"The Greatest treasures are those invisible to the eye but found by the heart,"-Unknown
Over the Pacific Ocean, October 14th, 1933-
As soon as the Conwing L-16 took off from Cape Suzette and passed between the narrow opening that separated the bay from the open ocean, Baloo swung the plane southwest instead of southeast toward their intended destination.
"Think the professor will mind this little detour Baloo?" asked Louie.
"Nope," answered Baloo nonchalantly, "Why would he?"
"Its out of our way."
"Maybe he and the girl are hungry," said Baloo who added casually, "Besides I thought you wanted to go to Stingrays."
"I do but now that I think about it I'm not sure if the professor is the type of guy who would set foot in that place. Its a pretty rough place after all."
"Aw he'll have nothing to worry about, he'll probably like it and maybe we can get that girl out on the dance floor."
"Already wanting to work your magic Baloo?"
"You know it," said Baloo with a smile, "I don't know why a pretty girl like that wants to be caught up in a job where she'd get all dirty digging around in some cave or whatever."
"What makes you think she'd go for you?" asked Louie with sly smile, "I mean there are plenty of other guys out there she may be interested in."
"Would one of those other guys be someone I know?"
"Perhaps."
"Could he be sitting right next to me?" Baloo asked coyly.
Louie leaned back in the copilot's seat and yawned, "All's fair in love and war Baloo."
Baloo was about to issue a challenge to Louie when there was a knock at the cockpit door. "Its unlocked!"
The door swung open and in walked Professor O'Bowens, "I hope I'm not intruding on anything."
"Oh no, you're good professor," replied Louie, "We wuz just chattin."
"Ah that's good, whatever it takes to stay awake. I can imagine that these long flights take their toll on you pilots."
"Aw its nuthin," said Baloo, "Any good pilot knows himself and his plane and can handle anything that comes up."
"Speaking of this plane," said O'Bowens as he took in the dials and instruments of the control panel, "Tell me about it."
Baloo gladly spoke of the plane. "Well this here is a Conwing L-16, made by the Consolidated Wings Corporation-formerly the Conwing Aircraft Corporation before it merged with Consolidated Aerospace a few years back. It's a multi-purpose plane, meaning it can hold either passengers or cargo, or a mixture of both. It can hold about 16,000 pounds of cargo and with its Superflight 100 engines, it can do 200 miles per hour."
"How long have you flown it?"
"Two years."
"That's how long the two of us have been working for Mr. Branigan," added Louie.
"What did you do before that, if I may ask?" queried the professor who by now had taken a seat on a fold down chair behind the pilot and copilot's seats.
"I did a short stint in the Army Air Corps as part of a flight crew, worked some odd jobs here and there you know. Some mechanical stuff, worked at a moving company, went to school to learn to fly."
"You seem like the kind of man who really loves his job."
"Love it," Baloo replied, "There's nothing that beats flying. When I was a kid I used to think about flying at least every ten seconds!"
"Well I am glad you enjoy doing it. The way I see it, a person shouldn't have a job doing something that they don't like doing."
"Amen," Chimed in Louie.
"What about you Louie? What did you do?"
"A little cooking at a restaurant, some bar tending, and some odd-jobs here and there."
"What about you professor," asked Baloo, "Tell Louie and me a little about yourself."
"Well I'm a professor of archaeology at the University of Cape Suzette…oh I already mentioned that earlier!" laughed the professor, "I graduated magna cum-laude from the University of Chicargo, I was a guest professor at Foxford University in Anglia for a couple of years, I've written three books, several articles for scholarly journals, and I have been on expeditions to places as faraway as Ghafia, Abyssinia, Macadamia, and Thembria."
"Thembria?" Baloo and Louie both asked in wonder.
"Yes, Thembria."
"What is there to look at in Thembria?" asked Baloo, "I mean all it is is snow and ice."
"Well there are some ancient sites that are evidence of early migratory patterns of people who left Thembria for warmer places."
"Wow even way back when no one wanted to live there," Louie said.
"It is a peculiar place," said O'Bowens, "The whole time we we're there-which was two months, we had the military breathing over our shoulder. There was this one really small officer who walked around with a riding crop. When he introduced himself to us he asked if we had heard of him. Apparently he was a war hero."
"Thembrians are weird," said Baloo, "They're not right in the head."
"Understatement of the day," added Louie.
"Oh, by the way, before I forget, what's the name of your plane?" asked O'Bowens who added, "When I walked up to you, I heard you tell your coworker about fixing the Cormorant."
"This here," Baloo said with a smile as he patted the steering wheel of the plane, "Is the Sea Duck!"
"Its nice that your employer lets you name the planes."
"One of these days she's gonna be my plane!"
"I have no doubt in my mind that it will."
"By the way professor, what exactly are you going to go and look for," asked Baloo, "Our boss mentioned that we might be saddled together for a couple of weeks."
"Yeah are we looking for the Ark of the Covenant or magical stones?" asked Louie.
"Or the Holy Grail or some crystal skulls or something?" added Baloo.
O'Bowens laughed and said, "Nothing like that, we're looking for something else and don't worry about the couple of weeks, the university is covering it," Oh and we're looking for the Temple of the Emerald King."
"The Temple of the Emerald King?" Baloo repeated with wide eyes, "You don't say?"
The topic of the temple was interrupted by Louie changing the subject. The orangutan had been shifting back and forth between wakefulness and sleep and now asked about a topic that was different , but no less interesting than the Temple of the Emerald King.
"So professor," asked Louie with a grin, "What's the deal with your assistant?"
"Oh Thom is a stellar academic," O'Bowens said enthusiastically, "She is bright, has a lot of drive, and is thoroughly dedicated to her work."
"Why does she want to dig stuff up?" asked Baloo.
O'Bowens laughed, "Ah I see. Well I know both of her parents. Her father is very old fashioned and her mother was very involved with the women's suffrage movement, it was amazing that two peolpe like that got married. The way Thom sees it is that a woman can do whatever a man can do."
"Is someone talking about me?" asked Thom as she walked into the cockpit.
"I was explaining to our pilots how much you enjoy archaeology."
"Well there's no reason a woman can't do what is perceived to be a man's job," she said with a sly smile."
"Why not?" asked Louie who was hoping to score some credit from Thom, "We got a woman pilot with us."
"She's still a trainee," Baloo said.
"That girl claims that she can be just as good a pilot as ol' Baloo here!"
"Is that true?" asked Thom.
"That's what she says but proving it will be something else," answered Baloo.
Baloo decided he didn't want to get into a discussion about men and women's work roles and went ahead and told the passengers about their unscheduled stopover.
"We're gonna be stopping over in Freeport for the night and then in the morning we'll continue on the way to Amazonia."
"Actually we are going to Feru the Amazonia Jungle is part of it," said Thom, "Just to be specific. And why are we stopping in Freeport?"
"That's a good question Baloo," said O'Bowens, "Why are we stopping there?"
Baloo got quiet.
Uh-Oh! Somebody forgot to think this through, thought Louie who leaned back further in his seat and smiled.
"Well uh, we uh, we gotta refuel there."
"Don't we have enough fuel to get there?" asked the professor.
"Technically we do…but anytime we go on a long haul like this there is always a chance that we could run into bad weather and have to change our route or we may get into a tussle with air pirates so the boss likes us to stop along the way and refuel just in case we need it…you know if we lose a lot of fuel from going out of our way or if the fuel tanks get hit."
Good one Baloo! Louie thought to himself.
"Hmm, I didn't think about that," said the professor as he considered the possibilities, "Do you think we'll come across any pirates?"
"I hope not."
"So is Freeport the only place we can get fuel?" asked Thom who was somewhat skeptical of Baloo's answer.
"Well I mean Tidewater Beach is on the same island as Freeport but its on the farther end of the island."
"Well going there does take us out of our way. Is there a closer island to go to?"
Geez lady gimmie a break! "Well some places out there have higher fees for landing and then there are local taxes and the usual con artists."
"Doesn't Freeport have those types of people too?"
"Not as bad as other places," said Louie who jumped to Baloo's defense, "Plus Freeport is a decent place…there's even some good places to get some grub."
"Well it can't be that bad," said O'Bowens, "In my travels I've come across the kinds of places that Baloo is talking about Thom and we'd be wise to stay away from anyplace seedy."
Thank you professor! Thought Baloo.
"Isn't Freeport a little seedy?" asked Thom, "I've read about it in the papers."
Lady don't rain on my parade! "Actually it's gotten better over the years."
"Speaking of Freeport," said Louie who pointed out of the window, "That's it over there."
The passengers looked out of the cockpit window and saw in the golden sunset the island of Freeport.
Cape Suzette-
The three Groman G-21A Goose cargo planes lifted off from Cape Suzette in the early evening for the Republic of Feru. Each plane was crewed by one and had room for five passengers although the total number of passengers was eleven. The rest of the room left in the cargo holds of two of the planes held gear while the open space of the third was left for anything that might be found during the expedition.
Sitting inside the lead aircraft was the expedition's leader: a slim and urbane leopard who was renowned throughout the archaeological community as one of the best in the business but also as one with questionable practices.
"Monsieur, O'Bowens has about a three hour head start on us," said the boar whose name was Verrat.
"That is of little consequence to me at this present stage," said the leopard, "Besides we have the tracking device that our friends have given us."
"True but it is only good up to ten miles," replied Verrat who added, "It is still in the prototype stage."
"It does not matter," said the Leopard who took a glance at his sharp extended claws, "O'Bowens has his graduate assistant with him and the two cargo pilots you mentioned. He will be no problem for us once we arrive, head start or not."
"He could make friends with the natives."
The Leopard smiled and retracted his claws and looked at the boar, "That is why I have Chacal, you, and the men."
The three cargo planes continued on their way to Feru and the Amazonia Jungle…little did their passengers know that the people they were following were actually behind them.
Freeport-
Baloo brought the Sea Duck into land at the Freeport Regional Airport and taxied down the runway. As he did so he decided to prod Professor O'Bowens about the expedition.
"You know professor," said Baloo in as innocent a voice as he could, "What do you have planned for Louie and me while you and Thom are digging around in the jungle?"
"Well Mr. Branigan said that the two of you were to help us with every aspect of the expedition. We're short on labor because the university only funded Thom and myself so I explained to your boss that we'd need your assistance."
"You mean we gotta dig up stuff?" interjected Louie.
O'Bowens sensed that the two pilots were less than pleased by this development and sought to placate them. "Mr. Branigan did agree to pay you both the same amount of money as was going to be spent if we had brought our own people, provided we find something of interest to the university. If we find something of interest, then the university will give us extra money."
"How much is that?" asked Louie.
"Well that would be $200 apiece."
"What about if we find anything?" asked Baloo.
"Well if this is a big find then the university will give us more money for you and your company and plus we may be featured in major archaeological publications...and maybe even International Geographic!"
"You mentioned something about this Emerald King guy."
"Did that grab your attention?" asked Thom with a cynical smile.
"Hey lady I gotta pay the bills you know."
O'Bowens laughed, "Archaeology isn't about jewels Baloo, its about treasure."
"I thought emeralds were treasure professor."
"The real treasure is the wealth of knowledge that we can glean from studying the artifacts left behind by ancient civilizations!" said the monkey professor excitedly, "Its about finding a way to reconnect the past with the present in such a way as to enlightened contemporary peoples via the accomplishments of those that came before us! By excavating and researching these ancient civilizations we enrich ourselves as a society. That my friends, is the true treasure that we seek, not material wealth."
This concept was lost on Baloo and Louie.
"So where do the emeralds come in?" they asked simultaneously.
O'Bowens looked out at the city and saw a number of establishments including several seaside restaurants. His stomach growled with hunger.
"Gentlemen, I will share with you the tale of the fabled Emerald King over dinner."
And so the quartet exited the plane, left the airport, and headed into downtown.