Traveller - L.W. Samuelson (free e books to read online TXT) 📗

gonna get sick.”
“I can take care of myself,” Traveller slurred. He liked the feeling the whiskey produced.
“Man, I bet that’s what my ol’ man said before he became a drunk. You remember my ol’ man dontcha?”
“Okay, one more and I’ll stop,” he held his hand out for the bottle. Jesse gave it to him and he took a gulp.
When Jesse got the bottle back, he drank making the bottle of whiskey gurgle with bubbles. “Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’,” he said. Suddenly the bottle was snatched from his hands.
“That’s enough fool. You wanna drink youself silly, do it when I’m not around,” Willy said.
“Well, I guess a beer would be out of the question,” Jesse said.
“Naw, go ahead mix’em, make you’self sick,” Willy replied.
Jesse went back into the space pod. A minute later, he stuck his head out of the door with a beer in his hand and asked Tim, “You want one?”
“Naw, I haven’t recovered from last night.”
Jesse jumped down from the pod staggering. He slid sideways along the spaceship, and then sat down in the dirt. He opened the beer, guzzled a good portion of it. “I tricked you guys. We won!” he yelled. “Wah hoo, we’re the champions!”
Jesse tried to stand but fell sideways landing with his face in the dirt. The beer left his hand, overturned and was pouring onto the dirt by his head. Suddenly, he puked.
“See what that stuff do for ya, Travis. Isn’t that pretty?” Willy asked.
“He’ll be okay. Just give him a minute,” Traveller replied. He got up and helped Jesse to the fire.
“Wah hoo! We won,” Jesse said looking at Willy with whiskey-glazed eyes.
“Yeah, you look like a winner, puke runnin’ all down your arm. I’m going to bed,” Willy said taking the whiskey with him.
“I think I’ll join you,” said Tim.
“What’s the matter? You two can’t take a joke?” Jesse slurred.
Neither man dignified Jesse’s remark with an answer. They rolled their space blankets out on the tarps inside then ate jerky, apples, and synthowafers. “Close the door please,” Willy said when they were through eating.
Traveller grabbed a handful of synthowafers before using the remote to close the door. He and Jesse sat by the fire as Traveller fed his drunken friend synthowafers and water. When Jesse fell asleep, he opened the pod again and carried him inside. Traveller took his friend’s boots and jacket off before throwing a blanket over him.
With one eye open, Willy said, “That fool gonna lead you over a cliff, Travis.”
“Goodnight Willy,” Traveller replied.Chapter 36 - City of Rocks

Traveller felt horrible the next morning. His dry mouth combined with a splitting headache made him think that he would never drink another drop of whiskey for the rest of his life.
Jesse, on the other hand, was bright-eyed and bushy tailed. Jesse had evacuated a good deal of the poison when he threw up. That coupled with the synthowafers and water had prevented him from the misery that plagued Traveller.
After a quick breakfast, the men rolled their bedding up and stored it in the cargo hold careful not to disturb the sleeping rattler. When they finished, Jesse said, “Fire this thing up! I’m looking for adventure!”
Traveller activated the thrusters gently lifting the ship off the ground. Willy and Tim sat on a rolled tarp behind the view screen while Jesse rode shotgun. Sensors automatically guided the ship to keep it from scraping against the rock. The outcropping filled with dust as the ship slowly emerged from its winter shelter.
Once the ship hit open air, Traveller elevated. When the craft was above the trees and sagebrush, he banked right heading north.
“That is so cool!” said Jesse. “Why aren’t we falling out of our seats? How does the ship keep us from tilting?”
“The deck that we’re sitting on keeps the same relative position to the ground. The outer part of the ship moves but the cabin stays parallel to Earth. It is suspended in, for want of a better word, an amniotic fluid. It is a shell within a shell full of fluid. The mucous-like substance contains nanobots that act much like nerve cells that relay messages throughout the body of the ship. It works on the same principle as a gyroscope,” Traveller answered.
“But in the view screen, you can see the tilt of the ship and its relationship to the terrain. How does that work?”
“The screen contains a digital representation of our surroundings so that I can fly the ship correctly. It’s kind of disorienting, isn’t it? You see the landscape tilting while remaining in the same relative position to the ground. It took me a while to get used to it. Of course, the screen retracts if you want to fly by sight.”
“So that’s why we’re not being thrown all over kingdom come,” Jesse marveled.
Traveller gradually elevated the ship to 10,000 feet veering to the west. They flew over Ward’s store following the Albion highway north until he spotted the canyon that contained the cave where Fangs lived then he turned due west. Within minutes, the foundation of the old mining camp came into view. Once the ship was over the parking area, Traveller sat it down.
“You guys stretch your legs and go poddy while I return Fangs to his cave,” Traveller told his passengers. He picked the sleeping snake up from the cargo hold and left the pod with the snake draped over his shoulders.

When everyone had situated themselves back inside the ship, Traveller elevated, and then headed south until he found the road heading to Elba. “Everything looks different up here,” Jesse said, “but just follow the highway to Almo. Just past it, you turn right.”
“Better stay elevated so no one can spot us,” Tim cautioned.
“What are they going to do, throw rocks at us?” Jesse asked as they flew over Elba with its two-story brick houses dotting the green pastures. Red brick, yellow brick, and white-washed houses splashed color on the deep green carpet below. Angus and Hereford cattle grazed in the meadows adding yet more contrast to the green.
Traveller unconsciously slowed the craft to appreciate the pastoral beauty of Idaho. On the side hills, scores of deer wandered along the highway. Their hides looked mangy. Clumps of hair hung from their sides as they shed their winter coats. The land budded with spring. The crabapple trees held pink blossoms.
Without noticing, Traveller had descended to less than a five hundred feet. When he flew over the town of Almo, Jesse said, “You turn right and follow that road.” He pointed to a brown line the led back west into the mountains.
The space pod wound up the canyon until bleached tan rock formations crowded the road. The granite domes look comfortable nestled among the verdant green trees and grass. White snow drifts lay against the west faces of the rocks.
They kept climbing until they found themselves flying over a maze of gigantic rocks that looked as if a giant had gone on a rampage and thrown countless misshapen objects at the Earth. His powerful projectiles had struck the mountain embedding them into the ground.
The ship passed finger-shaped spires of ash-flow that stood in a crowd of watching formations. Each spire leaned its own way. There were tall ones, medium ones, and small ones, each etched by the forces of nature, each a tribute to Earth’s power and beauty.
“Look at that one,” Tim said breaking the awe-caused silence. “It’s the state of Idaho.” A dark granite formation shaped like a hand with the index finger pointing up came into view.
“Yeah, that’s called “My Idaho,” said Jesse. “See those two? Their called the Twin Sisters. The one on the left that looks all weathered and eroded is two and a half billion years old. The other is only twenty-five million years old. You can tell, she’s still firm.”
“What are those parallel lines? They look like the scars on my arm,” said Traveller.
“This used to be a landmark for the California Trail. Emigrants bound for California in the 1880s traveled through here. Those are wagon ruts,” said Jesse. “The Pony Express also had a route across the City of rocks.
“Set this thing down over there, and I’ll show you something,” Jesse said pointing to a rock grouping.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Tim said.
“Don’t be so paranoid. There’s not that many people here,” Jesse said.
“Better pull around, keep the rocks between us and the road,” said Willy.
Traveller found a grassy spot and sat the ship down. After everyone exited the plane, Jesse walked them around to where two names had been written on the rock face, ‘A. Freeman’ and ‘D. Tickner’ stood out in black letters. “The settlers signed their names in axle grease,” Jess informed them.
“We should go for a hike. This place is beautiful,” Traveller said. The sun shone down and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was a warm seventy-eight degrees in what had been a very early spring.
“Yeah, let’s go find a rock to sunbathe on,” Tim said.
“Good idea, I can work on my tan,” said Willy.
“You do look a little peeked. Probably not drinkin’ enough whiskey,” joked Jesse. “Follow me.”
He walked through the silver-grey sagebrush, and then across the meadow dotted with early blooming wildflowers. Yellow primose, white water leaf, and violet phlox flowers painted the green grass with splashes of color. Every so often a light orange spire rose up from the earth. “Lori calls this place the garden of God’s sculptures. She loves it here.”
They walked west until they came to Bath Rock. Jesse started climbing it.
“Where you going fool?” Willy asked. “I ain’t no mountain climber.”
“If you don’t want to climb it here go around to the other side. There’s some metal grips you can use. You gotta see this place from up there,” Jesse replied pointing to the top.
“I’m with Willy,” Tim said watching Traveller follow Jesse up the east face of the rock.
Forty minutes later, Willy and Tim looked down on their friends as they climbed the last fifty feet of the rock. Once Traveller stood on the top, he looked around, whistled, and said, “By the Universe, look what creation has wrought. This is acroluminous to the tenth degree.”
“You ought to see it at sunset with an overcast sky. It’ll take your breath away,” Jesse said.
The foursome sat down together letting the cool breeze dry their sweat as they drank water and pointed things out on the landscape. Traveller was overcome by the beauty. He couldn’t have imagined anything like it before today. The fresh mountain air, the flowers, and the city of spires and domes that stretched before him on all sides of Bath Rock made something stir deep within him.
“Tell me when you’re ready to go,” said Jesse.
“Let’s just sit here for a while. There’s no hurry,” Traveller said in a hushed, reverent voice.

An hour later, the foursome climbed off Bath Rock. The afternoon sun basked them in its warm glow as they descended. Jesse was the last to jump off the monolith.
“Where to now?” he asked.
“This place is acroluminous. Let’s fly over it some more,” Traveller said.
“You’re the alien explorer,” said Jesse.
Once they were airborne, Traveller kept the ship at low altitudes. Spotting a pair of rock climbers, he hovered above them at the same time a cloud passed over revealing the ship.
The climbers sensed that they were being watched and looked up. They spotted the cigar-shaped ship shimmering in the sunlight. It disappeared when the clouds passed. The climbers quickly scaled the rock and began searching for the strange