The Feminine Queendom 18 © Copyright Beverly Taff
Charlie’s war.

List of Characters.
Charlie Sage Maths and electronics genius.
Shirley Sage Charlies elderly mother
Chloe Charlie’s one time early school friend.
Josephine Flint Surgeon and associate of Chloe’s.
Mrs Jane Anston Director of Anston Aerospace.
Ronnie Garage mechanic at top of lane
Pauline Garage owner, Ronnie’s sister.
Briony Pauline’s teenaged daughter.
Billy Pauline’s middle son.
Abigail (Abby) Pauline’s youngest daughter.
‘Poppy’ Charlie’s little micro-runabout.
‘Doris’ The armoured mobile home.
‘Lady’ Chloe’s Sports Car.
Colonel Wilson Vindictive misanthropist doctor.

Chapter 18

After his conversation with Jane Anston, Charlie knew that they would have marked his card at Anston Aerospace. When he left that evening, he took an alternative bus to another part of town, then changed buses and finally met his regular bus route in the suburbs. Lastly he disembarked several stops past Ronnie’s garage and phoned Chloe to collect him.

From where he stood waiting for Chloe, he was well hidden yet he had a clear view on all sides and there was little chance of anybody surprising him. His ground-suit would protect him from any taser assault and he would have time to hide if he spotted any vehicle coming down the road. He was not surprised to see one of the first functional ‘hover-cars’ sweep by at ten metres above the road and he ruefully reflected that it was his own invention that had enabled such craft to become fact.

Naturally, he presumed it to be a police car or otherwise the property of some well-paid senior executive.
Cautiously, he shrank back under the ivy covered wall to make himself invisible and he remained thus until he recognised Chloe driving Lady. As arranged, she stopped by the wall and Charlie quickly slid into the passenger seat.

“Nobody’s followed me and it’s safe to talk.”

“Go on, Chloe encouraged.”

“I think we’re just about done here. It’s time I joined you in Australia.”

“At long bloody last!” Chloe sighed as she turned to their daughter. “What d’you think of that Charlotte? Daddy’s coming home for good.”

Charlotte simply gurgled contentedly, glad to see her daddy again, while Charlie’s heart flipped as he turned to meet his daughter’s smile. That smile was incentive enough for Charlie and when they arrived back at their cottage he and Chloe started seriously planning their future.

“I don’t think we’ve got much time, the director called me in today and gave me the third degree. She definitely suspects something after I voiced some discontent about my situation.”

“Oh damn! What did you say?”

“Enough, well; more than enough. I’m just sick and tired of being taken for granted, - being abused. No matter what I do for them, I can never be promoted.”

“That’s the feminista law love,” Chloe replied, “Jan Anston can’t do much about that. I’m sure she’d promote you right to the top if the law allowed.”

“If the law allowed, I’d form my own company then we’d both be the beneficiaries. This Feminista business denies you your entitlement while I’m tied to reserved status to Anston Aerospace. We could, and should be partners in our own company.”

“It’s not that much better in Australia,” Chloe cautioned, “the only big difference is that Aussie men are free to roam the outback and they don’t suffer a curfew unless they come to town. They don’t need a pass.”

“Yeah, that’s another thing; having to carry my curfew pass wherever I go.”

“Well, shall we go for it?” Chloe asked, “bid goodbye to this feminist shithole.”

“Yeah, I’m game. Your bank account is looking healthy with all our patent royalties.”

“Yes, I get a lot of bowing and scraping whenever I venture into town. Fortunately, that’s a good few hundred miles from the mining hospital where I work so people don’t make any connections. Commuting betwixt and between is easy with Lady and her antigrav.”

“Our patent rights should more than support me then,” Charlie explained. “I can work at home and build a proper spaceship that doesn’t have to be disguised as a camper-van or mobile home.”

“To what end?” Chloe wondered.

“If a UFO suddenly starts appearing in the skies all over the Earth, people are going to get scared, especially if their governments can’t explain.”

“Is that your plan? To scare them shitless.”

“It’s the first part of my plan. Loiter menacingly over their cities then if they try to shoot me down I retaliate.”

“What if they manage to hit you with one of their missiles, or even a shell? If you’re just hovering, you’re a sitting duck.”

I can dodge their missiles; don’t forget we have anti inertia pads that ameliorate the effects of sudden accelerations. That’s part of the same science as antigrav. I can move sideways as fast as I can rise or sink without any effect on my body.”

“You be bloody careful !” Chloe demanded. “I don’t want Charlotte growing up an orphan. Giving Charlotte a daddy she could know and recognise, was one of the reasons I married you.”

“Don’t worry darling.” It’ll be at least a year before I’ve built a sufficiently bomb-proof space-craft. It’ll take me six months to locate, purchase and bring the heavy steel plate to the cave and then fabricate the shell.”

“Please don’t call our outback home a cave.” Chloe begged him. “It makes us sound like cave-dwellers or troglodytes.”

“So what do you want to call it?”

“Try calling it a grotto.” Chloe suggested. “Chacho Grotto sounds good.”

Charlie grinned, “Okay, Chacho Grotto it is, or Chacho for short; - come to think of it the word Coach might be better, people won’t associate Coach with two parts of our names combined.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea, ‘Coach’, if people come looking they’ll probably be thinking bus or something.”
“It won’t matter what they are looking for. Everything is underground now anyway. If we simply speak of our coach, it will serve to confuse.”

ooo000ooo
Having decided a strategy, the pair spent the following month carefully transferring every usable commodity from the UQ cottage to Coach. Chloe then put their cottage on the market and as soon as it was sold, Chloe returned to Australia to resume her job.

Charlie, meanwhile, lived for nearly a year in his mobile-home/camper van to allow Chloe to finalise her immigration status and acquire Australian citizenship. When, the authorities came looking for Charlie,, nobody would have any idea where he had disappeared to.

Living for those remaining months as a single person in a mobile-home in the UQ, Charlie received no ‘snail-mail’ and all communication with Anston Aerospace had always been done by phone, or email. He travelled by bus to and from work and parked his camper-van in a different location every night.

And so it came to be that Charlie Sage, one time innovative supervisor at Anston Aerospace suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth.
What was worse was that nobody knew where to contact his wife and daughter because Chloe had emigrated to Australia under her own maiden name.

Yes, strange as it may seem, there had been another hic-up in the feminista wars. Some of the old customs concerning old-fashioned marriage had not been formally and legally updated. A woman could still take her ‘husband’s’ family name if she chose.
Chloe had done so to leave less ‘footprints’ around when the authorities started looking, - as she knew they would when they had lost Charlie.
ooo000ooo
By further pre-arrangement, Charlie silently delivered Chloe, Charlotte and Lady to Coach then he stocked up on supplies and left to overwinter in Antarctica and thus disappear completely for three months.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Chloe fretted.

“Don’t worry petal,” Charlie reassured her. “I’ll be overwintering in the dry desert valleys around the McMurdo Mountains. It never snows there but it’s bitterly cold. The winds are so strong, no choppers can fly and it’s too cold to go out for more than an hour. Doris, however, is designed for exactly this sort of caper.”

“But if something goes wrong, you’re so remote.”

“I’ve done everything I can, Doris carries duplicate equipment in just about every area there could be a failure. I won’t say it’s fool-proof, but there’s back-ups backing the back-ups. I’ve installed four modest but very robust wind turbines that can be extended when Doris is stationary on the ground to charge the batteries. They operate in winds up to two hundred knots.

“Well I want you to return every weekend, and we’ll rendezvous somewhere different every time.”

“Or, you and Charlotte could visit me. The antigravs are not affected by wind or frost, and with Sat-nav it’s easy.”

“I’m not happy with that,” Chloe protested, “Lady hasn’t been cold-proofed like Doris. Apart from the antigravity discs, Lady is still a standard car.”

“Okay then, stop fretting, I’ll call home to Coach once a weekend but it will have to be at night.”

After sorting out a comprehensive list of ‘do’s and don’ts, Charlie eventually took his leave and once more, Chloe found herself staring at the empty horizon as Charlie first skimmed at low level before ascending into space. This was to avoid being detected on any radars whilst in the vicinity of Coach. Once he was several hundred miles from the excavated grotto called Coach, Charlie quickly ascended into space then set course for Antarctica. If any military radars might have detected Doris, it would have been over the great Australian bight as she headed towards the McMurdo mountain ranges and the frozen desert valleys.

ooo000ooo

After first getting well away from Coach, Charlie took Doris straight up into space then paused over the McMurdo mountains after a brief flight through space. It was not hard to locate the area because the land showed up darkly through the permanently cloudless peaks where the mountains squeezed all the moisture from the katabatic winds.

Having checked out the intended landing position several times during his many transits over the south pole from Australia to the UQ, Charlie was soon able to locate his favoured spot and he descended confidently to ground level before skimming into a sheltered snow-free coll where the steep ridge forced the ever present katabatic wind to sheer over the ridge whilst forming a permanent pennant of cloud that would hide Doris from any spy satellites.

Hidden from view, but ice free, Doris settled comfortably beside a large greyish rock that resembled Doris’s charcoal camouflage. The rock also served to break up the screaming wind so as to reduce the impact to his wind-generators. Charlie had been extremely careful in his choice of campsite but even so, the occasional gusting eddy of wind caused Doris to rock unexpectedly.

Once Doris was settled, Charlie emerged from the small escape door at the rear of Doris who was orientated facing the prevailing winds. The small door was controllable in the lee of Doris’s bulk and Charlie stepped out into the mind-numbing, freezing hurricane. He quickly realised why exploration all but ceased in the Antarctic winter. One had to experience the appalling conditions to believe them.

After getting over the shock, Charlie cautiously checked around Doris and found nothing damaged. The wind turbines were operating successfully and the courtesy lights cast a loom of light some fifty yards around Doris. It being winter in the Antarctic, the permanent winter night obviated further exploration but Charlie determined that he could slowly set about building a better wind-break of stones to surround Doris at a suitable distance. If nothing else it would alleviate the sudden lurches that Doris made when the gusts hammered at her slab-sides.

It would be lethal to be cooking with hot oils or water during a sudden lurch. Any injury in these conditions carried far higher risks than in normal circumstances. He resolved to bring some stabilising guy ropes when next he visited Chloe, and these, combined with a growing stone wind-break would soon stop the juddering and shaking. After eating a substantial supper, Charlie went to bed.

ooo000ooo