The Ill-mannered Door (humorous sci-fi)

39.1: Valley of the Monuments

Our travel to Monument Valley, despite making the journey in a flying sailing ship, was surprisingly uneventful. You'd be amazed by just how infrequently people look up or pay attention to what is going on around them. There were young children in a few places that pointed excitedly at our ship floating by, but the adults ignored them in favor of things like watching videos of cats on their mobiles and scrolling through to see what their friends had for lunch. There was no time, it seemed, to watch a ship sail across the sky.

There also was no time for us to stop, as Derek strongly stressed just how important it was that we beat Queen Esmerelda to the Verlan Beta portal. We had to stop her from leaving Earth, and disarm the bomb, he insisted. The king and I wholeheartedly agreed.

The lack of stops did, however, mean having to use that infernal chamber pot, which became my arch-nemesis. It was a truly treacherous object and had a mind to tip over at the slightest movement of the ship while in use. Not to mention that I had to take great care when emptying the contents over the side to not get any of it on myself or any hapless victims on the ground below. That wasn't always a smashing success, as I'm sure that one gentleman jogging with his dog near Las Vegas would vociferously attest. If you are reading this, sir, I deeply apologize for the trauma I caused to both you and your fine poodle that ill-fated morning. Please accept my deepest regrets for my poor timing and reckless negligence.

In any case, our journey was coming to an end, and upon entering the vicinity of Monument Valley, I was stunned speechless by the natural beauty. I had seen shots of it in some film or other, but that compared to the actual sight of the towering monuments about as well as social media friends compare with those you actually have in person. That is to say, not at all.

On our final approach to the valley, the wind was against us and the sailors had to tack into the wind. This was quite a tedious approach where we zigzagged back and forth over the plains, making slow but steady progress toward our destination. This did, however, give me plenty of time to take in the sights. The scenery made me feel like a cowboy riding his horse across the plains... except for the lack of a horse or any of the other cowboy paraphernalia.

Once we entered the valley and reached the portal itself, I wondered how we would know if the queen had already managed to go through the portal prior to our arrival. Derek didn't think so, and he used the silver cube to somehow query the portal to determine that it hadn't been opened in some time. So, we resigned ourselves to waiting. For his part, Derek decided to spend his time below decks, taking naps to rest up for what was coming. He seemed to have a knack for quickly dropping off to sleep whenever he got a free moment of downtime.

For my part, getting to sleep is a project, and I was never one for naps. I was also quite nervous, and my mind kept spinning about what would happen next as I paced the deck. Looking 'round, it occurred to me that our ship would be quite visible for several miles as we waited there at the portal. That didn't seem like a good thing to me, given all that I had heard over the years about the importance of the element of surprise. So, I wondered how in the world we could hide our ship from the eyes of the queen and her men on their approach. I decided to discuss it with the king.

The king, it seemed, was way ahead of me, and he had already come up with a plan. He ordered his men to stop the Bounty on the west side of a large butte, which would hide us nicely, provided the Esmerelda came at least roughly from the east so we could get the drop on her.

As it turns out, she eventually did... but we didn't.