A Hatch in the Jungle

“I think this is the real deal,” Kathryn said as she trudged up and down in the sand. Rex was also glad to have land under his feet for once. They’d been at sea for two weeks this time, without a single sign of land.
It had been five months since Tyler had abandoned them at Base Camp. Since then, their little boat had hopped from island to island, trying to sail in the general direction of Ofelia’s signal. They’d wasted one week just trekking over land, only to realize they were just on another island. They’d had to track back to the boat and sail around.
Finally they could see coastline for miles. It was either a gigantic island, or a continent. Rex hoped it was the latter. He was tired of boats. He was tired of fishing, and he was tired of the alphabet game. He knew every bunker song that Kathryn could remember, every herbal remedy that Viola could describe, and every step in birthing large animals from elephants to zebras. He had spent time teaching them all the cocktails he could think of.
“The scanner says we’re only down to seventy two miles. That means we could be less than a week away, depending on terrain,” Kathryn said. Rex had given up determining how much time they had left.
“We’ll leave the boat here, and pack as many supplies as we can carry,” Kathryn continued. It was too bad that the food processor was too bulky to transport comfortably through a jungle. They kept it busy for the morning making ERB’s, which Kathryn said had been vastly improved since the war.
“During the war, Emergency Ration Biscuits provided a complete daily allowance of calories, vitamins, and minerals, but they tasted like dirt,” she’d said. The only improvement Rex could see is that they tasted like nothing at all. But they were compact, easy to carry, and were nearly indestructible.
After packing up everything in the harnesses and backpacks they’d created during their long time at sea, the four set off through the jungle. It was slow going, as they lacked a decent knife to hack their way through the jungle, though Kathryn was adept at cutting the thickest of the vines with targeted laser rifle blasts.
The animals that they spotted, most being some type of monkey or bird, kept their distance. As darkness fell, they came upon a fresh water stream and Rex took a long walk, giving the women a bit of time to have their first real bath in weeks. All four of them had been getting pretty grungy, the sea water taking its toll on the little clothing they had. Rex had stopped shaving, and had taken to not wearing his shirt for most of the day. His hair had grown almost long enough for a pony tail, but Rex had just let it fall where it may.
Finding a hip deep spot in the stream, Rex stripped down and took his own impromptu bath. It was cold, but getting the briny feel off his skin was worth it. He only wished he had some soap. For some reason, he suddenly thought of Ofelia. She was covered in soap and nothing else, and smiling coyly at him through the steam.
God, Rex was glad the water was cold. He’d gone some pretty long stretches aboard The Hope without female companionship, but just knowing Ofelia was out there waiting, was enough to set his thoughts in directions they shouldn’t go with the girl’s mother just a hollering distance down stream.
Rex stood up and shook the water off as best as he could before stepping back into his clothes. On his way back to the women, he sang a bunker song, loudly and off tune, giving them time to protect what modesty they had. Living together for six months was plenty of time to lose the inhibitions of turning round and dropping one’s bum off the boat to relieve oneself.
Rex found the three women, all sitting around a fire, drying their hair. The longer Juliet’s hair got, the more she began to look like her sister. Kathryn’s auburn hair, which was usually pulled up tight, lay around her shoulders making her look much softer than Rex was used to.
“You know, I think my hair’s been growing faster than it usually does,” Juliet said as he ran her fingers through her short mop. “And it’s growing darker.”
“That’s funny. Mine’s growing lighter,” Rex said. “I think the sun is bleaching it a bit.”
“Yeah, you look like a beach hermit,” Kathryn said.
“You don’t approve?”
“Just I’d like future son-in-law to look a bit more reputable,” she said as she threw another stick on the fire. Rex didn’t say anything. He did catch Juliet and Viola giving each other looks. Their silent twin talk, he supposed.
“That’s if she hasn’t given you up for dead and married Jack,” Viola said softly.
“Over my dead body!” Rex hadn’t meant to stand up. He hadn’t meant to yell either. He sat down on the log and chewed on his ERB.
“She’s loyal as a dog. All Clovelly’s are,” Kathryn said continuing to poke the fire as if Rex had not just made a fool of himself. “And Jack is definitely more of a little brother than a lover.” Again, Rex said nothing.
Juliet couldn’t hold out any longer. “So Rex, are you going to ask her to marry you?”
“You never got married… and neither did Kathryn,” Viola stated, coming to his defense.
“Yeah, but that’s because I’d never met the right boy. It’s kind of hard to find one who doesn’t find your brain threatening when you’ve got three degrees.”
“Like Martin? Who likes his wife nice and stupid?” The three women chuckled together and then began to tuck themselves into their sleeping bags. Just on the verge of sleep, Rex spoke quietly.
“I’m going to marry her,” he said.
“Good boy,” Kathryn said and they all drifted off to sleep.
#
“That’s funny,” Kathryn said as she stared at her PDA.
“Don’t tell me we’ve lost the signal,” Juliet said as she sat down on a tree root and pulled out an ERB.
“No. We’ve gained one. About ten miles that way, and it’s stationary, whatever it is.” Rex took the PDA and looked at it. Viola peeked over his shoulder.
“It’s in the opposite direction as Ofelia’s signal.”
“This is supposed to be an uninhabited planet. Where is this signal coming from?”
“Maybe it’s a glitch.”
“Maybe we haven’t really been heading towards Ofelia.”
“Of course we have. She moves… and this one looks more like a blob than a dot.”
“So what do you think it is?”
“I don’t think that’s the question you want to ask. The question is if we want to break a trail ten miles in the opposite direction to check on the blob.”
“Would you rather track all the way to the settlement, and then tell the people there’s a strange signal coming from the jungle, and have a panicked party making their way out here?”
“Why do you always have to think like a captain?”
“We’ll just take a quick look.”
“You’re not going to put this to a vote, are you?”
“Nope. After six months, what’re a few days more?”
Rex honestly felt like decking her one, but she moved off into the jungle, and the urge passed.
#
“Damn, I just tripped on something,” Rex said as he tried to untangle himself from the bush he’d fallen into. “By the sound of it, something metal.”
Juliet backtracked and sure enough, her footsteps clanked against some sort of metal panel.
“Is it a hatch?” Viola asked.
“Now what would a hatch be doing out in the middle of the jungle?” Kathryn asked. “We are right around the source of the signal blob.”
The four of them cleared off the panel and found that it was about five feet long and three feet wide. Coming out of two sides were little bars that were three feet long.
“They’re legs. It’s supposed to stand up,” Juliet said. They lifted the edge and were surprised to find it was fairly light. “Look there are holes for the legs!” After clearing one of the holes that had been overgrown by plant life, they fitted the legs into the holes and the panel stood upright on its own.
“Would you look at that?” Juliet said as she brushed the dirt off with her sleeve. “It’s a sign.”
“What’s it say?” Rex asked as he came around to the front to have a look.
“Do I look like I read alien to you?” The sign was covered with neat little lines of alien scrawl engraved in the metal. In the center was the picture of some strange looking six legged camel like animal.
“There’s another one over here!” Kathryn shouted. “And it’s still in its original position.” She cleared away the panel to reveal more writing and another picture dead in the center. “Is this what I think it is?” she asked, tracing the outline with her finger.
“Looks like a brontosaurus to me.”
Rex stared through the jungle, and slowly his eyes began to pick out the signs from the jungle, trying to find a pattern.
“This place is full of them.” He wandered closer to the center. “I think they’re set up in three concentric circles.”
“So why would someone post signs with animal pictures on them in the middle of the jungle?” Juliet asked as she propped up another sign.
“Isn’t obvious, Miss Veterinarian? When do we post signs with animals on them in the middle of nowhere.”
Juliet smacked her forehead with her hand. “It’s the welcome center.”
“So we’re back to the cosmic zoo theory?” Rex asked.
“Yeah, that’s why they had a signal leading here… in case people got lost. And it totally makes sense why there are no carnivores. They wouldn’t want their endangered species to be eaten.”
“So I’m thinking the wild animal planet must have been in use several million years ago to have taken dinosaurs for their exhibit, but over several million years the brontosauruses should have evolved a bit more than they have,” Juliet said.
“I think I’ve found the source of the signal,” Kathryn called from the center of the three circles. Rex and the twins approached her.
There at Kathryn’s feet was a bright blue orb set in a silver basin with alien scrawl around the edge. The whole thing was only about a yard across.
“It’s pretty,” Viola said as she bent down to take a closer look.
“Yeah, but is it dangerous?” Rex asked. It didn’t look it, but too many memories of the Gorm stories filtered through the back of his mind.
“It is emitting some sort of radiation, but if it were harmful, we’d have been dead by now,” Juliet said as she tried to take a scan of the thing. “I think it’s strong enough to pretty much cover the entire planet.”
“Well, if this is a visitor’s center, they wouldn’t want to poison their visitors. Who knows what this thing was originally designed to do. I vote we don’t mess with it, and we don’t mention it to the others,” Kathryn said.
Rex agreed. “Best not to mess with other people’s stuff… even if those people have been gone for a million years. Does this mean we head to camp now?”
Kathryn smiled at him. “It’s too late to head anywhere now, but I promise, first thing tomorrow morning, we’ll head towards Ofelia.”
Rex plopped his pack down and fished out his ERB’s. “Sounds like a plan.”