This story is for persons of eighteen years or over. All comments, good or bad, are welcome and all will be answered.
Part Six
The room, if it could be called that, was half the circumference of the ship, and the predominant features of this room were two coffin like capsules. They were about six foot long, the bottom half solid and the upper a clear plastic or similar transparent material like the dome. The lower half was padded in a material like the chairs on the top deck, and Audrey wondered if they gave out massages as well.
Going through the top were two plastic tubes, the ends that were inside the capsule looked like intravenous needles. The upper ends went into large containers against the side wall.
I think with these, it was a two man crew,' Brendan said, waving his hand at the capsules, and the tubes are for intravenous feeding while travelling through space.'
Those containers then must be their type of food or fluids,' Audrey said. These must be the controls,' she said, moving to the end of one. `Four dials and a display screen that's blank.'
`Well they are not telling us anything,' Brendan said.
`Let's look over at the other side and see if we can find a toilet or something for I will need to go shortly,' she said. So they crossed over to the opposite side and got the door open and went inside. All that contained were two shower like cubicles that had many pipes going in or out for they had no way of telling which. On either side were two control panels that didn't tell them anything either.
Showers or disinfecting chambers at a guess,' he said, 'but no sign of a toilet pan. You'll have to go outside,' he grinned. I'll come down with you and watch...'
`No you won't,' Audrey interrupted indignantly.
...and watch to see that you are not disturbed,' he finished with a smile. Can't have you getting caught out there with your pants down now can we?'
She laughed and they went down to the lower level and after donning the helmets, went down the ramp that was really the door. He stood at the bottom of it while Audrey went off into the closest bushes to do what she had to do and when she came back, he too then went.
`Let's check this lower part,' Audrey said when they were back inside and the door had closed behind them. They both were suffused in this orange glow and they moved round the walls, touching them with the palms of their hands until a door opened. As they went in the air seemed to come alight though they couldn't find the source like a light bulb or neon, it was as though the air itself was giving off the illumination for there didn't appear to be any shadows anywhere.
The contents proved that they were in some kind of time machine or space craft for they had before them, four pairs of what could only be space suits. Above each suit was an enormous goldfish type bowl of a helmet, though each pair went from clear glass to black though it was doubtful if they were made of glass. The suits too ranged from very light as Audrey found when she touched them, to very heavy and the last two pair had heavy boots to go with them.
We can see now that they only have one head, two arms and two legs whoever they are,' he said as he lifted a helmet down off the shelf above one of the suits. As they weren't wearing these, they must use oxygen like us. I think these would be for a planet without air like ours. Look, they've got what looks like the same type of thing inside that we've been wearing.' He passed it to Audrey to inspect while he pulled one of the last ones down and put it on his head for a moment before taking it off. `Couldn't see a damn thing with this one on.'
`Probably for strong sun light or ultra violet rays, just look at the thickness of the suit,' she said.
`Judging by the boots they haven't got webbed feet, and, hey look, a pair of gloves,' and he held them up.
Four fingers,' Audrey said looking at them, or would it be three and a thumb?'
`Can't tell, they're all the same length,' Brendan said as he turned them over in his hands.
`What height do you think, judging by the suits?' she asked.
`Oh about four six or eight I would say. Don't you remember from your dream?' he asked.
`I can't say I really noticed. I was too busy watching the drama but they were definitely a little smaller than I am.'
Let's see what else we can find,' he said going out of the space suit locker for that's what it appeared to be. Judging by where our helmets are and this door, we're a third of the way round so there must be another room along here.' He then moved off to the left, feeling his way along the walls with his hands. Audrey stayed where she was for it gave them some illumination other than the orange glow that was following Brendan like a huge halo.
Nothing,' he said when he reached the helmets. You try.'
Audrey moved out of the locker and the light faded and the door closed as she moved in her own aura of light and felt her way round but failed to find a door. It doesn't make sense,' he said when she reached where he was standing. There should be a door about here,' he said as he went back and stood at what be about a third of the way round, feeling all over the wall.
`What if it has a failsafe mechanism. You know, like you see in the films about nuclear submarines. Two keys to arm the missiles so that one person cannot run amok and start World War Three.'
`You could be right, Audrey. Come over here and we'll feel together,' he said.
Now if that isn't a chat up line...,' she said and they both laughed and she had a tremor run through her for his laugh was very melodic and, she struggled for the right word but only came up with sexy. I'd just love to come and have a feel with you,' she said with a smile and joined him and almost instantly as their hands met on the wall, the door opened.
`Did you say Open Sesame?' he asked.
`No. All it needed was a woman's touch,' she smiled. They moved in and had the same light spread out around them and saw the reason for a two handed touch for it seemed to contain weapons. Not weapons that they had ever seen or dreamed of, but then, they were not sure if they were or not.
There were at least eight that could be possibly hand guns, four that could be a form of rifle. There were sticks and tubes, some with loops, some of them looking like cattle prods.
`In my dream, one of them was holding something like this,' Audrey said and put out her hand but Brendan caught her wrist.
`No. Don't touch them. We don't know how to handle them. God, wouldn't the Pentagon just love to get their hands on these,' he finished in a whisper. Reluctantly he pulled Audrey from this arsenal of weapons that this world had never seen, nor would they. The door silently closed as they moved out into the central well in their own orange glow.
`They're not of our world Audrey and best left where they are,' he said, holding her hand.
`Yes Brendan, you're right,' she said, loving the way his hand was holding hers.
`Let's check out the next level,' and so they gently rose up to their hand movement, finding that one was sufficient as they were still holding a hand of the other. They had to laugh when both made the gesture to find that they had pointed in opposite directions and it was Audrey who dropped hers to follow Brendan. They were slightly disorientated by being in a circular environment that it took them nearly halfway round before a door revealed itself to the hand and they stepped into what they thought of as the engine or propulsion unit of the sphere.
There was an almost inaudible hum to the ear but what took the eye was the plethora of tubes of different sizes that almost pulsed in a variety of colours. The largest had a blue glow to it and if they could have slowed time even further they would have seen that it was a single orb that flew around inside. But as they couldn't, it appeared to be one continuous flow of blue light. Other tubes had different colours, some dull, some bright. One that caught Audrey's eyes was one thin tube that flashed round at a regular spaced interval and unconscious counted and then realised that it had a space of forty five seconds.
I know that one,' she cried out. That's the homing beacon.'
They had begun walking round and found that all these tubes passed through four massive box like compartments that had many dials and buttons, the lights flickering on and off. You cannot say that they were in all four corners in a circular room but they were equidistant from each other and it was from these came the low humming noise and she felt them give off a very slight tremor.
Whoever they were or wherever they came from, have far exceeded whatever our world can produce in engineering and technology. We're thousands of years behind in this kind of thing,' said Brendan in awe. I think we're in the wrong profession in looking at the past when we should be looking into the future if this is what is there.'
`I've got a funny feeling that those who were travelling in this were the same as us. Looking back into the past, looking for the beginning or whatever it is we are really looking for,' Audrey said.
That's quite a profound thought Audrey,' he mused, and you could very well be right. Other than that, they could be on a Thomas Cook tour of the universe.'
`Are you making fun of me?' she asked, a frown on her face.
Of course not darling,' he smiled at her and her heart gave a leap, for it was the second time he'd used that word. I'm hungry,' he said. Men, Audrey thought, stomachs first before love.
So they left the propulsion room and drifted up to the top where they had left the baskets.
Good Lord,' Brendan exclaimed, the sun's going down. How long have we been here?' Audrey looked at her watch.
`About seven hours, though we did walk for half an hour before we got to the helmets, then another half hour from there to here.'
`So what time would it be at the camp now?'
`Well if we left the camp at say, half past one. Walk for half an hour to the helmets, that makes it about two minutes past two o'clock at the camp.'
`Bloody hell! So if we wanted to be back at the camp for six o'clock, how much time would we have here?'
Well that's one question so far today that I can answer,' she said as she got her pad and pencil out. Two and a half days exactly,' she said triumphantly after a few minutes of calculating. He took the pad and pencil from her and started to do some calculations of his own. While he was busy with that, she opened the wine and poured some out into the paper cups she'd packed and opened a fresh pack of sandwiches.
This time thing is frightening,' he said abstractedly taking a sip of his wine. It seems fun to stay here for two and a half days and yet only be away from the camp for four hours. That would be nearly thirty six and a half hours for a whole year. Ten years would only be just over fifteen days. How could you explain your ageing so fast in so short a time? God it's frightening.'
The sun was going down fast now and there wasn't much daylight left.
Eat something and we'll think of this later,' Audrey said, offering up the pack. It'll be dark very soon and we haven't found a place to sleep yet.'
`We could always sleep in those capsules down below,' he said as he munched on a sandwich.
Oooh no!' Audrey said with a shiver. To me they look like coffins with glass lids, no thank you.'
`Well you can have a massage as you sleep in one of these chairs,' he laughed.
`I'd rather sleep in a place where you can hold me to stop me being frightened of being in this strange place,' she said in a quiet voice.
`Now that I would love to do if there was such a place of comfort,' he said most seriously in a voice that matched hers.
In just a few minutes, the light from the sky disappeared and it was dark outside and yet they still had a subtle glow in this upper part of the sphere so that they were still able to see one another as if in half shadow. He moved over to sit beside her and he took her into his arms and they kissed, slowly to fall onto the blanket where they began to take each other's clothes off.
When they were naked, then held each other tight as they kissed, lying there on the rough blanket, stroking and fondling until he remembered it was his turn to give Audrey her pleasure. So he rolled her onto her back and began to kiss his way down her lovely body and moved in between her opening legs.
He imagined he was a thing of two parts, his mouth had the buzz of a bee and his fingers were the rays of the sun. These latter touched the petals that he thought of as a flower and under the warmth of these sun's rays, they slowly opened up. Seeing this inner heart of the flower, the bee buzzed closer and began to feed on the nectar found within those petals.
He licked, sucked and nibbled at and around the bud of her clit, raising it up into a hard nut that he could then get his teeth on. Audrey squirmed as he licked and nibbled, her inside fire building up and up and she began to pound the floor with her fists. The trembling became an earthquake and her thighs came together and squeezed as she bucked and exploded inside.
Brendan began to buck then, fighting to free his hands which took some effort and then more as he prised her thighs apart and reared up, his face bright red as he took in a massive amount of air which brought his chest up to massive proportions.
Wheeeze!' he gasped and started to cough. I nearly died down there.'
`What a lovely way to die,' she smiled at him and opened her arms. He couldn't help but smile back as he moved up and fell forward, ramming his cock straight up into her waiting wet orifice.
`Ooomph,' was the noise from her mouth as he landed on top of her and he clamped his lips onto hers in a kiss and held her head down with his and watched her face start to go as red as his had been.
`You bugger,' she gasped but with a smile as she took in deep breaths.
`If I was a bugger, I'd have what's inside you now in a different place,' he replied, smiling down at her as he eased himself up onto his elbows.
`No, you're in the right place and now I want you to give me another orgasm,' still smiling as she put her hands up to his shoulders.
`If I can,' he replied and began to move himself on top of her, his prick throbbing and moving inside like a well oiled piston. It was this lubrication that made her unable to grip him tightly and so he was able to keep on riding her, though struggling to hold himself back till she was ready.
It was to some relief when he felt her start to buck and scream out and he breathed out and came inside her as she had her second orgasm. It was a relief for both of them and they hugged each other until he slipped out and without bothering to clean themselves up, fell asleep in each other's arms.
They woke up in the morning to full daylight and put back on the clothes that they had taken off in the night.
`That's one of the best night's sleep I've had in ages,' he said as he sat up.
And one of the most satisfying,' she smiled as she did up the last button of her shirt before giving him a kiss. Now what would you like for breakfast. We have a sandwich, a sandwich or a sandwich,' she laughed. `I forgot to pack a frying pan.'
`How long can we last with what we've got,' he asked, taking a sandwich.
`Maybe breakfast tomorrow it we go a little bit easy. Now what shall we do today?'
`Study the consoles and see if we can make some sense out them,' he said, finishing another sandwich and taking a small drink of water.
They went up to the map room and began to study the grid. This was on the lower screen and it had a total of thirty six squares, each with a set of markings at the top which was presumed to be the sectors. The one in the middle was of a darker shade of the others and the markings of this square were visible on the small display screen above what they thought would be what we would call a keyboard.
Now the screen up above seemed to be of a much larger area with one darkened patch that they assumed was where the lower one was showing where they were, that had a different set of symbols displayed above it.
I think this would be the enter button,' Brendan said, indicating the largest knob on the right hand side of the keyboard. If we were to put another set of symbols onto the display and pushed this, we might be able to move the ship.'
But we don't know how big each square is. It could be a few hundred yards, it could be miles,' Audrey said, a little apprehensively, besides, we don't know which way is north by this grid.'
`What was the compass bearing we followed?'
`As close to south east as you could get.'
`And the door and ramp was facing slightly towards us which would put that roughly facing south then,' he said.
`Yes, but is the door on this grid at the top or bottom, it still could be facing in any direction?'
`We'll only find out by trying. Are you game? We were able to see that ridge to the north. We'll move one square, check it from the outside or the observation point up top. If we do succeed in moving it, we should then be able to bring it back to this same place.'
`Alright, but make a note of everything you touch and what is up on the screens now.' This was done on their note pads and then Brendan began pressing the buttons following the sequence to the left of the existing dark one. This sector, as he called it was up on the screen and he looked at Audrey with his right hand hovering over the big button.
`Ready?' he asked and her hand came and held his and she nodded, not daring to speak. His hand pushed the button and they could hear a slight hum and felt an infinitesimal tremor and then silence again. They had been watching the screen in front of them and watched as the original one came up bright and the one to the left darkened.
Was that it?' Audrey asked in a perplexed tone. If it was, it wasn't very exciting was it?'
`No, but let's have a look from up top first before checking outside.'
So they left their seats and gravitated up to the dome and looked out and the view was still over trees.
`Well the ridge is still there,' Audrey said.
`Yes, but is it closer or further away, that's the point?'
`Let's look down at ground level.'
Back to the central well they let themselves down and put their helmets on and went through the door that opened at their touch and the door and ramp came into operation as they trod on the mat. With visors in place, they went down and stood on the ground and looked around.
Well we definitely moved,' Audrey said, for I don't recognise the tree formations here. If only we could leave markers or something,' she cried.
`Okay. We keep moving square by square until we hit the clearing where the Brontosaurus is lying,' Brendan said and led the way back into the craft.
They moved one square up, nothing. Two right, two down, three across and two up, the eleventh square was when they found it.
Yes, yes, yes!' Audrey almost screamed out, jumping up and down in the dome. There, about four hundred yards away, they could see the dead brute and Audrey turned and hugged Brendan. Isn't it great! We found it!'
Yes,' he said, hugging her back. Now let's plot it.' He pulled his pad from a pocket and began to sketch the angle it was lying and used her compass for the bearing. `Now let's measure the distance.' Back down again they went and with helmets on, paced the distance between the ship and the dead creature. He also noted that the door of the ship was definitely facing south.
Back inside the map room, he put in the code for the square one down and one right and moved the ship backwards, or so it seemed to Audrey.
`Why have we started to move away?' she asked.
Look,' he said pointing at the square they were on. We're here in the middle of this one. The 'saurus is here in this square, about four hundred yards from the middle. Now if we pace out the distance from here to it, I can then work out the size of each grid and from that, work out the scale of the big one up there,' pointing to the screen above them.
`Oh, I didn't think of that,' Audrey said a little abashed.
`How are we going to get an accurate measurement?' Audrey asked as the tramped towards the carcase.
`I've been giving that some thought and decided that we'll have to get back into the camp and get my tape measure. Pop the visor up back into our own time. Into the tent, helmet off, pick up the tape, back on with the helmet and then down with the visor. Simple,' and laughed at the expression on her face.
`You've certainly worked out how to use these things,' she said in admiration.
`It took an hour to work it out so I'm not that clever.'
`Well I think you are,' she said hugging his arm as they carried on. They reached the dead animal and lifted their visors to see it change into a half dismembered skeleton before turning round to see that work was still going on at the tables. They walked up to his tent and he was relieved to see that the flap was up so they could enter to retrieve his tape measure. As he said, he took off his helmet to be able to pick it up and putting his helmet back on now they had the tape.
They went back to the tail end of the carcase with their visors down and he thought that twenty yards was long enough to measure at a time. While she stood holding the loose end, he walked off following the beacon in his helmet until he reached twenty yards. He stopped and Audrey walked towards him and went on past following the same bleep and line in her helmet until the tape went taut. Forty yards so far. They did this change about in their measuring eighty eight times which gave them exactly one mile and they could see the sphere. Another three turns to reach a total of one thousand eight hundred and twenty yards.
So far so good,' Brendan said, writing in his note book. Now we move the ship for another measurement.' He led the way in and up to the map room.
`Now with the carcase lying north west of where we landed, we go two squares west and two north. Then we measure the distance to the carcase and I can then work out roughly the dimensions of these square grids.' Audrey agreed and set the code for the square they wanted and pushed the enter button.