Cuties At Sea, part 5

   Doris Flowers and Wendy Marco walked along the deck of the Conqueror. It was a beautiful, sun-drenched day which ran counter to the general listlessness of the ship and those aboard. With the ship unable to move and the studio crew unable to work, and all thoughts focused on those friends missing at sea, there was a sense of useless waiting which blanketed the vessel. The Boss and his wife leaned against the railing at the bow, looking out to sea. The Boss took a final drag from his cigarette and tossed it overboard before he felt a tug at his shirt. Doris, already diminutive, seemed even smaller and more helpless than usual. Her squeaky voice, normally so perky, seemed tired as she asked if there had been any word of the rescue of her friends. The Boss shook his head.

   "We'll hear something the minute they've been rescued," he explained, "radio is the life-line to ships at sea. If something happens, like a rescue, it doesn't take long for all of them to know about it."

   "I hope they're not in that open lifeboat still," Wendy watched the waves, "hopefully they've landed on an island or something."

   "I can't stand this not knowing much longer." Doris seemed on the verge of tears. The Boss knelt down to look her in the eye, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

   "I know what you're going through, Doris. They're your friends. I probably feel it more than you do. You know, you, Yvette, Minerva, Bev and Jean, all of you, you're more than friends to me. Ask my wife. I think of you all as my daughters, or at least my little sisters. You know there's nothing I won't do to get our friends back safely." Doris pulled close to his arm, pushing her forehead into his shoulder. He hugged her as his wife looked on. She could see what he had done. He made Doris feel better by letting her know that it was worse on himself, that whatever she was going through, he was going through it moreso. And Doris knew this was a man who would never give up, no matter the odds. Wendy smiled before looking back to sea.

   On the island, Julie pointed the attention of Bev, Jean, Yvette, and Daisy to a map hanging in the radio room. Tracing down the coordinates from last night's mayday, Julie stuck a pin into the map to show the position of the Conqueror.

   "The ship is about here, from what Clete wrote down, and our position is right here."

   "That looks so close," Beverly noted, "we may be just over the horizon of each other!"

   "Just about," Julie confirmed, "but not close enough. We could send smoke signals if we were closer, but at this distance, all they'd see is a cloud on the horizon."

   "Do you think they were in the storm last night?" Yvette asked.

   "No," Julie was certain, "they probably saw only the edges of it in the distance."

   "This is crazy," Bev paced, "here we are practically next door to each other and yet we can't communicate!"

   "Clete and Steve are doing everything they can to get the back-up generator going," Jeannie insisted, "just have patience."

   "We're on a time limit, Jean," Bev crossed her arms, "we have to evacuate before tonight's storm moves in. Last night's storm produced the lighting bolt that killed the backup generator. We can't waste time here. We gotta get word out, get clear, and then send in the Marines to blanket this island with incendiaries to make sure not a trace of Doc's little experiment makes it off this island." 

   Outside, the others looked on as Steve and Clete monkeyed with the back-up generator. Clete nodded to himself as he inspected a pair of wires.

   "What do you think?" Steve asked.

   "It should be up and running before too long. Within the hour, I hope." Minerva and Dr. Noyman inspected the foundation of the house, to make sure nothing from the lab had been able to escape. Noyman stopped to light a cigarette.

   "It's ironic. I wanted to develop a plant which would be resilient enough to withstand anything it was subjected to. Now I pray everything was destroyed and unable to reproduce itself."

   "You had good intentions." Minerva tried to comfort him. "You were trying to help people. You still can, even if this experiment didn't work."

   "How many disasters result from good intentions? We continue to think that we can control creation by our own hand, rather than accept our stewardship over same was meant to be Divinely guided. I was trying to improve upon a situation which was created for a purpose. The desert and the life therein has it's order. I neglected that order."

   "But you learned what a mistake it was before it could do any damage. I can see the Boss when we tell him about it. He'll want to make a movie out of it, I'm sure."

   "Better that way," Noyman smiled, "something to entertain. You came to my island at just the right moment. The Divine order I spoke of is fully on display. A volcano, a shift in current... I have no doubt that we'll get out of here and look back on this whole episode in wonder." Minerva nodded in agreement before turning to rest against the wall of the building. Noyman shared his cigarette with her. Minnie sighed.

   "I want to get word to our friends, let them know we're alright. We've been too busy to really think about it, but they've been stuck in one place with nothing much else to do but think about it."

   "I'm confident Clete will get the generator fixed. I wish I could be sure it will be early enough in the day to afford our evacuation from this island before nightfall."

   Julie carried a plate of sandwiches out of the main door and brought them to the gang huddled around the generator. "With no power," she explained as she placed sandwich halves into napkins for the men to handle them, "I figured we'd better eat the perishables." The other girls marched out behind Julie and took a position near Steve.

   "A fine idea," Clete wiped the grease off his hands before carefully taking the sandwich his wife held out for him, "I've been working so hard I forgot that I was hungry." Steve looked to the girls who had assembled behind him. Their expressions were almost identical, a visible curiosity about the status of the repairs.

   "I think we should be finished soon," he reported, "but with the Conqueror crippled, we won't be able to do much else than let them know we're alright. Unless there's another ship in the area now, we'll probably have to stay here for at least one more night."

   Back on the Conqueror, Crissy sat at the bow of the ship. Hanging onto the railings, she was letting her feet dangle over the side. Roger relaxed close by, but he remained fully on the deck as he watched his wife and chuckled to himself. In a way, Crissy was still just a kid. She bubbled with the vitality of youth, and every new experience was a moment of wide-eyed discovery. Yes, she possessed a wisdom which was at times beyond her years, but it was tempered with a child-like enthusiasm that Roger hoped Crissy would never lose. Even now, with things as they were, Crissy seemed to be enjoying herself by just being alive. And really, that was enough. Such a close call can put things back into perspective, and it made perfect sense that Crissy would be grateful to just be where she was. To feel the warm sunlight, the ocean breeze as it wafted around her toes, the warm caress of Roger's hand on her back. Whatever had happened in recent days, this moment was one of joyous intimacy. Every breath was a gift, and Crissy always kept that in mind.

   The calm on the deck was shattered by the Boss speaking over the loudspeaker. As news of the rescue of the castaways bellowed across the ship, there was an eruption of applause from all hands. On the bridge, the Boss checked a map with Captain Talbot. 

   "They're close," Talbot said, "so close I feel more helpless now than I did before."

   "When's help due to arrive?" 

   "We got word from a cargo ship that'll be in our area tonight, but not soon enough to evacuate the island before tonight's storms set in. If the intensity is like what they reported last night, they shouldn't attempt leaving that house until tomorrow."

   "At least we know they're safe. Better to have shelter than try to ride it out in that little lifeboat."

   "We can all relax, at least. Really relax now."

   On the island, the mood was similarly relaxed now that contact had been made and the generator was working. Daisy looked at the clear skies, awed by how much the weather could change on a regular basis here. In the house, Clete and Steve cleared the sand away from the metal door down to the lab. Noyman was curious to know what, if anything, had survived. They had to be sure it was all over before leaving. As the door was swung open, it was evident that the stone stairway had been blackened by the smoke and heat. It was quiet down there. The men took up flashlights and moved down into the stairwell as Beverly and Jeannie looked on.

   The lab was completely destroyed. Everything had been singed black, the tables reduced to piles of ash. The fire had burned with enough intensity to melt the control banks which would never be able to be salvaged. Clete nodded as he looked around.

   "Looks like we got everything, Doc."

   "Maybe not." Noyman reached down and sifted through some ashes. Small seed pods were pushed into view. "The experiment was too much a success. We destroyed the plant but it found a way to live on. These seed pods may be indestructible if they survived the fire that caused those instruments to melt."

   "They can be ground up and incinerated again," Steve offered, "just make sure we find them all."

   "I can't get over the irony," Noyman closely inspected one of the pods, "I achieved what I wanted to and now I pray the results never get out. I feel a bit like Frankenstein."

   "Can we find them all?" Clete looked around. "Miss just one and this island will have to be quarantined forever."

   "We'll go over the room with a fine-toothed comb," Noyman rolled up his sleeves, "we'll even check the cracks in the masonry to make sure the plant didn't shoot any spores that might've gotten embedded in the rocks."

   Minerva and Yvette took a spot on the roof next to Daisy and Julie. The storm clouds were beginning to form. Daisy shook her head.

   "Storm clouds made to order," the mousette mused, "and with regular timing. This island will make a good research base for studying meteorological events."

   "Whoever lives here next is welcome to it," Julie leaned back, "I never want to see another electrical storm as long as I live. Imagine four months steady of this sort of thing."

   "We have it good in Creek Bend," Minerva rested her chin on her knee, "it's hot and humid, but it's regular. We hardly notice the winters. We've had the occasional electrical storm, but even those are pretty rare. It's easy to take for granted that the rest of the country has to put up with change of seasons that includes severe cold of the kind almost unheard of in our area."

   "I may talk Clete into moving to your town if that's the case."

   "To be fair," Yvette chimed in, "the humidity has it's drawbacks. Although, it's better to put up with than a lot of other things, I must admit. Sometimes it's easy to take for granted that we live in a paradise."

   Resilient as the seed pods were, cutting one open was easy enough. Inside were mounds of tiny black seeds. Clete placed one of the seeds on a plate of metal before placing a matching plate on top of it. This he used to hold the seed in place and carry it over to a vice as Steve locked it into place. Clete began turning the wheel as Steve, Noyman, and the Baxter sisters looked on.

   "I wanted you to see this demonstrated yourself," Clete said, "I saw it the first time I wouldn't believe it if someone else had told me. My first thought was that we could crush the seeds, but take a look at this." After pressing the plates together, Clete removed them and carried them back to the table to pry them apart with a screwdriver. A perfect indentation had been made around the seed, while the seed itself was untouched. Stever inspected one of the plates, the outline of the seed visible to the girls next to him.

   "Stronger than steel...," Steve mulled over the problem, "we know they can withstand heat. What about extreme cold?" 

   "That's a thought," Clete said, "we have liquid nitrogen we were using for coolant on the lightning collectors." Noyman nodded and Clete made for the canisters. Beverly and Jeannie stood by, each with slightly different reactions to the experiments. As the plants proved increasingly hearty, Bev found the situation increasingly troubling. Jeannie respected the gravity of the situation, but remained fascinated by the process of it all. While she would never call herself a scientist, Jean did possess an aptitude for the work. She had a technical mind and was often a help behind the scenes at the studio. Even with her smarts, however, Jeannie's tendency to be a bit scatterbrained ruled out any serious research work. Still, the process always held her interest.

   As Noyman dipped one of the seed pods into the liquid, he prayed the experiment would prove fruitful. It would seem it did, as the pod was pulled back into sight and evidenced wear. The object was dropped into a beaker, shattering into a thousand splinters as it did. The seeds that exited the burst pod were now white in color. Noyman pushed an instrument down into the beaker and crunched one of the seeds into powder. He sighed and smiled. "We've done it."

   In short order, all the seeds and their pods had been subjected to freezing cold and reduced to lifeless powder. This was incinerated until the ashes were gone. The danger was over. For the first time since the night before, Noyman was relaxed. All were in good spirits, despite the gloomy weather which had fully settled over the island. In fact, the girls even put on a little show right there in the main hall. Each did a solo number as Julie played the piano for them. Then they did a couple of songs as a group.

   Something similar was happening back on the Conqueror, as the news of rescue had lifted everyone out of their funk. The deck was alive with lights and music as Sugar Chestnut did a number with Wendy and Doris. It was a combination never before recorded, but that was going to change once they all got back home. Misty stepped up to do a solo number, a gospel song she'd always loved and wanted to hear accompanied by the ship's band. Fortunately, before this happened, the Boss had figured out that he should have cameras and the sound equipment brought in to record the show. When Misty had finished, she announced that there was another singing voice on the ship and introduced Crissy.

   Crissy was unused to singing for crowds, but she knew the moment was pretty special so she stepped up on the make-shift stage. Roger knew Crissy had a great voice, as she often sang for him. The couple had even joked that she should record an album titled Music To Cuddle By. This was a great turn of events for the Boss, who finally had a recording of Crissy's singing voice and the crowd's enthusiastic response to same, as well as footage of the act. As much as he'd been lobbying Crissy to join his studio, though, he still respected her wishes to remain on the sidelines. His wife stood by with a clip-board making notations of the recordings. She could tell he was unsure if he should keep the film or it's audio.

   "Do I just write down that the vocalist is unknown?"

   "Make a notation so we know where it is, but I'll talk to Rog and Cris before I decide what to do with it. If they don't want it public, I can give it to them as a gift." His wife leaned forward and kissed him.

   The next day found the group reunited as the second ship had arrived and rescued the castaways from the island. The Conqueror would be towed to Hawaii, where the remainder of the film would be completed. During the voyage, the celebration continued with nightly concerts. It was a trip none of them would ever forget.

   With Hawaii finally visible in the distance, Beverly opened her last pack of candy cigarettes. She'd gone through the others pretty quickly after getting off the island, and now she was hoping they sold candy cigarettes in Hawaii. There's no reason they wouldn't, but Bev really had no way of knowing they would. Jeannie stepped up and leaned on the railing next to Beverly, both girls fixing their eyes on the shoreline ahead.

   "You think Dr. Noyman will have any trouble starting over?" Beverly asked. "All that funding for his last experiment went up in smoke."

   "I'm sure he'll make out okay. That's assuming he goes back into research. He's been talking to the Boss ever since we came aboard. I think he may be interested in writing pictures after his encounter with a real-life monster."

   "What about Clete and Julie?"

   "Clete goes where the work is. I think after he and Steve worked together so well, he may join the studio team, too."

   "That'd be nice. They're good people."

   "Yes, they are. We know a lot of good people." Jeannie turned back to the deck to watch the passengers starting to gather to get their first look at Hawaii. Roger held Crissy up in the air so she could get a better look. It was a sight worth seeing, as the tropical sunset blanketed the inviting beach of an island where civilization would greet them all after a rather eventful voyage. Talbot was particularly happy to see the shore, as it meant he could soon begin repairs. It was a clear sign of Divine intervention that his ship hadn't been capsized when the bottom of the ocean crashed into the hull. It was only fitting that the Captain lead all in a hymn before disembarking. How many of the movie studio crew, he wondered, after all that had happened on his ship, would opt to fly when going back to California?

THE END