It was a light and clangy day. Ross swang his shovel like a pendulum into the sand, adding to the copious pile immediately to his right.
"Do you … "
Ross paused for the space of three breaths,
"dig …", and paused again,
"what we're doing out here?"
The cacophony of canned laughter that accompanied Ross's soundbite-like diction, even in the field and only funny relative to Jonestown or the Children's Crusade, lumped like canned shrapnel in Jake's throat. Prison was better than this.
If possible, the already soaked brow of Ross sweated even more as he interrupted himself. "I hope they don't … desert us … on this desert island!" The laughter infected his declaration. Jake thought, where was this canned laughter coming from? The North Sea? The top of the tree? Buried in the sand, somewhere?
Jake's patience bent. "Shut the egg-salad up, Book-Learning Man. I ain't paying you to relive some 80s nightmare." He pivoted slightly under the shadow of the thin tree and buried his hands in his pockets, hoping that what he learned in Riker's could be put to use to make Ross work faster. Or less annoyingly.
Ross, visibly stunned at Jake's anger and watching the dark shadow of the tree envelop Jake's aggressive stance, responded in the only way he knew how. "But I tree really hard to be funny!" It was not working. Jake counted down in the sand-timer in his mind. Ross, by his calculus, had one more retort before a Broad Street Beating. One more retort. Jake sighed, hoping his inverbal cues would prompt Ross to be aware of how much peril he was in. He wanted to dig up the friend of his ancestors, not to hear the -
"I mean, I hope you can still sand –"
All of a sudden, there was a TING! Jake's eyes widened reflexively and Ross's methodical rhythm withered. Sweat fell in droplets into the sand in front of him and a reflective gleam that could only come from the truth of metal blinded him.
That sight – something round and metallic, peeking out from hundreds of years buried in sand – and the sound – of the TING! - were the only things that silenced Ross.
Jake Ochmonek, keeper of the lost wisdom of Gordon Shumway, 19th century English aristocrat, was prompted by his ecstasy at the suddenly obvious success of his archaeological venture to stutter uncontrollably.
"Gor …. Gordon? Your … this is your spaceship? Gordon, I've been looking for so …"
Ross stared, fixed at Jake. There was no canned laughter. The waves rolled in and, by the time Ross was able to quietly congratulate himself with the dignity of a job well done, Jake was pawing at the protruding metal with a bestial frenzy.
At last. The spaceship of Gordon Shumway, Earl of Melmacshire, thought buried in 1817 in a terrible storm, had been found.
