Well, much to
my remorse, I excused myself from Valerie and her immeasurable pleasures, and
sat down – so to speak – with Star Hopper for some break neck course plotting.
Putting together our two minds, one purely synthetic and the other only partially,
would make for a bounty of options, one would hope. We planned right off the get-go
to set some records here. Wormhole
science has changed over the decades, not surprising considering we actually have
experience now, not just conjectural physics and philosophy. Only a minority of
wormholes actually go from one place, strictly, to another. Most are more
fractal in shape, and can lead nearly anywhere. Though, dead ends formed by
collapse are a natural danger. If we could catch a break, then we’d be home
sooner than later.
The first
mouth was going to be more than a cycle away. Lord knows, we could use the
rest. I set our ship to the task and settled into my crash seat, leaning back
into a straight, horizontal position; as if such a position existed in zero
gravity. Valerie was sawing logs in her bunk, and I had pulled her lashings
taut before casting off into dream world myself.
Hours later I
woke, when star Hopper whispered into my ear. I had been dreaming of lily pads
and log cabins, something in life I had never partook. I was lying prone by a
pond with the humming of insects creating a maudlin background to my musings,
when a frog croaked, and said to me, “Wake up Shad, we are nearing the target.
Wake up, wake up.”
Lord. Being
mostly human yet, more organic than tube, whistle and pin choke, I groggily
stirred and silently cursed my mind partner.
Excuse me. “Yeah, yeah,” I croaked, not unlike the frog. “What’s the
situation?”
The mouth of the wormhole is
fluctuating, but we’ve the speed to catch it at a sufficient dilation. There is
a good percentage of making it through alive, but depending on the forks we may
be at it awhile, if we’re not smashed to smithereens in a one way oubliette.
“Ah.
Comforting. Proceed.”
It loomed
ahead and without pleasantries Star Hopper plunged through the maw and the
familiar sensation of wormhole travel assuaged us completely. It took us off our game. Valerie yawned in
her sleep and shifted, then began to breath lightly, deep within the lack of whatsoever.
I shook my
head violently and connected my neural shunt into the dash.
“Keep me
motivated here, missy,” I thought to the ship, and she starting randomly
pulsing me; it was unpleasant, but kept me alert. Within moments the switch offs
and forks and hidden passages presented themselves and we fought to stay ahead,
missing some paths, but picking them up at later junctions. The computer was
forming a coherent diagram of the wormhole structure when we finally spied a
way out. “Enlarge,” I said excitedly, and the image from the opposite mouth
blew up on the screen. It was Jupiter right out the back end of the wormhole.
We had made it!
Weee, said Star Hopper and out we popped,
only a day or so from the first moment we’d left Sol system.
I was turning
to wake Valerie when Jupiter dissolved from a colorful radio transmission into
a flurry of snow, then disappeared completely. In its place floated the First
United Fleet of Earth.
FUFE looked
angry.
1 comment:
Liking this much-much. Wow, I'm learning so much about space travel and how it REALLY is.
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