Mattie's Woods on High Chasm

Amorella here. This is a continuation of yesterday's story.

Two

Without a hesitation and matter of factly Monty noted, “It is a spice. Slightly hot. Pleasant and desirable to some. I think the noun doesn’t translate.”

“You are from off planet then?”

“Yes, I am not from a nearby system, at least from our point of view.”

“I should have realized. I haven’t seen many of my species for so long I have forgotten there are yet others.”

“I am the first to land here as far as I know. I’ve been here for about a year. You are the first of your species I decided to meet.” He paused to let it sink in. “I did hike across the top of the ridge.”

“You look as if you had, I don’t question that.”

Silence at the table hovered though it was not as uncomfortable as either would have expected it to be.

“You know about us and how we are as a civilization,” said Mattie. “Do I know your system? I don’t think so.”

“I thought we knew everyone in the galaxy.”

“We humanoids are few and far between.”

Mattie smiled warmly, “Probably a good reason for that.” She leaned forward on the table and stared into his dark eyes, “You appear to be exactly like us. You giving me a line here?”

“I doubt anyone ever gave you a line, Ms Mattie.”

She sat with a puzzled face and scratched the back of her head with her left hand and half grinned as she commented, “I did have a suitor once.”

“What happened?”

She returned to the fuller comfort of the old chair and said, “I killed him.”

The uncaring tone surprised him more than the words themselves. “I’m sorry,” he said instinctively while his mind automatically punched in a self-survival mode.

She answered calmly and directly, “He deserved it.”

With a selfish sincerity he asked, “What did he do?”

She folder her arms across her chest and said, “He called me a liar.”

Again, silence formed over the table. Anger, thought Monty. That’s the reason I’m out here in the first place. Here I am on the other side of the Milky Way galaxy confronting another angry woman. Who In their right mind would have ever thought this to be possible? He remembered how, almost a year before he passed over this mountain area gathering information while in orbit. The very oddly outer shaped miniature ship is undetectable by alien devices and is not much larger than a large building elevator or an old fashion jail cell on the inside. The T-man’s cabin is its nickname and was first so called by an earlier explorer who had trouble pronouncing ‘Thoreau’.

Mattie sat, arms still folded, mulling over her life. I was in the Honors program before the short war broke out. They put me in QPAD quantum physics ammunition development. We wanted untraceable light pellets. I gave them what they wanted and we quickly ended the coup d'etat before it began. States Rights. We are the States and we are right. It was a moral issue worthy of the fight. Lots of underlings killed. Bureaucrats all. We took them out in a week. No one died who wasn’t on the list. No one. I created those untraceable munitions. Now I am retired with a good pension.

Suddenly it hit her. Her suitor hadn’t been on the list. Mattie had mistakenly used the wrong ammunition to kill him and had got away with it. What had been a lie before now was not. No wonder his murder was never solved. Maybe it was the excellent use of off-planet poison. I killed him though. Poisonous light.

I had created an extra pellet to keep for myself. A memento. I am proud of my munitions work. But, perhaps I am mistaken. Where did I put that pellet? Erroneous memory, surely that’s it. Why would I think such a thing? And, why now? I wanted to him dead for weeks. Surely as I live, I pulled the trigger. I have had no regrets. Mattie cautiously and timidly smiled and asked with a flirtatious wink, “Would you like another cinnamon tea?”