Scorched Earth, Alien Wonders
Chapter 16: Million Dollar Question

We got in late from the lab, so we slept most of the next day in the relative coolness of our burrow, but made it to the Rabbit Hole in time to watch more of Sheldon Cooper in the Big Bang Theory.

It was the episode where Cooper got set up with the perfect female to match his emotionally stunted and methodically unique character, and she was an equally unique girl named Amy Farrah Fowler.

“I can’t believe such a stupid TV show was so popular in its time,” groused Moore as we all headed back to the burrow. “Cooper is such a self-absorbed sod...it’s hard to imagine him having any friends at all, much less a girlfriend.”

“They say there’s a match for everyone, no matter how unlikely,” I replied, as my thoughts wondered to Dr. Lithia Jones and her enchanting giggle.

Later that night, we were sitting on the burrow floor talking, with Torie crawling around as a cute, creature, called a mouse. Then the little fellow stopped in the middle of the room to begin a marathon preening session. Torie did love to show off.

“Did you see the look on Cassie’s face when she found out her mother was going to have another child?” asked Jones.

“Yeah, she looked like Santa Claus just brought her a brand new Barbie for Christmas,” replied Brown, who shrugged us off when we gave her a puzzled look.

“I think Wilder was in shock, but the way he and Cassie hugged each other, then smiled and laughed...I would say it was a good kind of shock,” said Doc. “Especially after what Cassie told us about the difficulty of human conception by natural means these days.”

“I’m guessing they did a little more than talk during Sara’s visit to Mars last month,” observed Davis, with a wink.

“She is still pretty sick, and will need a lot more bed rest from what Wilder said before he and Cassie struck off back to the settlement last night,” said Doc.

“Yeah, so that throws another delaying monkey-wrench in our plans,” I said. “No offense, Jones.”

Moore jumped back into the conversation on another subject.

“Okay, we have made contact with Cassie’s father. Brown determined that he is an honest man without any dark secrets to hide. Fine, but the only other thing we know is that Mars officials have suspected aliens in deep space for a while, and now they’re gonna know for sure about our existence...so why don’t things add up with the whole raid-on-Rosen rumor?”

“Oh, contraire my friend,” I said.

“We know quite a few things. For example, there are greedy forces at work under the direction of one Borish Drake, of Drake Industries, who sent three Russian thugs to destroy all the work Sara and Cassie were doing on the deep-core water extraction plans. Why do you think he would do that?”

“Oh, oh, I know this one,” said Davis, holding up his hand. “Because it’s not in the best interest of Drake Industries for this planet to become inhabitable again?”

“Very good,” I said.

“But, why would Drake Industries want to keep water from being restored to Earth?” asked Jones. “Ahhh...never mind. Of course, it’s because Drake wouldn’t be able to cash in on building more gravity and ventilation systems on Mars,” Jones said, answering her own question.

“Nor, would he be able to cash in on supplying those systems to any other planets with low-level gravity, so restoring and repopulating Earth first would be a BIG threat to Drake Industries’ bottom line,” concluded Moore.

“It absolutely stands to reason that people would prefer to live on a renewed green planet, over existing in climate controlled settlements on the Red Planet if they had a choice,” said Davis. “And aluminum wouldn’t be needed here for that if humans could find water.”

Yep...

“I smelled something strange just before the three stooges barged into the lab,” I said, redirecting the subject again. “It smelled a lot like the sterilizing solution they used when I had that surgery a few years ago. Where do you suppose they might have picked up that scent?”

“I know this one,” said Brown. “I would bet my mother’s favorite strata-cake recipe that our stooges worked in the clinic where Sara’s mother was taken.”

“Yeah,” agreed Doc. “That would make sense. One of them probably overheard Sara tell Cassie to go to the lab, and that’s probably when they saw their opportunity to destroy the computers.”

“They didn’t expect any resistance,” Moore injected. “Cassie was a witness, and could have identified them, so I fear they would have harmed her or threatened to harm Sara if she talked. But we stomped on them before they got the chance to do anything, but whine and crawl out of there like tropian cowards.”

“Excellent powers of deduction, you brainiacs...you all get gold stars,” I laughed in approval. “The million dollar question is...what can we do now to find out what diabolical thing Drake is planning next?”

“You’ll think of something,” Doc said, as he took off his eye glasses, and rolled over onto his fluffy, dirt bed.

“Yeah, Captain. Let us know when you come up with one of your brilliant plans,” Jones smiled as she headed over to her bed.

Hmmm....do I detect a hint of sarcasm?

“Goodnight,” said everyone as they did the same.

But I lay awake for a long time that night.

We had less than a week before time expired on the transporter, which Qualdron said was finally repaired, and ready to take us home any time.

One thing we knew was that Drake would never get his own hands dirty. Nope, he would pay other people, like the three stooges to do that for him. But thanks to our intervention at the lab and hearing the words, “Borish said to destroy it all” in Russian by the lead stooge—we had proof that Drake was behind the attack.

Now, we just had to convince Steven Wilder, who was currently up to his ears dealing with a delicate family situation.

But Moore was right about one thing...the raid-on-Rosen rumor wasn’t adding up.

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