“Hmm,” Sparks repeated. “I’m afraid this sensor pad isn’t going to be a lot of help. It’s only designed to analyze inorganic substances and a subset of the electromagnetic spectrum.”
“So, we have no idea if it’s edible, then,” Tom muttered.
Sparks shrugged and bent to smell one of the “walnuts.” He took a shallow sniff, in case it might emit noxious fumes, then a deeper one. “I can’t be sure it isn’t poisonous, but it smells delicious, if that means anything. One thing the sensor pad does tell me is that this food isn’t full of heavy metals. As for how it tastes, I couldn’t possibly tell you. You’ll have to try it to find out. Any guinea pigs in the house?”
We all looked at one another, wondering who would be the first to volunteer.
“Is this a good idea?” Tom asked. “We don’t know anything about the aliens who built this place. And where did the food come from? Is it an automated mechanism, or is someone watching us?”
I shrugged. I was curious, and I knew the others were too. “We went through the portal because we wanted to see what was on the other side. If we’re not here to experience new things, then why are we here? We might as well go home and let the scientists do the exploring.”
Cap and Sparks nodded agreement. I opened my mouth again, this time to volunteer.
Much to my surprise, Guido beat me to it. “Aw, hell, you only live once.” He reached for a purplish-grey orb. “It’s squishy, like a sponge.” He held it up to his nose and sniffed. “It has a sort of fruity smell to it, but I can’t place the fruit.” Then he licked it with just the tip of his tongue. “Hmm, not bad. It doesn’t burn, so I guess it isn’t filled with sulfuric acid.”
He grinned and then took the tiniest nip and chewed. A syrupy purple liquid oozed from the hole he had made. “It’s kind of like a cross between sweet potatoes and lamb, if you can imagine that—quite good, in fact!” He sucked the dripping syrup and took another, bigger, bite.
That was enough for the rest of us. I tried a mottled yellowish-white sphere, while Cap chose sky blue, Tom went for brick red and Sparks selected a greenish-pink one.
“Mmm. Sort of kiwi-roast beef,” I declared.
“I’ve got a grapey, cheddary, chicken-tasting thing,” Tom said. “Odd, but nice.”
“Interesting,” Cap interjected. “Mine tastes vaguely like cabbage and tangerine, with a hint of steak.”
“Blech! Liver and grapefruit!” Sparks said with a sour face. “I hate liver!”
“I’ll take that one, Cap offered. “I love liver and grapefruit, although I’ve never had them together before. Here. Try this one.” He handed Sparks an orange-green one.
“Hmm. Much better. More of a coconut-almond-pork sausage flavor.”
Before long, we were all sprawled on the floor, stuffed with odd-looking, unusual-tasting, yet delicious fruity-meaty things. Surprisingly, not only were we no longer hungry, the meal seemed to have slaked our thirst as well.
“Guys, you don’t suppose we’ll wake up tomorrow to find little aliens bursting out of our chests, do you?” Guido wondered aloud.
Sparks laughed. “I think you’ve been watching too many sci-fi holos, Guido.”
“What do you suppose happened?” Cap asked of no one in particular.
“What do you mean?” Tom asked.
“When you asked for food, it appeared. Why? How?”
“I’ll take a stab at it,” I offered. “If this place really is equivalent to a train station or airport, it stands to reason that occasionally a traveler would be hungry or thirsty. We may have just experienced their version of a snack stand. Instead of taking up space permanently, it simply appears where and when it’s needed.”
“But where did it come from?” Tom continued. “How did it understand me—I wasn’t speaking alien—and how did it know what to serve that I would like and that wouldn’t poison me?”
“Who knows?” I replied. “I don’t know where it came from, but we’ve already seen that the aliens can transport matter. We’re here aren’t we? And maybe the equipment operates telepathically, or perhaps it analyzed our speech patterns while we were talking and developed a vocabulary of our language. I’m assuming this place is automated, since we haven’t encountered any aliens yet. As for the food, maybe we were served the same thing the aliens themselves eat, or perhaps the equipment scanned us and determined what would be safe for us to eat. As for the taste, well, you’ve got me there. Maybe we just got lucky.”
“Alien machines that understand Universal? Apparently Universal is more universal than anyone suspected!” That, of course, was Sparks. Our responses consisted of varying degrees of groans.
“I wonder what else the equipment understands.” Tom stood and again raised his voice. “Show me the train schedule!” Nothing happened. “Show me the way home!” Still nothing. “Show me the route map!” Suddenly a ten-meter sphere appeared, four meters above Tom’s head, slowly rotating. It looked something like a wire diagram, almost akin to a geodesic globe with large chunks missing, but with connections throughout its volume. Some of the connecting points were larger than the others, and colored purple. The smaller ones were pink. Red, yellow and orange lines ran between the connecting points.
“Wow! Good work, Tom—but what does it all mean?” Guido asked.
“I think it proves Swede and Tom were correct,” responded Sparks. “Look, the big purple junctions with lots of connections are the hubs. The smaller pink ones are local portals. The red lines show the routes between hubs, the yellow ones go between local portals, and the orange ones connect local portals to hubs. I guess we now know what the purple portals here are for. They must be direct routes to other hubs.”
“There must be hundreds of thousands of interconnections—maybe millions. How would anyone know which of those junctions match which planets?” Cap asked.
Sparks shrugged. “I can’t answer that—yet.”
“When you can,” Guido said, “you’ll have opened the entire galaxy to human exploration.”
There was a moment of silence as we all absorbed that thought.
“How many species do you gents think these points represent?” Cap asked. “One, ten, a thousand?”
“No way to even guess at this point,” Sparks replied.
“As big as this place is,” Tom began, “hundreds of people might be passing through here at the same time.” He frowned. “How could they all use the same route map at once?”
Sparks frowned, then smiled. “I’ll bet I can answer that one.” He walked twenty meters, turned and called out, “Display route map.” Instantly, a second globe appeared above his head. “See, everyone gets his own map!”
“Makes sense,” Cap noted, with a nod. “But it might get crowded if a hundred people asked for the route map at once.”
“If we can get that kind of information from the computer,” Guido said, “I wonder what else we can ask for?” He raised his voice. “Computer, show us the route to Earth.” Nothing. “Show us the portal we came through.” Instantly, a pinkish oval appeared in the wall, off to our right.
“Damn,” Sparks muttered, having resumed his sensor sweep. “I was just getting there.”
“I guess we can head back to the ship now,” Cap declared. “I think we should refill our air tanks, just in case, and decide how we want to proceed. We’ll come back tomorrow, refreshed and ready to do some exploring.”
That sounded like a great idea to the rest of us. Once again we stepped through the portal.
* * * *
No one slept much that night. We were too wound up to do anything but chatter for the first few hours. For once, all of us were in our bunks at the same time—Cap in his cabin across the passageway—yet no one seemed to notice how small and cramped that made our cabin seem. For a while, we discussed fame, riches, and a second career touring the holo talk show circuit. Then we progressed to speculating how the discovery of the portals would change mankind’s future.
Finally, bef
ore we drifted off into the sleep of the exhausted, we wondered about the aliens who built the portal network—where they were, whether they would mind us using their portals when they found out, and if so, what they would do about it. Once again, Guido raised the specter of an alien death ray. We didn’t come up with any answers, but we certainly added to our treasure trove of interesting questions.
* * * *
“Right then, mates,” Cap began over breakfast. “We’ve got food, water, survival gear and a sensor pad for each of us, in case we get split up somehow. Guido has his medkit, just in case. I hope we won’t need any of that, but it’s a big universe and anything can happen. Now let’s get back down there and make history!”
We squeezed out of the Commons and headed back to Pod 2. The ride back to the surface of the moon, followed by the walk through the dome and into what we had taken to calling “Grand Central Terminal,” was quick and uneventful.
“Where should we start?” Guido asked.
Sparks shrugged. “How about at the source?” He looked up. “Computer, show me the route map.” The spherical map reappeared overhead. “Show me the aliens’ home world.” Nothing happened.
“To the computer, most likely we’re the aliens,” Tom suggested.
“Good point. All right, then, how about: Computer, show me terminal number one.” Nothing. “Show me the point of origin. Show me the original hub.” Still nothing. “Apparently it’s trickier to get information than we thought. Anyone else want to try?”
“Computer,” I said, “show me the Founders.” Still nothing. “Show me the Builders.” The sphere remained annoyingly blank. “Show me the creators of the portal network.” Instantly, the purple hub near the exact center of the sphere began blinking.
“That makes sense!” Guido said. “Of course their home world would be at the center of the network.”
“Show me the route to the Creators,” I ordered. The map lit three additional hubs and the three links between the four points. “The hub at the other end must be where we are now.”
“It looks like a hop, skip and a jump to the Creators’ home world,” Sparks wisecracked. “We’d better get hopping.”
“Show me the portal to the Creators’ home world,” I said. A purple portal began flashing on the wall across the vast room from us.
“Is this wise,” Guido asked. “We don’t know how they’ll react to us.”
Cap shrugged. “In for a penny….”
“In for suicide?” Guido sighed. “Sure, why not?”
We headed for the portal.
“Who wants to go first this time?” Cap asked. “I think we should take turns, so that everyone gets a chance to be the first to see a new world.”
“Or be the first to get zapped by aliens,” Guido said, with a wry smile.
“That too. Thanks for volunteering!” Cap announced.
“Hey, wait a minute….”
“Too late to back out now,” Tom said. “Knock ‘em dead, slugger.”
Guido hesitated and opened his mouth as if to argue; then he shrugged, and stepped forward through the purple portal to the next stop on our voyage of exploration, muttering something about not being a “redshirt.”
The rest of us followed close behind.
CHAPTER 16
“Well, this is…different,” Tom said.
That was a considerable understatement.
Unlike the opaque crystalline structure of the earlier hub, this one was totally transparent, like the dome on P5M2. I knew we were in another hub only because I felt the wall behind me that we’d just stepped through. The floor appeared to be made of solid crushed seashell, and the view was of a sandy tropical seascape. There was no possibility of confusing it with a beach on Earth, however. The water was tinted coral pink and the mauve sky contained two suns—one of them a blue-white dot, the other swollen and crimson. The trees on the shore looked more like giant ferns than palms, and the creatures scuttling across the sand resembled fish with six legs—somewhat crablike in appearance.
At last: our first view of real, live alien life forms. We all watched in silence for a moment, trying to take everything in.
“Does this count as ‘first contact?’” Guido mused aloud, breaking the mood.
The irrepressible Sparks strode over to the wall closest to the “crabfish,” waved his hands wildly and yelled, “Hey, aliens, take us to your leader!” The creatures wisely ignored him—if they were even aware of our presence.
We seemed to be on a small island, barely large enough to hold the terminal. Two crabfish approached one another and began flapping their tailfins. Were they communicating? Fighting for dominance? Maybe a mating ritual? It could’ve been anything. I was pretty sure Earth’s xenologists would have a field day—many days in the field, in fact—studying the fauna on these planets. There was some thrashing about in the tops of two of the fern-trees, but it was impossible to tell whether it was due to flying or climbing creatures.
Sparks observed, “If this isn’t a landscape painted during a drug-induced haze, I don’t know what is.”
“At least we’ve verified that there’s life in the Creators’ network of worlds. I was beginning to wonder if they’d all died out,” said Cap.
“That may still be the case,” I replied. “All we’ve seen so far appears to be lower life forms. But at least it means the planets weren’t all sterilized of life. There’s still hope of finding the Creators.”
“As pretty as this stop is, we still have two more jumps to make,” Cap reminded us. “Let’s continue on.”
“Right. Computer, show us the portal to the Creators’ world,” Tom ordered.
Another purple portal began flashing, right in front of one of the crabfish. Even though we knew the crabfish was outside the invisible wall, we still approached the portal gingerly, as if we might step on the creature—or be attacked. Then we stepped through.
* * * *
This time Sparks went first.
“¡Jesús Cristo!” Tom exclaimed, coming through right behind me.
It certainly was a shock, seemingly stepping out of the portal onto thin air, or rather thick air—except it wasn’t air. At least I didn’t think it was. The floor was transparent and vaguely rubbery; it gave way under pressure, like a taut trampoline. We seemed to be suspended in the top of a tremendous tree, bluer than the trees of Earth and several hundred meters across. The bark on a nearby branch appeared leathery, rather than woody. I looked between my feet. We were at least a hundred meters off the ground. Gravity felt lighter than before by at least half, but it was impossible to tell whether that was due to technology or the natural state of the planet. Even more surprising was the zephyr that plucked at our suit material.
“How can there be a breeze indoors?” Guido asked.
“Powerful A/C?” Sparks quipped.
“Sparks,” I began, ignoring his attempt at humor, “is there a breathable atmosphere in here?”
“Yep, same as before.”
“Okay then, here goes.” I opened my faceplate and took a breath of delightfully floral-scented, humid air. “Nice. Sort of a minty-jasmine smell. If this is air conditioning, it’s pretty impressive.”
The others opened their faceplates as well. Tom and Sparks smiled at the aroma.
Just then, the platform rocked slightly, throwing us off balance for a moment.
“Are we swaying?” Guido asked with alarm.
“Feels like it,” Cap replied.
Tom looked all around. “They’re certainly going a long way to maintain the illusion that we’re up in a tree.”
“Are you sure it’s an illusion?” I asked. Tom shrugged.
Sparks craned his neck, looking all around. “Are there actually any walls here? It’s hard to tell when they’re transparent. But where’s the breeze coming from if there are walls?”
“Computer, display all portals,” Cap ordered. Several dozen pink and purple portals materialized in mid-air—fewer than in the previous h
ubs. Cap walked tentatively over to the nearest one—tentatively, because it still seemed like we were walking on air. He felt all around the portal. There definitely was something solid there, yet… “It seems less substantial, somehow. I think it’s porous, to let the air current through.”
“Let’s try something else,” Sparks suggested. “Computer, show us the wall.” As with the earlier hubs, the wall was circular; however this one had a gauzy-looking teal surface. “Computer, make the wall solid.” The breeze cut off and the view of the trees disappeared behind a solid blue-green barrier. “Computer, restore the wall to the way it was when we arrived.” The wall turned invisible and once again we were treated to the aromatic breeze.
Guido spoke up. “I wonder if Grand Central Terminal works like this, too.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Sparks replied, “although for all we know it was situated on an airless moon, or the bottom of the ocean, so we might want to check before making the walls porous!” The rest of us chuckled.
“Oh, look!” Tom shouted, pointing upward. Through the gaps in the branches and leaves above us, we saw a large birdlike creature. It was more than a meter in length and had a wingspan nearly twice that. It circled overhead—at least at first. Gradually it spiraled downward toward us. As it approached, I made out its features: it had four blue-gray wings and a long, narrow, red beak. But there was something odd about its feathers.
“Fur?” Guido exclaimed. “Is that fur?”
It was hard to tell whether the bird truly was covered in fur, or merely in feathers that mimicked fur.
“It seems to be watching us. Do you suppose it’s curious, or does it take us for lunch?” Tom asked.
“No telling. At least it can’t get to us in here.” That was Guido.
“Unless it’s one of the Creators,” Cap suggested.
“Hardly,” said Sparks. “Its skull is way too small to hold much of a brain—hence the term ‘birdbrain.’”
The Imperative Chronicles, Books One and Two: The Mars Imperative & The Tesserene Imperative Page 50
