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    Ally Oop Through the Ulysses Trees
    Ally Oop Through the Ulysses Trees
    Ally Oop Through the Ulysses Trees
    Ebook319 pages4 hours

    Ally Oop Through the Ulysses Trees

    By Lenny Everson

    ()

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    About this ebook

    For twenty-three years a dozen space-alien refugees from have been hiding out on Earth, living inside various human hosts. When they arrived they hid their spaceship in the mud at the bottom of Lake Ontario, and when the "come home" call finally came, they happily prepared to get their spaceship and go home.
    However, about that time someone spots a very strange sonar image in Lake Ontario, on the Canadian side. Both American and Canadian intelligence agencies send someone to check it out. At the same time, a member of Alien Hunters International is closing in on a couple of the aliens.
    A small group of men try to actually do something, but it's all politics, women, and space aliens, three things most men don't handle very well.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLenny Everson
    Release dateJul 24, 2012
    ISBN9781476035048
    Ally Oop Through the Ulysses Trees
    Author

    Lenny Everson

    List of Completed Works by Lenny Everson (As of November, 2014, over 36,000 copies of Lenny's works have been downloaded.) Novels • Death On a Small, Dark Lake. 67,700 words. Our hero snags a body in a remote lake. • Death on a Rocky Little Island 71,500 words. Our hero convinces a friend to take a canoeing trip to the 30,000 islands. • Mount Moriah 50,000 words. A strange sequence events involves a priest, a poet, a CSIS agent, a space alien, four horny teens, among others. My most fun fiction. • Last Exit to Pine Lake. 45,000 words. A dying writer goes back into the bush to off himself. Grimly literary. My best fiction. • Ally Oop Through the Ulysses Trees. As much fun as Mount Moriah! • Marley Was Dead: A Christmas Carol Mystery Novelettes • Granite and Dry Blood. 9,700 words. Our hero wants to write a book on Massassauga Park. Various people would prefer that he didn't. • Death on a Foggy Spring Portage. 11,800 words. One member of a paddling group is found dead on a muddy portage. Screenplays • Murder on a Foggy Spring Portage. One member of a paddling group is found dead on a muddy portage. Plays • Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont. Ghosts of the two Métis leaders meet in today's world to remember their lives. A short (20-minute) play for two actors. Full-Length Poetry Books • The Minor Odyssey of Lollie Heronfeathers Singer. A middle-aged woman tries to connect with her aboriginal ancestry. • In The Tavern of Lost Souls. Four poets meet at a grungy bar once a month to give their poetic answers to random questions. • Love in a Canoe. A set of five chapbooks and a songbook about the love of canoeing. With illustrations. • Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont are Dead. Ghosts of the two Métis leaders meet in today's world to remember their lives. Includes the play. Poetry Chapbooks • Encounter in a Small, Old Cemetery. Autumn. Midnight. Poet visits a small, old private graveyard. Best poem I ever wrote. • Fire and Ashes. Poems about life's flames and regrets. • The Empty Tarmac of a Long-Abandoned Airport. Poems about having a midlife crisis. • Love Poems A compilation • Pray for Me: 22 Poems Probably Slandering God and Jesus • Ballads from an Unlucky Fisherman: Poems from a fisherman • Tweetable Limericks. 60 limericks small enough to be tweets • Hiking Poems. Co-Authored Poetry Chapbooks • Who Would Be a God? ...

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      Book preview

      Ally Oop Through the Ulysses Trees - Lenny Everson

      Alley Oop Through the Ulysses Trees

      By Lenny Everson

      rev 4

      Copyright Lenny Everson 2012

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

      Cover design by Lenny Everson

      For Dianne

      Published at Smashwords:

      ****

      Before you start.

      This book contains quite a number of characters in several different locales. The sections near the end, Characters and Places and Day-By-Day Summary of Sections are provided to help you keep track of events.

      Chapter 1: September 13

      The story opens in mid-September on an overcast day with a cool wind and the occasional shower.

      Four days before Button Day (The day that the aliens press the button that starts the re-activation of Professor Nothing, their spaceship)

      Kitchener, Ontario

      Headquarters of Wind Turbines Foundation, just south of the Region of Waterloo International Airport.

      It was a sonar scan that first picked up the object in Lake Ontario off High Bluff Island. A couple of geologists and a limnologist were called in right away, sworn to secrecy, and shown the pictures. The Wind Turbine Foundation company had a fair amount of money riding on getting seventy-eight large wind turbines installed on the bottom of the lake, and nobody wanted any problems.

      But, right where there was supposed to be nothing but a bit of mud or sand on top of good solid limestone, there was an odd-shaped object in seventy feet of water.

      What the hell is that thing? the younger geologist with the red hair asked no one in particular.

      Looks like an odd-shaped submarine, the older geologist with no hair noted. Really odd-shaped. The others just pursed their lips and contemplated the awful prospect of some historical association getting involved. It wouldn't do WTF any good. Worse, there'd been a ban on putting wind turbines into the waters off mainland Ontario since some premier of the province, a little desperate for votes before an election, had listened to an ecological group. This was to be the first offshore wind farm since the ban was lifted, and nobody in the company wanted any problems. None – or at least none they couldn't hide.

      It should be explained that the name of the company had started out as Wind Turbine Farms, with the senior officials blissfully unaware of the use that their grandkids were making of the initialism, WTF. It also turned out that any use of the word farm brought derisive laughter from the farming community, most of whom seemed convinced that wind turbines reduced their wives’ sex drives. It was agreed among the officials of the Wind Turbine Foundation that since they’d made up a lot of letterhead, business cards, and some giant letters to go onto the little building they owned in an industrial suburb of Kitchener, WTF had to stay, and since the founder and CEO said foundation sounded nice and stable, they’d keep it as WTF. Besides, he noted, every other text message on the planet helped advertise the company, one way or another.

      The older geologist with no hair, the sexy blonde limnologist, and the younger male geologist with the red hair looked carefully at the sonar, and at the underwater photographs that had been taken by a camera lowered from a fishing boat.

      At least it's not the wreck of the Speedy, the limnologist noted. She got a bunch of blank looks. In 1804, the scientist told them, the Speedy was carrying important people who planned to make Presqu'ile Point the capital of the local district. It was also carrying one of our first nations brothers, whom they planned to try and hang to mark the occasion."

      And it went down here? a voice asked. Everyone turned, to see the CEO, who had a habit of arriving quietly. Meeting the Dilbert Requirement for managers, he was tall, and had good hair, unlike the younger geologist who had spiky hair and the limnologist who had blonde hair tied in a ponytail.

      Went down off High Bluff Island, with the loss of all lives, the limnologist continued. The governor of the province moved the capital to Cobourg and the wreck of the Speedy was supposedly never found, although one fellow in Trenton thinks he spotted it out near Weller's Bay. I'm pretty sure this isn't it.

      We hope.

      It doesn't look like any wooden boat I've ever seen, the older geologist with no hair said. He paused. Looks a bit like the American Civil War boat, Monitor – the ironclad boat. He looked up to see the expression on the others' faces. Oh, it couldn't be, of course. It looks like a submarine with no conning tower and a single large round hatch in the middle. And besides, it seems to have no magnetic component at all," he added.

      Ever seen anything like it – other than the Monitor, of course? The CEO looked over his reading glasses at the limnologist.

      Never. Ever. There's no record of any submarines in Lake Ontario, aside from a wild rumour in World War Two that a German U-boat was seen there. That's impossible, and this doesn't look like a U-boat anyway. You can see it's settled into the mud until it's hardly projecting at all – not even any fishing nets caught on it.

      So what do we do? the older geologist with no hair asked.

      We ignore it, the tall CEO with good hair said. Build the foundations beside it. Don't mention it to anyone.

      The others nodded, but after the meeting, the limnologist placed a phone call to a number in Langley, Virginia.

      In another part of the building, the CEO sighed, got out a little book of regulations, and placed a call to an arm of the Canadian government. At least, he figured, that group might be able to keep the find secret.

      ****

      Langley, Virginia

      CIA (The Company) Headquarters

      Four Days before Button Day

      In Langley, a phone rang at The Company. Chung Import/Export, a voice answered.

      Bosco at 7700, the limnologist in Kitchener said, and eventually got the voice of a young man in Langley, with an odd echo to the call.

      This is code Betty Baggins, the limnologist said, untying her ponytail, because even minor people who worked for The Company didn't go around in ponytails. She wished she had a trench coat, just for the phone call.

      Hang on. The young guy in the small basement room at the CIA, who also had a ponytail, looked up the code name. It went back a long way, to the predecessor of a predecessor of both of them. Are you 97? the young guy asked.

      I'm the person who inherited the position of Betty Baggins, the annoyed limnologist said. I was told I'd get a payment for anything interesting I could turn up in my job if I phoned this number.

      Ah, it looks like this project was supposed to have been terminated at the end of the cold war, the young guy admitted. I was wondering if you were 97 years old. "

      As I said, I inherited this number. Do you want what I've got or not. How much do I get?

      Look, I'll tell you what. Give me a brief description, and I'll look into it, and if it's good I'll get back to you. The young guy was part of an organization that was reduced to chaos. Anything he did was likely to be wrong. On the other hand, a retired general was now running The Company. The general hadn't a clue what to do with anything but his paycheck, but he knew he didn't like guys with ponytails. A confrontation was inevitable, so the young guy was willing to take a chance.

      The limnologist thought about it. I guess. Bottom of Lake Ontario. Sub-like thing in the mud, she said. Outline looks like the civil war boat Monitor, I'm told. One big round circle, a hatch or a turret, right in the middle. Maybe twenty metres long. She hung up and wondered if she'd get enough for pizza. What the hell.

      It took the young guy with the ponytail seven phone calls just to find the name of someone who might have a clue, and it was a day before a call came from an old guy, retired (and, according to Records, dead) who was fishing in Chesapeake Bay with a woman who could have been his granddaughter, but wasn't. Tell me what you have, his old voice whispered.

      The young guy with the ponytail had heard the footsteps of the general pass his office, then pause. He passed along the description. Then the old voice whispered, I think I just shit my pants. What you said cannot be true, cannot be true. Pay anything you need to pay for more information from the Kitchener woman. Got a pen? Requisition number 888A610. Use code Barbara. I'll call you tomorrow. Be waiting.

      The general who was now in charge of The Company was in a foul mood. During the cold war, his antecedents had had the ear of the White House. Now he was lucky to get the ear of the woman in charge of the West Wing cafeteria. But when he opened the door, the young guy was sporting a crew cut and putting a pair of scissors away . His ponytail was now in the garbage can.

      The limnologist in Kitchener,, who still had her ponytail and a degree from Conestoga College, got the call a day later from the young guy with the new crew cut hairdo at The Company . Ten bucks, he said.

      Fifteen, the limnologist said, as she preferred better quality pizzas.

      Two thousand, eight hundred and six if you can get a copy of a picture, the young guy said, making up the number. He had an inspiration. Double that if you can email me a picture.

      Up that to an even five thousand, the limnologist said, her math being a bit weak, and I'll have it to you tomorrow. She had, of course, already taken a picture of the sonar scan with her cell phone.

      Copies of the picture multiplied slowly in Virginia, kept to a tight circle. But not watertight; an old staffer placed a call from a street phone to Ottawa a couple of days later.

      ****

      Ottawa

      Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)

      Four Days before Button Day

      Are there any questions so far?

      Oscar Copeman, known as Cope to the other agents in the room, said nothing. He had spent twenty minutes so far watching the presentation and trying to keep his mind on visions of a couple of the office secretaries mud-wrestling, naked. It hadn’t worked very well.

      Senior Agent Lafontaine wasn’t good at giving presentations, and he was botching this one up. He was also very new to the team, or he wouldn’t have looked at Cope when he asked for questions. The others knew better. Mr. Copeman? Lafontaine asked, into the silence. What threats do you personally rate most likely from Muslim groups in Canada?

      The other agents sighed, collectively, and tried to get their minds onto naked secretaries or gardeners, as the case might be. They would have preferred running screaming from the room or faking a heart attack, but that had been tried earlier and no longer worked. Cope was not a team player at this point in his life.

      A friend had asked Cope why he didn’t just quit the Canadian Security Intelligence Service if he didn’t like it any more.

      Pension, Cope had answered, sucking on a chocolate cigarette. In a year I get a full pension. If I quit, I lose about thirty percent of it. I’m only fifty, so that makes a big difference if I live long enough. On the other hand, they can give me an early pension that would be almost as good as a full one.

      What do you mean, ‘if you live long enough’? You think they’ll bump you off?

      Cope had laughed. Haven’t heard that quaint old expression in years. No, nobody gets bumped off in the service any more, not after Neil Lucy disappeared mysteriously back in 1968. He sucked a bit more on the cigarette, a so-far-successful effort to quit smoking. Three weeks later a whole shitload of classified material – including lots of good stuff about his superiors – showed up at head office, with copies to every major newspaper and the Albanian embassy. No, you can’t threaten a dead man, so they like you alive.

      So you’re just going to be a nuisance until CSIS gives you an early pension?

      Worse than that. Much worse. I’m going to tell the truth, but only within the organization.

      Isn’t CSIS committed to truth? the friend had asked.

      Cope had almost choked on the chocolate cigarette.

      Goat vindaloo, Cope said, decisively, looking up at Lafountaine. Goat vindaloo from a Bangladeshi restaurant like the Kismet.

      Lafontaine looked flustered.

      Some people wander into the place and ask for the ‘hot’ version, Cope said. That’ll kill some people.

      Senior Agent Lafontaine forced a smile. I’m trying to be serious, Mr. Copeman. I want to list possible scenarios in which Muslims already within Canada might, individually or collectively, want to hurt this nation.

      Ah, Cope said. This nation. So we don’t have to worry about the other nations in Canada.

      Senior Agent Lafontaine looked confused.

      Canada has several nations within it. Isn’t that right, Paul? Richard? Cope looked at the aboriginal and Quebecois members."

      Lafontaine scrunched up his face. You know what I meant.

      I did, Cope said, but I find it dangerous to assume that I can always tell what a person means when it’s not what he said. I learned that a long time ago.

      Maybe someone else can start the list. Lafontaine grabbed the whiteboard marker somewhat tighter.

      But now that I think I know what you meant, instead of what I know what you said, Cope went on, I’d be happy to say that this is all pensionable time, but otherwise a waste of a good afternoon.

      And why would that be?

      We already keep tabs on every possible Muslim threat in this… country. There isn’t a mosque from Labrador to Victoria that isn’t bugged by us at least twice, once under the water cooler and once under a quotation from the Prophet. Cope scratched himself, wishing for nicotine. Peace be upon him, he added. "And that doesn’t include any illegal bugs our friends to the south have installed.

      We’ve bugged every place three young Muslims could possibly eat, including every fried-chicken place in every major city. We tap so many phones we’ve had to install a very expensive computer just to sort out the messages, and if some poor joker mentions that next week’s looking good for a picnic, we’ll follow him right up to the time his family unrolls a blanket on the beach.

      I think…

      It’s got so my dentist is afraid to put in a filling in case someone thinks he’s suspected of inventing tooth bombs.

      You have a Muslim dentist? someone asked, loudly. Cope suspected this would be added to his file, and if his dentist’s brother-in-law’s second cousin had visited Pakistan in the last decade, Cope would be checked out again. A note about tooth bombs would be made somewhere.

      You’re calling this a pointless exercise? Lafontaine said, grimly.

      Cope waved his hands. Not at all. Not at all. If we don’t chase Muslims, then we don’t get big grants to chase Muslims just because our Friends to the South are totally whacko. I’m not trying to stop this exercise; I’m just identifying it as I see it. It’s my duty to be perceptive for these younger fellas.

      Lafontaine wrote tooth bombs on the whiteboard. You know, he said, a mouthful of explosive dentures could be used for targeted assassinations. Or for blowing out the windows on an airliner. Thank you, Mr. Copeman. Do we have any other suggestions? Not everybody in the room was able to keep a straight face, but they did manage to come up with other suggestions, the sensible ones being those that they’d seen many times before.

      Cope may have got his point across, but it served him to no good end, for Lafontaine complained to his boss, and Cope ended up getting assigned to drive to Brighton, Ontario, to look around for odd rumors. He told Paula, his wife, and she just sighed. Better than being assigned to Afghanistan or Glen Miller, Cope pointed out. I'm only a couple of hours away for a week. It didn’t make her much happier, but then, he hadn't supposed it would.

      Early the next morning Cope called Jag Stone, an old friend in Brighton. Jag. This is the man from the movie academy.

      Ah, well hello, old guy. In Afghanistan, Copeman had been ribbed for his first name, Oscar. Another tango gets an Oscar; the men had said when Cope had eliminated a Taliban fighter, add it to the movie credits. It didn't make much sense, but nothing over there had made much sense. He knew Cope was leery about phone conversations – it seemed to be part of the spy business to be a little paranoid.

      I need a favor. Will you have time to meet with me the day after tomorrow?

      Sure, Jag said. I'm on duty all day, but we can meet at lunch downtown.

      How about Carrying Place, at the cafe in the gas station.

      12:05. I'll be at the main intersection; the café closed last month.

      Thanks. Bye.

      Secret meetings, Jag thought. I wonder what's up. But it didn't keep him awake.

      ****

      Toronto

      The Piazza Manna bar facing the harbor

      Four Days before Button Day

      Outside, the wind suddenly threw rain onto the Queens Quay, onto the people heading to catch the last ferries, onto the Captain John's Restaurant boat tied to the docks. The street shone like diamonds, and people, laughing, ran for cover.

      Somewhere above the clouds and beyond the rainbows the stars shone bright and cold and much too far away. Another night, and no communication from the Empire approached the cloudy blue planet.

      Inside the Piazza Manna bar five creatures waited out the night. All of them looked human. Two weren’t, at least not completely.

      Jack, which wasn't his real name (you couldn't pronounce it unless you were born a hgkpphtitrw) was slurring his words. He leaned over towards Jim , and wheezed, carefully, I say we blow the whole damn planet to hell!

      Jim (which wasn't his real name), thoughtfully stuffed his tongue up his left nostril, in the way that hgkpphtitrw have done for a million years. It was a tribute to what he could will his host's aging human body to do. He'd had his host as long as Jack, but had taught the human form a few civilized tricks. Catching the bartender's eye, he pulled his tongue back.

      Ah, he huffed, in a loud voice, looking toward the bartender, two more of the same. He was old, and his nose hairs swayed back and forth as he breathed.

      Outside, individuals and lovers strolled the darkening street, then turned back toward the string of hotels to the east. At this end of Toronto, there was little to see or do after dark. But lovers were lovers and Toronto had streets aplenty for them and memories of this night forever, even in the rain.

      Above the nighttime thunderstorm, the stars twinkled, a lifetime too far away. The two at the bar had long ago stopped looking at them, waiting for their call to come in.

      The bartender hoisted out the bourbon bottle, sploshed some into a couple of glasses, then sprinkled a generous dose of cilantro into the glass. If that's what they wanted, he figured, that's what they get. Business was slow at this time of the year, especially in cool weather. To a bartender there was no such thing as absurd, although these two nose-lickers were pushing the limit. But he knew they'd be gone in a couple of hours, as usual.

      There was a moment's silence, as the two slurped their drinks. He never puts the damn cilantro into the glass first, Jack hiccupped. He'll be first to the slaughter!

      Kind of pointless, turning this damn planet into a ring of pebbles, Jim pointed out, when we're stuck here. He fondled an egg-sized object that looked like a beach stone. It was a command unit, but it reminded him of a childhood toy he’d had on the volcano-ridden home world of the hgkpphtitrw, and he began to cry. He was sure he'd never hear the wind in the craters again.

      For crissakes, Jack licked at the cilantro and bourbon, closest thing Earth had to the sacred food of his people. Stop crying. If you want, we'll open that bar on the beach, like you wanted. Above him, a slow fan moved damp air. A wet drunk stumbled in, fell over a chair, and was quickly escorted back into the rain.

      Personally, Jack thought it was a stupid idea. Not, maybe, as stupid as Jim's attempt to revive and market the strigil. The Roman bath tool had reminded the alien of hgkpphtitrw bathing rites, and he'd assumed earth people would welcome the scraping of water off their ugly skins. Wrong. Wrong to the tune of much of what money they'd had at the time, before they sold another lot of their diamonds.

      Eventually, he had realized Jim hadn't his horsepower in the cranial area, so he was inclined to humor his friend/niece/grandfather, if only for kinship's sake. He tried to thpddf at the thought, but the human form wasn't equipped for it.

      Jim raised his teary eyes from the drink, wishing he could uswaqjI, but the frail and absurd human body was a couple of penises and a heel-horn short of being able to do that. He fanned an ear instead.

      Thanks, Mr. Daniels, he whispered. I'd like that. He raised his glass in shaky hands. To our own little exclave of hgkpphtitrw. He farted happily (the hgkpphtitrw talk through their anuses).

      Give me the rock, Jack whispered. or tried to; he was quite drunk by now."

      You don't trust me? I'm not the one ready to blow up Earth.

      Not with sixteen drinks and a planet-wrecker. Bad combo.

      You're just as drunk!

      You promised I could open a bar on the beach east of Panama City. A hiccup.

      Jim looked at the smooth bit of stone. I've never opened it.

      That's why we and billions of humans are still inhabiting this swamp. The rock. But Jim stubbornly put it into his pocket. Maybe this year we'll be called back home, he said.

      Jack ignored him. So many years had gone by, and every year there seemed less hope that politics in the empire would end their exile. At least their spaceship was still safely in the waters of Lake Ontario. The newer versions of side-scanning sonar were finding old shipwrecks, but the Professor Nothing (the closest translation into human terms) was hidden under the mud. It was also invisible to magnetic detection.

      At least, Jack thought, there wasn’t a sign of the humans who called themselves alien hunters. That group of nutbars had actually discovered a bit of the truth, and were going around trying to locate humans who were controlled by aliens. So far as Jack knew, only one had been found, but he also knew that not all the other nine aliens were in communication with the rest. Some were just too cautious.

      The rain picked up outside, tap-dancing on the roof of a white Buick, illegally idling for a moment on the street.

      Jim looked at the bartender. Another of the same. Cilantro first, okay?

      The bartender nodded. Outside, in the dark, the eastern sky was starting to lighten a bit as the clouds blew out over Lake Ontario. The two looked at their drinks, sighed, and tried to keep their minds on opening a little bar where strange hairless apes learned to love a new drink made of Wild Turkey and cilantro and you could watch pelicans riding the sea winds.

      ****

      Toronto

      The home of a member of The Philip Group

      Four Days before Button Day

      Not quite fifty years ago a bunch of ghost-happy Torontonians

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