George meets a Girl
This was inspired by Monster Musume
George Bryce dozed as the jetliner cruised at 40,000 feet. Beneath him, the world slipped from night into day as he headed eastward. His latest assignment from the Cryptozoology Museum's Field Investigations Department was to search for a legend. Ancient tales from the south of Algeria told of gigantic snakes with human heads. The tales were over three thousand years old and no modern investigators or expeditions had ever reported enountering any such beings. Still, the department wanted confirmation and an answer to the age old question all cryptozoologists asked;"Is there any truth to the legend?"
The changing vibrations of the engines and slight sinking feeling roused him from his nap, George sat up, readjusted his seat and buckled in. A series of thumps and bumps told him the aircraft was decellerating and making the long descent to the airport's runway. Glancing out the portside window he could see the city of Algiers sparkling beside the Mediterranean sea, there he would hook up with another department team member and then head further south into the forbidding Algerian desert. Soon, the jet's landing gear kissed the sun scorched tarmac and the jet slowed to a crawl before neatly pivoting to exit the runway and stop at the terminal.
After clearing customs and retrieving his luggage, George entered the lobby of the airport and saw his team mate waiting there for him. The sandy haired man had the lean sunburnt look of someone who had spent years prowling the hotter places of the world, he grinned at George and took off his mirrored sunglasses, his blue eyes twinkling in merriment.
"George, you old batchelor! Funny meeting you here!"
He declared as he rose to his full six-foot height and they clasped hands enthusiastically.
George grinned back and retorted,
"They've really gotta improve the security around here, you keep getting back in!"
Roger Tate his cohort, grinned at him and took one of his bags and slung it over his broad shoulders. He pointed the way and George followed him outside the airport terminal. The warm air outside washed over George and he commented drily,
"They would send me here after I had chased all over the Himalayas looking for yetis!"
Roger grinned at him and replied,
"This ought to be a perfect chaser for all that frostbite you had in Tibet. Sweating while chasing around the Saharan desert looking for lamias!"
"Oh yeah, trading frostbite and altitude sickness for sunburn and thirst? Just perfect!" muttered George.
They approached a battered, ex-French military, Citroen 2CV minus its top and heaved George's bags into the back seat area alongside Roger's bags. Climbing in, Roger started it up and soon, the tiny car was wheezing along at a giddy 50 MPH on what passed as a highway out of town.
After leaving the outskirts of Algiers, George yelled over the incessant rattling and clattering, "We're not seriously going to drive this old rattletrap all the way there, are we?"
Roger grinned at him and yelled back,
"We could, but they'd find our bleached bones where we died of old age during the trip! We're heading to a small town about a hundred clicks south of here, there's a regional airport there and we'll catch a flight on a Russian turboprop job piloted by one insane Frenchman, and hang on for our dear lives!"
"That good, eh?" asked George.
"Oh yeah, that good!" replied Roger.
George leaned his seat back as best he could and settled in for the drive.
Clattering and wheezing, the tired 2CV rattled to a stop at an airstrip outside of a small outpost left over from the French colonial days. George and Roger exited the vehicle and stretched a bit to loosen up the kinks that had set in during the drive. Lifting their bags out of the back of the car, the two walked over to what passed as an air terminal and set their bags down.
Roger opened up his satellite phone and pushed buttons for a moment, a few moments later he began speaking in French to the other party, then he'd pause and would soon resume speaking French. George sat and people watched until Roger finished, closed up his phone and announced drily,
"Monsieur Henri, will be 'slightly delayed'."
Roger lit up a cigarette, took a long drag and blew out an impressive smoke ring before he muttered,
"That Frenchman has an interesting view of what's urgent. If we were a couple of beautiful ladies? He would have moved heaven and earth to be here. Never mind what his Algerian wife might think!"
George chuckled and remarked,
"I knew I should've brought that Tibetan girl I almost married!"
"Oh? And just how did you, 'almost marry' a Tibetan girl? As shy around women as you are... That would've been news indeed!" commented Roger.
"Remind me to tell you about Tibetan courtship customs sometime."
"Scary?"
"Very scary, if you even talk to a girl, they're ready to slaughter a yak for the wedding feast. When all I really wanted was directions to the temple!"
Roger simply chuckled and commented, "That's more like you George, a wide-eyed innocent."
Nearly an hour later, a relatively dent-free Peugeot sedan screeched to a halt outside of the mud colored brick terminal and a rumpled looking man wearing khaki clothing and a dark red beret and with foul smelling cigarette dangling beneath his very Gallic nose, got out.
George remarked drily in a bad French accent.
"Let me guess... Monsieur Henri, no?"
Roger chuckled and replied.
"That would be an affirmative my friend."
Henri entered the terminal and Roger rose to greet him in French, the two spoke briefly and when Roger turned to George to make an introduction. Henri extended his hand and in excellent English, said,
"I'm Henry DuValliere, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance!"
George grinned at him and as they shook hands, he said cheerfully,
"George Bryce. Henry, you just made my life a lot easier!"
Roger stood there with a dumbfounded look on his face, then he blurted out,
"You never told me you could speak English! We've always spoken just French."
Henri took a drag on his strong smelling cigarette, grinned and replied,
"Since you can speak the language of a civilized people? I, naturally, saw no reason to change things. Even if you do have a barbarous accent!"
George just laughed as they gathered their things, he decided he liked Henry DuValliere.
They approached the Russian built Antonov AN-28 with trepidation, like many Russian made things, it was a bit crude at first glance, but the important bits were finely finished and it looked serviceable overall.
Henri opened the side door and the built in steps swung out and down to settle on the tarmac, George and Roger climbed inside and stowed their baggage near the two cargo pallets in back. Having completed his walk around inspection, Henri pulled the wheel chocks away then climbed on board, pulling the steps up after him and securing the door.
Henri grinned at the two Americans and said, "The flight shouldn't take more than three hours, we will land near Tin Zaouatene, a village near Ft. Pierre Bourdes."
George settled himself in the most comfortable seat he could find while Roger took the co-pilot's seat, he too had a pilot's license and had flown medium sized aircraft before. After a bumpy take off, the twin turboprop Antonov climbed to about 10,000 feet and headed south. George watched the landscape change from the evergreen cloaked, northern coastal regions to the unrelenting browns and tans of the great Sahara desert of legend. An occasional bit of green would stand out in defiance of the tan vastness, a rare oasis where life could seek relief from the heat and thirst.
It was late afternoon when the Antonov began descending, the change in vibrations waking George from his slumber. The landing gear clunked into place and Henri gently set the sturdy Antonov down on the roadway near the tiny village. George idly noted a group of utility vehicles lined up outside a couple of the buildings there, this would be the cover group, an American museum's expedition seeking fossil whale remains in the deep Sahara. George and Roger would take one of the vehicles and while everyone else was climbing over the rocks seeking fossils, they would be seeking a legend.
Bringing the Antonov as close to the buildings as he dared, Henri shut down the engines and opened up the cargo doors while George and Roger unhooked the tie downs and cut away the self clinging plastic wrap. The young American paleontologists emerged from the mud brick walled buildings and formed a daisy chain to move the cargo from the plane to the buildings. To George, they looked almost like a bunch of hippies from the sixties, somehow brought forward in time and dropped off in the desert. With their ragged clothing and longish hair, he wondered what the locals thought of these supposedly rich Americans dressing so shabbily. The last of the cargo was handed out and the wooden pallets were tossed out of the plane while the two handed their own bags to the paleontologists.
Henri stood there with his ever present cigarette and a grin, he extended his hand and the trio shook hands all around.
"Good hunting!" he said, "May the legend live still! Call me when you are ready to come back to civilization."
George grinned at Henri and replied,
"Safe flight home, my friend. We'll be seein' you!"
Roger and Henri did a fist bump and grinned at each other, Roger said playfully,
"Don't wreck this thing, O.K?"
"Sure thing, Roger!" Replied Henri with a grin.
The two hopped down from the cargo door and helped close it up again, hearing the security catches locked in, they walked away from the Antonov and heard the turbines gaining speed as they started up again for the return flight. They stood watching while the Antonov roared back down the road and lofted into the darkening sky.
Roger glanced at George and said,
"Well, let's get loaded up for the morning!"
They entered the larger of the buildings and found themselves at the center of attention. Paul, the leader of the paleontologists, a compactly built, dark haired, intense man in his mid thirties spoke up,
"Okay, we drove this extra vehicle all the way down here, a vehicle set up for long range desert reconnaissance. With extra large fuel tanks and fuel cans hung off of it, and lots of extra water cans, you guys could get pretty lost out here and drive damn near back to Algiers without stopping for fuel or needing a drink. A cold drink I might add."
He paused for a moment then continued, "You have no digging tools, you didn't bring any tools but you did bring maps, very good maps, better than my own maps. Just who are you two, what are you up to, and how does this pertain to us?"
George smiled at him and replied pleasantly,
"We're from the crytozoology department of a private museum, a museum I might add, that paid for over half the cost of your expedition and arranged for the regular delivery of supplies by air. We figured that if we hitched a ride with your group, we wouldn't stand out so much and if we needed extra hands that just maybe, we could borrow some muscle from some of you guys."
The two stood still while the paleontologists exchanged glances with each other until finally, one of the young women asked,
"Cryptozoology, isn't that the study of mythical animals or people? Just what could you be looking for out here in the Sahara desert?"
Roger just grinned and replied,
"We're seeking the roots of an ancient legend, a lot of what we do is ask to hear the stories told by the old folks. The folk tales that are disappearing as the old ones die off and the stories are lost forever. We record these tales and store them on archival grade CD's, we have stories as told by the last living speakers of several nearly extinct languages. I myself, speak several Arabian languages and can find the story tellers to record them. That's what 'we' are about."
Another one of the paleontologists, a tall, slender, shaggy young man commented,
"So you guys aren't with the CIA or anything? Then what's with the military GPS and satellite antenna you have? It's pretty good stuff for a couple of guys wandering in the desert."
George laughed and replied,
"Well, that's a first! We're hardly spies people, we're collectors just like you. Only we collect legends and someday, we hope to find the creatures that inspired the legends in our mythology. We have good equipment because the museum doesn't believe in doing things half way. Plus we have donors who like us! Besides, once we're finished with our expedition, you guys'll get the vehicle and satellite equipment as a donation from us."
Paul, the leader of the group shrugged and handed over the keys to the Mercedes-Benz Unimog with all the 'trimmin's' as Roger had described it and remarked,
"Good luck to you guys, you'll need it!"
They loaded their bags into the back of the Unimog and proceeded to crawl all over it with their flashlights, checking all of the vital fluids at least twice, checking their spare vital fluids, tires (including the spares) and emergency tool kit. When all seemed in order, the two unrolled their sleeping bags and slept in the back of the Unimog.
Just before dawn, George finished topping up the fuel in all of the fuel cans and the vehicle's fuel tanks, all told they had almost 120 gallons of diesel fuel, enough to last them almost 1,800 miles. Roger finished entering the coordinates of the village in the GPS and once activated, it would be their primary navigation tool and was backed up by satellite image maps and a good lensatic compass.
Both men were well versed in land navigation and were confident they would find their objective, a place called In Azboua, a hidden oasis to the east. Their plan was to drive there and spend two weeks hiking over the hillsides and poking into canyons. When they had covered the area pretty thoroughly, it would be marked out on the maps as having been investigated, thereby saving any repetition by future investigators. It was early spring and they had three months to investigate the area before the scorching summer heat drove them out of the desert.