Search The Sky

The busi­ness was a cross between a gas sta­tion and a pawn shop. It looked like a gas sta­tion, with pumps out front, hydraulics to lift cars in the bay, and all the atten­dant tools and fit­ting famil­iar to mechan­ics inside. But they also took in items on pawn, and these were on dis­play every­where, hop­ing for a poten­tial cus­tomer to need and purchase.

Lisa and I had been here before, and that was why we were back. WE had pawned some­thing a long time ago, and had nearly for­got­ten about it. No one was about, so we stepped inside to see if it was still there; it was. And there it was, no worse for wear, but show­ing its age to be sure. This was our fly­ing saucer, and we had felt a real empti­ness with­out her. She was not the biggest or the best– she would not even get us out of the atmos­phere– but she was ours, and we suf­fered that attachment.

We pressed for­ward, and entered our craft. As we took it all back in again, it was all too good to be true. “There is no way they kept the bat­tery charged,” Lisa said as he ran her hands over the con­trol panel.

“There is only one way to find out,” I replied. I reached up to the starter but­ton above my head. I pressed, and there was no reac­tion. I pressed harder, and I heard the motors start to groan in response. The whine of the starter increased, and we could feel the outer skin start­ing to move, to rotate around the ves­sel. We began to trem­ble, but only slightly.

The machine was now under its own power, and I could let up on the starter. The sharp quiv­ers of the start-up faded away into a smooth, sooth­ing hum as the main motors came online. Lisa was already in the captain’s chair, ready to fly us out. And per­haps that was a lit­tle dis­hon­est, tak­ing our ship like this. But there was no one to check out with. And it was part of our orig­i­nal deal here.… we had not pawned our fly­ing saucer, just sort of lent it to him.

The door to the back of the garage was up, and Lisa guided us out that way. We flew higher, and set­tled on top of the larger build­ing next door. From there we watched as the owner returned. I went down to meet him.

“I see you came back for your fly thingy,” he said. I assured him we had, as it was some­thing Lisa and I both wanted back. I looked around, and I men­tioned to him that most of his nor­mal stock seemed to be miss­ing. “Yup,” he con­tin­ued. “I am sell­ing the place, so I am clean­ing it all out. The want the build­ing… and they sure do want your fly­ing saucer.”

So we made a deal with him. We would bring the fly­ing saucer back, and park it in the garage.… but we would get it back after the sale of his prop­erty. It was a lit­tle sneaky, but all above board. In the mean­time, he gave us a small car, an Izusu, to drive.