As the noise of three hundred people talking at once filled the room like a hard wave, Benny turned to David who had been talking about the aliens.
“Well, now what?”
“I have no idea,” he said, his eyes wide.
At that moment, a girl’s voice called out, “Professor,” and Candice hit the professor’s hug, sobbing.
Benny was glad to see she was still alive, but not as much as the boys in her class. She looked like she had gone through hell, and she smelled awful, like she had been sitting next to a dead body for days.
“Where have you been?” the professor asked, clearly fantastically glad to see her.
“At my apartment,” she said between sobs.
That made sense. She had simply gone home to die beside her parents.
The owners of this big ship in orbit clearly were going to make sure that didn’t happen.
At least not for the next ten hours.
CHAPTER TWENTY
GINA WAS STUNNED. The man was more handsome in person than on her screens, if that was possible. And he had clearly been stunned when he saw her. But she had no idea how she was going to meet him.
But for the moment, that didn’t matter. She had just under three hundred people in this big room she had to take care of. After Chairman Carson finished his introduction and left, she started to work.
First, she made sure the medical staff were dealing with as many of the injured and weak as possible. A good fifty people had just slumped to the floor when they arrived and looked to be in bad condition.
Medical had a few dozen smaller rooms set up to one side of the large room and forty of her people were moving the injured away.
Other ship members were spreading out food along one wall and still others were helping survivors to private showers.
A lot of people stood alone, just looking around, scared to death. Others had grouped up and were talking.
Gina made sure that she quickly had people talking with every solo person, moving them toward a group of other survivors if possible.
And Gina, at times, recorded her impressions of different people as she worked her way around the room. She was going to need to work with and try to help a large number of these people over the next few years. She was only one person and seeing everyone still in the city below packed into one room, it felt overwhelming to her.
And sad at the same time. The entire remaining population of a once great city now fit into one banquet room.
She pushed that thought away and went back to work. She knew that a large share of these people would not find a way to survive the summer. And that made her mad because she wanted to try to help everyone here.
But it became very clear as the medical staff moved more and more people away to smaller rooms that a lot of people just didn’t want to be helped or survive.
She had never been a person who gave up on anything, but she couldn’t imagine what the people in this room had gone through. It had impacted her and she had only been watching from a safe apartment in orbit.
When the rescue happened, the mass of people had been transported into the middle of the big room and they were now spreading out over the large space.
Many stood in front of the large screen showing the planet below. Many just found chairs and sat down, clearly too shocked or tired to even move.
As she walked around, giving orders, helping where she could, she noticed the dark-haired man from the big building often watched her. She was going to have to talk with him at some point.
He and his group were now all back together, and the girl seemed weak, but very happy to see them. Maybe she had decided she wanted to live after all.
Finally, after almost an hour, Gina moved over to the dark-haired man and the group with him from the big stone building. They were all munching on sandwiches and sipping what looked like a fruit drink of some kind. The dark-haired man and the two boys stood, the long-haired man sat and gave comfort to the young girl in the chair beside him.
Gina walked up, smiled, and stuck out her hand to the dark-haired man. “I’m Gina Helm,” she said.
He smiled and took her hand. “Benny Slade.”
He held her hand just a bit too long and she didn’t mind at all. In fact, for a moment she got lost in his dark eyes and smile. And his touch sent shivers through her. She couldn’t remember ever feeling like that about meeting anyone else.
When he finally released her hand, she felt a jolt of loss.
Wow, she was really going to have to get a grasp on herself.
Benny introduced her to the professor, the two teen-aged boys, and the young girl named Candice.
“It’s very nice meeting you all,” Gina said, reverting to her previous way of meeting and talking with survivors. “Is there anything I can get you while we wait to leave orbit?”
“How far are we going out?” the tall boy with red hair asked. She seemed to remember from the introduction that his name was David.
“About two light years,” she said. “And we’ll wait there until the next pulse passes and then come back. It will take about ten hours total.”
“You have faster than light travel?” the other boy asked, clearly excited.
“It’s called Trans-tunnel Drive,” she said. “Nothing goes faster than light, but that drive bores a hole outside of space and allows long distances to be covered quickly.”
“Wow,” one of the boys said and she smiled.
This kind of discussion was relaxing her a little. She kept glancing up at Benny and he didn’t say a word, just smiled.
“So where have you four been staying?” she asked.
At that question, Benny laughed. “You know the answer to that, don’t you, since you found everyone on the island and brought them up here? I assume this is everyone on the island, and in other rooms are survivors from different areas. Right?”
She was stunned. She knew this man was smart from how he had set out to survive, but she didn’t realize just how smart, and how calm he was in a situation that had most people just mumbling and afraid.
“You are all in the big stone building,” she said, nodding and smiling at him. “And from what I can tell, you are pretty set up for surviving the summer. Well done.”
Damn those eyes of his were amazing as he stared at her and nodded.
“So why do you speak English?” the professor asked.
“Actually,” she said, “we are all speaking a form of what is called Standard, but when you were transported, we gave you all the ability to understand and speak Standard. It will always sound like we are talking in the same language. But I speak English just fine as well.”
“So where exactly are you from?” Benny asked.
She laughed. “Hard to explain.”
Benny pointed to the two boys. “I’m sure these two will understand, so give it a try.”
She nodded, doing her best to not stare into his eyes too much. “My home world circles a planet in the Lesser Magenelic Cloud.”
Both boys reacted at once, excited. “That’s a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way,” David said to Benny.
“It’s a very, very long ways away,” the other boy said.
“Are there aliens there?”
She shook her head. “There are no alien civilizations at all in this galaxy or in many others that have been seeded with human life. Only humans like us.”
“So this is your real form?” David asked. “Not some sort of image?”
“Everyone on this ship is human,” she said, smiling at the young man. “I am very real. The ship is called Star Conscious and has a crew of about two thousand, including families, all from human worlds spread over four or five galaxies.”
Now even Benny seemed a little shocked, but he said nothing, so she took that as a good moment to move on. Even though she really wanted to stay here, she had a job to do.
“I have to keep moving and checking on everyone,” she said. “But I will be back to talk more shortly.”
“Looking forward to it,” Benny said, smiling a half-smile at her.
Damn, it was everything she could do to just walk away without looking back. Luckily, not more than twenty steps away was another group she hadn’t talked to.
And a minute later, when she glanced back, Benny was still watching her as she had watched him the last few days.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BENNY HAD NO idea how the hundreds of other people in the room felt, but after the little speech by some man in charge, he kept verging on sheer panic that came close to cutting through the trained calm in his head.
He made himself focus on what was happening around him as people spread out, some going for food, others being helped by medical staff, others moving for showers and fresh clothing.
He asked Candice if she needed any medical help and she just shook her head. “Just some food and something to drink.”
The professor found her a chair and one for himself after he sent the boys off to get them all something to eat.
In the big room, the five of them were closer to the big window or view screen showing the planet below than most others. After the first few minutes, most everyone had moved more into the big room or to the far walls.
The woman that had shocked him when he saw her with his attraction for her was clearly someone in charge. She was working her way around the room, talking with survivors, getting some of them help, sending someone for food for others.
More than likely, these survivors, probably all from Manhattan, were her responsibility.
And if he had to guess, she had been studying everyone ahead of time. That’s how he would set it up if he knew this was coming.
As he watched her, he became more and more attracted to her. She was clearly in shape, strong, and moved like an athlete.
And she was smart, in control, and smiled easily, even under these circumstances.
The boys got back with the food. He took what looked like a roast beef sandwich and a bottle of orange fruit juice that tasted wonderful.
As they ate and he watched the black-haired woman, David asked the professor, “Why the question about the number of survivors?”
“Because there is a magic number of humans that it takes to build a population,” the professor said between bites and encouraging Candice to eat slowly. “The human race, at least on this planet, would need population to survive and have a large enough gene pool to make the effort even worthwhile.”
“And you know this how?” Benny asked.
“It’s my field,” he said, smiling. “Or it used to be.”
“Is two million enough?” David asked.
The professor laughed. “Far, far more than enough.”
Benny figured that at least that was good to hear.
Then, like a shining light in the darkness, the woman with short black hair walked toward them and stuck out her hand, saying her name was Gina Helm.
In all his years, Benny had never felt a touch so electric, a look so attractive as hers.
Up close she was even better looking than she had been from across the room. Her eyes were a deep green and just seemed to see everything about him.
He flat didn’t want to let go of her hand, but managed to and then introduced her to the others.
They talked for a far too short a time before she excused herself to move on. Clearly she had been watching everyone in this room for days ahead, and was the person in charge.
After she moved on to the next group, Benny moved slightly so he could watch her and then asked David a question. “Can you explain to me what she meant when she described where she was from?”
“There are billions of stars in this galaxy, most would have planets,” David said.
“But not all would hold human life like Earth,” Freddy said, “But at least hundreds of millions would be able to.”
“Think of this galaxy like the sun and there are other smaller galaxies circling it like planets,” David said.
“She is from one of those other galaxies,” Freddy said. “And she said that the crew on this ship is all human from thousands of worlds.”
Benny shook his head, not even slightly capable of understanding what the two boys were saying. “So she’s from another planet?”
“Yes,” David said, “One so far away it’s impossible to imagine traveling that distance.”
“So she’s an alien?” Benny asked.
David and Freddy both shook their heads. “There has always been a theory that humans didn’t originate on this planet, that we were seeded by other more advanced humans. That’s what she said, so she would be as human as we are.”
“Looks human,” the professor said, smiling at Benny.
Benny laughed. “That she does.”
A voice came over a speaker system, saying simply over the noise. “Everyone is on board safely. We are moving to a safe point now.”
David pointed to the window.
Benny pulled his gaze from Gina and turned just in time to see the planet shrink and then vanish in a blur of gray motion.
Maybe ten seconds later the stars returned, with no planet.
“Wow,” David said, clearly excited. “It took only a few seconds to move two light years.”
Benny had no real idea how far it was they had just traveled. And he honestly wasn’t sure if he wanted to know. He had enough to deal with at the moment.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
GINA MOVED SLOWLY around the room for the next hour, glancing over at Benny at times and once smiling at him and he smiled back.
Now, after almost two hours, the room was settled and her staff had a pretty good control of all the situations.
The room’s disinfectant air cleaners had also cleared most of the smells as well, which she was thankful for. In short order, she would be living in that smell of death. She was glad it was gone for the moment now.
Finally, she found herself just standing, looking around. Everything for all the people seemed to be in control.
So she turned and worked her way back toward Benny and the others from the big stone building.
“Looks like the situation is under control,” Benny said, smiling at her as she approached. “Nice job.”
“Control might be the wrong term,” she said, smiling back. “Call it contained panic.”
Benny kept smiling and she was drawn even more to him and that wonderful smile that actually reached his eyes. “Been fighting that myself a lot over the last ten days.”
“Can’t say that I blame you,” she said. She looked away from Benny and at the young girl. “You feeling better?”
Candice nodded, but said nothing, just stayed leaning against the professor.
The professor nodded his thanks to her. Clearly he was doing fine as well, taking the responsibility of his last class very seriously. She liked that about him.
“You boys doing all right?” she asked the other two.
Both nodded. “Can’t believe we’re two light years from Earth.”
“It took only seconds,” the second one said.
She smiled. “Distance in space between stars is vast. So even at the speed we took this jump, it takes a long time to get some places.”
David nodded. “Like to your home world.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “That’s a great distance away.”
“So what does your home world look like?” Benny asked.
She looked into his eyes and smiled. “Actually, very similar to yours, except that it has a little more land mass and a little less water. But I was born in a city on an island very similar to your Manhattan Island.”
All of them nodded and she was about to excuse herself again to keep making rounds when Benny asked a very simple question. “So you sticking around after this rescue operation?”
“I am,” she said, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to tell him since he would never remember anyway. “Thousands of us will be embedding on your planet to help the recovery along.”
/> “It would be great having you in our building,” David said.
Benny smiled at her and nodded.
“I just might take you up on that if you’ll have me.”
“I think we have more than enough room,” the professor said. But he was frowning. She didn’t want him to ask the next question. Clearly the professor was very smart as well. No wonder he and Benny had made such a good team getting that big building cleared and set up for survival.
“I’ve got to go check on everyone else,” she said, smiling at the professor and Candice, then at Benny.
His gaze was intense and she had a hunch he also realized something about what she said was wrong.
“Back in a short time,” she said, lightly touching his arm as she walked past.
And that simple touch had sent a shock wave through her.
What in the world was going on?
Forcing herself to not look back again at Benny, she started another slow circuit of the big room. She really, really wanted to get to know him. More than anyone she had met before.
But that would happen once she reached the planet.
Nothing that happened here in the next few hours would make a difference because he wouldn’t remember it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
BENNY WATCHED HER go, wishing he could just walk along with her and talk with her and stay close to her.
Then he glanced down at the professor. “Did something just happen there that I missed?”
Benny had a hunch he knew what it was, but he wanted the professor to confirm his suspicions.
“She’s going to come to live in our building,” the professor said.
“That is so cool,” David said.
“But we won’t remember any of this,” the professor said, making an assumption that had not yet been stated.
Benny nodded and glanced at where Gina knelt talking with two survivors sitting in chairs.
The professor was right, Benny was sure. He was going to have to meet her all over again.
Part of him was sad about that and part of him was excited that he wouldn’t remember any of this.
High Edge: A Seeders Universe Novel Page 6