“John, put us down.”
“It’s all right, Ray. I’m in complete control.”
The ground shot away. Ray screamed as the Ford rose up above the trees. Ray gave up on this and closed his eyes. A few seconds passed.
“Ray, it’s okay. You can open your eyes.”
“Are we still flying?”
“We’re hovering. We’re at a thousand feet.”
Ray opened his eyes one at a time and glanced out the window. He saw treetops and a great view of the nearby mountain.
“Eep,” he said.
“We can go anywhere, Ray. Seth says it’s no problem. We just have to stay below five thousand feet or it’ll get a little chilly in here.”
Ray locked his door. “Okay, you’ve convinced me. Can we please go back down now?”
“Sure.”
With a barely perceptible sway, the Ford returned to the surface. Christie and Ari were standing outside of John’s car, agape. Upon touching down, Ray jumped out.
“That was not funny,” said Ari.
“No, it was not funny at all,” said Ray.
“Amazing,” said Christie, her eyes alight. “It’s just amazing.”
“All this incredible alien technology, and what do we get?” said Ari. “A flying Ford Expedition.”
John got out and walked over. “I hope this doesn’t cause your insurance to go up, Ray.”
“Wow, you are just frigging hilarious. I can’t believe how funny you are.”
“Do you have any idea how fast you were moving?” asked Christie.
“We went a thousand feet in one point two seconds,” said John. “That’s somewhere between five hundred and six hundred miles per hour. And we barely felt a bump.”
“You’ll have to do a lot better than that for space travel.”
“Seth is telling me that speed is the best he can do without ripping the Ford to shreds. It’s plenty fast enough for maneuvering in the air.”
“At that rate,” Ari said, “you’ll be in Woburn in less than twenty minutes.”
“Looks like we’re talking the Ford,” said Christie.
“There isn’t enough room for all five of us and all of our gear,” Ray said.
“It’s not like we can’t come back later,” said John. “We can leave what we don’t need behind. Once we get back here with the completed hull, we can pick everything up including my car, and take it back to Woburn.”
“Sounds good,” said Ray, “there’s only one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
14.
The Ford Expedition, while hopefully not meant to be used as an aircraft, was in fact filling this role quite well thanks to the orb’s assistance. For the four occupants, it was the first inkling of how thrilling their futures might be. The flight’s most reassuring feature was the same thing, however, that kept the mood relatively sedate: their ride was too smooth. At five hundred and fifty miles per hour, there was barely a shimmy or a vibration to be felt. Without looking at the ground it was difficult to sense any movement at all. Only Seth, through John, could provide any useful information. It had taken a full fifteen minutes for the passengers to stop commenting about how insane the entire affair had become, and now a heavy silence hung in the air.
“We’re approaching my place,” said John.
John had been navigating by dead reckoning, and was simply following the highway south. He was forced to bring the Ford down to five hundred feet to better follow the side roads. John also cut the airspeed down to about a hundred miles an hour. It didn’t take long for him to find the correct rooftop.
“I’m going to set down right in my backyard,” John said.
“Sounds good,” said Ray.
“Won’t the neighbors see?” asked Christie.
“No,” said John, “the houses here are about fifty yards apart, and the hedges are pretty thick. They won’t see us at night.”
Without displaying any expenditure of effort, John landed the Ford. Ray, who was a peculiar shade of gray, was more than happy to exit the vehicle. Christie opened her door and Tycho shot past her into the yard.
“Tycho!” Christie yelled, “get back here.”
“It’s okay,” said John. “There’s a fence around the backyard. He won’t get too far. Come on, let’s get the orb inside.”
Ray had wandered off to get his balance back, so Ari assisted John with the orb. They kept the blanket draped over the orb, and it followed John into the house like a fleece ghost. Christie grabbed her things and accompanied the other two inside.
“Christie, this is Friday,” said John, pointing to the cat that immediately greeted them.
“Nice cat,” said Christie. “How is he going to react to...”
Tycho barked, and Friday became a black streak across the floor as she ran for cover. John shrugged.
“She’ll get over it.”
“I can keep Tycho outside, it’s no problem,” said Christie.
“Tycho can use the basement. It’s partially finished, but it’s warmer than the yard.”
“Thanks.”
John guided the orb into the living room. He removed the blanket and placed his hand on the orb. Despite his best effort to stay standing, John fell to the floor. Ari rushed to his side.
“John! Damn it, what did you think was going to happen?”
John groaned. “I thought I could handle it this time.”
Ari helped John onto the couch. Ray entered the room.
“Is he all right?” Ray asked.
“I’m fine, Ray,” said John, shaking off his fatigue. “Let’s talk about our plan.”
“We’re hours ahead of time as far as getting to Woburn,” said Ari.
“Yeah, but how useful will this time be?” said Ray. “It’s John’s job to start the CAD designing. Are you up to starting early, John?”
“I think so,” said John. “I might be able to get in some useful programming before bedtime. Normally I rack out around eleven o’clock but today I’d like to turn in early.”
“How long will this entire process take?” asked Ari.
“I think I can bang it out in a day. I have existing modules that I can modify for this purpose. That will save us some time as far as creating a secure airframe. Then all I have to do is design the interior space. Since we don’t know exactly what kind of interface or equipment we’ll need, I’m leaning towards four simple crawlspace access tunnels that run the length of the ship, two between each deck. That will give us the ability to run cable from any part of the ship to the other.”
“What do you mean by a secure airframe?” asked Christie. “I thought we were going to have to research the space shuttle in order to make this thing space-worthy.”
“I got you covered,” said John. “I know how to make a craft space-worthy. Seth can provide the necessary shielding from debris and cosmic radiation. He’s been quite helpful in describing what he can contribute to the ship. The only problem is that for every idea he gives me, I feel like he’s holding back something. I get the feeling he is either hiding something from me or is genuinely confused about what it is we’re trying to accomplish.”
“That’s hardly reassuring,” said Ari.
“Listen,” said Christie. “There’s something we should talk about.”
“Okay,” said Ray. “You have the floor.”
“I think we need to step back from the project for a moment and ask some critical questions of ourselves.”
“You mean like, ‘are we nuts?’” said John.
“No, I mean like why are we doing this?”
“We don’t know. Seth hasn’t told me anything else about the mission. Only that Umber needs our help and we’re going to need weapons.”
“Wait a minute,” began Ray, “when did Seth say anything about weapons?”
“Oh, I guess I forgot to mention it. On the way over here, Seth told me there could be some danger involved, and that
we should bring weapons. He wasn’t more specific than that.”
Ari sighed, and said, “Great, so now we’re sure that deep space isn’t the only thing out there that can kill us. This is getting better and better.”
“The question remains,” said Christie. “Or the question really is, what is our reason for building this ship, other than the mission to Umber?”
“It’s our duty,” said John.
“Duty to whom? Don’t tell me that you’ve already accepted Seth as your lord and master.”
“Hardly!” said John, irritated. “I meant to humanity.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. If we were concerned about how this thing is going to change humanity, we would have turned it over to the government the instant we became aware of the mission. You know what I see, fellas? I see a bunch of willful, selfish amateurs who don’t want to share the credit for this find, and damn the consequences to the world, humanity, and the rest of the galaxy for all we know.”
“We didn’t choose the orb. The orb chose us.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“It is a pretty unbelievable coincidence,” began Ray, “that this orb came down less than fifty yards from our cabin.”
“I don’t buy that destiny crap,” said Ari. “We were in the right place at the right time, that’s all. There was no guiding force that led it to us. And Christie’s right about us being amateurs. There are thousands of people that are much more qualified to be working on this thing than us.”
“We’ve already gone through this,” said John. “If the government gets involved, who knows what the hell is going to happen to us?”
Christie raised her voice. “I still want to know why you’re doing this! Each of you, tell me what your ultimate drive is.”
“Discovery,” said John.
“Curiosity,” said Ray.
Ari shrugged.
“Is that it?” asked Christie. “Science for the sake of science? It's intellectual masturbation! There has to be a goal, and that goal has to be worthwhile.”
“I see our motivations as perfectly valid, and our goals as worthwhile,” said John. “We’re embarking on a mission unlike anything the world has ever seen. Those who choose to go on this mission will go down in history. They’ll be more famous than Newton, Einstein, and John Glenn combined.”
“And you have no problem waiting until you get back to tell anyone?” asked Christie. “And that’s a big if you come back.”
“What about you?” John demanded. “So far you’ve been perfectly happy with being part of our clandestine group.”
“Don’t think I haven’t been considering the alternatives.”
“This is ridiculous,” began Ari, “this is our ship. This is our opportunity. I am not going to give up the chance for this. I’ve made up my mind, I’m going all the way.”
“We are getting this ship built,” said John. “You are either part of this project or you are not. I was happy to see you express interest, Christie. You know we need someone like you to help out.”
“Why don’t we make a pact?” said Ray.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ari said.
“A pact, an agreement. Let’s agree that if we get stonewalled, or if we believe that we’ve reached a dead-end that we can’t overcome, we’ll hand this project over to the government. It seems to me that those who want to stay involved will know way too much about the project to be left behind. By then you’ll be the foremost experts on Seth and the ship. They can’t kick you out.”
“That seems reasonable,” said Christie.
“I agree,” said Ari. “We give it our best shot and that’s that. Anything after that is up to the experts.”
“Okay, that sounds good,” said John, “but I have no intention of failing Seth. For now, I’m going to start on my designs. I’d like the rest of you to brainstorm about other logistical issues. Do it in the kitchen and see if you can’t produce dinner as well.”
Two and a half hours later, John saved his work and shut down his computer. So far he had only produced a preliminary bitmap deck plan and a cursory wire frame model of the exterior of the ship, which he continued to call the Reckless Faith in his own mind. It was still a significant improvement above his first idea, and the new exterior actually had some style to it. Thinking in terms of weaponry, John had added dorsal and ventral gunner positions, even though he hadn’t the slightest of ideas what could be placed there. It seemed quite logical to make sure that if they could be of use, they actually existed. He had also left room for a forward-facing weapon of some sort, to the same usefulness for now.
With unconsciousness becoming less an option and more an imperative, John decided he had to give up. He collapsed on his bed, supine. John was thinking about seeing how the others were doing, and setting them up with sleeping arrangements, but he couldn’t seem to move. He was almost asleep when somebody knocked on his door.
“John? It’s Ari.”
“Come in.”
Ari entered. She held a piece of yellow legal pad paper. She sat down on the side of John’s bed.
“Are you racking out?”
“I guess so. You guys are going to need to know where to get the spare pillows.”
“We’ll be fine, John. Ray is sleeping in the living room. Christie’s getting the spare bedroom, and I’ll be fine on the floor.”
“That’s ridiculous, why not share the spare bedroom with Christie?”
“We had a coin toss already. I don’t think either of us ever considered sharing the bed as an option.”
“Suit yourselves. By the way, I wanted to show you my initial deck plans.”
John got up, retrieved three pages from his printer, and handed them to Ari.
“Oh, cool. What's the scale on this?”
“Ten by thirty meters. It will also be ten meters in height.”
“Anyway, I wanted to let you know what we’ve been thinking about for the past few hours.”
“Shoot.”
“Well, we’re thinking about several main concerns. One is a computer system that can interface with Seth. You can’t be held responsible for being Seth’s conduit twenty-four seven, we’ve seen the result of just a few minutes. We can’t expect Tycho to do any better, if that’s even really an option. Christie and I both agree that we need a computer interface to interact with manually. It would also be handy if more than one person knew what was going on at a time.”
“I agree.”
“The only problem is how to integrate an Earth operating system into Seth. We don’t know what kind of code he’s running. Even if we could look at the raw data, compiling into a form we can use could take years.”
“That’s no good. And it assumes that Seth is something that can be quantifiable at all.”
“True, but so far we haven’t been able to come up with another theory. We can cross our fingers and hope that our computers work with Seth ‘just because,’ but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“I hardly thought you would.”
“The next thing is supplies. We don’t know how long this mission may last. If it’s indefinitely, then we have to bring as much food as physically possible. Ray and I estimate that we can pack four, maybe five years of supplies into the cargo areas you’ve envisioned. That also happens to be the shelf-life of most military rations, which are a natural choice for the ship. I see you included water storage tanks in the design, which addresses my next point. What's their capacity?”
“Each tank will be about one thousand gallons.”
“Okay. The next thing to consider is organization. I’m in, I’m guessing you’re in, and Ray sure as hell is in. That leaves Christie as the only wild card. If she bows out, we should find a replacement. Either way, we should have some sort of command structure. Ray and I also think that we should have uniforms so that we can more easily identify each other, and show anyone or anything that we encounter out there that we’re on the same team. I hate the idea of unif
orms but I can see the benefits. I suggested that we have uniforms but only use them when absolutely necessary.”
“I agree.”
“Then there’s weapons and ammunition. Between all of us, we’re going to have to make a trip to the gun store for more weapons. We should also invest in some serious tactical training if we expect to utilize them effectively. Ray knows of a school in southern New Hampshire that’s supposed to be good.”
“I know the one.”
“Then there’s furniture. We were wondering if you could integrate furniture into your design. That would save us a lot of trouble. Furniture that was part of the ship would be fine except for chairs. Those would need to be mobile. Getting suitable chairs shouldn’t be difficult.”
“Yup.”
“Well, that’s it for now. The only real problem is the bottom line. Ray and I estimate that all of this stuff will not only take weeks to realize, but it will run us into the tens of thousands of dollars. I, for one, do not have that kind of loot saved up.”
“We’ll find a way.”
John drifted off completely, leaving Ari’s voice an echo in his mind. His last thoughts were of her sitting beside him for the entire night, so that neither of them would be alone.
__________
“We’re ready for more information, Page.”
Dana spoke into her cell phone. Levi was watching the exterior of the car intently. The two of them had just arrived in Woburn, Massachusetts, and were ready for the next batch of coordinates from ASTRA.
The signal had pointed a clear path to this city, as it had grown in clarity as it moved south towards the listening stations. Page and his colleagues, most of whom had been dragged out of their Sunday night routines for this, were diligently crunching numbers to come up with more precise coordinates for their “field team.”
They’d narrowed the area down to a remarkable one hundred square yards, in a neighborhood just off Route 38 on the Wilmington-Woburn town line. That was the extent of their luck, however. No further transmissions were being received. Dana closed her phone in frustration.
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