were much farther out.

Zarex began madly pushing the buttons on his quadtrol now. This was getting too crazy. He had to know where he was. But his device started going haywire. It made a very strange noise, and then it shut down altogether. All three men let out a gasp. A quadtrol going bust? They'd never heard of such a thing before.

Both Hunter and Tomm quickly retrieved their own quadtrols, but the effect was the same. Their devices took a few readings, delivered the unprecedented news that they couldn't fix their own location, then began beeping and whirring until fizzling out for good.

The three travelers stood mute in amazement. Then reality came flooding in. They still didn't know where they were ... and without any quadtrols, they were like ships on the ocean without a compass. They really
were
lost.

Hunter swore under his breath. Damn, this was not going well at all. It wasn't just that they didn't know where they were. It was the planet itself. It just didn't look the part for this great adventure. What had he imagined their ultimate destination to be? A world inhabited entirely by valiant soldiers like the Freedom Brigade meres? No, not quite. But certainly, he'd expected some kind of advanced civilization, maybe even u/fra-advanced. A place that was impressive and exotic. An entire planet that looked like Big Bright City.
That
had been his fantasy. Buildings, air machines, towers, floating cities, and billions of people, waiting with open arms for him and others who had been called back home.

But this definitely did not seem like home. Surely his psyche would be flashing all kinds of signals, that yes! He'd finally made it to the end of what was supposed to be an impossible journey. But none of this was happening inside him now. Just the opposite, in fact.

But did this mean they'd ended up on the wrong planet? It was obvious the people here had never been contacted, either by locals from planets nearby or by anyone else. They were totally ignorant of other life in space. How could the Freedom Brigade come from such a place then? Had Hunter and his friends been tricked? Had the poof steered them off course on purpose? Or had she miscalculated somehow?

Or could there be some other explanation entirely?

Was this the place he was supposed to be?

Looking up at the very strange sky now, Hunter knew there was only one way to find out.

They would have to take Agent Lisa's advice.

9

It was fourth down and inches to go.

There were six seconds remaining on the clock. The score was twenty-fourteen. A touchdown here would give Mayfield High a tie. The extra point would win the game.

Tension gripped the stadium. The boisterous crowd had become eerily quiet. Two thousand people, collectively holding their breath. Even the vendors were paying attention. Along the home sideline, some of the Mayfield cheerleaders were crying. This was the biggest game of the year. The opposing team, the hated Smalltown High, had been their rival for like, ages.

Those cheerleaders not crying were either praying or trying to induce others in the crowd to pray. AH except one, Ashley Woods. She was the squad leader, and this was a moment of big responsibility for her. Yet she was not thinking about the game, the crowd, or her squad. She was thinking about a dream she had had the night before.

She was walking down a long, straight road somewhere near her home. She met a very cute guy walking in the other direction. He didn't scare her. She talked to him for a while. They had a few beers. They kissed. Then, they did it___

It!

They. ..did
...
it
.

She'd never had a dream like that in her life.

She was blond and beautiful, the prettiest cheerleader on the squad, thus her elevated status. But she was not stuck up, not a clothes freak, not a druggie, not a smoker. Not an angel, either, but close. Some things tempted her. Mostly she thought of herself as a normal seventeen-year-old kid. She loved old movies. She loved Saturday morning cartoons. She loved dancing.

And she liked boys. A lot. She didn't have a boyfriend, and never really had one. Not a serious one, anyway. She had kissed a few, though. And done a few other things. Not much, but some.

But dreaming ... about
doing it
?

Never...

The referee's whistle knocked her out of the trance.

She looked to the end zone just as the ball was being hiked. What happened next came like slow motion. The last six seconds begin ticking away. The quarterback—Billy Rogers, class hunk—gets the ball and drops back to pass but everybody is covered. Billy starts scrambling. Two seconds tick away. Billy is running for his life, half the Smalltown squad is chasing him. Two seconds to go. At the very last instant, Billy changes direction and heads for the end zone. He makes a great leap, twists in midair—and is stopped, dead, by one, two, three opposing players. Slammed to the turf, eleven Smalltown players pile on top of him.

He is still a half a foot away from the goal line. The last two seconds tick away. The horn sounds.

The game was over.

Ashley went back to thinking about her dream.

The other girls on the Mayfield cheering squad took the loss very hard. Even a half hour after the game was over, they were too distraught to do anything but cry some more and then eat.

So it was up to Ashley to pick up the squad's equipment— pom-poms mostly. But by the time she'd finished policing their area and gathered her own things together, she found herself alone in the stadium. All the fans were gone. The cheer squad bus, which was supposed to drop them all off at their homes, had left as well. Even the janitors were gone.

"Must be my lucky day," she thought.

Then she slung her gym bag over her shoulder and began the mile and a half walk to town and home.

It was a warm fall day, and after a while, she didn't mind the walk at all. Thoughts bounced between her pretty little ears as she sauntered down the barely paved road, looking everywhere but straight in front of her. There were at least ten parties she could go to tonight Some with booze. Some with pot. Some with both. Some with none. All might be
tres
boring. She considered just staying home and renting a scary movie. If she went out, what would she wear? She was so sick of her jeans these days, but a skirt might not work, as all the parties would be outside, and it was starting to get cold these nights. So if it was her jeans then, which shoes? Which top? Would she need a jacket? Did she have enough money to chip in for beer? What if...

Suddenly she stopped in her tracks. There was a shadow on the road in front her, not her own. She looked up to see a guy standing practically in front of her. He was smiling. He was older. He was handsome. He also looked very, very different. And very lost.

Ashley did not feel nervous at all. She was out in the middle of nowhere—well, at least a mile from town. And this guy had literally popped up like magic. But she was okay, and she knew it.

"Well, hello," she said, her fingers suddenly twisting her long blond hair.

"Well, hello..." he replied. "I'm sorry if I startled you."

"I thought
I
was the one who startled
you"
she said sweetly.

He was wearing a very cool outfit. All black with the double-X logo of
Sorcerer's Dick
on his chest. They were Ashley's favorite band. Cool boots. Cool haircut. It had a military look to it And so did the guy, in a way.

He spoke again. He had a slight accent. "I'm having trouble with my vehicle."

"Well, I'm not a mechanic," she replied. "Unless you think I look like one?"

"Not in the least," he said with a smile.
Great smile
.

She began babbling: "Is your car broken down? Do you know what's wrong with it? A flat tire? The battery?"

The guy just shrugged.

"I'm not sure," he said. "I don't know much about how they work."

He was a real hunk, she decided. Movie star handsome. She told herself to stop playing with her hair.

"Where is it?" she asked.

He turned and pointed farther down the road. A white Firebird was pulled off onto the shoulder, nearly hidden by cornstalks.

She just shrugged and said: "I don't know much about cars, either. But I'll take a look at it."

They walked down the road in silence. Ashley began twisting her hair again. When they reached the car, the guy got inside and twisted the key, but nothing happened. The engine sputtered and then just died away.

Ashley looked at the guy.

"Did you run out of gas?" she asked him.

He looked back at her, pure incomprehension on his face.

"Did I run out of what?" he asked.

Hunter pushed the car the last mile into town. Ashley steered— or she tried to. It was hard to do with the motor not running.

He discovered that a gas station was a place where they put a hose in a hole at the back of your car and pumped that hole full of liquid fuel and then, apparently, sent you on your way.

They also had food at the gas station. Concoctions the likes of which Hunter had never seen. While Ashley was doing the pumping, he looked through the window at one of the station's replication devices. But it seemed to be merely heating the food as opposed to creating it.

His tank full, Ashley signaled that he should follow her into the station's store. Hunter froze for a moment though. He'd been on the road for nearly a day now; He, Tomm and Zarex had decided to split up early that morning and voted that Hunter take the car. Their plan was to keep a low profile and do a discrete recon of the planet. Hunter had avoided interacting with anyone until now. Though he'd ditched his cape and helmet, he was still wearing his combat suit with the double X across the chest. This didn't seem so out of place here, though. At least not so far.

He finally did step into the store. His eyes were nearly blinded by the onslaught of bright colors. The place was stuffed with items of food and drink, and everything seemed packaged in the loudest, more garish hues possible. Hunter took down one of the packages hanging from a thin line that stretched across the top of the store. He opened it to find two long, yellowish confections inside. Spongy texture. Extremely sweet, creamlike material in the middle. He took a bite.

It was delicious!

Ashley was standing next to a large counter, smiling weirdly at him. Very strange music was blaring from somewhere, and she was tapping her two-tone shoe to its beat. There was a large guy behind the counter. He had dirty hands and a dirty face. He was leering at Ashley out of the corner of his eye.

"Well?" Ashley said to Hunter. "Time to pay ..."

Pay?

"For what?" he asked her.

"For what you just ate—and for the gas."

Hunter was confused. This was food and fuel.

"You mean you have to
pay
for this stuff?" he asked.

Ashley's home looked unlike anything Hunter had ever seen. Most dwellings in the Galaxy, both within the Fourth Empire and out, were based on a simple block design, with few windows, and constructed entirely of random reconfigured atoms put together by electron torches.

But this dwelling was different. It was irregular, its roof was angled with a peak. A long funnel made of red stone shot up through the roof; wisps of smoke were rising out of it. The house was surrounded by a white fence, made of short, pointed wooden spikes that would have a hard time keeping out even the weakest intruder. There were trees planted between the front of this gate and the dwellings' main entrance, and a short, green plant growth covered the ground in between the trees.

The dwelling itself had many, many windows. Each one had a small box hanging beneath it filled with multicolored vegetation. There were houses of nearly the exact same design on either side of this one. In fact, the entire road on both sides was covered with them. Some were hard to see because of the trees, though.

Ashley never once hesitated. She opened the front door with a key and invited him in.

"My parents are away," she said as a means of explanation.

Hunter stepped through the front door. In most places in the Galaxy, the interior of the home was made up of one main room with a few smaller ones around the periphery. In this place though, there were many rooms, all of them relatively the same size.

The room to his right had a table at its center with six wooden chairs around it. There were plates and glasses and cutlery set up, even though there was no meal in sight. She led him to a room at the rear of the dwelling. It was filled with instruments of cooking: pots, more utensils, glass storage bins stuffed with grains and other unidentifiable foods. An assembly of silver pipes made up the unnecessarily elaborate device for transporting water into the house. This room also held a table and chairs and a large white box that seemed cold and was giving off a whirring sound.