CHAPTER 9

Several weeks had passed and still, Patty had not gotten used to looking at the environment that she was now in. Every view that met her eye almost felt like a wonder and she could not make herself ignore any of it. Patty had brought plenty of extra memory cards and data storage space for pictures and, now, she was positive that she had not brought enough. Up till now, Patty had only been to the most boring of places, all of it military, and even most of that was beyond description. It made her wonder what the really neat places of this world looked like. Now she was getting her first taste of that and she was kind of thinking she had screwed up taking this particular assignment.

At the time, when Patty was offered the chance to tag along with the US Army, it seemed like an opportunity to be right where the most important events would transpire. It also looked to be the only way that Patty was going to get here. Sure, eventually, travel to this world would be no more spectacular than traveling to England itself. It would be fun, a little adventurous for the average American but, very routine and just as safe as driving in rush hour traffic back home. Right now, that was not the case and the people who got here first would be the ones who would be remembered, make their fortunes, and advance their careers. Now Patty wondered if she had been cheated.

There were other reporters here and most of them were not imbedded with the military. They were not stuck on military posts where the British had gone out of their way to hack out a landscape that looked a lot more like Earth. Right now, it was those reporters who were getting to see all of the truly interesting stuff, all the while, Patty swore if she got stuck in one more conference room then she was going to scream. In reality, screaming was almost what it took to get on the chopper she was now sitting on. She had to become such a pain in the ass for Colonel Isaacs that he was willing to send her as far from him as was currently possible without violating his orders.

Even if Patty’s two baby sitters were not happy with it, she was convinced it was the right idea. Did they really like sleeping in tents that much? Patty was not the one having to sack out under a canvas tarp every night. The British had actually found her, and a few of the American Officers, a real billet. For that reason alone she would have figured that Lieutenant Vega and Specialist Thompson would have been more than happy to leave RAF Merlin in the rear view mirror. Neither seemed to be.

Patty could kind of understand their discomfort. After a little time it was clear that Vega’s ‘tough street chick’ routine was pretty much just that, mostly an act. Patty had dug around and found out that most of her dissatisfaction was because she had a not so secret boyfriend. No one was sure of who that was but, apparently, there was a betting pool going and, now, half the battalion was in on it. Those guys were frantically trying to find out, much to the chagrin of Vega. The girl was also ticked off because her current duties kept her from seeing whoever this mystery man was.

Angela Thompson was another story entirely. Patty doubted that the girl could have kept a secret like the one that her Lieutenant was. The girl simply wore her heart on her sleeve and that was quite often a problem for her because she was simply at that age. Patty remembered being that young and Angela, all too often, reminded Patty of herself. Angela was quite awkward with other people and, despite the fact that she had been a soldier for several years, she was not a very self assured person. Patty almost yearned to reach out and help the girl but, there was very little she could do in this situation. After all, Angela was supposed to be here to protect Patty but, unfortunately, that girl did not look like she could even protect herself. Just looking at her sitting in that seat, it was as if all of her field gear was just swallowing the little girl up.

Patty tried to make them smile at least. They were certainly in a place where that should have been easy. All they had to do was look out of the open door of the Blackhawk. Not only was the sky right out of some fantasy painting but, there was an entire sea down there that was almost pitch black in color. It would rise and fall and the little crests were white and foamy. It was like no body of water back on Earth and Patty could have never even dreamed of such a sight. It sure made her wonder about a lot of things.

At least her pilot was friendly and of a talkative sort. Patty literally had his number. They were patched in on the birds intercom system and she had an open vox microphone on her headset. Despite the noises of the engine and blades, they could carry on a conversation like they were sitting on some peaceful beach sipping at drinks. That made Patty think about some of the sights she had seen since they left Merlin.

They had been hugging the coast line for almost the entire journey. Most of it was a lot of marsh land but, she did see some beach’s here and there. The one thing that Patty did not see was a lot of activity of the intelligent species variety. There were almost no settlements of any kind, not a single recreational activity on any beach, and not even any fishing vessels or the likes. In fact, Patty could count the boats, that they had seen, on the fingers of one hand. It made her wonder about that water down there.

“Hey Cliff,” Patty said over the intercom. She had been told that Chief Warrant Officer Clifford D. Briley was a “Night Stalker.” As Patty had learned, that meant the guy almost exclusively flew special ops missions. It had made her think that just maybe he would be resentful about playing taxi driver but, that proved to be completely wrong. Cliff actually seemed to be enjoying his flight and, Patty kind of thought, the guy just liked flying no matter why he was doing it.

Patty asked him about the ocean down there and he told her, “oh yeah, hey don’t let the black fool you. The water’s warm and actually feels pretty damn good. I wouldn’t go swimming in it though.”

That actually got Vega’s attention. She might not have been all that chatty but, she was still plugged into the internals. She seemed rather alarmed when she asked, “why is that?”

Patty took a guess, “sharks?”

“I hear tell they got them,” Cliff replied from his pilot seat, “but they really aren’t any different from back home. They really won’t mess with you. It’s the Nessie’s you got to worry about. Surprised we haven’t seen any yet. I hear they’re migrating south right now.”

Now, even Angela was interested in the conversation when she said, “you mean like the Loch Ness monster?”

Cliff replied with a chuckle, “that’s exactly what I mean kiddo. Big, long necked, dinosaur looking critters, and their mouth is big enough to swallow you hole. The Brits got one or two stories about how, every now and then, one will pop his head up and take a whack at a chopper. Course, that is only if you get low enough that the rotor wash fucks with his hearing.” After a pause Briley added, “well, at least, that’s the story I was told.”

Vega looked past Thompson and out the chopper door. She was paying particular attention to their altitude, “sure we’re high enough?”

Briley only laughed in response.

Patty could not help but looking out the door and, she finally realized, that she was doing exactly what Vega had been. She figured that it might be unfair to call these creatures “monsters” even if, technically speaking, the name most aptly applied. The problem was that, of all the wildlife that Patty had seen so far, the word monster would have applied to almost half. Patty realized they were really just animals and doing what they do but, it really did make her wonder about a few things.

There were plenty of animals who lived on both worlds. That was almost as surprising as the ones who did not. There were some that had gone extinct on one and was thriving on the other. Patty had known that before she came here since you could hardly look at the media back home and not see some story about it. Now that she was looking at this world, with her own eyes, and truly experiencing the environment in a way that you could never do with some video, it raised quite a few questions in her mind. How was this possible?

Just looking at the sky and sea made one wonder. It was an alien environment for sure but, there was also something very familiar about it. There had been people, all down thru history, that had claimed to have been magically transported to some other place and Patty could not help but think that many of their descriptions were very similar. Knowing what they knew now, was it possible that those people were not crazy?

Right after contact, the Elves had been pretty up front about the fact that they had been aware of our world for millennia. They even claimed that humans and Fey had probably shared a common ancestor. It was something that was hard to argue with. It also opened up the door to other speculation and Patty was, for the first time, starting to take some of the fringe speculation a little more seriously now. After all, three years ago, who would have believed that elves were real?

The Fey were sticking to the story that the Dell was as natural as a thunderstorm. They also fully admitted to having had past contact with Earth. Despite these admissions, they also claimed that until that British Physics teams had figured out how to expand and shrink the Dell, there had been no contact between the worlds in thousands of years. They said that they were dependent to natural cycles, most likely of a solar nature, that would cause what that British guy, Ian Dominique, had managed to do with technology. Now Patty was starting to wonder if that story held any water.

That subject was filed away for another time when her eye detected something on the far off northern horizon. As the chopper made a slow turn she gradually lost sight of it before she could make out any detail. Apparently, Lieutenant Vega had caught a better glimpse because she asked over the intercom, “was that Uea-Au that I saw up ahead?”

Cliff casually replied, “that’s a big nega-tory there good buddy. That be the mystical port town of Mue-Nah. Course, you good travelers try and keep in mind that we call them Way Out and Morning!”

Vega seemed less than impressed. Angie developed a silly grin on her face and looked embarrassed that she even thought it was funny. Patty had other ideas and she quickly asked, “why is it there’s nothing on the coast at all? I mean, even if they don’t think swimming is fun, you’d think that they’d have some kind of sea borne economic ventures, wouldn’t they?”

Now it was Cliff’s turn to laugh, “like what? There’s no where to sail too. You keep going north, south, or east and all you hit is a big old ice pack. That’s the side that permanently faces away from Crummy Ass. You go west, by land, and eventually you hit some big as shit mountains. If you can get over them then, lucky you, you’re in the middle of a desert that makes the Sahara look like a kids sandbox. That’s the hot pole.” As the women thought about it, Cliff added, “and besides, none of you have seen one of them storms that comes off the sea. All them marshes you see down there, they all turn to ocean. Who would want to live near that?”

“Point taken,” Patty replied but, she was not quite done yet, “I understand this planet is tidally locked to the gas giant but, that makes me wonder. What’s on the other side of the ice pack? If they have a habitable zone on this side then surely there’s one on the other?”

“The Fey’s tell us that the other side of the world is pretty much all Orc,” Cliff replied as he slowly changed his heading once again. Then he added, “tell you the truth, I don’t think they really know. They’ve never been to outer space, they don’t have any planes that can fly that far, so you kind of got to ask yourself how they figure that.”

That was a fair question and, again, Patty had to wonder. The Elf’s might not be able to circumnavigate their own world but, that didn’t mean humanity could not. She had to wonder if anyone in London or Washington was considering it. If Patty had been sitting in the oval office she would sure as hell think about it. It was yet another question that was adding to a list that was growing ever longer. The problem was that these had not been the questions that Patty had thought she would be asking.