Chapter Sixteen #2
But the Butlers seemed to relax. Dr. Butler said, “I’m sorry. Nothing is wrong, exactly. I’m speaking for myself, of course.” He sent a quick glance to his wife. “I guess I’d hoped they were wrong about what was going to happen and wouldn’t have to employ the Solution.”
Jack wondered what the man was talking about. He knew they were on an important journey, but he was fuzzy on the overall plan. He didn’t think Madelaine knew what the end result was either. But perhaps he was mistaken. Maybe she knew everything and kept her cards close.
Madelaine said, “I hate to be abrupt, doctor, but I am in rather a hurry. If you could retrieve the package for me, I’d be grateful.”
Dr. Butler nodded. “Yes. Of course. I’ll go fetch it.
It will just take a few minutes.” He turned and disappeared into the humble, thatch-roofed abode.
Their home was larger than many of the others they’d seen, seemingly centered in a common living area surrounded by fields of grain as far as the eye could see.
Dr. Butler and his wife likely had a clinic set up inside with their living quarters, making their home larger than others.
The doctor returned with a tan cloth sack, tied off at the top with what looked like a fairly sturdy rope in the shape of a bow. In the center of the knot was the now-familiar metal oval piece.
Dr. Butler held the bundle out to Madelaine. She took it and tucked it under one arm. “Thank you, Dr. Butler,” she said and nodded once at the man’s wife. “And you, Mrs. Butler.”
Dana Butler had been staring at the far-off skies, where it looked like dark clouds were forming along the horizon.
“You’d best be on your way back to the market hub.
If the storm arrives before you can safely take off in your ship, you’ll be grounded until it passes over us.
That could take some time. Possibly days. ”
Jack knew they did not have days to wait around and ride out a storm.
Madelaine twisted around and stared at the growing darkness and nodded quickly. “Yes. We’ll be on our way. Thank you again.”
With a quick wave to the Butlers, Jack followed Madelaine as she practically ran back to the road, where the beast-drawn wagon waited for them.
Jeb waved at them to hurry as he also eyed the approaching storm. Jack and Madelaine went from a healthy trot to a full-out sprint, leaping into the back of the open wagon bed as Jeb clicked his tongue to get the two beasts pulling their conveyance moving.
While the Verdara transportation beasts had an average speed of about thirty miles an hour, and certainly beat walking as a means of transport, it looked like the approaching storm was moving at twice that speed or faster.
“I hope we make it back in time,” Jack said, his gaze fixed on the dark clouds rolling toward them. It wasn’t long before they saw flashes of lightning and sheets of rain coming down in the distance.
“I was going to refuel before we left, but I think we should just jump in, lift off and go,” Madelaine said, trying to gauge how much further it was to the market hub where the ship was parked.
Jack guessed they were still fifteen minutes away.
“Good plan. We can always refuel once we get out of this planet’s atmosphere.”
“Yep. But it’s going to be close. I hope you didn’t want to linger and do any shopping in the market hub before we depart,” Madelaine said with a grin.
Jack pretended to cross his arms and pout about not being able to do any shopping before they hightailed it out of town, making Madelaine laugh.
He loved to hear her laugh. He’d really missed that laugh.
Jack leaned over and kissed her as a few stray drops of rain dotted the back of the wagon.
Jeb cracked a whip and the wagon sped up noticeably, jarring them apart, even as they both appreciated Jeb’s effort to get them back to town as fast as possible.
By the time they arrived, more than just a few fat drops of rain were pelting them. Madelaine had placed the tan sack from Dr. Butler in her backpack to keep it safe and possibly drier.
Since Madelaine had pre-paid Jeb for the round trip to the Butlers’ homestead, all they had to do was leap out of the beast-drawn wagon and race to their ship on the other side of the market hub.
They were both soaking wet by the time they hit the hatch door and raced up the ramp into the ship.
Madelaine stowed her pack and dropped into the pilot’s chair, firing up the engines without doing a precheck. Jack got the hatch closed and secured his own backpack in a hurry before heading for the co-pilot’s seat to buckle in for a quick take-off.
“Verdara Planet Flight Control,” she said, using the dashboard mic to call for clearance to leave, foregoing her headset for expediency. “Paladin Seeker requesting flight path authorization for immediate liftoff.” She rattled off the number sequence that identified their ship.
“This is Verdara Planet Flight Control. Paladin Seeker, if you are unable to lift off the pad and get above the storm in the next ninety seconds, you’ll be staying on our lovely planet for the duration of this Class Four rain with thunder windstorm.”
“Understood, Flight Control. Lifting off now.” Madelaine flipped the burners on high for a fast liftoff and didn’t even count it down. Luckily, Jack was watching and braced for an expedited departure.
They blasted off the pad, lifting straight up in the air and through the edge of the ominous cloudbank about to drench the market hub and the surrounding fields of grain. Likely the wind would punish the area as well.
Sixty seconds later, they broke through the cloud cover above the ominous Class Four windstorm, safely off the planet and the terrible weather.
“Whew. That was close,” Jack said.
“Yep. That’s how I roll. Always on the edge.”
He laughed as Madelaine grinned and punched a set of coordinates into the console that would put them a few clicks above the edge of the atmosphere of Verdara and then on a slow crawl away from the planet until they knew where they were going next.
Once they had a destination, they could change out their spent bauxite cubes to refuel. Jack was certain Madelaine wanted to look inside the tan sack they’d just retrieved at the first opportunity.
He knew she was curious to see the next piece of the puzzle because Jack was wildly curious himself.
Madelaine put the ship on autopilot, setting the ship to move at a snail’s pace, and they both headed to the table. She grabbed her backpack and pulled out the tan sack.
“Can’t wait to see inside,” he said.
“Same here.” She placed the sack on the table, put her thumb in the oval, which lit up light green beneath her thumb.
The oval went dark and Madelaine untied the rope securing the top, pulled open the drawstring and reached inside to pull out an object.
It was a fat, wide burlap envelope of sorts with another oval seal she’d need to open with her familial legacy print.
She pressed her thumb into the impression.
Another green light appeared beneath her digit and the seal released.
Inside, she retrieved what looked like a piece of wood a little longer than her hand.
“It feels like a rock, but it looks like a chunk of timber.” She held it out to Jack. He took it from her. It was heavier than it looked. He turned it over in his hands several times. It didn’t have splinters, or sharp edges. It did look like a timber-toned rock.
She spread the accompanying piece of parchment out on the table, showing the instructions for their next destination. He didn’t see the name or the coordinates, but she said, “I know where this is. I’ve been to this planet before.”
“Good planet or scary planet?”
“Annoying planet. On planet Keirios, I can talk, but none of the vendors we need to speak to will deign to talk to a mere female, so you get to do the talking again. I can at least whisper in your ear this time. No memorizing anything or risking your life. I know, boring, but it will be a new experience all the same.”
“Outstanding. Also, I don’t mind having you whisper in my ear.” He grinned and held up the object. “I believe this is a piece of petrified wood.”
“Interesting. We can put it with the glowing blue stone from Malvoraxis Veil. Maybe they will dance together and entertain us.”
Jack shook his head. “Yeah. I don’t think we should let any dancing between components take place.”
“I’m just kidding. For now, we definitely keep all the parts separated in their original packaging.” She put her hand on top of his. He grasped her fingers in his, staring deeply into her eyes. He leaned closer. She also leaned closer.
The two times Jack had kissed Madelaine like he wanted to—without getting interrupted—was at their wedding and after they’d escaped with their lives from Malvoraxis Veil.
He thought kissing daily might be a nice and innocuous addition to the important journey they were on together. He wanted to convince her they should stay together. He figured kissing on a daily basis might help his “no annulment” plan. At least it couldn’t hurt.
He moved closer as she looked up into his eyes, smiling like she knew what he was up to with his unspoken daily kissing plan.
They moved closer to each other. He lowered his head and their lips almost met—until a buzz sounded somewhere between them and made Madelaine jump in surprise.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Madelaine put a hand to her waist and shook her head. “It’s okay. Just a communication device I thought was going to remain silent unless I needed to use it.”
“Who’s calling?”
“The Secret Keeper.”
“He calls you? Really?” Jack was incredulous.
“No. Not really. I mean, he did give me the communicator device to use. Honestly, I didn’t expect him to reach out. He said he gave it to me in case I needed to call him, not the other way around. Guess I was wrong.”
She pulled what looked like a sophisticated flip-phone out of the waistband of her pants. He hoped the Secret Keeper wasn’t calling with bad news.