by Neely Dobbs
CHAPTER 13: Earth
The ship rose smoothly and Jason sensed, rather than felt, a gradual rotation of the entire vessel. Firmly he ordered, “View screen astern!”
He felt a moment of vertigo and his pulse quickened as the entire front of the cabin seemed to vanish. Suddenly, nothing separated the trio from the open view “below,” revealing rapidly receding trees and landscape. The ship continued its unbelievable acceleration and, in only a heartbeat, the Ozier’s house and barn melded into a larger pattern of diminishingly small structures. Those details were quickly replaced by rapidly receding geometric patterns of darkening towns and farmland. Then the view below rapidly fogged over, replaced by a vast rolling snowbank of clouds. Finally, the previously setting sun again appeared slightly above the horizon, casting streaks of orange and gold across an indigo sky.
Kyle was amazed that their rapid departure had caused virtually no physical sensation of movement. They had remained comfortably seated on their contoured chairs. After the initial disorientation when the cabin seemed to tilt down at right angles to the horizontal, their passage had felt perfectly calm and steady, disturbed only by the visual perception of the tremendous acceleration that had ripped them loose from the Earth.
Samantha had thrilled with the remarkable rapidity of the changes before her. After the brief disorientation brought on by the visual axis shift, she found herself searching for superlatives to describe the unfolding scene. These experiences and the rate of ascent were remarkable… spectacular… inconceivable! Quickly she dismissed all those modifiers as inexact and insufficient. She decided that only now had she personally experienced the meaning of the word, “awesome.” Then a brief thrill of intuition told her to reserve “awesome” for what was yet to come, followed by an unaccountably deep sense of peace with her unbidden thought: It’s going to be OK, kids. We’re coming home.
Jason felt the blood rushing through his veins, exhilarating his whole being. This is what it means to be alive! Really alive! A consciousness he almost— almost— recognized whispered from somewhere deep in his mind, conveying ideas just below the threshold of clear perception. Almost like a long-lost friend softly urging, “Jason... Jason it's time to remember. You’ve done this so many times before!”
He couldn’t quite grasp the feeling. His only remotely similar memory was of flying in a small craft with the Earth less than a mile beneath him. It had been a fragile twin-winged affair that relied on the atmosphere to lift it— and that only then after it had sputtered and lumbered across the ground, struggling to gain enough speed to lift tentatively into the sky.
But this magnificent vessel required no such tenuous crutches! It moved with a fluid certainty that spoke of limitless power, unaffected by surging air turbulence. Their rapid acceleration caused the Earth to fall far astern. It quickly dwindled into a distant blue and white ball.
Jason was surprised again to hear himself say words not provided by ADIZ: “Bow view.”
The view of the Earth vanished. Again came the momentary vertigo as the “wall-less” scene before them instantly “opened” to reveal the quiet majesty of space: countless brilliant stars strewn across a depthless black void.