Lori finished another cup of coffee, and the excellent, chocolate flavored cookies, and discussed a later return to Magadana should the Mandara wish.
“The Koya will return after dropping me off and then come back for me later. And I expect will prevail on me to go there again one more time. You could also, either then, or earlier, or later. You know the route.” Captain Bemaraha nodded, but gave no commitment, either way.
The meeting ended cordially, and Lori departed twenty-three minutes after she arrived, would have even sooner if she hadn’t stopped at the rest room.
Then back into the vortex of Williams Space, for an even worse passage, as far as she was concerned. Now they were not chasing another ship, they needed to slow down, and let the Koya catch up to them and somehow not run into them, or pass them by, and run out of fuel. So Lori watched the screens, nervous again, the coffee running in her veins.
The illi-illi eased out of the bigboy ship, and flew off laterally, the scout ship turned around, braking slightly to cut acceleration, and Lori was surprised at how quickly the stretched out image faded from view. The scout ship moved away, swung around again in zero G, faint gravity returned, and the pilot said they had their route over to follow back, and showed on the screen that was what they were doing. “Much more difficult when we went from ship to ship, especially with most of them not expecting us, we had to latch on to several and establish contact with the port at the docking bay.”
“You went outside?” Lori said, incredulous.
“Yes. It is quite safe. No danger. No problem. You have never been outside in Williams Space?”
Lori knew what was coming, and let it, welcomed, it, her heart beat faster, as she said, “No. No one has in my family that I know of since my ancient ancestor did, a century ago.”
“Would you like to see what it is like?”
“Yes,” she said in a voice soft with a thrilling fear, without thinking, without waiting even to think.
“We have your P-suit, or you may use one of our service sleds, or the mini-shuttle.”
She longed for the shuttle, but knew nothing would do but the P-suit. “How much time do we have?” she said, unstrapping her harness.
“Enough time for the view of your life,” the pilot said, gesturing to the engineer.
He led Lori back into the small passenger/cargo area, and helped her put on her P-suit. He checked it thoroughly before donning his relatively simple helmet, communicator-power pack, and his own breathing sack, which encircled his stout abdomen. Then he told her, the translator tinny in her helmet, “Depressurization now.”
Lori felt the P-suit stiffen a little, and saw the readouts adjust, heat and air flowing into her helmet. She followed the engineer to a small cargo door, and it eased open as they approached. She tried not to look out as they left the ship, but found herself shaking, her legs suddenly weak in the diminutive gravity, her arms going soft. The engineer clipped her onto a safety cable, connected the wire radio link, and pointed to a series of handholds on the side of the ship. Lori reached for one, and her hand hit the side, centimeters off. Things were not where they appeared, they were some distance off, even at this short range. Finally finding the bracket, she climbed hand over hand up the side of the ship, staring at it in front of her, to a flattened platform a quarter of the way around. A railing rose in front of her, but she could hardly see it, for the massive confusion beyond. The engineer guided her to it, and she stood there, letting him place her stubby-looking hands on the railing, and she held on tightly. Then she looked up, and around.
Her heart pounded in her chest, so loud, she could not hear the engineer in her earphones. He fell silent, letting her look at a universe in chaos. If it looked wild from inside, here, outside, the full view was of total pandemonium. The incredible sight surrounded her.
Ahead, the front of the ship seemed foreshortened, a stubby, funny looking thing, pointing at a swirl of tiny to massive blue dots, the engines off as they coasted, letting the Koyaanisqatsi catch up to them. The dots smeared, like an opening umbrella all around her, seeming to radiate from a point directly ahead, and surround her with lines of the colors of the spectrum, the star signatures. The display seemed thin to the left, but impossibly bright, chaotic, a blaze of intensity almost too hard to look at directly to the right, and running off into obscured infinity.
The briefest of bright flashes showed the obliteration of deflected molecules of gas or dust, which otherwise would disintegrate against the ship when it hit, destroying them and everything inside.
She quickly glanced away, and slowly rotated her head, to look behind. The spectrum faded, glowing into paleness, then into a seemingly solid aura of deepest ruby, a red bowl as big as the universe itself behind them, a long tapering smear of the back and the engines of the ship pointing that way.
She turned slowly and looked around, her heart beats slowing somewhat, her breathing easing, as her head moved from side to side.
“Where’s the Koyaanisqatsi?” she said.
The engineer pointed to the left. “There. Can you see it?” he said.
Lori thought he joked with her. Nothing in that direction, but unending bands of rainbow colors, one on top of the other, and blackness in between. But she looked and looked, confused by it all.
The engineer said, “Pilot says we are quite close. There, I see it, that long thing at 9 o’clock.”
Still, Lori saw nothing.
“We fall behind a little, will come up to it soon. See?”
Lori said, “No, nothing is visible to me...except the chaos of the...whole universe. Incredible. Amazing. How can we do this?”
“But for the Pokoniry, we could not. Their gravity field diverters protect us from the micro-dust of space while we gather dark matter, and we travel in clean vacuum. Otherwise, we would be chopped to bits instantly. These speeds...”
“Yes, impossible to imagine.”
Suddenly, a long, skinny, grey-silver shape loomed to the side. Their ship. She pointed. “Now I see it. We are very close, yes?”
“Yes, and time to go inside. Can you do so?”
Lori looked down at her feet, and thought she’d be sick. Her legs seemed to end, bleeding off backward like some sort of rubbery image on a distort-game screen, the very ship itself indistinct, shot through with color and emptiness. “Where are the handholds?” she said, trying to see them, and knew she couldn’t.
The engineer went ahead of her, and she closed her eyes, as he dissolved and faded before her. No way she could follow that. And she decided what to do.
“Engineer, the cable is strong?”
“Yes, Star Lady,” he said.
“Can you go to the airlock, and pull me in?”
“You wish to float in Williams Space?”
“Yes, if the tether will hold.”
“It will. I will call you.”
Lori waited, watching the Koya, still stretched out, but a bit more distinct. She could see the great engines, but none of the exhaust. She hoped they kept out of that, it would be deadly at this distance. Before she could move any more, the engineer tugged the tether, called her, and she let go, and drifted off the platform.
If her heart pounded before, it sounded like thunder now. She turned slightly, revolving in the scant energy of release, and the colors and turmoil circled around her. The cable tightened on her middle, jerking her around, swinging her away from the ship, which faded away and vanished. Her own body, moving now, looked like it had been chopped off in the middle somewhere, nothing below her chest, her arms stubs, no cable holding her, and a panic grew in her mind, it unable to process what she saw. She felt like a pair of eyes attached to a brain, or maybe just a spirit, adrift in Williams Space, at impossible velocities, nearly as fast as they would ever go on this short run, yet a bewildering speed, with unknown consequences, and totally separated and free of anything else. All around her swirled the orderly turbulence of the beginning and the end of time, disciplined anarchy, beautiful and t
errifying. And almost impossible to comprehend.
But something tugged at her, a low pressure on parts of her she couldn’t see. She regained control of her breathing, her heart rate slowed, and she looked out and around again, ignoring her withered, vanished body. Nothing looked like it was there, just she and the faint image of the Koya, slowly moving around as she drifted along. Remembering her jets, she felt the controls, and gave several short shots, and after two over-corrections, stopped her rotation, and looked out, away from the direction she moved. Amazing. Incredible. How can I describe this? How can I even remember it? she thought, and almost immediately felt something bump into her back. Turning, she saw the ship again, she was back, next to the air lock, the only solid looking object in her vision. With a final look outside, she let the engineer help her back into the solid dimness of the air lock. The door closed, the lights brightened, and everything looked solid once more. But she knew she still saw things where they were, not where they are.
Like a junkie, she thought, Too short, that was too short. I’d like to do that some more, longer.
Taking deep breaths, she moved back to the control cabin, with her P-suit still on, silent. The crew said nothing, she sat down, staring ahead, the view suddenly small and pedestrian.
Slowly, her body returned to a state of near normal. But she knew she would never be quite the same again. She’d walked in Williams Space. And lived to tell of it.
Once docked, she shook the hands of the crew, thanking them each.
After her incredible experience, the return to the Koyaanisqatsi seemed quite ordinary, and uneventful. Hunter met her, looking anxious, and stared at her P-suit when she appeared, walking slowly, carrying her helmet.
“Why’d you have that on, was it that dangerous? You have any trouble?” he said, without even a hug for her, concern in his rising voice. “You look–are you OK?”
“No,” she said, quietly. “I went outside.” She moved on past him, like coming out of a trance, while he stopped, struck dumb in place.
His high pitched voice squeaked at her, “You went out into Williams Space? Just now? You went outside? The ship? Lori, what the hell? Why?”
She stopped, turned to look at him. “Because it’s there. And I wanted to see what it looks like. It’s amazing,” she said. “Breathtaking. Undescribable...just...” and she shook her head, the memory hard to give voice to.
The arrival of the medical team, rushing into the docking bay, alerted by the automatic readouts recorded in her P-suit, and fearing a heart attack, or who knows what, ended the conversation for the moment. Their medibots swarmed around Lori as they pulled open her P-suit, one finally putting a stethoscope on her chest, while she endured the exam patiently.
“She went outside,” Hunter said. “Imagine that. She went outside. Outside in Williams Space.”
“Yeah, had to be something to send every one of the readouts off the scale. You feel OK, Lori?”
“Yes. Fine. It was quite an experience. I got used to it, a little, but it took a while. Sorry to get you racing down here for nothing.”
Finished with the medical people, she took Hunter’s hand, and led him back to their cabin. She removed the rest of the P-suit, and began tugging on his clothing, too. In bed, with him inside her, she let her mind return to the wonders of what she’d just seen, losing herself in visions of the universe as a powerful orgasm built.
Later that day, after the news raced around the ship, she began to realize the sensation her little sojourn created, among the various races on the Koyaanisqatsi, human and others. To have gone out in a tiny illi-illi scout ship was amazing enough, but others had done so, too. But then to have left even that safe haven, and flown along outside, and finally let go, tethered only by the thin cable, floating there, well, half the people thought she was foolhardy, the other half crazy, and everyone courageous beyond measure.
The illi-illi called her Star Lady for the rest of the trip, and so did most of the other people on board, too.
As expected, four of the ships began to move away, in the great arc that would swing them around on a heading back to Magadana. They would cut their speed in half for two hours, and then turn around, to keep their exhaust away from the Koya. Only the bigboy ship, the Mandara, would keep on with the Koya, everyone speculating that with peace on the planet, they’d be bored with no fighting to do.
“Well, none back where we’re going, either,” someone grumbled at dinner.
“Yeah, but there’s gold and stuff to look for, and the bigboys like that, too.”
“And anyway, we’ll be going back to Magadana soon as we can let the passengers off.”
“I just hope we don’t miss all the good, early trading.”
“Relax, we got a whole planet waiting. A civilized planet. There’ll be plenty of loot for all.”
Borrelia paced around the small cabin, his wife watching him. He and his family had heard the news, seen the videos, and discussed their options. Agony of indecision cramped his bowels, as he debated what to do. Here, an opportunity to return to Magadana, to a hero’s welcome, maybe, or more likely, a firing squad for treason. Who knew? Yet ahead lay a brand new planet, one he thought he’d never visit, now become anxious to see, to feel the dark ground beneath his feet, and smell the strange air. His son, his wife, the whole family, no help there, they all deferred to him, as custom among his people. What to do, what to do?
Finally he said, “I must discuss this with the Sky Lady, gain her council, and advice. Then I will decide.”
The grumbling in his bowels eased with that decision, but did not end entirely.
Lori listened to Borrelia, sensitive to his dilemma, sympathetic even, but knew he’d have to decide for himself. She answered some of his questions, but turned most back to him, to debate, ponder, and reconsider. She did say that no doubt one or more of the expedition ships now at Uta would go to planet Magadana, or those returning there now, might go back once more to Uta. “It’s quite close, really,” she said, and Borrelia just stared at her.
After a long hesitation, while thoughts ran through his head, Borrelia finally said, “I could return later? With one of the other ships? You would allow this?”
“Yes. That is permitted. It is not a problem for us, I’m sure.”
“And my family?”
“Then or now, as they, and you, prefer.”
“I fear I am no friend of V’ming,” he told Lori. “It is I, in conjunction with some, well, many others, who helped organize the coup which replaced the old and declining father, with his youthful son. And long have I regretted that day, but it would have happened, anyway, with or without my help. The father will not welcome me nor my presence in his realm, and I don’t blame him. No, for now, I am far better off in exile, than on the planet.”
This was news to Lori, and she wanted to get the story of that sometime.
“Great Lady,” Borrelia said, his mind quickly made now, “We, the family Borrelia, will continue on to Uta, to visit, and perhaps to settle. Or if possible, return at some point to Magadana, should the time be right to do that.”
“A good choice, Borrelia,” Lori said. “A wise choice, one worthy of an explorer. I will see you are kept advised of the departure plans of the other ships in the fleet. And any later news of interest.”
Borrelia’s family accepted the decision with no complaints, as he knew they would, yet all seemed pensive. And indeed, he was too, unsure he’d made the right choice. Several brights more would tell, as they turned around, and began to slow down for their descent into Uta. He waited, impatient to see this new world.
As they approached Uta, Borrelia and his family spent most of their time in the observation lounge, watching the screens. At first, the planet just looked like a very large, bright spot in the midst of countless others. But it quickly grew to fill the screen, even at zero magnification, and then overflowed it, until only portions could fit.
Tannika sat next to Borrelia, or sat on his lap much of t
he time, as they watched, and pointed to the features of the planet, the wide, blue seas, dark lakes, mountains, some dusted white with snow, and the countless fields of clouds, some flashing and flickering with lightning storms.
When the announcement came of orbital stability, Umari said, “It looks so empty. No signs of civilization at all.”
“Are you sure there are people there?”
“Yes, there are, some, at least. Terribly deprived, far behind us. As far behind, as we are of the aliens around us,” Borrelia said, waving his arms at the walls around him.
“Be nice to be on solid ground again,” Alexii said. “How soon till we can depart?”
“Next bright, I hear. Maybe sooner. You ready?”
“Yes, we return with the Sky Lady, herself, at her invitation.”
“Amazing.”
“Yes.”
But the real amazement awaited Borrelia and his family on the planet. They watched in awe as Lori piloted Eagle One downward, first out and away from the ship, then in a slow, and almost weightless drift downward toward the featureless surface, a complete circumnavigation of the planet it seemed, ever lower, until they pierced the thin cloud layer, and flew along well above the treetops toward a city, with a glittering golden dome, directly ahead.
They passed to the far side of the golden dome, a temple of some sort, Borrelia said, pointing, and on out to a green field just beyond the last of the houses of the small–very small by Magadana’s standards, Borrelia thought–city, and on to a smaller temple, no doubt to a lesser deity. The family chatted about that, as Lori landed in front, and a rush of people, natives of the place, raced out to surround her air car, chanting, “Sky Lady, Sky Lady!” and waving bright banners of blue and gold and white. Her military escort, landing at the same time, deployed, keeping the crowd back.
Several air cars raced in as Lori opened the canopy, and the chanting intensified, FakFak appeared in the lead of a small delegation, all bowing to her, as Lori stepped down.
T-47 Book II (Saxon Saga 6) Page 43