How I Spent My Christmas Vacation: One Year Later -- 8/?
by Nan Smith
Previously:
"Sure." The farmer nodded vigorously. "I was drivin' to town and saw all the men and equipment out there. I went over to ask 'em what they were doin' and the man in charge, I guess he was, showed me a bunch of legal-lookin' stuff, about takin' a survey of the property for the county or somethin'. I figured those gals might have got hold of Clark and maybe he was gonna sell the place. Didn't hear anything more about it, though, after that."
"Clark didn't know about it," Lois said. "Whoever they were, he didn't send them. Do you remember the man you talked to? Did he tell you his name or anything?"
"Yeah," Wayne Irig said. "He was a short guy, had kinda broad shoulders and white hair. Had a sorta funny name. Gene somethin'."
"Do you remember what it was?" Lois held her breath.
"Let me think," Irig said. He rubbed his chin, scowling deeply. "Newton? Newrich? Somethin' like that ..." He snapped his fingers suddenly. "I got it. Newtrich! His name was Gene Newtrich!"
**********
And now: Part 8:
A short time later, having said goodbye to the Irigs, Lois and Clark headed for the Kent farm to complete the next part of their mission. They parked the vehicle that they had hired from Barclay's Car Rental and removed a piece of equipment that they had bought in town to deal with any Kryptonite that they might discover. Hovering in the air, directly over the spot where his ship had landed, Lois, dressed in the red, blue and gold outfit of Ultra Woman, began to scan the snowy ground below, as far as her super-powered eyesight would allow her to see. No sign of Kryptonite, red or green, was revealed, so she began to move outward in concentric circles, taking in more and more of the countryside around the spot where Clark had first come to Earth. For two hours she circled, scanning every inch of the ground below her but no sign of the glowing mineral emerged. At last she landed beside her partner amid the skeletons of last years crops. "I've covered an area twenty-five miles around in all directions," she said. "Do you think we've gone far enough yet?"
"I hope so," Clark said. "I think that's well beyond the area where the survey crew or the treasure hunters were, at least according to Wayne."
Lois nodded. "Good. I'll tell you what. I'm going to make a couple of final circles just to be thorough and then we can head back to Metropolis. Did you make those calls while I was playing 'Ring Around the Rosie'?"
"Yes. Jonetta is researching Gene Newtrich for us. She said as soon as she found anything significant, she'd get back to us."
Lois glanced up at the sun. It was mid afternoon, and snow clouds were gathering in the west. "Good." She stretched her arms above her head, feeling the energizing rays of the sun. "Let's hope it's soon. In the meantime, let's finish this." She launched herself again and began her next slow, concentric circle.
She was nearly halfway around the circle when she saw it -- a flicker of sickly green, visible only to her x-ray vision, which alerted all her senses. She zoomed in on the flicker to verify what she had found.
It was a tiny sliver of green crystal, covered with a layer of dirt and withered weeds, but glowing with a terrible light of its own. Marking its position, Lois continued her circle, but no more Kryptonite came to light. Quickly, she landed next to Clark, scooped him up and deposited him some distance from the sliver.
"What is it?" he asked.
"A piece of green Kryptonite," Lois said. "We don't dare leave it here. I'm going to mark it, and finish my next circle. I think I'll make a couple more, just to be on the safe side, since this one turned up. Then I'll come back and we can deal with this piece."
"All right," Clark said. "I'll have the lead foil ready."
"*You're* going to stay away from it," Lois said in a tone that brooked no opposition. "Just because you have no powers at the moment doesn't mean you're suddenly immune to the stuff."
"I agree," Clark said. "I'll wait for you to get back."
Lois took off again in a rush, feeling her heart pounding almost sickeningly hard in her chest. Most likely, she told herself, the "treasure hunters" and the "survey crew" had limited their search to the area a few miles around the spot where Clark's ship had landed in Shuster's Field. They probably hadn't found any more of the green stuff, or they would have used it. But they had obviously found a piece of the red variety. It must be much rarer than the green sort, or she and Clark would undoubtedly have found it on their first foray to the area. Maybe it was the only piece there.
She completed the circle and started her next one, scanning furiously for any sign of an unnatural red or green crystal glow. And on the return leg, she saw it: a faint red flicker that stood out to her like the landing beacon for an airliner.
Instantly, she zoomed in on it with her vision.
It was a cluster of crystals, the size of a man's fist, apparently growing out of a chunk of very ordinary granite. There was a large projection, like the central spire of a miniature skyscraper, glowing cherry red, and surrounding it were several lesser projections of red and two sliver-thin ones of green. It, too, was buried under a layer of dirt and snow. Again, Lois carefully marked the location and continued her circles. It was obvious to her now that there had been a scattering of smaller pieces that had landed at a greater distance from the ship than they had at first realized. She resumed her circles, out and farther out, scanning every inch of the ground. It was nearly an hour later that she landed by Clark in the field some hundred feet from the first piece that she had discovered.
"How many?" he asked.
"Three," she said. "On the last forty circles I didn't find any more. I was a good hundred miles from Smallville on the last one, so I think that's it. Let's hope Mr. Newtrich and his friends didn't find many samples of the red stuff in the area they searched."
"I don't see how they could have," Clark said. "If there had been many of them, I'd have most likely noticed them. They sure don't look like anything from Earth."
It was what she had been thinking. "I hope you're right. Maybe all they found was the one. All right, let's get this stuff under control. Give me the lead foil -- and the arm."
"We don't know you aren't susceptible to it either, now that you have my powers," Clark protested. It was an argument that he had raised a little while after leaving the Irigs' home.
"True," Lois said, "but I'm going to keep my distance and make the exposure as short as I can until I see what happens." She took the mechanical arm -- one of the devices available for reaching and gripping items on high shelves -- in one hand and a sheet of lead foil, provided by Bernard Klein, in the other. Moving at a speed faster than the eye could follow, she approached the first sliver of Kryptonite.
The metal arm allowed her to keep her body several feet away, but as she neared it she began to feel a strange sensation. Her joints began to ache, and her muscles to twinge. A cramp in her gut nearly made her double over, but if she let Clark know that the green sliver was affecting her, he would never let her do this job.
Her arms felt shaky and weak as she reached out with the mechanical gripping device and scooped away the shielding dirt. The green-glowing sliver came into view. Lois could feel the perspiration break out on her skin.
The faster this was done the better, she knew. The piece of lead foil lay on the ground, ready for its occupant. Lois gripped the crystal with the mechanical arm and transferred it to the foil. Still using the arm, she folded one side of the foil awkwardly over the tiny, malevolent fragment of Kryptonite.
Almost instantly the symptoms let up. They weren't gone, but they lessened to a minor irritation. Lois dropped the mechanical arm and snatched up the foil, wadding it tightly around the poisonous green sliver and, as she did so, the aches and pains dwindled and vanished. The job done, she breathed a sigh of relief, wiping the wetness from her forehead. She could feel the strength returning to her limbs as the seconds went by, but now, for the first time, she could truly understand why Clark feared this stuff. She had seen Tempus use it on him a year ago, her time, on that tropical island a thousand years in the past, but personal experience drove it home like nothing else. The shards of his home planet were deadly to him, and she was just beginning to realize how deadly.
Taking a deep breath, she turned and walked back to Clark.
He was waiting anxiously. "Are you all right?"
"Sure. Nothing to it. Come on; let's get this job done."
The symptoms of the Kryptonite were gone. She felt normal again. Taking a deep breath, Lois hurled the wad of lead foil straight up. The little ball of foil, containing the deadly green sliver, flew upward like a rocket and vanished. She followed it with her telescopic vision as it exited the atmosphere like a meteor in reverse, and vanished into space.
"Nice work," Clark said.
"Two to go." Lois put an arm around his waist and lifted off toward the last sliver that she had found. The second, with its combination of green and red, she planned to deal with last.
Disposing of the second piece was a repeat of the first except that Lois was careful to move at super speed, so that her exposure to the vicious piece of crystal was as short as possible. The ache in her joints and muscles receded a little more slowly this time. She gripped the ball of lead foil and took a deep breath, waiting for her full strength to return.
"Lois, are you all right?" Clark put an arm around her shoulders.
The aches were fading now, and the strength was flowing back into her muscles. "Yeah. Stand back, Clark." Lois inhaled a lungful of the cold, Kansas air and flung the ball upward like a softball pitcher. Following it with her special vision, she saw it flash upward and vanish into the void.
"What's the matter?" Clark rested a hand on her forehead. "You're running a temperature!"
"I'm okay," she assured him. "Really."
"You can feel the Kryptonite, can't you?" he said. "It's affecting you, isn't it?" It really wasn't a question. "Why didn't you say so?"
"Clark, it wasn't bad. Yes, I could feel it, but they were only tiny little slivers. It only lasted a few seconds."
"I don't want you to go near that last one. We don't know what it could do to you. You said it's made of green *and* red!"
"We have to get rid of it," Lois said. "Don't think for a minute that I intend to leave it where someone could find it and use it against you!"
"Well, look," Clark said. "It affects you now that you have my powers. It may not bother me at all, since I don't have any. I can --"
"Absolutely not!" Lois couldn't help raising her voice. Deliberately, she brought it down to normal levels. "There's no way you're getting near that stuff!" She stopped again and took a deep breath. "I've got it. Stay right here. I'm going to go get help. And when I get back, stay away until I take her back to town."
**********
"What --" Clark said, but he was speaking to empty space. Lois had vanished in a rush of air and an instant later the clap of a sonic boom rattled the atmosphere.
"Her?" he repeated, belatedly. Now what the heck did his partner have in mind this time? However, Lois had proven to him over the last year that he could trust her to do what was best for him. The news organizations in Metropolis had found out the hard way that Lois Lane stood unyieldingly between them and Clark Kent/Superman. She had been a tiger in protecting his interests, and every member of the media knew without a doubt that if they wanted their Superman news, they had better not annoy Lane or even allow her to *think* that they might consider violating their promise to respect his privacy. So he stood obediently in the field, waiting for whatever she intended to do.
It was completely silent except for the blowing of the wind. He shifted from one foot to the other, wishing that he could go after Lois. This being without powers thing was no fun. True, he had been without them as a child, but then he had had no idea of what he was missing. Now he did, and he didn't like it. What was it going to be like if they couldn't put his powers back where they belonged? What if Lois had them for the rest of his life? Would he be able to reconcile himself to that?
On the other hand, what was it going to be like for Lois if they did manage to get his powers back? He didn't think he could bear it if she resented him for having what she now possessed. He didn't believe she would want to keep what belonged to him, but would she miss them as much as he did? That wouldn't be good, either. Even the thought of Lois being unhappy made him unhappy.
A speck on the horizon caught his attention, and he realized after a second that it was Lois. She was carrying someone, too, he saw, and stood perfectly still, watching as her form passed some distance to the east of him, dropped toward the ground and vanished from his field of vision.
Again silence. Clark fidgeted impatiently, wondering what was going on. As Superman, he was used to being in the middle of the action. It was hard to have to stand and wait for someone else to do the job.
Five minutes passed, and then another five. And then, all at once, Lois and her passenger were once again rising into the sky. They passed a good distance to the east of him and vanished in the direction of Smallville.
Again he waited. Several more minutes passed.
And all at once, Lois was landing beside him. She looked extremely pleased with herself. "There!" she said.
"What did you do?" Clark asked. "What happened?"
"I got rid of the chunk of Kryptonite," she said.
"Who was that?" he asked.
"Rachel. She told us that if she could help, she would, remember? I went and got her, explained that you and I needed her help to get rid of the Kryptonite, and brought her here to dig it up and wrap it in the foil. Then I threw it into space. It's gone."
"Just like that? Didn't she ask any questions?"
"Sure she did. I told her that it was some of the stuff that could hurt Superman and that neither of us could get close to it. I explained that, from what Lois Lane and Charles King found, we were pretty sure the surveyors were actually the criminal group that they mentioned to her earlier, looking for the stuff, and that we needed to get rid of it immediately. She does want you to come back and explain more about it later. I told her we would, once we were finished with the job. By the way, she already knew about me. My picture's all over the television, from that accident this afternoon."
Clark stared at her, barely aware that his jaw had dropped slightly. After a few seconds, he closed his mouth. Lois, as usual, had dealt with the problem directly and effectively. No wonder, he thought, not for the first time, that his partner was as necessary for the Utopia of the future to come about as Superman. Whatever Utopia meant. Maybe one day Wells would come back and he could ask the little man to elaborate a little. It seemed unlikely that the future world would be the perfect one that the word seemed to imply, but maybe to Wells it seemed that way. Still, it had to be better than the one that Tempus had wanted. And his incredible partner was a very integral part of that future. He hoped that she would be an integral part of his future as well.
His cell phone rang.
For an instant he didn't realize what the sound was and then he hurried to pull the device from under his coat and flip it open. "Kent."
"Hello, Mr. Kent?" It was Jonetta's voice. "I've found the information you wanted about Gene Newtrich."
"Yes?" he said. He pressed the button to turn on his phone's speaker so Lois could hear.
"He's a soil engineer. He works for Church Enterprises."
"*Church Enterprises?*"
"That's right, Mr. Kent. I printed up everything I could find on him and put it on your desk."
"Thanks," he said. "I appreciate it. I'll pick it up when I get back to the office."
"You're welcome," Jonetta's voice said. "I hope it was what you needed."
"You have no idea," Clark said.
"Church Enterprises?" Lois said, as he closed the phone. "Didn't Perry mention that they were bidding on the LexSave chain?"
"He sure did. They're the corporation that owns Cost Mart."
They stared at each other. "Bobby said that a criminal organization was trying to move into Metropolis," Lois said finally. "Now we find out that the same company that's trying to take over one of Lex's businesses in Metropolis employs a soil engineer that was illegally on your property. In fact, there were three different groups that were interested in your property. And two women used Red Kryptonite on you at the mall. Somehow, I doubt this is all a coincidence."
"So do I," Clark said. "I wonder if the two women that Wayne told us about were the same as the ones with the camcorder."
"It wouldn't surprise me a bit," Lois said. "Come on; let's go back and turn in the car. We need to get back to Metropolis."
**********
tbc
