Ogreness, Black Lake-book5

Chapter 51
~

“Movies,” Frip said.

We were sittin’ in the sand with our backs against the shady side of the truck. I’m pretty sure we’d already put movies on the list. Every hour or so we’d call Papa to add to his list. I think he was gettin’ tired of hearin’ from us. Actually, pretty certain of it.

And really, we prolly should be savin’ the phone battery to call the orc when we heard her overhead.

My stomach growled. If Nuel could find another snake I’d be willin’ to try it now. Frip shook his head. Hard to believe we have so much in common with trolls, but they’re so indifferent to eatin’.

Hard to reconcile that their favorite delicacies are grubs and scorpions.

I asked Frip if he had the phone. He said it was plugged in.

“It can charge, when the truck isn’t runnin’?” I asked.

“Technical genius,” Ponwr mumbled.

Nuel shushed us. I thought she was just being a bossy hen, but then she asked if we heard that. We all quieted.

“Yeah,” we bulls answered together, standin’.

We walked to the far side of the truck searchin’ the Southern sky. Except for a few scrub jays and two wispy clouds, there was nothing else in the sky.

“Uh oh,” Frip mumbled.

It’s never good when a troll utters uh oh. We all turned to find whatever he was lookin’ at. North.

“Makes sense,” Ponwr said, “a state trooper would venture through here once a day to make sure some traveler hasn’t broken down.”

“No way to hide the truck,” Nuel said.

“We could push it,” Frip mumbled, “but behind what?”

My eyes tripped east, then west. Hardly a pimple on the landscape. Scrub growth, a hint of grass here and there. No clump of bushes that would hide an OI250.

“Should we hide?” Nuel asked.

“Uh. I don’t think it’s a Mountie.”

Nuel asked what a Mountie was. I explained the term usually meant a county constable, but in this case, I said Frip was usin’ it generically.

“You talk a lot,” Frip mumbled.

“It’s a truck,” Ponwr said.

I had already figgered that out. Trolls aren’t known for outstanding vision. Not yar everyday semi. Wasn’t boxy. As it neared, the cab proved to be fairly normal, but the trailer behind it was cylindrical. A tanker of some kind.

“Not very loud,” Nuel said.

We stood, at least I did, a little dumbfounded as the vehicle pulled to a stop. Not exactly a garden-variety tanker. The breadth of the thing was glassy-black.

“Solar cells,” Frip and Nuel said as one.

Exactly what it was. The engine was so quiet, because it was splittin’ duty between an electric engine and gas powered one. A face popped out from the driver’s side.

“Ya folk look in a pickle.” A stinkin’ goblin. I hadn’t seen a goblin outside of the Range since I was an ogreling. Actually, the goblin crossed the family ranch just off the Eastern Slopes. “Ran out of gas, huh? Can’t run a regular engine out here. Are ya nuts? Not a gas station in seven hundred miles.”

“That would have been nice to know,” Ponwr said.

The goblin stepped down, walked around to the front of his truck, long arm pointing north. “Duh. Ya idjits can’t read? There’s a gargantuan sign right off the junction of Highway 13.”

We all looked at Ponwr.

That must have ticked him off, because he asked what the three of us were doing at the time.

The goblin shook his head, dreadlocks flowin’ freely. They do like thinner, and a greater abundance of braids, than we do.

“Bet I’m the first person to come along here in a week,” the goblin said. “Do some trade with folk in the city. Carry specialty circuit boards north, haberdashery and such south.”

“Circuit boards?” I blurted. “Ya an electronics type.”

He grinned, showin’ those sharp goblin teeth. “What. A goblin can’t figger out how electricity runs through a wire?”

“No. No,” I said. “We’re uh, just been, uh, workin’ out what we need to develop a—”

“He always ramble a lot?” the goblin asked.

Nuel nodded. I gaped at her. “I do not.”

“I can make room for ya folk, but I don’t have any chains to pull yar vehicle.”

“A plane’s coming to pick us up,” Nuel said.

I had to roll my eyes. She could never truly go on the lam.

“But if you have any water you can spare,” Frip said.

The goblin grinned again, strode to the near side of the truck, climbed up and opened the passenger door, returned with two large bottles of water that dripped from an ice cooler.

My throat tightened just lookin’ at the bottles as he held them out.

“So ya lookin’ for an electrical engineer?” he asked.

“If that engineer knew how to build a broadcasting station,” I said greedily watchin’ Nuel gluggin’ at one of the bottles.

“I don’t normally make this trip myself. But the partner who does is on vacation. So it got me away from my computer.” He dug a wallet out of his pants and fished out a business card. “My clan has been specializin’ in high-end electronics since my grandpa first got his master’s in electrical engineerin’ way back.”

Our luck had to be changin’. Here in the middle of nowhere, we come across a specialized expertise we would need for our grand enterprise. We all pretty much looked up at once. It wasn’t a dragonfly. The phone rang in our truck and Frip ran to answer it.

“That yar ride?” the goblin asked.

“I hope,” the three of us said.

“Well I’ll get out of yar runway. Ya call us if we can do something together. Ya’ll see our website there on the card. Love new challenges.”

“Hey,” Ponwr said. “Will you be comin’ back this way?”

“Two weeks,” the goblin said.

“Think maybe you could tow my truck south?”

Those needle-teeth glinted. “Prolly.” He strode away in that lanky goblin swoosh. The truck lunged without the hint of an engine engagin’. It was a quarter mile down the blacktop before it began to hum.

“Cool,” I said. “A solar powered, transcontinental delivery van. Ya ever seen anything like that?”

“All the time,” Nuel mumbled.

Ponwr just gave me a blank look. Maybe he thought I was askin’ an idjit’s question.

“She sees us,” Frip called, stridin’ to us. “Says the road sounds okay from my description.”

“Certainly straight enough,” Nuel said.

Twenty minutes later the twin-prop taxied to a stop and we queued at the passenger-side door. The orc eyed the two trolls hard. Maybe not keen on trolls.

“Ya two are gonna put me over my weight limit,” she whined under the roar of the idling engines.

“Just leave her behind.” Frip pointed at Nuel.

Nuel turned a glare toward the troll. I should have Papa teach the idjit troll a thing or two about ogre hens. I shook my head. The fool remained within Nuel’s reach. Either stupid or terribly brave.

She had begun to give up the copilot’s chair to one of them, since the taperin’ body meant less headroom in the back. Instead, she climbed up in the front.

I smiled hard. Almost got a jaw cramp. The two trolls looked at me oddly. I wasn’t gonna tell ’em that it isn’t wise to tease an ogre hen.

When we got the door closed so we could talk, Nuel offered her hand. The orc’s name was Hroli. Had a name now. Nuel didn’t bother introducin’ our troll friends. Ponwr was gonna pay for his partner’s crackin’ wise. I exchanged nods with the petite hen.

She revved the engines and we vibrated down the blacktop, me almost in a giggle over Frip and Ponwr sittin’ at a forty-five-degree tilt to keep their heads from the headliner.

Gear up and levelin’ off a bit, cab quieter, Hroli said, “Ya’ve missed lots of excitin’ news in the twenty-four hours ya’ve been on the run.”

So the human idjits were arrestin’ the giant community’s leaders on trumped up charges, filin’ civil cases against Range-based business for everything but the measles. Were turnin’ around trucks headed North. Which made no sense. They were prolly from human producers. I didn’t know of any of our folk still doing business with ’em. The council slammed a boulder on it, which wasn’t necessary because the social cohesion in the Range even shocks me.

“They’ve demanded we recall all embassy staff,” Hroli said.

I cracked up laughin’, an ogre laugh, which meant my growl was rippin’ up my chest. The other four looked at me.

Didn’t they know? I thought everyone knew. Clearly not those bigot-Northerners. When I managed to control my laughin’ I explained.

“We don’t have an embassy. Never had an ambassador. Never needed one. We don’t send ambassadors anywhere. We trade freely. Don’t have an army, a navy, an air force. We’re the world’s libertarians.” I gawked at them. How could they not know that?

“Really? I didn’t know that,” Hroli said.

I asked her if she lives in the Range.

She dipped her head a tiny bit. “Born and raised.”

“How do ya coordinate infrastructure?” Nuel asked.

I shook my head. I wasn’t gonna teach a civics lesson. Didn't have the energy.

“So they’ve taken hostages,” I mumbled. “Never would have seen that comin’.”

“Uh. Weren’t they trying to use us as hostages?” Ponwr asked.

I shrugged, which tweaked my chest. And back. He had a point. Four questions hit me at once. I waved at them to leave me alone, and asked Frip for the phone.

“I’m busy,” Papa grouched a moment later.

“I just heard they’ve taken hostages.”

He harrumphed. “They aren’t callin’ it that. The tourists in the Hamlet are scurryin’ home though, in case we decide to start arrestin’ folk.”

We don’t have a single jail. We expel folk. We figger that’s bad, not to be allowed into the Range again.

“The Hamlet folk angry?” I asked.

“I think they’re excited to have some free time before the blizzards come.”

I snorted. Best human laugh I have. Think I got that from Dave. I asked Papa if he’d been talkin’ with Doke.

“Lordy. The bull won’t let me be. He’s nearly in a lather. I keep tellin’ him to relax. He says, shouldn’t we be doing something, and I ask him what.”

“Ya didn’t tell him about our idea?” I asked.

“I didn’t figger that council business,” he said.

The plane suddenly dipped. I lunged forward in my seat. The four of us were screamin’ like orcs. The orc was screamin’ at us to shut up.

“Just a down draft, ya idjits.”

“What was all the noise?” Papa asked.

“I thought for a moment the North had shot us down.”

“Where are ya?” he asked.

“Uh. Somewhere about seven thousand feet,” I said.

“What?” Clearly he forgot Hroli was pickin’ us up.

The phone started to ping. Low battery. Another disaster. I asked Frip for the cord.

“Ya sound like ya got plenty to fret about there,” Papa said. “Why don’t ya let me worry about things here.”

The phone went dead before I could answer him. Frip couldn’t find the charger.

An hour later a red and white, Northern Coast Guard plane veered toward us. After a little cracklin’ on the radio, some lieutenant somebody was demandin’ we follow him to the nearest airport to land. I looked at Hroli.

She shrugged. “Didn’t see that comin’.”

~