Chapter Thirteen
Indy had examined the truck’s engine and found, to his frustration, that there wasn’t a thing wrong with it. Now, as he sat fuming and wondering what to do, it roared back to life as suddenly as it had cut out. He decided he could ask questions later, and floored it without a second thought.
He and Elaine roared up to the intersection. The valley lay to the right. “Indy, look!” Elaine said, pointing to it. Though the details were hard to make out, the swirling destruction could be seen clearly from here. “We’re too late,” she said.
“No we’re not,” Indy said, looking down the other road, where Bolander’s Jeep was driving alone up into the mountains at reckless speed, like a man who had seen the devil himself. Indy turned the truck to follow.
Bolander yelped as the bright lights hit his mirrors; then he relaxed as the troop truck pulled even with his Jeep. “Indy, be careful,” Elaine said. “Don’t hurt him.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Indy muttered. Out the window he yelled, “Pull over, Bolander!” Instead, Bolander aimed a pistol at them and fired three shots. Indy and Elaine ducked and swerved as the bullets zinged over their heads.
“Run him off the road!” Elaine said. She grabbed the wheel and tried to turn it into Bolander’s Jeep.
“No, but do take the wheel,” Indy said, climbing over her and out of the moving truck. Bolander sensed what he was going to do and began swerving, but was unable to prevent Indy from landing on the back of the Jeep. Bolander leaned over the seat and fired. Indy dropped.
“No!” Elaine yelled.
Bolander stopped firing for a moment and peered back into the darkness. The moment he did, Indy reappeared and slugged him. The two men fought in the weaving, swerving vehicle. Indy hit Bolander in the throat and the Jeep veered dangerously toward the railing in the left lane. Elaine accelerated and moved the truck between the Jeep and the railing, but the Jeep kept coming, almost forcing her over the edge of the cliff. She pulled the wheel hard to keep control.
As always, Indy prevailed, finally punching Bolander out and taking the wheel. “Try more field work, pal,” he called back to his limp opponent. “It really builds muscle.” He signaled Elaine to follow him. They had no time to rest when they were so near the end.
***
Mount Keemo was relatively small – not too rugged and not too steep. The Jeep made it up with little difficulty, and Indy and Elaine parked it on the broad flat expanse of the deserted summit, where they stood with the device. Only one ring remained unlit, and it provided enough light for them to see clearly even though it wasn’t quite dawn.
“What if this isn’t the place?” Elaine asked.
Indy stared out at the broad rocky terrain. A cairn of stones marked the summit. Whether it had been here for a thousand years or two days, he couldn’t say off the top of his head. But when an eagle soared in a loop directly over it – definitely a real eagle, as if that mattered – he knew. “It’s the place,” he said. “Stay here.”
He moved across the summit toward the cairn and examined it. He was leaning more now toward the thousand years side of the spectrum. What tribe had put it here or why, he couldn’t say, but he could guess what it was going to be used for now.
He looked around. The eagle had settled down and perched on a tree some distance away, watching him. The sun was almost up. There was a different light, a strange light in the sky, growing stronger as it came up the sides of the mountain.
In the Jeep, the injured Bolander seemed roused by the lights.
Elaine watched, filled with wonder. Indy stood almost paralyzed as three saucers came up on each side. They continued to climb higher until they were overhead. Then brilliant green lights from each ship focused on the rock cairn.
Indy knew what he had to do, as surely as if the eagle or the aliens had broadcast the thought into his mind. It wasn’t an act of worship on his part, though the ancients might have interpreted it as such, and if the aliens themselves interpreted it as such and were thus mollified enough to not kill him, that would be great too. He moved slowly toward the cairn and reached out to place the device on it.
“Stop, Indiana!”
Indy turned to see Cheslav, still in his Sergeant’s uniform, holding a gun to Elaine’s neck.
“That’s right, Jones,” the Russian continued. “Don’t put it down.” He cocked the gun.
Indiana Jones knew, deep down, that he wasn’t immortal. He knew that in theory he could die as easily as anyone else. But after all this time, he felt as if old age was the only thing that could overtake him, and a gun held to his own neck wouldn’t have been too much cause for concern. Yet he was all too aware of the mortality of his traveling companions, and while he knew he should adopt a mask of indifference for Cheslav’s sake, he couldn’t help gasping, “Elaine...”
“If you want to see her alive in the near future, step away from the altar,” Cheslav said. “Now.”
“Don’t do it, Indy...” Elaine said.
Indy gave her a look that told her he had no choice. Not to save his country, not to save the world, not if it meant losing her. He stepped away.
“I’m pleased to see you still have the same weakness, Indiana,” Cheslav said. “You always cared too much. Do you think I miss Veska? I would have killed him myself in a heartbeat if it were helpful to my mission.” He glanced at Elaine. “Granted, he wasn’t nearly so easy on the eyes as Dr. McGregor, but the point remains.”
Indy refused to be baited. “Let her go, Cheslav.”
“First, toss me the device,” he said.
Indy looked from Elaine, whose eyes pleaded with him not to give in, back to the device. What would Cheslav do with it, take it all the way back to Moscow when it was already on a mountain right here?
“This is why you’re on the wrong side,” Cheslav continued. “I know in your mind, my ruthlessness makes me the ’bad guy’. But I see myself as quite good, good at what I do. Toss me the device, Indiana, I won’t tell you again.”
Indy knew he wasn’t bluffing. He also knew he had reached a point that he often reached in his adventures, where despite his best efforts, neither his own skills, nor smarts, nor even sheer luck would save him. His fate rested within powers beyond his comprehension, whether benevolent, malevolent, or indifferent to his plight. He couldn’t control them, couldn’t count on them to do what he wanted, but he could anticipate them and let the chips fall where they may.
The aliens had had ample opportunity to kill him and Elaine by now if they wanted to. He suspected, hoped that the aliens had disabled the truck to prevent them from being present at the calamity that had overtaken General McIntyre and the others. And the aliens had led them here, to place this device here, and he could only hope and pray to anything that was listening that they knew what they were doing and had this planet’s best interests in mind.
“You want it?” He told the spy. “Go get it.” He tossed it onto the pile of stones. Immediately its final ring lit up and the stones began to glow. But this wouldn't be like Stonehenge, he realized, because the demons were already here.
Cheslav shoved Elaine away and rushed for the device. Bolander, seeing it so close, jumped out of the truck and rushed toward it also. Indy ignored them both and ran to Elaine. “What’s happening?” she asked.
Bolander knocked Cheslav away, grabbed the device and held it up over his head like Excalibur. The glow of the rocks spread to the ground around him. His body became radiant, bathed in a strong golden light. He smiled. “Bow down,” he said. “Bow down, rulers of the universe... for I now have the power!”
The saucers seemed to sag in the air, as if Bolander were sapping their energy. As he grew brighter their lights grew dimmer. Then a white light erupted from the end of the device and stabbed skyward. The eagle flew off with a shriek.
“I have the power!” Bolander said again. He swung the light and aimed it at Cheslav.
“No!” Cheslav yelled. He tried to move, but the heat was searing and in an instant his body melted just like the Sabre Jet.
Indy and Elaine shielded their eyes from this blinding light but also from something else. The sun broke the horizon at that moment, sending its first red beam of light to the summit and hitting the device spot on. Instantly the saucers also grew brighter, as if tapping into Bolander’s power source.
Bolander felt the drain. His smile wavered. He brought the device around and aimed it at the saucers, but it had no effect. Now it was his turn to yell “No!”
Instead the ground around him began to steam, more rocks to glow. Another beam erupted from the other end of the device, hitting Bolander on the forehead and splitting him in two as cleanly as an axe, but with no blood. He crumpled in a melting mass. The device remained suspended where he had been holding it as the ground glowed whiter and whiter.
Indy and Elaine were bathed in the light. The saucers glowed brighter, humming louder, until in one incredible thunderclap they roared off, splitting through the atmosphere like bullets. In their wake the entire mountain was whipped by furious winds, and then they were gone and everything was left silent.
Indy held Elaine. Around them there was no trace of the power cylinder, Bolander, Cheslav or the saucers.
They were alone.
“Back to Mars,” Elaine said. “Or much farther, probably.”
Indy nodded, still staring at the cairn.
One of the saucers reappeared as suddenly as it had left, and once again landed and disgorged its diminutive passenger. As they watched in stunned silence, it left the ship and approached them with confidence this time, talking rapidly.
“What’s he saying?” Indy asked.
“He’s saying thank you,” Elaine said. “For doing the right thing instead of acting like Earthlings.”
“Thanks,” Indy said. “I think.”
“As a token of gratitude, they’re offering –” Elaine jabbered back, asking the alien to repeat itself, uncertain if she’d heard correctly. “They’re offering to let us come with them. To share in their enlightened culture, to see things and creatures and places no one on this planet has ever dreamed of – oh, Indy!” She embraced him around the neck as if she were about to faint.
“Knowledge,” Indy said, looking up at the early morning sky and imagining the stars that weren’t currently visible. “So much knowledge.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Oh, Indy, I can’t imagine anything more romantic than exploring the cosmos and learning about them together, can you?”
“No, but –” He hesitated. He should have jumped at this opportunity. He even trusted the aliens now. But somehow, after thinking about his previous adventures, it just didn’t feel right.
Elaine could see it in his eyes. “What is it?”
He tried to articulate it as well as he could. “You could spend a lifetime out there and never learn a billionth of what there is to know,” he said. “I’ve spent the better part of my life here and I still feel like I don’t know anything. There’s so much left to be discovered and explored here. The connection between these aliens and all the ancient cultures, for example. We’ve only scratched the surface.”
“Now we can just ask them ourselves,” Elaine said impatiently.
“That’s not all,” Indy said. “There are thousands, hundreds of thousands of people like Baldassare and Bernard and Cheslav and Bolander out there. You’ve seen that they aren’t even all with the ’bad guys.’ Someone will always need to be here to protect the world from them, and a lot of times I have to be that guy. Hell, the Nazis alone would have taken over the world a hundred times if I hadn’t been here.” He shrugged. “What can I say? Earth needs me.”
“I need you,” she said, looking into his eyes.
He felt his heart disintegrating as he already knew what his answer would have to be. “And I need you too,” he said. “You showed me that life, even when it gets repetitive and predictable, is still exciting. It wasn’t the aliens that made this adventure exciting – it was you. You rekindled that spark way back in the jungle, before they ever showed up.”
“And yet you’re going to leave me,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“You’ll come back eventually, won’t you?”
She just shrugged.
The alien jabbered at them, sounding impatient. Indy looked at it, then back at Elaine, and held her in an embrace that he wished could last forever. He kissed her, as deeply and passionately as he had planned to do on their wedding day. Then all too soon he had to let her go, and she was backing away toward the entrance to the spaceship, never taking her gaze off of him, though he wished she would. Against the backdrop of the lights from the interior she looked angelic, goddesslike, the most beautiful creature in the universe.
“Good-bye, Dr. Jones,” she said.
The alien said something else to him.
“What?” she said, alarmed.
The alien repeated itself.
Elaine went pale. “He says he’ll need to wipe your memory, just in case our old friends try to get anything out of you.”
“What?” Indy said. “No! How much of it? No!”
The alien darted back into the saucer, the hatch closed, and it lifted off the ground as Indy ran toward it, yelling. It hovered over his head and a beam of orange washed over him, making his whole body but especially the top of his skull tingle with warmth. Then the saucer disappeared a second time and he fell to his knees, dazed and exhausted. In the distance an eagle cried out, but then there was silence.
He was alone. Again.
***
The next thing he knew, he was waking up in Al’s Atomic Diner with his face half-buried in an omelette. The waitress and the cook were staring at him, clearly worried, but he ignored them as he tried to take stock of his surroundings. Everything was the same as before, except that there were fewer soldiers and they seemed on edge about something, while the spot previously occupied by the two cowboys now hosted a pair of Mormon missionaries. They glanced in his direction, but he carefully avoided eye contact.
“Rough trip?” the waitress finally prodded.
Indy grunted. “You better believe it, sister.” He didn’t remember why, exactly, but he knew it had been. And then the memories came flooding back, and he nearly passed out again.
“Did you find your girl?”
“Found her,” he said, his heart seizing up and making it difficult to breathe. “And Bob. Who, as it turns out, actually is her husband. I thought he was a front, but I was the front all along. I’m such an idiot.”
“Been there,” the cook said, and returned his attention to the kitchen.
“Poor dear,” the waitress said, patting his hand. “The meal’s on the house, okay? And I don’t know if you remember, since you were kind of staggering around like a drunk, but your friend took care of the flight home for you.”
She pointed, and Indy suddenly noticed the airline ticket sticking out of his jacket pocket. “What?” he said. “My friend?”
“You can probably hitch a ride with those nice boys over there,” she continued, pointing to the missionaries. Indy still refused to look at them. “He had to leave in a hurry, and he said he was taking the Army Jeep as compensation for his pickup that you left in the middle of the desert.”
“His pickup?” Indy was remembering something else now. A dog had led him to a pickup truck, and he had stolen it – why? Why couldn't he remember? Never mind, that could wait for more immediate questions. “Who’s this friend? What are you talking about?”
“Found you passed out on top of a mountain,” she said. “I don’t remember, some Indian guy, named ’Argyle’ or something –”
Indy suddenly felt very wide awake. “Aguila?”
“Could have been,” she said. “Now come on, you’d better get your strength up. Are you going to finish that?”
***
“The last time I heard a story like this was when you were trying to get out of your Greek lessons,” Henry Jones said. “We were on the Carpathian off the Bay of Bengal and you told your tutor you had just seen a sea serpent.”
“I did see a sea serpent,” Indy insisted. Like Miss Seymour at the time, he had come to dismiss the sight as a figment of his youthful imagination, but by now it seemed more likely he had been right the first time.
“Flying saucers...” Henry shook his head. “Doesn’t this world hold enough mysteries that you don’t have to go out and make up new ones?”
“So would you buy the book or not?”
“I’d expect a free copy, as thanks for putting up with you all those years,” Henry scoffed. “And then I might need to reconsider my stance on book-burning. But my honest advice is to stick with archaeology and leave the cheap sci-fi to professionals, Junior. And maybe see a psychologist about those dreams.”
“Right,” Indy said. He didn’t know where the alien dream had come from, or why it seemed so compelling that he wanted to write it all down, but the more he thought about it the sillier it seemed. Best to just forget about it altogether.
“Just stress, I’m sure,” Henry continued. “Thanks to Elaine, no doubt. If I ever see that rotten two-timing –”
Indy leveled a warning finger at his father. “Don’t ever speak that way about her, Dad.”
Henry held up his hands, surprised at the emotion. “Suit yourself, Junior. What about Bolander?”
“Say whatever you want about him.” Indy realized he was holding more than a bit of a double standard, and that he should be at least as mad at Elaine for having been the one to actually lie to him about her marital status and then desert him at the altar, but he just couldn’t bring himself to it. He still loved her in spite of everything, but Bolander, not so much. “I wouldn’t mind seeing him fried by a flying saucer,” he muttered.
“Get some sleep, Junior,” Henry said. “It will do you good. We can talk about this more in the morning.”
“And things will be better then?” Indy snapped. “Things will be different?” He sat down, feeling weak, and put his face in his hands. He had never been particularly comfortable opening up to his father, even after they had reconciled their differences; but right now, with Marcus feeling under the weather, he felt he had nowhere else to turn. “I’m lonely, Dad.”
There. It was on the table.
Henry crossed his arms. “You think you’ve got problems? I’m going to die before I’ve seen a grandchild!”
Indy winced. “Thanks, Dad. That helped put it all in perspective.”
Seeing the hurt, Henry’s tone softened, and he put an arm around his son. “Indiana,” he said, “whatever happens, whomever you find, and however long it takes – I’m proud of you, of what you’ve done, and who you’ve become.”
Indy returned the half-hug, his pain numbed for the moment. “Thanks, Dad,” he said. “That helped put it all in perspective.”
He got up to leave, intent on following his father’s advice and getting some sleep, but Henry interrupted. “Oh, by the way, Junior, the police are looking for you. Something about missing a court date. Did you destroy a beefeater float?”
“What can I say? I’ve always hated those things.” Indy moved to the door. “I’ll worry about it tomorrow. Good night, Dad.”
He left his father’s house in a daze and paused for a moment on the porch to look up at the stars. At the sight of them, he felt an additional pang of despair and emptiness in his heart that he couldn’t explain. He couldn’t bear to look at them much longer, so he walked down the steps to the waiting car.
The driver turned around as he got in. It was Short Round, loyal to the end, still here long after most of the other guests had gone home. “Where to, Dr. Jones?” he said.
“The airport, Shorty,” Indy said, “and step on it.”
“No problem.” Short Round turned his Giants cap around and put the pedal down, taking care to stay within the speed limit. He had mellowed out over the years.
Indy put his own hat down, closed his eyes, and imagined another time, long ago. And then he realized that Elaine had shown him something important – there was no point living in the past when the present had plenty to offer.
He didn’t know where he would go once he reached the airport. What did it matter? Trouble found him wherever he went, and he’d come to realize that was just the natural order of things for him and probably would be for the rest of his days. Maybe he’d play blindfolded darts with a map to choose a place. Anywhere was as good as anywhere else.
The car roared off down the road, cans still banging behind it, toward an uncertain but inevitably thrilling future.
Next: Epilogue
He and Elaine roared up to the intersection. The valley lay to the right. “Indy, look!” Elaine said, pointing to it. Though the details were hard to make out, the swirling destruction could be seen clearly from here. “We’re too late,” she said.
“No we’re not,” Indy said, looking down the other road, where Bolander’s Jeep was driving alone up into the mountains at reckless speed, like a man who had seen the devil himself. Indy turned the truck to follow.
Bolander yelped as the bright lights hit his mirrors; then he relaxed as the troop truck pulled even with his Jeep. “Indy, be careful,” Elaine said. “Don’t hurt him.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Indy muttered. Out the window he yelled, “Pull over, Bolander!” Instead, Bolander aimed a pistol at them and fired three shots. Indy and Elaine ducked and swerved as the bullets zinged over their heads.
“Run him off the road!” Elaine said. She grabbed the wheel and tried to turn it into Bolander’s Jeep.
“No, but do take the wheel,” Indy said, climbing over her and out of the moving truck. Bolander sensed what he was going to do and began swerving, but was unable to prevent Indy from landing on the back of the Jeep. Bolander leaned over the seat and fired. Indy dropped.
“No!” Elaine yelled.
Bolander stopped firing for a moment and peered back into the darkness. The moment he did, Indy reappeared and slugged him. The two men fought in the weaving, swerving vehicle. Indy hit Bolander in the throat and the Jeep veered dangerously toward the railing in the left lane. Elaine accelerated and moved the truck between the Jeep and the railing, but the Jeep kept coming, almost forcing her over the edge of the cliff. She pulled the wheel hard to keep control.
As always, Indy prevailed, finally punching Bolander out and taking the wheel. “Try more field work, pal,” he called back to his limp opponent. “It really builds muscle.” He signaled Elaine to follow him. They had no time to rest when they were so near the end.
***
Mount Keemo was relatively small – not too rugged and not too steep. The Jeep made it up with little difficulty, and Indy and Elaine parked it on the broad flat expanse of the deserted summit, where they stood with the device. Only one ring remained unlit, and it provided enough light for them to see clearly even though it wasn’t quite dawn.
“What if this isn’t the place?” Elaine asked.
Indy stared out at the broad rocky terrain. A cairn of stones marked the summit. Whether it had been here for a thousand years or two days, he couldn’t say off the top of his head. But when an eagle soared in a loop directly over it – definitely a real eagle, as if that mattered – he knew. “It’s the place,” he said. “Stay here.”
He moved across the summit toward the cairn and examined it. He was leaning more now toward the thousand years side of the spectrum. What tribe had put it here or why, he couldn’t say, but he could guess what it was going to be used for now.
He looked around. The eagle had settled down and perched on a tree some distance away, watching him. The sun was almost up. There was a different light, a strange light in the sky, growing stronger as it came up the sides of the mountain.
In the Jeep, the injured Bolander seemed roused by the lights.
Elaine watched, filled with wonder. Indy stood almost paralyzed as three saucers came up on each side. They continued to climb higher until they were overhead. Then brilliant green lights from each ship focused on the rock cairn.
Indy knew what he had to do, as surely as if the eagle or the aliens had broadcast the thought into his mind. It wasn’t an act of worship on his part, though the ancients might have interpreted it as such, and if the aliens themselves interpreted it as such and were thus mollified enough to not kill him, that would be great too. He moved slowly toward the cairn and reached out to place the device on it.
“Stop, Indiana!”
Indy turned to see Cheslav, still in his Sergeant’s uniform, holding a gun to Elaine’s neck.
“That’s right, Jones,” the Russian continued. “Don’t put it down.” He cocked the gun.
Indiana Jones knew, deep down, that he wasn’t immortal. He knew that in theory he could die as easily as anyone else. But after all this time, he felt as if old age was the only thing that could overtake him, and a gun held to his own neck wouldn’t have been too much cause for concern. Yet he was all too aware of the mortality of his traveling companions, and while he knew he should adopt a mask of indifference for Cheslav’s sake, he couldn’t help gasping, “Elaine...”
“If you want to see her alive in the near future, step away from the altar,” Cheslav said. “Now.”
“Don’t do it, Indy...” Elaine said.
Indy gave her a look that told her he had no choice. Not to save his country, not to save the world, not if it meant losing her. He stepped away.
“I’m pleased to see you still have the same weakness, Indiana,” Cheslav said. “You always cared too much. Do you think I miss Veska? I would have killed him myself in a heartbeat if it were helpful to my mission.” He glanced at Elaine. “Granted, he wasn’t nearly so easy on the eyes as Dr. McGregor, but the point remains.”
Indy refused to be baited. “Let her go, Cheslav.”
“First, toss me the device,” he said.
Indy looked from Elaine, whose eyes pleaded with him not to give in, back to the device. What would Cheslav do with it, take it all the way back to Moscow when it was already on a mountain right here?
“This is why you’re on the wrong side,” Cheslav continued. “I know in your mind, my ruthlessness makes me the ’bad guy’. But I see myself as quite good, good at what I do. Toss me the device, Indiana, I won’t tell you again.”
Indy knew he wasn’t bluffing. He also knew he had reached a point that he often reached in his adventures, where despite his best efforts, neither his own skills, nor smarts, nor even sheer luck would save him. His fate rested within powers beyond his comprehension, whether benevolent, malevolent, or indifferent to his plight. He couldn’t control them, couldn’t count on them to do what he wanted, but he could anticipate them and let the chips fall where they may.
The aliens had had ample opportunity to kill him and Elaine by now if they wanted to. He suspected, hoped that the aliens had disabled the truck to prevent them from being present at the calamity that had overtaken General McIntyre and the others. And the aliens had led them here, to place this device here, and he could only hope and pray to anything that was listening that they knew what they were doing and had this planet’s best interests in mind.
“You want it?” He told the spy. “Go get it.” He tossed it onto the pile of stones. Immediately its final ring lit up and the stones began to glow. But this wouldn't be like Stonehenge, he realized, because the demons were already here.
Cheslav shoved Elaine away and rushed for the device. Bolander, seeing it so close, jumped out of the truck and rushed toward it also. Indy ignored them both and ran to Elaine. “What’s happening?” she asked.
Bolander knocked Cheslav away, grabbed the device and held it up over his head like Excalibur. The glow of the rocks spread to the ground around him. His body became radiant, bathed in a strong golden light. He smiled. “Bow down,” he said. “Bow down, rulers of the universe... for I now have the power!”
The saucers seemed to sag in the air, as if Bolander were sapping their energy. As he grew brighter their lights grew dimmer. Then a white light erupted from the end of the device and stabbed skyward. The eagle flew off with a shriek.
“I have the power!” Bolander said again. He swung the light and aimed it at Cheslav.
“No!” Cheslav yelled. He tried to move, but the heat was searing and in an instant his body melted just like the Sabre Jet.
Indy and Elaine shielded their eyes from this blinding light but also from something else. The sun broke the horizon at that moment, sending its first red beam of light to the summit and hitting the device spot on. Instantly the saucers also grew brighter, as if tapping into Bolander’s power source.
Bolander felt the drain. His smile wavered. He brought the device around and aimed it at the saucers, but it had no effect. Now it was his turn to yell “No!”
Instead the ground around him began to steam, more rocks to glow. Another beam erupted from the other end of the device, hitting Bolander on the forehead and splitting him in two as cleanly as an axe, but with no blood. He crumpled in a melting mass. The device remained suspended where he had been holding it as the ground glowed whiter and whiter.
Indy and Elaine were bathed in the light. The saucers glowed brighter, humming louder, until in one incredible thunderclap they roared off, splitting through the atmosphere like bullets. In their wake the entire mountain was whipped by furious winds, and then they were gone and everything was left silent.
Indy held Elaine. Around them there was no trace of the power cylinder, Bolander, Cheslav or the saucers.
They were alone.
“Back to Mars,” Elaine said. “Or much farther, probably.”
Indy nodded, still staring at the cairn.
One of the saucers reappeared as suddenly as it had left, and once again landed and disgorged its diminutive passenger. As they watched in stunned silence, it left the ship and approached them with confidence this time, talking rapidly.
“What’s he saying?” Indy asked.
“He’s saying thank you,” Elaine said. “For doing the right thing instead of acting like Earthlings.”
“Thanks,” Indy said. “I think.”
“As a token of gratitude, they’re offering –” Elaine jabbered back, asking the alien to repeat itself, uncertain if she’d heard correctly. “They’re offering to let us come with them. To share in their enlightened culture, to see things and creatures and places no one on this planet has ever dreamed of – oh, Indy!” She embraced him around the neck as if she were about to faint.
“Knowledge,” Indy said, looking up at the early morning sky and imagining the stars that weren’t currently visible. “So much knowledge.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Oh, Indy, I can’t imagine anything more romantic than exploring the cosmos and learning about them together, can you?”
“No, but –” He hesitated. He should have jumped at this opportunity. He even trusted the aliens now. But somehow, after thinking about his previous adventures, it just didn’t feel right.
Elaine could see it in his eyes. “What is it?”
He tried to articulate it as well as he could. “You could spend a lifetime out there and never learn a billionth of what there is to know,” he said. “I’ve spent the better part of my life here and I still feel like I don’t know anything. There’s so much left to be discovered and explored here. The connection between these aliens and all the ancient cultures, for example. We’ve only scratched the surface.”
“Now we can just ask them ourselves,” Elaine said impatiently.
“That’s not all,” Indy said. “There are thousands, hundreds of thousands of people like Baldassare and Bernard and Cheslav and Bolander out there. You’ve seen that they aren’t even all with the ’bad guys.’ Someone will always need to be here to protect the world from them, and a lot of times I have to be that guy. Hell, the Nazis alone would have taken over the world a hundred times if I hadn’t been here.” He shrugged. “What can I say? Earth needs me.”
“I need you,” she said, looking into his eyes.
He felt his heart disintegrating as he already knew what his answer would have to be. “And I need you too,” he said. “You showed me that life, even when it gets repetitive and predictable, is still exciting. It wasn’t the aliens that made this adventure exciting – it was you. You rekindled that spark way back in the jungle, before they ever showed up.”
“And yet you’re going to leave me,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“You’ll come back eventually, won’t you?”
She just shrugged.
The alien jabbered at them, sounding impatient. Indy looked at it, then back at Elaine, and held her in an embrace that he wished could last forever. He kissed her, as deeply and passionately as he had planned to do on their wedding day. Then all too soon he had to let her go, and she was backing away toward the entrance to the spaceship, never taking her gaze off of him, though he wished she would. Against the backdrop of the lights from the interior she looked angelic, goddesslike, the most beautiful creature in the universe.
“Good-bye, Dr. Jones,” she said.
The alien said something else to him.
“What?” she said, alarmed.
The alien repeated itself.
Elaine went pale. “He says he’ll need to wipe your memory, just in case our old friends try to get anything out of you.”
“What?” Indy said. “No! How much of it? No!”
The alien darted back into the saucer, the hatch closed, and it lifted off the ground as Indy ran toward it, yelling. It hovered over his head and a beam of orange washed over him, making his whole body but especially the top of his skull tingle with warmth. Then the saucer disappeared a second time and he fell to his knees, dazed and exhausted. In the distance an eagle cried out, but then there was silence.
He was alone. Again.
***
The next thing he knew, he was waking up in Al’s Atomic Diner with his face half-buried in an omelette. The waitress and the cook were staring at him, clearly worried, but he ignored them as he tried to take stock of his surroundings. Everything was the same as before, except that there were fewer soldiers and they seemed on edge about something, while the spot previously occupied by the two cowboys now hosted a pair of Mormon missionaries. They glanced in his direction, but he carefully avoided eye contact.
“Rough trip?” the waitress finally prodded.
Indy grunted. “You better believe it, sister.” He didn’t remember why, exactly, but he knew it had been. And then the memories came flooding back, and he nearly passed out again.
“Did you find your girl?”
“Found her,” he said, his heart seizing up and making it difficult to breathe. “And Bob. Who, as it turns out, actually is her husband. I thought he was a front, but I was the front all along. I’m such an idiot.”
“Been there,” the cook said, and returned his attention to the kitchen.
“Poor dear,” the waitress said, patting his hand. “The meal’s on the house, okay? And I don’t know if you remember, since you were kind of staggering around like a drunk, but your friend took care of the flight home for you.”
She pointed, and Indy suddenly noticed the airline ticket sticking out of his jacket pocket. “What?” he said. “My friend?”
“You can probably hitch a ride with those nice boys over there,” she continued, pointing to the missionaries. Indy still refused to look at them. “He had to leave in a hurry, and he said he was taking the Army Jeep as compensation for his pickup that you left in the middle of the desert.”
“His pickup?” Indy was remembering something else now. A dog had led him to a pickup truck, and he had stolen it – why? Why couldn't he remember? Never mind, that could wait for more immediate questions. “Who’s this friend? What are you talking about?”
“Found you passed out on top of a mountain,” she said. “I don’t remember, some Indian guy, named ’Argyle’ or something –”
Indy suddenly felt very wide awake. “Aguila?”
“Could have been,” she said. “Now come on, you’d better get your strength up. Are you going to finish that?”
***
“The last time I heard a story like this was when you were trying to get out of your Greek lessons,” Henry Jones said. “We were on the Carpathian off the Bay of Bengal and you told your tutor you had just seen a sea serpent.”
“I did see a sea serpent,” Indy insisted. Like Miss Seymour at the time, he had come to dismiss the sight as a figment of his youthful imagination, but by now it seemed more likely he had been right the first time.
“Flying saucers...” Henry shook his head. “Doesn’t this world hold enough mysteries that you don’t have to go out and make up new ones?”
“So would you buy the book or not?”
“I’d expect a free copy, as thanks for putting up with you all those years,” Henry scoffed. “And then I might need to reconsider my stance on book-burning. But my honest advice is to stick with archaeology and leave the cheap sci-fi to professionals, Junior. And maybe see a psychologist about those dreams.”
“Right,” Indy said. He didn’t know where the alien dream had come from, or why it seemed so compelling that he wanted to write it all down, but the more he thought about it the sillier it seemed. Best to just forget about it altogether.
“Just stress, I’m sure,” Henry continued. “Thanks to Elaine, no doubt. If I ever see that rotten two-timing –”
Indy leveled a warning finger at his father. “Don’t ever speak that way about her, Dad.”
Henry held up his hands, surprised at the emotion. “Suit yourself, Junior. What about Bolander?”
“Say whatever you want about him.” Indy realized he was holding more than a bit of a double standard, and that he should be at least as mad at Elaine for having been the one to actually lie to him about her marital status and then desert him at the altar, but he just couldn’t bring himself to it. He still loved her in spite of everything, but Bolander, not so much. “I wouldn’t mind seeing him fried by a flying saucer,” he muttered.
“Get some sleep, Junior,” Henry said. “It will do you good. We can talk about this more in the morning.”
“And things will be better then?” Indy snapped. “Things will be different?” He sat down, feeling weak, and put his face in his hands. He had never been particularly comfortable opening up to his father, even after they had reconciled their differences; but right now, with Marcus feeling under the weather, he felt he had nowhere else to turn. “I’m lonely, Dad.”
There. It was on the table.
Henry crossed his arms. “You think you’ve got problems? I’m going to die before I’ve seen a grandchild!”
Indy winced. “Thanks, Dad. That helped put it all in perspective.”
Seeing the hurt, Henry’s tone softened, and he put an arm around his son. “Indiana,” he said, “whatever happens, whomever you find, and however long it takes – I’m proud of you, of what you’ve done, and who you’ve become.”
Indy returned the half-hug, his pain numbed for the moment. “Thanks, Dad,” he said. “That helped put it all in perspective.”
He got up to leave, intent on following his father’s advice and getting some sleep, but Henry interrupted. “Oh, by the way, Junior, the police are looking for you. Something about missing a court date. Did you destroy a beefeater float?”
“What can I say? I’ve always hated those things.” Indy moved to the door. “I’ll worry about it tomorrow. Good night, Dad.”
He left his father’s house in a daze and paused for a moment on the porch to look up at the stars. At the sight of them, he felt an additional pang of despair and emptiness in his heart that he couldn’t explain. He couldn’t bear to look at them much longer, so he walked down the steps to the waiting car.
The driver turned around as he got in. It was Short Round, loyal to the end, still here long after most of the other guests had gone home. “Where to, Dr. Jones?” he said.
“The airport, Shorty,” Indy said, “and step on it.”
“No problem.” Short Round turned his Giants cap around and put the pedal down, taking care to stay within the speed limit. He had mellowed out over the years.
Indy put his own hat down, closed his eyes, and imagined another time, long ago. And then he realized that Elaine had shown him something important – there was no point living in the past when the present had plenty to offer.
He didn’t know where he would go once he reached the airport. What did it matter? Trouble found him wherever he went, and he’d come to realize that was just the natural order of things for him and probably would be for the rest of his days. Maybe he’d play blindfolded darts with a map to choose a place. Anywhere was as good as anywhere else.
The car roared off down the road, cans still banging behind it, toward an uncertain but inevitably thrilling future.
Next: Epilogue
