By Tom Blitzenbaum
CBS Country Bumpkin System Rescue: Fathernet Backspace Ref. 2K12 certified by Justin Foote 45th
“Good morning Miss Jane! “, boised the computer, “Y’all seem to be a mighty fahn copy of yesti’day’s file this fahn mawnin’.”
“Ah ha! Wonderful! Hello Kalahari!” Jane clasped her hands together gratefully under her chin, her bony elbows nearly touching, rocking back and forth in her new swivel desk chair and chuckling merrily at Kali’s affected southern accent.
The wake-up audio was the verifying signature between the two girls, combining their common fondness for the theories of Jiddu Krishnamurti and the charm of Scarlett O’Hara. The eminent anthropologist was somewhat surprised by the joy and relief she found in the simple fact that Kalahari was awake, after the challenging three-week trek through the jungle.
The sentient computer so key to Jane’s mission had traveled thus far, hazardously compressed in a fragile stasis within the godrod template BEQ (basic equipment quota) files for the luxurious tree house now serving as their research headquarters.
“Good morning to you Kali dear! You also seem to be a fine copy of yesterday’s file! “, remarked Jane in her cheerful Vassar-bred accent. “ Any word from Friar Huck over on the eastern slope with the bachelor herd yet?” Though it was completely unnecessary, Jane eagerly cocked her ear toward the computer speakers.
“Nothing yet Miss Jane, but Jilly Rogers is up there on the privateer time-space yacht Applecrate. I’m sensing her in a geo sync orbit at our zenith.”
“That’s all very well Kalahari, but is there no sign yet of the Foundation’s ship?” Jane found herself more than a tad perturbed that the Foundation field managers would just dump them on a virgin Earth and run, leaving them without their mothership for backup. Worse the board members were placing full faith for that essential backup and potential rescue duty in such a notorious privateer hippy as Jane considered Dr. John Appleweed.
It had taken quite a bit of diplomacy to bring off this first joint mission between the Emaho team and the crusty xenophobic Howard Foundation. Apparently, the Emaho side of the team had all their ducks in a row as it were, and good Jane did find some comfort in the probable assumption that Friar Huck had indeed been landed on the eastern slope with the bachelor herds by the private yacht in orbit above them now.
Jane wiped a rivulet of sweat from her face as the tropical dawn sun made its way over the eastern slope of the mountain and began to warm the valley and her stealthy tree house through the transparent, one-way-only walls of godrod that allowed for visual observation on any point of the compass while remaining invisible to indigenous life forms.
She found herself with a generally growing disenchantment with the frugal Howard Foundation, and their stingy BEQ allotment, one which had neglected to issue an air conditioner or a top-tier backup ship. Jane had an appalling suspicion that the miserly hand of the Commerce Bank and the pernicious Drysdale effect might yet be playing some part in her fate, judging by the skimpy financing of her mission. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
“Security sweep of observation blind interior complete Miss Jane. Showing 23 life signs, counting you Jane dear.” Kali reported in her best Majel Barrett voice, the one she used to let everyone know she was all business for at least one sentence, before allowing her personality to burst out again with the next “Hey, where did y’all get 22 ubermice Miss Jane?”
“To be truthful I have no idea Kali. I’m assuming they’re indigenous for now.” Replied Jane, and eager to show off her new pets, tucked the tip of her tongue between her slender thumb and forefinger and gave a little whistle.
“No Miss Jane! Don’t do that!” screamed the startled computer, but too late to prevent the 22 white mice from streaming out of their nooks and crannies of the tree house. Jane watched in horror as the Dynex webcam shot a laser burst spread that bounced one poor unfortunate mouse off the desk and into Jane’s lap, where the poor little guy lay twitching like a 20th-century taser victim, and in a way that’s just what he was.
“Kalahari Galloway! I am shocked! No! I’m appalled! How could you?” Jane cradled the distressed mouse in her palms. “Poor little thing. There, there now.”
“Sorry Miss Jane, and don’t worry about the little guy, I had my Dynex set to stun. He’ll be OK in a few minutes, for all the good that will do us. The odds are 22 to 1 that he’s the telepathic alpha mouse of his pack, but I had to take a shot. But look at the village! I’m afraid your little pal may already have betrayed our presence. When we’ve got a spare moment I’ll have to give you a quick briefing on Ubermice protocol. But for now, you should know that they’ll all come when you whistle to one alpha mouse in the herd.”
“The big girls saw a few of them coming in last night actually, but when they didn’t react immediately I’d hoped we’d gotten lucky.”
“Rest assured Miss Jane, that we’ve got far more than 22 ubermice to deal with here. They travel in packs of 22, and they reproduce every 22 days, and they tend to be born pregnant. If they stowed away with you and landed three weeks ago…” Here, Jane thought she sensed an embarrassed pause from the computer, then Kal Gal continued “Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to do the math yourself as I am an author, not a mathematician.”
“22 squared? That would be 484” calculated Jane as she tossed the unconscious mouse on the desk and rubbed her palms together anxiously as she paced in short lengths and abrupt pivots. Her Vassar-trained mind was competent with math but like Kalahari, it wasn’t her strong suit, and now her mind raced furiously. “And next month we’ll be talking about…234,256 mice! Can that possibly be correct?”
“If you say so Boss,” acknowledged the computer humbly. Kalahari had never completely resolved her feelings of inadequacy at being a math-challenged computer.
Jane walked to the edge of the tree house blind and saw the long double column of her ‘big girls” below, all following Alfie with the silver-haired ponytail and heading down the main path at the center of their village of simple thatched huts. Gone were the mysterious flesh-tone body stockings now, those translucent garments that had been so modest as to make the wearer appear to be androgynous.
Now the marching girls were completely and quite blatantly nude, voluptuous, and displaying anatomical characteristics below the navel that caused Jane to be certain that their culture had yet to develop anything like a bikini wax. Jane heard rhythmic drums and tambourines adding to the parade-like atmosphere, and the marchers became dancers.
Ahead of them streamed a veritable herd of the voracious white mice, converging on Jane’s tree at the base and scrambling up the trunk.
“Kal Gal! Deploy repel boarders defensive routine immediately!” screamed Jane. Below her feet, Jane could hear the distinctive chatter of hundreds if not thousands of tiny razor-sharp teeth working on the tree house floor.
“Danger! Danger Will Robinson!” burped the computer sickly, as her screen went blank. “Your internal network card has been deactivated.”
Jane looked up and saw that another team of 22 mice had chewed through the cable to Kalahari’s solar power source on the roof. A raucous cheer rose up to her from the tribe of dancing 2-meter tall mega femmes below, who had gathered at the base looking upward and pointing at Jane and her now visible platform in wonder as they swayed to the rhythm of the drums. Jane waved to the crowd, unable to think of anything else she could do.
“Hello, ladies! How are you? “, she called down in what she hoped was her most amiable tone. This brought forth a united hysterical but joyful, almost adoring scream from that boisterous crowd of females, the likes of which our Jane had heard only at a Beetles’ concert. The big girls began to gyrate with bawdy pelvic thrusts, which Jane thought a bit odd, but they did wave back in a friendly enough manner.
Then she heard the unmistakable distant cries from the exiled bachelor herd. But now instead of a bit of feminine giggling as the only response, the beautiful silver pony-tailed Alpha female reached up to the nearest branch of Jane’s tree and snapped it off with a mighty yank. Carrying it a few feet from the tree, Alfie leaped high in the air and planted it like a flagpole in the mossy earth, much to the delight of her swaying tribe.
As the big girls commenced to entwine themselves about the pole in the most acrobatic technique, big beautiful Alfie beat her bouncing breasts and gave out with an unmistakable Tarzan yell of which Carol Burnett would have been proud.
Jane looked to the east from her precarious perch in the exposed blind and saw her first male specimen, a 2.5 meter tall huge naked bull he was, sporting a close-cropped crew cut and charging down the mountainside. Then another big stag emerged from the dense pine thickets, and finally, she was able to estimate that thirty or forty bucks were following the trail blazed by the first dominant male.
Good Jane couldn’t help but detect the aromatic wave of musk now emanating from the big girls below, and it was definitely affecting the incoming males, easily verified visually by their anatomical reflex reactions.
But nothing she observed worried her so much as the sight of the huge stone axes being issued by the younger females as the men entered the village. Apparently, neither sex of this tribe was enamored of climbing trees to transcend to higher realms. They would bring their new goddess Jane to Earth by chopping the tree down.
“Battery capacity at 75% Miss Jane. In this heat and relative humidity I’ll be online for about another two hours,” reported Kalahari from the desktop. “The good news is that Jilly Rogers reports email relay has been established with the Foundation and you’ve got some family grams ready for download.”
“Save them for later, if you would Kali. I think it would be more prudent of us to put you to sleep and save your battery until the solar is restored.”
“Standing by in standby mode whenever you need me Miss Jane. “ reported the computer in a pouty disappointed voice, reminding Jane of a child sent to bed early.
From below Jane could hear the unmistakable mnemonics of intersex bickering from the now mixed tribe of mega men and women. Had Kalahari been at full functioning capacity she could have begun some rudimentary translation of the primitive language, but Jane needed no translator to discern the unmistakable, and probably universal, sounds of men trying to dodge the “honey do” demands of their women. The bucks rumbled and grunted low and threatening, not a few resorting to actual whining, as most of them had paired off with their female counterparts now; the former posing stubbornly with mighty arms crossed over barrel chests, the latter holding stone axes above their heads and gesticulating at Jane’s tree.
Alfie was engaged with a huge blonde Adonis for her part, having little success in getting the big buck to take the axe she thrust in his face. Adonis responded by standing firm and jerking a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the love huts.
After a little more ritual back and forth, Alfie tossed the axe aside and stepped on the proud buck’s foot, entwining one leg around his waist. She administered the coupe de grace by blowing in his ear. Big Buck Adonis responded by hoisting her over his shoulder and taking the opportunity to pat his mate’s shapely derriere as he carried her off to the largest hut at the center of the village.
The alpha pair seemed to set the tone for the rest of the tribe. Jane found a little relief at that moment when they all began to pair off and disappear together into the thatched huts of the village, leaving the enormous stone axes at the base of the tree.
Oddly, Jane found herself now feeling quite restricted by her official American Birdwatcher’s uniform, her favorite field attire. Determined to make the best of things while she still could, she headed for what might prove to be her last bath and bidet for the foreseeable future.
She found herself wondering if any word of Friar Huck’s deployment status as her mission partner for this project now sat in Kalahari’s hard drive and if he had indeed made it to this planet.
Jane stepped out of her official knee-length green American Birdwatchers’ shorts and shrugged off the ranger’s hat, dropping her multi-pocketed field jacket to crown the pile at her feet. She found herself to be quite curious as to whether or not the good friar had taken a vow of celibacy.
The tall Omega Friar always reminded her of that hunky Jethro. Now there was a male specimen she’d always loved to observe.
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