Embarkment 2577 (6 page)

“You’re not scared of heights, are you?”

I kept my lips pressed together, but
managed to shake my head.

He flipped a control and the cart
hovered higher. What could possibly make it able to fly like that? No point in
asking, even if I managed to move my mouth. I wouldn’t understand the answer
anyway.

We hung over the edge for an eternity
before plunging in, and the sensation of sinking was truly eerie.

It didn’t take long before we pulled up
outside a door looking exactly like all the others. The only difference I could
see were the walls being blue, and the spacing of the doors. Maybe the rooms
here were larger.

Adam looked quite happy. “Come on, Alex,
you’ll love this.”

*****

The room was easily big enough to hold a
few blocks of villas, and at first I couldn’t decipher what I saw. Row after
row of big birds stretched out in front of me, but they weren’t birds, they
were spaceships.

“I’ve wanted to show you this for so
long. It gets better outside.”

“Better?” How could it possibly get
better? These were actual spaceships that had been in space and seen things I
could never even imagine. The fact that I myself was travelling the galaxy in a
spaceship, only much larger, was lost on me.

Adam waited patiently for a while before
putting a hand on my back and pushing me forward. Only now, as we approached
one of the metal eagles, did his words sink in. Had he said outside?

“It’s okay to touch it. I know you want
to.”

The feeling of cold metal against my
palm connected me to reality. I wasn’t home anymore. I could pretend everything
around me was a fantasy, but this
was
real.

Walking around to the front, I tried to
peek in through the windows, but they were too far up.

“Come, let’s go in.”

I trotted after him and sat obediently
in a plush chair, clad in a material looking and feeling almost like white
leather. Adam checked controls and talked to someone on the bridge, but I
hardly heard him. I was too busy staring at everything. I didn’t recognize one
single thing.

He turned to me and flashed one of his
rare boyish smiles, “We have a little over two hours before the Bell goes back
to warp speed. Should be enough time for you to get a good look.”

Playing cool was impossible. I could
feel a big grin on my face as the small ship lifted off the floor and headed
towards the side of the shuttle bay, where a giant door slid open. “I don’t
understand. How do these things fly?”

Adam made an adjustment. “It’s a little
complicated, but I’ll explain later if you really want to know.”

He followed my gaze towards the open
door where one could clearly see space outside.

“There’s a force field that will let
ships through, but keeps space out and air in. There is a force field around
the ship too, forming sort of a shield, like in Star Trek you know. The windows
are polarized so even if you look at a star it won’t hurt your eyes.”

Star Trek… I liked Star Trek.
Had we watched TV together, or had the shows of my time survived
this far into the future?

I couldn’t see the force field when
looking at it through the window, but I did see energy sparkle when we passed
through.

A moment later, we were surrounded by
blackness and stars. I was in space! My hands tightened their grip on the
armrests. “Oh My God.”

There was a lot of humour in Adam’s
answer, “I don’t think so, but it is pretty cool.”

Cool? What an odd choice of words for a
person like him. Maybe he picked the expression up from me, some time in the
past…

“That’s Deneb. It’s a blue supergiant,
approximately 200 times the size of your sun.”

Even seen from a distance the star was
larger and brighter than anything I could ever have imagined. “You don’t
say…”

He steered away from the Bell towards a
planet. It was a blue and green gem hanging in space, and it wasn’t Earth. No
one had ever seen this before. Well, no one from my time, anyway. “Is it…
Does it have people?”

“Yes. I don’t know if you’d like them,
but it’s populated.”

Considering my reaction to Lupe, he
might be right. I wasn’t up to aliens yet. The planet, on the other hand, was
the most beautiful thing I’d seen in my life, and my eyes filled with tears.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded. “It’s just so… Wow.”

He took us closer, and I wanted to
babble about the continents and the ocean and the amazing grandeur of it all,
but I didn’t have any words to describe the turmoil of emotions.

“Now, look here…” The little ship
turned around and he let it coast. “I wanted you to see your new home.”

Captain Jones told me the dimensions of
the ship, but hearing about it and seeing it was two completely different
things. The Bell was enormous.

Days went by and I lost track of them. I
had no frame of reference to time other than my friends coming and going. If I
was alone and the computer kept the lights dimmed, it was probably night. If
Adam was there, it was either morning or evening, and the rest of the time
would reasonably be day. I found it ironically funny how the people closest to
me were two computers and a cat, but hey, what do you do. I did my best not to
take them for granted. They didn’t need to spend all that time with me, but I
would be miserable if they didn’t.

It took about three rings on the
doorbell before I asked the computer to always let Adam in. It should probably
be unnerving to have a near stranger barge into my room every morning, so early
it was almost night, but it wasn’t. I even looked at myself in the mirror and
said, “A man you don’t know walks in here while you’re sleeping.”

My reflection looked back at me and came
up with the answer, “If it is Adam, it’s okay. If it’s anyone else, we should
panic.” Seemed like a plan. I gave up on figuring out why he did it. Sometimes
it’s best to just count one’s blessings and accept life for what it is.

Imagine my surprise when I opened my
eyes one morning and he wasn’t there. No cappuccino, no croissant, no fruit, no
android. “What time is it?”

The computer answered, “It is six forty
five.”

Odd. Every day, Adam went right from the
bridge to my rooms, and always arrived at 6:02 AM. If he was
this
late,
he probably wasn’t coming.

Maybe he tired of me. He didn’t have any
obligations to spend all his free time with me. There might be other, more
interesting things to do. What an unpleasant thought!

I plodded out of bed, slipped on a robe,
and stared at the person in the mirror. “You need to start taking care of
yourself.”

Not even an imaginary voice answered.

“You can’t rely on other people to do
everything for you. Go make breakfast.”

Good advice. With such brilliant
intelligence, talking to myself might be a splendid idea. Maybe I should do it
more often.

A green light blinked on the replicator
unit, and I decided to regard it an invitation. “Hi computer. I would very much
like a cup of coffee and a croissant, please.”

The machine hummed to life, and
presented a weird-looking piece of blue bread and a cup of liquid that smelled
like chicken soup. I tasted the bread, and spit the piece out as quickly as it
entered my mouth. “This is hideous!”

I was sure Adam used this device to feed
me every morning, every evening, and sometimes in the middle of the day.

I dumped everything in the recycling
unit and tried again. “Hmm, you’re sneaky, aren’t you? You gave me the
equivalent for some weird alien species. I’m human, okay. Please give me a
cappuccino and a French croissant.”

The panel hummed and I could almost
taste the coffee. It gave me a grayish goo vaguely reminiscent of spoiled
oatmeal. Maybe the thing was malfunctioning. This was clearly food for someone
like the creepy head of security and not for humans.

Showering and getting dressed did
nothing to make the day better. I wanted to call someone, call
him,
but
that seemed much too needy, so I walked around the room instead.

Lacking anything better to do, I roamed
over to a window and peeked out. I usually kept the blinds closed because there
was too much space outside. Now, the view astounded me.

We were near a big red planet, and it
was surrounded by ships. I hurried to close the blinds again. There was clearly
too much alien stuff going on out there. If I shut the window, I might also be
able to shut them out of my mind.

The Bell wasn’t moving anymore, and I
hadn’t even been able to tell the difference. Shouldn’t braking affect the
passengers, like in a car?

Was this our final destination? I had
assumed the ship just roamed around the galaxy. The idea of
arriving
somewhere never crossed my mind.

My stomach took over. It claimed it was
used to being fed by now, and it was hungry. I needed to give the replicator
another try.

I still stood in front of the machine
five minutes later, cursing the thing loudly after having recycled a number of
courses clearly not meant for my species. “You’re doing this on purpose. You’re
throwing something random together to see if you can make me eat it.”

My tirade cut off when I heard the door
slide open. Adam came up to me and lifted an amused eyebrow.

“What do you want it to do?”

I could barely restrain an urge to stick
my tongue out at the console. “Make something edible. Like coffee and a
sandwich.”

My friend leaned his shoulder against
the wall. “Computer, you heard the lady.”

A mug filled with steaming hot, sweet
smelling liquid appeared next to a croissant filled with chicken salad. I
rubbed my forehead. “Thank you.”

He answered, “You’re welcome,” but it
sounded automatic, and he made a grimace when he added, “I have to go. We have
a situation, and I want you to stay in here today. No matter what you hear or
see, don’t worry. You’re safe. I promise.”

I opened my mouth, but shut it again.

“I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.
You know that, right?”

Of course he wouldn’t. Except getting
shot, killed, and ending up in the future… Preventing it had probably been
beyond his abilities, and pointing it out seemed unfair, so just for once I
kept my mouth shut.

He turned to leave. “Adam, wait. What
are you talking about? What’s happening?”

Glancing back over his shoulder, he
answered, “Don’t worry,” and disappeared out the door.

It was sweet of him to check up on me if
he was busy, but annoying too. His words implied there would indeed be
something to worry about, even if he intended to keep me away from it, and I
was both curious and anxious.

Bringing my food to the table, I grumbled,
“Men… Doesn’t matter if they’re human or machines, they’re still impossible.”

Of course, nothing could spur a wish in
me to go explore as much as someone saying I shouldn’t. I was still debating
this an hour or so later, when the ship rocked. An urn fell from a shelf next
to me, and I caught it before it shattered. I’d never been good at sports, and
actually grabbing it instead of fumbling with empty air seemed a grand
accomplishment. Maybe dying sharpened my reflexes.

“Computer, what’s happening?”

The voice answered, completely unfazed, “We
are under attack.”

It never occurred to me such a thing
could happen. What was I supposed to do? What did one do when attacked by
something unknown in space? Hiding under the bed seemed tempting, but somewhat insufficient.
Shouldn’t people be wearing space suits, or something, in case the hull
cracked?

I placed the urn in the relative safety
of the sofa, and went to once again peek out the window. The view outside had
changed.

Many smaller ships surrounded the Bell,
firing at us, and she returned the fire, making every shot count. I recognized
our shuttles scurrying around in the middle of the chaos, and when one of them
was hit and exploded in front of my eyes, my fingers grabbed on to the
windowsill, almost cramping. Space battles might be cool at the movies. In real
life, not so much…

Adam would be out in all that insanity,
wouldn’t he? He might already be shot down. He might be dead.

My mind painted out scenarios my heart
couldn’t take. What would I do without him? All by myself in this strange time
and place? “Stop it. Alex, stop it.”

This time, talking to myself didn’t
work. My inner voice claimed this would be an excellent time for hysteria. I
had already lost so much. Wouldn’t losing him too be an appropriate excuse for
going crazy?

Forcing myself to exhale, I closed the
blinds with shaking hands, sat down on the floor with my back against the wall,
and tried not to cry. The last part didn’t work out all that well.

*****

To me, the battle outside seemed to last
forever. Then, the ship fell still and silent, and the complete quiet was even
more disconcerting. I sat on my knees and peeked out at a picture of perfect
destruction.