SUNGLASESS AND ROCKETS Part 2: The Machine

A PARADISICAL PLACE

For a moment, I thought too that we had arrived in heaven. But the radar, which was working now again, proved false our celestial ending.

I half closed my eyes and stared at the screen. I was out of breath. An enormous circular structure adhered to us and it didn't take long to cover up the whole screen, which went dark.

The monitor's reading told us that we were now shifting at 615 miles per hour. Our speed had decreased dramatically. I felt some torque on the wheel. Timidly, I removed my hands. The rudder was steering by itself.

Suddenly, the light vanished and a soft shake was felt. I looked at the radar: the odd structure was gone.

I remained stupefied.

Now, on the horizon, the American continent was looming in green and brown shades. Vast cloud configurations which denoted hurricanes were appearing by the Atlantic coasts, near the YucatanGulf.

We had been rescued by an extraterrestrial spaceship. It had guided us into the atmosphere. There was no other explanation!

I was still stupefied. I just held onto the rudder. Darwin took charge of the comments.

"Gordo," he stammered. "Are we alive?"

It took me more than a minute to answer. I was still stunned.

"Yes."

"Gordo," Darwin went on. "How did you do that?"

"Didn't you see?"

"Can I open my eyes now?"

"Darwin," I said. "It wasn't me. An extraterrestrial spaceship saved our lives."

"I'm glad," my friend replied.

"Me too."

And so disconcerted we were that we didn't say more. It was a fact that extraterrestrials existed. It was a fact that they had saved our lives and had rescued an investment of who knows how many billions of dollars...

At that moment I remembered the important cargo we were carrying.

"Darwin!" I exclaimed. "The SVM!"

My friend fine tuned up the screen of the mechanical arm several times.

"It's there!" he said. "It's still there!"

"What do we do?" I replied. "We should have taken it to the moon!"

"We have no choice. Battery charge is reaching red!"

Certainly, we were descending. A vast territorial extension of picturesque colors was approaching at high speed. It was the American continent. The hurricane on the Atlantic coast of Central America offered a magnificent view. The eye was perfectly round and dark. A funnel.

Some degrees higher to the north, you were able to see the impressive moon shadow irresistibly moving on the Atlantic waters, moving away from the east coast of North America, as far up as New York and New Jersey.

It was good to be back on Earth.

The bad thing was to come back as the horsemen of the Apocalypse; our particular cargo was able to cause entire worlds to derail...

"We have to report the emergency," I said.

The high pitched whistles were heard again.

"The radio is still not working," Darwin whispered. "We have to wait until we get there."

In a matter of seconds we would be as far up as the first layers of clouds and in a few more, touching ground. That was the moment to decide where in the American continent we would be landing.

By the way, the only thing I knew about flying a spaceship was holding the rudder. And I didn't dare to push any other button being certain that we would crash before time...

In any event, we had to discuss it.

"Where should we land?" I asked.

"Let's search for KennedySpaceCenter, in Florida," Darwin proposed. "NASA's space shuttle lands there."

It sounded like a good idea. However, I was forced to discard it.

"I'm afraid we would run a great danger if we enter the airspace of the United States. The radio doesn't work. There's no way to identify ourselves," I heaved a sigh. "A couple of F-16's would chase us as if we were a UFO..."

We were crossing the first layers of clouds.

"I don't want to become a new Roswell case," Darwin replied.

The decision couldn't wait any longer. I steered and headed to Central America.

"We will land in Guatemala."

I had already spotted that plot of land right below Mexico.

"Why not?" Darwin answered. "Once we find a landing strip we'll find out how to brake."

I was tempted to propose a landing on some clandestine airstrip in the jungle, but I changed my mind when I remembered the drug dealers...

"I know where the airport is," I said more prudently, "I saw it when we were coming from Miami."

The image of the buildings in the middle of a mountainous territory was still fresh in my mind and if my calculations were correct...

Actually, I was dying to see Vanessa.

"We're almost there..." Darwin announced.

I took a deep breath.

You could see the crammed chain of mountains, a characteristic of that region in Central America. Our altitude was reduced by dozens of feet per second. Meanwhile, an occasional runaway cloud brought itself between my eager looks and the rough region. I saw an extensive zone of buildings. In the distance, the majestic wingspan of a silver plane taking off showed up.

"An American Airlines plane!" Darwin exclaimed.

Encouraged, I searched in that direction. Bingo. A long airstrip appeared between the buildings.

"The airport!"

"We have company," Darwin replied.