Dark falls quickly in the desert. One minute, you’re fighting off the need to drown yourself in water from a canteen that only holds so much of the life-giving liquid, the next you wonder where the scorching heat that was the bane of your existence went, and when it might be coming back.
Temperature variance in the desert is yet another pitfall of wasteland travel. During the day, the outside air can rise to a sizzling hundred and twenty degrees. At night, however, the thermometer dips to near freezing in the open desert. The end result of which is the need to get under cover.
Tirga broke out the tent they had prepared for such an event and placed it next to a stone outcropping to protect it from stray winds that might blow through the area. While he did that, Sheila took a look at the night sky, carefully comparing it to the charts they’d brought to identify where on a certain planet they might be. Scanning the heavens for signs of the constellations she’d been shown, Sheila glanced back and forth between the star charts and the darkened tapestry that would hopefully tell them where the hell they were.
Tirga walked up behind her after finishing with the tent. “Anything?”
“Well, that one’s Orion… I think. Er... hold on…” Sheila turned the map ninety degrees to the right and looked again. “Nevermind. Dammit, why the hell don’t these things have a ‘down’ clearly marked?!”
Her husband sighed and pointed out the little arrow at the right of the map pointing the same direction. “This is supposed to be pointing down, honey,” he said in a tired voice.
“Stupid maps!” Sheila cursed and threw the offending parchment up into the air.
Tirga caught it and carefully placed it behind his back, where Sheila hopefully couldn’t assault the only method by which they’d be able to figure out which way they should be going. “You’re tired, Sheila. Get some rest. I’ll try to read this thing.”
“’M not tired,” Sheila said unconvincingly.
“Go to sleep,” Tirga said. “Consider that an order from a superior officer.”
Shooting Tirga an annoyed look, Sheila stood up to her full height and jabbed him in the chest with her finger. “Listen here, buster. One, you are not my superior now, nor were you ever. Two, I am not tired. Three-” she cut off as she realized she had no third point. “Those two are enough!”
With an internal sigh, Tirga considered his options. There was no way Sheila was going to follow his direction now. He’d screwed that up when he ordered her to bed, which he had expected her to take as a joke. Another tact he could try was appealing to her logical side, which was nearly a lost cause to begin with. So, the weretiger went with the one option that had always worked in the past. Being nice, sensitive and supportive. He never really liked to do that; it always came out sounding disingenuous to him. It never failed to calm Sheila down, though.
Slowly and carefully, Tirga laid one hand on Sheila’s shoulder and looked her in the eye seriously. “I’m sorry about that. It’s just that I’m worried about you, you know that. Only a few hours ago, you broke down crying. This is an emotional time for both of us, and we need our rest.”
“You aren’t going to bed yet,” pointed out Sheila without much force behind it. She wished he hadn’t brought up the crying thing. Of course she was on edge. They hadn’t seen their son in sixteen years and now they were actually on the right track after nearly giving up hope. That would have been enough to tug on anyone’s heartstrings.
“I will as soon as I map out our position.” Tirga pulled out his coup-de-grace and pulled Sheila into a tight hug. Normally, he’d be taller than her and not have his face pressed up against her breasts, but he made do without giving into his hormones out of being in such a position. “Get some sleep. You can take second watch.” Then, in a whisper, “I love you.”
That broke Sheila’s stubborn resolve and she nodded slowly. “I hate it when you’re right,” she grumbled.
“’Night, love.” Tirga kissed Sheila on the forehead.
“You better wake me up when it’s my turn for watch,” Sheila told him as she made her way into the tent.
Tirga chuckled under his breath and turned back to the map in his hand. Casting about in the sky for familiar patterns, he turned up several of the more obvious ones, which made pinning down the right chart much easier. “Now if I only knew what time of year it is…”
Tirga went into his bag of holding again and pulled out a chronograph made especially for situations like this. Gina created it for situations when traveling through time made identification of exact time periods difficult. It worked by taking readings of ambient tachyonic particles, which measured exactly how old the universe was… or something like that. Never one to admit when he didn’t know about something, Tirga had stayed silent when the process was being explained. Not that it mattered. Most of Gina’s gadgets were more or less idiot-proof, a fact that Sheila had razzed him about incessantly, claiming it was “fortunate, otherwise Tirga would never be able to get anything done”.
The device came back with a reading of July 15th.
2184.
“What the…” Tirga left off in his amazement. Not only had Dr. Diggers’ spell transported them through space, but through a sizable block of time as well. Shaking his head, Tirga got back to mapping out where on Earth he was. It meant little that this world was significantly more advanced in time frame than the world he came from, only that he had to take that into account when discovering where they were.
It took several more minutes, but Tirga finally managed to narrow down the positioning of the constellations. His figures placed them somewhere on the western seaboard of the US, which was surprising because Tirga had been fairly sure there was no desert on the western seaboard of the US. Just another difference between this world and the one they knew.
Tirga yawned. Now that he knew where they were… Well, it didn’t really do much but give them a set of maps to work off of. There was no guarantee that any of the towns, roads or other landmarks where the same in this world, especially with one hundred and sixty years of time between the two. In any case, it was time for him to put all this stuff away and set up his guard equipment. It was going to be a long night.
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(Posted Sat, 12 Aug 2006 11:14)
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