The walk to the parking lot, and the first few minutes of the ride on the car Betty had rented went on in awkward silence. Finally, Mark said:

“Betty. I see you are still mad at me for leaving abruptly back then…”

After a small, additional moment of taciturnity, Betty sighed and said:

“Shouldn’t I be? I was worried sick when you left! Cried myself to sleep for a week even after we returned to Earth!! You were the third one of us to disappear… my only friend on that damn planet… you know I did not see eye to eye with Burton… Valerie only tolerated me because I was the only other woman there… Barry was just a kid! And almost half of us were now gone or dead! What if the ship failed in mid-flight? You were the only one that could fix it if something went wrong!!! How could you be so selfish?? You ditched us with only three lines in the FlyLog as explanation??!” Betty blurted out.

“The Spindrift didn’t fail…” Say Mark, in dismay. Clearly, he had underestimated Betty’s reaction to his departure from the team.

“It could have!!!”, Betty almost shouted. Visibly upset, she pulled the car over at the roadside. She glared at Mark.

“I was reasonably certain it would not fail. I admit I was selfish. But I think I had been selfless long enough. I took a gamble, and I won, I think; No, make that two gambles: Zava accepted me, and you, all of you made it back to Earth”. Declared Mark. Betty continued to glare for a few seconds, then looked away, gripping the steering wheel.

“I… we thought you were off to kill yourself or do something foolish!!... and I was not entirely wrong… The last few months you really changed… you were too quiet, too detached, too pensive… I thought you were simply worried with the ship’s repairs… should ‘a realized… ” Betty said, voice trembling, avoiding Mark’s gaze.

“C’mon Betty, give me a break… haven’t you ever been in love?”

“Is that what it is? Love? I did not think you were a cradle robber!! What was all that talk of calling Zava a child when we spent the night at her house? What a hypocrite!!! It’s like I never knew you!”

“Never been surer of anything in my life. Look at me, Betty”, said Mark. Betty, reluctantly, made eye contact with her friend. “I LOVE Zava, and she loves me back” Mark went on. “We have been together all this time. It has been the best year of my life. She is my soulmate, the love of my life…. I would die for her! My only regret is I did not have the guts to go see her sooner than I did… and perhaps not telling you, but I was not sure you… anyone… would understand. I barely understood it back then. I was sure Burton would have tried to restrain me… and I… would have had to fight him. The others would need him to get back to Earth”.

“Perhaps you’re right… I would not have understood… Burton certainly would not have” Replied Betty. “I reckon what bothered me more is that I did not see it coming. I did not realize you were planning to leave us. I did not think you and Zava shared any kind of connection… I thought that time we were with her was like so many other times with other giants”

“No.  When you were in the bathroom and Zava and I were alone…. Things happened between us” Said Mark, reluctantly. “After she let us go, I just could not stop thinking of her… and I knew, in my heart, that there was something there. Something worth pursuing.  I was right”.

Well, Betty thought, Zava HAD indicated that she was romantically or physically interested in Mark, who however managed to conceal having any inclination towards the giant girl.  Betty had thought, though, that a human and a giant being lovers was simply too outrageous to happen. Obviously, she had been wrong about that and about a number of other things.

Mark then told Betty a brief recollection of how he went back to look for Zava, how they ended up joining their lives and how they were living together, as a couple, and making a living of their combined abilities. He finished the tale with the last day with the hike to the cave.

“… and after the last thunder strike there was a blinding blue flash… Zava, holding me in her hand, just… toppled over. I felt like I was being squeezed through a crack too small to fit through… and then I blacked out. I woke up in the hospital, tied to the bed, obviously back on Earth, without Zava. I was completely bewildered! They treated me like a madman or a junkie, I did not show up in the databases, they said I was found naked in a ditch. Nobody said anything about Zava, and I was afraid to bring it up lest they thought I really was insane! I have no idea how I got here… and worse: I thought I had lost her forever!!”.

“I… understand”. Said Betty, deeply moved, seeing the sincerity in her friend’s eyes. “Mark, as a matter of fact, when we returned, we also kept the truth of our stay in giantland (that’s what we Spindrift survivors call it now) a secret. I have not even told my fiancée, for crying out loud… even with the pics we took we would have been thought loopy… giant aliens… dimensional rifts… Jesus, I barely believe it myself, even now!” Betty said, shaking her head.

“Anyway, Mark, sorry for my outburst. We need to hurry, now. I know where Zava is: she is here on Earth too, in this same island, and in real trouble! We must help her! We… I owe it to her. If she had not freed us from the clutches of that psycho bitch Millan…. We would probably have died there.  What she would have done to Valerie was just sick!”

Contemplative, Betty handed him her tablet, with the feed packed with Zava’s videos, pics and news. Mark took it, and started playing the videos, and skimming over the news articles. He gritted his teeth. The look of absolute bafflement, dejection and terror in Zava’s face on the videos and photos made Mark’s heart break. She was barefoot, scantily clad, surrounded by hundreds of gawkers, in shackles, being held by the military, with killer war robots pointing artillery weapons at her! And she probably thought she was alone in a planet alien to her, with zero chance of going back to her homeworld, of being together again!

Mark had no doubt that the only reason the government had not taken her to a secret facility and made her disappear to study her was that she was simply too large to contain, too big to hide, too heavy to haul off. As a result of these three qualities, she was also too conspicuous, as she had by now been seen by hundreds of people in person and by hundreds of millions on video; she was already a world sensation.

Browsing around, in several news outlets, he saw, there was live feed from the site they kept her at. Right now, Mark could see she was lying on the ground, on her side… she seemed to be talking to some of the soldiers that surrounded her.

The government really was going to have a hard time dealing with her now that the public had seen her, thankfully.

Indeed, she was the story of the century, or the millennium, even! First contact! The first extra-terrestrial being, and a sentient being at that, was confirmed to exist, beyond any doubt… and she had made it to Earth! Besides, she was a beautiful, 20 meter tall young woman! All the ingredients for awesomeness were there!

However, it was only a matter of time before politicians, or the infamous military-industrial complex found some way to spin things, so they had an excuse, or the means, to have their way with her. Hell, they could even build a tent over her and vivisect her right there when the public, always fickle, lost interest, in a few months!  Then they could carry her away in pieces. Mark shuddered at the thought.

 “I said we have to help her” said Betty, breaking Mark out of his ghastly reverie. “But I have no idea how… what can the two of us do against the government and the military? It’s not like we can sneak in and whisk her away from where they have her.  If we knew how you got here we could try to reverse the process”. She looked at Mark hopefully.

“We were in a freaking cave in the middle of nowhere when it happened! I’m afraid I do not have the slightest clue of how we could have been teleported from there to here, for teleported we were, that’s for sure. I have no clear idea of where exactly the planet of the giants lies relative to Earth: it could be in the next solar system or across the galaxy or even in another galaxy”. Answered Mark. “I take the Spindrift made it to the same dimensional rift that carried us to giantland, since you made it back to Earth?”.

Betty nodded.

“Yes. The rift is still just outside of Earth’s orbit, geosynchronous with the planet. The area is now mapped so no aircraft collides with it”, added Betty. “No other dimensional rifts have been found, much less on the Earth’s surface”

“Also,” continued Mark,  ”I was not actively doing anything (how the heck would I have??) to try to get back to Earth”. Said Mark. “Have there been any breakthroughs in teleportation while we were off-planet?”

 “No.” Answered Betty. “as far as I know, it is still strictly in the realm of science fiction”….

As were dimensional vortexes, thought Mark…

“There is no way a spaceship will be able to lift a 100 ton-over woman to orbit to reach the dimensional opening, either”, he added.

Mark and Betty remained silent for a few seconds… then Mark said, ominously:

“I am afraid there is nothing the two of us can do.”

“So, you are going to leave her to her fate?!?” Said Betty, aghast and indignantly.

“Far from it” Said Mark, crossly. “But we will need help. I think the only way to save Zava will be getting as much exposure as we can, and soon, before the government stops us or does something to Zava. We need to show the American people, and the world at large, that Zava is not a threat” Mark added.

 “Indeed, we need to make them see her as unique, as a national treasure” he continued, his face lighting up with inspiration. “And unique she is! The only giantess on Earth! A visitor from another world! We have to make her into a celebrity, something so big, so notorious that they have to leave her… leave us be”.

 Mark was now full of hope. She had been special on her planet; on Earth, Zava truly was one of a kind, and also, so beautiful and sexy, so kind, so smart and charismatic that he had no doubt people and the media would love her. She was definitely star material!

“By the way, according to the news, Zava said the two of you were married… how did you ever manage that?” Said Betty.

“Of course we could not marry… the government there was still after us earthlings. That did not change… wait… she said that I was her husband?” Said Mark.

“Oh, yes” laughed Betty.

Illumination! He now knew what would be the cherry on the cake to his plans, thought Mark, delighted.

“We’ll have to do something about that, too” Said Mark, ponderingly. “Betty, before we get to the lighthouse we’ll need a computer, we’ll need money”  he said, looking at his friend pleadingly… “I’ll pay you later, as soon as I can reestablish my identity and can access my bank accounts… I’m fairly well off, as you know”.

“No worries… remember that gold emerald necklace we took that time we were in that funeral parlor?” Said Betty, grinning. “That’s how I bought the apartment I have now! At least I managed to get something good of that hellhole of a planet”.