Kidnapped (31 page)

He smiled innocently, "Nothing."

He was checking which of the planets were at least on this side of the sun, plotting a course so she'd get to see as much as possible of her home system in all its glory.

*****

Patricia was trying to at least remember the names of all the planets, but couldn't, and it made her feel ignorant. Even if she wasn't able to navigate, she felt she should at least know the names of all of them. There were only eight, how difficult could it be...

Since stealing the ship, they'd switched languages to English so Travis would get some practice. She had a plan to explain her long absence, but it depended on him being able to fit in. Surely, everyone knew she'd been in a car accident. They must have found the wreck, and maybe she had wandered away from it, hurt and confused, and he'd found her in the wilderness.

It wasn't too far from the truth, and it might seem feasible. Amnesia, that was it. She would have to toss a year or so of amnesia in there to explain why she hadn't let anyone know where she was. They would somehow have to get him papers, too. He'd need an identity, but, she reasoned optimistically, how difficult could solving details like that be compared to everything else they'd been through.

He had the same language upgrade he'd given her, and he spoke the language well now, with just a little accent that would be easy to explain with being foreign, maybe from some Eastern European country. He was even learning to say his own name the way she heard it.

Travis mumbled, "Let's see," as he started playing with the radio, surprising her with picking up radio-transmissions from Earth. Well known songs and voices brought tears to her eyes.

It led to another line of thought. "The last time you were here, didn't you have any problems at all with, eh, the Earth defense systems?"

She had supposed a huge alien spacecraft landing would show up on screens in many different nations, and be greeted by military aircraft wanting to shoot it down. He just shook his head a little and chuckled, "Come on, Babe, give your man some credit. I wouldn't be very good at my job if I let any planet's systems pick me up, now would I."

He was trying to appear hurt by her doubting his competence, but he didn't pull it off very well; she saw his eyes glitter with mischief.

Meanwhile, they had closed in on a large blue planet with rings and a number of small moons, and Patricia stared at the screen, dumbfounded. "What's that?"

It was pretty, beautiful even, but it confused her. Travis answered, amused, "That, my dear, is a planet."

She glared at him and felt like an idiot. It didn't make any sense at all in her head, and even if he thought he was being really witty, she didn't find it funny. "But it has rings. Saturn has rings, but I don't think it's blue."

Travis's mouth twitched. He had used to think people from poorly developed planets were slow and tedious, a waste of his time, but he found her and her questions adorable. He wondered if people on her planet were all like her. In that case, it might not be a bad place.

Steering closer to the enormous blue pearl hanging in the dark sky, he explained, "All the big ones have rings, Sweetie. This is the outermost big planet in your system."

"Oh." Her voice was quiet, and she hesitated. "I wonder... It must be Uranus or Neptune, I think, I just can't remember which is which."

*****

When they got close to Saturn, Patricia beamed. She recognized it
and
knew its name. It was dawning on her they would be living on Earth from now on, and she wouldn't experience wonders like these anymore. As happy as she was to go home, she wondered if she would start to miss space. Glancing over toward Travis, she wondered how he would take being stuck on a planet. Maybe she should be worried about him getting tired of it. He might pack up and leave. She said tentatively, "I love you."

If Travis was surprised over the statement sounding like a question, he didn't show it. He just looked over at her, smiled a little, and said, "I love you too. Now, look at that!"

She squinted, but could hardly see the little blue dot in the distance. Then she exclaimed, "Oh my God, is that Earth?"

Her husband nodded, and she thought it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. She mumbled, "I can't believe we're here. I can't believe we've been away. Is that strange?"

He smiled a little, "I don't know. I don't think so."

When they came closer, he slowed them down to give her a chance to look properly, and she couldn't hold back her tears when she pointed the continents out to him. She dried a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I mean, to you it probably looks like a thousand others, but I think it's a miracle."

They sat there in silence for a long time, just watching the planet slowly rotating. Patricia was starting to wonder why they weren't moving at the same time as Travis asked, "So, where are we going?"

She answered automatically, "I was thinking Colorado. A friend of mine has a cottage we can use for a couple of days. It's desolate, and no one will even see us land. We can hide the ship there too."

As soon as she said it, she started to feel the explanation didn't explain all that much, and Travis looked amused when he asked, "Okay, can you tell me where Colorado is? Is it a country?"

Looking at the planet, she couldn't even see North America, and she answered in a mousy little voice, "Maybe on the other side, sort of in the middle of the north half."

This turned out to be more difficult than she had expected. She knew exactly how to get where she wanted to go when she was driving a car, but seen from above the planet was sort of big, and she wondered if she should have picked something easier to find. Like Greenland.

Travis shrugged slightly and entered the atmosphere. She did manage to point out which landmass they were going to, but large parts of the continent were covered in snow, and she'd been wrong to assume it'd be easier when they got lower. Everything looked exactly the same to her. Forests, lakes, cities, roads, it was all a blur, and she didn't recognize one thing when seeing it from the air.

Eventually, she glanced over at her husband, who was busy trying not to be discovered by a passenger plane, and confessed apologetically, "I have no idea of where we're going. I'm sorry."

He flashed a smile and didn't look worried at all. "It'll be okay, Sweetie, I have an idea."

He went upwards again, and she thought of how carefully he was flying. She didn't even get motion sick. Once they were back in orbit, he mumbled, "This planet has too many satellites. What are your people trying to do, build a new moon?"

She giggled, and he bent over to kiss her cheek. "Don't feel bad, it's my fault. There's no way you can find a place just like that if you're not used to seeing your world from above. It's difficult even for experienced pilots who are used to the area."

She wasn't paying attention to what he was saying, and asked curiously, "What are you doing?" but he just smiled and made a gesture to her to be patient.

After a minute or so, he nodded towards the controls, "Press that button."

She did, and gaped as a perfect map of North America appeared in front of her. He explained lightly, making it sound like the easiest thing in the world, "The computer put that together from information from your satellites. There seems to be an extensive amount of something called TV going on."

Epilogue

Travis knew the red light on the radio was blinking. He didn't know how he knew, he just knew, and he still waited for a couple of days before taking the transmitter out of the closet where he'd stored it after removing it from Veronica's ship. He was reluctant to listen to the incoming messages; he had a good idea of what they would be saying.

Still, one evening when Patricia was busy making dinner, and their son, whose fifth birthday would be coming up in a few days, was helping her, he opened the door and pulled out the big box that had been hidden behind shoes and tools for so long. He smiled a little. For so many years he had owned nothing. Not even the uniform that covered his body had truly been his, and since he got to this planet, he'd gotten quite a collection of unnecessary things.

The radio had nothing to tell him but sordid news. Aliens were attacking in full force. Any and all available troops and forces through the galaxy were called to the border, and to his surprise, there were voices from rebels and Alliance together. He supposed they'd had to find new ways to cooperate to face this mutual threat. Maybe Veronica hadn't been lying after all.

A large part of him wanted to jump into action. It wouldn't be all that difficult to make the ship ready to fly, to hurry into the fight to save humanity.

He looked at the picture on his nightstand, a photo of Patricia and Todd. They were smiling. He could remember the day he took it, and the galaxy didn't really mean all that much to him anymore. Neither did the Alliance, nor even allegiance to all the friends he hadn't known he had until they helped him.

Family mattered: his wife who had entered his life so unexpectedly and changed it completely, their son, and the other new, yet unborn child that would see the world in a month or so.

If he went, it would just be to defend his family, and couldn't he do that much better here, together with them in person, than if he lay dead on some nameless moon at the outer edge of the Milky Way?

He looked at the radio, reached out his hand and flipped a switch to "Off," and the voices from it fell silent. So did the light that must have been blinking its red signal for quite some time.

From the kitchen, Patricia called out that dinner was ready, and he called back that he would be there in just a minute. He felt filled with purpose when he shoved the radio back into the closet, hiding it behind a box of old toys. He straightened up and left the room, thinking if he was lucky he might get to feel his new baby daughter move.

The End

About Maria Hammarblad

As a little girl, Maria was fascinated with books. Before she could read or write, she made her mother staple papers together to resemble books. She drew suns in them and claimed they were "The Sun Book." They were all about the sun. The four-year old also claimed her existence on Earth was a mistake, a result of a horrible mix-up, and that her real family would come to bring her home to her own planet at any time. This didn't happen, but her fascination with both books and other worlds stayed with her.

Originally born in Sweden, she moved to Florida late 2008, and today she lives in the Tampa Bay area with her husband Mike and their rescue dogs. Her biggest interest besides writing is playing bass, and through the years she has played in a number of Swedish rock bands. She also enjoys photography, and volunteers at a local dog rescue.

http://www.hammarblad.com